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Quotes of the Day:
"The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare."
– Bobby Knight
"When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends."
– Mark Twain
"I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is vertical, so it's humiliating. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other and learns from the other."
– Eduardo Galeano
1. U.S. Pauses All Military Aid to Ukraine
2. The Debate Over Elbridge Colby
3. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Renames Fort Moore to Fort Benning
4. Kremlin Says U.S. Foreign Policy Shift Aligns With Its Own Vision
5. ‘Shame day’: China’s internet users blast US embassy posts of Trump’s Zelensky rebuke
6. Trump, Chip Maker TSMC Announce $100 Billion Investment in U.S.
7. US hands over 41 cultural relics to China under deal to return artefacts
8. Asia’s Defense Stocks Climb on Hopes of More European Arms Spending
9. China’s Silicon Valley unveils aggressive push to lead in AI, robotics
10. ‘America is going down’: China can capitalise on damage caused by Trump, former PLA colonel says
11. Philippine ambassador warns defence treaty with US may not be ironclad
12. This Is Europe’s War Now
13. Covert Action in Irregular Wars: Unraveling the Case of Timber Sycamore in Syria (2012-2017)
14. The Russia-Ukraine War – It Takes a Land Force to Defeat a Land Force
15. Army SOF’s Chinese Language Challenge
16. Rough Seas Ahead: Steering the Military Profession
17. USAF’s Special Ops Autonomy Push Looking Toward Air-Launched Swarms
18. Inside the $43M center for special operation forces students and instructors at Fort Bragg
19. Abandoned US Weapons in Afghanistan Fuel Terrorist Groups
20. Chinese info ops, military sales driving ‘wedges’ between US and partners in the Middle East
21. Advancing Artificial Intelligence in the U.S. Military - Advancing Artificial Intelligence in the U.S. Military
22. Unable to count on the U.S. anymore, Europe needs its own army by Max Boot
23. Cut It All, Then Build Back: Shrinking the Mountainous Burden of Administrative Requirements that Hinder Army Units’ Effectiveness
24. The Ukraine War Just Proved the Patriot Missile’s Surprising New Capabilities
25. Find the sweet spot between isolationism and unrestrained activism
26. Lessons for Asia from Trump-Zelensky showdown
27. Five takeaways from Trump’s Ukraine military aid freeze
28. We cannot defeat tomorrow’s enemies with yesterday’s budgets By Mitch McConnell
29. Write, Inspire, Lead – Why Professional Military Writing is a Mission for NCOs
1. U.S. Pauses All Military Aid to Ukraine
It appears this is what Americans want.
U.S. Pauses All Military Aid to Ukraine
Move comes days after contentious meeting between Trump and Zelensky
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-hitting-brakes-on-flow-of-arms-to-ukraine-980a71d1?mod=hp_lead_pos1
By Nancy A. Youssef
Follow, Alexander Ward
Follow and Jared Malsin
Follow
Updated March 3, 2025 10:59 pm ET
Cadets training in the Kyiv region of Ukraine earlier this year. Photo: Olga Ivashchenko/Bloomberg News
The U.S. will pause all military aid to Kyiv until President Trump determines that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is making a good-faith effort toward peace negotiations with Russia, according to a White House official.
“The president has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well. We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution,” a White House official said in a statement.
The White House didn’t announce under what conditions the U.S. would resume military aid, which drew from U.S. stockpiles, or whether it would be at the same pace. While there isn’t a clear understanding of what Washington wants from Kyiv, the move was the most demonstrative shift yet from Ukraine’s once top ally.
A senior administration official said all of Trump’s top national security advisers agreed with the decision to pause the aid after several meetings on the issue. Trump, enraged by Zelensky’s comments that he thought the end of the war was far away, felt the need to show he was serious about getting Ukraine to the peace table.
“The Ukrainians didn’t think we were serious,” the administration official said. “We had to make a demonstration.”
The official said Trump would decide what constitutes Ukraine showing that it is serious about peace talks, adding that it is unclear whether Zelensky signing a rare-minerals deal sought by the Trump administration would be enough to restart arms deliveries.
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In an interview with Fox News, Vice President JD Vance addressed the Oval Office clash between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Photo: Fox News
The U.S. decision comes days after a contentious meeting between Trump and Zelensky at the White House. The tense exchange Friday raised fears across Europe that the U.S. could be moving away from the wider Western alliance.
The U.S. has provided more than $120 billion in aid since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, including $67.3 billion in military aid. But it also provided intelligence and training and rallied the international community to support Ukraine. European nations contributed an additional $138 billion in military and humanitarian aid, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a research group in Germany.
The White House announcement underscored the growing divisions over foreign policy in Trump’s Republican Party, as some lawmakers cheered the move and others warned against it.
“Stopping support for Ukraine would jeopardize the stability of Europe and the free world,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R., N.Y.) said on X. “There are strong opinions on both sides of this issue, and I respect that. However, we must be pragmatic about the bigger picture and protect America’s interests abroad,” he added.
“Too bad Iran, North Korea and China are not pausing their military aid and economic support,” Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.) said about Russia’s supporters. “There is an invader and a victim, there is a democracy and a dictatorship, there is a country who wants to be part of the West and one who hates the West. We should be unambiguously for the good side,” he said.
Rep. Mary Miller (R., Ill.) backs Trump’s decision. “If Zelensky wants to continue fighting an endless war, let him do it himself,” she said on X. “The U.S. will no longer participate in this conflict that has led to the death of thousands. It’s time for peace!”
The decision also drew the ire of Ukraine’s supporters who warned pausing aid would prolong the war, not speed up the peace process.
“Stopping military aid to Ukraine is incredibly damaging to the United States and a sad day for American interests because it rewards our adversaries,” said Mykola Murskyj, director of advocacy at Razom for Ukraine. “I can hear the Champagne popping in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran.”
The Trump administration had previously stopped financing new weapons sales to Ukraine, another move that threatened Kyiv’s ability to fight at a critical time in its battle against Russian forces, current and former U.S. officials said.
Trump on Monday said Zelensky should be “more appreciative because this country has stuck with them through thick and thin.” A proposed mineral-rights deal between the U.S. and Ukraine would provide Kyiv with added security—even without explicit U.S. defense guarantees sought by Zelensky—because the U.S. would have a “presence there,” Trump said.
He lashed out at Zelensky for saying the war with Russia was likely to continue for some time. “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump wrote on his social-media platform Truth Social, using the different spelling of the Ukrainian leader’s name.
The U.S. weapons cutoff would leave Ukraine less able to withstand Russian attacks, analysts said.
“Ukraine wouldn’t surrender tomorrow or next week, but they would lose military capability gradually and at some point they would face defeat,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and former U.S. official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Ukraine had been able to get weapons from the U.S. through several means, including Foreign Military Financing, which provides loans and grants for nations to buy weapons from U.S. defense companies, and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the Pentagon to buy weapons for Kyiv but is currently out of funds. However, presidential drawdown authority, which the U.S. paused Monday, allowed the Defense Department to pull directly from its own stockpiles and had been the most significant tool for arming Ukraine.
The shutdown of financing new weapons sales began before Friday’s acrimonious meeting, during which Ukraine and the U.S. were supposed to sign a framework agreement for a mineral-rights deal but instead canceled the ceremony and a scheduled press conference. The Monday administration meetings, which led to the suspension of ongoing weapons shipments to Ukraine, emerged after the Friday blowup at the White House.
Without new U.S. military aid, Ukraine likely has enough weapons to keep fighting Russia at its current pace until the middle of this year, current and former Western officials say. That is the result in part of a surge of new weapons approved by the Biden administration in its final days.
The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or Himars, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine in 2023. Photo: Serhii Korovayny for WSJ
Over the weekend, European leaders held a summit in London and agreed to form a coalition to forge a Ukraine peace plan to present to Trump that would include ground troops and military assets.
European allies and Ukraine’s own growing defense industry can make up for some of the potential shortfall, but an end to U.S. aid would cut Ukraine’s access to advanced weapons systems that are important to its strategy of countering Russia’s full-scale assault on its territory.
If the U.S. shutdown persists, Ukraine would lose its supply of some sophisticated weapons, including advanced air-defense systems, surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, navigation systems and long-range rocket artillery. The U.S. is the sole producer of some systems, including Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, and M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or Himars, which give the Ukrainians the ability to strike far behind Russian lines.
Once those U.S. supplies run out, Ukraine’s ability to conduct longer-range strikes, and to protect its own rear positions, would suffer, officials and analysts say.
“Europe can step in to meet a fair amount of Ukraine’s need for artillery ammunition when combined with munitions already shipped by the U.S. early this year,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who frequently visits Ukrainian front-line units. “The challenges will be more visible as we get into summer.”
Over time, Ukraine could find it harder to make longer-term plans for its military arsenal or to buy parts for its existing systems. Ukraine currently builds or finances about 55% of its military hardware. The U.S. supplies around 20%, while Europe supplies 25%.
Up until Monday’s announcement, the Trump administration had sent some of the weapons promised by the Biden administration, the Pentagon said, including “hundreds of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) and antitank weapons and thousands of artillery rounds that Ukraine is employing on the battlefield when they are available from our stocks.”
The last major new arms package for Ukraine was on Dec. 30, during the Biden administration, and included some advanced weapons like munitions for air-defense systems, Stinger missiles and other weapons. The package was worth $1.22 billion. No new weapons transfers have been announced since.
There are over $3 billion in funds to draw from existing stockpiles that have been authorized by Congress but not allocated by the administration, the congressional aide said.
Write to Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com, Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com
2. The Debate Over Elbridge Colby
I debated Elbridge Colby on Korea here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z0DM_M_mHc&t=1s
He is quite articulate and a true believer in his agenda and makes good arguments. I just think on Korea that he is wrong.
Excerpts:
But Mr. Colby has consciously made himself the intellectual front man for a wing of the political right that argues the U.S. should retreat from commitments in Europe and the Middle East. He wants the U.S. to focus on the Asia-Pacific and says the U.S. lacks the economic and political resources to do more.
Mr. Colby is right that the U.S. isn’t currently prepared for a showdown over Taiwan and could, for example, run short on long-range missiles within days of a war’s start. His 2021 book sharpened public attention on the risk that Beijing may attempt to subdue the island in a fait accompli assault.
But look closely and his argument is less about restoring American power and more a counsel of U.S. decline and retreat. His description of the Middle East as a “tertiary region” has unnerved supporters of Israel, and ditto for suggestions that the U.S. could tolerate a nuclear Iran.
...
Mr. Colby has also warned South Korea that the U.S. might not be there in a pinch. “I think we need to have a plan that is based on reality. If you are assuming that the United States is going to break its spear, if you will, fighting North Korea, that is an imprudent assumption for us to make or for you to make,” he told a South Korean news outlet. Sounds like Dean Acheson before the Korean War.
Voters elected Mr. Trump because he promised to restore deterrence against a growing alliance of adversaries. Mr. Colby doesn’t hail from the GOP tradition that produced Mr. Trump’s first-term successes like the Abraham Accords. Senators who scrutinize Mr. Colby’s views are doing the President a favor.
The Debate Over Elbridge Colby
Meet the Trump Defense nominee who says Americans don’t want a defense buildup.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-debate-over-elbridge-colby-2017511f?mod=hp_opin_pos_1
By The Editorial Board
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March 3, 2025 5:40 pm ET
Elbridge Colby Photo: Yonhap News/Zuma Press
The GOP Senate has whisked through the confirmation of President Trump’s cabinet nominees, but a revealing debate has opened up over an important if obscure sub-cabinet post. Elbridge Colby, who faces the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, has become a lightning rod in the fight between the GOP’s peace-through-strength wing and its retreat-from-the-world faction.
Some Senators have reservations about Mr. Colby, the nominee for under secretary of defense for policy. The post includes developing and articulating national defense strategy. Mr. Colby has spent his career in government and think tanks, and he did a stint in the Pentagon during Mr. Trump’s first term. He’s qualified for the job in that sense.
But Mr. Colby has consciously made himself the intellectual front man for a wing of the political right that argues the U.S. should retreat from commitments in Europe and the Middle East. He wants the U.S. to focus on the Asia-Pacific and says the U.S. lacks the economic and political resources to do more.
Mr. Colby is right that the U.S. isn’t currently prepared for a showdown over Taiwan and could, for example, run short on long-range missiles within days of a war’s start. His 2021 book sharpened public attention on the risk that Beijing may attempt to subdue the island in a fait accompli assault.
But look closely and his argument is less about restoring American power and more a counsel of U.S. decline and retreat. His description of the Middle East as a “tertiary region” has unnerved supporters of Israel, and ditto for suggestions that the U.S. could tolerate a nuclear Iran.
There “is good reason to believe that Washington, Tel Aviv, and their associates can deter Iran from transgressing their vital interests even if Tehran gets a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Colby has written. Mr. Trump, by contrast, recently signed an executive order restoring his maximum pressure campaign on Iran, “denying Iran all paths to a nuclear weapon.”
And that urgent race to defend Taiwan? “Taiwan isn’t itself of existential importance to America,” Mr. Colby wrote last year. That sounds like advice against defending Taiwan if the island doesn’t clear some unspecified standard of investing in its own defense.
Mr. Colby has also warned South Korea that the U.S. might not be there in a pinch. “I think we need to have a plan that is based on reality. If you are assuming that the United States is going to break its spear, if you will, fighting North Korea, that is an imprudent assumption for us to make or for you to make,” he told a South Korean news outlet. Sounds like Dean Acheson before the Korean War.
Taken together, this echoes the Barack Obama crowd’s view that the U.S. is an exhausted power and its decline must be managed by accommodating Chinese and Russian power. Mr. Colby could deploy his knowledge to persuade the public that real U.S. rearmament is required. Instead he laments that the “American people, they are not jonesing to do a Reagan buildup” of the U.S. military, “whether we want it or not,” as he put it on a think-tank podcast.
Mr. Colby has courted Tucker Carlson and others in the isolationist wing of Mr. Trump’s coalition, and it’s striking that they are picking a fight before any Senator has raised a discouraging public word. Charlie Kirk, the MAGA enforcer, has accused GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of working against Mr. Colby. This is the same Sen. Cotton who shepherded Tulsi Gabbard to confirmation.
President Trump’s son Don Jr., who is Mr. Carlson’s White House ally, followed up with an op-ed demanding Mr. Colby’s confirmation. The threats are probably bluster since voters are unlikely to care about a second-tier nominee. But Senators should care because they’ll need allies at the Pentagon to make the case for reviving America’s military strength and global deterrence.
Another point of concern is that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is letting the Pentagon fill up with neo-isolationists who make Mr. Colby look like Paul Wolfowitz. The minimum price of confirming Mr. Colby should be exile for staffers such as Michael DiMino, who has been named deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. “Does the Middle East still matter?,” Mr. DiMino mused on a panel last year. “The answer is not really.”
Voters elected Mr. Trump because he promised to restore deterrence against a growing alliance of adversaries. Mr. Colby doesn’t hail from the GOP tradition that produced Mr. Trump’s first-term successes like the Abraham Accords. Senators who scrutinize Mr. Colby’s views are doing the President a favor.
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Speaking at the Pentagon on February 7, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invoked predecessor Donald Rumsfeld’s 2001 speech declaring war on bureaucracy and “shifting resources from the tail to the tooth.” Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Bloomberg News/Alexander Kubitza/Zuma Press
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the March 4, 2025, print edition as 'The Debate Over Elbridge Colby'.
3. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Renames Fort Moore to Fort Benning
I did not think this would happen.
Release
Immediate Release
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Renames Fort Moore to Fort Benning
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4090073/secretary-of-defense-pete-hegseth-renames-fort-moore-to-fort-benning/
March 3, 2025 |
Today Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum renaming Fort Moore in Georgia to Fort Benning. The new name pays tribute to Corporal (CPL) Fred G. Benning, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his extraordinary heroism in action during World War I with the U.S. Army in France in 1918. This change underscores the installation's storied history of service to the United States of America, honors the warfighter ethos, and recognizes the heroes who have trained at the installation for decades and will continue to train on its storied ranges.
4. Kremlin Says U.S. Foreign Policy Shift Aligns With Its Own Vision
Reflexive control? Successful political warfare by Russia? Or are we conducting political warfare on a much deeper and more sophisticated level?
Kremlin Says U.S. Foreign Policy Shift Aligns With Its Own Vision
The Moscow Times · by AFP · March 2, 2025
The Kremlin said in remarks aired Sunday that the United States' sudden shift in foreign policy "largely aligns" with its own position.
"The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a reporter from state television.
"There is a long way to go because a lot of damage has been done to the whole complex of bilateral relations. But if the political will of the two leaders, President Putin and President Trump, is maintained, this path can be quite quick and successful," Peskov added.
U.S. President Donald Trump has sought to rebuild ties with Russia since taking office in January, reaching out directly to President Vladimir Putin and siding with Moscow in the United Nations during a vote on the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, relations between the U.S. and Ukraine have grown increasingly strained, culminating last week in a stunning televised confrontation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance in the Oval Office.
Read more about: United States , Foreign Policy
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5. ‘Shame day’: China’s internet users blast US embassy posts of Trump’s Zelensky rebuke
I wonder what the analysis was behind this. What influence effect did they expect to achieve in China? Or was this something all US embassies posted on their social media around this world?
US-China relations
ChinaDiplomacy
‘Shame day’: China’s internet users blast US embassy posts of Trump’s Zelensky rebuke
Critics flood social media account after embassy posts US president’s criticism of Ukrainian leader following White House clash
Phoebe Zhangin Shenzhen
Published: 4:04pm, 4 Mar 2025Updated: 4:20pm, 4 Mar 2025
Chinese internet users flooded the social media account of the US embassy in Beijing on Tuesday to mock President Donald Trump and the US government, after it posted about Trump’s fiery meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The post included a screenshot of an earlier statement by Trump on social media.
“We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE,” Trump wrote online.
“He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”
Zelensky says Ukraine ready to sign US minerals deal after clash with Trump
The posts also included clips of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio from interviews with CNN and ABC, in which he repeated Trump’s stance and said Trump “wants [the war] to end”. He said Trump was “the only person on Earth” who was capable of bringing Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiation table.
As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 7,000 comments had been left on the embassy’s WeChat account by Chinese internet users, most of them critical.
“Shame day for the US” was one of the more common comments by Chinese netizens.
“The president and vice-president are not civilised at all,” one person remarked, adding they were the “shame of the US”.
“The US not only sold Ukraine, but the reputation of the US – the beacon of light – for 200 years,” another person wrote.
But others jokingly speculated that there could be an amusing ulterior motive at work.
The US embassy must be deliberately using the Chinese public to target the American president, because in the past it had never opened up its social media comments section. “The account must be controlled by Democrats,” wrote another user.
After the clash between the two leaders on Friday, Beijing maintained an official silence over the weekend. On Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said that China would continue to play a constructive role for the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis and the realisation of peace.
Chinese state media, meanwhile, has played up the Russian response, quoting Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, as saying Trump did not berate Ukrainian leader Zelensky enough.
The confrontation in the Oval Office has also sparked a surge in trending hashtags. On Weibo, one of China’s biggest social media platforms, a hashtag written in Chinese, that translated to “American journalists witness argument in White House for the first time” had attracted roughly 250 million views as of Tuesday afternoon.
Phoebe Zhang
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Phoebe Zhang is a senior reporter with the South China Morning Post. She has a master's degree in journalism. She likes to write human-interest stories and has written many about
6. Trump, Chip Maker TSMC Announce $100 Billion Investment in U.S.
A down payment on defense? A shrewd move by Taiwan?
Trump, Chip Maker TSMC Announce $100 Billion Investment in U.S.
It is the latest effort by the president to persuade companies to make big investments in the U.S.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/trump-chip-maker-tsmc-expected-to-announce-100-billion-investment-in-u-s-02a44399
By Yang Jie
Follow, Meridith McGraw
Follow and Asa Fitch
Follow
Updated March 3, 2025 3:52 pm ET
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President Trump announced an investment from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. of $100 billion in chip-manufacturing plants in the U.S. Photo: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg News
WASHINGTON—Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to invest at least $100 billion more in chip-manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the next several years under a plan announced Monday by the company and President Trump.
TSMC plans to use the funds to add to its chip manufacturing in Arizona. It will construct three new chip plants, two chip-packaging plants and a research and development center, Chief Executive C.C. Wei said during a White House appearance with the president.
Such an expansion would advance a long-pursued U.S. goal to revive the domestic semiconductor industry after manufacturing fled largely to Asian countries in recent decades.
Trump called building up the industry a matter of economic and national security, as well as evidence that his tariff threats were working.
“If they did [the chips] in Taiwan to send them here they’ll have 25% or $30% or 50% or whatever the number may be” in tariffs, Trump said. “It’ll go only up. By doing it here, there’s no tariffs.”
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, set down roots in Arizona in 2020, when it said it would build a chip factory there for $12 billion. Its ambitions for the site have expanded rapidly since, with two more factories and a total investment of $65 billion. The company’s first factory began mass production late last year.
With the new investments, the company is planning to spend a total of $165 billion on its U.S. factories.
TSMC’s announcement comes after years of deliberation regarding the future of semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. and the global tech sector. The company currently builds its most advanced chip-making facilities only on its home soil Taiwan. The chips it produces are critical for powering everything from the latest artificial-intelligence systems to smartphones.
TSMC is the world’s largest contract chip maker. Photo: i-hwa cheng/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Since the Biden administration, the U.S. has expressed concerns about TSMC’s near-monopoly on advanced chip manufacturing and has been urging the company to relocate more of its cutting-edge production, including advanced chip-packaging facilities, to the U.S. Advanced chip packaging is particularly critical for AI-related chips, as it enhances performance by integrating multiple semiconductor components, reducing size, improving power efficiency, and ensuring faster data transfer—key factors for AI applications.
The U.S. has supported TSMC’s growth through 2022’s Chips Act, which earmarked tens of billions of dollars in grants to domestic chip manufacturing. TSMC was awarded up to $6.6 billion of grants, and has recently begun to receive federal money from the program. Generous tax credits have also boosted chip-making projects in the U.S.
U.S. officials see chip-making as a national-security imperative because economies, technological advancement and military might all are increasingly dependent on who has the best chips. Covid-era supply-chain issues also highlighted the critical nature of the industry when shortages of chips led to slowdowns in auto sales, among other disruptions.
Trump has repeatedly called for more chip manufacturing in the U.S.—although he criticized the Chips Act on the campaign trail and argued the better way to attract manufacturing was through tariffs. Last month, he said he was considering a 25% or more tariff on semiconductor imports.
“Taiwan pretty much has a monopoly on that market,” Trump said, and called for more domestic production. “We must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here in American factories with American skill and American labor, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.
Since taking office, Trump has appeared at the White House with the chief executives of several companies to announce pledges to invest in the U.S. The details of the projects are often vague and it is often unclear whether the pledges represent new investments by the companies.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman, database company Oracle and investment giant SoftBank Group pledged to invest as much as $500 billion into building artificial-intelligence infrastructure in the U.S., though Trump adviser Elon Musk has questioned whether the project would come to fruition.
Last week, Apple said it plans to spend more than $500 billion and add 20,000 jobs over the next four years to expand its manufacturing footprint in the U.S. Apple’s new jobs promises are slightly ahead of the company’s recent four-year pace, and the spending pledge is roughly on track with its recent investments, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
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Nvidia’s AI chips are crucial to technology from smartphones to chatbots. Their production is outsourced to just one company in Taiwan. With growing fears that China may stage an invasion of the island, the U.S. is racing to secure the supply chain. Illustration: Zak Ross
Write to Yang Jie at jie.yang@wsj.com, Meridith McGraw at Meridith.McGraw@WSJ.com and Asa Fitch at asa.fitch@wsj.com
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the March 4, 2025, print edition as 'TSMC Plans to Invest $100 Billion More In U.S. Chip Factories'.
7. US hands over 41 cultural relics to China under deal to return artefacts
US hands over 41 cultural relics to China under deal to return artefacts
Items seized in New York include pottery, jade, bronze and Tibetan Buddhist art, some dating back thousands of years
Zhao Ziwen
Published: 5:01pm, 4 Mar 2025
The US has returned 41 artefacts and antiques to China as part of a repatriation deal to help Beijing retrieve looted and smuggled relics.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York handed over the items to China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration on Tuesday, according to state-owned broadcaster CCTV.
The oldest artefacts date from the Neolithic period (around 10,000BC – 1700BC) while the newest are from the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). They include pottery, jade, bronzeware, and objects related to Tibetan Buddhism, according to CCTV.
“It is the right thing to do to return these antiquities to their homeland,” said Matthew Bogdanos, an assistant district attorney with the prosecutor’s office, during the handover ceremony.
CCTV said the 41 relics had been “illegally exported from China”.
The administration was informed through the Chinese consulate in New York that the Manhattan prosecutor’s office had seized the 41 items while handling cases, according to the report.
It added that the administration had worked closely with the consulate to return the items.
According to the China Cultural Relics Academy, more than 10 million Chinese artefacts have been lost overseas since the mid-19th century, mostly due to wartime plunder and illegal smuggling.
China and the US first signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to restrict illegal imports of Chinese cultural items in 2009. The MOU has been extended three times – in 2014, 2019, and 2024.
Since the agreement was first signed, 594 artefacts have been returned to China, according to CCTV.
In April, the US returned 38 cultural items to China under the deal, mostly dating from the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) to the Qing dynasty. They included rare ivory and wood carvings and mural fragments.
The biggest batch of relics repatriated from the US to China was in 2019, when 361 cultural objects were retrieved.
However, the illegal looting and smuggling of artefacts, antiques and artwork is still a major problem for China
From 2011 to 2021, as many as 358 Chinese relics were stolen or lost, with most taken from Tibet autonomous region, Ningxia Hui autonomous region, and the provinces of Shaanxi and Henan, according to official data.
Patriotic sentiment has grown in China in recent years as ties with the West have soured. This has brought new attention to relics lost during the colonial era.
In 2023, a video series titled Escape from the British Museum became a viral hit among Chinese internet users. It tells the story of a Chinese teapot’s quest to escape the London cultural institution and return to China.
Zhao Ziwen
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Ben Zhao Ziwen covers China diplomacy. He majored in Arabic studies and journalism. He worked for Caixin in Beijing and spent a year in the UAE.
8. Asia’s Defense Stocks Climb on Hopes of More European Arms Spending
We have them right where we want them. Asia and Europe will defend themselves and supply each other and do business. There will no longer be a need for the US on either continent. No more entangling alliances and we will live in peace with our two oceans defending us. Have we made ourselves irrelevant? (Note sarcasm).
Asia’s Defense Stocks Climb on Hopes of More European Arms Spending
European governments such as Denmark and the U.K. have announced boosts to defense spending
By Kwanwoo Jun
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March 4, 2025 1:42 am ET
European leaders have signaled more readiness to provide Ukraine with security guarantees and expand their defense capabilities. Photo: jung yeon-je/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Defense stocks in key Asian markets jumped on Tuesday, buoyed by expectations that European nations will boost security spending amid fears that the U.S. could reduce its military presence.
The rally in Asian defense stocks, following the advance by European peers overnight, came as European leaders met over the weekend and pledged to boost military spending to help deter further Russian aggression in Ukraine. The special London summit on Sunday followed the rift between Presidents Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky over the U.S. push to end the war in Ukraine.
European leaders signaled more readiness to provide Ukraine with security guarantees and expand their defense capabilities, sending the shares of Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest arms maker, and BAE Systems, the U.K.’s largest defense company, sharply higher Monday.
In South Korea on Tuesday, self-propelled howitzer maker Hanwha Aerospace 012450 18.01%increase; green up pointing triangle and armored-vehicle supplier Hyundai Rotem 064350 10.87%increase; green up pointing triangle jumped as much as 18% and 12%, respectively. Guided-missile manufacturer LIG Nex1 rose 7.4% in afternoon trading, outperforming the benchmark Kospi’s 0.3% fall.
“South Korean defense companies can benefit from the expected European military buildup, given their capabilities to meet demands in Europe by supplying weaponry on time and at reasonable prices,” Seoul-based DS Investment & Securities said in a note, pointing to the Korean companies’ recent arms exports to Poland and other European countries.
Northern and Eastern European states could be feasible markets for South Korean defense companies, DS Investment said. It expects military spending in those regions to rise to 5.0% of gross domestic product, resulting in an estimated $56.30 billion of extra expenditure in defense.
Japanese defense-related stocks were also higher, with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries up 6.9% recently and IHI Corp. 11% higher.
In China, AVIC Shenyang Aircraft, a subsidiary of state-owned aerospace conglomerate Aviation Industry Corp. of China, was recently 2.8% higher as defense stocks led the gains while most sectors were lower amid escalating U.S.-China trade tensions. China Spacesat, which specializes in manufacturing satellite equipment, also rose 2.8%.
The U.S., which has provided more than $120 billion in aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion three years ago, has decided to pause all military aid to Kyiv to press for a peace deal, according to a White House official Monday.
European nations contributed an additional $138 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, according to Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
European governments such as Denmark and the U.K. have announced boosts to defense spending. Other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are expected to follow, according to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. The European Council will meet Thursday to discuss lifting defense spending, possibly by easing fiscal rules.
Kosaku Narioka and Sherry Qin contributed to this article.
Write to Kwanwoo Jun at Kwanwoo.Jun@wsj.com
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9. China’s Silicon Valley unveils aggressive push to lead in AI, robotics
China’s Silicon Valley unveils aggressive push to lead in AI, robotics
Shenzhen publishes three major action plans in a single day as it pursues global leadership in emerging fields
Mia Nulimaimaitiin London
Published: 5:30pm, 4 Mar 2025
The southern Chinese megacity of Shenzhen has unleashed a barrage of policies aimed at propelling itself to the forefront of the global artificial intelligence and robotics industries, as the metropolis seeks to reaffirm its status as China’s leading technology hub.
In a rare move, the city rolled out three major action plans in a single day on Monday, which outline measures to accelerate its adoption of AI, strengthen its smart computing capacity to support local AI businesses, and establish a global lead in robotics, respectively.
The aggressive push from local cadres comes as other Chinese cities are emerging as rival centres of innovation – most notably the eastern city of Hangzhou, which has attracted huge attention due to the success of local AI start-up DeepSeek and humanoid robot maker Unitree.
The first policy focuses on rapidly growing Shenzhen’s AI terminal industry – a field that includes a wide range of AI-driven devices, from smartphones to smart-home products and industrial systems.
It sets goals of increasing the market value of Shenzhen’s AI terminal industry to 1 trillion yuan (US$137 billion) by 2026, fostering at least 10 leading AI terminal businesses, and raising the output of local AI terminal makers to more than 150 million units.
Another plan issued the same day outlines Shenzhen’s ambition to become a global leader in robotics by 2027.
Local officials have set targets of making robotics a 100 billion yuan industry in the city, and ensuring it hosts at least 10 robotics companies valued at over 10 billion yuan and 20 companies with annual revenues exceeding 1 billion yuan.
Additionally, the plan seeks to accelerate the adoption of robotics in a range of different fields and establish a cluster of more than 1,200 robotics enterprises.
Shenzhen, long regarded as China’s closest answer to Silicon Valley, is already home to a slew of world-leading tech companies including telecoms giant Huawei Technologies, electric vehicle maker BYD and drone giant DJI, and is expected to play a key role in driving China’s economy amid an escalating US-China tech war.
The AI plan outlines efforts to build a comprehensive industrial ecosystem in the city, with local businesses producing more than 50 different AI-powered devices and integrating AI across more than 60 fields, including manufacturing, finance and senior care.
It also aims to ensure the AI terminal industry targets a broad range of markets, such as by offering cost-effective products for developing countries involved in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
“We will cultivate leading global and domestic AI computer brands and support the transition of traditional computer foundries to become AI-focused manufacturers,” the plan states.
Meanwhile, the robotics plan focuses on strengthening Shenzhen’s position in next-generation automation by making the city a hub for the production of core robotic components, AI chips and humanoid robot control systems.
The third initiative, a smart computing action plan, aims to support Shenzhen’s AI industry by ensuring local businesses have sufficient available real-time smart computing power.
To support this ambitious agenda, the city has pledged subsidies to help attract major AI and robotics firms to invest in the city, as well as support local companies with their research and development and international expansion plans.
On Monday, Meng Fanli, the city’s Community Party secretary, encouraged AI and robotics companies to use Shenzhen as a testing ground for new technologies and products.
Last month, the city pledged up to 10 million yuan in subsidies for the AI sector – including vouchers that cover 60 per cent of the cost of training new AI models – and announced 160 billion yuan of investment in “new-type infrastructure”.
The local government’s annual work report for 2025 also underscores the city’s commitment to innovation, with two of its 10 major areas of focus dedicated to advancing technology.
Shenzhen is currently home to more than 2,600 AI companies, including six unicorns – start-ups valued at over US$1 billion. The city also boasts 34 listed robotics firms, nine of which are unicorns.
Mia Nulimaimaiti
FOLLOW
Mia Nulimaimaiti (Miyessar Nurmamat in Uygur) joined the Post in August 2022. She obtained a master's degree from The University of Hong Kong in 2022 and a bachelors degree at Fudan University in 2021. She interned at NBC's Asia desk before joining the Post. Her areas of focus
10. ‘America is going down’: China can capitalise on damage caused by Trump, former PLA colonel says
Perhaps we have China right where we want it. Maybe our sophisticated political warfare strategy is going to make China overconfident and arrogant and read America all wrong.
Or does this Colonel think Chinese unrestricted warfare is working?
Can we use Chinese thinking against China? (Or perhaps this is not exclusive Chinese thinking at all but common sense and good strategy)
"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak."
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War
"Engage with disorder and chaos — only to maintain your own order and calm."
(Paraphrased from Sun Tzu’s principles on controlling perception.)
“To move your enemy, entice him with something he is certain to take. You can lure him into chaos by appearing disorganized, only to ambush him with perfect discipline.”
(This is a common interpretation drawn from various passages, especially Chapters 6 & 7 on maneuvering and weak points/strong points.)
‘America is going down’: China can capitalise on damage caused by Trump, former PLA colonel says
Exclusive: Zhou Bo says harm done to US image may make Taiwanese reconsider their attitude towards Beijing but says he sees Trump as overall being ‘rather friendly’
The Guardian · by Amy Hawkins · March 2, 2025
The damage caused by Donald Trump to the United States’ reputation is creating opportunities for China, particularly with regards to Taiwan, according to a retired senior colonel from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Speaking to the Guardian in Beijing, Zhou Bo said that Trump was damaging the US’s reputation “more than all of his predecessors combined”.
“By the end of his second term, I believe America’s global image will simply become more tarnished, its international standing will just go down further,” Zhou said. The people of Taiwan “know that America is going down”, which “might affect their mentality” with regards to China.
In 2024, Trump said Taiwan should pay the US for help to defend itself, despite the fact that the self-governing island already spends billions of dollars on arms from the US. Taiwan is reportedly considering purchasing a further $7-10bn worth of weapons this year, as the Taiwanese government explores a range of options for currying favour with the Trump administration.
“How confident would the Taiwanese be with the United States, especially with the Trump administration?” Zhou said. “Maybe the Taiwanese will one day consider, ‘Well, we cannot move away anyway. We will have to stay here. Maybe it’s not bad for us to be a member of the strongest nation on earth.”
Tariffs, tech and Taiwan: how China hopes to Trump-proof its economy
Read more
Zhou retired as a senior colonel in 2020, having served more than 40 years in the PLA and in the ministry of defence. Now a senior fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, he is a frequent commentator on China’s foreign affairs. “Should the World Fear China?”, published on 27 March, is a collection of Zhou’s essays written between 2013 and 2024, addressing themes such as managing US-China relations and China’s view on safeguarding its own interests.
One of the most pressing issues in the US-China relationship is the question of Taiwan. Beijing regards the self-governing island as part of its territory and has vowed to unify it with China, refusing to rule out the use of force. In 2024, Taiwan elected the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive party into power for the third consecutive term. Nearly 70% of people in Taiwan identify as being Taiwanese rather than Chinese, with the share rising to 85% among under-35s, according to Pew Research.
The US does not formally recognise Taiwan but is its largest security backer. Trump’s position on Taiwan has been unclear. Despite suggesting that the US’s support of Taiwan may have a price, he is surrounded by China hawks who are strongly opposed to China’s claims on Taiwan. Earlier this month the state department removed a line from its fact sheet on Taiwan that stated: “We do not support Taiwan independence”, a move which was condemned by Beijing.
Zhou said the fate of Taiwan was not just up to the Taiwanese people. China’s population of 1.4 billion dwarfs Taiwan’s 23 million. “We can just not only think about what the Taiwanese think about it. We have to think about what mainlanders think about it.”
‘China is definitely indispensable’
Despite tensions over Taiwan, Zhou sees Trump as overall being “rather friendly” towards China, noting that the tariffs on Chinese imports announced in Trump’s first days in office were much lower than the 60% he had threatened.
In recent weeks, Trump’s comments on China have been relatively muted, in part because the US has been preoccupied with Ukraine – an issue which exploded in spectacular fashion when Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenksyy clashed in the Oval Office on Friday. .
In the early days of the war in Ukraine, western leaders leaned on China’s president, Xi Jinping, to use his influence in Russia to help end the conflict. But China has been an economic lifeline to Russia, enabling the continuation of the war. On 24 February – the third anniversary of the Ukraine invasion – Russian president Vladimir Putin spoke on a video call with Xi. The Chinese leader described China-Russia relations as “strong” and “unique” and “not affected by any third party”, according to a Chinese readout.
“The US really holds the key to resolving this issue,” Zhou said, rejecting the suggestion that China was becoming irrelevant in the peace talks. “China is definitely indispensable … China’s role will be there when it comes to the time of a ceasefire or armistice.”
Zhou said China might decide to send peacekeepers to Ukraine, along with other non-Nato European countries and countries from the global south, as peacekeepers from Nato countries would be viewed by Russia as “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. China is the second-largest contributor to the UN’s peacekeeping budget, after the US.
A widely held view in China’s academic and policy circles is that China has received too much criticism for its relationship with Russia. The two countries share a 4,200km border that was only fully agreed by both sides in 2003. Beijing is the more powerful partner in the relationship, but it has to balance Moscow’s interests too, the argument goes. The China-Russia relationship “is strong, but short of an alliance”, Zhou said. “I describe it as two lines in parallel. That means no matter how close they are, they won’t overlap.”
The Guardian · by Amy Hawkins · March 2, 2025
11. Philippine ambassador warns defence treaty with US may not be ironclad
Our allies are concerned.
If we want to win against China we need the Philippines (and Japan, and South Korea, and Australia...)
Philippine ambassador warns defence treaty with US may not be ironclad
The comments by Jose Manuel Romualdez come after a row between Trump and Zelensky rattles the confidence of Washington’s defence partners
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3300890/philippine-ambassador-warns-defence-treaty-us-may-not-be-ironclad?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article
Raissa Robles
Published: 10:00pm, 3 Mar 2025Updated: 10:23pm, 3 Mar 2025
The Philippines must be prepared that its security alliances may not hold in times of crisis, its ambassador to the US has warned, after a clash between President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House cast doubts about Washington’s commitment towards its partners.
Ambassador Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez said the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr had to “be ready” for any scenario regarding the long-standing alliance between the Philippines and the US.
The heated exchange between Trump and Zelensky ended with the Ukrainian leader walking out without signing a minerals deal that was proposed by Washington. The incident has sparked debates around the world about whether the US could abandon its security alliances with Nato and Asian partners, such as the Philippines.
Mel Sta. Maria, a former dean of Far Eastern University’s school of law, said in a social media post on Saturday: “Clearly, the Philippine government must see this as a warning that the US ‘ironclad’ position to come to the aid of the Philippines in case of foreign military aggression in the Asia-Pacific pursuant to a standing treaty may no longer hold.”
Romualdez also raised such a possibility at a conference organised by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines on Monday, saying: “We have to all be ready for that type of situation.”
Calling it an “opportunity” to prepare for any eventuality, he added: “It may be some other president in the future. But at the end of the day, each country now has to be ready to be able to beef up its defence, beef up its economic security.”
The full heated argument between Zelensky, Trump and Vance
He pointed out, however, that the dynamics of the ties between the US and the Philippines were different from that between Washington and Kyiv.
While Ukraine had been at war against Russia, the Philippines was not involved in a “direct conflict” with any country, Romualdez said.
Romualdez also said the Philippine government had a different position from that of Trump regarding the war in Ukraine. Manila viewed Ukraine as “the victim” and not the aggressor as perceived by Trump.
When asked about Trump’s accusation that Zelensky was risking a global war, Romualdez said: “The Philippines does not see it that way. But I think what President Trump says and what he does is something that we just have to take with a grain of salt because that’s just the way he is. His objective to find peace is noble.”
On the defence relations between the Philippines and the US, he added that both countries were working towards a strategy based on deterrence, referring to their Mutual Defence Treaty and the hosting of American troops in nine EDCA (Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement) sites in the Southeast Asian country.
An encouraging sign from Washington was that key members of the Trump administration were in support of the “mutually beneficial alliance”, Romualdez said, citing examples of several top-level discussions between both sides.
Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippines’ ambassador to the US. Photo: Raissa Robles
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made his first official phone call to Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo soon after Rubio was confirmed in January, and the two met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last month.
Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro also met US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz in Washington in January, while Teodoro had an introductory phone conversation with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth last month.
“In all of these engagements, there was a reaffirmation of the alliance and shared interests in the Indo-Pacific region,” Romualdez said.
The ambassador also disclosed that Republican Senator William Hagerty IV from Tennessee had told him that he would propose legislation in the US Congress to give Manila “an additional US$2.5 billion in the next four to five years for the modernisation of the Philippine Armed Forces and we’re pursuing that”.
On the US$500 million in foreign military financing committed for the Philippines that was frozen at the start of Trump’s second term, US$336 million had been released, and the rest would follow after a review. “I’m confident it will,” Romualdez said.
Regarding Trump’s foreign policy, Romualdez said the US leader was a dealmaker who looked at issues primarily with American interests in mind. “What he believes in is that the United States does not want to be a country that will continue to finance many of these things that are happening around the world.”
Romualdez cited Rubio who spoke about Trump’s “give and take” approach in negotiations.
Philippine FA-50 fighter aircraft and US B-1B bombers conduct a drill over the South China Sea. Photo: AFP
On the part of the Philippines, Romualdez said Manila was willing to be a “real partner” not only to Washington but also to “like-minded countries” that valued its role in promoting free and open trade in the Indo-Pacific.
During the conference, Romualdez also spoke about potential cooperation between the Philippines and the US in the energy sector.
He said the Philippines was approached by Republican Senator Daniel Sullivan from Alaska to consider buying liquefied natural gas from his state.
On the sidelines of the conference, Romualdez told This Week in Asia that the Philippines was inviting businesses from the US to explore oil and gas extraction in the West Philippine Sea, a portion of the South China Sea considered by Manila as its maritime territory.
Having spent more than seven years in Washington as Manila’s ambassador, overlapping with almost the entire first Trump term, Romualdez has met the US leader on many occasions.
He recounted meeting Trump at the Mar-a-Lago resort on December 31, during which the US leader recognised Romualdez.
“He invited me to his New Year’s party,” Romualdez said. Unfortunately, the ambassador said he could not go over a sartorial reason.
“I didn’t bring my black tie.”
Raissa Robles
FOLLOW
Raissa Robles has written for the SCMP since 1996. A freelance journalist specialising in politics, international relations, business and Muslim rebellion, she has contributed to Reuters, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Daily Mail, Times of London, Radio Netherlands and Asiaweek
12. This Is Europe’s War Now
From the former Ukrainian foreign minister.
Opinion
Guest Essay
This Is Europe’s War Now
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/opinion/ukraine-war-zelensky-trump.html
March 3, 2025
The Dnipro river near Kyiv in February.Credit...Thomas Peter/Reuters
By Dmytro Kuleba
Mr. Kuleba was the foreign minister of Ukraine from 2020 to 2024. He wrote from Kyiv, Ukraine.
On Friday, after a grim-faced Volodymyr Zelensky departed the White House, President Trump wrote on social media that the Ukrainian leader could “come back when he is ready for Peace.”
Peace is a powerful word, but to grasp its true meaning one has to look at the context in which it is uttered. On the same day that Mr. Trump spoke of the importance of peace and sent Mr. Zelensky home to think about it, Russia launched more than 150 attack drones on Ukrainian cities. While Mr. Trump emphasizes that he is making great progress with President Vladimir Putin of Russia toward peace, the latter has only increased his strikes since the inauguration.
On Sunday, European leaders, Secretary General Mark Rutte of NATO and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada gathered in London at the invitation of Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, and pledged to bolster support for Ukraine and develop a plan to end the war that could win the support of Mr. Trump.
Europeans understand, as the Trump administration appears not to, that Ukraine wants a peace deal — it just doesn’t want to end up destroyed by the peace terms. The obsession of Mr. Putin is all of Ukraine, nothing less. It is neither NATO nor a strip of Ukrainian land. If Ukraine is still independent and armed by the end of negotiations, Mr. Putin will not see that as the end. He will settle for a piece of Ukraine today only to come for the whole tomorrow.
If it were about NATO, then Mr. Putin would not have so meekly accepted Sweden and Finland’s accession in 2023. Today, NATO’s frontier is closer to St. Petersburg than Ukraine’s border is to Moscow.
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Nor is the point to retain the roughly 20 percent of territory that Russia has managed to wrest from Ukraine so far in this war. Mr. Putin cannot tolerate an independent Ukraine because for the last 300 years almost none of his predecessors could. And because if Ukraine is successful as a Western democracy, it will pose a direct threat to the Russian people’s acceptance of Mr. Putin’s autocratic model.
Mr. Trump has made a cease-fire in Ukraine too central to his foreign policy to not succeed. He cannot fail to make a deal and he certainly cannot allow Ukraine to become what Afghanistan was to President Joe Biden, a foreign policy disaster that defined the rest of his presidency. Trapped by his own ambition, Mr. Trump craves fast success — hence last week’s attack on Mr. Zelensky, whose insistence on terms Ukraine can live with seems to stand in the way of it. Mr. Putin understands this. He therefore may concede to a cease-fire to take the maximum benefits offered by Mr. Trump, but he will not abandon his strategic goal of destroying Ukraine. Without security guarantees the war will, at some point, start again.
Friday’s events were the formalization of a new reality that has been becoming apparent for several weeks: America may still seek to lead the world, but it’s a different world. And if there was any silver lining to the scene of Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance berating Mr. Zelensky in the Oval Office, it was the shock waves it sent across Europe. European leaders who had heard Mr. Vance’s words of admonishment at Munich in February already grasped that they could not simply wait out Mr. Trump as they did during his first term. Any who still doubted that were surely convinced by Friday’s performance.
Europe has already taken important steps and it’s promising to do more: Summits, telephone calls, draft decisions on a surge in defense spending and announcements of assistance to Ukraine are now happening at a blistering pace. As welcome as these developments are, they fail to answer the most fundamental question about the future of Ukraine and the rest of Europe: When? When will these ideas become decisions that are carried out?
Editors’ Picks
Mr. Trump’s leverage over Ukraine is weapons and money, both of which Ukraine needs to sustain its fight for survival and maintain economic stability. Europe could wrest the cards from the president’s hands in two moves: offer an alternative agreement on Ukraine’s minerals and confiscate Russian frozen assets to use them to finance the production and purchase of arms — including from the United States, if they wish. The European Union, Britain and Norway could not entirely replace the United States as Ukraine’s supporters, but these pragmatic steps would instantly elevate Europe’s role and give Ukraine the breathing room it needs.
In 1918, Bolshevik Russia entered into a treaty with Germany, undertaking to recognize Ukraine’s independence, withdraw its forces and cease propaganda on Ukrainian territory. At the same time, Kyiv signed an agreement with Germany to exchange vast natural resources — primarily grain and meat — in return for German boots on the ground to protect its independence. Within a year the deal collapsed. Germany moved out, Russia’s Red Army moved in and the state of Ukraine ceased to exist. It took 104 years between then and the Russian invasion in 2022 for Europe to finally recognize that Ukraine belongs to it by putting it on the track of the E.U. accession process.
Moscow never really changes, but Europe still might.
Dmytro Kuleba was the foreign minister of Ukraine from 2020 to 2024. He is a senior fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center.
13. Covert Action in Irregular Wars: Unraveling the Case of Timber Sycamore in Syria (2012-2017)
A very thoughtful and thought provoking essay that uses Syria to identify and explore many issues among intelligence, special operations, covert action, security assistance, and Title 10 and Title 50 authorities.
I am going to keep this essay on file.
Essay| The Latest
Covert Action in Irregular Wars: Unraveling the Case of Timber Sycamore in Syria (2012-2017)
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/03/04/covert-action-in-irregular-wars/
by Jonathan Hackett
|
03.04.2025 at 06:00am
Abstract
The Central Intelligence Agency ran a covert operation in Syria from 2012 to 2017 called Timber Sycamore. This qualitative case study employs content analysis and descriptive inference to analyze declassified documents, government records, and other primary sources surrounding this shadowy case. This study finds that the operation suffered from numerous challenges stemming from oversight shortfalls, limited vetting, and accountability problems. Some weapons disbursed under the program were diverted to groups like the Islamic State, while certain groups trained in the program subscribed to the very Salafi-jihadist ideologies that U.S. forces were deployed to the Middle East to counter. This case offers lessons on complications that Title 50 and Title 10 programs pose while training, equipping, and controlling irregular forces beyond the contours of ordinary security cooperation programs.
Introduction
Rumors swirled in 2019 that the United States had trained and equipped elements of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria. This Iranian government disinformation stream added to reports surfacing since 2013 about a secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation arming Syrian rebels. The U.S. government did little to counter the narrative surrounding this covert action known as Timber Sycamore. President Trump finally ended the program in June 2017 after some alarming updates in the President’s Daily Brief. But what was really going on in Syria during those five years?
A thread of truth wove through some of those reports. Missiles and small arms did indeed fall into the hands of ISIS. A group from Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate in fact made millions diverting weapons into the black market. Worse, some of the partner forces subscribed to the very Salafi-jihadist ideologies that other U.S. forces were there to eliminate. As such, Timber Sycamore is an instructive case study on the complications of CIA and Special Operations Command (SOCOM) programs running in parallel under different authorities. Although the goal of regime change in Syria materialized years later, significant challenges beset the operation—including oversight shortfalls, limited vetting, and lack of accountability.
Old Habits, New Problems
The CIA has long worked alongside the military in general and Special Operations Forces (SOF) in particular. Relationships built in World War II matured in the Vietnam War, where the CIA and SOF established the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups to counter the Viet Cong. The Phoenix Program was another close collaboration in which Vietnamese government agents worked with SOF assistance as the CIA coordinated overall. In practice, this meant a CIA officer and a SOF member shared responsibility at each echelon. The military member fell under different authorities depending on whether they were in charge or second in command to the CIA officer. The conflict expanded unofficially into Laos, and SOF again had to innovate to fund their irregular partners. This method of integrating SOF elements into unique command relationships with the CIA was later known as “sheep dipping.”
Sheep dipping emerged from the CIA’s need to employ SOF in certain Title 50 activities while avoiding restrictions and complying with the 1954 Geneva Accords. Title 50’s legal basis for sheep dipping subjects non-CIA executive branch entities to the CIA’s rules in each covert operation, including contractors and SOF, while simultaneously remaining beholden to the sending organization’s own rules.
The 2011 Bin Laden raid was a dramatic demonstration of sheep dipping. There, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operators worked under the overall leadership of the CIA director while the JSOC commander held a secondary role. But nowhere was sheep dipping more apparent in recent history than at the CIA’s operations centers in Jordan and Turkey. Starting soon after the Arab Spring reached Syria, SOF and American contractors worked alongside the CIA under Timber Sycamore, covertly training and equipping the opposition.
The Arab Spring of Our Discontent
The U.S. government began seriously contemplating a covert action in Syria in 2012 amid the unfolding Arab Spring. Domestic realpolitik drove President Obama to ultimately approve Timber Sycamore in a presidential finding he was long reluctant to support. Meanwhile in Syria, President al-Assad made the rational choice to strengthen relations with Russia and Iran while choosing not to focus on defeating ISIS, all to prolong his survival at the Syrian people’s expense. The CIA’s goal for the covert action was to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. An overt military operation targeting ISIS ran simultaneously, but the focus of Timber Sycamore was Bashar al-Assad’s government, not ISIS.
Timber Sycamore included training, equipping, supplying, and sustaining Syrian irregulars, while Congress also set funds aside for construction and paying fighter stipends. Throughout the program’s life, Congressional committees tried numerous times to stanch funding and change vetting requirements, all to no avail. Over the years, the U.S. government began redirecting assets assigned to Timber Sycamore to the broader effort to defeat ISIS. Operation Inherent Resolve increasingly consumed resources, drawing attention from regime change. These shifts were apparent in the fluctuations in SOF on the ground in Syria, as troop levels floated between 300 to 900 SOF at any given time. These variations reflected the shift away from regime change and toward countering ISIS in the evolving U.S. policy in Syria. The appeal of covert action faded while the threat of ISIS grew, but not before the U.S. government exhausted the regime change option.
Covert Options: Rumblings of Regime Change
The implications of Syria’s civil war grew dire in 2012 as the Arab Spring awakened the long-simmering opposition to President al-Assad. Salafi-jihadist groups joined in, while Russia and Iran looked on. Syria was fast becoming a theater of great power competition. The U.S. government’s decision to embark on a program to oust al-Assad inadvertently aligned with the interests of erstwhile foes like al-Qaeda, ISIS, and local affiliates. The sensitive nature of American support to irregular forces in this context allowed one viable option: covert action.
But covert action is more likely to fail as a foreign policy tool than other means of diplomacy, military action, and economic activity. The 64 covert actions conducted from 1947 to 1989 achieved under a 40 percent success rate in reaching even their basic short-term objectives. Despite this, some favor covert action as a risk mitigation tool regardless of their propensity to promote risk escalation and unforeseen negative outcomes. A major appeal of these inherently risky, often destructive operations is their deniability.
Covert action conceals sponsorship while sometimes allowing the activity to be observed. In contrast, clandestine operations conceal the activity conducted without necessarily concealing government affiliation. Narratives can veer in undesirable directions because of this concealment. Special activities have long served as foreign policy tools, and covert action in Syria is not new.
Indeed, an operation against the pro-Soviet government in Syria in 1957 was an early case of covert action. The CIA learned that the Soviet Union was seriously considering military intervention in Syria and that the Syrian government accepted an unconditional loan from the Soviets. The CIA continued describing Syria as “a center of instability” a decade later. Nor was regime change a novel concept. The CIA thoroughly analyzed regime change outcomes for Bashar’s father in 1986, drawing on a 1978 analysis from a relatively tamer report entitled “Syria Without Assad: Succession Politics.”
Following from those Cold War-era approaches, the U.S. government would wield Timber Sycamore to achieve policy outcomes rather than to secure domestic Syrian interests or spread democracy. Events before the operation shaped how parallel operations between the CIA and SOF were aligned in execution. Operational challenges eventually forced a reversion to covert action exclusively, but the downfall of Timber Sycamore was already in motion by then.
Nadir of Diplomacy, Dawn of Covert Action
The Arab Spring was in full swing when a CIA-led Syria task force briefed Congressional intelligence committees in early 2012 about plans to help Syrian rebels overthrow President al-Assad. Around the same time, Ambassador Robert Ford shuttered the U.S. Embassy in Damascus. The mission went into exile at U.S. Embassies in Amman and Ankara. ISIS was expanding in the vacuum of Syria’s civil war, and the United States had been tracking iterations of this group for years after it emerged from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda in Iraq. The intelligence community watched as ISIS seized territory in eastern Syria and the Syria-Iraq border. But ISIS’s growth was initially a distraction from the more pressing issue of regime change.
The National Security Council debated the wisdom of a presidential finding to take advantage of the weakened Syrian regime throughout 2012. The U.S. government ignored President al-Assad’s offer to abdicate via a Russia-brokered agreement in February that year, believing that he was already on the brink of overthrow. But a quick U.S. military intervention to achieve this was an unpopular option, partly because a lengthy rebellion was considered more likely to seal al-Assad’s ouster. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA director David Petraeus advocated for a presidential finding to invigorate that rebellion in discussions with President Obama. As the debate continued, the CIA was already covertly providing weapons and support to Syrian rebels, concealing U.S. sponsorship via Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar.
The CIA learned that although Qatar and Saudi Arabia were helping funnel U.S.-provided weapons to Syria, Gulf countries were independently funding and equipping an array of Salafi-jihadist rebels that were not among the U.S.-backed groups. A presidential finding could corral Gulf Arab support and regain control over the situation in Syria. In December 2012, the State Department issued a public statement that “Transition is coming one way or the other [in Syria]” and “the only way forward is for Assad to step aside.” Clearly, corners of the U.S. government were already moving toward regime change even before President Obama signed off.
Talks hastened after Syria’s regime attacked civilians with chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta on 21 August 2013, killing around 1,400 civilians. President Obama finally relented. Timber Sycamore went operational: the Free Syrian Army and others now had the CIA and SOCOM support and the U.S. gained control over much of the foreign support to Syria’s rebels. The presidential finding authorized the first train and equip operation for 50 Syrian opposition fighters that summer. Small arms, ammunition, and anti-tank (TOW) missiles followed. Agents purchased weapons in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, shipping them through Saudi Arabia and onward to Syria via Jordan and Turkey. However, competing Gulf Arab objectives and Turkey’s border policies at times contravened U.S. interests. Internal frictions between CIA and SOCOM equities also negatively affected the operation from the beginning.
Parallel Universes: Intelligence, Special Operations, and Security Assistance
Three U.S. programs ran in parallel to one another in Syria. The CIA and SOCOM worked together. Meanwhile, the State Department ran a non-lethal assistance program for Syrian opposition leaders in Turkey through the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). The CIA largely remained aloof from the State Department’s Title 22 security assistance programs and some Title 10 security cooperation activities despite the different aid sources sometimes going to the same or related groups of Syrians and regional partners.
In 2012 alone, the State Department’s CSO spent $24 million assisting just 500 Syrians with setting up media services and building governing capacity. A new program began after CSO’s operation ended in 2017. Like CSO’s program, the Syria Armed Moderate Opposition Support program provided only non-lethal assistance to Syrian opposition groups in contrast to Timber Sycamore and the Syria Train and Equip Program (STEP). The department later allocated $177 million to security assistance programs for Syria in 2016. By 2018, this had increased to $191 million annually, all separate from Timber Sycamore.
The CIA owned two operations centers for Timber Sycamore on bases in Turkey and Jordan. Officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, and Britain also shared spaces at these centers. Bases, camps, and support systems dotted Syria and Gulf Arab states. Rebels assigned to Turkey’s Joint Operations Center belonged to the “northern front,” training at bases in Gaziantep and Antakya. Rebels in Jordan organized under the Military Operations Center and comprised the “southern front.” In Syria, the northern front centered around Idlib and northwest Syria. The southern front centered around places like Al Tanf, Dara’a, Al Suwayda, and the approaches to Damascus. In Jordan alone, 600 men trained monthly in 2014. Syrian opposition leaders at the CIA-run operations centers told their handlers what equipment and training they wanted, and the CIA then communicated the requests to the broader U.S. government and partners. Saudi and Emirati officials delivered funding and more weapons.
Saudi Arabia and the United States purchased weapons inside the European Union while Jordan and Turkey facilitated their transfer into Syria. The United States represented on end-user certificates that the weapons were solely for end use by the U.S. Department of the Army, thereby concealing the true recipients from European weapons suppliers while ignoring non-retransfer clauses in those certificates. Weapons arrived by air in Saudi Arabia, and the CIA received them at the operations centers in Turkey and Jordan.
The Syria Engagement Team trained their Syrian partners on the basics at the two operations centers. The Syria Engagement Team consisted of CIA Ground Branch, government contractors, and 5th Special Forces Group operators. Required subjects for the irregulars included small unit tactics, combat casualty care, and physical fitness. Cycles lasted two to three weeks. Afterward, the trainers gave each man about $200 plus the weapons with which they trained. Select graduates took media classes focusing on content creation to help promote their achievements on social media. Others took train-the-trainer classes.
Several thousand fighters trained in all locations under Timber Sycamore between 2014 and 2016. The U.S. provided at least 10,000 rebels with weapons. Over 60,000 rebels in at least 42 groups worked under Timber Sycamore both in and outside Syria during the program. In the northern front, somewhere between 30,000 to 35,000 CIA-backed rebels fought under various banners in Idlib alone in May 2017. At least 30,000 Syrians fought in the southern front, with half this number in the Salafi-jihadist militia called Jaysh al-Islam. However, some groups were relatively less extreme and were therefore eligible for advanced weapons like TOW missiles.
The CIA capitulated to delivering BGM-71E TOW missiles starting in 2014 after many requests from Syrian opposition leaders. The United States initially expressly withheld weapons that could be used for improvised air defense purposes. But the CIA judged that a rebel group called Harakat Hazzm was relatively moderate compared to some of the other groups, and so it was among the first to receive the missiles. TOW missile training took 35 days in Qatar and Saudi Arabia for cohorts of 100 trainees each. Cohorts received 10 TOW missiles from U.S. stocks, RPGs, ammunition, mortars, and three trucks modified for carrying the weapons after completing training. The CIA provided 10 additional TOW missiles if fighters recorded launches, retained spent components, and provided GPS coordinates for points of origin. In all, the CIA gifted TOW missiles to at least 14 rebel groups through Timber Sycamore.
Funding for Timber Sycamore could not be satisfied by CIA funding alone. Congress did give Timber Sycamore $1 billion annually, which was about seven percent of the CIA’s budget in both 2014 and 2015. This was one of the largest expenditures on a single covert action in CIA history. But Saudi Arabia also provided substantial financial support. And despite the CIA’s costs working out to about $100,000 per year per fighter, the SOCOM part of the operation, STEP, was significantly costlier in terms of dollars spent per trainee.
SOF teams began STEP in September 2014. The first 90 Syrians started their training on 7 May 2015. The program was expensive, with $500 million spent on 150 fighters just from September 2014 to October 2015. Congress obligated $346.8 million into another funding stream for weapons, ammunition, and supplies. This works out to about $10 million to train each person and $2.3 million per person for materiel. Major General Michael Nagata, then the commander of the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force-Syria, spoke in a December 2015 interview with the DoD inspector general, describing STEP as a “journey of experimentation,” likening it to starting a small business.
The billion-dollar experiment of STEP ended on 9 October 2015. By that point, the lead inspector general for Operation Inherent Resolve found that the DoD had not adequately satisfied oversight requirements set out by Congress. Fewer than five graduates from the planned 15,000 fighters were actively engaged in combat in Syria in late 2015. The DoD air-dropped a package of 50 tons of ammunition along with small arms on 10 October 2015, the day after STEP ended, in hopes of future reengagement with their Syrian partners.
SOF advisors again augmented the CIA months later to continue working with Syrian irregulars under Timber Sycamore, this time under new authorities. Separately, other SOF elements partnered with irregular forces from the Syrian Democratic Forces in 2016 under Operation Inherent Resolve in Northeast Syria to degrade and defeat ISIS. Ultimately, the waste from STEP forced a reversion to covert action only, but the embarrassing developments on the CIA side accelerated Timber Sycamore’s eventual downfall.
Best Laid Plans: The Downfall of Timber Sycamore
Timber Sycamore initially involved the two-pronged approach of the CIA and SOF advisors training and equipping Syrian rebels. However, the CIA rapidly lost control over weapons and trainees as ballooning costs soon forced policymakers to reevaluate the program. DoD costs were too high for too little gain and so the program reverted to only the CIA training and equipping. Meanwhile, the initial goal of removing President al-Assad remained out of reach.
A 2016 State Department dissent channel memo entitled “Syria Policy” called for expanding overt U.S. military operations in Syria. The same memo indirectly criticized Timber Sycamore, hinting at the operation’s inability to contain the conflict and influence al-Assad to abdicate. The administration had shifted its Syria policy in 2014 toward countering ISIS. The pivot toward prioritizing defeating ISIS over the overthrow of al-Assad undermined Timber Sycamore as Operation Inherent Resolve drew SOF advisors away.
Amid this internal reshuffling, Russia made its entree into Syria in 2015, throttling most U.S. activities there. The United States and Russia established a deconfliction cell in 2016 to reduce tensions between rebels in the Russian and U.S. sectors in Syria. But by then Timber Sycamore was in its twilight. Russian intervention aside, problems within the program ultimately generated enough bad publicity to devalue the deniability that a covert action could provide.
Negative press about Syrian trainees started surfacing. In one case, some of the Syrians trained under Timber Sycamore executed detainees. This triggered no reporting mechanisms because the program was exempt from human rights violation reporting requirements. But these executions still made headlines. Meanwhile, a Jordanian soldier shot and killed operators from 5th Special Forces Group as they trained their Syrian partners near Jordan’s King Faisal Air Base in November 2016. The previous November, the FBI discovered that the weapon a Jordanian used to kill two U.S. contractors and three Jordanians was from Timber Sycamore. Members of Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate had sold it on the black market.
The General Intelligence Directorate faced other scandals with the middlemen it employed. Middlemen like Tayser al-Sharif, known locally as Cheg Cheg, worked for Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate to smuggle the weapons into Syria. Smugglers further on distributed the weapons to dozens of CIA-supported southern front rebel groups. Smugglers like Cheg Cheg charged fees of about $30,000 per truck to move weapons across Syria, and these smugglers moved thousands of truckloads. Smugglers used WhatsApp to arrange diversions to ISIS via Bedouin groups like “The Birds,” who operated in southern Syria’s Lajat lava fields.
Weapons diversions to U.S. adversaries struck the greatest blow to the program. In May 2015, a Bulgarian PG-7T rocket from Timber Sycamore turned up in an ISIS cache in Al Hasakah, Syria. In December 2016, a Syrian fighter in Jaysh al-Nasr used a Bulgarian-manufactured anti-tank guided missile system in Hama that the United States purchased for northern front rebels. Less than 60 days later, weapons from the same lot ended up in ISIS’s hands in Iraq. Iraqi counterterrorism forces found still more in an ISIS cache in Ramadi in 2016. The rockets were exported from Bulgaria via Kiesler Police Supply to the U.S. Department of the Army on 23 June 2014. Iraqi forces recovered three more PG-7Ts from the same lot in ISIS caches in Baghdad in 2016. As time went on, still more weapons ended up with ISIS in part because accountability measures were insufficient.
Weapons transferred to Syrian opposition forces that ended up with ISIS also included small arms. Kurdish Peshmerga forces discovered Romanian Mitraliera medium machine guns in an ISIS cache that were part of a 250-weapon lot exported to the U.S. Department of the Army on 10 August 2012. By the end of the operation, many of the weapons delivered from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar had ended up with ISIS, other Salafi-jihadist groups, and groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The blurring lines of different authorities further complicated efforts to follow the rebels and track where the weapons went.
A Tale of Two Authorities: Title 50 and Title 10
The relationship between intelligence activities, special operations, and covert action is often misunderstood. In simple terms, intelligence activity reflects upon information already obtained so that estimates of future action can be made. In contrast, a goal of covert action is to cause an adversary to take certain future actions. Despite this simple distinction, the lines between Title 50 covert action authorities and Title 10 authorities peculiar to SOF can seem blurry. This is especially true of sheep dipping, but the haziness falls broadly.
The National Security Act of 1947 described how the CIA and National Security Council would interact. Traditional military activities were originally also written into Title 50, but Congress later separated these into Title 10. The legal basis for covert action stayed tucked away in a clause in Title 50. There, Congress mandated that the CIA was “to perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct.” The CIA and National Security Council interpreted these “other functions” to mean covert action.
Czechoslovakia faced a Communist overthrow the following year. The National Security Council stepped in with the first covert action under the new law. Their classified directive funded the CIA’s Office of Policy Coordination and outlined what the CIA should achieve in Czechoslovakia. Greece came next after the office merged with the Office of Special Operations in 1949. Dick Bissell, the first director of the merged offices, distinguished two types of operations. The first concerned intelligence gathering. The second type was influencing how other states behaved. Timber Sycamore resided in this latter category of covert action.
The CIA’s own account of covert actions up to 1973, known as the “Family Jewels Memo,” ranged from hiring the mafia to poison Fidel Castro to reading Russian mail in New York. At least one covert action was active per year from 1949 to 1974, including better-known operations in places like Iran and Guatemala plus Tibet, Italy, and others. More recently, President Obama authorized a covert action in 2011 to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi in Libya the same year JSOC raided Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, completing a covert action President Bush approved in a 2001 presidential finding.
SOF elements sometimes overlap with CIA officers in time and space, especially in the context of unconventional warfare. This special operations core mission area involves enabling a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power. Although SOF elements carry out a variety of operations, actions, and activities, several Title 10 authorities tend to tread more closely to ongoing CIA operations than others. SOCOM has used iterations of what are now Sections 127e and 127d of Title 10 to support or run adjacent to Title 50 activities while other approaches, such as sheep dipping and preparation of the environment, take a different shape.
Prior to 2005, SOF sometimes relied on CIA money to fund unconventional warfare activities, such as Task Force Dagger. The temporary authorities in Section 1208 arose in 2005 and funded these activities through Title 10 instead of Title 50. Funding authorities were further restructured into an optimized solution to the thorny questions surrounding special operations that often ran adjacent to CIA operations.
Congress permanently enshrined this solution under Section 127e in 2017. This authorized $100 million annually for SOF to work with irregular partner forces toward counterterrorism objectives, usually supporting broader authorities like the Counterterrorism Execute Order (CT EXORD) or other regional and combatant command EXORDs. The DoD framed Section 127e as a way to reduce the special operations footprint in the Sahel-Maghreb and Horn of Africa. The authority indeed reduced the number of forces needed in those areas and redirected assets for strategic competition in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. This redirection was enterprise-wide, with Joint Special Operations Command standing up the Counter-External Operations Task Force, or Ex-Ops, consolidating global counterterrorism operations at a single site in Jordan. SOF counterterrorism operations continued growing, reaching 78 countries by 2021. The changing funding landscape in which 127e lived was convenient for SOF teams deployed in Syria. They reoriented on counterterrorism activities after their support to Timber Sycamore wound down while their footprint remained. Related authorities like 127d helped enable SOF teams to keep training and equipping different partners in Syria.
Like 127e, Section 127d sprang from an older authority. Its predecessor, Section 1202, arose in 2017 and authorized SOCOM to purchase night vision devices, weapons, equipment, vehicles, and other supplies for irregulars and other partner forces. Funding for these irregulars parallels 127e programs, complementing training with equipment. Section 1202 became Section 127d in fiscal year 2024, while Congress increased annual funding from $15 million to $20 million. Other authorities complement these, such as Section 127f. That authority allows SOCOM $40 million annually for preparation of the environment and non-standard assisted recovery activities, key tasks required before executing certain special operations.
Oversight for these authorities is laxer compared to requirements for other Title 10 authorities like the major security cooperation programs found in Chapter 16. The programs are also difficult to track internally, as SOCOM’s own Major Force Program-11 (MFP-11) funding is “time consuming and difficult” to understand even for SOCOM’s own attorneys. MFP-11 is the vehicle for funds delivery under these programs. Oversight for 127d, 127e, and 127f includes operation summaries, descriptions of support, recipients details, funding obligations, operation timelines, and value assessments. But these authorities are exempt from human rights reporting laws that nearly all other partner-focused programs observe.
Oversight Challenges
Congressional oversight of covert actions has been a challenge since the National Security Act first set the legal basis for carrying them out in 1947. In 1973, Senator Stuart Symington made an observation about these oversight challenges that still affected later operations, noting that “This committee does not know of [CIA] activities in foreign countries with which we are not at war. It not only doesn’t make any sense, but it has resulted in heavy loss of both money and respect.” This loss of money and respect plagued covert actions in Vietnam in the 1960s, Afghanistan in the 1980s, and Syria in the 2010s.
Presidential authorization for covert action, known as a presidential finding, became a requirement in 1974 following numerous revelations about questionable CIA activities. Covert activity not already approved under an existing presidential finding now cannot receive Congressional funding. Congressional committees require numerous oversight products, ranging from notification timelines to substantive reports. Despite those requirements, covert operations continued leading to embarrassing and potentially destructive long-term outcomes. Examples include covert support to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua coinciding with the Iran-Contra Affair and the activity under Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan contributing to conditions for the Taliban seizing power in the 1990s and in 2021.
These outcomes are due in part to relatively weak enforcement of oversight requirements and lack of political will. The House of Representatives amended a rule demanding that the executive branch disclose every record associated with Timber Sycamore. The intelligence community released none. House Intelligence Committee members voted unanimously in November 2015 to cut funding to Timber Sycamore by $200 million, or about twenty percent. The legislation never made it for a full House vote. Likewise, Freedom of Information Act requests for Timber Sycamore started in 2019 but still nothing was released during the Syrian conflict.
Weak oversight problems were dramatically highlighted in 2018. That year, the president’s legal counsel issued a memorandum arguing he was permitted under Article II of the Constitution to conduct military operations in Syria without Congressional approval. Law professors at Harvard and the University of Chicago immediately opposed that opinion. Despite this, the president invoked the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, designed for a different purpose, as the legal basis for striking Syrian military facilities in 2018 and assassinating an Iranian general flying out of Damascus in 2020. Arguments about how this strike may have violated laws and executive orders aside, the strike went off without any meaningful Congressional interference despite its flimsy legal basis. The dearth of mechanisms to vet partner forces further compound the problems this atmosphere of weak oversight invites.
Vetting Partner Forces
Vetting partners and maintaining accountability of equipment are usually a key component of a security cooperation with a foreign force. However, covert actions and 127e programs are not beholden to standards set for conventional security cooperation programs. Build partner capacity programs constitute a separate group of authorities under Section 333. These programs are subject to extensive oversight and are treated like light versions of foreign military sales cases. Those programs are rigorously assessed, monitored, and evaluated on par with other major security cooperation programs grouped under Chapter 16 in Title 10. In contrast, authorities like Section 127e are not subject to Leahy vetting and the equipment issued does not carry the same transfer, use, and protection requirements as Chapter 16 security cooperation programs.
Leahy vetting for human rights issues is a key component of evaluating partner forces, and its absence removes an essential ethical guardrail. In 2014, Congress expanded Leahy vetting to include assessments about equipping and supporting those forces. Despite this, Congress exempted Section 127e from human rights vetting and from statutory requirements to report sensitive military operations. Section 127e only requires a post facto description of whether partners under the program engaged in human rights violations, but it provides no guidance on what to do upon discovering such violations, unlike programs subject to the Leahy Amendment. These forces are also not run through the State Department’s international vetting and security tracking system for checking past human rights violations, while Chapter 16 security cooperation participants must. Additionally, rules required irregular forces under Section 127e to only undergo counterintelligence and force protection screening rather than the comprehensive screenings that partners under Chapter 16 security cooperation programs must. A bill introduced in 2022 in the House of Representatives attempted to require Section 127e programs to undergo human rights vetting, but the bill failed to gain support in the Senate.
Congress was not the only voice that went unheard. Trainers on the ground criticized the force protection screening, emphasizing its inadequacy. Yet scrutiny requirements remained unchanged. Vetting consisted of biometrics enrollment to verify that the Syrian fighters had not been detained or otherwise recorded in those databases. The 5th Special Forces Group and CIA Ground Branch trainers had long protested that this was also insufficient. Syrian fighters affiliated with Salafi-jihadist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS, and Ahrar al-Sham were theoretically barred from training, but only if trainers learned of such connections from the trainees themselves.
Runaway Guns: Accountability over People and Equipment
Covert actions can lack rigorous quantitative and qualitative measures of performance and effectiveness, while biases can infiltrate assessments. The threshold for success can be as low as keeping sponsorship hidden rather meeting long-term mission objectives. In one telling example, the covert action leading to the creation of the Iraqi National Congress and the accompanying propaganda operation to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the 1990s placed an Iranian puppet in control of the transitional government. Congress has yet to meaningfully improve accountability mechanisms for covert actions and adjacent special operations.
Accountability was handicapped from the start. Timber Sycamore lacked mechanisms for tracking who was given which pieces of equipment and where that equipment ended up. In any case, U.S. export controls for weapons and equipment supplied to non-state forces are challenging to enforce because the U.S. cannot wield the same sanctions that normally influence state recipients to comply. Another problem was tracking which groups rebels eventually settled in after training. Some non-state partners are designated foreign terrorists or have been suspected of committing gross human rights violations. An exception to the rule prohibiting material support to these entities found in Title 18 allows U.S. officials to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations like Jabhat al-Nusra’s successor Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Granting these exceptions can have unforeseen consequences, as eventually happened in Syria.
Did Timber Sycamore Actually Fail?
Timber Sycamore’s initial goal was regime change in Syria. The trajectory of the Syrian war changed dramatically with the flight of President al-Assad and his family to Russia in December 2024. The remnants of Timber Sycamore’s northern front, backed by Turkey, had finally taken Syria. But the Syrians who ousted al-Assad hailed from among the more extreme Salafi-jihadist factions to affiliate with Timber Sycamore. They had also joined with al-Qaeda and ISIS at different times. Now, in al-Assad’s place, the old al-Qaeda hand Ahmad al-Sharaa took over as the country’s interim leader.
Al-Sharaa was already a known quantity under his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. Indeed, his group had been one of the early benefactors of Timber Sycamore in the northern front. ISIS tasked al-Sharaa to create ISIS’s Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, upon his return from fighting under al-Qaeda against the U.S. invasion. Jabhat al-Nusra became the Syrian arm of ISIS until al-Sharaa decided to distance himself from the besieged caliphate in 2016. The group changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and merged into what would become Hayat Tahrir al-Sham before taking control of the country in late 2024.
Al-Sharaa continued the Salafi-jihadist fight against al-Assad’s government during the intervening eight years between decoupling from ISIS and forcing al-Assad to flee. The rebranded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham remained a designated foreign terrorist organization but American delegations swiftly met al-Sharaa in Damascus in 2024. The $10 million bounty on his head, in place for seven years, vanished the next week. Echoes of Timber Sycamore were everywhere in this transformation, in both the rapid ascent of al-Sharaa and the apparent volte-face of U.S. policy toward a former al-Qaeda affiliate-cum-liberator inside a span of days. His ascent drew upon the decade-old northern front alliances made under Timber Sycamore, relationships incubated under Turkish supervision after the covert program ended. The CIA never had the opportunity to reach Timber Sycamore’s initial objectives. In an ironic twist, one of the program’s undesirables managed to see things through.
Conclusion
Syria today resembles an outcome dubbed the “Dark World Scenario” that the CIA described in a 2002 assessment of futures for the Middle East. The CIA believed this worst-case “bloodiest scenario” might follow a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The assessment warned that in the dark world scenario, “nationalist Islamist revolutions sweep away the old elites.” These CIA analysts were more prescient than they could have known. A Salafi-jihadist leader initially shunned from Timber Sycamore turned up a few years later in a lightning advance on Damascus and ousted the al-Assad family, achieving what the CIA had been contemplating since the 1970s.
Now, as the United States contemplates going after Mexican cartels in counterterrorism operations and overthrowing Iran’s regime, lessons learned from past failures become invaluable. But an internal review found that SOCOM inadequately shares lessons learned even within the organization. And the CIA as an institution continues struggling to salvage lessons out of past operations that can be applied to new problems. Esoteric policy debates continue about how covert actions should fit into U.S. national strategy while the chorus of simple missteps that brought down operations like Timber Sycamore and Operation Cyclone remain unresolved. The combination of poor oversight, insufficient vetting, and lack of accountability militated against Timber Sycamore’s success.
These problems remain. Exemptions from assessment, monitoring, and evaluation invite mistakes, runaway operations, and diverted resources. The expedited attention that dynamic conflicts require should not completely exempt covert action and SOF programs like Section 127e from active oversight, vetting, and accountability. The hard lessons of short-term gains bought at the expense of long-term failures continue to be instructive, from the Phoenix Program to Operation Cyclone, and now Timber Sycamore. Policymakers and practitioners must translate those lessons into action.
Note on Sources
This study analyzed declassified intelligence reports, official government records, pieces of legislation, Congressional testimonies, documents released via the Freedom of Information Act, and transcripts of interviews with those involved. Where applicable, news articles and other media were consulted to reduce discrepancies and verify claims made within the source material. The paucity of declassified documents, denials of Freedom of Information Act requests, and skewed accounts related to Timber Sycamore inhibit further exploration. Some program names and other identifying data were omitted.
Tags: Army SOF, ARSOF, ISIS, Islamic State, Special Operations, Special Operations Forces, Syria, Syrian Democratic Forces
About The Author
- Jonathan Hackett
- Before attending Yale Law School, Jonathan W. Hackett served 20 years as a U.S. Marine Corps interrogator and special operations capabilities specialist managing intelligence operations and special activities in dozens of countries across four continents. He is the author of Theory of Irregular War (McFarland 2023) and Iran's Shadow Weapons: Intelligence Operations, Covert Action, and Unconventional Warfare (McFarland 2025).
14. The Russia-Ukraine War – It Takes a Land Force to Defeat a Land Force
Excerpts:
The problem with these assertions is that they only think through the problems of being seen by an enemy, but they do not think through the challenges armies have to address once they have made it to their objectives. Put another way, the problem with the arguments made by many policymakers, military leaders, and other pundits is that they only address Army forces first layer of the problem but do not address any of the land warfare challenges Army forces would have to face and overcome once they made it to the battlefield. Thus, it would be prudent for Army policymakers and military leaders to think through military operations from beginning to end, and not just beginning, which is part of why the U.S. military failed so epically in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Therefore, policymakers must appreciate that the alliance requires resilient and robust, not light, small, and dispersed, land forces. The U.S. Army requires land forces that can make its way through the rigors of a transparent battlefield and array ready forces with sufficient combat power to meet the challenges of land warfare. Small, light, and dispersed land forces fighting through standoff warfare will not be able to defeat an ensconced challenger intent on retaining confiscated or annexed land. Strikes from the sky, regardless of how precise or how deftly adjudicated, will not effectively eliminate those land forces. Ruggedized, resilient land forces—human, human-machine integrated, robotic, or otherwise—are needed to accomplish that task. Thus, policymakers, military leaders, and other supporters should advocate for the development of larger, more armored land forces.
Yet, in doing so, they must make it clear to policymakers why larger, not smaller land forces are needed. To accomplish the challenges of land warfare—of which any future war with Russia, China, or even Iran or North Korea would likely be—standoff warfare, precision strike, and long-range fires would only play small supporting roles. The real policy-accomplishing portion of combat would occur on the ground between land forces. They would have to be capable of accomplishing the seven challenges of land warfare outlined within this article. They would have to accomplish these tasks not marginally, but in an unambiguous manner, leaving no question of victory on the battlefield, thus simplifying diplomacy for the policymakers.
The Russia-Ukraine War
It Takes a Land Force to Defeat a Land Force
Lt. Col. Amos C. Fox, PhD, U.S. Army, Retired
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Online-Exclusive/2025-OLE/Russia-Ukraine-War/mc_cid/d9da52eb65/
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A Ukrainian soldier pulls security during an antisabotage exercise as part of Rapid Trident 2021 at Combat Training Center-Yavoriv near Yavoriv, Ukraine, on 27 September 2021. Rapid Trident is designed to increase the efficiency of Ukrainian troops and improve compatibility among of the headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the United States, and other NATO members. (Photo by Spc. Preston Hammon, U.S. Army)
While new technologies such as sensors, drones, and long-range fires are excellent complements to contemporary (and future) armed forces, they will have a minimal impact on the future operational environment. If we remove the sensationalism association with the terminology of sensors, drones, precision, and long-range fires, all we are essentially left with is the basic idea of “attacks from above,” which is a challenge that has hampered military forces since at least World War I.1
Today, however, we have the additional problem in the West that most militaries seek to limit the commitment of their own land forces into direct combat with a hostile force while preferring to leverage attacks from above as an adjunct to military victory. Viewed collectively, these two elements (i.e., “attacks from above” and limiting the commitment of one’s land forces to combat) can be referred to as “standoff warfare.”
Today, Western militaries make the case that standoff warfare will be how wars in future operational environments will be won. Multidomain operations doctrine, Project Convergence, and the slew of other sensor, precision, and long-range strike-centric concepts dominating military, academic, and policy discussions make this abundantly clear.2
Nonetheless, the wars of the twenty-first century demonstrate an alternative reality that is likely more realistic than the standoff warfare visions of the future. Wars of the future will remain fought for territory. They will remain fought by armies, or at least amalgamated forces fighting on land, for land. When attacked from the sky, they will seek refuge in the land—whether in bunkers, trenches, or urban areas. Attacks from the sky are empirically proven to be less effective against land forces hiding beneath the surface of the land or in urban terrain. Thus, to defeat a hostile army holding contested terrain, standoff warfare will not be the path to success in future operational environments. To win in future wars, Western militaries will require robust and resilient land forces that can address the unique challenges of land warfare while capitalizing on the technological advantages available to Western military forces. Put in more plain English, it will continue to take a land force to defeat a land force.
These robust and resilient land forces will not be the status quo land forces of today, however. Robotics, AI-enabled combat and command-and-control systems, and human-machine integrated teams should be used in the future operational environment to augment manpower and enhance human capabilities on the battlefield and in the data computation space.
Standoff Warfare and the Limitations of Technology
The war in Ukraine has provided the defense and security studies communities, as well as Western states and militaries, to include Army forces, ample opportunity to observe large-scale, technologically advanced combat operations between two industrialized states. Early in the conflict, many commenters were trying to be the first and loudest to be “right,” making grandiose pronouncements about technology’s revolutionary impact on the operational environment and the tactics of warfare therein.3 Many of these technophiles were the same commenters who made similar pronouncements regarding how the technology and tactics of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War had revolutionized future armed conflict and made operational environments in future conflict increasingly challenging to navigate.
The thrust of most of these commenters’ arguments is that drones, united with precision strikes and long-range fires, have revolutionized how reconnaissance and strike work together, creating kill chains or kill webs.4 Done correctly, the theory posits that if a combatant can properly integrate and tune their reconnaissance-strike complex to the operational environment’s variables, including the threat actor(s), the physical terrain, and temporal considerations, then they can quickly gain the upper hand against adversaries who operate with more traditional means and methods.5 Previous iterations of “novel” thinking broadly referred to this conceptual idea as the “quality of firsts,” rapid dominance, and convergence, among a handful of others. Each phrase is another generation using the same basic idea to make the same basic point.
Further, in bygone eras of military thought, this line of logic produced now-defunct theories such as John Warden’s five rings theory, which was used in 1991 in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, and the deep-strike doctrine used by the U.S. Army during Operation Iraqi Freedom, which relied on deep helicopter raids into Iraq.6 In both the five rings theory and deep-strike doctrine, each concept hinged on the belief that sensors, precision strike, and long-range fires would
- eliminate hostile land forces,
- obviate the need for the commitment of large-scale friendly land forces,
- usher in an era of short and decisive wars, and
-
reduce civilian casualties and collateral damage on future battlefields.7
Collectively, this theory of warfare can be packaged as the idea of “standoff warfare.”
In short, the belief coming into the twenty-first century was that a rebooted approach to standoff warfare, in which the newest sensors, even better drones (armed and unarmed), more precision fires, and longer range and faster fires would breathe fresh air back into the lungs of these dying ideas. Both the United States’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were supposed to carry on the essence of standoff warfare, with their early emphasis on light footprints and heavy reliance on reconnaissance-strike linkages. However, uncooperative local populations and competing third-party actors caused those wars to quickly devolve into insurgencies that exceeded the scale and scope of standoff warfare’s mandate (and highlighted a significant shortcoming in the concept’s theoretical foundation).
In an undated photo, Ukrainian soldiers fire an antitank gun in Avdiivka, Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of the Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces)
Nagorno-Karabakh, however, brought hope back to the proponents of standoff warfare. Azeri sensors, drones, and precision strikes seemingly made quick work of Armenian land forces operating in mountainous terrain and urban areas.8 Seizing on the Azeri’s lopsided victory over the Armenian forces, commenters were again quick to make declarations about kill webs and how war’s future operational environment was forever changed because standoff warfare was now realized.9
The problem with much of the commentary emerging from Nagorno-Karabakh, however, was that it did not account for strategic, operational, and tactical variables of war and warfare. Instead, the commentary used titillating YouTube and TikTok videos to illustrate the effectiveness of singular drone strikes while not demonstrating how aspects such as terrain, the lack of appropriate Armenian air defense, or other factors contributed to the success of what was shown in a specific video.10 Nonetheless, it is imperative to go on the record and note that standoff warfare is engineered to solve a specific type of military problem: tightly packed military formations, which are easily identified from above, moving in densely packed formations, along predictable lines of travel. This situation was the dynamic that the international community witnessed unfolding between Azerbaijan and Armenian military forces in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Another great example of this idea was the infamous “Highway of Death” from the 1991 Iraq War in which American airpower slaughtered retreating Iraqi land forces along Highway 1.11 Yet, when removed from this situation, the geometries and physics of standoff warfare break down and yield marginal results.
The outset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 echoed many of standoff warfare’s successes in Nagorno-Karabakh. This is because the Ukrainian battlefield had not yet expanded in early 2022, and thus, standoff warfare tactics fit the scale and scope of the battlefield. Ukrainian sensors detected Russian armored columns, which were meandering on just a handful of routes into neighboring Ukraine. Ukrainian sensors passed the information on Russian troop movement to their armed drones (and other forces) that subsequently decimated those Russian columns.12 Meanwhile Kyiv’s small air defenses, gleaning information from Western partners, crippled Russian air forces at the conflict’s outset.
Yet, the conflict quickly turned sour for Ukraine and relatively profitable for Russia. The conflict turned into a relative stalemate by the summer of 2022. By that point, Russia had all but solidified its hold of the Donbas and reinforced its position in Crimea. More importantly, Russian forces had taken possession of the so-called “land bridge to Crimea,” or the oblasts that link the Donbas to Crimea.13
Throughout this period, the nominal drone revolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh and early phase of the Russia-Ukraine War had given way as electronic warfare and antiaircraft defense prove effective in neutralizing many of the most sophisticated and successful drones of this period.14 Large medium-altitude long-endurance drones like the Turkish manufactured TB-2 Bayraktar have generally been sidelined since the conflict’s early days, and they have been replaced by small, dual-use first-person-view drones.15 Medium-altitude, long-endurance drones are key enabling capabilities for standoff warfare thanks to their range, flight time, and weapons payload, whereas the first-person-view drone is much more of a close fight weapon system.
Ukrainian precision strikes, focused on eliminating Russian leadership and command posts, have proven ineffective at best, and are truly little more than a distraction, and have done next to nothing to curtail Russian military operations or truly allow Kyiv’s forces to retake any of their confiscated land.16 By the same token, long-range strikes like the U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System have proven effective at killing exposed, static forces but are indecisive to the larger outcome of any battle, campaign, or the overall war.
Russian precision strikes, on the other hand, appear almost missing from the discussion altogether. This is likely due to the Kremlin’s seemingly indiscriminate targeting of civilians alongside military forces. This fact, in addition to other coordinating factors, led the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes.17 Moreover, the absence of Russian precision strikes from truly standing out on the battlefield might result from Ukraine’s tight-lipped reporting of their own casualties, which prevents Western open-source observers from identifying when and where precision strikes are used and how effective those strikes truly are.
This raises an important point. Once the Kremlin realized that the blitz to Kyiv and Kharkiv failed, it withdrew from those axes and redeployed forces to reinforce its holdings in the Donbas, the land bridge to Crimea, and Crimea itself.18 It built a defensive line along that lengthy perimeter, thus changing the war’s dynamic. Russian land forces were no longer on the move, meaning that they were not as exposed, mobile, or traversing easily identifiable roads. As a result, the Kremlin forced Kyiv’s hand. Moscow forced Kyiv’s theory of victory change from defeating a mobile Russian army (an easier proposition) to retaking territory from a relatively static, defending Russian land army (a much more challenging proposition).
In military situations such as these, it is imperative to remember that standoff warfare quickly outlives its utility and that winning in this operational environment boils down to a simple heuristic: it takes a land force to defeat a land force. This is not to say that this land force cannot be one in which the latest technology, to include robotic formations and human-machine integrated teams, are standard practice. In fact, far from it. But standoff warfare quickly hits diminishing returns against forces intent on holding ground.
Reflections on Standoff Warfare in the Russia-Ukraine War
The Russia-Ukraine War demonstrates that major battles and campaigns among resilient land forces, supported by—not subservient to—joint services are how large-scale wars between industrialized wars are won and lost. Armies provide the fulcrum upon which all military operations pivot and upon which a state’s policy outcomes in wars hinge. The battle of Kyiv, including the battle of Hostomel Airport, was a decisive early battle that delivered an outsized impact on the strategic and political course of the war.19 Ukraine’s ability to blunt Russia’s assault in the conflict’s dawn with conventional, unconventional, and irregular means and methods, retake Hostomel Airport, retain Kyiv, and reinforce the arteries leading into and out of the city with additional land forces and artillery decided the outcome.20
A Ukrainian soldier pulls security during a training exercise as part of Rapid Trident 2021 at Combat Training Center-Yavoriv near Yavoriv, Ukraine, 27 September 2021. Rapid Trident has been conducted since 2006 under the “Partnership for Peace” program with the participation of NATO servicemembers to prepare for joint actions as part of a multinational force during coalition operations. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Preston Hammon)
On the other hand, Ukraine’s use of brute force outdid Russia’s finesse-oriented, maneuver-centric, standoff warfare approach in the war’s initial phase. Battles like Mariupol, Bakhmut, and Avdiivka followed suit. Kyiv’s land forces, supported by joint services operating in and from all domains, have continued to fight both valiantly and brutally against Russian land forces for usurped territory. As U.S. and Western support to Ukraine increased the latter’s ability to strike the Russian army from afar, as already noted, a traditional front emerged as the Russian army dug bunkers, trenches, and further defensive fortifications from the Donbas to Crimea to offset the effectiveness of U.S.-Western supplied long-range precision strike.21
Since the Russian army has transition to a defensive posture to hold the land that is taken from Ukraine, the conflict is littered not with deft battles of sweeping maneuver but of blistering battles of pulverizing attrition.22 Attrition is not an anomaly, nor is it the effect of bad tactics, poor armies, or maladapted generalship.23 In reality, attrition is the causal outcome of two features of modern (and future) warfare: attacks from above and the logic of land wars.24
Attacks from above. The phrase “attacks from above” is another way to think about standoff warfare because it articulates the character of standoff warfare at the end of contact closest to an adversary military force. Attacks from above today can be counted as any artillery bombardments (to include ground launched missiles and rockets), drone strikes, and any other long-range, top-down oriented precision strikes. This mental model, instead of viewing the drone or precision strike, for instance, in isolation, puts the technology in the proper environmental context and illustrates that the technology is not revolutionary per se but just another stepping-stone on warfare’s evolutionary pathway.
Sustained attacks from above, whether from 1914, 1944, or 2024, always generate the same response from ground forces—they go underground. The infantrymen of World War I avoided artillery and primitive aerial bombardment using elaborate trench systems. In World War II, mobility was often used to bypass attacks from above. When that was not possible, much like both Russian and Ukrainian land forces today, soldiers used trenches, bunkers, and other fortifications to protect themselves from aerial attack, regardless of the type of technology used.
Nonetheless, attacks from above always generate the same basic response in land forces—they go underground. Land forces will also seek refuge from attacks from above in urban areas, if they are sufficiently close to a town or city to do so. This dynamic might change in the future with the increase of human-machine integrated land forces or more roboticized armies, but that remains to be seen. The artificial intelligence and machine learning of those future systems might develop their own survival instincts, like those of human soldiers, and develop similar survival patterns. As for now, this remains within the realm of science and technology development. Nonetheless, there are no game changing technologies today, nor game changing tactics. There is only a logic of land war.
Logic of land war. The logic of land war, which is alluded to in the previous paragraph, is simple and constant. Land war is almost exclusively fought for the control of territory. Even conflicts fought for the control of island states like Taiwan should be considered land wars, because at the end of the day if a state like China were to invade and occupy Taiwan, liberating Taiwan would require a subsequent invasion, clearance of Chinese army forces, and holding of the island.
It is not a stretch to compare the Russia-Ukraine War’s battle of Mariupol and a potential campaign to liberate Taiwan. While Russian aggressors sought to overtake the city, a siege quickly developed around the Mariupol steel plant as defenders held out.25 One should expect a similar dynamic to unfold in Taiwan if China invades the island and attempts to annex that territory. On the back side, any attempt to retake Mariupol, just as any attempt to retake Taiwan from China might entail, would require a significant land operation to clear the occupying forces. Thus, armies—whether state or nonstate forces—fight land wars, regardless of how they have to get to the land war. Further, armies fight other armies in land wars, regardless of the presence or degree of combined arms or joint capabilities one combatant might possess over the other.
Table. Requirements of Land Forces
(Table by author)
Enlarge the table
Considering the logic outlined above, coupled with the ideas on standoff warfare described in this article, a handful of enduring challenges of land warfare emerge. These challenges transcend the theater of conflict and the way the armies get to the land war; that is, the challenges of land warfare are relevant in a Russia-type scenario or a China-Taiwan scenario. Further, these are germane challenges whether the armies have to conduct amphibious landings from ship to shore, airborne drops from a variety of aircraft, or attack on the ground in broad armored thrusts across international boundaries. The challenges, primarily identified in the Russia-Ukraine conflict but salient in all land wars are listed in the table. This list is not in order of priority but as a general grouping to assist policymakers, military practitioners, and scholars remain grounded in the principles of war when states or non-state actors fight conflicts for the physical control of territory.
Recommendations for Army Forces
In closing, the Russia-Ukraine War provides a set of useful considerations for Army forces. Importantly, however, these considerations are not just Russia or Europe-specific but apply to any conflict in which fights for territory (i.e., land conquest) are the goal. So, if China were to invade Taiwan, for instance, and Army forces were required to assist Taiwan in extricating Chinese forces from the island, the challenges of land warfare outlined above would remain germane, regardless of the naval, air, or contested logistics challenges also associated with that situation.
Nonetheless, the first thing Army forces must consider is not getting caught up in the hype and sensationalism of standoff warfare. Drones, long-range strike, and precision warfare all just present continued challenges of “strikes from above,” which soldiers have addressed since World War I. When strikes from above dominate the battlefield, soldiers go below ground. When soldiers go below ground, static battlefields develop. When static battlefields develop, positional warfare replaces maneuver and conflicts drift into wars of attrition.
Thus, a hypothesis emerges for Army forces to examine in greater detail: standoff warfare paradoxically accelerates wars of attrition, whereas a more weighted land campaign lightly supported by joint elements better animates a war of maneuver, thus unlocking a quicker and less destructive war. It therefore follows that if Army forces want to avoid wars of attrition, they should further examine this line of logic through experimentation. War-games and tabletop exercises might reveal that standoff warfare sounds like the solution to the challenges of future warfare but is contributing to more problems than it is solving.
Second, Army forces should take pause and examine the relationship among battlefield transparency, targeting, force design, dispersed operations, and future military operations. One of the major talking points to emerge from the Russia-Ukraine War, which is a continuation of the discourse from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, is that sensors and drone technology are obviating large land forces and making things like the tank and towed artillery, as noted by scholar Sean McFate and Gen. James Rainey, relics of a bygone era of armed conflict.26 Many people looking at a potential conflict with China are making similar arguments.27 Ostensible change advocates assert that to address these challenges, Army forces must become smaller, lighter, and operate with dispersed operations to defeat battlefield transparency, enemy drones, threat missile and artillery targeting, and other high-technology threats in the future.28
The problem with these assertions is that they only think through the problems of being seen by an enemy, but they do not think through the challenges armies have to address once they have made it to their objectives. Put another way, the problem with the arguments made by many policymakers, military leaders, and other pundits is that they only address Army forces first layer of the problem but do not address any of the land warfare challenges Army forces would have to face and overcome once they made it to the battlefield. Thus, it would be prudent for Army policymakers and military leaders to think through military operations from beginning to end, and not just beginning, which is part of why the U.S. military failed so epically in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Therefore, policymakers must appreciate that the alliance requires resilient and robust, not light, small, and dispersed, land forces. The U.S. Army requires land forces that can make its way through the rigors of a transparent battlefield and array ready forces with sufficient combat power to meet the challenges of land warfare. Small, light, and dispersed land forces fighting through standoff warfare will not be able to defeat an ensconced challenger intent on retaining confiscated or annexed land. Strikes from the sky, regardless of how precise or how deftly adjudicated, will not effectively eliminate those land forces. Ruggedized, resilient land forces—human, human-machine integrated, robotic, or otherwise—are needed to accomplish that task. Thus, policymakers, military leaders, and other supporters should advocate for the development of larger, more armored land forces.
Yet, in doing so, they must make it clear to policymakers why larger, not smaller land forces are needed. To accomplish the challenges of land warfare—of which any future war with Russia, China, or even Iran or North Korea would likely be—standoff warfare, precision strike, and long-range fires would only play small supporting roles. The real policy-accomplishing portion of combat would occur on the ground between land forces. They would have to be capable of accomplishing the seven challenges of land warfare outlined within this article. They would have to accomplish these tasks not marginally, but in an unambiguous manner, leaving no question of victory on the battlefield, thus simplifying diplomacy for the policymakers.
Notes
- James Rogers, Precision: A History of American Warfare (Manchester University Press, 2023), 73.
- Project Convergence is an Army-led joint and multinational exercise to test and experiment with how to perfect combined, joint all-domain command and control (CJADC2).
- John Antal, How We Fight the Next War: Reimaging How We Fight (Casemate Publishers, 2023), 13.
-
“Creating Cross-Domain Kill-Webs in Real Time,” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, 18 September 2020, https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2020-09-18a.
- Christian Brose, “The New Revolution in Military Affairs: War’s Sci-Fi Future,” Foreign Affairs 98, no. 3 (2024): 126–29.
- Jan Angstrom and J. J. Widen, Contemporary Military Theory: The Dynamics of War (Routledge, 2015), 161–65.
-
John Warden, “The Enemy as a System,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 1 (1995): 40–56, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/ASPJ/journals/Volume-09_Issue-1-Se/1995_Vol9_No1.pdf; Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (Vintage Books, 2007), 523.
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Shaan Shaikh and Wes Rumbaugh, “The Air and Missile War in Nagorno-Karabakh: Lessons for the Future of Strike and Defense,” Center for Strategic and International Defense, 8 December 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/air-and-missile-war-nagorno-karabakh-lessons-future-strike-and-defense.
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“The Azerbaijan-Armenia Conflict Hints at the Future of War,” Economist, 8 October 2020, https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/10/08/the-azerbaijan-armenia-conflict-hints-at-the-future-of-war.
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“John Antal, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Maneuver Warfare Conference,” posted 7 March 2022 by MCoE Fort Moore, YouTube, https://youtu.be/_At9txsUKIw?si=NmlwY7i2dkMyClFb.
-
R. W. Apple. Jr., “Death Stalks Desert Despite Cease-Fires,” New Yorks Times, 2 March 1991, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/03/02/741091.html?pageNumber=6.
-
Isabelle Khurshudyan, Mary Ilyushina, and Kostiantyn Khudov, “Russia and Ukraine Are Fighting the First Full-Scale Drone War,” Washington Post, 2 December 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/02/drones-russia-ukraine-air-war/.
- The land bridge to Crimea links the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts.
-
Alia Shoaib, “Bayraktar TB2 Drones Were Hailed as Ukraine’s Savior and the Future of Warfare. A Year Later, They’ve Practically Disappeared,” Business Insider, 28 May 2023, https://www.businessinsider.com/turkeys-bayraktar-tb2-drones-ineffective-ukraine-war-2023-5.
-
Amos Fox, host, Revolution in Military Affairs, podcast, season 3, episode 2, “Michael Kofman on Attrition, Doodling Ranging Rings, and Magical Thinking in Modern War with Michael Kofman,” 1 April 2024, https://shows.acast.com/revolution-in-military-affairs/episodes/attrition-doodling-range-rings-and-magical-thinking-in-moder.
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Julian Barnes et al., “US and Ukraine Search for a New Strategy After Failed Counteroffensive,” New York Times, 11 December 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/us/politics/us-ukraine-war-strategy.html.
-
“Situation in Ukraine: ICC Judges Issue Arrest Warrants Against Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekeyevna Lvova-Belova,” International Criminal Court press release, 17 March 2023, https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and.
- Barnes et al., “US and Ukraine Search for a New Strategy After Failed Counteroffensive.”
-
Liam Collins, Michael Kofman, and John Spencer, “The Battle for Hostomel Airport: A Key Moment in Russia’s Defeat in Kyiv,” War on the Rocks, 10 August 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/08/the-battle-of-hostomel-airport-a-key-moment-in-russias-defeat-in-kyiv/.
- Ibid.
-
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, “Modern Positional Warfare and How to Win in It,” Economist, accessed 24 October 2024, https://infographics.economist.com/2023/ExternalContent/ZALUZHNYI_FULL_VERSION.pdf.
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Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman, “Making Attrition Work: A Viable Theory of Victory for Ukraine,” Survival 66, no. 1 (2024): 7–8, https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2024.2309068.
-
Amos Fox, “Setting the Record Straight on Attrition,” War on the Rocks, 30 January 2024, https://warontherocks.com/2024/01/setting-the-record-straight-on-attrition/.
-
Amos Fox, “Maneuver Is Dead? Understanding the Components and Conditions of Warfighting,” RUSI Journal 166, no. 6-7 (2021): 1–3, https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2022.2058601.
- Ibid., 3–11.
-
Sean McFate, The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder (William Morrow, 2019), 231; Ashley Roque, “Towed Artillery Has Reached ‘End of the Effectiveness,’ Army Four Star Declares,” Breaking Defense, 27 March 2024, https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/towed-artillery-has-reached-end-of-the-effectiveness-army-four-star-declares/.
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Kimberly Underwood, “The Army Takes an Extended View to 2040,” Signal, 10 October 2022, https://www.afcea.org/signal-media/army-takes-extended-view-2040.
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Jen Judson, “The US Army Moves to Tweak Its Formations for Future Conflicts,” Defense News, 4 April 2023, https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/global-force-symposium/2023/04/04/the-us-army-moves-to-tweak-its-formations-for-future-conflicts/.
Dr. Amos C. Fox is a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is also a contributing editor at War on the Rocks, where he cohosts the Soldier Pulse and the WarCast podcasts, and also hosts the Revolution in Military Affairs podcast. He has a PhD in politics from the University of Reading, master’s degrees from the School of Advanced Military Studies and Ball State University, and a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University-Indianapolis. Fox is also a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel.
15. Army SOF’s Chinese Language Challenge
How are we managing this talent? Is he slated for SF selection yet? (or CA or PSYOP?)
His bio:
1st Lt. Alexander Mosher, U.S. Army, is a fire control platoon leader in 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at Fort Cavazos, Texas. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies from the University of Virginia and studied abroad through the Project GO program four times. His latest score on the DLPT for Mandarin-Chinese was 2+/2+. He has deployed to Bahrain.
I was unaware of Project GO. At first glance I thought was in reference to the strategy game of Go/Weiji/Baduk and thought perhaps that is a good way to develop officers with Chinese expertise. Here is the description (We need a Project GNCO as well - but that is not as cool sounding an acronym).
Project Global Officer
Project Global Officer (Project GO) is an initiative of the Defense Language and National Security Education Office (DLNSEO) to meet objective two of the DOD Strategic Plan for Language Skills, Regional Expertise, and Cultural Capabilities; namely, “build, enhance, and sustain a Total Force with a mix of language skills, regional expertise, and cultural capabilities to meet existing and emerging needs in support of national security objectives.”29 The program provides scholarships for ROTC cadets to study strategic languages in a region where they are natively spoken. Typically, an American university is paired with an overseas university. The domestic university’s language department and study abroad office will oversee the application process and logistics, while the foreign university will provide most of the language instruction in country. This program only occurs in the summer.30 At first examination, one might think it lacks the defects of SOF language education. The program occurs in regions where the target language is natively spoken, meaning that students should have consistent practice in an immersive environment. As it occurs in the summer, students should study the language intensively without distractions. If students pair Project GO with domestic classes during the regular school year, they should have consistent and rapid progress.
Army SOF’s Chinese Language Challenge
1st Lt. Alexander Mosher, U.S. Army
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Soldiers from the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School speak with indigenous role-players during the Psychological Operations Qualification Course at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, on 16 June 2021. The soldiers were trained in culture, language, social sciences, civil analysis, and planning in complex ambiguous environments to carry out psychological operations and succeed in the special operations community. Training in Mandarin Chinese is deemed among the highest priority languages for special operations forces. (Photo by K. Kassens, U.S. Army)
The 2022 National Defense Strategy declared that the “[People’s Republic of China] remains our most consequential strategic competitor” and rightly affirmed the Department of Defense’s (DOD) renewed focus in the Far East.1 As recognized by the deputy secretary of defense in A Roadmap for Cultivating and Managing Skilled Language, Regional Expertise, and Cultural Talent (LREC), the critical language gap is among the U.S. military’s most alarming deficiencies, precluding it from fulfilling the 2022 National Defense Strategy. This roadmap not only reprimanded the DOD’s present failure to meet current language proficiency standards but also charged leaders to heighten those standards.2 Both directives apply to Army special operations forces (SOF), who require Chinese speakers with urgency. Unfortunately, as documented by a 2023 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), SOF fails to produce personnel who maintain elementary Chinese or who reach working proficiency.3 Due to the present and overwhelming importance of the Chinese language, this article will exclusively assess Chinese language acquisition among Army SOF. Specifically, this article proposes two recommendations to address the shortcomings of SOF’s current Chinese language education program. First, the DOD should enhance language programs directed at ROTC cadets, thereby increasing the pool of Chinese speakers for SOF to recruit from. Second, SOF recruiters should utilize a forthcoming LREC database to target those already proficient in Chinese.4
Why Special Operation Forces Require Language Proficiency
SOF plays a key role in assignments below declared, armed conflict and in high-risk missions where unconventional warfare is preferred to conventional practice. This unique problem set requires both foreign language proficiency and cross-cultural fluency.5 Specifically, Special Forces’ missions of unconventional warfare (i.e., directing an insurgency against an occupying power), foreign internal defense, and special reconnaissance; psychological operations’ mission of military information support operations and deception; and civil affairs’ partnership with government agencies and foreign militaries to secure U.S. diplomatic ends, all require foreign language proficiency.6 Besides a necessity for mission success, language proficiency has other positive second and third order effects. SOF personnel with language ability strengthen relationships with foreign partners and can communicate with local populations to meet day-to-day needs.7 SOF language requirements are determined by theater special operations commands. Theater special operations commands consider both current language needs as well as future contingencies when creating language capability requirements.8
West Point Cadet Christopher Clarkin (left), a Chinese language major, observes and engages with members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) during the thirteenth annual U.S.-China Disaster Management Exchange that took place 16–19 November 2017 at the Oregon National Guard’s Camp Rilea Armed Forces Training Center in Warrenton, Oregon. U.S. Army Pacific hosted the exchange with the PLA to foster mutual trust and understanding while sharing lessons learned to enhance disaster response in the Pacific region. This year marked first time U.S. Military Academy West Point cadets participated in the event. (Photo by Sgt. Tyler Meister, 115th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment)
The fruits SOF provides conventional forces cannot be overstated if SOF personnel are qualified to carry out their mission with foreign language proficiency. History provides no better example of this than T. E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia. Although the term “special operations” had yet to be coined, Lawrence’s career as a British officer during and after the First World War spanned psychological operations, irregular warfare, and civil affairs. Beginning while an undergraduate at Oxford and continuing after graduation, Lawrence took extensive expeditions to the Middle East on archeological surveys while studying Arabic.9 His language ability combined with his position directing Arab workmen meant he became “thoroughly conversant with the intricacies of their tribal and family jealousies, rivalries and taboos … [along with a] remarkable ability to identify with the feelings and personal priorities of individual Arabs … that enabled Lawrence to win the confidence and acceptance of the Arab people.”10 After the advent of the First World War, Lawrence returned to the Middle East to advise and direct an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire.11 Lawrence’s Bedouin irregulars committed constant and deep attacks against Turkish rail and communications infrastructure, forcing the Turks to disperse their troops and enabling conventional British forces to take the offensive, which culminated in the capture of Damascus.12 This episode is a textbook example of SOF acting as a force multiplier. With little investment of men or material, an advisor-driven campaign of unconventional warfare delivered decisive results. However, foreign language proficiency was and will be a nonnegotiable precondition of success.
A Brief Explanation of the Interagency Language Roundtable Scale
The federal government, including the DOD and SOF, use the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale to measure foreign language ability.13 A cursory understanding of this scale is necessary to understand SOF’s Chinese language deficiencies. The scale has six “base” levels starting at 0 and ending at 5. A score of 0 means no proficiency and a score of 5 indicates native proficiency. A “+” indicates an ability more advanced than the base level to its left but less advanced than the subsequent level (e.g., 2+ is more advanced than 2 but less advanced than 3).14 The Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT), which measures reading and listening comprehension, and the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), which measures speaking ability, are the most common tests to use this scale.15 Most second language learners will remain between levels 1 and 3, namely:
- Level 1 Survival Proficiency: One can exchange greetings, introduce oneself, and understand simple questions and commands.
- Level 1+ Elementary Proficiency: One can discuss beyond survival needs such as making travel accommodations or conversing on basic aspects of family and work.
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Level 2 Limited Working Proficiency: One can give and understand straightforward instructions and narratives.16
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Level 2+ Limited Working Proficiency Plus: One can understand most native speech and meet most work requirements.17
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Level 3 General Professional Proficiency: One can participate in most formal, informal, and professional settings with confidence.18
SOF’s Current Failure to Meet Proficiency Standards
Even though foreign language proficiency is critical to SOF’s mission, a recent review of SOF’s language ability has found it lamentably and recklessly low. The report in question was published by the GAO in October 2023. Army SOF personnel receive initial language training from four to six months (six for Chinese) to reach an ILR of 1+ (i.e., elementary) proficiency. Afterward, Chinese speaking SOF personnel are expected to study at least 120 hours per year to maintain that proficiency.19 SOF’s standards mandate that at least 80 percent of SOF personnel meet ILR 1+ for their assigned language in any given formation. The report found that less than half of SOF personnel completed any foreign language sustainment training. Including those who did not study at all, the average SOF member spends a mere fifteen to twenty-one hours per year in language study. It comes as no surprise then, that the report found “no more than three of the eight active-duty Army SOF formations, under the control of 1st Special Forces Command, had 80 percent of personnel achieve the minimum proficiency goal for their assigned foreign languages in a given year during fiscal years 2018 through 2022.”20 The ILR 1+ standard is already low. (Not until one reaches ILR 2 could one give and understand straightforward instructions.) An operator who could speak Chinese at the 1+ level may benefit personally in a Chinese speaking environment where he could order food and hail a taxi, but to work with partners and allies, he would still depend on a translator. The report found that commanders give language sustainment training low priority due to competing demands. SOF personnel who failed to maintain minimum language standards faced few or no consequences.21
The GAO recommended two policy changes to ensure SOF meets its own language standards. First, “establish and enforce consistent procedures that specify the consequences for SOF personnel that do not meet minimum foreign language proficiency standards,” and second, “hold unit commanders accountable for monitoring and reporting quality information about the extent to which SOF personnel are completing required annual sustainment and enhancement training hours.”22 These are good recommendations, but at best, if implemented, SOF personnel would sustain ILR 1+, which might convenience them while abroad but would fail to enable them to work with foreign partners without translators. For complete sufficiency, SOF requires Chinese speakers at ILR 2, 2+, and 3 levels, that is, working and general professional proficiency.23 Furthermore, the strategic outcome of the LREC roadmap produced for the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense mandated the DOD change training requirements to “increase productions of higher [foreign language] proficiencies.”24 The roadmap noted that an aggressive approach in LREC talent management was needed to meet strategic challenges, particularly in regard to irregular warfare.25 Both SOF’s current means of recruitment and language education are inadequate to the task.
SOF Chinese Education in Comparison
For SOF to recruit and develop ILR 2 and higher Chinese speakers, it must first understand the requisite time and effort needed to gain Chinese proficiency. The State Department categorizes languages on a scale of I to IV, with IV considered as “‘super-hard languages’” or “languages that are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers.”26 Category IV languages, of course, include Chinese. The State Department’s long-standing practice to develop Chinese proficiency is ten months of full-time language study stateside to reach ILR 2 and an additional ten months of study in Taipei or Beijing to reach ILR 3.27 Another point of comparison is Chinese majors at West Point who, studying Chinese less single-mindedly than their diplomatic counterparts, usually reach ILR 2.28 Contrasting the State Department’s versus SOF’s standard practices of Chinese language education, SOF’s defects are obvious. One cannot develop Chinese proficient enough to work with partners nor understand adversaries from a mere six months of study. Evidenced by the fact that more than half of SOF personnel decline to study their assigned language at all, most SOF personnel lack the motivation necessary to sustain and improve their Chinese even if they did reach ILR 2.
Soldiers from the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School’s (USAJFKSWCS) Language, Regional Expertise, and Culture program’s Chinese language course participate in a Language and Culture Day event on 25 April 2024 during Heritage Week at Fort Liberty, North Carolina. The event featured various performances, exhibits, language demonstrations, and food sampling from the eleven current languages taught at USAJFKSWCS. (Photo by K. Kassens, U.S. Army)
The period in which DOD personnel with the motivation to learn Chinese have the resources and time to do so is college. Hence, to solve SOF’s Chinese language woes, it behooves the DOD to improve both the quantity and quality of Chinese students among ROTC cadets. With officers who have achieved Chinese proficiency prior to commissioning, SOF will have a talent pool of motivated Chinese speaking officers to recruit from rather than wholly relying upon its current members to reach and maintain elementary proficiency. The DOD has two programs targeted toward Chinese language study among ROTC cadets: namely, Project Global Officer and the Language Flagship Program. Both have their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Project Global Officer
Project Global Officer (Project GO) is an initiative of the Defense Language and National Security Education Office (DLNSEO) to meet objective two of the DOD Strategic Plan for Language Skills, Regional Expertise, and Cultural Capabilities; namely, “build, enhance, and sustain a Total Force with a mix of language skills, regional expertise, and cultural capabilities to meet existing and emerging needs in support of national security objectives.”29 The program provides scholarships for ROTC cadets to study strategic languages in a region where they are natively spoken. Typically, an American university is paired with an overseas university. The domestic university’s language department and study abroad office will oversee the application process and logistics, while the foreign university will provide most of the language instruction in country. This program only occurs in the summer.30 At first examination, one might think it lacks the defects of SOF language education. The program occurs in regions where the target language is natively spoken, meaning that students should have consistent practice in an immersive environment. As it occurs in the summer, students should study the language intensively without distractions. If students pair Project GO with domestic classes during the regular school year, they should have consistent and rapid progress.
Students practice the Chinese characters in a calligraphy class in Taiwan. (Photo courtesy of Project Global Officer)
As the author with extensive personal experience can attest, Project GO rarely meets its potential. The DOD’s metrics of success are a stumbling block to their own end. The DOD’s Implementation Plan for LREC subobjective 2.1.1Ma states, “Increase the percentage of new active-duty officer accessions who are identified (tested or self-professed) as possessing a foreign language skill from 4.4% in FY11 to 6.0% by the end of FY16.”31 Since success is measured by the total number of officers who merely possess a foreign language skill of any level, Project GO’s goals are in turn lamentably low, namely “a minimum proficiency goal of ILR skill level 1 for all Project GO and … increasing the number of Project GO participants reaching ILR level 2.”32 An IRL 1 student can satisfy courtesy requirements and read very basic information.33 Study abroad scholarships are an extremely expensive way to produce officers who can read a few items on a Chinese menu and ask for directions. If ILR 1 officers are the benchmark of success, then there is no need to study abroad at all. It would be far cheaper and as effective for DLNSEO to encourage cadets to take a semester of Chinese domestically. Implicitly, Project GO aspires to higher goals. For summer 2025, two out of three programs offer year two and year three level Chinese classes. Only one program offers year four.34 Still, the low metric that measures success creates perverse incentives which in turn attract unmotivated students. ILR 1 can be achieved in a single summer semester offering year one Chinese classes. There are far more cadets who have never studied Chinese than those who have. The price tag per student, regardless of which level Chinese course is taken, is the same. Hence, the incentive, both monetary and measurable, is to have as many students as possible. A paucity of higher-level Chinese students encourages programs to fill their seats with students who lack any Chinese experience taking year one classes. What sort of students are these? They have all been in college for at least a year (some two or three) and declined to study Chinese. Yet when applying to Project GO, they attest they are motivated language learners. They are evidently not motivated enough to study Chinese in a nonexotic locale. These students are not motivated to study abroad but to go abroad at the DOD’s expense. They treat Project GO as a vacation and upon returning to the United States, rarely use Chinese again, either academically or in their military career. Sixteen percent of Project GO cadets reach the 2, 2+, and even the ILR 3 levels. These few almost certainly combine Project GO with language courses during the regular school year.35 Out of the vast majority of Project GO cadets, 70 percent only score a 1 or 1+ on the Oral Proficiency Interview, and 14 percent fail to even meet OPI 1.36
Improving Project GO
High intensity study abroad can and should be an effective means to rapidly improve language ability. In this regard, the gold standard for Chinese summer study abroad is Princeton in Beijing (PiB). Project GO used to provide scholarships for cadets to attend PiB up to the summer of 2018. PiB has key attributes that make it effective:
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Attribute 1: High intensity. PiB is commonly called “Prison in Beijing” due to how many hours students study in their personal time while attending four hours of class and an hour of tutoring each weekday. Only highly motivated language learners can expect to succeed.37
- Attribute 2: Total immersion. Students vow to only speak Chinese throughout the program. This is also known as a language pledge. Those found speaking English are penalized, sometimes by expulsion from the program. Additionally, students live and study where standard Mandarin is predominant and necessary for most activities. Some study abroad programs claim to have a language pledge but decline to enforce it, which in effect, is to lack a language pledge.
- Attribute 3: High academic standards. PiB students have daily and weekly examinations. Students who consistently fail these examinations are penalized.
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Attribute 4: One-on-one tutoring. American students are paired with a personal tutor outside of normal classroom attendance for at least an hour on weekdays.38
Language Flagship Program
Fortunately, DLNSEO has one outstanding program that produces ILR 2 and higher Chinese speaking officers, namely the Language Flagship Program. The Language Flagship partners with thirteen domestic universities to offer intensive Chinese instruction and advanced coursework beginning freshman year to produce professional language proficiency by graduation. Flagship participation is often combined with federal service, including commissioning future military officers with “professional-level language proficiency in critical languages … to reduce the Services’ burden of costly language training and retraining of mid-career officers.”39 Upon graduation, Flagship students studying Chinese may complete a year-long immersion program at Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) domestically or at National Chengchi University in Taipei. The results of the Language Flagship Program’s combination of long-term consistency, high intensity, and immersion speak for themselves. After completing their capstone, 27.8 percent of students had an ILR speaking proficiency of 2+ and 70.2 percent had a speaking proficiency of 3 or higher. As of the publication of DLNSEO’s 2023 annual report, there were twenty-eight Army ROTC cadets studying Chinese in the Language Flagship program.40
Improving ROTC Chinese Education
As has been demonstrated, the requisite time and effort needed to gain Chinese proficiency precludes most SOF personnel from obtaining it. The DOD personnel who do have the time and resources to gain Chinese proficiency are undergraduates. Therefore, it behooves DLNSEO to expand, improve, and reform Chinese language programs directed at ROTC cadets. The Language Flagship’s Chinese-Mandarin programs are incredibly successful at producing ILR 2+ and ILR 3 Chinese speakers. The Language Flagship should increase recruitment of first-year cadets at universities where they are presently and expand to other universities where a large portion of the student body is enrolled in ROTC. Project GO should be reformed to meet its full potential. First-year Chinese courses should be eliminated; summer study abroad for students with no Chinese language experience is a vacation on the DOD’s dime. Instead, Project GO should offer second-, third-, and fourth-year Chinese courses modeled upon the best practices of PiB. Those practices include penalizing students for failing weekly examinations and breaking their language pledge, with penalties as harsh as expulsion.41 This change will significantly decrease the total number of participants in the short term, but the quality of language instruction and students will more than make up the difference. DLNSEO should develop a fifth-year capstone immersion course for qualified students of Chinese at non-Language Flagship universities, including West Point. The Language Flagship’s fifth-year immersion capstone is decisive in Chinese students reaching the IRL 2+ or 3 levels. Although students at non-Language Flagship programs cannot enroll in Language Flagship specific coursework, their universities often offer comparable programs for advanced students.42
Zhijian “Kevin” Yang interacts with his Mandarin Chinese students in November 2015 at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center’s (DLIFLC) Asian School I in Monterey, California. Yang grew up during China’s Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s in Hohhot, the capital city of China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (Photo by Patrick Bray, DLIFLC Public Affairs)
SOF Recruitment
SOF needs Chinese speakers of ILR 2 or above for mission self-sufficiency. SOF’s current language program is not designed nor likely to produce personnel who understand Chinese at that level. College is the best period for the DOD to produce officers with Chinese proficiency; however, even if DLNSEO follows the suggestions above to reform Project GO and expand the Language Flagship Program, it will take years before SOF has a large enough pool of capable Chinese speaking officers to recruit from. Therefore, for SOF to improve its readiness in the short term, it could aggressively recruit officers and soldiers who already understand Chinese at ILR 2 or higher. Fortunately, a required action of the DOD’s LREC roadmap is to “develop and field a centralized DoD LREC database.”43 Armed with the forthcoming database, SOF recruiters could conveniently target capable Chinese speakers. Due to the urgency Chinese speakers are needed, it would behoove SOF to provide them with additional preparation before selection, thereby increasing their odds for success.44 (The Special Operations Preparation Course and Special Forces Preparation and Conditioning Course both already exist to prepare candidates for selection.)45 Deliberate recruitment of Chinese speakers would have positive second- and third-order effects. Past language learning success is the best indicator of future language learning success, and the pivot to Asia will require SOF personnel to know other difficult Asian languages. One should not forget that SOF language requirements account for possible contingencies. For example, in the event of conflict with the People’s Republic of China, collaboration with Tibetan partners is a possibility due to Tibetans’ long-standing dissatisfaction with their “autonomous” status within the People’s Republic of China.46 Operators working with Tibetans in their diaspora communities within Nepal, Bhutan, India, and elsewhere would need proficiency in Tibetan; however, in Tibet proper, state-mandated boarding schools use standard Mandarin as the primary language of instruction.47 Hence, to communicate with many Tibetan fighting-age males, those same SOF personnel would not only need to know Tibetan proficiently but Chinese as well.48
Military readiness does not and will not rely upon strength of arms alone. SOF can and will be a force multiplier, especially when far theaters of war call for irregular warfare. For an advisor-driven campaign of unconventional warfare, the raison d’être of Special Forces, success requires a sympathetic local populace capable of undertaking an unconventional campaign that also melds into larger war aims.49 But even if these preconditions are met, one remains that would bring the whole effort to naught; advisors who can neither communicate with local partners nor understand foreign adversaries. At this time, no language is more critical than Chinese, and the United States neglects its mastery at its own peril.
Notes
- U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (U.S. DOD, October 2022), III, 1.
- U.S. DOD, A Roadmap for Cultivating and Managing Skilled Language, Regional Expertise, and Culture Talent-Phase I (Defense Language National Security Education Office, August 2023), 1–4.
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U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Special Operations Forces Enhanced Training, Analysis, and Monitoring Could Improve Foreign Language Training Proficiency, GAO-24-105849 (U.S. GAO, October 2023), https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-105849.
- U.S. DOD, A Roadmap for Cultivating and Managing Skilled Language, Regional Expertise, and Culture Talent-Phase I, 5.
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U.S. GAO, Special Operations Forces Enhanced Training, GAO Highlights; Kyle Mizokami, “Confused by All the U.S. Special Forces? Here’s a Guide,” The Reboot (blog), National Interest, 21 August 2021, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/confused-all-us-special-forces-here%E2%80%99s-guide-192216.
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“Special Forces,” GoArmy, accessed 15 January 2025, https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/special-forces; “Psychological Operations,” GoArmy, accessed 15 January 2025, https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/psychological-operations; “Civil Affairs,” GoArmy, accessed 15 January 2025, https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/civil-affairs.
- U.S. GAO, Special Operations Forces Enhanced Training, 4–5.
- Ibid., 10–11.
- James Schneider, Guerrilla Leader: T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt (Bantam Books, 2011), 7–15.
- John Mack as quoted in Schneider, Guerrilla Leader, 13.
- John Arquilla, Insurgents, Raiders, and Bandits: How Masters of Irregular Warfare Have Shaped Our World (Ivan R. Dee, 2011), 159, 164.
- Ibid., 166–68; Schneider, Guerilla Leader, 238–40.
- U.S. GAO, Special Operations Forces Enhanced Training, 7.
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“Descriptions of Proficiency Levels,” Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR), accessed 15 January 2025, https://govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale1.htm.
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“DLPT Relevant Information and Guides,” Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, accessed 15 January 2025, https://www.dliflc.edu/resources/dlpt-guides/.
- U.S. GAO, Special Operations Forces Enhanced Training, 7.
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“Interagency Language Roundtable Language Skill Level Descriptions—Speaking,” ILR, accessed 15 January 2025, https://govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm#2+.
- U.S. GAO, Special Operations Forces Enhanced Training, 7.
- Ibid., 5, 7, 26.
- Ibid., 21, 26–27.
- Ibid., 7, 25, 30–31.
- Ibid., 34–35.
- Ibid., 7.
- U.S. DOD, A Roadmap for Cultivating and Managing Skilled Language, Regional Expertise, and Culture Talent-Phase I, 7.
- Ibid., 3.
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“Foreign Language Training,” U.S. Department of State, accessed 15 January 2025, https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/.
- David Brown (former member of the Senior Foreign Service), in discussion with the author, 14 March 2024.
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“Foreign Language: Chinese Major,” U.S. Military Academy at West Point, accessed 21 January 2025, https://www.westpoint.edu/academics/majors-and-minors/foreign-language-chinese-major.
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“Objectives,” Project GO, accessed 21 January 2025, https://www.rotcprojectgo.org/objectives; U.S. DOD, Strategic Plan for Language Skills, Regional Expertise, and Cultural Capabilities (U.S. Department of Defense), 8, 15.
- Project GO also offers domestic programs where cadets study a foreign language at an American university over a summer semester. The author has personally never attended any domestic Project GO programs and will forgo commenting on their effectiveness.
- Defense Language National Security Education Office (DLNSEO), Implementation Plan for Language Skills, Regional Expertise, and Cultural Capabilities (U.S. DOD, January 2014), 8.
- DLNSEO, National Security Education Program 2023 Annual Report (U.S. DOD, 2023), 44.
-
Ibid., 82; “Interagency Language Roundtable Language Skill Level Descriptions—Reading,” ILR, accessed 15 January 2025, https://govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale4.htm.
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“Find a Program,” Project GO, accessed 28 January 2025, https://www.rotcprojectgo.org/programs?field_language_target_id=629&field_course_level_target_id=All&field_course_type_target_id=56&field_school_target_id=All&field_program_start_date_value=&field_program_end_date_value=&field_location_program_value=.
- DLNSEO, National Security Education Program 2023 Annual Report, 45.
- Ibid.
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Teresa Irigoyen-Lopez, “Summer Language Programs,” Princeton University, 1 August 2018, https://admission.princeton.edu/blogs/summer-language-programs.
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“Academics,” Princeton in Beijing, accessed 21 January 2025, https://pib.princeton.edu/academics.
- DLNSEO, National Security Education Program 2023 Annual Report, 28.
- Ibid., 25–32.
- Expulsion should be retained as a means to enforce the language pledge, but discipline need not begin there. Project GO faculty should build working relationships with their students’ respective ROTC cadre and determine less harsh penalties for initially breaking the language pledge. For example, most students would quickly rectify their actions if threatened with demotion from a prestigious leadership role.
- For example, language pledge dormitories.
- U.S. DOD, A Roadmap for Cultivating and Managing Skilled Language, Regional Expertise, and Culture Talent-Phase I, 8.
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See “Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate,” Navy.com, accessed 21 January 2025, https://www.navy.com/careers-benefits/education/nupoc. Deliberate recruitment does not suggest lowering selection standards. Rather, it allows special operations forces (SOF) to raise its standards regarding Chinese proficiency. Other selective programs, such as the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate program, recruit deliberately, precisely because they have high standards and specific education requirements.
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Stew Smith, “An Overview of Special Ops Prep Courses and Pre-Selection Programs,” Military.com, 25 April 2018, https://www.military.com/military-fitness/military-workouts/special-operations-fitness/overview-special-ops-prep-courses-and-pre-selection-programs.
-
See CNN Wire Staff, “Timeline of Tibetan Protests in China,” CNN, 31 January 2012, https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/31/world/asia/tibet-protests-timeline/index.html. The last case of major civil unrest occurred in 2008 in conjunction with the Beijing Olympics. However, protests in Tibet have occurred on and off since the fifties.
-
Constance Kassor, “Tibetan Diaspora: Hardships and New Realities,” virtual lecture, 2023, 22 min., 0 sec., part of Tibet: History, Culture, and Religion, The Great Courses, https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/tibet-history-culture-and-religion; “China: UN Experts Alarmed by Separation of 1 Million Tibetan Children From Families and Forced Assimilation at Residential Schools,” United Nations, 6 February 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/02/china-un-experts-alarmed-separation-1-million-tibetan-children-families-and.
- See Kassor, “How the Tibetan Language Invented an Empire.” The U.S. State Department considers Tibetan a Category III language; however, it comes with its own unique challenges. Spoken Tibetan is a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Because written Tibetan was appropriated from the Gupta script of northern India, it shares many similarities with Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language of the Indo-European language family. Those learning Tibetan as a second language might find this combination challenging. SOF preparing for such a contingency would require a talent pool of gifted and highly motivated language learners.
- Arquilla, Insurgents, 158–59.
1st Lt. Alexander Mosher, U.S. Army, is a fire control platoon leader in 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at Fort Cavazos, Texas. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies from the University of Virginia and studied abroad through the Project GO program four times. His latest score on the DLPT for Mandarin-Chinese was 2+/2+. He has deployed to Bahrain.
16. Rough Seas Ahead: Steering the Military Profession
Conclusion:
The U.S. military today is navigating stormy seas in truly uncharted waters. Its only way to weather the current storms is to steer a course of true north, anchoring on mission, values, and people. That course will necessarily be shaped by leaders at all levels who are going to be called upon to demonstrate moral courage — and a sense of duty to the profession of arms that will protect the historic core values of every service from erosion or elimination. Today, as since the nation’s founding, America’s men and women in uniform remain the nation’s first line of defense against its enemies — a responsibility that will not wane no matter what happens. The privates and lieutenants of 2035 and beyond deserve to join a force led by America’s best men and women, imbued with character, selflessness, and vision. Those amazing leaders can be found in every squadron, in every company, and on every quarterdeck across the U.S. military today. The future of the American profession of arms will be theirs, if they can summon the resilience and commitment to ride out this storm.
Rough Seas Ahead: Steering the Military Profession - War on the Rocks
Dave Barno and Nora Bensahel
warontherocks.com · by Dave Barno · March 4, 2025
The cyclone of rapid-fire actions taken by the Trump administration in its first weeks has affected every part of the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense and military services. The Feb. 21 summary dismissal of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and many other uniformed senior leaders without explanation was simply unprecedented, and signaled a serious assault on U.S. civil-military norms. Never before have so many senior military officers been fired without clear cause, much less at the beginning of a new president’s term. Some of the key cornerstones of the military — and the long-standing profession of arms — seem to be under direct attack.
In this disruptive and unsettling environment, we fear that leaders across the force may begin to question the value of their service — and their future prospects in an increasingly politicized force. We’ve already heard many of our military colleagues express growing concerns about the president’s apparent sympathy for Russia while spurning Ukraine and NATO; the sudden removal of the military’s top lawyers because they could pose “roadblocks” to the president’s orders; and the chilling effect of firing seasoned uniformed leaders, typically without explanation — especially women. The administration’s actions have reversed decades of U.S. national security policy and created an extraordinary civil-military crisis — and all indications suggest they are far from finished.
Protecting and stewarding the profession of arms through the turbulent years to come should be among the highest priorities of today’s military leaders of all ranks. As historian James Burk has written, a “profession is a relatively ‘high status’ occupation whose members apply abstract knowledge to solve problems in a particular field of endeavor.” The recognition of the military as a profession goes back to the 1800s, and mirrors those of medicine and law. Those of us seeking medical advice unquestionably turn to physicians, and those of us who need legal advice turn to attorneys, because of the training, expertise, and standards inherent in those two professions. In the same way, the nation’s repository of military expertise on the conduct of war resides in the U.S. military, especially in its officer corps. Protecting that domain of expertise, and shielding its precious human capital from an erosion of standards and accountability, are among the highest responsibilities of the stewards of the military profession — its uniformed leaders at all levels.
How should serving military leaders — especially those in junior or mid-career ranks — think about these challenges? For those weighing the often-irreversible decision to stay in uniform or get out, what advice can we give? What can you do, whatever your role, to nurture and protect the profession? Here are several suggestions.
Become a Member
Maintain Your Perspective
The U.S. profession of arms has weathered serious civil-military storms before and emerged stronger. Following the defeat in Vietnam, for example, the U.S. military was a broken force that had lost much of the trust and confidence of the American people and its elected leaders. As one of us witnessed at the time, indiscipline, drug abuse, and racial tensions riddled the ranks, and the officer corps struggled with rampant careerism and breaches of integrity and ethics. As the war ended, hundreds of combat-experienced junior officers leaders left or were pushed out as the force rapidly downsized. Yet the leaders who stayed and weathered those storms rebuilt the force over the next decade into the professional and highly capable military of today. We readily acknowledge that the challenges today will be much harder to address since they stem primarily from the decisions of civilian officials rather than internal issues that military leaders can control. But it nevertheless stands as a reminder that military professionalism has endured through difficult times before, and today’s military leaders will help it do so again.
Look Inward
Make your piece of the military the very best part of the force that it can be. Set the example for integrity and professionalism. Stay above the partisan fray, and don’t let it infect your unit or your workplace. Mentor your rising leaders and be an unflagging source of encouragement and support for them. Exemplify — and talk to your people about — your service’s values and its ethos. Discuss what it means to be a profession, and the standards and ethos it requires. Focus on the mission, developing your people, and discussing and adhering to your service’s values. Focusing inward will help you best take care of your people as they try to make sense of what may be a cascade of jarring changes, all while doing their jobs and weighing life choices.
Look Deep
This turbulent period will end at some point. But the military profession must endure since the U.S. military will still be responsible for defending the nation in the years and decades to come. The rising leaders in today’s military are among the most important stewards of the profession, since their imprint will last for decades to come. Ten years from now, when you or your colleagues look back on this time, what lessons will you talk about to your troops and junior leaders? What can we learn now, and in the coming years, that will help the military profession remain strong? And what choices will be necessary to protect key parts of the profession in the coming years?
Keep Your Political Opinions Private, Whatever They Are
Many of the Trump administration’s decisions about the military have been highly controversial, but there is no question that they have the legal authority to replace senior leaders, change policies, and re-organize and re-direct the force. If you disagree with these decisions, remember that, as civil-military scholar Peter Feaver has noted, civilian leaders have the right to be wrong. Venting your frustrations and criticizing those decisions in front of your subordinates or on social media is not only inappropriate — it undermines your authority as a leader who may be charged with executing missions with which you disagree. And if you agree with the administration, keep that to yourself as well. In these polarized times, you may well be leading troops who have different views — and publicizing your opinions only risks furthering the dangerous politicization of the military. Professionalism requires nonpartisan uniformed leadership that embodies self-control and discretion.
Think About Your Red Lines in Advance
Civilian control of the military does not erase the obligation of every military leader to consider the moral and ethical implications of what they do. We’ve written about this topic before, focused on civil servants, and there seems little question that the stakes and the challenges will be much greater in this second Trump administration. Legal orders must be followed, but every leader should reflect upon their own level of personal ethical limits when continuing to serve. The U.S. military has very little tradition of resignation in protest. The norms of the military profession have long held that when a decision is being considered, you can contribute your views, but then must salute and execute vigorously once the decision is made. That said, if you are directed to take actions that deeply violate your personal ethics or beliefs — such as endorsing false statements, lying to the media, or deceiving members of Congress — principled resignation may be your only option, even though it remains controversial. Keep in mind, though, that you could find yourself prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, for refusing to obey a direct order or other issues. There are no easy decisions here, which is why it helps to think about these in advance, and to identify those you might rely on for personal and even legal advice.
Embrace Duty, Mission, People, and Values
Dedication and commitment to service means navigating the toughest times and being there to lead the people beneath you. Your example of leadership under the most difficult circumstances will both inspire and affect your peers and subordinates, even long past your time in uniform. If you believe in what you are doing, and believe in the profession, you should make every effort to stay despite the frustrations, disappointments, and inevitable injustices. Those who stay and remain true to the values of the profession — duty, honor, integrity, courage, character — will have the opportunity to lead the renewal of the military profession and culture when the current chaotic disruption recedes. The institution — and future generations of soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians — desperately need you.
The U.S. military today is navigating stormy seas in truly uncharted waters. Its only way to weather the current storms is to steer a course of true north, anchoring on mission, values, and people. That course will necessarily be shaped by leaders at all levels who are going to be called upon to demonstrate moral courage — and a sense of duty to the profession of arms that will protect the historic core values of every service from erosion or elimination. Today, as since the nation’s founding, America’s men and women in uniform remain the nation’s first line of defense against its enemies — a responsibility that will not wane no matter what happens. The privates and lieutenants of 2035 and beyond deserve to join a force led by America’s best men and women, imbued with character, selflessness, and vision. Those amazing leaders can be found in every squadron, in every company, and on every quarterdeck across the U.S. military today. The future of the American profession of arms will be theirs, if they can summon the resilience and commitment to ride out this storm.
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Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, U.S. Army (ret.), and Dr. Nora Bensahel are professors of practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and are also contributing editors at War on the Rocks, where their column appears periodically. Sign up for Barno and Bensahel’s Strategic Outpost newsletter to track their articles as well as their public events.
Image: Airman First Class Thomas Cox via DVIDS.
Special Series, Strategic Outpost
warontherocks.com · by Dave Barno · March 4, 2025
17. USAF’s Special Ops Autonomy Push Looking Toward Air-Launched Swarms
USAF’s Special Ops Autonomy Push Looking Toward Air-Launched Swarms | Aviation Week Network
aviationweek.com · by Brian Everstine
FORT WALTON BEACH, Florida—U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command is looking to go big with a new autonomy effort, moving from solely focusing on using MQ-9 Reapers as host to its C-130 variants.
The command for the past two years has been working on its Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E) effort, which would use Reapers to air-launch smaller uncrewed air vehicles (UAV) to allow one service member to operate multiple UAVs at once. Command officials say they want to get beyond this “myopic” view and shift A2E to platform-agnostic, with the ultimate hope of air-launching swarms from other platforms, including pallets on MC-130s or wing-mounted pods on AC-130 gunships.
The command last year demonstrated MQ-9s air-launching smaller UAVs, using the Golden Horde autonomy system to control four of the systems. While four is not a full “swarm” yet, it is more than one, officials argue.
“We’ve got to establish some wins and some successes in what we’re trying to do right now before we go too broad,” AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. Michael Conley tells Aviation Week at the Special Air Warfare Symposium here.
The goal now is to provide some “limited combat capability” within the next two years, he says.
While the command does not want to get away from using MQ-9s, the size of the Reapers limits what can be carried. Pallets on MC-130s, for example, could air-drop dozens of UAVs to provide surveillance, electronic warfare, electronic attack or other capabilities at a much larger scale. The palletized air-launch focus could look similar to Rapid Dragon, the AFSOC and Air Mobility Command program to air-launch cruise missiles using a pallet in the back of a cargo aircraft.
AFSOC bought three General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. MQ-9Bs in 2023 for its effort. Demonstrations have shown their effectiveness, though the autonomy is not “there yet” and needs to be matured, Conley says.
The effort is a collaboration between AFSOC, U.S. Special Operations Command’s Program Executive Office-Fixed Wing and the Air Force Research Laboratory, which developed the Golden Horde software.
aviationweek.com · by Brian Everstine
18. Inside the $43M center for special operation forces students and instructors at Fort Bragg
Investing in the human element. Photos at the link.
Inside the $43M center for special operation forces students and instructors at Fort Bragg
https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/military/2025/03/03/center-open-for-army-special-warfare-center-students-at-fort-bragg/77746676007/
Rachael Riley
Fayetteville Observer
- AI-assisted summary
- Fort Bragg's new $43 million Human Performance-Force Generation Training Center supports special operations students and instructors with holistic training.
- The center features a 40,000 square-foot gym, physical therapy lab and a synthetic training environment.
- Soldiers have access to strength coaches, dieticians, physical therapists and mental performance coaches who work together to optimize performance.
FORT BRAGG — A new $43 million Human Performance-Force Generation Training Center used by special operation forces students and instructors is the latest addition to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School campus on Fort Bragg.
The 90,000-square-foot center, which opened in late January, supports 300-400 soldiers daily with strength training, nutritional counseling and support, physical therapy, mental performance, cogitative performance and behavioral health all in this building, said Lt. Col. Michael Handlan, human and performance wellness director for the center.
He said 53 people, including strength coaches, dietitians, physical therapists, mental performance coaches and performance integrators, help operate the center.
Performance integrators are retired senior special operations personnel who serve as senior mentors and training leads for some of the center’s training programs.
Mike Fields, the center's deputy director, said the integrators are able to provide context to how what a strength coach or physical therapist tells a soldier is applied in the field.
The dieticians, strength coaches, mental performance coaches and performance integrators are what Fields describe as a “holistic team.”
“There’s no separation really between strength coaches, physical therapists and the dieticians,” Handlan said Feb. 26 during a tour of the center. “They can all come in and work in the same place with a soldier anywhere in the facility. I can talk the soldiers through whatever mental performance tasks that they want them to focus on while they’re doing physical training. I can integrate all of those things seamlessly in one place, which is really an incredible advantage.”
Who the center supports
Handlan said the center is for Special Forces, civil affairs and psychological operations soldiers preparing to go through assessment and selection and those who are about to be assigned to a group.
It is also used by regiment instructors and regiment soldiers going through professional development courses, like the captain’s career and pre-command courses, he said.
Every new soldier preparing for Special Forces assessment and selection, Handlan said, goes through a one-week introduction course in which they undergo a baseline testing for body composition, mobility, agility, baseline strength and other wellness domains.
As they advance in their career, Handlan said the soldier can compare their baseline measurements to see if they have gotten better in certain areas or if weaknesses are identified.
Fitness
On the first floor of the center is a 40,000-square-foot gym.
The fitness space, Handlan said, can fit about 230 soldiers on strength equipment and up to another 100 soldiers on a 65-yard artificial turf indoor field and a smaller outdoor artificial turf field.
The space can allow for three different classes at the same time, while other soldiers can focus on their individual strength training programs, he said.
The gym area features 44 customized strength training racks for Olympic lifts, squats, benches and presses, while also having dumbbells, medicine balls and kettlebells in the rack space.
The area is also equipped with 56 cardiovascular machines, 22 lower body machines and 10 push-and-pull sleds.
Handlan said strength coaches are still working with soldiers in outdoor elements and leading ruck marches, so the fitness isn’t limited to the center.
At the back of the gym is a recovery room, with zero gravity chairs that take pressure off the spine and lower back, and pressurized pants that push out blood and lactic acid build up in the legs to aid in quicker recovery, he said.
Physical therapy
Housed in the center are physical therapists, who, Handlan said, work with strength coaches so that a soldier can train other muscles if they have a specific injury or incorporate physical therapy into their strength training.
A lab in the physical therapy area also contains a Biodex machine to help measure a soldier’s strength and recovery time and compare different muscle strengths, Handlan said.
The technology helps cut down on injuries, he said.
“Those are tools that are just really helpful for us to make sure that we are putting truly healthy and recovered soldiers back into training to give them the best chances for success, either in the qualification course or in their future careers,” Handlan said.
Another tool measures body composition, along with body fat and muscle percentage and bone density.
Ground force plates measure gait and foot pressure when walking, which can help diagnose injuries or imbalances, Handlan said.
Synthetic training environment
One of the center’s upstairs rooms provides a synthetic training environment, where Handlan said soldiers can focus on mental and physical training.
On one side of the room is a screen that can simulate shooting ranges and allow soldiers to practice mental performance skills, like pulling a card with a number and finding the number as a target on the simulated range.
“I don’t have to go and request a range. I don’t have to wait. I can do all that here and give them multiple reps and good feedback in a short time span,” Handlan said.
On another side of the room are cardio bikes for soldiers to elevate their heart rate, similar to a stress test, before they move to a screen that could simulate a battlefield environment where a medic might have to treat a patient.
The simulations, Fields said, incorporate technology that can monitor the soldier’s heart rate or track where their pupils are looking to see if they’re putting an IV where they need to or focusing on what they’re supposed to.
“In a real-world environment, you got a casualty, or you’re trying to triage a guy, you have to get your heart rate down and be more successful and more efficient,” he said.
Nutrition
The center features an instructional kitchen, where Handlan said three performance dieticians on staff can lead classes on teaching soldiers how to prepare food correctly.
“We have a staff member who says, ‘If you give a soldier a strength plan and you don’t teach them how to do the exercises correctly, they’re not going to do it right. If our dieticians give somebody a meal plan, but they don’t know how to prepare their food correctly, it’s pointless,’” he said.
Behavioral
Handlan said the center will provide soldiers with access to behavioral health professionals in the next couple of months, so they don’t have to drive across post.
While the center is open from 5:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, officials said the previous facility in Bank Hall is open at any time, so soldiers who have night classes or need access after hours have access to a fitness facility.
Handlan said the center promotes the ARSOF truth that “humans are more important than hardware,” which is stated on the backs of strength coaches’ shirts.
“We live it. We mean it,” he said. “This is getting them through training sustaining them, building a healthy foundation for all the domains of physical nutrition, physical therapy, cognitive so that when they go to a group, all those healthy habits are established, and then they're set up for a career of success in ARSOF which is what we want. That's the whole purpose of the program.”
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.
19. Abandoned US Weapons in Afghanistan Fuel Terrorist Groups
A view from Pakistan.
Abandoned US Weapons in Afghanistan Fuel Terrorist Groups
globalasia.org
Our new blog for expert news, analysis
and debate on current affairs in Asia.
Kaswar Klasra
Abandoned US Weapons in Afghanistan Fuel Terrorist Groups
04 Mar 2025
In a stark and urgent address to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 10, Pakistan's representative, Munir Akram, issued a grave warning: terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan are not only destabilizing the region but also pose a significant threat to global security. The sentiment was echoed by representatives from the United States, China and Russia, highlighting the escalating concern over Afghanistan's transformation into a breeding ground for international terrorism.
The unprecedented alignment of Pakistan and the United States at the UN underscores the severity of the situation. US Ambassador Dorothy Shea, the Chargé d’Affaires and interim US representative to the United Nations, emphasized the direct links between Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) and terrorist networks in Afghanistan, expressing deep concern over its potential to execute attacks and sustain recruitment campaigns in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. This collaboration between nations signifies a collective acknowledgment of the imminent threat these groups pose beyond regional confines.
Vladimir Voronkov, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism, presented a comprehensive overview of the global terrorism landscape. He highlighted the volatile situation in Syria and the alarming risk of advanced weapon stockpiles falling into terrorist hands. Voronkov specifically noted that in Afghanistan, IS-Khorasan has been actively plotting attacks in Europe and recruiting individuals from Central Asian states, thereby extending its influence and operational reach. This assessment underscores the transnational nature of the threat emanating from Afghanistan.
US weapons left behind fuel global terrorism
The chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 inadvertently bolstered the capabilities of various militant groups. The Taliban seized a vast arsenal left behind, including approximately 78 aircraft, 40,000 military vehicles, and over 300,000 weapons. This cache, detailed in a 2022 Department of Defense report, has significantly enhanced the operational capacity of groups like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The TTP, now estimated to have 6,000 to 6,500 fighters, has escalated its attacks, leading to a surge in violence within Pakistan. The availability of advanced weaponry has intensified the lethality of their assaults and also emboldened their cross-border operations.
Off-the-record conversations with security experts based in Pakistan, the Middle East, Kabul and Washington, have revealed that American weapons abandoned in Afghanistan have flooded black markets, arming terrorists across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and even Europe. Arms like M4 carbines, M16 rifles, and night vision gear are now status symbols among militants, fetching high prices – an M4 in good condition sells for up to $4,400, while cheaper alternatives like Pakistan-made AK-47 knock-offs go for as little as $630. The Taliban, now central to a vast smuggling network, profit from trafficking these weapons alongside narcotics, distributing them to extremist groups in Pakistan and insurgents in Kashmir. Video evidence shows these militants using US weapons and advanced equipment against security forces.
Reports confirm that terrorist organizations from al-Shabab in Africa to Islamic State affiliates in Southeast Asia are acquiring these arms through the same smuggling channels used for drugs and other contraband. The scope of the abandoned US arsenal is staggering – $7.12 billion worth of arms, including 600,000 small arms, 26,000 heavy weapons, 61,000 military vehicles, and advanced technology such as biometric systems. The Taliban not only control this arsenal but also tax the illicit trade, making weapons smuggling a lucrative business. With terrorist attacks increasing globally, the unchecked proliferation of US arms poses a severe threat to international security.
Pakistan's struggle with enhanced threats
Pakistan has been grappling with a marked increase in militant attacks, particularly in its western provinces bordering Afghanistan. The TTP has orchestrated numerous assaults against civilians and law enforcement agencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while the Majeed Brigade, a specialized unit of the Baloch Liberation Army, has intensified operations in Baluchistan. The sophistication and frequency of these attacks suggest a direct correlation with the advanced weaponry now at the militants' disposal. Despite Pakistan's repeated diplomatic engagements urging the Taliban-led Afghan government to curb the TTP's activities, Kabul has dismissed these concerns as unfounded allegations, further straining bilateral relations.
A report released on Dec. 30, 2024, revealed that terrorist attacks in Pakistan killed over 1,600 civilians and security personnel in 2024, marking a surge in violence, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan. The Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) reported that 60 percent of the casualties were civilians, while security forces suffered their highest losses in a decade, with 685 personnel killed.
Pakistan blames cross-border militant activity from Afghanistan. The resurgence of violence is driven by the TTP and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), both designated as terrorist organizations by the UN and the US. With terrorism escalating, Pakistan faces a critical security crisis.
Pakistan has been raising this issue frequently. In 2023, Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar blamed leftover US and NATO military equipment in Afghanistan for fueling violence in the region. He said that instead of improving security, the Taliban’s takeover in 2021 has worsened Pakistan’s situation. Kakar warned that unaccounted-for arms, including advanced night-vision equipment, pose a threat to Pakistan, Central Asia, and Iran.
UN report highlights rising TTP threat
A UN report has confirmed that the Afghan Taliban continue to support TTP, fueling an increase in attacks against Pakistan. TTP has expanded its training camps and recruitment efforts while strengthening ties with Al Qaeda and other militant factions, according to the 35th report from the UN’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, which was submitted to the UN Security Council.
The Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team is an independent expert panel established to assist in enforcing sanctions on individuals and groups linked to Al Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Daesh) and affiliated entities. Every six months, the team releases reports assessing security threats posed by these organizations.
The UN report, covering July 1 to Dec. 13, 2024, highlighted a surge in TTP attacks on Pakistan. The report noted that despite mounting pressure, the group's presence and influence in Afghanistan remained unchanged, with over 600 attacks launched – many from Afghan soil.
In response, Pakistan has ramped up military operations and diplomatic efforts, though Kabul resists taking direct action. Meanwhile, the BLA has intensified its activities and formed new alliances with religious militant groups. Pakistani security forces have arrested key IS-K figures, but the group has adapted by shifting its communication methods to avoid detection.
In response to the threat, Pakistan has conducted targeted operations against militant hideouts within Afghanistan. These preemptive strikes, aimed at dismantling terrorist infrastructure, have inadvertently sparked a series of cross-border retaliations. This cycle of action and retaliation has exacerbated tensions between Islamabad and Kabul, complicating regional stability.
Call for international intervention
Experts warn that Afghanistan's current trajectory positions it as a global epicenter for terrorism. The unchecked proliferation of advanced weaponry among militant groups not only destabilizes South Asia but also poses a tangible threat to international security. The potential for these groups to orchestrate attacks beyond their immediate geography necessitates a coordinated global response. Collaborative efforts, intelligence sharing, and strategic interventions are imperative to prevent Afghanistan from serving as a launchpad for international terrorist operations.
The situation in Afghanistan is a clarion call for the international community. The convergence of advanced weaponry in the hands of militant groups, coupled with a dismissive stance from the Afghan authorities, has created a volatile environment with far-reaching implications. Addressing this multifaceted threat requires a unified, strategic, and sustained global effort to ensure that Afghanistan does not revert to being a sanctuary for terrorism that endangers global peace and security.
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Kaswar Klasra is an Islamabad-based journalist, working as editor-in-chief of The Islamabad Telegraph. He writes for numerous regional and international publications.
20. Chinese info ops, military sales driving ‘wedges’ between US and partners in the Middle East
Chinese info ops, military sales driving ‘wedges’ between US and partners in the Middle East
defenseone.com · by Audrey Decker
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) and Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty shake hands after a joint briefing in Beijing on December 13, 2024. GREG BAKER / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
Concerns come as the Trump admin slashes USAID—leaving space for more Chinese influence globally.
March 3, 2025 08:25 PM ET
By Audrey Decker
Staff Writer
March 3, 2025 08:25 PM ET
AURORA, Colo.—China is driving wedges between the United States and Middle Eastern countries by spreading information that paints the U.S. as an unreliable partner while pitching its own military offerings as better options, according to a senior U.S. military official.
“They are opportunistic, absolutely, in the information operations sphere, and so they are very quick to point out and amplify things that come out against the U.S., whether it's policy decisions or things that they have really no game in, [such as] the Israel-Hamas war, but they are very quick to drive wedges between us and partners and to highlight things…that make us look like either unreliable partners or irresponsible partners,” the official said on the sidelines of the AFA Warfare Symposium.
For years, China has been conducting influence operations aimed at undermining Western interests and planting disinformation around topics like Ukraine, Taiwan, and the U.S.
The country is driving “wedges when they can, and with the intent of opening up gaps so that they could potentially fill those gaps with some influence,” the official said. Those efforts include doing military training with regional actors like the United Arab Emirates, a country the United States considers “vital” to counter-terrorism efforts as well as other U.S. interests.
These concerns about China’s influence in the Middle East are intensifying as the Trump administration dismantles the United States Agency for International Development and other U.S. agencies aimed at dispersing foreign aid, stoking fears that U.S. influence will wane and China will fill those gaps.
China also sees the Middle East as ripe for economic influence and has been pitching military products at air shows in Bahrain and Egypt, the official said. And the country is quick to point out that their military wares can be delivered “cheaper and faster” than U.S. products, the official added.
Current threat landscape in the Mideast
The military official also outlined the current security situation in the Middle East—noting a decline in the activity of most Iran-backed militia groups over the past six months.
“Lebanese Hezbollah clearly has been hurt a great deal by Israel. We've seen the fall of the Assad regime. And so the avenues that they've been able to use to bring in weapons and funding have kind of collapsed on them a little bit. We see militia groups in Iraq right now being less active,” the official said.
The one outlier is the Houthis, who remain very active and continue to develop weapons in surprising and almost impressive ways, the official said.
“We see them putting together weapon systems and putting them together in ways, and giving them a try. And a lot of times they fail. When we talk about, in the military, about failing forward and being innovative … with a begrudging tip of the hat to the Houthis, they're actually doing that and I think learning. We've been surprised at times with some of the things that we see them do,” the official said.
21. Advancing Artificial Intelligence in the U.S. Military - Advancing Artificial Intelligence in the U.S. Military
Advancing Artificial Intelligence in the U.S. Military - Advancing Artificial Intelligence in the U.S. Military
defenseopinion.com · by Norm Litterini · March 2, 2025
The end of the beginning of widespread Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption has arrived. Instead of seeming like a futuristic scene from a movie, today’s advancements are making a marked difference in processing large data sets.
These advances in capability and reliability demonstrate that AI should have a role in any unified threat intelligence strategy for the U.S. military, because of its incredible potential to accelerate the production of actionable intelligence and decision-advantage workflows.
Unified threat intelligence describes a comprehensive approach to collecting, analyzing and sharing threat information across an organization. While the U.S. military has used the concept for years describing efforts to gather intelligence from multiple sources, introducing AI tools drives operational efficiency and accelerates the response to threats.
The concept includes two tenets: ensuring the joint team has a singular and comprehensive view of the threat landscape and that teams can respond by combining data from cyber, geopolitical and physical intelligence sources into a single, actionable intelligence stream.
Even with the improvements afforded by AI, the two fundamental challenges still exist: an overabundance of data to process and false positive/false negative errors. AI continues to improve and attempts to keep pace with vast amounts of data collected, but the need for humans in the loop has not decreased. The military still requires humans to ensure AI performs well enough to “minimax” type one errors (false positives) and to try to eliminate type two errors (false negatives) altogether.
Military embraces AI platforms
As early adopters of proven technology, the U.S. military has embraced AI platforms for analyzing imagery, sensing and tracking and large language models that can search vast data sets and legacy documentation. These AI tools do hundreds of hours of precise work in seconds.
The public sector has identified or is developing bespoke models for both broad and niche use cases. An exciting addition to the process is the development of unconstrained virtual workspaces. This is where these models can be applied, inviting stakeholders to share and fuse their information and data streams while providing practical boundaries and high security. The virtual workspaces create a highly informed mission command environment to support multi-domain operations (MDO).
AI heavily benefits the initial stage of unified threat intelligence strategy detections by improving insights derived from large, disparate data sets. It can accelerate supervised learning and completely transform unsupervised learning—doing what humans cannot—to identify correlations across dissimilar data sets.
For example, AI can correlate textual insights, with insights derived from imagery, with measurement and signature intelligence. It can fuse data on the physical movement of troops and assets, geopolitical climate and cyber activity to determine actors, actions, and threat objectives.
Improving analysis and decision-making
A unified threat intelligence strategy allows the military services into a collaborative environment to share intelligence, and the assessment phase integrates insights into decision workflows. While sorting through inputs and intelligence can quickly overwhelm human analysts, AI works tirelessly.
The fusion of data and intelligence from different networks and sources requires governance. It’s vital that stakeholders are assigned permission to contribute within their competencies and roles to create early warnings about threats. It’s also important to have controls and maintain governance so AI tools and collaborators stay within their boundaries.
A good example of how a well-implemented unified threat intelligence strategy might work in a real-world situation is in helping allies determine who was responsible for the recent sabotage of communications cables in the Baltic Sea and their intent.
Powered by AI, the military could include data sets for the movement and speed of ships in the area before, during and after the incident; weather feeds, water depth, currents and ship information; ship equipment manifests, registration, recent port calls and the national origin of crewmembers.
Adding geopolitical data might illuminate motivation. Implementing AI tools across these disparate data sets can produce insights that guide further analysis or even point to the cause of the cut cable, accelerating decision cycles. The same AI capabilities could be used to map and surveil underwater environments and channels.
The military can use AI tools to develop options, helping teams evaluate responses and forecast resources required for support. AI’s speed is especially helpful in eliminating analysis paralysis and in making efficient, confident decisions.
Because this phase demands human oversight to exercise quality control over AI inference, the team’s collaboration environment is critical in detecting and minimizing both false positives and false negatives. Data-driven decision-making is the goal but so is ensuring AI tools don’t solve a large problem (too much data) by creating an even larger problem (too many false positives and false negatives).
AI tools reduce military reliance on analysts to find correlations across data relating to threats in the physical, cyber and geopolitical domains and reduce errors in detecting threats identified in cross-domain intelligence fusion. This helps to speed up workflows, intelligence production and decisions.
Although AI is still progressing through adolescence, it is mature enough today within a unified threat intelligence strategy to address challenging military scenarios and accelerate the identification and response to threats.
defenseopinion.com · by Norm Litterini · March 2, 2025
22. Unable to count on the U.S. anymore, Europe needs its own army by Max Boot
Opinion
Max Boot
Unable to count on the U.S. anymore, Europe needs its own army
As Trump turns from Europe toward Russia, European leaders need to bolster defenses, quickly.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/04/trump-europe-military-defense-russia/
March 4, 2025 at 5:45 a.m. EST27 minutes ago
European leaders, including Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, second from right in first row, gather in London on Sunday for talks on the defense of Ukraine. (Justin Tallis/Pool/AFP (Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images)
For Europe, this is a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency moment. The United States, which has guaranteed European security against Russian attack for 80 years, appears to have switched sides under President Donald Trump.
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Nothing better symbolizes this disturbing volte-face than the United Nations vote last week on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The United States joined 17 members, including rogue regimes such as those in North Korea, Sudan and Belarus, in voting against a resolution condemning the unprovoked Russian attack. Trump justifies his new policy by claiming that he must show neutrality to negotiate an end to the war. Yet he doesn’t hesitate to harshly condemn Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He has called Zelensky a dictator but not Vladimir Putin.
Even before the shocking collapse of the Trump-Zelensky summit on Friday and Trump’s reprehensible decision on Monday to pause all U.S. aid to Ukraine, Germany’s newly elected chancellor, Friedrich Merz, was already speaking about the need to “strengthen Europe as quickly as possible, so that we achieve independence from the U.S.” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former NATO secretary general, agrees, writing in the Economist, “Europe must come to terms with the fact that we are not only existentially vulnerable, but also seemingly alone.”
Europe is already doing a great deal to improve its military capabilities; defense spending among the European members of NATO was 50 percent higher in 2024 than in 2014 (when Russia first attacked Ukraine), and more spending increases are planned. Although the United States has been Ukraine’s biggest military donor overall, Europe in 2024 sent more military aid than Washington did.
But it will require more than money to allow Europe to defend itself without U.S. help. It will take a political revolution leading to the creation of a European army.
On paper, after all, Europe already has the power to defend itself. Europe spent $457 billion on defense in 2024, compared with Russia’s $145.9 billion. Even adjusted for the higher price of goods in Europe (purchasing power parity), Russia’s total defense expenditure, at $462 billion, was roughly the same as Europe’s. Europe, moreover, has nearly 2 million active-duty military personnel, far more than Russia (1.3 million). Europe also has world-class defense companies such as BAE, Airbus, Leonardo, Thales, Rheinmetall and Saab.
But Europe looks strong only on paper; in practice, most European militaries are not ready to fight. They lack not only critical enablers provided by the United States — including command and control, communications, intelligence, logistics, and airlift — but also the sheer combat capacity that U.S. ground forces possess.
A recent study from two European think tanks (Bruegel and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy) estimated that to replace the expected contribution of U.S. forces in wartime, Europe “would require a minimum of 1,400 tanks, 2,000 infantry fighting vehicles and 700 artillery pieces.” That “is more combat power than currently exists in the French, German, Italian and British land forces combined.” The think tanks concluded that, to address this capability gap, Europe needs to spend an additional $250 billion a year, pushing defense spending from 2.2 percent to 3.5 percent of GDP.
But building up European defense capability would be almost impossible as long as procurement remains divided among 29 European members of NATO. As a 2022 study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) noted, “European armed forces suffer major redundancies, with 29 different types of destroyers, 17 types of main battle tanks, and 20 types of fighter planes, as compared to four, one, and six, respectively, for the United States.”
Europe has been taking baby steps for years to combine some military production, and there has been talk since the 1950s of creating a joint European army. But little has been done, in part because European countries were happy to rely on U.S. help and in part because the United States insisted on keeping defense capabilities within the American-dominated NATO structure.
Now that the Trump administration no longer seems interested in the United States acting as a guarantor of European security, Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at CSIS, argues in a new policy paper that it’s time to “revisit the idea” of a European army.
Bergmann lays out an ambitious but practical agenda. “The backbone of Europe’s defense will remain Europe’s big national militaries,” he concedes, referring to France, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Nordic states such as Sweden and Finland. Yet even with these militaries, Europe must do much more to synchronize purchases of military hardware, increasing interoperability and reducing production costs.
These national forces, Bergmann suggests, should be supplemented by a European rapid-reaction force, initially 60,000 strong, that would be recruited from among the entire continent rather than made up of rotating national forces. While the major European militaries would remain intact, he suggests that less-capable European armed forces could be folded into a joint E.U. entity, with individual countries retaining only residual national guard-type forces to deal with civil unrest and natural disasters. “For many Europeans,” Bergmann notes, “the idea of spending significant amounts to beef up their relatively small militaries makes little sense.”
Today, Europe relies on a NATO headquarters, led by an American four-star general, to command its forces in wartime. Bergmann suggests that Europe needs to create its own military headquarters, one led by a European general who could be dual-hatted as the deputy commander of NATO, maintaining links with the Atlantic alliance.
Working together, he adds, European countries would need to undertake joint development of capabilities “such as air transport, air tankers, intelligence and targeting capability, and integrated command and control … which the United States has provided.” This is obviously a long-term project, making it all the more imperative to start as soon as possible.
I would add that Ukraine can, and should be, a pillar of this emerging Pan-European defense capacity. With nearly 1 million soldiers under arms, Ukraine has the biggest and most battle-tested military in Europe (aside, of course, from Russia). It also has a growing defense industry that last year produced 1.5 million drones.
Like the Night’s Watch on “Game of Thrones,” Ukrainian soldiers could stand guard on Europe’s eastern frontier, preventing the barbarians from overrunning civilization. But for Ukraine to survive in the short term without U.S. help, Europe would need to urgently crank up its defense production on a wartime basis while also trying to buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine — assuming that Trump would sell them. (The $300 billion in frozen Russian assets could provide an important piggy bank.)
Bergmann argues that creating a European army would not require changing the E.U. treaty, but it would definitely require changing the European mindset. It was once considered unthinkable that European countries would merge their militaries. But it was also considered unthinkable that the United States might abandon Europe in the face of Russian aggression. Given that the latter contingency now appears distressingly likely, it’s high time for Europeans to put aside concerns about national pride and work together to save their continent from the looming menace of Russian aggression.
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By Max Boot
Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in biography, he is the author, most recently, of the New York Times bestseller “Reagan: His Life and Legend," which was named one of the 10 best books of 2024 by the New York Times.
23. Cut It All, Then Build Back: Shrinking the Mountainous Burden of Administrative Requirements that Hinder Army Units’ Effectiveness
Conclusion:
The desire for substantive change is out there as evidenced by Chief of Staff of the Army General Randy George’s initiative to “stop doing things that don’t support warfighting or building cohesive teams” as well as the secretary of the Army’s recent letter to the force. Efforts to implement this initiative are commendable, but to avoid a repeat of the failed efforts of 2018, a mindset change is in order. Whether it’s defining inspection areas for the Organizational Inspection Program like the discussion that opened this article, performing training mandated by Army regulations, or fulfilling any other requirement that grinds on Army units and leaders and distracts from the basics of training and leadership, the time to tear down and rebuild is now. If we can transform in contact with our adversaries, we can transform our administrative load while fending off the vested interests of requirements past. And we must move quickly—if we don’t drive the change for ourselves, we are at risk of having it be driven for us. But to ensure we start doing the right things, we might need to consider what it would be like to stop doing everything.
Cut It All, Then Build Back: Shrinking the Mountainous Burden of Administrative Requirements that Hinder Army Units’ Effectiveness - Modern War Institute
mwi.westpoint.edu · by Scott Dawe · March 4, 2025
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The meeting was winding down. The debate had been spirited as the brigade’s senior leaders engaged with representatives from the inspector general’s office, exploring the ins and outs of the recent initial command inspection. This inspection, which takes place when a new officer takes command, is part of the overall command’s Organizational Inspection Program. The final topic that day concerned the specific areas requiring inspection—all of the administrative requirements put in place by a combination of higher-level commands, the Army, the Defense Department, and other authorities and oversight bodies. The positions of the participants were logical enough: the inspector general representatives and installation agencies they represented felt the list of inspectable areas was appropriate; the brigade leadership did not. The heated back and forth had nearly petered out when one of the inspector general office’s personnel offered the following challenge: “Well then, what areas would you cut out?”
“All of them,” was my immediate response. It was met with the sound of crickets.
Impossible? Probably. But what if it wasn’t?
The Fundamental Problem: Do We Need a Paradigm Shift?
The fundamental problem as I see it is found in the framing of the inspector general representative’s question. It is always a matter of what to cut, and never one of what is most important to keep in place. What if, however, we could tear it all down and build back from scratch? After all, if the default is to keep everything unless units can argue away specific requirements, then all the vested interests and proponents of those requirements need to do is dig in, defend their turf, and wait out the next movement cycle. All the while, new requirements accumulate, adding to already almost endless red tape.
In principle, it should not be a unit or organization responsibility—at any level—to figure out what ought to be cut from the litany of requirements and other demands. In fact, it is likely impossible, given the frequent need to collaborate and build consensus around the most minor of cuts, to ever make headway just by trimming away at the margins.
As a case in point, this was exactly the fate of a vaunted 2018 initiative to unburden commanders. Except for removing the TRiPs ticket requirement for every pass and leave request (a win—don’t get me wrong), little else of material value was eliminated. At the initiative’s end, commanders remained heavily burdened.
If we flip the script and cut everything instead, each requirement is forced to justify itself as if it was being introduced for the first time. The hackneyed requirements will have far less staying power in this scenario, especially those born of risk aversion from a different time or a knee-jerk overreaction to infrequent events. By tearing it all down, we might achieve the rightsizing of the administrative task load we so desperately need.
How to Look at the Problem
Tearing down our requirements list to nothing and then rebuilding it to the right size is no small undertaking. A framework to even start understanding the scope and nature of the problem is required. What follows is one way to establish that understanding and begin the rebuild approach. (Spoiler alert: we already do it.)
We can begin with those requirements originating wholly outside of the Army and Department of Defense’s control—those requirements mandated by Congress, directed by the commander-in-chief, or required by statue. This forms the base of the pyramid of requirements and reflects likely immoveable objects which cannot be discarded.
Next, we consider the requirements within DoD that the Army can influence but does not actively control. This consists of joint regulations and directives from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. These requirements, while not completely immovable, exist outside the Army’s control and would likely take significant political capital to adjust.
Beyond these two levels are the things that we, the Army, entirely control: the Army regulations, and requirements put in place by combatant commands, Army service component commands, four-star headquarters, and installations. This is where the Army’s decision space can and should be. Coincidentally, this is also the space where the effects of a teardown program can be most effective. Even if we can’t touch the bottom two tranches, there is more than enough unburdening opportunity available in the top three parts of the pyramid.
So, How Do We Cut?
Once we have categorized the requirements, how do we weigh the merits of each and build back correctly? Fortunately, the tool is already in our kit bag. Consider the force design update process, for which the Army uses what it calls Total Army Analysis. We can use a similar data-driven approach in support of a force administration update. The same procedures that rightsize (in terms of scope and capabilities) a new formation can be used to analyze the introduction (or in this case reintroduction) of administrative requirements.
The metrics of analysis should be (1) cost-return or (2) risk-reward. In cost-return analysis, the force administration update process will assess each task based on the balance between man-hour cost and the expected return of efficiency and productivity. In risk-reward analysis, the process will measure the risk if a task is left undone and compare this to the reward of adding that task. If the data would not support initial introduction, we should not reintroduce the task. The analysis can simultaneously keep a running tally on annual man-hours as the tasks add up. Such a tally of would ensure we actually have the time for things we claim we are doing, rather than lying to ourselves. Only then can a harmony of time and requirements be achieved.
Tear it Down, Then Build it Back
The key here is the structured reintroduction of the requirements. This requires a mindset shift from one of checking boxes to one under which we truly know everything that soldier time is spent on and the value of that time. Just like the gradual fielding of new equipment, the force might barely perceive controlling regulation changes. They will just receive formal permission to the stop doing the things for which the analysis does not support reintroducing—likely things units were assuming risk on by simply checking the box, anyway. But the rigor of the force administration update is key—conducting it with a force design update–style wargame for every potential requirement enables us to avoid the box-checking tradeoffs before they occur.
The desire for substantive change is out there as evidenced by Chief of Staff of the Army General Randy George’s initiative to “stop doing things that don’t support warfighting or building cohesive teams” as well as the secretary of the Army’s recent letter to the force. Efforts to implement this initiative are commendable, but to avoid a repeat of the failed efforts of 2018, a mindset change is in order. Whether it’s defining inspection areas for the Organizational Inspection Program like the discussion that opened this article, performing training mandated by Army regulations, or fulfilling any other requirement that grinds on Army units and leaders and distracts from the basics of training and leadership, the time to tear down and rebuild is now. If we can transform in contact with our adversaries, we can transform our administrative load while fending off the vested interests of requirements past. And we must move quickly—if we don’t drive the change for ourselves, we are at risk of having it be driven for us. But to ensure we start doing the right things, we might need to consider what it would be like to stop doing everything.
Lieutenant Colonel Scott Dawe is the deputy commanding officer of the 194th Armored Brigade at Fort Moore, Georgia.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Spc. Andrew Clark, US Army
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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Scott Dawe · March 4, 2025
24. The Ukraine War Just Proved the Patriot Missile’s Surprising New Capabilities
The Ukraine War Just Proved the Patriot Missile’s Surprising New Capabilities
19fortyfive.com · by Kris Osborn · March 3, 2025
Key Points and Summary: The U.S. Army’s Patriot missile has evolved significantly since its debut in the Gulf War, now capable of tracking and intercepting sophisticated threats such as maneuvering cruise missiles and even moving aircraft.
Key Point #1 – Upgrades like the Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE), advanced LTAMDS radar providing 360-degree coverage, and integration into the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) have vastly enhanced its capabilities.
Key Point #2 – Recent reports from Ukraine indicate the Patriot system’s new ability to target moving aircraft, demonstrating major progress from its initial anti-ballistic role. Continuous enhancements ensure the Patriot missile remains a robust, modern solution for advanced missile and air defense worldwide.
How the Patriot Missile Evolved from SCUD Killer to Advanced Air Defense
After blasting onto the scene during the Gulf War and successfully intercepting Iraqi SCUD missiles, the United States Army Patriot missile systems have evolved far beyond their initial capabilities.
In the more than 30 years since the Gulf War, one might expect the Patriot would have become obsolete, dated, or no longer relevant against emerging threats.
However, the Patriot missile has evolved from intercepting unguided and inaccurate SCUD missiles to a weapon capable of simultaneously tracking and intercepting two maneuvering cruise missiles. The Patriot is even reportedly capable of destroying moving aircraft.
The possibility of Patriot missiles tracking or destroying moving aircraft, should reports from Ukraine be accurate, represents a substantial leap forward for the Patriot system, which has historically been engineered to track “ballistic” missiles following a parabola-like incoming trajectory.
Patriot Destroys Aircraft
It may not seem entirely plausible, yet the ability of the Patriot missile to track and destroy moving targets is entirely realistic due to progress made in modernization efforts.
US Army and industry upgrades have successfully shepherded the Patriot system into the modern era. Early upgrades to the Patriot included a US Army software upgrade called Missile Segment Enhancement or MSE, which improved the radar interface, guidance, and overall performance of the missile systems.
The Patriot has been better networked and integrated with new generations of radar technology in recent years.
For example, the Patriot’s radar tracking technology has been updated with integrated technologies such as Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS). This enhanced radar, integrated in recent years, enables Patriot radar to detect with a 360-degree aperture and, as reported in Ukraine, engage moving targets such as maneuvering cruise missiles and even aircraft.
Unlike the more linear directional configuration of the existing Patriot air and missile defense system, the Raytheon-built LTAMDS is engineered with overlapping 120-degree arrays intended to track approaching threats using a 360-degree protection envelope seamlessly.
Raytheon’s LTAMDS, called Ghost Eye, supported the launch of an SM-6 interceptor missile engineered to destroy incoming threats. This platform requires engineering-specific interfaces, technical alignments, and software adjustments to ensure that otherwise separate systems can connect.
This connection was successfully demonstrated recently in a joint military exercise known as Valiant Shield 24. An LTAMDS radar was networked with the Army’s Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) to launch an SM-6 at a specified target.
Networking upgrades
The Patriot has also been integrated into the US Army’s well-known and successful Integrated Battle Command System multi-node networking technology engineered to generate a multi-domain, expansive networked missile defense system.
By connecting a series of otherwise disconnected nodes, IBCS can form a “mesh” network using many systems, including Sentinel Radar, Patriot missile batteries, and air and surface nodes such as F-35s and ship-based Aegis Combat Systems.
Some integration with F-35s and Aegis radar platforms is still being tested. Yet, the progress introduces the possibility of creating a multi-domain missile defense web capable of sharing target track information across dispersed land, air, and sea nodes.
IBCS can also integrate an Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 (IFPC Inc 2) ground base-protection system and a software-defined Active Electronically Scanned Array radar called AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR.
Patriot Missile. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The ability to track and destroy multiple moving targets brings Patriot missile batteries into a new era, which would explain why deployment of the system continues to expand with US allies and protect critical areas around the globe.
Perhaps future iterations of the Patriot will take its tracking technologies to even newer heights, including an ability to track and destroy faster-moving aircraft.
About the Author: Kris Osborn
Kris Osborn is the Military Technology Editor of 19FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
19fortyfive.com · by Kris Osborn · March 3, 2025
25. Find the sweet spot between isolationism and unrestrained activism
Balance. Yin Yang.
Is restraint the right concept? As long as it does not turn into constraint which is what I think the restraint advocate actually wants. We must not be hamstrung by our own strategic concepts.
Are alliances "foreign entanglements" or do they give America our real "super power?"
Excerpts:
As the US reassesses decades of intervention, restraint offers a middle path between disengagement and unrestrained global activism. It encourages a more thoughtful and sustainable approach to foreign policy that prioritizes long-term stability and national interests over automatic involvement in conflicts.
Moving beyond the outdated and politically charged debate over isolationism would, I believe, allow for a more productive conversation about how the US can engage globally in a way that is both effective and aligned with its strategic interests.
Find the sweet spot between isolationism and unrestrained activism - Asia Times
The idea of avoiding foreign entanglements has been part of US strategic thinking since the country’s founding
asiatimes.com · by Andrew Latham · March 4, 2025
Few terms in American foreign policy discourse are as misunderstood or politically charged as “isolationism.”
Often used as a political weapon, the term conjures images of a retreating America, indifferent to global challenges.
However, the reality is more complex. For example, some commentators argue that President Donald Trump’s return to the White House signals a new era of isolationism. But others contend his foreign policy is more akin to “sovereigntism,” which prioritizes national autonomy and decision-making free from external constraints, and advocates for international engagement only when it directly serves a nation’s interests.
Understanding isolationism’s role in US policy requires a closer look at its historical roots and political usage.
‘Entangling alliances’
The idea of avoiding foreign entanglements has been a part of American strategic thinking since the country’s founding. President George Washington’s famous warning against “entangling alliances” reflected a desire to insulate the young republic from European conflicts.
Throughout the 19th century, this sentiment shaped US policy, though not exclusively. The country expanded its influence in the Western Hemisphere, maintained strong economic ties abroad and occasionally intervened in regional affairs.
This cautious approach allowed the US to develop its economy and military strength without becoming deeply embroiled in European rivalries.
After World War I, isolationism became more pronounced. The staggering human and financial costs of the war led many Americans to question deep international involvement. Skepticism toward President Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations reinforced this sentiment, and in the 1930s, the U.S. passed Neutrality Acts designed to keep the country out of foreign wars. However, this approach proved unsustainable.
After the US got increasingly involved in the European conflict in the years before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, that day officially led the country into World War II – marking the definitive end of traditional isolationism.
With the war’s conclusion, American strategic thinking shifted, recognizing that even partial disengagement was no longer an option in a globalized world.
Isolationism as a slur
In the postwar era, isolationism devolved from a coherent strategic perspective into a term of political derision. During the Cold War, those who opposed military alliances like NATO or US interventions in Korea and Vietnam were often dismissed as isolationists, regardless of their actual policy preferences.
This framing marginalized critics of US global engagement, even when their concerns were grounded in strategic prudence rather than a reflexive desire to withdraw from the world.
The same pattern persisted going into the 21st century. In debates over US involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, critics of expansive military commitments were frequently labeled isolationists, despite advocating for a recalibration of foreign policy rather than outright disengagement.
Many of those calling for an end to America’s “forever wars” did not argue for global retreat but for a prioritization of national interests over the broad defense of the so-called rules-based international order.
A persistent myth is that isolationism represents a total disengagement from the world. Historically, even during its peak, isolationism in the US was never absolute. Trade, diplomacy and cultural exchanges continued even in periods marked by reluctance to intervene militarily.
What critics of interventionism have historically sought is prudence in foreign affairs – avoiding unnecessary wars while ensuring the protection of core national interests.
Moving beyond isolationism
In recent years, “restraint” has gained traction as a more precise and useful framework for US foreign policy. Unlike isolationism, restraint does not imply withdrawal from global affairs but rather advocates a more selective and strategic approach.
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Proponents argue that the US should avoid unnecessary wars, focus on core national interests and work with its allies to maintain stability rather than relying on unilateral military action. This perspective acknowledges the limits of American power and the risks of overextension while still recognizing the necessity of international engagement.
Advocates of restraint suggest that recalibrating US foreign policy would allow the country to address pressing domestic concerns while maintaining a strong international presence where it matters most.
As the US reassesses decades of intervention, restraint offers a middle path between disengagement and unrestrained global activism. It encourages a more thoughtful and sustainable approach to foreign policy that prioritizes long-term stability and national interests over automatic involvement in conflicts.
Moving beyond the outdated and politically charged debate over isolationism would, I believe, allow for a more productive conversation about how the US can engage globally in a way that is both effective and aligned with its strategic interests.
Andrew Latham is a professor of political science at Macalester College.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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asiatimes.com · by Andrew Latham · March 4, 2025
26. Lessons for Asia from Trump-Zelensky showdown
It pains me to read the subtitle of this article.
I will continue to advocate for our alliances. I believe they are critical to US national security. I give the benefit of the doubt that he knows this too. But he has his own method of operation.
Lessons for Asia from Trump-Zelensky showdown - Asia Times
Trump’s view of alliances as burdens reflects willingness to withdraw, renegotiate or downgrade commitments with little warning
asiatimes.com · by George Prior · March 4, 2025
Trump’s brusque treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last week wasn’t just about Ukraine. It was a message to the world: US alliances are becoming increasingly conditional and subject to domestic political calculations.
For Asian nations that have long depended on Washington to balance Beijing, among other factors, the reality is clear—America’s strategic commitments can no longer be assumed.
For decades, the US positioned itself as the Indo-Pacific’s stabilizing force, but Trumpism has replaced consistency with transactional unpredictability. The result? A region left exposed to erratic policy shifts, wavering security assurances, and economic disruption.
Asian leaders must now recognize that Washington’s interests are not necessarily their own. The lesson is to hedge against uncertainty and also to take decisive action in reshaping regional stability on their own terms.
If a country in the middle of an existential war like Ukraine is met with indifference in Washington, what does that signal for Taiwan, Japan or South Korea?
Trump’s history of labeling alliances as financial burdens is not just rhetoric—it reflects a willingness to withdraw, renegotiate or downgrade commitments with little warning.
His past insistence that Tokyo and Seoul increase defense spending or risk losing US protection was a preview of an evolving policy doctrine: alliances exist only as long as they serve immediate American interests.
His suggestion that both nations should consider developing their own nuclear arsenals was a stark reminder that the US security umbrella is no longer a guarantee—it’s a negotiable instrument.
Asian nations must now operate on the assumption that US military support will be subject to political whims. This means bolstering indigenous defense capabilities, investing in self-sufficiency and building regional security partnerships that function independently of Washington. Japan’s expansion of its defense budget and South Korea’s accelerated missile programs should be seen as the beginning of this strategic shift.
Trump’s economic policies make no distinction between adversaries and allies. The tariffs on Canada and Mexico—America’s closest trading partners—illustrate how economic nationalism overrides traditional relationships.
For Asia’s export-driven economies, the implications will likely be severe. Vietnam, Taiwan and South Korea—each deeply integrated into US supply chains—are as vulnerable to sudden tariff hikes and regulatory shifts as China.
For those hoping Trump’s aggressive decoupling from China would benefit other Asian economies, history suggests otherwise.
His trade policies are not strategic but reactive. The goal is not to create alternative supply chains but to pressure companies to bring manufacturing back to the US. Asian nations must prepare for a world where access to the US market is conditional, supply chains are in flux and trade agreements are subject to presidential moods rather than economic logic.
The response must be a decisive push toward regional economic integration. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a strong framework, but it must be expanded and reinforced with deeper intra-Asian trade mechanisms.
Strengthening the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to function as an independent counterweight to both Washington and Beijing will be critical in maintaining economic stability.
Intelligence-sharing is built on trust, and under a Trump presidency, that trust could be in short supply.
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His history of disclosing classified intelligence, sidelining traditional intelligence institutions and prioritizing personal diplomacy over institutional strategy makes reliance on US intelligence an increasingly risky proposition for Asian nations.
Japan, South Korea and ASEAN countries must thus urgently develop more robust regional intelligence-sharing frameworks. Partnerships between Japan and India, as well as between South Korea and Australia, should be expanded beyond defense and into coordinated intelligence capabilities.
Asia can no longer afford to be passive recipients of US intelligence—it must actively build its own networks to mitigate the risks of unreliable information flows from Washington. The idea of waiting for US elections to determine the region’s future is increasingly likely to be a losing strategy for Asian countries.
The lesson is clear: the era of dependency is over.
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asiatimes.com · by George Prior · March 4, 2025
27. Five takeaways from Trump’s Ukraine military aid freeze
The five ( am very skeptical of number 2 and 3):
1. Trump is serious about brokering peace
2. Trump and Putin likely have a secret agreement
3. But it’s not yet a comprehensive one
4. Poland might have a pivotal role to play
5. The “New Detente” is Trump’s top priority
Five takeaways from Trump’s Ukraine military aid freeze - Asia Times
Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations and American hegemony all shifting as Trump forces Zelensky to peace table with Putin
asiatimes.com · by Andrew Korybko · March 4, 2025
An unnamed senior US Defense Department official told the media on Monday evening that Trump decided to freeze all military aid to Ukraine until its leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace.
This comes just days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky picked a fight with US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance at the White House.
The Wall Street Journal earlier predicted that Ukraine could only continue fighting at its current level until this summer in such a scenario. Here are five takeaways from this monumental development:
1. Trump is serious about brokering peace
Zelensky made it clear during his disastrous visit to the White House last Friday that he’s dead set on continuing the fight and still seeks NATO membership and Western troops.
Those calls are unacceptable to Trump since they would, as he said, risk World War III, but so too could continuing the conflict.
Trump, therefore, likely realized that the only way to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin is to freeze all military aid until he moderates his perceived by Trump as extreme stance.
2. Trump and Putin likely have a secret agreement
Trump said last week that “a ceasefire could take place immediately”, which was possibly an inadvertent admission of a secret agreement with Putin.
Lasting peace can’t likely be reached until after the next Ukrainian presidential elections, but they can’t be held without lifting martial law, ergo the need for a ceasefire.
Although Putin earlier conditioned this on Ukraine withdrawing from the disputed regions, he might support a ceasefire to justify the US’ curtailed aid to Ukraine and legitimize Russian-US economic deals.
3. But it’s not yet a comprehensive one
If the speculation is accurate, then it doesn’t mean that those two have a comprehensive agreement.
Serious issues such as the final Russian-Ukrainian border and the question of peacekeepers have yet to be agreed and might not be resolved till after the next Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections.
It’s, therefore, premature to predict that the Line of Contact will become the final border and that Western peacekeepers will be deployed there, especially since Russia opposes both.
4. Poland might have a pivotal role to play
About 90% of Western military aid to Ukraine transits through Poland so Trump might ask it to stop the Europeans from using its territory to arm Ukraine during a ceasefire in exchange for post-conflict perks.
He doesn’t want the Brits, French or Germans emboldening Ukraine to violate the ceasefire or provoke Russia into doing so and can incentivize Poland to prevent this by promising to keep American troops there, possibly redeploy some from Germany to Poland and turn Poland into its top partner in Europe.
5. The “New Detente” is Trump’s top priority
Every major move that’s taken place since Trump’s call with Putin in mid-February has been predicated on advancing his grand strategic goal of a Russian–US “New Détente”, the gist of which is to revolutionize international relations through a game-changing comprehensive partnership.
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It’s the pursuit of this goal that ultimately drove Trump to make the fateful decision to freeze all military aid to Ukraine.
Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin.
His latest one was literally one of the worst-case scenarios from Ukraine’s and Europe’s perspective, but there’s little that they can do in response other than capitulate to his demands.
The US holds all the cards, like Trump reminded Zelensky last Friday, and those who think otherwise risk paying the price.
This article was first published on Andrew Korybko’s Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become an Andrew Korybko Newsletter subscriber here.
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asiatimes.com · by Andrew Korybko · March 4, 2025
28. We cannot defeat tomorrow’s enemies with yesterday’s budgets By Mitch McConnell
Opinion
We cannot defeat tomorrow’s enemies with yesterday’s budgets
The costs of deterring war pale in comparison to the costs of fighting one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/03/pentagon-budget-mitch-mcconnell-shortfall/
March 3, 2025 at 4:52 p.m. ESTYesterday at 4:52 p.m. EST
U.S. Navy officers stand guard aboard the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota after the vessel docked at HMAS Stirling in Rockingham, Australia, during a visit on Wednesday. (Colin Murty/Pool Photo via AP)
By Mitch McConnell
Mitch McConnell, a Republican, represents Kentucky in the U.S. Senate.
Every time Congress faces a government funding deadline, Washington reminds itself — eventually — that shutdowns are worth avoiding. This is a familiar, and all-too-frequent, conversation.
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What’s not familiar is the prospect of going an entire year without passing new appropriations — and the new programs and capabilities they comprise — for the national defense. Never in recent history has Washington forced the U.S. military to spend a full year applying yesterday’s budget to tomorrow’s challenges.
Today, we’re closer than ever to making ignoble history on this front. And we owe it to our men and women in uniform, and to taxpayers, to be honest about the consequences.
Consumer goods aren’t the only things that have grown more expensive in recent years. In times of high inflation, governance without updated appropriations means diminished Pentagon buying power. Forcing the U.S. military to equip itself for next year’s threats at this year’s prices with last year’s dollars is a recipe for disaster.
Even as fresh eyes comb the Pentagon for new efficiencies and cost-savings, effective military acquisitions continue to require multiyear runways. A truly clean, full-year, continuing resolution at the level set for FY2024 would mean no new starts on critical programs the military needs to adapt to a rapidly changing battlefield, such as directed-energy drone and missile defenses. No new starts this year means fewer new capabilities in warfighters’ hands two, five and 10 years from now.
To be clear, we’re not approaching this cliff — we’re careening over it. The fiscal year is almost half over. By March 14, the failure to pass full-year defense appropriations last fall will have cost taxpayers $17 billion in defense buying power. In other words, contending with current inflation and new requirements with old funding levels has already meant an effective shortfall of $103 million per day.
Consigning the rest of the fiscal year to this austere reality would only compound the damage.
Extending the 2024 budget through the end of FY2025 would mean the Defense Department would lack the funds to make payroll for 2 million service members — especially after accounting for the additional 10 percent junior enlisted pay raise authorized last year. Making up this shortfall will almost certainly involve siphoning funds the services have budgeted for other critical missions and capabilities.
Spending the entire year under the FY2024 funding level will mean no money or authorization for 168 new programs — many of which are required to outcompete China in space and cyberspace. In the race to project power and deter aggression across the Indo-Pacific, it would put U.S. forces and our regional allies even further behind.
Specifically, it would mean stopping the ongoing construction and refueling of up to 26 Navy warships. It would delay three new destroyers, up to 10 new Virginia-class submarines and four new Columbia-class submarines (which sustain a critical leg of the nuclear triad).
The costs of deterring war pale in comparison to the costs of fighting one. If Congress is unwilling to make deterrent investments today, then discussion about the urgency of looming threats — particularly the “pacing threat” of China — carries little weight.
Last year, on a bipartisan basis, Senate appropriators recommended we pass funding that would have exceeded President Joe Biden’s meager defense budget request by nearly $20 billion. That recommendation fell on deaf ears with the Senate’s Democratic majority. Now, we face the prospect of a clean continuing resolution that would spend roughly $8 billion less than Biden’s request.
No senator or member of Congress can claim ignorance of the ways that outdated funds harm national security. Senior officials at the White House and Pentagon, for their part, are not absolved from their obligation to ensure full-year appropriations for the military. This administration took office with a mandate to restore peace through strength.
Surely, no American who is concerned about threats abroad thinks that cutting billions from the military is the way to face them.
Tying one hand behind our backs is no one’s idea of restoring the warrior ethos. It is alarming that we don’t hear anything from the Pentagon’s senior-most civilian leaders about the need to raise the defense budget’s topline — or the looming, self-inflicted harm to readiness and lethality that would come from failing to pass new, full-year defense appropriations for the first time in memory.
China certainly isn’t hamstrung by these kinds of challenges. And U.S. allies, including those with far more expansive social welfare systems, continue to make tough choices to make their militaries even more capable. In fact, the rate at which European NATO allies are increasing defense spending far outpaces our own. Since 2022, they have committed more than $185 billion to buying U.S.-made weapons and defense systems.
Meeting that demand, while modernizing U.S. forces at the same time, requires robust full-year appropriations. We cannot rebuild our military without bigger topline investments in defense.
29.
The army leadership is working hard to change the anti-intellectual culture.
Harding Project Substack
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Write, Inspire, Lead
Why Professional Military Writing is a Mission for NCOs
https://www.hardingproject.com/p/write-inspire-lead?r=7i07&utm
Noel DeJesus
Mar 04, 2025
2
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While serving as a student at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy, I became actively engaged with the Harding Project, an initiative dedicated to fostering professional military writing and leadership. During this time, I connected with Sergeant First Class Leyton Summerlin, the former deputy director of the Harding Project, who shared a profound piece of history with me: General Carl E. Vuono’s 1987 address titled “The Year of the NCO.”
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In this address, General Vuono emphasized the enduring value of NCO leadership, highlighting the historical evolution of the Corps, the importance of tactical and technical competence, and the foundational role of education in preparing NCOs for modern battlefield challenges. He spoke passionately about the necessity of investing in NCO development, stressing that this commitment underpins Army readiness, trust, and excellence.
This document remains as insightful and empowering today as it was 37 years ago. I revisit it often and share it with my NCOs whenever the opportunity arises. It speaks to the timeless importance of NCOs as standard-bearers and, importantly, underscores the role of writing in preserving our legacy. Writing, as General Vuono’s words demonstrate, is not just a means of communication—it’s a tool of leadership and a bridge to the future.
Big Red One Year of the NCO. Photo courtesy of SGM Noel DeJesus.
The Noncommissioned Officer Corps is more than the backbone of the Army—it is the driving force behind its standards, traditions, and evolution. To ensure the enduring influence of NCOs, our contributions must not only be lived but also written. Professional military writing is a timeless tool to preserve these contributions and pass them forward to future leaders.
History remembers what is recorded. From the Revolutionary War to modern conflicts, NCOs have adapted to evolving battlefields, taking on greater responsibilities and showcasing unmatched leadership. But how much of our story remains unwritten? Writing bridges the gap between the accomplishments of today and the inspiration of tomorrow’s leaders.
Writing is not just a task; it is a mission. It empowers NCOs to document lessons learned, share tactical innovations, and reinforce the values that define Army leadership. By putting pen to paper—or fingers to a keyboard—we’re not only capturing a moment in time but shaping the professional development of generations to come. Writing transforms an individual’s experience into a collective resource.
For NCOs, writing is leadership in action. It’s teaching through words, mentoring from afar, and building trust with readers who might one day find themselves leading in the most challenging conditions. It’s a way to inspire young leaders to embrace initiative, courage, and professionalism. Writing makes the invisible visible, ensuring the impact of NCOs extends beyond their immediate environment.
Professional military writing doesn’t have to be perfect—it has to be purposeful. Every after-action review, article, and reflection is a steppingstone for another leader. The power lies not in writing like a novelist but in writing like an NCO—clear, direct, and committed to the mission of improving others.
Now is the time to step forward. Write with purpose, share your knowledge and experience, and lead by example. Start small—document a lesson learned, reflect on an experience, or pen an article for your branch journal. Your words hold the power to shape the Army’s future. Make them count. Write. Inspire. Lead.
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De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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