Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better."

– Hermann Hesse

"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."

– Robert Frost

“We are in control. Not the ferocious attacker, not even death and dying; whether we react to those things with terror or with harmony it is up to us.”

– Chen Man Ching

1. A Pentagon Nomination Fight Reveals the New Rules of Trump’s Washington

2. Ukraine Cease-Fire Hinges on Trump Call With Putin

3. At the U.S. Institute of Peace, It’s War When Musk’s Team Arrives

4. US Institute of Peace says DOGE has broken into its building

5. A Wilson Center Update (re White House Exec Order)

6. Airpower and Modern Politics: Symbolism Beyond Effectiveness

7. Harvard says tuition will be free for families making $200K or less

8. How Ukraine’s Offensive in Russia’s Kursk Region Unraveled

9. Russia’s Kursk counteroffensive and what losing Sudzha means for Ukraine

10. U.S. military has cared about climate change since dawn of Cold War -- for good reason

11. What Happened to Silicon Valley’s Most Infamous Thought Criminal?

12. Trump appoints Charlie Kirk, Walt Nauta, Michael Flynn to military boards

13. Students at military bases around world resist Trump’s DEI crackdown

14. Make Advana Great Again (DOD Audits)

15. Navajo Code Talkers get "DEI" label as military info disappears under Trump order

16. A War of Chokepoints: Mavulis Island in a Future Taiwan War Scenario

17. Harriet Tubman: The Original Special Operations Pioneer

18. Veteran-Recruiting Non-Governmental Organizations: An Emerging Actor in Humanitarian Response

19. Putin Doesn’t Actually Want Peace

20. The Fragile Axis of Upheaval

21. The Once and Future Transatlantic Alliance

22. Six books you didn’t know were propaganda

23. Trump Doesn’t Faze Xi Jinping

24. Chinese media, Hun Sen celebrate White House order to close US-funded news outlets

25. Trump Endangers Asian Military Alliances – Undercutting the Quad

1. A Pentagon Nomination Fight Reveals the New Rules of Trump’s Washington

An interesting report on Bridge's nomination with fairly comprehensive background information. This really provides insight into the Trump Team and the Republican Party.

Excerpts:

“This is the next deep state plot against Trump,” Charlie Kirk, a right-wing provocateur and Trump enforcer, wrote in a post on social media.

“Any Republican opposing @ElbridgeColby is opposing the Trump agenda,” opined Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.

“Why the opposition to Bridge?” asked the billionaire Elon Musk, referring to Mr. Colby by his nickname.

...

Together, he and Mr. Carlson criticized much of the U.S. foreign policy elite as moralistic, war-obsessed and weak. Its approach, they maintained, had produced failed wars, trillion-dollar deficits and enormous trade imbalances.

“The Washington blob establishment can get us into wars and crises,” Mr. Colby said, “but they can’t fix the problem.”

“These are the dumbest people,” Mr. Carlson said.

Mr. Colby often described Mr. Trump to colleagues as a “battering ram,” blasting away old, stale ideas. But, unlike many in Mr. Trump’s movement, Mr. Colby wasn’t reflexively anti-elite or opposed to research or expertise. His aim wasn’t just to destroy. He wanted to build something better that could draw bipartisan support and endure beyond Mr. Trump.

“We need a better establishment,” Mr. Colby said.

A Pentagon Nomination Fight Reveals the New Rules of Trump’s Washington

When Elbridge A. Colby’s nomination for an obscure but important Pentagon job drew resistance, President Trump’s most ardent backers rallied to his defense.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/elbridge-colby-pentagon-trump.html

By Greg Jaffe

Reporting from Washington

March 17, 2025

There’s little in Elbridge A. Colby’s past to suggest that President Trump’s most loyal and fierce allies would embrace him.

Mr. Colby, 45, has deep roots in the foreign policy establishment that Mr. Trump is trying to destroy. He is the grandson of the former C.I.A. director William Colby; a product of Groton, Harvard and Yale Law School; someone who has spent much of his career working across party lines on some of the most complex national security issues: nuclear weapons strategy, China’s military buildup, the commercialization of space.

Yet when Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Colby to a top Pentagon job, the opposition came not from the president’s base but from the dwindling band of traditional Republican foreign policy hard-liners who are often at odds with the president’s more nationalistic, inward-looking views.

And it was the Trump faithful, seeing Mr. Colby’s confirmation as a chance to establish dominance over their ideological foes in the party, who sprang to his defense.

“This is the next deep state plot against Trump,” Charlie Kirk, a right-wing provocateur and Trump enforcer, wrote in a post on social media.

“Any Republican opposing @ElbridgeColby is opposing the Trump agenda,” opined Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.

“Why the opposition to Bridge?” asked the billionaire Elon Musk, referring to Mr. Colby by his nickname.

Senators are likely to vote on Mr. Colby’s nomination in the next couple weeks, if not sooner.

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Mr. Colby is the grandson of the former C.I.A. director William Colby, pictured on Capitol Hill in 1975.Credit...Associated Press

Beyond the insular world of Washington think tanks, where he spent much of his career, Mr. Colby is not well known. The job he is poised to take, under secretary of defense for policy, is critical but not the sort of position that typically stirs the passions of political activists.

The back-and-forth over Mr. Colby’s nomination, though, has become a proxy for something bigger: a battle over how America should wield its power and influence globally. And as is often the case with those in Mr. Trump’s orbit, it also involves Mr. Colby’s willingness to accede to some of his baseless assertions — most notably his insistence that he won the 2020 election.

Fallout Over Jan. 6

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Mr. Colby previously worked at the Center for a New American Security, where he argued for pulling troops from the Middle East and Europe so the U.S. military could focus on preparing for a potentially catastrophic fight with China over Taiwan.Credit...Army Staff Sgt. Sean K. Harp/Department of Defense, via Alamy

Mr. Colby’s gray suits, shaggy blond hair and courtly manner are reminiscent of an earlier era in Washington.

So too are many of his foreign policy views, which owe a debt to the Cold War-era realists who emphasized U.S. military might and economic dominance over ideals in the conduct of the country’s affairs internationally.

In the early 2000s, Mr. Colby spoke out forcefully against the invasion of Iraq and the nation-building efforts that followed, alienating his fellow Republicans. He was equally skeptical of Democrats’ support for foreign aid and civil society programs aimed at spreading democracy abroad.

Mr. Colby was not initially a Trump supporter. But his status as one of the relatively few Republican national security experts who did not sign “Never Trump” letters in 2016 made him a viable candidate for a Pentagon job.

In 2017, he oversaw the writing of the administration’s first National Defense Strategy, which cast the era defined by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as a “period of strategic atrophy” that produced mounting debts and a weaker military. Over the same stretch, it warned, America’s most powerful adversaries — Russia and China — were growing stronger.

After a year, Mr. Colby left the Pentagon for the Center for a New American Security, where he had worked earlier in his career. He argued for pulling troops from the Middle East and Europe so the U.S. military could focus on preparing for a potentially catastrophic fight with China over Taiwan.

“The war could happen at any time,” he warned repeatedly. “Nobody knows.”

Like most foreign policy think tanks, CNAS strives to be bipartisan — a place where analysts put national interests ahead of partisan politics. Still, Mr. Colby, who declined to be interviewed for this article citing his pending confirmation vote, complained to friends that as a Trump supporter, he felt increasingly out of place.

His biggest fallout with his old colleagues came over the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Days earlier, Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, became the first senator to say he would object to Congress’s certification of the 2020 election results.

Mr. Colby met the senator in 2019 when he testified on the National Defense Strategy, and the two quickly became friends and ideological allies. They texted regularly.

Mr. Colby posted a message on social media in support of Mr. Hawley’s decision, writing that he was speaking up “for those who feel disenfranchised.” In doing so, Mr. Colby clearly aligned himself with those who were falsely arguing that the 2020 election had been stolen from Mr. Trump.

Several of Mr. Colby’s foreign policy colleagues warned him that he and Mr. Hawley were playing with fire. When riots broke out at the Capitol, Mr. Colby quickly condemned the violence.

Trump Administration: Live Updates

Updated March 17, 2025, 8:04 p.m. ET13 minutes ago

But to many of his old friends, it was too little too late.

James M. Acton, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, had attended Mr. Colby’s wedding in Brazil. In 2019, Mr. Colby had thanked him in the acknowledgments of his book, “The Strategy of Denial,” which focused on deterring a war with China.

Now Mr. Acton was falling out with his old friend.

He argued that Mr. Colby’s antidemocratic actions in the days before the Jan. 6 riots had damaged his “credibility as an analyst” and should be “disqualifying from participation in the national security discourse.”

In the years that followed, Mr. Colby published fewer of the deeply researched think tank papers that had defined his career in favor of harder-edged social media posts.

His think tank friends still defended his earlier work on nuclear weapons and the defense of Taiwan as rigorous and rooted in facts.

“I’d put his stuff up against anyone,” said Richard Fontaine, a former foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain and the chief executive officer of CNAS.

But something changed in their relationship after Jan. 6, Mr. Fontaine said. Other former colleagues described a similar shift. They muted Mr. Colby on social media or simply drifted away.

Into the Woods

Image

After the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Colby published fewer of the deeply researched think tank papers that had defined his career in favor of harder-edged social media posts.Credit...Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A few days after Mr. Trump’s 2024 victory, Mr. Colby flew to Maine for an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s streaming show.

Clad in a gray suit and tie, Mr. Colby looked as if he were about to testify before Congress. Mr. Carlson wore a blue-checked shirt. A chandelier made of antlers hung from the ceiling.

Since his firing by Fox News almost 20 months earlier, Mr. Carlson had traveled to Moscow, where he conducted a mostly friendly interview with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. He also hosted a Holocaust revisionist and revealed in an online documentary that he had been mauled by supernatural demons who left claw marks on his back.

Mr. Colby needed to demonstrate his pro-Trump, populist bona fides, which was why he was sitting across from Mr. Carlson as the conservative host described him as a possible candidate for defense secretary and one of the “few” national security professionals who “shares the president’s priorities.”

Mr. Colby made his case for a new foreign policy approach that prioritized preparing for a potential war with China and shifted U.S. military resources from Europe and the Middle East. “We stand on the possible precipice of World War III, and we need a fundamental change before we ram right into the iceberg,” he warned.

Together, he and Mr. Carlson criticized much of the U.S. foreign policy elite as moralistic, war-obsessed and weak. Its approach, they maintained, had produced failed wars, trillion-dollar deficits and enormous trade imbalances.

“The Washington blob establishment can get us into wars and crises,” Mr. Colby said, “but they can’t fix the problem.”

“These are the dumbest people,” Mr. Carlson said.

Mr. Colby often described Mr. Trump to colleagues as a “battering ram,” blasting away old, stale ideas. But, unlike many in Mr. Trump’s movement, Mr. Colby wasn’t reflexively anti-elite or opposed to research or expertise. His aim wasn’t just to destroy. He wanted to build something better that could draw bipartisan support and endure beyond Mr. Trump.

“We need a better establishment,” Mr. Colby said.

‘Delicate’ Diplomacy

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Vice President JD Vance introduced Mr. Colby — a sign of the importance the administration was placing on the nomination — as an independent thinker.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Mr. Colby’s Senate confirmation hearing was a first test of whether it might be possible to fashion even the barest foreign policy consensus out of the chaos wrought by Mr. Trump.

Early this month, as Mr. Colby waited for the hearing to start, his uncle mentioned that the last time the family gathered for such an event was in the early 1970s, when lawmakers grilled Mr. Colby’s grandfather about Operation Phoenix, a Vietnam War program that caused the deaths of more than 20,000 people. Some of the killings were “illegal,” he had testified.

More than 50 years later, Vice President JD Vance introduced Mr. Colby — a sign of the importance the administration was placing on the nomination — as an independent thinker willing to break with party dogma. “To my Democratic friends,” the vice president said, “I think you’ll find he’s a person who could actually work across the aisle.”

Days earlier, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance had publicly dressed down President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in the Oval Office, a scene Democrats described as “shameful.” Before that, Mr. Trump had falsely declared that Ukraine had started the war with Russia.

Democrats on the Senate committee asked Mr. Colby six times whether Mr. Putin had invaded Ukraine.

Mr. Colby declined to answer, citing Mr. Trump’s “delicate” diplomacy.

“Shouldn’t diplomacy be based on the truth?” asked Senator Angus King, independent of Maine.

Republicans pressed Mr. Colby to disavow statements that he had made 15 years ago, suggesting that the United States could tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. And they challenged his assertion that the United States could scale back its military presence anywhere in the world without emboldening autocratic adversaries.

“Just look at Joe Biden and Afghanistan,” said Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska. “Holy cow, that was a disaster. Every bad guy in the world was like, ‘Hey, I’m making my move.’”

Mr. Colby stuck to his core message that the dire threat posed by China’s aggressive military buildup demanded that the Pentagon make hard choices about where to put its forces; that America would have to rely on its allies in Europe and the Middle East to do more.

The three-hour hearing was ending when one of the Republican senators interrupted to say that Mr. Zelensky had expressed regret for his confrontation with Mr. Trump and was offering to “work fast” to end his country’s war with Russia.

The episode highlighted the ways in which Mr. Trump’s approach to the war was shattering any hope that Democrats and Republicans might be able to cooperate on foreign policy.

To Democrats, the bullying of Mr. Zelensky was Trumpism at its worst. The president had humiliated an ally into compliance and in the process rewarded Mr. Putin, America’s real enemy.

Mr. Colby saw it differently. He hailed Mr. Zelensky’s statement as proof that the president’s unconventional approach was working.

“You don’t know what he’s going to do,” Mr. Colby said of Mr. Trump, “but you can get a deal with him.”

The Republican senators on the panel nodded in agreement. The Democrats had all left.

See more on: U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Politics, Donald Trump

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The Trump Administration’s First 100 Days

Speech at the Justice Department: President Trump repeated a number of well-trodden falsehoods in a grievance-fueled speech at the Justice Department. Here’s a fact-check.
Attacks on Law Firms: Trump opened a third attack against a private law firm, restricting its business activities just days after a federal judge ruled such measures appeared to violate the Constitution.
Aid Cuts Threaten Refugees’ Survival: The Trump administration’s freeze on aid has overwhelmed humanitarian response at a time when multiple conflicts rage, with aid agencies working feverishly to fill the void left by the U.S. government.
Arlington National Cemetery: Materials on the cemetery's website highlighting the graves of Black and female service members have vanished as the Trump administration purges government websites of references to diversity and inclusion.
Pentagon Office Focused on Future Wars: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the shuttering of the Office of Net Assessment, a small, often secretive and sometimes opaque office that for more than 50 years has helped the Pentagon’s most senior leaders think about the future of war.
Leak Investigations: The Trump administration has opened its first known investigations into what it called “politically motivated leaks,” fulfilling promises to pursue the sources of stories involving national security revelations.
Travel Ban: The Trump administration is considering targeting the citizens of as many as 43 countries as part of a new ban on travel to the United States that would be broader than the restrictions imposed during Trump’s first term, according to officials familiar with the matter.

How We Report on the Trump Administration

Hundreds of readers asked about our coverage of the president. Times editors and reporters responded to some of the most common questions.

A big day today.

Ukraine Cease-Fire Hinges on Trump Call With Putin

Kyiv accuses Moscow of prolonging the war through talks

https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-putin-phone-call-ukraine-russia-ceasefire-73f44bf0?mod=latest_headlines

By Alan Cullison

March 17, 2025 11:00 pm ET

President Trump told reporters that he would use his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin to save Ukrainian soldiers who are ‘deep in trouble.’ Photo: mandel nganmaxim shemetov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—President Trump’s hopes of getting Moscow to agree to a 30-day cease-fire with Ukraine are pinned to a phone call planned for Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is likely to push for territorial and other concessions.

In Moscow, the Kremlin dampened hopes of any breakthrough. On Monday a top foreign-ministry official said that any peace deal would have to guarantee Ukraine’s neutral status and appeared to rule out any European peacekeeping force on Ukrainian soil, a key provision of Kyiv and Western allies of any peace deal.

Other Russian officials have been calling for a deal that addresses what Moscow calls the “root causes” of the conflict, signaling the Kremlin wants to retain key provinces of Ukraine and exert political influence over the rest of the country.

With Moscow showing little sign of budging from its initial war aims, Trump’s second official phone call with Putin since he was inaugurated is expected to end with some diplomatic niceties and a promise for more talks.

After agreeing earlier this month to a cease-fire plan promoted by the U.S., Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the U.S. to exert pressure on Russia to end the war. In a weekly video address he accused Putin of using talks with the U.S. in Saudi Arabia as a delay tactic and covering up its opposition to a cease-fire.

“After the talks in Jeddah and the American proposal for a cease-fire on the front line, Russia stole almost another week—a week of war that only Russia wants,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address Sunday.

At the U.S. Institute of Peace, It’s War When Musk’s Team Arrives

A bubbling dispute broke into a dramatic standoff that ended with police involvement and the Department of Government Efficiency taking up residence at the independent agency.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/doge-musk-institute-of-peace.html

Kenneth Jackson, a State Department official the Trump administration has named as the new acting president of the U.S. Institute of Peace, trying to enter the institute’s headquarters on Monday afternoon.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

By Aishvarya Kavi

Reporting from the grounds of the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington

March 17, 2025

A simmering dispute between the Department of Government Efficiency and an independent agency dedicated to promoting peace broke into an open standoff involving the police on Monday, as Elon Musk’s government cutters marched into the agency’s headquarters and evicted its officials.

The dramatic scene played out in Washington on Monday afternoon as Mr. Musk’s team was rebuffed from the U.S. Institute of Peace, an agency that President Trump has ordered dismantled, then entered it with law enforcement officers. Agency officials say that because the institute is a congressionally chartered nonprofit that is not part of the executive branch, Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk do not have the authority to gut its operations.

“DOGE just came into the building — they’re inside the building — they’re bringing the F.B.I. and brought a bunch of D.C. police,” Sophia Lin, a lawyer for the institute, said by telephone as she and other officials were being escorted out.

George Moose, who was fired as the institute’s acting president last week but is challenging his dismissal, accused Mr. Musk’s team of breaking in. “Our statute is very clear about the status of this building and this institute,” he told reporters. “So what has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private nonprofit corporation.”

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George Moose, who is challenging his firing as the institute’s acting president, was escorted out of the building on Monday night.Credit...Kent Nishimura for The New York Times

The standoff quickly became one of the most visible points of resistance to Mr. Musk’s effort to fire federal workers and dismantle whole agencies. And it underscored Mr. Trump’s willingness to push the legal limits of his authority in his drive to reshape the federal government and put even entities that have traditionally been independent under his thumb.

A spokesman for Mr. Musk’s team directed an inquiry to the White House. An administration official blamed the institute for not complying with an executive order signed by Mr. Trump in February, which listed the institute as one of four governmental entities to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law” and directed them to “reduce the performance” to the minimum required by law within 14 days.

The institute was created by Congress in 1984 and works to prevent and end conflict, deploying specialists to work with U.S. allies, training peace negotiators and diplomats and briefing Congress. Since the February executive order, its website was updated with additional references to the “cost-effective” nature of its work, a likely bid to win the favor of Mr. Musk’s team.

It did not work. Institute leaders and the Department of Government Efficiency had been butting heads since at least Friday afternoon, when the White House sent all but three of the institute’s board members an email telling them they had been terminated.

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People trying to get into the United States Institute of Peace on Monday.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

The remaining board members — Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Peter A. Garvin, the president of the National Defense University — later replaced Mr. Moose as acting president with Kenneth Jackson, a State Department official who was involved in the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Ms. Lin said the institute was preparing to sue the administration over the removal of the board. Officials at the institute have refused to recognize those terminations.

Department of Government Efficiency officials first tried to gain access to the agency’s headquarters, just off the National Mall, on Friday afternoon, but representatives for the institute turned them away.

Q&A

Hundreds of readers asked about our coverage of the president. Times editors and reporters responded.

You Asked, We Answered: How The Times Is Reporting on the Trump Administration

March 6, 2025

Mr. Musk’s team showed up again around 7 p.m. on Friday, accompanied by two F.B.I. agents, and showed the institute a document signed by the remaining board members that removed the institute’s acting president. But they left after a lawyer for the institute told them it was an independent agency outside the executive branch, Gonzo Gallegos, an institute spokesman, said in a statement on Saturday.

Over the weekend, the F.B.I. threatened institute employees over the lack of access to the building, Ms. Lin said.

Image

Nate Cavanaugh, left, an unidentified woman, and Mr. Jackson, at the institute on Monday, before they were turned away.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

She also said that Jonathan Hornok, the new chief of the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, called George Foote, another lawyer for the institute, on Sunday night and made requests on behalf of Mr. Rubio and Mr. Hegseth to gain access to the institute’s “books and records.” When the institute resisted, he threatened a criminal investigation, she said. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

By Monday afternoon, signs newly posted to the doors of the building warned against trespassing and appeared to have been hastily created. One informed readers that the building was “closed until furthr notice.”

Musk representatives arrived on Monday afternoon in a black SUV with government plates and were escorted by what appeared to be private security who arrived in separate vehicles and were dressed in street clothing.

They tried one entrance, but could not seem to find a way inside and instead circled the building before getting back into the SUV.

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The institute, which sits near the western end of the National Mall, says President Trump’s White House removed its board members unlawfully.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

After several minutes, two lawyers for the institute emerged from the building and approached the vehicle. What followed was a windowside negotiation: Mr. Musk’s representatives in the car, including a man who identified himself as Mr. Jackson, the State Department official and newly installed agency president, appeared to ask the lawyers to get in.

“I mean, I don’t know where you’re going to take us,” Ms. Lin said, declining.

“We don’t want to sit in here,” added Mr. Foote, the second lawyer for the institute, in a mellow, coaxing voice. “We can take a walk. We’ll take a walk, come on. It’s a nice day.”

Behind the car’s tinted windows, that offer appeared to be declined, and negotiations continued as rush hour traffic backed up behind the stalled vehicle and drivers laid on their horns. The parties appeared to agree to a hold a meeting over a video call.

Image

Sophia Lin, left, and George Foote, lawyers for the institute, negotiating with Mr. Jackson and the Musk team outside the building on Monday afternoon.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

Mr. Musk’s team did not get into the building until officers from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department showed up, Ms. Lin said. Institute officials had called the police to report that Department of Government Efficiency members were trespassing, she said, but the police instead cleared institute leaders from the building.

A police spokesman, Tom Lynch, said that officers were called to the scene on a report of an unlawful entry and said the police left after the people who were seeking unlawful entry had left. He did not say who those people were or provide more information on what happened at the scene aside from the fact that no arrests had been made.

Two of the men, Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Aimonetti, a lawyer, were the same Musk officials who this month forced entry to the African Development Foundation, one of the government entities mentioned in the February executive order. They did not respond to shouted questions.

Late on Monday night, members of the Musk team, who are said to work around the clock, were still at the institute. Mr. Jackson could be seen working in the office of the president. They had dinner delivered: Sweetgreen and six pizzas.

Image

Mr. Jackson, left, working in the president’s office at the institute late Monday night.Credit...Kent Nishimura for The New York Times

Eric Lee and Kent Nishimura contributed reporting.

Aishvarya Kavi works in the Washington bureau of The Times, helping to cover a variety of political and national news. More about Aishvarya Kavi

See more on: U.S. Politics, Elon Musk, Donald Trump

4. US Institute of Peace says DOGE has broken into its building

Excerpts:

The U.S. Institute of Peace says on its website that it's a nonpartisan, independent organization “dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad.”

The nonprofit says it was created by Congress in 1984 as an “independent nonprofit corporation,“ and it does not meet U.S. Code definitions of “government corporation,” “government-controlled corporation” or “independent establishment."

US Institute of Peace says DOGE has broken into its building

nbcwashington.com

Employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency entered the U.S. Institute of Peace despite protests from the nonprofit that it is not part of the executive branch and is instead an independent agency.

The organization's CEO, George Moose, said, “DOGE has broken into our building.”

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USIP employees called the Metropolitan Police Department and reported it as a break-in. Police cars were outside USIP headquarters in Northwest D.C. Monday evening.

Moose said they have been in talks with D.C. police ever since Trump issued the executive order Feb. 19, stressing the headquarters is a private building with the same rights as any other private building owner.

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“The employees of our building are not federal employees, executive branch employees,” Moose said. “They are employees of the institute. We have our own, separate board; we have our own bypass authority to go directly to Congress in order to get our money. Somehow, all of those arguments have not prevailed.”

The DOGE workers gained access to the building after several unsuccessful attempts Monday and after having been turned away on Friday, a senior U.S. Institute of Peace official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

It was not immediately clear what the DOGE staffers were doing or looking for in the nonprofit's building, which is across the street from the State Department in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood.

While Moose said he believes the entry into headquarters is unlawful and inappropriate, he also feels it was inevitable.

President Donald Trump targeted the organization and a few others in a Feb. 19 executive order that aims to shrink the size of the federal government. The administration has since moved to fire and cancel programs at some of those organizations.

DOGE has expressed interest in the U.S. Institute of Peace for weeks but has been rebuffed by lawyers who argued that the institute’s status protected it from the kind of reorganization that is occurring in other federal agencies.

On Friday, DOGE members arrived with two FBI agents, who left after the institute's lawyer told them of USIP’s “private and independent status,” the organization said in a statement.

The U.S. Institute of Peace says on its website that it's a nonpartisan, independent organization “dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad.”

The nonprofit says it was created by Congress in 1984 as an “independent nonprofit corporation,“ and it does not meet U.S. Code definitions of “government corporation,” “government-controlled corporation” or “independent establishment."

Also named in Trump's executive order were the U.S. African Development Foundation, a federal agency that invests in African small businesses; the Inter-American Foundation, a federal agency that invests in Latin America and the Caribbean; and the Presidio Trust, which oversees a national park site next to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

The African Development Foundation, which also unsuccessfully tried to keep DOGE staff from entering its offices in Washington, went to court, but a federal judge ruled last week that removing most grants and most staff would be legal. The president of the Inter-American Foundation sued Monday to block her firing in February by the Trump administration.

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nbcwashington.com

5. A Wilson Center Update (re: White House Exec Order)

Some useful information on one of the unique organizations targeted by the White House's executive order. Does the White House have the authority to shut down the Wilson center or to withhold funds if Congress appropriates them for it? (though note that the Wilson Center is also funded in part by donations as well).

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/emails/0129412-20250317.html?v=1742233089&utm

Dear Members and Friends of the Wilson Center,

As you probably know, last week, the White House issued an Executive Order that included the Wilson Center. The subsequent outpouring of support for the Wilson Center, and all that our scholars and experts do, has been very gratifying.

With respect to the Executive Order (or "EO") itself, we have seen the order and are crafting plans to comply—as we have complied with previous EOs. It directs that non-statutory components and functions should be eliminated consistent with applicable law, and that the performance of our statutory functions should be reduced to a minimum, again consistent with applicable law and previous EOs.

When Congress passed the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Act of 1968, it gave us a special charter and mandate to symbolize and strengthen "the fruitful relation between the world of learning and the world of public affairs." As many of you have said in your outreach to us, that work—of scholarship-driven analysis and programming—has never been more important.

Our statutory charter also gives us explicit authority to solicit and accept private donations from individuals, institutions, or private agencies for the benefit of the Center. Ever since our inception, we have been grateful for both our federal funds and for the generosity of our grantors, corporate, and individual friends.

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Ambassador and Congressman (Ret.)

6. Airpower and Modern Politics: Symbolism Beyond Effectiveness

A view from France (via the UK).

Conclusion:

In conclusion, air power plays an important strategic role in modern conflicts, offering a unique ability to project power quickly and effectively. However, the results of its use are often clouded by contextual factors and strategic or political constraints. Despite these limitations, the continuing evolution of technology offers a promising future for airpower, with innovations in areas such as artificial intelligence, drones, and electronic warfare systems that could radically transform its effectiveness and impact. Finally, the symbolic importance of air power is an undeniable asset in the politico-military discourse of great powers, enhancing their prestige and ability to project power. With its image of a modern, high-tech force, air power is an indispensable lever not only on the battlefield but also in international relations, making it the favorite instrument of choice for modern political leaders.

Airpower and Modern Politics: Symbolism Beyond Effectiveness

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/03/18/airpower-and-modern-politics-symbolism-beyond-effectiveness/

by Ludan Coutin

03.18.2025 at 06:01am

Abstract

As hitches multiply in the Baltic Sea, or the use of missiles and drones in Ukraine, the Middle East, Russian and NATO forces are showcasing successive demonstrations of their respective air power. The face of air power changed since the heroic image of Top Gun, or the US Air Force raids to the tune of ‘Rock the Casbah’ by The Clash, broadcasted on the radio of American troops during the early hours of Operation Desert Storm. However, it remains a major factor in the projection of force. It is therefore important to understand its position as a weapon of first political choice despite its debatable strategic effectiveness. This article therefore concludes that, beyond its occasionally mixed effectiveness, air power remains a vector, that assimilates issues of operational cost, pedagogy, and innovation, all of which make it a preferred means of warfare.

Why Air Power Has Become An Instrument of Choice

Defining airpower can be challenging. The definition has never stayed constant and certainly continues to change over time. This is a result of evolving technology, political objectives, and legal justifications of what is and is not a lawful target and the lawful use of force. The UK joint doctrine, used as the definition for air power in this article, states that airpower is “The ability to use air capabilities in and from the air, to influence the behavior of actors and the course of events”.

This article aims to deconstruct the analysis of airpower as a weapon of first political choice in four distinct parts. The first part focuses on the theoretical expectations of air power, before the second part takes a more nuanced look at its application and strategic evaluation. Expectations are a historical construct of air power tactics and strategy, developed thanks to the emergence of new technologies and justified by political considerations that make airpower the primary military tool today. They must then be nuanced by their application in wartime, and we can find many limits to air power doctrine. The third part of this article looks at the future of airpower, which, although uncertain and subject to many changes, enables it to remain a leading military and political tool. Changes such as the new generations of fighter aircraft and the use of UAVs point to new possible uses and even new doctrines that will help to maintain airpower as the weapon of choice. Finally, the last part of the essay examines air power and its symbolic significance. Any military asset carries a symbolic charge that serves as a political vector through the justification for its use and its destructive potential. This symbolic significance, which acts as a magnifying glass on the place of airpower in contemporary conflicts, is broken down into deterrence, political pedagogy and the scope for industrial and operational cooperation. These elements make up the position of air power as a privileged instrument, both strategically, even if its effects are difficult to assess, and politically for modern politicians.

In conclusion, this article attempts to provide a more in-depth understanding of the political and strategic issues at stake when we watch an air campaign unfold or a military contract signed between two countries. These same issues have a strategic and operational value for contemporary warfare, and a political value through the justification of military action.

Theoretical Expectations of Airpower

First, we must analyze the expectations of air power strategically, before analyzing its decisiveness. The most influential theory on air power is from the Italian general and theorist Giulio Douhet in The Command of the air (1921). He tries to find a solution to the slaughters of the first World War by deflecting the center of gravity of the battlefield behind the enemy’s line through air power and targeting the whole logistics and morale of the enemy’s nation. The use of strategic bombing, which is made possible by the speed of the air force and the control of the air, allows the enemy’s structures to be targeted and lose their means of resistance more quickly. The air strategy then consists of selecting and prioritizing targets such as factories, communication routes, and civilian populations. This was largely used during the bombing campaign of the Second World War for example, with large operations on cities and industrial complexes.

For the first time, a military instrument, in this case airpower, was seen as a means of reducing the human, economic, and logistical costs of war, which was interesting politically and strategically. Douhet directly addressed to the command of the Italian army in 1915, “The war as I understand it would be less terrible, although more impressive, faster and more conclusive”. In theory, airpower has all the means to achieve victory at an adequate cost than a large-scale infantry or naval operation. Airpower offers significant tactical and strategic advantages during a conflict: reach, rapidity, flexibility and height. Together they offer new capability and perspective to the battlefield (at least in theory). Reaching targets that are out of range for the artillery and infantry, while maintaining an altitude sufficient to be itself out of danger. Fast deployment and various capabilities of action, makes airpower an omnipotent instrument. To that extent, air power is used for many missions, from the control of the air to intelligence and mobility. It fights in its own environment, engaging in close air-to-air fights (dogfights) and intercepting the enemy’s air means of fighting.

Airpower can also support the ground effort with intelligence and reconnaissance, but also with close air support. Air is often used to project a military response, rapidly deploy a small unit, or provide humanitarian aid. Altogether it makes airpower a cheap instrument, providing a quick response at a minimum risk for the military and so forth the political leaders. Subsequently, it was this cost argument that led to the major use of air power in remote conflicts, enabling rapid, low-cost use of force.

Strategic Reality of Airpower

As the saying goes “There is no such thing as free lunch”, a costless operation exists only in theory. Modern warfare relies heavily on airpower as a cheap and less risky use of force. In the 1990s airpower reached its pinnacle, but it was also at that time its limitations became apparent. However, strategic limitations did not stop its use and its dominance in the military toolbox. When the coalition launched the first Gulf War in 1991, posterity would remember it as Operation Desert Storm. The latter referred only to the coalition’s air campaign. The 1990s will be remembered for that operation, both for its rapid success and for the Coalition’s shift towards ‘all-air power’. We saw the same mentality again in 1999, when NATO intervened in Kosovo to drive back the Yugoslav forces led by Slobodan Milošević, at that time President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. By the turn of the millennium, airpower was seen as the weapon of first political choice, but its limitations were becoming apparent. Airpower has 3 main limitations: (1) the ineffectiveness of bombing civilian populations, (2) the need to be part of a more global strategy, and (3) the need for a ground presence.

Bombing civilian populations proved ineffective in the Second World War. The German and Japanese populations remained united with their government against those who were destroying their homes. In a counter-insurgency context, at a time when Western forces are seeking to win hearts and minds, social bonds will not support invading forces. To do this, the army must work closely with civilian authorities and other non-military actors to gain a thorough understanding of the conflict and the wider environment in which it is taking place. Air power must also operate as part of a more global strategy that cannot be reduced to air campaigns, as was the case in Kosovo. The NATO operation, which according to the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said would last 3 days, but in reality, lasted 78 days. The air operations encountered difficulties in the face of the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević’s forces, which, having observed the American operations of 1991, adopted a tactic of dispersal and refused to fight. Keeping the radars of the anti-aircraft defenses switched off, preventing them from being detected by NATO aircraft, which then had to remain at a high altitude, thereby unable to target precisely the troops on the ground. Not to mention debates about the effects on troop morale and the impact on ethnic cleansing. Bombing campaigns, accompanied by diplomatic action, negotiations and economic pressure altogether were the factors that made Milošević give in. Finally, airpower can only be truly successful if it is accompanied by ground troops. One of the characteristics of aviation is that it is impermanent in a theatre of operations. As an Iraqi forces pilot stated in 2014: “When we go to bomb a place, the ground troops don’t accompany us. We bomb a place and kill a few, the ISIS disperse but they regroup later’.

In short, the presumption that airpower is the ultimate weapon for achieving victory at the lowest cost and with the least risk is wrong. In reality, it is the ability to capitalize on the effects of airpower, through a strategy as a complete framework, that enables military operations to be carried out successfully. Capitalizing on the effects of airpower requires greater risk and will always be more expensive than a single air operation, which puts off the politicians from committing themselves further.

The Future of Airpower Will Enable it to Remain at the Forefront

Airpower is undergoing major changes in its application. Technological advances are bringing new ways of waging war, influencing tactics, and providing new strategic perspectives, all of which promise airpower a future that is still uncertain but will always play a major role in political and military decision-making. Like the use of GPS in the 1990s, which extended airpower to satellite lines of communication, airpower is changing shape, expanding into new areas and becoming accessible, but it remains an area of confrontation, and therefore keeping it at the forefront of political choice. In this section we will look at the technological advances made on the various airpower platforms, such as aircraft, drones, and missiles, which are changing the tactical and strategic structure of airpower.

The 5th generation aircraft, for example, have not yet found their operational limits, and militaries are still toying with them. They are defined according to their capabilities – stealth, high maneuverability, super cruise, advanced avionics (including low-probability-of-intercept radar (LPIR)), data fusion, and multirole capability. We never had the opportunity to use such advanced aircraft to the full extent of their capabilities, which above all makes it difficult to draw any conclusions about them.

Another major technological advance is the use of drones. Although their existence is not new, nor do they offer new actions that aviation was unable to perform. In theory, they offer 3 advantages: (1) less risk for the pilot or operator, (2) compresses the time between information acquisition and action, and (3) offers more flight time. Drones remain a platform for action and do not constitute a revolution in military affairs. However, they do open new strategic choices. They take on the dangerous, dull, and dirty missions that humans avoid –navigating in hostile environments, enduring monotonous tasks, and handling hazardous conditions efficiently. Subsequently, drones have become both a cutting-edge and a poor man’s weapon, thanks to their wide accessibility and the diversity of their offerings at extremely varied costs. The cost of a drone ranges from hundreds of dollars (for modified recreational drones) to tens of millions (around $30 million for the US Reaper).

Clearly, these platforms do not offer the same tools for action, but lowering the cost of warfare has a strong influence on the phenomenon of attrition, while at the same time opening military resources, although precarious, to forces with a much weaker economy. This gives rise to possible “drone nations”, using drones as airpower’s tool of choice to gradually gain influence. As Eric Schmidt, former chairman of Google, put it, this “democratizes the ability to fight war”. A disproportionate impact compared with the very low cost of strikes makes drones “cheap and nasty: cheap for us and nasty for the enemy”. This is the case, for example, with the Houthis in the Red Sea, who use drones or missiles (also considered UAVs) to strike commercial vessels. It is also a useful weapon when air dominance is in short supply. As is the case in Ukraine, where neither side has succeeded in gaining air dominance over the other, the majority of airpower operations are carried out using drones or missile air strikes. Western politicians and military must find new affordable counter airpower measures, as using a large missile to take down a small drone is not sustainable.

Both drones and cruise missiles still have a bright future ahead of them through the use of artificial intelligence and their integration into new avionics systems. Artificial intelligence enables rapid data processing and more efficient data fusion. Airpower will be subject to a speed competition, with the winner being the fastest to respond and make decisions. These systems are gradually being integrated into the industrial projects of the major Western powers. For example, the ‘Loyal wingman’ project aims to develop an aircraft that can follow a route in total autonomy without any human intervention. We could also mention the European FCAS program, where the aircraft would have a sub-assembly of the Next Generation Weapon System (NGWS), which itself comprises a new-generation fighter aircraft (sixth-generation fighter) accompanied by UAVs. The whole system will be interconnected within a combat cloud. The strategic limitations of airpower have therefore not, in the final analysis, signed its death warrant. New technologies will be combined with a demand for new doctrines and new uses. Perfection may not exist, nevertheless airpower continues to progress.

Symbolic of Airpower, a Magnifying Glass Effect on Contemporary Warfare

Finally, air power is a powerful symbol for politicians. It is an important geopolitical asset in deterrence, national political discourse, and industrial and operational cooperation.

Warfare is by nature a political affair, so airpower has a powerful and easily readable symbolism. As Professor Michael Clarke, Fellow of King’s College London, puts it: “the use of airpower in any military conflict in whatever way it is applied, carries more political overtones and sensitivities than most military instruments”. Thus, the symbolism of effective airpower serves a nation in terms of deterrence, which puts an end to the debate about whether airpower is strategically effective, because it will be the main tool in deterrence policy. Airpower provides the ability to respond quickly with a large strike force and almost anywhere, making it an asset in the projection of both nuclear and conventional capabilities, as –apart from submarines– airpower is the main nuclear deterrent tool.

More broadly, this symbolic reach provides a link between the spectacular nature of operations and the effects on the ground. Since the political authority has to justify its actions to the population in a pedagogical way, air power is a tangible tool that is easily accessible and highly comprehensible. The actions of air power are therefore situated in the continuum of national security, political weight and operational effectiveness. Although, as mentioned above, the strategic results of airpower are variable and difficult to assess, it will always enable the political authorities to assert their position and convey both a national and an international message. We can take as an example the immediate action taken by the former French President François Hollande after the terrorist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015. At a time when the nation was mourning the loss of its murdered citizens, the French Armée de l’Air was bombing Islamic State bases in Raqqa and even going so far as to deploy its aircraft carrier there. This did not, of course, put an end to IS, but it did send an important and clear political message: France will not be attacked with impunity, and have both the information and the means to project a destructive force.

In line with the importance of the political message, air power continues to carry a great deal of weight in cooperation operations, both industrial and operational. Airpower – its production, maintenance, and professionalization – represents a significant and exponential cost, as the demand for resources increases with technological advances. Industrial cooperation is therefore imperative and serves to share the burden. Countries that share common values can align in the design or purchase of aircraft. This, in turn, influences the soft power of airpower-producing nations and the quality of their engineers. The Eurofighter Typhoon is an important example of European industrial and technological cooperation in the field of air power. The project, which began in the 1980s, involved several European countries – Germany, the UK, Italy, and Spain – jointly developing a multi-role fighter aircraft designed to meet the strategic requirements of their respective air forces. The design of the Typhoon was based on the integration of each nation’s specific technical and industrial capabilities, particularly in aeronautics, electronics, and weapons systems. This partnership made it possible to share research and development costs while promoting greater strategic independence for the participating nations. This continues today with the FCAS project and future aeronautical technologies. Another example is the cooperation between France and India in the production of the Rafale. Dassault Aviation is moving a new production line to India, helping to offset France’s industrial deficit while meeting India’s order for cutting-edge aircraft on time.

Finally, there is operational cooperation in the form of joint maneuvers and training between alliances and powers. This allows the compatibility of systems to be tested, reinforces the symbolic value of airpower as an instrument of power, and demonstrates the strength of the ties between allied countries. The Ramstein Alloy Exercises (formerly known as Ramstein Flag) are multinational military maneuvers conducted under the NATO flag to strengthen cooperation between air forces. These exercises, which take place mainly in Europe, are crucial for improving the interoperability of allied forces, particularly in collective defense scenarios. The strategic importance of these exercises lies in their ability to simulate complex air operations and coordinate rapid responses to potential threats. Moreover, in the context of Sweden‘s recent adhesion to the Alliance in 2024, the integration of its Saab JAS 39 Gripen aircraft into a NATO exercise is an important first. By consolidating cooperation between the various partners, Ramstein Flag plays a key role in maintaining regional stability and preparing Allied forces for joint military operations, thereby strengthening deterrence and solidarity within NATO.

Conclusion

In conclusion, air power plays an important strategic role in modern conflicts, offering a unique ability to project power quickly and effectively. However, the results of its use are often clouded by contextual factors and strategic or political constraints. Despite these limitations, the continuing evolution of technology offers a promising future for airpower, with innovations in areas such as artificial intelligence, drones, and electronic warfare systems that could radically transform its effectiveness and impact. Finally, the symbolic importance of air power is an undeniable asset in the politico-military discourse of great powers, enhancing their prestige and ability to project power. With its image of a modern, high-tech force, air power is an indispensable lever not only on the battlefield but also in international relations, making it the favorite instrument of choice for modern political leaders.

Tags: Air Power, precision strike, strike as a strategy

About The Author

Ludan Coutin
Ludan Coutin is a French student currently pursuing a Master of Arts in International Peace and Security within the Department of War Studies at King's College London. He holds a dual degree in History and Political Science from the Catholic University of Paris (ICP). His interests are particularly focused on political action in defense matters and the dynamics of the military-industrial complex.

7. Harvard says tuition will be free for families making $200K or less

Just have to get through the admission process I guess.

It is good to have one of the largest, if not the largest, endowment in the academic world.

Harvard says tuition will be free for families making $200K or less

The changes go into effect for the 2025-2026 academic year.

ABCNews.com · by ABC News

Harvard University on Monday announced that tuition will be free for students from families with annual incomes of $200,000 or less starting in the 2025-26 academic year.

"Putting Harvard within financial reach for more individuals widens the array of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives that all of our students encounter, fostering their intellectual and personal growth," Harvard University President Alan M. Garber said in a statement. "By bringing people of outstanding promise together to learn with and from one another, we truly realize the tremendous potential of the University."

The new plan will enable about 86% of U.S. families to qualify for Harvard financial aid and expand the Ivy League college's commitment to providing all undergrads the resources they need to enroll and graduate, according to Garber.

Gated entrance on the campus of Harvard University.

Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Undergraduate students from families with annual incomes of $100,000 or less will not only have tuition covered but also housing, food, health services and other student services, the university said.

Students from a family making an annual income of $200,000 or less will be able to attend Harvard tuition-free, according to the school.

According to Harvard's website, the average annual tuition for an undergraduate student is $56,550. But with the addition of housing, food, health services and other student services, the annual cost of attending Harvard is $82,866, according to the university.

Harvard enrolls about about 24,600 undergraduate students a year. In 2024, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school accepted 3.59% of the 54,000 applicants for the Class of 2028.

About 55% of Harvard undergraduates receive some type of financial aid, according to the university. In the 2023-2024 school year, families of students receiving financial aid paid an average of $15,700 toward education costs, school officials said.

"We know the most talented students come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and experiences, from every state and around the globe," William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard College’s dean of admissions and financial aid, said in a statement. "Our financial aid is critical to ensuring that these students know Harvard College is a place where they can be part of a vibrant learning community strengthened by their presence and participation."

MORE: Students navigate new college admissions landscape, one year after affirmative action is struck down

Under the previous financial aid plan, undergraduate students from families with incomes of $85,000 or less qualified for free tuition, housing, health services and other student services, according to the university.

The annual income threshold to qualify for free schooling at Harvard has increased from $40,000 in 2004 to $60,000 in 2006, to $85,000 since 2023, according to the university.

MORE: Video Harvard Law sees drop in Black and Hispanic enrollment

Over the years, Harvard has worked to lower the annual cost of tuition for undergrad students. In 2007, the school eliminated loans and provided assistance in the form of grants. It also eliminated home equity in determining a family’s ability to pay for college.

Harvard has awarded more than $3.6 billion in undergraduate financial aid since launching the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative in 2004, according to the university.

MORE: The forces behind Harvard President Claudine Gay's resignation

"Our team works closely with each student to ensure full inclusion in the Harvard experience," said Jake Kaufman, Harvard's director of financial aid. "The financial aid program is designed so that Harvard students can study, train, research, create, and fully engage in the Harvard experience with minimal constraints."

ABCNews.com · by ABC News

8. How Ukraine’s Offensive in Russia’s Kursk Region Unraveled

This is what combat experience informed training can do for militaries that are learning organizations. The question is can north Korea transfer these experiences and create training for the north Korean People's Army on a large scale so as to make a difference in an attack on South Korea?

Excerpts:

Ukraine had dispatched some of its most experienced brigades to the Kursk operation, but months of unrelenting assaults by Russian forces and the thousands of North Korean troops fighting alongside them were taking a growing toll.

While the North Korean troops had withdrawn from the battlefield in January to regroup, they returned to the fight in early February. And Ukrainian soldiers said their combat skills had improved.

“Many of them executed very smart tactical maneuvers,” said Boroda, the platoon commander.

...

And here is the reason why the Russians appear to have achieved success.

Excerpts:

Ukraine’s hold in Kursk was already in danger when the Trump administration announced the suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing on March 3.

The sudden loss of American intelligence for precise targeting compounded the difficulties, according to Andrii, the intelligence officer. Without it, he and other soldiers said, the American-made multiple-rocket launchers known as HIMARS fell silent.

“We could not allow expensive missiles to be fired at the wrong target,” Andrii explained.

Then on March 8, Russian troops made a breakthrough, sneaking behind Ukrainian lines by walking for miles through a disused gas pipeline to stage a surprise attack. Russian propagandists and officials cast the operation as a heroic feat, while Ukrainian sources called it a risky move that they claimed had led to many deaths caused by residual methane in the pipeline.

While the exact number of Russian troops involved and the success of the attack was impossible to independently confirm, “it caused enough confusion and havoc behind Ukrainian lines that it likely triggered them to start withdrawing,” said Mr. Paroinen from Black Bird Group, which analyzes satellite imagery and social media content from the battlefield.

The Russians “outplayed us a bit,” Andrii said. “There was a little panic.”

At around the same time, North Korean troops were helping lead an assault that broke through Ukrainian lines south of the small village of Kurylivka, further constraining Kyiv’s ability to supply its troops.

How Ukraine’s Offensive in Russia’s Kursk Region Unraveled

At the height of the campaign, Ukrainian forces controlled some 500 square miles of Russian territory. Now they hold just a small sliver of land along the border.

A Russian soldier in the Kursk region in December.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

By Marc Santora

Reporting from eastern Ukraine

March 16, 2025

Want to stay updated on what’s happening in North Korea, Russia and Ukraine? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

Ukrainian forces have pulled almost entirely out of the Kursk region of Russia, ending an offensive that had stunned the Kremlin last summer with its speed and audacity.

Ukrainian soldiers at the front described a retreat that was organized in places and chaotic in others, as Russian forces stormed through their lines and forced them back to a sliver of land along the border.

By the time one Ukrainian assault platoon retreated from its position less than a week ago, all their vehicles had been destroyed, drones hunted them night and day and they were almost out of ammunition.

Russian forces were closing in from all directions, said the platoon’s commander, “prompting our retreat.”

The commander, who asked to be identified only by his call sign, Boroda, in keeping with military protocol, said it took his unit two days to hike more than 12 miles from their positions near the Russian village of Kazachya Loknya to the Ukrainian border. By then, “the area where our positions had been was already occupied by Russian forces,” he said when reached by phone.

At the height of the offensive, Ukrainian forces controlled some 500 square miles of Russian territory. By Sunday, they were clinging to barely 30 square miles along the Russia-Ukraine border, according to Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group.

“The end of the battle is coming,” Mr. Paroinen said in a phone interview.

How much Russian territory Ukraine still controls in Kursk could not be independently confirmed, and soldiers reported fierce fighting was ongoing. But the fighting near the border is now less about holding Russian land, Ukrainian soldiers said, and more about trying to prevent Russian forces from pouring into the Sumy region of Ukraine and opening a new front in the war.

Russian advances

Russian-claimed advances

Ukrainian-held territory

Russia has pushed Ukrainian forces almost entirely out of the Kursk region of Russia.

RUSSIA

Korenevo

Glushkovo

Snagost

Sudzha

Guyevo

UKRAINE

Detail

UKRAINE

Sumy

5 miles

Note: As of March 16.Source: The Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats ProjectBy Samuel Granados

The soldiers said they are trying to set up strong defensive positions along ridgelines on the Russian side of the border.

“We continue to hold positions on the Kursk front,” said Boroda, the assault platoon commander. “The only difference is that our positions have shifted significantly closer to the border.”

Andrii, a Ukrainian intelligence officer fighting in Kursk, put it more bluntly: “The Kursk operation is essentially over” he said. “Now we need to stabilize the situation.”

The Kursk operation was seen by some analysts as an unnecessary gamble, stretching Ukraine’s troops and leading to heavy casualties at a time when they were already struggling to defend a long front line in their own country. But it provided a much-needed morale boost to Ukraine, which had sought to show it could bring the war home to Russia and had hoped the territory it occupied there would serve as leverage in any cease-fire negotiations.

While Kyiv has managed to stall Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine, the turn in Kursk comes as the Trump administration is pushing for a quick truce.

The reversal of Ukraine’s fortunes in Kursk did not come down to any one factor. Russian forces pounded Ukraine’s supply lines and began to cut off escape routes. North Korean troops brought in by Moscow, who faltered at first, improved their combat capabilities. And at a crucial moment, U.S. support — including intelligence sharing — was put on hold.

How the tide turned

When The New York Times last visited the border between Sumy and Kursk in late January, daytime movement was nearly impossible because the skies were filled with Russian drones.

The main road from Sumy to Sudzha, a small Russian town about six miles to the northeast that Ukrainian forces had occupied since August, was already littered with burned-out cars, tanks and armored vehicles.

Ukraine had dispatched some of its most experienced brigades to the Kursk operation, but months of unrelenting assaults by Russian forces and the thousands of North Korean troops fighting alongside them were taking a growing toll.

While the North Korean troops had withdrawn from the battlefield in January to regroup, they returned to the fight in early February. And Ukrainian soldiers said their combat skills had improved.

Image

Ukrainian soldiers in a village in the Sumy region in January, after returning from the Kursk region of Russia.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

“Many of them executed very smart tactical maneuvers,” said Boroda, the platoon commander.

By mid-February, Russian forces had advanced to within five miles of Ukraine’s main resupply routes into Sudzha, allowing them to target the roads with swarms of drones — many of which were tethered to ultrathin fiber optic cables and therefore immune to jamming.

Other Ukrainian soldiers, who like Boroda asked to be identified only by their first name or call sign in accordance with military protocol, described Russian forces using attack drones for ambushes.

“Their drones would land near key supply routes and wait for a target to pass by,” said Cap, a 36-year-old Special Operations Forces fighter who asked to be identified by his call sign.

Russian drones were also hitting pre-placed explosives to destroy bridges in Kursk, to try to make it harder for Ukrainian troops to retreat, Ukrainian soldiers said.

Russian warplanes also attacked bridges, in one case dropping a 6,000-pound guided bomb to cut off one major artery, according to Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts.

Artem, a senior Ukrainian brigade commander, said that the destruction of the bridges was one of the key reasons Kyiv’s forces had to abandon positions so suddenly in recent weeks. Not everyone made it out, but most did, he said.

Russia’s breakthrough moment

Ukraine’s hold in Kursk was already in danger when the Trump administration announced the suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing on March 3.

“We could not allow expensive missiles to be fired at the wrong target,” Andrii explained.

The Russians “outplayed us a bit,” Andrii said. “There was a little panic.”

Image

Razor wire defenses in the forest in the Sumy region of Ukraine, along the border with Russia, earlier this year. Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

As Ukrainian forces there retreated along designated defensive lines, Russian forces kept pushing toward Sudzha and the pace of attacks increased.

Given the Russian positions, evacuating by vehicle would have given drones an easy target, analysts said. And the destroyed military vehicles littering the roads also created obstacles for a retreat — which is why a “significant part of the withdrawal was done on foot,” according to Serhii Hrabskyi, a military analyst and former Ukrainian Army colonel.

Some Ukrainian soldiers burned their own equipment to prevent it from falling into Russian hands before hiking out, soldiers said.

On March 10, the order was issued for some units to withdraw from Sudzha, three Ukrainian soldiers and commanders said.

“It was a mix of organized and chaotic retreat,” Boroda said. “Various factors influenced the nature of the withdrawal: fatigue, good or poor orders from individual commanders, miscommunication or well-established coordination.”

However, despite claims to the contrary made by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Trump, at no point were large numbers of Kyiv’s forces surrounded, according to military analysts who use geolocated combat footage to map battlefield developments, Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Kursk and even some prominent Russian military bloggers.

Three days later, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had regained full control of Sudzha. On Saturday, it claimed its forces had retaken two villages outside the town.

While the Ukrainian military’s general staff has not directly addressed Russia’s capture of Sudzha, it on Sunday released a map of the battlefield showing the town outside the territory it controls in Kursk — which has shrunk to a narrow strip of land.

Sudzha, once home to 5,000 people, sustained heavy damage in the fighting. And since the Kursk operation began, military analysts say, both sides suffered heavy losses.

Fears of a new front

While Kyiv had hoped to use its control over Russian land as leverage in any negotiation to end the war, now Mr. Putin appears to be using the Ukrainian retreat to try and strengthen his hand in talks with the Trump administration about pausing the hostilities.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday accused Russian forces of massing along the border and attempting to cut off and trap Ukrainian troops in Kursk by pushing into the neighboring Sumy region. The claims could not be independently verified.

Now, Ukrainian soldiers say, they are determined to stop the Russians from pushing toward Sumy.

Oksana Pinchukova, a 44-year-old volunteer living in Sumy, said she is worried about what the weeks ahead will hold.

“Living under constant strikes and shelling — not everyone can handle that,” she said.

Reporting was contributed by Yurii Shyvala, Liubov Sholudko, Maria Varenikova and Constant Méheut.

Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa. More about Marc Santora

A version of this article appears in print on March 17, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Russia Forces Ukraine Out of Kursk Territory Once Seen as Leverage. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

See more on: Russia-Ukraine War, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky

9. Russia’s Kursk counteroffensive and what losing Sudzha means for Ukraine

Russia’s Kursk counteroffensive and what losing Sudzha means for Ukraine

3:24 pm, March 17, 2025Source: Meduza

meduza.io

Russian servicemen in the Kursk region with a captured M777 howitzer. March 12, 2025.

Vladimir Gerdo / TASS / Profimedia

The seven-month battle for control of a slice of Russia’s Kursk region is ending in a Ukrainian defeat. As has often happened over the past two years of the war, Ukrainian forces withdrew under the threat of encirclement — likely later than they should have. Some equipment was left behind, and many soldiers were killed or captured, but most of Ukraine’s troops managed to escape. From a political perspective, the incursion into the Kursk region seemingly brought Ukraine no gains. President Volodymyr Zelensky had repeatedly said the goal was to use occupied territory as leverage for a future exchange, but now Kyiv has nothing left to trade. Militarily, the outcome is harder to assess. For seven months, Ukraine’s presence in the region tied down a large Russian force, but Kyiv also committed some of its most battle-ready brigades to Sudzha — troops that might have been used more effectively had they withdrawn as soon as Russia launched its counteroffensive in the fall. Meduza analyzes how Russia’s counteroffensive in the Kursk region unfolded and what losing its foothold in Sudzha means for Ukraine.

What happened during Russia’s rapid advance in the Kursk region?

On March 8, Russian forces launched a new phase of their offensive to take back Ukraine’s foothold in the Kursk region. This phase had been carefully prepared: in the days leading up to it, Russian troops recaptured the villages of Sverdlikovo and Lebedevka on the western side of the foothold and crossed into Ukraine’s Sumy region.

This brought them close to the Ukrainian army’s main supply route — the Sudzha–Sumy road — while also physically cutting another supply line running north through Sverdlikovo. In the final week before the Russian assault, Ukrainian troops reported that deliveries to the bridgehead had nearly stopped due to relentless Russian drone strikes on the Sudzha–Sumy road. Another supply route south of Sudzha was also severed by Russian forces.

On the first day of the renewed offensive, Russian units struck north of Sudzha, effectively isolating the entire northern part of the bridgehead from the city. It was there, between the Sudzha–Kursk and Sudzha–Lgov roads, that Russian forward units emerged from a gas pipeline. Russian ground assaults were also concentrated in this area.

unusual tactics

A pipeline surprise Meduza reviews Russia’s reported breakthrough against Ukrainian forces in Kursk

7 days ago

unusual tactics

A pipeline surprise Meduza reviews Russia’s reported breakthrough against Ukrainian forces in Kursk

7 days ago

By the evening of March 8, Ukrainian forces had lost key defensive positions north of Sudzha, including Malaya Loknya and Martynovka. The next day, Russian forces retook another stronghold in Kazachya Loknya. Ukrainian troops suffered heavy losses during their hasty retreat from the northern part of the bridgehead.

At the same time, Russian forces launched an offensive on Sudzha’s eastern districts. Ukrainian troops were unable to mount a defense there, as Russian airstrikes had destroyed the bridges over the Sudzha River, which divides the city into western and eastern halves.

Eventually, Russian forces entered central Sudzha with little resistance — there was almost no direct fighting, as Ukrainian units withdrew toward the border.

Russian troops are now advancing toward the Sudzha border checkpoint and further south near the village of Guevo in the Kursk region. The remaining Ukrainian positions in the foothold are likely to fall in the coming days, shifting the fighting into Ukraine’s Sumy region. Russian forces already have a foothold there and are storming the village of Basivka, west of the Sudzha–Sumy road.

In any case, there are no thousands of encircled Ukrainian troops near Sudzha, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement to that effect last Friday — apparently based on Putin’s claims.

Why did Ukraine launch the Kursk operation, and what did it achieve?

How Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region unfolded — and how Russia’s counteroffensive developed

Meduza

As early as 2022, an unusual situation had taken shape along the front line — it was distinctly divided into two sections of nearly equal length:

An active front, stretching from the northeastern Kharkiv region to the mouth of the Dnipro River, where most forces were concentrated and both sides traded offensives and strikes
A passive front, running from the junction of Ukraine’s borders with Belarus and Poland to Kharkiv, following the Belarusian-Ukrainian and Russian-Ukrainian borders

Both sides conducted cross-border raids — Russia using GRU special forces, while Ukraine deployed larger units under the Main Intelligence Directorate. Ukrainian forces even managed to capture some border settlements, but only briefly before withdrawing back into Ukrainian territory.

Russia was the first to recognize the potential for large-scale strikes across the lightly defended “passive front” and deep into opposing territory. In early May 2024, it launched an operation north of Kharkiv, sending tens of thousands of troops from the Leningrad Military District, reinforced with newly formed units, across the border. They advanced several kilometers into Ukraine and seized part of Vovchansk. However, the offensive stalled around the fifth day when Ukrainian reserves arrived. At the time, Russian war bloggers wrote that the operation’s main goal was to divert Ukrainian reserves from Russia’s primary offensive in central Donbas.

By May, the Ukrainian command had likely begun planning its own cross-border offensive. The incursion began on August 6 and was initially successful — Ukrainian forces advanced 20–30 kilometers (12.5–18.5 miles) into Russia and took control of Sudzha, a district center. The Ukrainian command achieved operational surprise by framing its troop buildup near the border as a defensive measure against a potential Russian advance on Sumy in Ukraine. The main strike force was only moved into position at the last moment.

Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and we are committed to reporting objectively on a war we firmly oppose. Join Meduza in its mission to challenge the Kremlin’s censorship with the truth. Donate today.

At first, Kyiv justified the operation purely on military grounds. The initial explanation — that it was meant to protect the Sumy region and stop the shelling of the city, effectively creating a “buffer zone” — was quickly forgotten as the shelling only intensified.

The focus then shifted to the idea of diverting Russian forces from their summer offensive in southern and central Donbas. But by then, Russia had ample reserves across different sectors. Only one unit — the 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade — was redeployed from the Donetsk front to the Kursk region. This brigade had previously been engaged in fighting near Vuhledar, but its redeployment had already begun before Ukraine’s offensive in the Kursk region; it remains unclear where the Russian command originally intended to deploy it.

Regardless, Russian forces captured Vuhledar without the 155th Brigade’s involvement. The bulk of Russia’s newly formed Kursk grouping came from quieter sectors — most forces were redeployed from near Kharkiv and Vovchansk, while others came from positions along the Dnipro in the Kherson region. Additionally, the 106th Guards Airborne Division was pulled from north of Bakhmut.

To sustain its offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, Ukraine assembled a force of about 15 brigades, including some of its most battle-ready units. Notably, Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade, equipped with Abrams tanks and Bradley IFVs, was transferred to Sudzha from the front line south of Pokrovsk in central Donbas.

However, Ukrainian forces were unable to push deeper into the Kursk region. After failing to capture Korenevo or break through to the Rylsk–Lgov road behind Russian lines, they shifted to defensive positions.

At that point, Kyiv offered new reasons for continuing the operation — this time entirely political. The main rationale became President Volodymyr Zelensky’s publicly stated goal of exchanging Russian-held territory in Kursk region for parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia. In this regard, Ukraine has suffered an unequivocal setback. It now controls a foothold that — at best, and likely only temporarily — is half the size of the area Russia seized near Vovchansk alone.

Russia’s death toll

Three years of death A new estimate from Meduza and Mediazona shows Russia is paying for its war against Ukraine with hundreds of lives each day

22 days ago

Russia’s death toll

Three years of death A new estimate from Meduza and Mediazona shows Russia is paying for its war against Ukraine with hundreds of lives each day

22 days ago

Did Ukraine’s Kursk offensive buy it time? What if Russia had sent its reserves to Donbas?

Russia’s exact plans for these reserves last year remain unknown. It’s possible that Ukraine’s advance into the Kursk region did, in fact, disrupt an important Russian operation.

However, in the broader picture, committing significant Ukrainian forces to a previously quiet sector — and keeping them there even after Russia launched its counteroffensive in October 2024 — ultimately had negative consequences on the battlefield.

At the critical moment of Russia’s offensive in southern Donbas, Ukraine’s command had no available reserves. As a result, it lost the strongholds of Vuhledar, Kurakhove, and Velyka Novosilka, along with a vast stretch of territory between Donetsk’s western outskirts and the Pokrovsk–Velyka Novosilka line with dozens of settlements.

Russian forces also made gains along secondary fronts, advancing to the western outskirts of Pokrovsk and the Dnipropetrovsk region’s border, crossing the Oskil River near Kupyansk, and capturing parts of Toretsk and Chasiv Yar north of Donetsk. At this stage, none of Ukraine’s territorial losses are offset by its gains in the Kursk region.

Thanks to successful breakthroughs in the summer and fall, Russia continues to hold the initiative in southern Donbas. It wasn’t until February 2025 that Ukraine managed to regroup and, through counterattacks, halt Russia’s advance along the Pokrovsk–Toretsk line. However, Russia is now redeploying forces from the southern front to Pokrovsk and Toretsk and may soon launch a renewed offensive.

Meanwhile, redeploying Ukrainian units withdrawn from Sudzha will be challenging. First, they suffered heavy losses, especially during the chaotic final stage of their retreat. Second, there is now a real threat that Russia will continue its offensive here into Ukraine’s Sumy region. Whether Moscow will act on this remains unclear — Putin has publicly urged his military command to “consider establishing a buffer zone in the Sumy region,” but this could also be a strategic bluff.

Russia also has reserves that were formally pulled from the front for the Kursk offensive but saw little action there. For example, Russia’s 76th Guards Air Assault Division was transferred from Ukraine’s Kherson region to the border, yet its units didn’t take part in the assault on Sudzha.

As a result, Russia still holds the initiative, retains reserves, and has the flexibility to decide where to strike next. The Kursk operation has extended the active front line — an unfavorable development for Ukraine, which faces manpower shortages and a lack of fully combat-ready units. For Russia, however, an extended front is less of a burden, given its numerical advantage.

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10. U.S. military has cared about climate change since dawn of Cold War -- for good reason

There is a difference between observing for and planning for the effects of climate activity versus the politics of how to address climate change. Unfortunately we are stuck on the political and economic aspects of this and we ignore what is actually happening because we want to debunk the political and economic recommendations to "solving" climate change. Perhaps it cannot be solved.

But we have to learn to deal with the effects that the climate gives us.

We ignore the effects of the climate on national security at our peril.

Voices March 17, 2025 / 11:13 AM

U.S. military has cared about climate change since dawn of Cold War -- for good reason

https://www.upi.com/Voices/2025/03/17/climate-change-arctic-military/7771742221917/

By Paul Bierman, University of Vermont

In 1957, Hollywood released The Deadly Mantis, a B-grade monster movie starring a praying mantis of nightmare proportions. Its premise: Melting Arctic ice has released a very hungry, million-year-old megabug, and scientists and the U.S. military will have to stop it.

The rampaging insect menaces America's Arctic military outposts, part of a critical line of national defense, before heading south and meeting its end in New York City.

Yes, it's over-the-top fiction, but the movie holds some truth about the U.S. military's concerns then and now about the Arctic's stability and its role in national security.

In the late 1940s, Arctic temperatures were warming and the Cold War was heating up. The U.S. military had grown increasingly nervous about a Soviet invasion across the Arctic. It built bases and a line of radar stations. The movie used actual military footage of these polar outposts.

But officials wondered: What if sodden snow and vanishing ice stalled American men and machines and weakened these northern defenses?

In response to those concerns, the military created the Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment, a research center dedicated to the science and engineering of all things frozen: glacier runways, the behavior of ice, the physics of snow and the climates of the past.

It was the beginning of the military's understanding that climate change couldn't be ignored.

As I was writing When the Ice is Gone, my recent book about Greenland, climate science and the U.S. military, I read government documents from the 1950s and 1960s showing how the Pentagon poured support into climate and cold-region research to boost the national defense.

Initially, military planners recognized threats to their own ability to protect the nation. Over time, the U.S. military would come to see climate change as both a threat in itself and a threat multiplier for national security.

Ice roads, ice cores and bases inside the ice sheet

The military's snow and ice engineering in the 1950s made it possible for convoys of tracked vehicles to routinely cross Greenland's ice sheet, while planes landed and took off from ice and snow runways.

In 1953, the Army even built a pair of secret surveillance sites inside the ice sheet, both equipped with Air Force radar units looking 24/7 for Soviet missiles and aircraft, but also with weather stations to understand the Arctic climate system.

The Army drilled the world's first deep ice core from a base it built within the Greenland ice sheet, Camp Century. Its goal: to understand how climate had changed in the past so they would know how it might change in the future.

The military wasn't shy about its climate change research successes. The Army's chief ice scientist, Henri Bader, spoke on the Voice of America. He promoted ice coring as a way to investigate climates of the past, provide a new understanding of weather, and understand past climatic patterns to gauge and predict the one we are living in today -- all strategically important.

In the 1970s, painstaking laboratory work on the Camp Century ice core extracted minuscule amounts of ancient air trapped in tiny bubbles in the ice. Analyses of that gas revealed that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were lower for tens of thousands of years before the industrial revolution.

After 1850, carbon dioxide levels crept up slowly at first and then rapidly accelerated. It was direct evidence that people's actions, including burning coal and oil, were changing the composition of the atmosphere.

Since 1850, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have spiked and global temperatures have warmed by more than 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 Celsius). The past 10 years have been the hottest since recordkeeping began, with 2024 now holding the record. Climate change is now affecting the entire Earth -- but most especially the Arctic, which is warming several times faster than the rest of the planet.

Seeing climate change as a threat multiplier

For decades, military leaders have been discussing climate change as a threat and a threat multiplier that could worsen instability and mass migration in already fragile regions of the world.

Climate change can fuel storms, wildfires and rising seas that threaten important military bases. It puts personnel at risk in rising heat and melts sea ice, creating new national security concerns in the Arctic. Climate change can also contribute to instability and conflict when water and food shortages trigger increasing competition for resources, internal and cross-border tensions, or mass migrations.

The military understands that these threats can't be ignored. As Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told a conference in September 2024: "Climate resilience is force resilience."

Consider Naval Station Norfolk. It's the largest military port facility in the world and sits just above sea level on Virginia's Atlantic coast. Sea level there rose more than 1.5 feet in the last century, and it's on track to rise that much again by 2050 as glaciers around the world melt and warming ocean water expands.

High tides already cause delays in repair work, and major storms and their storm surges have damaged expensive equipment. The Navy has built sea walls and worked to restore coastal dunes and marshlands to protect its Virginia properties, but the risks continue to increase.

Planning for the future, the Navy incorporates scientists' projections of sea level rise and increasing hurricane strength to design more resilient facilities. By adapting to climate change, the U.S. Navy will avoid the fate of another famous marine power: the Norse, forced to abandon their flooded Greenland settlements when sea level there rose about 600 years ago.

Climate change is costly to ignore

As the impacts of climate change grow in both frequency and magnitude, the costs of inaction are increasing. Most economists agree that it's cheaper to act now than deal with the consequences. Yet, in the past 20 years, the political discourse around addressing the cause and effects of climate change has become increasingly politicized and partisan, stymieing effective action.

In my view, the military's approach to problem-solving and threat reduction provides a model for civil society to address climate change in two ways: reducing carbon emissions and adapting to inevitable climate change impacts.

The U.S. military emits more planet warming carbon than Sweden and spent more than $2 billion on energy in 2021. It accounts for more than 70% of energy used by the federal government.

In that context, its embrace of alternative energy, including solar generation, microgrids and wind power, makes economic and environmental sense. The U.S. military is moving away from fossil fuels, not because of any political agenda, but because of the cost-savings, increased reliability and energy independence the alternatives provide.

As sea ice melts and Arctic temperatures rise, the polar region has again become a strategic priority. Russia and China are expanding Arctic shipping routes and eyeing critical mineral deposits as they become accessible. The military knows climate change affects national security, which is why it continues to take steps to address the threats a changing climate presents.

Paul Bierman, a fellow of the Gund Institute for Environment, is a professor of natural resources and environmental science at the University of Vermont. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

11. What Happened to Silicon Valley’s Most Infamous Thought Criminal?

Does "cancel culture" still exist or has it been eradicated with the fall of DEI?

How would he fare if he published his memo today? I know some female coders - IT professionals who engineer software (friends of my daughter) - who would certainly challenge his position with their experience and expertise.

What Happened to Silicon Valley’s Most Infamous Thought Criminal?

James Damore, the author of the ‘misogynist’ Google memo, was banished from the tech world and became a digital hermit. Now, his ideas have been vindicated. Will he be?

By Johanna Berkman

03.17.25 — Tech and Business

https://www.thefp.com/p/google-memo-james-damore-vindication-trump-musk?utm

LUXEMBOURG CITY, Luxembourg — It’s a bitterly cold day in the Low Country of Luxembourg. So when James Damore opens the door to a seventeenth-century cathedral, offering it up as a kind of refuge, I fall in line behind his gangly footsteps and follow him inside.

“I like noncommercial spaces,” he whispers softly, as we shuffle through the soaring Notre-Dame de Luxembourg. The cathedral is dark, lit mostly by stained glass windows and dozens of candles at the altar. He likes walking through here, he tells me, to appreciate the beauty, the stillness, and “a project meant to serve a higher purpose.” But it is also a suitably analog setting for a man who, ever since he became persona non grata in Silicon Valley back in 2017, has been living like a Luddite.

Damore has blocked digital ad networks from using his personal information to serve him customized ads. He’s switched his Android phone’s colors to gray scale so that it will not visually appeal to him. He uses neither its ringer nor vibrations to alert him to incoming calls (only his wife’s calls can break through). And—perhaps most remarkably—he told me he doesn’t even read the news. “If something is important,” he says, “then other people will tell me.”

As a result, he is often unaware of the existence of celebrities. Timothée Chalamet? Never heard of him. Chappell Roan? Nope, not her either. But what surprises me most is that Damore has never heard of Dylan Mulvaney and the controversy over the trans influencer’s Tinvolvement with Bud Light. “Me not knowing is never notable to me,” he says.

He has had very good reason to log off.

In August of 2017, Damore became one of the first high-profile victims of cancel culture after he wrote the infamous “Google memo,” officially titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.”

In it, he argued that it wasn’t merely bias which resulted in women being so underrepresented in tech, but that men and women’s biological differences might play a role as well. Google’s programs that sought to achieve male-female parity in tech jobs were actually discriminating against men, because ”nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression.” Perhaps worst of all, he argued, was that the company was so politically biased in favor of DEI that it was virtually impossible to openly discuss these issues. “The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology,” he wrote.

The fact that Damore was fired by Google once his memo went public seemed to bolster the latter part of his argument—not that it was interpreted that way at the time. During a period when conservative speakers were being protested on college campuses and drummed out of corporations, Damore’s firing was received as something more like an exorcism in Silicon Valley.

That’s not how Google sees it. “We could not have been clearer at the time: Discussing and debating our programs has always been allowed,” Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini told The Free Press. “However, the memo went further, questioning coworkers’ abilities and traits, which was not okay then, and it isn’t now.”

The Damore memo set off a national debate about gender equity in technology, with people firmly divided on the issues—though less so about Damore himself. About him they were much clearer.

“It became impossible to find a job,” he tells me. “Literally. I went to hundreds of places.”

He would apply to different tech employment platforms, like Triplebyte, pass the coding tests at the highest level, and then, once he had to reveal his personal information, either be ghosted or told the company could not possibly work with him, he said. “That was very frustrating, the realization that, ‘Hey, I can do 100 interviews, and I can study as much as I want for the coding aspects, and be top notch there, but still have no control.’ ” At Triplebyte, the company was even threatened with customer boycotts and employee walkouts just for having him on their platform.

While trying to find another position as software engineer—or really, any kind of tech job at all—Damore worked as a camp counselor, board game designer, professional player of the Magic: The Gathering card game, and designer and seller of T-shirts and tchotchkes on Redbubble. One product he sold was a $23.83 mouse pad imprinted with what he described in the ad copy as a “sharp parody” of “what those pretentious lawn signs are really saying”:

IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE:

REPEATING THE RIGHT PLATITUDES

FERVENTLY ENOUGH

MAKES US GOOD PEOPLE

SUBMIT TO THE MOB

THINKING IS DANGEROUS

CONFORMITY IS EVERYTHING

He says he didn’t sell too many.

In May 2018, Damore got a brief reprieve from exile, when he landed a job as a software engineer at a government tech start-up. It was run by a female CEO, but that CEO was a libertarian, says Damore, noting that people’s response to his memo often had more to do with their political ideology than their gender. “When you look at people’s reactions, positive or negative, it is generally broken down by political orientation,” he says. “I met a lot of women who were like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ And then a lot of men who were like, ‘No, you’re horrible.’ Obviously there’s more men that are of those political orientations than women, but the defining factor was still politics.”

The start-up eventually moved from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas, where taxes are lower, and so Damore moved, too. He remained in Austin even after he left the company, because he fell in love with a Mexican-American fashion designer who lived there. She was unaware of the whole memo scandal until he informed her: “She looked me up and thought I’d be, like, a big tech bro based on the articles.” (What she found instead, he says, was someone who was sincere. “Maybe too sincere, sometimes.”)

The couple married two years ago. In May of last year, then expecting their first child, they abandoned the U.S. for this tiny expat-saturated sliver of northwestern Europe so that Damore could take a job as a senior software engineer at a European tech company. He will not say which one out of fear that making his presence known there will cause controversy and could even result in his ousting. That said, some of his colleagues do already know about his past, he says, “and nobody really cares. And the people that care, don’t know. Hopefully.”

During his long period away from the public sphere, Damore has become what can fairly be described as a digital hermit. When we met on a Sunday last month, Damore hadn’t been on X since September 2023, when he posted about a poker game he had created.

But on February 21, a few days after we met, he posted about the so-called vibe shift in America. It was a simple line: “Time vindicates the truth.”

Looking at the current state of our culture and our politics it is easy to understand his conclusion.

Damore, 35, moved to Luxembourg with his wife in May 2024 to work for a European tech company, the name of which he won’t reveal.

Within his first days in office, President Trump signed executive orders terminating DEI programs within the federal government. Major companies—some of the biggest on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley—have followed his lead, removing references to diversity, equity, and inclusion from their annual filings and ceasing to use what many have called “aspirational goals” when it comes to diversity among their employees or suppliers. Trump has also banned transgender women and girls from competing in female sports—leading to a broader rejection of the myth that biology doesn’t matter when it comes to physical abilities.

Other ideas that were made radioactive over the past decade—that people born male or female are fundamentally different from each other, say, or that unfairness in our society is not exclusively due to systemic discrimination or that DEI could itself result in discrimination—have not only become more commonplace, but have dovetailed with many of the points Damore made in the memo that got him fired.

And many of the people who once participated in making those truisms taboo have now shifted their allegiances.

Take Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

In August of 2017 Pichai wrote to all Google employees about Damore’s memo: “We strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it. However, portions of [Damore’s] memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes. . . . The memo has clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting and feel judged based on their gender. Our co-workers shouldn’t have to worry that each time they open their mouths to speak in a meeting they have to prove that they are not like the memo states, being ‘agreeable’ rather than ‘assertive,’ showing a ‘lower stress tolerance,’ or being ‘neurotic.’”

But Pichai left out many of the disclaimers in Damore’s memo, including these: “I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are ‘just.’ I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes.” He added: “Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.”

Google fired Damore one month after he first posted his memo in an online company forum and Damore sued in 2018, alleging workplace discrimination. The parties settled in 2020 for an undisclosed sum.

“It became impossible to find a job,” he tells me. “Literally. I went to hundreds of places.”

According to Google, when employees—no matter their politics—violate its code of conduct, the company takes action, citing as a recent example Google’s dismissal of dozens of employees who protested the company’s business ties to Israel in April of last year. When I asked whether the company would have treated Damore differently if it could go back in time, a spokesperson told me, “We stand by our decision.”

This January, Pichai stood on the dais at Trump’s inauguration beside Elon Musk, with Google donating $1 million to the celebrations. Soon after, the company announced it would no longer push hiring goals for underrepresented groups and would be reconsidering its DEI policies. (“I don’t think he’s necessarily a true believer in either system,” Damore says of Pichai. “I think he blows with the wind. But that’s sort of your job as a CEO, right? To take on the interests of the company rather than your own personal vision.”)

Google’s shift is only the tip of the iceberg. The move rightward is happening across Silicon Valley. Also at the inauguration were Sergey Brin, Tim Cook, Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.

Ten days earlier, Meta announced that it was ending its DEI programs—and not just with regard to hiring employees, but also choosing suppliers. The company also donated $1 million to the inauguration. So did Amazon. And when Amazon released its 2024 annual report last month, less than three weeks after the inaugural, the words “inclusion and diversity,” which had appeared in its 2023 report within a section entitled “Human Capital,” were no longer there.

All of which is to say: The time may be ripe for the vindication of James Damore.

But Damore himself is unconvinced. “I’m not sure what vindication feels like,” he tells me flatly.

We are now sitting in the basement of the adorable Café Bora on Rue du Fossé and the French song “Paroles. . . Paroles. . . ” (translation: “Words. . . Words. . . ”), which is a duet that Damore loves, is playing on the sound system. “He’s saying ‘Oh, you’re so beautiful,’ she’s dismissing him, ‘It’s just words,’ ” Damore translates. At this point, I have consumed a cheese crepe, several Diet Cokes, and a Speculoos cookie that he had told me tastes better than it looks. (He was right.) Meanwhile, the ascetic Damore has indulged in nothing more than tap water.

In attempting to illustrate how the old order has been upended, I make reference to Musk’s recent exWhite House press conference, in which he spoke at length of what he was doing to slash alleged government waste and fraud, while his young son X was standing beside him, and at one point, sitting atop his shoulders. But Damore didn’t even know that Musk had held such a press conference. “I mean, I knew that he was part of the campaign,” he says, almost defensively.

Then he turns philosophical.

“I think it’s always been that rich people have influenced elections and have been intimate with the government. I think there probably have been some social norms around not flaunting that, that Trump maybe doesn’t care about anymore.”

Also news to Damore: His own lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, who sued Google on his behalf, is moving up in the power structure as well. Dhillon was nominated to a post in the Trump administration, and the Senate Judiciary Committee just advanced her nomination to a full Senate vote, which could take place later this month. Her proposed new title? Assistant attorney general for civil rights.

“I knew that she was involved in politics and well-regarded and competent,” says Damore, leaving out that Dhillon was involved in legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election, “so I’m not surprised on that front.”

Given his equanimity, it is striking to think back on what happened to the now 35-year-old.

Damore’s banishment from Silicon Valley began, he says, with a seemingly simple request: Give us feedback. It was 2017, Trump had just been elected to his first term as president, and the women’s resistance, which would crystallize into the #MeToo movement, was arguably the strongest political force on the left in those first months after the election.

At just 28 years old, Damore had recently been promoted to his $500,000-a-year job as a senior software engineer at Google when he spent the day at the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Summit. That’s where, as he recalls it, members of Google’s leadership team discussed how, in order to boost diversity in their ranks, the company was lowering minimum coding test scores and giving preferential hiring to women, as well as to men who were neither white nor Asian.

“Absolutely not,” a Google spokesperson tells me when I share Damore’s description of the summit. “We’ve never given preferential treatment in our hiring process. We’ve always hired the best person for the job.”

But, according to Damore, Google’s public stance at the time was that they were “trying to make the company more welcoming and then doing their best to recruit women and underrepresented minorities.” They just weren’t publicly detailing how.

To him, the approach he says Google executives described at the summit seemed problematic—they were elevating political correctness over honest discussion, and diversity over merit. (“That’s wrong,” says a Google spokesperson. “We had public aspirational goals and published an annual report with programs for everyone to discuss and debate.”)

But one example of this kind of reverse discrimination, says Damore, is the program the company had to “help you overcome ‘impostor syndrome,’ which is pretty common at Google,” and which affects everyone, he says—not just minorities, but white men like him, too.

“As someone that didn’t have a traditional computer science background,” Damore says, “I had impostor syndrome. But no, these programs were only for women, so it felt like they were losing a lot of potential career development within their employees.”

“You’re a misogynist and a terrible human,” read one email sent to Damore by a colleague. “I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. Fuck you.”

Damore had been working at Google for three and a half years by this point and was, at least on the surface, a typical Google software engineer in that he had both dazzling intellectual gifts and also some social deficiencies. For example, he could play four chess games simultaneously while blindfolded, something he has been able to do since about age 12. “I can visualize things,” he explains. He has a natural affinity for understanding large systems and figuring out the best way to make changes to them while simultaneously preserving their overall integrity, a skill well-suited to managing computer networks and writing code.

Personally, he was somewhat unsavvy and valued speaking the truth over how another person might feel about it.

“A lot of people have Asperger’s who can do this kind of work,” Damore explains. “It’s definitely overrepresented within tech. . . look at most of the top founders like Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin, Sam Altman, Larry Page. Even Bill Gates,” he speculates. “Not all of them openly admit it, but some have, like Elon Musk. . . . It’s at least clear, from someone that knows the science, that yes, they’re on the spectrum.” At this, Damore ever so subtly sucks his sleeve. (Sam Altman has denied having Asperger’s.)

But what made Damore an outlier at Google was the fact that he had arrived at its Mountain View, California, headquarters not as a computer science graduate but rather a dropout from a Harvard PhD program in systems biology, where he earned his master’s, studying the interconnections between evolutionary biology and game theory. “You could see different individuals of a species playing different strategies within a game and how they perform affects the evolution of the species,” he says, referencing a paper he co-authored on the topic. “You can apply it to any species.” But, he notes, “it’s easiest with bacteria.”

During the spring of his second year in grad school, he signed up for Google Code Jam, an international programming competition, and performed so well that the company recruited him for a summer internship. That internship ultimately led to an offer of full-time employment. For Damore, who had gone to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for his undergraduate degree and grown up in Chicago, not in the fancy northern suburbs of John Hughes fame but rather in the city’s southwestern suburbs, with cornfields in his backyard that were slowly being replaced by sprawl, the job was a ticket into the American tech elite.

“I think it was easy to misread,” Damore says of his memo. “I think, especially if your model of the world is that there’s a sexist group of men that are trying to get women out of tech, then you might read what I was writing as having been written by one of those men.”

Which goes a long way toward explaining why Damore believed it was a sincere invitation when the Google DEI summit organizers asked participants for their feedback.

Inspired, Damore decided to draft a critique of the company’s hiring policies and its corporate culture. Like the academic he had once been, he spent the next couple of weeks (when he wasn’t busy coding) doing research and writing his paper. The 10-page, footnoted, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber: How Bias Clouds Our Thinking About Diversity and Inclusion” was the result. Although he also gave the document a title in Google’s digital shorthand—go/pc-considered-harmful—“go” being the beginning of many personalized URLs at Google, and the statement that an item or topic is “considered harmful” being a common term in computer science discourse.

“I value diversity and inclusion,” Damore states in his memo, “am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. . . . Thankfully, open and honest discussion with those who disagree can highlight our blind spots and help us grow, which is why I wrote this document.”

He continues: “Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence.” The company’s notion that “all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment” is an “extreme stance,” while creating numerically “equal representation” requires an “authoritarian element” and is discriminatory.

But it was the section entitled “Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech” that really set off alarm bells. In it, he argued that the biological differences between men and women “aren’t just socially constructed” because, among other things, they are “universal across human cultures.” Women “on average” have more “neuroticism,” “openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas,” and also “higher agreeableness.” This “agreeableness” was the real reason women were “generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.”

Damore submitted his memo to Google HR using the feedback form provided at the diversity summit and also sent it to colleagues, posting it in an internal Google discussion group called CoffeeBeans on July 3, 2017. He revised his memo many times in response to feedback, and then one month later, on August 2, at the suggestion of a fellow Googler, he posted his revised memo to an internal corporate message board named, of all things, skeptics@google.com. The memo went viral at Google. Then, after someone leaked it to the tech website Gizmodo, it rocketed across the country, and the world.

“You are a terrible person” read the subject heading of an email sent to Damore by a colleague—an engineer. “You’re a misogynist and a terrible human. I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. Fuck you.” Another Google colleague’s post on the company’s internal social media platform seemed to prove that Damore’s description of Google as an “ideological echo chamber” was spot-on: “If Google management cares enough about diversity and inclusion, they should, and I urge them to, send a clear message by not only terminating Mr. Damore but also severely disciplining or terminating those who have expressed support. This will send a message that we have zero tolerance for intolerance.”

Damore forwarded some of his hate mail to Google HR, which told him that instead of coming into the office that Monday, he should work from home. But that Monday, August 7, Damore was fired by Google for “perpetuating gender stereotypes,” according to his lawsuit against the company.

That week, in the kind of split-screen move that characterized the memo’s bifurcated reception across the country, New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks published his dissent: “Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s CEO.” In Fortune, Susan Wojcicki, then the CEO of Google subsidiary YouTube, published her own reaction, a rebuke of Damore, which began: “Yesterday, after reading the news, my daughter asked me a question. ‘Mom, is it true that there are biological reasons why there are fewer women in tech and leadership?’ ”

Meanwhile, Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker prophetically summed up the response to Damore’s ousting: “Google drives a big sector of tech into the arms of Trump.”

“It’s nice to be recognized,” he admits of those who say he’s been exonerated. “But I’ve learned to not base my feelings on what people on the internet say about me.”

Looking back on it all now, Damore thinks his point—that some men at Google needed the same kind of leadership training and support that the company was offering only to women—got lost in the shuffle. “It's just impossible to ask” for training and support for men, he says, “because then you’re seen as whining or a misogynist, as I was.”

But what about the commonly held belief that his memo said, or at least implied, that women couldn’t code? (When Damore was at Google, only about 20 percent of its U.S. tech employees were women. By 2024, 27 percent would be.)

“The short answer is no, I did not say that,” Damore tells me. But he concedes, “I think it was easy to misread. I think, especially if your model of the world is that there’s a sexist group of men that are trying to get women out of tech, then you might read what I was writing as having been written by one of those men. I think people can read the same thing and get a lot of different interpretations. And I think that was clear from some of the coverage. Two sides were just talking past each other.”

What has changed since 2017, he says, is that people now feel much freer to speak out, a shift he attributes to “wokeism.”

“They were the rebels,” he says of the woke progressives, “but then they became the empire. It became too rigid and people could see that, ‘No, it doesn’t make sense.’ It became cool to rebel against that.” I asked if the memo played a role in the change, and for the first time since we’ve met Damore not only smiles but laughs. “I think so,” he says.

When I ask Damore if now, nearly eight years later, he still stands by his memo’s arguments, he tells me he does, but points out that some of the biological information he included wasn’t in his original draft. At first, he says, he wanted to focus on the idea of “ideological conformity. People feel silenced. They don’t speak their mind. That’s bad for business and bad for solving the issues that you plan to try to solve. The biological stuff came after people were commenting and saying, ‘What examples do you have?’ ” Damore said he tried to explain to his Google colleagues that women and men tend to have different personality traits, but the response was “they only have those personality traits because society is treating them differently.” Adding in the biological information, he says, was “the only way to stop that infinite loop of ‘It’s sexism all the way down.’ ”

In the weeks and months following the controversy, Damore fought back, or tried to, with a slew of media appearances everywhere from CNN to Joe Rogan to even an interview with alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos.

“I was just very focused on trying to correct the record,” says Damore now. “How can I rectify things?”

But in an era when words were considered violence, Damore’s had simply drawn too much blood. A photograph of him wearing a white shirt featuring Google’s distinctive multicolored logo spelled out instead as “Goolag”—a gift from photographer Peter Duke, who Damore did not realize is known as “the Annie Leibovitz of the alt-right”—sealed the deal. Into exile he went.

Since then, a few people have acknowledged that serious mistakes were made. Kelsey Piper, who writes for Vox’s Future Perfect section, recently defended Damore on X. His memo, she wrote, “was not only basically correct (women are less likely than men to become software engineers, and this is not only because of bias)” but it also, she notes, had a “painful-in-hindsight quality of earnestness: ‘you want more women in tech, and I think you’re mistaken about how to get there! if I show you some published psychology research we can actually design better means to your goal!’”

“James Damore,” Piper concludes, “was egregiously wronged.”

When I read her tweet to Damore, he is, as usual, pretty even-tempered in his response: “I wish more people were willing to say that eight years ago.”

“But how did her tweet make you feel?” I ask later.

“It’s nice to be recognized,” he tells me, “but I’ve learned to not base my feelings on what people on the internet say about me.”

Has anyone who criticized or shunned you apologized?” I ask.

“Not that I know of,” he says.

In contrast with all the drama of his past, Damore’s new life in Luxembourg is quiet and consists of mainly three things: reading Harry Potter in French in order to improve his grasp of the language; working at the unnamed tech company; and spending time with his six-month-old son, who he likes to put in a fabric wrap while taking him on long walks in the Pétrusse Valley, below the cathedral. “It’s like he’s hugging me,” he says.

He shows me an adorable post-bath picture of his smiling son. “He has my wife’s very big eyes,” says Damore, “but we think his mouth is similar to mine,” and it is. Damore has a mouth that meets at a point, almost like the prow of a ship.

When I ask what, if anything, he’s learned from his cancellation, he says, “It’s not necessarily any snappy thing, but I learned not to believe the corporate propaganda fed to us and not to really believe what I read in the news. And that there’s just ways of framing almost any event to fit your narrative.”

He gives me an example from our own conversation: “We have been talking for hours,” he says. “I’m sure you could pull out isolated sentences to make me say whatever you wanted. It’s possible, right?”

Damore says he now spends his time working, reading Harry Potter in French, and spending time with his six-month-old son.

He is also philosophical about our new age of rebellion against “wokeism,” which itself began as a rebellion against the mainstream. “That made it cool,” he says. “But then it itself became the mainstream. And it became commercialized, and, in many ways, it became oppressive and too rigid. And so then it became cool to rebel against that and it was overthrown. But it’ll come back,” he cautions. “There’s many factors that will play into this,” he continues. “Trump’s general outlook seems to be more inward focused, like some of the anti-globalization stuff. It would point to a more stagnating culture which will make more outward looking views more interesting to the intelligentsia, right? And so it’ll become popular again.”

I ask him what he means by it.

“Cosmopolitanism,” he replies, “which is what wokeism was a part of.”

When I ask Damore if he can imagine moving back to the U.S. at some point, he says yes, that he would, in order to be closer to his and his wife’s families. But if he stays in Luxembourg for four more years, he can become a resident, and there are so many things he loves about living here. Like the fact that Luxembourg is a walkable city, and so he doesn’t have to own a car, and public transit is free.

“I live in a castle,” he adds.

“Seriously?” I ask, before remembering he got a large settlement from Google, and thinking the money must have gone far. But he just laughs and throws out his arms, becoming more animated than he’s been all day, gesturing to the plaza on which we are standing, the many tall trees, the charming old buildings, and the giant clear sky above.

“The whole thing,” he says, “is a castle.”

Johanna Berkman is a journalist living in New York City. She won the 2023 Deadline Club Award for arts reporting for her story about ta complicated plagiarism scandal.

12. Trump appoints Charlie Kirk, Walt Nauta, Michael Flynn to military boards

Excerpts:

The boards of visitors provide guidance and oversight of each military institute’s morale, financial state and academics and provide an annual report to the president.

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have rapidly overhauled the military, ending any programs deemed to be affiliated with diversity, equity and inclusion and banning transgender troops, among other measures.

Trump appoints Charlie Kirk, Walt Nauta, Michael Flynn to military boards

by Brett Samuels - 03/17/25 6:25 PM ET

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5199551-trump-appoints-charlie-kirk-walt-nauta-michael-flynn-to-military-boards/?utm

President Trump announced Monday that a slew of allies would be appointed to the boards of visitors at the nation’s military academies, including lawmakers and conservative media personalities.

Trump posted on Truth Social that his picks for the West Point Board of Visitors included Michael Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who in 2017 pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents.

Other appointees included Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), Maj. Gen. David Bellavia, Lt. Gen. Dan Walrath, Meaghan Mobbs and Maureen Bannon, an Army veteran who is the daughter of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

Trump also announced that members of the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors would include conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), retired Col. Doug Nikolai and Dina Powell, who served in Trump’s first White House.

The president also posted additional appointments to the Naval Academy Board of Visitors, which included his personal aide, Walt Nauta. Nauta was indicted as part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents. The case has since been dropped.

Other appointees to the Naval Academy board included Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), former Georgia state Rep. Earl Ehrhart and former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer.

13. Students at military bases around world resist Trump’s DEI crackdown

I fear there will be retaliation over this. The argument will be that being accompanied overseas and attending DOD schools is a privilege and therefore if they want to protest the command can order their return to the US. Military members will be told to control their children and if their children participate in such protests their accompanied statue will be curtailed and they will be ordered to make an early return of dependents while they finish out their overseas tour in an unaccompanied status.

AI generated comment summary to this article:

The comments on the article about student-led protests against the removal of DEI materials in military base schools largely express support for the students' actions. Many commenters praise the students for their courage and understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion, highlighting the unique experiences of military children who are exposed to diverse cultures. Some comments criticize the current administration's policies and express concern over the potential impact on the students' families. There is a strong sentiment that these students are standing up for important values and that their actions are commendable.

Students at military bases around world resist Trump’s DEI crackdown

Student-led walkouts have occurred at schools for U.S. military families across the world, with a larger, coordinated protest being planned.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/03/17/military-schools-protest-trump-orders/?utm

March 17, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EDTYesterday at 6:00 a.m. EDT

8 min

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A sign for Ramstein Air Base, Germany, where students have walked out of classes to protest the Trump administration's crackdown on DEI programs, is pictured here, July 20, 2020. (Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

By Angie Orellana Hernandez and Dan Lamothe

Anxious teachers have removed Pride flags and posters promoting “gender ideology” are forbidden at the school serving U.S. military families that 18-year-old Finn Dwyer attends.

The Pentagon has moved swiftly to restrict access to learning materials covering subjects including immigration and psychology in its global network of schools as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Dwyer and other students who spoke to The Washington Post say they worry it’s only the beginning.

“It makes you wonder, ‘What is the next move?’ … It’s unpredictable to an extent, and it’s scary because of that,” said Dwyer, a senior at Ramstein High School in Germany who organized a walkout involving hundreds of classmates this month to protest the removal of materials from libraries and curriculums.

Student-led walkouts have occurred on military facilities in Wiesbaden, Ramstein, Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern in Germany; Camp Humphreys in South Korea; and at bases in Kadena, Okinawa and Yokosuka in Japan, with dozens or hundreds of students participating in most locations. Students are increasingly communicating online about their plans, they said, and a larger walkout is planned for April involving as many as 25 of the 160 schools operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).

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“Our schools are kind of almost becoming a political playground,” said Mary Hardy, 16, a high school junior in Kadena, where dozens of students recently walked out of school in a short protest. “Things are being taken out of the classroom, but they’re not being taken out the same across DoDEA, so it’s creating all these gaps, and it’s placing all these kids at significant disadvantages.”

Follow Trump’s first 100 Days

The protests began soon after DoDEA restructured curriculums to comply with Trump’s executive orders. Carrying out the orders is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who accused government schools for years of indoctrinating students to hate their country, writing in his 2022 book, “Battle for the American Mind,” that curriculums often teach children to “roll their eyes at religion and disdain our history.”

The DoDEA system serves about 67,000 students, most of whom are concentrated overseas on military installations where U.S. families live on multiyear assignments. Student-led protests have caught DoDEA officials between their aim to support military families and the Trump administration, which controls the agency more directly than civilian public schools, which are largely steered by state and local policy. The protests also demonstrate how military families are not uniformly behind the effort to stamp out DEI.

A DoDEA spokesman, Will Griffin, said in a statement that the agency supports students’ “peaceful expressions of their opinions so long as it is done respectfully, does not interfere with the rights of others, and does not detract from learning.” DoDEA encourages students to explore a variety of ways to engage civically, he added, including student government, service projects and discussions with school leaders to make a positive impact in their school communities.

Griffin said DoDEA is reviewing its policies and the instructional materials it uses in schools to ensure they comport with the recent directives. The “vast majority” of materials in DoDEA’s curriculum do not contain content that is “inconsistent with President Trump’s and Secretary Hegseth’s guidance concerning DEI,” Griffin said.

Pentagon spokesmen John Ullyot and Sean Parnell did not respond to several requests for comment.

Among the materials initially targeted for removal from classrooms and libraries under Trump’s orders were a book chapter in a psychology course for advanced-placement high-schoolers about gender and sexuality, a lesson for fifth-graders about how immigration affects the United States and the book “Becoming Nicole,” a nonfiction work about a family coming to accept their transgender daughter, according to a February memo obtained by The Post.

Another February memo sent to administrators and school-level employees by DoDEA Europe Chief of Staff Charles Kelker banned “cultural awareness observances”; email signature blocks containing “self-identified pronouns”; references to “gender” in school documents; and signs that support “the inculcation or promotion of gender ideology.” It also barred trans youths from using bathrooms that don’t align with their biological sex.

Make Advana Great Again

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · March 17, 2025

The Department of Defense has failed seven consecutive audits, despite the fact that the Pentagon has spent a billion dollars building software known as “Advana” to solve this exact problem. If the eighth attempt — which is clearly a priority of the new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — is going to deliver a better outcome, Advana’s focus must return to its original intent.

Once the poster child of a newly data-centric and audit-oriented Department of Defense, Advana has since become yet another exemplar of a DOD software development project that lost its way. Now it rightly finds itself under the DOGE microscope.

The moniker comes from a mash-up of “Advancing Analytics,” and while that may be clever branding, the generic terms also hint at the problem. The original vision for Advana as a data management solution to create auditable data for the Defense Department ballooned over the past five years to become the defense software solution to rule them all. By DOD’s own admission, Advana offers “something for everyone.”

(“Something for Everyone” image from publicly released CDAO briefing deck on Advana, May 2024)

The problem is that this is a terrible way to build software.

As Advana expanded, the intuition was that it would serve as a core data infrastructure across DOD and thereby solve the department’s historic siloed data issues. Instead, the expansion was driven by a single vendor, building a bespoke vertically integrated solution that created a rigid architecture and a set of applications that were applied generically to every problem set.

Great software is purpose-built for specific user personas (i.e., the opposite of “everyone”) and solves defined, distinct problems. That said, a natural challenge of any successful product organization is to identify opportunities for growth without straying too far from what it does well.

Even the greatest technology companies don’t always thread this needle well. There is a reason Google Plus and Apple Ping never caught on, for example. The products weren’t differentiated; the user experience was poor; and the tech giants simply didn’t understand the social media user base. In these cases, however, the market provided swift and objective feedback that these products were off course. Metrics ranging from user adoption to revenue quickly reoriented Google and Apple product teams back to core offerings and onto other experiments.

The government has no self-correcting mechanism. This is how Advana, which gained early success as a system for organizing DOD’s financial statement data, ended up with a billion-dollar budget to build “something for everyone” and unfortunately, did it all poorly.

Origin Story

Advana started with a clear focus and purpose: audit readiness. Early on, DOD officials pointed to the department’s many disconnected audit software systems as a core reason for audit failures. Advana was therefore originally launched as the Universe of Transactions (UoT), designed to address and resolve the data relevant to financial statements and thereby position the department to achieve the long-sought-after and laudable goal of passing a financial audit.

At an industry event in 2019, the DOD Comptroller lead described the problem statement with a question that a DOD auditor had posed to him, “Can you tell me which data sources account for this line on this balance sheet?” Answering that question required tracing back to dozens of different systems with no navigable provenance.

It was clear this reality was unacceptable and by 2019, UoT had made significant progress on the data front, with more than 38 different financial management systems integrated and billions of linked financial transactions. Unfortunately, just as the program was getting traction with use cases related to Budget Analysis, Audit Workbooks, and Dormant Account Reviews, scope creep set in. UoT began expanding its focus beyond financial management and audit to medical readiness, safety, and workforce issues. The “something for everyone” ethos was born.

Two years later, in 2021, DOD awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a $647 million contract to continue expanding Advana’s remit. In 2022, the program migrated from the Comptroller’s office to the DOD’s Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO), its governance mirroring its increasingly expansive focus. In 2024, CDAO paused the launch of new applications to focus on the back-end data management platform and explicitly de-linked the infrastructure and application layers.

Lack of Traction

Today, the estimated spend on Advana is $1.3 billion. In 2024, CDAO announced it would fund the program up to $15 billion for the next 10 years. Yet, as Advana has morphed into a catch-all data management system for DOD, its lack of focus on the platform’s core mission has slowed progress on audit readiness. Rather, unrelated use cases and mission areas expanded beyond medical readiness and workforce to include acquisition, supply chain, and more, partially fulfilling the “something for everyone” idea, but fully satisfying no one.

Part of the challenge associated with this breadth is the inability to be responsive to user needs and requests. Modern software companies deliver dozens of releases with new features, updates, and bug fixes every week. With Advana, users report being in the product roadmap queue for years with little transparency on the timelines. Offices are charged for development of new workflows, begging the question of what the billion-dollar investment actually gets DOD. Prioritizing these workflows as part of the consolidated product roadmap is opaque to stakeholders, further obfuscating time of delivery.

These are the types of warning signals that would force the executives overseeing any billion-dollar software enterprise to an emergency management session in order to evaluate what has gone wrong and how to change course.

Getting Back on Track

In 2024, CDAO paused new applications to focus on Advana’s back-end data management, and de-linked the infrastructure and application layers. These were critical first steps in righting the program. The upgrades to the backend data infrastructure now provide a platform to layer on top best-in-class commercial applications specific to the day-to-day needs of users.

Today, Secretary Hegseth has an opening to get Advana back on track and in so doing, advance DOD’s prospects of achieving the original goal of a successful audit. Issuing a clear directive that Advana should focus on financial data management and be the technology solution to help DOD finally crest the audit summit would reorient Advana to its original purpose and set the Trump administration up for success where its predecessors have struggled.

To make this a reality, the Pentagon needs to clearly reposition Advana as the financial data and audit readiness platform for DOD, both internally to defense stakeholders and with industry. CDAO should realign Advana’s scope and resourcing with the DOD Comptroller’s audit and financial management priorities and implement governance structures that ensure Advana’s ongoing support and alignment with its core mission. Publicly, the follow-on contract for Advana should explicitly separate performance on the data infrastructure layers (data storage, compute, etc.) which may be broad from a more refined and limited set of task orders on financial management and audit use cases and thoroughly communicated to industry.

A Bright Future

DOD auditability is an essential step to achieving larger strategic goals, including modernizing the force to deter China. Advana has a bright future in a department that has a renewed vigor for fiscal responsibility and financial management. Getting there will require re-focusing the program on the fundamentals. While Advana has made great progress in organizing defense enterprise data, it has failed to be the software system that defense financial managers need to fully realize the Pentagon’s audit priorities. Abandoning the idea that it can be “something for everyone” and aligning to the “best chance to pass an audit” is a winning strategy that DOD has a unique moment in time to adopt and implement.

Tara Murphy Dougherty is CEO of Govini.

Written by Tara Murphy Dougherty

Tara Murphy Dougherty is CEO of Govini.

In This Story

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · March 17, 2025

15. Navajo Code Talkers get "DEI" label as military info disappears under Trump order

Sigh....

As a friend mentioned to me, I wonder if we will have to remove the crossed arrows from the Special Forces branch and remove the Special Forces patch (the arrowhead) since it denotes SF lineage to our Native American fighters. Perhaps they should make Mike Waltz remove his crossed arrows from his lapel.

Special Forces Crest

USASFC CrestThe Special Forces crest insignia was adopted in 1960 and approved as the Special Forces regimental designator in 1984. Its design reflects both the lineage and mission of Special Forces.

In 1890, the crossed arrows were officially prescribed as uniform insignia for the U.S. Army Indian Scouts who served in the American west from 1860 through 1939. In 1942, during World War II, a joint U.S./Canadian special operations unit was established to conduct operations behind enemy lines. Members of this First Special Service Force wore the historic crossed arrows as their branch insignia.

In the current Special Forces crest, the intersecting dagger represents the V-42 dagger issued to each member of the force. The encircling scroll which arches at the base bears the Special Forces motto, "DE OPPRESSO LIBER" which is translated from Latin as "To Free the Oppressed."

https://www.soc.mil/USASFC/SFCrest.html#:

US Special Forces Shoulder Sleeve Insignia

"The arrowhead alludes to the American Indian's basic skills in which Special Forces personnel are trained to a high degree. The dagger represents the unconventional nature of Special Forces operations, and the three lightning flashes, their ability to strike rapidly by Sea, Air or Land."

https://web.archive.org/web/20161211054155/http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/Catalog/HeraldryMulti.aspx?CategoryId=4353&grp=2&menu=Uniformed Services

And then there are our helicopter names.

Navajo Code Talkers get "DEI" label as military info disappears under Trump order

Axios · by Erin Alberty · March 17, 2025

Articles about the renowned Native American Code Talkers have disappeared from some military websites, with several broken URLs now labeled "DEI."

Why it matters: From 1942 to 1945, the Navajo Code Talkers were instrumental in every major Marine Corps operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

They were critical to securing America's victory at Iwo Jima.

Driving the news: Axios identified at least 10 articles mentioning the Code Talkers that had disappeared from the U.S. Army and Department of Defense websites as of Monday.

How it works: The Defense department's URLs were amended with the letters DEI, suggesting they were removed following President Trump's executive order ending federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The Internet Archive shows the deleted Army pages were live as recently as November, with many visible until February or March. None are shown with error messages until Trump took office.

The other side: Asked about the missing pages, Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot replied in a statement: "As Secretary [Pete] Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. ... We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms."

"In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly."
The statement did not address whether the Code Talkers are considered divisive DEI figures that "erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution."

Catch up quick: In both World Wars, the military deployed units that used Indigenous American languages to secretly transmit information in pivotal battles.

Choctaw soldiers flummoxed German troops during World War I's deadly Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
At Utah Beach, Comanche troops created terms that didn't exist in the language: Bombers were "pregnant airplanes," tanks were "turtles" and Adolf Hitler was "Po'sa taiboo" — "Crazy White Man."
Meskwaki Code Talkers were sent to North Africa after 16% of the tribe's Iowa population enlisted during World War II. As of Monday, the word "Meskwaki" no longer appeared on the DOD's website.

Zoom in: The Navajo Code Talkers rapidly and meticulously shared hundreds of messages in the complex Diné language — often during intense battles, making them exemplars of courage under fire.

At Iwo Jima, six Code Talkers sent more than 800 messages without any errors.

They likely saved countless American and Allied lives by using languages the U.S. government had tried for generations to eliminate.

Meanwhile, the Code Talkers' function was predicated on diversity in the military; languages with more widespread use couldn't have provided effective encryption.

Stunning stat: Indigenous Americans have enlisted in the U.S. military at a rate five times the national average, per Trump's own proclamation in 2018.

That proclamation has also been removed.

Zoom out: Axios found other removed pages about Indigenous Americans' contributions, including:

Profiles of Iraq combat veterans from Arizona, Louisiana and Nevada; a paratrooper with the 173rd Sky Soldiers; and a Cherokee Brigadier General from Oklahoma.
A chronicle of Native American women who served, including a medic who died while fighting Colorado's Storm Mountain Fire in 1994.
A news alert that an Oglala Sioux South Dakota National Guardsman had obtained an exemption to wear his hair long in accordance with his religion.

Caveat: As of Monday, the U.S. Marines — the branch that deployed the Navajo Code Talkers — had not removed its pages about them.

A few mentions also remained on the DOD site, on photo captions and speech transcripts.
The Army's deleted pages were generally posted during the past two years; older references remained on the site.

The latest: Axios in recent days found the DOD had given similar "DEI" labels to now-broken pages that honored:

Civil War nurses.
Prominent Black veterans and units, including the Harlem Hellfighters, the 761st Tank Battalion and 555th Parachute Infantry.
A Latino airman who coordinated mental health support for military personnel. The deleted story is titled, "Embraced in America, airman pays it forward."

Meanwhile, the Army removed pages honoring:

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment, depicted in the film "Glory."
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II.

The big picture: The military has faced recent complaints over removed pages.

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson asked Trump last week to return Utahn Seraph Young — the first woman to vote in America — to Arlington National Cemetery's website after the removal of a list of notable women buried there.
The Army restored a page Saturday about the celebrated Japanese-American 442nd Infantry Regiment after outcry over its disappearance.

Case in point: A profile of Army Major Gen. Charles Rogers, a Black recipient of the Medal of Honor, vanished when the word "medal" was changed to "deimedal" in the URL.

The implication that his was a "DEI medal" drew ire as details from Rogers' citation circulated online.
He was wounded three times during a massive assault on a support base in Vietnam when he refused medical care and repeatedly ran into enemy fire to lead counterattacks.
The page was restored within the past day.

Axios · by Erin Alberty · March 17, 2025

16. A War of Chokepoints: Mavulis Island in a Future Taiwan War Scenario

Geography matters.

Excerpts:

China has increasingly employed gray zone tactics in the region, utilizing maritime militia and coast guard vessels to assert its claims without crossing the threshold into open conflict; these actions aim to achieve strategic objectives while avoiding direct military engagement. Such maneuvers exemplify China’s strategy of using nonmilitary means to apply pressure and alter the status quo in contested maritime regions. Multilateral security cooperation is necessary to address these issues. To balance China’s gray zone activities and maintain stability and cooperation between external powers, forums like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) are key. The QUAD seeks to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific and improve collective security through coordinated diplomatic efforts, intelligence sharing, and cooperative military exercises to prevent coercive activities and preserve the strategic balance in vital waterways—like the Bashi Channel.

Understanding and recognizing the importance of chokepoints like the Bashi Channel is crucial for formulating effective policies to navigate the complex security landscape of the Indo-Pacific. The security dynamics and geographic realities of the Bashi Channel necessitate strong regional partnerships to deter and respond to threats. The United States, Japan, and the Philippines have intensified combined military exercises, enhancing their interoperability and their collective deterrence capabilities. Meanwhile, Australia is expanding its role in the region with intelligence-sharing initiatives and coordinated maritime patrols. These relationships are critical for countering China’s gray zone tactics and ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific.

But also critical is controlling key terrain. The Bashi Channel is not just a maritime passage—it is a strategic flash point where geopolitical rivalries converge. Mavulis Island is therefore a piece of key terrain, influential in shaping security dynamics in the region and a means of contributing to stability and the defense of US allies and partners. Just like Yonaguni Island to its north, it should be treated as such.

A War of Chokepoints: Mavulis Island in a Future Taiwan War Scenario - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Christopher Lee · March 18, 2025

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Amid the strategic competition and simmering tensions in the Indo-Pacific region between the United States and China, Japan has worked to boost its military capability on Yonaguni Island, the westernmost island of Okinawa. This is a sensible move given the island’s strategic importance and proximity to both Taiwan and China. The Japan Self-Defense Forces established a military base and radar station in 2016 with approximately 160 troops to monitor airspace and waterways. Plans are also in place to deploy a missile unit to the island.

To the south, a little less than 250 miles away, lies Mavulis Island. Slightly smaller than Yonaguni Island, it shares many of the same characteristics. Just as Yonaguni Island is the westernmost piece of Japanese territory, Mavulis Island is the Philippines’ northernmost point. Similarly close to Taiwan, it likewise has a strategic importance disproportionate to its size. Mavulis Island may appear to be a seemingly insignificant speck on the vast blue map of the region, but it may be the linchpin of the defense of Taiwan. What is more, the Bashi Channel that lies between Mavulis Island and Taiwan’s Orchid Island will likely be utilized as a primary route for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to blockade the island and isolate it from US and allied forces. In short, Mavulis Island could be a key terrain in any Taiwan conflict scenario.

And yet, compared to Japanese action on Yonaguni Island, the Philippines has not given Mavulis Island similar treatment. This is a missed opportunity to strengthen deterrence against China in the region and, in the event of a conflict, counter any Chinese aggression against Taiwan. It is in the United States’ interests to encourage Manila to take advantage of the island’s strategic importance.

While narrow, the Bashi Channel serves as a critical conduit between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. As a chokepoint, its strategic position influences the operational capabilities of major naval forces of the United States and its allies. Pundits postulate that chokepoints such as the Bashi Channel could dictate the outcome of a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan because of its ability to control access into the Pacific Ocean. The Bashi Channel’s importance is further magnified by its relevance to submarine warfare as the deep waters of the channel provide an ideal environment for the PLAN’s operations. China would likely utilize these waters for concealment and to strategically position the PLAN to achieve Beijing’s overall military objectives. The Bashi Channel, therefore, should influence broader maritime strategy against a potential Taiwan invasion.

Mavulis Island could serve as be a key focal point of the United States’ and its allies’ strategies to restrain China’s maritime expansion and deter a potential Taiwan invasion. Stepping up efforts on the island to match Japan’s actions on Yonaguni Island would help to limit the PLAN’s movement within the Indo-Pacific region. A central goal of both sides in the US-China strategic competition in the region is establishing and maintaining key locations. The PLAN’s increased activities around the Philippines highlight its strategic objective of securing unrestricted access through the Bashi Channel. Thus, it is in the United States’ and its allies’ interests to control the strategic waterway.

The Bashi Channel is indispensable for Taiwan’s defense and for regional stability. One can posit that China’s military strategy for the channel treats it as a potential route for the People’s Liberation Army to encircle Taiwan, posing a direct threat to peace and security. Any attempt by Beijing to invade the island will almost certainly utilize the Bashi Channel for military operations. These will have immediate and profound implications for Taiwan’s defense posture. The PLAN’s continuous operations in and around the Bashi Channel reflect Beijing’s ambitions to extend its power beyond the first island chain and into the Pacific Ocean. Thus, controlling key waterways in the chain of islands—like the Bashi Channel—is crucial for any prospective US intervention in support of Taiwan. Moreover, ensuring open and secure access through the Bashi Channel would enable rapid deployment and sustainment of US forces and allies in the event of a crisis.

As another major ally in the region, the Philippines can also deploy advanced surveillance systems in Mavulis Island to strengthen its maritime domain awareness (MDA) while monitoring China. The United States can utilize the annual Balikatan exercise to enhance real-time monitoring of vessel movements into a broader network of sensors to contribute to a comprehensive MDA framework. Since the MDA network can track both surface and subsurface PLAN maritime activities, it would be crucial in giving the United States and its allies information superiority in this area.

The establishment of a Philippine Navy detachment on Mavulis Island in October 2023 marked a significant step in reinforcing Manila’s northern defenses. The presence of military assets on the island sends a clear message of commitment to regional security by the Philippines’ government. But more can be done. The United States and the Philippines can conduct, in partnership, maritime key terrain security operations around Mavulis Island to demonstrate the strategic value of forward-deployed forces in deterring China’s actions. The strategic positioning of military assets on Mavulis Island contributes to a credible deterrent. Yet, Mavulis Island could also serve as a forward operating base to strengthen and reinforce this deterrent. Establishing such a forward operating base on the island would cement its role in enhancing the Philippines’ defense posture.

The Bashi Channel’s strategic importance becomes immediately apparent just by looking at a map, given its position within the first island chain, a series of archipelagos stretching from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines. This chain represents a key perimeter for the United States and its allies aiming to counter China’s maritime expansion. Having control over the Bashi Channel, therefore, enables monitoring of—and if necessary, influence over—the PLAN’s movements between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea, making it a focal point in the broader US strategy to isolate and deter China’s aggressive posture.

China has increasingly employed gray zone tactics in the region, utilizing maritime militia and coast guard vessels to assert its claims without crossing the threshold into open conflict; these actions aim to achieve strategic objectives while avoiding direct military engagement. Such maneuvers exemplify China’s strategy of using nonmilitary means to apply pressure and alter the status quo in contested maritime regions. Multilateral security cooperation is necessary to address these issues. To balance China’s gray zone activities and maintain stability and cooperation between external powers, forums like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) are key. The QUAD seeks to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific and improve collective security through coordinated diplomatic efforts, intelligence sharing, and cooperative military exercises to prevent coercive activities and preserve the strategic balance in vital waterways—like the Bashi Channel.

Understanding and recognizing the importance of chokepoints like the Bashi Channel is crucial for formulating effective policies to navigate the complex security landscape of the Indo-Pacific. The security dynamics and geographic realities of the Bashi Channel necessitate strong regional partnerships to deter and respond to threats. The United States, Japan, and the Philippines have intensified combined military exercises, enhancing their interoperability and their collective deterrence capabilities. Meanwhile, Australia is expanding its role in the region with intelligence-sharing initiatives and coordinated maritime patrols. These relationships are critical for countering China’s gray zone tactics and ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific.

But also critical is controlling key terrain. The Bashi Channel is not just a maritime passage—it is a strategic flash point where geopolitical rivalries converge. Mavulis Island is therefore a piece of key terrain, influential in shaping security dynamics in the region and a means of contributing to stability and the defense of US allies and partners. Just like Yonaguni Island to its north, it should be treated as such.

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Lee is an Indo-Pacific foreign area officer for HQDA G-3/5/7. He holds an undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy and graduate degrees from Columbia University and UCLA.

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

Image: A US Marine takes a reference picture during a reconnaissance patrol alongside Philippine Marines on Mavulis Island during Balikatan 24 (credit: Cpl. Jaylen Davis, US Marine Corps)

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Christopher Lee · March 18, 2025

17. Harriet Tubman: The Original Special Operations Pioneer

What a great American.

And, as an aside, her tradition of the underground railroad is being carried on from north Korea, through China, Vietnam, and Laos to Thailand.

And I hope this essay doesn't get "DEI'd"

Conclusion:

Tubman’s service to her ideals and nation has already earned her a permanent place in American history. However, for the special operations community, her service is a particularly valuable model to consider when imagining the parameters of possible action. Her acts in the Underground Railroad, innovations in the utility of political violence with John Brown, and service to her nation in the Civil War demonstrate a wide range of activities and skill sets applicable to special operations today. As the current force iterates its tactics and structure to face future threats, it is important to remember the absolute dedication to a righteous cause that enabled Tubman to continually link tactics to strategy through action. That same focus and willingness to take risks will need to continue for today’s SOF personnel to successfully advance the United States’ interests across all domains, against all adversaries. The number of towering figures in special operations history is truly an embarrassment of riches, and it is time we consider Harriet Tubman as an integral part of this Hall of Heroes.

Harriet Tubman: The Original Special Operations Pioneer

irregularwarfare.org · by Wyatt Thielen · March 18, 2025

“I grew up like a neglected weed, – ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. Then I was not happy or contented.” Harriet Tubman, 1855

Just over 160 years ago, Harriet Tubman was building intelligence relationships in a foreign territory, developing networks to provide information, and securing access to important economic assets of the Confederacy. By doing so, she set in motion a raid that achieved the essential aim of combat – furthering political goals through force. For Tubman, the aim was the abolition of slavery, and for the Union, the capitulation of the South. For today’s special operations forces, the Combahee River Raid and her life’s work delivering strategic effects through action embody the best of U.S. historical military tradition, and a chronological study of her struggle reveals several valuable lessons. While the full scope of Tubman’s contributions is incomplete, recognizing the limitations of our current historical reference points draws the value of Tubman’s ability to link force to political action in stark relief, and warrants her place as forebearer to special operations.

Constraints of our Chosen History

While special operations formally originated with the Office of Strategic Services during WWII, the force has always traced its lineage further, seeking tactical and intellectual founders to inspire today’s practitioners to refine their craft. The most common patrons of modern American special operations are commonly considered Robert Rogers, the British army officer from the Indian Wars, and “the Swamp Fox” Francis Marion, who conducted a guerilla campaign during the Revolutionary War.

Both men took well-understood tactics of the Native Americans and operationalized them to support conventional campaigns. They are credited as founders of guerilla tactics and Ranger operations, and the U.S. military has worked thoroughly to integrate their original lessons into doctrine, delivering the principles Army-wide to generations of soldiers at Ranger school and other courses. The result is an almost ubiquitous understanding of the value of asymmetric tactics and their application, with nearly any soldier or marine able to parrot “speed, surprise, and violence of action” whenever the answer or motivation seems appropriate. While this is a notable success, it is largely insufficient for the future development of the force.

Since the founding of Special Operations Command in 1987, and especially since the Global War on Terror, the special operations units within the joint force have honed their ability to find and destroy the enemy while developing similar levels of lethality in their counterparts worldwide. If anything characterized special operations activity during the Global War on Terror, it was highly lethal tactical activity with frustratingly elusive political effects. Constant engagement by special operations developed elite units across the globe, particularly Iraq’s Golden Division and the Afghan Commandos, who excelled in direct action raids. Despite their tactical successes, these forces seldom advanced the political causes of their sponsor states. While these units were less likely to commit abuses than local militia, being raided by the Afghan Commandos did not turn a villager into a supporter of the nation’s central government. In fairness to these units, they were designed to conduct discrete counterterrorism operations, not spread and sustain the central government’s influence. But that is both the challenge and the point: advancing strategy through operations is hard. Special operations success in the 21st century depends on the rare individuals who can simultaneously direct intelligence to support operations and align military force with political objectives.

The chosen forebearers of any organization should provide constructive value to develop the current generation, and if the current generation of special operations forces (SOF) is going to continue creating outsized effects in modern conflict, we need to look beyond Marion and Rogers and draw inspiration from other parts of history to ensure that whatever domain in which SOF engages, U.S. military actions advance the political objectives undergirding the United States’s application of force. The story of Harriet Tubman’s life work reveals several valuable lessons in this arena.

Harriet Tubman as a Strategic Actor

Within U.S. national history, Harriet Tubman is a multifaceted political actor who advanced the cause of liberty through distinct lines of effort at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Through her actions within the Underground Railroad, direct advocacy for freedom in the public sphere, conduct of intelligence operations, and leadership of an advance force on the Combahee River Raid during the Civil War, Harriet Tubman demonstrated her resolute ability to apply a variety of different skills relevant to today’s SOF, all in direct support of a noble political goal: the subversion and abolition of slavery.

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in coastal Maryland in the early 1800s and was hired to various households and farms to provide labor. During her childhood, her mother, Rit, threatened violence against their owner and a prospective buyer from Georgia when the men attempted to enter the slave quarters and seize Harriet’s brother for sale. This act of resistance and its retelling throughout her childhood likely developed her belief in the effectiveness of resistance. As Tubman grew out of adolescence, she began seeking ways to physically distance herself from domestic tasks under the close watch of her overseers, instead preferring manual field labor where she was able to learn more about the outside world and opportunities for escape.

Illiterate throughout her life and suffering from a severe head injury from her time as a slave, Tubman’s historical contributions to the emancipation of enslaved blacks had to be captured by other members of her community. Her contributions were those of action, taking physical risks and influencing others to advance a broader cause. In this way, her approach of radical action supported by advocacy, as compared to discourse without risk, offers a reference model to current U.S. forces.

Tubman had married a free Black before her first escape from slavery in September 1849. He was unwilling to travel north in support of his wife’s freedom, so Tubman escaped with her two brothers only to have them force her back into captivity after becoming overtaken by fear. Undeterred, Tubman liberated herself a second time a month later, beginning a cascade of antebellum activity back into hostile territory to guide others to freedom. A mid-range estimate of Tubman’s impact during her involvement with the Underground Railroad depicts thirteen trips into hostile territory, freeing fifty to seventy people directly and providing explicit instruction and guidance to the same quantity before self-guided rescues. Her use and development of human and physical infrastructure, tradecraft, and cover is a direct analog to SOF support to Non-conventional Assisted Recovery. The individual risk she took and the success she delivered were well recognized in the abolitionist movement, with Frederick Douglas writing:

Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day – you in the night. … The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. Excepting John Brown – of sacred memory – I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have.

In addition to utilizing tradecraft to guide people through underground safehouses, Tubman began to involve herself in clandestine political activity before the outbreak of the Civil War. She was involved in recruiting freed slaves as militia and applying her detailed area knowledge in support of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Though this attempt at initiating a slave uprising through a targeted act of political violence ultimately failed, Tubman’s involvement shows an evolution in her thinking on the use of force to achieve political goals. This act, designed to instigate revolution through specific acts of political violence, was influenced by the Haitian revolution and likely represents a unique intellectual development by Brown and possibly Tubman. Despite Italian anarchist Carlo Pisacane developing the idea of direct action for propaganda purposes in 1857, there is no evidence this concept was translated and made its way across the Atlantic in time to inspire the unconventional warfare tactics of John Brown and Harriet Tubman. This willingness to use force to create a specific political effect, in this case instigating a rebellion, advances the understanding of the utility of force beyond that practiced by either Robert Rogers or Francis Marion, and should be immediately recognizable to special operations personnel trained in unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency.

Civil War Service

When the Civil War began, Tubman participated in various capacities, developing human networks, treating casualties, and guiding a Union force deep into Confederate territory during the Combahee River Raid. In military terms, her actions encompassed preparation of the environment, advance force operations, and special reconnaissance. By remaining resolutely focused on direct emancipation through liberation, Tubman linked politically charged action to operations designed to degrade the Confederate economy.

In advance of the Combahee Raid, Massachusetts Governor John Andrews deployed Tubman as a spy to a Union encampment on the sea islands of South Carolina near Beaufort. Here, she began developing access and an intelligence picture of the rice plantations in coastal South Carolina for future operations by integrating into the local Black community. The southern rice plantations were a foreign environment for Tubman. After sugar plantations in the Caribbean, rice plantations were the second most lethal geographic environment for all races in the Americas. In addition to overcoming endemic disease, Tubman worked in a cross-cultural capacity as she could not fully understand the dialect spoken by the slaves on the rice plantations. Despite this language barrier, Tubman leveraged her network to identify the locations of sea mines in the Combahee River, the enslaved men who emplaced them, grain stores, and capital stocks on the targeted plantations.

At the same time, three all-black companies of Union soldiers under Colonel James Montgomery, a former Jayhawker from Kansas, prepared a punitive raid designed to destroy the productive capacity of the plantations by liberating their human capital, destroying their facilities, and seizing any available grain stores. This raid, and others like it, were intended to decrease the supply of rice to Confederate troops and generate forces by training and enlisting the liberated slaves into Union formations.

The raid had a simple operational plan that relied on three factors. First, the Confederate army had withdrawn a majority of its forces during the summer months to avoid the endemic diseases during the “sick season.” This light disposition created space on the battlefield to achieve a relative Union superiority on the plantations and carry out their destruction. Second, the operation was planned to coincide with a full moon and high tide, giving the steamboats used for infiltration the ability to arrive at the objective area with a lower risk of detection. Finally, the network Tubman developed provided access to an otherwise impassable route by removing the mines ahead of the assault force, ensuring tactical surprise.

During the infiltration, one of the boats was grounded on a sandbar in the river, reducing the assault to only two remaining boats after cross-loading their soldiers. To ensure access, Tubman and a small retinue of Black soldiers landed and ensured the mines had been removed from the waterway to fully open the Combahee River. Her network completed their mission, and the Union forces proceeded upstream, displacing a small Confederate force picketing the approach, and occupying the surrounding plantations. The raid liberated 756 slaves and destroyed nine plantations and tens of thousands of bushels of rice. After the raid, 150 of the newly liberated joined Montgomery’s force and began Union service. The raid was deemed successful, and the plantations remained inactive throughout the rest of the war.

Conclusion

Tubman’s service to her ideals and nation has already earned her a permanent place in American history. However, for the special operations community, her service is a particularly valuable model to consider when imagining the parameters of possible action. Her acts in the Underground Railroad, innovations in the utility of political violence with John Brown, and service to her nation in the Civil War demonstrate a wide range of activities and skill sets applicable to special operations today. As the current force iterates its tactics and structure to face future threats, it is important to remember the absolute dedication to a righteous cause that enabled Tubman to continually link tactics to strategy through action. That same focus and willingness to take risks will need to continue for today’s SOF personnel to successfully advance the United States’ interests across all domains, against all adversaries. The number of towering figures in special operations history is truly an embarrassment of riches, and it is time we consider Harriet Tubman as an integral part of this Hall of Heroes.

Wyatt Thielen is a Special Forces NCO with over a decade of service implementing American policy abroad, and a current graduate student at Johns Hopkins SAIS focused on Special Operations policy, employment, and force management.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.

Image: Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) at midlife. (Library of Congress)

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irregularwarfare.org · by Wyatt Thielen · March 18, 2025

18. Veteran-Recruiting Non-Governmental Organizations: An Emerging Actor in Humanitarian Response

Spirit of America does not "claim" to be recognized by Congress and approved by DOD. It is both. It is also the only NGO that is unabashedly "biased" toward US national security interests with the purpose of filling gaps in assistance for State and DOD.

Excerpts:

What is a Veteran-Recruiting Non-Governmental Organization?

We define veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations as non-governmental organizations that are either founded and led by veterans or that emphasize hiring veterans as stated on their website or social media. Examples include Team Rubicon, Global Response Medicine, and the Global Surgical and Medical Support Group. Other entities such as the Spirit of America, which claims to be recognized by Congress and approved by the Department of Defense, deploy alongside U.S. troops and diplomats in the field. All these organizations are transparent and explicit about their recruitment of veterans. Team Rubicon describes itself as “A veteran-led humanitarian organization, built to serve global communities before, during, and after disasters and crises.” Samaritan’s Purse reports that it is “staffed by veterans who have served in the toughest conflict zones in the world … to operate in challenging, kinetic conditions in developing countries.” The Global Surgical and Medical Support Group defines itself as a “501(c)3 Non-Profit Humanitarian Organization,” stating that “Veterans, especially those with medical qualifications … can find an incredibly unique opportunity to apply their entire range of skills in the service of others.” These organizations do not exclusively recruit military veterans. Rather, to address the unique needs encountered in the challenging operational environments where they work, they gravitate toward a community with the necessary skillset. This happens to be the veteran community.

Veteran-Recruiting Non-Governmental Organizations: An Emerging Actor in Humanitarian Response - War on the Rocks

Hannah Wild and Stanislava Mladenova

warontherocks.com · by Hannah Wild · March 18, 2025

The 2016–2017 Battle of Mosul would have been unrecognizable to Henri Dunant, the founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Unlike the defined front lines in the Battle of Solferino, where Dunant witnessed the suffering of the wounded, 21st-century armed conflict is characterized by the proliferation of asymmetric warfare, non-state armed groups, and the targeting of humanitarian workers. As the security dynamics in today’s conflict zones increasingly render conventional humanitarian operations unfeasible, a new type of humanitarian actor has emerged: veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations. These entities hire military veterans with combat experience, bringing both advantages and challenges to traditional humanitarian principles.

Veterans tend to have a wide range of technical and leadership skills and are accustomed to working in insecure, unstable settings. Some also have highly specialized skills that enable them to provide efficient and effective medical care in complex operational environments, performing at a high level in high-stress, high-risk situations. After leaving the military, these skills can be assets in an equally wide range of professions across the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors.

However, the presence of military veterans in the humanitarian space has generated concerns about safeguarding the fundamental values of humanitarianism — namely, the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. Foremost among these concerns is that the presence of veterans blurs the distinction between military, paramilitary, and private security actors on the one hand and humanitarian organizations on the other, thereby increasing the risk to conventional humanitarian entities in conflict. Meanwhile, others contend that the erosion of respect for humanitarian principles in modern warfare requires even traditional humanitarian organizations to deviate from their longstanding practices.

Despite the significance of these debates, little structured attention has been given to the emergence of veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations in humanitarian response in modern armed conflict.

Become a Member

What is a Veteran-Recruiting Non-Governmental Organization?

We define veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations as non-governmental organizations that are either founded and led by veterans or that emphasize hiring veterans as stated on their website or social media. Examples include Team Rubicon, Global Response Medicine, and the Global Surgical and Medical Support Group. Other entities such as the Spirit of America, which claims to be recognized by Congress and approved by the Department of Defense, deploy alongside U.S. troops and diplomats in the field. All these organizations are transparent and explicit about their recruitment of veterans. Team Rubicon describes itself as “A veteran-led humanitarian organization, built to serve global communities before, during, and after disasters and crises.” Samaritan’s Purse reports that it is “staffed by veterans who have served in the toughest conflict zones in the world … to operate in challenging, kinetic conditions in developing countries.” The Global Surgical and Medical Support Group defines itself as a “501(c)3 Non-Profit Humanitarian Organization,” stating that “Veterans, especially those with medical qualifications … can find an incredibly unique opportunity to apply their entire range of skills in the service of others.” These organizations do not exclusively recruit military veterans. Rather, to address the unique needs encountered in the challenging operational environments where they work, they gravitate toward a community with the necessary skillset. This happens to be the veteran community.

New Actors in the Humanitarian Space

The Battle of Mosul highlighted a nexus of tensions between modern conflict dynamics, international humanitarian law, and conventional frameworks of humanitarian response. In 2016–2017, a U.S.-backed coalition of Iraqi and Kurdish forces sought to retake Mosul from the so-called Islamic State, leading to a protracted urban siege that devastated the local civilian population. Conventional humanitarian actors such as Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Committee of the Red Cross declined to operate in Mosul due to security concerns. To fill the gap in frontline care, the World Health Organization contracted numerous less-traditional organizations to run its trauma stabilization points located near areas of heavy fighting. These organizations included NYC Medics and Samaritan’s Purse. In addition, private health-service firms such as Aspen Medical supported the humanitarian response, showing that veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations are not the only new actors in this space. Such actors appear to have an unclear obligation to adhere to international humanitarian law.

The outcome was controversial. In accordance with the principle of humanity, civilian lives were saved, although it is unclear how many. This came at the expense of the principles of neutrality and independence, as those involved with the humanitarian response embedded with Iraqi special forces and other military elements for security.

The Mosul response was criticized by Médecins Sans Frontières, who saw it as the manifestation of Colin Powell’s infamous remark in 2001: “NGOs are such a force multiplier for us, such an important part of our combat team.” Individuals involved in the response were reported to have worn “Make Mosul Great Again” paraphernalia and used local security forces to screen for combatants outside a hospital. Other non-World Health Organization-contracted non-governmental organizations were filmed returning fire at snipers.

Since this time, veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations have come to play a bigger role in modern humanitarian response, often filling a void left by conventional humanitarian organizations. Despite this development, little is known about the scope and scale of the operations of these new humanitarian response actors. Many questions remain pertaining to the range of stakeholders with whom they engage, the way they do so, and the implications of their activities for international humanitarian law.

Uncomfortable Conversations

To address this information gap, we generated a balanced dialogue as a “conversation-starter” about the emerging role of veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations in modern humanitarian response. We sought to elicit perspectives on both sides of this debate to improve communication and transparency between conventional humanitarian organizations, veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders in international humanitarian response. In our experience, dialogue on this topic is frequently characterized by a degree of antagonism that precludes productive engagement from all parties.

We explored this topic by interviewing 15 stakeholders in humanitarian response, including both conventional humanitarian organizations and veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations. The interviewees included organizational leaders, medics, surgeons, career humanitarians, and veterans. In addition, we convened a workshop called “New Actors in the Civ-Mil Space” at the 2024 Civilian-Military Humanitarian Coordination Workshop hosted by Brown University and the U.S. Naval War College. While veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations represented a minority at the workshop compared to conventional humanitarian organizations and U.N. agencies, balanced representation was ensured by an approximately 50/50 composition of interviewees between veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations and conventional humanitarians.

The participants in the Brown workshop were split into three breakout groups to address the following questions. First, how is the presence of new actors in the civilian-military space impacting the four core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence? Second, how is the presence of new actors in this space impacting the acceptance of humanitarian actors? Third, how can we ensure that the concept of “do no harm” as well as respect for local host community cultures and norms are upheld in the presence of new actors? Recruitment for workshop participation ensured that veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations were represented in the three breakout groups.

The breakout groups identified a broad range of themes and sub-themes in their discussions. These included the “instrumentalization” or jeopardizing of the humanitarian principles; the implications of diverse financing structures and a lack of transparency; definitions, as in whether veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations should be considered a distinct category from conventional humanitarian actors; acceptance of new actors by the conventional humanitarian community as well as host communities; and the future implications for access to conflict zones and the protection of humanitarians.

“This Really Freaks Me Out”: Challenges to the Humanitarian Status Quo

The presence of veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations in humanitarian situations poses challenges to “business as usual.” In the words of one conventional humanitarian, “[Veteran-recruiting non-governmental organization involvement] really freaks me out, but I’m trying to stay constructive.” Many conventional humanitarian non-governmental organizations feared that veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations’ tendency to engage with security actors diluted what it meant to be a “humanitarian,” endangered the humanitarian principles, and placed humanitarians at risk. Among interviewees, there was a perception that while some veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations may understand international humanitarian law, they were more focused on “helping the good guys.” However, it is often unclear who the so-called good guys are in a conflict. As expressed by one interviewee:

The risks are obvious … the lines are blurred, and because the lines are blurred, the truly neutral humanitarians are at risk and will be much more likely to become a target.

Others felt that sharply critical perspectives amounted to a knee-jerk reaction to a challenge to the status quo. Such individuals felt that the emergence of veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations reflected the changing security dynamics in modern conflict. Rather than good or bad, these individuals felt that the role of veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations was inevitable, and that any risks associated with this should be mitigated through constructive coordination. As one workshop participant stated:

We have a bunch of people challenging the status quo and we don’t like it — we’re calling them veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations as if they’re a different entity and we’re part of some exclusive club that’s deciding whether or not to accept them…

This sentiment was shared by representatives from veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations themselves:

The problem goes beyond these groups … the whole humanitarian field is an outdated model that isn’t working. It’s a Cold War construct where there was a humanitarian space, where you had people that understood and respected international humanitarian law. And for a lot of places that is no longer really relevant.

Despite these concerns, even critical conventional humanitarian actors acknowledged that veterans’ military experience provided benefits, stating that conflicts such as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars created a “wholly different type of person with massive field experience whose skills aren’t fully used in civilian life.” Veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations were perceived as more efficient and better able to mobilize, react, and deliver than conventional actors. Such “nimbleness” was attributed to having technical skills, security expertise, and comfort with ambiguity that allowed veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations to quickly enter places conventional humanitarians could or would not. On the other hand, this agility was also seen as a product of a tendency to avoid official structures and coordination mechanisms. Veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations were also seen to have a leg up with respect to building trust and camaraderie with local military and security actors. Beyond their experience of operating in insecure environments, other benefits identified included a strong sense of morality and non-financial incentive structures, discipline, professionalism, adaptability, language and cultural skills, and a strong analytical approach to skills transfer. These benefits could be attributed to the fact that many veterans had special operations forces backgrounds.

Not All Veteran-Recruiting Non-Governmental Organizations Are Created Equal

Veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations are not created equal. These groups encompass a wide range of organizational profiles, standards, and types of ethos. Like conventional humanitarian organizations, some were seen as “short-term spotlight-seekers with unclear impact” while others seemed committed to sustained local engagement. At one end of the spectrum, some veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations are closely aligned with the standards, principles, and structures that govern the behavior of conventional humanitarians. At the other end, others are difficult to distinguish from government contractors and are proudly partial. For example, some provide training for partner special operations forces while others were felt to play “essentially an intelligence role,” collecting sensitive information from local human sources. The organizations that more closely resembled conventional humanitarian organizations felt it did their work a disservice to be associated with those that didn’t. They were equally critical of such activities as the conventional humanitarians:

I’m glad you guys are taking people out and doing great training and saving lives, but you can’t carry guns and wear camo if you’re a humanitarian aid organization. Those are the rules, and they exist for a reason.

Some veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations representatives felt that conventional humanitarians lacked nuance in their perception of veterans who engaged in humanitarian response:

[Conventional humanitarian organizations] are still dogmatic purists … they don’t distinguish between military and veterans … I’ve spent 14 years having this conversation with them and it goes like this: ‘Hey, I’m a civilian. I’m a civilian that cut my teeth in crisis zones while I was in the military. But subsequently I have worked in conflict zones and disaster situations as a civilian. Civilian veterans are civilians. Now you may have done this in the Peace Corps, or you may have done it with the military, but the fact is we are all civilians.’

Double Standards?

Do the same standards apply to conventional humanitarians and veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations? Representatives both from veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations as well as some career humanitarians felt that many of the criticisms raised could apply to the entire humanitarian sector, which one interviewee derided as “the largest unregulated industry in the world.” Another stated:

I don’t know that [conventional humanitarian organizations] really set a gold standard. I’d call it more like a tinfoil standard … There’s a problem with the whole sector, so I don’t necessarily see a specific problem here.

Such critiques included a lack of accountability for outcomes, “spotlight-seeking” to attract to donors (then needing a security escort for access to a conflict zone), and uneven commitment to local actors on the ground. Multiple interviewees believed veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations did a better job of supporting training (i.e., targeted transfer of specific knowledge or skills) and capacity building (i.e., developing strengthened capacity at a systems or organizational level) than conventional humanitarian actors that created reliance on expatriate assistance.

What Comes Next?

Accepting the divergent reactions to veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations — as well as the limitations of this designation itself — what constructive steps can be taken to improve communication, transparency, and coordination with conventional humanitarian actors? Three recommendations come to mind.

First, establish more precise definitions that classify “veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations” not by the professional backgrounds of their leadership and staff but by their organizational conduct. Specifically, conventional humanitarians called for strong delineation and different terminology to be applied to veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations collaborating with security actors. Conversely, representatives of such veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations expressed that they were not attached to the term “humanitarian.” As one stated:

If it’s a problem for Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Committee of the Red Cross to call us “humanitarian” then just call us a training group. I could[n’t] care less what we’re called, we’re just helping people.

Second, create uniform standards for adherence to humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law for actors calling themselves “humanitarians.” Some conventional humanitarians were so concerned by the implications of veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations’ work that they felt a new protocol to the Geneva Conventions was warranted. Others felt that more moderate measures to establish standardized accountability mechanisms, accreditation processes, minimum standards for international humanitarian law training, and adherence to humanitarian principles would be sufficient to support the professionalization of veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations and other emerging actors in the humanitarian space. The World Health Organization Red Book, which seeks to provide guidance for medical teams in conflict and insecure environments, was identified as a potential opportunity to establish such standards.

Finally, parties on both sides called for continued dialogue to foster transparency and improved understanding of the wide range of emerging actors operating under the banner of humanitarianism.

Taken together, these steps may help professionalize the activities of veteran-recruiting non-governmental organizations, promote coordination and communication with conventional humanitarians, and clarify both the positive and cautionary implications of their engagement in modern humanitarian response.

Become a Member

Hannah Wild is a resident surgeon focused on improving casualty care in low-resource conflict settings. She leads the Explosive Weapons Trauma Care Collective and is currently based in Burkina Faso.

Stanislava Mladenova is a global fellow at Brown University’s Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies, and formerly a fellow at the Irregular Warfare Initiative at the U.S. Military Academy. She is the author of “When Rambo Meets the Red Cross: Civil-Military Engagement in Fragile States.”

Image: Staff Sgt. JoAnn Makinano via Wikimedia Commons.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Hannah Wild · March 18, 2025

19. Putin Doesn’t Actually Want Peace

(and neither does Kim Jong Un)

Excerpts:

Mr. Putin’s other trick is to invoke the Istanbul negotiations of March 2022, claiming that Russia and Ukraine were once close to a peace deal stymied by Western obstruction. Whatever the truth of the claim, the conditions discussed then — such as capping the size of Ukraine’s military, altering its constitution to enshrine a neutral, nonaligned status and surrendering occupied territories — now seem, after three years of war, entirely unacceptable. Any Ukrainian president agreeing to such terms would face immediate political ruin. That’s why Mr. Putin insists on them.

For a while, Ukraine was caught in the trap. Now, with the agreement in Saudi Arabia last week to a monthlong cease-fire, it has seized the initiative. The Kremlin’s initial reaction was cautious. “The idea itself is the right one, and we definitely support it,” Mr. Putin said on Thursday. “But,” he added, “there are questions that we need to discuss.” Discussions in recent days with American officials centered around Russia’s conditions, including the halting of arms supplies to Ukraine, have made a cease-fire look increasingly unlikely.

Even if one were to come about, it wouldn’t solve much. Given it lacks American security guarantees, Russia could easily provoke an incident, accuse Ukraine of violating the truce and immediately retake abandoned positions, stronger than ever. It’s telling that after the cease-fire proposal, Mr. Putin appeared in military uniform for the first time in the entire war — an unmistakable sign of intent. Little wonder the Ukrainian leadership is skeptical of success.

It’s hard to say how the Trump administration might respond to a refused or broken cease-fire. Its initial enthusiasm for Russia seems to have already been tempered somewhat — see Mr. Trump’s recent threats of “large scale” sanctions on Russia if it doesn’t agree to a deal — and there is a long way to go. But we should be clear about what Mr. Putin is planning. It’s not peace.

Putin Doesn’t Actually Want Peace

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/putin-trump-ukraine-ceasefire.html

March 18, 2025, 1:00 a.m. ET

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By Mikhail Zygar

Mr. Zygar is a Russian journalist and the author of the newsletter The Last Pioneer.

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There is, at last, a breakthrough in efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

After weeks of tortuous recriminations and reprisals, encapsulated by that notorious scene in the Oval Office, the United States and Ukraine last week agreed on a 30-day cease-fire. Military assistance and intelligence sharing, once paused, have resumed. Since President Trump took office, the saga of the war has played out almost entirely between America and Ukraine, with Russia somewhere in the background. Now all eyes are on Moscow.

People hoping for peace are likely to be disappointed. Despite President Vladimir Putin of Russia signaling readiness for a deal, nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve been talking to Kremlin insiders who have known Mr. Putin for years and they all agreed: Mr. Putin has come to love war and can no longer imagine a future without it. Instead, his plan is to drive a wedge between Ukraine and the United States, take advantage of Mr. Trump’s apparent friendliness to improve relations with America and keep the war machine running.

Tuesday’s phone call between the two leaders will put that strategy to the test. Whatever happens next, nobody should be fooled. Mr. Putin has no desire to end the war.

The mood in Moscow is war weary. That’s why Mr. Trump’s comments about forcing Ukraine to negotiate were seized upon by Russian officials with such excitement: It offered them a way out of the war, complete with new American friendship. But Mr. Putin sees things differently. According to the people I spoke to, he hasn’t given up on his original aim: to take Kyiv and overthrow President Volodymyr Zelensky. The volatility of American support for Ukraine — along with small but steady advances on the battlefield and Russia’s general advantage in resources — makes this pipe dream seem more plausible, if still far-fetched.

More important, though, is that the war has become Mr. Putin’s ultimate tool for controlling the country and ensuring no one steps out of line. It has been brutally wielded to drive out dissenting voices from the country, turning a whole generation of opponents into exiles. The war serves as a perfect gag order on those in the system, too. As long as it continues, even the so-called systemic liberals — the pro-Western faction within Russia’s government that holds key positions in the economy and business world — will remain silent. Many of them are clearly unhappy. But while the war drags on, they will not speak out.

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The dangers of peace, on the other hand, are plain. It would return a more than a million-strong army home and a rung of high-ranking veterans to civilian life. What will they do? A warning signal was sent last month when one of Russia’s most prominent war veterans and the president’s envoy to the Urals district, Artem Zhoga, dared to criticize a possible minerals deal with America floated by Mr. Putin. “These resources are part of a strategic reserve, and I urge my colleagues in the regions to ensure their preservation in the interests of the state,” Mr. Zhoga said. Notably, he did not mention the president.

For Mr. Putin, it was an ominous intervention. Shut out from key government positions — not a single war veteran has been placed in a senior leadership role, even after extensive reshuffling at the defense ministry — veterans are a potential pool of resentment. While the war continues, they cannot afford to step out of line. Were peace to come, they may well follow the footsteps of the former Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in railing against Mr. Putin and his regime. Mr. Putin, of course, cannot allow that to happen. To prevent a veterans’ revolt, he must not end the war. His political survival depends on it.

As does the economy, which has been fully reshaped to serve the war effort. The government has been restructured to follow a Stalinist principle: “Everything for the front, everything for victory.” The state apparatus now operates in service of the military-industrial complex. The most influential figure in Russia’s economy is Sergey Chemezov, Mr. Putin’s longtime colleague from the K.G.B. who now heads Rostec, the state-owned military conglomerate. That tells you how entwined political power, the war and the economy have become.

Some Russian business leaders argue that the war has even benefited parts of the country that had long been in economic decline. Once idle defense factories are now running at full capacity, fulfilling government contracts and creating jobs. Unlike the prewar years — when wealth was concentrated in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities — state funding is now flowing into Russia’s economically depressed regions. The Kremlin’s bet on military Keynesianism, making use of oil revenues to redirect the economy to meet the war’s needs, has largely paid off.

So the war stays. How to square that with Mr. Putin’s apparent willingness to discuss an end to it? According to those I talked to, Mr. Putin has pursued a dual-track strategy from the beginning: engaging in separate discussions about U.S.-Russia relations — chiefly economic in nature — while keeping Ukraine as a separate issue. The mooted minerals deal so disliked by Mr. Zhoga is a case in point. Appealing to Mr. Trump’s business sense, Mr. Putin had floated the possibility of partnering with America in mining projects across Russia. Ukraine didn’t feature.

When the war is the subject of discussion, Mr. Putin’s plan is simple: appear open to negotiations while provoking splits in the opposing camp, hoping to force Ukraine to reject them first. In this, he has been remarkably successful. His repeated claim that Mr. Zelensky is illegitimate was echoed by Mr. Trump, who branded Ukraine’s president a “dictator.” The unseemly shouting match in the Oval Office was, among other things, a triumph for Mr. Putin’s tactic of provocation.

Mr. Putin’s other trick is to invoke the Istanbul negotiations of March 2022, claiming that Russia and Ukraine were once close to a peace deal stymied by Western obstruction. Whatever the truth of the claim, the conditions discussed then — such as capping the size of Ukraine’s military, altering its constitution to enshrine a neutral, nonaligned status and surrendering occupied territories — now seem, after three years of war, entirely unacceptable. Any Ukrainian president agreeing to such terms would face immediate political ruin. That’s why Mr. Putin insists on them.

For a while, Ukraine was caught in the trap. Now, with the agreement in Saudi Arabia last week to a monthlong cease-fire, it has seized the initiative. The Kremlin’s initial reaction was cautious. “The idea itself is the right one, and we definitely support it,” Mr. Putin said on Thursday. “But,” he added, “there are questions that we need to discuss.” Discussions in recent days with American officials centered around Russia’s conditions, including the halting of arms supplies to Ukraine, have made a cease-fire look increasingly unlikely.

Even if one were to come about, it wouldn’t solve much. Given it lacks American security guarantees, Russia could easily provoke an incident, accuse Ukraine of violating the truce and immediately retake abandoned positions, stronger than ever. It’s telling that after the cease-fire proposal, Mr. Putin appeared in military uniform for the first time in the entire war — an unmistakable sign of intent. Little wonder the Ukrainian leadership is skeptical of success.

It’s hard to say how the Trump administration might respond to a refused or broken cease-fire. Its initial enthusiasm for Russia seems to have already been tempered somewhat — see Mr. Trump’s recent threats of “large scale” sanctions on Russia if it doesn’t agree to a deal — and there is a long way to go. But we should be clear about what Mr. Putin is planning. It’s not peace.

Mikhail Zygar (@zygaro) is a former editor in chief of the independent news channel TV Rain and the author of “War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky and the Path to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine” and The Last Pioneer newsletter.

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20. The Fragile Axis of Upheaval

So we should stop talking about the fusion of foes and the Dark Quad? Will that make it all better?

Excerpts:

If, however, the United States insists upon treating this new coalition’s emergence as if it were a revival of the Warsaw Pact, the putative axis of autocracies probably will coalesce and end up posing a much greater danger. Russia and China once supported international nonproliferation efforts, including attempts to prevent Iran and North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. China and Russia should not want a global nuclear cascade, but if the United States remains implacably hostile to them, that might lead Moscow to adopt an “if you can’t stop them, help them” approach and back Pyongyang’s and Tehran’s nuclear programs. Both Iran and North Korea could then use Russian nuclear and missile technology to develop advanced weapons that would hamper the U.S. military’s response options in East Asia and the Middle East—and even threaten the American homeland.

Of equal concern is the possibility that China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia will use their wartime cooperation as a model for opportunistic coordination in the future. In general, autocratic countries struggle to make the kind of credible commitments that joint military planning requires, but a coordinated attack on U.S. interests in multiple regions might still emerge through improvisation. For example, if China attacks Taiwan and the United States comes to the island’s defense, Russia could take advantage of Washington’s distraction to seize a slice of the Baltic states, and Iran could see an opportunity to attack Israel. Such a multifront assault on U.S. allies would stretch American resources to the maximum or beyond it.

These possibilities make it important for the United States to get its strategy right today. Bundling the threats the four so-called axis states pose is politically convenient in Washington, because it placates interest groups in the U.S. national security ecosphere that would otherwise compete for resources. But the hidden costs will be high.

Fear generates an impulse to fight back against U.S. adversaries on all possible fronts. But if a country gives in to the impulse to fight everywhere all at once it sows the seeds of its own decline. Before World War I, for example, Germany tried to challenge the United Kingdom at sea while also dominating France and Russia on the European continent. It ended up fatally overstretched. Likewise, when Japan in the 1930s attempted to meet both its army’s aspirations for an Asian empire and its navy’s demands for a Pacific fleet, it ended up bogged down in China and at war with the world’s foremost industrial power, the United States. Instead of treating China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia as an inexorable bloc, the United States and its allies should work to loosen their ties by exploiting the fissures that the war in Ukraine has concealed.

The Fragile Axis of Upheaval

Foreign Affairs · by More by Christopher S. Chivvis · March 18, 2025

An Autocratic Alliance Is Mostly an Illusion—but Could Become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Christopher S. Chivvis

March 18, 2025

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi in Beijing, March 2025 Lintao Zhang / Reuters

CHRISTOPHER S. CHIVVIS is Director of the American Statecraft Program and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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Even regional wars have geopolitical consequences, and when it comes to Russia’s war on Ukraine, the most important of these has been the formation of a loose entente among China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. Some U.S. national security experts have taken to calling this group “the axis of upheaval” or “the axis of autocracy,” warning that the United States must center this entente in its foreign policy and focus on containing or defeating it. It is not only Washington policymakers who worry about a new, well-coordinated anti-American bloc: in a November 2024 U.S. public opinion poll by the Ronald Reagan Institute, 86 percent of respondents agreed that they were either “extremely” or “somewhat” concerned by the increased cooperation between these U.S. adversaries.

There is no question that these countries threaten U.S. interests, nor that their cooperation has strengthened lately. But the axis framing overstates the depth and permanence of their alignment. The coalition has been strengthened by the Ukraine war, but its members’ interests are less well fitted than they appear on the surface. Washington should not lump these countries together. Historically, when countries logroll separate threats into a monolithic one, it is a strategic mistake. U.S. leaders need to make a more nuanced and accurate analysis of the threats that they pose, or else the fear of an axis of autocracies could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When the war ends, the United States and its allies should seize opportunities to loosen the coalition’s war-forged bonds.

INTERIM ORDER

Cooperation among these four countries is not entirely new. North Korea has been dependent on China for almost 75 years. Moscow’s relationships with both Beijing and Tehran were often rocky during the Cold War, but the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse opened the door to rapprochements. During Donald Trump’s first presidency, signs that China and Russia were deepening their partnership began emerging. Russia and Iran, meanwhile, found themselves on the same side of the Syrian civil war after Moscow intervened in 2015 to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The war in Ukraine, however, has poured high-octane accelerant on these embers of cooperation, and the resulting collaborations have damaged Western interests. There is no question that Russia’s recent cooperation with China, Iran, and North Korea has helped the Kremlin resist the West’s military and economic pressures. Iran’s provision of drones and medium-range ballistic missiles in return for Russian intelligence and fighter aircraft allowed Russia to hammer Ukraine’s military and civilian infrastructure without depleting its stocks of other weapons and weakening its defenses against NATO. By contributing 11,000 troops as well as munitions, artillery, and missiles to Russia’s war effort, North Korea has helped Russia gradually push back the Ukrainian occupation of Kursk; Russia’s compensations of oil, fighter aircraft and potentially other weapons blunt the effect of international sanctions on North Korea and may embolden Pyongyang to further provoke Seoul. And Beijing’s decision to look the other way as Chinese firms supply Moscow with dual-use goods (in exchange for certain defense technologies and less expensive energy) has helped Russia produce advanced weaponry despite Western sanctions.

In June 2024, Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defense treaty. Iran and Russia have promised to strengthen their economic cooperation and, in January, signed their own defense agreement. China, Iran, and North Korea—like many other countries around the world—have also refused to join U.S.-led sanctions on Russia. Meanwhile, Russia has blocked UN sanctions monitors from continuing their work in North Korea.

These four countries will no doubt continue to parrot one another’s criticisms of the United States well after the war in Ukraine ends. For the most part, however, the forms of cooperation that have most worried Washington have directly involved that war, and its end will attenuate the coalition’s most important new bonds. It is not at all uncommon for wartime coalitions to fall apart once a war ends, and after the war, the Kremlin is likely to renege on some of its wartime promises. Russia will have less need to pay off Iran, for example. Likewise, as the pressure to refill its depleted supply of troops dissipates, the Kremlin will become less keen to get entangled in North Korea’s conflicts in East Asia.

Beijing’s wartime support for Moscow was already restrained and conditional: going too far to back Russia’s war would have damaged China's relations with Europe and exposed it to secondary sanctions. China’s support has also been driven by fear that a Russian defeat could yield a Western-oriented Kremlin or chaos on the Russian-Chinese border. Once the war ends, however, that fear will recede, and with it, China’s enthusiasm for materially supporting Russia. If Russian energy begins to flow back toward Europe, that would also loosen the economic bond the war generated between these two powers.

REVERSE TIDES

When the wartime closeness of these countries is projected linearly into the future, their divergent national interests become obscured. China, for example, has long sought closer relations with the EU; deepening its partnership with Russia impedes this strategic objective. China and Ukraine once had a productive bilateral relationship, and both may wish to return to it once the war is over. Russia, meanwhile, is suspicious of China’s growing economic influence in Central Asia, which the Kremlin considers its own privileged sphere. These tensions are likely to resurface once the war is over. Notably, China almost certainly would prefer to be at the center of a reformed global order, not at the center of a coalition whose other three members are economic and political pariahs.

Some analysts claim that a common autocratic ideology will bind China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia together in the long term. But autocracy is not an ideology. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its Marxist-Leninist allies were bound by a real ideology that not only called for revolution across the liberal capitalist world but also offered a utopian vision for a new global order. No such common cause binds Iran’s religious theocracy, Russia’s neoimperialist nationalism, the hereditary despotism of North Korea’s regime, and the blend of nationalism, Confucianism, and Marxism-Leninism that animates the Chinese Communist Party. Instead, this coalition is bound by a fear of the United States and an objection to an international order that they believe reflects U.S. preferences. Although many other states share this critique of the international order, the varied ideologies of this coalition offer no positive vision that could replace the existing system.

Furthermore, although Washington has conceived of its autocratic adversaries as a cohesive unit, almost all of their cooperation has been through bilateral channels. If the war in Ukraine continues, some military institutionalization might grow out of it, but right now, the institutional foundations of the autocracies’ relationships are very weak. What has been cast as an axis is actually six overlapping bilateral relationships. Since 2019, for example, China, Iran, and Russia have occasionally conducted joint military exercises in a trilateral format, but these exercises had little strategic relevance. These states have not congealed into anything remotely resembling the Warsaw Pact. Absent new institutions, coordinated action will be much more difficult.

DIVIDE AND NEUTRALIZE

Even though the bonds that unite China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are currently weak, they could still strengthen with time. Western countries need to adopt a statecraft that reduces this risk. Their first step should be to focus on ending the war in Ukraine. Trump has initiated an ambitious and controversial opening to Moscow that may result in a cease-fire and a negotiated settlement. Trump has indulged in overly optimistic rhetoric about Moscow’s sincerity, and questions about his true aims linger. Nevertheless, a cease-fire would greatly reduce the pressures that bind the so-called axis of upheaval together. If U.S. leaders negotiate with Moscow, that would also signal to Beijing that they are willing to consider wider-ranging negotiations with it, and these could further disrupt the coalition.

Indeed, the second way to loosen the coalition’s bonds is for the United States to stabilize or improve its own relations with China, by far the most powerful member of the group. Steering the U.S.-Chinese relationship toward more stability will be hard, but—perhaps as part of a larger deal on trade and investment—Trump could reassure Beijing that the United States does not want outright economic decoupling or to change the status quo on Taiwan. China needs the other three coalition powers far less than they need China, which means it may be the most willing to make its own deal with the United States.

Stabilizing relations with Beijing is thus a more realistic near-term goal than trying to bring Russia swiftly back into the European fold. Too sudden and dramatic a U-turn in U.S.-Russian relations would alienate key U.S. allies in Europe and needlessly entrench a transatlantic rift. It would be similarly unwise for the United States to take Kremlin’s assurances about Ukraine or Europe at face value, given Russia’s deep grievances toward the West and its leaders’ proclivity for deception. With a cease-fire in place, however, the United States and Europe could consider making limited improvements to their economic relations with Russia, which would help attenuate Russia’s ties with China. And just as an end to the war in Ukraine would almost certainly weaken the coalition’s bonds, so would a new nuclear agreement between the United States and Iran that reduces the need to launch military strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program and allows the country to find outlets for its oil other than China.

UNTIE THE KNOT

If, however, the United States insists upon treating this new coalition’s emergence as if it were a revival of the Warsaw Pact, the putative axis of autocracies probably will coalesce and end up posing a much greater danger. Russia and China once supported international nonproliferation efforts, including attempts to prevent Iran and North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. China and Russia should not want a global nuclear cascade, but if the United States remains implacably hostile to them, that might lead Moscow to adopt an “if you can’t stop them, help them” approach and back Pyongyang’s and Tehran’s nuclear programs. Both Iran and North Korea could then use Russian nuclear and missile technology to develop advanced weapons that would hamper the U.S. military’s response options in East Asia and the Middle East—and even threaten the American homeland.

Of equal concern is the possibility that China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia will use their wartime cooperation as a model for opportunistic coordination in the future. In general, autocratic countries struggle to make the kind of credible commitments that joint military planning requires, but a coordinated attack on U.S. interests in multiple regions might still emerge through improvisation. For example, if China attacks Taiwan and the United States comes to the island’s defense, Russia could take advantage of Washington’s distraction to seize a slice of the Baltic states, and Iran could see an opportunity to attack Israel. Such a multifront assault on U.S. allies would stretch American resources to the maximum or beyond it.

These possibilities make it important for the United States to get its strategy right today. Bundling the threats the four so-called axis states pose is politically convenient in Washington, because it placates interest groups in the U.S. national security ecosphere that would otherwise compete for resources. But the hidden costs will be high.

Fear generates an impulse to fight back against U.S. adversaries on all possible fronts. But if a country gives in to the impulse to fight everywhere all at once it sows the seeds of its own decline. Before World War I, for example, Germany tried to challenge the United Kingdom at sea while also dominating France and Russia on the European continent. It ended up fatally overstretched. Likewise, when Japan in the 1930s attempted to meet both its army’s aspirations for an Asian empire and its navy’s demands for a Pacific fleet, it ended up bogged down in China and at war with the world’s foremost industrial power, the United States. Instead of treating China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia as an inexorable bloc, the United States and its allies should work to loosen their ties by exploiting the fissures that the war in Ukraine has concealed.

CHRISTOPHER S. CHIVVIS is Director of the American Statecraft Program and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Foreign Affairs · by More by Christopher S. Chivvis · March 18, 2025

21. The Once and Future Transatlantic Alliance

Is it counterintuitive? The more self-sufficient and self-defense focused are the Europeans, the more likely the US will fully support NATO. What could be wrong with that? (Answer: there should be nothing wrong with that). Perhaps all the US is saying is that it does not want to support freeloaders and it certainly does not (and must not) believe in "from each according to its abilities, to each according to its needs."

Excerpts:

The total cost of the initiatives Europe should take to revamp the transatlantic alliance would run upward of $100 billion yearly. This means that on average, European countries’ military budgets might have to reach 2.5 percent of GDP. But it is dangerously reductive to adjudicate defense investments merely by examining the percentage of GDP a country spends on defense. If Europe refined its military priorities and reoriented some of the existing force structure it has anchored to home territories, it might afford all of what we propose at 2.2 percent of GDP. Pressure from the Trump administration has already spurred European allies to inch toward that figure.

Washington, too, must revitalize its commitment to the transatlantic alliance. The United States currently maintains about 100,000 troops in Europe. Their host countries partly offset the cost of supporting these troops, and the United States should maintain them—and be prepared to send reinforcements if necessary. Most of all, Washington must make clear that the U.S. nuclear umbrella—a crucial and time-tested deterrent to Russian aggression—remains in place. The United States cannot be secure if Europe is insecure. But at such an isolationist moment in U.S. politics, Washington may need Europe to show the enduring value of this partnership. Beyond acquiring more material resources, Europe needs to invest the alliance with a renewed sense of purpose, clarity about its core strategic objectives, and a determination to fulfill them. European nations should embrace this challenge not only because they fear abandonment by the United States but also because more collective strength would boost their own leverage on the world stage.

The Once and Future Transatlantic Alliance

Foreign Affairs · by More by Michael E. O’Hanlon · March 18, 2025

A More Active and Independent Europe Can Bring America Back to the Table

March 18, 2025

NATO troops taking part in a military exercise near Galati, Romania, February 2025 Eduard Vinatoru / Reuters

MICHAEL E. O’HANLON is Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution, where he is also Director of Research for the Foreign Policy program.

PAUL B. STARES is General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he also directs the Center for Preventive Action.

More by Paul B. Stares

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The transatlantic alliance has weathered many crises over the past 80 years, some of which seemed existential at the time. But the one now roiling the alliance feels different and much more treacherous. Unlike previous episodes of transatlantic discord, which mostly revolved around how the alliance should respond to an external threat of one kind or another, the challenge today comes from within. European leaders are asking themselves whether the United States—the alliance’s founder and steadfast champion for eight decades—is still committed to the security of Europe and the West more generally. Recent statements by U.S. President Donald Trump and his senior advisers suggest that the answer is no.

Many European leaders now believe they have no choice but to declare strategic independence from the United States and launch a crash program to defend their continent alone. But they should not. Aside from the incredible expense of achieving a credible European defense posture without U.S. military support, even voicing such an intent risks hastening a total divorce that would threaten the security of both Europe and North America. Abandoning the alliance now would amount to “committing suicide out of fear of death,” as the nineteenth-century German statesman Otto von Bismarck described preventive war.

Instead, Europeans must try to save the alliance. They can do more to defend their continent so that the burden does not fall disproportionately on the United States—an obligation that European leaders now widely acknowledge and accept. Actually shouldering their part of the burden will require demonstrating a clear commitment to ensuring Ukraine’s security and independence after a cease-fire. The signs are promising that a broad-based “coalition of the willing” led by Europeans is coalescing to do just that.

Beyond this immediate imperative, however, European countries have less clarity and consensus about how to safeguard the transatlantic alliance. This challenge cannot be approached as it often has been in the past—by setting broad defense-planning goals and defense-spending budgets toward which each alliance member must work independently. Nor can Europe simply try to substitute homegrown capabilities for U.S. ones where there are obvious shortcomings.

In the years ahead, the United States and Europe will face several interconnected military challenges: deterring Russia from attacking NATO members, protecting Europe’s southern flank from the consequences of instability in the Middle East and Africa, defending the alliance’s interests in the Arctic, and addressing the strategic challenge posed by China. The common factor on which success in all these arenas most depends is a strong defense industrial base, and Europe must focus on that first. Ultimately, the alliance—Europe and the United States together—must determine what capabilities it must develop by working backward from a comprehensive assessment of the specific missions it will need to fulfill to guarantee the continent’s long-term security.

SHARED THREATS

At some point, the Kremlin’s politics and military posture may change in ways that make Russia less threatening. But for the foreseeable future, the alliance’s primary mission will be to deter Russian attacks against its members. As long as the United States continues to ensure that NATO’s nuclear deterrent remains credible, European members should accept the burden of defending the alliance’s vulnerable eastern flank by conventional means. The idea that responsibilities should be divided this way has a long history in post–Cold War alliance thinking. In the 1990s, when NATO’s problems seemed much more modest, its European members aspired to create a force of 60,000 deployable troops, though it never quite got there. In more recent years, it has aimed lower, maintaining a ready-response force numbering in the low thousands; since 2017, it has also provided most of the 5,000 troops making up NATO’s Enhanced Foreign Presence in the Baltic states.

Unfortunately, Europe’s preparedness for an attack by Moscow on a member state remains inadequate. War games conducted by the RAND Corporation in 2014 and 2015 suggested that denying Moscow the ability to quickly occupy all three Baltic states would require no less than seven brigades. Right now, NATO can probably swiftly marshal about three brigades. Subsequent calculations by the Brookings Institution suggest that a viable Western defense of the Baltics might require as many as 150,000 deployable forces across ground, air, and maritime domains.

The key word is “deployable.” Collectively, Europe’s militaries currently have almost two million active-duty personnel. But only about 20,000 to 30,000 of them have the requisite logistical support and mobility to operate at a considerable distance from their home bases over sustained periods. Europe is right to increase defense spending, but fixating on defense budgets alone can obscure important decisions about how to best spend the money. To meet the challenge posed by a revanchist Russia, Europe must make smaller forces more deployable.

For NATO’s southern European members, the primary security challenge in recent years has been to restrict the flow of migrants traveling across the Mediterranean or through Turkey. Countries such as Greece, Italy, and Spain have sought to deter and interdict illicit trafficking by building border fences and enhancing their coast guard and other maritime capabilities. But these defenses can easily be overwhelmed whenever a famine or major conflict in the Middle East and Africa prompts massive outflows of people. Given that the combined population of Africa and the Middle East is expected to double by the middle of this century and that climate change’s disruptions are likely to intensify, NATO must plan for potential military interventions that could stem migration by responding to major outbreaks of conflict and humanitarian disasters at their source.

Europe needs to invest the alliance with a renewed sense of purpose.

Currently, Europe’s peacekeeping capabilities are not substantial enough to meet this mission. European nations collectively deploy more than 6,000 troops to various peacekeeping missions (largely in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Africa), and Britain and France maintain a particularly large presence in their former colonies, the broader Middle East, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indo-Pacific. But observers’ estimates of how large a force would be needed to, for instance, curb a genocide in even a small African country often surpass 10,000 troops. European nations must develop at least ten more peacekeeping brigades (each with some 3,500 soldiers, plus support staff and equipment)—at an annual cost of perhaps $50 billion—and as many aircraft as currently operate on NATO’s eastern territory (about $30 billion annually). This sounds like a lot of money, but most of the cost could be raised by repurposing existing spending and reconfiguring existing force structures.

European nations must move to secure their interests in the Arctic, too. An adequate European presence requires basing more infrastructure, rapid-reaction capabilities, reliable communications, and most urgently, icebreakers there. The Nordic countries in particular do have considerable icebreaking capability, but it is focused on assisting commercial shipping in the Baltic Sea. Nordic countries must keep the Baltic open in winter, but NATO also needs a stronger military presence in the Arctic to make clear to Moscow that it cannot simply do as it pleases in the region. The United States long neglected the Arctic but now plans to build up to nine icebreakers with polar capability. And European nations—notably Finland, which has considerable shipbuilding capability—are well positioned to build even more.

The U.S. Defense Department considers China’s military development its so-called pacing challenge. In the case of an outright conflict in Asia, European nations are not likely to deploy large-scale forces. But should war break out, the Europeans could still back the United States and its other Asian allies by, for instance, helping the U.S. military block the shipment of Middle Eastern oil to China. European countries already deploy naval assets to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to counter threats emanating from Yemen; these assets can be used in any U.S.-led confrontation with China. None of these aims can be accomplished without strengthening the alliance’s industrial base. Europe’s strenuous efforts to support Ukraine have revealed serious limitations to the continent’s defense industry: it is too fragmented.

Expanding Europe’s defense industrial capacity will require subsidizing producers, facilitating multiyear procurement contracts, expanding dual-use manufacturing, and purchasing ordnance up front to deepen munitions stocks. These are the same tools that the United States is starting to use to address its own defense industry weaknesses.

COLLECTIVE STRENGTH

The total cost of the initiatives Europe should take to revamp the transatlantic alliance would run upward of $100 billion yearly. This means that on average, European countries’ military budgets might have to reach 2.5 percent of GDP. But it is dangerously reductive to adjudicate defense investments merely by examining the percentage of GDP a country spends on defense. If Europe refined its military priorities and reoriented some of the existing force structure it has anchored to home territories, it might afford all of what we propose at 2.2 percent of GDP. Pressure from the Trump administration has already spurred European allies to inch toward that figure.

Washington, too, must revitalize its commitment to the transatlantic alliance. The United States currently maintains about 100,000 troops in Europe. Their host countries partly offset the cost of supporting these troops, and the United States should maintain them—and be prepared to send reinforcements if necessary. Most of all, Washington must make clear that the U.S. nuclear umbrella—a crucial and time-tested deterrent to Russian aggression—remains in place. The United States cannot be secure if Europe is insecure. But at such an isolationist moment in U.S. politics, Washington may need Europe to show the enduring value of this partnership. Beyond acquiring more material resources, Europe needs to invest the alliance with a renewed sense of purpose, clarity about its core strategic objectives, and a determination to fulfill them. European nations should embrace this challenge not only because they fear abandonment by the United States but also because more collective strength would boost their own leverage on the world stage.

MICHAEL E. O’HANLON is Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution, where he is also Director of Research for the Foreign Policy program.

PAUL B. STARES is General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he also directs the Center for Preventive Action.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Michael E. O’Hanlon · March 18, 2025

22. Six books you didn’t know were propaganda

This is a two year old essay but I think it is worth revisiting given the Trump administration's attack on the soft power tools of statecraft (VOA, USAID, USIP, WIlson Center, etc).

I commend Louis Menand' s book The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War to understand the work that the US did in the information and influence space during that period.

"All art is propaganda." This quote is investigated for its origin and explained here: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/04/08/art-propaganda/

My AI friend says this about Orwell's quote: "All art is propaganda but not all propaganda is art:" ( And I think the most important point Orwell makes which we all overlook is that propaganda is a neutral term not a pejorative one.)

George Orwell famously stated, "All art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art," arguing that art inevitably carries a message, while not all propaganda is of artistic merit.

Here's a deeper look into Orwell's perspective:

Art as Propaganda:

Orwell believed that all art, whether intentionally or not, serves as a form of persuasion or propaganda. He argued that even seemingly apolitical art conveys a message, influencing the audience's understanding of the world.
Propaganda as a Tool:
In Orwell's view, "propaganda" is a neutral term, referring to any attempt to persuade, whether for good or ill. He saw art as a powerful tool that can be used to promote certain ideas or beliefs.
The Distinction:
While all art can be seen as a form of propaganda, not all propaganda is of artistic value or quality. Orwell suggested that some propaganda is simply manipulative and lacks artistic merit, while other propaganda can be insightful and even beautiful.
Examples:
Orwell's essay "All Art Is Propaganda" examines the works of various authors, such as Charles Dickens, Henry Miller, Shakespeare, Kipling, T.S. Eliot, and Leo Tolstoy, to illustrate his point.
Orwell's Essays:
His essay collection, "All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays", explores the theme of art as a tool for persuasion and critical scrutiny.
Orwell's Influence:
Orwell's ideas have had a significant impact on how we think about art and propaganda, and his work continues to be relevant in contemporary discussions about media and culture.

The Economist reads

Six books you didn’t know were propaganda

Governments influence a surprising amount of literature. Some of it pretty good

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/11/03/six-books-you-didnt-know-were-propaganda?utm

Image: Landmark Media

Nov 3rd 2023

“A

LL ART is propaganda”, wrote George Orwell in 1940, “but not all propaganda is art.” Few people would argue with the second part of that aphorism. There is nothing artistic about the dreadful ramblings of “Mein Kampf”. But the first seems true only if you are using a broad definition of propaganda. These days great works of art rarely set out to serve the purposes of a government. They may promote causes, but that is not normally why people esteem them. The books on this list, however, partially vindicate the first part of Orwell’s assertion. Governments or ideological groups either encouraged their authors to write them or promoted their writings for political ends. During the cold war Western intelligence agencies subsidised authors, sometimes very good ones. The CIA set up literary magazines in France, Japan and Africa. One purpose was to counter censorship by autocrats. Another was to make global culture friendlier to Western aims. British intelligence services commissioned works of fiction that supported empire. Some writers consciously offered their pens to the state; others did not realise that governments or groups would promote their work. Here are six books, all by authors of merit, that are works of propaganda in one way or another.

The Eyes of Asia. By Rudyard Kipling. Kashi House; 128 pages; $13.95 and £10

Rudyard Kipling’s role as a propagandist for the British empire is often forgotten. British intelligence recruited the author during the first world war to write fiction that sought to undermine Indian nationalism. In 1916 James Dunlop Smith, a British official, sent Kipling the private letters of Indian soldiers fighting in France. Smith asked Kipling to rewrite them to erase any pro-Indian or revolutionary sentiment. The Saturday Evening Post, an American magazine, published four between May and June 1917. (Three appeared in the London Morning Post.) Kipling put his name to them only when he packaged them together in a book, “The Eyes of Asia”. The author told Dunlop Smith that in rewriting the letters he had “somewhat amplified the spirit [he] thought [he] saw behind” them. In fact, his revisions were more inventive than that. In turning the soldiers’ epistles into fiction he sanitised them. He excised complaints like “we are like goats tied to a butcher’s stake”, and inserted admiring descriptions of Britain as filled with “gilt furniture, marble, silks, mirrors”. British intelligence liked what it read. Kipling asked Dunlop Smith whether he found any “error in caste or mental outlook in the characters”. It appears he did not. Many readers have admired what one critic (writing about the novel “Kim”) called Kipling’s “positive, detailed and non-stereotypic portrait” of Indian people. His role as a propagandist clouded his vision.

Doctor Zhivago. By Boris Pasternak. Vintage Publishing; 512 pages; $20 and £9.99

During the cold war the CIA sought to undermine censorship in the Soviet Union by covertly promoting the circulation of books and magazines. The snoops sent the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir Nabokov. Their favourite author was Boris Pasternak. His novel “Doctor Zhivago” had “great propaganda value”, declared a CIA memo in 1958. That may seem like a surprising thing to say about a love story. But the CIA was interested not only in the novel’s “thought-provoking nature”, but also in the “circumstances of its publication”. Soviet literary magazines and publishing houses suppressed the book. One cited Pasternak’s “viciousness” and “non-acceptance” of socialism. The Soviets disliked his religious fervour. An Italian literary talent scout smuggled the manuscript of “Dr Zhivago” to Italy, where it was published in 1957. The CIA spotted an “opportunity to make Soviet citizens wonder what is wrong with their government, when a fine literary work by the man acknowledged to be the greatest living Russian writer is not even available in his own country”. The spy agency helpfully published the book in Russian. It circulated more than 1,000 copies with help from agents in eastern Europe and distributed them at the World’s Fair in Belgium in 1958. It hoped that publication in the original Russian would pave the way for Pasternak to win a Nobel Prize. He did, but the Soviets obliged him to turn it down. He did not live long enough to see “Dr Zhivago” become a blockbuster film (a still is pictured above) in 1965.

Partisans. By Peter Matthiessen. Vintage Books; 184 pages; $5.95 and £4.00

When it was founded in 1947, the CIA hired many Yale University seniors. Peter Matthiessen was one of them. The agency sent him to Paris, where he used as his cover story that he was writing a novel, a story that his CIA handler in the city thought “feeble”. Matthiessen did write a novel in Paris, in fact two. “Partisans”, his second, follows Barney Sand, a Paris-based journalist for an American wire service, as he tracks down a former leader of the French Communist Party whom he hopes to interview. The communist had helped Sand escape the Spanish civil war when he was a child. The novel displays such detailed knowledge of the workings of the party that the Chicago Tribune, in a review, suggested that its author go back to Moscow. Yet its sympathies are clearly with the West. Sand comes to see communists as self-serving and dishonest; his patriotism grows. The self-consciously literary prose in which “Partisans” is written foreshadows the next step in Matthiessen’s career. He founded the Paris Review, a literary magazine, which he also used as a cover to spy on left-wing American artists and intellectuals who had relocated to Paris. The CIA thought this a much better cover for his espionage work. “Partisans” is not Matthiessen’s finest work. He is the only writer who has won America’s National Book Award both for fiction and non-fiction. But, as Sand snakes around Paris, he reminds readers that Matthiessen was observing his leftist friends not only for art’s sake.

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. By Azar Nafisi. Random House; 356 pages; $18. Penguin; £9.99

Azar Nafisi, an Iranian émigrée and professor of English, became famous in 2003 when she published her memoir of the Islamic revolution. “Reading Lolita in Tehran” was an instant hit in America, spending 117 weeks on the New York Times’s bestseller list. It’s the riveting story of eight Iranian women who meet secretly to study the novels of Nabokov, Gustave Flaubert and Henry James. Ms Nafisi’s students are children of the Islamic Republic who rebel against its book bans and the “putrid and deceptive hyperbole” of its rhetoric. That description does not apply to “Reading Lolita”, which deserves the admiration it gets. Yet it owes a debt to institutions that are not typical of literary memoirs. Ms Nafisi thanks the Smith Richardson Foundation, which seeks to “advance US interests and values abroad”, for a grant that helped her write the book. It is only through “literature that one can put oneself in someone else’s shoes”, Ms Nafisi writes. For Western readers, “Reading Lolita” is enlightening in the way that literature was for her students. It also supports a harsh judgment of Iran’s theocracy that America continues to hope will be influential.

One Hundred Years of Solitude. By Gabriel García Márquez. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. Penguin; 432 pages; $17.99 and £9.99

America barred Gabriel García Márquez from entering the country for three decades because he was involved with the Colombian Communist Party in the 1950s. He briefly belonged to a party cell. Yet Mundo Nuevo, a Colombian magazine financed by the CIA, printed two chapters of his masterpiece “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, a year before the book’s publication in 1967. The excerpts did not include the book’s account of the “banana massacre” of 1928, in which the Colombian army, pressed by America to take action against employees of the United Fruit Company who were on strike, killed about 75 of them. What Mundo Nuevo printed were descriptions of Colombia in the style that later became known as magic realism. The magazine, which published mainly pro-American and anti-communist articles, thus showed that it was also open to work written by adherents of the political left. One CIA agent called the approach “fidelismo sin Fidel”, ie, the communist creed of Fidel Castro, Cuba’s ruler, without his anti-American revolutionism. García Márquez was furious to discover that Mundo Nuevo was in the pay of the CIA. In a letter to its editor, Rodríguez Monegal, he wrote that he felt like a cuckold.

The Moon Is Down. By John Steinbeck. Penguin; 144 pages; $12 and £9.99

In June 1940, two days after France signed an armistice with Germany, John Steinbeck wrote to Franklin Roosevelt, the American president, urging his administration to create “immediate, controlled, considered” propaganda. Steinbeck took his own advice, writing a story to inspire people in occupied Europe to rise up against the Nazis. “The Moon Is Down” is set in an unnamed European country that has been invaded by a fascist power. The fictional place, Steinbeck wrote, is characterised by Norway’s severity, Denmark’s cunning and France’s reason. The occupiers, led by Colonel Lanser, struggle to subdue an uprising. Members of the resistance against the Nazis translated the novel and smuggled it into Norway, Denmark and France. In 1945, after the war’s end, Norway’s king gave Steinbeck the country’s Freedom Cross for his contribution to European resistance movements.

Also try

Our coverage of propaganda includes an interactive feature about how the war in Ukraine appears to Russian people. Our sister magazine, 1843, takes readers inside a damp classroom in Moscow where journalists who work for Russia’s state TV are trained. “The Prince”, our podcast about Xi Jinping, considers propaganda that extols China’s president and the challenges of understanding the real man. Here we write about the surprising success of Chinese propaganda abroad. Read our profile of Kim Yo Jong, North Korea’s propagandist-in-chief. And here are our recommendations of books that explain how intelligence works. ■

Correction (November 7th): An earlier version of this article said that the Colombian army killed more than 1,000 banana workers. This was a claim by Jefferson Caffrey, who was America’s ambassador to Colombia. Most historians believe that the number of victims was much smaller.

23. Trump Doesn’t Faze Xi Jinping

Excerpts:

But these days China can have it all. Because the world has become so disorderly, and because policymakers in Washington and elsewhere are caught up in addressing the burning issues of the day, Beijing can take dramatic steps that would have provoked international crises in Deng’s time, and today’s West hardly seems to notice.

What this means for the Trump administration foreign policy is simple: China isn’t going to play nice. From China’s perspective, American power is in rapid retreat. Our alliances are fraying, our social cohesion is weakening, and as China sees it, President Trump’s style of apparently impulsive leadership, while capable of delivering an occasional unwelcome surprise, is amateurish and likely to fail.

Team Trump wants to break up the alignment among China, Russia and Iran by intimidating Iran and seducing Vladimir Putin. China will use every asset it can muster to keep the axis united and to keep its fellow revisionists pushing back against America’s international position. China’s steady progress toward key goals in the Indo-Pacific reminds both Russia and Iran of the limits of American power, and will encourage revisionists everywhere to stay the course.

Trump Doesn’t Faze Xi Jinping

China strengthens its ties with Russia and Iran while Western alliances are fraying.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-doesnt-faze-xi-jinping-china-strengthens-ties-russia-iran-while-western-alliances-fray-0b23680a?mod=opinion_lead_pos10&utm

By Walter Russell Mead

March 17, 2025 5:33 pm ET

Ships of the People’s Liberation Army arriving for a five-day visit to Hong Kong, Nov. 21, 2024. Photo: Liau Chung-ren/Zuma Press

Even in an eventful year like this one, the noisiest crises aren’t always the most consequential. The war in Ukraine, the tariff spats and the continuing turmoil in the Middle East have dominated the headlines. But future historians may well say that the most important developments of our times were taking place elsewhere.

Ever since Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state in President Obama’s first term, Americans have talked about the importance of pivoting to Asia. The belief that the 21st century will be driven by events in the Indo-Pacific is a bipartisan cliché. Yet as a society we find the psychological shift from our old Eurocentric habits hard to make.

The biggest beneficiary of this cultural blind spot is Chinese leader Xi Jinping. While Western attention was largely on events in Ukraine and the Middle East, China has been steadily moving toward its long-term goals.

The pressure on Taiwan continues to grow. Taiwanese authorities recently detained a Chinese-crewed cargo ship suspected of severing a strategic undersea communications cable off the island’s southwest coast. More ominous still, China appears to be constructing a fleet of barges that, like the Mulberry Harbors used in the 1944 D-Day invasion of Normandy, will be able to deliver troops and battle equipment onto beaches. With Chinese forces practicing landings, the message to Taiwan could hardly be clearer.

It isn’t only Taiwan feeling the pressure. Last month the Australian government reported “an unsafe and unprofessional interaction” with a People’s Liberation Army fighter aircraft in the South China Sea. Farther afield, Chinese warships held live-fire exercises in waters between Australia and New Zealand in an unprecedented display of Beijing’s naval ambition and reach.

Two Chinese research vessels are raising hackles in New Delhi, conducting detailed surveys in sensitive sites around the Indian Ocean. China and the Cook Islands, a Pacific island nation, announced a comprehensive partnership that significantly advances Chinese interests. Meanwhile, Chinese ships joined Iranian and Russian vessels in maneuvers off Oman.

On land, China has stepped up its support for Myanmar’s beleaguered junta. With Myanmar sending workers to Russia to fill manpower shortages in multiple sectors caused by the Ukraine war, a key southeast Asian country has tilted decisively in the direction of Beijing and its allies.

Thailand has been giving off similar vibes lately, deporting 40 Uyghur refugees to China, where they will face whatever retribution Beijing chooses to inflict. American diplomats had long sought to persuade Thailand to refrain from returning them to Chinese custody, but China’s voice currently matters more than America’s in the halls of Bangkok.

Buoyed by the success of DeepSeek, the innovative artificial-intelligence company that Chinese sources claim was able to lead the frontier of AI development more quickly and for much less money than Silicon Valley competitors, China is also pushing toward what it hopes will be tech dominance. Beijing is doubling down on support to its leading tech firms, while ensuring that those firms stay close to the Communist Party. Anxious to keep its top talent at home, Beijing has directed executives and researchers involved in the tech sector not to travel to the U.S. Chinese companies are openly boasting about circumventing American sanctions and export controls.

That so much Chinese activity hasn’t drawn stronger responses or more attention from the West is good news for Mr. Xi. In the old days of Deng Xiaoping’s “hide and bide” strategy, a smaller, weaker China sought to evade hostile international scrutiny by pursuing an unambitious foreign policy. It played down threats against its neighbors, spoke of common efforts to solve territorial disputes, and muted its rhetoric against countries like Japan and the U.S.

But these days China can have it all. Because the world has become so disorderly, and because policymakers in Washington and elsewhere are caught up in addressing the burning issues of the day, Beijing can take dramatic steps that would have provoked international crises in Deng’s time, and today’s West hardly seems to notice.

What this means for the Trump administration foreign policy is simple: China isn’t going to play nice. From China’s perspective, American power is in rapid retreat. Our alliances are fraying, our social cohesion is weakening, and as China sees it, President Trump’s style of apparently impulsive leadership, while capable of delivering an occasional unwelcome surprise, is amateurish and likely to fail.

Team Trump wants to break up the alignment among China, Russia and Iran by intimidating Iran and seducing Vladimir Putin. China will use every asset it can muster to keep the axis united and to keep its fellow revisionists pushing back against America’s international position. China’s steady progress toward key goals in the Indo-Pacific reminds both Russia and Iran of the limits of American power, and will encourage revisionists everywhere to stay the course.

Taiwan must act before China decides its fate - Asia Times

By acting first, Taiwan can lock in alliances, reinforce its economic indispensability and deter aggression

https://asiatimes.com/2025/03/taiwan-must-act-before-china-decides-its-fate/?utm

asiatimes.com · by Tang Meng Kit · March 17, 2025

Taiwan has no time to wait. If it does, China will decide its future.

Taiwan must act economically, diplomatically and militarily to ensure its survival. The world will not defend a passive Taiwan, but it will rally behind one that proves its strategic value. The key to this is seizing the initiative.

Sun Tzu’s principle, “Opportunities multiply as they are seized,” explains why Taiwan must dictate its terms of engagement before Beijing does. China is working relentlessly to weaken Taiwan’s global position – economically through its semiconductor ambitions, diplomatically through coercion and militarily through intimidation.

If Taiwan remains reactive, its leverage will erode. By acting first, Taiwan can lock in alliances, reinforce its economic indispensability and deter aggression.

Double-edged chip sword

For decades, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry has been its greatest asset—the so-called “Silicon Shield.” The world depends on TSMC, and that should, in theory, deter Beijing from military aggression. But this shield is not as invulnerable as many assume.

China is pouring billions into semiconductor self-sufficiency. The more Beijing succeeds, the less Taiwan’s chip dominance matters. Meanwhile, TSMC’s expansion abroad, especially in the United States, raises a serious question: if the technology leaves Taiwan, will the US and its allies still have a reason to defend it?

Taiwan must act before its strategic edge fades. Keeping next-generation semiconductor research and development firmly anchored in Taiwan is crucial to maintaining its global technological leadership.

While expanding global partnerships for production can reinforce alliances, Taiwan must ensure that the heart of innovation remains within its borders. Foreign investment in Taiwan’s high-tech sector should be encouraged to maintain its central role in global supply chains.

At the same time, the government must implement tighter controls on technology transfers to prevent China from accelerating its semiconductor independence. If Taiwan loses control over its chip industry, it risks becoming strategically irrelevant in the eyes of the world.

Taiwan cannot take American support for granted. The United States is its strongest ally, but Washington’s commitment depends on political shifts.

For instance, in his Senate confirmation hearing on March 4, Elbridge Colby, the nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy, said that while Taiwan was very important, it was not an “existential” interest to the US.

That raises crucial questions about where the American defense perimeter lies under the Trump 2.0 administration.

If Taiwan becomes less strategically vital, the US may reconsider its level of involvement. Taiwan should embed itself deeper into American economic and security interests to ensure its continued importance.

Encouraging US technology giants to invest directly in Taiwan would make Taiwan’s stability an American business priority. Expanding military-industrial cooperation, including co-developing advanced weapons systems with US defense manufacturers, would further deepen ties.

Integrating Taiwan into US security frameworks through regular joint exercises, intelligence-sharing and cybersecurity collaborations would make Taiwan an essential partner rather than an optional ally.

Strengthening regional alliances

Taiwan cannot rely solely on the United States. Regional alliances are just as critical. Japan and South Korea face growing threats from China and North Korea, making them natural security partners.

Strengthening military and intelligence cooperation with these countries would reinforce Taiwan’s security position in East Asia. A trilateral missile defense system between Taiwan, Japan and South Korea would send a clear signal to Beijing that any aggression against Taiwan would trigger a regional response.

India is another key partner that Taiwan must cultivate. As China’s primary regional competitor, India shares Taiwan’s concerns about Beijing’s expanding influence. A Taiwan-India semiconductor partnership would serve both nations by countering China’s technological ambitions while deepening economic ties.

Europe, which is seeking to reduce its reliance on Chinese technology, should also be engaged. Taiwan must position itself as a key alternative to China in Europe’s semiconductor supply chain, offering itself as a trusted partner in the EU’s push for technological independence.

Some argue that Taiwan should avoid direct confrontation to avoid provoking Beijing. This is a dangerous assumption. China is already working to undermine Taiwan, regardless of Taipei’s actions. The real risk is inaction and allowing Beijing to dictate the pace of escalation.

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Others warn that Taiwan’s economic reliance on China is too great to risk confrontation. While China remains Taiwan’s largest trading partner, economic dependence is also a vulnerability. Taiwan must gradually reduce its reliance on China while expanding trade with democratic partners that have a shared interest in maintaining Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Risks of waiting

The greatest risk is doing nothing. If Taiwan hesitates, China will continue to weaken its global leverage through economic coercion and diplomatic isolation. Taiwan’s semiconductor dominance will erode, making it less strategically vital to its allies. The world may stop seeing Taiwan as worth defending.

A proactive Taiwan can prevent these outcomes by securing alliances, reinforcing its economic indispensability and strengthening its deterrence capabilities. The longer Taiwan waits, the more it risks losing its ability to shape its own future.

Sun Tzu had it right: “Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” The world will not fight for a passive victim, but it will rally behind a nation that proves it is indispensable. The time for Taiwan to act is now.

Tang Meng Kit is a graduate of the MSc in International Relations program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. His research interests encompass cross-Strait relations, Taiwanese politics and policy issues, as well as aerospace technology. He currently works as an aerospace engineer.

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asiatimes.com · by Tang Meng Kit · March 17, 2025

25. Chinese media, Hun Sen celebrate White House order to close US-funded news outlets

I do not know whether to laugh or cry. And this is such an "own goal" and we have really shot ourselves in the foot. Do we really want Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and north Korean propaganda to dominate the information in authoritarian regime occupied areas?

But RFA is soldiering on. As of 18 March (today) it is still publishing articles online (please do not let the DOGE wiz kids know). I am not sure if its transmitters are still broadcasting into north Korea because I have not spoken to anyone from RFA since the order to shut it down. However, the last postings on the VOA Korean service are from 16 March. No updates since.

Here is a statement from the social media of my friend from north Korea (English translation follows).

Hyunseung Lee

n ·

VOA와 RFA의 역사와 그들의 미션의 중요성으로 볼 때 이 두 언론은 존경받을 만 하다. 또한 그들의 역사와 공적, 그리고 수많은 기자들의 헌신적인 노력이 결코 폄하되어서는 안 된다. 개인적으로도 두 언론사를 좋아하며 한국어 서비스에 지난 몇 년간 각각 100건, 80건이 넘는 북한 관련 코멘트를 제공해왔다. 북한 문제에서 두 언론의 한국어 서비스는 가뭄의 단비와 같은 역할을 해왔으며, 심지어 한국 내부 문제에서도 좌경화된 언론보다 더 균형 잡힌 뉴스를 제공하는 경우도 적지 않았다.

그러나 역사와 공적이 개혁이 필요 없음을 의미하지는 않는다. 기업이든 국가든 효율성은 가장 중요한 요소 중 하나이며, 비효율성은 부패와 나태를 불러온다. VOA와 RFA 내부에도 이미 많은 문제가 존재하는 것은 공공연한 사실이다. 미국의 준공무원으로 일하면서도 독재국가보다 미국의 정책을 더 비판하거나 심지어 반미적 태도를 보이는 행위들, 기사,영상, 라디어 조회수들이 일반 유튜버나 블로거보다 못한 운영, 창의적이고 열심히 일하는 기자들보다 소극적인 태도를 보이는 이들이 많아지는 현실이다. 정보 전달의 속도와 방식이 변화하는 시대에, 이들 언론의 과거 방식만의 운영은 이들의 존속 위기를 초래할 수 밖에 없었다고 본다.

하지만 비효율성을 개선할 대신 VOA, RFA 의 필요한 서비스들을 없애는 것은 심각한 정책적 오류라고 본다. 효율성을 기준으로만 본다면 비판 받아 마땅하지만, 이들이 생산하는 무형의 가치들, 진실’과 ‘자유민주주의’는 독재와 고립 속에서 살아가는 수많은 이들에게 희망과 용기를 준다. 무엇보다 가장 큰 우려는 한국어 서비스가 폐지될 경우, 북한의 선전과 위선, 거짓을 대응할 대체 언론이 사실상 존재하지 않는다는 점이다. 특히 반미를 국가의 기본 정책과 주민 교육으로 삼는 북한 정권의 반미정책이 미국과 미국민의 안보와 국익에 위협이 되는 것이 사실이기에 이에 진실로 맞서야 하는 정당성도 가지고 있다.

VOA·RFA가 과거의 유산으로만 남을지, 아니면 여전히 자유와 진실을 지키는 언론으로 남을지는 미국 정치의 선택에 달려 있다. 하지만 독재와 공산주의, 위선과 선전에 맞서는 한국어 서비스와 일부 언어 서비스들은 효율성을 높여가며 반드시 그들의 미션을 지속해야 한다. 외부 세계와 단절된 이들에게 VOA·RFA는 단순한 뉴스 채널이 아니라 자유를 향한 희망을 주는 창이기도 하다.

These two media outlets deserve respect for the history of VOA and RFA and the importance of their mission. Also their history, publicity, and the dedicated efforts of countless journalists should never be underestimated. Personally, I like the two journalists and have provided over 100 and 80 North Korean-related comments to the Korean Service over the past few years. The Korean-language services of the two media outlets have played the same role as the counterpart of the drought, and even in the internal affairs of Korea, they have not often provided more balanced news than the lessened media.

But history and publicity doesn't mean there's no need for reform. Efficiency is one of the most important factors, whether it is a company or a nation, and inefficiency brings corruption and corruption. It's a public fact that there are already many problems within the VOA and RFA. It is a reality that there are more people who work as a part-time civil servant in the United States who criticize American policies or even show anti-American attitude than a dictatorial country, articles, videos, and radars who run worse than a regular YouTubers or bloggers, and show petty attitudes than creative and hard-working journalists. In an era where the speed and method of information is changing, I see that their media operation in the past has only led to a crisis of their existence.

But instead of improving inefficiency, removing necessary services of VOA, RFA is seen as a serious policy error. They deserve criticism if you see efficiency only as a basis, but the intangible values they produce, 'truth' and 'liberal democracy' give hope and courage to countless people living in dictatorship and isolation. The biggest concern is that if the Korean-language service is abolished, there will be virtually no alternative media to respond to North Korea's propaganda, hypocrisy, and lies. Since it is true that the anti-American policy of the North Korean regime, especially which uses anti-American as the basic policy of the country and citizen education is a threat to the security and national interest of the United States and the American citizens, so it also has the right to face it.

VOA·RFA will remain a legacy of the past, or it will still remain a press that protects freedom and truth depends on the choice of American politics. However, Korean-language services and some language services, which stand against dictatorship, communism, hypocrisy and propaganda, must increase efficiency and continue their mission. VOA·RFA is not just a news channel, but also a window of hope towards freedom to the outside world.

Chinese media, Hun Sen celebrate White House order to close US-funded news outlets

Asian dissidents, activists voice dismay over funding freeze to Radio Free Asia.

By RFA Staff

2025.03.17

https://www.rfa.org/english/asia/2025/03/17/rfa-hun-sen-china/

Radio Free Asia Tibetan service director Kalden Lodoe, right, prepares to present a newscast at the RFA studio, Jan. 18, 2023. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA)

Representatives of closed Asian societies without free press on Monday welcomed the U.S. administration’s decision to halt broadcasts by Voice of America and freeze funding to Radio Free Asia, while democracy activists and dissidents expressed disbelief and dismay.

China’s state-backed Global Times published an editorial focusing on VOA which it called “a lie factory” and “a thoroughly biased propaganda poison.”

“The so-called beacon of freedom, VOA, has now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag,” it said.

In a Facebook post, former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is Senate president and the father of the current premier, called the closure of U.S.-funded “propaganda” outlets “a major contribution to eliminating fake news, disinformation, lies, distortions, incitement, and chaos around the world.”

Hun Sen attends a press conference at the National Assembly after a vote to confirm his son, Hun Manet, as Cambodia's prime minister in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, August 22, 2023. (Cindy Liu/Reuters)

Meanwhile, human rights activists in some of the world’s most repressive countries spoke out in support of what they see as “beacons of hope” and upholders of the truth.

“There’s something I will remember forever … When my mother was told I’d be released after having served my sentence, she was sitting outside on the patio the whole day to wait for me. The first sound of my voice she heard was on Radio Free Asia and that made her cry out loud,” Le Quoc Quan, a Vietnamese dissident lawyer who served 30 months in prison and who now lives in the United States, recalled on Facebook.

‘Significant setback for the democracy’

Another Vietnamese democracy activist, who spent seven years in jail on subversion charges, said RFA and Voice of America had freed his thinking from the strictures of communist rule before he was imprisoned.

“These two stations played a pivotal role in helping me break free from the propaganda and indoctrination of the Communist Party of Vietnam, shaping my beliefs and actions,” Nguyen Tien Trung wrote from exile in Germany.

The discontinuation of RFA and VOA “represents a significant setback for the democracy and human rights movements in Vietnam, China, Asia, and globally,” he wrote.

“Communist parties in China and Vietnam will dominate narratives unchallenged, preventing Asian audiences from hearing alternative perspectives – stories of democratic progress, freedom, and the dignity that comes from respecting human rights.”

The control room of a Radio Free Asia TV studio as Tibetan language service director Kalden Lodoe presents a newscast in Washington, Jan. 18, 2023. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA)

An executive order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump late Friday called for the reduction of non-statutory components of the United States Agency for Global Media, or USAGM, the federal agency that funds RFA, VOA and several other independent global news organizations that broadcast in more than 60 languages.

VOA Director Michael Abramowitz wrote Saturday that virtually the entire staff had been placed on administrative leave.

Staff at RFA were still working Monday and the Washington-based news organization has yet to announce how the funding freeze would impact operations.

Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said it was “devastating to lose Radio Free Asia from the media landscape in Asia.”

“RFA has many courageous reporters who shone a light on rights abuses that authoritarian governments would prefer to hide,” she said in a social media post. “This is a gift to abusive governments in the region.”

RFA reporter in Myanmar, undated. (RFA)

RFA covers some of the countries in Asia where press freedom is the most restricted, including China, North Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. It sends news in 10 languages through text, social media, radio and television.

Chinese journalist and human rights activist Gao Yu said in a post on X that authorities had warned her against talking to VOA and RFA.

“This made me realize that these two American media outlets are what the Chinese Communist authorities fear the most,” she said. “This is undoubtedly a moment that the Chinese Communist regime will celebrate.”

A fan of RFA’s Cantonese service, the main language spoken in Hong Kong, where opposition politicians and Western governments say political freedoms have been severely curtailed, expressed disappointment about the possible closure.

“I read your RFA Cantonese news every day. You’re doing a great job! It’s such a pity for it to end like this. I hope there’s a turnaround. Keep going!” said the poster, identified as Lukacat Lime.

Messages of support from Cambodians, Burmese

Thousands of messages of support for RFA and VOA flooded Khmer-language internet forums, with readers and listeners expressing their dismay.

“Khmer people need help because if there is no RFA or VOA we don’t know which news we can listen to,” a woman named Sokra wrote.

The United States and other countries have criticized the suppression of democracy in Cambodia in the years since the U.N.-organized an election in 1993, hoping to heal the decades of conflict and genocide after Cambodia became embroiled in the Vietnam War.

“The news of the potential shutdown is devastating,” said Viriya Lim, another RFA Khmer listener.

“Your reporting has been a crucial source of truth and information for so many. Please know that your efforts have made a real difference, and we are incredibly grateful for your service,” Lim wrote on RFA Khmer’s Facebook.

In Myanmar, where successive generations have struggled to throw off military rule, people expressed their appreciation for RFA.

“Because my father listened to RFA early in the morning and late at night since I was young, so I knew about the dictatorship, democracy, civil society organizations and different countries,” Moe Aung wrote on Facebook.

“I will always give thanks to RFA. I pray you continue to stand.”

In South Korea, Ha Tae-kyung, a three-term lawmaker and vocal critic of North Korea’s woeful human rights record, said it felt as if Washington was undermining its standing by shutting RFA and VOA.

“These organizations have been dedicated to North Korean human rights and democratization for decades,” said Ha. “It takes decades to build a well-constructed tower but only a single day to bring it down.”

Beijing’s criticism

The Chinese government did not immediately react to Friday’s executive order. But the Global Times editorial took aim at VOA, claiming that its independence and credibility “have long been questioned and criticized.”

“Known for stirring up conflicts, inciting social divisions, and even participating in regime change efforts, VOA is widely recognized as Washington’s carefully crafted propaganda machine for peaceful evolution, earning itself a notorious reputation on the global stage,” the Global Times said.

It mentioned RFA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, too, saying that the organizations’ primary function is “to serve Washington’s need to attack other countries based on ideological demands.”

Shahrezad Ghayrat, a journalist with RFA's Uyghur language service, left, live-streams a Uyghur demonstration outside the Thai embassy in Washington, May 5, 2023. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA)

Hu Xijin, a top Chinese propagandist and former Global Times editor, praised the decision, calling RFA “malicious toward China” and the funding cut “greatly satisfying.” He shared his remarks on his WeChat channel, which quickly spread across Chinese state-owned media outlets like iFeng.com and other Chinese social media platforms.

Those remarks were amplified on social media by China’s army of nationalistic “little pink” commentators, who have started targeting VOA’s Chinese and Taiwanese journalists, posting their photos and accusing them of doing “dirty work” and being “yellow-skinned with white hearts.”

On Monday, an op-ed from Beijing Daily, a state-owned media outlet, mocked the shutdown of RFA, RFE, and VOA declaring, “The ‘beacon of freedom’ has collapsed.” and “U.S. hegemony will eventually perish under global condemnation.

Some journalists working for Chinese media, such as Andy Boreham at the state English-language newspaper Shanghai Daily, said the prospect of RFA having to lay off staff over funding cuts was “excellent news.”

The New Zealand-born journalist labelled RFA “one of the U.S.’s most insidious anti-China propaganda outlets.”

RFA is funded by the U.S. Congress but retains full editorial independence from the government. All editorial staff are expected to conduct themselves professionally and ethically and promote the highest standards of journalism.

Edited by RFA staff.

25. Trump Endangers Asian Military Alliances – Undercutting the Quad

A view from Pakistan.

Politics

Trump Endangers Asian Military Alliances

Undercutting the Quad

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/trump-endangers-asian-military-alliances?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=23934&post_id=159302145&utm

Mar 17, 2025

∙ Paid

By: Salman Rafi Sheikh

On his first day in office, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met his counterparts – India, Japan, and Australia – of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. The Quad foreign ministers were in Washington on the administration’s invitation to attend President Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration, sounding out his focus on reinforcing an anti-China geopolitical coalition.

The meeting’s joint statement was unequivocal. While these countries do share concerns vis-à-vis China’s rise, working as coalition partners with the US under Trump is going to be a heavily bumpy ride, one that can potentially undo the alliance more than it can sustain it in the long run. As it stands, Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs to MAGAfy the world directly conflict with his administration’s ambition to tackle China. The more he subjects his allies to tariffs, the less likely he is to build a strong coalition.

Rubio’s meeting took place in January. Since then, the Quad countries have been preoccupied more with tackling and avoiding tariffs than with reinforcing the grouping as a security alliance.

For instance, early last week Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoji Muto was in Washington to discuss tariffs. His key purpose was to convince the Trump administration not to impose additional tariffs, including a 25 percent steel and aluminium duty that was set to start on March 12. As Yoji reported on March 10, he had failed in his mission, as Washington gave no assurance to exempt Japan. Yoji further said that the US position is unchanged despite Japan’s offer to buy more US liquified natural gas. He also reaffirmed, without any success, his government’s interest to invest by way of Nippon Steel buying US Steel.

The tone the Trump administration thus has set is one that can only be characterized as a transaction that primarily succeeds on US terms. This ‘transnationalism’ was quite evident when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Trump, who told him he would ‘change whatever you change.’ Trump’s demand from Modi was to slash India’s import duties on US products. In the second week of March, Trump announced that New Delhi had agreed to cut tariffs “way down” But India was swift to dispute Trump’s claims, saying that there were “no commitments.”

Instead, as Modi’s party told the parliament in the same week, “The government has sought time until September to address the issue that is being repeatedly flagged by the American president.” New Delhi’s insistence on delaying the matter indicates several things. More than anything else, it wants to see the exact trajectory of the Trump administration, including how the rest of the world responds. Thus far, Canada and the EU have retaliated against the US by imposing their own tariffs, giving India the ground it might need to bargain with the US for a favorable trade pact.

On the contrary, India is simultaneously working to revamp its trade ties with the UK and the EU as a counterbalance to the US and offset any trade barriers that might come its way in the future.

As far as Australia is concerned, it, too, has failed to win any favorable treatment from Washington. When the Trump administration announced on March 12 that no countries were exempt from tariffs, the Australian PM Anthony Albanese described the decision as “entirely unjustified ... and against the spirit of our two nations' enduring friendship and fundamentally at odds with the benefit of our economic partnership.”

Australia is particularly shocked because Trump, during his first term, had exempted it from tariffs. While Australia has announced it would not impose any reciprocal tariffs, the US decision to not offer any exemption came as a complete disregard for the Australian offer to invest billions in the US.

Leading Australian newspapers are already calling for rethinking the US-Australia alliance in the wake of an “unreliable” Trump, who, when he was recently asked about the Aukus trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, didn’t even know what it stood for. After the reporter explained to him the meaning, Trump’s response lacked any depth usually expected of Potus.

“Well, we’ll be discussing that,” Trump said. “We have another great relationship. And you have, too. With Australia. Yeah, we’ve had a very good relationship with Australia.” In simple words, Trump was quick to reduce the Aukus agreement to an insignificant pact, underscoring how he might similarly undo the Quad in the long run.

Pay More to Get More

Even if the Quad alliance isn’t immediately upended, it is quite likely to operate under a lot of strain. Trump’s indiscriminate use of tariffs has already introduced uneasiness. For the Quad – and such other alliances – to work in the Indo-Pacific region, Trump is quite likely to demand that these countries spend more and increase their share of the defense burden. He has already made similar demands from NATO countries, asking them to increase their contribution from 2 percent of their individual GDP to 5 percent. That has led many European countries, including Germany, to push for spending more on their own defense rather than contributing to the alliance.

As far as Quad is concerned, Japan has already told the US that it would continue to spend more and more on its own armament. While Japan’s future is already geared towards militarization on an unprecedented level since the end of the World War II, this shift will further obviate Tokyo’s need to rely on the alliance, or the US, to counterbalance China. Its increasing national ability to project military power in the region could act as a deterrent, forcing China to change its policies and tone.

The same goes for India, which has shown in the recent past its ability to engage with China successfully through diplomatic means. New Delhi understands that, despite the existence of arrangements like Quad, the Trump administration is still unlikely to offer any immediate assistance to them in the event of a direct military clash between India and China along the disputed border region.

While Australia might be willing to pay more, as it recently did when it paid Washington US$500 million as part of an outstanding Aukus payment, there are some caveats. Elbridge Colby, Trump’s pick to be head of policy at the Pentagon, recently told the US Senate he had concerns about the US industrial base’s ability to support the plan to sell between three and five Virginia-class submarines to Australia. In other words, even if Australia is able to pay, can it get what it wants in return from Washington? There is no easy answer, leaving Australia in a bind and forcing it to contemplate alternative ways of engaging with China. This might include a push to fully activate the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a 15-nation free trade agreement among Asia-Pacific countries that doesn’t include the United States.

Quad’s future, therefore, hangs in the balance, where the member states, minus the US, are in a wait-and-see mode. But the longer they have to ‘wait,’ working out arrangements with the US in terms of trade and tariffs, the more redundant the group will become to carry any significance beyond mere symbolism.

Dr. Salman Rafi Sheikh is an assistant professor of politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan. He is a long-time contributor to Asia Sentinel.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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Why did Ukraine launch the Kursk operation, and what did it achieve?

Did Ukraine’s Kursk offensive buy it time? What if Russia had sent its reserves to Donbas?

U.S. military has cared about climate change since dawn of Cold War -- for good reason

Trump appoints Charlie Kirk, Walt Nauta, Michael Flynn to military boards

Students at military bases around world resist Trump’s DEI crackdown

Make Advana Great Again

Origin Story

Lack of Traction

Getting Back on Track

A Bright Future

Navajo Code Talkers get "DEI" label as military info disappears under Trump order

A War of Chokepoints: Mavulis Island in a Future Taiwan War Scenario - Modern War Institute

Harriet Tubman: The Original Special Operations Pioneer

Constraints of our Chosen History

Harriet Tubman as a Strategic Actor

Civil War Service

Conclusion

irregularwarfare.org · by Wyatt Thielen · March 18, 2025

Veteran-Recruiting Non-Governmental Organizations: An Emerging Actor in Humanitarian Response - War on the Rocks

Putin Doesn’t Actually Want Peace

The Fragile Axis of Upheaval

An Autocratic Alliance Is Mostly an Illusion—but Could Become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

INTERIM ORDER

REVERSE TIDES

DIVIDE AND NEUTRALIZE

UNTIE THE KNOT

The Once and Future Transatlantic Alliance

A More Active and Independent Europe Can Bring America Back to the Table

SHARED THREATS

COLLECTIVE STRENGTH

Six books you didn’t know were propaganda

Governments influence a surprising amount of literature. Some of it pretty good

Trump Doesn’t Faze Xi Jinping

China strengthens its ties with Russia and Iran while Western alliances are fraying.

Taiwan must act before China decides its fate - Asia Times

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Chinese media, Hun Sen celebrate White House order to close US-funded news outlets

Asian dissidents, activists voice dismay over funding freeze to Radio Free Asia.

‘Significant setback for the democracy’

Messages of support from Cambodians, Burmese

Beijing’s criticism

Trump Endangers Asian Military Alliances

Undercutting the Quad