Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner."

– Cormac McCarthy

"There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that high form is not limited by the boundaries of one's country; but by a duty to mankind to safeguard the trust of civilization."

–Oscar Solomon Straus (December 23, 1850 - May 3, 1926)

"Psychological warfare is, of course, neither very psychological nor is it necessarily warfare. Indeed, within the context of a rigidly purist and scholastic definition, psychological warfare is not psychological, in that most of its operations are very definitely not a part of present-day scientific psychology. Neither is it warfare because it can be operated before war, during war, after war, or contemporaneously with and apart from war. As pointed out above, war involves the inescapable content of public lawful violence. It is hard to ascribe violence to a short-wave broadcast or to a leaflet. In Korea in 1951 the author heard that a Chinese soldier was found dead—mashed by a leaflet bomb which had failed to explode at the proper altitude. If this story is true, that particular soldier was one of the few genuine war victims of military or strategic propaganda both so pretentiously called "psychological warfare” by Americans of the mid-twentieth century.”

By Paul Linebarger in the second edition (1954) of Psychological Warfare (p276fn1).

https://archive.org/details/psychologicalwar00line/page/276/mode/2up

1. Russia’s Malicious Activities

2. Active-Duty and Former U.S. Army Soldiers Arrested for Theft of Government Property and Bribery Scheme

3. Former, active-duty Army soldiers charged in scheme allegedly selling sensitive military information to China

4. U.S. soldiers arrested in scheme to send classified data, missile documents to China

5. Long-Range Maritime Air Assault Operation in the Indo-Pacific Theater

6. There Is a Way Out in Ukraine

7. War heroes, military firsts among 26,000 images flagged in DEI purge

8. Trump’s ‘Make Shipbuilding Great Again’ Order Calls for Wholesale Overhaul of U.S. Maritime Industry

9. The Army’s top enlisted leader goes dark on social media

10. US Army soldiers in Oregon and Washington indicted for theft of top-secret documents

11. Trained on classified battlefield data, AI multiplies effectiveness of Ukraine's drones: Report

12. Ukrainian troops throw Beehive on Russian forces

13. Supporting Lethality: A Guide for DOD’s Non-Warfighters

14. Polls: Growing Numbers Disagree With Trump on Ukraine

15. VF’s First Feature Documentary, ‘Take No Prisoners,’ Opens at SXSW (featuring Roger Carstens)

16. Ukraine fears Musk may cut vital Starlink internet amid Trump pressure

17. Inside the White House’s new media strategy to promote Trump as ‘KING’

18. DOGE threat: How government data would give an AI company extraordinary power

19. State Dept. Plans to Close Diplomatic Missions and Fire Employees Overseas

20. Pentagon Cuts Threaten Programs That Secure Loose Nukes and Weapons of Mass Destruction

21. Pentagon Culls Social Science Research, Prioritizes Fiscal Responsibility and Technologies

22. Response to Five Former SECDEFs “Open Letter” Criticizing Trump

23. Cutting the Line: Imposed Cost and Measured Effects In Strategic Competition and Deterrence

1. Russia’s Malicious Activities

Why are America's attitudes toward Russia softening? Is that effective Russian influence operations? Why can't Americans see the same facts that Seth Jones is seeing and explaining?

Is it because of the probably great disinformation operation of all- the so-called Russia Hoax - I see it (and the letter from the former intelligence officials) invoked often by people who I would never have expected to be Russia supporters but they are more upset about those officials signing the letter than any of Russia's malign activities. The signers of the letter were likely the perfect victims of Russian reflexive control (they acted as Russia expected them and wanted them to act) - whether the Biden laptop issue was real or a hoax (or a hoax perpetrated by Russian reflexive control), the reaction by the letter signers did more to support Russia than likely anything the Russians could have done on their own. The alleged Russian hoax has been effectively manipulated by political factions as well as by the Russian disinformation machine operating through useful idiots and actual Russian supporters.

Whether the letter accusing Russia was a good idea by those former intelligence officials it has certainly worked to Russia's advantage and continues to be exploited in support of Russia to this day because there are among us those who hate those former American intelligence officials more than they hate the malign activities that Russia continues to conduct this day to hamr America and Americans.

As an aside I am glad to see Seth mention north Korea below. I wish he would issue a second edition of his book and retitle it "Four Dangerous Men." I won't forgive him for leaving Kim Jong Un out of his book. (note attempt at humor with this last comment)

Russia’s Malicious Activities

Americans’ attitudes toward Moscow are softening, but the regime remains a dangerous enemy.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/russias-malicious-activities-moscow-remains-a-dangerous-enemy-to-america-9cf0346e?mod=hp_opin_pos_2#cxrecs_s

By Seth G. Jones

March 6, 2025 4:11 pm ET

Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, March 4. Photo: Sergei Bobylev/Zuma Press

A CBS/YouGov poll last month found that 34% of Americans think Vladimir Putin’s Russia is an “ally” or “friendly” to the U.S. A comparison with earlier polls suggests a softening of views. But Americans shouldn’t get complacent. Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate is engaging in a campaign of subversion and sabotage against European and U.S. targets, including against U.S. military bases in Germany.

Between 2023 and 2024, the number of Russian attacks on critical infrastructure, government and other important targets in Europe tripled, according to estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and interviews with U.S. and European government officials. During a speech in November, Richard Moore, head of the British foreign-intelligence agency, MI6, warned: “We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear saber-rattling.”

Russia has also waged cyber offensives against U.S. targets, including by planting malware in critical infrastructure. Between 2019 and 2021, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service conducted a series of cyber operations against SolarWinds, a Texas-based maker of software to manage networks. The attacks allowed Russia to spy on and disrupt services for more than 18,000 customers, including the U.S. Defense, Treasury, State and Commerce departments.

Perhaps most concerning, Russia has strengthened its ties with autocratic regimes, most notably China. Mr. Putin and China’s Xi Jinping have met more than 40 times. As Mr. Xi told Russian leaders this year, the two countries are “true friends like steel repeatedly tempered by fire.” China has exported a large supply of military parts to help Russia wage war in Ukraine. Exports have included microelectronics for use in Russian weapons systems, drone components and parts for fighter jets, air defense systems, and other weapons.

Russia and China have repeatedly threatened the U.S. In July, Chinese and Russian long-range strategic bombers conducted a joint patrol near Alaska. Days earlier, the two countries held live-fire naval drills in the contested South China Sea for the first time in eight years. China and Russia have also established intelligence-collection facilities in Cuba, and Russia recently parked submarines carrying guided missiles off America’s East Coast.

Mr. Putin has expanded ties with Iran, the country that bankrolls terrorist groups in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Iran has provided Russia with drones, artillery shells, ammunition and short-range ballistic missiles. In return, Russia has offered to supply Iran with multirole fighter jets, attack helicopters, and potentially air defense systems, as well as aid to Iran’s space and missile programs.

Russia continues to build ties with North Korea. Pyongyang has provided Russia with artillery rounds, rockets, short-range ballistic missiles and other munitions. Last month, the South Korean intelligence service reported that North Korea sent more troops to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, on top of roughly 12,000 soldiers that it deployed to Russia last year.

Mr. Putin is an evil dictator. Any discussions with Russia should begin from that premise.

Mr. Jones is president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author, most recently, of “Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran and the Rise of Irregular Warfare.”

Active-Duty and Former U.S. Army Soldiers Arrested for Theft of Government Property and Bribery Scheme

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/active-duty-and-former-us-army-soldiers-arrested-theft-government-property-and-bribery

Thursday, March 6, 2025

For Immediate Release

Office of Public Affairs

One Soldier Charged with Conspiring to Transmit National Defense Information to Individuals Located in China

View the indictment for Jian Zhao.

Jian Zhao, and Li Tian, active-duty U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, along with Ruoyu Duan, a former U.S. Army soldier, were arrested today following indictments by federal grand juries in the District of Oregon and the Western District of Washington. Tian and Duan were charged in the District of Oregon for conspiring to commit bribery and theft of government property. Zhao was charged in the Western District of Washington for conspiring to obtain and transmit national defense information to an individual not authorized to receive it, and also for bribery and theft of government property.

“The defendants arrested today are accused of betraying our country, actively working to weaken America’s defense capabilities and empowering our adversaries in China,” said Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi. “They will face swift, severe, and comprehensive justice.”

“While bribery and corruption have thrived under China’s Communist Party, this behavior cannot be tolerated with our service members who are entrusted with sensitive military information, including national defense information,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “The FBI and our partners will continue to work to uncover attempts by those in China to steal sensitive U.S. military information and hold all accountable who play a role in betraying our national defense. The FBI would like to thank U.S. Army Counterintelligence for their close partnership during this investigation.”

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office thanks the FBI and U.S. Army Counterintelligence Command for their hard work on this investigation and commitment to protecting our national security,” said Acting U.S. Attorney William M. Narus for the District of Oregon.

“These arrests underscore the persistent and increasing foreign intelligence threat facing our Army and nation,” said Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, Commanding General, Army Counterintelligence Command. “Along with the Department of Justice and FBI, Army Counterintelligence Command will continue to work tirelessly to hold those accountable who irresponsibly and selfishly abandon the Army values and choose personal gain over duty to our nation. We remind all members of the Army team to increase their vigilance and protect our Army by reporting suspicious activity.”

The indictment in the District of Oregon alleges that beginning on or about Nov. 28, 2021, and continuing to at least on or about Dec. 19, 2024, Duan and Tian along with others, known and unknown to the grand jury conspired with each other to surreptitiously gather sensitive military information related to the United States Army’s operational capabilities, including technical manuals and other sensitive information, and that Tian transmitted this information to Duan in return for money, in violation of his official duties as an active-duty U.S. Army officer. Specifically, Tian was tasked with gathering information related U.S. military weapon systems, including information related to the Bradley and Stryker U.S. Army fighting vehicles, and transmitting them to Duan.

The indictment in the Western District of Washington alleges that beginning in or about July 2024, and continuing to the date of the arrest, Jian Zhao, an active-duty U.S. Army Supply Sergeant, conspired with others known and unknown to the grand jury to obtain and transmit national defense information to individuals based in China. Zhao is further alleged to have committed bribery and theft of government property.

Specifically, Zhao was charged for his conspiracy to collect and transmit several classified hard drives, including hard drives marked “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET”, negotiating with individuals based in China for their sale, and agreeing to send the classified hard drives to the individuals in China. In exchange for the sale of the classified hard drives, Zhao received at least $10,000. Zhao is further alleged to have conspired to sell an encryption capable computer that was stolen from the U.S. Government, and sensitive U.S. military documents and information, including information related to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), and information related to U.S. military readiness in the event of a conflict with the People’s Republic of China. Zhao is alleged to have violated his duties as a U.S. Army Soldier and public official to protect sensitive military information in exchange for money. In total, Zhao is alleged to have corruptly received and accepted payments totaling at least $15,000.

The FBI and the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Command investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Geoffrey Barrow and Katherine Rykken for the District of Oregon and Trial Attorneys Christopher Cook and Yifei Zheng of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Updated March 7, 2025

3. Former, active-duty Army soldiers charged in scheme allegedly selling sensitive military information to China

Former, active-duty Army soldiers charged in scheme allegedly selling sensitive military information to China

foxnews.com · by Elizabeth Pritchett Fox News

Video

Former, active-duty Army soldiers accused of selling sensitive military information to China

Three U.S. Army soldiers – two active-duty and one former – have been indicted for their alleged roles in gathering and selling sensitive information to China, the DOJ said.

Two active-duty U.S. Army soldiers and one former soldier were arrested in Oregon on Thursday for their alleged roles in gathering and sending sensitive information to individuals in China, the Department of Justice said.

The accused are Jian Zhao and Li Tian, who were stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and former soldier Ruoyo Duan.

All three are charged with conspiring to commit bribery and theft of government property. Zhao is facing additional charges of conspiring to obtain and transmit national defense information to an individual not authorized to receive it.

"The defendants arrested today are accused of betraying our country, actively working to weaken America’s defense capabilities and empowering our adversaries in China," said Attorney General Pam Bondi. "They will face swift, severe, and comprehensive justice."

US ARMY SOLDIER CHARGED OVER ALLEGED HACKING OF TRUMP, HARRIS PHONE RECORDS

The Department of Justice announced indictments against three U.S. Army soldiers – two active-duty and one former – for their alleged roles in gathering and selling sensitive information to China. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Duan and Tian are accused of conspiring with each other to "surreptitiously gather sensitive military information related to the United States Army's operational capabilities" from Nov. 28, 2021, to at least Dec. 19, 2024, the DOJ said. Information included that of technical manuals and military weapon systems, specifically Bradley and Stryker U.S. Army fighting vehicles.

Active-duty Army officer Tian was tasked with gathering the above information for former soldier Duan in return for money, the DOJ said.

Zhao, an active-duty Army supply sergeant, allegedly began conspiring to obtain and send national defense information to people in China sometime in July 2024.

"Specifically, Zhao was charged for his conspiracy to collect and transmit several classified hard drives, including hard drives marked ‘SECRET’ and ‘TOP SECRET,’ negotiating with individuals based in China for their sale, and agreeing to send the classified hard drives to the individuals in China," according to the DOJ.

Attorney General Bondi said the three men charged "are accused of betraying our country" in an effort to empower China. (AP)

He allegedly received at least $10,000 in exchange for the classified hard drives.

ARMY SOLDIER SENTENCED TO 14 YEARS FOR ISIS PLOT TO KILL US FORCES, AFTER REQUESTING HE SERVE 40 YEARS

He is also accused of conspiring to sell a computer stolen from the U.S. government and sensitive military documents and information, including information related to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and military readiness in the event of a conflict with China. Zhao allegedly accepted around $5,000 in payments for the aforementioned items.

"Zhao is alleged to have violated his duties as a U.S. Army Soldier and public official to protect sensitive military information in exchange for money," the DOJ said.

Two of the men accused are Jian Zhao and Li Tian, who were both stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. (Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)

Mike Herrington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Seattle Field Office, described the behavior of all three as "unconscionable."

"These arrests should send a message to would-be spies that we and our partners have the will and the ability to find you, track you down, and hold you to account," Herrington said. "Protecting the nation’s secrets, especially those necessary to preserve our military advantage and protect our troops, is one of the FBI’s top priorities."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

FBI Director Kash Patel said the men will "face American justice" after "stealing America's defense intelligence capabilities and empowering adversaries like China in betrayal of our country."

foxnews.com · by Elizabeth Pritchett Fox News

4. U.S. soldiers arrested in scheme to send classified data, missile documents to China

U.S. soldiers arrested in scheme to send classified data, missile documents to China

Two active-duty soldiers and one former service member were charged in plots that prosecutors say were linked to Beijing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/03/07/indictment-classified-military-information-china-espionage/

Updated

March 7, 2025 at 8:47 a.m. ESTtoday at 8:47 a.m. EST

A change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state in 2020. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

By Cate Cadell

Two active-duty U.S. soldiers stationed in Washington state and one former soldier in Oregon were arrested on Thursday, accused of passing classified information including weapons documents and hard drives to contacts in China as recently as December, according to federal court documents unsealed on Wednesday and Thursday.

Sgt. Jian Zhao, who was stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in western Washington, allegedly handed over around 20 government hard drives — some marked “secret” — along with military documents detailing missile-launcher technology and U.S. military exercises in the Indo-Pacific.

In a separate indictment, 1st Lt. Li Tian, also stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, allegedly conspired with a former U.S. soldier called Ruoyu Duan, to steal military secrets, Oregon prosecutors say. Tian allegedly gathered sensitive data on U.S. weapons systems, including Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles, and sold it to Duan who in turn received payment from unnamed people in China.

The indictment said that Duan made routine payments to other security clearance holders and active-duty members in the U.S. military, but only Tian and Zhao have been named in indictments this week.

The indictments do not name the final recipients of the stolen military information, but officials from the attorney general’s office and FBI linked the thefts to Beijing.

“The defendants arrested today are accused of betraying our country, actively working to weaken America’s defense capabilities and empowering our adversaries in China,” said Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi in a statement. “They will face swift, severe, and comprehensive justice.”

Tian and Duan are charged with conspiring to commit bribery and theft of government property, while Zhao faces those and a further charge of conspiracy to obtain and transmit national defense information. In both cases, the prosecutors note there are further people involved, some of whom are unknown to the grand jury.

The charges suggest a larger scheme targeting soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and sheds fresh light on how Beijing’s expansive intelligence network targets U.S. service members — cultivating individuals with security clearances through regular payments for sensitive data.

In a statement on the charges, FBI Director Kash Patel pledged to continue to root out efforts by Beijing to steal U.S. military information. “While bribery and corruption have thrived under China’s Communist Party, this behavior cannot be tolerated with our service members who are entrusted with sensitive military information, including national defense information,” he said.

Col. Jennifer J. Bocanegra, public affairs officer for Joint Base Lewis-McChord, said they were aware of the indictment of two active-duty service members and they are “fully committed to supporting the ongoing interagency investigation and prosecution” of the case.

Zhao is not named in the separate Oregon indictment against Tian and Duan, but details in the documents indicate the cases are connected. Duan — who left the military in 2017 and resides in Oregon — acted as a liaison between Zhao, Tian and buyers in China seeking the stolen material, the indictments allege.

The Oregon indictment details how Tian, the active-duty lieutenant with secret-level clearance, sold sensitive information to Duan, fielding specific requests for instruction and technical manuals for various military vehicles. That included Google Drive links containing open-source intelligence reports and manuals outlining the capabilities of the Stryker, an eight-wheeled U.S. Army combat vehicle.

Images taken from security footage at the military base and included in the indictment show Tian taking pictures of his computer screen in the base with his smartphone. Duan, who payed Tian for the information, allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars from PayPal accounts based in China during the scheme.

Prosecutors separately allege that Zhao, who held a security clearance granting access to secret documents, received at least $15,000 from July to December 2024 while engaging in extended conversations with an unnamed contact based in Changchun, China. According to the indictment, the contact also offered to broker military information and hardware to other buyers in China. The Oregon indictment suggests that Duan introduced Zhao to the China-based contact.

Zhao mailed the broker in China around 20 hard drives, containing what he claimed was government information. Images sent by Zhao to a Chinese buyer show the hard drives laid out side-by-side, some with labels attached that say “unclassified” and “secret.” The indictment did not detail what information was on the hard drives.

But in communications with his co-conspirator transcribed in the court documents, Zhao offered missile-related data for sale, setting a starting price of $3,000 to $4,000 for “anything that touches himars,” he said, referring to the missile launch technology that has seen action on the Ukraine battlefield.

Prosecutors say that to appease his Chinese buyer, Zhao also went to his office at Joint Base Lewis-McChord on a weekend and used his phone to scan a document on rocketry and missiles. Another document Zhao is alleged to have offered the buyer included details of military exercises in the Indo-Pacific. Both documents were marked as “controlled unclassified information” — meaning that they are not classified but require special handling.

Zhao served as a battery supply sergeant, responsible for overseeing “records and accountability” for more than $55 million in U.S. military property, according to court documents. He also allegedly offered to send his Chinese contact an encrypted U.S. military computer, asking for $1,800 in exchange.

The FBI has previously warned that active-duty service members and people with security clearances have increasingly been targeted by Chinese agents online.

“These arrests underscore the persistent and increasing foreign intelligence threat facing our Army and nation,” said Army Counterintelligence Command Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox in a statement on Thursday.

There is a thriving private market for U.S. national security information in China that is encouraged by the state. This week, the Justice Department announced charges against 12 Chinese citizens, targeting a network of private hackers-for-hire who breached U.S. agencies to gather data that was sold to Chinese government police and intelligence agencies.

In 2023, two U.S. Navy officers based in California were charged in separate cases for allegedly transmitting photographs, technical manuals of U.S. naval ships and classified plans for naval exercises in the Indo-Pacific to Chinese intelligence agents.

Also in 2023, Joseph D. Schmidt, 31, a recently retired service member at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, was charged after allegedly approaching to Chinese authorities to offer sensitive information about U.S. military surveillance and interrogation techniques. Last month, Schmidt was deemed competent to stand trial after spending nine months in a federal psychiatric facility.

What readers are saying

The comments reflect concerns about the recent arrests of U.S. soldiers accused of passing classified information to China, with several commenters suggesting that the soldiers' Chinese descent may have played a role in their alleged actions. There is a strong sentiment that... Show more

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By Cate Cadell

Cate Cadell is a Washington Post national security reporter covering the U.S.-China relationship. She previously reported for Reuters News, where she was a politics correspondent based in Beijing.follow on X@catecadell

5. Long-Range Maritime Air Assault Operation in the Indo-Pacific Theater

Conclusion:

Conducting a long-range maritime air assault is a mission uniquely suited to the Indo-Pacific region, where vast distances and island chains create unique challenges and opportunities. There were many lessoned learned at echelon during the training exercise, especially training for long range maritime air assaults. Units assigned to the Indo-Pacific region must train for this type of strategically impactful mission consistently and build proficiency.

Long-Range Maritime Air Assault Operation in the Indo-Pacific Theater

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/03/07/long-range-maritime-air-assault-operation-in-the-indo-pacific-theater/

by Garrett O'Keefe

03.07.2025 at 06:00am

Indo-Pacific Theater Operations

Operational reach refers to the distance and duration a military force can effectively project its capabilities. During a long-range maritime air assault, this concept is directly tied to the limitations of basing and lines of operation. The tyranny of distance across the Indo-Pacific region presents a significant challenge, one that can only be mitigated by higher headquarters providing a well-thought-out support and sustainment plan. Brigade and battalion-level units assume significant risk when conducting long-range maritime air assaults, especially when the operation occurs hundreds of miles away from support.

It is unrealistic to expect a brigade or battalion to support and sustain itself from such a distance without external assistance. This risk extends to medical support, where a battalion’s medical platoon and physician’s assistant are insufficient for managing casualties over long distances. Dedicated air medevac support must be planned and on standby for immediate response. Additionally, joint capabilities, such as U.S. Navy vessels with onboard surgical departments, are critical to mitigating the distance in the event of medical emergencies.

Similarly, naval gunfire support is invaluable for prepping objectives and providing fires that enable ground forces to maneuver freely. The phrase “We will never fight alone again” should be taken seriously, particularly in the context of long-range maritime air assault operations. Units must plan, resource, and train for these type of air assaults.

Air Assault Operations

During a Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center training rotation, the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment “Wolfhounds” practiced one of the most challenging joint operations in our modern strategic catalog; a long-range maritime air assault. During this exercise, the Wolfhounds conducted operations over the north Pacific Ocean, flying from Dillingham Army Airfield on the northern shore of Oahu to Pohakuloa Training Area on the island of Hawaii—more than 200 miles from their higher headquarters. A basic air assault operation is a military mission in which ground forces utilize rotary-winged aircraft and their mobility to combine all available firepower and maneuver assets under a single ground force commander, known as the air assault task force commander. The goal is to enable the commander to envelop the enemy and gain a battlefield advantage by seizing and securing key terrain.

For light infantry units, specifically one assigned to the Indo-Pacific Theater, mastering the planning and execution of air assault operations is essential. The ability to rapidly move assault forces across a dynamic battlefield can be the decisive factor in determining victory or defeat. Now, consider the added complexity of conducting an air assault over the Pacific; a vast, unforgiving body of water.

Military Maritime Forces and Long-Range Maritime Air Assault

Military maritime forces are defined as those that operate on, under, or above the sea to gain or exploit command of the sea, achieve sea control, or deny the sea, and/or project power from the sea. The Wolfhounds mission was to execute a 400 to 500 Soldier strong long-range maritime air assault, a complex operation. The likelihood of conducting such an assault is real in the Indo-Pacific region, which consists of numerous island chain countries. Such terrain demands combined and joint coordination’s to achieve success, across all domains: Land, Maritime, Air, Space, and Cyberspace.

The challenges from the get-go were significant, particularly in determining the minimal force required to achieve fire superiority and secure the objective. The task of organizing maneuver, fires, medical support, and sustainment were planning factors that had to be balanced, with difficult decisions being made on the risk to mission and force.

The goal is to enable the commander to envelop the enemy and gain a battlefield advantage by seizing and securing key terrain.

Ultimately, the number of rotary-wing aircraft available dictated the task organization, influencing how combat power would be delivered due to the limited seating capacity of the aircraft to the helicopter landing zones. The decision was made to deploy two infantry companies, the dismounted command and control node, and a small attachment of medical personnel to provide coverage. A long-range maritime air assault inherently adds friction to an already complex mission set due to the distance covered and the isolation of the unit conducting the air assault. When adding to the challenges of outlining what headquarters owns specific planning tasks, all planning and coordination must be briefed and rehearsed at echelon to minimize friction.

Friction During the Air Assault Planning Process and Rehearsals

Planning for air assaults requires collaborative and parallel planning, allotting additional time for executing units to continue to rehearse and refine the ground combat plan. Culminating in the development of a detailed plan ensuring a successful operation. Initially, the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment began deliberate planning, had a liaison officer attached and were coordinating directly with their aviation counterparts. This flattened the communication and planning process, with the assumption that the battalion commander would act as the air assault task force commander. A plan was formed, guidance issued, and the mission execution timeline was initiated.

A decision to consolidate responsibilities back to the brigade staff after initial planning had begun, led to confusion with planning and rehearsals. This friction experienced was frustrating; specifically, because it added an unnecessary duplication of effort: repeating coordination meetings and rehearsals between the ground unit and the air assets. In an already compressed planning environment, this wasted precious time and energy.

Ultimately, it was resolved by correcting our communication gaps; critical leaders ensured that all stakeholders were on the same page and committed to not repeating the error. In the end, the brigade led the overall planning, air mission coordination, and execution, while the battalion focused on its ground tactical plan. The brigade then tasked the Wolfhounds with running pick-up zone rehearsals, due to the rapid shift in duties, this further delayed critical rehearsals needed for the ground tactical plan.

Yet, we were soon to experience that even the most well-developed plans are vulnerable to the unknown. As the saying goes, murphy’s law can and will strike at the most inconvenient moments.

The Unknown to the Unknown

Conducting a long-range maritime air assault brings many unknowns. Staffs make assumptions made based on intelligence reports and past experiences yet may not have vital data to make the most sound decisions. Assumptions provide commanders with a general understanding of the situation, but they are not foolproof.

The Army cannot plan for every eventuality, but we must be prepared to respond to unexpected events with agility and expertise. One key area of preparation focus that enhances our flexibility during a long-range maritime air assault mission is ensuring that Soldier and alternate aircraft load plans are thought out and rehearsed. This ensures that combat power reaches the objective at the right moment.

Joint capabilities, such as U.S. Navy vessels with onboard surgical departments, are critical to mitigating the distance in the event of medical emergencies.

Once 1st battalion was finally in the air, murphy reared his ugly head. One incident during the operation starkly illustrated the unpredictability of such missions: a helicopter carrying the battalion commander was diverted 30 minutes into a two-hour flight due to a potential catastrophic failure in its partner helicopter’s rear drive shaft. Both aircraft had to divert from their planned air assault corridor and land at the nearest airfield to avoid a ditching incident in the deep waters of the North Pacific Ocean.

This emergency decision, made by the pilot, saved lives and preserved equipment; it was the right choice without a doubt. However, it also resulted in separating the command-and-control node that oversees and manages the entire operation from the intended air assault objective, delaying the ground commander by hours. The battalion did not think through the ‘what-ifs’ or contingencies for aircraft malfunctions while enroute to the objective, a foreseeable and moderately probable circumstance.

But as reliable Soldiers always do, they adapted and overcame getting the job done! Subordinate company commanders, already in position, adjusted the plan and word was passed between aircraft that a subordinate commander would assume command in the interim. Eventually, the battalion commander was moved to an alternate landing zone, where he resumed command of the already initiated attack.

Despite the setback, the operation was a success due to the flexibility and initiative of subordinate leaders, ones that fully understood the commander’s intent and executed the mission violently and effectively.

Conclusion

While air assault operations are inherently challenging, conducting a long-range maritime air assault significantly amplifies the need for meticulous planning at all levels. The friction and confusion a long-range maritime air assault brought became frustrating at multiple echelons, quickly identifying which unit at echelon owns what specific responsibility will significantly reduce friction and confusion. The battalion should have been allowed to continue to refine and complete the plan independently, this would have streamlined and simplified the planning process.

By failing to think through every problem set, we didn’t allow subordinate commanders to take appropriate action when the unexpected happened. War game, war game, war game, war game every phase of the operation. Echelons above brigade must recognize the importance of such operations and provide the necessary support and sustainment that only they can offer. Having the fly-away air assault unit directly reporting to it’s higher headquarters, would have made coordinating and receiving the appropriate echelons of support so much more effective. Requiring a unit report through multiple levels of command slowed battlefield effects and forced the battalion to rely solely on its internal mortars and attached 105mm artillery.

The division being the echelon on action, requires fast and flat communications directly to the headquarters that owns the assets which impacts the battlefield and turns the fight in favor of friendly forces.

Conducting a long-range maritime air assault is a mission uniquely suited to the Indo-Pacific region, where vast distances and island chains create unique challenges and opportunities. There were many lessoned learned at echelon during the training exercise, especially training for long range maritime air assaults. Units assigned to the Indo-Pacific region must train for this type of strategically impactful mission consistently and build proficiency.

Tags: Air Assault, INDO, INDO-PACIFIC, US Army

About The Author

Garrett O'Keefe
Command Sgt. Major Garrett S. O’Keefe enlisted as an infantryman and has served in every infantry position of leadership over 24 years of service. He served two tours in Iraq and two tours in Afghanistan. Now, as the Senior Enlisted Advisor for 2nd LBCT-P, 25th ID, he provides critical enlisted perspectives and advice pivotal to Continuous Transformation and the development of Army tactics, techniques, and procedures supporting new emerging technologies. Command Sgt. Maj. O’Keefe was selected to be the next XVIII Airborne Corps Operations Sgt. Maj.

6. There Is a Way Out in Ukraine

It is always interesting to see how much impact Korean history has on contemporary international relations and national security. But Mr. French only provides half the story of the Armistice negotiations (actually one third). He overlooked the fact that the negotiations dragged on for 2+ years over the return of prisoners. The north and the Chinese did not want the prisoners to have a choice on repatriation. There is a parallel today with the north Korean captured soldiers. Some believe their status will be discussed by the Russian and the US if they enter into negotiations. If there is a parallel to negotiations with communists in the past the status of these POWs could be a sticking point.

Mr. French correctly highlights the key security guarantee that influenced South Korea to agree to the Armistices (though it did not sign the Armistice which is often controversial - but the US did not sign the Armistice either. Only the US officers serving as members of the UN Command signed the Armistice. But Eisenhower offered security guarantees to the ROK in the form of the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty to gain the acquiescence of President Rhee. But what Mr. French overlooked is that President Eisenhower also threatened the resumption of operations to include the possible employment of nuclear weapons to influence the north and the Chinese People's Volunteers to sign the Armistice. History does not repeat itself but it surely rhymes.

Excerpts:

There are times when the United States does have to lean on its allies. In 1953, South Korea rejected the armistice agreement. It wanted to keep fighting until reunification. We agreed to the armistice with China and North Korea anyway, but we also gave South Korea the most ironclad security guarantee — an American military presence. In fact, roughly 28,000 troops remain in South Korea today.

I’ve experienced that American commitment firsthand. In 2010 — when I was a JAG officer in the Army — I was deployed to South Korea to participate in Operation Key Resolve, a military exercise involving a simulated North Korean attack. I saw the tight connection between American and South Korean forces, and I could see that the North has no hope of conquering the South so long as our alliance remains intact.

The results speak for themselves. South Korea has enjoyed decades of peace. It has become one of the world’s most prosperous and powerful democracies. America is stronger and more secure because our South Korean ally has grown powerful.

David French

Opinion

There Is a Way Out in Ukraine

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/opinion/ukraine-trump-putin-zelensky.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm

March 6, 2025

Credit...Illustration by George Douglas; source images by Siede Preis and ClassicStock/Getty Images

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By David French

Opinion Columnist

You’re reading the David French newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Reflections on law and culture, war and peace, and the deeper trends that define and divide America. Get it in your inbox.

If supporters of Ukraine — and I count myself among them — want to win the battle for hearts and minds in the United States, under no circumstances can they allow themselves to be seen as the “war party,” while Donald Trump and his MAGA movement claim the mantle of peace.

Yet that’s the relentless messaging from the Trumpist right. In spite of the fact that Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine, and the war would end tomorrow if Putin simply withdrew, it is those of us who support Ukraine who are called warmongers.

In the MAGA narrative, we spout — as JD Vance argued — “moralistic garbage.” Trumpists, by contrast, see themselves as the “realists” willing to tell the public a series of hard truths — most notably that Ukraine’s defenses are failing even with American support, that Ukraine can’t possibly win the war and that it has to cut a deal before it’s ground into the dust.

The response to this argument isn’t just to rebut the individual points but to provide an alternative, genuinely realistic vision for peace on far better terms than the Trump administration is attempting to force on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Far from being warmongers, it’s those who support Ukraine who are seeking a sustainable peace.

The blueprint for ending the Ukraine war is found on the other side of the world, in South Korea. The Korean War ended with an armistice more or less along existing lines of the conflict, but with American troops on the ground to guarantee South Korean security.

A Ukrainian cease-fire can look quite similar. End the conflict largely on existing grounds and then deploy Western troops to deter Russia. But in this scenario, it wouldn’t be American boots on the ground, but rather French and British. Both countries have already offered to deploy their own forces to maintain peace.

This answer obviously isn’t ideal (South Korea and North Korea are still locked in a frozen conflict) but it’s attainable, and it would preserve both Ukrainian independence and Ukrainian security.

Before we dive into the details, let’s talk just a bit about “realism” in the Ukraine war. I’ve found that realists are very good at describing in detail (and sometimes exaggerating) the scale of Ukraine’s military difficulties while glossing over Russia’s considerable problems. Once you cross that line, however, it’s propaganda, not realism.

First, it’s important to understand that the hourglass is running out for both sides. Ukraine’s weaknesses are well known. It’s far smaller than Russia with a far smaller industrial base. It faces manpower shortages. Absent Western aid, it can’t possibly outproduce the Russian economy. As a result, it’s being slowly driven back from its defensive lines in eastern Ukraine.

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But Russian advances have come at a terrible price. The Ukrainian military estimates that Russia lost roughly 150,000 soldiers killed in action in 2024 alone. To put that number in perspective, that’s almost three times the total number of American service members who died in the entire Vietnam War.

Russia will have extreme difficulty replacing losses at that rate unless it orders a major mobilization, which Putin has been reluctant to do. North Korean troops sent to bolster Russian forces have suffered such severe losses that they’ve been removed from the front line.

It’s also losing armored vehicles far faster than it can replace them. Russia has lost roughly half its prewar stocks of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, and many of the remaining tanks in storage are extremely old and inoperable. As the Institute for the Study of War reported, “Some analysts forecast that Russia will run out of its Soviet-era equipment stockpiles by the end of 2025 or in 2026.”

In addition, the Russian economy is struggling under the weight of high interest rates and increasing inflation.

So while either party might be able to achieve some isolated victories — Ukraine surprised Russia by taking a small part of Russia’s Kursk Province last year, for example — it’s hard to imagine a breakthrough for either side. Ukraine may hope it can somehow claw back the territory it has lost in the Donbas, but the failure of its counteroffensive in 2023 showed the difficulty of penetrating Russian defensive lines.

In military terms, neither side has figured out how to restore mobility, or the ability to maneuver, to the battlefield. The combination of artillery and drone swarms makes it incredibly difficult to mass the necessary men and equipment to punch large holes in either side’s defensive line.

With both sides of the conflict facing crises, the Trump approach to ending the war is to try to break Ukraine. He’s paused vital American aid. He’s limited the intelligence the United States shares with Ukraine. He’s waging a war of words against Ukraine that’s driving down support for Ukraine in the United States and even generating sympathy for Putin. Americans still support Ukraine more than they do Russia, but support for continued aid to Ukraine is waning, especially among Republicans.

But if we’re talking about realism, how realistic is it to believe that giving Russia a victory in Ukraine is in the long-term interests of the United States, much less the long-term interests of peace?

Putin has launched aggressive wars in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine (twice). He intervened to prop up the Assad government in Syria. His pattern is unmistakable. He will continue to be expansionist and aggressive until his military is stopped — and that’s particularly true in Ukraine, which Putin doesn’t even believe should exist.

In a 2023 speech, he said, “There was no Ukraine in the Russian Empire” and claimed that the country was merely the invention of Vladimir Lenin and the Soviet Union.

Even if Putin agrees to peace, how realistic is it to believe that he will keep any of his promises? The exchange that led to the Oval Office blowup between Zelensky, Trump and Vance began with Zelensky trying to explain that diplomacy and international agreements mean nothing to Putin in the absence of concrete security guarantees.

In other words, capitulation is the path to further conflict.

But history gives us another alternative — continued resistance until Russia understands that its attacks are unsustainable. Ukraine has proved that it has the will to stand and fight. It has proved that it can inflict catastrophic losses on Russian forces. Russia has to learn that it is in no position to dictate the terms of peace.

And don’t listen to any Trump official who says we can’t afford to help Ukraine. The Trump administration is proposing tax cuts that increase the deficit by orders of magnitude more than total American spending on Ukraine.

It’s hard to take fiscal complaints about the roughly $120 billion that the United States has spent helping Ukraine defend itself, when Trump is proposing adding $2.8 trillion in additional debt through his tax plan.

There are times when the United States does have to lean on its allies. In 1953, South Korea rejected the armistice agreement. It wanted to keep fighting until reunification. We agreed to the armistice with China and North Korea anyway, but we also gave South Korea the most ironclad security guarantee — an American military presence. In fact, roughly 28,000 troops remain in South Korea today.

I’ve experienced that American commitment firsthand. In 2010 — when I was a JAG officer in the Army — I was deployed to South Korea to participate in Operation Key Resolve, a military exercise involving a simulated North Korean attack. I saw the tight connection between American and South Korean forces, and I could see that the North has no hope of conquering the South so long as our alliance remains intact.

The results speak for themselves. South Korea has enjoyed decades of peace. It has become one of the world’s most prosperous and powerful democracies. America is stronger and more secure because our South Korean ally has grown powerful.

In Ukraine, there’s an even better deal (for Americans) on the table. Britain and France have stepped up and offered to guarantee peace with their own militaries. Both of those nations are nuclear-armed, and the presence of their forces would present a powerful deterrent to any future Russian attack.

If Ukraine wanted to continue the war even if Russia offers a cease-fire and Britain and France are willing to send troops to guarantee peace, then it would be appropriate to lean on the Zelensky government.

But I doubt that will be necessary. In fact, in a 2024 interview with Fox News, Zelensky said he would not “legally acknowledge any occupied territory of Ukraine as Russian.” The key word there is “legally.” One does not have to legally agree to Russian annexation to agree to end hostilities.

Zelensky went on to say, in fact, that “We cannot spend dozens of thousands of our people so that they perish for the sake of Crimea coming back.” Instead, he indicated that he hoped to recover Crimea “diplomatically.”

A cease-fire with European security guarantees fits with long-held American desires to “pivot to Asia,” to project more power in the Pacific. China is ultimately more dangerous than Russia (it has a smaller nuclear arsenal but a much larger economy and much larger conventional forces), and European nations (which are ramping up their own military spending) can deter Russia even if we concentrate more of our forces in the Far East.

Negotiating peace will be difficult. Neither side is likely to simply roll over anytime soon. Ukraine will reject any “peace” that constitutes a surrender of its freedom and independence, and Putin isn’t willing to permit an allied military deployment on Ukrainian soil.

But the failure of military force eventually made men as vicious as China’s Mao Zedong and North Korea’s Kim Il Sung agree to an armistice in the Korean War. There is no reason (yet) to believe that Putin is more intransigent than two of the 20th century’s worst dictators. It is by supporting Ukraine that we give peace a real chance.

Some other things I did

It will not be easy to fix what Donald Trump is breaking. That was the focus of my Sunday column. A new president could change course, but our allies have learned a lesson that they won’t soon forget: America can’t be trusted.

Even if Democrats sweep the midterms in 2026 and defeat the Republican candidate in 2028, that lesson will still hold. Our allies will know that our alliances are only as stable as the next presidential election — and that promises are only good for one term (at most).

It’s extraordinarily difficult — if not impossible — to build a sustainable defense strategy under those circumstances. It’s impossible to enact sustainable trade policies. And it’s impossible to conduct any form of lasting diplomacy. If agreements are subject to immediate revocation with the advent of a new administration, will any sensible world power rely on America’s word — or America itself?

This week we also published my conversation with Jessica Riedl, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute, who is one of the nation’s most-respected experts on the federal budget. We’re both fiscal conservatives, and we both dislike DOGE, and here’s just one reason:

French: The implication of what you’re saying is that DOGE is causing an awful lot of disruption to federal operations without doing anything material to address the long-term fiscal challenge America is facing.

Riedl: I would call what DOGE is doing “government spending-cut theater.” The targets they’re going after are not where the money is. D.E.I. contracts, Politico Pro subscriptions, federal employees, foreign aid. Some of it is essentially a rounding error, but they are targets that hit a lot of cultural touchstones for a lot of conservatives. DOGE is really a distraction from the spending increases and tax cuts Congress is really doing right now.

War heroes, military firsts among 26,000 images flagged in DEI purge

By Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press and Kevin Vineys, The Associated Press

militarytimes.com · by Lolita Baldor · March 7, 2025

References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.

The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity efforts in its ranks following President Donald Trump’s executive order ending those programs across the federal government.

The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military. And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months — such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.

But a review of the database also underscores the confusion that has swirled among agencies about what to remove following Trump’s order.

Aircraft and fish projects are flagged

In some cases, photos seemed to be flagged for removal simply because their file included the word “gay,” including service members with that last name and an image of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.

Several photos of an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project in California were marked for deletion, apparently because a local engineer in the photo had the last name Gay. And a photo of Army Corps biologists was on the list, seemingly because it mentioned they were recording data about fish — including their weight, size, hatchery and gender.

Some photos are flagged for removal simply because their file included the word “gay,” including an image of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during WWII. (U.S. Air Force via AP)

In addition, some photos of the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit, were listed on the database, but those may likely be protected due to historical content.

The Air Force briefly removed new recruit training courses that included videos of the Tuskegee Airmen soon after Trump’s order. That drew the White House’s ire over “malicious compliance,” and the Air Force quickly reversed the removal.

Many of the images listed in the database already have been removed. Others were still visible Thursday, and it’s not clear if they will be taken down at some point or be allowed to stay, including images with historical significance such as those of the Tuskegee Airmen.

Asked about the database, Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot said in a statement, “We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly.”

He noted that Hegseth has declared that “DEI is dead” and that efforts to put one group ahead of another through DEI programs erodes camaraderie and threatens mission execution.

Some images aren’t gone

In some cases, the removal was partial. The main page in a post titled “Women’s History Month: All-female crew supports warfighters” was removed. But at least one of the photos in that collection about an all-female C-17 crew could still be accessed. A shot from the Army Corps of Engineers titled “Engineering pioneer remembered during Black History Month” was deleted.

Other photos flagged in the database but still visible Thursday included images of the World War II Women Air Service Pilots and one of U.S. Air Force Col. Jeannie Leavitt, the country’s first female fighter pilot.

Also still visible was an image of then-Pfc. Christina Fuentes Montenegro becoming one of the first three women to graduate from the Marine Corps’ Infantry Training Battalion and an image of Marine Corps World War II Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Harold Gonsalves.

It was unclear why some other images were removed, such as a Marine Corps photo titled “Deadlift contenders raise the bar pound by pound” or a National Guard website image called “Minnesota brothers reunite in Kuwait.”

Why the database?

The database of the 26,000 images was created to conform with federal archival laws, so if the services are queried in the future, they can show how they are complying with the law, the U.S. official said. But it may be difficult to ensure the content was archived because the responsibility to ensure each image was preserved was the responsibility of each individual unit.

In many cases, workers are taking screenshots of the pages marked for removal, but it would be difficult to restore them if that decision was made, according to another official, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details that were not public.

A Marine Corps official said every one of its images in the database “either has been taken down or will be taken down.” The Marines are moving on the directive as fast as possible, but as with the rest of the military, very few civilian or contractor employees at the Pentagon can perform content removal, the official said.

In the Marine Corps, just one defense civilian is available to do the work. The Marine Corps estimates that person has identified at least 10,000 images for removal — and that does not count more than 1,600 social media sites that have not yet been addressed.

Many of those social media sites were military base or unit support groups created years ago and left idle. No one still has the administrative privileges to go in and change the content.

The Marine official said the service is going through each site and getting new administrative privileges so it can make the changes.

On Feb. 26, the Pentagon ordered all the military services to spend countless hours poring over years of website postings, photos, news articles and videos to remove any mentions that “promote diversity, equity and inclusion.”

If they couldn’t do that by Wednesday, they were told to “temporarily remove from public display” all content published during the Biden administration’s four years in office.

AP reporters Nicholas Riccardi in Denver, Christina Cassidy in Atlanta, Will Weissert and Ayanna Alexander in Washington and Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed to this report.

8. Trump’s ‘Make Shipbuilding Great Again’ Order Calls for Wholesale Overhaul of U.S. Maritime Industry

Trump’s ‘Make Shipbuilding Great Again’ Order Calls for Wholesale Overhaul of U.S. Maritime Industry - USNI News

news.usni.org · by Mallory Shelbourne · March 5, 2025

President Donald Trump speaks on Feb 22, 2025. White House Photo

The Trump administration wants a sweeping government-wide overhaul of the U.S. commercial and military maritime sectors in an effort to catch up to China’s unrivaled shipbuilding capacity, according to draft documents obtained by USNI News.

The draft of an executive order, dated Feb. 27 and obtained by USNI News, calls on administration officials to create a maritime action plan over the next six months to revamp the American maritime industry.

“The United States has always been a maritime nation, but today China’s shipbuilding sector has established a position of dominance in the global market through unfair non-market practices, creating over 200 times the capacity of the U.S. shipbuilding industry,” reads a draft White House fact sheet accompanying the draft order.

The order will create a new maritime industrial base office within the White House’s National Security Council to lead the effort. Trump announced the new office on Tuesday night during a joint address to Congress.

“To boost our defense industrial base, we are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding. And for that purpose, I am announcing tonight that we will create a new office of shipbuilding in the White House and offer special tax incentives to bring this industry home to America, where it belongs,” Trump said.

“We used to make so many ships. We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact.”

Multiple cabinet secretaries – including the U.S. Trade Representative and the heads of the departments of Defense, Commerce, State, Transportation, and Homeland Security – have six months from when the EO is signed out to provide Trump with the maritime action plan, according to the draft.

Key figures running the effort include Ian Bennitt, a retired Marine who is currently serving as a special assistant to the president and the senior director of maritime and industrial capacity, and Cameron Humphrey, a former Capitol Hill staffer who is now the director of maritime and industrial capacity, according to their LinkedIn accounts.

The maritime action plan must include a wide range of items, including a probe into China’s “unfair targeting of maritime logistics, and shipbuilding sectors,” the creation of a maritime security trust fund that could put money toward a shipbuilding financial incentives program for the next nine years and the creation of maritime opportunity zones to promote shipbuilding investment.

“As the leading economic and geopolitical power in the world, the United States needs a flexible funding source – akin to but distinct from a sovereign wealth fund – that is capable of underwriting our affirmative vision,” reads a section in the EO about the trust fund. The proposal wants to use tariff and tax money to build up the fund.

The plan also calls on the Department of Homeland Security to impose the Harbor Maintenance Tax on foreign cargo and certify that carriers offloading foreign cargo in Mexico or Canada pay the relevant charges and another 10 percent fee, according to the executive order language.

“The Secretary of Homeland Security shall take immediate action to require all foreign origin cargo to clear the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) process at a U.S. port of entry for security and collection of all applicable customs, taxes, tariffs, fees, interest, and other charges,” reads the draft EO.

The future Flight III Arleigh Burke USS Ted Steves (DDG-128) launches at Ingalls Shipbuilding in August. HII Photo

The maritime action plan should also include a proposal to revamp the acquisition process, according to the draft. The Department of Government Efficiency, the new agency also known as DOGE that is guided by billionaire Elon Musk, must start a review within three months of Trump signing the executive order. DOGE will assess acquisition processes for both departments of Defense and Homeland Security and give the president a blueprint for better procurement methods. DOGE must evaluate “specifically unaccountable Navy requirement officers,” according to the fact sheet.

The order also includes language similar to the Shipyard Accountability and Workforce Support proposal, also known as SAWS, a Navy-crafted plan seeking to tackle the rising cost of submarines. Specifically, the White House document calls for the Navy to “increase wages for nuclear shipyard workers through innovative contract changes using existing funds.”

That language mirrors the SAWS proposal the Navy put forward last year. The Biden administration’s Office of Management and Budget criticized SAWS and Congress ultimately rejected the plan the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.

Under SAWS, the Navy could pull money forward for boats not yet under contract, allowing submarine builders General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding to increase wages for those working in the shipyard. The sea service could also attach the wages for trades like pipefitters and welders to each hull, while creating a separate funding pool for employees like crane operators and supervisors working throughout the yard.

HII and General Dynamics spokesmen declined to comment on the draft report when contacted by USNI News on Wednesday.

The executive order would kick off a new 45-day shipbuilding review to assess delays and increased costs for submarine, unmanned systems and surface ship programs. The call for that review comes nearly a year after former Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro unveiled the results of his own 45-day shipbuilding review that concluded most of the Navy’s major shipbuilding programs are running behind schedule.

There are multiple factors at play in the proposal, including foreign influence, domestic shipbuilding, U.S. operations and port activities, according to Sal Mercogliano, a former U.S. Military Sealift Command mariner and a current history professor at Campbell University.

“What we’re seeing right now is a flurry of legislation and executive orders and tariffs that are impacting shipping,” Mercogliano told USNI News.

“Some are having an immediate effect, some are going to have a short to a medium-term impact. And right now, [what] everybody in the shipping industry is trying to do is gauge that impact. And so it’s creating a lot of … doubt in what this market is going to look like,” he continued. “Now that’s no different than it’s been for four years with everything from the supply chain in COVID to the Houthis. So this is just a new element that is kind of thrown into it, but for U.S. operators this is a moment of opportunity.”

Mercogliano said this is the most attention shipping has received in 50 years, when then-President Richard Nixon signed the Merchant Marine Act of 1970 so the government could provide loans to commercial shipbuilders and operators to incentivize them to rebuild the U.S. Merchant Marine.

news.usni.org · by Mallory Shelbourne · March 5, 2025

9. The Army’s top enlisted leader goes dark on social media

"There can be only one." Seems like only one individual in the US government can be on social media. Everything else on social must be organization based. What path are we on? Where are we headed with mass communications?

Just as an aside: Controlling the press and mass communications is definitely one of the key institutions that revolutionaries (or counter-revolutionaries) aim to control. The press and mass communications are crucial — especially in modern revolutions — but they are just one piece of the puzzle. A successful revolution usually requires control over both the means of communication and the coercive institutions (military, police) to either enforce or defend the new order.

Why control the press and mass communications?

Shaping narratives: Whoever controls the media can shape how events are perceived by the public — both domestically and internationally.

Mobilization: Mass communications (radio, TV, social media) are critical for rallying supporters, issuing calls to action, and coordinating activities.

Undermining opponents: By silencing opposition voices and spreading propaganda, revolutionaries (or regimes fighting revolutionaries) can delegitimize the other side.

The Army’s top enlisted leader goes dark on social media

“It’s not about the individual,” said Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer in a video post about the removal of his dedicated social media pages.

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg

The Army’s top enlisted leader announced Thursday that he would be pulling down his individual social media presence and “going all in” on the Army’s pages.

“It’s not about the name tape. It’s not about SMA Weimer. It’s not about the individual. It’s all about the Army,” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer said in a video posted to X on Thursday. “We’re going all in on the Army’s social media pages. Everything that this office does is in support of the Army, and the way we communicate should reflect that.”

Weimer’s spokesperson, Master Sgt. Daniel Carter said the decision was made by Weimer himself and that the goal is to extend the reach of the Army’s primary platforms which have a larger following. During his time as sergeant major, Weimer has maintained a presence on X and Instagram. Carter said those pages would be deleted by the end of the week.

pic.twitter.com/XTuJGLQZgz

— Office of the Sergeant Major of the Army (@USArmySMA) March 6, 2025

In the video, Weimer said the Army is going in a “new direction” and would continue to highlight war fighting, readiness and lethality themes on its platforms.

“Keep it up. Stay laser focused. And remember we are responsible for a war fighting culture,” he said.

As sergeant major of the Army, Weimer is in charge of issues that impact the enlisted force, such as quality of life and soldier pay. It’s unclear if the larger Army platforms would include quality of life topics, which it has traditionally refrained from doing.

The decision by Weimer to reduce his presence online stands in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston, who embraced social media and engaged directly with soldiers either personally or through his public affairs team.

Social media shift

The announcement comes amid a broader social media strategy shift within the Army, including the service standing up a new “Creative Reserve” of its own soldiers. The goal of the initiative is “to better tell the Army story because they’re reaching into these markets we [big Army] can’t pay to reach,” according to Kris Saling, who is leading the effort. The idea was born out of the Army Recruiting Command’s innovation directorate which is experimenting with a variety of novel ways to reach potential recruits.

When it comes to quality of life, Task & Purpose previously reported on the Army’s struggle to curtail social media posts from those in the ranks — soldiers who often feel their only recourse to get an issue addressed is to post about it online.

Saling said they are still figuring out what the parameters look like for Army influencer content that is certified by the service “but we wanna be able to push topics out for folks to discuss if they’re willing” and “to provide a means” via their Army audience or “whoever it is picking up on the various platforms to actively do something about it.”

The latest on Task & Purpose

Here’s why garrison soldiers across the Army are swapping their shoulder patches
This Navy admiral just bagged his 1,000th landing on an aircraft carrier
Supreme Court refuses, yet again, to review whether military members can sue for malpractice
This airman cared for a sick passenger for eight hours on an international flight
Soldier on Army’s ‘most-wanted’ list for 9 years sentenced to prison

Patty Nieberg

Senior Staff Writer

Patty is a senior staff writer for Task & Purpose. She’s reported on the military for five years, embedding with the National Guard during a hurricane and covering Guantanamo Bay legal proceedings for an alleged al Qaeda commander.

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg

10. US Army soldiers in Oregon and Washington indicted for theft of top-secret documents

More reporting. Please go to the web site to view the photos.

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/03/07/us-army-soldiers-oregon-washington-indicted-theft-top-secret-documents/

US Army soldiers in Oregon and Washington indicted for theft of top-secret documents

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/03/07/us-army-soldiers-oregon-washington-indicted-theft-top-secret-documents/

opb.org

Three current and former U.S. Army soldiers in Oregon and Washington face federal charges they sold top-secret national security information to buyers based in China.

Sgt. Jian Zhao, a battery supply officer, and 1st Lt. Li Tian, a health services administrator, were serving as active duty U.S. Army soldiers at Washington’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Ruoyu Duan is a former U.S. Army soldier living in Hillsboro. All three were arrested Thursday, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Stills from surveillance video that show Sgt. Jian Zhao, a battery supply officer at Washington’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord, taking photos.

Courtesy of the US Department of Justice

Zhao, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in Tacoma, faces charges he conspired to obtain and transmit information “relating to the national defense of the United States to individuals not entitled to receive it.”

Ultimately, Zhao sold 20 classified hard drives and other government property to people operating on behalf of China, according to federal prosecutors. He was paid at least $15,000. He also faces charges for theft of government property and bribery of a public official.

Duan and Tian were charged by a federal grand jury in Oregon with theft of government property and conspiring to bribe a public official. The Oregon indictment also identifies a “Conspirator 1,” as a “battery supply sergeant” stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Photos of an encryption-capable computer. According to the indictment, Sgt. Jian Zhao allegedly "actively engaged with Co-Conspirator 1 from July to December 2024 to sell an encrypted military computer, for which Zhao was paid $1,000."

Courtesy of the US Department of Justice

According to the 35-page indictment filed in Oregon, Tian and Conspirator 1 “collected and transmitted sensitive U.S. military information in exchange for money provided by Duan, who received money from the [People’s Republic of China].” The conspiracy stretched from at least Nov. 28, 2021, to Dec. 19, 2024, prosecutors allege.

The case was investigated by the FBI in Portland and Seattle along with U.S. Army Counterintelligence Command.

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“Ruoyu Duan and Li Tian betrayed the oath of military service they had taken,” Douglas Olson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Portland office said in the release. “Their actions caused significant risk and damage to US National Security and violated the oath they took as military members to protect the American people.”

Chinese intelligence services use what are known as “co-optee” or a “cut-out” — such as a diplomat or academic — who works as a go-between for the source and the intelligence officer, “thereby increasing operation security,” the indictment states. They’re often tasked with targeting and handling an asset with access to open-source or classified information China “could use to its advantage.”

Duan exchanged money from accounts in China and then paid Tian, Conspirator 1, “and other security-clearance holders and active-duty members of the United States Army,” the indictment states.

Court documents also outline Zhao’s efforts to sell hard drives and other military information.

“Your buyer needs intelligence, right?” Zhao asked a foreign national purportedly residing in Changchun, China who federal prosecutors identified in court documents filed in Washington as “Co-Conspirator 1.”

A photo of classified hard drives that Sgt. Jian Zhao allegedly attempted to sell. This photo was included in the indictment announced March 6, 2025.

Courtesy of the US Department of Justice

Zhao also sold information about the Army’s long-range artillery system known as HIMARS, High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System, for $6,500.

“Very sensitive document,” Zhao told co-conspirator 1, according to the filing. “Super difficult to get.”

On Oct. 27, 2024, still images from surveillance video at the base showed Zhao communicating with co-conspirator 1 while he was photographing PowerPoint presentations at his desk, according to federal prosecutors.

Zhao also copied a presentation on the strategic operation of rockets and missiles, as well as a “presentation about a Pacific, simulation-driven, bilateral and multinational command post exercise.” In November, Zhao “took photos of a sensitive document about a military exercise simulating conflict with the [People’s Republic of China] and took videos of his government computer screen,” federal prosecutors wrote.

In court documents arguing for Zhao’s detention filed Thursday, federal prosecutors also stated “evidence in the case indicates” Zhao maintains a warehouse investigators have not been able to locate.

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11. Trained on classified battlefield data, AI multiplies effectiveness of Ukraine's drones: Report

Trained on classified battlefield data, AI multiplies effectiveness of Ukraine's drones: Report - Breaking Defense

“These systems can often achieve objectives using just one or two drones per target rather than eight or nine," Ukrainian-American scholar Kateryna Bondar, a former advisor to Kyiv, writes in a new report released today by CSIS.

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · March 6, 2025

Ukrainian soldiers, nicknamed ‘Doc’ and ‘Dean’, work together on piloting a FPV as 112th brigade of 244th battalion from Ukrainian army operates surveillance and FPV drone attacks against Russians defending their positions in the horizon in Chasiv Yar, Ukraine on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Andre Luis Alves/Anadolu via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Ukraine has taken publicly available AI models, retrained them on its own extensive real-world data from frontline combat, and deployed them on a variety of drones — increasing their odds of hitting Russian targets “three- or four-fold,” according to a new thinktank report.

“By removing the need for constant manual control and stable communications … drones enabled with autonomous navigation raise the target engagement success rate from 10 to 20 percent to around 70 to 80 percent,” writes Ukrainian-American scholar Kateryna Bondar, a former advisor to Kyiv, in a new report released today by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “These systems can often achieve objectives using just one or two drones per target rather than eight or nine.”

To be clear, Ukraine has not built the Terminator. “We’re very far from killer robots,” Bondar told Breaking Defense in an exclusive interview. But in contrast to the more cautious bureaucracy of the West, she said, “the Ukrainians are more open to testing and trying anything and everything that can kill more Russians.”

The AI in question, Bondar explains, relies on the human to select a target; only then can the AI make the final approach on its own, autonomously flying the last 100 to 1,000 meters. While very limited, this autonomous final approach is still a huge improvement over most drones on both sides of the war, which require a human hand on the controls to guide them all the way to impact. If that human hand is too tired, shaking with fear, or just poorly trained, or if the control signal is disrupted by increasingly omnipresent frontline radio jamming, the remote-controlled drone will crash uselessly into the countryside.

For now, Bondar found the vast majority of Ukrainian drones still require human control all the way to the target. Of nearly 2 million put on contract by Kyiv in 2024 — 96 percent of which, incidentally, were built in Ukraine — the report says only 10,000 that definitely used AI guidance, less than half of one percent. (The actual total may be much higher, she cautioned). While 10,000 may seem a lot by the standards of anemic Western peacetime procurement, by some estimates it’s merely the number of drones Ukraine expends in the average month.

However, that relative handful of autonomous-final-approach drones has proved so effective in combat that Kyiv now plans to ramp up production drastically. While there’s no publicized target, Bondar estimates that the Ukrainian military wants at least half the drones it buys in 2025 to have AI guidance — an increase from 0.5 percent to 50.

If realized, that ambition means deploying about a million AI-assisted drones, each three or four times as likely to hit its target as current remote-controlled models — easily a twelve-fold increase in killing power. In a war of grinding attrition, where drones have replaced artillery, the traditional “king of battle,” as the main cause of casualties, those numbers could be decisive.

How Ukraine Did It: Keep It Simple, Suchka

Just 13 months ago, this kind of autonomous-final-approach AI was still unworkable on the small, cheap drones that have dominated fighting in Ukraine. Russia had rolled out and then apparently abandoned such a feature on its widely used Lancet, while Ukrainian counterparts were promised products rather than practical weapons.

But starting this fall, reports of AI-guided drones began popping up again, this time on the Ukrainian side. How did a country under constant bombardment, with a GDP comparable to Iraq, an arms industry inherited from the Soviet Union, and erratic support from Western allies, manage such a feat?

To start with, most of the algorithms guiding Ukraine’s autonomous-final-approach drones are derived from free, internationally available open-source models, Bondar found. That allowed Ukrainians to skip some of the most expensive and time-consuming parts of AI development.

From that open-source baseline, Bondar explained, the Ukrainians intensively retrained the models on Kyiv’s own classified, real-world battle data — using datasets tailored not just to current combat conditions but, often, to a specific sector of the front and specific types of drone.

“The frontline is very long … and the situation is very different on different parts of the front,” Bondar explained. For instance, she said, the infamous Bakhmut sector is now stable and static, with both sides dug in to avoid artillery and drones. In other areas, however, the Russians continue to advance, sending “wave after wave” of expendable “Storm Z” troops in small squads across dangerously open terrain.

The kind of drone the algorithm is meant for also matters, Bondar noted. High-altitude reconnaissance drones see the battlefield and targets from a different angle and greater distances than the low-flying First Person View (FPV) drones that do most of the actual strikes, for example, so imagery collected by one may not be suitable for training the other. Even the specific type of camera matters.

All these factors go to show that in Ukraine, as in machine learning development generally, the right training data is critical to making machine-learning actually learn something useful. In Ukraine, getting the data right required a combination of bottom-up innovation by private sector techies and top-down organization by government officials.

The initial outpouring of international aid and domestic innovation after February 2022 had left Ukraine with a bewildering variety of equipment, including information technology. “They call it a ‘zoo’ of technologies,” Bondar said. “One warfighter can have 10 different software systems on his tablet or phone.”

Some intelligence data comes through official channels from military-operated recon drones, but much of the information is still cobbled together by volunteers combing social media apps like Telegram for reports, photos, and videos of Russian vehicles.

“Now the government is trying to increase interoperability among these systems and integrate them,” Bondar explained. “They started to address this issue by creating, basically, one universal military dataset.”

While much of the data is still uploaded and even labeled by volunteers, they now have to conform to government standards for tags and categories. That better-organized data is then housed on a volunteer-developed but government-run military intelligence system known as Delta.

To protect the data, Bondar went on, “they have created a secure training environment.” Private companies can access the information and create custom datasets tailored to their specific training needs, but the data itself remains on government computers, and it’s on those computers that the algorithms are actually trained.

Only the final product, the guidance algorithms themselves, are exported and installed on drones, and even then only in encrypted form so the Russians can’t easily copy captured tech.

All of this only works because the Ukrainians limited their appetites for AI, Bondar emphasized, developing lots of small, specialized systems instead of a few mega-projects — a lesson the US defense sector is starting to learn.

“They also started with this idea of creating a huge mega-platform which would cover everything and do everything,” she said. “They slowly realized … the current level of AI development allows you to train models on very small datasets.”

“These small models are easier to train, easier to update,” Bondar said. “They’re way cheaper.”

12. Ukrainian troops throw Beehive on Russian forces

See photo and proper formatting at the link:

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/ukrainian-troops-throw-beehive-on-russian-forces-gblg-2690044-2025-03-06

Conclusion:

As both sides struggle with dwindling supplies, this war has proven that ingenuity and adaptability can be as powerful as traditional firepower. While Russia scrambles to keep its war machines running, Ukraine’s soldiers continue to turn even the most unexpected objects into weapons. From drones to dishwashers, beehives to battlefields this war keeps rewriting the rules of modern combat. And as the frontlines shift, one thing remains clear: Ukraine’s greatest weapon may not be its firepower, but its ability to innovate under pressure.

Ukrainian troops throw Beehive on Russian forces

Ukrainian Soldiers Turn Beehive Into Deadly Weapon – Russian Troops Trapped in Swarm as War Takes a Bizarre New Turn!

indiatoday.in · by Rudrashis Kanjilal · March 6, 2025

In a war defined by innovation, desperation, and unexpected tactics, Ukrainian troops have once again demonstrated their unconventional battlefield creativitythis time by turning nature itself into a weapon.

Near the embattled town of Pokrovsk, where some of the fiercest fighting has taken place in recent weeks, Ukrainian soldiers found themselves out of grenades during a close-quarters standoff. With no other weapons at hand, they picked up a wooden beehive and hurled it into a Russian-occupied cellartrapping their enemy in a chaotic, buzzing nightmare.

The Buzz of War Turns Literal

Video footage circulating on Telegram captures the moment two Ukrainian soldiers, navigating the rubble of a devastated farmstead, spotted the unconventional weapon. With swift precision, they tossed the hive into the basement where Russian troops were believed to be sheltering. Within seconds, thousands of enraged bees swarmed the space, forcing the trapped Russian soldiers to either endure the stings or flee from their supposed safe haven.

Pokrovsk: A Key Battlefield in the War

The attack took place near Pokrovsk, a strategic hotspot in the ongoing war. As resources dwindle and stakes rise, both sides are adapting in unexpected wayswith Ukraine gaining a reputation for out-of-the-box military tactics.

Ukraine’s Military: Masters of Improvisation

Ukraine has consistently shown battlefield ingenuity, from pioneering drone warfare to repurposing everyday technology for combat. Recently, Ukrainian forces converted commercial drones into remote-controlled explosives, reminiscent of roadside bombs used in past conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. 3D-printed grenade launchers, makeshift kamikaze drones, and DIY weapons have become staples of Ukraine’s resistance. The beehive incident is just another example of adapting to limited resources and using every possible tool for survival.

Russia’s Own Struggles: Turning Dishwashers into Weapons?

While Ukraine finds creative solutions to combat shortages, Russia has been forced into its own makeshift tactics due to crippling Western sanctions. US and EU sanctions have choked Moscow’s access to crucial military tech. Reports suggest Russian forces are repurposing household appliance componentsincluding computer chips from fridges and dishwashersto keep tanks and communication systems operational.

The stark contrast between Ukraine’s battlefield ingenuity and Russia’s makeshift military fixes highlights the evolving nature of the conflict.

Drones, Dishwashers, and Beehives: The War of Unconventional Tactics

As both sides struggle with dwindling supplies, this war has proven that ingenuity and adaptability can be as powerful as traditional firepower. While Russia scrambles to keep its war machines running, Ukraine’s soldiers continue to turn even the most unexpected objects into weapons. From drones to dishwashers, beehives to battlefields this war keeps rewriting the rules of modern combat. And as the frontlines shift, one thing remains clear: Ukraine’s greatest weapon may not be its firepower, but its ability to innovate under pressure.

Published By:

indiatodayglobal

Published On:

Mar 6, 2025

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indiatoday.in · by Rudrashis Kanjilal · March 6, 2025

13. Supporting Lethality: A Guide for DOD’s Non-Warfighters

Excerpts:

The key for DOD academic professionals is to connect time-tested theories, principles, and frameworks to the practical needs of the warfighter. This can be achieved through collaboration and communication. Academics should actively seek opportunities to collaborate with military personnel and other DOD professionals with operational experience. This can involve participating in joint research projects, attending conferences and workshops, engaging in wargaming, and fostering dialogue with those in uniform. Understanding the warfighter’s perspective is critical. Academics also need to present their ideas in a way that is accessible and relevant to policymakers and military leaders. This means avoiding excessive jargon and focusing on the practical implications of their work. Research should address the most pressing national security challenges facing DOD, such as emerging threats, evaluating strategic effectiveness, and developing tools that will enhance warfighter capabilities into the future. Academic professionals should strive to understand the broader strategic context in which DOD operates, starting with the National Security Strategy and working down to regional, service-specific, and functional strategies. Working for DOD requires understanding the geopolitical landscape, the nature of modern warfare, and the military’s role in achieving national objectives.

To all the non-warfighters reading this, consistently ask yourself key questions: How does your work contribute to the overall mission of the Department of Defense? How can you improve your processes and outputs to make America and its foreign partners more aware, efficient, and effective in integrated deterrence, building partner capacity, and warfighting? What are the biggest challenges facing the warfighter, and how can you contribute to overcoming them? By asking these questions and actively seeking ways to improve our defense enterprise, you directly contribute to DOD’s focus on lethality.

Supporting Lethality: A Guide for DOD’s Non-Warfighters - Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies

Author

Lumpy Lumbaca

PUBLISHED

March 6, 2025

Polls: Growing Numbers Disagree With Trump on Ukraine

https://www.newsmax.com/World/globaltalk/ukraine-polls-war/2025/03/06/id/1201727/

By Mark Swanson | Thursday, 06 March 2025 01:18 PM EST

Two new polls since his dustup with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week show a growing number of Americans disagree with President Donald Trump's stance on Ukraine and his foreign policies, according to The Washington Post.

The Reuters-Ipsos and Economist-YouGov polls showed Trump's support deteriorating on Ukraine and foreign policy in general.

According to the Reuters-Ipsos survey, 50% of those surveyed said they disapprove (lean, somewhat or strongly) of Trump's foreign policies vs. 37% who said they approve. That is a swing of 15 points since January, according to the Post, when 39% said they approved vs. 37% who disapproved.

Among independents in the latest Reuters-Ipsos survey, 53% said they disapproved vs. 33% who approved.

In the Economist poll, 45% overall said they disapprove of Trump's handling of the situation with Russia and Ukraine vs. 40% who approved. Among independents surveyed, 42% said they disapprove against 34% who approved, according to the survey.

Notably, the same poll shows Trump with an approval rating of 48% overall against 46% who said they disapprove. Among independents, Trump has an approval rating of 43% vs. 44% who disapprove, according to the Economist poll.

The polls were conducted after the contentious meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Feb. 28. Zelenskyy came looking for security against future Russia aggression, which was not received well by Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. Zelenskyy's visit, which was supposed to culminate in the signing of a minerals deal between the countries, was cut short instead.

The Reuters-Ipsos poll surveyed 1,174 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points with a 95% confidence level. The Economist-YouGov poll surveyed 1,638 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

Mark Swanson

Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.

15. VF’s First Feature Documentary, ‘Take No Prisoners,’ Opens at SXSW (featuring Roger Carstens)

VF’s First Feature Documentary, ‘Take No Prisoners,’ Opens at SXSW

Longtime hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens and codirector Adam Ciralsky discuss the film – how the US frees citizens held abroad

by Armita Diop

Vanity Fair · by Arimeta Diop · March 6, 2025

The documentary Take No Prisoners begins with a chilling scene straight out of an international thriller. In the interior of a private plane cabin, Roger Carstens, special presidential envoy for hostage affairs (SPEHA) under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, is the movie’s leading man. On a tabletop, he uses cell phones and Ghirardelli chocolates as placeholders for airplanes. Moving them around like chess pieces, he games out how the aircraft will touch down, where it will be positioned on the runway, and the step-by-step plan for pulling off a high-stakes exchange between American and Venezuelan detainees. “For all we know it won’t be a perfect world,” he says. “Just keep adapting.”

The film—from P3 Media in association with Vanity Fair Studios—will have its world premiere this weekend at SXSW in Austin, and is the first feature documentary from VF. It all came together at breakneck speed as Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro seized more and more power—and as Carstens took part in separate negotiations for the release of Americans being held against their will in Gaza, Russia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

Based on a story for the June 2024 issue of the magazine, “Take No Prisoners”—written by VF contributing editor Adam Ciralsky—the movie provides uncommon access to Carstens and his caseload as the nation’s top hostage negotiator. Also appearing in the film are Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken (Carstens’s former boss), and former national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

“Much to my surprise the White House said, ‘Tell the story,’” Carstens explained in a video call ahead of the premiere. “‘We’re going to give you full access and we want you to see everything.’” Codirected by Ciralsky and Subrata De—who also serve as producers, along with Gene Klein—the film homes in on the efforts to free Los Angeles public defender Eyvin Hernandez from a notorious Venezuelan prison known as the House of Dreams.

THE TRAILER FOR TAKE NO PRISONERS

The original article took an expansive view of Carstens’s world and the power brokers who occupy it, so the documentarians’ choice of following a specific case was an unexpected one. “We didn’t know,” Ciralsky explained. “I didn’t know as I sat on that tarmac and seven Americans [were released from Venezuelan prison] on October 1, 2022, that there were people left behind. But they were left behind for incredibly bureaucratic reasons. We realized there’s an ongoing story here: Who’s left behind? Eyvin Hernandez. Who’s Eyvin Hernandez? He’s an LA County public defender who’s devoted his life to helping defend the poor of Los Angeles. Lives in Compton. First in his family to go to college and law school. Has this incredible community around him. How is this guy sitting in a Venezuelan prison?”

The human cost of Hernandez’s story weighed heavily on Ciralsky. He acknowledged that while the case of every detainee is a matter of life and justice, not all are regarded in the same light by those in the US government, leading to a maddeningly slow process for freeing seemingly lower-profile citizens held against their will. Many times, he said, he found himself as both investigative reporter and advocate: “You get to scream from the rafters.”

“Brittney Griner is important, Evan Gershkovich is important,” Ciralsky insisted. “But one’s a journalist and one’s a sports star. How about the guy who’s a public defender? What do we do for somebody who doesn’t have any fame and fortune? The answer was: everything.”

The documentary aims to capture the plight of Hernandez’s extended family as they pressure the White House for action—as well as their resilience in the face of numerous setbacks. At the same time, the filmmakers secure fly-on-the-wall access to private meetings: inside the National Security Council, around Carstens’s office at the State Department, and at tense sessions between diplomats and intermediaries in Venezuela and the island of Canouan. Such backroom encounters give the tale the heat, suspense, and insider-cred of an action movie. (Little wonder that Lionsgate, ABC Signature, and Hulu are also developing a scripted project based on VF’s reporting, with the working title The Envoy, from Ciralsky and showrunner Alexi Hawley.)

“HE’S AN LA COUNTY PUBLIC DEFENDER. LIVES IN COMPTON. HOW IS THIS GUY SITTING IN A VENEZUELAN PRISON?”

“In Roger’s office, there’s always something dramatic happening,” Ciralsky said. “You don’t have to juice the drama. You’ve got somebody languishing in a foreign prison under some terrible circumstances. You have families that are breaking apart, that aren’t meeting their mortgages because the loved one isn’t living in the house. There’s no salary because they’re not showing up for their job. They’re getting tax liens because the IRS doesn’t know that they’re languishing in a foreign jail. That’s just real.”

Ahead of the film’s SXSW premiere (at screenings on March 8 and 9, along with a follow-up panel on March 10), herewith is a conversation with Ciralsky and Carstens on the documentary—and the interplay of policy, politics, and faith that define what is known to many in diplomatic circles as the hostage enterprise.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Vanity Fair: At one point in the film I remember Roger talking about publicity and celebrity as a tool. Could you elaborate a little more on that?

Roger Carstens: Under Biden, we brought back 58 people. And the majority of them weren’t famous; didn’t really have access to a media pipeline. Yet we still worked to bring them back. I would say the Brittney Griner story did a good job of, in a way, highlighting this issue. After [her release] you couldn’t shut it off. There was a point when there were only a few journalists interested in this, Adam Ciralsky being one of them, and now a lot of journalists are interested.

There were people in the US government that complained horrifically about Ciralsky’s report. It told too much, it exposed the wrong parts of the US government. Yet to us, we’re like, “That’s valuable. Now you’re giving a voice to people who may not have had a voice before.” And I credit the media for doing that. I always have. We would not be where we are, and getting all these people home, without the press showing some attention to this and increasing awareness. And Adam played an outsize role in that journey.

Adam Ciralsky: I would say Roger is that unique official who is willing to call in an air strike on his own position. That’s a credit to Roger. I also think it’s very unique to that position of special presidential envoy for hostage affairs. I’m speaking across cases, whether it’s Eyvin Hernandez or Evan Gershkovich, [Roger’s] just fine if there’s a [news] story that’s super critical of his own office, of the US hostage enterprise as a whole. Because that’s going to land on somebody’s desk at the White House as an ongoing problem. The minute it’s no longer a problem on their desk they move on to another issue. And you see that in our film.

There’s that moment where there’s a roundtable at the National Security Council, and they’re asking Roger about Eyvin and his family, “What should we do?” and “What did you tell them?” Roger says, “I told them what the secretary and the president say,” which is, “You got to follow your heart. You’ve got to speak out. We’re not going to tell you not to do that.”

Do you see the public understanding of your position—and of the apparatus—as evolving for the better?

Carstens: It’s hard to know. I think we did a great job in terms of people getting an understanding of what we do. It probably looks sexier than it is. Because, as Adam knows, for every person you get home there might be a year or two of just having really tough meetings and building loving—and yet tough—relationships with the families. There’s all the combat that goes on in Washington, DC, to get things done. The interagency fights are intense. And they’re important. You have to have that. There have to be these tensions in government organizations.

Yet I think the public perception is that SPEHA is flying all over the world just banging out negotiations and getting stuff done. Is that a part of it? Yeah. But for every 3% of “Oh my goodness, we got someone back,” there’s 97% of pain, tears, anguish, sleepless nights. And it’s a job that if anyone really knew what you had to do to do it, no one would want it. It’s not a fun job. And yet it’s fulfilling.

“WE’RE THE ‘GO GET SHIT DONE’ TEAM FOR THE US GOVERNMENT.”

We’re not government as usual. We are going to build a relationship with the families, we’re going to cry with them, we’re going to love them, we’re going to hug them, we’re going to declassify information and brief it: That we’re the “go get shit done” team for the US government. What the families would also tell you, they’d say, “You know what? They got them out. But it took three years.” Or it took six years. And I think that’s the frustration I would say Adam and I share, and the families share. Part of our job was just to keep trying to get the urgency, speed up iteration of the negotiations. The public’s perception is in a way accurate because we are the people who care. We are the people who want to get stuff done.

Ciralsky: I was filming in Roger’s office the day Evan Gershkovich was taken. And they were literally trying to scramble and figure out what was happening. We were making this film when Brittney Griner got out. We were cutting this film when Evan and everyone else returned. And Paul Whelan and everyone. This is one area of government that a great deal of thought and consideration has gone into. Because it was a topic that was very badly mishandled. And there was a recognition that it was badly mishandled. That’s not something that usually happens in Washington, that there’s any recognition of wrongdoing.

There was an effort to fix it through presidential executive orders and decision directives that then became the Levinson Act. This is a bipartisan issue.

From article to documentary to scripted television, what was considered to ensure this story was not lost in its many translations?

Ciralsky: You can reduce anything to a procedural and suck it of all of its heart and all of its pacing so that it’s a 30-minute rinse and repeat. That is not what anybody signed up for. So there’s a real commitment. I’ve seen the scripts [of the planned dramatic adaptation based on the original VF story]. It has everything that the article has in it. Is it entertaining? It has to be entertaining. But there are low moments, there are high moments, and everything in between. Which is reflective of what I observed of your world, Roger, which is: There were the highest of highs and there were really low lows.

From the Archive: Take No Prisoners

Carstens: What happens in real life is crazy and interesting, and it should translate very well. In a way there would be a desire, I think, on everyone’s behalf to try to make the show replicate what happens in real life. You don’t really have to Hollywood it up when crazy shit is happening 24/7 to bring people back. Stuff that people could not believe. In fact, there are things that really, really, no shit, happened in real life that probably won’t make it to the show because you wouldn’t believe it.

What were the nuances of maneuvering the Washington environment as you’re working, with new administrations coming and going?

Ciralsky: I found it to be a completely apolitical issue. You can see every administration, including the current administration, touting who they got out and how. Nothing’s changed. That’s really unusual. I mean, there are very few things left that we as a country point to as an issue and say, wow, there’s broad consensus. Now the details: People have very strong feelings about the details of each case, that there was preferential treatment. Especially around the Brittney Griner case. And I’m going to come at that from a different perspective. A lot of people say, “Well, that’s because she’s a basketball star and she got special treatment.” And I know Roger took a lot of that flak on television.

What I was seeing from the families of those held in Venezuela was, “I’m happy that she’s out, but where’s my meeting with the president?” It’s just that they felt like there was a disparity in the level of effort. People could say the same thing about Evan Gershkovich. But that’s because he’s a prominent journalist. You have reporters wearing his pin on television. That’s great. Nobody complained about that. The families weren’t right because they could only literally see the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg is all the classified stuff, all these lines of effort that couldn’t be shared with them. Because, if they were, there [would be] a greater likelihood that their loved one would be spending more time [in custody].

Carstens: To successfully function in this environment, an attribute would be being able to sense everything that’s happening. To walk into a room and feel what’s unspoken. Like: Who is there for their ego? Who is there because it’s their duty? Who is there because they’re emotional? Who is there because they have a story that I’ll never know in their background that might lend itself to getting the job done?

The variables are so many, they’re so impossible to control or contain, I found myself trying to rely on intuition a lot. You do all the work you can to make sure you know what’s happening, but at a certain point you’ve got to rely on intuition and even prayer to get it done. Because you can’t control the heart of a dictator, and you certainly can’t enumerate and control all the variables and the nuances out there. Especially when you’re dealing with maybe 100 people each with a different thought in their heart about how this should roll out.

Looking back on what you were able to gather in the film, what struck you the most?

Carstens: There’s definitely a faith component on my part. Boy, a lot of people that we brought back either had faith, or I could give you five or six stories of people who got faith [once they were in custody]. Adam knows a few of them. It’s just fascinating. I don’t even think of that as components. It’s personal to me.

Ciralsky: There was an incredible faith component. I know people don’t speak about that that often. I do. Roger does. Eyvin Hernandez’s family does. You can see that in the film. And you see it, especially with Eyvin’s father, Pedro. He’s almost like an avatar for the faith component with what sometimes feels like magical thinking. He’s like, “Eyvin will be home tomorrow, two weeks, one month.” And he was right. There was always a sense it was going to get done.

I mean, you’re making a film, right? You’ve got six months, nothing’s happening. I’ll tell you what is happening: You’re burning money. Just hemorrhaging money because you can’t have an unfinished film. But there was a sense that Eyvin would come home. And he did. And that was miraculous. And I think his POV is totally different because he had four walls around him.

Vanity Fair · by Arimeta Diop · March 6, 2025

16. Ukraine fears Musk may cut vital Starlink internet amid Trump pressure

I would be debating if not catastrophic. Describe how this could possibly benefit the US? Is this negotiating leverage?

Ukraine fears Musk may cut vital Starlink internet amid Trump pressure

As the Trump administration seeks to pressure Zelensky to engage in peace talks, commanders say their battlefield internet could be the next victim.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/03/06/ukraine-starlink-musk-cut/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=user/WashPost

March 6, 2025 at 9:41 a.m. ESTYesterday at 9:41 a.m. EST

A Starlink internet terminal is deployed as evacuees wait in a village to be taken to Kharkiv, Ukraine, last year. (Ed Ram/For The Washington Post)

By Serhiy Morgunov and Adam Taylor

KYIV — With the pausing of billions of dollars in U.S. military aid and of intelligence sharing with Ukraine, there are fears in the country that billionaire Elon Musk’s vital Starlink internet service could also be cut.

Thousands of Starlink terminals are working on Ukraine’s battlefields. They serve as commanders’ eyes and ears, providing access to drone footage in real time and maintaining command and control communications across the sprawling front.

Front-line commanders are increasingly concerned that the military has grown too reliant on Starlink, a product of Musk’s SpaceX, and it could become the latest pressure point for the White House as it pushes Ukraine to engage in peace talks with Russia and sign a deal giving the United States access to its minerals.

Musk has publicly denied reports that U.S. officials had implied Ukraine could lose access to Starlink if it refused to sign the mineral agreement, but across Ukraine, the armed forces and their allies are already considering their options.

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“Losing Starlink would still be a major challenge, particularly for streaming live drone footage. Without it, large-scale streaming would be nearly impossible,” said Taras Chmut, head of the Come Back Alive Foundation, a nonprofit that has provided thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainians emphasize that Starlink is not just a military tool. In a country where power is intermittent and communication lines are often down, it has become a vital part of life for many civilians. Speaking at a forum on Feb. 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the service was used by “thousands of hospitals, kindergartens, schools and universities” and that there was “no hint” that the service would be stopped.

The long-standing concern about the military’s deep reliance on the service was heightened over the past week after the Oval Office blowup between President Donald Trump and Zelensky and the subsequent restrictions the White House put on its support for Ukraine.

“Russians fight without [Starlink]. It is possible to fight without it,” said Serhii Beskrestnov, a prominent Ukrainian communications expert and head of the Center for Radio Technologies. “But undoubtedly, for us, it will be a significant loss. It will be difficult.”

The Musk factor

Musk has had an inconsistent stance on providing Starlink in Ukraine. After Russia’s invasion in February 2022, SpaceX provided a free Starlink connection to Ukraine, but by October, Musk was threatening to cut the service, citing the high costs. (He eventually sent the bill to the Pentagon.)

Despite that, the service’s use has deepened over the past year, paid for by Ukraine’s other allies. In December 2024, SpaceX expanded its involvement by signing another contract with the Pentagon to expand Ukraine’s access to a more secure, militarized version of Starlink, known as Starshield.

The contract aimed to upgrade 2,500 terminals with a classified and encrypted signal that is more resistant to hacking and jamming. That was in addition to 500 terminals already connected to Starshield, which were provided under a deal reached in 2023.

A Ukrainian medic stands next to a Starlink terminal at a base near Bakhmut in 2023. (Ed Ram/For The Washington Post)

According to the Space Systems Command’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office, both contracts provide internet connectivity to Ukraine through 2025, covering 3,000 terminals. The agreement was signed in August, before Trump won the presidential election, as President Joe Biden ramped up military assistance to bolster Ukraine’s position ahead of anticipated pressure from Trump to negotiate with Russia.

Neither SpaceX nor the White House National Security Council responded to requests for comment.

The vast majority of Starlink terminals in Ukraine are not provided by the United States. According to official estimates, Ukraine has secured 47,000 terminals since the war began in 2022.

Of these, 24,500 were provided by Poland and 10,000 by Germany, and 5,000 were facilitated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other donors, including SpaceX itself.

Poland’s contributions alone account for half of all Starlink terminals in operation in Ukraine, highlighting the critical role of international partnerships in sustaining Kyiv’s communication infrastructure.

The terminals are officially loaned to Ukraine, though there is little expectation that they will be returned. According to the Polish outlet Puls Biznesu, Poland’s expenses for Ukraine’s Starlink terminals and services amounted to $30 million last year. In 2025, they were expected to rise to $47 million.

Musk shutting off Ukraine’s Starlink access would spark a crisis between Poland and the United States, Polish Digital Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski warned during a European Council meeting in Warsaw.

Terminating a corporate contract with an E.U. member state would trigger “a big international relations crisis,” he said. “I cannot imagine a situation in which a business relation between Poland and a U.S. company would be suddenly interrupted.”

Is that all there is?

Andrii Kovalenko, a member of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said that while Kyiv may be reliant on Starlink right now, there are alternatives.

“In 2022 and 2023, when I was a UAV operator, our dependence on Starlink was significant — both for imagery and overall communication,” he said. “However, disruptions occurred even before.”

The front line is now “saturated” with fiber-optic cables, high-speed modems and “satellite options from Swedish and German providers,” he added. Other soldiers agreed that there were alternatives but warned that disruption could still be significant.

“The issue is mobility and internet speed. There’s always a risk of terminal shutdowns, which is why we are looking into alternatives like radio relay stations,” said a military communications chief near the eastern town of Pokrovsk, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “Even if Starlink goes offline, command and control will remain — though it would slow troop movement, especially during offensives.”

Ukrainians gather by a police vehicle with a Starlink connection in Kherson in 2022. (Wojciech Grzedzinski/For The Washington Post)

Speaking at the forum last month, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said Ukraine was already working on alternatives to Starlink. “The solutions already exist — there is an alternative,” he said, without disclosing details.

European officials have said they could fill the gap if Starlink were to withdraw. One possibility is to grant Kyiv access to Govsatcom, a government service that pools the use of satellites from European Union members. Eutelsat OneWeb, a London-based satellite operator, is seen as another potential alternative.

Experts said they were not aware of any single satellite operator that could match Starlink, not only for the speed and breadth of coverage but also the ease of use and cost of equipment. “OneWeb terminals that I’ve seen are certainly bulkier … and, more importantly, costlier than Starlink terminals,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a military analyst based in London. “They are also not as widely available.”

“You can’t just flip the switch to the new service,” said Clayton Swope, an aerospace expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Ukraine could cobble together a patchwork system of providers, but even then, it would end up with something that was “a dim reflection of Starlink,” said Swope, who previously worked for Kuiper, an attempt to build a rival to Starlink by Jeff Bezos’s Amazon. “If I was Ukraine, I would do all I can to try and maintain that Starlink service.”

Some Ukrainians say what they fear most is not Starlink disconnection in Ukraine but connection in Russia.

SpaceX is not permitted for use by the Russian military, but Ukrainian soldiers have said that some Russian units purchased on the black market have clearly improved Russian surveillance and command and control capability. If Trump removes sanctions on Russia, SpaceX may follow suit.

“This would open a huge market for SpaceX, allowing them to earn much more there than in Ukraine,” said Beskrestnov, the Center for Radio Technologies leader. “And this would hit us just as hard as a disconnection, as it would deprive us of a significant communication and data transmission advantage.”

Taylor reported from Washington.

17. Inside the White House’s new media strategy to promote Trump as ‘KING’

Sensational clickbait headline aside, why can't the US effectively use information against our external adversaries as opposed to internal political adversaries?

Why can't we go on offense all the time against our adversaries: the fusion of foes, the Dark Quad, the axis of authoritarians, totalitarians, and dictators?

The White House should be able to give the CCP's Three Warfares a run for the money: psychological warfare, legal warfare, and media or public opinion warfare.

This is a fascinating study on information and influence.

Inside the White House’s new media strategy to promote Trump as ‘KING’

The Trump administration has transformed its traditional press shop into a rapid-response influencer operation, and “they’re all offense, all the time.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/06/trump-white-house-media-social-influencers/?utm_source=pocket_saves

Yesterday at 6:00 a.m. EST

(Illustration by María Alconada Brooks/The Washington Post; Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post; iStock)

By Drew Harwell and Sarah Ellison

When actress Selena Gomez posted an Instagram video in January in which she cried about the Trump administration’s deportations of children, the viral clip threatened to stoke nationwide unease over the policy’s human impact.

But the White House digital strategy team had a plan. They dispatched videographers to interview the mothers of children killed by undocumented immigrants. They put President Donald Trump’s face on a Valentine’s Day card reading: “Roses are red, violets are blue, come here illegally and we’ll deport you.”

And they mimicked a style of video popular for its meditative soundscapes, known as ASMR, with a presentation that featured the rattling handcuff chains of a deportation flight. Gomez deleted her video shortly after posting, without specifying why. The Trump team’s video has been viewed more than 100 million times.

The effort was part of a new administration strategy to transform the traditional White House press shop into a rapid-response influencer operation, disseminating messages directly to Americans through the memes, TikToks and podcasts where millions now get their news.

After years of working to undermine mainstream outlets and neutralize critical reporting, Trump’s allies are now pushing a parallel information universe of social media feeds and right-wing firebrands to sell the country on his expansionist approach to presidential power.

For the Trump team, that has involved aggressively confronting critics like Gomez, not just to “reframe the narrative” but to drown them out, said Kaelan Dorr, a deputy assistant to the president who runs the digital team.

President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media inside the Oval Office on February 3. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)

“We thought it was necessary to provide pushback in the harshest, most forceful way possible,” he said. “And through that, we had a viral hit on our hands.”

Stephen K. Bannon, a senior White House aide during Trump’s first term and the host of the “War Room” podcast, said the White House has reimagined itself as a “major information content provider.” What Trump does “is the action, and we just happen to be one of the distributors,” he said.

“Rapid-response communications are normally defensive,” he said. “They’re all offense, all the time.”

The White House’s rapid-response account posted 207 times to X on Tuesday, the day of Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress, or nearly nine posts an hour, including Trump sound bites, supporter interviews and Democrat-slamming memes and attack lines. When a Fox News analyst called Trump “the political colossus of our time,” the team got the clip cut, captioned and posted online within 11 minutes.

In press rooms, the administration is welcoming friendly “new media” podcasters, X users and YouTubers to deliver what White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt calls “news-related content” to their millions of followers.

And on social media, the White House is firing off talking points across every platform in a bid to win online attention and reach viewers who have tuned out the traditional press. In an X post, communications director Steven Cheung described their goal: “FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE.”

The administration has produced news-style reports trumpeting Trump’s successes and put them in email newsletters and Leavitt-narrated “MAGA Minute” video segments; soon, they’ll be delivered via text.

The team has worked to humanize the president with picturesque postcards of a White House snowfall and behind-the-scenes videos from the Oval Office — where a New York Post showing the president’s mug shot hangs framed just outside the door. But the digital team has also gone for shock factor, posting a photo of chained men shuffling onto a transport jet (“Deportation Flights Have Begun”) and a portrait of Trump with a golden crown (“LONG LIVE THE KING”).

The president has appointed influential social media figures across the federal government — like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kash Patel — who amplify his messages with their own marketing pushes. Trump has also fired off attention-getting posts of his own, including an AI-generated video transforming the war-torn Gaza Strip into a gilded Trump beach resort, in line with his call to forcibly remove millions of people from Palestinian land.

The administration’s brash campaign-style tactics are designed to stand out on a crowded internet and speak to voters that officials believe are hungry for aggressive action.

“Even the tagline we’ve been using — ‘America is back’ — is very much saying: ‘We’re here. We’re in your face.’ It’s irreverent. It’s unapologetic,” said Dorr, 32. (A veteran of both Trump campaigns, Dorr also worked as a “head of engagement” at Gettr, the right-wing social network run by Jason Miller.)

The posts have shocked and repulsed the left, leading Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats to say on X: “To find joy and entertainment in this is truly vile.” But the Trump team has been emboldened to go even further by the millions who have watched, shared and followed the accounts since Trump’s inauguration. Half of the White House’s Instagram views have come from non-followers, Dorr said, a sign that the team’s messages are gaining traction beyond Trump’s base.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement that the approach is built to reach audiences without the media’s help and to broadcast Trump’s “America First message far and wide.”

But this model of messaging could supercharge the presidential bully pulpit until it shifts Americans’ perception of events, according to experts who study propaganda and the press. Like Trump’s moves to shore up loyalty in Congress and remake the judiciary, the strategy is designed to weaken his opponents and dismantle checks against executive power.

Undermining the accountability mission of the Fourth Estate and building a viral pipeline of state media helps the administration — and future ones — stifle dissent, said Anya Schiffrin, a senior lecturer at Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs.

And by replacing dispassionate observers with partisan cheerleaders, political leaders are elevating a class of messengers incentivized to defend their decisions, no matter the seriousness or scale. Every policy maneuver could turn into a meme.

Said Renee Hobbs, a communications professor at the University of Rhode Island: “It’s an effort to replace the mainstream press with a partisan press” that will function as the new “purveyors of reality.”

‘Going to be great television’

Though members of the digital team serve on the front lines of what the White House calls the “most transparent administration” in history, Trump officials requested that their identities remain anonymous, citing personnel policy and concern over public backlash.

The team is made up of roughly a dozen employees — people mostly in their 20s and 30s from outside politics — who work out of the White House and are given wide leeway to craft content. By removing layers of bureaucracy before publishing, the team avoids the “analysis paralysis” of other messaging shops, Dorr said.

And members are expected to move at internet speed. When a federal judge declined to block the White House from banning the Associated Press from certain news events, the team raced to declare “VICTORY” in graphics that members slapped across White House TVs and social accounts.

Screens display "Victory" over a Gulf of America map in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on February 24. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

They “have the buy-in from the [Trump] team to go out there and be unapologetic in our pursuit of advancing the administration’s goals,” Dorr said, “with the ferocity and the quickness and the pointedness” the White House demands.

For its rapid-response account, the White House employs video producers and editors, known as clippers, to create and post short videos on the fly. The role was first popularized by political activists looking to highlight opponents’ gaffes on the campaign trail, but Trump’s clippers often promote his moments, hoping to make them go viral in real time.

On Friday, within minutes of Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s fiery confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the White House accounts blasted out video of major punch lines, meme-ready photos and images of the American flag. “This is going to be great television,” Trump said as reporters filed out of the Oval Office.

The approach seems to be resonating online: Trump’s first Cabinet meeting, which was live-streamed and featured billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk, has more than 6 million views on X. “Trump is literally overwhelming them with information” in a way that is “changing the nature of the presidency,” Bannon said. “How many young men under 30 years old would ever watch two seconds of a Cabinet meeting?”

President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Oval Office on February 28. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Elon Musk listens at the first cabinet meeting of President Donald Trump's second term at the White House. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

That fast-twitch model has spread beyond the White House, including to the Defense Department, which this month launched a rapid-response account to praise Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, grapple with senators and declare that “REAL journalism is dead.” But it has also helped seed major advertising campaigns to reach viewers beyond the web.

Kristi L. Noem, head of the Department of Homeland Security, has posted videos of herself in a flak jacket at the southern border and on immigration raids, including one on Tuesday at an apartment complex in Northern Virginia.

Footage from the raids is used in an international TV and digital ad blitz that warns undocumented immigrants to leave the country or be hunted down. At the Conservative Political Action Conference, Noem said the ads had a budget of up to $200 million and had been personally requested by Trump.

“We’re not going to let the media tell this story,” Noem recalled Trump saying, as was first reported by Rolling Stone. “We’re going to run a marketing campaign to make sure the American people know the truth.”

‘Desecrate their idols’

As the administration has expanded its marketing arm, it has also worked to uproot the classic structure of the White House press corps. In her first briefing, Leavitt called on “podcasters, social media influencers and content creators” to apply for credentialed access to a briefing room long filled by legacy news outlets. More than 12,000 have since applied, according to the White House, and several have been ushered to exclusive new-media seats near the podium.

Administration officials have said the change reflects a fundamental shift in American culture, as journalists compete for relevance with a new generation of influencers who speak to audiences of millions online.

But virtually all of the new-media creators have come from right-wing outlets friendly to the Trump cause. The Breitbart writer Matt Boyle asked whether the White House would continue its “breakneck” pace. (Yes, Leavitt said.) The pro-Trump podcaster John Ashbrook asked whether the media was “out of touch” about the border. (Yes, Leavitt said.) And John Stoll, the head of news at Musk’s X, asked about the White House’s “confidence” in going “toe-to-toe with Vladimir Putin.” (Very confident, national security adviser Michael Waltz said.)

Political commentator John Ashbrook, right, during the Fox News Special prior to President Trump's Joint Address to Congress at the FOX News D.C. Bureau on Tuesday. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

“The Trump White House is loyal, and they are loyal to people who stood with them,” podcaster Dan Bongino said while toasting Rumble chief Chris Pavlovski’s moment in the new-media spotlight. (Days later, Bongino was named deputy director of the FBI.)

Some of the new-media figures have eagerly promoted Trump’s domestic agenda. A few hours after podcaster Sage Steele asked about the importance of passing a law to ban transgender women and girls from women’s sports, she stood behind Trump as he signed an executive order on the same issue.

Other Trump-boosting creators have joined the administration outright, like the “Dear America” podcast host Graham Allen, newly hired as the Defense Department’s digital media director. Brenden Dilley, a pro-Trump meme maker, said of the news, “There’s going to be nobody left doing podcasts soon because the top people are all going to work for the government.”

Friendliness between the White House and its messengers of choice is nothing new, including during the first Trump term, when right-wing provocateurs like Mike Cernovich and blogs like Gateway Pundit held credentials alongside the legacy press.

But back then, the traditional press corps set the tone, Bannon said. The softer questions during Trump’s recent Cabinet meeting, he said, made the first term’s briefings look like “hand-to-hand combat.”

Today “the powerful media is the ecosystem of the right,” Bannon said, “while the mainstream media [is] suffering layoffs.”

The right-wing media figures embraced by the Trump administration have often returned the favor. After the banning of the AP, Brian Glenn — a correspondent for the pro-Trump media network Real America’s Voice and the boyfriend of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) — was given the rare opportunity to question Trump in the Oval Office. A few days later, he posted a selfie with Trump on X that read: “So much accomplished, and we’re still under a month in office.”

For those working closely with Trump’s public-relations infrastructure, the first weeks have marked a huge opportunity for exclusive content. Benny Johnson, a Tampa-based MAGA influencer who calls himself the “Front Seat to the Golden Era,” got to interview Vance last month, then headed to the Capitol, where he live-streamed a friendly chat with two Republican senators before they voted to confirm Patel as FBI director.

“First time in history we’ll have the stream going from the senator’s office. This is amazing,” Johnson said on stream.

The night before, Johnson had posted a video of himself stopping to rejoice outside the shuttered offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development, once the world’s largest provider of food aid. “Destroy the idols of the conquered church, right?” he said with a laugh. “Desecrate their idols. Look at this. There it is. Blacked out. It’s gone.”

Cat Zakrzewski and Michael Scherer contributed to this report.

18. DOGE threat: How government data would give an AI company extraordinary power

Who has oversight? Who is the IG watchdog over DOGE? Who is going to protect American's right to privacy?

DOGE threat: How government data would give an AI company extraordinary power

theconversation.com · by Allison Stanger

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has secured unprecedented access to at least seven sensitive federal databases, including those of the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration. This access has sparked fears about cybersecurity vulnerabilities and privacy violations. Another concern has received far less attention: the potential use of the data to train a private company’s artificial intelligence systems.

The White House press secretary said government data that DOGE has collected isn’t being used to train Musk’s AI models, despite Elon Musk’s control over DOGE. However, evidence has emerged that DOGE personnel simultaneously hold positions with at least one of Musk’s companies.

At the Federal Aviation Administration, SpaceX employees have government email addresses. This dual employment creates a conduit for federal data to potentially be siphoned to Musk-owned enterprises, including xAI. The company’s latest Grok AI chatbot model conspicuously refuses to give a clear denial about using such data.

As a political scientist and technologist who is intimately acquainted with public sources of government data, I believe this potential transmission of government data to private companies presents far greater privacy and power implications than most reporting identifies. A private entity with the capacity to develop artificial intelligence technologies could use government data to leapfrog its competitors and wield massive influence over society.

Value of government data for AI

For AI developers, government databases represent something akin to finding the Holy Grail. While companies such as OpenAI, Google and xAI currently rely on information scraped from the public internet, nonpublic government repositories offer something much more valuable: verified records of actual human behavior across entire populations.

This isn’t merely more data – it’s fundamentally different data. Social media posts and web browsing histories show curated or intended behaviors, but government databases capture real decisions and their consequences. For example, Medicare records reveal health care choices and outcomes. IRS and Treasury data reveal financial decisions and long-term impacts. And federal employment and education statistics reveal education paths and career trajectories.

What makes this data particularly valuable for AI training is its longitudinal nature and reliability. Unlike the disordered information available online, government records follow standardized protocols, undergo regular audits and must meet legal requirements for accuracy. Every Social Security payment, Medicare claim and federal grant creates a verified data point about real-world behavior. This data exists nowhere else with such breadth and authenticity in the U.S.

Most critically, government databases track entire populations over time, not just digitally active users. They include people who never use social media, don’t shop online, or actively avoid digital services. For an AI company, this would mean training systems on the actual diversity of human experience rather than just the digital reflections people cast online.

A security guard prevented U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., from entering an EPA building on Feb. 6, 2025, to see DOGE staff working there. Al Drago/Getty Images

The technical advantage

Current AI systems face fundamental limitations that no amount of data scraped from the internet can overcome. When ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini make mistakes, it’s often because they’ve been trained on information that might be popular but isn’t necessarily true. They can tell you what people say about a policy’s effects, but they can’t track those effects across populations and years.

Government data could change this equation. Imagine training an AI system not just on opinions about health care but on actual treatment outcomes across millions of patients. Consider the difference between learning from social media discussions about economic policies and analyzing their real impacts across different communities and demographics over decades.

A large, state-of-the-art, or frontier, model trained on comprehensive government data could understand the actual relationships between policies and outcomes. It could track unintended consequences across different population segments, model complex societal systems with real-world validation and predict the impacts of proposed changes based on historical evidence. For companies seeking to build next-generation AI systems, access to this data would create an almost insurmountable advantage.

Control of critical systems

A company like xAI could do far more with models trained on government data than building better chatbots or content generators. Such systems could fundamentally transform – and potentially control – how people understand and manage complex societal systems. While some of these capabilities could be beneficial under the control of accountable public agencies, I believe they pose a threat in the hands of a single private company.

Medicare and Medicaid databases contain records of treatments, outcomes and costs across diverse populations over decades. A frontier model trained on new government data could identify treatment patterns that succeed where others fail, and so dominate the health care industry. Such a model could understand how different interventions affect various populations over time, accounting for factors such as geographic location, socioeconomic status and concurrent conditions.

A company wielding the model could influence health care policy by demonstrating superior predictive capabilities and market population-level insights to pharmaceutical companies and insurers.

Treasury data represents perhaps the most valuable prize. Government financial databases contain granular details about how money flows through the economy. This includes real-time transaction data across federal payment systems, complete records of tax payments and refunds, detailed patterns of benefit distributions, and government contractor payments with performance metrics.

An AI company with access to this data could develop extraordinary capabilities for economic forecasting and market prediction. It could model the cascading effects of regulatory changes, predict economic vulnerabilities before they become crises, and optimize investment strategies with precision impossible through traditional methods.

Elon Musk’s xAI company is well financed.

Infrastructure and urban systems

Government databases contain information about critical infrastructure usage patterns, maintenance histories, emergency response times and development impacts. Every federal grant, infrastructure inspection and emergency response creates a data point that could help train AI to better understand how cities and regions function.

The power lies in the potential interconnectedness of this data. An AI system trained on government infrastructure records would understand how transportation patterns affect energy use, how housing policies affect emergency response times, and how infrastructure investments influence economic development across regions.

A private company with exclusive access would gain unique insight into the physical and economic arteries of American society. This could allow the company to develop “smart city” systems that city governments would become dependent on, effectively privatizing aspects of urban governance. When combined with real-time data from private sources, the predictive capabilities would far exceed what any current system can achieve.

Absolute data corrupts absolutely

A company such as xAI, with Musk’s resources and preferential access through DOGE, could surmount technical and political obstacles far more easily than competitors. Recent advances in machine learning have also reduced the burdens of preparing data for the algorithms to process, making government data a veritable gold mine – one that rightfully belongs to the American people.

The threat of a private company accessing government data transcends individual privacy concerns. Even with personal identifiers removed, an AI system that analyzes patterns across millions of government records could enable surprising capabilities for making predictions and influencing behavior at the population level. The threat is AI systems that leverage government data to influence society, including electoral outcomes.

Since information is power, concentrating unprecedented data in the hands of a private entity with an explicit political agenda represents a profound challenge to the republic. I believe that the question is whether the American people can stand up to the potentially democracy-shattering corruption such a concentration would enable. If not, Americans should prepare to become digital subjects rather than human citizens.

theconversation.com · by Allison Stanger

19. State Dept. Plans to Close Diplomatic Missions and Fire Employees Overseas

Are we not going too far? Are we cutting off our nose to spite our face or are we shooting ourselves in the foot? Has anyone considered the second and third order and long term effects?

I am all for cost saving efforts. I even think we have to try to cut deep. I do believe our debt is a national security issue.

But there are some things that cannot be measured on a balance sheet. Perhaps this is theater of the absurd and is necessary to call attention to the pain that we must endure to cut the debt.

I know the argument is that the American people do not care about these activities and they voted to get rid of whatever DOGE thinks is extraneous and unnecessary but I'm afraid the wiz kids only understand code, data, and balance sheets and lack the sophistication, knowledge, and experience to understand diplomacy, intelligence, and national security.

State Dept. Plans to Close Diplomatic Missions and Fire Employees Overseas

American officials, including in the C.I.A., are concerned about mass closures hampering national security work. And China has overtaken the United States in global diplomatic footprint.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/us/politics/embassies-consulates-closures.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm_source=pocket_shared

The reductions at the State Department are part of both President Trump’s larger slashing of the federal government and his “America First” foreign policy.Credit...Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

By Edward Wong and Mark Mazzetti

Reporting from Washington

March 6, 2025

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Senior State Department officials have drawn up plans to close a dozen consulates overseas by this summer and are considering shutting down many more missions, in what could be a blow to the U.S. government’s efforts to build partnerships and gather intelligence, American officials say.

The department also plans to lay off many local citizens who work for its hundreds of missions. Those workers make up two-thirds of the agency’s work force, and in many countries they form the foundation of U.S. diplomats’ knowledge of their environments.

The shrinking is part of both President Trump’s larger slashing of the federal government and his “America First” foreign policy, in which the United States ends or curtails once-important ways of exercising global influence, including through democracy, human rights and aid work.

The moves come at a time when China, the main rival of America, has overtaken the United States in number of global diplomatic posts. China has forged strong ties across nations, especially in Asia and Africa, and exerts greater power in international organizations.

Any broad shutdowns of missions, especially entire embassies, would hinder the work of large parts of the federal government and potentially compromise U.S. national security.

Embassies house officers from the military, intelligence, law enforcement, health, commerce, trade, treasury and other agencies, all of whom monitor developments in the host nation and work with local officials to counter everything from terrorism to infectious disease to collapsing currencies.

The prospect of wide cuts has already generated some anxiety within the Central Intelligence Agency. The vast majority of undercover American intelligence officers work out of embassies and consulates, posing as diplomats, and the closure of diplomatic posts would reduce the C.I.A.’s options for where to position its spies.

The cuts come as the State Department is hemorrhaging senior staff members via voluntary resignations, and a hiring freeze means the work force is shrinking through attrition. A current five-week course mainly for senior career diplomats, including ambassadors, choosing to retire has about 160 people in it, one of the largest cohorts of retiring officers in recent memory, one American official said.

About 700 employees — 450 of them career diplomats — have handed in resignation papers in the first two months of this year, the official said. That is an astonishing rate: Before 2025, about 800 people had resigned over an entire year.

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The efforts to cut diplomatic posts and overseas staffing are part of an internal campaign to reduce the State Department’s operations budget, perhaps by as much as 20 percent, according to two U.S. officials with knowledge of the evolving discussions. Like others who spoke for this article, they discussed the sensitive plans on the condition of anonymity.

The possible cuts and related proposals could evolve as internal debate continues.

The process has been accelerated by a team led by Elon Musk, which has embedded itself in government agencies in the hunt for what it calls government waste. One member of the team, Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old who publicly goes by “Big Balls,” is in the State Department helping to direct the budget cuts at the agency. The department’s budget and employee numbers are tiny compared with those of the Pentagon.

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Elon Musk’s team has accelerated the process to reduce the State Department’s operations budget in the hunt for what it calls government waste.Credit...Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times

A memo circulating within the department proposes closing a dozen consulates, mainly in Western Europe, according to three U.S. officials who have seen or been briefed on the memo. That action is occurring as Mr. Trump distances the United States from its democratic allies in Europe in favor of strengthening relations with Russia.

The United States’ 271 global diplomatic posts lag behind China’s 274, but the United States currently has an edge in Europe, according to a study by the Lowy Institute.

The State Department notified two congressional committees last month of the closures. And on Monday, department officials told the committees that they also planned to close a consulate in Gaziantep, Turkey, which has been a hub for U.S. officials to work with refugees from neighboring Syria and humanitarian aid groups there.

Those consulates are small operations, usually with one or two American diplomats and a staff of local citizens. But they help collect and disseminate information in places away from capitals, and issue visas.

In mid-February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a memo to chiefs of mission, who are usually ambassadors, telling them to ensure that staffing at overseas posts was “kept to the minimum necessary to implement the president’s foreign policy priorities.” He also said any positions left vacant for two years should be abolished, said a U.S. official who has seen the memo.

A cable sent from Washington on Wednesday to global missions tells all employees to look for “waste, fraud and abuse,” the phrase that Mr. Musk uses to justify his deep cuts across the government. Officials are told to help with Mr. Musk’s mission by reviewing all contracts that cost $10,000 to $250,000, said the U.S. official, who has seen the cable.

That could contribute to a proposed slashing of up to 20 percent of the State Department’s operating budget. The U.S. official said the phrase “across the board” cuts has been used, but it is unclear what that means. Under one proposal, the work of shuttered embassies could be absorbed by another embassy in the same region, or by a regional mission hub.

The plan to close a dozen consulates mainly in Western Europe is more concrete. State Department officials have shared a list with Congress, though it could still change. The list includes consulates in Florence, Italy; Strasbourg, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Ponta Delgada, Portugal. It also includes a consulate in Brazil, according to a U.S. official who has seen the list. Some details of the planned closures were reported earlier by Politico.

“The State Department continues to assess our global posture to ensure we are best positioned to address modern challenges on behalf of the American people,” the agency said in a statement on Thursday when asked about the various proposed changes.

In his remarks to employees on his first day at the department, Mr. Rubio said that he valued the diplomatic corps, but that “there will be changes.”

“The changes are not meant to be destructive; they’re not meant to be punitive,” he said. “The changes will be because we need to be a 21st-century agency that can move, by a cliché that’s used by many, at the speed of relevance.”

Since then, Mr. Rubio has overseen drastic foreign aid cuts and allowed Mr. Musk and Pete Marocco, a divisive political appointee, to fire or place on leave thousands of employees at the United States Agency for International Development, a sister agency to the State Department. That has raised doubts among diplomats over Mr. Rubio’s commitment.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a memo in February to chiefs of mission to ensure that staffing at overseas posts was “kept to the minimum necessary to implement the president’s foreign policy priorities.”Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

The unease among diplomats is further fueled by the fact that they have seen no sign that Mr. Rubio has tried to push back against Mr. Trump’s efforts to weaken democratic Ukraine and embrace Russia, which could signal a broader acquiescence to White House directives. Diplomats have noted a viral photo of Mr. Rubio slouched stone-faced on a couch in the Oval Office last Friday as Mr. Trump shouted at Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.

Employees in the State Department’s Foreign and Civil Services are bracing for rounds of layoffs. The department has about 80,000 employees, with 50,000 of those local citizens abroad. Of the rest, about 14,000 are trained diplomats who rotate overseas, called Foreign Service officers and specialists, and 13,000 are members of the Civil Service and work mostly out of Washington.

The chiefs of mission were asked by senior department officials to submit a list by mid-February of the bare minimum number of local citizens they would need to maintain mission operations, a U.S. official said.

Diplomats and civil servants could be pushed out through reduction-in-force orders, a mechanism that government agencies can use to lay off workers. Another U.S. official said those kinds of orders are supposed to take into account seniority and job performance.

In recent weeks, a list of 700 Civil Service workers who potentially could be fired circulated within the department, but so far only 18 who were on probationary status have been let go, a U.S. official said.

One attempt to cut workers has been rolled back for now. In early February, the department issued orders to contracting companies to end the work of 60 contractors in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. The companies put the workers, who include tech and area specialists, on unpaid leave. But after internal discussions, the bureau asked most or all of them to return this week.

Top officials are discussing consolidating parts of the department. One proposal would downgrade, through a merger, the democracy and human rights bureau as well as bureaus working on counternarcotics and refugee and migration issues. The department’s office of foreign aid and the tiny remnants of U.S.A.I.D. would be put under the same umbrella.

Officials have also proposed merging some of the department’s regional bureaus. Those are run by assistant secretaries in Washington and oversee policy and operations across large swaths of the globe. The bureaus are central to American diplomacy.

A correction was made on March 6, 2025: An earlier version of a picture caption with this article, using information from Getty Images, misidentified a building shown in the image. It was the Interior Department, not the State Department. The picture has been replaced.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department. More about Edward Wong

Mark Mazzetti is an investigative reporter based in Washington, D.C., focusing on national security, intelligence, and foreign affairs. He has written a book about the C.I.A. More about Mark Mazzetti

20. Pentagon Cuts Threaten Programs That Secure Loose Nukes and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Sensational clickbait? Or should we have national security concerns?

Pentagon Cuts Threaten Programs That Secure Loose Nukes and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Documents obtained by WIRED show the US Department of Defense is considering cutting up to 75 percent of workers who stop the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

Wired · by Justin Ling · March 6, 2025

US agencies responsible for preventing the global proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and building security capacity around the world are facing deep cuts, perhaps total abolition, as the Trump administration continues its assault on any and all spending going overseas.

According to a draft working paper provided to WIRED, the Department of Defense is asking all its agencies and services that conduct “security cooperation” programs to consider the impact if the Pentagon were to “realign” its funding. The authors of the paper warn that the cuts could hobble the fight against organized crime in South America, impair the battle against the Islamic State, increase the likelihood of a rogue state producing and using chemical weapons, and defund pandemic surveillance measures.

The working paper is in response to a request for information from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, asking agencies to assess the consequences of four levels of staff reduction—25 percent, 50 percent, and 75 percent cuts, or outright abolition.

This cost-cutting exercise is being conducted in response to a January 20 executive order from President Donald Trump, mandating that departments and agencies review all foreign aid programs. But the DOD review is going well beyond foreign aid. According to the working paper, the Defense Department looks set to make cuts to all humanitarian assistance, security cooperation, and cooperative threat-reduction efforts. The DOD has made clear that all spending ought to align with the secretary’s three priorities: deterring China, increasing border security, and pushing allies to shoulder more of the burden. It is not clear what role, if any, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is playing in these workforce reduction decisions.

Pandemics and Weapons of Mass Destruction

In response to the Pentagon’s request for information, the agencies contemplated lower bounds of cuts of 20, 40, and 60 percent—a counter-offer, the Pentagon source says, because officials in these agencies see a 60 percent cut as a “red line” that would still severely hurt global and domestic security.

A 20 percent reduction in funding, the memos say, would reduce some mine-clearance efforts in former war zones, significantly hurt programs to surveil and prevent infectious disease outbreaks in Africa, and worsen biosafety and biosecurity programs at biological laboratories worldwide, among other losses.

A 40 percent reduction would limit funding for counter-extremism programs in Africa and the Middle East, close all mine-clearance operations, shut down programs to intercept and prevent the development of weapons of mass destruction, and completely shut down biological surveillance programs.

A 60 percent cut would be significantly more severe, according to the memo. It would fundamentally eliminate America’s role in preventing the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, the documents warn, and increase the likelihood of a lab accident or theft of potentially dangerous biological material.

The secretary of defense also asked the agencies to game out the consequences of fully shutting down some of their operations—a move, the agencies claim, that would defund border security measures and anti-drug-trafficking efforts.

One of the agencies targeted by this spending review is the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which leads counter-proliferation efforts on chemical, biological, and nuclear threats, both on its own and with US allies. In recent years, DTRA took the lead on destroying chemical weapons in Syria, helped secure 10 metric tons of highly enriched uranium in Kazakhstan, and worked with the Ukrainian government to upgrade security at its infectious disease laboratories.

A Pentagon source tells WIRED that if cuts on the higher end of the proposed spectrum are made, DTRA will effectively end. “Anything more than a 60 percent cut cripples the program,” they say. The source, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the spending review, claims a total elimination of these programs is also on the table.

"All reductions increase risk to US due to pathogen spread and easier adversary pathways to develop WMD,” the memos read.

The secretary of defense declined to comment for this story, with a spokesperson writing, “We will not comment on internal deliberations.”

The cost-savings of these cuts would be relatively marginal compared to the Pentagon’s $850 billion budget. The Department of Defense only spends about $19 billion on humanitarian assistance, security cooperation, and cooperative threat-reduction programs, including DTRA—of that, the proposed cuts would eliminate between $5 billion and $15 billion. Because many of these programs are funded via congressional earmark, it’s not clear the Pentagon has the authority to cut and reappropriate their funding.

Trump and Hegseth have previewed defense cuts, promising to reduce spending by $50 billion—about 8 percent of the Pentagon’s nonlethal budget, Hegseth has said.

These cuts could also have a domino effect on other programs that are run in conjunction with the State Department and other agencies. One long-standing project facing cuts under this review is the State Partnership Program, which sends National Guard members to liaise and train with friendly militaries abroad. This program has historically been particularly popular with Republican members of Congress. But it, like dozens of other Pentagon activities, faces steep cuts or outright abolition.

A source with knowledge of the funding review says that a decision has yet to be made about the exact level of these cuts, and that meetings are ongoing to decide which agencies or programs will be hit and how hard. A final decision is due in mid-April, at the end of the 90-day window set out in the January 20 executive order. Sources inside the Pentagon who work on security cooperation say they are fearful that the cuts will be severe.

Burst Bubble

The people who work to stop the spread of dangerous material insist that these programs are not foreign assistance at all—they are all about domestic and global security.

DTRA, for example, currently works with 35 nations, helping to upgrade their biosafety and biosecurity practices while also helping them destroy dangerous biological samples. Much of this work takes place in veterinary clinics, which often treat and collect samples from sick livestock, making them the front line of infectious disease outbreaks. This work, in recent years, has included many of the African nations hit by Ebola.

Partnering with local health authorities not only helps prevent the next epidemic, but it also makes sure that these virological samples are kept secure—“so it's not accidentally going to leak out of these public health facilities or not be stolen by a terrorist,” Robert Pope, director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at DTRA, explained in a 2022 interview.

DTRA’s staff operate as an “early warning system,” a congressional staffer tells WIRED, ahead of any deployment of the US military, they say. While it may not be a traditional kind of military power, they add, it should still fit into this administration’s priorities. “It secures our border from pathogens.”

An independent analysis conducted for the Pentagon in 2022 found that these threat reduction programs are “well-positioned to respond quickly to emerging [weapons of mass destruction] threats; its authorities are unique and fill an existing gap.”

Programs like DTRA ought to be expanded, not cut, says Gigi Gronvall, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. These are primarily national security programs, she says, designed to “give ourselves the eyes and ears around the world to put out those fires, or prevent them from happening in the first place.”

If you don’t put out the fire—whether it’s a novel infectious disease or a chemical weapons program in a rogue state—it will keep growing, Gronvall adds. “We have areas of the world that don’t have fire departments,” she says. “By helping them help themselves, we are helping them step up.”

‘A Fire Sale on Expertise’

The Pentagon’s threat reduction efforts, and the DTRA itself, stem from the work of former US senators Sam Nunn, a Democrat, and Richard Lugar, a Republican, to secure weapons of mass destruction after the fall of the Soviet Union. America, through their work, destroyed thousands of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, disposed of tens of thousands of pounds of chemical weapons, and dismantled Soviet bioweapon laboratories. In 1998, DTRA was formally created and given a more expensive mandate to both track and destroy chemical and biological threats while also helping other nations do the same.

For its work, DTRA has been targeted by Russian disinformation efforts, with Moscow accusing America of producing biological weapons in these DTRA-funded labs. Following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, conspiracy theorists in America picked up that thread, suggesting the invasion was cover to destroy these bioweapons labs.

Fears about DTRA’s work have since been raised by Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Russia itself. Republican senator Rand Paul has repeatedly issued subpoenas to the DTRA looking for evidence that it has been engaged in dangerous virological research and suggesting that it may have had a hand in creating Covid-19.

“When Russia was attacking that program, it was doing so because it wanted to erode our national security,” Gronvall says. Russia may not believe these lies, she adds, but “they have been enormously successful in getting people with power to believe these things.”

Last year, the United States accused Russia of using prohibited chemical weapons in its war on Ukraine. According to this working paper, the proposed cuts to the DTRA could eliminate America’s ability to investigate and attribute such chemical weapons attacks in Eastern Europe.

Investigating and attributing these attacks is a form of deterrence, Gronvall says. Without this capability, she adds, “it means you’re going to see a lot more chemical weapons used.”

The United States believes that Russia, North Korea, and other rogue states have active biological weapons programs. Despite that, no state has actually deployed a biological weapon since the adoption of the Biological Weapons Convention. Gronvall is worried that dismantling the DTRA could weaken that prohibition. “I would worry that that would be something we would see,” she says.

The working paper warns that reducing this funding could surrender ground to Russia and China, which may try and fill the void left by the US. That could see Moscow and Beijing move in to partner with foreign militaries, cooperate with these biological facilities, and even recruit new scientists.

“It’s going to be a fire sale on expertise,” Gronvall says, “and that is helping China, 100 percent.”

Wired · by Justin Ling · March 6, 2025

21. Pentagon Culls Social Science Research, Prioritizes Fiscal Responsibility and Technologies

I wonder if they will cut funding for the Assessing Revolutions and Insurgent Strategies (ARIS) Studies at USASOC? If they refuse to continue to fund this project then there is little hope for us.

https://www.soc.mil/ARIS/ARIS.html

Pentagon Culls Social Science Research, Prioritizes Fiscal Responsibility and Technologies

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4113076/pentagon-culls-social-science-research-prioritizes-fiscal-responsibility-and-te/

defense.gov

Release

Immediate Release

March 7, 2025 |×

Cost savings of more than $30 million in first year through discontinuation of 91 studies

The Office of the Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) is scrapping its social science research portfolio as part of a broader effort to ensure fiscal responsibility and prioritize mission-critical activities. This initiative involves focusing resources on technologies essential for maintaining a strong national defense, aligning with the Administration's commitment to efficient government and ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.

The Department recognizes the value of academic research but – in response to President Trump's Executive Orders and Secretary Hegseth's priorities in his January 25, 2025, "Message to the Force" and January 29, 2025, Memorandum, "Restoring America's Fighting Force" – recognizes that funded research must address pressing needs to develop and field advanced military capabilities. Several studies are affected by this shift, including those focused on global migration patterns, climate change impacts, and social trends. Examples include:

The Climate-Food-Urbanization Nexus and the Precursors of Instability in Africa
Social and Institutional Determinants of Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Hazards in the African Sahel
Anticipating Costal Population Mobility: Path to Maladaptation or Sociopolitical Stability
Comparing Underlying Drivers of South-North Migration in Central America and West Africa
Democracy Quest
The Language of Parasocial Influence and the Emergence of Extremism
Weaponized Conspiracies
Beyond the Clock: Understanding Cross-Cultural Temporal Orientation of Military Officers
Food Fights: War Narratives and Identity Reproduction in Evolving Conflicts
Future Fish Wars: Chasing Ocean Ecosystem Wealth

The Department expects to see cost savings of more than $30 million in the first year through the discontinuation of 91 studies, including the examples listed above.

Secretary of Defense Hegseth has emphasized the importance of equipping the American military with the tools and capabilities necessary to deter adversaries and maintain a strong defense. This initiative directly supports that commitment by prioritizing investments in areas like hypersonic weapons development, AI-powered systems for enhanced battlefield awareness, and strengthening the domestic military industrial base.

The realignment also reflects the Department's commitment to fiscal responsibility and ensuring every dollar invested in defense generates the greatest possible return for the American people. By focusing on the most impactful technologies, the Department is ensuring the U.S. military remains the most powerful and advanced fighting force in the world.

defense.gov

22. Response to Five Former SECDEFs “Open Letter” Criticizing Trump

The DEI boogeyman is dead in DOD and the federal government. Why can't we move on?

Response to Five Former SECDEFs “Open Letter” Criticizing Trump

By Larry Purdy

March 06, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/03/06/response_to_five_former_secdefs_open_letter_criticizing_trump_1095779.html?mc_cid=e428d7ca22&utm_source=pocket_saves

Joining Rhode Island Democratic Senator Jack Reed’s partisan handwringing over President Trump’s firing of senior military leaders (see Reed’s Feb. 22 Washington Post op-ed), five former Secretaries of Defense posted an “Open Letter” on Feb. 27 urging Congress to “investigate” Trump’s decisions. “In the meantime,” they write, “Senators should refuse to confirm any new Defense Department nominations, including that of retired Lt. General Dan Caine as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” In the present, and increasingly dangerous, international environment, it would be contrary to our national security interests for Congress to take seriously these Trump-hating former officials’ “advice.”

Among the group of five is former Obama SECDEF Leon Panetta. In case memories are fading, it was Panetta who joined fifty other “intelligence” officials in signing the infamous October 2020 letter suggesting Russia was the manufacturer of the evidence found on Hunter Biden’s laptop. No one doubts that letter played a key role in the outcome of the controversial 2020 election. Yet, as we have since learned, this pre-2020 election missive was pure propaganda. It was also demonstrably false. Moreover, it is all-but-inconceivable that Panetta, who had earlier served as President Obama’s CIA Director, was unaware this “claim” was untrue.

Equally false are the former SECDEFs’ recent assertions that:

President Trump’s actions undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security. Talented Americans may be far less likely to choose a life of military service if they believe they will be held to a political standard. Those currently serving may grow cautious of speaking truth to power or they could erode good order and discipline by taking political actions in uniform. And the public’s traditionally high trust in the armed forces could begin to wither.

In fact, what they recite more closely describes precisely what has been occurring over the past four years under the watch of another of the "Open Letter’s" signatories, former Biden SECDEF Lloyd Austin. The truth is our Nation’s military was being hollowed out under the previous administration. Recruiting was abysmal and worsening. Our weapons arsenal -- including billions of dollars of equipment left behind following our deadly and humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan -- was being needlessly depleted. Many of our dwindling fleet of Navy ships and our combat aircraft were not “mission ready.” And in direct violation of George Washington’s advice to Alexander Hamilton in 1783, raw “politics” was being infused throughout the armed services by “woke” DEI and Critical Race Theory ideologues who were destroying our military’s cohesiveness and unity, thus threatening its very purpose. Only now, after President Trump ordered the removal of these poisonous programs from our military are we witnessing a much-needed increase of enthusiasm for military service. The upswing in recruitment numbers don’t lie.

As current Spectator Magazine contributor Michael Gove recently observed: “It’s self-harming to apply DEI policies to the military. The services are [here] to intimidate and, if that fails, kill our enemies, not impress them with how kind we are to people struggling with their gender identity." Regrettably, “self-harming” DEI and CRT policies are what the recently fired military leaders had long been advocating for. Thus, the former SECDEFs’ criticism of President Trump for dismissing these individuals is not only wrongheaded, but it also represents partisan politics at its very worst. For the sake of protecting our Nation’s security, Congress should ignore them.

Mr. Purdy is a 1968 graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy. After completing his military service obligation (which included a year-long tour in Vietnam), he graduated from the William Mitchell College of Law (St. Paul, MN).

23. Cutting the Line: Imposed Cost and Measured Effects In Strategic Competition and Deterrence

This is a very long but worthwhile read not only for SOF but for nay who are interested in military operations. Although Duc wrote thighs for a SOF audience it applies much more broadly and many will enjoy the history within this as well (including Effects based Operations and the Balkans).

Measure deterrence is hard. How do you measure or get credit when something does not happen? The house that is not burning does not make those news (or so one of my great CSMs used to tell me). An enemy deterred does not make the news.

That said, should we focus so much on deterrence? The previous administration and the NDS was all about deterrence. - i.e., integrated deterrence. But it seems to me it turned out to be a code for the "prime directive" o "prevent escalation at all costs." Is that we should be doing going forward. Can we really deter in the gray zone (i.e., strategic competition?). We are very effective at deterring nuclear and conventional war/large scale combat operations. But those deterrence capabilities are not as effective or effective at all in deterring our adversaries from using hybrid, irregular, and unconventional approaches in the grazen zone of competition between peace and war. We have made our adevaries optimized for operations in the gray zone because they have been effectively deterred from nuclear and conventional war.

Also, (and all partisanship aside), PUTUS is conducting his own form of unconventional diplomacy. Perhaps he needs an offensive capability for competition in the gray zone and unconventional warfare activities are one area that should be explored. In short POTUS' unconventional diplomacy should have unconventional warfare support.

Cutting the Line: Imposed Cost and Measured Effects In Strategic Competition and Deterrence

5 hours ago24 min read

SOF's Guide to Targeted Strategic Application in Competition

and Conflict Preparation

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/cutting-the-line-imposed-cost-and-measured-effects-in-strategic-competition-and-deterrence

STRATEGY CENTRAL

For And By Practitioners

By Maurice "Duc" Duclos - March 7, 2025

Soviet Grandmaster Alexander Kotov, in Think Like a Grandmaster, established that position evaluation must rely on standard, measurable criteria rather than intuition or hope.

"What gets measured gets managed."

— Peter Drucker

"A bad system will beat a good person every time."

— W. Edwards Deming

"Eliminate waste, that is the first and most important step to improvement."

— Taiichi Ohno

Introduction

Today's great power dynamics resist simple categorization. While U.S. joint doctrine describes a Competition Continuum from cooperation through competition to conflict, the reality is more complex, with relationships existing simultaneously at different points along this spectrum depending on the domain and context. For instance, the United States and China maintain economic cooperation in certain sectors while engaging in intense rivalry over territorial claims in the South China Sea. They may compete for influence in Southeast Asian nations while approaching rivalry in cyber operations. Similarly, U.S.-Russia relations show this multi-layered complexity, with limited cooperation in space operations coexisting alongside sharp rivalry over Ukraine.

This multi-domain nature of modern interstate relations creates unique challenges for measuring success. Different domains require different metrics and approaches—what constitutes success in economic competition may differ substantially from measures of effectiveness in influence operations or cyber rivalry. Therefore, the principle of cost imposition must be understood and applied within specific contextual and domain frameworks.

As Thomas Schelling observed in Arms and Influence, military power's greatest utility often lies not in destruction but in its ability to alter adversaries' strategic calculations. This principle takes on heightened importance in an era when relationships span the spectrum from cooperation to rivalry across multiple domains.

The challenges of measuring success manifest clearly in Southeast Asia. Since the end of World War II, Thailand has been one of America's strongest allies in the region. After the Office of Strategic Services was disbanded following World War II, William "Wild Bill" Donovan became U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, cementing a relationship that would serve as a crucial platform for irregular warfare in Laos and later Vietnam. U.S. Special Operations Forces have conducted more engagements in Thailand than any other country in the region, yet China's influence has grown virtually unchecked.

This paradox reveals fundamental challenges in competition. How do we know if we're winning? When does "partner of choice" or "preferred partner" translate into measurable competitive advantage? Most critically, how do we measure success in competition below the threshold of armed conflict? These questions extend beyond Thailand—across the Indo-Pacific and globally, military leaders and policymakers grapple with measuring success in competition.

Building partner capacity and strengthening relationships sound appealing, but these abstract goals provide little guidance for operators in the field. This disconnect between strategic guidance and tactical implementation manifests in three critical ways:

1. Practitioners struggle to distinguish between preparation for future contingencies and competition in the present

2. Measurement focuses on U.S. activities rather than effects on competitor behavior

3. Targeting methodology remains rooted in traditional conflict paradigms rather than competition dynamics

These gaps require a framework that bridges abstract strategic concepts with measurable tactical effects.

This challenge becomes particularly acute in the context of integrated deterrence, which requires the coordinated use of military, diplomatic, informational, and economic tools to prevent conflict. While integrated deterrence emphasizes whole-of-government approaches and international partnership, it faces the same fundamental challenge: how to measure effects and distinguish between activities that genuinely impose costs on competitors and those that merely demonstrate presence or capability.

The challenge of measuring competitive success extends beyond academic interest to operational necessity. Without clear metrics, military planners risk investing time and resources in activities that, while seemingly valuable, fail to affect the competitive environment. Just as businesses measure market share and revenue growth rather than abstract customer sentiment, military operations need empirical indicators of competitive advantage.

Measuring success in competition requires concrete, observable dimensions: time (measurable delays in adversary activities), space (quantifiable constraints on adversary freedom of action), and material (documented costs imposed on competitor operations). While implementing such measurement systems demands careful consideration, these dimensions offer a foundation for transforming abstract competition concepts into quantifiable outcomes.

The Quest For Measurable Effects: Understanding EBO's Rise and Fall

The military's pursuit of measurable effects predates modern competition. Since the emergence of airpower, strategists have sought frameworks to connect tactical actions with strategic outcomes. Early theorists like Giulio Douhet contended that precisely targeted bombing could achieve strategic effects by undermining the enemy's will to fight. During World War II, this thinking evolved through strategic bombing campaigns that aimed to create cascading effects across enemy systems.

Effects-Based Operations (EBO) emerged in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War as technological advances in precision warfare seemed to validate these theories. Heavily drawing from airpower theories such as John Warden's "Five Rings" model, EBO promised a revolutionary approach to military planning. Instead of focusing solely on attrition or the destruction of enemy forces, EBO aimed to orchestrate actions that would create specific, predictable effects on adversary capabilities and will.

Desert Storm's initial success offered a compelling case study. Precision strikes against key infrastructure and command nodes validated the idea that carefully targeted actions could produce cascading operational or even strategic effects. Military planners, equipped with increasingly sophisticated technology and modeling tools, believed they could map complex relationships between tactical actions and strategic outcomes. EBO offered an intellectually appealing framework aligned with America's growing technological advantage and desire for efficient, decisive operations.

However, EBO's theoretical elegance failed to translate into practical effectiveness. Operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo revealed fundamental flaws in the framework. Planners frequently conflated tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war, assuming direct causal relationships that didn't exist. For instance, targeting individual insurgent leaders (tactical) was expected to collapse insurgent networks (operational) and end popular support for resistance (strategic). These simplistic assumptions ignored the complex, adaptive nature of human systems.

While the air campaign in Kosovo achieved some success, it fell short of its broader strategic goals, demonstrating the framework's overreliance on airpower to compel political change. More fundamentally, EBO struggled with measurement itself. While physical effects like destroyed targets could be quantified, the framework increasingly emphasized abstract goals like "influence," "deterrence," or "hearts and minds." These intangible effects proved impossible to measure reliably, leading to confusion about progress and effectiveness.

The 2003 Iraq War operations further highlighted the challenges of predicting effects in complex environments. While initial strikes achieved their intended tactical effects, post-war decisions like the Coalition Provisional Authority's Order Number 2, which dissolved Iraq's military and security institutions, created cascading second and third-order effects that fundamentally altered the operational environment. The failure to anticipate and account for these effects illustrated the difficulty of predicting outcomes in complex human systems. By 2008, the U.S. Joint Forces Command officially abandoned EBO, citing its overreliance on predictive models and inability to bridge the gap between tactical actions and strategic effects.

Yet EBO's central challenge—linking military actions to desired strategic outcomes—remains critical today. As competition below the threshold of armed conflict becomes the primary arena of great power rivalry, the fundamental questions EBO tried to answer demand new solutions:

1. How can tactical activities support strategic goals?

2. What effects truly matter in competition?

3. How can success be measured in complex operating environments?

4. How do we transition from a reporting structure that prioritizes measures of tactical success (doing things well) to a framework that prioritizes strategic effectiveness (doing the right things)?

The failure of EBO offers crucial lessons for modern competition. Any effective framework must emphasize strategic effects while avoiding complex predictive models and abstract measures. Most importantly, it must provide practitioners with clear, observable metrics that bridge the gap between tactical actions and strategic outcomes.

The Problem of Measuring Competition

Analysis of post-Cold War U.S. military engagement reveals two predominant operational tracks: preparing for future conflict and building American influence. This pattern emerges clearly in operational activities across theaters. Preparation manifests in large-scale exercises like RIMPAC in the Pacific and Defender Europe, designed to maintain readiness for potential future conflicts. Meanwhile, influence-building appears in persistent engagement activities such as the State Partnership Program, security cooperation events, and military education exchanges. Both approaches, while important, demonstrate a critical gap—they rarely address competitors' current activities or impose immediate costs on their operations and strategic goals. For example, while Pacific Partnership missions build valuable relationships through humanitarian assistance, they don't directly counter China's ongoing maritime militia operations or artificial island construction. Similarly, while exercises demonstrate combat capabilities, they don't necessarily alter the immediate strategic calculations of competitors actively pursuing their objectives.

Joint doctrine recognizes this complexity through the Competition Continuum framework (JDN 1-19), which describes a world of ongoing competition that includes cooperation, competition below armed conflict, and armed conflict. While this framework helps conceptualize the range of military activities, it doesn't address the fundamental challenge of measuring effects and distinguishing between preparation and active competition.

Building on Schelling's insights about military power shaping behavior through costs, a critical distinction emerges between preparation and competition. Military planners often label preparation activities as "competition" simply because they occur during competitive periods. Training exercises, relationship building, and capability development are valuable investments in future readiness, but unless conflict manifests or events demonstrably influence competitor behavior, these remain unrealized gains.

In competition, strategy ultimately reduces to two fundamental options: grow your line or cut your opponent's. This elegant simplification, highlighted in Joe Hyams' Zen in the Martial Arts, provides a crucial starting point for understanding how to achieve dominance in competition. Whether in martial arts, business, or military operations, success comes from improving your position, degrading your opponent's, or a combination of both. The framework's simplicity belies its profound implications for modern military strategy.

Figure 1. Strategy Simplified- Growing your line or cutting your opponent’s line.

This focus on preparation extends to how SOF has traditionally developed partner forces. Current approaches often attempt to create mirror images of U.S. SOF capabilities (growing the U.S. line) rather than developing partners' unique abilities to impose costs on competitors or resist foreign influence in their operating environment (cutting adversaries' lines). This tendency to replicate U.S. force structure and capabilities reflects a broader failure to distinguish between preparing for future conflicts and competing in current environments.

Similarly, efforts to grow American influence through sustained engagement, training exercises, and relationship building represent only half of Hyams' competitive strategy. U.S. military activities overwhelmingly focus on growing the line—becoming the "preferred partner," building partner capacity, and strengthening relationships—while rarely acting to cut competitors' lines of advance. This mirrors Schelling's distinction between deterrence and compellence—while focusing on deterring future aggression through capability building, military operations rarely compel changes in current competitor behavior through imposed costs.

This singular focus on growth and preparation explains why competitors continue to make strategic gains despite U.S. engagement efforts. In the South China Sea, extensive U.S. naval exercises and freedom of navigation operations haven't prevented the militarization of artificial islands. However successful, preparation for future contingencies and efforts to grow influence hasn't imposed meaningful costs on competitors or hindered their current operations. Drawing from Schelling's framework of coercion and deterrence in Arms and Influence, the mere threat of future costs proves insufficient without demonstrated willingness and capability to impose actual costs in the present.

Success in competition requires a clear distinction between preparation and active competition, coupled with frameworks that enable measurement of the actual costs imposed on competitor behavior. Such frameworks must provide clear metrics for success while helping planners identify and eliminate activities that don't contribute to competitive advantage. Most critically, they must bridge the gap between abstract strategic concepts and tactical implementation without succumbing to the complexity that defeated previous attempts at effects-based approaches.

Measuring Success in Competition

The challenge of measuring competitive advantage extends beyond military operations. Successful businesses measure their competitive position through empirical metrics like market share and revenue growth. Professional sports teams employ sophisticated measurement systems: football coaches track not just wins and losses (lag measures) but possession time and field position (lead measures), while baseball managers employ sophisticated statistical analysis. These domains reveal how measuring outcomes at different time intervals enables an understanding of progress and competitive position.

Some competitive domains have developed particularly sophisticated approaches to measurement that offer insights for military competition. Chess provides perhaps the most relevant model. Consider a chess match midway through the game, with both players away from the board. Could an observer determine who holds the advantage? For experienced players, the answer is demonstrably yes—chess masters evaluate positions through clear, observable indicators that transcend individual moves or strategies.

Soviet Grandmaster Alexander Kotov, in Think Like a Grandmaster, established that position evaluation must rely on standard, measurable criteria rather than intuition or hope. Chess masters assess temporal advantage through piece development and initiative—having forces positioned to act while the opponent must react. They evaluate spatial advantage through the control of key squares and mobility options. Material advantage manifests in both raw piece count and relative value. Together, these three measurements—time, space, and material—create an observable foundation for analyzing competitive advantage.

The chess master's systematic approach to measurement finds a powerful complement in Toyota's Production System (TPS) focus on operational efficiency. Toyota revolutionized manufacturing by eliminating waste at every step. Using Value Stream Mapping, Toyota's engineers trace each process from raw material to finished product, identifying and eliminating activities that don't add customer value. This ruthless focus on efficiency through measurement provides a vital complement to positional evaluation.

The power of combining positional measurement with process efficiency appears clearly in military history. During World War II, Special Operations Executive (SOE) missions demonstrated measurable effects across all dimensions. As General Eisenhower noted, "Sabotage caused effects beyond the capacity of the Allied air effort, delaying all German divisions moving from the Mediterranean to Normandy, and forcing extensive enemy detours, with the consequence that they arrived, if at all, too late and not in fighting condition, or in a state of extreme disorganization and exhaustion." These operations created clear and measurable temporal costs through delays, spatial effects by denying key transportation routes, and material costs through destroyed equipment and resources spent on alternate routing.

These examples raise critical questions for military operations in competition. What activities constitute waste? How many operations and exercises measurably contribute to competitive advantage? Just as Toyota maps processes backward from customer value to eliminate unnecessary steps, military planners need frameworks to distinguish between activities that impose costs on competitors and those that merely consume resources. The synthesis of positional measurement from chess with process efficiency from manufacturing points toward a comprehensive approach for achieving and measuring competitive advantage in modern military operations.

The TSM Framework

The synthesis of chess position evaluation and industrial process mapping provides both measurement criteria and process clarity for competitive operations. Chess masters assess advantage through discrete indicators, establishing clear metrics for evaluating competitive positions. Through process mapping, Toyota's engineers distinguish between activities that create value and those that merely consume resources. Together, these approaches form the foundation of a systematic framework for measuring and achieving competitive advantage.

The Time, Space, and Material (TSM) Framework addresses the operational planning gap through a systematic formula: for every measurable effect in time, space, or material, there must be a specific target (X) and a primary action (Y) that affects that target. Primary actions create direct effects while supporting (or secondary) actions develop the conditions and capabilities necessary for primary action success.

Unlike EBO's complex predictive models, the TSM framework focuses on observable, measurable effects. The model serves as what Toyota's Production System (TPS) terms kanban—a visual management tool that shows workflow and process status. It demonstrates the progression from requirements through actions to measurable effects.

The TSM framework's foundation starts with proper target selection and understanding. Unlike traditional military targeting that focuses on physical infrastructure and military assets, targets in competition require a fundamentally different approach.

Understanding Targets in Competition

While strategic planning often focuses on broader objectives, this framework deliberately uses the term "targets" to emphasize specific nodes, activities, or relationships where measurable costs can be imposed. Targets represent the concrete points where strategic objectives intersect with tactical opportunities for cost imposition. Unlike strategic objectives which may remain abstract, targets in this framework must be specific enough to enable measurement of effects in time, space, and material.

Targets in the TSM framework differ fundamentally from traditional military targeting. While conflict targets typically reside within adversary territory, competition targets exist primarily in neutral third nations where competitors vie for influence, resources, and access. These targets are rarely physical entities suitable for lethal strikes. Instead, they represent activities, relationships, or nodes within an adversary's steady-state strategy.

Understanding competitors' steady-state strategies is crucial for targeting. As Steven Hiatt demonstrates in A Game as Old as Empire, nations expand influence through systematic economic manipulation, infrastructure development, and the creation of strategic dependencies. China's "Port-Park-City" model exemplifies this approach—under the guise of economic development, these projects establish dual-use facilities that serve both civilian and military purposes while creating strategic dependencies and access venues in host nations.

Traditional military operations use the Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List (JIPTL), which focuses on lethal effects. Competition, however, requires a Consolidated Competition Target List (CCTL), which identifies key nodes and activities where costs can be imposed on competitor operations. The CCTL functions like what Toyota's Production System calls the gemba—the real place where value is created or lost. This targeting approach allows planners to identify specific points where measurable effects can be achieved without escalating to armed conflict.

Primary Actions and TSM Effects

Primary actions impose direct, measurable costs on targets. These costs manifest in three categories derived from chess position evaluation: time, space, and material. Each category provides distinct, observable indicators of competitive advantage.

Time effects appear as delays in competitor activities, extended project timelines, or increased planning requirements. When local opposition delays an infrastructure project or diplomatic pressure forces operational timeline changes, these represent measurable temporal costs. Just as chess masters evaluate temporal advantage through piece development and initiative, military planners can assess competitive advantage through measured delays in competitor operations.

Space effects manifest in denied access to key areas, restricted movement options, or limited influence in target regions. Whether through physical denial of territory or political constraints on competitor activities, spatial effects limit adversary freedom of action. Just as chess masters evaluate control of key squares and mobility options, military practitioners can measure spatial advantage through competitor access limitations and maneuver constraints.

Material effects manifest in resource expenditures, whether financial, diplomatic, or military. Beyond direct financial costs, material effects include equipment losses, personnel requirements, and resource expenditures on alternative approaches. Like evaluating piece count and relative value in chess, material costs in competition can be measured through quantifiable resource expenditures. However, material effects must be evaluated through return on investment analysis—comparing costs imposed on competitors against resources expended. For instance, using expensive interceptor missiles against low-cost drones may impose greater costs on the defender than the aggressor. Effective material cost imposition requires identifying opportunities where relatively low-cost actions can force competitors to expend disproportionate resources.

Measuring and Attributing Effects

Quantifying effects in competition requires a rigorous methodology to establish both measurement and attribution. For temporal effects, measurement begins with documented baseline timelines from competitor planning documents, public statements, or historical patterns of similar activities. Delays are then calculated against these baselines, with attribution strengthened through multiple indicators such as competitor statements, observed changes in resource allocation, or adaptation of operational patterns.

Spatial effects can be quantified through a percentage of denied access (geographic coverage), frequency of successful competitor activities in contested areas, or documented routing changes. When competitors are forced to use alternate supply routes, measurement combines geographic analysis (percentage of preferred routes denied) with operational impact (increased distance, reduced frequency of access).

Material costs are perhaps the most directly quantifiable, encompassing documented financial expenditures, resource allocation changes, and opportunity costs. These can be measured through competitor budget documents, observable resource shifts, or calculated costs of alternative approaches. The key is establishing pre-intervention baselines and documenting specific changes tied to cost-imposing activities.

Attribution requires correlating multiple indicators to establish causation:

Temporal correlation between action and effect
Multiple independent indicators of impact
Documented competitor responses or adaptations
Absence of other major causal factors
Pattern analysis across similar cases

These measurable effects contribute to credible deterrence by demonstrating both capability and willingness to impose costs. As Schelling emphasizes, influence stems not just from potential future costs but from demonstrated ability to affect competitor calculations in the present. By establishing clear measurement criteria and attribution methodology, these effects move beyond abstract influence to create documented competitive advantage.

The TSM framework can be expressed as a process model, where primary actions against specific targets produce measurable effects in time, space, and material. Figure 2 illustrates this relationship.

Figure 2. A Primary Action against a specific competition target equals a measurable effect as imposed cost in time, space, and/or material.

The Four Requirements

Every primary action demands four essential elements to enable execution. These requirements must be developed systematically to ensure successful implementation of cost-imposing activities:

Intelligence about the target extends beyond physical characteristics to include understanding vulnerabilities and dependencies. In competition, intelligence requirements often focus on economic, political, and social factors rather than traditional military considerations.

Capability to execute the action encompasses both direct means and partner forces. This requires careful assessment of available capabilities against specific action requirements, including evaluation of both U.S. and partner force capacities.

Placement and Access refers to the physical, virtual, or political positioning necessary to affect the target. In competition, this frequently involves developing relationships and influence networks rather than physical presence.

Authorities, permissions, and funding, primarily an internal requirement, typically comes last after the other three requirements are at least partially fulfilled. While essential, this requirement often depends on demonstrating progress in the other three areas before approval.

The relationship between these requirements and the principal or primary action is depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Actions against a target require intelligence, capability, access and placement, and authorities, permission, and funding.

Secondary Actions and Their Development

Primary actions impose measurable costs on competitors, but rarely are all requirements for successful operations present when planners develop a strategy, campaign, or line of operation. Secondary (or supporting) actions form the essential infrastructure enabling these targeted interventions. These activities, fundamentally different from primary actions, create necessary conditions for executing primary actions rather than directly imposing costs. Like Toyota's Production System (TPS) concept of muda—Japanese for "waste"—activities that don't contribute to eventual effects must be identified and eliminated.

In optimal scenarios, a single secondary action can simultaneously meet multiple requirements. For example, an in-country engagement with a partner SOF force might:

Develop the partner force's capability
Establish access and placement for future operations
Generate intelligence about potential targets

As illustrated in Figure 4, each secondary action has its own requirements regarding intelligence, capability, access and placement, authorities, funding, and permission.

Figure 4. Secondary actions also require intelligence, capability, access and placement, and authorities, permission, and funding before execution.

Some requirements may require numerous secondary actions to complete. For example, building a complete intelligence picture might require multiple collection activities, relationship development efforts, and analytical products. The key is understanding how each secondary action contributes to requirement development.

This diagram shows:

How secondary actions answer requirements based on current conditions
How results of secondary actions fulfill requirements for primary actions
How primary actions against targets achieve measurable effects in time, space, and material

Planners may develop as many secondary actions as necessary, with requirements potentially being answered during Preparation of the Environment (PE) or through PE activities executed specifically to support future primary actions.

The process model depicted in Figure 5 illustrates the sequential and concurrent nature of developing competitive advantage.

Figure 5. The DuClos Time, Space, and Material Framework. Secondary actions answer requirements for primary actions, which allow organizations to conduct primary actions to impose costs upon a target measurable in time, space, and material.

Upstream Targeting and Strategic Advantage

A unique advantage of the TSM framework lies in its ability to facilitate upstream targeting of competitor requirements. Because many competition activities occur in third nations, competitors must fulfill their own four requirements to achieve their strategic and operational goals. Targeting their actions during the requirements development phase can impose costs before the adversary completes their primary actions.

This upstream targeting capability represents a significant departure from traditional targeting frameworks. Rather than waiting for adversary actions to be fully developed, planners can identify and engage vulnerabilities in their requirement development process through:

Disrupting intelligence collection
Denying access and placement
Degrading capabilities
Complicating their authorities and permissions landscape

This approach proves particularly valuable in competition, where early intervention often produces greater effects at lower costs than activities to counter fully developed adversary actions. By understanding and targeting competitor requirements early, military forces can impose costs more efficiently and effectively than waiting to counter completed operations.

Through systematic application of the TSM framework, SOF planners can transform abstract competition concepts into measurable effects. The process mapping approach helps practitioners:

Identify waste in operational activities
Focus resources on activities that produce measurable effects
Better understand how tactical actions contribute to strategic outcomes
Distinguish between true competition and mere preparation

Most importantly, the framework provides clarity about resource allocation and operational priorities. Activities that don't contribute to measurable effects on competitor behavior represent either waste or preparation for future contingencies. This distinction enables better decisions about where to invest limited resources for maximum competitive impact.

The TSM Framework In Action

Real-world examples demonstrate how imposed costs can be measured in terms of time, space, and material, even when such effects occur organically rather than through deliberate operations. These cases show how specific actions against concrete targets produce measurable effects that degrade competitor capabilities and complicate their operations.

Operation Allied Force, NATO's 1999 air campaign in Kosovo, demonstrated measurable effects through systematic targeting. Primary actions—air strikes against Serbian military infrastructure—produced specific costs:

Time: Serbian forces spent 6-8 hours daily relocating equipment instead of conducting operations Space: Strikes denied Serb forces access to over 50% of main supply routes

Material: Serbia expended over $4 billion on air defense operations and dispersal of forces

More recent cases show how local resistance imposes similar measurable costs in competition. China's Myitsone Dam project in Myanmar, a $3.6 billion hydroelectric installation planned as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, faced sustained opposition from local communities concerned about environmental and social impacts. When the Myanmar government suspended the project in 2011, it created clear effects across all dimensions:

Time: Indefinite delay stretching over a decade Space: Myanmar's wariness of further Chinese investments limited China's regional access Material: Billions in sunk costs plus redirected resources

Russia's Shiyes landfill project provides another example of resistance imposing costs. Environmental activists and local residents established protest camps and pursued legal challenges, ultimately forcing the project's cancellation in 2020:

Time: Two years of sustained opposition and delays Space: Loss of access to a key waste management site Material: Millions wasted in preparatory investments and legal battles

As noted earlier, the 2023 disruption of Iranian weapons shipments to Syria demonstrates how deliberate action can achieve similar measurable effects through precision targeting of supply networks.

These examples reveal several critical insights:

Measurable effects can result from both deliberate military operations and organic resistance
Costs manifest across time, space, and material dimensions in predictable ways
Understanding these patterns allows practitioners to recognize and potentially amplify effects
Even in competition below armed conflict, adversary activities can face significant measurable costs

The effectiveness of these imposed costs points toward the framework's utility in modern competition. Whether through organized resistance, military action, or political opposition, properly targeted actions can produce concrete, measurable effects that degrade competitor capabilities without crossing the threshold of armed conflict.

Implications and Way Ahead

The TSM framework's combination of measurement criteria and process mapping suggests several critical implications for military operations in competition. Most immediately, Geographic Combatant Commands (GCCs) and Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs) need federated target lists for competition—lists coordinated and shared across agencies and commands that identify specific initiatives, relationships, and activities where imposing costs would affect competitor behavior. Unlike traditional targeting processes focused on physical infrastructure, competition target lists must identify nodes in competitor steady-state strategies where costs can be imposed through available means.

Currently, Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs) maintain distinct regional approaches to competition, often without clear mechanisms for sharing effective practices across theaters (yokoten in Toyota's Production System terms). This regional segregation creates challenges when competitor activities span multiple theater boundaries. Success against Russian influence operations in Eastern Europe might inform approaches to Chinese infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia. Similarly, effective resistance to Iranian proxy activities could suggest methods for imposing costs on competitors in other regions. A federated targeting approach enables both sharing of best practices and coordination against cross-theater competitor operations.

Just as Toyota's leaders practice genchi genbutsu (go and see), military leaders need a deeper understanding of competitive spaces rather than relying on superficial visits or abstract reports. This requires:

Sustained presence in competitive environments
Deep comprehension of local dynamics
Understanding how local irregular forces can impose measurable costs
Recognition of opportunities for Special Operations Forces to amplify effects through systematic support to resistance

The framework suggests new approaches to operational planning. Kaizen—Toyota's concept of continuous improvement through small, sustained actions—better describes competition than dramatic operations or strategic raids. Success comes through systematically identifying and engaging targets that degrade competitor capabilities over time. This requires integrating irregular warfare capabilities with broader competitive strategies. Activities intended to counter malign adversarial actions, such as the Chinese Communist Party's water cannon use against Philippine fishermen within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines or Russia's attacks upon Ukraine's civilians, are low-risk targets as these adversarial actions are counter to the rules-based international order.

Implementation requires several concrete steps across commands:

Development of theater-wide competition target lists
Mechanisms to measure and track imposed costs
Integration of targeting processes with partner capabilities
Robust information sharing across theaters
Training for planners and operators in framework application

Technology offers opportunities to enhance implementation. Just as Toyota uses jidoka—automation with a human touch—military planners could leverage artificial intelligence and data analytics to identify patterns in competitor behavior and opportunities for cost imposition. This human-centered approach to automation ensures that technology enhances rather than replaces human judgment in identifying and assessing competitive opportunities.

Success in modern competition requires the synthesis of these elements: systematic targeting, partner development, continuous assessment, and efficient resource allocation. The TSM framework provides a practical tool for achieving this synthesis while maintaining a focus on measurable effects rather than abstract concepts of influence or deterrence. Through rigorous application of these principles, military forces can move beyond engagement for engagement's sake to achieve meaningful competitive advantage.

Conclusion

As competition below armed conflict increasingly defines today’s great power rivalries, the capability to measure success clearly and practically has become essential. The Time, Space, and Material (TSM) Framework addresses this need by bridging strategic aspirations with measurable tactical and operational effects, resolving the critical gap exemplified by the Thailand paradox: decades of valuable but abstract engagement failed to impose meaningful costs on competitors due to a disconnect between tactical actions and measurable strategic outcomes.

Effects Based Operations faltered by overcomplicating relationships between tactical actions and strategic goals, relying excessively on abstract predictions and intangible metrics. In contrast, the TSM Framework simplifies strategic measurement through observable criteria—time delays, spatial restrictions, and material expenditures—transforming theoretical concepts into actionable tools. While its foundation draws inspiration from chess positional evaluation and Toyota’s Production System, these analogies serve as illustrative starting points rather than definitive models. Recognizing the limitations of such comparisons, the framework must evolve to account for the unpredictable human dynamics, cultural nuances, and political variables inherent in geopolitical competition, requiring ongoing adaptation informed by real-world feedback and diverse contexts.

The examples of Myanmar’s Myitsone Dam, NATO operations in Kosovo, and grassroots resistance movements highlight how effective measurement in competition can deliver tangible strategic impacts. Recognizing and amplifying these organic effects through carefully targeted interventions offers military planners clear guidance for resource allocation, operational prioritization, and partner capability development. However, this approach must be tempered by a robust consideration of ethical, legal, and political risks. Imposing costs in neutral third nations could destabilize host governments, violate international norms, or escalate tensions, necessitating a balanced strategy that integrates legal oversight, diplomatic coordination, and ethical guidelines to ensure alignment with democratic values and international law. Future iterations of the TSM Framework should incorporate mechanisms for assessing these risks, such as pre-action impact assessments and interagency collaboration to mitigate unintended consequences.

Moreover, the framework’s potential lies not only in military operations but also in integrating non-military instruments of power—diplomacy, economic leverage, and information campaigns—into a cohesive strategy. While Special Operations Forces (SOF) excel at upstream targeting and irregular warfare, the full realization of integrated deterrence requires synchronizing these efforts with economic sanctions, public diplomacy, and cyber operations to maximize cost imposition across domains. This multi-faceted approach demands a federated target list that includes non-military nodes, ensuring a whole-of-government effort that complements SOF’s tactical expertise with broader strategic effects.

Yet, the TSM Framework’s greatest challenge—and opportunity—lies in its implementation. Overcoming entrenched organizational barriers requires sustained leadership commitment, resource reallocation based on measurable effectiveness rather than activity volume, and comprehensive training in competitive dynamics. The understated difficulties of coordinating across Geographic Combatant Commands (GCCs) and Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs), securing authorities and funding for cost-imposing activities, and navigating bureaucratic resistance necessitate a phased rollout. This could include pilot programs to test the framework in specific theaters, iterative refinement based on lessons learned, and the establishment of a dedicated task force to streamline inter-theater information sharing and best practice dissemination (yokoten). Technology, such as artificial intelligence for pattern recognition and data analytics for targeting, can enhance efficiency, but its application must retain a human-centered approach (jidoka) to preserve judgment in complex environments.

Potential limitations also warrant attention. Competitors may adapt to cost-imposing strategies, reducing their effectiveness over time, or measurable effects in time, space, and material may not always yield strategic success if adversaries double down on their objectives. The framework must therefore include contingency planning and resilience-building measures, such as flexible target prioritization and the ability to pivot strategies based on competitor responses. By addressing these counterarguments, the TSM Framework can remain dynamic and resilient in the face of evolving threats.

By adopting and systematically applying the TSM Framework with these enhancements, planners can bridge the enduring gap between abstract strategic intent and tactical execution, aligning military and civilian activities decisively with competitive objectives. Real-world examples—from grassroots resistance to deliberate military interventions—confirm its efficacy, while a proactive approach to ethics, non-military integration, and implementation challenges ensures its sustainability. Ultimately, this refined framework empowers planners to impose real costs, shape competitor behaviors, and secure measurable competitive advantages, transforming strategic competition from a theoretical aspiration into an operational reality that is both effective and responsibly executed.

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Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004.

Hiatt, Steven, ed. A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2007.

Smith, Edward A. Effects-Based Operations: Applying Network-Centric Warfare in Peace, Crisis, and War. Washington, D.C.: CCRP Publication Series, 2002.

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Kotov, Alexander. Think Like a Grandmaster. London: Batsford, 1971.

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Votel, Joseph L., Charles T. Cleveland, Charles T. Connett, and Will Irwin. “Unconventional Warfare in the Gray Zone.” Joint Force Quarterly 80 (1st Quarter 2016): 101–109. https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-80/jfq-80_101-109_Votel-et-al.pdf.

Lee, Doowan. “Cost Imposition: The Key to Making Great Power Competition an Actionable Strategy.” Modern War Institute, April 8, 2021. https://mwi.usma.edu/cost-imposition-the-key-to-making-great-power-competition-an-actionable-strategy/.

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Additional Credits

The author extends his deepest gratitude to the cadre of the 18F Special Forces Intelligence Officer Course at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, NC. Interactions with both the students and the cadre during the presentation of the model have been instrumental in bridging conceptual frameworks with practical applications. Incorporating the TSM Framework into several exercises and projects has enriched the educational experience and validated its utility as a powerful tool for understanding and addressing the complexities of modern strategic competition. Their commitment to innovation in intelligence and targeting methodology reflects the highest standards of the Special Warfare Center’s mission.

Additional thanks to CW5(R) Chad Macheila and Mr. Christian Ramthun for their assistance and support in developing this framework. Chad Macheila was the first to adopt the framework operationally and has helped evolve its details and nuance over time. Chad developed the graphics used in this article to successfully present the framework to various organizations’ staff officers and commands. Christian Ramthun was the first to incorporate the framework in education at Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) and supported its addition to numerous classes over the last five years. Without Christian pushing for the model to be included in JSOU classes, it would have likely died as an obscure process model that was neither fully developed nor implemented in any significant way.

Finally, deep gratitude goes out to Mr. Doowan Lee, Chief Strategy Officer at EdgeTheory, and Mr. Serge French at U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) for their friendship, valuable feedback, and continued support over the years. This model was first sketched on a napkin at Doowan's home in San Francisco after a homemade Korean dinner, and he has been one of its staunchest advocates ever since.

About the Author

CW5 Maurice "Duc" DuClos currently serves as a Guest Lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. His professional background includes various positions at the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS), 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) and 2/75th Ranger Battalion.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Special Operations Command, Joint Special Operations University, or the Naval Postgraduate School.

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

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"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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Russia’s Malicious Activities

Americans’ attitudes toward Moscow are softening, but the regime remains a dangerous enemy.

Active-Duty and Former U.S. Army Soldiers Arrested for Theft of Government Property and Bribery Scheme

Former, active-duty Army soldiers charged in scheme allegedly selling sensitive military information to China

Long-Range Maritime Air Assault Operation in the Indo-Pacific Theater

Indo-Pacific Theater Operations

Air Assault Operations

Military Maritime Forces and Long-Range Maritime Air Assault

Friction During the Air Assault Planning Process and Rehearsals

The Unknown to the Unknown

Conclusion

About The Author

There Is a Way Out in Ukraine

Editors’ Picks

Some other things I did

War heroes, military firsts among 26,000 images flagged in DEI purge

Aircraft and fish projects are flagged

Some images aren’t gone

Why the database?

Trump’s ‘Make Shipbuilding Great Again’ Order Calls for Wholesale Overhaul of U.S. Maritime Industry - USNI News

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Trained on classified battlefield data, AI multiplies effectiveness of Ukraine's drones: Report - Breaking Defense

“These systems can often achieve objectives using just one or two drones per target rather than eight or nine," Ukrainian-American scholar Kateryna Bondar, a former advisor to Kyiv, writes in a new report released today by CSIS.

How Ukraine Did It: Keep It Simple, Suchka

Ukrainian troops throw Beehive on Russian forces

Ukrainian Soldiers Turn Beehive Into Deadly Weapon – Russian Troops Trapped in Swarm as War Takes a Bizarre New Turn!

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Polls: Growing Numbers Disagree With Trump on Ukraine

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Vanity Fair · by Arimeta Diop · March 6, 2025

DOGE threat: How government data would give an AI company extraordinary power

Value of government data for AI

The technical advantage

Control of critical systems

Infrastructure and urban systems

Absolute data corrupts absolutely

State Dept. Plans to Close Diplomatic Missions and Fire Employees Overseas

Editors’ Picks

Pentagon Cuts Threaten Programs That Secure Loose Nukes and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Pandemics and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Burst Bubble

‘A Fire Sale on Expertise’

Pentagon Culls Social Science Research, Prioritizes Fiscal Responsibility and Technologies