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Quotes of the Day:
Happy 250th Birthday to our Army.
“When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.”
– George Washington
“The clearest way to show what the Army means to me is to look back at my life and see how much of it was spent in the service of our country with soldiers I respected, admired, and loved.”
– Dwight D Eisenhower
“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”
– John F. Kennedy
“Duty, Honor, Country—those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.”
– Douglas MacArthur
“Being a soldier is more than courage; it is sacrificing yourself for something greater than yourself.”
– Colin Powell
“The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers.”
– George S. Patton
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on.”
– Ronald Reagan
“Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage.”
– Army Values
1. Israel’s June 12/13 Strike on Iran May Mark Turning Point in Middle East History
2. Iran's Attack on Israel was Enabled by North Korean Missile Technology and Advances
3. Voice of America Recalls Staff for Iranian Language News Service From Leave
4. One Iranian Miscalculation After Another
5. In Twist, U.S. Diplomacy Served as Cover for Israeli Surprise Attack
6. Much of Iran’s Nuclear Program Remains After Israel’s Strikes. At Least for Now.
7. A Miscalculation by Iran Led to Israeli Strikes’ Extensive Toll, Officials Say
8. Russia says it’s winning. The data says otherwise.
9. From Attrition to Asymmetry: A Strategic Assessment of Recent Developments in the Russia-Ukraine War
10. 2 Chinese scientists will stay in jail while accused of bringing biological material to US
11. How Ukraine Is Fighting Against Russian Propaganda
12. The Army’s Newest Recruits: Tech Execs From Meta, OpenAI and More
13. Army Launches Detachment 201: Executive Innovation Corps to Drive Tech Transformation
14. I’m the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army.
15. Time for a 21st Century Upgrade to US Taiwan Policy
16. How Israeli spies and pilots crippled an Iranian counterstrike
17. The Ultimate Deception: How Trump and Bibi Outfoxed Iran
18. At least 3,400 positions at State Dept. to be axed, hundreds laid off
19. Ungentlemanly Robots: Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and the New Way of War
20. Army must modernize much faster, can't keep buying "VCRs" of warfare
21. Taiwan and the Ghost of the Cuban Missile Crisis
22. Honor the Army by Funding Them
23. Terrorism has never helped Palestine
1. Israel’s June 12/13 Strike on Iran May Mark Turning Point in Middle East History
From a friend and retired intelligence professional, RC Porter.
Israel’s June 12/13 Strike on Iran May Mark Turning Point in Middle East History
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/06/13/israel-strike-iran-june-2025-middle-east/
by Richard (R.C.) Porter
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06.13.2025 at 01:55pm
Israel’s June 12/13 military strike on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile infrastructure, as well as the targeted killing of the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and six of Iran’s top nuclear scientists is a devastating blow to Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. But, this strike, known as “Operation Lion Rising“, may have much broader and far-reaching implications for the future of the Middle East. First, some observations on the strike.
Israel’s exploding pager operation against Hezbollah, Ukraine’s ingenious deep penetration drone strike on Russia’s nuclear bomber force, and now Israel’s Operation Lion Rising, each show how warfare is changing, yet also remaining the same. New and novel uses of drones on the battlefield is revolutionizing and transforming warfare as we used to know it. Indeed, it is estimated that 70 percent of the military casualties in the Russian-Ukraine War have been conducted with drones and autonomous systems. As Bob Dylan once sang, “Times, are a changin.” But, each of these operations also demonstrated that well-placed human intelligence, or HUMINT, operatives remain a precious, invaluable commodity that must be nurtured and protected by a bodyguard of lies.
How valuable was Israel’s Mossad in supporting Operation Rising Lion? We will never know publicly. Nonetheless, it is clear from open-source reporting that good old-fashioned HUMINT was a key part of Israel’s strike, much like it was for Israel’s exploding pager operation. It is likely that Israel’s 12/13 June strikes against Iran took years of elaborate planning, coupled with the recruitment and training of human spies deep inside Iran to carry out the operation. Likewise, it likely took many months and years for Mossad to smuggled vehicles, weapons, and drones into Iran to set the stage for last night’s strike. As Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “One well-placed spy is worth two battalions.” Now, one or two, or three well placed spies may prevent a wider war or save a city. Drones are having their moment in the sun, but good old-fashioned HUMINT remains paramount. Thumbs up to Mossad.
Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the U.S.-Israel hammering of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, also altered the battlespace to Israel’s advantage. Iran losing its proxies and its Russian benefactors in Syria further weakened the hand of Iran’s mullahs.
Did this strike completely take out Iran’s nuclear weapons program? Probably not. Facilities like Iran’s Fordow are buried deep inside a mountain, as are other parts of their program. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t entomb at least some of those facilities and personnel. Bottom line, Iran’s nuclear weapons pursuit and program has been dealt a serious blow and likely dormant for quite some time. Maybe for good if Iranian protests result in the overthrow of the regime.
So, what comes next?
Operation Rising Lion may be the beginning of the end of Iran’s theocratic regime, Already, there are protests in Tehran and elsewhere throughout Iran advocating for the removal of Iran’s mullahs. Hopefully, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Jordan will covertly aid such a movement. US President Donald Trump’s historic May 13, 2025 speech in Saudi Arabia, and his overture to Syria, add an elixir that may accelerate historic and fundamental change in the Middle East. Saudi and Syrian recognition of Israel may come sooner than many think. It is also telling that no Syrian targets were struck by Israel, at least thus far, during this operation. This is something that would never have occurred prior to Trump’s speech.
Iran’s mullahs will clearly try and find ways to strike back and retaliate. Did any Iranian sleeper agents cross into the U.S. during President Joseph Biden’s four-year open border? And if so, will they try and carry out a terrorist attack here on the US homeland? And thank goodness that Trump reversed the Biden-era ‘war’ on oil and fossil fuels. Where would the price of oil be this morning if he had not? Setting those musings aside, the world waits to see Iran’s response.
Tags: Iran, Israel, Israel-Iran Conflict
About The Author
- Richard (R.C.) Porter
- The writer served as a Middle East Intelligence analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency and served on the staff of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. He holds a Masters Degree in Middle Eastern Studies from George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.
2. Iran's Attack on Israel was Enabled by North Korean Missile Technology and Advances
Overlooked in all the discussions and reporting about the Israel-Iran conflict is the adversarial cooperation of the CRInK (China, Russia, Iran, and north Korea). especially Iran and north Korea in this case. The article below is about the Iranian attack on Israel from a year ago from Dr. Bruce Bechtol. However, here is his assessment from yesterday on the recent retaliatory attacks by Iran.:
There were only a few types of ballistic missiles fired from Iran at Israel over the past few hours. Two of the three (the Emad and the Ghadr) are nothing more than "souped up" No Dongs (the third appears to be solid fuel and did not come from North Korea). The proliferation and development story goes like this: The North Koreans proliferated the No Dongs (more than 200 of them) to Iran. Then Iran asked the North Koreans to build a No Dong "factory" for them in Iran. But the facility still needed many North Korean parts and North Korean specialists (engineers and technicians) in order to manufacture the missiles in Iran - called the Shahab-3. From there the North Koreans assisted the Iranians in improving the range and firepower of the missile. From this effort was born the Emad and the Ghadr. These were two of the three types of ballistic missiles identified as being used in the attack on Israel today. See this article for some background on the EMAD, one of the missiles used in the attacks on Israel
Alos, note that Dr. Bechtol and Dr. Anthony Celso recently published a book (title below) that is a comprehensive study of Iran-north Korean cooperation. Below are two recent videos from the Korea Society and the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea that discuss the cooperation between Iran and north Korea in detail. The book can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Allies-Strategic-Partnership-between/dp/1985902176
Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership between Iran and North Korea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEd9mlwpY7o
319 views Streamed live on Jun 11, 2025
June 11, 2025 - What are the motivations and geopolitical significance of the ongoing partnership between the governments of North Korea and Iran? Join us for a program with Professor and Author Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., who discusses his new book co-authored with Professor Anthony N. Celso. During the program, Bechtol explains the ideological, financial, and environmental forces contributing to the partnership, the roles of Russia and China, the two regimes’ military capabilities, proliferation activities to terrorist organizations, and the partnership’s role in destabilizing the rules-based order. The book is available for purchase online here. A limited number of hardcover editions will be available for cash sale at a discounted rate of $20 at the event. This program is moderated by Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado.
HRNK Presents: “Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership between Iran and North Korea”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=789Ona9NXIA&t=16s
97 views May 28, 2025 #NorthKorea #Iran #HumanRights
Recorded Live: May 21, 2025 | DACOR Bacon House, Washington, DC
Join the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) for the official launch of Rogue Allies, a groundbreaking new book by Dr. Bruce Bechtol Jr. and Dr. Anthony N. Celso. This expert panel explores the growing strategic partnership between two of the world’s most repressive regimes—North Korea and Iran.
Moderated by HRNK President and CEO Greg Scarlatoiu, the event features presentations by the co-authors and commentary by Dr. George Hutchinson. The discussion explores the deepening ties between Iran and North Korea, including their strategic motivations, potential military and technological cooperation, and the broader implications for regional and global security.
Learn more about HRNK: https://www.hrnk.org
Iran's Attack on Israel was Enabled by North Korean Missile Technology and Advances
The National Interest · by Bruce E. Bechtol · May 13, 2024
Topic: Security
Blog Brand: Korea Watch
Tags: Defense, DPRK, Iran, Israel, Military, Missiles, and North Korea
Iran’s Attack on Israel was Enabled by North Korean Missile Technology and Advances
May 13, 2024
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Iran last month launched a large-scale overnight air strike on Israel. More than 300 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles targeted the country.
While the attack was quite large, it was also ineffective. According to spokespersons for the U.S. and Israeli militaries, 99% of the projectiles launched at Israel failed to make it through.
Israeli and American missile defense worked very effectively, along with support from other allies, including Jordan.
From North Korea to Iran
Israel’s system of ballistic missile defense may be the best in the world. But of the roughly 120 ballistic missiles that Iran used, about 50% either failed to launch or crashed in flight.
Only half of Iran’s ballistic missiles flew the way they were supposed to, thus showing these systems are anything but well made. But where did the Iranians get the technology to assemble these long-range ballistic missile systems, however well or poorly they fared? The answer is, unquestionably, North Korea.
Based on pictures and descriptions from the region, many of the missiles used in the attack were what Tehran calls the Emad. This is a medium-range ballistic missile based on the Shahab-3, which itself is nothing more than a copy of North Korea’s NoDong missile. The Shahab-3 (NoDong) has a range of 1300–1500 kilometers, but the Emad has a reported range of about 1700 km, and its longer reach allows it to target Israel.
The North Koreans conducted a live test of the NoDong for Iran and Pakistan in 1993. Following the test, both Tehran and Islamabad ordered dozens of these missiles and their launchers. Later, at Tehran’s request, North Korea built a fabrication facility for the NoDong – now called the Shahab-3 in Iran. But the Iranians still needed technical support and parts for the missiles they were now indigenously producing.
North Korea’s Contribution
Once the Shahab-3 was integrated into the Iranian ballistic missile force, the Iranians almost immediately began work on a follow-up missile based on the same design, but with a longer range. Thus was born the Emad, which Iran publicly introduced as a new long-range missile in 2015.
Iran claims the Emad has been legitimately tested to a range of 1700 kilometers, and the system shot down near the Dead Sea in Israel probably proves this to be true. Also according to the Iranians, the Emad is significantly more accurate than other missiles in Tehran’s inventory. This, however, has not been proven to be true.
While this system is uniquely Iranian, there can be almost no doubt that the North Koreans provided assistance in extending the missile’s range. But even if they did not, the Emad is little more than a souped-up version of the Shahab-3. Since the Shahab-3 is a copy of the original NoDong missiles North Korea proliferated to Iran, this means that the Iranians carried out their April attack using missiles that could target Israel thanks to assistance from North Korea.
Why is North Korea’s clear contribution to Iran’s capability to attack Israel not receiving more attention? To that question I do not have an answer. We have seen some rather inaccurate analysis on this topic as well. For example, one noted analyst stated he had “seen no evidence of any exchange between North Korea and Iran over missile technology in recent years,” while another said, “I think that North Korea is in a place where they can help them from an accuracy perspective. North Korea itself has significantly increased the accuracy of its ballistic missiles over the past decade and a half.”
These assessments are decidedly incorrect. North Korea in fact has been collaborating with Iran in recent years on a missile rocket booster with 80 tons of thrust. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Iran for this activity in 2016, while ongoing North Korea – Iran cooperation was documented by the UN Panel of Experts in 2021. The Hwasong-15 missile has this capability.
There are two key concerns here. First, the proliferation risk remains high, because no sanctions have been imposed and no actions taken that have significantly slowed North Korea’s military proliferation of anything. We have seen North Korean rockets, artillery, and ballistic missiles used by the Russians. Anti-tank weapons, rockets, and tunnel-building capabilities passed along by Pyongyang have been utilized by Hamas in the past six months. Now, we see North Korean ballistic missile technology and capabilities put to use by Iran to target Israel.
The second concern is that Iran could upgrade its systems. Pyongyang has tested a solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile in recent months. Further, not only do the North Koreans have a very accurate copycat version of the Russian Iskander, but they have now proliferated dozens of these systems to the Russians themselves for use against Ukraine. The Iskander is a short-range ballistic missile, so Iranian forces would need to get much closer to Israel in order to launch one – or get one of their proxies to use it. These and other possible upgrades to Iran’s ballistic missile forces would greatly amplify the threat from Tehran. As noted Israeli missile expert Tal Inbar says, “If you see it in North Korea today, you will see it in Iran tomorrow.”
North Korea has sold systems to Iran since the 1980s. This has not stopped, nor is it likely to change. Without sharp, decisive action against North Korean support to Iran and its proxies, we are likely to see more examples of North Korean proliferation to Iran in the future.
About the Author
Dr. Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. is a professor of Political Science at Angelo State University. He is also the president of the International Council on Korean Studies and a fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies. The author of five books dealing with North Korea, his latest work is entitled North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa.
All images are from KCNA/North Korean State Media.
3. Voice of America Recalls Staff for Iranian Language News Service From Leave
If you believe that the people of iran will seek new leadership you might want to have an information capability to inform the people of the potential for their future and how the world may assist. You might want to give them the information necessary for collective action.
There is probably no greater acknowledgement of the strategic error we have made in attacking VOA and RFE/RL, RFA, et al.
Excerpts:
In an email reviewed by The New York Times, workers for the Farsi news service were told they were recalled “effective immediately” and told to “report to your duty station immediately.” Workers were also told to ensure that their security credentials had been reactivated.
About 100 staff members work at the Farsi news service. All the full-time staff members, about half of the total work force, were called back to work, a staffer at the Farsi language service said, but contractors have not been, creating problems as the news agency quickly ramped up production for a television broadcast late Friday evening.
The website for Voice of America’s Farsi language service was updated with a collection of stories on the conflict between Israel and Iran on Friday.
Voice of America Recalls Staff for Iranian Language News Service From Leave
Most of the staff of Voice of America, the federally funded news network, were put on administrative leave by the Trump administration in March.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/us/politics/voice-of-america-farsi-iran-news.html
The Voice of America building in Washington.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times
By Minho Kim and Chris Cameron
Reporting from Washington
June 13, 2025
The Farsi language news broadcast for Voice of America was abruptly reactivated on Friday, calling back dozens of workers for the news network who had been put on paid leave as hostilities between Israel and Iran intensified, two staff members at the Farsi news service said.
Voice of America, a federally funded news network that reports the news in dozens of foreign languages, had previously included a news service in Farsi, also known as Persian, the language most commonly spoken in Iran. Workers for the Farsi news service were among the vast majority of staff at Voice of America who were placed on paid administrative leave after President Trump signed an executive order gutting the news agency in March.
Employees for the news service have since sued to have the service restored even as the Trump administration moves to all but eliminate the news network. Supporters of the network argued that the service provided credible news in places that lacked an independent press, while the White House accused it of leftist bias.
Kari Lake, a senior adviser for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America, did not respond to a request for comment.
In an email reviewed by The New York Times, workers for the Farsi news service were told they were recalled “effective immediately” and told to “report to your duty station immediately.” Workers were also told to ensure that their security credentials had been reactivated.
About 100 staff members work at the Farsi news service. All the full-time staff members, about half of the total work force, were called back to work, a staffer at the Farsi language service said, but contractors have not been, creating problems as the news agency quickly ramped up production for a television broadcast late Friday evening.
The website for Voice of America’s Farsi language service was updated with a collection of stories on the conflict between Israel and Iran on Friday.
Journalists for Voice of America who were still on administrative leave lamented that staff members were only now being recalled in an emergency, adding that the situation in the Middle East showed why the network never should have been shut down.
“After months off the air, we’ve already lost a lot of audience and credibility,” Patsy Widakuswara, a former Voice of America White House bureau chief who was placed on leave and is leading a lawsuit against Ms. Lake and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, said in a statement. “They should bring us all back so we can respond to breaking news in all parts of the world.”
Jessica Jerreat, an editor at Voice of America who was also placed on leave, said in a statement that “by reducing programming since March, V.O.A. has cut off its audience right at the very moment they need it most.”
Minho Kim covers breaking news and climate change for The Times. He is based in Washington.
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
See more on: U.S. Politics, United States Agency for Global Media, Voice of America
4. One Iranian Miscalculation After Another
One Iranian Miscalculation After Another
The Tehran regime pays the price for underestimating Netanyahu and Trump.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/israel-iran-miscalculation-nuclear-targets-benjamin-netanyahu-e1a3f852
By The Editorial Board
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June 13, 2025 5:43 pm ET
An excavator removes debris from a residential building, Tehran, June 13. Photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
Strikes continue in waves, but Israel has already pulled off against Iran’s military what it did to Hezbollah in September: a decapitation. Nearly the entire top echelon of Iran’s army and Revolutionary Guard has been killed, and the longer Iran takes to regroup the more of its ballistic-missile and nuclear programs it loses.
“There are no free wars,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israelis on Friday, and Iran has landed a few missiles out of the many it fired at Israeli cities. But a series of mistakes has led Iran to the catastrophic scenario it has long sought to avoid: open war with Israel without the aid of proxies and before obtaining nuclear weapons.
How did Tehran miscalculate so badly? For months President Trump made clear that he wanted to avoid a military confrontation and make a nuclear deal. He all but begged the regime to come to terms, and his envoy Steve Witkoff made a generous offer—too generous—that would have let Iran continue enriching uranium domestically for some years.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed it out of hand. “Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?” he asked. The Iranians evidently thought they would pay no price for blowing past the President’s 60-day ultimatum and his red line on nuclear enrichment. So long as they kept talking, they presumed they could string along Mr. Trump, who would shield them from Israel.
Did they think Tucker Carlson called the shots and the U.S. would roll over each time it was pushed? On deadline day Iran said it would begin enrichment at a secret site, another Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty violation.
Tehran underestimated Mr. Trump, who knew Israel’s plan but declined to expose or block it. Democrats now criticize him for that, and a different President may well have prevented Israel’s campaign to eliminate the Iranian sword of Damocles that looms over its head and ours. Instead Mr. Trump kept a flexible enough posture to embrace the attack after its early success.
The Iranians also underestimated Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose bet on Mr. Trump has paid off. After direct ballistic-missile attacks on Israel in April and October 2024 were parried, Mr. Netanyahu didn’t “take the win,” as President Biden advised. He knocked out Iran’s key air defenses, creating a window for today’s air campaign with Mr. Trump in power.
That unforced Iranian error served as a practice run for Israel’s air force, as did all the missions against the Houthis. Was it worth it, for Iran, to have its Yemeni proxy send Israelis to bomb shelters but hit nothing?
Hezbollah, with its enormous Iranian arsenal, was long supposed to be Iran’s insurance policy. Were Israel to strike the nuclear program, Iran’s Lebanese proxy would rain missiles on Tel Aviv. Instead Hezbollah fired at empty towns in northern Israel for 10 months after Oct. 7, 2023, until Mr. Netanyahu crushed it. Hezbollah is in no position now to help Iran to fight or deter Israel.
The Middle East war Iran started is becoming an historic defeat. What began in the south of Israel with Hamas death squads—funded, armed and trained by Iran—is ending in Tehran, Natanz, Isfahan and, we hope, Fordow. Destroying the latter enrichment facility underneath a mountain likely requires U.S. planes, but leaving it intact would be a mistake, akin to putting out only half a fire.
Mr. Trump says Iran has a last chance for a deal, so how about this? Dismantle Fordow and the rest of the enrichment program right now or lose them, and much more, by force. Iran doesn’t hold the cards here, and its leaders would be wise to take such a deal. But if history is a guide, they will refuse and suffer more defeats.
By now, Americans are already well aware
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The U.S. is exposed to many threats besides ballistic missiles—ranging from drones and spy blimps to cruise missiles launched by submarines—and President Trump deserves credit for prioritizing a layered missile shield that exploits new technology and existing systems.
5. In Twist, U.S. Diplomacy Served as Cover for Israeli Surprise Attack
Sun Tzu: "All warfare is based on deception." Of course it was not as if this was not well telegraphed with the movement of missile defense systems from Korea to the Middle East and the early return of military dependents authorized as well as non-essential diplomatic personnel. The signs were all there for Iran to see and perhaps it is Iran that could have conducted better diplomacy. It is not as if it has not been given plenty of opportunity to do so.
I am sure there will be a gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands over this, if this is true (which is why there needs to remain some ambiguity). I am sure the argument will be that this will undermine all future diplomacy because this erodes trust. But I am sure we all know that trust in diplomacy is a fig leaf and that in the end all countries act in their own interests. That is why we live by "trust but verify."
In Twist, U.S. Diplomacy Served as Cover for Israeli Surprise Attack
Talks seen as a way to keep the peace gave Israel the opportunity to land heavy military blows
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/in-twist-u-s-diplomacy-served-as-cover-for-israeli-surprise-attack-c79b2206
By Michael R. Gordon
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Updated June 13, 2025 8:43 am ET
A firefighter at the scene of an explosion in Tehran. Photo: Vahid Salemi/Associated Press
U.S. negotiations with Iran aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear program were widely seen as an important way to preserve regional peace. They ended up being the perfect cover for a surprise Israeli attack.
With a sixth round of talks between Trump administration envoy Steve Witkoff and his Iranian counterparts set for Sunday in Oman, Israeli and U.S. officials warned of military action if Iran didn’t agree to end its production of fissile material that can be used in nuclear weapons.
Instead, Israel hit first, achieving tactical surprise through a devastating series of blows that killed three top Iranian generals and key nuclear scientists and hit sites linked to the country’s nuclear programs.
On Friday morning, President Trump, in a social-media post, wrote, “I gave Iran a chance to make a deal” but “they just couldn’t get it done.” He said the Israeli strikes were carried out because of Tehran’s intransigence and urged the Iranians to reach a deal “before there is nothing left.”
For months, Trump had regularly signaled his desire to give diplomacy a chance to succeed before any turn to military force, and Sunday’s planned meeting in Muscat was to be another step on a high-stakes journey.
Iran had been expected to respond then to a Witkoff proposal for a framework to resolve the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear efforts. The two sides were at loggerheads—the U.S. insisted that Iran would eventually have to stop enriching uranium, which Tehran refused to do. But even amid signals that an Israeli strike was growing more likely, the expectation was that talks would continue.
Select strike locations
Uzbekistan
Azerbaijan
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Caspian Sea
Nuclear site
Khondab
IRGC command headquarters
Tehran
Nuclear reactor site
Natanz
Iraq
Afghanistan
Anti-aircraft batteries
Khorram
Iran
Kuwait
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
U.A.E.
Oman
Sources: Netanyahu; Iranian state TV; IAEA; IRGC
WSJ
On Thursday, Trump said he didn’t think an Israeli attack was imminent, “but it is something that could very well happen.” He also said Washington and Tehran were “fairly close to a pretty good agreement” but that Iran would need to make further compromises to avoid conflict.
Hours later, Israel launched hundreds of warplanes in several waves to hit targets across Iran.
“There is no question that the Witkoff mission was a major contributor to the surprise,” said Dennis Ross, who served as a senior official on Middle East issues during Democratic and Republican administrations. “The Iranians would have assumed that Israel would not attack while the talks were under way and a meeting was about to take place.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had raised possible attacks on Iran in a call with Trump on Monday, two U.S. officials said. Soon after, the U.S. began moving some diplomats and military dependents out of the Middle East. Trump administration officials told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that Israel was prepared to strike Iran within days.
Trump administration officials insisted Thursday night that Witkoff was still planning to attend the Sunday talks. But the possibility of a meeting with his Iranian interlocutor appeared uncertain with Tehran vowing to retaliate against Israel and some hard-line Iranian officials accusing Washington of being complicit in the Israeli attack.
U.S. officials didn’t respond Thursday night to questions about when the White House first learned that Israel intended to strike before Witkoff’s Sunday meeting in Oman.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the U.S. wasn’t involved in Israel’s strike. But he didn’t rule out a U.S. role in helping Israel defend itself against Tehran’s retaliation, a scenario that could draw Washington into the conflict and impel the Pentagon to rush more forces to the Middle East.
I'm currently sitting inside of a bomb shelter
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Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at central Tel Aviv after Israel’s surprise attack on its nuclear sites and military leadership. WSJ Correspondent Dov Lieber analyzes the impact of attacks and what could come next. Photo: Tomer Neuberg/Associated Press
The possibility that Israel might take military action against Iran has long been a concern for U.S. administrations, which shared the Israelis’ anxieties about Iran’s growing nuclear efforts and the potential that they might eventually enable Tehran to field a nuclear weapon.
A major worry was that Israel’s airstrikes could damage but not destroy Iran’s nuclear program because much of it was buried and dispersed. That might allow Iran to continue its nuclear program covertly. Another longstanding fear was that Iran might respond to an Israeli strike by lashing out at U.S. bases in the region, Washington’s Arab allies and oil shipments in the Persian Gulf, which would draw the U.S. military into the fray.
In pressing for nuclear talks with Iran earlier this year, Trump initially suggested a two-month time frame for negotiations to succeed. That deadline was reached on Thursday. The Israelis feared that the talks could drag on as Iran’s nuclear efforts advanced.
But there had also been more hopeful speculation for weeks that the threat of Israeli or American military action might enable Witkoff’s diplomacy by pressuring Tehran to yield to demands that it scale back its nuclear program and stop enriching uranium.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to meet his Iranian counterparts in Oman this weekend. Photo: Chris Kleponis/Bloomberg News
Yet after five rounds of talks in which the two sides appeared to remain far apart, it was the diplomatic process that enabled Israel’s military campaign.
Taking a page from its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel put a premium on strikes to decapitate its adversary’s military leadership even as it targeted key nuclear facilities. But doing that successfully required a surprise, and Israeli officials had to confront the challenge that they had long telegraphed their punch. Striking before Witkoff’s coming meeting in Oman offered a way out.
Trump has said repeatedly that he favored solving the Iran nuclear issue diplomatically. “We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue!” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social before the Israeli strikes were under way.
But Iran’s conspiracy-minded hard-liners are already inclined to see an American hand in Israel’s military operations. And some former U.S. officials say it won’t be easy for Trump to distance himself from Israel’s military operation.
Aaron David Miller, the former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator, said that there are no indications the White House was so opposed to an Israeli military strike that it was prepared to put the U.S.-Israeli relationship on the line. Israel, he said, was given a “plausible denial green light.”
An Israeli flag flutters as the sun rises over Jerusalem. Photo: ahmad gharabli/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com
6. Much of Iran’s Nuclear Program Remains After Israel’s Strikes. At Least for Now.
I am sure BDA will be ongoing. (perhaps as well as attacks).
Graphics at the link.
Perhaps the nuclear fuel sites were spared due to the potential for fallout and also maybe to allow the Iranian people to seek transition in leadership and allow new leadership to make the necessary arrangements to make these facilities safe by turning them over to international authorities.
Excerpts:
The mystery is why Israel avoided hitting the stockpile, which gives Iran its fastest pathway to producing a small nuclear arsenal. And it was the core of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s justifications early Friday for ordering the strike, after two decades in which Israel has always stopped short of pulling the trigger.
“Iran has produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine atom bombs — nine,” he said. (Other experts put the figure slightly higher, at 10, but the actual number would depend on how efficiently the Iranians prove to be at producing a warhead or a bomb.)Mr. Netanyahu went on to discuss the danger he believed the stockpile’s existence posed: “In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before, steps to weaponize this enriched uranium.” He argued that if Iran was not stopped, it “could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.”“It could be in a year,” he said, “it could be within a few months — it could be less than a year.”
...
If Natanz is out of operation, Iran’s best bet would be to get the fuel to the smaller enrichment plant at Fordow, buried deep under a mountain on an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base. Mr. Grossi estimates it is half a mile deep, most likely making it impervious to Israel’s bunker-busting weapons. So far the Trump administration has made clear it will not join in the attacks, which would include making use of the giant bunker buster the United States developed to take out such deeply buried sites in Iran and North Korea.
According to some reports, Israel may be trying anyway; there were indications of bombing in the area of the mountainous facility on Friday evening. Even if that is unsuccessful, Iran would almost certainly not want to take the risk of transporting its 60 percent enriched fuel to the Natanz site. It would be “a sitting duck for their drones,” one former American intelligence official who worked extensively on Iran said on Friday.
Much of Iran’s Nuclear Program Remains After Israel’s Strikes. At Least for Now.
The first phase of the attack did not hit the most likely repository of Iran’s near-bomb-grade nuclear fuel.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/us/politics/iran-nuclear-program-israel-strike-damage.html
Smoke above Tehran after multiple explosions on Friday.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
By David E. Sanger
David E. Sanger has covered Iran’s nuclear program, and the efforts to prevent it from obtaining an atomic weapon, for more than two decades.
June 13, 2025
Israel badly damaged one of Iran’s key nuclear sites and killed a startling array of top military and nuclear officials in the attacks that started on Friday morning. But when the sun rose after that devastating assault, it was also clear how much of Iran’s nuclear program remained, at least for now.
The Israeli strikes appear to have destroyed an aboveground nuclear fuel production site and electrical supply centers at Iran’s largest uranium enrichment center, at Natanz. The killing of some of Iran’s top nuclear scientists continues a long-running Israeli campaign targeting the expertise needed to build a bomb. But the first phase of the Israeli attacks did not hit the most likely repository of Iran’s near-bomb-grade nuclear fuel — and that may have been deliberate.
That stockpile is stored at a vast complex outside the ancient former capital of Isfahan, according to international inspectors who are charged with measuring and monitoring it. Israel’s 100 fighters and swarms of missiles and drones stayed away from Isfahan in their first wave, even though it is one of the largest nuclear sites in the country and, according to Western intelligence services, one of the centers of Iran’s secret weapons research programs.
The Israel Defense Forces issued a news release on Friday afternoon saying that in a second wave of attacks, it had hit Isfahan, but not the fuel stockpile. Instead, it focused on laboratories that worked on converting uranium gas back into a metal — one of the last stages of building a weapon. But it said nothing about hitting the area where the fuel itself is stored.
“We saw the fuel there just recently,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations organization that tracks fuel to make sure it is not diverted to weapons projects, said on Friday, a few hours after the attacks began. Inspectors were inside the Isfahan facilities over the past few weeks, conducting the final inventories for the quarterly report on Iran’s capabilities that was distributed to the agency’s board this month, as it focused on Iran’s compliance with inspectors’ demands.
The mystery is why Israel avoided hitting the stockpile, which gives Iran its fastest pathway to producing a small nuclear arsenal. And it was the core of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s justifications early Friday for ordering the strike, after two decades in which Israel has always stopped short of pulling the trigger.
Image
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that if Iran was not stopped, it “could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.”Credit...Pool photo by Ronen Zvulun
“Iran has produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine atom bombs — nine,” he said. (Other experts put the figure slightly higher, at 10, but the actual number would depend on how efficiently the Iranians prove to be at producing a warhead or a bomb.)
Mr. Netanyahu went on to discuss the danger he believed the stockpile’s existence posed: “In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before, steps to weaponize this enriched uranium.” He argued that if Iran was not stopped, it “could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.”
“It could be in a year,” he said, “it could be within a few months — it could be less than a year.”
Nuclear and missile facilities in Iran
TURKEY
TURKMEnistan
Caspian
Sea
Tabriz
Tehran
Afghanistan
Iran
IrAQ
Isfahan
KUWAIT
Pakistan
Bandar
Abbas
Persian
Gulf
Strait of
Hormuz
QATAR
Gulf of Oman
SAUDI
ARABIA
U.A.E.
250 miles
OMAN
Source: Nuclear Threat Initiative The New York Times
Israeli officials did not respond to queries about why they spared the stockpile, at least for now. It is possible that the Isfahan complex could be targeted in a next wave. President Trump said on Friday that “there’s more to come, a lot more,” adding that the next attacks would be “brutal.”
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But outside experts believe avoiding Isfahan was a deliberate choice.
“The fact that Israel did not bomb a known uranium production facility at Isfahan,” said Jon Wolfsthal of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks Iran’s nuclear progress closely, “suggests either that Bibi was worried the bombing might cause a radiological incident or that they actually think this will lead Iran to surrender its uranium stocks voluntarily.”
The concern about a “radiological incident” is a real one. Bombing the fuel storage site in its current form would not trigger a nuclear explosion. But it could release the fuel into the environment, creating a radiation hazard, essentially turning the Isfahan plant into a dirty bomb.
Updated June 14, 2025, 9:00 a.m. ET6 minutes ago
(Mr. Grossi said late Friday that there was some chemical and radiological contamination at the heavily hit Natanz plant, but that the underground halls that hold some of Iran’s most modern and powerful centrifuges did not appear to have been pierced.)
History suggests Israel is highly sensitive to the risk of triggering the release of radioactive material. When it bombed Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, an effort to keep Iraq from gaining a nuclear weapon, it struck before fuel was put into the plant. And it did the same when it hit a plant in Syria that was being built by the North Koreans, though in that case Israel tried for months to hide its responsibility for the bombing campaign. In the strike on Iran on Friday morning, it boasted about the details.
Image
Natanz in 2006. Israel appears to have destroyed an aboveground nuclear fuel-production site and electrical supply centers in Friday’s attack.Credit...Raheb Homavandi/Reuters
Another possible explanation is that Israeli officials believe they can block the Iranians from further enriching the stockpile to bomb-grade levels — 90 percent — a process that would take only days or weeks, in the public estimation of American intelligence agencies. (It is possible to make a weapon with lower-purity fuel, but it creates new challenges.)
Iran’s choices are limited. The country’s largest enrichment plant at Natanz was the primary target in the early hours of Friday, and cellphone videos showed it was still smoking. “We believe it is heavily damaged,” said Mr. Grossi, who has visited Natanz often.
If Natanz is out of operation, Iran’s best bet would be to get the fuel to the smaller enrichment plant at Fordow, buried deep under a mountain on an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base. Mr. Grossi estimates it is half a mile deep, most likely making it impervious to Israel’s bunker-busting weapons. So far the Trump administration has made clear it will not join in the attacks, which would include making use of the giant bunker buster the United States developed to take out such deeply buried sites in Iran and North Korea.
According to some reports, Israel may be trying anyway; there were indications of bombing in the area of the mountainous facility on Friday evening. Even if that is unsuccessful, Iran would almost certainly not want to take the risk of transporting its 60 percent enriched fuel to the Natanz site. It would be “a sitting duck for their drones,” one former American intelligence official who worked extensively on Iran said on Friday.
Image
Rafael Mariano Grossi is the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which tracks fuel to make sure it is not diverted to weapons projects.Credit...Pool photo by Eugene Hoshiko
In selecting its targets, Israel also bet that it could set back the effort by killing key scientists. On Friday, the deaths of two of them were widely reported in Iran. One was Mohammad Mehdi Tehranji, a physicist and the president of the Islamic Azad University in Tehran, which has long been associated with work on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.
The other was a man Israel has tried, and failed, to kill before. Fereydoun Abbasi was the tough-talking former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. In November 2010, at the height of Israel’s “sticky bomb” attacks in which explosives were slapped on the drivers’ doors of scientists caught in Tehran traffic, Mr. Abbasi was badly wounded. Perhaps because of his military training, he reacted instantly to the click of the magnetic bomb on his door and pulled himself and his wife out of the car before it was consumed in a fireball.
He emerged from that attack more determined than ever to pursue Iran’s program, and for several years became its public face as the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. He offered the world assurances that his country’s interest in nuclear technology was entirely peaceful.
He argued that all the evidence provided by international inspectors that an active warhead project existed in Iran dating back 20 years or more — including drawings of the weapons and calculations about the best heights to detonate a weapon — was part of an Israeli fabrication effort to justify a future attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
He was among the first to die when those strikes began.
A correction was made on June 13, 2025: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the country that Jon Wolfsthal said did not bomb a uranium production facility at Isfahan. It was Israel, not Iran.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.
A version of this article appears in print on June 14, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Barrage From Israel Hits Nuclear Site, but Misses Fuel. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
7. A Miscalculation by Iran Led to Israeli Strikes’ Extensive Toll, Officials Say
A failure to anticipate (one of the three strategic failures: failure to learn, failure to adapt, and failure to anticipate per Cohen and Gooch in Military Misfortune).
A Miscalculation by Iran Led to Israeli Strikes’ Extensive Toll, Officials Say
Interviews with half a dozen senior Iranian officials show that they were not expecting Israel to strike before another round of talks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/world/middleeast/iran-israel-strikes-nuclear-talks.html
Listen to this article · 8:31 min Learn more
A building damaged after Israel hit multiple structures early Friday in Tehran.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
By Farnaz Fassihi
June 13, 2025
Iran’s senior leaders had been planning for more than a week for an Israeli attack should nuclear talks with the United States fail. But they made one enormous miscalculation.
They never expected Israel to strike before another round of talks that had been scheduled for this coming Sunday in Oman, officials close to Iran’s leadership said on Friday. They dismissed reports that an attack was imminent as Israeli propaganda meant to pressure Iran to make concessions on its nuclear program in those talks.
Perhaps because of that complacency, precautions that had been planned were ignored, the officials said.
This account of how Iranian officials were preparing before Israel conducted widespread attacks across their country on Friday, and how they reacted in the aftermath, is based on interviews with half a dozen senior Iranian officials and two members of the Revolutionary Guards. They all asked not to be named to discuss sensitive information.
Officials said that the night of Israel’s attack, senior military commanders did not shelter in safe houses and instead stayed in their own homes, a fateful decision. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace unit, and his senior staff ignored a directive against congregating in one location. They held an emergency war meeting at a military base in Tehran and were killed when Israel struck the base.
By Friday evening, the government was just beginning to grasp the extent of damage from Israel’s military campaign that began in the early hours of the day and struck at least 15 locations across Iran, including in Isfahan, Tabriz, Ilam, Lorestan, Borujerd, Qom, Arak, Urmia, Ghasre Shirin, Kermanshah, Hamedan and Shiraz, four Iranian officials said.
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Israel had taken out much of Iran’s defense capability, destroying radars and air defenses; crippled its access to its arsenal of ballistic missiles; and wiped out senior figures in the military chain of command. In addition, the aboveground part of a major nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz was severely damaged.
In private text messages shared with The New York Times, some officials were angrily asking one another, “Where is our air defense?” and “How can Israel come and attack anything it wants, kill our top commanders, and we are incapable of stopping it?” They also questioned the major intelligence and defense failures that had led to Iran’s inability to see the attacks coming, and the resulting damage.
Image
After the sound of multiple explosions, people gathered on top of a hill watching the smoke in Tehran.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
“Israel’s attack completely caught the leadership by surprise, especially the killing of the top military figures and nuclear scientists. It also exposed our lack of proper air defense and their ability to bombard our critical sites and military bases with no resistance,” Hamid Hosseini, a member of the country’s Chamber of Commerce’s energy committee, said in a telephone interview from Tehran.
Mr. Hosseini, who is close to the government, said Israel’s apparent infiltration of Iran’s security and military apparatus had also shocked officials. Israel has conducted covert operations in Iran against military and nuclear targets and carried out targeted assassinations against nuclear scientists for decades as part of its shadow war with Iran, but Friday’s multipronged and complex attack involving fighter jets and covert operatives who had smuggled missile parts and drones into the country suggested a new level of access and capability.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been moved to an undisclosed safe location where he remained in contact with remaining top military officials, said in a televised speech that Israel had, with its attacks, declared war on Iran. As he spoke, vowing revenge and punishment, Iran launched several waves of missile attacks on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
“They should not think they attacked and it is over,” Mr. Khamenei said. “No, they started it. They started the war. We will not allow them to escape from this crime unharmed.”
Earlier Friday morning, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a 23-person council responsible for national security decisions, held an emergency meeting to discuss how the country should respond. In the meeting, Mr. Khamenei said he wanted revenge but did not want to act hastily, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.
Divisions emerged on when and how Iran should respond, and whether it could sustain a prolonged war with Israel that could also drag in the United States, given how badly its defense and missile capabilities were damaged. One official said in the meeting that if Israel responded by attacking Iran’s infrastructure or water and energy plants, it could lead to protests or riots.
A member of the Revolutionary Guards briefed on the meeting said that officials understood that Mr. Khamenei faced a pivotal moment in his nearly 40 years in power: He had to decide between acting, and risking an all-out war that could end his rule, or retreating, which would be interpreted domestically and internationally as defeat.
“Khamanei faces no good options,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director of the International Crisis Group. “If he escalates, he risks inviting a more devastating Israeli attack that the U.S. could join. If he doesn’t, he risks hollowing out his regime or losing power.”
Ultimately, Mr. Khamenei ordered Iran’s military to fire on Israel. Initially, the plan was to launch up to 1,000 ballistic missiles on Israel to overwhelm its air defense and ensure maximum damage, according to two members of the Guards. But Israel’s strikes on missile bases had made it impossible to move missiles quickly from storage and place them on launchpads, they added.
Image
A projectile hit buildings as the Israeli Iron Dome air-defense system intercepted missiles over Tel Aviv.Credit...Leo Correa/Associated Press
In the end, Iran could only muster about 100 missiles in its first waves of attacks. At least seven sites were struck around Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring at least 20 more, and damaging residential buildings.
On Friday, after Israeli attacks had somewhat subsided for part of the day, Iran’s military hurried to repair some of its damaged air defenses and install new ones, according to officials. Iran’s airspace remained closed with flights grounded and airports closed.
Some residents of Tehran spent Friday, a holiday, waiting in gas station lines to fill up their vehicles’ tanks and flocking to grocery stores to stock up on essentials like bread, canned food and bottled water. Many families gathered in parks late into the night, spreading blankets and picnics on the grass, and said in telephone interviews they feared remaining indoors after Israel had struck residential buildings in various neighborhoods targeting scientists and military and government officials.
Mehrdad, 35, who did not want his last name used because of fears for his safety, shared a video of his kitchen wall and windows destroyed when an Israeli missile struck the high-rise next door in his upscale neighborhood in northern Tehran. He said that he had been lucky to have been in the bedroom when the attack occurred, but some civilians in the neighborhood, including children, had been injured.
In the early hours of Saturday, Israel resumed its attacks on Tehran. Some residents, including Fatemeh Hassani, who lives in the Mirdamad neighborhood, said they heard drones buzzing overhead and nonstop explosion sounds followed by the rat-tat-tat of air defenses firing in eastern and central Tehran.
Mahsa, a 42-year-old computer engineer who lives in the capital’s north and similarly did not want to give her last name out of fear of her safety, said she and her family were unable to sleep. They not only could hear the booms but also could see traces of fire and smoke from their window.
“We are in the middle of a war, this much is clear to all of us, and we don’t know where it will go or how it will end,” she said.
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization, and also covers Iran and the shadow war between Iran and Israel. She is based in New York.
8. Russia says it’s winning. The data says otherwise.
Data. maps, and graphics at the link: https://wapo.st/44gxn95
Russia says it’s winning. The data says otherwise.
Russia has paid an extraordinary price in blood and equipment for marginal gains in Ukraine.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2025/russia-losing-casualties-ukraine-war/
By Riley McCabe
Riley McCabe is an associate fellow for the Warfare, Irregular Threats and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
June 12, 2025
4 min
Last week, Ukraine carried out one of its most ambitious operations of the war using more than 100 drones to damage dozens of military aircraft at multiple air bases deep inside Russia. The attack, which was planned over many months and launched from within Russia, showed how Kyiv can use limited tools to achieve significant effects.
Russia, by contrast, has spent the past 17 months attempting to grind forward in Ukraine with brute force — and according to new data, it has little to show for its efforts.
Map showing gains around Kupiansk
MAY 2025
BELARUS
RUSSIA
Kyiv
Kharkiv
Kupyansk
UKRAINE
About 200
square miles
gained
MOLDOVA
Odesa
ROMANIA
CRIMEA
Black Sea
Illegally annexed by
Russia in 2014
Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Map showing gains around Donetsk
MAY 2025
BELARUS
RUSSIA
Kyiv
Kharkiv
UKRAINE
About 1,200
square miles
gained
Donetsk
MOLDOVA
MOLDOVA
Odesa
ROMANIA
CRIMEA
Black Sea
Illegally annexed by
Russia in 2014
Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies
The map shows Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine in January 2024.
Since then, Russian forces have seized less than 1 percent of Ukrainian territory — an area smaller than the state of Delaware.
Russian forces have advanced an average of only approximately 50 meters per day in their offensive around Kupyansk.
And approximately 135 meters per day in parts of Donetsk Oblast, where Russia has made its largest gains since January 2024.
These efforts have yielded fewer than 1,800 square miles of new territory seized since January 2024, an outcome that decisively falls short of Moscow’s objective to greatly expand its control of Ukrainian territory. Russian advances in some areas have been slower than Allied forces during the grueling World War I offensive in the Somme, a battle which became a byword for costly and futile military operations.
For these marginal gains, Russia has paid an extraordinary price in blood and equipment. Russian fatalities in Ukraine now exceed the total number of Soviet and Russian soldiers killed in every war since World War II combined. By this summer, Russia will likely pass 1 million total military casualties.
Graphic shows fatalities of Russian soldiers in past wars
Russian and Ukrainian soldiers killed in the current war
200K
-250K
Russia
February 24, 2022–May 1, 2025
Ukraine
60K-100K
February 24, 2022–May 1, 2025
Russian (and Soviet) soldiers killed in wars since World War II
Chechnya (First and Second Wars)
12K - 25K
1994–1996, 1999–2009
Afghanistan
14-16K
1979–1989
Ukraine (Crimea and Donbas)
6K-7K
2014–February 23, 2022
Hungary
669
1956
Syria
264
2015–Present
Korea
120
1950–1953
Czechoslovakia
96
1968
Georgia
64
2008
Sino-Soviet Border Conflict
58
1969
Ethiopia
34
1977–1990
Algeria
25
1962-1964
United Arab Republic (Egypt)
21
1962-1963, 1969-1972, 1973-1974
Vietnam
16
1965-1974
Angola
7
1975–1979
Mozambique
6
1967, 1969, 1975–1979
Yemen Republic
1
1962-1963
Source
:
Author’s analysis from various sources
Russia has also consistently lost 2 to 5 times more fighting vehicles than Ukraine on the battlefield, including roughly 1,200 armored fighting vehicles, 3,200 infantry fighting vehicles and 1,900 tanks since January 2024.
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This brutal reality challenges the narrative that Russia is dictating the terms of the conflict. Yes, Russian forces have been on the offensive since early 2024 (with a limited number of exceptions). But initiative alone is not victory. What matters is not just what Russia has gained, but also what it has lost in exchange.
Russian troops continue to face an extensively fortified front line consisting of minefields, trenches, anti-armor obstacles and artillery positions that shred assaults. Ukraine has also saturated the battlefield with drones, which now account for the majority of battlefield deaths. Ukraine’s defense-in-depth strategy, bolstered by U.S. and European support, has transformed the battlefield into a war of attrition that favors defenders and punishes attackers. Although the Kremlin appears willing to absorb this punishment in a bid to outlast Kyiv, it does not seem to be able to do more than slowly attempt to grind forward.
Indeed, the Kremlin’s path to victory is not through battlefield brilliance. It is through Western abandonment. Without U.S. support, Ukraine could quickly run short of critical munitions, fighting vehicles, air defenses and precision strike capabilities, giving Russian forces an advantage on the battlefield. The psychological blow of U.S. withdrawal could also shatter Ukrainian morale, accelerating collapse not through conquest, but through exhaustion, as happened to Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire in World War I.
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Putin is betting that political fatigue in Washington will deliver him what his military cannot. That bet extends to the negotiating table. Despite Russia’s limited gains and mounting losses, Moscow has shown little interest in serious diplomacy, insisting on maximalist terms while launching new attacks. But beneath the bluster lies a far weaker hand than many in the West assume.
A child walks past a destroyed Russian tank at Saint Michael's Square in Kyiv on May 14. (Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images)
The United States has leverage. But it needs to wield it. U.S. policymakers should evaluate options to extend and accelerate military assistance to Ukraine, particularly air defense systems to protect Ukrainian troops and civilians alike, long-range precision strike systems to target Russian airfields and command hubs, and munitions to repel Russian assaults across an extended front. The United States should also raise the economic costs of continued war on Moscow. Congress is currently considering bipartisan legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia and secondary sanctions on countries enabling Russia’s wartime economy. One analysis suggests that secondary sanctions could cut Russian oil revenue by 20 percent while raising U.S. gas prices by just 15 cents a gallon.
Russia is not on the march. It is bleeding personnel and equipment for mere meters of ground. And it will only translate into victory if Washington lets it.
Graphics by Youyou Zhou, a graphics reporter at the Opinions desk of The Washington Post.
9. From Attrition to Asymmetry: A Strategic Assessment of Recent Developments in the Russia-Ukraine War
Access the entire 4 page article in PDF at the link below.
From Attrition to Asymmetry: A Strategic Assessment of Recent Developments in the Russia-Ukraine War
By Christopher Marsh, PhD and Arman Mahmoudian, PhD
https://www.usf.edu/gnsi/publications/decision-briefs/decision-brief-30-russia-ukraine-war-interactive.pdf
The Russia-Ukraine war appears to be entering a new and uncertain phase. Over the past several months, both sides have intensified their operations, signaling
the likely adoption of new strategies while simultaneously reacting to pressure from the Trump administration to “stop the bloodshed.” In March 2025, Russia launched its largest aerial assault against Ukraine up until that time, unleashing a barrage of 367 drones and missiles against the nation it invaded in February 2022.1 At the same time, Ukraine has demonstrated an increasing capability to strike deep into Russian territory, targeting military leaders, strate- gic bombers, and military airfields. Kyiv even recently attacked the symbolic Crimean Bridge for the third time. These operations suggest that both Moscow and Kyiv are seeking to reshape the balance of power on the battlefield.
Christopher Marsh, PhD serves as the Chair of the Joint Special Operations Master of Arts program at the National Defense University and is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at GNSI. Arman Mahmoudian, PhD is a Research Fellow at GNSI and adjunct professor at the Judy Genshaft Honors College at the University of South Florida.
10. 2 Chinese scientists will stay in jail while accused of bringing biological material to US
Unrestricted warfare.
2 Chinese scientists will stay in jail while accused of bringing biological material to US
wapt.com · by ED WHITE · June 13, 2025
DETROIT —
Two Chinese scientists accused of smuggling or shipping biological material into the United States for use at the University of Michigan will remain in custody after waiving their right to a hearing Friday in federal court.
Yunqing Jian and Chengxuan Han said in separate court appearances in Detroit that they would not challenge the government's request to keep them locked up while their cases move forward.
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“This is a constantly evolving situation involving a large number of factors,” Han's attorney, Sara Garber, told a judge. She didn't elaborate and later declined to comment.
Han was arrested Sunday at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after arriving on a flight from China, where she is pursuing an advanced degree at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan. She planned to spend a year completing a project at the University of Michigan lab, and is accused of shipping biological material months ago to laboratory staff.
Sanilac County Sheriff's Office via AP
This photo provided by the Sanilac County, Mich., Sheriff’s Office on Friday, June 13, 2025, shows Chinese scientist Chengxuan Han. (Sanilac County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
It was intercepted by authorities. The FBI, in a court filing, said the material is related to worms and lacked a government permit. Experts told The Associated Press it didn't appear to be dangerous.
Jian's case is different. She is charged with conspiring with her boyfriend, another scientist from China, to bring a toxic fungus into the U.S. Fusarium graminearum that can attack wheat, barley, maize and rice.
Sanilac County Sheriff's Office via AP
This photo provided by the Sanilac County, Mich., Sheriff’s Office on Friday, June 13, 2025, shows Chinese scientist Yunqing Jian. (Sanilac County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
The boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, was turned away at the Detroit airport last July and sent back to China after authorities found red plant material in his backpack.
Jian, who worked at the university lab, was arrested June 2. Messages between Jian and Liu in 2024 suggest that Jian was already tending to Fusarium graminearum at the lab before Liu was caught at the airport, the FBI said.
Jian's attorneys declined to comment Friday.
Federal authorities so far have not alleged that the scientists had a plan to unleash the fungus somewhere. Fusarium graminearum is already prevalent in the U.S. — particularly in the east and Upper Midwest — and scientists have been studying it for decades. Nicknamed “vomitoxin” because it’s most known for causing livestock to throw up, it can also cause diarrhea, abdominal pain, headache and fever in animals and people.
Researchers often bring foreign plants, animals and even strains of fungi to the U.S. to study them, but they must file certain permits before moving anything across state or national borders.
The university has not been accused of misconduct. It said it has received no money from the Chinese government related to the work of the three scientists. In a statement, it said it strongly condemns any actions that “seek to cause harm, threaten national security or undermine the university’s critical public mission.”
wapt.com · by ED WHITE · June 13, 2025
11. How Ukraine Is Fighting Against Russian Propaganda
Ideological wars are fought in the cognitive domain. Are we learning and adapting and anticipating? Do we have all the tools and capabilities to operate and dominate in the information domain? Do we have an effective information instrument of national power?
Excerpts:
History shows that intelligence services willing to take bold action often alter the course of events. Czechoslovak and British operatives successfully assassinated Reinhard Heydrich during World War II. Mossad hunted down and eliminated members of Black September responsible for the Munich Olympics massacre.
When the war eventually ends, Ukraine will have much to teach the world, but much will also not be revealed about the daring spy war being waged behind the scenes. This is a nation, after all, that the current CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently described as willing to “fight with their bare hands if they have to, if they don’t have terms that are acceptable to an enduring peace.”
In the coming years, NATO intelligence services will look to their Ukrainian counterparts not as students but as peers. Ukraine’s intelligence services have already demonstrated how a small, embattled nation can punch far above its weight and now stand amongst the very best in the world.
How Ukraine Is Fighting Against Russian Propaganda
The National Interest · by David Kirichenko
Topic: Security
Region: Europe
Tags: NATO, Propaganda, Russia, and Ukraine
June 13, 2025
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Ukraine’s intelligence services have evolved into world-class operators, executing covert missions from Crimea to Africa. Their bold global actions are reshaping perceptions of Russian power and NATO’s future intelligence doctrine.
With US assistance, Ukraine constructed around a dozen secret forward-operating bases near the Russian border, designed to support cross-border reconnaissance missions, electronic warfare, and infiltration teams.
However, we may never know the full extent of how impactful CIA support truly was. Much of the cooperation remains classified, and the most consequential missions likely took place far from the public eye.
However, in August 2016, when Russian helicopters were stationed in occupied Crimea. Ukrainian special forces from HUR were sent behind enemy lines on a sabotage mission, resulting in a firefight with Russian security services. According to HUR, the Ukrainians killed Colonel Roman Kameniev and Sergeant Semen Sychov and injured several others.
The incident was so sensitive that then-President Petro Poroshenko cut short a foreign trip, and US President Barack Obama weighed canceling Ukraine’s covert operations program. Then, Vice President Joe Biden warned Ukraine’s president that “it cannot come close to happening again.”
Putin also warned, “We obviously will not let such things slide by.”
That same risk-averse mindset was often evident under President Biden, with US officials sometimes paralyzed by fears of crossing Kremlin “Red Lines.” In response, Ukraine has taken matters into its own hands, showing that Russia’s so-called red lines can be crossed without triggering the consequences so many in the West still fear.
That firefight in Crimea would go on to shape more than just tactics; it forged the identity of Ukraine’s modern intelligence services. The mission, carried out by operatives from Ukraine’s Budanov’s unit, ended with the death of a Russian Spetsnaz commander who was also the son of a general.
In the aftermath, the unit, already known for its audacity, adopted a new symbol: an owl with a sword piercing the heart of Russia.
The owl was chosen not only as a symbol of wisdom, but because it is the natural predator of bats: the emblem of Russian Spetsnaz. It was also a deliberate counter to the Spetsnaz motto “above us only stars.” HUR’s silent reply: Sapiens dominabitur astris, “only the wise rule the stars.”
The Kremlin was livid, attempting to portray the emblem as fascist and extremist, a reflection of just how deeply the symbol struck a nerve.
The emblem was seemingly born from that very raid. Budanov reportedly kept live owls at their base, and the symbol was intended as a message to the Spetsnaz: we see in the dark, and we strike without warning. The image now sits behind Budanov’s desk, an enduring nod to the roots of HUR’s rise and to sticking it to the Russians. Budanov has also been the target of 10 Russian assassination attempts.
Russia responded by targeting Ukraine’s operatives. Maksym Shapoval, a key figure in the Crimea raid, was assassinated in 2017. Two years later, a Russian agent attempted to kill Kyrylo Budanov, then a rising officer in HUR, via car bomb, an attempt that failed when the device detonated prematurely.
The Growing Reach of Ukraine’s Intelligence
By 2021, Ukraine’s intelligence operatives were not only trained for war, they were carrying out global missions.
During the fall of Kabul, HUR executed a high-risk evacuation operation, rescuing some 700 people over six flights, including Ukrainian nationals and foreign allies. Ukrainian soldiers escorted convoys through Taliban-controlled streets to the airport, often on foot and under threat, in Afghanistan.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, it was HUR’s elite “Shaman Battalion” that helped prevent the fall of Kyiv. They played a pivotal role in defending Hostomel Airport, a key Russian objective, while other HUR units carried out sabotage missions on Russian convoys and supply lines.
One of their most daring wartime missions came later that year in Mariupol. With the Azovstal steel plant encircled, HUR organized seven helicopter raids deep into Russian-controlled territory to resupply trapped Ukrainian defenders and evacuate the wounded. Piloted by volunteers who knew the risks, the helicopters flew the most daring routes to evade Russian air defenses.
HUR’s global ambitions continued to grow. The Washington Post reported that in late 2024, Ukrainian intelligence sent around 20 experienced drone operators and approximately 150 drones to the rebels to assist in the takedown of the Assad Regime. It was a reflection of Budanov’s pledge in April 2023 that Ukraine would pursue Russians guilty of war crimes “in any part of the world.”
Ukraine Fights the Russians in Africa
In Africa, HUR has supported efforts to attack Wagner mercenaries in Sudan and Mali, including enabling an ambush in Mali that killed 84 Wagner mercenaries. Serhii Kuzan, chair of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center and former adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, said that among the Russian mercenaries killed in Mali were numerous criminals who had previously fought in Eastern Ukraine, some dating back as far as 2014.
Bah Traoré Legrand, a researcher from Senegal, noted, “Due to the current dynamics of international geopolitics, Mali has become the backdrop for indirect clashes between Russia and Ukraine.”
However, Antonio Giustozzi, Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said, “It is not clear that Ukraine was involved in Mali, there is no hard evidence of that.” Giustozzi added, “If there was an involvement, it was likely by providing some funding and perhaps some equipment to rebel groups in Mali.”
Kyiv denied that it provided drones to the rebels. Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for HUR, said that the Malian rebels had received the “necessary” information to carry out the attack.
These operations have unnerved Moscow. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has accused Ukraine of “opening a second front in Africa,” claiming Kyiv now seeks to destabilize Russia wherever it can.
HUR’s quiet war, from Syria to Sudan to inside Russia itself, demonstrates not only Ukraine’s resilience but also its growing mastery of the shadows, which are terrorizing the minds of the Kremlin elite. Irina Filatova, a Russian historian based in South Africa and Professor Emeritus of the University of KwaZulu–Natal, stated, “They (the Ukrainians) have to prove to African countries that the Russians are not all-powerful and can also lose.”
In early April 2025, during a meeting in Moscow, Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop, alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, labeled Ukraine a “terrorist state.” The Kremlin remains intensely bitter over the attack in Mali. This strike not only inflicted heavy losses on Wagner-affiliated forces but also symbolized Ukraine’s growing ability to challenge Russian interests far beyond the battlefield in Europe.
In response, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, “The true threat to African stability and progress is the Russian Wagner mercenaries, who bring nothing but death, destruction, and plunder wherever they go.” Yevhen Dykyi, a former company commander from Ukraine’s Aidar battalion, noted that Kyiv has a score to settle in hunting down Wagner mercenaries across Africa.
Ukraine Is Influencing Future NATO Policy
This likely signals that Ukraine has no intention of halting its operations targeting Russian mercenaries around the world. On the contrary, its campaign is gaining momentum. The returns could be significant if the West increased its support for HUR’s global activities, even through modest investments.
Such backing could help Ukraine erode Russia’s expanding influence in Africa, disrupt Wagner’s operations, and strengthen local resistance to authoritarian entrenchment. “Russia essentially benefits from its African involvement by gaining votes in the UN assembly and showing Western powers that it can undermine their interests in various parts of the world,” said Giustozzi.
Addressing Ukraine’s expanding global reach in targeting Russia, Mick Ryan, a former major general in the Australian Army, emphasized that Ukrainian intelligence operations in places like Africa and the Middle East send a clear message to the West that they have nothing to fear from Russia. In war-torn Afghanistan, Russia has been increasingly perceived as a dangerous country frequently targeted by drone strikes.
In contrast, the Biden administration in 2022 appeared paralyzed by the fear of nuclear escalation and crossing so-called Russian red lines. While Ukrainians were pushing back Russian forces on the battlefield, Washington was handicapped by indecision. Rather than enabling Ukraine to win, the White House chose caution over victory.
With indecision, Biden opted not to allow Ukraine to prevail on the battlefield.
History shows that intelligence services willing to take bold action often alter the course of events. Czechoslovak and British operatives successfully assassinated Reinhard Heydrich during World War II. Mossad hunted down and eliminated members of Black September responsible for the Munich Olympics massacre.
When the war eventually ends, Ukraine will have much to teach the world, but much will also not be revealed about the daring spy war being waged behind the scenes. This is a nation, after all, that the current CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently described as willing to “fight with their bare hands if they have to, if they don’t have terms that are acceptable to an enduring peace.”
In the coming years, NATO intelligence services will look to their Ukrainian counterparts not as students but as peers. Ukraine’s intelligence services have already demonstrated how a small, embattled nation can punch far above its weight and now stand amongst the very best in the world.
About the Author: David Kirichenko
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank. His research focuses on autonomous systems, cyber warfare, irregular warfare, and military strategy. His analyses have been widely published in outlets such as the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, the Irregular Warfare Center, Military Review, and The Hill, as well as in peer-reviewed journals.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/Zhenya Voevodina.
The National Interest · by David Kirichenko
12. The Army’s Newest Recruits: Tech Execs From Meta, OpenAI and More
The Army is learning, adapting, and anticipating (and innovating).
We have always lamented that business is business, does not have a national security focus, and puts profits ahead of patriotism. The Army is giving these executives a chance to be patriots and it looks like many are going to accept the opportunity.
The Army’s Newest Recruits: Tech Execs From Meta, OpenAI and More
Silicon Valley executives are joining a new innovation corps in Army Reserve
https://www.wsj.com/tech/army-reserve-tech-executives-meta-palantir-796f5360
By Heather Somerville
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Updated June 13, 2025 2:32 pm ET
Kevin Weil of OpenAI is among Silicon Valley executives joining a new tech-focused Army Reserve program. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg
Key Points
What's This?
- Executives from Meta, Palantir and OpenAI are set to join a new Army innovation corps, bringing tech upgrades to the military.
- The tech reservists will serve 120 hours a year as lieutenant colonels, advising on AI and commercial tech acquisition.
- Deepening ties reflect Silicon Valley’s willingness to aid the military in the midst of tech competition with China.
The nerd brigade is reporting for duty.
They probably won’t win any push-up contests and might not be sharpshooters. Yet for part of the year, a set of brainy Silicon Valley executives will trade their corporate-branded vests for U.S. Army Reserve uniforms because they know a heckuva lot about artificial intelligence.
The chief technology officers from Palantir and Meta Platforms—Shyam Sankar and Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, respectively—will join Kevin Weil and Bob McGrew of OpenAI pedigree to make up the inaugural cohort of a new Army innovation corps.
Their mission: swap C-suites for bases and bring some badly needed tech upgrades to the Army.
“It’s possible I watched too much ‘Top Gun,’” said Bosworth, 43 years old. Standing more than 6-feet-2, he was told he was too tall to realize his youthful ambitions of flying an F-16 jet fighter.
He welcomes the new assignment, he said, as a way to finally extend his family’s tradition of military service.
Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News
Bosworth said Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg supported his decision to join the Reserve. “There’s a lot of patriotism that has been under the covers that I think is coming to light in the Valley,” he said.
The tech recruits will be sworn in as uniformed officers in a public ceremony on Friday, the day before the Army’s 250th birthday.
Less than a decade ago, even working on technology that might be used in the military—never mind suiting up for service—was anathema in Silicon Valley. The new Reserve program reflects how the relationship between the Pentagon and the tech industry has deepened.
Meta and OpenAI adjusted their policies to work more with the military last year. Recently they each joined with the weapons maker Anduril Industries to develop products for the Pentagon. Palantir has been involved in national-security work for two decades. It has a AI and data project with the Army worth potentially more than $1 billion.
Many in Silicon Valley assert that their cutting-edge know-how can equip the military for a conflict with a tech-powerful adversary like China—while profiting the tech sector.
For the Army, the deepening ties can help it prepare for the wars of the future. They are expected to be waged, in part, with ground robots and drones, and rely on networks of sensors and artificial intelligence to coordinate it all.
Gen. Randy George, U.S. Army chief of staff. Photo: Rod Lamkey/AP
“We need to go faster, and that’s exactly what we are doing here,” said Gen. Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff.
The Army, in a show of its own geekiness, has dubbed the tech-reservist program Detachment 201. The moniker refers to the hypertext transfer protocol status code 201, which indicates the creation of a new resource on a server.
Detachment 201 is the first deployment of tech elites. Brynt Parmeter, the Pentagon’s chief talent management officer who has been leading the creation of a tech-reservist program since last year, is pushing for other services in the armed forces to follow the Army.
The tech reservists will serve for around 120 hours a year. Because of their private-sector status, each will carry the rank of lieutenant colonel.
There will be other dispensations for the technology officers. They will have more flexibility than the average reservist to work remotely and asynchronously, and will be spared basic training.
Reservists are deployed based on their skills, so the tech unit’s members more than likely won’t find themselves in a firefight. “That’s not where they would fit,” George said. Instead, they will work on projects that, for instance, teach soldiers how to use AI-powered systems or use health data to improve fitness.
Also, the executives will advise the service on acquiring more commercial technology. They will help the Defense Department recruit other high-tech whizzes.
The recruits won’t work on projects involving their employers, George said, and will be firewalled from sharing information with their employers or participating in projects that could provide them or their companies with financial gain.
Palantir’s Shyam Sankar sees the Reserve program as a way to pay back the opportunity the U.S. gave him and his family. Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
As part of their commitment, the reservists must complete physical-fitness tests and marksmanship training. “I’ve been giving them a hard time about that,” said George. He has been trying to scare them into thinking the physical tests will be “super hard.”
Weil, 42, OpenAI’s chief product officer and an ultramarathon runner, professed to be undaunted by the timed 2-mile test. Still, he expects “we’re going to get our asses kicked by real soldiers.”
Bosworth said he has enhanced his workouts in preparation for the service. He does more push-ups and pulls heavy weights behind him.
Palantir’s Sankar, 43, is less confident about the fitness demands. His biggest concern, he said: “Being humiliated in front of Army officers who are way more fit than I am. I may be an expert in tech, but I’m not an expert soldier.”
Write to Heather Somerville at heather.somerville@wsj.com
13. Army Launches Detachment 201: Executive Innovation Corps to Drive Tech Transformation
I wonder how the lineage and honors experts came up with Detachment 201?
We had OSS Detachment 101 in Burma in WWI. We had Detachment 202 that collected intelligence and supported Chinese forces in order to tie down as many Japanese troops as possible.
Army Launches Detachment 201: Executive Innovation Corps to Drive Tech Transformation
https://www.army.mil/article/286317/army_launches_detachment_201_executive_innovation_corps_to_drive_tech_transformation
By U.S. Army Public AffairsJune 13, 2025
New Executive Innovation Corps brings top tech talent into the Army Reserve to bridge the commercial-military tech gap, with four tech leaders set to join as officers.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is establishing Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps, a new initiative designed to fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation. On June 13, 2025, the Army will officially swear in four tech leaders.
Det. 201 is an effort to recruit senior tech executives to serve part-time in the Army Reserve as senior advisors. In this role they will work on targeted projects to help guide rapid and scalable tech solutions to complex problems. By bringing private-sector know-how into uniform, Det. 201 is supercharging efforts like the Army Transformation Initiative, which aims to make the force leaner, smarter, and more lethal.
The four new Army Reserve Lt. Cols. are Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer for Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer of OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former Chief Research Officer for OpenAI.
Their swearing-in is just the start of a bigger mission to inspire more tech pros to serve without leaving their careers, showing the next generation how to make a difference in uniform.
* * *
The United States Army is the land service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces and the oldest established military force in the country. Committed to defending the nation and supporting global stability, the Army leads the way in innovation, resilience, and readiness. Learn more at www.army.mil
14. I’m the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army.
This is what makes America great. This is what makes our Army great.
Excerpts:
After 20 years working alongside our men and women in uniform, I saw firsthand how much they sacrifice for our country—and I realized I needed to do much more. The Army will be putting me and my fellow technologists to work on its most ambitious transformation efforts, including accelerating outcomes in human-machine integrated formations, hypersonics, and recruiting and mentoring world-class talent. The only requirement is winning.
There is a precedent for this.
In May 1940, as Nazi Germany’s war machine consumed Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt summoned William Knudsen to Washington from the factory floor of General Motors. Knudsen was a Danish immigrant who had scaled the Fordist model of mass production and rose to run GM, America’s largest corporation at the time. He was commissioned as a three-star general with a monumental mission: Transform America's industrial might into what FDR came to call the “arsenal of democracy.”
He is throwing down the gauntlet here. He is walking the walk and not just talking the talk:
The arsenal of democracy needs its architects back. Who else will answer the call?
But will he like being in uniform? As an anecdote to show that we have come a long way I am reminded of this story. 20+ years ago a very good friend retired as an iron major working in the Pentagon. He retired from the Army on Friday, graduated from his PhD program in DC on Sunday and went back to work in the same office on Monday as a Dr. working for a contractor. On Friday he was making coffee and on Monday senior officers were calling him "Sir" and bringing him coffee. Slight exaggeration perhaps but there is some truth to this. Many used to think you had more power out of uniform than in uniform or that people in suits are listened to more than those in uniform. I think that is no longer going to be the case with Detachment 201.
I’m the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army.
My father grew up in a mud hut in India. America gave him—and me—a life. Now technologists like me need to give back.
By Shyam Sankar
06.13.25 — Tech and Business
https://www.thefp.com/p/im-the-cto-of-palantir-today-i-join
Shyam Sankar is the CTO of tech company Palantir. (Aaron Schwartz/Alamy Live News)
0:00
Later today, on the eve of the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, I will raise my right hand, take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve’s newly formed Detachment 201: Executive Innovation Corps.
Receiving their commissions at my side will be some of the most impressive minds from the world of technology: Kevin Weil, the chief product officer of OpenAI; Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, the chief technology officer of Meta; and Bob McGrew, formerly the chief research officer of OpenAI and engineering director of Palantir Technologies, where I work as chief technology officer.
None of these men need to pad their résumé. None have free time between fatherhood, demanding day jobs, and a dozen other demands. But all feel called to serve.
A decade ago, it would’ve been unthinkable for so many tech heavyweights to openly align with the U.S. military. Equally, it would’ve been out of character for the military to enlist the support of the nation’s business elite—much less to create a special corps so they could deploy their technical talents in service of the government.
But a sea change has taken place in both places because of the urgency and seriousness of the moment.
Wars in Europe and the Middle East and, above all, the threat of a war in the Pacific have focused the national mind and initiated a scramble for mobilization. Exploding pagers and long-distance drone strikes from shipping containers prove that technology has once again changed the battlefield. Our military has to change with it.
The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps, under the direction of the Army’s chief of staff, General Randy George, is part of a larger effort by our military to transform the way it prepares for and fights wars in the 21st century. Marrying the nation’s most innovative private companies with our most important military missions is fundamental to that effort. That cooperation relies on reviving a sense of duty in an American elite that has become disconnected from our nation and its tradition of service.
I decided to join the military for reasons both patriotic but also intensely personal.
My father grew up in a mud hut in Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state in India. He was the youngest of nine children and the first in his family to attend college—an education made possible only by his eight siblings pooling their wages. After graduation, he moved to Lagos, Nigeria, to build and run a pharmaceutical plant. Through ingenuity and an enterprising spirit, he became successful at a remarkably young age.
When I was 2, our life in Lagos ended violently. Five armed men broke into our home, killed our dog, pistol-whipped my father, and threatened my mother as they demanded money from the company safe. We fled Lagos with nothing, and started over in America.
My father took a job at a company that supplied souvenirs to theme parks in Orlando, Florida. My childhood memories are punctuated by Space Shuttle launches seen from my school courtyard, and by the bone-rattling double sonic booms of the Shuttles’ reentry. Lessons about the power of American technology were literally falling from the sky around me.
My father never again saw the material success of his youth, and he faced setback after setback in America. But he always reminded me of the counterfactual: “But for the grace of this nation, you would be dead in a ditch in Lagos.” America gave him life, liberty, and possibility.
In return, he went out of his way to help every person he possibly could achieve the American dream. He devoted his Sundays to running a free education class to help local kids get into college, and spent car rides on the phone helping people he hardly knew navigate life’s difficulties. As a teenager, I found his earnest efforts inscrutable and vaguely embarrassing. As with so many life lessons, it was only with age that I appreciated the extent of his sacrifice and his love of country.
“After 20 years working alongside our men and women in uniform, I realized I needed to do much more,” writes Shyam Sankar. (Brandon Bell via Getty Images)
Twenty years ago, that calling brought me to Palantir, a company founded in the aftermath of 9/11 to answer the challenges of our generation. From our earliest days, we’ve provided world-class software to help our military predict where ambushes are likely to occur, hunt down terrorists, make better-informed decisions even when far from the front lines—and much more.
After 20 years working alongside our men and women in uniform, I saw firsthand how much they sacrifice for our country—and I realized I needed to do much more. The Army will be putting me and my fellow technologists to work on its most ambitious transformation efforts, including accelerating outcomes in human-machine integrated formations, hypersonics, and recruiting and mentoring world-class talent. The only requirement is winning.
Throughout most of the 20th century, American defense and commercial innovation were inseparable. General Mills made both Cheerios and torpedoes.
There is a precedent for this.
In May 1940, as Nazi Germany’s war machine consumed Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt summoned William Knudsen to Washington from the factory floor of General Motors. Knudsen was a Danish immigrant who had scaled the Fordist model of mass production and rose to run GM, America’s largest corporation at the time. He was commissioned as a three-star general with a monumental mission: Transform America's industrial might into what FDR came to call the “arsenal of democracy.”
Knudsen was not alone. Ultimately, hundreds of business leaders flocked to lend their expertise to the government, in exchange for nominal salaries and punishing work schedules. These patriots were known as “dollar-a-year men.”
That tradition continued throughout much of the 20th century. American defense and commercial innovation were inseparable. General Mills made both Cheerios and torpedoes. Ford Motor Company built satellites. Chrysler Corporation manufactured missiles and minivans. This wasn’t corporate diversification—it was national integration. The same minds that revolutionized consumer products applied their genius to defending the free world. They believed it was their duty to do so.
That partnership started to unravel in the 1960s and ’70s, when America’s elites became radicalized, against the Vietnam War, capitalism, and the American cause. It fell apart completely following the Cold War, thanks to funding cuts, arcane regulations, and the lack of an existential enemy.
That was the case until quite recently, when efforts began to reunite commercial innovation with the military’s mission. Palantir was the forerunner in this effort, followed by other industry-changing companies such as Anduril Industries and Saronic Technologies. For many years we were distrusted—even despised—in the Valley precisely because we worked for the military.
No longer.
More and more, the nation’s technologists are realizing we face threats to our freedom as serious as any we faced in the 20th century. And they’re rediscovering Silicon Valley’s roots in national defense during the Second World War and Cold War. But unlike in 1940 or 1960, the architects of American technical dominance today are too often absent from the rooms where national security decisions are made.
Our adversaries aren't waiting for our acquisition cycles or deferring to our budget processes. They're building, iterating, and preparing for war.
Over the course of World War II, GM’s Pontiac Motor Division turned out 47,026 anti-aircraft cannons. Today, Tesla factories have been known to produce new cars in less than a minute. Meanwhile, our defense industrial base measures progress in decades.
This isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about survival.
The drones are swarming today. Our adversaries aren’t waiting for our acquisition cycles or deferring to our budget processes. They’re building, iterating, and preparing for war.
Over the past few years there have been moves in the right direction. First, there was the explosion of interest and funding for defense and hard tech start-ups, which has produced companies that are marrying cutting-edge software with mass-produced metal. Second, there has been a wave of reforms inside government; the Army’s new Executive Innovation Corps is only one part of this story. President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to cancel over-budget or behind-schedule weapon development programs, accelerate the terminally slow acquisition process, and deliver the best commercial technology available to our warfighters. Leaders in Congress and the services are pushing similar reforms. For the first time in a generation, wildly different groups are united in service of the national interest. The gap between Silicon Valley and Washington is—finally—beginning to be bridged.
My children are still too young to fully understand what it means to serve, just as I was too young to understand how much my father sacrificed for my family and me. In time, I hope my children come to understand that privilege is just another word for responsibility.
The uniform I’m putting on today is a symbol of gratitude transformed into action; of success converted into service; of understanding that in America's moment of need, those who can serve, must.
The arsenal of democracy needs its architects back. Who else will answer the call?
15. Time for a 21st Century Upgrade to US Taiwan Policy
Excerpts:
Some scholars advocate for the concept of strategic clarity to replace strategic ambiguity. This position makes the assumption that, because China’s economic and military capabilities are growing rapidly each year, the probability that the PLA will initiate a blockade, joint firepower strike, or joint amphibious landing campaign will also increase as time passes. As a result, the logic is that only a definitive statement of U.S. intentions will be able to deter China from escalation. In pursuing strategic clarity, the risk of escalation is swapped from the U.S. to China. If the U.S. were to continue espousing strategic ambiguity, Washington would assume risk by coming to Taiwan’s defense after the initiation of hostilities. On the other hand, with strategic clarity, Beijing must recognize that attacking Taiwan will also result in attacking U.S. forces, forcing China to consider this scenario before commencing aggression.
However, strategic ambiguity’s goal is not merely to deter China from invading Taiwan. The policy rather serves as a form of dual deterrence that also wards off radical moves from Taiwanese leaders. Under strategic clarity, where U.S. commitment is guaranteed, pro-independence leaders on Taiwan would be more incentivized to declare de jure independence and provoke a Chinese invasion, decreasing the likelihood of a peaceful unification – a core U.S. interest within its original One China policy and current Indo-Pacific Strategy.
Ultimately, the United States should adopt an approach that enhances strategic ambiguity by pairing it with tactical clarity. Acknowledging the presence of U.S. personnel conducting training under the key documents that shaped the One China policy enables deterrence by increasing the risks associated with China’s aggression. This realignment between policy and reality reinforces U.S. credibility, preserves strategic flexibility, and upholds the broader objective of sustaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
Time for a 21st Century Upgrade to US Taiwan Policy
In a volatile security environment, strategic ambiguity must be complemented with a touch of “tactical clarity.”
https://thediplomat.com/2025/06/time-for-a-21st-century-upgrade-to-us-taiwan-policy/
By Eric Liu and Brandon Tran
June 13, 2025
Credit: Ministry of National Defense, ROC (Taiwan)
The longstanding U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan was crafted in an era when China was militarily limited and diplomatically cautious. Today, Beijing is neither. China, under Xi Jinping, has aggressively expanded its military capabilities with the goal of being ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.
Strategic ambiguity remains useful in deterring Taiwan from declaring de facto independence, but by itself, no longer has the credibility nor the effectiveness to deter China. In a volatile security environment, it must be complemented with a touch of “tactical clarity”: a clear, transparent, and justified tactical move that revitalizes strategic level deterrence without undermining U.S. commitments or provoking unnecessary escalation.
Tactical clarity would involve openly acknowledging, rather than concealing, U.S. defense assistance to Taiwan, specifically recognizing the presence of U.S. military personnel and contractors providing training and technical support to Taiwan’s armed forces. Such a shift, in conjunction with continued strategic ambiguity, would raise the cost of aggression for China, making it clear that any surprise attack on a Taiwanese military facility could risk direct confrontation with the United States.
The foundation of U.S. policy toward Taiwan rests on one key document: the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) of 1979. Alongside the establishment of diplomatic relations with China that same year, the TRA set U.S. expectations on the future of Taiwan being determined by peaceful means. Additionally, the TRA mandates that the United States will provide Taiwan with defense articles and services necessary for Taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capabilities.
As a part of any Foreign Military Sales (FMS) package, training is included to provide the purchasing military necessary knowledge to operate and maintain those weapon systems. Inherently, it is implied that a degree of U.S. on-the-ground presence to train Taiwanese service members must occur to fulfill the FMS requirement.
Another key document shaping U.S. Taiwan policy is the 1982 China-U.S. Joint Communique, also known as the Arms Sales Communique. Unlike the TRA, which is a domestic law unilateral to the United States, the Arms Sales Communique is a diplomatic commitment made in the context of China-U.S. relations. The 1982 communique states that the United States: (1) does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan; (2) will not exceed the quality or quantity of arms sales to Taiwan supplied in recent years; (3) intends to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan, leading to a final resolution between China and Taiwan. However, as indicated in then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s memorandum, the three promises are contingent upon China’s willingness to resolve the “Taiwan issue” in a peaceful manner.
Given Beijing’s aggressive military posturing in recent years – including regular airspace incursions, live-fire drills, and explicit refusals to renounce the use of force to achieve “reunification” – China has effectively voided the conditions upon which U.S. FMS restraints were premised. Washington should no longer feel obligated to feel bound by the Arms Sales Communique, and instead, it should act in accordance with the TRA’s enduring mandate to continue helping Taiwan maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.
The United States already possesses a limited military presence in Taiwan. A 2024 Congressional Research Service report clearly indicated the assignment of 41 U.S. military personnel for duty in Taiwan as of December 2023. While it is possible those service members are serving in attaché positions at the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) or studying at Taiwanese universities, the report also stated that “it is an ‘open secret’ that small numbers of U.S. military personnel conduct work in an advisory capacity on the island.”
Other reports indicate that SEAL Team 6, the 1st Special Forces Group, and other special operations units have consistently engaged in training the Taiwanese military. The U.S. military has denied reports of permanent stationing of U.S. troops on Kinmen, but has not formally addressed the temporary duty (TDY) assignments of service members on Taiwan. It is worth noting that there may already be such a training force present on Taiwan via TDY assignments. On May 15, 2025, retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery testified before the U.S. House Select Committee on China that there are currently 500 U.S. troops in Taiwan for training purposes, and advocated for increasing that troop count to 1,000.
This presents an opportunity for the United States to employ tactical clarity, acknowledging not only the presence of U.S. contractors and service members on Taiwan, but also emphasizing the training nature of those TDY personnel justified by the TRA. Training Taiwanese service members on defense-oriented weapon systems cannot happen in broad daylight at the local convention center; it must happen in the vicinity of a military facility or training area.
Such a force disposition would prompt China to reevaluate its predetermined strike targets in an invasion scenario. Given the importance of the element of surprise in warfare, it would be reasonable to infer that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will attack Taiwan unannounced, most likely targeting military bases within the first phase of an invasion scenario. If the United States does not acknowledge the presence of military personnel in Taiwan, China will more easily be able to justify any U.S. casualties as collateral damage. However, by acknowledging that U.S. service members are present at Taiwanese defense bases, it deters the PLA from striking specific military targets. If the PLA willfully attacks locations where U.S. troops are positioned, it will likely spark public outrage within American society and force a proportional response from defense leaders, as they are subjected to audience costs.
Some scholars advocate for the concept of strategic clarity to replace strategic ambiguity. This position makes the assumption that, because China’s economic and military capabilities are growing rapidly each year, the probability that the PLA will initiate a blockade, joint firepower strike, or joint amphibious landing campaign will also increase as time passes. As a result, the logic is that only a definitive statement of U.S. intentions will be able to deter China from escalation. In pursuing strategic clarity, the risk of escalation is swapped from the U.S. to China. If the U.S. were to continue espousing strategic ambiguity, Washington would assume risk by coming to Taiwan’s defense after the initiation of hostilities. On the other hand, with strategic clarity, Beijing must recognize that attacking Taiwan will also result in attacking U.S. forces, forcing China to consider this scenario before commencing aggression.
However, strategic ambiguity’s goal is not merely to deter China from invading Taiwan. The policy rather serves as a form of dual deterrence that also wards off radical moves from Taiwanese leaders. Under strategic clarity, where U.S. commitment is guaranteed, pro-independence leaders on Taiwan would be more incentivized to declare de jure independence and provoke a Chinese invasion, decreasing the likelihood of a peaceful unification – a core U.S. interest within its original One China policy and current Indo-Pacific Strategy.
Ultimately, the United States should adopt an approach that enhances strategic ambiguity by pairing it with tactical clarity. Acknowledging the presence of U.S. personnel conducting training under the key documents that shaped the One China policy enables deterrence by increasing the risks associated with China’s aggression. This realignment between policy and reality reinforces U.S. credibility, preserves strategic flexibility, and upholds the broader objective of sustaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own, and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Authors
Guest Author
Eric Liu
Eric Liu is a Knight-Hennessy Scholar pursuing a M.A. degree in East Asian Studies with a regional focus on China at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. Eric earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy in Chinese and Systems and Decision Sciences. Following Stanford, he will serve as an infantry officer in the United States Army.
Guest Author
Brandon Tran
Brandon Tran is an International Affairs and Chinese double major at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is a recipient of the Truman and Stamps Scholarships. He has interned with the Center for Naval Analyses, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Army War College, and been published in The Diplomat, Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Asia Policy, and more. Brandon hopes to commission as a military intelligence officer.
16. How Israeli spies and pilots crippled an Iranian counterstrike
How Israeli spies and pilots crippled an Iranian counterstrike
Axios · by Barak Ravid · June 13, 2025
The U.S. and Israel were bracing for swift, fierce retaliation from Iran overnight.
-
Thanks to intricately planned maneuvers by Israeli spies and pilots — and shock and disarray on the Iranian side — there was silence.
Zoom in: As it became clear Israel was about to attack, the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' air force convened in a bunker to coordinate the response.
-
But Israel knew that emergency protocol, and the location of the bunker. They destroyed it, killing the overall commander and the heads of the drone and air defense forces. "The fact that there was nobody to give the order neutralized an immediate Iranian response," an Israeli official said.
- They were among the more than two dozen Iranian commanders targeted in a sprawling attack on Iran's military command-and-control. The heads of the IRGC, the Iranian military and Iran's emergency military headquarters were all eliminated in the opening salvo.
- Another key target was Iran's air defense systems and radars. Israeli intelligence mapped their locations, and most were hit by the Israeli Air Force in the opening strike. That gave the IDF virtually unchallenged freedom of operation in Iran's skies.
Meanwhile on the ground, Israel's Mossad spy agency was conducting a series of covert sabotage operations deep inside Iran to take out air defenses and ballistic missile launchers.
- Hundreds of Mossad agents both inside Iran and back in headquarters were involved, including a special unit of Iranian operatives working for Mossad.
- In central Iran, Mossad commando units had positioned guided weapons systems in open areas near Iranian surface-to-air missile launchers.
- In another area inside Iran, Mossad covertly deployed weapon systems and sophisticated technologies hidden in vehicles. When the Israeli attack began, these weapons were launched and destroyed Iranian air defense targets.
Mossad also established an attack drone base inside Iran with drones that were smuggled in long before the operation, the Israeli intelligence official said.
- During the Israeli strike, the drones were activated and launched toward surface-to-surface missile launchers located at the Esfajabad base near Tehran, destroying ballistic missiles there before they could be launched towards Israel.
The stakes: The IDF was prepared for a worst-case scenario in which Iran would swiftly launch 300-500 ballistic missiles toward Israel, the Israeli intelligence official said.
- Instead, Iran responded hours later with around 100 drones which were easily defeated.
State of play: The IDF continued pounding Iranian ballistic missile targets around the country on Friday to prevent a more significant Iranian retaliation.
- "Dozens of launchers, surface-to-surface missile storage sites, and additional military facilities were destroyed. At one of the targeted sites in western Iran, a unique launch mechanism was discovered that had been concealed inside shipping containers," the IDF said in a statement.
What to watch: Iran's top leaders stressed on Friday that Iran will take revenge and Israel will pay a heavy price. As of Friday afternoon local time, the response was still limited.
- Israeli officials say that while they managed to scuttle an immediate counterstrike, they believe the Iranians will launch a significant attack in the coming hours.
- "We think they want to prepare a significant missile barrage that would be big and coordinated in order to try and overwhelm our missile defense systems," an Israeli official said.
Axios · by Barak Ravid · June 13, 2025
17. The Ultimate Deception: How Trump and Bibi Outfoxed Iran
Again, all warfare is based on deception. Or is it? There is a lot to saying what you mean and meaning what you say and then doing it. Is that really deception or was there misunderstanding and miscalculation by the adversary?
But were Israel and the US in synch or was Israel acting on its own as some wonder? (I have to think the former is true).
Excerpts:
Araghchi calculated that as long as talks in Oman remained alive, Netanyahu would not dare disrupt the process, fearing it would derail Trump’s broader strategy of avoiding Middle East entanglements.
Can you blame him? When in history had an American president not succumbed to the temptation to negotiate with Iran rather than apply military pressure? Experience had taught Khamenei that the redlines of American presidents were invitations to begin haggling. Americans can be led around like trained animals, always chasing the mirage of a deal.
The Iranian analysis was, in nearly every respect, correct. They saw the gap between Trump and Netanyahu. They understood that Trump wanted a deal and was restraining Israel. They calculated that Israel could not act alone—that it depended on U.S. missile defense infrastructure, CENTCOM coordination, and the cooperation of Arab states disaffected over Gaza. They knew only the United States could prevent Iran from widening the war—and they believed Trump had no appetite for escalation.
They were right about all of it. Except for one thing: Trump meant what he said. Netanyahu took everything the Iranians understood—everything that was true—and used it to hide the two truths that mattered: Trump will not let Iran get the bomb; and Netanyahu was prepared to act boldly on that knowledge.
The heart of the deception was not a lie and not even a misdirection—it was the absence of deception entirely.
In a world of diplomatic doublespeak, hypocrisy, and strategic ambiguity, Trump and Netanyahu simply said what they meant. The simple truth, plainly stated, blinded Khamenei—and his top military officers died in their own beds.
The Ultimate Deception: How Trump and Bibi Outfoxed Iran
In a world of diplomatic doublespeak, hypocrisy, and strategic ambiguity, Trump and Netanyahu simply said what they meant.
By Michael Doran
06.13.25 — Israel and Antisemitism
https://www.thefp.com/p/the-ultimate-deception-how-trump
Iranian workers walk past a residential building destroyed in an Israeli attack in Tehran, Iran, on June 13, 2025. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
0:00
They died in their own beds. Hossein Salami and Ali Shamkhani—Iran’s most senior military officers and the stewards of Iran’s nuclear weapons program—had spent years threatening Israel with destruction. They issued taunts, organized terrorist attacks, and orchestrated, since October 7, the encirclement of the Jewish state in a ring of fire of their terror proxies. And they knew—without the slightest illusion—that Israel had the capability and resolve to kill them.
This cohort saw the Israeli air force bury Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah in his bunker, hundreds of meters beneath the streets of Beirut. They saw Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh vaporized in a presidential guesthouse—in Tehran, no less. Yet on Thursday night, they came home as usual and went to sleep—unguarded, unworried, carefree. Like insurance salesmen and bank tellers following their daily routines, it never occurred to them that they might not wake in the morning.
But they didn’t.
In 1967, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser made a similar mistake. He moved forces to Israel’s border, declared war in all but name, and left his MiG fighter jets parked in neat rows. Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol hesitated publicly—then struck with speed, ferocity, and total surprise. By the time Nasser understood what had happened, his air force was already in ruins.
Read
Everything You Need to Know About the Iran Attack
History just repeated itself. But why did these seasoned Iranian officers—veteran warriors, intelligence chiefs, regime survivors—lower their guard so completely? How did Israel achieve strategic surprise?
The simple answer: Benjamin Netanyahu read Donald Trump better than the Iranians.
Beginning around April 12, Trump gave Iran a 60-day deadline, which ended near June 11. The Israeli strike that killed Shamkhani came on June 13—just after the deadline expired. In that interval, Trump repeatedly warned Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons infrastructure or face violent consequences. In an early May interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, the American president offered Iran’s leaders two stark options for dealing with their nuclear facilities: “blow them up nicely”—meaning under international supervision—or “blow them up viciously.”
The Iranians didn’t believe he meant it. It’s easy to see how Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and his advisers got confused.
In May, Trump announced that he would hold Iran responsible for all Houthi attacks. Then he did not. He made a separate deal with the Houthis—even as they continued attacking Israel. In doing so, he weakened the credibility of his own threats and left the impression that Israel had been placed outside the U.S. defense perimeter. It appeared that Netanyahu was on his own.
Trump reinforced that impression elsewhere. He began negotiating directly with Hamas on Gaza over the Israelis’ heads. When he visited the Gulf, he skipped Israel. Meanwhile, he lifted sanctions on Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new leader in Damascus, Syria. He did so, it seems, without talking to Netanyahu but listening instead to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Seen from Tehran this was especially welcome news, because both the Saudis and the Turks were also advising Trump to reach a negotiated deal with Tehran, and to prevent an Israeli attack.
Read
How the Iran Strikes Seal Netanyahu’s Legacy
The MAGA-aligned media in the United States did much to increase the impression of a rift between Trump and Netanyahu. In Tehran, analysts were likely listening to the loud voices of restrainers, inside and outside his administration. Led by Tucker Carlson, this camp argued that Israel was dragging the U.S. into a needless war. Carlson warned that such a conflict would end with dead Americans for no strategic gain. Carlson’s reported closeness to Trump’s inner circle seemed like an effective proxy for the president’s intentions.
In mid-April, The New York Times reported that Trump had blocked Israel’s planned air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities scheduled for May 2025. After internal debates within the Trump administration, Trump opted for diplomatic negotiations with Tehran, a decision influenced by a desire to avoid military escalation in the Middle East and to focus instead on East Asia. This intention was communicated to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in early April.
Israel’s mainstream media, which does not care for Netanyahu, and the opposition parties quickly seized on the apparent rift between him and Trump. They portrayed Netanyahu’s failure to secure American backing as evidence of his strategic weakness. Opposition leader Yair Lapid claimed that he had proposed striking Iran’s oil fields as far back as October, but “Netanyahu was afraid, and stopped it.”
On Thursday night, nine hours before Israel attacked, veteran journalist Raviv Drucker confidently declared that there was “no chance” of an Israeli strike on Iran. To be sure, Drucker’s anti-Netanyahu credentials are solid, and Channel 13—Israel’s equivalent of CNN—is also hostile to the prime minister. But this analysis wasn’t purely partisan spin. Drucker was articulating a consensus view that stretched across the Israeli political spectrum and security establishment. Everyone assumed the Americans were restraining Israel. The anti-Netanyahu forces were just making hay of it.
On June 4, Ayatollah Khamenei declared, “The U.S. can’t do a damn thing about our program,” dismissing American demands to halt uranium enrichment.
The Iranians saw the same picture. They calculated—rationally, if fatally—that Netanyahu, even if he was willing to, could not act alone. Experience had taught them that Israel’s missile defense system, though formidable, could be overwhelmed. Khamenei believed he could saturate Israeli defenses with a barrage of ballistic missiles. To blunt such an attack, Israel would need not only U.S.-supplied equipment, but also the direct operational support of CENTCOM’s regional missile shield—its advanced sensors and interceptors deployed in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states.
That network was fragile. They calculated that key Arab partners were alienated from Israel over the war in Gaza, and unlikely to fully cooperate. And Israel could not count on CENTCOM’s protection without Washington’s explicit green light. Iran also knew it could widen the conflict. It had warned Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that they, too, would become targets if Israel attacked.
Only the United States, with its regional presence and deterrent power, could prevent such a multifront escalation. The Iranians, therefore, had threatened to attack American bases directly if Israel acted. The goal was simple: Force the United States into a regional war, or at least to fear one. In doing so, Tehran hoped to turn Trump’s core strategic instinct—pulling U.S. troops out of the Middle East—into a political liability.
In addition, Iran had dangled the threat of nuclear breakout. Officials floated the possibility of leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty and sprinting for a bomb. The message was clear: If Israel strikes us, we’ll not only fight back; we’ll go nuclear. And Donald Trump, will get dragged into precisely the conflict you want to avoid.
On the basis of these calculations, Ali Khamenei was riding high. On June 4, he declared, “The U.S. can’t do a damn thing about our program,” dismissing American demands to halt uranium enrichment. Trump’s threats, he clearly believed, were empty, mere posturing for domestic political consumption.
Netanyahu took everything the Iranians understood and used it to hide the two truths that mattered: Trump will not let Iran get the bomb; and Netanyahu was prepared to act boldly on that knowledge.
Just in case, Khamenei sought to buy added insurance, with tried-and-true diplomatic maneuvers. On June 11, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated on social media that his talks with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, would continue. “President Trump entered office saying that Iran should not have nuclear weapons,” Araghchi wrote. “That is actually in line with our own doctrine and could become the main foundation for a deal. As we resume talks on Sunday, it is clear that an agreement that can ensure the continued peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program is close at hand.”
Araghchi calculated that as long as talks in Oman remained alive, Netanyahu would not dare disrupt the process, fearing it would derail Trump’s broader strategy of avoiding Middle East entanglements.
Can you blame him? When in history had an American president not succumbed to the temptation to negotiate with Iran rather than apply military pressure? Experience had taught Khamenei that the redlines of American presidents were invitations to begin haggling. Americans can be led around like trained animals, always chasing the mirage of a deal.
The Iranian analysis was, in nearly every respect, correct. They saw the gap between Trump and Netanyahu. They understood that Trump wanted a deal and was restraining Israel. They calculated that Israel could not act alone—that it depended on U.S. missile defense infrastructure, CENTCOM coordination, and the cooperation of Arab states disaffected over Gaza. They knew only the United States could prevent Iran from widening the war—and they believed Trump had no appetite for escalation.
They were right about all of it. Except for one thing: Trump meant what he said. Netanyahu took everything the Iranians understood—everything that was true—and used it to hide the two truths that mattered: Trump will not let Iran get the bomb; and Netanyahu was prepared to act boldly on that knowledge.
The heart of the deception was not a lie and not even a misdirection—it was the absence of deception entirely.
In a world of diplomatic doublespeak, hypocrisy, and strategic ambiguity, Trump and Netanyahu simply said what they meant. The simple truth, plainly stated, blinded Khamenei—and his top military officers died in their own beds.
Michael Doran
Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute. Follow him on Twitter @Doranimated.
18. At least 3,400 positions at State Dept. to be axed, hundreds laid off
I heard a report that some 280,000 or so government employees have been let go since January.
U.S. News June 13, 2025 / 10:30 AM / Updated June 13, 2025 at 10:53 AM
At least 3,400 positions at State Dept. to be axed, hundreds laid off
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/06/13/State-Department-cuts/4411749817743/
By Paul Godfrey
The State Department headquarters in Washington, where thousands of positions across eight "families" of departmental divisions are set to be eliminated. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
June 13 (UPI) -- The State Department was pressing ahead Friday with a reorganization that will see more than 3,400 U.S.-based staff quit or be laid off from bureaus that cover Asia and the Middle East and across seven divisions, including the office of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which will be letting go 51 employees.
The planned cuts, which were communicated to lawmakers and staff Thursday, provide the first detailed breakdown of the scope of the administration's bid to tackle "bureaucratic overgrowth," merge desks to eliminate redundancy and re-think the briefs of bureaus, Government Executive said.
With a 69% cut, Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs will see the largest workforce reduction with 386 staff laid off and 145 leaving by mutual agreement. Economic Growth Energy and Environment will shed 297 employees, 198 of them layoffs.
Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and Arms Control and International Security will each lose around 22% of their teams, equivalent to 168 and 245 employees, respectively, while Political Affairs will lose 274 staff, 112 of them via layoffs.
Related
The largest cuts are reserved for the department's Management division, where 897 staff will be laid off, with unit manpower being reduced by a further 796 via resignations on a deferred basis.
Rubio's so-called "S Family" office will see its staff complement slashed by 240, or 12%, but all but 51 have opted to resign voluntarily, officials said.
The department, which said it planned to complete the changes by July 1, stressed that some staff members will be reassigned, and that the disappearance of any individual's office from the organizational chart did not mean they were being let go.
It also vowed the human resources team would assist foreign service officers whose next assignment had been axed to find a new position.
In a document prepared for Congress, the State Department said reduction in force, or layoffs, had been carefully designed in line with all applicable laws in a way that would not affect the department's functions.
"Reductions will principally affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices, and offices where considerable efficiencies may be found from centralization or consolidation of functions and responsibilities," the department said.
However, a number of offices that had become "prone to ideological capture and radicalism" will cease to exist, including the Civilian Security, Human Rights and Democracy division, while the Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and Population, Refugees and Migration offices will be brought into the undersecretary Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs' jurisdiction.
A foreign service officer told Government Executive that the changes would leave the division with overall responsibility for humanitarian and foreign assistance totally hollowed out.
Labor strongly opposed the plans, with the American Foreign Service Association -- the union that represents staff members -- saying it rejected the workforce changes "firmly and unequivocally," coming at a time when the effectiveness of American diplomacy was already at risk from "an already stretched thin and under-resourced" State Department.
Geoffrey Pyatt, a former assistant secretary of state and U.S. ambassador to Greece and Ukraine, added his voice to the dissenters.
"Inevitably, a lot of the people who will be laid off will be experienced diplomats with hard-earned skills in language and area knowledge," he told the Financial Times.
Rubio announced his sweeping reorganization of the service, including retirements and layoffs, in April, saying the department had become too big, expensive and bureaucratic in recent decades and needed to drastically slimmed down in line with President Donald Trump's priorities.
19. Ungentlemanly Robots: Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and the New Way of War
Excerpts:
While the operation is still ongoing, Rising Lion is a harbinger of how the U.S. Department of Defense needs to adapt to the changing character of war:
- Adapt to the new blueprint of offensive strike campaigns.
- Rethink the old idea of defense for the new era.
Ungentlemanly Robots: Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and the New Way of War
csis.org · by Commentary by Benjamin Jensen Published June 13, 2025
Photo: SAN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
Remote Visualization
Just after midnight on June 13, 2025, an Israeli operation codenamed Rising Lion unfolded in two distinct but mutually reinforcing acts. First came swarms of small explosive drones that Israeli commandos had reportedly pre-positioned inside Iran months earlier, striking air-defense radars and communications nodes, while decoying attention toward Tehran’s western approaches. Minutes later, over 200 Israeli fighter aircraft—many of them F-35 Adirs carrying standoff munitions—conducted precision strikes against more than 100 nuclear and military targets across Iran, including senior military leaders.
The result was operational dislocation: Iranian early-warning networks were saturated by low-observable drones, senior commanders were killed or forced into hardened shelters, and decisionmaking channels fractured just as long-range penetrating fires arrived. This shock-and-awe approach by Israel explains the limited initial Iranian response, firing only 100 drones compared to the mixture of over 200 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles fired during Operation True Promise in April 2024.
The attack illustrates how combinations of conventional long-range strikes and unconventional operations have a unique role in modern war, reminiscent of the dawn of modern special operations and the “ungentlemanly warriors” of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Advantage in battle, when each side can see the other side using even commercial satellite images, goes to the side more able to generate asymmetries that produce shock and dislocation. That effect requires more than a standoff precision strike: It requires the ability to pair airpower with special operations to generate effects across the depth of the battlespace simultaneously. As a result, Operational Rising Lion is a blueprint for future joint campaigns and suggests key investments the U.S. military will need to make to adapt to the changing character of war. These include accelerating efforts to integrate special forces with low-cost drones—similar to the foundational work with Project Replicator—with long-range precision strike campaigns, alongside rethinking defense in depth to protect critical assets.
Relative Superiority in the Drone Age
Admiral William McRaven defined relative superiority as the moment a smaller attacking force gains a decisive advantage over a larger, better-defended adversary through a combination of training, speed, and surprise. Israel’s strike, like Ukraine’s earlier Operation Spider’s Web, validates how small, autonomous systems—when staged forward and synchronized with long-range fires—compresses the timeline to relative superiority.
In both cases, drone swarms exploited gaps in air defenses, sowed confusion, and set the conditions for follow-on strikes. Modern war combines scale and precision. Autonomous navigation, low-cost attritable designs, and cross-domain intelligence networks enable planners to choreograph hundreds of aim-points across massive distances. This combination extends the depth of the battlespace and the relationship between strategy, operations, and tactics. It creates a new form of campaigning in which a series of audacious raids, defined by relative superiority, create operational-level effects, which in this case shocked Iran sufficiently to conduct strikes in depth across the country targeting leadership, nuclear facilities, air defense, and ballistic missiles.
“Ungentlemanly” Warfare, Then and Now
While drones, stealth fighters, and global intelligence networks are new, combining conventional and unconventional warfare are not. During World War II the British SOE and U.S. OSS pioneered sabotage, special reconnaissance, and raids—described during World War II as “ungentlemanly warfare”—and integrated them with larger conventional campaigns. The mandate of these agencies was to soften deep targets so conventional forces could attack at decisive points, whether by air, land, or sea. Israel’s Rising Lion resurrects that model, substituting pre-positioned drones and fifth-generation strike packages for Jedburgh teams and Royal Air Force bombers.
Seen in historical context, Israel’s Operation Rising Lion offers three takeaways about joint military campaigns in the twenty-first century. First, deep integration of special operations forces (SOF), autonomous drones, and AI-enabled intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance is now the baseline for theater entry because these “ungentlemanly robots” overwhelm air defenses and disrupt command loops faster than any single strike package. Second, layered defenses must also assume insider threats, as pre-staging shows that distance is largely psychological and physical depth becomes porous when loitering munitions can hide inside something as ordinary as a commercial truck. Finally, the fusion of covert emplacement with long-range fires erodes strategic warning, compressing decision timelines for defenders and allies and shrinking crisis-management windows from hours or days to mere minutes, paralyzing the adversary.
Preparing for the Next War
While the operation is still ongoing, Rising Lion is a harbinger of how the U.S. Department of Defense needs to adapt to the changing character of war:
-
Adapt to the new blueprint of offensive strike campaigns. To increase its ability to generate asymmetries in the emerging battlespace, U.S. policymakers should expand SOF-autonomy experimentation by formalizing tactics for covertly planting autonomous sensors and munitions that can cue conventional long-range fires. In many respects, this drive should build on prior efforts like Mosaic Warfare and Replicator to create entirely new campaign designs and even prototypes.
- Rethink the old idea of defense for the new era. Adversaries can now conduct strategic-level attacks next to major targets like bomber airbases (Operation Spider’s Web) and military command and control facilities (Operation Rising Lion). The United States should make investments in defenses that envelop critical infrastructure—not just military bases—in layered security umbrellas that combine counter–unmanned aircraft systems radars, patrol drones, and behavior analytics used to detect deep-cover operatives. This deliberate approach to twenty-first century defense in depth needs to be packaged with U.S. exports to its partners and allies. If democracies adopt these measures, they will be far better positioned to survive waves of “ungentlemanly robots” and missile salvos in the next fight.
-
Reevaluate deterrence signaling at the strategic level. Attacks launched from inside an opponent’s borders render traditional red-line messaging far less credible. There is no sanctuary, meaning for low costs, adversaries can jump up the escalation ladder to conduct no notice demonstration attacks on interior zones (e.g. Furthermore, using low-cost drones to strike high-value nuclear targets changes the costs and benefits of coercion, allowing states to gamble without exposing themselves to high sunk costs.
Benjamin Jensen is director of the Futures Lab and a senior fellow for the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
© 2025 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.
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csis.org · by Commentary by Benjamin Jensen Published June 13, 2025
20. Army must modernize much faster, can't keep buying "VCRs" of warfare
We still have a VCR and we have not plugged it in in over a decade or more I think. But we still have VCR tapes of a lot of events that we always think that someday we will watch but never do.
On a serious note, the Chief is working hard to change our culture and mindset toward research, development, and acquisition which is very much necessary.
My concern is whether all us old timers can handle the changes (it is hard to break with the "way we have always done it"). And I am especially concerned with how Congress will support the changes and most importantly can the mindset of Congress members adapt and change to operate in our brave new world? I know the Army is asking a lot of hard questions about the future. Will congress keep up?
Jun 11, 2025 -Technology
Army must modernize much faster, can't keep buying "VCRs" of warfare
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/11/army-transformation-george-driscoll-cuts
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George speaks with 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) soldiers in October. Photo: Kaden D. Pitt/DVIDS
The U.S. Army Transformation Initiative trotted out by service leaders last month is just the tip of the iceberg.
Why it matters: "The risk is in not changing," Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George told Axios during an interview in his Pentagon office.
- "We've got to get better by 2026," he said, shrugging off longer-term ambitions like the Army of 2030 or 2040. "I think we have to be improving on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis."
State of play: The changes introduced May 1 — combining Army Futures and Training and Doctrine commands, shifting to mobile brigade combat teams, axing AH-64D Apaches and M10 Bookers and more — are colloquially known as "1.0."
- There's "going to be 2.0 and 3.0," George said, "and that's how we need to look at it."
- He did not say what each iteration might comprise or target. Officials have claimed ATI will save some $48 billion over the next five years.
Context: The goal is to produce a force that can shoot and kill more accurately from farther away while also being harder to detect, especially on the electromagnetic spectrum.
- "World events will tell you that we need to make adjustments," George said. (We spoke just days after Ukraine's surprise Spiderweb drone assault.)
- "We don't want to continue to buy VCRs just because that's what people are producing."
Between the lines: Expect the fruits of canceled programs to be applied elsewhere.
What we're watching: What ATI means for program executive offices and cross-functional teams.
- Where will portfolios mesh best, and how many will be left standing?
Go deeper: Army weapons shake-up backed by Hegseth and other Trump picks
21. Taiwan and the Ghost of the Cuban Missile Crisis
We need a political warfare strategy in addition to a deterrence, defense, and offense strategy. In other words, a holistic strategy.
Excerpts:
While the United States still needs to plan for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, it would behoove our leaders to formulate our own coercive strategy, which would include an increased capability to break or disrupt a blockade of the island, holding at risk military and economic targets on Chinese territory, and increasing our own theater nuclear options in the region. And, of course, working closely with key allies like Japan to strengthen military and political deterrence in the region.
In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States had overwhelming conventional and nuclear superiority vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and persuaded Soviet leaders that it would not tolerate the continued existence of Soviet nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba. But we also secretly agreed to trade our missiles in Turkey for the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. The Chinese Communist Party is not going to give up its goal of “reunification” with Taiwan. We must convince China’s leaders that we can and will oppose any effort by them to forcibly seize Taiwan, whether by invasion or coercive measures. But words are not enough. They must be backed by capabilities, not by bluff. Remember what Dickens’ Scrooge said: “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”
Taiwan and the Ghost of the Cuban Missile Crisis
By Francis P. Sempa
June 14, 2025
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/06/14/taiwan_and_the_ghost_of_the_cuban_missile_crisis_1116626.html
SPECIAL SERIES:
In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Ebenezer Scrooge a grim vision of the future, where the dead Tiny Tim is mourned by his family and Scrooge sees his own dreary, desolate grave. As tensions rise in the South China Sea, some geopolitical and defense experts have summoned the Ghost of the Cuban Missile Crisis to warn us about a possible grim future for Taiwan and the United States should China impose a blockade or quarantine of Taiwan. Dickens wrote that Scrooge trembled in fear as he latched on to the spectral figure. At the site of his grave, Scrooge said, “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”
For the past few years, British historian Niall Ferguson has repeatedly viewed the tensions in the South China Sea through the lens of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, where the United States imposed a blockade or quarantine on Cuba after it discovered Soviet nuclear missiles on the island which is only 90 miles from the American mainland. We are, Ferguson says, in Cold War II. The big difference between a Taiwan Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Ferguson, is that if China imposes a blockade on Taiwan, the United States will be playing the role of the Soviet Union and China would play the role of the United States. Like the United States in 1962, China today would have the geographical and conventional military advantages in such a crisis, and like the Soviet Union in 1962, the U.S. would have to decide if it will try to forcibly break the blockade, perhaps starting World War III between two nuclear-armed great powers.
The Ghost of the Cuban Missile Crisis gets even scarier in a recent article in the Washington Quarterly by Evan Braden Montgomery and Toshi Yoshihara of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Montgomery and Yoshihara suggest that China’s strategy for seizing Tawain may forego invasion in favor of “an alternative theory of victory that targets the risk calculus of decisionmakers in Taipei, in US ally capitals, and in Washington, DC.” This alternative strategy would be to confront those decisionmakers with a “political fait accompli” that enables Beijing to seize Taiwan without major fighting. Montgomery and Yoshihara call this a “coercive strategy” that would combine a sea and air blockade of the island, “political-psychological attacks” against key Taiwanese, Japanese and American political and military leaders, and realistic nuclear threats. It has echoes of Sun Tzu’s counsel that the acme of skill it to achieve victory without fighting.
The authors worry that U.S. military planners are too focused on responding to an invasion of Taiwan and not sufficiently taking into consideration the possibility of China waging a coercive campaign to take the island. “The prevailing wisdom [in Washington],” they write, “is that Beijing will eventually decide to make a move on Taiwan, and when it does, it will go ‘all-in.’” The authors recognize that Washington must prepare to meet such a contingency but, citing Chinese sources, they believe that it is more likely that China will follow the alternative coercive strategy which promises to achieve the same goal “at a lower cost and less risk.”
Montgomery and Yoshihara present examples of what a coercive strategy could entail. Beijing could transform one of its frequent military exercises around Taiwan into a sea and air blockade of the island, which would cause hardships among Taiwan’s people, exploit divisions within Taiwan’s political elite, and put the onus on the United States and its regional allies to challenge the blockade and risk war. While the blockade tightens, Beijing’s operatives on Taiwan could engage in assassinations, sabotage, and political subversion to weaken resistance on the island. And while all that is going on, Beijing could engage in “nuclear coercion” against the U.S. and its allies in the region. Taiwan’s leaders and the leaders of key U.S. allies in the region would naturally wonder if America’s leaders would sacrifice Washington or New York for Taipei or Tokyo. This could lead, the authors suggest, to a decoupling of the U.S.-Japan alliance and sow doubt among America’s other allies in the region.
The authors cite the writings of Liu Mingfu, described as “an influential hawk with direct ties to Xi Jinping.” Liu recommends a strategy of coercion directed at “crush[ing] the enemy’s hearts and minds, attacking the enemy’s “will to fight.” China, according the authors, already possesses the military means to impose an effective blockade, including warships, its coast guard and maritime militia, and the PLA Navy has conducted exercises mimicking a blockade of Taiwan. America’s Pacific commander has referred to China’s recent exercises around Taiwan as “rehearsals.” China has agents on the ground on Taiwan who could conduct assassinations, sabotage, and subversion, and the PLA fields a sizeable force of theater nuclear weapons. In other words, the materials are already in place to implement a coercive strategy to seize Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military, Montgomery and Yoshihara write, “is neither structured nor postured to challenge a blockade,” lacks the capability to effectively respond to subversive activities aimed at Taiwan, and is (thankfully) out of practice at nuclear brinkmanship. The authors conclude that “Beijing is developing a set of coercive options which exposes latent asymmetries in the Sino-US competition and creates new areas of advantage which it could exploit should it prove reticent to roll the dice on an invasion of Taiwan.”
The Diplomat’s Tokyo correspondent Takahashi Kosuke reported that Japan’s Defense Minister announced that the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning recently crossed the Second Island Chain, while Chinese military authorities noted that the carriers Liaoning and Shandong “conducted combat training in the Western Pacific Ocean.” South Korean news sources revealed that China’s third carrier, the Fujian, “conducted its first-ever fighter jet takeoff and landing drills near the Korean peninsula in late May. Takahashi Kosuke deduced that these exercises are designed to replicate moves China would take to prevent American, Japanese and South Korean intervention “in the event of a Taiwan emergency,” which could include a blockade or quarantine of Taiwan.
While the United States still needs to plan for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, it would behoove our leaders to formulate our own coercive strategy, which would include an increased capability to break or disrupt a blockade of the island, holding at risk military and economic targets on Chinese territory, and increasing our own theater nuclear options in the region. And, of course, working closely with key allies like Japan to strengthen military and political deterrence in the region.
In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States had overwhelming conventional and nuclear superiority vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and persuaded Soviet leaders that it would not tolerate the continued existence of Soviet nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba. But we also secretly agreed to trade our missiles in Turkey for the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. The Chinese Communist Party is not going to give up its goal of “reunification” with Taiwan. We must convince China’s leaders that we can and will oppose any effort by them to forcibly seize Taiwan, whether by invasion or coercive measures. But words are not enough. They must be backed by capabilities, not by bluff. Remember what Dickens’ Scrooge said: “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”
Francis P. Sempa is a lawyer and writes on geopolitical affairs.
22. Honor the Army by Funding Them
More importantly this also honors our nation and contributes to its defense.
Excerpts:
So, if anything, instead of cutting the Army to reinforce other service branches, we should be investing more in weaponry, tanks and armored vehicles with advanced defensive technologies that can ensure the safety of our troops in the field. Taking care of the troops should be the number one priority, and this Administration has signaled that is exactly what it wants to do. Remarkably, the proposed cuts in Army funding, training and equipment are coming at the same time that the Army is seeing a flood of new recruits, with the branch meeting its annual recruiting target of 61,000 four months ahead of schedule. After years of Americans eschewing military service for myriad reasons, this is a generational opportunity to shape the incoming force that will make up the ranks of the Army (officers and enlisted) for the decades to come. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are right to attribute a boost in interest in military service to new Administration’s policies.
Cutting Army funding at this pivotal time of renewed morale and a resurgence of the American spirit should be the last thing anyone wants to see. Our current leaders in the White House and Pentagon do not want a repeat of what happened in the early days of the Iraq War, where Army soldiers were being killed and injured due to a lack of adequately armored vehicles. The needless casualties led one Tennessee Army National Guardsman to ask then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld: “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?”
Secretary Rumsfeld’s response, that “you go to war with the Army you have,” is right. That is all the more reason to be investing more resources in our Army, not less. We need more training, more weapons and more advanced equipment. That is how we will protect our troops and make our military great again.
Honor the Army by Funding Them
By Greg Archetto
June 14, 2025
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/06/14/honor_the_army_by_funding_them_1116588.html
In celebration of the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary this weekend, Washington is throwing a well-deserved party for our nation’s oldest military service, including a parade, concert, and fireworks. But to truly honor the Army, we need to get beyond marching bands and flag waving. What would help our Army the most right now would be to give it the funding it needs to meet its critical missions around the globe.
Budget battles happen every year in Washington. But the election of Donald Trump provided a clear mandate for government right-sizing. The War (Defense) Department is obviously the most important department because a country that can’t win a war usually ceases to be a country. However, the political realist in me understands that all sectors of government will be required to endure some austerity.
Unfortunately, among the services, Army funding has increasingly been seen as a slush fund to be raided to pay for priorities in other military branches. While this raiding of Army’s budget started in the Biden Administration, news reports indicate that the Trump Administration is looking at its own cuts.
Military.com reported in April that the Pentagon is considering “a sweeping reduction of up to 90,000 active duty troops.” Since then, senior Army officials have outlined a plan detailing significant cuts in troops, support personnel, training programs, weapons and equipment. Streamlining operations to reduce waste and reallocating resources to higher priorities makes sense, but Pentagon planners need to be careful that they don’t cut so much from our Army that they reduce our overall military readiness and put our troops at risk.
President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth have rightly made it the Administration’s goal to “make the military great again,” reversing the Biden Administration’s fixation on DEI and environmental initiatives in our armed forces and instead focusing resources and attention entirely on improving our warfighting capabilities. Maintaining strong funding and support for the Army will be vital to achieving this Administration’s goals.
Some of the pressure to raid Army funding is coming directly from other branches, eager to pilfer resources to pay for their own initiatives and new technologies in the face of tight budgets. For example, in an interview with Breaking Defense last month, Air Force Chief of Staff David Allvin made the case for shifting more funding to the Air Force at the expense of “slower-moving surface forces – such as ground troops and ships,” stating: “[W]e measure our ability to maneuver and move and get from A to B relative to the speed of sound, when some of our sister services are subject to the domains that they’re in, and so they do it more like the speed limit.”
Chief of Staff Allvin’s reasoning sounds logical, but in a world of competing interests and finite resources, we must be wary of falling victim to the “shiny object” fallacy, whereby the newest whiz-bang battlefield technology tries to replace tried and true tenets of warfighting. As the historian T.R. Fehrenbach famously said, “You may fly over a nation forever, you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life. But if you desire to defend it, if you desire to protect it, if you desire to keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground the way the Roman legions did . . . in the mud.”
From a strategic perspective, the other branches tend to be more vulnerable to asymmetric tactics from a cost/benefit or return on investment (ROI) perspective. On the seas, a handful of anti-ship missiles can cripple an entire fleet. In the air, a few truckloads of autonomous explosive drones can neuter billions of dollars of your air superiority, and a few well-placed anti-satellite missiles can remove theater-wide informational advantage. Obviously, the same cat-and-mouse game of trying to inflict disproportionate damage/disruption to the enemy occurs among ground combatants, but nowhere near the cost disparity relative to the other branches.
So, if anything, instead of cutting the Army to reinforce other service branches, we should be investing more in weaponry, tanks and armored vehicles with advanced defensive technologies that can ensure the safety of our troops in the field. Taking care of the troops should be the number one priority, and this Administration has signaled that is exactly what it wants to do. emarkably, the proposed cuts in Army funding, training and equipment are coming at the same time that the Army is seeing a flood of new recruits, with the branch meeting its annual recruiting target of 61,000 four months ahead of schedule. After years of Americans eschewing military service for myriad reasons, this is a generational opportunity to shape the incoming force that will make up the ranks of the Army (officers and enlisted) for the decades to come. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are right to attribute a boost in interest in military service to new Administration’s policies.
Cutting Army funding at this pivotal time of renewed morale and a resurgence of the American spirit should be the last thing anyone wants to see. Our current leaders in the White House and Pentagon do not want a repeat of what happened in the early days of the Iraq War, where Army soldiers were being killed and injured due to a lack of adequately armored vehicles. The needless casualties led one Tennessee Army National Guardsman to ask then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld: “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?”
Secretary Rumsfeld’s response, that “you go to war with the Army you have,” is right. That is all the more reason to be investing more resources in our Army, not less. We need more training, more weapons and more advanced equipment. That is how we will protect our troops and make our military great again.
Greg Archetto was a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State and a security assistance officer at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Office of Secretary of Defense. Greg has an MA in National Security/Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College.
23. Terrorism has never helped Palestine
Terrorism has never helped Palestine
by Michael P. Ferguson, opinion contributor - 06/13/25 9:00 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5347478-terrorism-has-never-helped-palestine/
When an arsonist set fire to Pennsylvania’s governor’s mansion in April, he claimed to have done so because of what Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) “wants to do to the Palestinian people.”
On May 21, two young diplomats assigned to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. were gunned down outside the Jewish Museum. The suspect, a 30-year-old Chicago native, shouted “free Palestine” as authorities took him into custody. Court documents later quoted him saying he “did it for Gaza.”
In Boulder, Colo., 10 days later, an Egyptian national who had overstayed his visa used homemade incendiary devices to set demonstrators on fire at an event supporting Israeli hostages. He then began shouting about civilian deaths in Gaza, seemingly unbothered by the absurdity of protesting the killing of civilians by attempting to kill civilians.
These attacks are accompanied by — or perhaps even energized by — a rise in antisemitic rhetoric and activity carried out under the guise of “pro-Palestinian” demonstrations in the U.S. Last year, protestors at Cornell University and George Washington University chanted, “there is only one solution, intifada revolution.” The attacks in Boulder and Washington are the physical manifestations of that chant.
These developments follow a long history of political violence in the West inspired by the Arab-Israeli conflict. The perpetrators of such attacks are always duped into believing that their actions will help Palestine — despite a lack of evidence supporting that belief.
During the Cold War, Palestinian fighters armed and encouraged so-called “urban guerrillas” in West Germany. The June 2nd Movement emerged from Berlin’s college scene in the 1960s, and an undergraduate there named Michael “Bommi” Baumann became its most infamous member.
Encouraged by Palestine’s struggle, Baumann and his comrades quickly graduated from looting convenience stores to killing German officials after the Six Day War gave speed to their anti-Zionist fervor in 1967. Other European extremist groups, such as the Baader-Meinhof Gang (also called the Red Army Faction), had numerous ties to Arab terrorist organizations as well.
Between 1969 and 1970, Palestinian guerrillas connected with the Red Army Faction and June 2nd members to provide them with weapons, explosives and propaganda training in Jordan. During the 1970s, Baumann’s associates assassinated Gunter von Drenkmann, the president of West Berlin’s highest court; kidnapped an industrial tycoon after killing his four bodyguards; and executed one of their own members who had turned informant.
Notorious Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez — better known as Carlos the Jackal — also credited Palestine for his radicalization in the 1960s. One of Carlos’s biographers, journalist John Follain, wrote that the Six Day War became the “revolutionary rallying cry for tens of thousands of left-wing students the world over.”
Inspired by the ideology of Palestinian militant Wadi Haddad, Carlos grew to believe that the destruction of Israel would free Palestine and trigger a global revolution. George Habash was a confidant of Haddad’s who founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. An ardent Marxist with connections to student groups in Europe, the Middle East and the U.S., Habash became Carlos’s mentor.
French special forces eventually apprehended Carlos during a 1994 raid in Sudan. While serving multiple life sentences in prison, Carlos stated that “no one has executed more people than me in the Palestinian resistance.” Baumann was also arrested in 1981, several years after his close friend died in a shootout with police and his passion for the cause dwindled.
Extremist factions like Hamas promote terrorism colored with false hopes of liberation in the interest of a charter that renounces peace and mandates perpetual war against the Jewish State. The Arab-Israeli conflict has always been ripe for exploitation and is thus used as a vehicle to recruit for that mission, not to help Palestinians. War is the objective because it globalizes the intifada.
Instead of generating support for Palestine, however, these recent attacks have united Republicans and Democrats in a way few issues can. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) agree that antisemitism “must be crushed,” and Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), who chairs the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, announced a hearing on the rise of anti-Israel attacks.
Feeding into the decades-old delusion that global terrorism helps Palestine is a fool’s errand from which no one benefits — especially not Palestinians. Activists turned terrorists delivered a masterclass in that that lesson during the 20th century. Others need not relearn it in the 21st.
Maj. Michael P. Ferguson, U.S. Army, is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and coauthor of “The Military Legacy of Alexander the Great: Lessons for the Information Age.” His views as expressed here do not necessarily reflect official policies or positions of the Army or the Department of Defense.
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
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