Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."

– Mark Twain

"A man is not great because he hasn't failed; a man is great because failure hasn't stopped him."

– Confucius

“The problem’s not that the truth is harsh, but that liberation from ignorance is as painful as being born. Run after truth, until you’re breathless. Accept the pain involved in re-creating yourself afresh. These ideas will take a life to comprehend, a hard one interspersed with drunken moments.”

– Naguid Mahfouz

1. I Trained with the Best US Special Forces – THIS Shocked Me (Video)

2. China’s Own Elon Musks Are Racing to Catch Up to SpaceX

3. U.S. Directs a Second Aircraft Carrier to the Middle East

4. Ukrainians Don’t Trust Russia on Cease-Fires, as the Killing Usually Doesn’t Stop

5. It’s Time for the Government to Get More Involved in Cybersecurity

6. DOGE USAID budget cuts hit UN in 'worst liquidity crisis since its establishment'

7. SpaceX Positioned to Secure Billions in New Federal Contracts Under Trump

8. Why China’s Soft Power in Taiwan Has Failed

9. The Office That Won the Cold War, RIP

10. Duterte Is Enjoying the Due Process He Denied to His Thousands of Victims

11. How Israel plans to escalate its war on Hamas in Gaza

12. 'In the face of the US president's astonishing shift, Europe suddenly appears as a familiar and reassuring presence'

13. America's European allies are trying to pry their unspent money back from USAID

14. Voice of America journalists sue Trump officials for dismantling the outlet

15. Opinion | The ‘Free World’ Is Gone and There’s No Turning Back

16. How Elon Musk’s DOGE Cuts Leave a Vacuum That China Can Fill

17. New satellite images show the damage after Ukraine struck a bomber base deep inside Russia

18. For Vladimir Putin, Russia’s position in the world is personal. Here’s what he really wants

1. I Trained with the Best US Special Forces – THIS Shocked Me (Video)

I was proud to serve with Chun In Bum multiple times since the 1980s and to call him a friend.

In addition to the video on Special Forces at this link below he also did another 23 minute video on the broader capabilities of the US military and why the US military is so superior as well as comparisons between north and South Korean militaries. HERE.

I Trained with the Best US Special Forces – THIS Shocked Me (Video)

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/03/23/i-trained-with-the-best-us-special-forces-this-shocked-me-video/

by SWJED

03.23.2025 at 12:56pm

See the 12 minute video HERE.

2,980 views Mar 20, 2025 2 products

Korean ex-Special Forces Commander Chun In-Bum trained with the most elite forces in the world. He shares his experience in this second interview. Share us your opinion in the comments. #specialforce #military #usa

00:00 Intro

01:12 How Chun became a Special Forces Commander

02:30 Why US Special Forces are so Great

04:07 ex-Special Forces that Speak on the Internet

04:40 Who are the Best Special Forces in the World?

05:01 What makes US Special Forces so Powerful?

05:29 How US Special Forces are Different from other countries

10:22 Countries should learn ‘this’ from US Special Forces

2. China’s Own Elon Musks Are Racing to Catch Up to SpaceX

"Imitation" is the sincerest form of flattery and China does try to imitate the US in many ways (except politically).

China’s Own Elon Musks Are Racing to Catch Up to SpaceX

Private sector takes bigger role in building reusable rockets, advancing Beijing’s goal of independence from Western technology

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-own-elon-musks-are-racing-to-catch-up-to-spacex-74b02a95?mod=latest_headlines

By Clarence Leong

March 23, 2025 9:00 am ET

A rocket carrying satellites blasting off from a commercial spacecraft launch site in China. Photo: Imago/ZUMA PRESS

SINGAPORE—China is pushing its commercial space industry to grow in a bid to spur greater innovation and close the gap with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

At least six Chinese rockets designed with reusability in mind are planned to have their maiden flights this year. In November, the country’s first commercial launch site began operating. Beijing and local governments are giving private-sector companies cash injections of billions of dollars.

The rise of these companies is the latest stage in Beijing’s longstanding effort to build up an indigenous space industry that isn’t dependent on Western technology. For years, the government has held up the space industry as a success story of high-tech businesses that have developed largely without foreign help.

Technological self-sufficiency, from semiconductors to artificial intelligence, has taken on greater urgency as Beijing aims to build “fortress China” to steel itself in its growing rivalry with the U.S.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, at a rare meeting with tech CEOs and other executives in February, said he wanted a competitive private sector that drives growth and innovation—a formula that is now being applied in the space industry. The boss of GalaxySpace, a satellite manufacturer, was among the corporate chiefs who met Xi.

China opened up the space industry to private companies in 2014 and mentioned the commercial space business for the first time last year in the government’s annual report on its priorities.

Lincoln Hines, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, said Beijing was concerned that it couldn’t keep up with the U.S. if it relied solely on state-owned companies.

“If China continues to have this bloated state-driven industry, it can do these enormous feats like going to the far side of the moon or placing humans in space, but can it innovate and compete with the United States?” he said.

The undisputed rocket leader is Musk’s SpaceX, which single-handedly accounted for more than half of the world’s orbital launches last year. Its workhorse Falcon 9 rockets have a reusable first stage, which lowers costs and allows SpaceX to charge customers less. Its most-reused rocket booster has flown 26 times.

The company has more than 7,000 Starlink satellites in operation and in October succeeded in catching the huge booster it uses for its Starship vehicle on the first attempt, although it lost the Starship spacecraft in its latest test flight in March.

SpaceX’s successes have helped convince potential investors that the industry has a viable future, said Lan Tianyi, founder of the Beijing consulting firm Ultimate Blue Nebula.

“That’s very, very important because the funding environment in China is more conservative than in the U.S.,” said Lan. “It’s also served to bring people from other industries to work on space-related businesses.”

U.S. Directs a Second Aircraft Carrier to the Middle East

The move comes after airstrikes on Israel by Yemen’s Houthis and militants in Lebanon as the conflict widens from Gaza

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/rocket-fire-from-lebanon-disrupts-months-of-relative-calm-in-israels-north-0cedbe49?mod=latest_headlines

By Carrie Keller-Lynn and Nancy A. Youssef

Updated March 22, 2025 2:51 pm ET

Ukrainians Don’t Trust Russia on Cease-Fires, as the Killing Usually Doesn’t Stop

Russia has used pauses in more than a decade of war to advance toward its ultimate goal of controlling Kyiv

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukrainians-dont-trust-russia-on-cease-fires-as-the-killing-usually-doesnt-stop-7b7a739e?mod=latest_headlines

A destroyed military truck in Ilovaisk, Ukraine, in 2014. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

By James MarsonFollow and Oksana Grytsenko

Updated March 23, 2025 12:01 am ET

KYIV, Ukraine—It was a scorching summer day in 2014 when Artem Kravchenko and hundreds of other Ukrainian soldiers put their trust in a Russian promise not to open fire and retreated in a column from the surrounded city of Ilovaisk.

By the end of the day, Kravchenko found himself lying in a ditch surrounded by dead comrades after Russian forces shot up the column. With three Russian bullets in his body, he had to drink his own urine to survive.

“They started shooting from the right, so we went to the left and met another ambush there,” said Kravchenko, who was 23 years old at the time. “They were just shooting up everything from all sides.”

Experiences like these during the dozens of cease-fires that have come and gone in Russia’s 11-year war against this country are why many Ukrainians have little faith in the latest efforts, spearheaded by President Trump, to halt fighting.

Artem Kravchenko recovering in a hospital in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Photo: Alan Cullison/WSJ

The Russians “gave us a clear signal that they can’t be trusted,” said Taras Samchuk, who also escaped Ilovaisk that day and is now a reserve medical officer.

In the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin has used any pause as a pit stop on the way toward his ultimate goal: taking control of Ukraine. During earlier cease-fires, Moscow reinforced Russian paramilitaries, sought to extract political concessions from Ukraine and the West, or simply continued shooting and killing Ukrainians while Kyiv’s army was held back by Western calls for restraint.

U.S. officials will meet separately in Saudi Arabia on Monday with Russian and Ukrainian teams to discuss the technical details of a partial cease-fire agreed in calls with Trump. Both sides said they were prepared to halt attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure.

After the call between Trump and Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin laid out sweeping conditions for a full cease-fire, including a halt to Western provision of weapons and intelligence to Kyiv and an end to Ukrainian mobilization. Ukraine immediately rejected the proposals as aimed at leaving it vulnerable to further attacks.

It’s Time for the Government to Get More Involved in Cybersecurity

A professor argues that cybersecurity policy has been too incremental to adequately protect Americans. He proposes five reforms to fix that

https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/america-cybersecurity-policy-need-reforms-56ada544?st=oFFntT&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Scott Shackelford

March 22, 2025 10:00 am ET

Listen

(5 min)

U.S. cybersecurity policy has been stuck in a pattern of incremental tweaks, a professor argues. Photo: Getty Images

Scott Shackelford is a professor of business law and ethics at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, and executive director of both the Ostrom Workshop and Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.

The U.S. is spending more than ever on cybersecurity, yet cyberattacks continue to proliferate.

According to McKinsey, global losses to cyberattacks could exceed $10.5 trillion this year, a 300% increase from 2015 and an amount larger than the economies of Germany and Japan combined.

I believe a new approach is needed—one in which the federal government plays a more assertive role.

For at least two decades, U.S. cybersecurity policy has been stuck in a pattern of incremental tweaks focused on the same basic ideas—encouraging voluntary industry cooperation, offering information-sharing partnerships and establishing new bureaucratic offices. It isn’t working. We need bold changes, the most important of which is treating cybersecurity as a public good akin to national security and public safety.

To achieve that, five main reforms are needed:

More agency coordination

There is no one U.S. government agency in charge of keeping critical infrastructure safe. Instead, those responsibilities splinter across various groups. This often prevents urgent, coordinated action on evolving threats.

WSJ

To help fix this problem, Congress should clarify and expand the cybersecurity rule-making powers of agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission that regulate a range of industries and sectors. Whatever rules these agencies create to deal with common cybersecurity problems would apply across the economy and not have to be formulated sector by sector.

Federal reporting requirements

Right now, there are 50 different state-level data breach-notification laws and no federal standard. That means whether and when you find out if your private data has been compromised depends in large part on where you live. The federal government does gather some breach data, but only in limited cases such as ransomware attacks.

That needs to change. More robust federal reporting requirements—even establishing a Cyber Statistic Bureau—would provide decisionmakers with more accurate information about the number and cost of cyberattacks, making it easier to take concerted action.

Federal cybersecurity standards

Voluntary cybersecurity guidelines and best practices aren’t enough. Instead, the federal government should clearly articulate what it expects in terms of baseline cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure across sectors and make them mandatory.

Setting and enforcing mandatory standards could be done through a combination of carrots and sticks, such as liability protection for companies that meet cybersecurity benchmarks. Regulators should be empowered to conduct regular audits and impose real consequences for noncompliance.

More accountability

The Silicon Valley mindset of “move fast and break things” has resulted in buggy software rife with vulnerabilities that can, and have, been exploited by hackers and criminals time and again. It is past time to hold tech companies accountable for security flaws in their products and take the onus off end users like families and small businesses.

One way to do this would be by extending products-liability law to software and software updates as Europe has done. Right now, if a consumer buys a toaster that overheats and burns down their home, they can sue the manufacturer under a product defect. This change would mean that consumers can do the same thing even if the flaw came from a software bug in a smart toaster.

Workforce investment

There is a shortage of trained cybersecurity professionals. Federal and state governments should expand scholarship programs, support local cybersecurity clinics and join forces with tech companies to form a Cyber Peace Corps that could help state and local governments with pressing issues by pairing professionals with jurisdictions in need.

Cybersecurity is a public good akin to public safety, meaning the government has a vital role to play. It’s time to think big and make real substantive changes before it’s too late.

Write to Scott Shackelford at reports@wsj.com.

6. DOGE USAID budget cuts hit UN in 'worst liquidity crisis since its establishment'

I know many Americans will say good riddance to the UN and US funding to the UN but from my American friends who are doing important work at the UN they tell me this is going to put at risk nearly half of the of the UN missions around the world, The cut in funding goes to significantly fund security for the missions around the world. Again, I know Americans will say, fine, that is not our problem. Just close the missions. We are really going to need to be prepared for the second and third order effects. Even if we do not know what they will be, we can assume there will be many catastrophic effects for us as Americans in the coming years. Of course since I am making an assumption I could be wrong. We will just have to wait and see. As it stands now our government's position seems to be that we need not worry about such effects now.

I would not be surprised if the next step is to evict the UN from US territory. The location of the UN headquarters surely is prime real estate for development.

DOGE USAID budget cuts hit UN in 'worst liquidity crisis since its establishment'

Elon Musk's DOGE cuts to USAID hitting United Nations' bottom line

By Beth Bailey Fox News

Published March 22, 2025 10:08am EDT

foxnews.com · by Beth Bailey Fox News

Video

INSIDE DOGE: Behind the mission to cut waste

DOGE representative Sam Corcos and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent break down the Trump administration's department to end wasteful spending, on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump's administration’s use of Elon Musk's DOGE to cut USAID spending is having a deep impact on the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), according to internal U.N. emails shared with Fox News Digital.

In an email sent early Friday morning, president of the U.N. Field Staff Union, Milan Victor Dawoh wrote that the USAID funding cut resulted in "approximately $30 million" having been "removed from the extra-budgetary (XB) resources, resulting in a significant reduction in staffing."

Dawoh’s email warns that the U.N. "is currently experiencing its worst liquidity crisis since its establishment. The situation is expected to deteriorate further before any improvement occurs."

Dawoh said that UNDSS will lose 100 employees and that its presence will be eliminated in 35 to 45 countries, while noting that "regional hubs" will be established "in the remaining 120 countries where UNDSS will maintain a presence."

‘UN80 INITIATIVE’ APPEARS TO SHOW WORLD BODY’S PANIC OVER POSSIBLE DOGE-LIKE CUTS

Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, addresses the 74th United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly, at the United Nations Headquarters, September 24, 2019. (Anthony Behar/Sipa USA (Sipa via AP Images))

"The [under secretary-general of UNDSS] emphasized that UNDSS is not a protection agency but a risk management and analysis entity," the email reads. "This distinction should be clearly communicated to staff."

The Department’s website describes the UNDSS as "a global leader in security risk management principles" and explains that it "enables the safe and effective delivery of United Nations programmes and activities in the most complex and challenging environments, while maximizing resources."

Fox News Digital asked Dawoh about the authenticity of the email and what portion of the UNDSS budget was paid for by USAID, but received no response.

Earlier this month, António Guterres warned about cuts to U.S. spending at the U.N., stating that "going through with recent funding cuts will make the world less healthy, less safe, and less prosperous."

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres speaks to journalists on the sidelines of a summit on Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Lujain Jo)

Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, told Fox News Digital that UNDSS only received about $20 million from USAID last year. "USAID informed us that some of this funding has been terminated; other projects will continue with USAID support," he said.

Whereas Dawoh’s email indicates that the UNDSS’s loss of funding is related to a cut in extra-budgetary resources, Haq stated that "extra budgetary funding from USAID is a relatively small proportion of the Department's budget, most of which comes from the U.N. regular budget, a U.N. cost-sharing mechanism, and the peace support account."

According to Haq, UNDSS has 2,250 personnel around the globe, "supporting the security of — and enabling operations by — 180,000 U.N. personnel." Haq added that "the majority of the Department's workforce is in the field, with a much smaller percentage in New York HQ. U.N. personnel serving in the world's most dangerous places deserve effective security as they work to save lives."

PAUSE IN US FOREIGN AID HAS UN IN PANIC OVER FUNDING CUTS, TRUMP SAYS WORLD BODY 'NOT BEING WELL RUN'

Flags of the UN and USA fly outside the United Nations headquarters ahead of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 15, 2023. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

Haq said that an email sent to multiple U.N. mailing groups on Mar. 19 mentioning the funding-related closure of one staff entrance to U.N. headquarters was unrelated to UNDSS. "Funding for the UNHQ premises does not come from USAID," Haq explained. He said that the temporary closure is the result, instead, of some member states’ non-payment of dues.

A U.N. source speaking on condition of anonymity said that in the midst of financial uncertainty, U.N. staff "are very fearful of their immediate future." The source said that concerns include the ability to collect pensions and access their United Nations Federal Credit Union accounts. The source indicated that because "most of these staffers that are losing their jobs are . . . on G-4 visas," the change may even impact their ability to stay in the U.S.

"This is an implication beyond just losing the jobs of individuals. It impacts families, and this could be massive in the coming weeks with new cuts that will impact U.N. agencies."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department for insight on how employees would be impacted by layoffs but received no response.

Calls for increased U.N. reform come a month after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of funding to the U.N. At the time, Trump said that the world body "has tremendous potential" but is "not being well run."

Beth Bailey is a reporter covering Afghanistan, the Middle East, Asia, and Central America. She was formerly a civilian intelligence analyst with the Department of the Army. You can follow Beth on Twitter @BWBailey85

foxnews.com · by Beth Bailey Fox News

7. SpaceX Positioned to Secure Billions in New Federal Contracts Under Trump

Love him or hate him you should respect Musk for what he has built with SpaceX

SpaceX Positioned to Secure Billions in New Federal Contracts Under Trump

Elon Musk’s role in the White House allows him to cancel contracts and influence policy, potentially benefiting his companies. Supporters say he has the best technology.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/us/politics/spacex-contracts-musk-doge-trump.html

By Eric Lipton

Eric Lipton has spent the past year writing about SpaceX and its work for the federal government.

March 23, 2025

Within the Trump administration’s Defense Department, Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocketry is being trumpeted as the nifty new way the Pentagon could move military cargo rapidly around the globe.

In the Commerce Department, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service will now be fully eligible for the federal government’s $42 billion rural broadband push, after being largely shut out during the Biden era.

At NASA, after repeated nudges by Mr. Musk, the agency is being squeezed to turn its focus to Mars, allowing SpaceX to pursue federal contracts to deliver the first humans to the distant planet.

And at the Federal Aviation Administration and the White House itself, Starlink satellite dishes have recently been installed, to expand federal government internet access.

Mr. Musk, as the architect of a group he called the Department of Government Efficiency, has taken a chain saw to the apparatus of governing, spurring chaos and dread by pushing out some 100,000 federal workers and shutting down various agencies, though the government has not been consistent in explaining the expanse of his power.

But in selected spots across the government, SpaceX is positioning itself to see billions of dollars in new federal contracts or other support, a dozen current and former federal officials said in interviews with The New York Times.

The boost in federal spending for SpaceX will come in part as a result of actions by President Trump and Mr. Musk’s allies and employees who now hold government positions. The company will also benefit from policies under the current Trump administration that prioritize hiring commercial space vendors for everything from communications systems to satellite fabrication, areas in which SpaceX now dominates.

Already, some SpaceX employees, temporarily working at the F.A.A., were given official permission to take actions that might steer new work to Mr. Musk’s company.

The new contracts across government will come in addition to the billions of dollars in new business that SpaceX could rake in by securing permission from the Trump administration to expand its use of federally owned property.

SpaceX has at least four pending requests with the F.A.A. and the Pentagon to build new rocket launchpads or to launch more frequently from federal spaceports in Florida and California. The F.A.A. moved this month toward approving one of those deals, more than doubling the annual number of SpaceX launches for its Falcon 9 rocket allowed at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, to 120.

Image

SpaceX is the fastest-growing company of Elon Musk’s ventures.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

And SpaceX is pushing the F.C.C. for more federal radio spectrum — its Starlink satellite service depends on radio spectrum to send signals back and forth to Earth, meaning if it gets more it can increase its profits — a move its cellular provider rivals see as a power grab. The first of those awards was approved this month, after Mr. Trump replaced the head of the F.C.C. with a new chairman, Brendan Carr, who has been supportive of Mr. Musk.

The potential new revenue stream for Mr. Musk’s company comes after he donated nearly $300 million to support the 2024 campaign of Mr. Trump as he sought a return to the White House.

Mr. Musk then persuaded President Trump to put him in charge of the cost-cutting effort. From there, as a White House employee and adviser, he can influence policy and eliminate contracts.

“The odds of Elon getting whatever Elon wants are much higher today,” said Blair Levin, a former F.C.C. official turned market analyst. “He is in the White House and Mar-a-Lago. No one ever anticipated that an industry competitor would have access to those kinds of levers of power.”

Executives at SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that Mr. Musk, as a so-called special government employee had received briefings on ethics limits including those related to conflicts of interest and would abide by all applicable federal laws.

SpaceX had built itself into one of the nation’s largest federal contractors before the start of the second Trump administration, securing $3.8 billion in commitments for fiscal year 2024 spread over 344 different contracts, according to a tally by The Times of a federal contracting database.

SpaceX was awarded billions in government contracts last year

The company has already seen a massive jump in federal contracts, largely with the Pentagon and NASA.

Data is for fiscal years. Excludes classified payments from federal spy agencies.Source: New York Times analysis of transaction-level contract and grant data from usaspending.govBy Eli Murray

Even if Mr. Trump had never given Mr. Musk and his employees a government role — or if former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had been elected to a second term — SpaceX would have continued to secure new government work. What has changed is the overall value of the work expected to be delivered to SpaceX.

Douglas Loverro, a former senior NASA and Pentagon official who also served as an adviser to the Trump transition team on space issues, said SpaceX deserved to win many of these additional contracts.

“He does have the best tech,” Mr. Loverro said of Mr. Musk. “All of this will lift the space industry as a whole, obviously — but it will certainly help SpaceX even more.”

Other government contracting experts say they remain concerned Mr. Musk is positioned to secure special favors, particularly after Mr. Trump fired officials charged with investigating ethics violations and potential conflicts of interest.

“We will never know if SpaceX would authentically win competitions for these awards because all of the offices in government intended to prevent corruption and conflicts of interest have been beheaded or defunded,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that tracks federal contracts.

“The abuse of power and corruption that is spreading across federal agencies because of Musk’s dual roles is horrifying,” she said.

Pentagon Rising

Even before Mr. Trump’s return, SpaceX had been working behind the scenes for several years to expand its business with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies.

It would hire former military officials who then reached back into the Defense Department to nudge former associates and friends to buy more SpaceX services.

Gary Henry, a former Air Force space and missile program supervisor, was among them. He joined SpaceX as it was developing Starship, the largest and most powerful spacecraft ever constructed.

During Mr. Henry’s tenure at SpaceX, the company secured a $102 million Air Force contract to study how Starship could deliver military cargo to points around the world within 90 minutes. Currently, that task is mostly done with the Air Force’s pack mules, C-130 cargo planes, which take much of a day for the trip.

SpaceX is still having trouble getting Starship operational. The two most recent test flights resulted in explosions that sent debris raining over the Caribbean.

Nonetheless, Mr. Henry — now back working for the Pentagon as a consultant — is promoting Starship as an option for the military.

Last month, while speaking on behalf of the Pentagon at a satellite industry conference in California, he described how Starship might be used during the Trump administration to deliver a major piece of military equipment “to any point on the planet very quickly.”

Image

SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft undocking from the International Space Station last year.Credit...NASA

A few weeks later, the Air Force disclosed plans to build a rocket landing pad on Johnston Atoll, a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean, to test these cargo ship landings. The Pentagon’s initial goal: to move 100 tons of cargo per flight, a total that only Starship, at least according to its design, has the power and size to handle.

“It’s frustrating,” said Erik Daehler, a vice president at Sierra Space, which also wants to sell cargo services to the Pentagon. “Things can’t just go to SpaceX.”

Maj. Gen. Steve Butow, the director of the space portfolio at the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, when asked by The Times about Mr. Henry’s public comments on behalf of the agency for a project he had worked on as a SpaceX employee, said: “The optics were unfortunate.”

Mr. Henry, in an interview, said the nation would benefit from tools that SpaceX and other commercial space companies like Rocket Lab offer.

“Commercial space in general is very relevant to to the problems we need to go solve,” he said. “It just turns out that SpaceX is kind of leading — it is the pointy end of the spear.”

An even bigger boost for SpaceX is likely, current and former Pentagon officials said, through a missile defense project called the Golden Dome.

For that project, Mr. Trump has ordered the Pentagon to rapidly figure out how to shoot down nuclear missiles headed for the United States, as well as strikes from lower-flying cruise and hypersonic missiles — an effort that could cost $100 billion annually, according to one estimate.

SpaceX already is positioned to handle a large share of the Pentagon’s military launch jobs in the next several years, along with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance, a consortium run by Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

A space-based missile defense system would drive launch spending even higher, as the government would need to purchase more devices to track missile threats and transmit the data to target them, services that SpaceX also provides.

Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokeswoman, said in a statement that the Space Force would adhere to all laws and regulations to ensure ethical and effective partnerships, which generally require competitive bidding for new contracts.

But industry observers said SpaceX would almost certainly secure a large share of this lucrative new work.

Laura Grego, a senior researcher at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, said: “Golden Dome is quite an apt name, as it is certainly going to cost a lot of coin.”

Mars Bound at NASA

Mr. Trump’s nominee to run NASA, Jared Isaacman, is a billionaire entrepreneur and a space enthusiast. He paid SpaceX hundreds of millions of dollars to fly — twice — into orbit aboard a rocket.

More importantly, his payment processing company, Shift4 Payments, purchased a stake in SpaceX several years ago, an investment that generated $25 million in gains in recent years, effectively making him and Mr. Musk business partners. That SpaceX stake was recently sold, a Shift4 executive said. In ethics documents released this month, Mr. Isaacman vowed to sever any remaining financial ties he had with SpaceX.

If confirmed, Mr. Isaacman will join Michael Altenhofen, who in February was named a NASA senior adviser after 15 years at SpaceX.

NASA has already paid SpaceX more money than even the Pentagon — a total $13 billion in contractual commitments over the past decade. Those deals include hiring SpaceX to deliver cargo and astronauts to orbit and to send NASA’s biggest and most expensive probes into the universe.

Image

President Trump has nominated Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who is close to Mr. Musk, to take over NASA.Credit...Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Just last month, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract worth an estimated $100 million to launch a new space telescope that will search for asteroids that might threaten Earth.

But that is a relatively tiny chunk of how much new money SpaceX could secure from the agency in Mr. Trump’s second term.

Former NASA officials predict that Mr. Isaacman will quickly push to revamp the space agency’s Artemis project, which intends to return American astronauts to the moon. That move could generate resistance — as the program has many allies in Congress.

Currently, Boeing has one of the main contracts to build the rockets for Artemis. But Mr. Loverro and other former agency officials said they expect the government to phase out this rocket, as it is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

This will allow NASA to turn to commercial space companies such as SpaceX or Blue Origin to lift astronauts into orbit for future missions to the moon or even Mars.

Mr. Musk boasted this month that SpaceX would launch an uncrewed Starship to Mars by the end of 2026 and then send the first humans there by perhaps 2029 — an effort that he will likely push NASA to help finance. (Mr. Musk’s timeline predictions have been wrong in the past.)

Executives at Boeing and Blue Origin each declined requests for comment.

SpaceX “will almost certainly see massive new business,” said Pamela Melroy, a retired astronaut and Air Force officer who served as NASA’s deputy administrator during the Biden administration. “All of the indicators for SpaceX are trending positive.”

Bringing Broadband to Rural America

Until recently, Starlink had mostly been on the outside looking in — unable for the most part to tap into federal incentives to provide internet access to remote areas.

Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, vowed in his confirmation hearing in January to change that.

Image

Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, who was sworn in last month. He made clear during his confirmation hearing that he wants to change the way the agency manages $42 billion in funding to expand broadband access.Credit...Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

He promised to end the way the Commerce Department manages $42 billion in funding it is distributing to states to expand broadband access. The Biden administration chose to prioritize systems that wired homes directly to internet networks, rather than satellite-based systems like Starlink.

“Let’s use satellites, let’s use wireless and let’s use fiber,” Mr. Lutnick said at the hearing. “And let’s do it the cheapest, most efficiently we can.”

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who has often taken up battles with Washington on behalf of Mr. Musk, had already been pressuring the Commerce Department to ease grant rules to allow satellite-based broadband in rural areas, where the cost of running cable can be expensive.

Now, Mr. Cruz’s former Senate aide, Arielle Roth, who was helping with this push, has been nominated by Mr. Trump to lead the Commerce Department agency that will oversee the grant program.

The Federal Communications Commission has its own, smaller grant program that also provides funding to deliver broadband to underserved parts of the United States. Starlink had originally been slated to get nearly $1 billion in funding before the F.C.C. withdrew the offer in late 2023, saying that the service did not meet agency requirements.

The commission’s board chair has now been taken over by Mr. Carr, who had protested the decision to deny SpaceX these funds. Industry analysts and two former F.C.C. members interviewed by The Times said they now expect the agency to once again offer some of these grant funds to Starlink.

The commission also approved a SpaceX request this month, despite protests from Verizon and AT&T, to boost power on its Starlink satellites so they can provide smartphone service directly from orbit, ending cellphone dead zones for some customers.

Image

A Starlink satellite kit being used in a community in Burnsville, N.C., after the destruction of Hurricane Helene last year. SpaceX is hoping to get federal incentives to provide internet access via Starlink to remote areas.Credit...Allison Joyce/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A victory on each of these fights by SpaceX “could be huge — in the tens of billions of dollars,” said Drew Garner, a researcher at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

But at the same time, there could be long-term costs to consumers nationwide.

Monthly satellite subscription costs for consumers are higher than wired internet, in most cases. Satellite-based systems also tend to be slower compared to cables wired to the house.

“Stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so that we can make the world’s richest man even richer is yet another in a long line of betrayals by Washington,” Evan Feinman, who led the Commerce Department’s rural broadband program during the Biden administration, wrote in an email to his colleagues this month, on the day he left the agency.

Modernizing Aviation

After a fatal midair collision between an Army helicopter and a commercial jet in January, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy asked for Mr. Musk’s help.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which is trying to modernize its air traffic control and weather data systems, needed a boost in technical know-how, Mr. Duffy said.

Teams from SpaceX were brought into the agency to assist with this work.

Mr. Musk soon complained on social media that Verizon was moving too slowly on a multibillion dollar agency contract awarded in 2023 to deliver the new technology.

“The Verizon system is not working and so is putting air travelers at serious risk,” Mr. Musk wrote on X last month.

Theodore Malaska, one of the SpaceX employees working at F.A.A., was granted a special ethics waiver by the Trump administration to participate in “particular matters which may have a direct and predictable effect” on the financial interest of SpaceX, according to documents obtained by The Times.

Soon after, Mr. Malaska was boasting on X how the F.A.A. was now building SpaceX’s Starlink satellites into agency systems that send weather data to pilots. It is a design that could bring future federal business to SpaceX.

An F.A.A. spokesman said that as of mid-March, only eight of the Starlink terminals were in use and Mr. Musk said they had been donated. But other Starlink terminals have recently been installed at the White House and at the offices of the General Services Administration.

“I am working without biases for the safety of people that fly,” Mr. Malaska said in a social media posting.

The overlap in these roles — Mr. Musk’s employees advising agencies while SpaceX is installing its Starlink devices at agency locations — present an ethical situation that has few precedents in modern American history.

Federal rules generally prohibit awarding contracts to federal employees, including special government employees. Federal employees also are prohibited from taking actions that might benefit their own families or outside entities they have a financial relationship with.

Mr. Musk has argued he is not personally involved in pursuing SpaceX contracts. But federal contracting systems require the government to avoid not only actual conflicts of interest, but even the appearance of them.

“By any objective standard, this is inappropriate,” said Steven Schooner, a former government contracts lawyer who is now a professor studying government procurement at George Washington University.

“Given the power he wields and the access he enjoys,” Mr. Schooner added, “we just have never seen anything like this.”

Mark Walker and Aaron Krolik contributed reporting.

Eric Lipton is a Times investigative reporter, who digs into a broad range of topics from Pentagon spending to toxic chemicals. More about Eric Lipton

8. Why China’s Soft Power in Taiwan Has Failed

Excerpts:

Looking ahead, Beijing may recalibrate its strategy, investing more in digital influence, AI-driven engagement or indirect cultural diplomacy. Some argue that Taiwan’s economic diversification may not be sustainable in the long term. If economic instability or a more pragmatic administration emerges, Taiwan may be forced into deeper economic engagement with China. However, if Beijing continues relying on coercion, these strategies are unlikely to succeed.

To regain influence, Beijing would need to adopt a true soft power strategy – investing in genuine cultural exchange, allowing more creative freedom in entertainment and fostering economic partnerships without political strings attached. Learning from Japan and South Korea, which have successfully spread cultural influence without political coercion, could offer a roadmap for China to rebuild trust.

China’s failure in Taiwan exposes a deeper flaw in its approach. Soft power is about attraction, not coercion. Unless China dramatically rethinks its approach, reunification will remain as distant as ever.

Why China’s Soft Power in Taiwan Has Failed | New Bloom Magazine

Tang Meng Kit 03/23/2025 Cross Strait English International March 2025 Politics

newbloommag.net · March 23, 2025

語言:

English

Photo Credit: Stefan Fussan/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0

CHINA HAS SPENT years trying to win over Taiwan without force using media, culture and economic incentives to shift public opinion. However, rather than drawing Taiwan closer, these efforts have backfired. Taiwanese identity has grown stronger, and trust in China has declined.

Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction rather than coercion. However, China’s reliance on economic pressure, censorship and political influence contradicts this definition, aligning more closely with “sharp power”. It is a form of influence that relies on manipulation and coercion rather than voluntary attraction. Instead of fostering goodwill, China’s approach feels like pressure; and Taiwan has responded by pushing further away.

Taiwan represents the most significant challenge for China. If Beijing is unable to bring it under its influence through peaceful means, its choices are limited. Resorting to military action is expensive, fraught with danger and has the potential to ignite a broader conflict. The shortcomings of China’s soft power increase the likelihood of confrontation. Understanding why China’s strategy is failing shows how Taiwan is resisting and why the divide is only growing.

The Decline of Chinese Media Influence

ONCE POPULAR in Taiwan, Chinese dramas and pop music have lost their appeal. Government censorship has drained creativity, making entertainment predictable and infused with nationalist themes. Rather than engaging audiences, films and TV shows have become political tools. Taiwanese viewers, accustomed to free expression, now favour their own media, where artists can speak without restriction.

Chinese celebrities have also faced backlash. Many are pressured to apologize for referring to Taiwan as a country or are forced to declare loyalty to Beijing. These incidents fuel resentment rather than connection. The 2015 case of Taiwanese K-pop singer Chou Tzuyu, who was forced to apologize for waving Taiwan’s flag, intensified distrust toward China’s influence over entertainers. Actress Ouyang Nana has faced criticism for expressing pro-China views, while some, like Angela Zhang, remain neutral to preserve their cross-strait careers.

While some celebrities continue to express pro-China views, particularly during culturally significant periods like Lunar New Year, the overall trend indicates a growing wariness among Taiwanese audiences toward such endorsements. This shift reflects a broader skepticism of China’s influence operations, encompassing not just entertainment but also cyber activities and diplomatic maneuvers aimed at undermining Taiwan’s self-governance.

Beyond entertainment, China has sought to control Taiwan’s media landscape by funding pro-China news outlets. These efforts have been exposed, triggering public backlash. Disinformation campaigns, particularly those aimed at influencing elections, have been debunked and ridiculed. A 2023 study by Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs found that over 70% of young Taiwanese distrust content from pro-China media sources. The more Beijing tries to manipulate the narrative, the less influence it actually holds.

Economic Leverage: A Failing Strategy

CHINA ONCE WIELDED significant economic power over Taiwan. In the early 2000s, many Taiwanese enterprises ventured into the mainland, drawn by rapid economic expansion. That influence is now diminishing. With China’s economy slowing and political uncertainties rising, more Taiwanese firms are looking toward Southeast Asia and the United States. Economic dependence on China now feels like a risk rather than an opportunity.

Beijing has tried to force compliance by cracking down on Taiwanese brands that do not align with its political stance. Businesses have been pressured to take pro-China positions or face economic punishment. In 2021, several Taiwanese bubble tea brands faced boycotts and regulatory scrutiny in China after failing to explicitly endorse Beijing’s views on Taiwan. This strategy has fuelled distrust instead of loyalty. Instead of strengthening ties, China’s economic coercion has made engagement with the mainland seem like a liability.

China’s previous economic strategy, including the 2008 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), momentarily strengthened economic ties, demonstrating China’s early success in soft power. However, Taiwan’s shifting economic landscape, coupled with fears of over-reliance, reversed this trend. Beijing’s failure to adapt its strategy has now turned economic incentives into economic liabilities.

However, despite these shifts, many Taiwanese businesses still operate in China. According to a 2023 report by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwanese investment in China totaled approximately US$3.04 billion, showing that while diversification is happening, complete economic disengagement is not. Semiconductor companies like TSMC continue to have supply-chain dependencies on Chinese manufacturers. This suggests that while Taiwan is reducing its reliance on China, the economic connection remains significant, complicating full disengagement.

Beijing dangles economic incentives but only for those who comply with its demands. Those who refuse face repercussions. As a result, rather than expanding its influence, China has only succeeded in alienating Taiwan further.

The Rise of Taiwanese Identity: China’s Biggest Miscalculation

TAIWAN’S SENSE OF IDENTITY is at an all-time high. A 2023 survey by National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center found that over 63% of Taiwanese now identify exclusively as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Among young people, that number is even higher. Beijing has miscalculated this shift, assuming Taiwan’s connection to China would remain strong. Instead, Taiwan perceives itself as distinct, and China’s actions have only reinforced this belief.

The 2019 crackdown on Hong Kong was a turning point. Many in Taiwan had once considered China’s “One Country, Two Systems” model. But after seeing Hong Kong’s freedoms stripped away, support for that idea collapsed. China’s promise of peaceful coexistence lost credibility. Unification with China now looks like a direct threat to Taiwan’s democracy.

Taiwan is not just resisting. It is actively countering China’s influence. The government has introduced media literacy programs to combat disinformation. Civil society groups are strengthening Taiwanese culture through art, music, and historical preservation. Instead of being shaped by China’s soft power, Taiwan is defining its own identity on its own terms. The more Beijing tries to impose its narrative, the more Taiwan pushes back.

The Bigger Picture: Future Strategies for China

Despite its failures, China’s influence is not entirely absent. Some elements of soft power have achieved limited success. Cultural and religious exchanges continue, with thousands of Taiwanese pilgrims traveling to China for festivals. However, these cultural ties have not translated into broader political support for Beijing.

Looking ahead, Beijing may recalibrate its strategy, investing more in digital influence, AI-driven engagement or indirect cultural diplomacy. Some argue that Taiwan’s economic diversification may not be sustainable in the long term. If economic instability or a more pragmatic administration emerges, Taiwan may be forced into deeper economic engagement with China. However, if Beijing continues relying on coercion, these strategies are unlikely to succeed.

To regain influence, Beijing would need to adopt a true soft power strategy – investing in genuine cultural exchange, allowing more creative freedom in entertainment and fostering economic partnerships without political strings attached. Learning from Japan and South Korea, which have successfully spread cultural influence without political coercion, could offer a roadmap for China to rebuild trust.

China’s failure in Taiwan exposes a deeper flaw in its approach. Soft power is about attraction, not coercion. Unless China dramatically rethinks its approach, reunification will remain as distant as ever.

newbloommag.net · March 23, 2025

9. The Office That Won the Cold War, RIP

Love or hate ONA, this excerpt is really key. What is our future strategy especially in terms of all the organizations and capabilities we are eliminating from our national security instruments of national power? "Peace through strength" is an old bumper sticker.

Perhaps the Administration has a plan beyond taking a wrecking ball to the office. But the Trump crowd is making no sustained argument about how it plans to deter—or win—a future conflict. Let’s hope the next step is finding the 21st-century Andy Marshall the country very much needs.

Hegseth shuts the Office of Net Assessment for no good reason.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-office-that-won-the-cold-war-rip-defense-military-office-net-assessment-73fa33a0?mod=hp_opin_pos_5#cxrecs_s

By The Editorial Board

March 16, 2025 4:16 pm ET

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth Photo: wojtek radwanski/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The Trump Administration is bulldozing departments across the federal government, and few warrant a requiem. But a brief word on the dismantling of a little-known Pentagon office that helped America win the Cold War.

The Pentagon said late last week that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered “the disestablishment of the Office of Net Assessment,” sometimes referred to as the Defense Department’s internal think tank. The staff will be reassigned, a brief Pentagon statement said, and some new iteration will emerge “in alignment with the Department’s strategic priorities.”

Most Americans have never heard of the Office of Net Assessment. The outfit exists to ponder threats lurking over the horizon and stress-test military planning assumptions, removed from the parochial service interests or the brass. For decades after its creation in 1973, the small shop was crucial in defying received wisdom thanks to its longtime director Andrew Marshall, who died in 2019.

Marshall was early to perceive that the Soviet Union was far weaker than understood, and he spotted the percolating threat from China while the U.S. was still focused on fighting in the Middle East. One of Marshall’s bedrock beliefs was that peace is an interlude between wars, and thus ought to be viewed as vital time to prepare. The country would be safer now if it had treated the 1990s as an interwar period, instead of cashing a peace dividend that has left America insufficiently armed to counter today’s axis among China, Russia and Iran.

A Pentagon social-media account said the office “has been linked to the Russia collusion hoax,” ostensibly contracting with an FBI informant in the 2016 investigation into President Trump’s campaign. We aren’t able to judge the accuracy or importance of that claim. Much of the office’s work is classified, but the unclassified studies we’ve seen have been instructive.

Anyone who looks at the U.S. military in any detail understands that America is more vulnerable than at any point since at least the Cold War. Technology from AI to drones are changing how wars are won, and understanding those revolutions were central to net assessment’s brief.

10. Duterte Is Enjoying the Due Process He Denied to His Thousands of Victims

Excerpts:

Mr. Duterte still has strong public support and political influence. His daughter, Sara, is now the vice president, having formed a unity ticket with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. They won elections in 2022 by a landslide. Mr. Duterte might still be free if not for a bitter falling-out between the two family dynasties. Mr. Marcos had previously said his government would not cooperate with the International Criminal Court and allowed the arrest only after their political alliance crumbled.

Mr. Duterte’s allies claim he is a victim, kidnapped by malign forces at home and handed over to foreign powers. His son, the mayor of Mr. Duterte’s hometown, Davao City, has promised to “fight back” against Mr. Marcos and the charges against his father. Mr. Duterte’s supporters have held protests, holding signs hailing him as a father figure.

Juan’s son, Cejhay, wants people to remember his father, too. Cejhay was 5 when the police burst in. The day after the corpse was trundled away, Cejhay crept up to the armchair, stuck his finger into a bloodstained hole and pulled out one of the bullets.

He is 13 now, with a mop of curly dark hair. Juan was a good pa, he told me. Cejhay used to fight with his sisters over who got to sleep closest to Juan. Cejhay always won, and wishes he could curl up with his pa again.

He wants people to know what his father was like. He wants people to know that Rodrigo Duterte killed the best father in the world.

Duterte Is Enjoying the Due Process He Denied to His Thousands of Victims

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/opinion/duterte-icc-drugs-victims.html

March 23, 2025

Credit...Pool photo by Peter Dejong

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By Patricia Evangelista

Ms. Evangelista is the author of “Some People Need Killing,” which documents the deadly drug war launched in the Philippines by former President Rodrigo Duterte. She wrote from Manila.

He died from a bullet to the back of the head and two in the chest. A watchlist of alleged drug users and dealers kept by local officials identified the dead man as “De Juan, Constantino, a.k.a. Juan,” 37, and a drug “pusher.” The police said that he was killed in a drug buy-bust operation at 9:05 a.m. on Dec. 6, 2016, in Manila, and that they fired at him because he pulled out a gun.

According to the Philippine government, at least 6,252 people were killed in such encounters with the police during the drug war launched by Rodrigo Duterte, who was president from 2016 to 2022. Human rights groups say as many as 30,000 people may have been killed by the police and vigilantes.

Mr. Duterte was always clear about his intent. He said, over and over, often to applause, that anyone who resisted arrest on suspicion of selling or using drugs would be killed. They were drug addicts, he said, and addicts are “sick with paranoia” and “are always armed.” Killing them is not murder, only justice, he said. He encouraged the public to take part in the killings.

On March 16, I sat with Juan’s widow, Lourdes, in the choir loft of a Manila church. Mr. Duterte had been arrested a few days earlier and flown to The Hague to stand trial before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. I asked Lourdes what she thought when she heard the news.

“I’m happy,” she told me, “but not really happy.”

It is a simple answer, brutal in its truth. Three gunshots, and the sky fell. Her children watched Juan die. Her daughter could not speak for months. Her youngest would never remember his father. Juan was a good man, Lourdes says. He loved and was loved. He had bathed the children and cooked them spaghetti before he was shot. He used methamphetamine but was not a drug dealer, Lourdes said. Happy, but not happy, because the cops who killed her husband live free.

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I’ve been reporting since 2016 on the people killed during Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs. Their bodies were found floating in rivers, inside garbage bags on street corners, and where they fell in kitchens, alleyways and next to railroad tracks.

Mr. Duterte had seemed above the law. When the families of the dead heard of his arrest, they danced with pictures of their lost loved ones, pounded on walls, hugged family and knelt in pews to pray.

I’ve spoken to many of them since then. They laugh, they weep, and they fear for their safety — a symptom of the former president’s legacy of terror. Happy, they said, but not happy. I hear a variation of that phrase in every interview I do now.

There is Ivy, who sometimes wraps packing tape around her head. Her husband had been found dead, like many victims, with his own head wrapped in tape. She wants to know how it felt. There is Apoy, who is studying criminology because he wants to be a better police officer than the man who he says executed his father. There is Normita, whose epileptic son was killed. She is distraught because she swore that if Mr. Duterte were arrested she would visit his cell every day to make certain he remained behind bars. “How do I even get to the Netherlands?” she asked, sobbing.

I visited so many crime scenes that sometimes it’s difficult to keep the images straight: Which victim had the pack of red Marlboros in his pocket, which little girl was killed with the bullet meant for her grandfather. But there are some deaths I reconstructed in my mind so completely that it’s as if I saw them happen.

Juan’s is one of them. His children told me the story. As three gun barrels pointed in through a window, officers burst into their home. One of them shoved Juan up against a blue armchair. His 12-year-old daughter wrapped her arms around her father as he begged for his life, but an officer grabbed her and threw her against the wall. The shots were fired at close range. The death certificate listed Juan’s cause of death as a heart attack. He never pulled out a gun, his family said.

Mr. Duterte is now luxuriating in the due process that he denied others. He was read his rights, arrested and escorted to an air base in Manila where he was led to a special lounge reserved for presidents and seated on its presidential chair. There was food and Coca-Cola on a table.

When his family protested his arrest — his partner allegedly hit a police officer, his daughter cursed and screamed — they were not cut down by police bullets like the victims of his drug war were. When Mr. Duterte, 79, appeared before the court in The Hague on March 14, he did so via video. His lawyer said he was too ill to give evidence in person, even though the Philippine government declared him in good health when he was arrested.

In Mr. Duterte’s Philippines, due process was not a right, it was a privilege reserved for those he considered human. That did not include the victims of his drug war. “Are they humans?” Mr. Duterte once asked. “What is your definition of a human being?”

The families of the dead have been answering that question for the media for years. They have sat at many tables, in many news conferences, cameras in a line, microphones switched on, faded pictures resting on their laps. Since Mr. Duterte’s arrest, these expressions of grief have rolled on, no less real for their repetition: How Michael promised to be home in time for dinner, how Rene would iron his wife’s uniform so thoroughly that the black material faded to white, how Jesse scrambled eggs with a bit of salt in the morning for the girlfriend he called Beh, short for Baby. He was a good father. He was a good brother. He was a good husband. He was funny, did you know? He hugged me all the time, can you imagine it? He was good-looking, can you tell from the picture?

Mr. Duterte still has strong public support and political influence. His daughter, Sara, is now the vice president, having formed a unity ticket with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. They won elections in 2022 by a landslide. Mr. Duterte might still be free if not for a bitter falling-out between the two family dynasties. Mr. Marcos had previously said his government would not cooperate with the International Criminal Court and allowed the arrest only after their political alliance crumbled.

Mr. Duterte’s allies claim he is a victim, kidnapped by malign forces at home and handed over to foreign powers. His son, the mayor of Mr. Duterte’s hometown, Davao City, has promised to “fight back” against Mr. Marcos and the charges against his father. Mr. Duterte’s supporters have held protests, holding signs hailing him as a father figure.

Juan’s son, Cejhay, wants people to remember his father, too. Cejhay was 5 when the police burst in. The day after the corpse was trundled away, Cejhay crept up to the armchair, stuck his finger into a bloodstained hole and pulled out one of the bullets.

He is 13 now, with a mop of curly dark hair. Juan was a good pa, he told me. Cejhay used to fight with his sisters over who got to sleep closest to Juan. Cejhay always won, and wishes he could curl up with his pa again.

He wants people to know what his father was like. He wants people to know that Rodrigo Duterte killed the best father in the world.

How Israel plans to escalate its war on Hamas in Gaza

Israel’s political and military leaders are considering plans for a fresh ground campaign that could include a military occupation of Gaza for months or more.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/03/23/israel-gaza-war-plans/

UpdatedMarch 23, 2025 at 9:25 a.m. EDTtoday at 9:25 a.m. EDT

7 min

200

Smoke rises from a building in Gaza City targeted by the Israeli army on Saturday. (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)

By Gerry Shih

JERUSALEM — As Israel’s forces push back into Gaza after a two-month ceasefire with Hamas, its political and military leaders are considering plans for a fresh ground campaign that could include a military occupation of the entire enclave for months or more.

The new and more aggressive tactics, according to current and former Israeli officials and others briefed, will probably also include direct military control of humanitarian aid; targeting more of Hamas’s civilian leadership; and evacuating women, children and vetted noncombatants from neighborhoods to “humanitarian bubbles” and laying siege to those who remain — a more intense version of a tactic employed last year in northern Gaza.

Israeli officials say they are still waiting for the outcome of ceasefire talks and no decisions have been made on whether — and how — to escalate the current phase of the offensive, which has so far consisted of mostly aerial bombardment.

But if the maximalist tactics are implemented, they would represent an escalation of a 17-month operation that the Gaza Health Ministry says has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children. The war also has killed more than 400 Israeli soldiers.

Follow Trump’s first 100 Days

And they would mark a significant departure for the Israeli military, whose previous leaders feared becoming mired in the Gaza Strip. A full-scale invasion and occupation would require up to five army divisions, people familiar with the planning say, and the Israel Defense Forces could become stretched, given that reservists are increasingly voicing skepticism about fighting an open-ended war.

But some officials say that only a full-scale invasion now, followed by a lengthy counterinsurgency and deradicalization effort, would accomplish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated aim of eradicating Hamas after the group launched the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 Israelis and sparked the war.

Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of the military’s Gaza division, said the IDF’s campaign last year was constrained by disagreements between political and military leaders over tactics and strategy, and by the Biden administration’s concerns about harm to Palestinian civilians. But the arrival of the Trump administration in the United States and changes in the Israeli defense establishment have loosened those constraints, Avivi said.

“Now there is new [IDF] leadership, there is the backup from the U.S., there is the fact that we have enough munitions, and the fact that we finished our main missions in the north and can concentrate on Gaza,” Avivi said. “The plans are decisive. There will be a full-scale attack and they will not stop until Hamas is eradicated completely. We’ll see.”

Israeli officials say they are still willing to negotiate with Hamas through mediators before launching any large-scale invasion. Before dawn Tuesday, Israel carried out a devastating aerial attack targeting dozens of Hamas leaders and fighters and conducted limited raids on the ground. Hamas launched rockets at Tel Aviv in retaliation.

Palestinians flee their homes after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders in northern Gaza on Tuesday. (Mahmoud Issa/Reuters)

An Israeli official denied that Israel broke the ceasefire agreement and said that Israeli officials had laid out, on the 16th day of the truce, their conditions for entering the second phase of the agreement, but they were rejected by Hamas.

Hamas then declined a “bridge” proposal by President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to extend the ceasefire by 40 days in exchange for 11 living hostages, and offered instead to release one American-Israeli hostage, the official said, adding that Israel then decided to resume hostilities — which was permitted under a clause of the ceasefire agreement if talks were deemed to have broken down.

That proposal is “still on the table,” according to the Israeli official, who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive talks. “But we’re back to negotiating by different means: under fire.”

Hamas wanted to immediately open talks for the second phase, which would entail a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas to release to remaining living hostages. Hamas said Saturday it was still considering Witkoff’s proposal.

Israel has destroyed nearly all of Hamas’s 24 fighting battalions, it says, leaving a few thousand fighters in Gaza. But to fully eradicate the remnants, it would have to hold the territory — which some officers and analysts say carries high risks for Israel.

“If you look at the French in Algeria, [the U.S.] Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Americans in Afghanistan, the history of counterinsurgency attempts teach us that even the Israelis will fail,” said Sascha-Dominik Dov Bachmann, an expert on warfare at the University of Canberra. “It would undermine the moral and ethical basis of Israel.”

But supporters of a more intense and lengthy operation in Gaza argue that the campaign last year only resulted in Hamas reemerging from its tunnels in crisp uniforms in January, and the political conditions are ripe now to further ratchet up military pressure and hold Gaza if necessary.

Last year, the Biden administration refused to send a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel unless it allowed more humanitarian aid into Gaza and did more to prevent civilian casualties.

But Trump, who took office in January, has approved the sale of the heavy bombs. And officials have said that Israel consulted with the Trump administration before cutting off all aid to Gaza in March.

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak at a news conference in the East Room of the White House in February. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

A leadership shift within the Israeli military establishment, meanwhile, has produced a hawkish shift, analysts say. Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir replaced officials who sometimes clashed with Netanyahu.

Netanyahu last year asked the IDF to consider taking control of distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza to prevent Hamas from siphoning off supplies and profiting from their sale; Israeli assessments have estimated that Hamas made $1 billion in profits from skimming. Then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and chief of staff Herzi Halevi resisted the idea, arguing it would expose soldiers to unnecessary risk and amount to mission creep for the IDF, current and former Israeli officials said.

By February, the prevailing thinking had changed. Israeli officials informed international aid agencies that future humanitarian assistance would be screened and directed to new “logistics hubs” established by Israeli authorities, agency officials told The Washington Post.

Another point of contention: Gallant and Halevi favored striking Hamas’s military capabilities; Netanyahu wanted also to target the organization’s civilian officials, who dominate the enclave’s government posts.

After Gallant was dismissed in November, he told the families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel had achieved all its military objectives, media here reported. He also cautioned against trying to take control of the Gaza Strip.

Last week, Israel appeared to be taking a new approach, launching airstrikes that Katz, Gallant’s replacement, likened to “opening the gates of hell.” The strikes, which killed more than 400 people, targeted not only members of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, but also the director general of Gaza’s Interior Ministry, the director general of the Justice Ministry, and members of the Hamas political bureau as they gathered at home for predawn meals before the daytime fast of Ramadan.

“There is less opposition now with Zamir and Katz. They are more ready” for a more aggressive approach, said Yossi Kuperwasser, a former senior IDF intelligence official and head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security think tank.

“The government was committed to removing Hamas from power,” Kuperwasser added. “The security establishment was not happy with this idea. They were trying to focus more on military assets and less on civilian assets. Because once you remove Hamas from Gaza, the IDF would have to rule Gaza.”

Middle East conflict

Israel’s military launched a large-scale bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, breaking the fragile ceasefire with Hamas that has been in place since late January. Follow live updates on the ceasefire and the hostages remaining in Gaza.

The Israel-Gaza war: On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking civilian hostages. Israel declared war on Hamas in response, launching a ground invasion that fueled the biggest displacement in the region since Israel’s creation in 1948. In July 2024, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an attack Hamas has blamed on Israel.

Hezbollah: In late 2024, Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire deal, bringing a tenuous halt to more than a year of hostilities that included an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. Israel’s airstrikes into Lebanon had been intense and deadly, killing over 1,400 people including Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s longtime leader. The Israel-Lebanon border has a history of violence that dates back to Israel’s founding.

Gaza crisis: In the Gaza Strip, Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars, killing tens of thousands and plunging at least half of the population into “famine-like conditions.” For months, Israel has resisted pressure from Western allies to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave.

U.S. involvement: Despite tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some U.S. politicians, including former President Joe Biden, the United States supports Israel with weapons, funds aid packages, and has vetoed or abstained from the United Nations’ ceasefire resolutions.

What readers are saying

The comments reflect a strong sentiment that Israel's actions in Gaza are not solely targeting Hamas but are perceived as a broader campaign against Palestinians, with accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Many commenters express skepticism about Israel's intentions, suggesting that the ultimate goal is to displace Palestinians and expand Israeli territory. There is also criticism of U.S. support for Israel, with some attributing this to the current administration under President Trump. The potential occupation of Gaza is seen as exacerbating regional instability and increasing radicalization among Palestinians.Show less

This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.

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By Gerry Shih

Gerry Shih is the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the Washington Post, covering Israel, the Palestinian territories and the greater Middle East.follow on X@gerryshih

12. 'In the face of the US president's astonishing shift, Europe suddenly appears as a familiar and reassuring presence'

A view from France.

I would guess that this is what President Trump's advisors would argue he has intended to do with Europe:

Europeans seem to be waking up to everything that unites them

But this might be Euopre's downfall or at least economic achilles' heel:

The war economy can only be accepted if it comes with the promise of greater social well-being for Europe's citizens.

'In the face of the US president's astonishing shift, Europe suddenly appears as a familiar and reassuring presence'

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2025/03/23/in-the-face-of-the-us-president-s-astonishing-shift-europe-suddenly-appears-as-a-familiar-and-reassuring-presence_6739428_23.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic/world

Dominique Méda

Professor of sociology at Université Paris-Dauphine-PSL and president of the Institut Veblen.

In her column, the sociologist writes that Europeans seem to be waking up to everything that unites them. But a war economy will only be acceptable if it comes with the promise of greater social well-being for citizens.

Published today at 3:00 am (Paris) 3 min read Lire en français

By naming the European Union (EU) as his adversary, Donald Trump may have done Europeans an extraordinary favor. Nevertheless, although the EU has made no progress, institutionally speaking, for several decades, and public opinion has shown increasingly little interest in its advancement, and although publishers have advised against writing about Europe, as any literature on it would be a flop, the Union has suddenly returned to the heart of conversations and hopes.

The EU has been seen by both the far left and the far right as an enemy to be fought and the call to leave it was never far away. Now, it has suddenly appeared as a familiar, reassuring, and protective presence. Whereas previously, all the governing parties have tried to shift the blame onto the European Commission for unpopular decisions, today the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has assumed a matriarchal mantle.

In the face of the American president's astonishing shift, Europeans have finally decided to strengthen their ties and to come up with a joint response to the dual threat posed by Russia and the United States and they seem to have suddenly woken up to everything that unites them.

Although political, economic, and cultural differences between member states tend to be magnified when viewed from the inside, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – signed in 2000 and which came into legal force in 2009, after the signing of the Lisbon Treaty in 2007 – vividly demonstrates the singularity of the EU and the values it proclaims: "The Union is founded on the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity; it is based on the principles of democracy and the rule of law. It places the individual at the heart of its activities, by establishing the citizenship of the Union and creating an area of freedom, security, and justice."

Twenty-six of the EU's member states [Hungary chose not to associate] have just agreed to considerably increase their military capabilities and spending to defend the charter's values. A decision that has given rise to many questions. And we should not shy away from overused terms: Europe is at a crossroads, and the choice of the best strategy is a delicate one.

Should we take advantage of this first step to force destiny and promote the United States of Europe that the European federalists meeting in The Hague outlined in 1948 – a project that they continued to promote, but in vain, as the proposal for a European Defense Community in 1952, was ultimately rejected by France? And, if so, should we embark without further delay on a major institutional reform aimed at abolishing the right of veto and extending the scope of qualified majority voting, notably for taxation, social affairs, and foreign and security policy?

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LE MONDE IN ENGLISH

Obstacles – such as Germany's debt brake – seem to be falling one after the other. The time seems ripe to consider a European budget, which would no longer be based on national contributions but on its own resources, which would make it possible to finance and initiate major projects.

A unique opportunity for reconciliation

Should these institutional reforms be undertaken by all 27 member states, or should a distinction be made within the EU between the various groupings of voluntary member states, organized in concentric circles allowing the most committed to forge ahead and undertake some actions together – as suggested in a fascinating report Sailing on High Seas: Reforming and Enlarging the EU for the 21st century, released in 2023 by a high-level group? These are all questions that, right now, should be the subject of public debate in all member states.

<img src="https://img.lemde.fr/2025/03/19/0/0/4553/3035/664/0/75/0/3754829_ftp-import-images-1-ry7lgrvcnulz-5358829-01-06.jpg" alt="Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels. March 19, 2025" /> Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels. March 19, 2025 NICOLAS TUCAT / AFPIn any case, what we cannot afford is to focus on a military cornerstone to the detriment of ecological and social issues. Increasing military spending while dismantling the advances Europe has made in ecological transition (which the Commission seems tempted to do) would be economically inefficient as well as irresponsible. Also, forcing member states to cut back on their social model would be catastrophic.

We have a unique opportunity to reconcile Europeans to the possibility of an ever closer Union, which certainly will not be achieved either by cutting social spending or by calling into question recent hard-won progress, as some are currently seeking to do with the EU's fair wages policy. However, this is precisely the moment for the union to show that it can protect citizens by making concrete improvements to their daily lives.

It is only possible if the EU implements a genuine industrial policy by launching major projects to improve member countries' infrastructures, such as making train travel across the 27 member states possible; Funding in-depth programs to improve skills and qualifications: Supporting the creation of European "champions" and breaking with such popular beliefs as the superiority of competition over cooperation.

It would also mean reviving France's demand, made (unfortunately in vain) as long ago as 1948 and again in 1956, that market extension be conditional on the harmonization of social and fiscal legislation, which would put an end to the exacerbated tax competition between member states, which is undermining their tax bases and compromising solidarity.

The war economy can only be accepted if it comes with the promise of greater social well-being for Europe's citizens.

Dominique Méda (Professor of sociology at Université Paris-Dauphine-PSL and president of the Institut Veblen.)

Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.

13. America's European allies are trying to pry their unspent money back from USAID

Second and third order effects and unintended consequences.

Our diplomats may have difficult times negotiating collaborative agreements in the future.

America's European allies are trying to pry their unspent money back from USAID

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, JAMEY KEATEN, MIKE CORDER and VANESSA GERA

Updated 7:37 AM EDT, March 23, 2025

AP · by ELLEN KNICKMEYER · March 23, 2025

Three European allies provided millions of dollars that the United States was supposed to spend for low-income countries. Then the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s government-cutters arrived.

Government officials from Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands told The Associated Press that a combined $15 million they contributed for joint development work overseas has been parked at the U.S. Agency for International Development for months.

After the Republican administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cut USAID’s funding and the bulk of its programs, the Europeans asked whether their money would be funneled to projects as expected or refunded.

They have gotten no response.

“It’s a concern for us, especially as we want our partner organizations to be compensated for the work they have put into the programs,” said Julia Lindholm, a spokeswoman for the Swedish government’s international development agency.

The true total may be larger. Other foreign governments also had money entrusted with USAID for distribution in a range of joint development projects at the time President Donald Trump ordered the funding freeze on Jan. 20, according to an official directly familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The worries point to the extent to which the new administration’s abrupt cutoff of foreign assistance and canceling of contracts for humanitarian and development work are raising questions about Washington’s financial reliability. They also show further strain between allies as Trump revamps American foreign policy.

The State Department and USAID did not immediately respond to questions asking how many foreign governments had money for joint development programs going unspent and unrefunded in the USAID funding freeze, how much money that was in total, and whether the administration was doing anything about it.

Concerns from American allies

Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands had been partnering with USAID on a project called Water and Energy for Food, or WE4F. It helps farmers and others in poorer countries develop innovative ways to grow more food without straining water supplies or depending on climate-damaging forms of energy.

“Most importantly,” Lindholm said by email, the U.S. failure so far to disburse or refund allies’ donations is harming ”6 million of the poorest and most vulnerable farmers in the world who are dependent on the technologies for their food production and food security.”

Other administration actions already have alarmed traditional partners. Trump has said he would not necessarily follow the mutual-defense pact underlying the NATO security agreement, he has advanced some of Russia’s talking points and demands in its invasion of Ukraine and has imposed tariffs on Canada, the European Union and others.

America as a reliable financial partner

Now, doubts about the U.S. as a reliable business partner have emerged in lawsuits over the administration’s abrupt cancellation of what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said were 83% of USAID contracts, forcing partner organizations to lay off workers and driving some out of business.

In a brief supporting a lawsuit from federal workers, former Defense Secretaries Chuck Hagel and William Perry, former CIA Director Michael Hayden and more than a dozen other former senior U.S. officials said the administration’s mass canceling of thousands of USAID contracts was flouting U.S. financial regulations and “destroying the United States’ credibility as a reliable partner.”

Canceling the contracts “sends a message that this administration does not feel bound by those regulations — regulations on which every business that works with the United States relies,” the former officials said.

In another case, lawyers for nonprofits and businesses seeking payment from USAID told a judge that because of the financial chaos surrounding the agency’s dismantling, banks have stopped what used to be routine financing for USAID partners based on their contracts with the U.S. agency.

Since the Cold War, the national security argument for development programs has been that making poorer countries more prosperous and stable lessens refugee flows and conflicts.

Trump and Musk call foreign assistance through USAID in particular a fraud and scam. Administration officials are looking at focusing U.S. development efforts much more narrowly on combating China’s influence abroad and boosting U.S. trade and business opportunities.

Seeking money back from the Trump administration

Growing steadily more alarmed by the administration’s foreign aid moves, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands initially sent USAID emails inquiring about the money they had parked in USAID accounts.

Frustrated at getting no response, two of them warned in the government-to-government emails that they were looking at talking to local media about their missing money, according to the official directly familiar with the matter.

Under court order, the administration has started making good on some $2 billion USAID already owed when Trump ordered the freeze in USAID and State Department foreign assistance on Inauguration Day.

But forced leaves and firings have yanked most officials and workers at USAID’s headquarters off the job. That includes many who oversaw development programs and would be involved in tracking down numbers and calculating any refunds for the foreign governments.

Sweden’s development agency told the AP that it estimates it has $12 million total, including $5.1 million for WE4F, sitting in USAID accounts — money going unspent for people in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and unrefunded by the administration.

Lindholm, the spokesperson for Sweden’s development agency, called the WE4F program “extraordinarily impactful,” with measurable benefits for farmers and others many times greater than the program’s initial targets.

The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation told the AP that it has received no information about the fate of a $1.4 million funding tranche for WE4F since Trump began dissolving USAID.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry said it reached out to the U.S. aid agency on how much of the $1.6 million it had given most recently for WE4F had yet to be disbursed by USAID and should be refunded, but that it had not yet gotten any response.

“Donor partners are now exploring other opportunities to continue to run the WE4F programme to ensure a responsible completion,” Lindholm said by email.

___

Knickmeyer reported from Washington, Keaten from Geneva, Corder from The Hague, Netherlands, and Gera from Warsaw, Poland.

AP · by ELLEN KNICKMEYER · March 23, 2025

14. Voice of America journalists sue Trump officials for dismantling the outlet

Even if VOA and RFA were restored to complete working order I fear they would never be able to effectively resume their mission due to a lack of administration support. It will be a toxic work environment (even if we cannot use that term since it is associated with DEI).

Of course since this is the Washington Post some will not consider this AI summary of comments from readers.

What readers are saying

The comments express strong opposition to the dismantling of Voice of America (VOA) by Trump officials, with many viewing it as an attack on democracy and free press. Commenters argue that VOA has historically been a crucial tool for U.S. foreign policy and soft power, and its closure is seen as aligning with authoritarian interests, particularly those of Russia. There is a call for resistance against what is perceived as Trump's authoritarian tendencies, with some commenters expressing hope that the lawsuit will succeed in restoring VOA's operations.

This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.

Incidentally, in an act of foresight or foreshadowing, the week before closure I participated my last appearance on Washington Talk, VOA's weekly broadcast into north Korea to explain US policy to the elite in Pyongyang. After all the years of doing that the VOA staff for the first time gave me a VOA hat and T-shirt and we joked that these were "parting" gifts from VOA. We certainly anticipated cuts and changes to VOA based on Project 2025 and administration statements, but we did not expect it to be shut down. Now I wear my VOA hat in solidarity with the professional journalists who are no longer able to support the US national security mission.

Voice of America journalists sue Trump officials for dismantling the outlet

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to order Trump administration officials to restore the outlet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/22/voice-america-lawsuit-trump-kari-lake/?utm

March 22, 2025 at 6:43 p.m. EDTYesterday at 6:43 p.m. EDT

The Voice of America building, seen June 15, 2020, in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

By Tobi Raji

Six Voice of America journalists — including the outlet’s former White House bureau chief — sued members of the Trump administration Friday, accusing officials of unlawfully shuttering a federally funded media outlet that has delivered news coverage to millions across the globe since its founding during World War II.

Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, asks a federal judge to order officials to restore the outlet, effectively reversing part of President Donald Trump’s executive order issued earlier this month that dismantled the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). The agency oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and Radio Free Asia.

The Voice of America (VOA) journalists were joined by Reporters Without Borders and four labor organizations in the lawsuit that named USAGM acting CEO Victor Morales and Kari Lake, special adviser to the agency, as defendants.

Morales and Lake did not respond to a request for comment Saturday.

Follow Trump’s first 100 Days

The complaint argues that the president violated the First Amendment by dismantling the media organization and exceeded his authority in violation of the Constitution. Congress, which created and funds USAGM, has sole authority over the agency, the complaint said.

“In many parts of the world a crucial source of objective news is gone, and only censored state-sponsored news media is left to fill the void,” the plaintiffs said in the complaint. “What is happening to the VOA Journalists is not just the chilling of First Amendment speech; it is a government shutdown of journalism, a prior restraint that kills content before it can be created.”

Last week’s decision to gut the USAGM, considered an arm of U.S. diplomacy, reflects the Trump administration’s broader, chaotic effort to shrink the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy — actions that have eliminated thousands of federal jobs, disrupted vital government functions such as foreign aid and disease response, and triggered several court challenges. Friday’s lawsuit is one of the latest court actions targeting a Trump executive order.

VOA — which broadcasts in 49 different languages — was founded by the federal government in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda, according to the outlet’s webpage. VOA and its sister networks practice a form of soft diplomacy, telling stories about democracy in countries where press freedom is limited or nonexistent.

“They’re not in the propaganda business. They’re like the BBC,” said David Seide, senior counsel at the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit that represents whistleblowers. “They’re here to be objective in their reporting, because that’s the basis for their credibility around the world, and that’s why 420 million people tune in to these networks every single week.”

The Government Accountability Project and the law firm Emery Celli are representing the VOA journalists and other plaintiffs in the case.

In their complaint, the plaintiffs wrote that the Trump administration’s decision to dismantle VOA and its affiliates runs afoul of a federal law, often referred to as the statutory fire wall, which says that the head of USAGM “shall respect the professional independence and integrity” of the news outlets.

“The firewall signifies that even though the networks are state funded, they are free, independent journalistic outlets designed to function like the most credible and reputable private news organizations in the world,” the complaint said.

Shuttering USAGM has had grave consequences on the agency’s mission, the complaint said, with virtually none of the more than 1,200 journalists, editors, engineers and other workers “performing their important public services.”

“In the world at large, the vacuum left by Defendants pulling the plug on USAGM’s news networks is being filled by propagandists whose messages will monopolize global airwaves,” the complaint said.

In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs cast the March 14 executive order as the actions of a president who sees VOA as being out of step with his political agenda.

Trump has long criticized VOA. During his first administration, the White House slammed the outlet’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and accused it of promoting Chinese government propaganda in its reporting about the outbreak. Trump also called VOA the “voice of the Soviet Union.”

Near the end of his first term, Trump had also unsuccessfully tried to assert control over USAGM by installing Michael Pack to lead the agency. Pack also declined to renew visas of dozens of foreign journalists who work for the outlet.

In October 2020, several VOA journalists sued Pack, accusing him of trying to transform the independent news agency and its affiliates into promotional arms for Trump in violation of the statutory fire wall. A month later, a federal judge in Washington issued preliminary injunctions barring Pack from direct involvement in the networks’ editorial operations.

In early February, Elon Musk, who leads the U.S. DOGE Service tasked with reducing the size of government, called for the closure of VOA and other outlets at USAGM.

After Trump signed the March executive order dismantling USAGM, Lake released a statement blasting the agency’s journalism as “a product that often parrots the talking-points of America’s adversaries.”

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Opinion | The ‘Free World’ Is Gone and There’s No Turning Back

Opinion by James Kirchick

03/21/2025 05:00 AM EDT

James Kirchick is the author of “The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age” and a contributor to the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

Politico

No longer is there any pretense that the United States stands for the ideals that inspired it for 250 years. Europe and the rest of the world need to adjust.

Illustration by Bill Kuchman/POLITICO (source images via Getty Images and iStock)

Opinion by James Kirchick

03/21/2025 05:00 AM EDT

James Kirchick is the author of “The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age” and a contributor to the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

In early 2017, less than two months into Donald Trump’s first term as president, I published a piece of speculative fiction. Set during a then-imaginary second Trump term, it depicts a nightmare scenario in which American troops abandon Europe, the pro-Russia Alternative for Germany wins 20 percent of the vote in a federal election, and Russia launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

My purpose in writing the story was to stir readers on both sides of the Atlantic out of their complacency regarding the parlous state of what used to be called the “Free World.” But it still didn’t prepare me for the series of events that began with Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference and ended with the humiliation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by Trump and Vance before TV cameras in the Oval Office. While many may view that two-week period as indistinguishable from the rest of the Trump era, future historians won’t: They’ll record it as marking an epochal shift in global politics potentially even more significant than the collapse of the Berlin Wall or the terrorist attacks of 9/11. It marked the end of an era — the era of the American-led liberal international order.

That era began after the Second World War when an isolationist country reluctantly assumed the mantle of world leadership, an enormous, multifarious endeavor resulting in historically unprecedented economic growth, scientific discovery, human flourishing and peace. America’s material resources were essential to this decadeslong, globe-spanning effort, but more important was the conviction, shared not only by hundreds of millions of Americans but countless people around the world, underlying it: that the United States was an exceptional nation uniquely positioned to be a force for good in the world.

Across those eight decades, an ethic of idealism undergirded American foreign policy, one traceable to the country’s founding. Whether Republican or Democrat, American presidents regularly invoked the providential role that the United States, as the world’s oldest democracy, was destined to play on the global stage. President Thomas Jefferson referred to the young nation he helped found as “the world’s best hope” while his archrival John Adams sent arms to the leaders of a slave rebellion that liberated Haiti. Over 150 years later, Dwight Eisenhower declared that “We could be the wealthiest and the most mighty nation and still lose the battle of the world if we do not help our world neighbors protect their freedom and advance their social and economic progress.” His successor John F. Kennedy famously declared that America would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.” And in his farewell address Ronald Reagan spoke of America as a “shining city upon a hill,” a phrase that his ideological polar opposite Barack Obama invoked during the 2016 election.

Fulfillment of these lofty ambitions obliged America to support democracies and oppose dictatorships. As a global superpower with responsibilities no other nation was either able — or willing — to undertake, it could not afford to have the impeccably moral foreign policy of Sweden. Idealism inevitably clashed with realism, with the latter often triumphing over the former. This was especially true during the Cold War, when Washington helped engineer the overthrow of democratically elected leaders and supported authoritarian regimes. And it continues today with American backing of repressive governments in the Middle East. But even while employing immoral means, American leaders did so in the pursuit of what they considered moral ends, whether fighting communism, halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction, or resisting radical Islam.

Opponents of the American-led liberal international order harp endlessly upon its faults while taking its virtues — free and open sea lanes, the spread of liberal democracy, values-based alliances, the protection of human rights — for granted. Eager to lambaste the order for its many faults, they prefer not to grapple with the international system rapidly taking its place, a dog-eats-dog world where America has abdicated its role as global policeman and authoritarian states gain spheres of influence in which less powerful countries must bend to their will. Even the most vociferous critics of American global power may come to miss it once Russia, China and Iran gain dominance over Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The centurieslong record of at least rhetorical support for right over wrong is what made last month’s Oval Office meeting so unsettling. In a display that ought to shame every American, the country’s top two constitutional officers acted like a king and his regent, demanding obeisance from a feudal supplicant. Within days, Trump suspended military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, and while both were later restored, the message he sent was unmistakable: Not even an ally under military attack can depend upon Washington for support. Having abandoned Ukraine out of personal pique, Trump then returned to taking on the world’s other villains: Canada, Denmark and Panama.

In addition to abandoning our democratic allies abroad, Trump is gutting America’s democracy-promotion apparatus at home. During the Cold War, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (the latter my former employer) broadcasted news and information beyond the Iron Curtain and continue this mission in regions of the world that remain unfree. (Many nations once subject to Soviet domination — including Poland, Czechia and the Baltic states — can credit VOA and RFE/RL, at least in part, for their freedom). The United States Agency for International Development was founded during the administration of Kennedy to alleviate the social and economic conditions in which authoritarianism and terrorism thrive. And the National Endowment for Democracy, created under Reagan, provides grants to democratic activists around the globe. Trump has halted funding for all of these organizations, which represent the best of American values, to cheers from Moscow, Beijing and Tehran.

In place of the idealism that animated American leadership of the Free World, Trump has unleashed the atavistic cynicism of the Old World. In this new dispensation where might makes right, any appeal to moral considerations in the practice of American foreign policy is ridiculed as a deficiency of the weak while the amoral exercise of power is venerated as a virtue of the strong. Instinctive American sympathy for the underdog is supplanted by admiration for the strongman. An embattled democracy is accused of provoking the invasion of its own territory — the geopolitical equivalent of blaming a rape victim for her own assault — and for the first time in history America votes with the world’s rogues against its traditional democratic allies at the United Nations. The occupant of the office once synonymous with “leader of the Free World” slanders the president of a country fighting for its very existence as a “dictator” while lauding a despotic war criminal as “a great guy” and a “terrific person.” At least when Franklin Roosevelt (allegedly) said that Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza “may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch,” he had the moral clarity to identify the caudillo for what he was, and the tact to do so behind closed doors.

While Trump borrows from the Andrew Jackson school of American foreign policy, notable for its strident nationalism and distrust of international institutions, the historical figure whose ideas (and slogans) he leans most heavily on is Pat Buchanan. Once a marginal figure on the American right, the former Nixon speechwriter and Republican presidential candidate stood for the same “America First” trifecta — anti-immigration, anti-intervention and protectionism — as Trump does today. In the brave new world of America First, no longer does America stand for the belief that democracies make better allies than dictatorships, that territorial aggression should be punished rather than rewarded, and that alliances are an asset, not a burden. In his Munich speech, Vance endorsed the inclusion of far-right parties in European governments, which he accused of posing a greater threat to their own people than either Russia or China. All of this is the result of a foreign policy utterly lacking in moral scruples.

The abandonment of morality as a factor in foreign affairs also marks a turning point for the Republican Party. Next month marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. American conservatives once pointed to that event — the chaotic scenes of desperate Vietnamese fleeing the approaching communist onslaught, the 2 million boat people who managed to escape, the horrific repression that followed for those who did not — as a shameful example of what happens when the U.S. abandons an ally. Whatever the merits of American involvement in that conflict, the dire consequences of the American withdrawal reverberated across the region. Within months, Laos and Cambodia fell to communist insurgencies, vindicating the much derided “domino theory.”

Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine has the potential to dwarf these events in geopolitical magnitude and human suffering. If Ukraine is made to sign a peace deal that doesn’t provide clear-cut security guarantees it will only be a matter of time before Russian President Vladimir Putin attempts another Anschluss. Absent American leadership of the Free World, such an incursion could succeed in toppling the Kyiv government, leading to tens of millions of refugees and a massive Russian military presence on the border of several NATO member states. With the alliance’s guarantee of collective security in tatters thanks to Trump’s extortionist threats not to uphold it, NATO — the most successful military alliance in history — will for all intents and purposes be dead, opening the door for further Russian predation in Europe and elsewhere.

Looking for silver linings, some nostalgic for the recently departed era of American global leadership cling to the hope that everything will return to normal once a Democrat or traditional Republican moves into the Oval Office. While the fight over the future of conservative foreign policy is ongoing, there is no turning back. No longer confident of their place under the American security umbrella, alarmed allies like Poland and South Korea are exploring the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. The once-ridiculed French idea of “strategic autonomy” — a pole of European military power independent of the United States — is now the top agenda item across the continent. The “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance composed of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand may shrink to “Four Eyes” due to the unreliability of its most powerful member.

What transpired during the last two weeks of February cannot be undone in the minds of America’s allies or its adversaries. And in a world where every man is for himself, what’s the difference between the two?

The story I wrote eight years ago ends on Victory Day with Putin proudly reviewing a massive military parade in Red Square. While Trump has denied that he will join the festivities this year, if he can force a deal on Ukraine, he may not be able to resist the temptation to exult in his undeserved role as global peacemaker. Standing alongside Putin in Moscow, tacitly conferring American recognition upon the first armed annexation of territory on the European continent since World War II, such a scene would mark the dawn of a new era, one in which it is increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Politico

16. How Elon Musk’s DOGE Cuts Leave a Vacuum That China Can Fill

Unfortunately most Americans do not view it as worrisome that China will fill the multiple vacuums left by the US ceding the political warfare battlespace.

It is sadly ironic because while the President wants a foreign policy and national security of peace through strength ( asdo many of us) he also is conducting unconventional diplomacy. And the instruments of national power that DOGE is eliminating could be instrumental in supporting the President's unconventional diplomacy. They are tools (or weapons) he could effectively wield to support peace through strength while achieving objectives through unconventional diplomacy.

How Elon Musk’s DOGE Cuts Leave a Vacuum That China Can Fill

The Department of Government Efficiency is shuttering organizations that Beijing worried about most, or actively sought to subvert.

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President Trump announced on Friday a project to build a stealthy next-generation fighter jet.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

By David E. Sanger

David E. Sanger covers the revival of superpower conflicts and reports from Washington. He previously reported from Asia for The Times.

March 22, 2025

When President Trump announced on Friday that the United States would move ahead with a long-debated project to build a stealthy next-generation fighter jet, the message to China was clear: The United States plans to spend tens of billions of dollars over the next decade, probably far longer, to contain Beijing’s ability to dominate the skies over the Pacific.

But here on earth, the reality has been very different.

As the Department of Government Efficiency roars through agencies across government, its targets have included some of the organizations that Beijing worried about most, or actively sought to subvert. And, as with much that Elon Musk’s DOGE has dismembered, there has been no published study of the costs and benefits of losing those capabilities — and no discussion of how the roles, arguably as important as a manned fighter, might be replaced.

On the list of capabilities on life support is Radio Free Asia, a 29-year-old nonprofit that estimates its news broadcasts reach 60 million people in Asia each week, from China to Myanmar, and across the Pacific islands where the United States has been struggling to counter China’s narratives about the world. It furloughed all but 75 of its Washington staff members on Friday, trying to stay on the air while court cases develop on Trump officials’ moves to defund U.S. government-supported media.

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth eliminated the Office of Net Assessment, an internal think-tank. With an annual budget that accounted for a few seconds of Pentagon spending each year, the office tried to think ahead about the challenges the United States would face a decade or two in the future — such as the new capabilities of artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons and the hidden vulnerabilities of supply chains for military contractors.

It was a revered institution, what a Wall Street Journal editorial this past week called “The Office that Won the Cold War.” Mr. Hegseth said in a statement that it would be reconstituted in some unspecified way “in alignment with the Department’s strategic priorities,” though its value was that it challenged conventional thinking about those priorities.

Over at the Department of Homeland Security, a series of cyberdefenses have been stripped away, at a moment when China’s state-backed hackers have been more successful than at any time in recent memory.

Among those dissolved, at least for the time being, is the Cyber Safety Review Board, created on the model of the National Transportation Safety Board, which examines aircraft accidents and tries to extract lessons learned. The cybersecurity board was just beginning to take testimony on how Chinese intelligence bored deep inside America’s largest telecommunications firms, including the system the Justice Department uses to monitor its “lawful intercept” system, which places wiretaps on people suspected of committing crimes or spying — including Chinese spies.

Now the board has been disbanded. No one at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency seems able to say what has happened to the investigation into one of the most successful penetrations of American networks, or who is now responsible for figuring out why American telecommunications firms were caught unawares, for more than a year, by China’s Ministry of State Security.

The list goes on, more evidence that in its first two months the new administration has been devastatingly efficient in tearing things down, but painfully slow to explain how their actions fit into their broader strategy.

All this has the Chinese celebrating. As the Voice of America was being dismantled and fell silent, The Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, wrote that “the so-called beacon of freedom, VOA, has now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag.”

China is still trying to take its measure of the new administration, which is putting new sanctions on Chinese entities that buy Iranian oil, but is also talking about wiping out the CHIPS and Science Act. The law not only provided federal funding to jump-start the production of advanced semiconductors in the United States, but provided billions for advanced work in a range of key technologies, from batteries to quantum computing, that China is subsidizing.

“It’s a contradiction, as the Chinese say, that we are cutting back on our instruments of national power while saying that we are stepping up our competition with Beijing,” said Michael J. Green, chief executive of the United States Study Center at the University of Sydney in Australia. “When we reveal human rights abuses or Chinese misinformation, it’s another form of competition with China. And getting rid of it only creates a vacuum that Beijing is going to try to fill. And we are already seeing that happening.”

The speed of the dismantlement has left many Asia experts a bit stunned, because they know the new aircraft — which Mr. Trump said would be called the F-47, clearly in homage to his own second term — will not contribute to American deterrence for a decade, if it is on time.

“The charge for the United States is to deter war with China without capitulation and to compete effectively across all the areas of soft power,” Richard Fontaine, the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security and a former Republican aide to John McCain in the Senate, said on Friday. “The United States has an array of tools to do this, including humanitarian aid, development assistance, support for democracy abroad, and strategic communications efforts. Strangely, these are the efforts most under threat by the new cost-cutting teams.”

“If it goes too far,” he warned, “it will amount to unilateral disarmament in the world’s most important contest.”

It is hard to find an understandable theme to the cuts; some are based on perceived acts of disloyalty, or old grudges, or a sense that even state-financed media or think tanks are inhabited by anti-Trump liberals.

Sometimes it is especially mystifying. The Office of Net Assessment, for example, was mostly staffed by career civilians or uniformed military, who are asked to think outside the box: How would a prolonged economic downturn in China affect its leaders’ thinking about Taiwan? What happens to warfighting when manned aircraft — like the newly announced jet fighter — can be regularly outmaneuvered by autonomous weapons?

The cuts at Radio Free Asia, which broke many of the biggest stories about the internment camps China has built to “re-educate” Uyghurs in Xinjiang, are among the most mystifying. Its broadcasts have been attacked by Beijing, which has gone to great lengths to censor the reports and broadcast their own narrative, often on YouTube and X.

Bay Fang, the president of Radio Free Asia, a nonprofit that gets its $60 million budget from a congressionally approved disbursement, said in an interview that she doubted the organization was specifically targeted.

DOGE and the White House were gunning for Voice of America, which has hundreds of millions of listeners and readers, and which Mr. Trump has denounced as “the Voice of Radical America.” In one of his executive orders, he said he would “ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.” (Almost all of Voice of America’s staff of 1,300 journalists have been put on paid leave.)

Image

The offices of Radio Free Asia, which said the federal grants that funded it were terminated last week.Credit...Reuters

“You have only to look at the way dictators in the region are celebrating our defunding,” Ms. Fang said in an interview. “We provide a voice that counters their propaganda and shines a light into dark corners they’d rather leave untouched.” The result, she said, is that “we are an essential way that America wins trust among the people living in these authoritarian countries. Shuttering RFA is not only their loss, but America’s.”

Winning trust, however, is hard to quantify. It takes years, and the results are not as easy to demonstrate as showing off a new fighter jet and, in the case of the new F-47, the semiautonomous attack drones that fly alongside.

Radio Free Asia’s budget is so small that Ms. Fang said she was pretty certain the nonprofit was “collateral damage” as the administration moved to defund the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which also supports Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

The defunding is taking place even before the Senate has confirmed Mr. Trump’s choice to head the global media agency, L. Brent Bozell III, a conservative political activist. He has picked Kari Lake, the pro-MAGA former journalist who lost a Senate race in Arizona, as the new head of Voice of America, but for now she is only a “special adviser” because Mr. Trump fired the board members that could have replaced the current leader.

This administration clearly regards “soft power” as a largely irrelevant concept. But the lack of it leaves a vacuum that Beijing will happily fill.

“It seems self-defeating that while China mounts unrelenting cyberattacks, builds a Navy to defeat the U.S. Pacific fleet, sends ‘wolf-warrior’ diplomats far afield, and created alternatives to the dollar that America pulls inward and closes off avenues of information to the Chinese people,” said Paul Kolbe, a career C.I.A. officer who spent much of his career countering Soviet propaganda and covert operations.

Speaking from Jakarta, Mr. Kolbe answered his own question: “We affirm Chinese beliefs that they are ascendant, and that our decline is accelerating.”

David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges. More about David E. Sanger

A version of this article appears in print on March 23, 2025, Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Unilateral Disarmament’: Musk’s Cuts Leave Vacuum for China. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

17. New satellite images show the damage after Ukraine struck a bomber base deep inside Russia

New satellite images show the damage after Ukraine struck a bomber base deep inside Russia

Business Insider · by Jake Epstein, Chris Panella

Military & Defense

2025-03-21T17:57:25Z

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Ukrainian forces carried out an attack on an airbase deep inside Russia this week.
New satellite images reveal extensive damage at the Engels-2 airbase.
It marks Ukraine's latest deep-strike operation as Kyiv attempts to degrade Russia's war machine.

New satellite imagery obtained by Business Insider shows damage at a key airbase deep inside Russia after a Ukrainian attack earlier in the week.

Ukraine's military said on Thursday that its forces struck the Engels-2 airfield in Russia's Saratov region overnight. It added that a fire, explosions, and a secondary detonation of ammunition were observed in the immediate vicinity of the base.

Maxar, a US commercial satellite imaging company, collected photos on Friday that revealed the aftermath of the attack. It said the strikes damaged an ammunition and weapons storage area, with explosions taking down buildings and bunkers.

The Russian airbase sits several hundred miles from the front lines and is home to Tu-95 and Tu-160 bomber aircraft. Ukraine has attacked the airfield several times during the war. This was the third attack this year; Kyiv conducted strikes on Engels twice in January.

Kyiv's military said that Russia uses the Engels airbase to launch aircraft that carry out missile strikes against targets on Ukrainian territory, including civilian targets.

The Russian governor of the Saratov region wrote on the Telegram messaging platform that the area suffered "the most massive UAV attack of all time" after the overnight strikes.

Russia has taken extensive measures to protect the aircraft at Engels after previous attacks on the base, including placing tires on the bombers to possibly shield them from Ukrainian missiles and drones. Russia has also relocated some of its bombers further east.

Ukraine's strikes on the base, as well as other cross-border targets, highlight its larger campaign to threaten and degrade Russia's military infrastructure hundreds of miles away from the front lines.

This week's attack on the base came amid a larger barrage. Russia's defense ministry said on Thursday that it had engaged and shot down 134 drones overnight across multiple regions.

Meanwhile, Russia has been continuing its bombardment of Ukraine; Moscow launched over 200 drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight on Wednesday, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Russia and Ukraine have discussed a limited cease-fire, with the US serving as an intermediary. Last week, Kyiv signaled its openness to an immediate 30-day cease-fire, but Moscow has continued its missile barrages on Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure. The two countries, however, appear to have agreed to a reduction in attacks on energy facilities.

Business Insider · by Jake Epstein, Chris Panella

18. For Vladimir Putin, Russia’s position in the world is personal. Here’s what he really wants

Soem interesting insights to me. But I will leave it to the Russian experts to assess and evaluate.

For Vladimir Putin, Russia’s position in the world is personal. Here’s what he really wants

Analysis: Trump wants the war to end. But Putin wants much more than that | CNN

CNN · by Ivana Kottasová · March 22, 2025

Photo Illustration by Jason Lancaster/CNN/Getty Images

CNN —

US President Donald Trump said he thinks Vladimir Putin wants peace. Ukraine and its European allies don’t believe he does, while the Russian leader himself said he wants peace but then refused to sign up to it when presented with the option.

What Putin really wants, though, is much, much bigger.

The Russian president has made no secret of the fact that he believes Ukraine should not exist as an independent state and he has repeatedly said he wants NATO to shrink back to its Cold War-era size.

But more than anything, he wants to see a new global order — and he wants Russia to play the starring role in it.

A building burngs in Odesa on Friday, in a photo supplied by emergency services.

State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Odesa region/Reuters

Putin and several of his most trusted allies emerged from the remnants of the KGB, the Soviet-era intelligence agency. They have never forgotten the humiliation of the fall of the Soviet Union and are not happy with the way the world has turned out since then.

Putin rose to power during the chaos of the 1990s, when the Russian economy collapsed and had to be rescued by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – another humiliation for the former superpower.

But from 2000, when Putin became president, steadily rising oil prices made Russia and many Russians richer than ever before. And Russia had a voice. It was invited into the G7 group of the world’s largest economies – renamed the G8 after it joined.

But this was not enough for the Russian leader, Kristine Berzina, a managing director at the German Marshal Fund of United States, told CNN.

“Putin was happy to throw all that away on behalf of his citizens because of higher geopolitical aims,” Berzina said. Russia was expelled from the G8, sanctioned by the West and ostracized on the global stage because of its aggression against Ukraine.

Berzina said it was never good enough for Russia to be “the eighth in the G7.”

“That doesn’t work within Russia’s understanding of its own exceptionalism. It is the largest country in the world, the richest in (natural) resources, so how can it simply be one of the players?” she said.

A convoy of Russian troops moves along a road in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol on April 21, 2022.

Chingis Kondarov/Reuters

To understand what Putin wants from the current talks with the US, it’s key to remember that the two sides are talking because the United States made a policy U-turn under Trump — not because of a fundamental change in Russian thinking.

Trump wants the war in Ukraine to end as soon as possible, even if it means further territorial losses for Ukraine.

This means Putin has little to lose from talking.

Trump has claimed that “Russia holds all the cards” in the war with Ukraine, but the battlefield has been mostly stalled for the past two years.

While Russia is making some incremental gains, it is definitely not winning – though this could change if the US was to stop supplying arms and intelligence to Ukraine.

“Putin went into Ukraine thinking that it will be an easy, quick operation. Three years on, he controls 20% of Ukraine, but at terrible, terrible cost. I mean, essentially the Russians are losing. The thing though is that the Ukrainians are losing faster,” leading Russia analyst Mark Galeotti told CNN.

For Putin and the people around him, Trump’s push for a ceasefire simply presents an opportunity to secure quick wins while keeping an eye on the long-term goals, he said.

“Putin is an opportunist. He likes creating dynamic, chaotic situations, which throw up a whole variety of opportunities. And then he can then just pick which opportunity appeals to him, and he can change his mind,” Galeotti said.

Long term plan

Putin and his aides have made it very clear that their long-term goals have not changed. Even as they talk about wanting peace, Russian officials have continued to insist that the “root causes” of the conflict in Ukraine must be “eliminated.”

In the Kremlin’s view, these “root causes” amount to Ukraine’s sovereignty and its democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as NATO’s expansion to the east in the past 30 years.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Getty Images/Reuters

Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to force a regime change in Kyiv, planning to install a pro-Moscow government. His goal was to turn Ukraine into a vassal state like Belarus and prevent it from joining the European Union and NATO in the future.

He has not achieved that goal by using military force, but that doesn’t mean he has abandoned it.

Instead, he might try to achieve it by other means.

“The easiest way for Russia to attain what it wants in a different country is not through military means, but through interference and electoral process,” Berzina said, adding that it is possible – even likely – that this is what Moscow would try to do after a ceasefire was in place.

This is likely why Russia keeps questioning Zelensky’s legitimacy and pushing for an election – and why Kremlin was delighted when Trump adopted this narrative and called the Ukrainian leader “a dictator without elections.” Ukraine’s martial law – imposed because of Russia’s aggression – prohibits elections from taking place while the conflict is ongoing.

Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, have rejected the idea that Ukraine could join NATO any time soon and Putin has asked for a US commitment that this will not happen to be part of any ceasefire agreement.

Ukrainian servicemen of Khartia brigade are preparing M101 Howitzer before firing towards Russian positions in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.

Alex Babenko/AP

But Berzina said that Ukraine’s European allies are not buying Putin’s promises that he would stop fighting if Ukraine became – as he called it – neutral.

“No matter what Trump and Putin think they can arrange this week or this year, many people in Europe now find Putin fundamentally untrustworthy,” she said.

“Could there be a desire for Russia to try its hand again militarily? Sure. And that is why the Europeans are very clear-eyed on the potential for future military engagement.”

It’s all personal

Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and security expert who lives in exile in London, said Putin and his aides believe they can “try to get something out of Trump right now.”

“They think they can win some tactical battles but that he would not give them what they really want, which is a complete rearrangement of security arrangements in Europe,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks, during a joint press conference with Finland's President Alexander Stubb, at the Presidential Palace, in Helsinki, Finland, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva via AP)

Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva/AP

“For the Kremlin, it’s not a war with Ukraine, it’s a war with the West, and a lot of people in Moscow don’t really believe that they can get any kind of lasting agreement with the US,” Soldatov told CNN.

Russia’s wariness of the US goes far back.

“It’s very personal to them because they were all young KGB officers back then, and they lost their social standing, they lost a place in Russian society, they lost the country as they describe it now, and it was extremely humiliating,” Soldatov said.

“They really believe that the West has been after the complete destruction and subjugation of Russia for centuries. It’s not just propaganda, they really, really believe in this.” But Putin has also framed his plan for Ukraine within his own – inaccurate — interpretation of history, which goes well beyond the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin has often argued that Ukraine is not a real country because Ukraine and Ukrainians are part of a larger “historical Russia”

Experts say this is, of course, nonsense.

“What he’s talking about is the fact that Russia and Ukraine and Belarus share a political ancestor called Rus … but it’s very much not the same thing as any modern country. It was an early to late medieval political entity and to say that Ukraine doesn’t have a right to exist because of this shared ancestor — no country looks the same as in the 10th century,” said Monica White, an associate professor in Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham.

Putin has also often turned to Russia’s religious identity in support of his plan. The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, is one of the loudest supporters of the war.

Putin and Orthodox Patriarch Kirill visit the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in Saint Petersburg on September 12, 2024.

Alexander Kazakov/AFP/Getty Images

“After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia lost its connection with the ancestral Orthodox lands and I think part of Putin’s project is to try to bring back that thread connecting 10th century Rus with this pure orthodox continuity,” White said. “What he’s doing is actually not so different from some of the early Romanov Tzars who kept trying to get back the Orthodox lands that were under either Ottoman or Catholic rule, and they eventually did.”

Putin’s overwhelming desire is to return Russia to the global stage with a bang, she suggests – by creating a wedge between Europe and the US and teaming up with the West’s other adversaries.

“Russia wants to be at all the important tables – so whatever comes next, maybe it doesn’t have to mean territorial conquest in Europe, but I think it does have to be in a starring role in the more powerful bloc, if it sees that to include China or Iran or others, a bloc that is defined by its willingness to disrupt and destabilize,” White added.

Putin clearly believes that Russia – the largest country in the world by area – should be involved in running the world. He might have a like-minded man in the White House. Trump has made it clear that he believes the biggest and most powerful countries should get what they want – whether it’s Greenland, the Panama Canal, or a chunk of Ukraine.

“I think that the fundamental point is that, as far as Trump is concerned, Ukraine is a bought and paid for vassal state and has to understand its place and accept that, essentially, America will work out some kind of a deal with Russia and then bring it back to Ukraine,” Galeotti said.

CNN · by Ivana Kottasová · March 22, 2025

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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