Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"The essence of evil is the refusal to think."

– Hannah Arendt

"Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe."

– Mark Twain

"The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. Inside this aging body is a heart still as curious, still as hungry, still as full of longing, as it was in youth. I sit at the window and watch the world pass by, feeling like a stranger in a strange land, unable to relate to the world outside, and yet within me, there burns the same fire that once thought it could conquer the world. And the real tragedy is that the world still remains, so distant and elusive, a place I could never quite grasp."

– Albert Camus

1. Great Power Competition and Irregular Warfare

2. China Is Secretly Worried Trump Will Win on Trade

3. Trump Warns Hamas to Release All Hostages or Terrorist Group Is ‘Dead’

4. U.S. Suspends Costly Deportation Flights Using Military Aircraft

5. Inside Trump’s NSC

6. Truth Mattered in the Cold War. And It Matters Now in Ukraine.

7. Will Trump's actions force Asian allies to embrace China?

8. The Pentagon is About to Make a Big Mistake on Civilian Harm Mitigation

9. Rewind and Reconnoiter: The Navy Should Develop Narco-Submarines

10. Ukraine Without America

11. America Can Best Help Syria By Getting Out

12. TSMC Says $100 Billion U.S. Expansion Driven by Demand, Not Political Pressure

13. U.S. and Hamas Hold Direct Talks on Hostages in Gaza, Officials Say

14. In 15 months, the Navy fired more air defense missiles than it did in the last 30 years

15. Below-the-Threshold Deterrence, Philippine Style

16. Former USAID official says agency shutdown could cede Pacific islands to China

17. 'Warheads on Foreheads': Top Leaders for Air Force, Space Force Leaning into Defense Secretary's Rhetoric

18. AI for war plans: Pentagon innovation shop taps Scale AI to build 'Thunderforge' prototype

19. The Paradox of Trump’s Economic Weapon

1. Great Power Competition and Irregular Warfare

My thoughts to complement this article are here:

A Modern National Security Decision Directive for Irregular Warfare: Guidance from President Reagan’s NSDD 32

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2024/11/26/a-modern-national-security-decision-directive/

Conclusion:

The danger with a focus on competition with only a few countries is that this does not encompass other significant operations that require US involvement. In practice, the two largest and most sustained campaigns in recent years that might be subsumed under the rubric of IW were in Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither would fit under the strategic umbrella of great power competition. Even if one were to argue that operations in Iraq involved a competition and occasional conflict with Iran, this largely was a result of the invasion, not the principal cause. There certainly have been several other long-lasting operations – such as in Syria and the Sahel – that would emphasize this point.

There are numerous regions and countries whose stability is important to the US. In many cases (if not the majority), these do not represent a direct struggle for influence with either Russia or China. Putting these types of operations in a separate box can lead to some doctrinal and strategic orphans. In many ways, these non-‘great power’ IW missions may, in fact, be more critical in establishing and maintaining ‘arcs of stability’ in which both regional and US interests are maintained. A narrow focus on great power competition can miss both the challenges and the opportunities in these environments.

Clearly, IW has an important role to play in global competition with troublesome adversaries, whether ‘great power’ or emergent. If the aperture of focus becomes too restrictive, however, many opportunities may be missed. There are multiple threats in the international environment, and well-crafted IW strategies can minimize the expansion of these threats. IW certainly must play a significant role in broader international competition and conflict with major adversaries but focusing it solely on that environment can lead to some ugly surprises.

Great Power Competition and Irregular Warfare

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/03/06/great-power-competition-and-irregular-warfare/

by Lawrence Cline

03.06.2025 at 06:00am

Those of a certain age will remember the issues that the Defense Department and the U.S. Government overall have had with labeling operations short of full-scale conventional war. The plethora of terms used in the past for seemingly similar missions was virtually guaranteed to preclude an intellectual underpinning for analysis and strategic planning. With the adoption of the term irregular warfare (IW) and the ongoing efforts to develop a more sophisticated doctrine, the level of consistency on how to approach these most difficult of operations may show both coherence and further doctrinal progress.

A key issue to be resolved, however, is the ‘boundaries’ of IW. The right boundary is clear: operations short of full-scale war. It is the left boundary that remains problematic. Exactly what constitutes IW as opposed to ‘normal’ diplomatic, information, and military operations? At least in theory, if not in practice, the old chestnut of the acronym MIDLIFE – Military, Information/Intelligence, Diplomatic, Legal, Infrastructure, Finance, Economic – should drive national policy on a routine basis. In practice, of course, actually melding these disparate functions into a coherent whole has very much proven to be the exception rather than the rule. This is why having a conceptualization of multiple strands of effort is so important. Irregular warfare can provide the framework for this.

The definition of IW has evolved over time. The Defense Department’s Joint Operating Concept of 2007 emphasized “violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy.” By the date of the public release of the 2020 National Defense Strategy, the term “violent” had been dropped, but the stress on legitimacy remained. Likewise, legitimacy has been a keystone for definitional purposes by Ucko and Marks. There has developed broad agreement that operations included under the rubric of IW involve unconventional warfare, stabilization, foreign internal defense, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency. Some have argued that re-labeling at least some of these would result in greater clarity, but the missions seem to be conceptually clear at the operational level.

One overarching issue for current IW doctrine development is that it is now largely viewed through the prism of great power competition. Then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper announced that the era of irregular warfare was over and that the era of “great power competition” was underway. The Biden Administration adopted policies that emphasized this conceptualization, although exactly how ‘great power competition’ is defined remains somewhat hazy in US strategic thinking. One recent example – which seems to exemplify the murkiness of the policy – is from an Administration spokesperson: “We seek a strategic competition with China, we do not seek conflict.” Most recently, a similar statement by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks stressed competition rather than conflict, although emphasizing the defensive nature of the competition. There is of course the possibility of change with the incoming Administration, but the initial indicators are that the policy will be similar.

Clearly, IW has an important role to play in global competition with troublesome adversaries, whether ‘great power’ or emergent. If the aperture of focus becomes too restrictive, however, many opportunities may be missed.

This conceptualization of competition rather than conflict can lead to some strategic fuzziness. The key ‘boundary line’ separating the two likely will be rather amorphous and can be somewhat broad. This boundary will be where IW is of the most use – and, in fact, be critical – but requires that the government make a strategically coherent decision that the competition has reached the stage in which the various IW tools are required. Half-hearted or poorly coordinated efforts likely either will fail or actually make the strategic environment worse.

There is a second issue in dealing with the strategy surrounding IW. Much of the current rhetoric surrounding IW involves competition or conflict with major powers or emerging powers. Typically, these have been identified as Russia, China, Iran, and sometimes North Korea. In part, this is a reflection of the writings and thought pieces by various Russian and Chinese military leaders. Also, of course, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and bellicose rhetoric (and some actions) coming from Beijing emphasize their competitive threats. Certainly, the current and possible activities of these two countries (along with Iran) must be taken into account in developing IW doctrine and strategy along with broader strategic guidance.

The danger with a focus on competition with only a few countries is that this does not encompass other significant operations that require US involvement. In practice, the two largest and most sustained campaigns in recent years that might be subsumed under the rubric of IW were in Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither would fit under the strategic umbrella of great power competition. Even if one were to argue that operations in Iraq involved a competition and occasional conflict with Iran, this largely was a result of the invasion, not the principal cause. There certainly have been several other long-lasting operations – such as in Syria and the Sahel – that would emphasize this point.

There are numerous regions and countries whose stability is important to the US. In many cases (if not the majority), these do not represent a direct struggle for influence with either Russia or China. Putting these types of operations in a separate box can lead to some doctrinal and strategic orphans. In many ways, these non-‘great power’ IW missions may, in fact, be more critical in establishing and maintaining ‘arcs of stability’ in which both regional and US interests are maintained. A narrow focus on great power competition can miss both the challenges and the opportunities in these environments.

Clearly, IW has an important role to play in global competition with troublesome adversaries, whether ‘great power’ or emergent. If the aperture of focus becomes too restrictive, however, many opportunities may be missed. There are multiple threats in the international environment, and well-crafted IW strategies can minimize the expansion of these threats. IW certainly must play a significant role in broader international competition and conflict with major adversaries but focusing it solely on that environment can lead to some ugly surprises.

Tags: grand strategy, Great Power Competition, irregular warfare, regional stability

About The Author

Lawrence Cline
Lawrence E. Cline, PhD, is a part-time faculty member with Colorado State University Global and is the book review editor for Small Wars & Insurgencies. He has written extensively on insurgencies, terrorism, and intelligence. He is a retired US Army military intelligence officer and Middle East Foreign Area Officer, with operational service in Lebanon, El Salvador, Desert Storm, Somalia, and Iraq.

2. China Is Secretly Worried Trump Will Win on Trade

Excerpts:

Since November, China has dispatched several delegations to Washington to explore potential deals with the new administration, arguing that tariffs would add to the inflationary pressure in the U.S. that Trump is trying to tame.

Simultaneously, Beijing has developed an arsenal of tools—such as export controls on critical minerals—to inflict economic pain on the U.S. and has been courting America’s traditional partners to prepare for a more intense face-off with Washington.

One lesson Xi has learned from the first trade war with Trump is that China has more to lose from hitting back at Trump’s tariff hikes with proportional levy increases, the people said, as the U.S. buys substantially more from China than the other way around.

Michael Pillsbury, a China expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation who consults with the administration, said he has met with members of Chinese delegations that have visited Washington since the election. The Chinese effort amounts to a campaign to ward off tariffs, he said.

“They are kind of desperate,” Pillsbury said. “Their economy is in trouble. Now that Trump put the tariffs on, they know this campaign has failed.”

Still, as Washington amps up pressure, Beijing is trying to project confidence. After Trump’s latest tariff actions this week, China swiftly retaliated. Meanwhile, Beijing set a growth target of about 5% for 2025, a signal that it expects the Chinese economy to resist the rising trade pressures. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman took a defiant stance, saying, “If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”

China Is Secretly Worried Trump Will Win on Trade

In seeking accord with U.S., Beijing wants to avoid becoming isolated like the Soviet Union during the Cold War

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-trump-trade-war-worries-0c2fa146?mod=latest_headlines

By Lingling Wei

Follow and Alex Leary

March 5, 2025 9:00 pm ET

Soon after Donald Trump won the presidential election in November, Xi Jinping asked his aides to urgently analyze the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union.

His concern, according to people who consult with senior Chinese officials, was that as President Trump gears up for a showdown with Beijing, China could get isolated like Moscow during that era.

He’s not wrong to worry. Even though Trump may be the one who currently looks isolated on the world stage—picking trade fights with erstwhile allies like Mexico and Canada, alarming Europe over his handling of the war in Ukraine and vowing to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal—the truth is that China doesn’t hold a strong hand.

With a domestic economy in crisis, Xi is playing defense, hoping to salvage as much as possible of a global trade system that helped pull his country out of poverty. Across the Pacific, Trump is intent on rewiring that very trading system, which he and his advisers see as having benefited the rest of the world—and China most of all—at the U.S.’s expense.

It isn’t just trade. The competing agendas of the leaders of the world’s two largest economies are poised to lead to precisely what China is trying to avoid: a superpower clash not seen since the Cold War, an all-encompassing rivalry over economic, technological and overall geopolitical supremacy.

Trump, who highlighted the need to counter China throughout his campaign, returned to the White House with a comfortable victory and Republican control of Congress. He believes he can deal with Beijing from a position of strength, advisers said.

Many of his early diplomatic moves should be viewed in that context, these people said. Trump is trying to end the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine to better focus on China, they said. His recent enthusiastic embrace of Russia and its authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, is propelled in part by a strategic desire to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, Premier Li Qiang, right, and other senior members of the government at the opening session of an annual gathering to set the country’s domestic agenda. Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

One reason Trump wants U.S. control of the Panama Canal is that he sees the Chinese infrastructure that has been built up there in the past three decades as a national-security threat. On Tuesday, he notched a victory of sorts, when a consortium of investors led by U.S. asset management firm BlackRock agreed to buy majority stakes in ports on either end of the Panama Canal from Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison.

“All the stuff he’s doing is so that we can put more resources” to counter China, an administration official said.

Trump on Tuesday added to existing tariffs on China, citing its role in the fentanyl crisis in the U.S., surprising Chinese officials who were still trying to figure out how to approach what they see as an erratic U.S. leader.

China, which itself has tried to reshape the global order, aligning itself with Russia to challenge the West, now finds itself on the back foot. The vision haunting Xi is one where China finds itself cut off by trade restrictions and sanctions, suffering Soviet-style isolation with fewer outlets for its goods and limited access to crucial technologies.

“Now China is in danger of becoming the target of a similar rivalry,” one of the people who consult with Beijing said. “Xi believes that must be avoided.”

What complicates Beijing’s efforts at shaping its strategy toward the U.S. is the difficulty in getting Trump’s core team to engage. China hasn’t been a primary focus for Trump in his first weeks. His near-term priorities have been on fixing illegal immigration, slashing government spending and ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.

While Xi is waiting for clarity on what the U.S. wants from Beijing, his economic team is preparing ways to hit back at Trump.

Ships and containers are shrouded in fog at the Yangshan Deepwater Port in Shanghai, which faces uncertainty as global trade tensions mount. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Since November, China has dispatched several delegations to Washington to explore potential deals with the new administration, arguing that tariffs would add to the inflationary pressure in the U.S. that Trump is trying to tame.

Simultaneously, Beijing has developed an arsenal of tools—such as export controls on critical minerals—to inflict economic pain on the U.S. and has been courting America’s traditional partners to prepare for a more intense face-off with Washington.

One lesson Xi has learned from the first trade war with Trump is that China has more to lose from hitting back at Trump’s tariff hikes with proportional levy increases, the people said, as the U.S. buys substantially more from China than the other way around.

Michael Pillsbury, a China expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation who consults with the administration, said he has met with members of Chinese delegations that have visited Washington since the election. The Chinese effort amounts to a campaign to ward off tariffs, he said.

“They are kind of desperate,” Pillsbury said. “Their economy is in trouble. Now that Trump put the tariffs on, they know this campaign has failed.”

Still, as Washington amps up pressure, Beijing is trying to project confidence. After Trump’s latest tariff actions this week, China swiftly retaliated. Meanwhile, Beijing set a growth target of about 5% for 2025, a signal that it expects the Chinese economy to resist the rising trade pressures. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman took a defiant stance, saying, “If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”

‘Let the Chinese stew’

Trump and Xi seemed to be off to a good start, similar to the beginning of Trump’s first term in 2017. The American leader invited Xi to his Jan. 20 inauguration, and while the Chinese leader sent his vice president instead, it was still a goodwill gesture from a leadership often wary of political risks. Both leaders have expressed an interest in having a summit.

Such diplomatic niceties, however, only mask the actions beneath—and what likely is in store for China.

Trump’s “America First” policy essentially calls for dismantling the norms set up by the World Trade Organization since 1995. Under those norms, China has been able to flood the world with cheap exports while limiting foreign access to its own market. China’s $295 billion trade surplus with the U.S. is the widest of any U.S. trading partner.

Matt Turpin, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution who served on Trump’s National Security Council during his first term, said Trump believes that U.S. interests, especially those of American workers and companies, are harmed by the liberal international economic system that developed after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Chinese Vice President Han Zheng attends Donald Trump’s most recent inauguration. Photo: Shawn Thew/Associated Press

To re-engineer the system, Turpin said, Trump’s trade team may “focus on getting relatively favorable deals with everyone else first and let the Chinese stew in their continuing economic depression.”

The people close to the administration said Trump believes that the U.S. can strengthen its leverage over Beijing by individually renegotiating terms of trade with its other partners.

On his first day in office, Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing federal agencies to conduct a series of reviews of the U.S.’s existing trade relationships. One key task for his economic team is to cut deals with countries like Mexico and Vietnam, part of efforts to prevent Chinese companies from rerouting goods to the U.S. through third parties.

After Trump first threatened to hit Mexico and Canada with 25% tariffs in early February, Mexico made a “very interesting proposal” to match the U.S. on tariffs for imports from China, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg TV. Following a pause, Trump on Tuesday followed through on his tariff threat, arguing that the two countries still hadn’t firmed up their policies to stop migrant and drug flows across the border. A day later, the White House said it will give automakers a one-month exemption from the new levies.

‘Sticks and leverage’

The effort to isolate China economically isn’t limited to tariffs, which Trump had said could go as high as 60%.

Other actions being considered by his trade team—Treasury’s Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer—include restricting Chinese investment in the U.S. and U.S. investment in China, targeting industries dominated by China, such as shipbuilding, as well as further limiting the sale of high-tech products to Chinese companies. Rather than hurting the U.S., the administration believes export controls will make the economy stronger.

At the same time, Trump himself has held out the prospect of making a fresh deal with China. “It’s possible, it’s possible,” he said last month. And he has continued to call Xi a “good friend,” just as he did during his first presidency.

A scene at the Panama Canal. Photo: Fred Ramos for WSJ

The people close to the administration said ultimately, the U.S. may push China to agree to make “structural changes” in the way it runs the economy—a deal that Xi is unlikely to accept given his emphasis on central control to manage the economy. China generally abhors what it sees as any outside attempt to challenge the Communist Party’s governance.

The people point to as a template a proposed deal Beijing rejected in May 2019, after rounds of intense negotiations during the height of the trade war with the first Trump administration. That deal proposed changes in Chinese laws to prohibit theft of American technology and to better protect American companies operating in China—changes Xi found unacceptable.

Trump isn’t in a rush to negotiate with Xi because of the U.S.’s economic strength, the people said. The administration is developing “a lot of sticks and leverage” that can be used in negotiations, said one of the people.

Trump also continues to believe that he can take actions like tariffs, while simultaneously expecting that his personal relationship with Xi can result in the two countries finding some common ground, the people said.

Rivals, partners

It was during Trump’s first four years in the White House, from 2017 to 2020, that the U.S. policy toward China underwent a major makeover. The longstanding strategy of deepening economic ties and cooperative engagement with Beijing was replaced by one characterized by estrangement, including increased tariffs and tech restrictions.

Even though President Joe Biden continued the assertive approach, his administration largely kept the relationship on an even keel. Scores of channels of communication with Beijing were revived under Biden.

Now, much to the chagrin of Beijing, Trump in his second term is both less restrained and more determined, paving the way for even more intense U.S.-China storms.

In meetings with American business and thought leaders in recent months, Xi and his aides have repeatedly conveyed Beijing’s desire to be a partner with the U.S., not an outright adversary, according to people who attended the gatherings.

“They’ve studied Trump carefully and have a pretty realistic view of the situation,” said Graham Allison, former dean of Harvard Kennedy School who has met with Xi and other senior Chinese officials in the past year. “Xi has been vocal about his effort to conceptualize the relationship as one where the U.S. and China are both rivals and partners simultaneously.”

Presidents Trump and Xi met at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing during an official state visit by the U.S. leader in 2017. Photo: nicolas asfouri/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Trump’s one-two tariff punch in the past weeks has exposed pitfalls in Beijing’s wait-and-see approach toward Washington.

Since Trump slapped the initial 10% tariffs on Chinese goods in early February, according to the people close to Beijing’s thinking, China’s leadership has been holding out for the Trump team to make specific demands, in hopes that those asks could lead to a broader discussion.

Xi isn’t interested in making an offer just on fentanyl, the people said. Rather, they said, Xi hopes to engage Trump in dialogue that can lead to a more comprehensive agreement and define the overall relationship.

Xi’s envoy to Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, Vice President Han Zheng, told Trump officials about Beijing’s willingness to discuss a range of topics including fentanyl and trade, the people said.

The 10% additional tariff move by Trump this week, one of the people said, was “pretty unexpected,” while adding, “the Chinese side has been holding out for the U.S. side to come to the table with conditions.”

Write to Lingling Wei at Lingling.Wei@wsj.com and Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com

Appeared in the March 6, 2025, print edition as 'China Is Secretly Worried Trump Will Win Showdown'.

3. Trump Warns Hamas to Release All Hostages or Terrorist Group Is ‘Dead’

Trump Warns Hamas to Release All Hostages or Terrorist Group Is ‘Dead’

President’s threat comes after White House said it held face-to-face talks with the militant group

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/white-house-holding-direct-talks-with-hamas-on-hostage-release-099f173d?mod=latest_headlines

By Summer Said

Follow and Alexander Ward

Updated March 5, 2025 6:24 pm ET

Yael and Adi Alexander, parents of hostage Edan Alexander, near the border with the Gaza Strip in Nirim, Israel. Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—President Trump warned Hamas to free the remaining hostages in Gaza after the White House confirmed it had held face-to-face talks with the militant group on a deal to secure their release.

“Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you,” Trump posted Wednesday on social media. If the group continued to hold hostages, “you are DEAD!”

Administration officials didn’t immediately say what the president meant, or whether it might involve U.S. military action against Hamas or backing a resumption of Israel’s war against the U.S.-designated terrorist group in Gaza.

Trump’s threat came hours after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing that the U.S. had held talks with Hamas, which she described as “a good-faith effort” focused on securing the hostages’ release. “There are American lives at stake,” she added.

They were the first publicly acknowledged talks between Washington and Hamas since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023.

Leavitt later announced that Trump met Wednesday with eight of the released hostages from Gaza.

A truce between Israel and Hamas that took effect in January appears increasingly precarious after Israel blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, in response to Hamas rejecting an Israeli proposal to extend the cease-fire without a commitment to end the war or fully withdraw its troops.

There were indications that Israel wasn’t pleased by the U.S.-Hamas talks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement that read in its entirety: “Israel has expressed to the United States its position regarding direct talks with Hamas.”

The initial contact between the U.S. and Hamas occurred last month in Doha, Qatar, and included a request by U.S. hostage negotiator Adam Boehler for the release of American hostages, according to two U.S. officials, a senior Hamas official and two Arab mediators. Hamas responded on Feb. 15 by freeing Israeli-American Sagui Dekel Chen.

But the U.S. was seeking the release of all remaining Americans held in Gaza, including the remains of deceased hostages, as an initial step by Hamas. One American, 21-year-old Edan Alexander, and four bodies of slain U.S. citizens remain in Gaza.

Hamas negotiators said they were willing to release them in a broader deal ending the war, the Arab officials said. U.S. negotiators voiced interest in an agreement that would allow the release of all remaining hostages dead or alive, but made no commitments, they added.

The two sides didn’t reach an agreement during the meeting or in a subsequent one, but left the door open for further talks, the Arab officials said. The U.S. has previously communicated with Hamas representatives through intermediaries in lengthy cease-fire talks during the Biden administration.

Leavitt said Israel was consulted on the talks. Boehler, she said, “does have the authority to talk to anyone.” Arab officials said Israel hadn’t been informed by the U.S. ahead of the meetings.

Trump has long signaled impatience with the staged releases under the cease-fire deal that his own representative helped negotiate before he took office. Trump said last month that he wanted the release of all the hostages—“all of them, not in dribs and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two.”

In his Wednesday social-media post, Trump said “This is your last warning!”

Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com

Appeared in the March 6, 2025, print edition as 'White House Holds Talks With Hamas On Hostage Release'.

4. U.S. Suspends Costly Deportation Flights Using Military Aircraft

U.S. Suspends Costly Deportation Flights Using Military Aircraft

Trump administration had used C-17s to fly migrants abroad and to Guantanamo Bay

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-deportation-flights-paused-cost-c37c577a?mod=hp_lead_pos7

By Shelby Holliday

Follow and Nancy A. Youssef

March 5, 2025 12:58 pm ET

Inside Trump’s NSC

By ROBBIE GRAMER and JACK DETSCH 03/04/2025 04:12 PM EST

Politico · by Robbie Gramer · March 4, 2025

With help from Maggie Miller and Connor O’Brien

National security adviser MIKE WALTZ has been busy staffing up the National Security Council since the Trump administration took office just over a month ago.

We have a brief (but not exhaustive) rundown of Trump’s NSC team so far. The names shed light on who is helping shape and implement the MAGA agenda behind-the-scenes, on major issues such as the Russia-Ukraine war, competition with China, defense policy, cybersecurity and more.

A few highlights:

KEVIN HARRINGTON has joined the NSC as senior director for strategic planning, a role he held in the first Trump administration that oversees the big picture aspects of implementing the president’s national security agenda. Harrington is a former investment fund manager and associate of venture capitalist PETER THIEL and worked closely with ROBERT O’BRIEN when he served as Trump’s national security adviser from 2019 to 2021.

IVAN KANAPATHY is the NSC senior director for Asia, and he could play an outsized role in crafting the Trump administration’s approach to China and Taiwan. Kanapathy, who takes over as one of the senior-most officials focused on the Indo-Pacific, is a former Marine Corps officer and military attache who has worked at the American Institute in Taiwan, the U.S. de facto diplomatic representation to Taiwan. He served in the first Trump NSC as director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, and as deputy senior director for Asian affairs.

Before rejoining government, Kanapathy called on Taiwan to send Stingers and Javelins to its outlying islands to prepare for a Chinese attack, as part of an arsenal that could include hundreds of attritable weapons platforms and thousands of munitions. “[T]he Taiwanese military must prioritize denying a PLA lodgment above all else,” Kanapathy wrote in an edited volume published last year. “Taiwan should be prepared to endure missile and bomb strikes, an enforced embargo, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, disinformation campaigns, and other associated threats for up to two months while denying a landing operation.”

ANDREW PEEK serves on the NSC as senior director for Europe and Russia. Peek was previously national security adviser to Waltz when Waltz represented Florida’s 6th district in the House before joining Trump’s White House earlier this year.

Peek plays a major role in informing Trump’s approach to NATO, Russia and Ukraine, including the ongoing (and dramatic) efforts to broker a rare earths deal with Ukraine as part of broader peace talks. Peek, who has a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, served in the first Trump administration at the NSC and at the State Department as deputy assistant secretary for Iran and Iraq at the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

A longtime senior Republican Congressional aide, ERIC TRAGER, made the move to the White House to be the NSC’s senior director for the Middle East and North Africa after serving as a professional staff member for Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee since 2018. Trager helms the NSC’s response to the ongoing Israel-Gaza crisis and helps shape the Trump administration’s approach to Iran.

On the communications side, BRIAN HUGHES serves as deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and spokesperson for the NSC, crafting the White House’s public affairs strategy on the national security front. Hughes led communications for the Trump transition team.

IAN BENNITT serves as senior director for maritime and industrial capacity. Bennitt, another former Congressional staffer on the powerful House Armed Services Committee, could play a major role in maneuvering the Trump team’s stated plans to dramatically ramp up naval shipbuilding.

Among others on the NSC staff to keep track of: WALKER BARRETT, a former Republican staffer for the House Armed Services Committee, serves as the senior director for defense; ALEXEI BULAZEL is the senior director for cybersecurity; and MAGGIE DOUGHERTY, a former staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under its chair, Sen. JIM RISCH (R-Id.), is senior director for international organizations. Other notable names to keep track of: NELS NORDQUIST, who covered national security issues as a staffer on the House Financial Services Committee, is senior director for international economics where he plays a role overseeing U.S. sanctions policies; BRIAN WALSH, a former staffer for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence under then-Sen. MARCO RUBIO, serves as senior director for intelligence; and DR. GERALD PARKER serves as senior director for biosecurity and pandemic response.

6. Truth Mattered in the Cold War. And It Matters Now in Ukraine.

An excellent history that still provides lessons. We would do well spending some time studying these.

Excerpts:

Wałęsa, Havel, Sakharov, and Sharansky inspired the revolutions that ended the Soviet domination of Eurasia in the late 1980s and early ’90s, but there was also a ripple effect. The example of these dissidents inspired other nonviolent, citizen-led uprisings—known as the Color Revolutions—which ended authoritarian regimes in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine in the 2000s, making Europe not only freer but more secure. Tyrants like Slobodan Milošević were driven from power by regular people demanding the same liberty as their European neighbors.

Putin does not see it that way. Instead, he inverts reality and claims the Color Revolutions were acts of Western imperialism. He understands the threat posed to his own gangster regime by ordinary citizens who refuse to be cowed by his secret police. And so he has done his best to snuff out the embers of freedom today. Alexei Navalny, a Russian politician who had the temerity to expose state corruption, died in one of Putin’s dungeons last year because he insisted on telling Russians the truth about the oligarchs who have plundered their country.

Putin needs to lie for the survival of his own regime. So he claims that Ukraine and Georgia want to join NATO, a defensive alliance, because these nations have plans to attack Russia—not because they are afraid that Russia will attack them. He knows that if Russians see Ukrainians and Georgians as peacefully, happily living in freedom and prosperity, they will demand democracy for themselves.

And sadly, we hear these arguments not only from Putin, but from many Americans as well—from Tucker Carlson and RFK Jr. and the economist Jeffrey Sachs. And we hear them from Trump himself, who has accused Zelensky of being “a dictator without elections,” and berated the Ukrainian leader publicly in a White House visit.

Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident, told me he had appreciated Trump’s common sense during his presidential campaign but was surprised when he “repeated all the most laughable Soviet-type propaganda.”

“I hope it will be corrected,” he added, “because it’s extremely dangerous.”

We should all hope so. Because if Trump’s capitulation to Putin continues, the West will lose something beyond Ukraine. It will lose the moral clarity that destroyed an evil empire that Putin is doing his best to claw back, one nation at a time.

Truth Mattered in the Cold War. And It Matters Now in Ukraine.

Honorable men went to the gulag for refusing to repeat the Kremlin’s lies. Now an American president is echoing them for free.

By Eli Lake

03.05.25 — Breaking History

https://www.thefp.com/p/cold-war-dissidents-ukraine-war?utm_source=pocket_shared

A civilian holding a gasoline can watches Soviet tanks roll down the street during the 1968 invasion by Warsaw Pact forces in Prague, Czechoslovakia. (Photo by Hulton Archive via Getty Images, illustration by The Free Press)

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Today we’re bringing you the latest episode of Breaking History, the podcast where I go back in time, in order to make sense of the present. In the last episode, I told the backstory behind Donald Trump’s plan to declassify every file related to JFK’s assassination. This episode is about how America won the Cold War, with the help of dissidents who refused to repeat their regime’s lies: In the ’80s, the U.S. president aligned with the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain. And those dissidents prevailed. Today, he berates an heir to their struggle in the Oval Office.

You can listen to the episode below, or keep scrolling to read a print adaptation of it. If you enjoy either, follow Breaking History on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Let’s go back to a better time, when the Soviet empire was dissolving, one nation after another. Czechoslovakia, Poland, Lithuania, East Germany: In the late ’80s and early ’90s, all of them broke free from the Iron Curtain. On the right side of history stood America; in the landfill of history lay the Soviet Union.

This moment feels like a distant dream. Not only because the Russian bear is once again on the prowl, but also because the rhetoric of the American president has changed significantly from Ronald Reagan’s lofty directive, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

These days, we have Donald Trump expressing insane hostility toward Ukraine, a sovereign nation invaded by Russia; as I wrote last week, he seemed unmoved when Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of that nation, explained in the Oval Office that if Russia swallows his country, America will find itself with an empowered enemy.

It’s not Donald Trump’s fault that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. And it wasn’t on his watch that Vladimir Putin renewed the invasion in 2022. But the end of this war, much like the end of the Cold War, is going to tell us a lot about who we are as a nation.

Right now, Trump is proposing a peace so dishonorable it’s not really peace at all. It is a capitulation, not to mention a betrayal of a nation fighting for its life. Where is his demand that Russia make concessions? But perhaps the most unsettling shift was Trump’s relinquishment of the truth itself. Over the last month, he has sounded like Putin’s lawyer, repackaging the dictator’s crimes as justifiable. He even went so far as to repeat Putin’s lie that Ukraine was responsible for beginning the war. “You should have never started it,” he said to President Zelensky.

Once upon a time, honorable men went to the gulag for refusing to repeat the Kremlin’s lies; now an American president is telling them for free.

In that light, it’s worth revisiting the story of how Reagan formed a kind of alliance with a handful of dissidents who resisted a totalitarian system that laid claim to the souls and minds of its citizens. Because when America won the Cold War, it didn’t do it alone. It was hand in hand with men and women who lived in the prisons of their prison states. We called them “dissidents” because they lived in truth beneath a ruling system that compelled their neighbors to lie.

One of the most famous was Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who defined the life of dissidence as follows: “Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me. The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.”

In the early ’90s, truth triumphed. Many of the dissidents lived long enough to see their tyrants topple, and the empire that oppressed them fall apart.

One of them even went on to lead the country that jailed him, and his story is particularly instructive in the current crisis.

His name was Václav Havel, and his path from playwright to dissident to icon of democracy helps explain how plain truths defeated Communist lies—and why America won the Cold War.

Back in 1975, the idea that democracy might triumph against communism was almost far-fetched. It was a rough year for America. Unemployment was rising, and inflation was high. The country was still reeling from Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon. There was the humiliating exit from Vietnam. A crazed woman in San Francisco tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford.

In essence, America was weak. And if the Cold War was a battle for planetary supremacy between the Communists and the U.S., in 1975, you’d have bet on Red.

Even the president seemed scared. Here was Ford, talking about the USSR: “Military competition must be controlled. Political competition must be restrained. Crises must not be manipulated or exploited for unilateral lateral advantages that could lead us again to the brink of war.”

He’s saying: Please don’t piss off the Russians, whatever you do.

And so, when the great Solzhenitsyn visited Washington in 1975, Ford refused to meet with him. The same year, he concluded a diplomatic agreement with the USSR in Helsinki, Finland, agreeing to recognize certain nations as part of the Soviet Union—and effectively accepting Soviet control of other countries in Eastern Europe.

Imagine being a dissident in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, or indeed Ukraine, and hearing that America had just given you up. It must have felt like the end of the world.

The agreement was not popular with the D.C. cold warriors. In 1976, Reagan—then embarking on his first, ultimately unsuccessful attempt to become president—said, “We gave away the freedom of millions of people. Freedom that was not ours to give.”

But history is a funny thing. Because as much as Reagan railed against the Helsinki Accords, by the time he was president, it would be his secret weapon. There was a time bomb hidden there that would blow up in the face of the Soviet Union.

It would do this with the help of Václav Havel.

Across Europe, there were many dissident heroes: Andrey Sakharov, the Soviet physicist who threw away glory in the ’60s in order to tell the truth; Solzhenitsyn, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970; Lech Wałęsa, who organized a union of independent dockworkers in Poland in 1980; and friend of The Free Press Natan Sharansky, an activist who demanded the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. But only one dissident was best friends with rock stars, and that was Havel.

Born into considerable privilege, Havel’s father built high-end apartments and his uncle was one of the founders of Prague’s version of Hollywood. But his privilege came to an end when the Communists took over his country after a putsch in 1948.

In 1951, at the age of 15, young Václav had to leave school because his family had been branded “class enemies,” meaning he was deemed unworthy even of a high school education. So he became a lab assistant at the Prague School of Chemical Technology. But the young Havel would not be deterred, and finished his education at a night school.

In 1957, Havel began his military service in the Czechoslovakian army, where he was in an engineering battalion. He had to carry around a heavy bazooka, which he hated. By this point, he had discovered a love of the theater, and while still a soldier he wrote and produced his first play—a one-act affair called An Evening with the Family. It’s about a senile grandmother and a dead canary.

His breakout hit came in 1963. The Garden Party is about a Communist functionary named Hugo who adapts so skillfully to the language and personality types of the “Office of Liquidation” that he loses his identity. The play ends when Hugo returns to his parents, and they no longer recognize him.

Havel was the kind of genius who could have escaped communism and thrived elsewhere, like his former schoolmate, director Miloš Forman, or his onetime mentor, novelist Milan Kundera, who both emigrated to the West.

But Havel did not leave. He chose to remain in Prague—partly because in the 1960s, there was a growing sense of freedom in the Czech capital. Unlike in the days of Stalin, the state no longer enforced ideological conformity at the barrel of a gun.

If Havel had lived in more oppressive Communist cities like Moscow or Havana or Warsaw, he would never have succeeded, but in Prague his plays were performed in official state theaters—and received glowing reviews in the Communist Party–controlled press.

And by 1965, Czechoslovakia had opened up to the extent that an American Beat poet could spend the spring in Prague: Allen Ginsberg was embraced by the intellectuals and youth of the city.

By January 1968, the national Communist Party had selected a legitimate reformer, Alexander Dubček, to be its chairman. Immediately, he attempted to loosen state censorship and allow citizens to travel. He called it socialism with a human face.

A human face that the Kremlin would soon stomp on.

On August 20, 1968, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. Immediately, Havel drafted a manual for Czechoslovakian citizens struggling to deal with the Soviet troops occupying the country:

Approach the presence of the foreign troops as you would approach, for example, a natural disaster: Do not negotiate with them—just as you would not negotiate with torrential rain—but deal with them and escape them just as you would escape rain: Use your wits, your intelligence, and your fantasy. It seems that the enemy is just as powerless against these weapons, as the rain is powerless against an umbrella.

But defeat was inevitable. Moscow had the numbers, just as it does today against Ukraine. Dubček was replaced as chairman in April 1969. The empire had struck back, with a policy known as “normalization.” Old neighborhoods and towns were razed and replaced with brutalist housing projects. Travel was largely banned. As for Prague’s thriving rock scene: Performing songs in English was forbidden. Those who didn’t want to sing the Politburo’s tune had to go underground.

Or indeed, the countryside. Havel was spending more and more time at his farmhouse. Eventually, the playwright crossed paths with The Plastic People of the Universe, an underground Czech band inspired by Frank Zappa, which had been putting on concerts outside the city, slightly farther from the eye of the Communist authorities.

The Plastics were punk before punk. They taunted and sneered at the authorities. And eventually, they were arrested and really became outlaws. The band was sentenced to prison in 1976—and Havel became their primary defender.

As he wrote in his essay “Disturbing the Peace,” the arrest of the Plastics and their manager represented “an attack by the totalitarian system on life itself, on the very essence of human freedom and integrity.”

The year before, the American president signed the Helsinki Accords—effectively recognizing the USSR’s control over Czechoslovakia.

But here comes the secret weapon: Hidden inside these accords was an assurance that participating nations would respect human rights and protect independent journalism. And this was eagerly seized upon by Havel and a few other dissidents. They wrote an open letter, signed by artists, intellectuals, and activists, drawing attention to this guarantee, and arguing that it had been violated by the arrest of The Plastic People of the Universe.

This document, finished in January 1977, became known as Charter 77. It not only challenged the imprisonment of the Plastics; it was also a gauntlet thrown at the feet of the Soviet bloc.

But getting it before the public and the wider Western press was hard. Havel and a few other dissidents drove to mailboxes in the dead of night, but they were followed. Havel was pulled from a vehicle by his feet, hauled off by police, and interrogated.

The aim of the authorities soon became clear: It was to pressure the signatories of Charter 77 to renounce their colleagues and repeat the lie: We do not believe in the document we signed. Artists who agreed to denounce the charter were honored and promoted by the state.

Havel didn’t renounce the charter or give the authorities the names of his co-conspirators, but after days of interrogations, he made a single concession: He agreed to step down as an official spokesman for Charter 77, a decision that haunted him for the rest of his life. Havel was now a marked man. Between 1977 and 1983, Havel spent most of his days in prison.

The early 1980s were a dark period for the dissidents. But there was a ray of hope, thanks to an unlikely ally in America: the new president, Ronald Reagan. For 15 years, American policy had been détente, a recognition that America and its allies would have to find ways to live with the Soviets, by accommodation and compromise. Reagan brought an entirely different approach to the Cold War: “We win, they lose.”

The 40th president didn’t want a hot war with the Soviet Union. Like Trump, he wanted to meet with their leaders and even dreamed of reaching an agreement to outlaw nuclear weapons. But Reagan also believed that the American political system was superior to the USSR’s fear-based society.

In a sense, Reagan was laying a trap. He called the Soviet Union an evil empire; he increased defense spending to break the Soviet economy; he unleashed the CIA to fight Soviet proxies in Central America and South Asia. But he also wanted to negotiate.

And in his diplomacy, Reagan did something very clever. He began asking after the political prisoners, mentioning them by name. In his 1987 speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Reagan specifically spoke about Havel and other dissidents. He wanted to let their jailers know that the world was watching. Reagan believed that the dissidents could show Czechs, Poles, and Ukrainians, among others, that an alternative to totalitarianism was possible.

Eventually, Reagan found a Soviet premier with whom he could do business, Mikhail Gorbachev, who became leader of the Soviet Union in 1985. Gorbachev instituted a series of reforms, similar to what had happened in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. Gorbachev allowed more criticism of the government from its citizens. He freed some political prisoners. And he began to experiment with free market reforms.

The pressure for change had come not only from outside the Soviet Union; it was coming from his own citizens. Russians were inspired by the dissidents. They knew who Sharansky was, and Gorbachev defied his own Politburo to release him from the gulag, where he was trapped from 1977 to 1986. The Poles knew about Wałęsa. And in Czechoslovakia, they knew about Havel, and they knew about Charter 77. The dissidents were not destined to a life of misery and obscurity.

Ordinary people began to stand up for the truth, too.

The critical event came on November 9, 1989 when East Berliners tore down the wall that divided their city, and no one stopped them. The dam had burst. Eight days later, 150,000 people showed up in the middle of a square in Prague and demanded their own freedom.

It was now only a matter of time. The evil empire was finished.

And what about Václav Havel? Well, he became the last president of Czechoslovakia, before he became the first president of the Czech Republic. “He’s a living example of a person who can change things. But not just through art,” said the rock artist Lou Reed, who was sent to interview Havel in 1990 by Rolling Stone magazine. Havel died in 2011, having made the world a freer place.

That is the legacy of the dissidents. They inspired the revolutions that freed them from the Soviet system. The dissidents are the heroes of that story, but it matters that America was on their side when they were at their lowest.

Wałęsa, Havel, Sakharov, and Sharansky inspired the revolutions that ended the Soviet domination of Eurasia in the late 1980s and early ’90s, but there was also a ripple effect. The example of these dissidents inspired other nonviolent, citizen-led uprisings—known as the Color Revolutions—which ended authoritarian regimes in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine in the 2000s, making Europe not only freer but more secure. Tyrants like Slobodan Milošević were driven from power by regular people demanding the same liberty as their European neighbors.

Putin does not see it that way. Instead, he inverts reality and claims the Color Revolutions were acts of Western imperialism. He understands the threat posed to his own gangster regime by ordinary citizens who refuse to be cowed by his secret police. And so he has done his best to snuff out the embers of freedom today. Alexei Navalny, a Russian politician who had the temerity to expose state corruption, died in one of Putin’s dungeons last year because he insisted on telling Russians the truth about the oligarchs who have plundered their country.

Putin needs to lie for the survival of his own regime. So he claims that Ukraine and Georgia want to join NATO, a defensive alliance, because these nations have plans to attack Russia—not because they are afraid that Russia will attack them. He knows that if Russians see Ukrainians and Georgians as peacefully, happily living in freedom and prosperity, they will demand democracy for themselves.

And sadly, we hear these arguments not only from Putin, but from many Americans as well—from Tucker Carlson and RFK Jr. and the economist Jeffrey Sachs. And we hear them from Trump himself, who has accused Zelensky of being “a dictator without elections,” and berated the Ukrainian leader publicly in a White House visit.

Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident, told me he had appreciated Trump’s common sense during his presidential campaign but was surprised when he “repeated all the most laughable Soviet-type propaganda.”

“I hope it will be corrected,” he added, “because it’s extremely dangerous.”

We should all hope so. Because if Trump’s capitulation to Putin continues, the West will lose something beyond Ukraine. It will lose the moral clarity that destroyed an evil empire that Putin is doing his best to claw back, one nation at a time.

We are proud to have published dissidents in the pages of The Free Press. To read the letters that Alexei Navalny sent Natan Sharansky from the gulag, click here. And to read Sharansky’s take on Donald Trump’s recent actions, click here.

7. Will Trump's actions force Asian allies to embrace China?

Excerpts:

For many in Southeast Asia, the Trump administration's apparent support for the Russian point of view, including voting with Moscow at the United Nations, has sent out a clear signal that Washington is currently "more concerned with raw power and not the rules-based international order," Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia expert and professor at the National War College in Washington, told DW.

Southeast Asian countries should be "very concerned" that the United States might abandon them if it pursues a grand bargain with China, he added.

Despite Trump imposing tariffs on Chinese goods, and President Xi retaliating in kind, some analysts in the region suspect that Trump may eventually seek a "big deal" to end US-China tensions, which would leave Southeast Asian states helpless in their disputes with Beijing.

Joshua Espena, a resident fellow at the Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, told DW that most countries in the region will pursue "like-minded autonomy."

For instance, the Philippines, a US treaty ally with an increasingly fractious relationship with China, will strive to keep Washington on board while it fast-tracks the buildup of its own defense capabilities and expands security cooperation with other countries in the region, such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand.

Will Trump's actions force Asian allies to embrace China? – DW – 03/05/2025

Srinivas Mazumdaru

13 hours ago13 hours ago

Washington's Ukraine diplomacy in recent weeks has raised questions about the reliability of US commitment to the security of its Asian allies.

DW · by Srinivas Mazumdaru

Since returning to the White House over six weeks ago, President Donald Trump has rapidly and dramatically changed US positions vis-à-vis Russia's war in Ukraine, much to the chagrin of Kyiv and Washington's other European allies.

The stunning showdown between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday, US statements ruling out Ukraine's entry into the NATO military alliance and the pause of all US military aid to Kyiv this week, among other moves, have been viewed by many as part of Washington's attempts to cooperate with Moscow and put pressure on Kyiv to accept a ceasefire deal on Russia's terms.

European leaders are contemplating a united response — including increased support for Ukraine as well as measures to boost national militaries — in the face of Trump's actions that could put the entire post-1945 security architecture on the continent in jeopardy.

Fading morale or renewed hope? How Ukrainians see 'US shift'

Growing concerns in Japan, South Korea

The dramatic developments are being keenly watched even in Asia, with US allies like Japan, South Korea and the Philippines increasingly concerned about Trump's commitment to their security.

Unlike European leaders, however, the governments in Tokyo and Seoul have largely kept quiet out of fear of attracting the attention of a leader upon whom their security and trade largely depend.

Both Japan and South Korea rely heavily on the US for their defense, with over 80,000 troops stationed in both countries.

They can ill afford to entirely reject the US as their immediate neighbors — China, North Korea and Russia — are increasingly militarily powerful and assertive.

Japan and South Korea are looking at the global situation now and they are both asking themselves if they too are about to be abandoned by Washington and "get the Ukraine treatment from [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping," said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo.

He pointed out that Tokyo and Seoul have been "frenemies" for a long time due to historical issues.

But, "inadvertently, Trump may have enhanced the solidarity of these two nations as they feel threatened by his erratic diplomacy," the expert told DW.

Little value in traditional alliances?

Even among conservatives in both countries who supported Trump's policies before the election, there is growing distaste for his decisions and fear that their own long-held alliances hold little value to Trump.

NATO to expand defense cooperation to Indo-Pacific

Yoichi Shimada, a politician with the right-wing Conservative Party, admits he was a Trump supporter before he returned to the White House.

But he said he now has serious reservations about many of Trump's policies, and expects the US president to soon demand a greater price for deploying US troops in Japan.

"While the traditional understanding has been that these troops are there to advance Washington's security policies in the region, Trump sees them as a tool to get more money from the host nation," Shimada said.

"He knows that Japan cannot make security or other deals with China or North Korea, so we have no choice but to agree," he said. "I expect the demand for Tokyo to pay more to come at any time."

Signaling a stronger US pivot to Indo-Pacific?

Washington's latest moves have also sent alarm bells throughout Southeast Asia, where several countries and territories depend on US security promises in their escalating tensions with Beijing.

While some politicians and commentators in the region believe they signal a stronger US pivot towards Asia, they "should not be too optimistic about that prospect," Khac Giang Nguyen, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, told DW.

A number of senior officials in the Trump administration have spent the past few years calling for the US to focus its security capabilities entirely on the Indo-Pacific region.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in Berlin last month that "stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe."

Washington, he added, was now focusing on China, which has "the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific."

What it means for Taiwan

On Tuesday, Elbridge Colby, Trump's nominee to become undersecretary of defense for policy, raised the issue of Taiwan while addressing the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He stressed that Washington had important national security interests in Taiwan, even if the island's status was not "existential" to the United States.

"Losing Taiwan, Taiwan's fall, would be a disaster for American interests," Colby said.

He also criticized the territory's government, saying that it spends "well below” 3% of GDP on defense when "they should be [spending] more like 10%."

Taiwan walks a tightrope in ties with US under Trump

Taiwan, a self-ruled democratic island viewed by Beijing as a Chinese province, is a major source of tension between the US and China.

Washington is Taiwan's most important international backer and arms supplier despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between the two sides.

And Beijing has vowed to eventually take control of the island, even by force if necessary. Taipei has sought closer security ties with the US since Trump returned to power.

Boosting defense capabilities and cooperation

For many in Southeast Asia, the Trump administration's apparent support for the Russian point of view, including voting with Moscow at the United Nations, has sent out a clear signal that Washington is currently "more concerned with raw power and not the rules-based international order," Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia expert and professor at the National War College in Washington, told DW.

Southeast Asian countries should be "very concerned" that the United States might abandon them if it pursues a grand bargain with China, he added.

Despite Trump imposing tariffs on Chinese goods, and President Xi retaliating in kind, some analysts in the region suspect that Trump may eventually seek a "big deal" to end US-China tensions, which would leave Southeast Asian states helpless in their disputes with Beijing.

Joshua Espena, a resident fellow at the Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, told DW that most countries in the region will pursue "like-minded autonomy."

For instance, the Philippines, a US treaty ally with an increasingly fractious relationship with China, will strive to keep Washington on board while it fast-tracks the buildup of its own defense capabilities and expands security cooperation with other countries in the region, such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand.

"This will not be an easy feat," Espena said, adding that most Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, have domestic political actors who favor appeasement with China, now the world's second-largest military power.

"At the end of the day, no country can replace the US as a security provider. As such, they will grit their teeth and hope for the best," Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told DW.

Is the Indo-Pacific entering new era of security alliances?

South Asia a low priority?

South Asia as a region has so far not seemed to be a priority for the Trump administration.

Trump met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month and agreed to boost defense cooperation with New Delhi amid mutual concerns over China's advancing military capabilities and growing clout in the Indo-Pacific.

But the US administration has so far said little about engaging with others in the region, including Pakistan and the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan.

Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that the Biden administration had already turned away from Pakistan and the country "doesn't appear to be on Trump's radar either."

"The biggest Trump effect for Pakistan is development aid cuts, including for Afghan refugees it is hosting," she told DW.

On Tuesday, while addressing a joint session of Congress, Trump thanked Pakistan for arresting Mohammad Sharifullah, the person blamed for killing 13 US service members during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Trump said Sharifullah was on his way to the United States to face justice.

Hours after Trump's speech, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Islamabad "will continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability."

Azeem Khalid, an international relations expert who specializes in Pakistan-China ties, said despite Trump's unpredictability, Islamabad can never think about abandoning its partnership with the US.

"Going away from Washington could complicate Pakistan's security partnerships and regional influence, given the US's global clout," he underlined, adding that against this backdrop, Islamabad will likely opt for balancing its ties with Washington and Beijing "to mitigate risks and maximize benefits."

Julian Ryall from Tokyo, Haroon Janjua from Islamabad and David Hutt contributed to this article.

Edited by: Keith Walker

DW · by Srinivas Mazumdaru

8. The Pentagon is About to Make a Big Mistake on Civilian Harm Mitigation

Lethality versus "precision lethality."

Excerpts:

Hegseth’s focus on lethality is an unsurprising correction, given America’s comparable lack of success in defeating the Taliban and the perception of largesse in the U.S. military budget. However, lethality as a blanket goal will not help the United States win wars as such. What is needed is precision lethality. When the U.S. military is unsuccessful in its targeting objectives, the costs — not only to the affected civilians — are exponential. Wasted ordnance and other military equipment, risks to U.S. personnel, resentment by other countries, and often an increase in the very terroristic or adversarial activity U.S. forces are trying to combat are just some of the costs of failed targeting activity.

In the coming years, one of the most challenging aspects of studying civilian casualty minimization will be the need to extrapolate from recent and ongoing conflicts to prepare the United States for future war. To be sure, the United States has made its share of civilian harm mistakes in the past. Continuing to study harm minimization methods by learning from current conflicts and projecting such methods into future warfare, particularly warfare driven by advanced technologies, will be a critical task for the U.S. military. The specialized programs of the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan will assist combatant commanders and civilian strategists to reap those lessons learned effectively.

The Pentagon is About to Make a Big Mistake on Civilian Harm Mitigation - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Claire Finkelstein · March 5, 2025

On Feb. 20, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced, per guidance from the Department of Government Efficiency, an 8 percent reduction to programs not related to 17 priority items he has identified to spare from the downsizing efforts. He emphasized that the department is particularly looking to cut “non-lethal programs.” In accordance with the emphasis on lethality, the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Plan and its associated Center for Excellence have been tagged for elimination. Consistent with Secretary Hegseth’s complaints about overly restrictive rules of engagement, it is possible that the program may be seen by the new administration as a “woke” project that makes the United States “soft” in war, one that ties the hands of combatant commanders and interferes with U.S. lethality. As one author who supports cutting the program recently wrote on a Federalist Society blog, “DoD explicitly recognized the … constraints [of the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Plan] go beyond international law, but it nonetheless used them to tie the hands of our soldiers. Even though the … guidance is not legal, our servicemembers understand that the intention is to hold them responsible for enemy civilian deaths, no matter the circumstances. “

I write this article as someone closely familiar with this center and its importance. I am the faculty director of a national security law center affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. We have contributed to the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Plan through conferences, student research and briefings, and on-going research, both in conversation with Army leaders in this area over the course of the past several years. We have received no funds or grants for these efforts so have no financial stake in this. From my knowledge of the program, it is neither “woke” nor “soft.”

The focus on civilian harm mitigation, which was initially set in motion by the first Trump administration, provides several important benefits that are very much in line with the thinking of the current administration. First, an enhanced understanding of the mechanisms of civilian harm is critical for the effectiveness and precision lethality of U.S. forces. Eliminating the focus on civilian harm will deny an important opportunity for the United States to hone its warfighting skills and to enhance precision lethality in its operations. Second, maintaining the current program will provide a critical and highly timely opportunity to study patterns of civilian casualties in the Israel-Hamas war, where the Israelis have faced the formidable challenge of minimizing civilian casualties while fighting an enemy that uses civilians as human shields. Third, the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Plan provides an opportunity to develop new technologies that will both assist with mitigating civilian harm in warfare and enhance lethality in both counter-terrorism operations and in large scale combat operations.

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How Did the Center Come to Be?

Based on lessons from America’s own counter-terrorism operations, particularly in view of the perception that U.S. targeting operations involved high levels of civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria during the campaign against the Islamic State, Secretary of Defense James Mattis in 2017 directed the Joint Staff to conduct a review of civilian casualties and then ordered the development of a department-wide policy on civilian harm mitigation. The Trump administration bolstered these efforts by releasing a public-facing webpage to improve how the Department of Defense tracks civilian harm, sponsoring additional research, and releasing annual reports to Congress. Additionally, in the context of security assistance, the Trump administration set up a targeting working group “to facilitate ally and partner efforts to reduce the risk of partner nation or coalition operations causing civilian harm.” A joint effort of the Departments of State and Defense, the group released its Targeting Infrastructure Policy in 2019 to better ensure that weapons sales enabled effective targeting operations. A focus on how civilian harm mitigation could facilitate more precise and effective military operations underpin these efforts.

Thereafter, in 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan while Congress established a “center for excellence” with bipartisan support in 10 U.S. Code § 184. When properly implemented, civilian harm mitigation can improve targeted lethality and the effectiveness of military operations through more efficient use of munitions. It can also reduce disinformation and misuse of information warfare, provide realistic training for operators, and mitigate psychological impacts on individual troops and combat formations. The Center for Excellence offers direct support to operational commands to advance the U.S. military’s lethality and ability to scale up its efforts to mitigate risk in large scale combat operations. The Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law has been working in parallel to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict and the Center for Excellence to explore ways to mitigate civilian harm, particularly in urban warfare where civilians are at higher risk, such as in the Israel-Hamas war. We have identified several areas where we believe the focus on civilian harm mitigation can greatly support the department’s core operations.

Human Shielding

One way to mitigate the risk to civilians has to do with understanding and developing protocol to assess combat with enemies that deliberately place non-combatants in harm’s way. America’s future adversaries will use human shields and disinformation at an unprecedented scale in future wars to undermine international and domestic support for U.S. military operations. Loss of civilian life and civilian infrastructure is an inevitable part of war, particularly in urban conflicts, but excessive civilian casualties are inefficient and render warfighting vulnerable to manipulation of the information space and psychological operations. Lack of preparation for civilian harm and ineffective messaging compounds the problem, and the enemy can easily exploit civilian casualties to turn public opinion against U.S. military operations. The collateral benefits to the enemy of increased civilian harm at the hands of U.S. forces will in turn drive up the civilian casualty toll in combat against an enemy unconcerned about minimizing harm to its own civilian population.

The experience of Israel’s war in Gaza provides a clear case in point, and the United States can benefit from close study of the patterns of civilian losses and ensuing information space distortions. Hamas’ consistent and intentional practice of embedding military targets within civilian infrastructure has ensured that Israeli military operations against targets in Gaza would result in civilian casualties and destruction to civilian infrastructure. The mounting casualty figures — whether genuine or exaggerated — have in turn created openings for effective anti-Israel sentiment.

On April 24, 2024, Congress passed the “Strengthening Tools to Counter the Use of Human Shields Act” (better known as the 2024 Shields Act) as part of Public Law 118-50, which required the secretary of defense to submit a report to Congress describing lessons learned from the United States and its partners and allies in fighting terrorist organizations that use human shields. It also directed the Department of Defense to report on measures the United States and other nations were taking to counter human shielding and to take steps to deter the use of human shielding in war. The Biden administration failed to implement this law, and the required report has not yet been written. Retaining the Civilian Harm Mitigation Action Plan, including its associated Center for Excellence, and insisting that the center produce such regular reports and address the problem of human shielding would be a natural implementation of the 2024 Shields Act.

The requirements of the Shields Act are not unimportant. It is critical that the United States develop a clear set of metrics as well as reliable and transparent protocol for addressing the challenges associated with fighting an enemy that makes extensive use of intermixing of combatants with civilians and civilian assets. To date, there have been few efforts to distinguish between different types of civilian casualties, such as those caused by U.S. forces as regrettable but routine incidents to combat operations, and those that are caused by the enemy’s deliberate placement of civilians in harm’s way. The failure of casualty statistics and incident reports to differentiate the different kinds and sources of civilian casualties has grave consequences for the public’s understanding of the legality of military operations and can confuse the assessment of the legality of U.S. or allied operations.

Advanced Technologies

The emphasis on developing protocols and expertise relating to civilian loss mitigation dovetails with the Trump administration’s emphasis on advanced technology development, particularly using AI and advanced robotics. A recent Executive Order issued by President Trump entitled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” directs various federal agencies to develop a plan to “sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” Making use of AI-based techniques and robotics to aid the dual goals of operational precision and civilian loss minimization would provide opportunities to exercise leadership and show dominance in advanced technologies. Facial recognition technologies paired with drone technologies can enhance lethality while reducing the risk of inaccuracies in targeting. The same technologies that protect civilians in war also protect U.S. forces both against the enemy and against friendly fire incidents. Technological development at the cutting edge of AI and robotics is a critical part of both enhanced lethality and enhanced civilian protection and minimizing civilian losses in war. The Defense Department’s current programs for studying civilian harm in war provide excellent opportunities for leadership in advanced technologies in ways that are in line with the administration’s current approach.

Precision Lethality Should Be the Goal

Hegseth’s focus on lethality is an unsurprising correction, given America’s comparable lack of success in defeating the Taliban and the perception of largesse in the U.S. military budget. However, lethality as a blanket goal will not help the United States win wars as such. What is needed is precision lethality. When the U.S. military is unsuccessful in its targeting objectives, the costs — not only to the affected civilians — are exponential. Wasted ordnance and other military equipment, risks to U.S. personnel, resentment by other countries, and often an increase in the very terroristic or adversarial activity U.S. forces are trying to combat are just some of the costs of failed targeting activity.

In the coming years, one of the most challenging aspects of studying civilian casualty minimization will be the need to extrapolate from recent and ongoing conflicts to prepare the United States for future war. To be sure, the United States has made its share of civilian harm mistakes in the past. Continuing to study harm minimization methods by learning from current conflicts and projecting such methods into future warfare, particularly warfare driven by advanced technologies, will be a critical task for the U.S. military. The specialized programs of the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan will assist combatant commanders and civilian strategists to reap those lessons learned effectively.

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Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also the faculty director of its Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, a national security and ethics center. Finkelstein is an expert in national security law, the law of armed conflict, and presidential authority, among other areas. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Hill, Bloomburg Law, and elsewhere. She is a co-editor of the Oxford Series in ethics, national security, and the rule of law.

Image: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Claire Finkelstein · March 5, 2025

9. Rewind and Reconnoiter: The Navy Should Develop Narco-Submarines

Excepts:

Are there any other strategic areas where the United States could utilize these vessels (or adaptations of these vessels), besides the Indo-Pacific?

Absolutely. The basic benefits of low-profile vessels apply wherever detection could equal destruction. For example, the Ukrainian military has used to devastating effect against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet — as well as for carrying surface to air missiles, aerial drones, and riverine resupply. It also appears that Russia has created similar platforms, perhaps reverse engineering them from captured Ukrainian examples. This class of vessels is low-observable, high-endurance, expendable, and payload-agnostic. The United States can and almost certainly will adapt them for other challenging operational problems in contested environments.

Finally, with the benefit of hindsight, is there anything you would change about your original argument?

We stand by the original argument, but if we wrote it again today, we would be able to incorporate all of the developments since 2020 in logistics and uncrewed systems. If anything, we underestimated the explosive growth of unmanned underwater vessels (much of it driven by the war in Ukraine). We also wrote the article at the beginning of a general recognition that contested logistics is perhaps the largest challenge facing the joint force in the Pacific, so if we wrote the paper today, we would have a lot of great work we’d have to cite. One change we might make if we wrote it again is to highlight other, complimentary capabilities. We made clear that “low-profile vessels are not a panacea,” but we didn’t discuss other options.

Rewind and Reconnoiter: The Navy Should Develop Narco-Submarines

Collin Fox, Walker D. Mills, and Dylan “Joose” Phillips-Levine

March 5, 2025

Members

https://warontherocks.com/2025/03/rewind-and-reconnoiter-the-navy-should-develop-narco-submarines/

In 2020, Walker D. Mills, Dylan “Joose” Phillips-Levine, and Collin Fox wrote “‘Cocaine Logistics’ for the Marine Corps,” where they argued that the Marine Corps could learn from drug traffickers and create covert submarines to supply troops deep inside enemy lines. Four years later, and with significant advancements in unmanned systems, we asked them to reflect on their article.

Image: Chief Petty Officer Charly Tautfest via DVIDS

In your 2020 article, “‘Cocaine Logistics’ for the Marine Corps,” you make the case for the Navy to develop low-profile vessels (commonly known as narco-submarines) for a future conflict with China. Nearly five years after this article was written, and given the world’s current threat landscape, do you still assess that these systems are the best solution for a variety of conflict scenarios in the Indo-Pacific?

Yes. We think that for the same reasons we pointed to in 2020, the sustainment of forces in the Western Pacific, particularly Marine “Stand-in Forces,” is still one of the leading challenges in the theater. If anything, the challenge has become even more urgent as the People’s Liberation Army continues to become more capable and aggressive. Uncrewed low-profile vessels are a great solution for contested logistics, but they are, of course, only one among many. No single platform or technology can solve the challenge — there will have to be multiple overlapping solutions that include new technology, new concepts, new training, etc.

Your article was ahead of its time in determining the need for the United States to develop its own variation of “narco-submarines.” Since that time, several reports have advocated for their development for use in a conflict with China, and in Sept. 2024, the Marines began tests of these exact vessels. What is the current status of thought about these vessels? What capabilities must they prove to convince decision makers that they are worth developing on a mass scale?

We can’t speak specifically to those programs. Suffice to say, we’re excited by what we’ve seen in public reports and very proud of any early inspiration we may have contributed to those programs.

Have there been any reports of China or Russia developing their own versions of these “narco-submarines?” If so, how can the United States get ahead of this development? If not, why not?

We have not seen Russia or China develop unmanned surface vessels for contested maritime logistics to distributed bases, likely because their operational concepts have no such need. In fact, China is more concerned about how to defend against low-profile unmanned surface vessels and less about how to employ them. All that said, both Russia and China are building new unmanned underwater vessels and crewed submarines. We think that in any future naval conflict, including over Taiwan, the subsea domain will be decisive — and that we will increasingly see innovative designs for crewed and uncrewed systems on the surface and beneath it.

Are there any other strategic areas where the United States could utilize these vessels (or adaptations of these vessels), besides the Indo-Pacific?

Absolutely. The basic benefits of low-profile vessels apply wherever detection could equal destruction. For example, the Ukrainian military has used to devastating effect against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet — as well as for carrying surface to air missiles, aerial drones, and riverine resupply. It also appears that Russia has created similar platforms, perhaps reverse engineering them from captured Ukrainian examples. This class of vessels is low-observable, high-endurance, expendable, and payload-agnostic. The United States can and almost certainly will adapt them for other challenging operational problems in contested environments.

Finally, with the benefit of hindsight, is there anything you would change about your original argument?

We stand by the original argument, but if we wrote it again today, we would be able to incorporate all of the developments since 2020 in logistics and uncrewed systems. If anything, we underestimated the explosive growth of unmanned underwater vessels (much of it driven by the war in Ukraine). We also wrote the article at the beginning of a general recognition that contested logistics is perhaps the largest challenge facing the joint force in the Pacific, so if we wrote the paper today, we would have a lot of great work we’d have to cite. One change we might make if we wrote it again is to highlight other, complimentary capabilities. We made clear that “low-profile vessels are not a panacea,” but we didn’t discuss other options.

***

Cmdr. Collin Fox, U.S. Navy, is a foreign area officer assigned to U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and the Chilean Naval War College.

Walker D. Mills is a U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer and MQ-9A Reaper pilot. He is the co-director of Project Maritime at the Irregular Warfare Initiative and a host of the Marine Pulse podcast for War on the Rocks. From 2019 to 2022, he served as an exchange officer with the Colombian Navy in Cartagena, Colombia.

Lt. Cmdr. Dylan “Joose” Phillips-Levine is a naval aviator. He serves as an exchange instructor pilot in the T-34C-1 “Turbo-Mentor” with the Argentine navy. He has also served as an instructor pilot in the T-6B “Texan II” with VT-6 and has flown the MH-60R “Seahawk” with HSM-46 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom with 5th Fleet and with 4th Fleet in support of counter-narcotics operations.

The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or the Department of the Navy.

10. Ukraine Without America

Excerpts:

The consequences of an assault by a rearmed, recovered Russia would be devasting for Ukraine, which without firm security support might not be adequately prepared to withstand it. The mere worry about such a scenario would be an enormous drag on Ukraine’s economic recovery and postwar reconstruction. And the idea that a negotiation over security arrangements can come after a cease-fire is misguided: it would give the Kremlin leverage to stall or block any proposal by threatening the cease-fire, playing on Western reluctance to restart the war.

Russia’s immediate objectives are clear: legitimizing its occupation, avoiding accountability for war crimes, evading economic collapse, exerting influence over Ukraine’s security arrangements. Meanwhile, its long-term strategic goals remain unchanged: to subjugate Ukraine, weaken the Western security architecture, and establish a multipolar world dominated by a handful of powerful nations. A deal with the Trump administration that sidelines Ukraine would hasten both Russian short-term and long-term objectives while validating aggression as a legitimate strategy. If Putin emerges victorious after standing on the brink of failure solely because of a sudden shift in U.S. policy, it will reshape global security in dangerous ways.

That would be all the more lamentable because the United States has an opportunity to steer events in a much more positive direction—exerting pressure on Russia to end the war and to secure a fair settlement that protects Ukraine’s long-term security. A useful parallel is the experience of South Korea, which, thanks to long-term U.S. military and economic support, has been able build its own defense capabilities and deter North Korea. A similar outcome in Ukraine—a well-prepared armistice supported by credible security arrangements—could bring sustained peace and stability. If executed correctly, this would be a truly historic achievement.

Ukraine Without America

Foreign Affairs · by More by Andriy Zagorodnyuk · March 4, 2025

How Kyiv Can Persist In the Face of a Hostile Washington

Andriy Zagorodnyuk

March 4, 2025

A Ukrainian serviceman training in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, February 2025 Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters

Andriy Zagorodnyuk is Chair of the Centre for Defence Strategies and a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council. From 2019 to 2020, he served as Ukraine’s Defense Minister.

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Last week, the world witnessed a contentious, on-camera Oval Office confrontation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. President Donald Trump, and U.S. Vice President JD Vance. What began as a relatively standard exchange quickly escalated into an unprecedented public dispute. Yet when stripped of emotion, these core disagreements have been clear for some time: Must Ukraine accept ending the war no matter the terms, or does it have the ability to influence them? Can it expect any long-term security commitments to guard against future Russian aggression, or does it have no option but to unconditionally halt its operations? And if Kyiv refuses to comply and the United States withdraws support—as the Trump administration has reportedly begun doing this week—can Ukraine survive on its own?

Even before the meeting, the White House had made clear its position: Ukraine has no leverage and therefore no ability to set conditions. Zelensky, of course, has firmly rejected this conclusion. For Ukrainians, ending the war is undoubtedly a welcome goal. And after three years of brutal fighting, previous strategies—including those pursued by prior administrations—have failed to open a clear path to peace. While Western assistance has been crucial to Ukraine’s survival, restrictions on the range and use of weapons have led to an infantry-centric war of attrition that has severely strained Ukrainian forces and offered no clear route to victory.

Yet Russia, too, has failed to achieve its objectives or to find a clear route to victory. Although its forces have made steady territorial gains through 2024 and the first months of 2025, its progress has been gruelingly slow and extremely costly, leaving it with few viable options for dramatically altering the situation in its favor. It is thus dismaying that the U.S. government has at times echoed Russian narratives—propaganda meant to distort perceptions of the war. This has led many in Kyiv, Washington, and other capitals to worry that U.S. policy could inadvertently offer a lifeline to the struggling aggressor in this war.

What is especially unfortunate about this risk is that Washington has the capacity to exert significant pressure on the Kremlin at the moment, potentially pushing it to accept reasonable terms for an armistice in the coming months. Kyiv has consistently expressed its interest in ending the war and achieving peace—but only under the right conditions. Today, Ukraine proposed a staged approach to a cease-fire, starting with an end to air and maritime hostilities. But a complete cease-fire forced on Ukraine at any necessary cost will not bring a sustainable end to the war—the prospect that was hinted at in the Oval Office confrontation, reflecting a preference for a bilateral U.S.-Russian agreement with which Ukraine is expected to simply comply.

Such an approach would reflect a fundamentally flawed understanding of the current balance of power in the war, making it both shortsighted and strategically unsound. It raises the risk of the worst possible scenario—not only failing to secure a lasting resolution but also setting the stage for the continuation of the war. Demanding unconditional acceptance of the terms pushed on Ukraine would mean that it would come on terms written in Moscow—for Ukraine, making it effectively capitulation. Kyiv would face a stark choice: capitulation or continuing to fight without its key ally. Yet the Ukrainian leadership, with the overwhelming support of the Ukrainian people, long ago decided that surrender was not an option, a commitment reinforced by the experience of the occupied territories: everywhere Russia has prevailed, terror, lawlessness, and destruction have followed.

Ukraine would thus be forced to brace itself for war without U.S. support. In any case, a withdrawal of that support might in the long run be the outcome of either path presented to Zelensky at the White House: accepting an effectively unconditional cease-fire without security guarantees, or losing U.S. military assistance immediately.

But even as the U.S. pauses military aid, Ukraine’s war effort will not suddenly collapse despite the significant challenges a prolonged freeze would impose. As long as strong European support continues, which seems even more likely after this week’s gathering of leaders from the continent in London, Putin will be able to achieve some tactical breakthroughs but will not reach his maximalist objectives. A U.S. government aligning with Russia in ways that actively undermine Ukraine’s fight would be a truly shocking development—one that would shatter trust in the United States and irreparably fracture the Western alliance. But Ukrainians, who know the awful cost of this war better than anyone, have no choice but to fight for their country’s survival.

FALLING SHORT

By almost any standard, and especially given its original plans, Russia has dramatically underachieved in three years of war. When Putin realized in 2022 that a quick conquest of Ukraine would not be possible, he scaled back to a more limited set of operational objectives: fully occupying the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, maintaining the land bridge to Crimea through southern Ukraine, destroying Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and military assets, enforcing a Black Sea blockade to strangle the Ukrainian economy. Even these objectives have mostly not been met. Ukrainian naval forces reopened the Black Sea and restored shipping routes. Despite relentless missile and drone attacks on both energy infrastructure and civilian centers, Ukraine still has power, and its people remain resilient. And Russia has still not fully claimed the Donbas. It has lost 900,000 personnel and 100,000 major weapons systems—ships, planes, helicopters, tanks, rocket launchers, artillery. In 2024, Russia managed to conquer less than an additional one percent of Ukrainian territory; this year, its progress has slowed considerably.

At the moment, Russia’s troops are exhausted, its defense production is struggling to keep pace with battlefield losses, and its unmanned weapon systems are, despite great effort on Moscow’s part, struggling to prevail over those of Ukraine. Unexploded drones and missiles recovered from the battlefield are mostly of very recent manufacture, indicating that Russia has depleted much of its stockpile and is deploying new weapons as soon they become available. Meanwhile, even with Russia’s large population (and soldiers from North Korea), recruitment levels are failing to meet demand, and the high casualty rate leaves little time for adequate training of new troops.

Ukraine faces plenty of challenges of its own. While Russia has failed to establish full air dominance, it still controls the airspace near the frontlines (in part because Ukraine has not been given advanced modern aircraft), allowing it to launch hundreds of guided aerial bombs, along with drones and missiles, at Ukrainian forces and defense and civilian infrastructure, exacerbating both military and economic strains. And manpower has indeed been, as Vance repeatedly emphasized, a serious problem, in part because restrictions on allied assistance (especially on airpower and long-range strikes) necessitated continued reliance on infantry mobilization and trench warfare. Ukraine has suffered over 43,000 killed in action and many more wounded, a toll made worse by shortages of equipment, ammunition, and spare parts; although recruitment for unmanned-aerial-vehicle and other high-end brigades has continued apace, meeting needs for the most dangerous, grueling infantry deployments has been a well-known struggle.

Yet even with these challenges, Ukraine has more than proved its ability to forestall major Russian advances, in part through its embrace and refinement of new warfighting methods. Drones and other unmanned systems have played an especially important role, taking on tasks typically performed by far more sophisticated air and maritime assets. Successful aerial and naval interdiction operations have kept a significant portion of Russian forces tied down away from the frontlines, coastal areas, and key trading routes. Meanwhile, enhanced support from Europe would allow Ukraine to reduce its reliance on infantry personnel and build its own robust and adaptable defense capabilities. And an ongoing shift to more technology-driven operations—including those based on a “drone line” concept that will help prevent Russian forces from approaching the frontline—can help allay manpower issues.

Given the current situation on the battlefield, Ukraine can continue to thwart the objectives of Russian President Vladimir Putin, restricting his forces to slow and costly progress along current frontlines. And more support from Europe could, this year or next, allow Ukrainian forces to stop and even reverse this momentum. In short, Ukraine is not losing the war today, nor will it in the future, despite Russia’s size and considerable advantage in resources.

TRUCE AND CONSEQUENCES

The only way to bring Russia into serious negotiations, or to compel it to halt its aggression and accept a de facto cease-fire, would be to present it with severe consequences for continuing the war. Washington has several points of leverage. It can tighten and better enforce sanctions, putting acute pressure on a Russian economy that, despite the Kremlin’s efforts to promote an image of stability, is already under severe strain, with an estimated 40 percent of public spending going to the war. It can increase military pressure by giving Ukraine previously withheld weapons, removing restrictions on their use, and providing enhanced real-time intelligence. Russia has demonstrated an extraordinary tolerance for casualties, making attrition alone an unreliable strategy for forcing a resolution. But historical evidence suggests that battlefield setbacks rather than human losses have been the primary factor shaping Russia’s perception of success or failure.

A series of territorial losses, even of relatively small areas, could cause Putin to reconsider his strategy and seek an end to the war. If offensive operations visibly fail, and Ukrainian forces successfully regain even small portions of occupied territory, the Kremlin will worry about further territorial losses. Even a partial defeat would be a terrible prospect from Putin’s perspective, fueling his fears of regime weakness and losing control. Under such pressure, it would be far less risky for Moscow to de-escalate and attempt to minimize the damage. Even the credible prospect of such a scenario—driven by a policy of unwavering support for Ukraine—could be enough to push Russia toward reconsidering its war effort.

If a cease-fire were reached, deterring a renewed Russian offensive would become essential. The only way to prevent another military campaign as soon as Moscow thought it could gain an advantage would be to ensure that it would face a credible prospect of ultimate defeat. Such “deterrence by denial” could be most easily achieved, of course, by making Ukraine a member of NATO; but it can also be done by building a Ukrainian force capable of decisively repelling a Russian attack.

Military planners and analysts are already working on the design of this future force. Some European countries have expressed a willingness to support Ukraine with troops as peacekeepers or as backup forces. But their rules of engagement must be clearly defined, and it is vital that they have the authority to intervene in case of an emergency. Although Europe should be able to provide necessary funding for deterrence, and key leaders have indicated they are willing to do so, Washington would need to provide access to some specific capabilities (including air defense systems, support for missile targeting systems, real-time intelligence, and certain parts and ammunition).

A HISTORIC ACHIEVEMENT?

The Trump administration seems to believe that Russia would agree to halt its aggression and end the war without new pressure or Ukrainian capitulation. Yet even if Ukraine were to accept a settlement on Russian terms, it would not lead to genuine peace. Zelensky’s consistent demand for security guarantees alongside a cease-fire should not be dismissed as just a political stance—it is based on the real risk that Russia would use any pause in hostilities to prepare for its next offensive. A perceived victory would reinforce Putin’s ambitions, and an operational pause would give him a chance to regroup. Russia would be able to accumulate a critical mass of capabilities and prepare for a new large-scale strike. This offensive would be even more dangerous than the invasion that began on February 24, 2022: Russia would be more prepared to suppress air defenses, control airspace, and disrupt critical infrastructure, and it would likely avoid repeating the mistake of spreading its forces too thin.

The consequences of an assault by a rearmed, recovered Russia would be devasting for Ukraine, which without firm security support might not be adequately prepared to withstand it. The mere worry about such a scenario would be an enormous drag on Ukraine’s economic recovery and postwar reconstruction. And the idea that a negotiation over security arrangements can come after a cease-fire is misguided: it would give the Kremlin leverage to stall or block any proposal by threatening the cease-fire, playing on Western reluctance to restart the war.

Russia’s immediate objectives are clear: legitimizing its occupation, avoiding accountability for war crimes, evading economic collapse, exerting influence over Ukraine’s security arrangements. Meanwhile, its long-term strategic goals remain unchanged: to subjugate Ukraine, weaken the Western security architecture, and establish a multipolar world dominated by a handful of powerful nations. A deal with the Trump administration that sidelines Ukraine would hasten both Russian short-term and long-term objectives while validating aggression as a legitimate strategy. If Putin emerges victorious after standing on the brink of failure solely because of a sudden shift in U.S. policy, it will reshape global security in dangerous ways.

That would be all the more lamentable because the United States has an opportunity to steer events in a much more positive direction—exerting pressure on Russia to end the war and to secure a fair settlement that protects Ukraine’s long-term security. A useful parallel is the experience of South Korea, which, thanks to long-term U.S. military and economic support, has been able build its own defense capabilities and deter North Korea. A similar outcome in Ukraine—a well-prepared armistice supported by credible security arrangements—could bring sustained peace and stability. If executed correctly, this would be a truly historic achievement.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk is Chair of the Centre for Defence Strategies and a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council. From 2019 to 2020, he served as Ukraine’s Defense Minister.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Andriy Zagorodnyuk · March 4, 2025

11. America Can Best Help Syria By Getting Out

Excerpts:

The United States must be willing to let the SDF down and encourage it to fold into the structures of the new Syria. Washington should insist that U.S. forces will not stay in Syria more than another two years as a transition in northeastern Syria proceeds. All SDF groups, Kurdish and Arab, should be able to integrate into the new Syrian army within that time frame. Washington should press Damascus, the SDF, and the autonomous administration to negotiate a transitional arrangement that covers security issues, the short-term future for the administrative structures established in the autonomous administration area, and the reintroduction of central government services, including border controls and the reopening of central government administrative offices that issue passports and register property transactions.

But Washington should not, and need not, get mired in the details. It should make a simple point to Damascus: if the new Syrian government tries to sideline the autonomous administration and impose a transition without Kurdish cooperation, it will spark new conflict, impede the fight against ISIS, and delay U.S. consideration of further sanctions relief. And Washington’s message to the SDF should also be simple: the fall of the Assad regime means that it is now time for hard compromises about future security and administrative arrangements in the territories the SDF controls—including the group’s gradual dissolution.

The United States should not press for a quota or specific government position for Syrian Kurds or any other group. HTS has rejected quotas assigned on ethnic or sectarian lines, labeling as a mistake the U.S.-backed ethnic and religious spoils system that took hold in neighboring Iraq 20 years ago. Public activism, reinforced by the rule of law and the protection of political and personal freedoms, is the only way Syria will build a genuine democracy. It will be slow and messy, and it will above all be an issue for Syrians to resolve. But it should not require an American hand on the wheel—or American boots on the ground.

America Can Best Help Syria By Getting Out

Foreign Affairs · by More by Robert S. Ford · March 5, 2025

Washington Should Withdraw Its Troops, Engage With the Government, and Pull Away From the SDF

Robert S. Ford

March 5, 2025

A U.S. soldier near Qamishli, Syria, February 2024 Orhan Qereman / Reuters

ROBERT S. FORD is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. From 2011 to 2014, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Syria.

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Syria’s 13-year civil war ended abruptly in December, when rebels belonging to the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham swept south from their bastions in the northwest of the country, precipitating the fall of the government of President Bashar al-Assad. In a matter of weeks, a regime that had lasted six decades came to an end. HTS, helmed by the pragmatic Ahmed al-Shara, leads the interim Syrian government and is poised to head a transitional government that will be unveiled in the spring. It remains uncertain how Shara will unite a diverse and fractious country, whether he will rein in hard-line elements of HTS, and whether he will win the support of other Syrian communities should he move in a more moderate and inclusive direction.

Among the uncertainties facing Syria is the future of U.S. involvement in the country. Since 2014, Washington has backed a de facto autonomous government in northeastern Syria formed principally, but not exclusively, of ethnic Kurdish factions. This coalition, under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces, took advantage of the chaos unleashed by Syria’s civil war to carve out an enclave along the border with Turkey. The SDF fought off Assad’s troops, Turkey and Turkish-backed militias, al-Qaeda-linked groups, and, notably, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. U.S. forces worked closely with the SDF in chasing ISIS from its last redoubts in Syria. The United States maintains around 2,000 troops as well as contractors in roughly a dozen operating posts and small bases in eastern Syria to back ongoing SDF efforts to stamp out ISIS and deter Turkish attacks.

Despite this support, ISIS remains doggedly active in Syria. With the demise of the Assad regime, however, the United States can choose to work with a likely more influential and effective partner in the battle against the remnants of ISIS: the new Syrian government in Damascus. Greater collaboration, either direct or indirect, with this fledgling government could bolster regional security, help conclude the ongoing fighting in eastern Syria, and allow the United States to devote fewer resources to the country. President Donald Trump has long bemoaned American entanglements in overseas conflicts, especially in the Middle East. Partnering with the new transitional government in Damascus would let the United States leave Syria on its own terms.

THE WRONG TOOL

Many American officials and analysts see the autonomous administration in the northeast of Syria as a reliable partner in ensuring what Washington hopes is the “enduring defeat” of ISIS in the country. But the SDF, the Kurdish administration’s military wing, has failed to stamp out the Islamist terrorist group. Six years after the SDF captured the last ISIS stronghold in Syria, ISIS fighters still operate in central and eastern Syria. The SDF’s actions have bred resentment among local Arab communities. Tightly controlled by the People’s Defense Units, a Kurdish militia known as the YPG, the SDF has committed extrajudicial killings and conducted extrajudicial arrests of Arab civilians; extorted Arabs who were trying to get information about or secure the release of detained relatives; press ganged young Arabs into its ranks; twisted the education system to accord with the political agenda of the YPG; and recruited many non-Syrian Kurdish fighters. These actions have driven some of the locals into the arms of ISIS. To be sure, these excesses pale in comparison with those of the Assad regime, but they cause substantial friction with Arab communities particularly in areas where the YPG leads SDF forces.

The SDF is also hampered by ongoing hostility between Turkey and the YPG. The YPG launches occasional attacks against Turkish positions in Syria and in Turkey, reinforcing the long-standing Turkish view that the YPG is a terrorist group. In turn, Turkish military forces and Turkish-backed Syrian militias aggressively harass the YPG in northern Syria. This strife diverts SDF attention and resources away from the fight against ISIS farther south.

The SDF’s actions have bred resentment among Arab communities.

In late February, a key Kurdish leader called for a cease-fire with Turkey. Abdallah Ocalan, the head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK—a Kurdish militant group affiliated with the YPG that has long fought the Turkish state—called for fighters loyal to him to lay down their weapons and stop waging war against Turkey. YPG leaders rejected Ocalan’s call, insisting that it did not apply to their group. Turkey for its part is not ready to change its policy and tolerate an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria in which the YPG plays a significant role. U.S. administrations since that of President Barack Obama have tried to both support the Syrian YPG militia in the fight against ISIS and accommodate Ankara’s grievances and its desire to strike against YPG commanders, fighters, and the Syrian Kurdish communities where they live. The U.S. military umbrella covering the YPG from Turkish attack in eastern Syria has ensured that the YPG fighters and the autonomous administration they established reject any compromise with Turkey or the new government in Damascus. The umbrella creates a status quo that gives ISIS more room to operate and is tantamount to a forever war.

To maintain the partnership with the SDF, the Trump administration will need to support Kurdish groups in their future battles with Turkey. Between 2023 and 2024, the Biden administration quietly doubled the number of American troops in eastern Syria to around 2,000, in part so U.S. troops could extend patrols west along the Turkish border as far as important towns, such as Kobani, that are not in areas of ISIS activity and instead face Turkish pressure. In December, as Syrian rebels toppled the Assad regime, Turkish-allied militias and Turkish drones assaulted Kurdish positions near Kobani. With 2,000 soldiers already deployed, Trump won’t need to deploy more American soldiers to serve as a tripwire against a Turkish ground invasion, but he will need to back the Kurds with further funding. The SDF depends on Washington to pay for salaries, equipment, and training. That need will become all the more acute now that Turkey is freer to focus on the YPG. With Assad, its foe in Damascus, now vanquished, Ankara will turn its attention more to the YPG-led autonomous administration on its southern border.

In this swamp of Kurdish and Turkish hostilities, it is easy to forget the reason the United States became involved in this part of Syria in the first place: to defeat ISIS. It was never the American goal to deploy forces in eastern Syria to defend a fledgling Syrian Kurdish enclave led by a previously obscure Kurdish militia. Embracing that objective now would represent significant mission creep. Because of its identity and the way it operates, the SDF has rankled both the local communities and the Turkish government. In the conventional war against ISIS, the SDF was a useful tool to aid in the recovery of territory seized by the presumptuous so-called caliphate. In the war for hearts and minds of Arab communities in eastern Syria—from which ISIS still recruits—the SDF is decidedly the wrong tool.

THE ROAD THROUGH DAMASCUS

Instead of relying on the SDF, the United States can turn to the new government in Damascus to help eradicate ISIS. On its face, this may seem like an odd suggestion. The United States considers HTS, the militia that toppled Assad and now leads the Syrian government, a terrorist group. And yet such recognition has not stopped Washington from working closely with the YPG, which is affiliated with the PKK, a group that the United States also designates a terrorist organization.

To be sure, HTS’s militancy and violent ideology should not be downplayed. When I was U.S. ambassador to Syria, I spearheaded the U.S. effort in autumn 2012 to designate Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda-linked group from which HTS would eventually emerge, a foreign terrorist organization. We had to close the embassy in Damascus in February 2012 because of a credible threat from the group. Jabhat al-Nusra later crushed and absorbed the Free Syrian Army, the anti-Assad rebel coalition that the State Department and CIA had backed in northern Syria, and it harassed minority Christians and Alawites during the early years of the civil war. Shara led the group through various name changes and evolutions until, in 2017, it became HTS. Many in Washington doubt the new incarnation of the group has truly eschewed terrorism or abandoned an intolerant and rigid ideological worldview.

But Shara insists otherwise. Jabhat al-Nusra and then HTS spent years trying to distance themselves from Islamist terrorist groups. Shara split from ISIS in 2014 and then his fighters engaged in bloody battles against the group, eventually expelling it from northwestern Syria. He also broke publicly with al-Qaeda in 2016, and his forces fought against an al-Qaeda-affiliated group called Hurras al-Din in northwest Syria. Neither Jabhat al-Nusra nor HTS launched terrorist attacks after their splits with ISIS and al-Qaeda; they stomped out any attempt by these groups to reestablish a presence in northwestern Syria. Their actions over the past eight years make it harder to justify keeping HTS on the official list of foreign terrorist organizations. HTS has also tried to soften its public image. Starting in 2022, without renouncing its goal of establishing an Islamic government in Syria, it began restoring Christian homes and agricultural land seized by Islamist militants during the worst of the civil war in northwestern Syria. Christian leaders in Idlib told me in September 2023 that nearly all properties had been returned.

This track record suggests that HTS, rather than the SDF, is more likely to undercut ISIS’s appeal among certain communities and ultimately contain ISIS. Shara has beaten al-Qaeda and ISIS in northern Syria. The territories he has controlled in the last decade have been free from ISIS activity. Whereas the SDF is hemmed in by Turkey, the HTS-led government enjoys growing regional support, including from Turkey. Perhaps most important, Shara could more easily gain support among those Arab communities in eastern and northeastern Syria from which ISIS draws its recruits.

Syria’s transitional government will need to take Arab fighting groups now under the YPG’s direct command and place them under the emerging defense ministry in Damascus. In parallel, the government of Damascus will have to find a formula whereby it will assume governance responsibilities in eastern Syria’s Arab communities, relieving the SDF of its responsibilities there. These actions will no doubt displease the SDF, but they will help Syria and its regional partners finally vanquish ISIS.

The Trump administration needs to open a channel with the HTS-led government to discuss future efforts against ISIS. The conversation must include subjects such as how local Arab militias now under the SDF umbrella would join the Damascus government’s campaign against ISIS, the deployment of soldiers from the Damascus government to areas where ISIS still operates, and timelines for these measures. The two sides could also discuss how Syria and the United States might share intelligence; U.S. intelligence already helped Shara thwart an ISIS attack in Damascus in January. The discussion must also address the hardest issue: the future of the al-Hol and Roj camps where around 40,000 people connected to ISIS are still held in SDF custody. Shara brooked no political challenge from more conservative Islamist elements, and his administration in northwest Syria operated a small-scale deradicalization program there. The scale of the challenge at al-Hol, however, far exceeds what Shara has handled before.

To help the Damascus government stabilize Syria and fight ISIS successfully, Washington will have to ease sanctions on Syria. Rebuilding Syria after the immense destruction of the long civil war could cost over $200 billion, according to World Bank estimates from 2021. Syrians will need both international assistance and private investment, and U.S. sanctions against foreigners who conduct business in Syria will impede the flows of capital and goods that the country desperately needs. Businessmen I met in Damascus in January insisted that the temporary waivers the Biden administration put in place that month in the areas of energy and humanitarian assistance are nowhere near adequate given the scale of rebuilding needed. If the Trump administration is reluctant to unwind all the myriad sanctions against Syria, it could at least start by instituting a renewable one-year waiver on sanctions that affect the financial, construction and engineering, health, education, transportation, and agricultural sectors. Such measures need not cost the U.S. Treasury; states in the region and other donors will provide Syria with assistance. But U.S. secondary sanctions should not block those donors and private investors from coming forward. Without such investment, Syria will stay flat on its back, unable to defeat ISIS, much as the weakened Assad government failed to do between 2017 and 2024.

HANDS OFF THE WHEEL

Pivoting away from the SDF to the new government in Damascus does not condemn Syrian Kurds to a dark future. The safety and prosperity of Kurdish communities depends not on foreign powers but on the Syrian government respecting their rights and those of all Syrian citizens. It remains unclear how genuinely willing HTS is to establish an inclusive democracy in Syria. But it is indisputable that Syrians living under the control of the new government generally enjoy more political and personal rights than they have since the Baath Party took power in 1963. In the second half of January, I spent ten days in Syria, including a week in Damascus. Freedom of expression was evident everywhere. In coffee shops, Syrians whom I didn’t know felt free to join political conversations and criticize the HTS-run government. Small demonstrations that popped up in the capital were left unmolested by the police. Christmas decorations adorned the Christian quarters of the old city, and church bells rang widely on Sunday. Christians in Damascus are nervous, but they acknowledged that their fears stemmed not from HTS’s conduct but from worries about its ideological background.

Trump is right to stay away from prescriptive formulas for Syria’s political evolution. On December 8, immediately after Assad fled Syria for Russia, Trump tweeted that Syria’s future is not a matter for the United States to dictate. Syrians need to prepare a new constitution, one that probably ends up accommodating some form of decentralization and federalism—features of a future state that SDF leaders and those of other minority Syrian groups are determined to secure. Drafting that constitution will necessarily take much time and require great patience. Only with a strong constitution can Syrians hold elections.

Washington can turn to the new government in Damascus to help eradicate ISIS.

It is important to remember, of course, that the staging of elections and the installation of quotas for minorities within a government are not by themselves backstops against authoritarianism. The experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq in the twenty-first century demonstrate how hard it is to resolve deeper problems of political culture. Elections in Syria will have a better chance of fostering genuine stability and good governance if the transitional government has already established rule of law and protected political and personal freedoms, including freedom of opinion and speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and freedom from arbitrary arrest. Western states should focus on encouraging Damascus to treat Syrians as citizens of one country who all enjoy basic rights; external powers should not favor or seek to play the Kurds, Christians, Druze, Alawites, and Sunni Muslims off one another.

The United States must be willing to let the SDF down and encourage it to fold into the structures of the new Syria. Washington should insist that U.S. forces will not stay in Syria more than another two years as a transition in northeastern Syria proceeds. All SDF groups, Kurdish and Arab, should be able to integrate into the new Syrian army within that time frame. Washington should press Damascus, the SDF, and the autonomous administration to negotiate a transitional arrangement that covers security issues, the short-term future for the administrative structures established in the autonomous administration area, and the reintroduction of central government services, including border controls and the reopening of central government administrative offices that issue passports and register property transactions.

But Washington should not, and need not, get mired in the details. It should make a simple point to Damascus: if the new Syrian government tries to sideline the autonomous administration and impose a transition without Kurdish cooperation, it will spark new conflict, impede the fight against ISIS, and delay U.S. consideration of further sanctions relief. And Washington’s message to the SDF should also be simple: the fall of the Assad regime means that it is now time for hard compromises about future security and administrative arrangements in the territories the SDF controls—including the group’s gradual dissolution.

The United States should not press for a quota or specific government position for Syrian Kurds or any other group. HTS has rejected quotas assigned on ethnic or sectarian lines, labeling as a mistake the U.S.-backed ethnic and religious spoils system that took hold in neighboring Iraq 20 years ago. Public activism, reinforced by the rule of law and the protection of political and personal freedoms, is the only way Syria will build a genuine democracy. It will be slow and messy, and it will above all be an issue for Syrians to resolve. But it should not require an American hand on the wheel—or American boots on the ground.

ROBERT S. FORD is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. From 2011 to 2014, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Syria.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Robert S. Ford · March 5, 2025

12. TSMC Says $100 Billion U.S. Expansion Driven by Demand, Not Political Pressure

Or perhaps dispersing its assets and resources in case of a PRC attack? TSMC will survive regardless of what happens on Taiwan?

TSMC Says $100 Billion U.S. Expansion Driven by Demand, Not Political Pressure

CEO Wei said production lines are already fully booked for this year and the next two years

https://www.wsj.com/tech/tsmc-says-100-billion-u-s-expansion-driven-by-demand-not-political-pressure-af6f8518?mod=latest_headlines

By Sherry Qin

March 6, 2025 5:50 am ET

TSMC announced plans to invest at least $100 billion more in chip manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the coming years. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Chairman and Chief Executive C.C. Wei said the company’s expansion of chip investment in the U.S. is driven by customer demand rather than political pressures.

The world’s largest contract chip maker’s latest $100 billion investment plan is aimed at meeting strong demand from U.S. customers, Wei said, speaking at a press conference alongside Taiwan President Lai Ching-Te at the presidential office on Thursday.

He added that TSMC’s 2330 -1.47%decrease; red down pointing triangle production lines are already fully booked for this year and the next two years.

Earlier this week, TSMC announced plans to invest at least $100 billion more in chip manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the coming years, expanding its operations in Arizona.

The company will build three new chip plants, two chip-packaging facilities and a research and development center, Wei said during a White House appearance with President Trump.

TSMC’s investment plan has raised concerns that it may be acting under pressure from President Trump, who has previously criticized Taiwan’s near-dominance in advanced chip manufacturing and threatened tariffs on chip imports.

Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com

13. U.S. and Hamas Hold Direct Talks on Hostages in Gaza, Officials Say

U.S. and Hamas Hold Direct Talks on Hostages in Gaza, Officials Say

The talks marked a significant departure for the United States, which has generally refused to talk directly with groups Washington has designated as terrorist organizations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/05/world/middleeast/us-hamas-hostage-talks-gaza.html

Hamas fighters during a handover of Israeli hostages last month.Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times

By Adam Rasgon Aaron Boxerman and Ronen Bergman

Adam Rasgon and Aaron Boxerman reported from Jerusalem, and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv.

Published March 5, 2025

Updated March 6, 2025, 12:30 a.m. ET

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

U.S. and Hamas officials have had talks in Qatar about hostages held in the Gaza Strip, according to two Israeli officials, a Western official and a diplomat briefed on the matter, breaking with a longstanding American policy of refusing to directly engage groups that it has designated as terrorists.

President Trump’s nominee to be special envoy for hostage affairs, Adam Boehler, participated in the talks this week with Hamas officials, the diplomat said. All four officials discussed the meetings on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive diplomacy.

The talks in Doha, Qatar, focused on securing the release of Edan Alexander, the only Israeli American hostage still believed to be alive, and the bodies of four other Israeli Americans who were kidnapped and taken to Gaza in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to one of the Israeli officials and the Western official.

Karoline Leavitt, Mr. Trump’s press secretary, did not deny that direct talks with Hamas were underway. Asked at a White House news conference on Wednesday why the administration was engaging with Hamas, she said Mr. Boehler, “who is engaged in those negotiations,” had “the authority to talk to anyone.”

The secret talks, which Axios initially reported, were a significant departure from previous negotiations involving the United States and Hamas, which the State Department has for decades designated as a terrorist group. American officials, like their Israeli counterparts, have generally relied on intermediaries — most recently, Qatar and Egypt have been the main go-betweens — to relay messages to the group rather than sit with Hamas leaders.

Image

Adam Boehler, President Trump’s nominee to be special envoy on hostage matters, participated in talks this week with Hamas, officials said.Credit...Armend Nimani/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The result of the discussions was not immediately clear, but mediators have been seeking to extend the current truce between Israel and Hamas, and to free the remaining hostages in Gaza. About 24 living captives — including Mr. Alexander — and the bodies of at least 35 others are believed to still be held in Gaza, according to Israel.

What you should know. The Times makes a careful decision any time it uses an anonymous source. The information the source supplies must be newsworthy and give readers genuine insight.

Learn more about our process.

Mr. Trump took to social media to tell Hamas that it was a take-it-or-leave-it position. “Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you,” he posted on Truth Social. Describing the group as “sick and twisted,” he said, “I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.”

“This is your last warning,” he wrote, adding that if the group held onto any hostages, “you are DEAD!”

Ms. Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, said that Israel had been consulted on the hostage talks and referred further questions to the State Department. In a tersely worded statement, the Israeli prime minister’s office said Israel had “expressed to the United States its position regarding direct talks with Hamas.”

Image

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said during the daily briefing on Wednesday that Adam Boehler, President Trump’s nominee to be special envoy for hostage affairs, had “the authority to talk to anyone.”Credit...Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

But one of the Israeli officials said Israel had not learned about the talks from the United States, hearing of them instead through what were described as “other channels.” Gen. Nitzan Alon, a member of Israel’s negotiating team, alerted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the negotiations and informed the team of U.S. officials in Doha that Israel was aware of them, according to the Israeli official.

Hamas did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

U.S. and European officials had hoped the no-contact policy with Hamas would isolate and weaken the group after it seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. Critics occasionally questioned the effectiveness of the boycott, which continued through years of deadlock and little apparent shift in Hamas’s positions.

After the Hamas-led attack ignited the war in Gaza, mediators played major roles in brokering efforts to pause or end the fighting and to free Israeli and other hostages seized by Palestinian militants in exchange for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Hamas and its allies seized about 250 captives during the attack on southern Israel, according to the Israeli government. More than 100 were freed during a weeklong truce in late 2023, while 30 others — and the bodies of eight more — have been released since the current cease-fire began in mid-January.

Israel and Hamas are deadlocked over terms for the current deal’s next phase: a comprehensive truce that would end the war and free the remaining living hostages. The direct U.S. contact with Hamas sidestepped those stalled talks.

Mr. Trump said in early December he would nominate Mr. Boehler to serve as a special envoy on hostage affairs. A health care executive who held roles in Mr. Trump’s first administration, Mr. Boehler has yet to be confirmed to the job by the Senate.

The president said during an address to Congress on Tuesday evening that his administration was “bringing back our hostages from Gaza,” without providing any additional details.

Image

Yael Alexander, in a gray scarf, the mother of the only living American hostage remaining in Gaza, Edan Alexander, at a rally for families of hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, last month.Credit...Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press

U.S. officials have been particularly concerned over the fates of at least 12 American Israeli captives taken by Hamas during the deadly attack, staying in touch with their families and inviting them to the White House for meetings.

Hamas now holds one living American Israeli captive — Mr. Alexander, a 21-year-old Israeli soldier from New Jersey — and the bodies of four others seized during the 2023 attacks. But with the next steps in the Israel-Hamas cease-fire still in doubt, it is unclear whether the two sides can clinch a deal to secure their release.

Mr. Alexander grew up in Tenafly, N.J., to Israeli parents. He later moved back to Israel to serve in the military before being abducted from an outpost near the Gaza border during the Hamas-led assault.

Adi Alexander, Mr. Alexander’s father, said during an interview last week that the Trump administration had to “reshuffle the deck, to renegotiate everything” in an attempt to extend the truce and free the remaining hostages, including his son.

“We are happy and grateful about the cease-fire — but the job is not done,” Adi Alexander said.

Ed Wong, Luke Broadwater and David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington.

Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs. More about Adam Rasgon

Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem. More about Aaron Boxerman

Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv. More about Ronen Bergman

A version of this article appears in print on March 6, 2025, Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Said to Join Hamas In Direct Hostage Talks . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

14. In 15 months, the Navy fired more air defense missiles than it did in the last 30 years

And how is our defense industrial base doing on replenishing those stocks?

Excerpts:

In January, the Navy revealed that it had fired nearly 400 munitions since October 2023 as part of combat operations in the Red Sea, including 120 SM-2 missiles, 80 SM-6 missiles, and a combined total of 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM) and SM-3 missiles. The per unit cost for these missiles is between $12.5 and $28.7 million for SM-3s, about $4.3 million per SM-6, and up to $2.5 million per SM-2, according to The War Zone.

But by mid 2024, the Navy shifted to using less expensive Sidewinders and Hellfire missiles to shoot down Houthi drones, according to Janes. Each of the Sidewinder and Hellfire typically cost about half a million dollars and about $150,000 respectively.

During his confirmation hearing to serve as Navy secretary, John Phelan acknowledged that the Navy faces a shortage of munitions.

“So, if confirmed, I intend to focus on this very quickly and get that resolved because I think we’re at a dangerously low level from a stockpile perspective, and as well as new,” Phelan said at the Feb. 27 hearing.

In 15 months, the Navy fired more air defense missiles than it did in the last 30 years

During combat operations in the Red Sea, the Navy fired so many air defense missiles that it drained the service’s stockpile of munitions. So, it turned to 5-inch gun rounds to down drones.

Jeff Schogol

Posted 23 Hours Ago

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol

The U.S. Navy has used more missiles for air defense since combat operations in the Red Sea began in October 2023 than the service used in all the years since Operation Desert Storm in the 1990s, said retired Navy Cmdr. Bryan Clark, of the Hudson Institute.

Over that 15-month-period, which ran from Oct. 19, 2023 to Jan. 19, 2025, the Navy saw the most combat at sea since World War II, Clark told Task & Purpose.

“It’s kind of amazing how the Navy has held up with no losses, but the cost has been pretty enormous,” Clark said. “The estimates are the Navy has used up $1 billion-plus worth of interceptors to shoot down these drone and missile threats.”

For now, the conflict appears to be on pause, possibly due to the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that was announced on Jan. 19. But the Navy will need years to replenish its supply of missiles, and that puts the service in a bad position if the United States and China went to war today, Clark said.

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“I think most estimates are within a few days of combat, if there was an invasion of Taiwan, that the U.S. — the Navy in particular — would run out of weapons,” Clark said. “That’s the problem: The weapons we’ve designed are too difficult to build for the industrial base, because they’re too specialized; they have too bespoke a supply chain, and they’re manufactured by hand, at low-rate productions.”

‘We had never done anything like this before’

Shortly after Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel, Houthi rebels in Yemen began attacking ships in the Red Sea with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones, and unmanned boats. On Oct. 19, 2023, the destroyer USS Carney spent 10 hours shooting down 15 Houthi drones and four cruise missiles in what the Navy described as “the most intense combat engagement by a U.S. Navy warship since WWII.”

Fire Controlman (AEGIS) 2nd Class Justin Parker later recalled that he and other members of the ship’s crew were in their berthing when they heard an announcement over the Carney’s intercom system: “Clear the weatherdecks.” Soon, they heard the Carney fire missiles along with its main gun. They instantly knew this was not a drill.

This Oct. 19, 2023 file photo shows the Navy USS Carney interdicting Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Aaron Lau.

“We had never done anything like this before — we had only trained to it,” Gunner’s Mate 1st Class Charles Currie said in a Navy News release. “There was a lot of adrenaline going on. This was real-world now.”

This was the start of the undeclared shooting war against the Houthis. The Carney would go on to face a total of 51 engagements during its deployment. The ship’s entire crew received the Combat Action Ribbon when it returned to its homeport.

“Every single training experience we did before deployment — that’s what we fell back on,” said Lt. j.g. Haven Vickers said in the Navy news release.

The Red Sea boils over

The situation in the Red Sea quickly escalated as the Houthis ramped up their attacks against commercial vessels and warships and Iran launched two attacks against Israel. But the Navy came to stay for the fight.

In December 2023, the Defense Department announced that the Navy would be part of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an international effort to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

Sailors assigned USS Mason during a replenishment-at-sea while the ship operates in support of Operation Prosperity Guardian Dec. 21, 2023. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chris Krucke. Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher J Krucke

Separately, U.S. and British forces began air and missile strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen the following month. Eventually, these strikes involved B-2 Spirit bombers and Marine Corps F-35C Joint Strike Fighters. In November 2024, the Houthis attacked two Navy destroyers, USS Stockdale and USS Spruance, with drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. Neither ship was damaged, and no sailors were hurt.

The Navy also helped shoot down Iranian missiles fired at Israel in April, and the destroyers USS Cole and USS Bulkeley fired interceptors in October when Iran again launched missiles at Israel.

Then, in late January, the Houthis announced a partial halt to attacks in the Red Sea following the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. U.S. Central Command’s last announcement of strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen was on Jan. 8. A defense official had nothing to add to the news release when Task & Purpose asked if there had been any further airstrikes against Houthi targets, or if U.S. Navy ships have destroyed Houthi missiles, drones, or boats since then.

Too close for missiles, switching to guns

The Navy also revealed in January that it had fired 160 rounds from ships’ five-inch main guns as part of combat operations in the Red Sea. Those main gun rounds have been used to destroy Houthi drones, Clark said.

USS Rafael Peralta fires a Mark 45 5-inch gun during a live fire exercise in June 2023. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Colby A. Mothershead

“They have been using guns to shoot down drones lately, especially the Hypervelocity Projectile,” Clark said. “The Navy built all those Hypervelocity Projectiles originally as part of the rail gun program. I think they’ve used about 50 for air defense.”

Hypervelocity Projectiles are designed to hit the target, while other 5-inch rounds explode near the target, showering it with shrapnel, he said.

Not only are the 5-inch rounds less expensive than missiles, but the Houthi drones often fly too low or too close to the ship to be hit with missiles, Clark said.

“What often happens is these really small drones get close enough to where the missile can’t really engage in time, because the missile has a minimum range, also,” Clark said.

‘Dangerously low level’ of munitions

The combat operations in the Red Sea have pitted U.S. Navy ships and sailors against an unprecedented number of enemy drone attacks. “Absolutely nobody thought they might see unmanned [threats] at this scale,” Rear Adm Kavon Hakimzadeh, then commander of US Carrier Strike Group 2, told Janes, an open-source defense intelligence provider, for a November 2024 news story.

USS Shiloh fires a standard missile during a live-fire exercise in the Philippine Sea, Jan. 23, 2023. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Santiago Navarro.

In January, the Navy revealed that it had fired nearly 400 munitions since October 2023 as part of combat operations in the Red Sea, including 120 SM-2 missiles, 80 SM-6 missiles, and a combined total of 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM) and SM-3 missiles. The per unit cost for these missiles is between $12.5 and $28.7 million for SM-3s, about $4.3 million per SM-6, and up to $2.5 million per SM-2, according to The War Zone.

But by mid 2024, the Navy shifted to using less expensive Sidewinders and Hellfire missiles to shoot down Houthi drones, according to Janes. Each of the Sidewinder and Hellfire typically cost about half a million dollars and about $150,000 respectively.

During his confirmation hearing to serve as Navy secretary, John Phelan acknowledged that the Navy faces a shortage of munitions.

“So, if confirmed, I intend to focus on this very quickly and get that resolved because I think we’re at a dangerously low level from a stockpile perspective, and as well as new,” Phelan said at the Feb. 27 hearing.

In written answers to lawmakers’ questions submitted prior to the hearing, Phelan also vowed to give commanding officers more options to defend their ships “including guns, directed energy, loitering munitions, and other innovative technologies.”

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Jeff Schogol

Senior Pentagon Reporter

Jeff Schogol is a senior staff writer for Task & Purpose. He has covered the military for nearly 20 years. Email him at schogol@taskandpurpose.com; direct message @JSchogol73030 on Twitter; or reach him on WhatsApp and Signal at 703-909-6488.

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol

15. Below-the-Threshold Deterrence, Philippine Style

Conclusion:

The Philippines’ transparency strategy is an epitome of establishing a deterrent targeted at gray-zone tactics. Manila’s strategy deters China’s tactics by challenging Beijing’s international reputation and the credibility of China’s diplomatic positions, which hold that China abides by international law and is “Committed to Peace, Stability, and Order in the South China Sea.” In the long run, the Philippines’ strategy could cause Beijing’s decision-makers to place a ceiling on the intensity of the gray-zone tactics that China exerts against the Philippines. The logic that underlies the Philippines’ transparency strategy should be a source of inspiration to policymakers and strategists that aim to effectively respond to gray-zone tactics.

Below-the-Threshold Deterrence, Philippine Style - War on the Rocks

Kurtis H. Simpson, Raphael Racicot, and Jacob Benjamin

warontherocks.com · by Kurtis H. Simpson · March 6, 2025

In the middle of the night, a CBS News crew onboard the Cape Engaño woke to the sound of alarms. The Philippine sailors directed the media team to put on life jackets while the crew prepared to defend themselves with clubs against a potential Chinese boarding. About 60 nautical miles from the Philippine coastline, this Philippine Coast Guard ship and a ship from the China Coast Guard collided near the Sabina Shoal, a low-tide elevation feature well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. The impact left a meter-long hole in the Philippine Coast Guard ship’s hull. By the time the Cape Engaño extricated itself from the encirclement of Chinese ships, Beijing had already released a statement blaming Manila for the incident. To contest the Chinese narrative, the Philippines could rely on the independent testimony of the CBS News crew who were on board the ship at the time of the collision. Further, the Philippine Coast Guard released pictures of the damage to their ship’s hull, denouncing China’s actions as “unlawful and aggressive.” This incident reflects an example of the Philippines’ “transparency strategy” at work.

Manila is implementing a deterrence posture that imposes reputational costs to China for its use of “gray-zone tactics” in the South China Sea. We use the term gray-zone tactics to define “a strategic approach that operates between conventional warfare and peacetime competition.” The Philippines’ “below-the-threshold” approach to deterrence uses non-military means to impose costs, limiting the risk of escalation while establishing credible threats. Reportedly, Manila has integrated transparency initiatives as a component of its January 2024 Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept.

Manila’s transparency strategy disseminates raw footage and promotes independent reporting to expose dangerous China Coast Guard and maritime militia actions at sea. This approach aims to garner domestic and international support for the Philippines’ stance against China in the South China Sea, as Manila aims to protect its sovereign rights under the U.N. Convention on the Laws of the Sea. The Philippines is not the first government to integrate journalists onboard its vessels to document the unprofessional and dangerous behaviors of the People’s Liberation Army, China Coast Guard, and China’s maritime militia. However, the Philippines’ systematic use of media reporting as a clearly defined and consistently implemented strategy is novel.

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Manila’s Transparency Strategy

The official positions of the Philippines on South China Sea issues gain credibility when coupled with the photographic and video evidence made widely available. These positions also gain credibility through the legitimacy of independent journalism. The Philippines’ strategy discredits the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ narratives about events and proves the culpability of China in South China Sea confrontations, thereby imposing costs to Beijing’s international reputation. Although China consistently denies responsibility for what its own actions have caused, its denials are increasingly untenable in the face of evidence made available by independent reporting and the Philippine Coast Guard.

Examples of the transparency strategy at work are plentiful. In October 2023, a journalist from ABS-CBN News was onboard a Philippine Coast Guard vessel and documented a Chinese flotilla intercepting and ramming a resupply mission to the Sierra Madre, a World War II–era ship that the Philippines deliberately beached on Second Thomas Shoal to function as an outpost in 1999. In April 2024, a reporter from The Telegraph was onboard a Philippine Coast Guard ship navigating near Scarborough Shoal when a China Coast Guard vessel began firing a watercannon while another China Coast Guard vessel performed blocking maneuvers. In August 2024, the Philippine Coast Guard released footage that undeniably displayed dangerous maneuvers on the part of the China Coast Guard, such as directly ramming Philippine vessels.

It is important to observe whether the governments of other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations take inspiration from Manila’s transparency strategy. The Indonesian Maritime Security Agency released footage of an incident in October 2024 where one of its vessels drove away a China Coast Guard vessel that was operating within the Indonesian exclusive economic zone off the Natuna Islands. This level of transparency is quite unusual when compared to the responses of other littoral South China Sea states. Indonesia and Malaysia mainly protest China’s expansive maritime claims diplomatically, such as through notes verbales (i.e., semi-formal diplomatic communications) or by having their foreign ministries refute Chinese-state publications that contradict their maritime claims. Hanoi is more forthright than Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur: Vietnam has historically confronted China in the South China Sea, as evident in the 1988 Johnson South Reef skirmish and in multiple standoffs in the 2010s. Hanoi also uses legal means and has previously published footage of confrontations. However, in 2024, Hanoi was more cautious about publicizing South China Sea flashpoints (with exceptions), rendering Manila’s systematic use of media salient compared to other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Imposing Costs Below the Threshold

The concept of the gray zone is a subject of debate. One author argued in 2015 that analysts ought to abandon the concept altogether. In these pages, two authors have engaged Chinese primary sources to argue that Chinese military leaders conceptualize the use of military force on a spectrum. They emphasize that the term gray-zone is absent from Chinese sources. However, the U.S. Department of Defense relies on this term to understand China’s strategic approach to its adversaries, and so do analysts who work on Russian and Iranian foreign policy. The common use of the term is indicative of the concept’s value in describing events below the threshold of war. Although scrutiny of the concept is important, fundamentally, China’s actions in the South China Sea deliberately operate in the ambiguous zone between war and peace, which is denoted by the concept. Therefore, despite some conceptual debate, the central policy challenge remains: how to deter Chinese military confrontations that occur below the threshold?

Gray-zone tactics are effective because they aim to circumvent a state’s defensive commitments. While all states are committed to defending themselves against aggression, there are uncertainty gaps as to the exact “red lines” that the state will initiate conflict over. Thomas Schelling wrote: “There is a threshold below which the commitment is just not operative, and even that threshold itself is usually unclear.” Commitments are eroded when these gaps are exploited by the aggressor and the defender does not respond, as it sets the precedent that such actions will be left unpunished. Despite the disruptiveness of China’s gray-zone tactics, China has faced relatively few consequences for using them because the below-the-threshold character of these tactics evade punishment. Manila’s transparency strategy aims to correct this by imposing costs and therefore direct consequences, affecting Beijing’s strategic calculus when it considers using gray-zone tactics to achieve its foreign policy goals.

Manila’s approach is therefore a nuanced means of imposing costs to produce a deterrent. Conventional deterrence measures typically include increasing military capabilities and developing stronger alliance commitments (which the Philippines has also committed to).

Proposals for enhanced Philippine deterrence have focused on the conventional approach. Indeed, there are calls for the United States to reassert its commitments to defending its ally, arguing that Washington ought to consistently warn Beijing not to set in motion Article 5 of the United States–Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. Derek Grossman notes the option of updating the treaty so that gray-zone aggression would trigger it. There are also various calls for enhancing United States assistance to Philippine resupply operations to the Sierra Madre, with the aim to “undermine China’s confidence that it can comfortably stay in the gray zone.” Herzinger has gone further to argue for the establishment of a combined forward operating base on Second Thomas Shoal.

These proposals rely on improving the conventional deterrence posture that gray-zone tactics are already designed to circumvent. Arguably, the U.S.–Philippine alliance is preventing conventional military attacks and imposing a ceiling on the intensity of the means used by Beijing. But China has resorted to gray-zone tactics precisely because these tactics fall marginally below the ceiling of alliance and military deterrence. This is why the transparency strategy is effective, as it imposes costs to below-the-threshold activities.

Deterring Below the Threshold

The Philippines’ transparency strategy is an epitome of establishing a deterrent targeted at gray-zone tactics. Manila’s strategy deters China’s tactics by challenging Beijing’s international reputation and the credibility of China’s diplomatic positions, which hold that China abides by international law and is “Committed to Peace, Stability, and Order in the South China Sea.” In the long run, the Philippines’ strategy could cause Beijing’s decision-makers to place a ceiling on the intensity of the gray-zone tactics that China exerts against the Philippines. The logic that underlies the Philippines’ transparency strategy should be a source of inspiration to policymakers and strategists that aim to effectively respond to gray-zone tactics.

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Kurtis H. Simpson, Ph.D. is a senior defence scientist at Defence Research and Development Canada’s Centre for Operational Research and Analysis, specializing in the Indo-Pacific. The Centre for Operational Research and Analysis provides strategic analysis and joint targeting expertise to Canada’s Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. Over his career, Simpson has worked on Indo-Pacific affairs at Global Affairs Canada, the Privy Council’s Office, and the Department of National Defence.

Raphael Racicot is a student researcher at Defence Research and Development Canada’s Centre for Operational Research and Analysis. An ex-officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, Raphael is pursuing an M.A in International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.

Jacob Benjamin is a student researcher at Defence Research and Development Canada’s Centre for Operational Research and Analysis. Jacob is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Jacob’s personal work on the Indo-Pacific has appeared in International Journal, Canadian Naval Review, and The Diplomat.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of National Defence or any other organization of the Canadian government.

Image: Philippine Coast Guard via Facebook.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Kurtis H. Simpson · March 6, 2025

16. Former USAID official says agency shutdown could cede Pacific islands to China

Former USAID official says agency shutdown could cede Pacific islands to China

Stars and Stripes · by Wyatt Olson · March 6, 2025

Villagers in the province of Ra in Fiji pose with their first harvest of shrimp on Jan. 6, 2025, as part of a pilot aquaculture farm project assisted by the U.S. Agency for International Development. (USAID)

The Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development is a boon to Beijing’s designs on Pacific island nations and weakens America’s national security, the former China policy lead for USAID told lawmakers Wednesday.

“Destroying a crucial national security tool, the trust of our allies — basically overnight — has not made the United States safer, stronger and more prosperous.” Francisco Bencosme testified during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs.

“It does not put America first,” he said. “It puts the People’s Republic of China first, and Pacific prosperity and security last.”

The hearing was intended to examine the Office of Insular Affairs’ role in fostering prosperity and addressing external threats to peace and security in the U.S. territories of Guam, American Samoa and Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands.

Insular Affairs coordinates federal policy for those three territories and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Democratic subcommittee members, however, continually brought the topic back to the extreme cuts to federal agencies by the Department of Government Efficiency. Thousands of USAID employees have been fired, with only a remnant staff of a few hundred remaining.

Bencosme, whose appointment as China policy lead ended during the Biden administration, focused his comments entirely on the impact of the closure of USAID on Pacific islands security.

The U.S. had intensified engagements in the Pacific island region over the past six years after feeling chastened by China’s dramatic inroads into domestic affairs there, he said.

USAID was central to that renewed outreach. In August 2023, the agency opened an office in Suva, Fiji, and established a country representative in Papua New Guinea, Bencosme said.

“We also upped our diplomatic [presence] by opening up new embassies in the region,” he said.

USAID was tasked with conducting America’s “ground game for strategic competition” against China’s Belt and Road Initiative, he said.

With that 2013 initiative, sometimes called One Belt One Road, China aims to extend its economic reach by integrating with regional economies around the world, often through huge infrastructure projects financed by loans from Beijing.

“While diplomats would focus on high-level diplomacy, USAID would reach out to local communities and demonstrate American support in a tangible way,” he said. “USAID programs were visible signs of U.S. leadership expanding in the Pacific islands, oftentimes working alongside our military and diplomats.

“Gutting foreign assistance limits our ability to influence and address the challenges in the Pacific,” he said.

China is also expanding its influence and power on Pacific islands in other ways.

“The [Chinese Communist Party] and its proxies use a range of methods, including public and private loans, bribery, blackmail, coercion, investment and influence, to advance their interests,” Cleo Paskal, a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, testified Wednesday.

China has the world’s largest naval fleet, and its presence is being felt throughout the Pacific, Dean Cheng, a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Va., testified Wednesday.

“It has 140 major surface combatants among its 370 ships,” he said. “It has an increasingly growing range. This past week, we have watched the PLA Navy conduct live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea, separating Australia from New Zealand, to such an extent that Australia had to issue a warning to airliners traversing the region.”

But in the realm of soft power, the U.S. has lost its most vital tool in the competition in a region vulnerable to natural disasters and most at risk for sea-level rise due to climate change, Bencosme said.

“The sudden U.S. withdrawal from programs in the Pacific, where we co-funded with our allies and withdrew without consulting or notifying them, leaves multiple partners and allies in the lurch,” he said. “It is the United States, not [China], that now runs the risk of being seen as unreliable and unpredictable.”

Stars and Stripes · by Wyatt Olson · March 6, 2025

17. 'Warheads on Foreheads': Top Leaders for Air Force, Space Force Leaning into Defense Secretary's Rhetoric

The funny thing is, this "rhetoric" has been around a lot longer than the SECDEF. These generals have long used this rhetoric usually just not in polite company like congressional hearings. This is not new rhetoric to these generals. What is new is a young SECDEF using their rhetoric.

'Warheads on Foreheads': Top Leaders for Air Force, Space Force Leaning into Defense Secretary's Rhetoric

military.com · by Thomas Novelly · March 5, 2025

AURORA, Colo. -- Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin wanted to make it clear: The troops that he oversees will do whatever President Donald Trump wants them to, and they'll be ready for it.

"That is what airpower, anytime, anywhere means. It's not just an aspiration. It's a promise we have to uphold for America," Allvin said during his keynote speech Monday evening at the Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Colorado. "We have to sustain and maintain the ability to go anytime, anywhere in the densest threat environment and put 'warheads on foreheads' anywhere the president might want."

It wasn't just the Air Force. Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force's top leader, made it clear during his keynote speech that same evening that Guardians are also "warfighters" who must be ready for conflict, and the service must go on the offensive to achieve "space superiority" against the nation's adversaries.

"That's what we signed up for ... the challenge, the call to duty," Saltzman said during his speech. "That's what it means to live and work in the greatest military the world has ever seen ... to be warfighters, regardless of the uniform we wear or the job we hold."

This is one of the first major forums the two service leaders -- both of whom were spared from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's purge last month of top military leaders -- have had since the new administration was sworn in.

Both made a clear embrace of the Pentagon's new priority to "revive the warrior ethos," as Hegseth put in his initial message to the services in January. But delivering on that by providing new technology and weapons for Trump's national security priorities is also at the mercy of looming defense cuts.

Todd Harrison, a defense budgeting expert at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, told Military.com in an interview that the timing of Allvin and Saltzman's comments in the wake of the firings is notable. Trump and Hegseth fired the Air Force general serving as the Joint Chiefs chairman, the Navy's chief of naval operations, and the Air Force vice chief on Feb. 21 without explanation.

"You can't help but think that the firing of the generals a few weeks ago has led to some of the change in rhetoric and behavior from the remaining service chiefs," Harrison said. "They are trying to get in line with the administration's new priorities and its new rhetoric in order to save their jobs."

Allvin did not participate in a roundtable with reporters, a notable absence from what is typically one of the few times where journalists can ask the service's top brass about the most pressing issues.

Notably, as the Department of the Air Force waits for its secretary nominee to be confirmed, all of the service's ambitious reorganization efforts focused on competing with China, many of which were endorsed and pushed by Allvin, have been paused by Hegseth until new leadership can approve them.

A defense official spoke to Military.com on condition of anonymity to discuss Allvin's focus on "lethality," as well as his response to the pause of the reorganization efforts.

"Readiness and lethality are at the core of both the USAF's efforts to realign to the threat environment and the new administration's priorities," the defense official said. "That is why everyone in [the] Air Force is fully onboard and welcomes the incoming civilian leadership team reviewing not only the 'why' behind the warfighters and readiness initiatives, but also the considerable progress made to date."

Saltzman did speak with reporters. When pressed by Military.com on what led to the change in tone in his speech and the call for the Space Force to use means such as orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare and counterspace operations, the four-star general said it was a natural progression for the service.

"It's more of a maturation of the role and the responsibilities that a new service has and just developing the vocabulary, developing the doctrine, operational concepts, and now the equipment and the training," Saltzman said during the media roundtable. "It is just part of the process, I feel like."

Both the Allvin and Saltzman keynote addresses focused on getting each service more modern and technologically advanced weapons and aircraft to carry out their missions -- a tall order as Hegseth has directed each service to offer up 8% of potential cuts in order to fund Trump's national defense priorities.

"In this dangerous and dynamic time, I want to give the president as many options as I can," Allvin said during his speech. "So that means modernization."

military.com · by Thomas Novelly · March 5, 2025

18. AI for war plans: Pentagon innovation shop taps Scale AI to build 'Thunderforge' prototype

AI for war plans: Pentagon innovation shop taps Scale AI to build 'Thunderforge' prototype - Breaking Defense

Working with Anduril and Microsoft, Scale AI will help military planners manage masses of operational data, starting at INDOPACOM and EUCOM.

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · March 5, 2025

Many operations during US Space Command’s March 8-12, 2021 Global Lightning exercise were based in the command’s joint operations center. (US Space Command photo: Lewis Carlyle)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s outreach arm to Silicon Valley, the Defense Innovation Unit, has selected San Francisco-based Scale AI to lead what it calls Thunderforge, a prototype project to build AI to speed up large-scale military planning, the company and DIU announced this morning.

Scale AI will work with fellow defense tech upstart Anduril, IT giant Microsoft, and other as-yet undisclosed “global” subcontractors, the company and DIU said. The new AI toolkit will combine Anduril’s Lattice data-sharing system with Large Language Models (LLMs) developed by both Microsoft and Scale AI itself.

The first prototype tools will go to the four-star headquarters tasked to deter America’s most powerful adversaries: Indo-Pacific Command, which the Trump administration has identified as its top priority in a new Cold War with China; and European Command, whose decades-long focus on Moscow has been complicated by Trump’s reversal of previous anti-Russian policies.

The Thunderforge project is just one piece of a much larger multi-front effort to use AI algorithms, big data, and long-range communications to coordinate US and allied forces across the military “domains” of land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace. The jaw-breaking official jargon for this mega-project is Combined Joint All-Domain Command & Control (CJADC2).

All the armed services and many defense agencies have been building their own, hopefully compatible pieces of this AI-powered global meta-network, coordinated by Pentagon’s Chief Digital & AI Officer. (However, the Trump administration is reportedly considering major changes to the role of CDAO, a Biden-era creation). Working closely with CDAO, DIU has played a major role in linking all these efforts to cutting-edge companies in the commercial sector, whose latest and greatest AI tools the military wants to adopt and adapt for its own purposes.

Those military applications can be remarkably mundane, in stark contrast to the killer-robot apocalypses of pop culture. Planning a major combat operation, or even a peacetime redeployment, requires going through vast amounts of data: latest locations of potential targets, unit readiness reports, transport routes and timetables, the load-carrying capacities of road bridges and seaports, stockpiles of everything from ammunition to spare parts, and on and on and on.

Today, much of that data is scattered across multiple, incompatible, and increasingly geriatric computer systems, which means human staff officers have to labor for hundreds of hours to pull it all together, let alone analyze it and calculate an optimal course of action. So the Pentagon is intensely interested in any kind of AI that can accelerate this laborious data-crunching and give everyone at headquarters more time to actually think.

“Today’s military planning processes rely on decades-old technology and methodologies, creating a fundamental mismatch between the speed of modern warfare and our ability to respond,” DIU’s Thunderforge program lead, Bryce Goodman, said on the agency’s blog. “Thunderforge brings AI-powered analysis and automation to operational and strategic planning, allowing decision-makers to operate at the pace required for emerging conflicts.”

Specifically, DIU and Scale told Breaking Defense, Thunderforge will automate many traditional staff processes, assist in drafting plans, and even run AI wargames of alternative courses of action. It will also handle classified information at multiple levels.

While today’s announcements didn’t disclose many details, including the amount of funding the government will provide, recent military experiments suggest that the Large Language Models provided by Scale AI and Microsoft will serve two major functions: extracting key details from masses of written reports and other documents — so-called “unstructured” data, which is notoriously hard for older forms of AI to make sense of — and generating draft planning documents for staff officers to review.

But, as Scale emphasized in its announcement, these AI tools will be “always under human oversight.”

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · March 5, 2025

19. The Paradox of Trump’s Economic Weapon

Excerpts:

Yet the conditions that made threats against allies so effective after World War II have changed. On the one hand, the U.S. economy has become less dependent on trade. As the White House underscored in a February factsheet, trade constitutes only 24 percent of U.S. GDP, but it makes up 73 percent of Canadian GDP, 67 percent of Mexican GDP, and 37 percent of Chinese GDP. As a result, trade wars are likely to be less costly for the U.S. economy than they would be for the United States’ partners. The dollar’s role as the premier global reserve and trade currency continues to give Washington a powerful lever of influence over businesses worldwide.

The flipside of this low relative vulnerability, however, is that the United States has less overall commercial influence worldwide than it did in past decades. Other parts of the world are now larger trading zones, offering alternatives to countries who want to avoid being strong-armed by Washington. In the last decade, the United States’ presence in world trade has declined in all areas except tech and fossil fuels. When Trump first entered office in 2017, U.S. exports and imports accounted for roughly 6.5 percent of the world economy. By the beginning of this year, this figure had fallen by one-fifth, to 5.2 percent. In these conditions, there is a significant chance that Trump’s efforts to subordinate America’s partners will backfire by hastening the dissolution of U.S. hegemony.

Over the last eight years, the world economy has thus come to revolve less around the United States. China has become the principal trading partner to more countries in the world. There is more regional trade within the European Union, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. This weaker overall position may be precisely why Trump is seeking to exploit the United States’ advantage where it remains the greatest—with Canada and Mexico, which are uniquely vulnerable. Even large export-driven economies such as China, Germany, Italy, and Japan would lose between three and four percent of their GDP if all exports to the United States ceased overnight. That would be a serious shock but not an insurmountable one. Moreover, if these economies were to conduct a gradual diversion away from the U.S. market over several years, the adjustment would be manageable for them.

For many U.S. allies, a smaller presence in the U.S. market has ceased to be an economically existential threat. As Trump ratchets up the pressure on them, they may eventually decide that the loss of cheap access to North America is not something worth avoiding at any cost. At that point, Trump will have overplayed his hand. Instead of regaining U.S. dominance, there is a significant possibility that his actions will further accelerate the decline of American global influence, both in the economy and in other realms.

The Paradox of Trump’s Economic Weapon

Foreign Affairs · by More by Nicholas Mulder · March 6, 2025

Why Short-term Success Will Hasten Long-term Decline

Nicholas Mulder

March 6, 2025

Trucks bound for the United States queueing in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, March 2025 Daniel Becerril / Reuters

NICHOLAS MULDER is an Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University and the author of The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War.

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Since returning to the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed a whirlwind of policy shifts, territorial claims, and economic threats. In his first few weeks in office, Trump has expressed a desire to bring Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal, and the Gaza Strip under direct American control. He has also expanded his trade offensive against China to include Canada and Mexico, the United States’ two largest trading partners. In the case of Canada, Trump tied his commercial pressure to the stunning demand that the nation itself go out of existence. “Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada — AND NO TARIFFS!” he wrote on Truth Social. On top of all this, Trump made a dramatic turn against Ukraine, suspending all U.S. aid.

Many commentators have been at once disturbed and baffled by these moves. In January, The Wall Street Journal derided Trump’s threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico as the opening salvo of the “The Dumbest Trade War in History.” Yet Trump’s economic coercing and cajoling is not as inexplicable as it seems. Historically, directing economic coercion against allies—rather than adversaries—has been a remarkably successful policy: since the world’s economy integrated during the nineteenth century, tools of economic coercion have frequently become more effective when deployed against diplomatic and economic partners than against hostile states.

During the Cold War, Washington regularly used economic coercion against allies. Previous administrations differed from Trump in tone, but the substance of the threats was often similar: follow U.S. policy priorities or face serious economic damage. Trump is attempting to exploit this underappreciated power in his bid to break up multilateral alliances and craft a new U.S.-led sphere of influence in which Washington enjoys unfettered primacy in its dealings with individual states. Trump has a crude diplomatic manner and deficient strategic foresight. But he has an intuitive grasp of how to use leverage in bilateral negotiations in which his opponent holds a weaker hand. In Trump’s first term, his team learned that the commercial bullying of rival countries is often ineffective but that it can quickly force U.S. allies to submit. Now, he appears to be doubling down on attempts to shore up American power by pushing friendly countries into deeper dependence on the U.S. market and the dollar.

This strategy, however, is only likely to work in bilateral relationships in which the United States is unquestionably economically dominant. As the global economic order moves in a more protectionist, mercantilist, and multipolar direction, it is increasingly uncertain how many countries will fall into this category. The calculus looks different for the United States’ neighbors in North America—or countries deeply dependent on U.S. assistance for their survival, such as Ukraine—than it does for other European and Asian economies. Trump’s efforts to boss around Canada and Mexico may well continue to work, but for the economies of Eurasia, the appeal of alternatives, such as greater interregional exchange and integration into Chinese supply chains, will rise rapidly.

ECONOMIC PRESSURE PARADOX

To understand Trump’s trade offensive, it is helpful to grasp why economic pressure can have such different effects on countries exposed to it. What makes pressure successful is not just the target country’s degree of material interdependence but its expectations and priorities. States that do not expect or desire a better future relationship with the United States are less likely to bow to pressure even when it is severe; they may be prepared to pay considerable economic costs to pursue their strategic goals. Indeed, U.S. economic sanctions have a poor record when it comes to forcing adversaries into political concessions. The web of sanctions that President Joe Biden’s administration coordinated to constrain Russia has thus far not forced a Russian retreat on the battlefield, raised the cost of the war to Moscow to intolerable levels, or compelled Russian President Vladimir Putin to drop his maximalist demands. Nor has the United States’ growing thicket of export controls and sanctions on Chinese firms and technology imports extracted significant concessions from Beijing. To the contrary, these curbs have motivated China to double down on its ambition to achieve technological self-sufficiency—an effort that has yielded notable advances in chips, electric vehicles, fighter jets, renewable energy, and artificial intelligence.

But the response of countries with close economic and security ties to Washington has been quite different. Canada, Mexico, and other allies are more likely to give in to threats and pressure precisely because they prize their deep links with the United States. The paradox of economic pressure is that Washington enjoys a much greater degree of leverage over countries that are invested in a long-term alliance with it.

This vulnerability has long been noted by scholars. The diplomatic historian Paul Schroeder argued 50 years ago that alliances were not just “weapons of power” against opponents but also “tools of management” to coerce unruly allies. Far from being mere congenial partnerships, most nineteenth- and twentieth-century alliances were complex and multipurpose arrangements used by great powers to restrain, control, and influence other purportedly friendly states.

During the Cold War, the United States showed itself to be skilled in wielding economic pressure against allies. In the decades after World War II, the U.S. government did not hesitate to impose serious economic consequences on European imperial states whose policies diverged from its wishes. In 1948, for example, the Truman administration threatened to withdraw Marshall Plan aid from the Netherlands unless the Dutch abandoned their bloody counterinsurgency war against the Indonesian nationalist movement. American diplomats correctly estimated that the Indonesian nationalists could be counted on as allies in the Cold War and did not want the Netherlands to get in the way. Washington’s threat to cut off aid forced the Dutch government to grant Indonesian independence within a year.

Heaping economic pressure on U.S. adversaries often fails, but bullying allies can yield results.

In 1956, strong U.S. economic pressure ended another European colonial expedition: the Suez war. After France, Israel, and the United Kingdom invaded Egypt, the Eisenhower administration made it clear it would no longer economically support Britain’s fragile postwar economy unless it halted its attack. Eisenhower told British Prime Minister Anthony Eden pointedly that “if you don’t get out of Port Said tomorrow, I’ll cause a run on the pound and drive it down to zero.” Eden was in no position to resist and promptly gave way. Similar threats against Paris and Tel Aviv also secured the withdrawal of French and Israeli forces. The Suez crisis was a humiliation for London and marked the end of British imperial ambitions in the Middle East and Asia. Its swift resolution under pressure from Washington demonstrated the economic strength of the United States as a Cold War superpower.

Washington has also leveraged its trade ties and security support for East Asian and western European allies to force them into concessions. In the 1970s, when South Korean President Park Chung-hee pursued a nuclear weapons program, the Ford administration used the threats to freeze U.S. government lending and reconsider its entire security relationship with South Korea to force Seoul to give up these ambitions. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration did not shy away from using the threat of commercial penalties and trade sanctions against Japan, another ally, to prevent the country from flooding the U.S. market with its goods. And more recently, the Obama and Biden administrations used extra-territorial sanctions and export controls to force European and Asian banks and firms into accepting U.S. economic warfare priorities.

The United States is, of course, not alone in exploiting the leverage that close economic and security ties provide. In his 1999 book The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations, the political scientist Daniel Drezner showed how other large economies also benefited from this dynamic. In the 1990s, for instance, Russian President Boris Yeltsin used economic coercion to secure concessions from Central Asian and Caucasian republics that wanted to retain close links to Moscow. But the Kremlin had much less success in getting what it wanted from countries such as Ukraine and the Baltic states that aimed to orient themselves toward the West. The utility of commercial pressure on allies is a general fact of statecraft in the global economy.

TARGETING FRIENDS

During his first term, Trump initially attempted to use economic coercion against adversaries, unleashing “maximum pressure” sanctions against Iran’s and Venezuela’s oil exports. These had a crippling economic effect but produced no political shifts. He passed a major sanctions bill against Iran, North Korea, and Russia in 2017 and initiated the U.S. economic assault on Huawei, ZTE, and other Chinese tech giants. Trump’s open tariff war against China resulted in a trade deal in 2020, but Beijing did not meet its commitments to increase purchases of American goods. Eight years later, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have only drawn closer together and developed more nuclear weapons and enrichment capacity, while Chinese tech firms led by Huawei have grown stronger than ever. Almost everywhere Trump tried economic coercion against adversaries, the results were lackluster or counterproductive.

These failures stand in stark contrast to Trump’s successful pressure on allies during his first term. After tearing up the North American Free Trade Agreement, he replaced it with a new pact that secured some genuine gains for U.S. firms and workers. Then, in 2019, Trump used sanctions to force Turkey, a fellow NATO member, to rein in its proxies fighting U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria and obtain the release of a detained American pastor. The following year, Washington again imposed economic penalties on Turkey for buying Russian S-400 antiaircraft missiles; although no official concession has been made, Turkey seems to have quietly ditched the system.

The apparent lesson here—heaping economic pressure on U.S. adversaries often fails but bullying allies can yield results—seems to animate Trump’s current push to rein in partners who are still tied to the U.S. market. Instead of launching all-out economic warfare, the president has indicated his interest in forging a new nuclear agreement with Iran, rekindling economic ties with Russia, and inking an enlarged trade deal with China, all while putting more coercive pressure on partners dependent on U.S. security assistance and market access.

The size of the U.S. market gives Washington’s commercial threats particular potency with its North American trading partners. The Canadian economy is highly dependent on U.S. demand: three-quarters of all Canadian exports and 98 percent of its oil exports go to its southern neighbor. Mexico has been a great beneficiary of increased Chinese foreign investment, making it an obvious battleground in the new phase of the U.S.-Chinese trade war that now looms. Still, the United States remains Mexico’s largest trading partner, which gives Washington significant leverage.

Likewise, Trump enjoys a strong position in his attempts to convince Denmark to sell Greenland. The small Nordic country is reliant on the U.S. market. In recent years, the popularity of the weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy in the United States has turned their manufacturer, the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, into the most valuable company in the European Union. Novo Nordisk’s annual sales in the U.S. market are now growing at 30 percent annually; its total net sales of $42 billion amount to ten percent of Denmark’s GDP. Such dependence on immense sales to the U.S. market make the Canadians, Mexicans, and Danes alluring targets for economic blackmail.

RISK OF OVERREACH

Yet the conditions that made threats against allies so effective after World War II have changed. On the one hand, the U.S. economy has become less dependent on trade. As the White House underscored in a February factsheet, trade constitutes only 24 percent of U.S. GDP, but it makes up 73 percent of Canadian GDP, 67 percent of Mexican GDP, and 37 percent of Chinese GDP. As a result, trade wars are likely to be less costly for the U.S. economy than they would be for the United States’ partners. The dollar’s role as the premier global reserve and trade currency continues to give Washington a powerful lever of influence over businesses worldwide.

The flipside of this low relative vulnerability, however, is that the United States has less overall commercial influence worldwide than it did in past decades. Other parts of the world are now larger trading zones, offering alternatives to countries who want to avoid being strong-armed by Washington. In the last decade, the United States’ presence in world trade has declined in all areas except tech and fossil fuels. When Trump first entered office in 2017, U.S. exports and imports accounted for roughly 6.5 percent of the world economy. By the beginning of this year, this figure had fallen by one-fifth, to 5.2 percent. In these conditions, there is a significant chance that Trump’s efforts to subordinate America’s partners will backfire by hastening the dissolution of U.S. hegemony.

Over the last eight years, the world economy has thus come to revolve less around the United States. China has become the principal trading partner to more countries in the world. There is more regional trade within the European Union, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. This weaker overall position may be precisely why Trump is seeking to exploit the United States’ advantage where it remains the greatest—with Canada and Mexico, which are uniquely vulnerable. Even large export-driven economies such as China, Germany, Italy, and Japan would lose between three and four percent of their GDP if all exports to the United States ceased overnight. That would be a serious shock but not an insurmountable one. Moreover, if these economies were to conduct a gradual diversion away from the U.S. market over several years, the adjustment would be manageable for them.

For many U.S. allies, a smaller presence in the U.S. market has ceased to be an economically existential threat. As Trump ratchets up the pressure on them, they may eventually decide that the loss of cheap access to North America is not something worth avoiding at any cost. At that point, Trump will have overplayed his hand. Instead of regaining U.S. dominance, there is a significant possibility that his actions will further accelerate the decline of American global influence, both in the economy and in other realms.

NICHOLAS MULDER is an Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University and the author of The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Nicholas Mulder · March 6, 2025

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

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