​Quotes of the Da:

"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free."

– Assata Shakur

"Self education is, I firmly believe, the only education there is.”

– Isaac Asimov

“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”

– Ezra Pound

1. SASC: Open/Closed: To receive testimony on the posture of United States Indo-Pacific Command and United States Forces Korea in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2026 and the Future Years Defense Program

2. Senate Confirms Dan Caine to Lead Joint Chiefs of Staff

3. China acknowledges its role in years of cyberattacks against US over support of Taiwan: report

4. INDOPACOM CO Paparo Outlines Risk of Western Pacific Conflict

5.  Actions create consequences: Public support and tariffs – that nationalism thing by Cynthia Watson

6. A Strategy to Protect Taiwan From China

7. China and America Aren’t Just in a Trade War. It’s a Fight for the 21st Century. By Matt Pottinger and Liza Tobin

8. How drones, data, and AI transformed our military—and why the US must follow suit

9. Japan's Ishiba and NATO chief vow to deepen security ties as regional threats rise

10. Hundreds of Students at Military Base Schools Walk Out to Protest Trump Administration’s Anti-Diversity Policies

11. Seeking reset, Hegseth affirms Panama’s sovereignty over canal

12. Beyond Strategy: Executing Economic Security Policy

13. It’s time for a reckoning at Defense Health Agency over Tricare

14. Inside Trump’s Plan to ‘Get’ Greenland: Persuasion, Not Invasion

15. Space Force Colonel fired after astonishing email about JD Vance

16. The Case for a “Trump to Tehran” Strategy

17. Ukraine Accuses Russia of Systematically Recruiting Soldiers From China

18. Government Spending Continues to Climb Even as DOGE Touts Cuts

19. No Such Thing as Disorder: A Review of States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance

20. Brush Fire to Inferno: The Angolan Civil War and Inadvertent Escalation

21. The U.S. and China Are Going to Economic War—and Everyone Will Suffer

22. From Duct Tape to Penicillin, GPS to Superglue: Thank the DOD

23. SOCOM leader warns of information operations 'void'

24. Trump Team Races to Cut Piecemeal Tariff Deals With More Than 70 Countries

25. Does Trump Have a China Trade Strategy?

1. SASC: Open/Closed: To receive testimony on the posture of United States Indo-Pacific Command and United States Forces Korea in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2026 and the Future Years Defense Program

​The 2 hour + hearing is at this link: https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/to-receive-testimony-on-the-posture-of-united-states-indo-pacific-command-and-united-states-forces-korea-in-review-of-the-defense-authorization-request-for-fiscal-year-2026-and-the-future-years-defense-program

​I recommend anyone with an interest in INDOPACOM security to take the time to watch it. It was very informative and worth the time.

ADM Paparo's statement can be downloaded there: https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/testimony_of_adm_paparo.pdf

​GEN Brunson's statement can be downloaded here: https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/testimony_of_gen_brunson.pdf

​There is alot to parse from their testimony. I will make 6 points:

1. The most significant overall comment I have is how complementary the two commanders were in their reamkars. By that I mean Admiral Paparo spoke very expertly about the Korean situation. General Brunson emphasized more than once the contributions US forces and the alliance can make outside of theKTO and off the peninsula. He really showed that he is nested with Admiral Paparo's planning.

2. Both Commanders stated their opposition to any reduction of US forces in Korea. General Brunson was asked point blank if Congress should continue to include the 28,500 floor in the NDAA and he answered yes. I wonder how this will go over with the political appointees in the administration to include the SECDEF and the new USD(P). Admiral Paparo stated that withdrawal of US forces from Korea will surely lead to conflict.

3. Kim Jong Un's intent. I think General Brunson was caught off guard by one senator's question or he misheard the question. This was in regard to Kim's new strategic view of the South as the main enemy and that he no longer seeks (peaceful) unification. The question was if that is the case does that mean that Kim no longer seeks to attack the South. General Brunson discussed the conventional intelligence perspective and those of some pundits who think Kim is isolating himself even more north of the DMZ and in fact does not seek war any more and that he has accepted that there are two separate Koreas and that he only has a military and nuclear weapons to deter an attack from the South. . This was a missed opportunity to explain that Kim has not at all given up his quest to dominate the entire peninsula under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State as the only path to long term regime survival. Admiral Papero stepped in and stated that Kim remains a threat to the South and is continuing to prepare to use force to achieve his objectives.

4. This is a statement from the written testimony: "Contrary to predictions of collapse due to food shortages, the DPRK is more stable than ever, bolstered by substantial resources generated through new revenue streams.​" While it is very true that Kim has new revenue streams from cyber enable economic warfare and Putin renting the nKPA forces and buying north Korean ammunition and weapons, echoing the "anti-collapists misinformed rhetoric that there are those who predict regime collapse because of food shortages is not just wrong it is dangerous. Internal instability and the conditions of regime collapse could certainly lead to war. But those who understand the causes of regime collapse know it will not be caused by food shortages. It will be because the Party/regime can no longer govern all the northern territory from Pyongyang,combined with the loss of coherency and support of the military. But the most dangerous statement is that the DPRK is more stable than ever. Either this was not reviewed by the intelligence community and if the intelligence community provided this assessment, then we are certainly in trouble. The indicators and warnings of threats to the regime and the potential for resistance and subsequent internal instability are blinking red and the danger is growing. The DPRK is not more stable than ever.

5. A comment was made about information and knowledge of the outside world in the north. It was said that only the elite have knowledge of the outside world and the Korean people in the north are isolated and do not receive any significant information. I think it would be useful for leaders in Korea and Hawaii to meet with escapees from the north and gain an understanding of how they are getting information from the outside and the impact it is having on the Korean people. This would have been the perfect opportunity to emphasise the importance of VOA and RFA but instead 1980s perspectives on isolation and information were provided.

6. Lastly, (and another of my biases). In both written statements there were no references to Special Operations, MISO or PSYOP or influence operations in general. However both were asked about Special Operations in Korea and throughout INDOPACOM by more than one senator.

Open/Closed: To receive testimony on the posture of United States Indo-Pacific Command and United States Forces Korea in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2026 and the Future Years Defense Program | United States Senate Committee on Armed Services

Witnesses

• Admiral Samuel J. Paparo Jr., USN
• Commander, United States Indo-Pacific Command
• Download Testimony
• General Xavier T. Brunson, USA
• Commander, United Nations Command/ Combined Forces Command/ United States Forces Korea
• Download Testimony

2. Senate Confirms Dan Caine to Lead Joint Chiefs of Staff

60-25 Senate vote

Senate Confirms Dan Caine to Lead Joint Chiefs of Staff

Vote comes after Trump’s shake-up of military leadership

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/senate-confirms-dan-caine-to-lead-joint-chiefs-of-staff-f6739100?st=cBioDy&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Gareth Vipers

Follow

Updated April 11, 2025 4:53 am ET

Lt. Gen. Dan Caine appeared at a Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

The Senate confirmed Lt. Gen. Dan Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff following President Trump’s surprise shake-up at the Pentagon.

Retired Air Force fighter pilot Caine replaces Gen. CQ Brown Jr., who Trump ousted in February alongside other senior military leaders.

The 60-25 Senate vote came in the early hours of Friday after Democrats had expressed concerns about the dramatic firing of a raft of Pentagon officials that also included Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy and to be on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. James Slife, the vice chief of staff for the Air Force.

The firings were an unprecedented move to replace top uniformed officers across several branches of the armed services as the administration accused the Pentagon of failing to focus on its core war-fighting mission.

Brown was the military’s highest-ranking Black officer and Franchetti a top female commander. Trump appointees have said diversity policies by the Biden administration had resulted in promoting unqualified officers.

“General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience,” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing his nomination in February.

Caine brings a deep military experience to the role of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the country’s highest-ranking military officer and foremost military adviser to the president, the secretary of defense and the National Security Council.

Having graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1990, Caine later flew F-16 jet fighters and has served in Kuwait and Iraq.

He worked as a counterterrorism specialist for the White House’s Homeland Security Council under President George W. Bush.

Democrats earlier this year balked at what many saw as Trump’s attempts to politicize the military, seeking to gain de facto control over the Department of Defense by installing sympathetic allies to top positions.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has previously blasted what he describes as a “woke” military and had repeatedly called for Brown’s dismissal. “The military cannot be organized like a Harvard faculty lounge, catering to ever more obscure constituencies,” Hegseth said in an appearance on Fox Nation last year.

Write to Gareth Vipers at gareth.vipers@wsj.com

3. China acknowledges its role in years of cyberattacks against US over support of Taiwan: report

China acknowledges its role in years of cyberattacks against US over support of Taiwan: report

By

Ronny Reyes

Published April 10, 2025, 5:19 p.m. ET

https://nypost.com/2025/04/10/us-news/china-acknowledges-its-role-in-years-of-cyberattacks-against-us-over-support-of-taiwan-report/

Chinese officials shocked their American counterparts during a secret meeting where they allegedly revealed Beijing was behind a series of cyberattacks against the US due to Washington’s support of Taiwan, according to a new report.

Officials from China and the former Biden administration met in secret last December in Geneva, Switzerland amid growing tensions over threats to Taiwan’s sovereignty — with Beijing dropping all pretenses and revealing that they played a role in hacking attacks on US ports, water utilities, airports, and other targets dating back years, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The extent of Beijing’s role was left ambiguous, but US officials interpreted it as a clear threat regarding America’s support of Taiwan as an independent nation, officials familiar with the meeting told the outlet.

The secret meeting was held with top officials from both nations and led by Nate Fick, the then-US ambassador-at-large for cyberspace and digital policy, along with Wang Lei, a top cyber official with China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, officials said.

While China had previously blamed all claims of cyberattacks and espionage on rogue hackers, such as the Volt Typhoon group, Wang made it clear that the hacks were a direct result of the situation in Taiwan, which Beijing insists will be annexed in the coming years.

Wang’s comments came after the US warned China that attacks against critical civilian infrastructure could be viewed as an act of war, one former US official said.

Beijing’s comment was especially shocking given that the US team wanted to give China a chance to dispel doubts that it was involved with the hacking attacks, the official added.

Both the Biden White House and President Trump’s transition team were informed about the secret meeting and the details discussed, the WSJ reported.

Neither the State Department nor the National Security Council offered comment on the meeting.

The State Department stressed that it will “take actions in response to Chinese malicious cyber activity,” slamming the attacks as “some of the gravest and most persistent threats to U.S. national security.”

What do you think? Post a comment.

Beijing has yet to comment on the reports of the meeting, but its officials have previously accused the US of “using cybersecurity to smear and slander China.” 

The secret Geneva meeting took place following revelations that hackers working with the Chinese Ministry of State Security spied on unencrypted calls and texts from top government officials, including those within the campaigns of Trump and Kamala Harris.

The hacking revelations come not only as Beijing ramps up military drills surrounding Taiwan, but also as Chinese-American relations hit an all-time low over Trump’s trade war.

4. INDOPACOM CO Paparo Outlines Risk of Western Pacific Conflict

​These are the first two commanders who really appear to take a holistic approach to the strategic and operational problems we face in the INDOPACIFIC rather than stovepipe them. They acknowledge the interrelationship and interconnectedness of our strategic challenges which I think is the only way to overcome the strategic dilemmas. And not only do these commanders take a joint and combined approach but a whole of government approach as well.

Excerpts:

Gen. Xavier Brunson, top commander in Korea, said Tokyo and Seoul would examine that option if the U.S. military commitment to the peninsula and Northeast Asia and Taiwan were scaled back.

Paparo added, “with the loss of the force on the Korean Peninsula, there’s a higher probability that he (North Korea) would invade.” Cutting the force significantly below the 28,000 authorized “would reduce our ability to prevail” there.

Seoul makes “significant contributions beyond the Korean peninsula” to Indo-Pacific security, he said.

Brunson in his opening statement, said if large cuts were made deterring North Korea aggression and holding back Russia and China in the region “becomes problematic.”

“They are a critical portion of helping the INDOPACOM command see, sense and understand in the North and to deter a great many adversaries,” Brunson said in answer to a question.

...

Paparo also noted that the Trump administration’s decision to scale back or eliminate USAID would benefit China.

“I continue to advocate for it,” he said. Otherwise, Beijing “would seize” the opportunity to win more influence by responding to natural disasters and humanitarian crises.

INDOPACOM CO Paparo Outlines Risk of Western Pacific Conflict - USNI News

news.usni.org · by John Grady · April 10, 2025

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, delivers a keynote speech during the Vietnam War Veterans Day ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, March 28, 2025. US Navy Photo

War in the Western Pacific would shatter global economies, run the risk of spreading nuclear conflict and leave half a million “deaths of despair” in its wake, the senior American commander in the Indo-Pacific told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday.

When asked why Americans should care about Taiwan’s future, Adm. Samuel Paparo said closing the waterway separating it from China, one of the world’s major trading channels, could be more devastating than the Great Depression in the 1930s globally. It would also expose the United States’ dependence on Taipei for semiconductor production, essential to modernizing and growing the domestic economy.

Chinese aggressive military actions toward the self-governing island have increased by 300 percent. As he has noted in the past, these are “not exercises but rehearsals” for a possible forcible takeover.

War in the region Paparo said, could produce “a 25 percent reduction in GDP [gross domestic product] in Asia, an effect of 10 to 12 per GDP reduction in the United States of America, unemployment spiking at 7 to 10 percent” above normal levels “and 500,000 excess deaths of despair.”

Even a successful American intervention “would halve that impact, so still a grave result” and “a lot of human misery.”

The tenuous nature of alliances and partnerships would also be at stake, he warned. “Some of the states” in the Indo-Pacific “would submit … to China’s long-range goal of setting the rules of the world.”

Others, who “would never submit” to Chinese threats, could embark on their own nuclear weapons programs, escalating the risks in any conflict. Paparo and Army Gen. Xavier Brunson, top commander in Korea, said Tokyo and Seoul would examine that option if the U.S. military commitment to the peninsula and Northeast Asia and Taiwan were scaled back.

Paparo added, “with the loss of the force on the Korean Peninsula, there’s a higher probability that he (North Korea) would invade.” Cutting the force significantly below the 28,000 authorized “would reduce our ability to prevail” there.

Seoul makes “significant contributions beyond the Korean peninsula” to Indo-Pacific security, he said.

Brunson in his opening statement, said if large cuts were made deterring North Korea aggression and holding back Russia and China in the region “becomes problematic.”

“They are a critical portion of helping the INDOPACOM command see, sense and understand in the North and to deter a great many adversaries,” Brunson said in answer to a question.

“[North Korean leader Kim Jong Un]’s intentions could shift with the wind and he’s built a military that is designed to impose tremendous costs directly on South Korea,” Paparo said. “It’s very important we maintain that deterrent posture.”

Looking at ways to bolster Indo-Pacific security, Paparo said the command could use more counter C5R [Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance] capability in cyber, space and counter-space and long-range fires and effects that endanger an adversary’s platforms and systems.

“Sustainment is what won the Second World War,” he said. “You can’t AI [artificial intelligence] your way out of material deficiency.” He pointed the committee’s attention to shipbuilding lags in delivery and construction, labor shortages, the need for the command to have a diversified tanker fleet and having “the lift capability we can order in harm’s way.”

Paparo said the command “is moving in that direction” of using unmanned systems “in bringing smaller payloads” to smaller, more dispersed forces.

On the larger question of the state of the Navy’s amphibious fleet, he added it is “under-resourced and not ready enough.” Those 32 ships carry Marines, their equipment and aircraft.

In its December finding, the GAO wrote, “the Navy must maintain a fleet of 31 operational ships to meet these needs. But half of the fleet is in poor condition and some ships have been unavailable for years at a time. To save money, the Navy proposed early retirement for some ships and cancelled critical maintenance on them. But the Navy is still relying on these ships—which haven’t been well-maintained—while it waits for new ones to be built.”

At this week’s Sea-Air-Space symposium, the Navy announced a pilot program aimed at improving amphibious ship readiness that will kick off this year.

As USNI News reported, under the program, the Navy will complete the proposed maintenance package 500 days before the start of the so-called “signature availability” and award the contract 360 days before the overhaul begins, Vice Adm. Brendan McLane, commander of Naval Surface Force, said.

The hope is that knowing what the work package is more than one year in advance and having more time to plan the availability will drive down the number of delay days on the amphibious ship maintenance.

The Navy’s target is to have 80 percent of its surface fleet, submarines and aircraft ready for deployment to an immediate crisis.

Paparo also noted that the Trump administration’s decision to scale back or eliminate USAID would benefit China.

“I continue to advocate for it,” he said. Otherwise, Beijing “would seize” the opportunity to win more influence by responding to natural disasters and humanitarian crises.

Related

news.usni.org · by John Grady · April 10, 2025

5.  Actions create consequences: Public support and tariffs – that nationalism thing by Cynthia Watson

E​xcerpts:

Democracies allow for wide-ranging views, supporting or detracting from any policy options. Freedom of expression, arguably the single most beloved of our rights, supports the array of views on tariffs or any government actions. Chinese officials don’t confront such a range of views with a state-controlled internet, but also because the sense of anti-Chinese behavior seems so obvious. Other tariffs were paused, but not those against China. Why?

Many Americans assume that more significant pressure will guarantee that China acquiesces to President Trump’s demands on trade. I am not convinced that will occur because China’s government, despite the horrors of an authoritarian regime bent on perpetuating itself, has more popular support than we expect it to. At least, that is what we seem to confront at this juncture.

Wars are enduring activities, including trade, which can last for years. Americans have an ever-shorter tolerance for sustained activity, whether in conflict in the Middle East or paying higher prices because of tariff pain. Yet we approach things as zero-sum, which leaves less room for maneuvering to achieve the objectives. The current skirmish on bilateral tariffs with China (which Beijing just noted this morning would raise its tariffs from 84% to 125%) is only a first action; either side can back down if they choose. However, this week may signal a different assessment of national goals and strengths than we realize.

We may be misstating the objective. Are we seeking to bring jobs home or to humiliate another regime whose policies we detest? Can we win in that manner?

Time will tell.

Actions create consequences

3

3

Upgrade to founding

Public support and tariffs

that nationalism thing

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/public-support-and-tariffs?utm

Cynthia Watson

Apr 11, 2025

Projecting our beliefs onto another society is one of the easiest things in the world. It’s perhaps human nature to assume that others respond to events in complete, if not perfect, alignment with our assessment. Unfortunately, no two humans are precisely alike, and neither are any two societies.

This is particularly true when one considers the United States and China. These two countries constitute vast segments of the world’s commerce, population, energy consumption, and other variables. But our visions of the world—the orientation of society—do not entirely coincide any more than my brother’s and my tastes: he drinks more diet soda in an hour than I have in the past decade, yet we share the love of spicy food.

We assume that China’s people will agree that unfair trade practices and its state-centric economy are unjust. We premise that China’s citizens aspire to a society like ours, with the hurly-burly freedoms of individualism. I am not convinced we can win over the Chinese people, as their government will continue fighting us tooth and nail to preserve that system. Few countries relish any evidence of vulnerability to outside forces since that would violate the most basic premise of governance: sovereignty.

But our two societies are not mirror images. With its heavy Confucian overlay, China prefers stability to our embrace of individualism and freedom and the attendant unpredictability. China generally doesn’t welcome the luan thatindividualism may create.

Americans are divided on the tariffs, of course. Even free marketeers in The Wall Street Journal warn of the dangers tariffs pose to economic growth while inflationing consumer costs and undermining the free trade norms following World War II. Yet a different segment of businessmen and women applaud the president’s actions as necessary to “level the global playing field” to give them a fairer shake at trade. We are split on this like so much else these days.

Oddly, Trump’s intervention appears to be a definite step back from the cherished Reagan commitment to “laissez-faire”, or hands-off, economics. This system theoretically operates on the strength of industries, products, and ideas competing to allow consumers to buy into products and ideas based on their appeal rather than the government’s intervention.

The tariff approach indicates a more selective application of free market principles: I will hit opponents with these taxes to bring jobs home rather than allowing Adam Smith’s “hidden hand of the marketplace” to provide those incentives. The consequences—bad or good—of these actions will unfold over time, though past experiences are hardly uniform.

Indeed, the past thirty years offer multiple reminders that free trade has benefitted many industries, where innovation incentivized growth. Meanwhile, others, such as manufacturing, have sunk under the competition from eager foreign competitors with fewer worker protections and lower labor costs. Will bringing those manufacturing jobs home provide adequate jobs to satisfy Americans in the future?

China’s system has retained a central role for the state (and Party) throughout the reform period since the late 1970s. Both foreign investment and engagement were means to improve the appalling backwardness of China’s economy after Mao’s death in 1976. Still, the Four Modernizations brought a woefully retarded system into more modern conditions. Deng Xiaoping’s often-quoted phrase that it didn’t matter whether the cat was black or white but that it caught mice acknowledged the Party might forego ideology to achieve its determination to improve the economy through whatever means possible. Those means included loosening central government planning in favor of foreign investment and technology that shamed Maoist activities over the prior quarter century. The Four Modernizations period also saw the expansion of an invasive Chinese system operating in a predatory manner against the freer Western businesses thriving on openness. It was a trade-off between radically different visions of the world, creating significant threats and benefits for our companies.

Yet the people of China don’t seem to equate that more affluent society with welcoming the unpredictability or pernicious behavior of our capitalist system, despite our reminders of its predatory behavior. Bloomberg and The Guardian noted this morning that Chinese citizens support the Party’s position on “fighting to the end” rather than demanding acquiescence to U.S. demands on tariff reversals. The complete range of specifics for Zhongnanhai’s actions is unclear, but the proof of such activity is evident. The array of actions does seem broader than Americans might deploy, such as different investigative or regulatory actions by the state or direct blocklisting of U.S. firms. China’s government will also infuse funding to stabilize the economy rather than allowing things to deteriorate.

Bloomberg cites individuals in Shanghai who excoriate our behavior as extreme or crazy. It’s easy to assume that Chinese state-controlled media drives such assessment, but the interplay between ideas and actions is more complicated. Many Chinese with international business experience recognize the same tariff implications American or European economists have.

Nationalism, a theme the Party has cultivated for seventy-five years in power, cannot be ignored as a motivating factor in people’s support for policy. China’s citizens do not appear inclined to blame their wicked regime for bad behavior, instead seeing U.S. pressure as bullying by another great power. Having nurtured the historical grievance that the Century of Humiliation intends to hold back China’s natural position as a great nation, the Chinese people appear inclined to give Party officials the benefit of the doubt on the efficacy and fairness of their actions for the Chinese nation.

Democracies allow for wide-ranging views, supporting or detracting from any policy options. Freedom of expression, arguably the single most beloved of our rights, supports the array of views on tariffs or any government actions. Chinese officials don’t confront such a range of views with a state-controlled internet, but also because the sense of anti-Chinese behavior seems so obvious. Other tariffs were paused, but not those against China. Why?

Many Americans assume that more significant pressure will guarantee that China acquiesces to President Trump’s demands on trade. I am not convinced that will occur because China’s government, despite the horrors of an authoritarian regime bent on perpetuating itself, has more popular support than we expect it to. At least, that is what we seem to confront at this juncture.

Wars are enduring activities, including trade, which can last for years. Americans have an ever-shorter tolerance for sustained activity, whether in conflict in the Middle East or paying higher prices because of tariff pain. Yet we approach things as zero-sum, which leaves less room for maneuvering to achieve the objectives. The current skirmish on bilateral tariffs with China (which Beijing just noted this morning would raise its tariffs from 84% to 125%) is only a first action; either side can back down if they choose. However, this week may signal a different assessment of national goals and strengths than we realize.

We may be misstating the objective. Are we seeking to bring jobs home or to humiliate another regime whose policies we detest? Can we win in that manner?

Time will tell.

Thank you for reading Actions today. It’s been quite a week with a range of questions arising about our contemporary world. I welcome your thoughts, questions, rebuttals on all of these topics as many of you have experience in these areas.

I appreciate your time. Thank you especially to the subscribers who enable me to read broadly to write this column.

Have a good weekend. Get outside if your weather allows. It rejuvenates us.

Be well and be safe. FIN

“China hits back at Trump with 125pc tariffs on US”, Telegraph.com, 11 April 2025, retrieved at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/11/trump-tariffs-latest-ftse-100-markets-share-price-china/

Jason Douglas, Konrad Putzier, Ruth Simon, and Rafaele Huang, “The U.S. and China Are Going to Economic War—and Everyone will Suffer”, WallStreetJournal.org, 10 April 2025, retrieved at https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/us-china-tariffs-trade-war-6f143252?mod=Searchresults_pos5&page=1

Amy Hawkins, “Life in Shanghai, China’s Commercial capital, goes on but anti-U.S. sentiment is hardening”, TheGuardian.com, 11 April 2025, retrieved at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr, /11/china-shanghai-commercial-capital-tariffs-us-sentiment-trump

David Luhnow and Kim Mackrael, “Trump says tariffs are reciprocal. They Aren’t”, WallStreetJournal.org, 7 April 2025, retrieved at https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/trump-says-tariffs-are-reciprocal-they-arent-fa80d94e?mod=Searchresults_pos12&page=1

Allan Wang, “Next China: Standing with Xi”, Bloomberg.com, 11 April 2025, retrieved at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-04-11/china-s-public-stands-tall-with-xi-as-trump-trade-war-unfolds?cmpid=BBD041125_CN&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=250411&utm_campaign=china

6. A Strategy to Protect Taiwan From China

​Conclusion:

U.S. policymakers need to identify and exploit whatever Chinese leaders care about more in the short term than incremental gains in the Taiwan Strait. Weapons sales would help Taipei, but dialing down the temperature would help even more. Washington has options so long as policymakers steel their resolve to go toe-to-toe with Mr. Xi. If he’s strategic in his approach, Mr. Trump can succeed where Presidents Obama and Biden failed.

A Strategy to Protect Taiwan From China

Military action isn’t the only tool the U.S. can use to deter Beijing from attacking the island.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-strategy-to-protect-taiwan-from-china-leverage-foreign-policy-0340bbd6?st=5rqxu6&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink

By Michael Sobolik

April 9, 2025 3:12 pm ET

The Taiwan Navy patrols along Keelung harbor in Keelung City, Taiwan, April 2. Photo: ritchie b tongo/Shutterstock

China staged the latest in a series of large-scale military and coast guard exercises around Taiwan last week. A Chinese aircraft carrier penetrated Taiwan’s military response zone and sailed closer to the island’s coastline than in previous drills. Beijing’s coast guard also patrolled around Taiwan, ostensibly with a mission to inspect, intercept and detain “unwarranted vessels.” The People’s Liberation Army said that its air, naval, ground and missile forces were training for “seizing comprehensive control, strikes on sea and land targets and blockade operations.”

These drills aren’t mere shows of strength. They’re practice sessions. Taiwanese Admiral Tang Hua told the Economist last fall that China’s military forces “are ready to blockade Taiwan at any time they want.” Mr. Tang said Beijing is “using an ‘anaconda strategy’ to squeeze the island.” The Chinese military’s recent actions bear this out. From January to August 2024, the number of Chinese air incursions crossing the median line—the border in the middle of the Taiwan straight—jumped more than fivefold. The number of Chinese naval vessels operating around Taiwan doubled in same time frame. The size mismatch favors the Chinese: Taiwan needs to deploy anywhere from a fourth to half of its combat vessels to match China’s patrols.

China is angling to bait Taiwan into making a mistake that would give it a pretext to blockade the island. Meantime, the Chinese military is perfecting its ability to cut off the island’s maritime and air traffic, sever Taipei from global connectivity and force to a halt daily life for the Taiwanese people. Strategically, Xi Jinping’s goals are broader: demoralize, isolate and ultimately subsume Taiwan.

These ambitions aren’t new. From Mao Zedong to Hu Jintao, Mr. Xi’s communist predecessors have all viewed Taiwan’s de facto independence as a Cold War relic and an affront to China’s sovereignty. In Mr. Xi’s mind, the Chinese nation can’t be rejuvenated until Taiwan is “reunified.” That doublespeak conceals a grim reality: The democratic freedoms that the Taiwanese people have enjoyed for three decades are threatened by the Chinese Communist Party’s appetite for conquest.

At any moment, the Chinese could escalate by turning a military exercise into a blockade mission. U.S. policymakers are aware of Taiwan’s tenuous situation, but they’ve been slow to respond. Over the past decade, the Chinese Communist Party has exposed America’s inability to compete effectively in the “gray zone”—a national-security term meaning the contested arena that falls somewhere between routine statecraft and open warfare. Straddling the line between peace and war, gray-zone tactics test an adversary’s red lines with carefully calibrated escalations designed to gain ground without provoking a response. Beijing mastered this gambit in the South China Sea by constructing and militarizing artificial islands to enforce its illegal territorial claims. By the time Washington sounded the alarm, it was too late.

Mr. Xi is making a calculated bet: If Washington doesn’t stop him from redrawing the map in the South China Sea, then it won’t deter him from subsuming Taiwan—as long as he escalates incrementally. The Trump administration needs to use gray-zone tactics to interdict Mr. Xi’s strategy in real time, deter further escalation and compel Beijing to cease its aggression. Thus far, real fears about military escalation have made Washington policymakers hesitant to take such moves. They’re right to urge caution. Symmetrical escalation would implicate the U.S. military and could spiral into a conflict neither the U.S. nor Taiwan wants.

But there’s another way to think about deterrence. Instead of climbing up the escalation ladder and risking a military confrontation, the Trump administration could impose costs in nonmilitary arenas. Consider student visas, which Communist Party elites cherish for their children and which Mr. Xi values for espionage purposes. Mr. Trump could present Mr. Xi with a choice: For every sea or naval incursion the Chinese military commits against Taiwan, Washington will reduce the number of eligible Chinese student visas by 100. Doing so would make Beijing pay for its aggression and yield information about Mr. Xi’s value calculus.

U.S. policymakers need to identify and exploit whatever Chinese leaders care about more in the short term than incremental gains in the Taiwan Strait. Weapons sales would help Taipei, but dialing down the temperature would help even more. Washington has options so long as policymakers steel their resolve to go toe-to-toe with Mr. Xi. If he’s strategic in his approach, Mr. Trump can succeed where Presidents Obama and Biden failed.

Mr. Sobolik is a Hudson Institute senior fellow.

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Free Expression: For all its bold talk, Europe could easily remain economically hidebound, politically divided and militarily weak even as tensions with the U.S. rise dramatically. Photo: Emil Nicolai Helms/Zuma Press/Yuri Gripas/Pool/Shutterstock

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Appeared in the April 10, 2025, print edition as 'A Strategy to Protect Taiwan From China'.

7. China and America Aren’t Just in a Trade War. It’s a Fight for the 21st Century. By Matt Pottinger and Liza Tobin

​I have been wondering about this. Is the president's intent to rally support of the international community versus China? Can we do that?

Excerpts:

Trump didn’t start this trade war. It began when China entered the WTO a quarter-century ago promising to open its markets but instead weaponizing state resources to dominate strategic industries and block fair competition. But Trump can finish it on favorable terms if he leverages the power of the world’s real market economies to isolate China rather than estranging the United States.

As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday morning, “We can probably reach a deal with our allies. . . . And then we can approach China as a group.”

The current 90-day pause on “reciprocal” tariffs suggests Trump may stumble into this strategic imperative, even if it wasn’t planned this way. If Trump can pull this off, he has an excellent chance of winning the contest of the century.

China and America Aren’t Just in a Trade War. It’s a Fight for the 21st Century.

Xi and Trump are now in a zero-sum contest for global supremacy.

By Matt Pottinger and Liza Tobin

https://www.thefp.com/p/china-america-fight-for-supremacy-xi-jinping-trump

04.09.25 — International

(Goh Chai Hin/AFP via Getty Images)

0:00

-7:42

As Donald Trump gave much of the world on Wednesday a 90-day reprieve from his global trade war, he singled out China for a knuckle sandwich. While he dropped “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of trading partners, he hiked tariffs on Chinese imports to a sky-high 125 percent, “effective immediately.”

“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump declared on Truth Social.

Welcome to the Great Divorce: a messy breakup between the world’s two largest economies—with the rest of the world up for grabs as part of the settlement. What began mainly as a trade beef for Trump is, for Xi Jinping—Chinese president and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party—nothing less than a contest for mastery of the 21st century.

Xi is right. This is about much more than trade. And like it or not, the competition is pretty much zero-sum. While Trump has seized the upper hand in the trade war, Xi is gaining ground in areas that may be even more consequential: artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, and the military might required to seize the most important piece of real estate in the world—Taiwan.

The moment when China would be singled out from the rest of the world as the primary target of Trump’s ire was a long time coming—but it was always coming.

For much of his first term, Trump believed he could negotiate down China’s trade surplus with the United States, which today accounts for roughly one-third of America’s nearly $1 trillion overall trade deficit. We witnessed this firsthand as officials working on China policy in Trump’s White House. Things changed in 2020. With the global economy and his electoral prospects badly hurt by the pandemic, Trump told a small group of advisers that even “a hundred” trade deals with China wouldn’t make up for the losses the United States suffered from the Covid shock—which Trump rightly blamed on Beijing’s malfeasance.

“I’m not sure we can do business” with China anymore, he said in the Oval Office. One of us (Pottinger) was sitting on the sofa. “It may be time to decouple,” Trump said.

That thought has clearly stuck with him ever since. Here’s what he said Tuesday night: “Look, I get along with President Xi. I have over the years. But, you know. You just—when Covid came, that was the end. That was it. That was called the bridge too far.”

Might Trump’s dealmaking instinct reassert itself and overtake his decoupling instinct? Might he offer a temporary reprieve to China, or partial tariff relief in exchange for Xi’s blessing to sell Americans a larger stake in TikTok? It wouldn’t surprise us. But a comprehensive “grand bargain” that sets aside the U.S.-China archrivalry has never been more distant.

Why? Because there simply exists no deal that could plausibly fix the fundamental problem: Beijing’s economic model is designed as a means to political—not just economic—dominance around the globe.

Xi, more than Trump, led the world to this crossroads.

Beijing was already waging a one-sided trade war against the United States long before Trump first took office. Xi, when he came to power in late 2012, doubled down on systematic intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, market-access barriers, and massive industrial subsidies, all designed to extract maximum advantage while giving minimal concessions. This asymmetric economic relationship helped decimate America’s manufacturing base, costing millions of jobs over two decades.

Beijing’s economic warfare stems from Xi’s broader ideological project: building what he calls a “community of common destiny for all mankind”—Xi’s blueprint for replacing America’s global preeminence with that of the Chinese Communist Party. It is a vision for normalizing authoritarian control, marginalizing democratic values, and maximizing Beijing’s leverage and prerogatives to call the shots on the international stage. Xi believes he is facing a once-in-a-century opportunity to remake the world order.

“[O]ur struggle and contest with Western countries is irreconcilable,” is how Xi put it, as quoted in a restricted official military textbook.

So while Trump has (again) become the protagonist in a trade war with China, Xi is focused on the broader battle for global power. For Xi, the means to victory isn’t merely dominating global trade but controlling critical technologies like AI that will transform society and underpin economic and military power.

It’s unclear whether Trump fully grasps the techno-economic stakes. Xi is controlling the tempo of the contests over technology and geopolitics (apart from trade). Beijing appears to be succeeding at weakening Washington’s restrictions on the export of high-end computer chips needed to power artificial intelligence; Chinese citizens have been identified fighting for Russia inside Ukraine; and Beijing is rehearsing for a blockade or invasion to capture Taiwan.

The Taiwan question is the most important of all: Trump can prevail in a trade war with Xi but still lose the century if Taiwan is forcibly annexed. That’s because the U.S. economy and its technological edge subsists on high-end semiconductors that are manufactured only in Taiwan. So long as Taiwan is a democracy, the United States, not China, has privileged access to those chips. A Chinese invasion would flip that dynamic.

The significance of economic decoupling cannot be overstated. By distancing the U.S. economy from China, Trump could be taking the first steps toward a broader China policy that strengthens U.S. resolve on key issues like tech and Taiwan.

Trump might improvise his way into success by isolating China rather than alienating most of the free world. Together, the U.S., the EU, Japan, the UK, and Australia represent around 56 percent of global consumption—a massive economic bloc compared to China’s 13 percent. India and other major economies are eager to cut deals with Trump. This collective purchasing power offers substantial geopolitical leverage, if it can be properly harnessed. The first step is trade deals resulting in much lower trade barriers with friendly countries relative to China.

Trump didn’t start this trade war. It began when China entered the WTO a quarter-century ago promising to open its markets but instead weaponizing state resources to dominate strategic industries and block fair competition. But Trump can finish it on favorable terms if he leverages the power of the world’s real market economies to isolate China rather than estranging the United States.

As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday morning, “We can probably reach a deal with our allies. . . . And then we can approach China as a group.”

The current 90-day pause on “reciprocal” tariffs suggests Trump may stumble into this strategic imperative, even if it wasn’t planned this way. If Trump can pull this off, he has an excellent chance of winning the contest of the century.

Matt Pottinger was deputy national security adviser from 2019–21. Liza Tobin was China director at the National Security Council from 2019–21. Matt is CEO and Liza is managing director at Garnaut Global, a strategic advisory firm focused on geopolitics.

8. How drones, data, and AI transformed our military—and why the US must follow suit

​Conclusion:

Lulled by decades of multi-domain dominance, Western militaries have slumbered too long. Meeting adversaries armed with mass-deployed, attrition-optimized autonomous weapons they may end up as the proverbial victims of the German WW2 Blitzkrieg. Fortunately, they have a gift of immeasurable value: Ukraine’s hard-won expertise, forged in a grueling fight for survival. If the West wishes to survive, it must swiftly and fully embrace these lessons, and use them well.

How drones, data, and AI transformed our military—and why the US must follow suit

A former Ukrainian commander-in-chief describes Ukraine’s DELTA battlefield-management system and other adaptations.

By Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi

Ukraine's Ambassador to the UK

April 10, 2025 09:00 AM ET

defenseone.com · by Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi

Ukraine’s tactical drones are “inflicting roughly two-thirds of Russian losses,” making them “twice as effective as every other weapon in the Ukrainian arsenal,” says a recent study by the Royal United Services Institute. This is a remarkable development for weapons considered relatively unimportant just three years ago—but it exemplifies how Ukraine is changing how the West will fight its wars.

At the risk of oversimplification, wars have always been about managing information, people, and equipment. Stone-age warriors, Napoleon, Patton, and Schwarzkopf all faced these tasks, though certainly on a vastly different scale. Napoleon introduced new ways to control unprecedented quantities of soldiers and materiel, enabling him to operate across distances and against adversaries far more effectively than anyone before him. Decades later, Helmuth von Moltke refined battlefield management by loosening the Napoleonic grip. “War is an art, not a science,” he wrote, acknowledging human judgment in command and control and introducing extensive planning, decentralization, and flexibility. The Prussian leader’s ideas have formed the basis for Western warfare strategy ever since—until the Russo-Ukraine conflict changed everything.

The technological realm has seen similar revolutions. Command and control were transformed by radio, computers, and satellites. Precision munitions gave field commanders the ability to direct “surgical” strikes at much lower costs than their less advanced opponents. During the Cold War, the U.S. military developed frameworks to harness these advances and counter numerically superior Soviet forces. Put to the test in Iraq, the Air-Land Battle concept enabled U.S. forces to dismantle Saddam's substantial military within weeks.

Yet the new frameworks brought their own problems. The high-tech U.S. military, reliant on massive volumes of data transmission, gave off electronic traces that adversaries could detect and target. Lower-tech enemies continued to find cheap ways to inflict grievous damage, like the improvised explosive devices of the post-9/11 conflicts.

And now these and other developments have turned modern warfare on its head. After decades of increasingly rapid offensive maneuver, the Russo-Ukraine war is characterized by World War I-style attrition. The enemy can now detect the slightest movements and attack without notice, resulting in a battlefront locked into defensive strongholds with “soldiers buried in trenches, where even personnel rotations and medical evacuations have become perilous.”

This is the result of three main developments. The first is small tactical drones, which are used to target military forces and equipment across air, land, and sea—and even fight other drones.

The second is electronic warfare, which now encompasses tracing, jamming, and even taking over drone signals. It enabled an enemy to target back and eliminate specialized, difficult-to-replace crews.

And the third is remote-controlled sensors of varying complexity. Generously deployed in contested but undefended “white spaces,” they create protective buffers preventing the enemy from sneaking through. As the RUSI report says, “Russian [and Ukrainian] commanders assess where they believe the best lines of approach are, and in particular, where the boundaries between defensive units lie.”

Under existential threat, Ukraine has developed several ways to fight this new kind of war.

Its military has discarded Cold War-style methods, tactics, equipment, and information and signals management. Drones are put to use in many roles; for example, low-cost sea drones expelled the Russian Black Sea fleet from its seemingly impenetrable Crimean harbor. Unarmed drones are working nonstop in logistical and medical evacuation roles.

Drones in Ukraine are rarely the expensive proprietary products of traditional military enterprises. Instead, they are overwhelmingly made from commercially available hardware components and open-source software, making attrition warfare effective and affordable at scale.

The drone revolution has created a hardened and unyielding environment. Any visual sighting or electronic broadcast often leads to an attack within seconds, preventing either side from achieving a decisive breakthrough, even when willing to sustain heavy losses. Mobility is being sacrificed for protection, and stalemate has ensued.

Deception, visual camouflage, and concealment of electronic emissions have become essential to counteract continuous jamming, interception, and targeting of airborne signal sources. Long-forgotten fixed-line communication methods, such as underground, underwater, overhead networks, and especially fiber optics, are in fashion again because they are more difficult to disrupt and offer superior bandwidth, reliability, and security. Drones are increasingly autonomous, able to operate without constant attention from an operator or even constant connection to GPS signals.

Yet effective drone management remains crucial, just like it is for any other component on the battlefield. Here, the Ukrainian battlefield-management system known as DELTA deserves recognition. Ukraine began developing DELTA, an ecosystem of military products, several years before the 2022 Russian invasion.

“We call it ‘Google for military’ because, after a single login, you have access to different modules in the system. Google helps to organize your workspace; DELTA helps to organize your ‘war’ space,” a Ukrainian Army colonel said during a recent NATO exercise.

More straightforward than the American Palantir battle-management system, DELTA has provided Ukrainian defenders with situational awareness and decision support in critical moments, offering an advantage against a larger yet information-deficient opponent.

Effective command-and-control systems must deal with information of varied types and sources: human reports, open-source intelligence, satellite imagery, drone video feeds, cellphone video clips, cyber data, and more. DELTA uses AI to swiftly sort through the data and give leaders a comprehensive picture of the battlefield and beyond.

This includes a repository of identified and proposed targets ready for deployment to the appropriate friendly strike or cyber platforms.

Subsequently, fast and resilient data-sharing capabilities and unmanned command and control centers evolved to the new battlefield conditions. Data, AI, drones, and their management have become the norm, forcing new tactics, equipment, and systems that can adapt quickly against an evolving enemy.

Lulled by decades of multi-domain dominance, Western militaries have slumbered too long. Meeting adversaries armed with mass-deployed, attrition-optimized autonomous weapons they may end up as the proverbial victims of the German WW2 Blitzkrieg. Fortunately, they have a gift of immeasurable value: Ukraine’s hard-won expertise, forged in a grueling fight for survival. If the West wishes to survive, it must swiftly and fully embrace these lessons, and use them well.

Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, is a former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

defenseone.com · by Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi

9. Japan's Ishiba and NATO chief vow to deepen security ties as regional threats rise

​The silk web of US friends, partners, and allies, and bilateral, multi-lateral, and mini-lateral direct and indirect relationships.

Japan's Ishiba and NATO chief vow to deepen security ties as regional threats rise

By MARI YAMAGUCHI

Updated 10:28 AM EDT, April 9, 2025

AP · April 9, 2025

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and NATO chief Mark Rutte vowed Wednesday to further deepen military ties while stressing the need to tackle together growing threats from China, North Korea and Russia.

Japan, which has stepped up defense ties with the United States, its key ally, and other friendly nations in the Indo-Pacific, has also sought closer ties with NATO, fearing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could embolden China’s assertiveness in the region.

“A stronger NATO will benefit Japan greatly,” Ishiba told a joint news conference after his talks with Rutte, who was in Japan for the first time since becoming secretary general of the organization in October.

In a joint statement released after their talks, Ishiba and Rutte said strengthening defense industrial cooperation is “a shared priority” and that they plan to focus on developing dual-use and advanced technologies while enhancing their standardization. They also agreed to step up cooperation in cyber defense and space, as well as joint military exercises. Drones and Artificial Intelligence were also discussed.

Ishiba and Rutte also stated they “strongly condemn” growing military ties between North Korea and Russia, including Russia’s use of North Korean missiles and troops against Ukraine, while expressing concern about China’s support for the Russian defense industrial base.

Russia continues to wage war against Ukraine while maintaining its ambitions to “reshape European security,” Rutte said.

Both also called for upholding a free and open Indo-Pacific and opposed unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force in the East and South China Seas, and encouraged Beijing to improve the transparency of its military and to cooperate in arms control, calling on peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

The NATO chief told reporters that China has been pursuing a major military buildup, seeking to control key technologies, critical infrastructure and supply chains, and continues to carry out “destabilizing activities” in the Indo-Pacific.

Rutte praised Japan’s contributions to support Ukraine in the war against Russia, and welcomed Tokyo’s willingness to participate in a NATO command for the support of Ukraine, expressed by Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani on Tuesday.

The NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine, or NSATU, is headquartered at a U.S. military base in Wiesbaden, Germany. Rutte said NSATU “helps Ukraine fight today but also for Ukraine to build up its armed forces for tomorrow.”

Details of Japan’s participation still need to be discussed, but the Japanese Self Defense Force, if stationed, is not expected to involve combative roles because of the country’s postwar pacifist principles.

AP · April 9, 2025

10. Hundreds of Students at Military Base Schools Walk Out to Protest Trump Administration’s Anti-Diversity Policies

​Will there be any administration blowback on this? I could see all kinds of actions from firing the head of the DODEA (Department of Defense Education Activity) and other leaders (e.g., school principles) as well as a search for teachers who encouraged their students to conduct these actions  to orders for early return of dependents from overseas posts for all students who participated in the protests. The rationale could be that these are completely taxpayer funded schools operated by DOD and they must be run with good order and discipline on US military installations. 

Then I can also see DOGE wiz kids asking why is DOD in the children's school business? Why don't private companies run these schools?

Hundreds of Students at Military Base Schools Walk Out to Protest Trump Administration’s Anti-Diversity Policies

military.com · by Rebecca Kheel,Thomas Novelly · April 10, 2025

Hundreds of military children who are students at Defense Department schools across the globe walked out of class Thursday to protest book bans, curriculum changes and restrictions on extracurricular activities that have resulted from the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity.

The walkouts, which included about a dozen schools on U.S. military bases in Europe, Asia and at least one stateside, represent the biggest collective action military children have taken since the start of the Trump administration to demand a voice in their own education after similar, smaller-scale walkouts in February and March.

And the protests happened despite a warning from defense officials and school principals that participating in widespread school walkouts could mean unexcused absences, detention and restrictions on sports participation.

"The message that we're trying to send is pretty much that we're here and we're going to fight for what we believe in, especially when it comes to our education and whatnot, because our education is the basis of our future," Payton, a 10th grader at Lakenheath High School in England who helped organize the walkouts, told Military.com in a phone interview.

"Our parents are actively fighting for our country for us to be able to have these rights," added Payton, who asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear of retaliation.

Payton said he was aware of at least 503 students at 10 schools in Europe, Asia and Virginia who participated in the walkouts. Students at four more schools were expected to participate as well, but he had not gotten a report from them as of Thursday afternoon.

Thursday's walkouts were scheduled for a large number of schools, according to an Instagram post from the DoDEA walkout account, ranging from classrooms in Guam and Japan, to Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Students held signs that read "Hands Off Our Library", "Academic Freedom = American Freedom" and "Unity In Diversity," according to photos shared on the Instagram page.

The students were protesting President Donald Trump's executive orders that have resulted in Department of Defense Education Activity schools removing books from their libraries and altering curricula related to minorities, women and LGBTQ+ people. For example, parts of the Advanced Placement psychology class that deal with sexuality and gender can no longer be taught, putting DoDEA students at a disadvantage for passing the course's year-end nationwide test.

A student at Vilseck High School in Germany holds up a sign during a walkout Thursday to protest the Trump administration's anti-diversity efforts. (Courtesy of DoDEA students)

Military.com published an in-depth report on stressors that parents, students and families overseas have been experiencing with the flurry of executive orders that have put their quality of life in limbo, ranging from child care access and job security to even after-school sports programs and extracurricular activities being cut.

Celebrations and activities related to identities, such as Black History Month, have also been cut, as have student clubs that focus on gender or cultural affiliation.

Students in Stuttgart, Germany, protested the bans in February -- the same day Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the base. More protests and walkouts at several bases also happened in March.

Those earlier protests happened without incident.

Ahead of Thursday's walkouts, notices sent to parents and students warned of consequences this time.

The letters sent to students and parents from DoDEA schools overseas, three of which were reviewed by Military.com, warned about potential punishments for those who miss class to participate in the walkouts. The correspondence of all three notices shared almost identical language.

"I am writing to inform you that we will enforce our school system's attendance policy," one letter read. "Students who choose to participate in walkouts during the school day will receive an unexcused absence for classes they do not attend."

In addition to the warning in the letter, Payton said that, at his school, student athletes who are scheduled to compete in a track meet Friday were told they would not be allowed to participate in the meet if they joined the walkout.

One overseas parent of a DoDEA student, who spoke to Military.com on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said that she was aware of some schools not participating in the walkouts seemingly due to fears of repercussions.

"I was disappointed that some of the schools are backing out and, if it's for fear of them being punished, I think that's disheartening," the parent said.

William Griffin, a DoDEA spokesperson, told Military.com that "DoDEA does not support or endorse student walkouts."

He did not have a number on how many schools were involved in the walkouts. He did reiterate that the school system's attendance policies have not changed, adding that "while student-led walkouts in the past have concluded without serious incidents, the cumulative disruption to the DoDEA school system negatively impacted classroom instruction and pulled resources away from normal school operations to ensure student safety."

Despite the pushback from school administrators and Pentagon officials, the walkouts got support from some parents.

"As a PTSA, we are very proud of our students for expressing themselves, using their right to protest, and doing it so respectfully," Kristen Smith, vice president of legislation at the European Parent Teacher Student Association and a military spouse in Germany, told Military.com in an email.

"As a parent, I'm very impressed," Smith added. "Most parents are saying 'there is no way this is student-led' because they are so organized, kind and respectful. But knowing some of these high schoolers, I believe they are very capable of doing something this incredible. I'm proud that this is what our future leaders look like."

And while consequences were threatened, Payton said it was unclear whether school administrators followed through or if it was an empty threat. Nobody told him he was being marked truant when he walked out, and he did not spot any administrators taking down names of those participating.

"That's something I'm going to be worried about tomorrow morning," he said.

military.com · by Rebecca Kheel,Thomas Novelly · April 10, 2025

11. Seeking reset, Hegseth affirms Panama’s sovereignty over canal

​Excerpts:

On the trip, Hegseth added a clause to Trump’s pledge to take the canal back, soothing concerns that the U.S. military was developing plans to seize the waterway, reported by multiple outlets in March.

“Together, we are going to take back the canal from China’s influence,” Hegseth said.

Mulino pulled Panama from the Belt and Road Initiative this February, the same month U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made an earlier visit to the country. Hegseth mentioned his respect for Mulino’s leadership multiple times on the trip, and the secretary’s team described the president as a long-term partner.

The Trump administration has said the U.S. will focus more intently on Latin America, including through the American military, which surged troops and warships for immigration missions since January.

In turn, Hegseth repeatedly called the Panama Canal “key terrain” and affirmed America’s commitment to maintain its access to it — repeated in the two countries’ joint statement.

Around 40% of U.S. container traffic passes through the Panama Canal each year alongside about 100 American Navy vessels, a number that would surely increase if a war began in the Pacific.

Seeking reset, Hegseth affirms Panama’s sovereignty over canal

Defense News · by Noah Robertson · April 10, 2025

PANAMA CITY — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sought to reassure Panama that the United States recognizes its sovereignty over the national canal, amid President Donald Trump’s repeated pledge that America would reclaim it.

“We certainly respect the sovereignty of the Panamanians,” Hegseth said before departing the country back to Washington.

Earlier Wednesday, Hegseth faced questions in a press conference about the two countries’ joint statement following their meetings Tuesday. Panama’s version included a line about its sovereignty over the canal; America’s didn’t, though it discussed working through Panama’s constitution, which affirms authority over the canal itself.

The impasse brought back concern that the U.S. was reneging on its agreement ceding the canal to Panamanian control, finalized in 1999 after a 20-year handover.

Trump has disparaged that deal and said multiple times that America would take the canal back — even saying in a March address to Congress that the U.S. was already “reclaiming” the waterway.

Panama’s President Raul Mulino publicly denied the claims and referred to them as an insult on the country’s dignity.

RELATED

Hegseth vows US will ‘take back’ Panama canal from Chinese influence

Panama's president has denied claims by U.S. President Donald Trump that America is literally retaking the canal.

Hegseth’s visit this week worked to calm any such tension. In carefully planned remarks, he referenced Panama’s value as a partner and its long history with the U.S., including on building the canal in the early 1900s. He also signed agreements to increase America’s military work with the country through further training and rotating in more U.S. forces and equipment.

“He acknowledged the sovereignty of Panama over the Panama Canal,” Frank Abrego, Panama’s minister of public security, said of Hegseth at the press conference.

Speaking to traveling press on the flight back to Washington, senior defense officials didn’t specify how many further American troops would enter the country, nor give a timeline for their arrival. They also didn’t elaborate on plans Hegseth previewed to renew Fort Sherman, the U.S. military’s now-abandoned jungle fighting school in the country.

Any further dispatch of U.S. troops to Panama would first require consensus with Panama’s government, said one of the defense officials, allowed to speak anonymously to describe the agreement.

In return, Panama’s government expressed interest in American help protecting the canal from cyberattacks and surveilling it.

The U.S. once had a large military presence inside Panama, though it was drawn down heavily during the canal handover. The number of American troops in the country now rises and falls from a few dozen to a couple hundred, depending on exercises and training programs.

In late 1989, America’s military launched a two-month operation to depose Panama’s then-President Manuel Noriega. The invasion has left scars for many in the country today, wary of U.S. coercion and, perhaps, another attack.

“There’s extraordinary sensitivities at hand,” the first defense official said, noting that any suggestion — by China or America — of infringing on Panama’s sovereignty over the canal is a “non-starter” in the country.

At the same time, the officials said, the Trump administration is increasingly concerned about the drift of Panama, and Latin America as a whole, toward what it calls “China’s malign influence.”

China’s government has vastly expanded its trade and investment relationship with the region, including through the Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure program American officials say includes predatory lending practices.

On the trip, Hegseth added a clause to Trump’s pledge to take the canal back, soothing concerns that the U.S. military was developing plans to seize the waterway, reported by multiple outlets in March.

“Together, we are going to take back the canal from China’s influence,” Hegseth said.

Mulino pulled Panama from the Belt and Road Initiative this February, the same month U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made an earlier visit to the country. Hegseth mentioned his respect for Mulino’s leadership multiple times on the trip, and the secretary’s team described the president as a long-term partner.

The Trump administration has said the U.S. will focus more intently on Latin America, including through the American military, which surged troops and warships for immigration missions since January.

In turn, Hegseth repeatedly called the Panama Canal “key terrain” and affirmed America’s commitment to maintain its access to it — repeated in the two countries’ joint statement.

Around 40% of U.S. container traffic passes through the Panama Canal each year alongside about 100 American Navy vessels, a number that would surely increase if a war began in the Pacific.

About Noah Robertson

Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.

12. Beyond Strategy: Executing Economic Security Policy

​Excerpts:

Bureaucracy may not be a term that fires most people up. But to develop and execute effective national security policy, organizational set-up, processes, norms, and routines are critical. Maybe the most critical.

Like all administrations in their first year, the Trump administration has a malleable moment. This is especially true for organizing its National Security Council and setting precedents of partner and industry engagement.

At the moment, given the cleaving of the federal bureaucracy and a coercive, broad-based tariff policy of fits and starts, the outlook for successful economic security policy appears challenged. This tumult widens the aperture for U.S. adversaries to exploit the global economic system and threatens the relative stability, predictability, and flourishing of American economic life. The recent stock market slump appears to have softened the Trump administration’s tariff policy, as the administration focuses more acutely on China. Provided the state of turmoil continues to regress to the mean, the Trump administration has a shining opportunity not just to resource and mitigate economic issues in the short term, but also to offer an organizational model for future administrations to follow long into the future.

Beyond Strategy: Executing Economic Security Policy - War on the Rocks

Chris Díaz and Aroop Mukharji

warontherocks.com · by Chris Díaz · April 11, 2025

Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng presented his credentials to President Joe Biden at the Oval Office on a humid summer afternoon in 2023. Less well-known is that following his presentation, Xie’s first official meeting was not at the State Department with his bureaucratic counterparts. Instead, it was down the block at the Department of Commerce with U.S. Deputy Secretary Don Graves, to discuss the broader strategic relationship between the two countries. Xie’s visit, which preceded Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s own trip to China several weeks later, represented just how expansive the national security portfolio of the Department of Commerce had become.

Meanwhile, over at the Pentagon, the Department of Defense was in the middle of launching a slew of economic initiatives. Many of these were focused on economic deterrence, including its first Defense Industrial Strategy and the Maritime Economic Deterrence Executive Council — with the goal of growing and protecting U.S. technology and innovation to deter foreign aggression.

Today, economics is still at the red-hot center of national security work, even with the change in U.S. administration. Much has already been written on economics and national security strategy, but — with some exceptions — comparably less attention has been given to the mechanics of economic security policymaking within government, and the execution of economic security policy. In our experiences, the government needs to drastically expand its analytical and enforcement capability, coordinate internally with more emphasis on economic issues, and lastly, engage more with the real driver of economics: private industry.

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Economic Security: Hard to Understand, Harder to Achieve

Economic issues have long impacted national security interests. Nevertheless, because of the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russo-Ukrainian war, and the fact that China, America’s third largest trading partner, is also its greatest strategic competitor, economics matters more today to U.S. national security than ever.

In part, this has to do with the race on advanced technology that the United States is determined to win. But economic security implies far more than developing and dominating the most cutting-edge technologies. It is the subset of national security focused on protecting an economic system from coercive threats, critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, and major disruptions. Many other issues, therefore, such as low-tech products, healthcare, foreign investment, supply chains, agriculture, banking, trade, financial flows, even cybersecurity are all part of economic security too.

As a result, across the U.S. government, agencies have been sprinting to figure out what economic security is and to determine their respective roles in achieving it. In 2023, for instance, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the coordinating body of the intelligence community, stood up a new unit called the Office of Economic Security and Emerging Technology. The purpose of this office, according to the intelligence community itself in 2024, was to “increase the IC’s understanding” of the impact of technology on national security issues. Though its leadership is currently vacant, the launch of that office reveals the high-level prioritization of economic security within the national security establishment, focused on emerging technology. But its nascency is also a stark admission that — even within the belly of the beast — the relationship between economic security and national security is still being sorted out.

Not only is economic security increasingly complex to track and understand, it is also increasingly complex to pursue. Though the U.S. government has a wide range of economic tools, the interdependence of the global economy presents constant tradeoffs for policymakers — and loopholes for adversaries. Solving one problem can easily create another of greater magnitude, such as collateral damage on other parts of the economy or from adversary retaliation. Economic security, in other words, is not the same as self-sufficiency. Supply chains are too numerous, complex, or both to go it alone. For that reason, nuanced, tailored approaches, especially with tools like export controls or tariffs, help minimize that risk. As then-Under Secretary of the Bureau of Industry and Security Alan Estevez recently noted, export control rules used to average 30 pages in length. Today, that number is closer to 250.

What is more, the U.S. government alone cannot achieve economic security. It can inform, guide, and shape the operating environment through incentives and costs, and it can directly undertake lab research. But gone are the days when the federal government dominated the research and development of foundational technologies. On driving innovation, the private sector rules. If the private sector cannot transparently understand, comply, and flourish within a policy environment, actions to pursue economic security will undermine it.

Addressing the Deficiencies: Resources

In our experiences, the challenges of executing economic security in government broadly fall into three categories: resources, outreach, and coordination. The first of these, insufficient government resources, is the most straightforward. At a high level, the government needs significantly more help understanding the larger threat picture on economic security issues. A good example of this is in investment screening, both inbound and outbound, where the shape of the challenge of adversary exploitation and abuse of American investment, technology, or know-how is understood — but not the scope and scale.

Some observers have rightly called attention to the need for greater resources. And in many cases, the market for expertise may naturally follow need. Consider Ph.D. dissertations as one indicator. The average number of dissertations mentioning “terrorism” tripled in the decade after Sept. 11, 2001. Over the last 25 years, the trend has been more extreme for dissertations mentioning “China” — a staggering growth factor of 10.

But the same trend has not been true of “economics and national security,” or of “economic security,” where the average number of Ph.D. dissertations mentioning these phrases has actually fallen slightly in the last decade, compared to the prior decade. Given how long dissertations take to write (we know from personal experience), some lag is not surprising. But without funding or hiring in these areas, universities are less likely to produce this expertise.

This is one way in which the Trump administration’s federal hiring freezes, cancellation of federal grants, and attacks on higher education are so insidious for national security. Doctoral students respond to the market. If they do not see jobs in their future, they are less likely to pursue a topic of inquiry. This will have follow-on effects. Fewer graduates mean less research. And the fewer of those who decide to join government, the less likely the government will be to update internal training programs, modernize operating systems, and run sophisticated data collection and analysis, changes which are overseen and driven by experts. In addition to Ph.D. graduates, industry experts, practitioners, and think tankers could also help fill this unmet need, though these pipelines to government employment are also threatened. The Trump administration need only flip the demand signal and hire and fund more, not less.

Hiring new talent from the outside is one method of addressing the lack of expertise inside government. But it is not the only one. The government can also retrain people already serving within government in two ways. The first is economic, statistical, and industry expertise and training for traditional national security offices. As the recent launch of the Office of Economic Security and Emerging Technology suggests, this is even true within the intelligence community. The second way to retrain is the reverse: economic, technology, and scientific offices across the U.S. government are now newly implicated in national security issues but often lack security clearance — leading to bottlenecks— and training in national security threats. These shortages surfaced regularly at the Department of Commerce and the Department of the Navy during the Biden administration, among their scientists, technologists, and trade analysts.

Finding talent or undergoing additional training are not fast processes, but they are solvable issues. And the need is the same on the enforcement side as it is on the analytical and policy side. For instance, as Estevez has long lamented, the number of enforcement agents for export controls significantly lags behind expanded government rule-making on dual-use technologies.

The Importance of Industry Engagement

Having the right people and analytical systems in place is necessary, but insufficient for developing and executing policy. Engaging stakeholders matters too. In an interconnected world, economic tools generally matter the least when used unilaterally, because target states often have other options. The more countries brought on board, the tighter the squeeze. Coordinating policy and intelligence sharing with international partners and allies is thus a critical part of the economic security equation.

This need for international partnerships however, has received more attention than the need for industry engagement. But if anything, industry engagement is the more important element. That is because the private sector leads on innovation, and supply chains are nothing but voluntary actions of private companies. As much as industry needs clear guidance from policymakers on national security standards and how best to follow the rules, policymakers need awareness from industry on current practice to craft the right rules and incentives in the first place. If economic policy is developed in a vacuum, it will have less bite — or bite back.

This was one lesson the Biden administration learned on export controls. Over the course of Biden’s presidency, regular industry engagement at a staff level — by the people who were drafting the regulations themselves — enabled smarter and better export controls to remove loopholes and catch mistakes in rule-making. But that practice was less the norm at the start, as the national security portfolio was more walled off from industry and impact analysis at the beginning than it was at the end of the Biden administration. The more the government can work closely with the private sector — and be specific, transparent, and clear — the greater the impact the policies will likely have.

How should the government do this? Engaging with industry can be terribly tricky business. The private sector seeks profit while the government seeks security. Sometimes these interests are in tension. The law, furthermore, prohibits the government from advantaging a specific company with insider information, and prohibits federal employees from revealing national security information to unauthorized individuals. Following the law can therefore lead to vague and circular conversations, wherein private actors request clarity and detail, and the government stays mum.

Though it is not easy, productive conversations with industry are possible. Regular engagement is key for building ongoing awareness, as is engaging with former industry actors and consultants on a more targeted basis. High-level, high-profile leadership interactions are good, but really only a start. Besides one-off commercial roundtables with the president, the government should also invest in regular, structured interactions with companies, as well as with trade councils and industry associations. One model to follow is the President’s Export Council, a multi-sector body that was reconstituted in 2023 by the Department of Commerce to advise the president on trade-related issues. But far more important than high-level interaction is regularizing staff-level interaction, by updating protocols and routinizing industry engagement as policy is being developed.

Reforming Coordination: A Pivot to Economics

By far the most difficult challenge in policy is coordination. National security work in the U.S. government is a sprawling constellation of offices, personalities, and routines spread across the globe.

For the executive branch, the central coordinating body is the National Security Council, established in 1947. It has changed considerably since its earliest days, transforming from a small group of advisors to a hundreds-large policymaking body formally in the Executive Office of the President. It is organized into both regional-focused directorates — such as the Western hemisphere and Africa — and subject-area directorates — such as arms control and strategic planning.

In 2021, the Biden administration updated the council’s organizational chart, adding new subject-area directorates such as cybersecurity and technology and national security. Four years on, as the contours of economic security have clarified, those updates should be taken one step further. Specifically, because economic security encompasses more than critical and emerging technologies, China, and foreign policy, the council should widen and deepen its emphasis on subject-area directorates, reorienting even further toward economic issues. The “pivot to Asia,” as it were, should become a “pivot to economics.”

Though the president has another body, the National Economic Council, to provide advice on economic policy, this body should support but not lead on economic security. Security issues should stay within the National Security Council’s lane. Otherwise, it would decentralize national security coordination and create an organizational nightmare of reporting and turf battles.

There are a number of bureaucratic ways to execute a pivot to economics. The lowest-hanging fruit is National Security Council staff reform. Renaming or creating subject-area directorates that fall between the seams, for instance, on domestic economics or low-tech trade, is one option. Another is to follow the “pivot to Asia” playbook and create a coordinator or deputy for economics role within the council. At a more ambitious level, the Department of Commerce could be added as a statutory member of the National Security Council, and the national security advisor could prioritize developing — as many have already called for — an economic security strategy.

Beyond the National Security Council, the U.S. government has other methods of internal coordination. Some have suggested creating an “Economic Joint Chiefs of Staff” — composed of the Commerce, State, and Treasury Departments — to mirror the military advice the president receives from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. To some degree, this already exists ad hoc within the National Security Council system when it calls for a Principals Small Group or Deputies Small Group when tackling economic issues. Outside the National Security Council, principals and deputies sometimes self-organize on an issue, which staff joked were not formal Deputies Small Groups, but instead a “small group of deputies.” Formalizing a grouping like an Economic Joint Chiefs of Staff would rightly add high-profile attention and tighter organization to a loosely existing practice.

The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act provides at least two other coordinating ideas that the new administration might consider. The first, the “Countering Economic Coercion Task Force,” was formally launched in December 2024 just before the new administration arrived. The second, a National Defense Economic Competition Research Council, never got off the ground given the end of the Biden administration but was intended to coordinate internal analysis of economic activities that undermine U.S. national security. More than any specifics, these two products of the National Defense Authorization Act signal bipartisan, congressional agreement that more focus and coordination on economic security issues are needed.

Malleable Moment

Bureaucracy may not be a term that fires most people up. But to develop and execute effective national security policy, organizational set-up, processes, norms, and routines are critical. Maybe the most critical.

Like all administrations in their first year, the Trump administration has a malleable moment. This is especially true for organizing its National Security Council and setting precedents of partner and industry engagement.

At the moment, given the cleaving of the federal bureaucracy and a coercive, broad-based tariff policy of fits and starts, the outlook for successful economic security policy appears challenged. This tumult widens the aperture for U.S. adversaries to exploit the global economic system and threatens the relative stability, predictability, and flourishing of American economic life. The recent stock market slump appears to have softened the Trump administration’s tariff policy, as the administration focuses more acutely on China. Provided the state of turmoil continues to regress to the mean, the Trump administration has a shining opportunity not just to resource and mitigate economic issues in the short term, but also to offer an organizational model for future administrations to follow long into the future.

Become a Member

Chris Díaz served as the chief of staff to the secretary of the Navy from 2022 to 2025.

Aroop Mukharji, Ph.D., served as senior advisor for economic and national security to the U.S. deputy secretary of commerce from 2022 to 2024.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are the authors’ alone and do not represent the official policy or position of any entity of the U.S. government.

Image: B.S. Halpern (T. Hengl; D. Groll) / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Chris Díaz · April 11, 2025

13. It’s time for a reckoning at Defense Health Agency over Tricare

​I will gladly keep paying for Tricare as well as Medicare if only my wife and I can continue to receive medical care at military facilities. Despite the promise of free medical for life when I joined the military 40+ years ago I am happy to pay the very modest fees to be able to continue to use military medical facilities. My wife has more confidence in military medical professionals than civilian ones. (irrational I know, but that's what she believes).

It’s time for a reckoning at Defense Health Agency over Tricare

militarytimes.com · by Kristi Cabiao · April 10, 2025

On Jan. 1, Tricare — the essential health care benefit serving millions of service members, retirees and their families — entered a new cycle of contracts for managing the military’s health care system. This transition, intended to improve efficiency and service, has instead exposed Tricare to systemic failure, mismanagement and what increasingly appears to be gross negligence.

Since the launch, families across the country have experienced a catastrophic disruption in care. Enrollment errors have left beneficiaries uninsured. Surgical procedures have been canceled when hospitals couldn’t verify prior authorization. Chronically ill patients have struggled to find providers to maintain life-sustaining treatment. For many military children with disabilities, years of hard-fought progress are at risk of being erased because therapy appointments were abruptly stopped.

The source of these failures lies not only with the regional contractors — Humana Military (East) and TriWest Healthcare Alliance (West) — but with the Defense Health Agency (DHA), which bears full responsibility for contract oversight and system accountability.

It is clear DHA either ignored the lessons of the past or failed to learn from them. In 2019, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned that the previous Tricare transition in 2017 was marred by weaknesses in transition guidance and oversight. GAO’s recommendations were either poorly implemented or ignored — and now military families are paying the price.

Despite having years to prepare for the 2025 transition, similar pitfalls have emerged — only this time, the consequences appear to be broader and deeper.

Many providers across the country have gone unpaid for months, despite submitting claims through systems that should have been validated prior to the start of health care delivery. Claims are being denied or delayed with little to no explanation. Providers — many of them military spouses or veterans — have been forced to dip into personal savings or shut down operations completely. Some have left the Tricare network for good, citing the unreliability and financial harm caused by this transition.

In a recent survey conducted by Mission Alpha Advocacy, families report spending hours on hold with Tricare contractors — only to be disconnected or told to “call back later.” In one case, a retiree reported their surgery had been postponed because Tricare incorrectly claimed they had other health insurance. Another family shared their child’s applied behavior analysis services have stopped due to lack of provider payment since Jan. 1 leaving this parent to worry about loss of progress.” In addition, a beneficiary could not schedule a surgery follow-up because the referral was not processed and the provider refused to accept the DHA referral waiver because of unpaid claims. These stories are not isolated reports; they are the new norm.

The inefficiencies have now compounded into what can be described as a drain on federal and beneficiary resources. Every unpaid claim, every misdirected call and every lost provider equates to a waste of taxpayer dollars. Families report paying more than expected for services that should be covered and are concerned about their financial stability if not reimbursed.

And what has been lost in the chaos is trust. Trust between families and their health care system. Trust between providers and the military medical infrastructure they have long supported. And perhaps most critically, trust between the force and the leaders responsible for ensuring military readiness.

Readiness is not just about aircraft and ammunition. It is about getting troops back to the fight after experiencing an injury — but that can’t happen without access to health care. It is also about families being able to function at home so the service member can focus on the mission. When a child loses critical therapy, when a spouse can’t get prenatal care or when a service member can’t seek timely care to make them deployable — that readiness is compromised.

Resilience — the ability of military families to withstand constant relocations, deployments and separation — relies on predictable support systems. When families move to a new duty station and discover their Tricare benefits are inaccessible, resilience becomes even more difficult.

And retention? It evaporates when military families feel neglected. No incentive pay or patriotic appeal can convince a family to stay if the health care system that serves them is broken beyond repair.

This isn’t just a failed transition. It is a dereliction of duty by those tasked with managing one of the most critical benefits of military life. The military health care system has always been a promise — a pledge to take care of those who serve and their loved ones. That promise has been broken and people’s lives have been negatively impacted.

Unless there is a reckoning in how the Department of Defense and DHA manage and oversee Tricare, this crisis will continue to unravel our health care benefits. And with it, the confidence of the very people who keep our nation safe.

Dr. Kristi Cabiao is the CEO and president of Mission Alpha Advocacy, an organization that collaborates with legislators, military leaders and other organizations to create legislation to improve the quality of life for families within the Exceptional Family Member Program. She is a retired Air Force spouse, mother of a child with autism and disability advocate.

14. Inside Trump’s Plan to ‘Get’ Greenland: Persuasion, Not Invasion

​The more I look at the map and consider the geostrategic context the more I see the importance of Greenland. Should we absorb or annex it? I am not sure, but I am sure we need to ensure we have sustained access to it for national security reasons. And it seems like both Greenland and Denmark want us to have access to it. I have seen no indications that anyone wants to cede influence over it to any hostile actor.

Inside Trump’s Plan to ‘Get’ Greenland: Persuasion, Not Invasion

The island’s population might not be easily convinced as the president tries to clinch what he may see as one of history’s greatest real estate deals.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/us/politics/trump-greenland-denmark.html

Greenland’s economic and strategic value has grown as warming temperatures melt Arctic ice.Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press

By Michael Crowley and Maggie Haberman

Reporting from Washington

• April 10, 2025

President Trump’s longtime goal of claiming Greenland for America has shifted from rhetoric to official U.S. policy as the White House moves forward on a formal plan to acquire the Arctic island from Denmark.

The plan mobilizes several cabinet departments behind Mr. Trump’s years of talk about wanting Greenland, whose economic and strategic value has grown as warming temperatures melt Arctic ice.

Greenland’s size — 836,330 square miles — also offers Mr. Trump, a former Manhattan developer, the chance to clinch what he may see as one of history’s greatest real estate deals.

Danish officials angrily insist that the sparsely populated island is not for sale and cannot be annexed. But Mr. Trump has made clear his determination to control it.

“We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it,” he said in an address to Congress last month.

“One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Mr. Trump added.

Image

Denmark’s leaders and some residents are furious over President Trump’s talk of buying or seizing the island.Credit...Christian Klindt Soelbeck/Ritzau Scanpix Denmark, via Reuters

The White House’s National Security Council has met several times to put Mr. Trump’s words into action, and recently sent specific instructions to multiple arms of the government, according to a U.S. official.

The plan’s full details are unclear. But despite Mr. Trump’s allusions to the possible use of force, the deliberations led by the security council never seriously considered military options, the official said.

The policy instead emphasizes persuasion over coercion, and features a public relations effort aimed at convincing Greenland’s population of 57,000 that they should ask to join the United States.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have discussed using advertising and social media campaigns to sway public opinion on the island, according to another person briefed on the matter.

It may be an uphill battle. In an election last month, an opposition political party that favors quick independence and closer ties with the United States finished in second place but with just a quarter of the vote.

The U.S. messaging campaign will include an unlikely appeal to Greenlanders’ shared heritage with the native Inuit people of Alaska, nearly 2,500 miles away, the official said.

Greenland’s Inuit population is descended from people who migrated from Alaska hundreds of years ago, and the island’s official language is derived from Inuit dialects that originated in Arctic Canada.

Image

Michael Waltz, the U.S. national security adviser, and his wife, Julia Nesheiwat, in Greenland last month. The National Security Council has sent specific instructions to multiple arms of the government about acquiring the island.Credit...Pool photo by Jim Watson

Mr. Trump’s advisers have already begun making their public case, arguing that Denmark has been a poor custodian of the island, that only the United States can protect it from encroachment by Russia and China, and that America will help Greenlanders “get rich,” as Mr. Trump has put it.

The Trump administration is also reminding Greenland that the United States has defended it before.

Last month, Mr. Trump posted a slick 90-second video on social media celebrating the “blood and bravery” of U.S. troops who took positions on the island during World War II to prevent a feared Nazi invasion after Germany occupied Denmark.

Although Denmark hoped that American forces would leave after the war, they never did, and the United States still maintains a military base there.

The Trump administration is also studying financial incentives for Greenlanders, including the possibility of replacing the $600 million in subsidies that Denmark gives the island with an annual payment of about $10,000 per Greenlander.

Some Trump officials believe those costs could be offset by new revenue from the extraction of Greenland’s natural resources, which include rare earth minerals, copper, gold, uranium and oil.

Trump officials argue that American capital and industrial might can gain access to the island’s largely untapped mineral wealth in a way that Denmark cannot. “This is about critical minerals,” Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told Fox News in January. “This is about natural resources.”

Image

The Trump administration is eyeing rare earth minerals and other natural resources in Greenland.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

But analysts do not universally agree that it will be simple to profit from mining in the island’s still-frigid regions. And explaining a significant expenditure to American voters as Mr. Trump has tasked the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, with slashing the federal government by $1 trillion might be tough.

Mr. Trump’s interest in Greenland is not new: He was serious enough in his first term to charge national security officials with exploring the idea. But after he started discussing it publicly, Greenland officials balked and Mr. Trump did not pursue the idea, which was treated as a wild fantasy.

Since his second election last fall, Mr. Trump has renewed his desire with greater fervor. “Let’s get it done,” he has demanded of aides.

“President Trump believes Greenland is a strategically important location, and is confident Greenlanders would be better served protected by the United States from modern threats in the Arctic region,” said the National Security Council spokesman, Brian Hughes.

Mr. Hughes noted that Mr. Waltz and Vice President JD Vance had recently visited Greenland and “laid out the important case for a partnership between Greenland and the United States to establish long-term peace at home and shared prosperity abroad.”

Some analysts say the idea of incorporating Greenland into the United States, or at least developing much closer ties with the island, is less absurd than it might sound.

That is largely because of climate change, which is thawing resource-rich areas and making them more commercially viable. Warmer temperatures have also opened new sea routes through the Arctic for commercial shipping — as well as for Chinese and Russian military vessels.

But Mr. Trump’s vows to control Greenland “one way or another” sound to much of the world like raw imperialism, along with his talk of retaking the Panama Canal and even annexing Canada. If the administration’s persuasion efforts fail, it seems quite possible that Mr. Trump will escalate his tactics.

Several U.S. presidents have considered trying to acquire Greenland. The Truman administration, rattled by Nazi threats to the island during World War II, offered Denmark the equivalent of $1 billion for it in 1946.

Image

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark has condemned the Trump administration’s “pressure and threats.”Credit...Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Denmark has exercised varying forms of control over Greenland for centuries and accepted it as a part of its kingdom in 1953. Today, Greenland manages its own domestic affairs with a budget subsidized up to 60 percent by Denmark, which also manages its defense and foreign policy. Many of Greenland’s leaders support independence, but differ on how soon that should happen and whether to move closer to the United States.

For their part, Denmark’s leaders are shocked and furious over Mr. Trump’s talk of buying or seizing the island, and they insist that Greenlanders must freely determine their own fate. During a visit to Greenland last week, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark condemned the Trump administration’s “pressure and threats,” saying that “you cannot annex another country.”

Amid Denmark’s fierce resistance, the Trump administration is turning to direct courtship of Greenlanders.

Addressing the people of Greenland during his address to Congress, Mr. Trump said, “We strongly support your right to determine your own future and, if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.”

“We will keep you safe,” he said. “We will make you rich.”

Mr. Vance struck a similar note on March 28 during a visit to a U.S. military base on the island.

Speaking to reporters there, Mr. Vance predicted that Greenlanders would “choose, through self-determination, to become independent of Denmark, and then we’re going to have conversations with the people of Greenland from there.”

Image

Vice President JD Vance predicted during a visit to Greenland that the island would choose “to become independent of Denmark.”Credit...Pool photo by Jim Watson

Mr. Trump and his senior officials have not yet publicly drawn connections between Greenland’s Inuit population and American Inuit in Alaska, as envisioned in the plan approved by the National Security Council.

But that dynamic was noted in December by Robert O’Brien, who served as one of Mr. Trump’s first-term national security advisers.

Denmark, Mr. O’Brien said in an interview with Fox News, “can let us buy Greenland from it, and Greenland can become part of Alaska. I mean, the native people in Greenland are very closely related to the people of Alaska, and we’ll make it a part of Alaska.”

It is unclear how powerfully that message will resonate on the island. While Alaskans share in the profits of their state’s oil wealth in the form of annual checks to residents, its Inuit people endure disproportionate poverty and poor health.

Danish leaders argue that the U.S. pressure campaign is already damaging America’s post-World War II alliance with Denmark.

“We have looked up to you,” Ms. Frederiksen said of the United States during her visit to Greenland this month. “You have inspired us. You have stood guard over the free world.”

“But,” she added, “when you demand to take over a part of the kingdom’s territory — when we are subjected to pressure and threats — what are we to think of the country we have admired for so many years?”

Michael Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He has reported from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the secretary of state.

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent, reporting on the second, nonconsecutive term of Donald J. Trump.

A version of this article appears in print on April 11, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Aims to Persuade, Not Invade, Greenland . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

See more on: National Security Council, Mette Frederiksen, Donald Trump

15. Space Force Colonel fired after astonishing email about JD Vance

​Certainly she had to know the consequences of her email. Was this a deliberate action on her part to make a point?

Space Force Colonel fired after astonishing email about JD Vance

Space Force Commander is suddenly fired after sending email to staff about JD Vance's Greenland visit

By STEPHEN M. LEPORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 01:28 EDT, 11 April 2025 | Updated: 06:57 EDT, 11 April 2025

Daily Mail · by STEPHEN M. LEPORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM · April 11, 2025

A Space Force commander was fired after she sent out an email distancing herself from Vice President JD Vance's criticism of Denmark's oversight of Greenland.

Vance blasted Denmark as he pushed for Greenland to become independent on a visit to the territory in late March, as Donald Trump seeks to acquire it for the United States, including a visit to Pituffik Space Base.

'This has to happen, and the reason, I hate to say it, is because our friends in Denmark have not done their job in keeping this area safe,' he said.

Days later, Colonel Susannah Meyers, who runs Pituffik Space Base and was photographed with Vance and his wife Usha during the visit, sent out an email to staffers appearing to rebuke the vice president's comments.

'I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base,' Meyers wrote, according to Military.com.

On Thursday, the Space Force sent out a press release announcing that Meyers 'was removed from command' over 'loss of confidence in her ability to lead.'

'Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties,' a spokesperson added.

Colonel Shawn Lee has assumed command.

A Space Force commander was fired after she sent out an email distancing herself from Vice President JD Vance's (pictured left) criticism of Denmark's oversight of Greenland

Days later, Colonel Susannah Meyers, who runs Pituffik Space Base, sent out an email to staffers appearing to rebuke the vice president's comments

DailyMail.com has reached out to both the White House and a spokesperson for Vice President Vance for comment.

Meyers' email was written to both troops and civilians who work on the base, some of whom are from Canada, Denmark and Greenland and its veracity confirmed by the Space Force.

She told them she 'spent the weekend thinking about Friday's visit - the actions taken, the words spoken, and how it must have affected each of you' before slamming the vice president.

'I commit that, for as long as I am lucky enough to lead this base, all of our flags will fly proudly -- together,' Meyers added.

Meyers assumed control of Pituffik Space Base last July, succeeding Colonel Jason Terry.

The vice president traveled to Greenland in late March to send a message to Denmark and the world about the political changes the Trump administration wants to see in the territory.

'What we think is going to happen is that Greenlanders are going to choose through self-determination to become independent of Denmark, and then we will have conversations with the people of Denmark from there,' he said.

He said the United States was no longer willing to 'pick up the tab' for Europe to keep the region safe.

Meyers (pictured left) was photographed with Vance and his wife Usha during the visit

'If the people of Greenland are willing to partner with United States, and I think they ultimately will, we could make them much more secure. We could do a lot more protection, and I think they would fare a lot better economically as well,' he said.

Danish leaders have repeatedly condemned Trump and the United States for expressing interest in Greenland.

But Vance had sharp criticism for Denmark for their failures to secure the region.

'This has to happen, and the reason, I hate to say it, is because our friends in Denmark have not done their job in keeping this area safe,' he said.

'Denmark has not kept pace in devoting the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops, and in my view, to keep the people of Greenland safe,' he added.

Vance, however, walked back the idea that the United States was ready to use military force to seize the territory.

'Talking about anything too far in the future is way too premature. We do not think that military force is ever going to be necessary,' he said.

Trump thanked Vance and his 'wonderful wife' Usha for traveling to the region.

On Thursday, the Space Force sent out a press release announcing that Meyers (pictured left) 'was removed from command' over 'loss of confidence in her ability to lead'

'They will represent us well, but Greenland is very important for the peace of the world. The piece of the entire world, and I think Denmark understands it. I think the European union understands it, and if they don't, we are going to have to explain it to them,' he said.

During his visit, Vance was asked about the president's desire to acquire Greenland.

'Well, the president said we have to have Greenland, and I think that we do have to be more serious about the security of Greenland,' he said.

'We cannot just ignore this place, we can't just ignore the president's desires, but most importantly, we can't ignore what I said earlier, which is the Russian and Chinese encouragement in Greenland.'

'Our message is very simple,' he continued. 'Yes the people of Greenland are going to have self determination, we hope they choose to partner with the United States because we're the only nation on earth that will respect their sovereignty and security.'

The Vice President did not speak to the waiting cameras as he arrived on the island, instead entering an armored vehicle briefly after disembarking from Air Force Two.

Speaking to US troops at the base, he said it was a 'pretty cool thing' to be the first Vice President to ever visit Greenland.

He added: 'The mission is really important, the Trump administration is really interested in Arctic security.

'It's a big issue and it's only going to get bigger over the coming decades.

'As you've heard, we have some interest in Greenland from the Trump administration, so we're gonna talk a little bit about that with our friends in the media.'

Trump has insisted the United States needs the vast Arctic island for national and international security, and has refused to rule out the use of force to get it.

Danish and Greenlandic officials, backed by the European Union, have insisted the United States will not get Greenland.

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has denounced US plans to visit the Arctic island uninvited - for what was initially a broader visit to Greenlandic society - as 'unacceptable pressure' on Greenland and Denmark.

This morning she said the 'whole situation of coming to visit when there is no government in place is not showing respect for an ally.'

She added: 'It's a shame, but now we have a government that needs to put on its work clothes.'

A majority of Greenlanders oppose US annexation, according to a January poll.

The Pituffik base is an essential part of Washington's missile defense infrastructure, its location in the Arctic putting it on the shortest route for missiles fired from Russia at the United States.

Known as Thule Air Base until 2023, it served as a warning post for possible attacks from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

It is also a strategic location for air and submarine surveillance in the northern hemisphere, which Washington claims Denmark has neglected.

Daily Mail · by STEPHEN M. LEPORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM · April 11, 2025

16. The Case for a “Trump to Tehran” Strategy

​Excerpts:

For talks to work, Tehran and Washington must also recognize the other’s broader diplomatic requirements. Iran will not properly negotiate if Washington holds a gun to its head. Trump will not seriously talk unless he can engage in the kind of direct, personal diplomacy that he desires—namely, in a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian—and which all of his predecessors have been denied. In other words, the two sides need to come to terms with how the other approaches negotiations if they want to find common ground.

One way to increase the momentum of the Oman talks and shield them against efforts at sabotage is for Trump, who is likely to be their chief champion, to directly step into the diplomatic process. Trump's first term record makes it clear that he is no softie when it comes to Iran. If a nuclear deal is to be had, then, Trump may be uniquely positioned to get American hawks to support it, just as former U.S. President Richard Nixon was able to visit China and thaw relations between Beijing and Washington. Trump could advance the process by making a simple but significant quid pro quo that would open the door to direct high-level diplomacy: temporarily suspending maximum pressure sanctions in exchange for Iran suspending its uranium enrichment for the same period of time. That could pave the way for the presidential-level meeting Trump has sought for a long time. If they are serious about advancing talks, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or another mediator whom Trump respects should propose such an arrangement. They could then host both the high-level meeting and subsequent technical discussions.

Iran and the United States have a bitterly adversarial history. There is a chasm of mistrust between the two countries that diplomacy will struggle to bridge. But an agreement remains possible. Iran needs a deal. Trump wants one. And the alternative to successful negotiations would be catastrophic.

The Case for a “Trump to Tehran” Strategy

Foreign Affairs · by More by Comfort Ero · April 11, 2025

How to Turn Maximum Pressure Into Personal Diplomacy

Comfort Ero

April 11, 2025

Iranian missiles at a museum in Tehran, November 2024 Majid Asgaripour / West Asia News Agency / Reuters

COMFORT ERO is the President and CEO of the International Crisis Group.

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On Saturday, April 12, American and Iranian officials will restart talks over curbing Tehran’s nuclear program. The talks come after U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter, in early March, to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proposing negotiations. “We have a very big meeting,” the president said in announcing the talks. “We’ll see what can happen.”

There are reasons to hope that Trump’s overtures will succeed. The president has an almost instinctual love of dealmaking, and he has said he wants to make Iran prosperous again. But there are also reasons to be trepidatious. Even as they have embraced talks, Trump’s officials have upped the pressure on Tehran. The administration has doubled down on enforcing sanctions—an approach seemingly aimed at bankrupting Iran—and launched airstrikes on the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. And Trump himself has even given Iran a tight two-month deadline to reach an agreement about its nuclear program. If the two sides fail, he has explicitly threatened to attack the country.

No one should want a war between Iran and the United States. If Washington strikes Tehran’s nuclear facilities, it might set back the program temporarily. But Iran could then double down on its efforts to go nuclear. Iran would also immediately respond with regional attacks of its own, further roiling the Middle East. There is a reason why even Trump has said that “everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious.”

But it is one thing to start negotiations; it is another to reach an agreement. There is no doubt that the United States can inflict significant economic pain on the Islamic Republic by wielding a sharp saber: both were evident during Trump’s first term and with the “maximum pressure” economic sanctions he has revived. Yet to bear diplomatic fruit, Trump must pursue attainable aims rather than expect outright capitulation from Tehran. Iranian officials believe that the only thing more dangerous than suffering from U.S. sanctions is surrendering to maximalist demands.

That does not mean that pressure has no place in diplomacy with Iran. The Islamic Republic is more willing to talk with Trump’s administration than it was with Biden’s because the accumulated impact of sanctions has put the Iranian economy in dire straits and because Iran is more vulnerable than it has been in decades. Eighteen months of war with Israel have left Iran’s network of allies greatly diminished and its own aerial defenses weakened.

But U.S. pressure must be linked to realistic goals. After all, the 2015 deal came about not simply because of the bite of extra sanctions but also because the United States was prepared to drop its requirement that Tehran shut down its nuclear program entirely, so long as Iran’s stockpiles of uranium and plutonium were sharply restricted and extensively monitored. If Trump really wants to ink an agreement, he must—like Iran—be prepared to be accommodating at least to some degree. He should, for example, be willing to let Iran maintain elements of its nuclear program or missiles program while still offering sanctions relief, including on Iran’s oil trade, and access to frozen assets. Otherwise, talks may fall apart, forcing a regional war that no one wants—and that is almost certainly contrary to U.S. interests.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

The 2015 Iran nuclear deal, though complex, was a relatively straightforward bargain. The Islamic Republic accepted restrictions and transparency measures on its nuclear program, and in exchange it received sanctions relief. The agreement did not curtail Iran’s missile program and backing for nonstate actors across the Middle East; Tehran refused to countenance either as part of negotiations. But the resulting deal still imposed serious limits on Iran’s behavior. The country capped its enrichment and stockpiling of uranium, and it opened up its nuclear facilities for rigorous international monitoring.

Then, in 2018, Trump abandoned the deal, and the country’s nuclear development accelerated. Today, Tehran is able to produce the fissile material needed for a nuclear warhead in a matter of days, and it possesses a stockpile that could allow it to make multiple weapons. Most estimates suggest that, if it wanted, Iran could build workable bombs in just a few months. The Islamic Republic, in other words, is on the threshold of becoming the world’s tenth atomic power.

Many Iranian political elites have begun demanding that the country go nuclear. Iran’s regionwide network of allies—the so-called axis of resistance—is weaker today than it has been in years, making it harder for the country to threaten Israel and the United States. For Iran, Israel’s weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon is a particularly big setback. Tehran saw the group as its principal deterrent against Israel, but then Israel destroyed its stockpile of missiles and killed its top commanders. Hard-liners in Tehran increasingly argue that they need nuclear weapons to keep Iran secure. Khamenei, by contrast, still seems to view the nuclear program as negotiating leverage. He may also fear that Israeli or U.S. intelligence agencies would notice a dash toward weaponization, prompting a strike. But as tensions ratchet up, he is likely to face more pressure from within Iran’s establishment.

Iran is on the threshold of becoming the world’s tenth atomic power.

Time is running out for other ways, too. The 2015 nuclear deal featured a snapback mechanism, designed to allow any of the agreement’s parties to reimpose international sanctions. This provision, however, expires in October, and so the time to use it is running out. Without a peaceful solution to roll back Iran’s nuclear advances, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom will likely trigger the snapback. China and Russia might want to block it from taking effect, but their usual UN Security Council veto power would not apply in this circumstance (thanks to an explicit provision of the nuclear deal). Western powers would assert—at least on paper—that the Islamic Republic is once more subject to pre-2015 restrictions.

Iran, for its part, has threatened that it will withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty if the sanctions return, which would clear the way for Tehran to reduce almost all formal monitoring of its program. Trump, in turn, will face even more pressure from Israeli leaders and hawks in Washington to strike. Israel might even consider attacking alone—which would almost certainly draw in the United States.

Yet even a massive American and Israeli attack would be unlikely to put an end to Iran’s nuclear program. The Islamic Republic simply has too much enriched material and stored too many advanced centrifuges in too many places for the U.S. and Israeli militaries to destroy it all with absolute certainty. It also has many nuclear experts who can be tasked with reviving a program from the rubble. Even the United States’ own intelligence estimates project that the setback to the program from a military attack would be short-lived—perhaps just a few months. To truly stop a program by using force, the United States would need to either repeat military strikes on a frequent basis or try carrying out a regime change campaign to break that cycle, with devastating and highly uncertain results.

Striking Iran could also cause major regional escalation. Iran’s network of allies might be weak, but the country still has options—particularly through the Houthis or Iranian-backed groups in Iraq—as well as its own ballistic missile stockpiles. It could retaliate against Israel and against U.S. assets, troops, and interests. As a recent American intelligence assessment noted, though bruised and bloodied from the past year, Iran retains capacity for “inflicting substantial damage to an attacker, executing regional strikes and disrupting shipping.” Iran could even hit the Gulf’s oil infrastructure, driving up oil prices.

GETTING TO YES

These facts are all decidedly grim. But no one would benefit from a U.S.-Iranian war, and so everyone has an incentive to avoid it. That gives diplomacy a chance.

The forthcoming talks, to be held in Oman, could set things on a promising track. The parties should try to achieve two aims: clarifying the format of engagement and outlining the broad scope of the endgame. Tehran continues to be noncommittal about whether it will directly interact with U.S. officials, which is both unwieldy and inefficient. The stakes are too high and time too short for the Iranians to avoid face-to-face engagement with their American counterparts. For its part, the United States should approach the talks mindful that a “Libya model” (as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed) of demanding the complete dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is unlikely to work. Restrictions and transparency, on the other hand, can, and they would go a long way in addressing nonproliferation concerns, demonstrably moving the Islamic Republic’s program away from the nuclear threshold. Finding clarity and, ideally, enough common ground on these issues could then facilitate more intensive, granular discussions over the finer points.

For talks to work, Tehran and Washington must also recognize the other’s broader diplomatic requirements. Iran will not properly negotiate if Washington holds a gun to its head. Trump will not seriously talk unless he can engage in the kind of direct, personal diplomacy that he desires—namely, in a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian—and which all of his predecessors have been denied. In other words, the two sides need to come to terms with how the other approaches negotiations if they want to find common ground.

One way to increase the momentum of the Oman talks and shield them against efforts at sabotage is for Trump, who is likely to be their chief champion, to directly step into the diplomatic process. Trump's first term record makes it clear that he is no softie when it comes to Iran. If a nuclear deal is to be had, then, Trump may be uniquely positioned to get American hawks to support it, just as former U.S. President Richard Nixon was able to visit China and thaw relations between Beijing and Washington. Trump could advance the process by making a simple but significant quid pro quo that would open the door to direct high-level diplomacy: temporarily suspending maximum pressure sanctions in exchange for Iran suspending its uranium enrichment for the same period of time. That could pave the way for the presidential-level meeting Trump has sought for a long time. If they are serious about advancing talks, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or another mediator whom Trump respects should propose such an arrangement. They could then host both the high-level meeting and subsequent technical discussions.

Iran and the United States have a bitterly adversarial history. There is a chasm of mistrust between the two countries that diplomacy will struggle to bridge. But an agreement remains possible. Iran needs a deal. Trump wants one. And the alternative to successful negotiations would be catastrophic.

COMFORT ERO is the President and CEO of the International Crisis Group.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Comfort Ero · April 11, 2025

17. Ukraine Accuses Russia of Systematically Recruiting Soldiers From China

​I wonder what is the ground truth?

Ukraine Accuses Russia of Systematically Recruiting Soldiers From China

Kyiv says presence of Chinese citizens in Russia’s army undermines Beijing’s claim to be neutral

https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-russia-chinese-soldiers-0368bd8f

By Isabel Coles

Follow

April 10, 2025 3:55 pm ET

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Photo: sergey dolzhenko/Shutterstock

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of systematically recruiting soldiers from China, warning that such efforts were expanding and prolonging the war.

Ukraine said this week it had captured two Chinese citizens on the battlefield and identified more than 150 others fighting for Russia, which it said undermined Beijing’s claim to be neutral in the war.

“It’s clear these are not isolated cases, but rather a systematic Russian effort to recruit citizens of this state for the war, specifically on the territory and in the jurisdiction of China,” Zelensky said on Thursday.

China has said it is investigating the reports of the Chinese soldiers fighting in the war but has dismissed Zelensky’s assertions that it is involved in the war. China has supported Russia economically but denies providing Moscow with military aid.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed Zelensky’s assertion on Thursday, saying China has a “balanced position,” according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service said one of the Chinese nationals captured on the battlefield in the east of the country had been recruited by a Russian representative in China and signed a contract in Moscow in February this year. The other told Ukrainian interrogators that he had traveled to Russia for tourism late last year and, while there, responded to an advertisement for a 2 million ruble, equivalent to about $24,000, military contract.

“This is not secret recruitment—that’s important,” Zelensky said. “Official Beijing knows about this.”

Both Chinese nationals said they had been captured on their very first combat mission. Ukraine said Russia was using TikTok and other social media to recruit Chinese citizens. The captured Chinese nationals had been given Russian migration cards and received their salaries on Russian payment-system cards, Ukraine said.

In a video posted on Zelensky’s official page, one of the Chinese soldiers said he had been under the command of a Russian, following his instructions via hand gestures. He was armed with an AK-47, which had been destroyed by a drone.

An image taken from a video posted on Volodymyr Zelensky’s official Facebook page shows Chinese passports after Ukraine said two Chinese nationals had been captured on the battlefield. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

“I want to go back to China,” he said, seated in front of a Ukrainian flag.

Ukraine also has foreigners in its ranks, but Zelensky’s top adviser, Andriy Yermak, noted they hailed from countries that support Kyiv.

“China always told us that they’re neutral,” said Yermak. “Our volunteers come from the countries that are supporting us. Beijing must explain this to us.”

A Western official said that he saw no evidence of state sponsorship and that the captured men were likely mercenaries, among hundreds of foreign men of a variety of nationalities who have joined Russia’s army for money.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said that if the Chinese government was allowing its citizens to fight on behalf of Russia, it would represent a “concerning escalation.”

The Chinese Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo: genya savilov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Many of the Chinese citizens identified in Ukrainian intelligence reports viewed by The Wall Street Journal were listed as riflemen, although a handful are described as strike-drone operators, indicating that they have learned some of the critical new skills needed on the modern battlefield.

The West, led by the U.S., has supported Ukraine with weapons and financial aid, while Russia has received military supplies from Iran and North Korea. Last fall, North Korea dispatched around 12,000 troops to fight in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces had seized territory, according to Ukrainian and Western officials. Neither North Korea nor Russia has publicly confirmed the deployment of the troops.

Thousands of volunteers flocked to Ukraine in the early days of the war, including U.S. and European veterans, to fight for democracy or seek the thrill of battle, but the number of Westerners has dwindled as the conflict devolved into a grinding war of attrition.

Ukraine says 20,000 international soldiers have joined its ranks—coming from the nearby Caucasus or as far afield as South America.

Write to Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com

​18. Government Spending Continues to Climb Even as DOGE Touts Cuts

​Please go to the link to view the charts and graphics at the website.

But is this the right metric? Are these statistics meaningful and helpful?

How can we use them to help our fiscal crises?

Government Spending Continues to Climb Even as DOGE Touts Cuts

Musk team’s $150 billion in savings barely dents $6.8 trillion in spending largely on autopilot, WSJ analysis finds

Cumulative total spending since Trump’s inauguration compared with the same periods in 2023 and 2024

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-doge-government-spending-increases-5903992d?st=mrX1w1&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

$2.0 trillion

Trump ’25

$154 billion

more was spent in 2025 than 2024

1.5

Biden ’24

1.0

Biden ’23

0.5

0

1 day

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Note: Day 1 for 2025 is Jan. 20; dates for 2023 and 2024 are aligned to match the 2025 days of the week and account for the leap year.

Source: Treasury Department

By Anthony DeBarros

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 and James Benedict

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April 11, 2025 5:30 am ET

Federal spending is higher since President Trump took office even as the Department of Government Efficiency slashes contracts, cuts jobs and ends diversity programs.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of daily financial statements issued by the Treasury Department found government spending since the inauguration is $154 billion more than in the same period in 2024 during the administration of President Joe Biden.

DOGE claims cuts of $150 billion so far, but the Journal analysis found those efforts have yet to affect the bottom line.

And while the government’s income—taxes and revenues including tariffs—is also up, it isn’t enough to keep pace with higher spending.

Hard to tame

Last fiscal year, about 73% of federal spending went to interest on the debt and mandatory programs like Social Security and Medicare that operate on autopilot. That amounted to $4.9 trillion.

Federal Spending in FY2024

Mandatory spending includes programs that continue each year without new authorization from Congress, while discretionary spending is appropriated in the annual budget.

Mandatory: $4.9 trillion

Discretionary: $1.8 trillion

Department of Defense

Social Security

$807 billion

$1.5 trillion

Net interest on the debt*

$881 billion

Other discretionary

Medicare

$1 trillion

$865 billion

Medicaid and CHIP†

$637 billion

Other mandatory

$1.1 trillion

*Interest is treated as mandatory spending although the CBO classifies it in its own category.

†Children's Health Insurance Program

Note: Figures are rounded

Source: Congressional Budget Office

This year Social Security payments are $32.7 billion higher since Trump took office.

The increased costs are driven mainly by nearly 1.3 million new beneficiaries in the past year and a mandated 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment. DOGE says it is rooting out fraudulent claims and cutting staff, but Trump has promised to leave benefits untouched.

Medicare and Medicaid spending are similarly outpacing levels from a year ago, growing by about $29 billion since the inauguration. Increased enrollments and rising healthcare costs are helping fuel this growth. Combined, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounted for roughly 43% of federal spending in the last fiscal year.

Social Security benefits

Medicare and Medicaid

$400 billion

$400 billion

Trump ’25

300

300

200

200

Biden ’24

Biden ’23

100

100

0

0

1 day

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1 day

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Note: Day 1 for 2025 is Jan. 20; dates for 2023 and 2024 are aligned to match the 2025 days of the week and account for the leap year.

Source: Treasury Department

Rounding out the mandatory spending increases is the rapidly growing cost of interest on the national debt, which DOGE chief Elon Musk says could eventually consume the entire federal budget if unchecked. 

The U.S. has paid out $25.5 billion more in interest since Trump returned to the White House than in the same period in 2024. Rising interest rates and a growing national debt contribute to higher interest costs.

Interest on Treasury securities

$150 billion

Trump ’25

Biden ’24

100

Biden ’23

50

0

1 day

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Note: Day 1 for 2025 is Jan. 20; dates for 2023 and 2024 are aligned to match the 2025 days of the week and account for the leap year.

Source: Treasury Department

Stalled efforts

DOGE launched its cost-cutting with a shock-and-awe campaign terminating at least 25,000 probationary federal workers and slashing funds for foreign aid. Some laid-off government workers have gotten their jobs back, and the termination of probationary employees is currently being litigated.

Federal salary payments are $2.8 billion higher than a year ago in part because of a Biden-approved 2% pay raise in January. Additionally, thousands of other employees who took buyout offers remain salaried through September.

Federal salaries

$60 billion

Trump ’25

Biden ’24

Biden ’23

40

20

0

1 day

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Note: Day 1 for 2025 is Jan. 20; dates for 2023 and 2024 are aligned to match the 2025 days of the week and account for the leap year.

Source: Treasury Department

There is a chance that the buyout offers actually increased salary costs this year, said Martha Gimbel, executive director and co-founder of the left-of-center Budget Lab at Yale. Some employees who had planned to retire or leave the federal government may have instead accepted a buyout and remained on payroll.

Similarly, the administration’s efforts to curb U.S. Agency for International Development costs hit roadblocks. At first, spending was dramatically cut, the Treasury checkbook shows. In March, however, the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s emergency request to delay foreign-aid payouts, and in recent weeks spending has nearly returned to 2024 levels.

U.S. AID

$10 billion

Biden ’23

8

6

Biden ’24

4

Trump ’25

2

0

1 day

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Note: Day 1 for 2025 is Jan. 20; dates for 2023 and 2024 are aligned to match the 2025 days of the week and account for the leap year.

Source: Treasury Department

Small DOGE wins

DOGE notched a few victories in a handful of the more than 100 spending categories tracked in the daily Treasury statement. 

Spending by the Transportation Security Administration nearly flatlined for several weeks in February and March. Since Trump took office, the agency spent $22 million less in part by delaying spending on new uniforms, as well as curtailing travel and training costs, said Joe Shuker, a regional vice president for the American Federation of Government Employees TSA Council 100. In March, the Department of Homeland Security canceled the union contract that protected TSA airport security workers’ benefits.

A TSA spokesman said spending is also down because of a pause in paying invoices until a system for reviewing them is in place. 

At the Education Department—targeted for closure “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law” by a March 20 executive order—spending has dropped roughly $4 billion.

Transportation Security Administration

Education Department

$60 billion

$600 million

Biden ’23

500

40

400

Trump ’25

300

Biden ’24

20

200

100

0

0

1 day

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1 day

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Note: Day 1 for 2025 is Jan. 20; dates for 2023 and 2024 are aligned to match the 2025 days of the week and account for the leap year.

Source: Treasury Department

The full extent of DOGE’s efforts will likely play out over years.

“I think the net effect of DOGE on federal spending, at least insofar as we can track it in the daily Treasury statement, has been pretty small,” said Don Schneider, deputy head of U.S. policy at Piper Sandler. “It will take time for those savings to accumulate, but it will also be dependent on the administration prevailing in court over some of these actions.”

Write to Anthony DeBarros at anthony.debarros@wsj.com and James Benedict at james.benedict@wsj.com

19. No Such Thing as Disorder: A Review of States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance

Book Reviews| The Latest

No Such Thing as Disorder: A Review of States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/04/11/no-such-thing-as-disorder/

by Sarah Cope

|

04.11.2025 at 06:00am

Adam Day advances a nearly unthinkable contention with his book States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance: failing states are not actually in disorder. Instead, he argues that failing states demonstrate a different kind of self-organization and that persistent instability is, in fact, the success of system organization—just a system oriented toward instability instead of stability. In his deft, 178-page argument, Day asks, “Why does state building fail, so often and so comprehensively, to achieve its objectives of stable, liberal modes of governance?” Through a thoughtful analysis, he concludes that the United Nations “failed to grasp reality, becoming swept up in the system itself, often unintentionally strengthening some of the predatory, violent tendencies [it is] trying to transform”. The focus of his analysis is on UN state-building efforts in South Sudan through the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).

Day is no hapless critic––he is a long-term member of the UN elite and the current Head of the Geneva Office of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research. His resume includes positions such as Senior Political Advisor to MONUSCO and roles with the UN Special Coordinator’s Office for Lebanon, UNMIS, and UNAMID. He spent time on the ground in both of the book’s case study nations and is intimately invested in UN state-building efforts.

States of Disorder is not for the layman. Day wrote this book for those invested in the United Nations and its state-building efforts. He is writing a letter to his community, diagnosing a problem. He wastes no breath—or ink—explaining the ins and outs of UN peacekeeping mandates or the nuances of what peacekeeping and stabilization entails. Thus, its pace and analysis may leave behind readers unfamiliar with the UN and its processes. However, those already acquainted with the UN will find his argument compelling and easy to follow. His early chapters include a robust literature review, lending the book dual purpose as an excellent overview for anyone looking to understand the existing body of knowledge around state-building, state failure, and scholarship on the United Nations.

Day’s analysis shines in two domains: the application of complexity science and his hypothesis about why state-building efforts fail. His use of complexity is sound but not needlessly technical, allowing readers with all levels of familiarity with complexity science to follow along. Day’s second chapter provides a substantial overview of the components of complexity necessary to understand his argument, such as an explanation of emergent behavior, feedback loops, and the concept of strong attractors. His seventh chapter, “Comparing South Sudan and Congo,” could stand independently for an audience familiar enough with the UN and the respective issues in South Sudan and DRC. It provides a neat summary of his argument around the issues with UN efforts in both countries and the application of complexity science.

Day makes novel arguments and offers new ideas and explanations to a well-worn line of questioning about state-building. For example, he invites the reader to understand corruption as a part of feedback loops, which feels like an intuitive argument. However, he makes an argument unique to the international development and peacebuilding world: the UN’s failure is not a failure of under-resourcing. It is a failure of imagination. Often, any issue is met with calls for more resources. A solution set to any problem must be purchasable. Day disagrees, highlighting how the resources poured in from NGOs and state-building efforts entrenched ongoing systemic issues. The UN became a part of the existing system instead of disrupting it. He uses the example of how resources brought by outsiders poured into the coffers of South Sudanese ethnic and military elite, strengthening the pattern of what Day calls “peripheral dependency on the center”.

Similarly, in his analysis of the DRC, Day identifies how armed groups, and the Kinshasa elite developed a reciprocal relationship, each requiring protection and legitimization from the other. Day exposes MONUSCO’s overreliance on formal state institutions and its assumption that stability would emerge from building hierarchical state capacity. In reality, the UN failed to account for rich informal networks, including these armed actors. He even identifies how the UN becomes subject to the same forces he asserts exist in the complex systems of the DRC, noting how the UN was influenced by the tendency toward violence in the DRC and how MONUSCO leaned into the use of force. Ultimately, Day explains that the UN failed because it could not alter the system’s underlying mechanisms and symbiotic relationships. He argues that the mission in the DRC suffered from a “conceptual myopia” where the UN was convinced that state authority would remove instability and failed to account for the importance of informal networks and the plurality of actors.

Day’s critique of the UN is damning without being hopeless: UN peacekeeping not only failed to interrupt these patterns and transform systems of governance but may have reinforced the underlying pull toward violence, corruption, and instability within the system. The UN thinks of persistently failing states as lacking resilience, but Day argues they are systems highly resilient to a specific type of instability—one of unrest and violence. Instead of wallowing in critical misery, Day is constructive. He counsels that moments of intense flux are not opportunities for transformation. Rather, Day argues that such moments of instability may instead be times when the forces of strong attractors are the greatest. He closes with a call to action almost unthinkable to those determined to change state-failure dynamics: “Complexity theory may demand that interveners work with the grain rather than against it.”

Tags: Book review, DRC, governance, South Sudan, state building

About The Author

• 
  
• Sarah Cope
• Sarah Cope is a Master’s student at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program and the current Editor in Chief of the Georgetown Security Studies Review. She works as a research assistant at the social enterprise Motive International.
• 
  

20. Brush Fire to Inferno: The Angolan Civil War and Inadvertent Escalation

​Excerpts:

In 1974 and 1975, the United States and Soviet Union made critical errors and omissions that fueled the rise of the Angolan Civil War. The lessons drawn from such errors remain highly salient in the contemporary geopolitical environment, which sees the United States engaged in both great power competition and proxy warfare as it seeks to maintain its global political and military primacy.

As the US moves to politically, economically, and militarily counter geopolitical challenges through regional partnerships, Washington must identify and consider how a potential American policy will be perceived regionally and globally. Washington’s relations with partners and client states must be based upon a mutual understanding of strategic need to avoid perceptions of exploitation that would undermine American legitimacy and exacerbate regional tensions. Within great power competition, geopolitical adversaries must maintain open backchannels in order to avoid unnecessary escalation due to misinterpretations.

Integrating the lessons learned from involvement in the Angolan Civil War into contemporary policy formations demands an unvarnished understanding of America’s global reputation and the perceptions of allies, partners, and rivals. Effective policy demands a commitment to conducting accurate analysis of smaller states and non-state actors and related non-state actors, including their relations with larger powers. And it necessitates open channels of communication that provide great power rivals with off-ramps. These channels need to be maintained even in times of poor relations or when dialogue is currently proving unproductive. Embedding these approaches as a standard aspect of decision-making will significantly reduce the risk of inadvertent escalation, ensuring that the United States can conserve its resources and attention for key national security interests and avoid wasteful conflict.

Essay| The Latest

Brush Fire to Inferno: The Angolan Civil War and Inadvertent Escalation

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/04/11/brush-fire-to-inferno/

by Harry Stevens

|

04.11.2025 at 06:00am

Bie, Angola - March 11, 2012: Children play with an abandoned tank from the Angolan civil war.

Introduction

 A group of soldiers stand restlessly around the fenced perimeter of an industrial facility, baking in the sweltering midday sun. They pass the time swatting mosquitoes and cursing out their commanding officer for sticking them here. All of a sudden, a rustling in the bushes catches their attention. The rustling stops as soon as it starts, and the leader of these soldiers directs a group to check out the situation. They find nothing. A few minutes later, shots ring out, seemingly out of nowhere, injuring some of the soldiers. They return fire, and after a frenetic firefight that feels much longer than the few minutes it actually lasts, the attackers melt back into the bush. A scene like this is unremarkable in the Cold War. But as it happens, the troops are Cuban, armed with Soviet weapons, the facility they are guarding is an American oil rig, and the attackers are South African-backed Angolan guerillas.

Such was the Angolan Civil War, a brutal conflict that ran between 1975-2002 and claimed up to 800,000 lives. Coming on the heels of the Angolan War of Independence (1961-1975), the Angolan Civil War was an odd bird among the so-called “proxy wars” that dotted the Third World during the Cold War because neither the US nor the USSR thought that Angola was particularly important. In fact, the chain of events that saw the US and USSR increase their participation and enable the conflict to transform from sporadic violence among local groups to large-scale conventional warfare can be chalked down to unintentional signaling, misunderstandings, and communication failures.

By analyzing the ways in which these errors fueled networks of conflict throughout Southern Africa, we can draw lessons about the necessity of clear communication between great power rivals. Through careful consideration of how US actions are likely to be viewed by rivals and allies, policy can be formed that avoids foreseeable misinterpretations. Additionally, a better understanding of the nuanced relationship between client states and patron states will enable the US to better comprehend and exploit complex international dynamics to achieve favorable outcomes.

In the catalog of Cold War conflicts, Angola is particularly important to study because the period covered was notably unstable and saw the US wrestle with a highly competitive geopolitical climate. The build-up to the Angolan Civil War ran from 1974-1975, a time when America’s failure in the Vietnam War seriously undermined domestic confidence in the utility of US military power and the confidence of US allies, specifically in Washington’s ability to defeat pro-communist forces and its willingness to absorb casualties and financial costs in the defense of allies. An increasingly assertive USSR exploited this period of apparent US retrenchment to expand its military, political, and ideological influence across the developing world and modernize its nuclear and conventional forces.

This closely parallels the contemporary landscape where US military strength has proven insufficient to effectively deter state and non-state adversaries in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, and Washington’s willingness to commit to significant, long-term development efforts in regions of persistent instability and strategic value appear to be waning. China has made deep inroads into regions like Micronesia and East Africa, areas that were either under US influence or not sites of significant competition in prior years. More countries, including most of Western and Central Europe, that previously had little choice but to rely on the US for security or who were comfortable in their dependence are now weighing their options more carefully. Choices include recommitment to the US, which may require sacrifices to more closely align domestic and foreign policy with American preferences; the development of independent or regional defense capabilities apart from the US, incurring major ongoing expenses; or reaching a modus vivendi with America’s strategic rivals, most prominently Iran, Russia, and China.

Background

Angola had been a Portuguese colony for centuries when local groups initiated violent resistance against Lisbon in 1961. The primary resistance groups were the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), and later the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). The MPLA drew its support from urban, educated Angolans and those of the Ambundu ethnicity, and was ideologically socialist. The FNLA was largely supported by Kikongo speakers in northern Angola, while UNITA arose in response to the lack of representation for Ovimbundu peoples in southern Angola.

During the Angolan War of Independence (1961-1974), foreign powers were involved from the very beginning. Beginning in the early 1960s, the US, largely through Zaire, provided funds to the FNLA and to a lesser extent, UNITA, though funding to both was mostly cut off in 1969 as part of the Nixon Administration’s efforts to improve relations with White-minority regimes in Africa. While American aid was cut off or slowed to a trickle, contacts were maintained with each organization. The USSR began funding the MPLA in the mid-1960s, but the tap was turned on and off as Soviet officials were generally unimpressed with the MPLA’s combat effectiveness and ideological purity. China provided arms and training to all three groups as late as 1974, with the FNLA receiving the largest portion. South Africa began funding both UNITA and the FNLA at a low level no later than summer 1974.

Each of Angola’s major resistance groups collaborated with the Portuguese against rival organizations, contributing to a military stalemate. The deadlock would only be broken in April 1974 when disaffected Portuguese officers carried out the Carnation Revolution, a bloodless coup that overthrew the Estado Novo regime, in power since 1933. Portugal’s new leaders quickly set about decolonization, releasing their hold on Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea. In what should have been a joyous occasion, the culmination of 13 years of war, it also revived and deepened the conflicts between the three major resistance movements, who now lacked even a common enemy. Months of uncertainty over who would control Angola gave way to skirmishes and then full-scale fighting. By January 1975, the FNLA, UNITA, and the MPLA signed the Alvor Agreement, which ordered the formation of an inclusive transitional government and set October of that year as the date for an election.

However, this quickly broke down. The FNLA in particular understood that its limited appeal beyond the Kikongo community doomed it to minority status in a democratic system. It was clear that the MPLA’s popular ideology and sophisticated organizational structures favored it in elections. On the other hand, the FNLA had a military advantage in January 1975, and it attempted to use this to seize power, attacking a radio station sympathetic to the MPLA. While there is no evidence that the US encouraged this attack, it failed to publicly condemn it or cut off contact with the FNLA. This lack of a response could have easily been understood by the USSR as tacit support, and appears that the FNLA thought similarly. Between their weak electoral prospects and a sense that Washington supported or at least didn’t object to their actions, the FNLA escalated its attacks throughout early 1975.

The USSR probably identified this as an attempt by the US to seize control of the country. As early as October 1974, a report from the KGB’s Deputy Chairman identified US support to the FNLA as a threat. In response to the FNLA’s attacks, the USSR, among other socialist nations, sent large quantities of weapons to the MPLA, enabling them to hold out and then push the FNLA back.

Signaling and Insignificance

At this time, the US was dealing with the collapse of South Vietnam, a crisis that monopolized the attention of key officials and intelligence personnel. US officials were also preparing for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) II talks with the USSR, intended to limit nuclear weapons stockpiles and proliferation. This may have contributed to a lack of focus paid to unfolding events in Angola, and how the US response, or lack thereof, would contribute to foreign perceptions that Washington aimed to seize control of Angola through UNITA and the FNLA.

Increased Soviet aid was understood by the US as an attempt to gain influence in Angola as a means of expanding Moscow’s global reach and discrediting the United States. With the Eastern Bloc having scored a major victory in Vietnam, anything that appeared to indicate further Soviet expansion, even in a far-flung corner of Africa, played into American fears of Soviet encroachment. This fear elicited a response in the form of financial and later military assistance to anti-communist Angolan groups, but even this response appears to have been the exception that proves the rule regarding the US view of Angola.

New US funding to Angolan groups during the spring of 1975 was paltry: $300,000 for the FNLA and $100,000 for UNITA. By comparison, the US provided upwards of $700 million in aid to South Vietnam in 1975. No US officials involved in determining that sum could have imagined that this would be enough for the FNLA to win elections given the MPLA’s major advantage in popularity and organization, let alone enough to wage and win an armed conflict.

It appears likely that this amount was aimed at providing the illusion of support, without any expectation that it would make a difference. In fact, much of US policy towards Angola in these critical months was hardly centered on Angola at all, despite the rapidly escalating conflict. Instead, Washington’s policy on Angola was heavily shaped by a desire to project confidence and support to anti-communist groups in the wake of the Fall of Saigon. To the extent Angola policy at this time was directed towards a particular nation, it was Zaire.

Angola, and in fact Southern Africa as a whole, was not considered a region of importance for US national security. A 1969 National Security Council report concluded that nowhere in Africa was a vital security interest for the United States. Yet, the region contained opportunities to signal to allies around the world that the US remained powerful and assertive. As it applied to Southern Africa, the US was concerned with Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire’s dictator, who was a major FNLA supporter and increasingly wavering in his support of the United States.

Allegedly, it was this concern that motivated Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, to dispense with his previous reluctance to intervene in Angola, convincing President Gerald Ford to authorize Operation IA Feature, a CIA covert operation that dispensed $14 million in arms and funding to the FNLA and UNITA in July 1975, with an additional $25 million in August. It was also around this time that the South Africans aggressively expanded their support for these groups, fearful that a socialist Angola would serve as a base for anti-apartheid and pro-Namibian independence groups.

Understandably, these actions emboldened the FNLA and UNITA and confirmed Soviet suspicions that the US was hoping to dominate Angola, and were thus met with further expansions of Soviet aid. This allowed the scale of fighting to grow out of control until the Alvor Agreement became mere words on paper.

Some US officials viewed Angola as an arena that could be used for signaling, without properly considering how their actions would be perceived by both enemies and putative allies. In particular, the initiation of Operation IA Feature was, at least in part, motivated by a desire to signal to Mobutu and other allies that, even with the Fall of Saigon, the US was not willing to allow Soviet influence to expand unimpeded. However, Moscow interpreted US actions very differently.

As it applies more generally, no country should be considered irrelevant to the larger geopolitical landscape. Even nations that may well have little immediate strategic value border those that do and could easily become the site of great power competition. Accurately understanding the geopolitical and national security value of each state is even more important during a period of strategic realignment, when rivals either see opportunities to advance their own interests or fear the dominant power (in this case the US) may attempt to reassert itself. The world is experiencing this today with China’s increasing regional assertiveness and persistent challenge to the Western-led international system, Russia’s continuing attempt to conquer Ukraine, and instability in the Middle East, when adversaries are likely to be highly reactive.

The Best of Friends? A Failure to Grasp Client-Patron Dynamics

US misconceptions about the relationship between Cuba and the USSR also helped to push Washington towards a greater role in Angola and to extend the war. Cuba provided aid and intelligence to the MPLA in the mid-1960s, but declined requests for more extensive quantities of military equipment and advisors.

However, as the conflict between the MPLA and FNLA grew, and with perceptions of US involvement rising, Cuban President Fidel Castro reversed his position. Instead of prevaricating on aid, Castro now offered the MPLA far more than they asked for. When MPLA President Agosthino Neto requested 100 Cuban military advisors in August 1975, Castro promised 500. Later in the month, Castro went to Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev to make the case for expanding aid to the MPLA. He proposed that Cuban special forces deploy to Angola and requested Soviet logistical aid to help Havana transport its men and materiel.

From this point on, Cuba consistently pushed the envelope on aid to the MPLA, often dragging the USSR along with it. This posed an issue because the commonly held view among much of the US national security community at the time was that Cuba was a puppet of the Soviet Union, a tool that could provide plausible deniability when the Kremlin wanted to take aggressive action. In reality, Soviet-Cuban relations were much more complex. Moscow often resented the cavalier approach Havana took to aiding socialists abroad, while Cuba found the Soviet approach to be noncommittal and weak-kneed.

This distinction was largely lost in Angola, where Cuban actions were generally taken to be representative of Soviet intentions by the US. The Soviet Union was in a difficult position on this point. It was essential to emphasize that Cuba’s military intervention was not part of a Kremlin plan, not least because it was true. At the same time, Moscow was reluctant to openly voice the complex relationship it had with Havana on this issue, as doing so would have been an admission that the Eastern Bloc was not as united as it claimed.

This predicament resulted in Soviet officials resorting to evasions and denials when engaged by their American counterparts. When Henry Kissinger attempted to discuss Angola with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko, the latter batted him off with the unconvincing claim that, “we have nothing to do with that country. I cannot talk about that country.” Surely, statements like this did not inspire confidence on the US side that the Soviets were being honest about their role, nor that they were willing to negotiate on the issue.

Implications for Contemporary Great Power Competition

The Angolan Civil War was not predestined to last a generation, nor to be as destructive as it was. While the post-colonial environment was ripe for internal instability, power struggles, and conflict, it was the involvement of foreign powers like the USSR, United States, Cuba, and South Africa that enabled the war to become a disaster for the Angolan people and a major contributor to the failure of detente. The United States cannot be assigned all the blame, and for most of the war Washington confined itself to a secondary role, but the actions and assumptions the United States and USSR made about Angola, each other’s motivations, and the nations involved were critical in the chain of escalation.

American policymakers viewed Angola as insignificant, a canvas on which to signal without thoroughly considering the ramifications said signaling could have. In a new age of Great Power Competition, today’s policymakers must be cognizant that, in an increasingly interconnected and near-instantaneous information space, the eyes of the world are monitoring their every action. Furthermore, in an age of renewed geopolitical competition for influence, no great power can afford to regard any state as inconsequential.

American policymakers, especially on the political side, failed to understand that the USSR and Cuba were not in lockstep. They assumed, often against the advice of the intelligence community, that Havana was simply Moscow’s puppet. In turn, this led to the mistaken belief that the Soviet Union was not looking to de-escalate or end the war in Angola.

As it applies to Great Power Competition today, the lesson here must be that client states still retain their own national will and goals which sometimes conflict with those of the patron state. Identifying and understanding these distinctions is critical to avoid unnecessary escalations, while cleavages between client and patron states can potentially be leveraged to disrupt cooperation. Whether confronting Iran’s network of client states and militias or China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia, resisting the tendency to sort nations into neat blocs will serve to avoid unnecessarily alienating potential partners.

In the case of the Soviet Union, Moscow failed to properly communicate the nuances of its position, falling back on unconvincing denials and thus giving the impression that they were not looking to engage in Angola. Today, it remains increasingly vital to maintain effective communications with rivals in order to avoid strategic misunderstanding and escalation, while offering competitor states palatable exit strategies as a means of de-escalation. While open dialogue is certainly not a panacea for conflict, frank communication enables nations to dispel the most paranoid and dangerous interpretations of a rival’s actions. Therefore, continued engagement amongst geopolitical competitors must be maintained to mitigate the potential for conflagration. In a world where US attention and state power resources are stretched between the home front, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, accidental conflicts are an unacceptable and unsustainable waste of resources.

Conclusion

In 1974 and 1975, the United States and Soviet Union made critical errors and omissions that fueled the rise of the Angolan Civil War. The lessons drawn from such errors remain highly salient in the contemporary geopolitical environment, which sees the United States engaged in both great power competition and proxy warfare as it seeks to maintain its global political and military primacy.

As the US moves to politically, economically, and militarily counter geopolitical challenges through regional partnerships, Washington must identify and consider how a potential American policy will be perceived regionally and globally. Washington’s relations with partners and client states must be based upon a mutual understanding of strategic need to avoid perceptions of exploitation that would undermine American legitimacy and exacerbate regional tensions. Within great power competition, geopolitical adversaries must maintain open backchannels in order to avoid unnecessary escalation due to misinterpretations.

Integrating the lessons learned from involvement in the Angolan Civil War into contemporary policy formations demands an unvarnished understanding of America’s global reputation and the perceptions of allies, partners, and rivals. Effective policy demands a commitment to conducting accurate analysis of smaller states and non-state actors and related non-state actors, including their relations with larger powers. And it necessitates open channels of communication that provide great power rivals with off-ramps. These channels need to be maintained even in times of poor relations or when dialogue is currently proving unproductive. Embedding these approaches as a standard aspect of decision-making will significantly reduce the risk of inadvertent escalation, ensuring that the United States can conserve its resources and attention for key national security interests and avoid wasteful conflict.

Special thanks to Thomas Lattanzio, whose suggestions and encouragement were indispensable in writing and publishing this piece.

Tags: Africa, Angola, China, Cold War, Cuba, Great Power Competition, Inadvertent Escalation, MPLA, proxy warfare, Russia, South Africa, UNITA, United States

About The Author

• 
  
• Harry Stevens
• Harry Stevens is a researcher who has worked with the Center for the National Interest. His research interests include Russian affairs, defense economics, and intelligence operations. His work has been published in War on the Rocks, the Financial Times, and the Kennedy School's Russia Matters, among others. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and an incoming graduate student in Georgetown University's Security Studies Program.

21. The U.S. and China Are Going to Economic War—and Everyone Will Suffer

​I am reminded of The Great Illusion by Norman Angell.

Were we clinging to this thesis? Was it part of the rationale for trying to bring China into the international economic system?

In The Great Illusion, Angell's primary thesis was, in the words of historian James Joll, that "the economic cost of war was so great that no one could possibly hope to gain by starting a war the consequences of which would be so disastrous."

​Does the trade war now taking place make conflict more likely?

The U.S. and China Are Going to Economic War—and Everyone Will Suffer

Untangling the two economies has profound implications for businesses and consumers in both countries, as well as the rest of the world

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/us-china-tariffs-trade-war-6f143252?st=r62hPU&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Jason Douglas

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, Konrad Putzier

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, Ruth Simon

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 and Raffaele Huang

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April 10, 2025 6:00 pm ET

The gloves are off. The next chapter of U.S.-China decoupling has begun. The pain will be felt everywhere. 

In jacking up his tariffs on China—and pausing steep duties on dozens of other nations—President Trump is pushing the world’s two biggest economic powers into a battle that will leave neither unscathed and risks tanking the global economy. 

​The total tariffs imposed on China in Trump’s second term now add up to 145%, the White House said Thursday. They could eventually be walked back, but already, there are signs that a portion of the $582 billion in goods trading between the two countries is grinding to a halt. U.S. factories are canceling orders and some Chinese manufacturers are putting workers on temporary leave. Data has shown a sharp decline in trans-Pacific ship bookings since some of the latest tariff escalations began. U.S. stocks fell sharply Thursday as investors digested the developments.

Arlen Nercessian, a Temecula, Calif.-based kitchen-equipment importer, messaged his Chinese agent on Wednesday to hold his latest shipment of cast-aluminum plates when he heard that Trump was pushing up tariffs—but it was too late. He said that without a deal to end hostilities between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, that order from China will be his last. 

“There’s no way I’ll get any of these in the U.S.,” he said. He might have to cut most of the company’s nine employees and contractors, switch to cheaper software and stop traveling to food shows to advertise his products “just to hunker down and survive,” he said. 

President Trump spoke during a cabinet meeting in the White House on Thursday. Photo: brendan smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

While Trump says any pain in the U.S. from tariffs will be offset by long-term gains in jobs and investment, in the near term, investment bank JPMorgan said Wednesday it is “more likely than not” that the U.S. economy will shrink later this year. 

​In the 23 years since China joined the World Trade Organization, access to its cheap manufactured products has become embedded in the consumer-focused U.S. economy. China accounted for around 13% of all U.S. goods imports in 2024. It is a source of a wide variety of goods, including smartphones, toys and industrial parts. Entire businesses have been built around assumptions of that access, with design, marketing and distribution in the U.S. coupled with production in China. 

Many businesses had begun to adjust to a reality of higher tariffs that started during the first Trump administration. But if the new tariffs remain, they face a loss of access to Chinese production altogether—with profound changes for American consumers. Americans, already stressed from a 24% rise in prices over the past five years, could end up paying even more for a smaller selection of everyday goods.

For China, meanwhile, a full-blown trade war with the U.S. means being shut out of the world’s biggest consumer market at a time when its economy has been leaning on exports for growth to offset a painful property bust and tepid consumer spending. 

“To put it bluntly, we can only hang on for as long as we can. If we can’t hold out any longer, we’ll have to shut down the factory,” said Hong Binbin, who runs Shenzhen Jiaoyang Industrial, a maker of stuffed toys in southern China. Sales to the U.S. account for 70% to 80% of the company’s revenue, Hong said, and he expects orders to stop coming in thanks to Trump’s tariffs. 

Another factory, Huizhou Yihe Furniture in China’s Guangdong province, is putting its dozens of workers on leave through April 13, according to a notice seen by The Wall Street Journal, which cited “severe shock due to new trade policies.” A factory manager, surnamed Huang, confirmed the notice, which was posted Tuesday, and said he expected to extend the production halt.

The world is on course for “a disorderly economic decoupling between the world’s two largest economies,” wrote economists at Deutsche Bank in a note to clients on Thursday. 

Fraught relationship 

For all the angst over U.S.-China relations in recent years, the two countries’ economies are now deeply intertwined. For more than a quarter-century, Americans have spent a big chunk of their money buying stuff made in China. The U.S. got cheap goods, and China invested in building out its infrastructure and climbing up the development ladder.

But the relationship created enormous tensions, including lost jobs in American manufacturing towns, as well as an ever-rising trade deficit. The U.S. exported $143.5 billion in goods to China in 2024, while $438.9 billion worth of goods went in the other direction.

Shipping containers at a port in Bayonne, N.J. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Trump’s goal is to eliminate the trade deficit once and for all through tariffs, which he says will help lure more manufacturing back to the U.S., creating jobs at home and stanching the flow of U.S. money to China. 

“Hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump said Wednesday. 

At the same time, he gave allies and trading partners a 90-day reprieve on “reciprocal” tariffs announced on April 2, though a 10% baseline tariff on virtually all imports would stay in effect—making clear that the central focus of his trade war, at least for now, is China.

So far, Beijing has hit back at each round of tariff increases from the U.S. by raising duties on American products and targeting U.S. companies. Chinese officials have recently discussed with some of the country’s biggest companies the feasibility of delisting their stocks from American stock exchanges as a way to limit the companies’ exposure to dollars and rising geopolitical risks, according to people familiar with the matter.

China on Wednesday issued warnings for citizens considering traveling or studying in the U.S., a sign Beijing wants to put pressure on America’s tourism and education sectors. 

The escalating tit-for-tat actions are having severe repercussions. Financial markets have been in turmoil, with wild swings in stock, bond and currency markets.

People walked past the Nasdaq office in New York City on Thursday. Photo: sarah yenesel/EPA/Shutterstock

Economists at Capital Economics said their calculations suggest exports to the U.S. could more than halve in the years ahead, while analysts at Societe Generale said China’s exports to the U.S. “will be largely wiped out” by Trump’s latest tariff increases. 

Daily container bookings in the U.S.-China trade route fell by a quarter since the end of March compared with last year, according to freight data platform Sonar Container Atlas. Boxship operators said some U.S. importers have temporarily halted inbound shipments and others are storing them at customs warehouses waiting for more clarity before paying the tariffs. 

Amazon.com has canceled some vendor inventory from China after tariffs were announced, according to sellers.

Jacob Rothman, president and chief executive of Velong Enterprises, which makes grilling tools, kitchenware and home products in China, India and Cambodia sold by major retailers including Walmart and Target, said he’s lost about $10 million—and climbing—in canceled orders for his China factory from tariffs so far, from a 2025 order book of about $160 million. He said he expects more to come. 

If the trade war with China persists, Rothman said he expects he would add more design, marketing and other high-level roles in China while shrinking the factory workforce there and shifting production elsewhere, such as to India or Cambodia.

A Walmart store in San Leandro, Calif. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

He said he can’t see the company manufacturing in the U.S. Trump’s tough immigration policies mean he isn’t sure he could find workers, and he said he’s wary of making big investments in case the political winds change. 

“Why would we invest millions of dollars into a policy that will most likely fail or change?” he said.

America’s pain

For a U.S. economy that entered 2025 in good health, the turmoil poses serious problems.

Tariffs raise prices for imports, cutting into business and consumer spending power. The tariffs announced since January amount to a “tax increase of over $300 billion,” JPMorgan’s chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli wrote in a research note Wednesday. Meanwhile, uncertainty over future tariffs make it harder for companies to plan ahead, weighing on business investment. 

The soaring barriers on Chinese imports threaten to spoil hard-fought progress to restrain U.S. inflation after the most recent peak, in 2022. Although inflation came in cooler than expected in the latest data released on Thursday, if prices trend higher because of the tariffs and coincide with weaker growth, the combination would create a major challenge for Federal Reserve policymakers, since lowering interest rates to stimulate the economy risks worsening inflation.

While U.S. hiring and economic growth have been robust, surveys point to growing pessimism. A key survey tracking U.S. consumer sentiment fell to its lowest level since 2022 in March.  

Factory workers in Suqian, China. Photo: china daily/Reuters

It will be difficult to unwind the trade deficit with increasingly large financial penalties for imports, economists say. Many products the U.S. imports from China, such as electronics, are hard to replace domestically or with suppliers in other countries, said Cristian DeRitis, deputy chief economist at Moody’s.

“Shifting that production takes time and energy and comes with a cost,” DeRitis said. 

‘Incredibly difficult’

The whipsawing tariff threats, walkbacks and increases are causing fits for small businesses.

Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo in Warrington, Pa., has sold 223 dresses in the past three or four months that will be subject, when they arrive, to the new Chinese tariffs. 

“It will cut into our margins,” said co-owner Franco Salerno, who won’t pass on the added levies to brides who have already paid for their dresses or put down a 50% deposit. “It will eat my salary up.” 

Salerno and his wife Wendy spent Wednesday adjusting the shop’s cash register system to accommodate the new levies. He’s hoping that the higher prices won’t impact sales. “It’s a very emotional purchase,” he said. 

“We have done everything we could to never raise our prices above their original retail value,” said Adam Fazackerley, chief operating officer and co-founder of Lay-n-Go, whose cosmetic bags and other drawstring carriers are manufactured in China and Cambodia. “That’s become incredibly difficult to do.”

Fazackerley started the Alexandria, Va., company with his wife, Amy, in 2010. The new tariffs “may be the final blow,” he said. “If we break through a $19.95 or $29.95 price point, sales would drop.” 

Furniture maker Ethan Allen might raise prices on some products or adjust which items it emphasizes in its marketing, CEO Farooq Kathwari said. The Danbury, Conn., company produces 75% of its furniture in North America, and the rest overseas. Some floor lamps, chandeliers and other design accents come from China.

Like many American companies, Ethan Allen also sells to Chinese consumers. The brand has 40 retail locations in China, where it imports furniture made in North America. The China business is “relatively small, but tremendously impacted,” Kathwari said. “Their economy is also tough in China, plus, on top of it, they are also concerned about buying American products.”

Remaking China 

For China, finding new buyers could be tough. Other countries are already bristling at a flood of Chinese imports and will be reluctant to take more. Piling more unsold goods into China’s saturated domestic market would add to already-severe deflationary pressures in its economy. 

A cargo ship sailed out from Qingdao, China, on Wednesday. Photo: Cfoto/DDP/Zuma Press

At stake in this trade war is not just China’s short-term economic performance, economists say, but its entire economic model. China’s fortunes have been built on lavish investment in factories, infrastructure and real estate and a towering export sector, a strategy that powered it into second place in the global economy. 

Now, economists say, it will need to pivot to boosting consumption, or watch growth stagnate. Rebalancing China’s huge economy toward consumption means funneling more resources to households and away from factories. In the long run, that would require far-reaching and costly reforms to build out China’s threadbare social safety net and bail out cash-strapped local governments, according to analysts.

“China’s growth model, which was spectacularly successful in recent decades, has reached its limit,” said Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC in Hong Kong. The bank expects the trade war to shave 1.5 to 2 percentage points off Chinese growth in the coming year—though it anticipates a much bigger hit if other countries join the U.S. in pushing back at rising Chinese exports. The government is aiming for around 5%​ growth in 2025.

Goldman Sachs estimates that between 10 million and 20 million jobs in Chinese factories are geared towards satisfying American consumers’ demand for homeware, toys, the latest electronic gadgets and other imported products. 

One exporter, Zhu Zitong, runs a factory making plastic drums in Foshan. Zhu said three American customers have canceled orders in the past two days. Two Chinese exporters who source products from him also told him to hold some orders until they found other buyers. 

Zhu didn’t expect the trade tensions to be solved anytime soon. He said the local government in the city told him that Beijing was weighing policies to support manufacturers. He planned to gradually cease production through late next week if no new orders come in. 

A toy store in a wholesale market in Beijing on Thursday. Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Wan Junhui, who works in marketing for an electronics manufacturer in Guangdong province, told the Journal last fall after Trump was elected that his company would do its best to reduce costs and help customers deal with expected tariff increases. Over the next few months, the company underwent an extensive review of everything from materials to production capacity and was able to reduce the costs of its products by around 10%, he told the Journal this week.

“Unfortunately, this still falls short for consumers in the U.S.,” said Wan, saying some customers asked for discounts of more than 30% before Trump raised tariffs above 100% on Chinese goods.

Order cancellations are racking up. His company has formed a special internal task force because refund requests for orders not yet shipped have been abnormally high. Sales team members are listing clients on a spreadsheet to track cancellation rates.

Despite the disruption, Hong, the stuffed-toy maker, said Beijing shouldn’t back down against the U.S. “I don’t think China should compromise. After all, it’s them being unreasonable.”

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Hannah Miao explains the global implications of President Trump’s tariffs on China as tensions rise between the world’s two biggest economies. Photo: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg News

Write to Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com, Konrad Putzier at konrad.putzier@wsj.com, Ruth Simon at Ruth.Simon@wsj.com and Raffaele Huang at raffaele.huang@wsj.com

Appeared in the April 11, 2025, print edition as 'U.S.-China Battle Spares No One'.

22. From Duct Tape to Penicillin, GPS to Superglue: Thank the DOD

Your Department of Defense at work.

Remember that we are told that the US government and Department of Defense do not "produce" anything.

We are cutting one of the superpowers of the US - research and development. We should consider the long term consequences.

From Duct Tape to Penicillin, GPS to Superglue: Thank the DOD

Defense Department research fuels innovation that ends up in every home, but funding cuts loom

April 10, 2025| Lisa M. Krieger

thewarhorse.org · by Lisa M. Krieger · April 10, 2025

Some of the U.S. military’s most defining technologies have nothing to do with missiles, tanks, guns, and other deadly weaponry. While important in war, these innovations—from duct tape and blood banks to GPS— ultimately play a far larger role on the home front, improving everyday lives.

But now scientists are worried the Trump administration’s budget cuts threaten the long and historic funding growth for Department of Defense-supported breakthrough science, risking America’s global dominance in a tech-driven economy and undermining future payoffs.

Jeff Decker went from Army Ranger to Stanford’s Technology Transfer for Defense Program, which transitions new technologies from the laboratory to the market. (Photo courtesy of Jeff Decker)

“Every single day, people engage with DOD-funded research,” said Jeff Decker, a former 2nd Ranger Battalion light infantry squad leader in the U.S. Army, deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan. He now serves in Stanford University’s Technology Transfer for Defense Program, which transitions new technologies from the laboratory to the market.

“The core goal is knowledge,” Decker said. “If we lose that, not only does it hollow out the ability for campuses to do research … it also hollows out the specter of what we’ll have 30 years from now.”

In a world roiled by geopolitical tensions, new pandemics, climate change, and weakening democracies, researchers point to the importance of a crucial array of DOD-funded inventions, from night vision to stealth technology, from sensor networks to vaccines for deadly diseases and treatment for traumatic brain injury.

But the stopgap budget measure that Congress passed in March reduces funding for research, development, and evaluation programs at the Defense Department by almost 5% to $141 billion for the remainder of the fiscal year—about $7 billion less than the department received for those activities in fiscal 2024.

Operation Timeline: The Trump Administration’s Impact on Veterans and the Military

To be sure, U.S. government and businesses remain the world’s top investor in basic research and development, with China close behind. And the DOD is the largest beneficiary of taxpayer-supported research, receiving about half of total funds.

But the cuts illustrate a growing shift in the nation’s landscape of research and development. In recent years, a larger share of America’s overall scientific spending is coming from businesses, especially in the fields of applied research, according to a 2021 Congressional Research Service report.

The U.S. Army worked with the RCA Corp. to develop night-vision technology after the German military introduced early versions during World War II. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Matt Hecht)

To maintain technical superiority, the U.S. military increasingly relies on commercially developed technologies, such as pilot simulation training, rapid detection of virus exposure, and Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet technology.

American dominance of innovation dates back less than a century. Prior to World War II, the U.S. provided almost no federal funding for research. Europe was the leader. That changed with Vannevar Bush, a former dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who predicted that the devastating war would be won or lost based on advanced technology.

Almost overnight, government research funding skyrocketed—resulting in a myriad of civilian spinoffs that remain an essential part of our everyday lives.

From Weapons Guidance to Directions to Dinner

One of the most famous examples was the creation of the Global Positioning System. On Labor Day weekend in 1973, U.S. Air Force Col. Bradford Parkinson and his top engineers shuttered themselves in the dark and deserted Pentagon to hammer out the concept of a navigation system, using atomic clocks and signals transmitted by satellites that would change the world.

The goal was to design a system to help guide weapons to their targets and keep track of personnel and materials. But from the start, the GPS was designed to have an open signal that anyone could use, Parkinson said.

“Before we put up the first satellite, I promised to make available the complete specifications that would allow people to build receivers,” said Parkinson, professor emeritus of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. “[It was] a signal that was going to be freely available to the civilians to use.”

By hand, he drew diagrams of eight to 10 potential nonmilitary uses for GPS, such as air traffic control, land grading, and commuter travel, saving time and money.

READ MORE

As Troops Face Mounting Demands to Serve in Crises, Civilian Employers Are Firing Them

It took two tragedies to spur the widespread adoption of GPS in commercial aviation: the 1978 shooting of a South Korean airliner by a Soviet fighter plane and the 1996 crash of a plane carrying U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others, said John Langer of the Enterprise Design department of The Aerospace Corporation, which advances GPS development. Both events were caused by pilot navigational errors.

The widespread public use of GPS began in the early 2000s, with the release of the second iPhone and the “blue dot” on app maps that shows a precise location, said Langer. “Now everyone expects to know where they are at all times.”

GPS—with smaller, cheaper, and less powerful receivers than military-grade equipment—brings military precision to routine tasks, like finding the best route to a new restaurant.

From Blood Banks to Frozen Platelets

The carnage of combat has led to significant advances in understanding hematology, wound care, and infection control.

In World War II, massive blood loss from gaping wounds caused by shrapnel, shells, fragments, and other debris required new techniques and tools to collect and preserve blood. Combat injuries also spurred our understanding of compatible blood typing and transfusion science.

The Department of Defense ushered in the modern age of blood banking by introducing plastic bags—rather than glass bottles—for storage, said hematologist Dr. Claudia Cohn, medical director of the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies and director of the University of Minnesota Blood Bank Laboratory. If blood is kept in glass, it is difficult to store and separate into its essential components.

Current research using databases from the Department of Defense Trauma Registry and Armed Services Blood Program is testing the potential use of cold-stored or frozen blood platelets, which last longer, are less prone to bacterial contamination, and are more practical for rural hospitals with limited supplies, Cohn said.

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It is also advancing the field of transfusions administered in ambulances on the way to the hospital, pumping blood into patients as quickly as possible. “Early studies are showing that the faster you get blood into the patient, the better they do,” she said.

“Military research has a long history of creating or developing technology that is then transferred to the civilian setting and has helped humankind,” said Cohn. “These are many of the things that we just take for granted.”

From Penicillin to Cancer Treatments

Our modern understanding of antibiotics, especially penicillin, has surged due to military research funding. Seeking to protect and recover manpower during World War II combat, War Production Board scientists collaborated on penicillin mold sampling, chemical synthesis, clinical trials, and large-scale penicillin production by fermentation. While a precise number is difficult to determine, it’s estimated that penicillin has saved 200 million lives globally, including countless Americans, according to Philadelphia’s Science History Institute.

Private industry has been slow to create new vaccines because profit margins are so thin for single-use medications. It took the Department of Defense, in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services, to support the development of mRNA technologies that produced Covid vaccines.

Radiation treatment for cancer traces its roots to World War II’s famed Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. After the war, the federal government produced radioisotopes in the same nuclear reactors that had been built to produce material for nuclear weapons—and sold them at a discount to laboratories, hospitals, and companies, where they proved their role as medical therapies and diagnostics, according to Princeton University historian Angela Creager.

From Duct Tape to Superglue

World War II also inspired something more mundane, but now ubiquitous: duct tape. Vesta Stoudt, the mother of two enlisted sons, was working at the Green River Ordnance Plant in Illinois, sealing boxes of ammunition cartridges with paper tape and dipping them wax to make them waterproof.

“But the paper tape was very thin, and the tabs often tore off, leaving soldiers frantically trying to open the box while under fire,” said Margaret Gurowitz, chief historian for Johnson & Johnson, which helped bring the tape to market.

On Feb. 10, 1943, Stoudt wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt describing the problem and her solution, complete with diagrams: strong, waterproof tape made from thin “duck cloth,” coated in plastic, that could be ripped by hand reliably, every time. Hundreds of thousands of miles of this tape were used on tanks, planes, and ammunition destined for overseas—and now duct tape is the go-to solution for patching holes and sealing gaps in pipes, ductwork, and other household items that need a quick, temporary fix.

The remarkable adhesive known as superglue was also invented during World War II, when Harry Coover and his military-funded team at Eastman-Kodak sought to make a clear plastic lens for precision gunsights, called prisms, for soldiers.

A new substance, called cyanoacrylate, was quickly abandoned because it was too sticky. But Coover realized the adhesive had a unique ability to bond without heat or pressure, permanently gluing together anything. He later put it to work to make jet airplane canopies. Now superglue is used to repair shoes, dishes, broken garden hoses, or torn car upholstery. It even extends the life of frayed phone charger cords.

From Nomex and Kevlar to a New Frontier

More recently, DOD-funded scientists have designed, improved or tested fabric and textiles to counter heat, cold, chemicals, flames, lasers and other harsh military environments.

The Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center laboratories developed a new flame-resistant fabric—a blend of wool, Nomex and Kevlar—that chars, rather than melting or dripping, when exposed to intense heat.

The laboratories also helped to improve the design of uniforms with Gore-Tex, the water-resistant material used in tents, backpacks, and other camping materials.

Military funding is now used to advance the newest frontier in science: machine learning, a type of AI, which analyzes large amounts of data, learns from the insights and informs decisions, said Stanford’s Decker.

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For instance, each Navy warship produces about 150 terabytes of raw sensor data each day—equivalent to tens of millions of high-quality photos or nearly a decade of videos—and machine learning can help process it.

“It’s decision making,” said Stanford’s Decker. “We live in a world right now where there is no shortage of data. … How do we as a country respond in situations … whether it’s a natural disaster or a war zone?”

But the shift in priorities at the Pentagon to focus on lethality is steering funding toward major projects like the next-generation F-47 aircraft and a Golden Dome missile defense system.

The change could be felt by future generations of civilians, far from the battlefield.

Over the decades, “military technologies tend to find a way, sometimes in a surprising manner, into civilian use,” said Parkinson.

“It isn’t the primary reason that the military does that research—but the spin-offs have been substantial,” he said. “They’re spread around, like peanut butter.”

This War Horse story was edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.

thewarhorse.org · by Lisa M. Krieger · April 10, 2025

23. SOCOM leader warns of information operations 'void'

​Truth to power.  

As we have long said, it is easier to get permission to put a hellfire missile on the forehead of a terrorist than it is to get permission to put an idea between anyone's ears.

Excerpts:

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., noted that China spends more than $1 billion on information operations to include disinformation and misinformation activities.

When pressed, Colby Jenkins, who’s performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told Shaheen that the Pentagon spends significantly less than that on info ops.

“We don’t have anybody in charge of information operations across, as far as I can [tell] … Defense, State and the administration. And the president just fired Gen. [Timothy] Haugh, the head of Cyber Command … We’ve dismantled our Global Engagement Center at the Department of State. We’re dismantling Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, all of the media that we’ve relied on really since the Cold War to get messaging across, to accurately reflect the position of the United States against our adversaries,” Shaheen said. “Help me understand how we’re able to compete in the information arena when we don’t have anybody in charge and when we’ve lost a lot of our people who are doing that work? … Should we be doing more to resource those information operations?”

Fenton, agreeing with other experts, articulated at a conference in February hosted by NDIA that the national security community should receive the grade of “F” strategically when it comes to information operations.

SOCOM leader warns of information operations 'void'

Gen. Bryan Fenton discussion info ops at two congressional hearings this week.

https://defensescoop.com/2025/04/09/socom-leader-warns-of-information-operations-void-gen-bryan-fenton/?utm

By

Mark Pomerleau

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · April 9, 2025

The head of U.S. Special Operations Command told lawmakers that America and its military must get better at information operations in the face of increased adversary investments in that space.

For years, members of Congress and outside experts have derided the U.S. government’s lack of information prowess, which atrophied after the Cold War. For the military, kinetic action typically takes precedence over non-kinetic information activities. And the interagency process can bog down information campaigns.

“There’s a sense of you may not win a war with information operations like you could with artillery, [but] you can certainly lose it if you’re not a key part of that putting out the messages,” Gen. Bryan Fenton, commander of SOCOM, told lawmakers at a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing Tuesday.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., noted that China spends more than $1 billion on information operations to include disinformation and misinformation activities.

When pressed, Colby Jenkins, who’s performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told Shaheen that the Pentagon spends significantly less than that on info ops.

“We don’t have anybody in charge of information operations across, as far as I can [tell] … Defense, State and the administration. And the president just fired Gen. [Timothy] Haugh, the head of Cyber Command … We’ve dismantled our Global Engagement Center at the Department of State. We’re dismantling Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, all of the media that we’ve relied on really since the Cold War to get messaging across, to accurately reflect the position of the United States against our adversaries,” Shaheen said. “Help me understand how we’re able to compete in the information arena when we don’t have anybody in charge and when we’ve lost a lot of our people who are doing that work? … Should we be doing more to resource those information operations?”

Fenton, agreeing with other experts, articulated at a conference in February hosted by NDIA that the national security community should receive the grade of “F” strategically when it comes to information operations.

At the same conference, Jonathan Schroden, research program director at CNA, noted that his colleagues at the research organization conducted the information operations posture review required by Congress a few years ago. One of the findings was there’s no shared understanding of what an information-related capability is across the DOD, and there were around 15 different definitions of what constitutes that type of capability.

“If you can’t even speak the same language between the Navy and the Army and Air Force, my god, how do you expect to do anything effectively?” he said.

Others noted small successes but said they need to do more.

“We’ve had a couple of successes where we’ve been able to connect information operations with the kinetic operation, and we’re high five and slap ourselves in the back. But what was noteworthy is, why aren’t we doing that at scale? And there’s just one example amongst 200 strikes that that’s not sufficient,” Lt. Gen. Sean Farrell, deputy commander of SOCOM, said at the NDIA event. “It’s a drop in the bucket. We need to be better in information operations.”

In congressional testimony before Senate and House panels this week, Fenton noted that a void has been created due to the lack of such activities.

“My sense is that there is a void. You mentioned misinformation, disinformation by any adversary — there’s a void out there that’s not being filled by our message,” Fenton told senators Tuesday.

At a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Information and Special Operations hearing Wednesday, speaking specifically on operations in Africa, Fenton said: “That information operation void, in many ways, I think, allowed adversaries to get in there and [with] mistruths, untruth, falsities, put a different narrative based on their view of the world, what they wanted, and mostly the great work we’ve done for years.”

Fenton told lawmakers the U.S. has good narratives and should be using that to its advantage.

“As United States of America, we’ve got a great message to tell … We take it, certainly in Special Operations Command, with our information ops professionals, to really work at that in concert with … our country teams, our embassy country teams, to put those messages out that assure populations or reassure — and also at points in time, deter adversaries,” he explained.

Fenton wants to flip the military’s mentality. Instead of having kinetic activities followed up by information operations, it should be the other way around, he said at the NDIA event in February.

Delegation of authorities has to go lower as well in order to enable greater speed, he suggested.

“If we’re going to do something, we’re usually swinging behind the 8-ball,” he said. “I think that the delegation probably has got to go to a lot lower level. In many cases, not doing it and the decision to say ‘no’ is probably actually accruing more risk than actually doing it, even if it had a modicum of not getting out there just right.”

Written by Mark Pomerleau

Mark Pomerleau is a senior reporter for DefenseScoop, covering information warfare, cyber, electronic warfare, information operations, intelligence, influence, battlefield networks and data.

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · April 9, 2025

​24. Trump Team Races to Cut Piecemeal Tariff Deals With More Than 70 Countries

​Is this the "real" deal (the real strategy)?

Trump Team Races to Cut Piecemeal Tariff Deals With More Than 70 Countries

Administration might settle for written commitments from foreign governments to make certain economic reforms

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-deals-countries-trade-deals-1e3629f6

By Gavin Bade

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April 10, 2025 9:00 pm ET

President Trump said he could make all the tariff deals ‘in one day.’ Photo: Nathan Howard/Reuters

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration has embarked on a high-speed effort to negotiate ad hoc deals with more than 70 countries hoping to escape higher tariffs, with any agreements likely to fall short of the kind of fully-fledged trade pacts that traditionally shape global trade.

People with knowledge of the discussions say that many of the offers President Trump is touting are preliminary calls or offers from other nations to negotiate, not fleshed-out economic proposals. While the administration has issued broad requirements for the countries coming to the table—such as reducing their tariffs and buying more American goods—the White House was still devising its negotiation strategy Thursday, as the countdown to the July 8 deadline began.

Traditional free-trade agreements typically take several years to negotiate. Narrower deals covering specific industries that Trump reached with nations such as China, Japan and Korea in his first term took several months. The White House now needs to speed-run negotiations much faster and with dozens of nations at the same time—something that is worrying lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are eager to see deals reached that can avoid the tariff-induced stock selloff of the past week.

The deals aren’t likely to be fully developed free-trade agreements, which typically need to be passed by Congress. Instead, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.), Trump’s first-term ambassador to Japan, said the administration might settle for written commitments from foreign governments to make certain economic reforms, akin to a term sheet that precedes an investment or business deal. That perspective was backed up by a foreign-government official in contact with the U.S.

After those preliminary deals are reached, administration officials can work out which, if any, of the agreements they will bring before Congress.

“In deal parlance, once you’ve got a letter of intent, then you know you’re gonna enter into an agreement,” Hagerty said. “I wouldn’t expect a final deal in 90 days but I would expect the parameters of each deal could be laid out, negotiated, and agreed to.”

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President Trump rolled back a major portion of his tariff plan just hours after it went into effect, following a week of turbulence in the stock and bond markets. WSJ’s Gavin Bade explains how it unfolded and what happens next. Photo: Shawn Thew/Bloomberg News

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Administration officials have said that agreements, in some form, are coming. National Economic Council Chair Kevin Hassett said Thursday that 15 nations had made offers to the U.S., though he didn’t provide details. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also tried to reassure lawmakers this week that he and his staff were working around the clock to hash out tariff deals. He offered general points on what countries should offer the U.S., such as focusing on lowering the trade deficit.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles directed economic officials to meet Thursday “to discuss what their views are about how this should go,” Hassett said.

And Trump was adamant he would get deals done within his time frame. “I could make every deal in one day if I wanted to,” he said during a cabinet meeting Thursday. “I could do this all in one day.”

Greer told lawmakers this week that he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had held several conversations with Japanese negotiators. He said they would aim to secure more access to the Japanese market for U.S. goods, commitments to buy U.S. commodities such as liquefied natural gas and alignment on screening investments that private companies make in adversarial nations such as China.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told lawmakers that his office was focused on hashing out deals. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

The content of discussions with other nations, however, remains unclear. Amid the confusion, some countries are rushing to other so-called Trump whisperers, such as Hagerty, for guidance. The Tennessee senator said he had communicated with several governments in his role as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about what they should offer U.S. negotiators. 

One thing seems nearly certain: The 10% baseline tariff will stay in place. It would take “some kind of extraordinary deal to go below” that 10% rate, Hassett said Thursday.

European Union Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said this week that the bloc was optimistic that it could address U.S. concerns about its trade deficit with the EU and suggested the Europeans could buy more liquefied natural gas and other American products such as soybeans. But he also expressed skepticism that doing so would be enough to appease the Trump administration.

TRADE WAR

Where Trump's Trade War Stands Now

“If we know that this is the issue, I think then we can sort it out very quickly,” Šefčovič said of the trade deficit. Speaking two days before Trump announced his tariff pause, Šefčovič said he felt the U.S. tariffs had more to do with a push to transform the global trading system and that the duties were viewed as a way to achieve the administration’s political goals.

The EU also said this week that it had offered to cut automotive and other industrial tariffs to zero if the U.S. did the same.

The EU is unlikely to change the value-added tax, which the Trump administration views as an unfair trade practice because it is refunded to companies exporting from VAT nations. The tax provides an important source of revenue for European governments, and EU officials and many economists say it is nondiscriminatory. Tech regulations that the U.S. has complained about aren’t connected to trade “and we will not be conflating the two in our negotiations,” an EU spokesman said this week. The bloc has also said it wouldn’t compromise on its food health-and-safety standards in talks with the U.S.

Peter Navarro, the administration adviser who helped design the much-maligned formula for Trump’s reciprocal levies, said on CNN that the deals would come.

“We do stuff in Trump time, which is to say as quickly as possible,” Navarro said. “Let’s see what happens.”

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.) said the deals coming might simply be commitments from foreign governments to make select economic-policy changes. Photo: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg News

Write to Gavin Bade at gavin.bade@wsj.com

Appeared in the April 11, 2025, print edition as 'Trump Team Races to Make Deals With Over 70 Nations'.

25. Does Trump Have a China Trade Strategy?

​To win we need a silk web of friends, partners, and allies; bilateral, multilateral, and minilateral direct and indirect relationships all working together to make the rules based international order world or the great good.

Does Trump Have a China Trade Strategy?

If he wants Beijing to change, he needs the allies he’s tariffing.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/china-tariffs-donald-trump-trade-markets-scott-bessent-tiktok-b30bce47?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

By The Editorial Board

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April 10, 2025 5:49 pm ET

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2017. Photo: jim watson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

It’s all going according to plan, says the White House, and you almost have to smile at this spin in trying to sell President Trump’s partial tariff reversal this week as a triumph. The reality is that Mr. Trump is making it up as he goes, and it would help if he had an actual strategy to deal with China in particular.

Stocks staged a relief rally on Wednesday, but a day later fell again. What investors know is that the trade war is far from over and damage persists. Even with the 90-day pause, the tariffs that continue are the largest tax increase since 1982. They’re bigger than Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase and George H.W. Bush’s in 1990. Taxes are anti-growth.

Then there’s the trade-war escalation with China, the world’s second largest economy. The White House said Thursday that the U.S. tariff on all Chinese exports to the U.S. will now be 145%. In 2024 the U.S. imported $439 billion in goods from China, so apply 145% to that and you get a sense of the hit to U.S. consumers and businesses.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the U.S. trade goal all along has been to isolate China as a main offender. There’s good reason to treat China differently given its often predatory trade practices. These include cyber attacks on U.S. companies and government; intellectual property theft; unequal treatment of U.S. firms in China; and Covid lies.

But it isn’t clear what Messrs. Trump and Bessent want from China, and what their strategy is to achieve it. Do they want a complete decoupling of the two economies? That’s what tariff levels of 145% suggest. But that also means large economic disruption in the near and medium term, as some $600 billion in two-way trade goes away or finds new sources and destinations. Strategic decoupling on key goods makes more sense.

Yet that’s not what Mr. Trump says he wants, and on Wednesday he said he still hopes for a trade deal with China. The tariffs in that case are merely his lever for getting President Xi Jinping to the table. The problem is that tariffs are a blunderbuss weapon that hurts Americans as much as it does Chinese exporters. Markets are saying the U.S. economy will suffer too.

There’s also the contradiction of how Mr. Trump handles other China issues. The President is doing Mr. Xi a favor by refusing to enforce a law passed by Congress to force the sale of TikTok from Chinese-controlled ByteDance. Last week he extended the deadline for a TikTok sale by another 75 days after China walked away from a looming transaction. Mr. Trump also refuses to impose sanctions on Chinese firms that buy oil from Russia and thus help Moscow’s war machine. These decisions send Mr. Xi the message that Mr. Trump isn’t serious about challenging Chinese abuses.

If Mr. Trump is serious, the best strategy would be to rally allies to the cause of fighting Chinese mercantilism. But he shows no interest in that either. He squandered his best chance to isolate China on trade in his first term by walking away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership that didn’t include Beijing. China then cut its own deal with many of the countries that the U.S. left in the cold.

This term Mr. Trump is outright punishing the allies he needs for a coherent China strategy. He’s imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico and insulted Canadian national pride. He’s hit Japan with 24% tariffs, South Korea with 25%, and Europe with 20%. He’s hit Vietnam with 46%, though the boom in that country’s exports to the U.S. since his first-term tariffs has come at China’s expense.

Those tariffs are now paused for 90 days, but all of these countries know Mr. Trump could hit them again at any time. He’s also insulted Japan by refusing to let Nippon Steel buy U.S. Steel despite its pledge to invest billions of dollars in U.S. manufacturing. Why should these allies trust Mr. Trump now, if he says he needs them to unite to slow China’s advance of artificial intelligence? They may need China’s market if they can’t access the U.S.

***

Mr. Trump’s intellectual problem, or at least one of them, is that he’s fixated on the U.S. trade deficit with friend and foe. The deficit is a non-problem in economic terms. And if there are trade issues with allies, they can be addressed with bilateral or multilateral trade deals.

By far the biggest problem in the global trading system is the abuse of free-trade rules by the authoritarian regime in China. Mr. Trump’s ad hoc, scattershot tariff policy won’t solve that problem. So far he’s hurting his own cause and country more than he’s hurting the Chinese Communist Party.

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Free Expression: President Trump's foreign policy is doing irreversible damage to the greatest geopolitical brand ever created. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/Tomishige/The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

Appeared in the April 11, 2025, print edition as 'Does Trump Have a China Strategy?'.

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