Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. “Can they be brought together?” This is a practical question. We must get down to it. “I despise intelligence” really means I cannot bear my doubts.”

– Albert Camus

“Integrity is not old school, it applies today like it never did.”

– Richard Norton

“Everything good is costly, in the development of the personality is one of the most costly of all things. It will cost you your innocence, your illusions, your certainty.”

– Carl Jung.

1. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Declares National Emergency to Increase our Competitive Edge, Protect our Sovereignty, and Strengthen our National and Economic Security

2. New chaos in White House as top NSC officials sacked

3. Musk’s Task Force Begins Shutting Down Foreign Policy Research Center

4. Trump’s tariffs are the end of globalisation Europe can’t fight a trade war

5. Trump fires National Security Council officials after an Oval Office meeting with Laura Loomer.

6. China Retaliates to Trump Tariffs; Investors Rush Into Bonds While Dow Futures Slide

7. Trump Fires Director of National Security Agency

8. Russian drone strike on Kharkiv homes kills several, say officials

9. U.S. Strikes in Yemen Burning Through Munitions With Limited Success

10. US bans government personnel in China from romantic or sexual relations with Chinese citizens

11. Exclusive-Musk team issued inaccurate USAID firing notices, must send correct versions, say sources

12. Defense officials considering cuts to military treatment facilities

13. Dropping U.S. Biodefenses: Why Cuts to Federal Health Agencies Make Americans Less Safe

14. Iran abandons Houthis under relentless US bombardment

15. Regulated Democracy and Regulated Speech

16. Tariffs Can Actually Work—if Only Trump Understood How

17. Greenland’s Military Possibilities for the United States

18. China and Russia Will Not Be Split

19. The Economic Consequences of State Capture

20. Is The U.S. About To Go To War With Iran?

21. The Age of Tariffs

22. CSA's Articles of the Month

23. On Defense, Trump’s Early Moves in Asia Have Been Notably Normal

24. Army Planners Are Weighing Force Reductions of Up to 90,000 Active-Duty Soldiers

1. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Declares National Emergency to Increase our Competitive Edge, Protect our Sovereignty, and Strengthen our National and Economic Security

I really need a tutorial in economics to understand the logic of these tariffs.

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Declares National Emergency to Increase our Competitive Edge, Protect our Sovereignty, and Strengthen our National and Economic Security

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-declares-national-emergency-to-increase-our-competitive-edge-protect-our-sovereignty-and-strengthen-our-national-and-economic-security/

The White House

April 2, 2025

PURSUING RECIPROCITY TO REBUILD THE ECONOMY AND RESTORE NATIONAL AND ECONOMIC SECURITY: Today, President Donald J. Trump declared that foreign trade and economic practices have created a national emergency, and his order imposes responsive tariffs to strengthen the international economic position of the United States and protect American workers.

Large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits have led to the hollowing out of our manufacturing base; resulted in a lack of incentive to increase advanced domestic manufacturing capacity; undermined critical supply chains; and rendered our defense-industrial base dependent on foreign adversaries.
President Trump is invoking his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) to address the national emergency posed by the large and persistent trade deficit that is driven by the absence of reciprocity in our trade relationships and other harmful policies like currency manipulation and exorbitant value-added taxes (VAT) perpetuated by other countries.
Using his IEEPA authority, President Trump will impose a 10% tariff on all countries.
This will take effect April 5, 2025 at 12:01 a.m. EDT.
President Trump will impose an individualized reciprocal higher tariff on the countries with which the United States has the largest trade deficits. All other countries will continue to be subject to the original 10% tariff baseline.
This will take effect April 9, 2025 at 12:01 a.m. EDT.
These tariffs will remain in effect until such a time as President Trump determines that the threat posed by the trade deficit and underlying nonreciprocal treatment is satisfied, resolved, or mitigated.
Today’s IEEPA Order also contains modification authority, allowing President Trump to increase the tariff if trading partners retaliate or decrease the tariffs if trading partners take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements and align with the United States on economic and national security matters.
Some goods will not be subject to the Reciprocal Tariff. These include: (1) articles subject to 50 USC 1702(b); (2) steel/aluminum articles and autos/auto parts already subject to Section 232 tariffs; (3) copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and lumber articles; (4) all articles that may become subject to future Section 232 tariffs; (5) bullion; and (6) energy and other certain minerals that are not available in the United States.
For Canada and Mexico, the existing fentanyl/migration IEEPA orders remain in effect, and are unaffected by this order. This means USMCA compliant goods will continue to see a 0% tariff, non-USMCA compliant goods will see a 25% tariff, and non-USMCA compliant energy and potash will see a 10% tariff. In the event the existing fentanyl/migration IEEPA orders are terminated, USMCA compliant goods would continue to receive preferential treatment, while non-USMCA compliant goods would be subject to a 12% reciprocal tariff.

TAKING BACK OUR ECONOMIC SOVEREIGNTY: President Trump refuses to let the United States be taken advantage of and believes that tariffs are necessary to ensure fair trade, protect American workers, and reduce the trade deficit—this is an emergency.

He is the first President in modern history to stand strong for hardworking Americans by asking other countries to follow the golden rule on trade: Treat us like we treat you.
Pernicious economic policies and practices of our trading partners undermine our ability to produce essential goods for the public and the military, threatening national security.
U.S. companies, according to internal estimates, pay over $200 billion per year in value-added taxes (VAT) to foreign governments—a “double-whammy” on U.S. companies who pay the tax at the European border, while European companies don’t pay tax to the United States on the income from their exports to the U.S.
The annual cost to the U.S. economy of counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets is between $225 billion and $600 billion. Counterfeit products not only pose a significant risk to U.S. competitiveness, but also threaten the security, health, and safety of Americans, with the global trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals estimated at $4.4 billion and linked to the distribution of deadly fentanyl-laced drugs.
This imbalance has fueled a large and persistent trade deficit in both industrial and agricultural goods, led to offshoring of our manufacturing base, empowered non-market economies like China, and hurt America’s middle class and small towns.
President Biden squandered the agricultural trade surplus inherited from President Trump’s first term, turning it into a projected all-time high deficit of $49 billion.
The current global trading order allows those using unfair trade practices to get ahead, while those playing by the rules get left behind.
In 2024, our trade deficit in goods exceeded $1.2 trillion—an unsustainable crisis ignored by prior leadership.
“Made in America” is not just a tagline—it’s an economic and national security priority of this Administration. The President’s reciprocal trade agenda means better-paying American jobs making beautiful American-made cars, appliances, and other goods.
These tariffs seek to address the injustices of global trade, re-shore manufacturing, and drive economic growth for the American people.
Reciprocal trade is America First trade because it increases our competitive edge, protects our sovereignty, and strengthens our national and economic security.
These tariffs adjust for the unfairness of ongoing international trade practices, balance our chronic goods trade deficit, provide an incentive for re-shoring production to the United States, and provide our foreign trading partners with an opportunity to rebalance their trade relationships with the United States.

REPRIORITIZING U.S. MANUFACTURING: President Trump recognizes that increasing domestic manufacturing is critical to U.S. national security.

In 2023, U.S. manufacturing output as a share of global manufacturing output was 17.4%, down from 28.4% in 2001.
The decline in manufacturing output has reduced U.S. manufacturing capacity.
The need to maintain a resilient domestic manufacturing capacity is particularly acute in advanced sectors like autos, shipbuilding, pharmaceuticals, transport equipment, technology products, machine tools, and basic and fabricated metals, where loss of capacity could permanently weaken U.S. competitiveness.
U.S. stockpiles of military goods are too low to be compatible with U.S. national defense interests.
If the U.S. wishes to maintain an effective security umbrella to defend its citizens and homeland, as well as allies and partners, it needs to have a large upstream manufacturing and goods-producing ecosystem.
This includes developing new manufacturing technologies in critical sectors like bio-manufacturing, batteries, and microelectronics to support defense needs.
Increased reliance on foreign producers for goods has left the U.S. supply chain vulnerable to geopolitical disruption and supply shocks.
This vulnerability was exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and later with Houthi attacks on Middle East shipping.
From 1997 to 2024, the U.S. lost around 5 million manufacturing jobs and experienced one of the largest drops in manufacturing employment in history.

ADDRESSING TRADE IMBALANCES: President Trump is working to level the playing field for American businesses and workers by confronting the unfair tariff disparities and non-tariff barriers imposed by other countries.

For generations, countries have taken advantage of the United States, tariffing us at higher rates. For example:
The United States imposes a 2.5% tariff on passenger vehicle imports (with internal combustion engines), while the European Union (10%) and India (70%) impose much higher duties on the same product.
For networking switches and routers, the United States imposes a 0% tariff, but India (10-20%) levies higher rates.
Brazil (18%) and Indonesia (30%) impose a higher tariff on ethanol than does the United States (2.5%).
For rice in the husk, the U.S. imposes a tariff of 2.7%, while India (80%), Malaysia (40%), and Turkey (31%) impose higher rates.
Apples enter the United States duty-free, but not so in Turkey (60.3%) and India (50%).
The United States has one of the lowest simple average most-favored-nation (MFN) tariff rates in the world at 3.3%, while many of our key trading partners like Brazil (11.2%), China (7.5%), the European Union (5%), India (17%), and Vietnam (9.4%) have simple average MFN tariff rates that are significantly higher.
Similarly, non-tariff barriers—meant to limit the quantity of imports/exports and protect domestic industries—also deprive U.S. manufacturers of reciprocal access to markets around the world. For example:
China’s non-market policies and practices have given China global dominance in key manufacturing industries, decimating U.S. industry. Between 2001 and 2018, these practices contributed to the loss of 3.7 million U.S. jobs due to the growth of the U.S.-China trade deficit, displacing workers and undermining American competitiveness while threatening U.S. economic and national security by increasing our reliance on foreign-controlled supply chains for critical industries as well as everyday goods.
India imposes their own uniquely burdensome and/or duplicative testing and certification requirements in sectors such as chemicals, telecom products, and medical devices that make it difficult or costly for American companies to sell their products in India. If these barriers were removed, it is estimated that U.S. exports would increase by at least $5.3 billion annually.
Countries including China, Germany, Japan, and South Korea have pursued policies that suppress the domestic consumption power of their own citizens to artificially boost the competitiveness of their export products. Such policies include regressive tax systems, low or unenforced penalties for environmental degradation, and policies intended to suppress worker wages relative to productivity.
Certain countries, like Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, and Vietnam, restrict or prohibit the importation of remanufactured goods, restricting market access for U.S. exporters while also stifling efforts to promote sustainability by discouraging trade in like-new and resource-efficient products. If these barriers were removed, it is estimated that U.S. exports would increase by at least $18 billion annually.
The UK maintains non-science-based standards that severely restrict U.S. exports of safe, high-quality beef and poultry products.
Indonesia maintains local content requirements across a broad range of sectors, complex import licensing regimes, and, starting this year, will require natural resource firms to onshore all export revenue for transactions worth $250,000 or more.
Argentina has banned imports of U.S. live cattle since 2002 due to unsubstantiated concerns regarding bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The United States has a $223 million trade deficit with Argentina in beef and beef products.
For decades, South Africa has imposed animal health restrictions that are not scientifically justified on U.S. pork products, permitting a very limited list of U.S. pork exports to enter South Africa. South Africa also heavily restricts U.S. poultry exports through high tariffs, anti-dumping duties, and unjustified animal health restrictions. These barriers have contributed to a 78% decline in U.S. poultry exports to South Africa, from $89 million in 2019 to $19 million 2024.
U.S. automakers face a variety of non-tariff barriers that impede access to the Japanese and Korean automotive markets, including non-acceptance of certain U.S. standards, duplicative testing and certification requirements, and transparency issues. Due to these non-reciprocal practices, the U.S. automotive industry loses out on an additional $13.5 billion in annual exports to Japan and access to a larger import market share in Korea—all while the U.S. trade deficit with Korea more than tripled from 2019 to 2024.
Monetary tariffs and non-monetary tariffs are two distinct types of trade barriers that governments use to regulate imports and exports. President Trump is countering both through reciprocal tariffs to protect American workers and industries from these unfair practices.

THE GOLDEN RULE FOR OUR GOLDEN AGE: Today’s action simply asks other countries to treat us like we treat them. It’s the Golden Rule for Our Golden Age.

Access to the American market is a privilege, not a right.
The United States will no longer put itself last on matters of international trade in exchange for empty promises.
Reciprocal tariffs are a big part of why Americans voted for President Trump—it was a cornerstone of his campaign from the start.
Everyone knew he’d push for them once he got back in office; it’s exactly what he promised, and it’s a key reason he won the election.
These tariffs are central to President Trump’s plan to reverse the economic damage left by President Biden and put America on a path to a new golden age.
This builds on his broader economic agenda of energy competitiveness, tax cuts, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security benefits, and deregulation to boost American prosperity.

TARIFFS WORK: Studies have repeatedly shown that tariffs can be an effective tool for reducing or eliminating threats that impair U.S. national security and achieving economic and strategic objectives.

A 2024 study on the effects of President Trump’s tariffs in his first term found that they “strengthened the U.S. economy” and “led to significant reshoring” in industries like manufacturing and steel production.
A 2023 report by the U.S. International Trade Commission that analyzed the effects of Section 232 and 301 tariffs on more than $300 billion of U.S. imports found that the tariffs reduced imports from China and effectively stimulated more U.S. production of the tariffed goods, with very minor effects on prices.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the tariffs implemented by President Trump during his first term “clearly show[ed] no correlation with inflation” and only had a temporary effect on overall price levels.
An analysis from the Atlantic Council found that “tariffs would create new incentives for US consumers to buy US-made products.”
Former Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen affirmed last year that tariffs do not raise prices: “I don’t believe that American consumers will see any meaningful increase in the prices that they face.”
A 2024 economic analysis found that a global tariff of 10% would grow the economy by $728 billion, create 2.8 million jobs, and increase real household incomes by 5.7%.

2. New chaos in White House as top NSC officials sacked

What disgusting allegations against Alex and his wife. I saw some of the extremist posts about him and his wife on social media. They are retweeted and shared on facebook by people who have no idea who Alex is or that fact that he was in the first Trump administration and is a loyal supporter of the administration.

That the radical extremists QAnon conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer would have any sway over the administration is just mind boggling.

New chaos in White House as top NSC officials sacked

Mike Waltz’s NSC is under fire from far-right influencers.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/03/new-chaos-in-white-house-as-top-nsc-officials-sacked-00006401

White House national security adviser Mike Waltz listens to a question from a reporter in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Feb. 20, 2025. | Alex Brandon/AP

By Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch

04/03/2025 02:51 PM EDT

The White House has fired several top National Security Council officials as internal fights among factions of the Trump team escalate, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The firings came a day after Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who has spread conspiracy theories including about the origins of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, reportedly met with President Donald Trump to question the loyalty of some NSC officials.

POLITICO could not independently confirm whether the firings came as a direct result of Loomer meeting with the president or the fallout from the revelations that top officials discussed U.S. military operations in an NSC Signal group chat that accidentally included a journalist.

When asked about the terminations, NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes said the “NSC doesn’t comment on personnel matters.”

National security adviser Mike Waltz, under pressure over the “Signalgate” scandal, briefly attended Trump’s meeting with Loomer to defend his team, according to The New York Times, which previously reported the meeting. Axios previously reported on the NSC firings.

But the firings also speak to ongoing fights between the head of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, Sergio Gor, a former spokesperson for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Waltz’s team over a number of prospective administration hires that the powerful vetting organization has deemed to be out of step with Trump’s foreign policy positions. The NSC did not respond to a request for additional comment on this matter.

The frustrations — which have not been previously reported in this detail — date back to the beginning of Trump’s transition in November. One person familiar with internal NSC hiring decisions said Gor has blocked Waltz’s picks for key NSC appointments despite those people being in line with Waltz and the president’s hawkish views on adversaries like China and Iran.

“It’s astounding to me that Waltz has the trust of the president on national security issues but not the trust to staff his own team,” this person said. Like others, the person was granted anonymity to discuss internal White House dynamics candidly.

Among the officials being fired, according to two people familiar with the matter, are Thomas Boodry, a senior NSC official overseeing legislative affairs who worked for Waltz when he was in Congress; David Feith, an official overseeing technology and national security; and Brian Walsh, an NSC official working on intelligence issues who previously worked for Secretary of State Marco Rubio during his time in the Senate.

There are worries inside the White House that the round of firings of new NSC hands will have a chilling effect on Waltz’s ability to staff up the NSC with experienced and capable national security officials — and ultimately handicap Trump’s foreign policy agenda from its nerve center in the White House, according to the three people familiar with the matter.

“All these jobs have a real learning curve and pushing a reset will set the Trump team back by months,” argued one former Biden national security council official, who was granted anonymity as they did not want to weigh in on Trump personnel decisions publicly.

The firings came a week after a top Republican lawmaker rallied to defend deputy national security adviser Alex Wong in the face of far-right attacks from Loomer and others accusing him and his wife — without evidence — of being agents of the Chinese government working to undermine the Trump administration.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) for whom Wong previously worked, said in an X post that Wong and his wife, Candice Chiu Wong, are “complete and total patriots, 100% MAGA Warriors who always put America First.” Cotton added that “America is safer and better off with Alex in the White House.”

Loomer did not respond to a request for comment, but appeared to confirm the meeting in a post on X on Thursday. She wrote: “I woke up this morning to learn that there are still people in and around the West Wing who are LEAKING to the hostile, left-wing media about President Trump’s *confidential* and *private* meetings in the Oval Office.” She added: “I will continue reiterating the importance of, and the necessity of STRONG VETTING, for the sake of protecting the President of the United States of America, and our national security.”

Dasha Burns contributed to this report.

3. Musk’s Task Force Begins Shutting Down Foreign Policy Research Center

Sigh...One of the good ones. I do not see how this think tank was so controversial. They have excellent China and Korea centers. I think the anti-intellectualism strain of America is coming to a head.

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"

– isaac Asimov

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

– H.L. Memcken

“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”

– Neil Postman

Musk’s Task Force Begins Shutting Down Foreign Policy Research Center

Mark Green, a Republican who once worked under President Trump, stepped down as head of the Wilson Center after employees of Elon Musk’s team visited the think tank.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/us/politics/doge-wilson-center.html?smid=url-share

Share full article

Mark Green stepped down as president and chief executive of the Wilson Center on Tuesday. President Trump signed an executive order last month to all but eliminate the organization.Credit...Cristina Vega/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Aishvarya Kavi and Edward Wong

Reporting from Washington

Published April 2, 2025
Updated April 3, 2025, 12:16 a.m. ET

The head of the Wilson Center, a storied foreign policy think tank, resigned on Tuesday, a day after employees from Elon Musk’s government-overhauling team arrived at the group’s Washington headquarters to dismantle it, according to people familiar with the actions at the center.

The resignation of the president, Mark Green, a Republican, and the visit from Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team, indicated that the Trump administration was carrying out an executive order President Trump signed last month directing that the organization, a nonpartisan policy group, be largely dismantled.

After DOGE team members visited the center on Monday and Tuesday, some of the leadership staff and senior government employees were ousted, including Mr. Green, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution by political appointees in the Trump administration. The center’s dozens of federal employees, about a third of its work force, were also set to be placed on administrative leave.

The apparent gutting of the Wilson Center would be the latest attempt by the Trump administration to bring federally funded institutions that have historically been independent under executive branch control, and in much diminished forms. Mr. Musk and his task force have helped lead efforts at slashing those institutions and various federal agencies.

One person familiar with Mr. Green’s resignation said he had been offered a choice: Step down or be fired. Mr. Green, who has been a Wisconsin congressman, an ambassador to Tanzania and head of the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development during Mr. Trump’s first term, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

After the March executive order calling for the center to be reduced “to the minimum presence and function required by law,” Mr. Green wrote in an email to members that its leaders had viewed the order and were “crafting plans to comply.” He did not say whether the center would push back against the executive order.

Ryan McKenna, a Wilson Center spokesman, said on Wednesday that the center had no comment on Mr. Green’s resignation or DOGE’s visits.

A Trump administration official said that Mr. Green had resigned voluntarily, and that Natasha Jacome, a senior adviser to Mr. Green, was the center’s new president. The Wilson Center’s president is ordinarily appointed by the board of trustees, but members of the board were fired in recent weeks. On Tuesday evening, the center’s website said that the board was “vacant.” The White House did not respond to questions about the board’s current membership.

Mr. Trump announced in January he was firing one of his own appointees, Brian Hook, who served as a special envoy for Iran during Mr. Trump’s first term before stepping down. Bill Haslam, a Republican former governor of Tennessee, has also been fired, a newspaper in Knoxville, Tenn., reported.

Joe Asher, whom former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. appointed as chairman of the board in 2023, said in a LinkedIn post last month that he and Mr. Biden’s other appointees had been fired by Mr. Trump.

“We had been asked to resign earlier in the week,” he wrote, “but I didn’t see the point of that.”

He added that the board members had served without pay and praised the center, under Mr. Green’s leadership, as “first-rate.”

In his email, Mr. Green noted that Congress had given the center “a special charter and mandate” when it was created in 1968 as a memorial to Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president. Wilson won a Nobel Prize in 1919 for his role in founding the League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations, in the wake of World War I.

The Wilson Center describes it itself as “congressionally chartered, scholarship driven, and fiercely nonpartisan.” While Wilson himself was a Democrat, the center does not align itself with a political party and has historically been run by members of both parties, and by a bipartisan board. It receives federal funding for its work but also solicits and accepts private donations to run a slate of fellowships and scholarships. Those go mostly to academic researchers, but some have gone to journalists working on book projects in residence, including reporters at The New York Times.

The fellowships and scholarships appeared to continue on Wednesday, but their long-term fate is unclear. Donors could decide to end their financial support, depending on the makeup of the new board and the direction of the center.

The center is housed in the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington. That building was also the site for the headquarters of U.S.A.I.D. until Mr. Musk, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other aides to Mr. Trump dismantled that agency and ended its lease there.

Congress made the Wilson Center to honor an American president, in a similar fashion as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which Mr. Trump took over in February. After he gutted its board, Mr. Trump was elected as its chair. He has since shared a vision to remake the cultural institution.

Mr. Green’s predecessor, Jane Harman, a Democrat who served as president of the Wilson Center for a decade until 2021, lamented on Tuesday the news of Mr. Green’s resignation and the administration’s decision to target the center, which she said has a global reputation of nonpartisan scholarship on foreign affairs.

“It has just extraordinary scholarship and extraordinary influence around the world,” Ms. Harman said. “It’s strictly nonpartisan. And the appeal for me — I left Congress early in my ninth term because I wanted to go to someplace that was a bipartisan problem solver focused on international issues.”

Lara Jakes contributed reporting.

Aishvarya Kavi works in the Washington bureau of The Times, helping to cover a variety of political and national news. More about Aishvarya Kavi

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

See more on: U.S. Politics, Elon Musk, Woodrow Wilson, Donald Trump

4. Trump’s tariffs are the end of globalisation Europe can’t fight a trade war

The end of globalization? Is that what we really want?

I am reminded of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and the folly of protectionism. Tell me these two presidents are wrong.

"Our peaceful trading partners are not our enemies; they are our allies. We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends—weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world, all while cynically waving the American flag."

- President Reagan, 1988

Listen to his address here: https://youtu.be/Tp1T7kPEdDY?t=4 it is very much worth the 5 minutes to listen to. (And President Reagan knew how to use history effectively).

"What's interesting about our country, if you study history, is that there are some 'isms' that occasionally pop up. One is isolationism and its evil twin protectionism and its evil triplet nativism. So if you study the '20s, for example, there was an American-first policy that said, 'Who cares what happens in Europe?'" Bush said. "And there was an immigration policy that I think during this period argued we had too many Jews and too many Italians, therefore we should have no immigrants. And my point is that we've been through this kind of period of isolationism, protectionism and nativism. I'm a little concerned that we may be going through the same period. I hope that these 'isms' pass."

– George W. Bush, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l16tPdgQzYk Also with the one minute to listen to.

Trump’s tariffs are the end of globalisation Europe can’t fight a trade war

https://unherd.com/2025/04/trumps-tariffs-are-the-end-of-globalisation/

'Will Trump get what he wants from these tariffs? In terms of reshoring manufacturing, the answer is probably yes.' Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty.

Wolfgang Munchau

April 3, 2025 4 mins

When regimes end, they end in phases. Communism died over a period of 10 years, starting with the strike at the Gdansk shipyard in 1980. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was the great symbolic episode, and the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev was the final push. Yesterday was globalisation’s Gorbachev moment. Trump’s first term was Gdansk, the canary in the coal mine.

On Liberation Day, international macroeconomists were busy digging out the Project Fear models with which they spectacularly misdiagnosed the economic consequences of both Brexit and the sanctions against Russia. But, really, tariffs are better viewed in terms of longer cycles, as is the case in politics. In the very short run, they constitute a price and output shock, with some characteristics of the economic impact of Covid. The tariffs will raise substantial revenues for the US government this year and next, with industrial relocation playing a progressively more important role in the following two years.

When Tesla invested in Germany, there were two years between the announcement and the actual beginning of production. But the initial announcement was preceded by a year of evaluation and negotiations. Companies with existing plants are best placed to expand production quickly. Taking stock after three or four years is the preferable way to judge this, and the obsession with year-one effects is the reason why people are misjudging trade-related policy decisions.

By Yanis Varoufakis

Will Trump get what he wants? In terms of reshoring manufacturing, the answer is probably yes. For the largest trading partners, such as China and Germany, this will be a massive shock because of what it implies for the sustainability of the current economic models. Contrary to predictions, there has not been a compensating dollar revaluation, which open macro models would predict as a market response to tariffs. The unwinding of the globalisation Ponzi scheme, which brought increasing capital flows into the US markets, is now clearly the bigger factor.

Politically, these tariffs will work for Trump. Foreign manufacturers are already declaring that they will step up investments in the US. The old manufacturing jobs won’t come back, but new ones will be created. There is, though, a serious risk of a US recession this year if Trump fails to get his tax policies through Congress. The Republicans may lose the midterm elections. But if the goal is to raise external revenues, reduce the budget deficit, and reshore manufacturing, those tariffs will work — so long as one remembers that they cannot do everything at the same time.

Europeans in particular should be wary of wishful thinking. There were plenty of gleeful projections of a more severe impact for the US than for Europe. In the short term, there will be a negative effect on the American economy, as the tariffs are a huge tax on US consumers.

It’s a struggle, though, to see what the EU can do in return. The bloc ran a trade surplus of $230 billion last year and the current account surplus against the rest of the world is rising again, back towards the pre-Covid levels, when the euro area adjusted to the sovereign debt crisis by depressing consumption and investment. This is the unsustainable element of the post-Cold War international economic model, along with China’s financial repression. The EU could promise to import more US defence goods, but this would run counter to its strategy of making itself more independent from the US, which should be a more important strategic goal than tariff-avoidance. Nor can the EU simply decide to not buy more LNG from the US. In any case, even if the EU were to make such a promise, the tariffs would only be lifted afterwards.

“Will Trump get what he wants? In terms of reshoring manufacturing, the answer is probably yes.”

The EU could decide to reduce its own tariffs, remove quotas, and non-tariff barriers. One example of a non-tariff barrier is the lack of a German motorway speed limit. This necessitates a disproportionately high safety standard for cars — a protectionist measure designed to protect the European car industry from imports of cars that cost half as much elsewhere. If the EU were to reduce the direct and indirect tariffs and the quotas on US agricultural products, then we could see a pathway for negotiations. But the US is not going to lift its tariffs in anticipation of future EU action. Those times are over.

What, though, if the EU were to impose a tariff on US services? This is the closest the bloc has to a bazooka — it has a services deficit with the US of roughly half the size as its goods surplus. But a tariff on services is difficult because suppliers can easily evade them, by relocating out of the EU and citizens would push back since there are often no alternatives.

In any case, one of the reasons it would be unwise to predict the economic consequences of yesterday’s decision is that so much depends on how others react. China, for example, could respond by diverting trade to the EU, and we could end up with a EU-China trade war. Ursula von der Leyen has already ominously said: “We will also be watching closely what indirect effects these tariffs could have, because we cannot absorb global overcapacity nor will we accept dumping on our market.”

More from this author

Europe needs a battle plan

By Wolfgang Munchau

So rather than co-ordinating our retaliation against the US along with those east Asian countries most seriously hit by the tariffs, such as China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam, we will probably go away and fight our own separate trade wars, allowing America to play us off against each other.

If, though, we were to co-operate and attempt to find an alternative to the US financial architecture, security guarantees or the dollar, that would be a genuine problem for Trump. But it’s doubtful that will happen. Instead, the EU finds itself in a position where it is fighting trade wars against two of its main trading partners: retaliating against the US — which will inevitably backfire — while also trying to stem Chinese imports.

The EU tariffs on China are, of course, quite different in intention, form, and content from the US ones. But the net effect is a worsening diplomatic relationship with China, and an irreconcilable trade balance. And, so, Europe finds itself between a rock and a hard place. China, and the other countries hit hard by these tariffs, are both necessary partners in organising a response, and a threat to European industry. Unless a degree of rebalancing is accepted — losing the trade battle to win the trade war — it’s hard to see a way out.

Wolfgang Münchau is the Director of Eurointelligence and an UnHerd columnist.

5. Trump fires National Security Council officials after an Oval Office meeting with Laura Loomer.

Ms. Loomer wants the Asia Director of the NSC fired. Hre is his background. Why do we think he should be fired?

Ivan J. Kanapathy is a retired United States Marine Corps officer currently serving as senior director for Asia at the National Security Council (NSC) in the second Trump administration.^[2]^[3]^[4] Prior to returning to the White House, he was senior vice president of Beacon Global Strategies, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service, a senior associate with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Between March 2018 and July 2021, he was director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia and deputy senior director for Asian affairs at the NSC.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]

Education and career[edit]

Kanapathy holds an AA and diploma (with highest honors) in Mandarin Chinese from the Defense Language Institute, a BS in physics and economics from Carnegie Mellon University, and an MA (with distinction) in East Asian security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School. With a background of United States Marine Corps Aviation, Kanapathy served as a Major and maintenance officer in the VMFA-225.^[10] In 2011, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel,^[1] serving as a military attaché at the American Institute in Taiwan from 2014 to 2017.^[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Kanapathy

More details:

The account of the White House meeting with Ms. Loomer and the subsequent firings is based on interviews with eight people with knowledge of the events. They asked for anonymity to discuss confidential meetings and conversations.

The people fired included Brian Walsh, the senior director for intelligence; Maggie Dougherty, the senior director for international organizations; and Thomas Boodry, the senior director for legislative affairs. None could be reached for comment.

Mr. Waltz was not fired, nor was one of Ms. Loomer’s top targets, the deputy national security adviser Alex Wong. Apart from the firings, several other officials who had been detailed to the council were reassigned back to their home agencies over the weekend, even before the White House meeting.

But senior officials who have discussed Mr. Waltz privately with the president say that Mr. Trump’s reluctance to fire his national security adviser is more a matter of him wanting to avoid bad publicity than a sign of confidence in Mr. Waltz. Mr. Trump has made clear to his staff that he does not want to give the media the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Waltz fired. He also does not want to start the cycle of firing top officials that plagued his first term, they said.

To some in the government, the firings have felt arbitrary. Most if not all of the officials who have been targeted by Ms. Loomer were put through a personnel vetting process run by the Trump administration.

...

Last week, Ms. Loomer singled out an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Adam Schleifer, who had unsuccessfully run for Congress as a Democrat in 2020. Less than two hours after she called him a “Trump hater” who should be fired on social media, Mr. Schleifer was terminated.

Since then, she has publicly called for the dismissals of Maria Proestou, a deputy assistant secretary of the Navy; Ivan Kanapathy, the National Security Council director for Asia; Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., who is Mr. Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait; and Katrina Fotovat, the head of the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues. In at least one case, Ms. Loomer tagged Mr. Gor, the White House’s head of personnel.

In addition, Ms. Loomer said the L.G.B.T.Q. liaison at the Veterans Affairs Department’s Center for Minority Veterans should be fired, as well as an unidentified staff member working in the N.S.C.’s intelligence office who she said was transgender and “hates President Trump.”

“If you are aware of this person and have their name, please send it to me and I will post their identity,” Ms. Loomer wrote on X on Saturday. “The American people deserve to know who this Trans Biden holdover is that is embedded in our intel community.”

Last month she started her own research and vetting firm, called Loomered Strategies, that she said would provide high-level opposition research for hire. The term refers to what she and others call “getting Loomered,” which is when she targets someone, either in ambush-style interviews or online. She has also tried to dig up dirt on officials from outside the administration, either because they have gotten in Mr. Trump’s way or because she questions their loyalty.

Trump fires National Security Council officials after an Oval Office meeting with Laura Loomer.

Image

Laura Loomer has been part of a group effort by some Trump allies to disparage members of the White House staff whom they consider fundamentally at odds with the president’s “America First” foreign policy.Credit...Saul Martinez for The New York Times

President Trump fired six National Security Council officials after an extraordinary meeting in the Oval Office with the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who laid out a list of people she believed were disloyal to the president, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

The firings were described by one of the U.S. officials, who had direct knowledge of the matter. The decision came after Ms. Loomer vilified the staff members by name during the meeting on Wednesday, when she walked into the White House with a sheaf of papers attacking the character and loyalty of numerous N.S.C. officials. Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, joined later in the meeting and briefly defended some of his staff, though it was clear he had little if any power to protect their jobs.

It was a remarkable spectacle: Ms. Loomer, who has floated the baseless conspiracy theory that the Sept. 11 attacks were an “inside job” and is viewed as extreme even by some of Mr. Trump’s far-right allies, was apparently wielding more influence over the staff of the National Security Council than Mr. Waltz, who runs the agency. A longtime supporter of Mr. Trump who has frequently spoken of her desire to work with him, Ms. Loomer was one of Mr. Trump’s most vicious online enforcers during the 2024 campaign.

The account of the White House meeting with Ms. Loomer and the subsequent firings is based on interviews with eight people with knowledge of the events. They asked for anonymity to discuss confidential meetings and conversations.

The people fired included Brian Walsh, the senior director for intelligence; Maggie Dougherty, the senior director for international organizations; and Thomas Boodry, the senior director for legislative affairs. None could be reached for comment.

Mr. Waltz was not fired, nor was one of Ms. Loomer’s top targets, the deputy national security adviser Alex Wong. Apart from the firings, several other officials who had been detailed to the council were reassigned back to their home agencies over the weekend, even before the White House meeting.

Ms. Loomer, reached by phone, declined to comment. After The New York Times reported on details of the meeting, she confirmed on X that she had attended the meeting but would not provide details. A White House spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment, and N.S.C. officials said they would not comment on personnel matters.

Ms. Loomer has been part of a group effort by some Trump allies to disparage members of the White House staff whom they consider too hawkish, too eager to commit American troops around the world and fundamentally at odds with Mr. Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.

Image

It is unclear what the firings mean for Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, who has a tenuous hold on his own job.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

The agitators have used the phrase “neocon” — short for neoconservative — to describe many of those staff members working for Mr. Waltz.

The roughly 30-minute meeting with Ms. Loomer was also attended by Vice President JD Vance and other senior officials including the chief of staff, Susie Wiles; the head of the personnel office, Sergio Gor; and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose brother died in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A spokesman for Mr. Lutnick did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Ms. Loomer was seated directly across the desk from the president. Also in attendance was Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican who was one of Mr. Trump’s biggest allies in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Mr. Perry brought a separate list of staff concerns he wanted to discuss with the president, and his planned meeting with Mr. Trump collided with Ms. Loomer’s, one of the people briefed on the events said.

Mr. Perry did not respond to a text message seeking comment.

It is unclear what the firings mean for Mr. Waltz, who has a tenuous hold on his own job. Mr. Trump has so far declined to terminate Mr. Waltz after he inadvertently invited The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, into a Signal group chat in which top officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, shared sensitive details about forthcoming military strikes against Houthi terrorists.

But senior officials who have discussed Mr. Waltz privately with the president say that Mr. Trump’s reluctance to fire his national security adviser is more a matter of him wanting to avoid bad publicity than a sign of confidence in Mr. Waltz. Mr. Trump has made clear to his staff that he does not want to give the media the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Waltz fired. He also does not want to start the cycle of firing top officials that plagued his first term, they said.

To some in the government, the firings have felt arbitrary. Most if not all of the officials who have been targeted by Ms. Loomer were put through a personnel vetting process run by the Trump administration.

The fact that Ms. Loomer met with the president in the Oval Office was first reported by the newsletter Status, but the details of what was discussed had not been revealed.

It was not clear how she was invited to such a sensitive meeting with the president.

She has rotated in and out of favor with Mr. Trump. During the 2024 race, Ms. Loomer said that “the White House would smell like curry” if Kamala Harris were elected, a jab at her Indian heritage. During the Republican primary campaign, in which she served as Mr. Trump’s attack dog against Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Ms. Loomer floated the baseless notion that Mr. DeSantis’s wife, Casey, had lied about having breast cancer.

Mr. Trump distanced himself from Ms. Loomer in the campaign’s final stretch after he invited her on his plane to travel to a series of events commemorating Sept. 11, which caused an outcry because of her conspiratorial views about the attacks.

Still, Ms. Loomer has remained in contact with some of Mr. Trump’s aides and has, for the most part, fiercely defended the president while blitzing perceived opponents and enemies with searing attacks shared with her 1.5 million followers on X. She has complained in recent weeks that she has not received an invitation to sit in the “new media seat” at White House press briefings, despite having applied unsuccessfully for a press pass.

Her visit to the White House this week seemed to signal a return to good graces for Ms. Loomer, who in recent weeks has launched a string of social media attacks against Trump administration officials, including Mr. Wong, the deputy national security adviser.

Mr. Trump has spoken somewhat sympathetically about Mr. Wong in some of his private conversations with advisers.

But Ms. Loomer, in posts on X, questioned Mr. Wong’s loyalty to the administration because his wife, Candice, had worked at the Justice Department during the Biden and Obama administrations. Ms. Wong was also a career prosecutor and Justice Department official during Mr. Trump’s first term and a clerk for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Ms. Loomer has referred to Ms. Wong, whose father is of Taiwanese descent and worked for what was a British-owned satellite-making company based in Hong Kong, as a “Chinese woman” and alleged that the family was part of a conspiracy. She speculated that Mr. Wong was responsible for adding Mr. Goldberg to the Signal chat “on purpose as part of a foreign opp to embarrass the Trump administration on behalf of China.”

Last week, Ms. Loomer singled out an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Adam Schleifer, who had unsuccessfully run for Congress as a Democrat in 2020. Less than two hours after she called him a “Trump hater” who should be fired on social media, Mr. Schleifer was terminated.

Since then, she has publicly called for the dismissals of Maria Proestou, a deputy assistant secretary of the Navy; Ivan Kanapathy, the National Security Council director for Asia; Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., who is Mr. Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait; and Katrina Fotovat, the head of the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues. In at least one case, Ms. Loomer tagged Mr. Gor, the White House’s head of personnel.

In addition, Ms. Loomer said the L.G.B.T.Q. liaison at the Veterans Affairs Department’s Center for Minority Veterans should be fired, as well as an unidentified staff member working in the N.S.C.’s intelligence office who she said was transgender and “hates President Trump.”

“If you are aware of this person and have their name, please send it to me and I will post their identity,” Ms. Loomer wrote on X on Saturday. “The American people deserve to know who this Trans Biden holdover is that is embedded in our intel community.”

Last month she started her own research and vetting firm, called Loomered Strategies, that she said would provide high-level opposition research for hire. The term refers to what she and others call “getting Loomered,” which is when she targets someone, either in ambush-style interviews or online. She has also tried to dig up dirt on officials from outside the administration, either because they have gotten in Mr. Trump’s way or because she questions their loyalty.

In recent weeks, she has claimed that two federal judges who issued rulings blocking Mr. Trump’s efforts to deport noncitizens were compromised because of the activities of their adult children.

Still, at times she has worked against some people Mr. Trump considers allies, including Elon Musk, whom she criticized last year over his support for visas for high-skilled immigrants.

Some of Mr. Trump’s far-right allies consider Ms. Loomer a useful tool for attacking common enemies. And the president has mostly been admiring of Ms. Loomer’s tactics. Speaking at an event at Mar-a-Lago, he once singled her out in the crowd.

“You don’t want to be Loomered,” Mr. Trump said. “If you’re Loomered, you’re in deep trouble. That’s the end of your career in a sense. Thanks, Laura.”

6. China Retaliates to Trump Tariffs; Investors Rush Into Bonds While Dow Futures Slide

LIVE UPDATES

China Retaliates to Trump Tariffs; Investors Rush Into Bonds While Dow Futures Slide

China slaps 34% tariffs on U.S. goods starting April 10. Benchmark Treasury yields sink, oil tumbles, and Nasdaq futures drop.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-tariffs-trade-war-04-04-2025?mod=WSJ_home_mediumtopper_pos_1

Last Updated:

April 4, 2025 at 7:41 AM EDT

China lashed back at President Trump’s tariffs, applying 34% levies on all imported goods from the U.S. Beijing said the levies would come into effect next Thursday, the day after a big part of Trump’s promised tariffs go live.

The market selloff continued Friday, with the China retaliation and recession fears pushing investors to sell stocks and hide in the safety of government bonds. S&P 500 futures fell about 3% and overseas markets took fresh hits, with European stocks tumbling more than 4%.

Markets took little comfort from President Trump's willingness to negotiate over the tariffs. The levies announced late Wednesday were deeper and more aggressive than the business world expected. And even as Trump left the door open to making deals, he vowed new tariffs on drugs and microchips.

Traders ramped up bets on interest-rate cuts this year, figuring the Federal Reserve will have to shore up the economy. JPMorgan economists see a 60% chance of a global recession. Oil prices slid further, with benchmark U.S. crude falling below $63 a barrel, the lowest level since 2021 if they settle there.

Investors rushed into Treasurys, pushing 10-year yields well below 4% early Friday. Bonds in other big economies, like Japan, Germany and the U.K., also rallied. Bond yields fall as prices rise. The dollar, which fell sharply Thursday, steadied somewhat but remains near its weakest levels of the year.

Up ahead, the jobs report for March is due at 8:30 a.m. ET. Investors want to know if tariff uncertainty—even before Trump rolled out his full plans—has bled into the real economy.

A speech on the economic outlook by Fed Chair Jerome Powell is slated for 11:25 a.m. The big question: How will tariffs and the market mayhem feed into future rate decisions?

E-Mini S&P 500

ES00 (CME)

$5237.25 USD-195.50-3.60%

E-Mini Dow

YM00 (CBT)

$39351.00 USD-1425.00-3.49%

BX:TMUBMUSD10Y (XTUP)

3.885%-0.148

E-Mini Nasdaq 100

NQ00 (CME)

$17940.50 USD-735.00-3.94%

Crude Oil Continuous Contract

CL00 (NYM)

$61.24 USD-5.71-8.53%

STOXX Europe 600 Index

XX:SXXP (STOXX)

495.84-27.28-5.21%

Pinned Post

1 hour ago

China Retaliates With 34% Tariff on U.S. Goods

Hannah Miao

Reporter

China said it would hit all U.S. goods with a new 34% tariff, matching President Trump’s latest announced levy on Chinese imports.

The 34% tariff is set to take effect April 10, according to China’s tariff commission.

China’s Commerce Ministry also said it added more than two dozen American companies to export control and corporate blacklists.

7. Trump Fires Director of National Security Agency

Why?

Excerpts:

Haugh held one of the most important national-security positions in government, responsible for overseeing tens of thousands of military and civilian employees who work to collect intelligence on foreign adversaries while safeguarding cybersecurity for sensitive computer networks. The NSA contributes a majority of the intelligence that appears in the president’s daily brief, officials have said.

The reasons for the dismissals couldn’t immediately be determined. They came in the midst of the firings by President Trump of several National Security Council officials following a meeting that the right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer had with the president in which she alleged that some members of his administration weren’t aligned with his priorities.

Was he "Loomered?" What does she know about active military officers?

Trump Fires Director of National Security Agency

Move comes after the president let go of several National Security Council officials

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-fires-director-of-national-security-agency-78956252

By Dustin Volz

Updated April 4, 2025 7:26 am ET

Gen. Tim Haugh had been serving as the chief of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command for a little more than a year. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—Gen. Tim Haugh, the chief of the National Security Agency, was fired Thursday at the direction of the White House, according to people familiar with the matter.

Haugh, who jointly helms U.S. Cyber Command, the military’s combatant command for offensive use of cyberattacks, was informed by the White House that his services were no longer required, the people said, adding that his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, was also removed from her position, though she was reassigned to a job within the Pentagon.

Haugh held one of the most important national-security positions in government, responsible for overseeing tens of thousands of military and civilian employees who work to collect intelligence on foreign adversaries while safeguarding cybersecurity for sensitive computer networks. The NSA contributes a majority of the intelligence that appears in the president’s daily brief, officials have said.

The reasons for the dismissals couldn’t immediately be determined. They came in the midst of the firings by President Trump of several National Security Council officials following a meeting that the right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer had with the president in which she alleged that some members of his administration weren’t aligned with his priorities.

Early Friday, Loomer cheered the removals of the two officials whom she called “Biden holdovers,” appearing to take credit for the abrupt moves in a post on X.

Haugh and Noble, Loomer said, had been “disloyal to President Trump. That is why they have been fired.” She thanked Trump for being “receptive to the vetting materials provided to you.”

The latest moves could be part of a larger plan to split the leadership of the NSA and Cyber Command, former officials said, an idea that was considered during Trump’s first term. Such a split, which has long attracted bipartisan interest on Capitol Hill but also considerable pushback from many national-security officials, would allow Trump to install a political appointee at the top of the NSA—a powerful agency with access to troves of sensitive intelligence—instead of a uniformed military officer.

Haugh had been serving as the chief of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command for a little more than a year, succeeding Gen. Paul Nakasone.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed in a statement Haugh’s firing.

“General Haugh has served our country in uniform, with honor and distinction, for more than 30 years,” Warner said. “At a time when the United States is facing unprecedented cyber threats, as the Salt Typhoon cyberattack from China has so clearly underscored, how does firing him make Americans any safer?” Warner said, referring to the widespread compromise of U.S. telecommunications networks by Beijing-backed hackers.

The White House and NSA declined to comment and referred questions to the Pentagon. The office of the secretary of defense and Cyber Command didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The Cipher Brief, a news outlet focused on national security, earlier reported the firings.

Haugh’s dismissal came just weeks after Elon Musk visited NSA’s headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland, which was the billionaire’s first known visit to a U.S. intelligence agency in his capacity leading the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government. That meeting, officials said at the time, centered on staff reductions and operations, with some describing it as a “positive” encounter.

Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com

Appeared in the April 4, 2025, print edition as 'Trump Fires NSA Director, Purges Key Security Staff'.

8. Russian drone strike on Kharkiv homes kills several, say officials

With everything else happening around the world we must not forget the suffering of the Ukrainian people under Russian attack and domination in occupied areas.

Russian drone strike on Kharkiv homes kills several, say officials

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-drone-strike-kharkiv-homes-070847352.html

Reuters Videos

Updated Fri, April 4, 2025 at 3:08 AM EDT

:: Kharkiv, Ukraine

:: Rescuers recover bodies after what officials say was a Russian drone strike in Kharkiv

:: Dmytro Chubenko

Prosecutor's Office Spokesperson

“There was a hit on a densely populated residential area. Many residential buildings are damaged. Around 30 buildings are damaged, private houses are damaged too.”

Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, has been subject to nearly nightly Russian drone attacks in the past week, including an hour-long barrage on Wednesday evening.

The city withstood the advance of Russian troops through Ukraine and their unsuccessful advance on Kyiv in the early weeks of the February 2022 invasion. As Russian forces pulled away from the capital and focused on Ukraine's east, it became a frequent target of air attacks.

Russian drone barrage hits Kharkiv homes, kills four people

Vitalii Hnidyi

Thu, April 3, 2025 at 3:36 PM EDT2 min read

Aftermath of a Russian drone attack in Kharkiv

Russian drone barrage hits Kharkiv homes, kills four people

1 of 5

Aftermath of a Russian drone attack in Kharkiv

By Vitalii Hnidyi

KHARKIV, Ukraine (Reuters) -Russia launched a barrage of drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine on Friday, killing at least four people and injuring 35 in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, regional officials said.

In the fourth such strike on the city so far this week, Russian drones hit residential quarters, damaging several multi-storey apartment blocks and causing multiple fires.

Rescue teams sifted through rubble throughout the night, searching for survivors.

"As of this morning, unfortunately, there are already four dead. The body of one more person killed by the Russian aggressor has been (removed) from the rubble," Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on the Telegram app. "We also have 35 wounded."

The Prosecutor General's office said prosecutors were working to identify those who were killed. It also said in a statement that three children were among those injured in the drone attacks.

Ukrainian air defence units and mobile drone-hunting groups shot down 42 of 78 Russian drones overnight across Ukraine, the air force said. The military also used electronic warfare to redirect or spoof another 22 drones, it said.

Kharkiv has been subject to nearly nightly Russian drone strikes in the past week. In previous attacks, the city's industrial companies and infrastructure were damaged, officials said.

The city withstood the advance of Russian troops through Ukraine including on the capital Kyiv to the west in the early weeks of the February 2022 invasion.

As Russian forces were driven back from the capital and subsequently focused on Ukraine's east, Kharkiv became a frequent target of air attacks.

The central Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions and also the Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast suffered damage from drone attacks, the Ukrainian military and regional officials said.

In the city of Dnipro, three people were injured and an infrastructure facility and several administrative and residential buildings were damaged in the nearby region, the governor said.

The governor said that 13 drones were shot down over the Dnipropetrovsk region overnight.

Two more people were injured in the central Kyiv capital region, regional officials said.

And in southeastern Zaporizhzhia, at least seven drones had attacked targets in the region, injuring one, the regional governor said.

(Additional reporting by Olena Harmash and Ron Popeski; editing by Mark Heinrich)

9. U.S. Strikes in Yemen Burning Through Munitions With Limited Success

I am a great believer in airpower but sometimes high and airpower cannot do it alone (not that I am advocating boots on the ground, but we have to recognize and understand the enemy's intent and capabilities.

This is even more painful to read after the concerts of the Single chat were revealed.

It appears the press is getting reports from Congress or allies.

Excerpts:

But that’s not what Pentagon and military officials are privately telling Congress and allied countries.

In closed briefings in recent days, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that there has been only limited success in destroying the Houthis’ vast, largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones and launchers, according to congressional aides and allies.

The officials briefed on confidential damage assessments say the bombing is consistently heavier than strikes conducted by the Biden administration, and much bigger than what the Defense Department has publicly described.

But Houthi fighters, known for their resiliency, have reinforced many of their bunkers and other targeted sites, frustrating the Americans’ ability to disrupt the militia’s missile attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea, according to three congressional and allied officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

In just three weeks, the Pentagon has used $200 million worth of munitions, in addition to the immense operational and personnel costs to deploy two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses to the Middle East, the officials said.

On the other hand, not all targets are phsyical and not all effects can be measured by conventional battle damage assessment. This is also a psychological operation with a target audience in Tehran. War is about imposing will and inflencing behavior. We will not know the full scope of the effects until we can measure them in Iran and throughout the region. This where the art comes in the art and science of war.

U.S. Strikes in Yemen Burning Through Munitions With Limited Success

In just three weeks, the Pentagon has used $200 million worth of munitions in Operation Rough Rider against the Houthi militia, officials said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/us/politics/us-strikes-yemen-houthis.html

Listen to this article · 10:23 min Learn more

Share full article

Damage from overnight strikes in Yemen on Wednesday.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Eric Schmitt Edward Wong and John Ismay

Reporting from Washington

April 4, 2025

Updated 7:27 a.m. ET

President Trump said this week that Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen have been “decimated by the relentless strikes” that he ordered beginning on March 15.

But that’s not what Pentagon and military officials are privately telling Congress and allied countries.

In closed briefings in recent days, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that there has been only limited success in destroying the Houthis’ vast, largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones and launchers, according to congressional aides and allies.

The officials briefed on confidential damage assessments say the bombing is consistently heavier than strikes conducted by the Biden administration, and much bigger than what the Defense Department has publicly described.

But Houthi fighters, known for their resiliency, have reinforced many of their bunkers and other targeted sites, frustrating the Americans’ ability to disrupt the militia’s missile attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea, according to three congressional and allied officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

In just three weeks, the Pentagon has used $200 million worth of munitions, in addition to the immense operational and personnel costs to deploy two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses to the Middle East, the officials said.

Image

A satellite image of the U.S. air base on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, showing B-2 bombers and refueling aircraft.Credit...Planet Labs PBC, via Associated Press

The total cost could be well over $1 billion by next week, and the Pentagon might soon need to request supplemental funds from Congress, one U.S. official said.

So many precision munitions are being used, especially advanced long-range ones, that some Pentagon contingency planners are growing concerned about overall Navy stocks and implications for any situation in which the United States would have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China.

The U.S. strikes, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named Operation Rough Rider after the troops Theodore Roosevelt led in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, likely could continue for six months, officials said.

A senior Pentagon official late Thursday pushed back on the assessments described by the congressional and allied officials.

The senior official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said the airstrikes had exceeded their goal in the campaign’s initial phase, disrupting senior Houthi leaders’ ability to communicate, limiting the group’s response to a handful of ineffective counter strikes, and setting the conditions for subsequent phases, which he declined to discuss. “We’re on track,” the official said.

U.S. officials said the strikes had damaged the Houthis’ command and control structure. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement that the strikes had been “effective” in killing top Houthi leaders, whom she did not identify, and said the operation was reopening Red Sea shipping.

“Intelligence community assessments confirm that these strikes killed top Houthi leaders and destroyed several facilities the Houthis may use to produce advanced conventional weapons,” Ms. Gabbard said.

The strikes are at the center of a debacle involving Mr. Hegseth and other senior members of the Trump administration, in which those officials discussed sensitive details about the initial bombing raids in Yemen on March 15 in a group chat on a commercial messaging app. Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, created the group but accidentally added a journalist to it.

Trump administration officials say the air and naval strikes are intended to pressure the Houthis to halt attacks that have disrupted international shipping lanes in the Red Sea for more than a year.

The Biden administration carried out strikes against the Houthis, but at a smaller scale and mostly against infrastructure and military sites. Trump administration officials say the current strikes are also aimed at killing senior Houthi officials.

Image

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the Oval Office with President Trump last month.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

“Everybody should recognize we are doing the world a great favor going after these guys, because this can’t continue,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters last week.

The Trump administration has not said why it thinks its campaign against the group will succeed after the Biden administration’s yearlong effort largely failed to deter the Houthi attacks, which have also targeted Israel.

“The administration must also explain to Congress and the American people its expected path forward given the failure of previous such efforts,” Senators Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, wrote in a letter to Mr. Trump this week.

The Pentagon has not provided details about the attacks since March 17, when it said more than 30 Houthi targets had been hit on the first day.

A spokesman for the military’s Central Command said on March 24 that the strikes had “destroyed command-and-controlled facilities, air defense systems, weapons manufacturing facilities and advanced weapons storage locations.”

A senior Defense Department official said on Thursday in response to questions from The New York Times: “We have already begun seeing the effects of the heavy strikes against the Houthis. For instance, ballistic missile attacks from the Houthis against Israel are down in the last week.”

The Houthis, the senior official said, “are becoming more and more reactive as the U.S. airstrikes degrade their capability and capacity.”

The senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, denied that Pentagon briefers had told congressional and allied officials that the strikes could last six months, saying that length of time “has NEVER been discussed.”

Central Command posts images on social media of jets conducting missions against the Houthis, but it has repeatedly refused to disclose how many targets have been struck so far or to identify the several Houthi commanders, including a top missile expert, it says it has killed.

Image

Smoke and flames rising from the site of an airstrike in Sana, Yemen, last month. Credit...Abdulrahman Al-Ansi/Reuters

Videos posted on social media by Central Command show the kinds of longer-range weapons Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets have unleashed on Yemen. They include AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons — a GPS-guided glide bomb — and air-launched cruise missiles.

The glide bombs, which carry 200 pounds of explosives apiece, can be launched more than 70 nautical miles from their targets. The cruise missiles deployed by Navy warplanes can fly more than twice as far.

They are among the longest-range aerial weapons Navy warplanes have available to use in this kind of operation, and have been used alongside Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by accompanying warships.

The use of such long-range weapons is in direct response to the threat posed by the Houthis’ air-defense weapons, which have shot down several U.S. military drones in the area. U.S. commanders involved in Asia-Pacific planning see them as critical for any potential conflict with China.

The United States began the new offensive on March 15 in parts of northern Yemen controlled by the Houthis. Navy attack planes from the Truman and Air Force fighter jets, flying from bases in the Middle East, have conducted strikes against Houthi targets each day since, U.S. and Yemeni officials said.

The initial strikes were the opening salvo in what senior American officials said was a new offensive against the militants and a message to Iran as Mr. Trump seeks a nuclear deal with its government.

Image

An F/A-18 Super Hornet launching from the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea last year. Some experts are concerned the munitions being used in Yemen could deplete the supplies needed in the Pacific theater. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

The Pentagon has moved Patriot and THAAD air defense systems to a few Arab nations that are worried about escalation by the Houthis in the region. The United Arab Emirates is giving logistical and advisory support to the U.S. military in its campaign in Yemen, a U.S. official said.

Saudi Arabia led the Emirates and other nations in a campaign of airstrikes against the Houthis for more than six years, but stopped after failing to achieve any goals. The Saudi-led coalition killed many Yemeni civilians with U.S.-supplied munitions.

Unlike President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Trump has delegated the authority to strike targets to regional and local commanders, allowing them to attack Houthi sites more quickly and efficiently, commanders say.

Houthi officials say the strikes have hit residential areas and buildings in the heart of Yemen’s capital, Sana, resulting in more than 60 civilian casualties.

According to a report released on Thursday by Airwars, a British organization that assesses claims of civilian harm in conflicts, a woman and four children were reported killed in one of the strikes on March 15.

Many of the attacks took place in populated areas, which the report says suggests “that the Trump administration is choosing targets that pose a more direct risk to civilians and may indicate a higher tolerance to the risk of civilian harm.”

A U.S. official said on Thursday that the Pentagon investigates all claims of civilian casualties, adding that the military goes to great lengths to reduce the risks.

On the first day of the new offensive, Mr. Trump said on social media that the Houthis “have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones.”

Mr. Trump said this week that U.S. strikes would continue until the Houthis “are no longer a threat to Freedom of Navigation.” He warned “the real pain is yet to come” if they did not stop.

On March 15, Mr. Trump also singled out Iran’s rulers.

“To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote. “Do NOT threaten the American People, their President, who has received one of the largest mandates in Presidential History, or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have struggled to identify and locate Houthi weapons systems, which are produced in subterranean factories and smuggled in from Iran. In late 2024, the Biden administration devoted more surveillance aircraft to gather information about Houthi targets. Trump officials inherited that intelligence, and Israel also supplied target information, the U.S. officials said.

Saeed Al-Batati contributed reporting from Al Mukulla, Yemen, and Julian E. Barnes from Washington.

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades. More about Eric Schmitt

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

John Ismay is a reporter covering the Pentagon for The Times. He served as an explosive ordnance disposal officer in the U.S. Navy. More about John Ismay

10. US bans government personnel in China from romantic or sexual relations with Chinese citizens

You would think this would not be necessary. Not "fraternizing with the enemy" would seem to be common sense. But alas, operations in the "human domain" are complicated.

US bans government personnel in China from romantic or sexual relations with Chinese citizens

By DAKE KANG, MATTHEW LEE and DIDI TANG

Updated 12:09 AM EDT, April 3, 2025

AP · by DAKE KANG · April 3, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has banned American government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press has learned.

Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential new directive.

Though some U.S. agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “non-fraternization” policy, as it is known, has been unheard of publicly since the Cold War. It’s not uncommon for American diplomats in other countries to date locals and even marry them.

A more limited version of the policy was enacted last summer prohibiting U.S. personnel from “romantic and sexual relations” with Chinese citizens working as guards and other support staff at the U.S. Embassy and five consulates in China. But Burns, the departing ambassador, broadened it to a blanket ban on such relations with any Chinese citizen in China in January, days before President Donald Trump took office. The AP was unable to determine exactly how the policy defined the phrase “romantic or sexual relationship.”

Two of the people with knowledge of the ban told the AP the new policy was first discussed last summer after members of Congress contacted Burns to express concern that restrictions on such relationships were not stringent enough. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party did not respond to a request for comment.

The new policy covers U.S. missions in mainland China, including the embassy in Beijing and consulates in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang and Wuhan, as well as the American consulate in the semi-autonomous territory of Hong Kong. It does not apply to U.S. personnel stationed outside China.

The only exception to the policy is U.S. personnel with pre-existing relations with Chinese citizens; they can apply for exemptions. If the exemption is denied, they must end the relationship or leave their position, the people said. Anyone who violates the policy will be ordered to leave China immediately.

The policy was communicated verbally and electronically to American personnel in China in January, but has not been publicly announced.

The State Department said it does not comment on internal matters. The National Security Council referred questions to the State Department. Burns, the former ambassador, did not reply to an AP request sent to his email address at The Cohen Group, a consultancy that he rejoined as vice chair in February.

A Cold War throwback

Intelligence services across the world have long used attractive men and women to obtain sensitive information, famously during the Cold War. The State Department and other agencies with offices in China have long had stringent reporting requirements on personal relationships for American personnel stationed there, as well as rivals considered high intelligence threats such as Russia or Cuba.

Declassified State Department documents show that in 1987, the U.S. government barred personnel stationed in the Soviet bloc and China from befriending, dating or having sex with locals after a U.S. Marine in Moscow was seduced by a Soviet spy. Such restrictions were relaxed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, according to news reports at the time.

Have a news tip?

Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected]. For secure and confidential communications, use the free Signal app +1 (202) 281-8604.

In China, a blanket ban on such relations has not been in effect for many years. Until the new ban in January, U.S. personnel in China were required to report any intimate contact with Chinese citizens to their supervisors, but were not explicitly forbidden from sexual or romantic relationships.

U.S. diplomats and intelligence experts say that Beijing continues to aggressively use so-called honeypots to access American secrets. In presentations before being stationed in China, U.S. personnel are briefed on case studies where Chinese intelligence services sent attractive women to seduce American diplomats, and warned that dozens of Chinese state security agents can be assigned to monitor any individual diplomat of interest.

Little is known about the U.S. government’s non-fraternization policies elsewhere, as they are considered classified. It is unknown how restrictive such policies are in other countries.

Rising tensions, tighter controls

In recent years, tensions between Washington and Beijing have escalated over trade, technology and geopolitical competition.

Peter Mattis, a former CIA analyst and president of The Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, said there were at least two publicized cases in which Chinese agents seduced American diplomats stationed in China, though he hasn’t heard of such a case in recent years.

Mattis added that another issue is that Chinese state security doesn’t gather intelligence just through spies, but also by pressing ordinary Chinese people for information, often through threats or intimidation. That, Mattis said, means any Chinese citizen who dates an American diplomat could be vulnerable to coercion.

“The MSS is willing to leverage any human connection that a target has to collect intelligence,” Mattis said, using an acronym referring to China’s Ministry of State Security. “This rule change suggests the MSS has gotten a lot more aggressive at trying to access the embassy and U.S. government.”

The Chinese foreign ministry did not comment on the ban, saying in a faxed statement that it was “more appropriate to ask the U.S. about this question.”

China also has been tightening already strict controls on its personnel overseas, according to Chinese regulations, news reports and four people familiar with China’s bureaucracy who spoke on condition of anonymity so they could discuss a sensitive topic. In recent years, Beijing began strictly enforcing regulations that bar promotions for Chinese civil servants with spouses who acquired foreign citizenship and restrict diplomats from spending an extended period of time in one country, forcing some to return to China.

China’s foreign ministry and many other government bodies bar their officials and staff from sexual or romantic relations with foreign citizens, while members of the Chinese military or police are generally barred from leaving China altogether without express approval from their supervisors.

___

Kang reported from Beijing.

AP · by DAKE KANG · April 3, 2025

11. Exclusive-Musk team issued inaccurate USAID firing notices, must send correct versions, say sources

Memo to the DOGE wiz kids: "Haste makes waste." Who is going to clean up their mess?

Exclusive-Musk team issued inaccurate USAID firing notices, must send correct versions, say sources

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-musk-team-issued-inaccurate-100958095.html

Jonathan Landay and Patricia Zengerle

Thu, April 3, 2025 at 6:09 AM EDT4 min read

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump at the Oval Office

By Jonathan Landay and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Termination notices sent by billionaire Elon Musk's cost-cutting team to U.S. Agency for International Development staff were so rife with errors that corrected versions are being issued to avoid affecting pensions and pay, according to five sources familiar with the issue.

The Department of Government Efficiency "did this so quickly that they screwed lots of stuff up," said a U.S. official, who requested anonymity, as did all of those who spoke to Reuters.

The State Department, which is assuming some of USAID's functions under the Trump administration's plan to cut U.S. foreign aid, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

USAID's human resources staff, most of whom have been on paid administrative leave and face termination, have been brought back to the office to send out accurate notices, said the U.S. official and a person familiar with the matter.

"My letter was completely wrong," one USAID worker told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "The only thing correct was my name."

It is not the first time that inaccurate termination notices have upended the lives of USAID workers since U.S. President Donald Trump and Musk began in February to dismember America's main conduit of foreign aid.

A first round set April 21 as the final employment day for most personnel and May 30 for those tapped to help shutter the agency. Those dates were reset to July 1 or September 2 in the notices sent to some 3,500 USAID workers last Friday, two sources and workers said.

Other errors included inaccurate start dates, lengths of service and salaries, according to the person familiar with the matter, the U.S. official, two former senior USAID officials, a congressional aide and four workers who received notices.

Unless fixed, those mistakes could result in reduced or canceled pensions or inaccurate severance pay, the sources said.

Several of the sources pointed to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's retirement website that says federal workers' annual pension annuity is based on their lengths of service and three highest average annual salaries.

Reuters could not learn how many USAID personnel were issued faulty notices last Friday.

More in World

Iran abandons Houthis under relentless US bombardment

The Telegraph

Confusion gripped US base defenders as a flying bomb struck a deadly blow at Tower 22, investigation says

Business Insider

Putin supporters turn on Kremlin over Muslim migration

The Telegraph

SOME STAFF RECEIVED THREE INACCURATE NOTICES

Several workers told Reuters that they and other colleagues received a third termination letter on Monday night still containing inaccurate information on promotions, tenure and other data.

One worker said the total federal service listed in their notice on Friday was short by three years and by six years in the notice they received on Monday.

"I actually have federal service dating to June 2008," said the worker. "There doesn't seem to be any logic to the RIF (reduction in force) process."

"We've got people who have served for 25 years and their notices are showing they served for only three," said the U.S. official. "It affects their severance. It affects their future ability to retire."

Trump assigned Musk, a major contributor to his 2024 election campaign whose companies have federal contracts worth billions of dollars, and DOGE to ferret out waste and fraud across the U.S. government.

According to its website, the only official window into its operations, DOGE estimates it has saved U.S. taxpayers $140 billion as of April 2 through a series of actions including massive workforce cuts, asset sales, and contract cancellations.

Its savings total is unverifiable and its calculations have contained errors and corrections. Musk has said DOGE will correct mistakes when it finds them.

Since February, most USAID staff have been put on administrative leave, hundreds of contractors were fired and more than 5,000 programs terminated, disrupting global humanitarian aid operations on which millions depend.

Some termination notices sent on Friday to USAID personnel did not account for requests to waive the July 1 termination date, including from overseas staff whose children still would be in school, according to three sources.

Others had applied for waivers because they need more time to pack their homes and relocate to the U.S., the sources said.

"Some people have the wrong dates. Others have the wrong information," said the person with knowledge of the matter, adding that people given the wrong termination date "can't return home" unless their notices are reissued with the correct date.

The person said that the error-filled notices were sent under the supervision of USAID acting administrators Jeremy Lewin, a DOGE operative, and Kenneth Jackson, who have been overseeing the agency's dismantlement.

They report to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who Trump tapped as acting USAID administrator.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay and Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Timothy Reid; Editing by Don Durfee and Christopher Cushing)

12. Defense officials considering cuts to military treatment facilities

The pendulum will swing. We have been here before. Reduce treatment facilities to save money, lower morale of troops, families, and medical personnel, lose valuable medical experience, and then what do we have left for the next war?

The military and military medicine are not for profit businesses except for the blood that is left on the ledger sheet.

You want the warrior ethos? You need to take care of warriors and their families in good times and bad.

(how is that for hyperbole?)

Defense officials considering cuts to military treatment facilities

militarytimes.com · by Karen Jowers · April 3, 2025

Defense Health Agency officials are examining military treatment facilities across the military medical system, facility by facility, to determine their fate — which could include closing some facilities or downgrading some hospitals to clinics.

The process is in the “pre-decisional” stage, said DHA officials, speaking during a panel discussion at the Association of Defense Communities National Summit in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday. “We have to match our resources against the mission set that we have,” said Dr. Michael Malanoski, DHA’s deputy director.

“There will be some changes in services across the system,” he said. The process of evaluating the military treatment facilities started “many, many moons ago,” he added.

No decisions have been made yet at DHA, according to Rear Adm. Matthew Case, acting assistant director for health care administration at DHA. Any changes would have to be approved by Defense Department leadership, and Congress would have to be notified by law.

The issue is resources, Case and Malanoski said. The priority is readiness, especially at the largest facilities, where staff provide combat casualty care support, Case said. Those facilities, such as Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, must be ready to receive casualties, he said.

The Defense Health Agency has been fighting to keep its military treatment facilities staffed in recent years, as a shortage of medical personnel has affected facilities nationwide.

At the same time, officials are evaluating the situation in communities around military installations, recognizing there are locations in “medical deserts,” where not enough care is available in the civilian community for military beneficiaries.

“So we have to go ‘rack and stack’ of what the capabilities are,” Case said.

A rigorous analysis “facility by facility, location by location” is underway, Case said.

“We’re looking at not only is there an adequate Tricare network, but how [civilian medical facilities] are doing on Leapfrog scores,” he said. Those scores, compiled by a national nonprofit organization, collect and evaluate medical facilities’ information about quality and safety.

“Where are our patients going? What are the scores in those facilities? Are those facilities doing better than we are?” Case said.

At Monday’s panel discussion, a member of the Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, community asked about the status of the study, saying the community is concerned about the future of its military hospital because it is in a medical desert.

“When is this going to happen, and what should we be doing to provide input to you?” he asked panelists.

Senators Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Robert Marshall, R-Kansas, have written to DHA officials demanding answers to whether the medical facilities at Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Fort Riley, Kansas, were being considered for downgrades.

Although Case said he couldn’t speak specifically to Fort Leonard Wood’s military treatment facility, he said, “You have a beautiful, relatively new facility, but being able to man that properly is a challenge for us.”

Meanwhile, the military medical system has been working to attract patients back to military treatment facilities after forcing many military beneficiaries to seek outside care in the private sector. That push is being driven by both costs and medical readiness. DOD’s overall health care costs have risen as patients have migrated to the civilian sector. That decline in patients has also spurred the military services to seek more private-sector training opportunities to keep their medical staff’s clinical skills current.

About Karen Jowers

Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.

13. Dropping U.S. Biodefenses: Why Cuts to Federal Health Agencies Make Americans Less Safe

Sigh...

Excerpts:

The administration claims the layoffs of thousands of people and the massive restructuring of agencies will not disrupt existing services. That seems unlikely given the scale and pace of the changes. In the coming weeks and months, certain indicators will tell us whether the United States is prepared for biological threats.

First, how is the U.S. government handling existing threats? As these cuts ripple across the country, Americans should pay attention to how effectively HHS, along with other federal agencies, is handling bird flu, measles, seasonal influenza, HIV, and other infectious diseases. In fact, vaccinating 95 percent of 12-month-olds against measles is one indicator of pandemic preparedness that the United States has encouraged other countries to adopt. Local HIV advocates have already started raising alarms over the impact of potential cuts to HIV prevention programs and services, even with a “miracle” HIV prevention drug on the horizon. If the United States is unable to manage known threats, how will it manage a new emergency?

Second, how are local health systems faring? The recent rescissions for state and local health authorities are leaving communities across the country high and dry as they struggle to respond to deadly threats from measles to bird flu. Just as mass layoffs at HHS were announced, the attorneys general and governors in 23 states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit against HHS alleging that the revocation of more than $11 billion in federal funding previously allocated to states will cause “immediate and irreparable damage in communities across the nation.” The funding was intended, in part, for programs to combat infectious disease outbreaks and address future health emergencies. Beyond immediate responses to emerging threats, these funds were also being used to strengthen health systems, including hospitals, clinics and long term care facilities, building on lessons in surge capacity and response from COVID-19. The operations of these systems are the foundation on which any new threat will be detected, and any effective response will be built.

Third, is there a new preparedness plan in place? Before the Trump administration began gutting U.S. biodefenses, the Biden administration finalized a playbook for outbreak response that was developed and refined across administrations. It included clear options, plans, and roles for responding to biological threats, regardless of the origin of the threat. With the elimination of USAID, the restructuring of HHS, and other changes across the federal government, the Trump administration will need to update or develop a new playbook to guide an effective response with the new teams in place. Without it, the federal government will be left defenseless and scrambling to figure out who is in charge in an emergency, rather than acting quickly to protect Americans.

Dropping U.S. Biodefenses: Why Cuts to Federal Health Agencies Make Americans Less Safe

justsecurity.org · by Stephanie Psaki, Beth Cameron · April 3, 2025

April 3, 2025

On April 1, the Trump administration began making sweeping changes to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by firing thousands of staff, some of whom learned of this decision when they arrived at work on Tuesday morning and were not allowed to enter the building. According to HHS, the administration plans to reduce the HHS workforce from 82,000 full-time employees to 62,000. It is also consolidating the current 28 divisions into 15 divisions, and eliminating five of the 10 regional offices in the United States, among other changes.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. framed these changes as part of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, citing recent declines in life expectancy, while neglecting to mention that those declines were largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Trump administration’s stated goals are to streamline HHS, save taxpayer money, focus more on chronic illness, and make HHS more responsive and efficient. It claims it can make these reforms without impacting critical services. In practice, however, the administration has cut essential funding that was helping states and cities prepare for outbreaks; reassigned leaders who were stopping biological threats in other countries from spreading; undermined the United States’ ability to quickly review and approve treatments and vaccines during an emergency; and disrupted essential work to create vaccines, tests, and treatments for dangerous diseases. These approaches do not make America healthy. They make America less safe.

How HHS Protects Americans from Biological Threats

HHS is home to much of the country’s biological readiness. Biological threats come from different sources, including naturally occurring threats such as measles and bird flu, biosafety risks in laboratories, and the potential for deliberate attacks by adversaries seeking to do harm. These risks are growing amid rapid environmental and technological changes. The planned cuts to HHS include a range of offices that are critical to U.S. national security, including cutting 2,400 staff from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 3,500 staff from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and 1,200 staff from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The plans also include moving many functions of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) to the CDC, and consolidating the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) into a newly proposed “Office of Healthy Futures.”

Although Kennedy has described these critical functions as an “alphabet soup of departments,” they bring enormous health and national security benefits to the American people. ASPR is charged with anticipating threats that might face Americans and making sure the country has the tools it needs to respond. The CDC is home to disease detectives, who work around the clock to protect Americans’ health and safety by preventing and responding to disease threats. NIH leads the world in biomedical research, investing in innovative breakthroughs that have saved millions of lives and improved health for Americans. The FDA makes sure that the medicines Americans take, and give to their children, are safe and effective. Each of these agencies has historically been the envy of the rest of the world and the model on which many countries have built their own systems. Eliminating these offices, throwing them into chaos, or undermining their missions, is equivalent to unilateral disarmament against biological threats. To invoke Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic, those making these cuts seem to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Preventing Biological Catastrophes in America

In response to 9/11 and the 2001 anthrax attacks, the George W. Bush administration and Congress reimagined the United States’ biodefenses, creating new positions and programs largely housed at HHS. The government has tweaked those programs after many biological disasters, and they have delivered security benefits – seen and unseen – for the American people, from Ebola response to Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. program to develop and manufacture COVID-19 vaccines. Coming out of the pandemic, is it once again time to accelerate the country’s biodefense programs? Yes. Is it time to take a sledgehammer to them, as threats of bird flu and measles spread at home, and outbreaks of Ebola and mpox continue abroad? Absolutely not.

Being ready for a biological catastrophe requires investing in research, manufacturing, and rapid response capacity. It includes understanding where new threats are emerging, developing countermeasures to address those threats, and stockpiling and quickly moving those countermeasures around the country in an emergency. Despite the critical role that NIH and ASPR play in preparedness for biological threats, the Trump administration placed the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) on leave, in addition to firing thousands of staff. Dozens of people were reportedly fired from ASPR and BARDA, including some who train and prepare state and local officials to use medicines and equipment from the strategic national stockpile during emergencies. The administration also ousted the nation’s chief vaccine regulator. Meanwhile, HHS is re-evaluating its investment in vital new bird flu countermeasures, while political officials insert themselves into scientific assessments of COVID-19 vaccines.

Being ready for the next health crisis also means stopping outbreaks at their source whenever possible, and many threats emerge outside the United States. The 2014 Ebola epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic taught us that deadly disease threats can impact American communities and take down healthcare systems, as well as take millions of lives. Both these outbreaks led the United States to double down on health security programs abroad focused on detecting threats early and responding rapidly and effectively. Through CDC’s international work, U.S. experts have trained disease detectives around the world for nearly 50 years to quickly identify and contain threats at their source, reducing the burden on the United States to respond to every threat, and keeping Americans safe. Yet this week’s staffing changes included workers at CDC’s Center for Global Health, with speculation that the Center may be eliminated completely. The USAID global health security team, which has also been eliminated, also spent decades building the capacity, supplies, and tools to assist countries around the world in order to keep these outbreaks from impacting Americans at home. Taken together, these programs – both at CDC and USAID – ensured that the 12 Ebola or Marburg outbreaks that occurred during the Biden administration did not reach U.S. shores.

Rapid Response

Biological threats are common, as evidenced by the ongoing measles and bird flu outbreaks in the United States, the Ebola outbreak in Uganda, and the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Although some threats can be anticipated and planned for, like seasonal influenza, others, like COVID-19, emerge unexpectedly and require a rapid coordinated response. Having an emergency response plan in place before a crisis occurs determines the speed and effectiveness of that response. Without one, there can be devastating health and economic consequences.

At best, the massive disruptions to HHS will cause confusion about roles and responsibilities during biological emergencies. At worst, and more likely, these disruptions will cost lives by eliminating the very staff and capacities that are critical to moving fast and keeping Americans safe in an emergency. If Kennedy were to get a call tomorrow that a novel threat, such as a new respiratory virus, has been detected somewhere in the world, what would he do to prepare the United States? How would he and his team communicate effectively with state and local health authorities, who are reeling from massive budget cuts and the closing of regional offices? Where would he turn for the latest research on vaccines and treatments for those viruses? And who would he ask about the inventory in the Strategic National Stockpile to respond to the threat? Perhaps most importantly, how would CDC—and HHS more broadly—communicate to the American people about the threat and the measures needed to stay safe? The Trump administration’s actions have thrown HHS into a state of chaos that is unlikely to be settled soon, while biological threats will continue to pose a relentless risk to us all.

Biological Deterrence

Just as the United States deters military attacks through the strength of its military, it deters deliberate biological threats through the strength of its preparedness, detection, and response systems. Although there are efficiencies to be found within any bureaucracy, these sweeping changes send a signal of chaos rather than competence. Many of HHS’s biodefense authorities were created in the aftermath of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks that followed, and they were meant to indicate that the United States was prepared for any biological crisis, whether naturally occurring or intentional. Now the United States is telling its adversaries that it is ill-prepared to detect and respond to a health emergency. That leaves the country’s experts and the public vulnerable. Of course, the nation’s biological threat deterrence doesn’t end with HHS, but the Trump administration has abolished USAID as well, and signaled cuts to the premier Department of Defense effort to counter biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological threats. With the biological threat reduction staff and programs across HHS, DOD, and USAID at risk, this administration is playing a very dangerous game.

What to Watch for

The administration claims the layoffs of thousands of people and the massive restructuring of agencies will not disrupt existing services. That seems unlikely given the scale and pace of the changes. In the coming weeks and months, certain indicators will tell us whether the United States is prepared for biological threats.

First, how is the U.S. government handling existing threats? As these cuts ripple across the country, Americans should pay attention to how effectively HHS, along with other federal agencies, is handling bird flu, measles, seasonal influenza, HIV, and other infectious diseases. In fact, vaccinating 95 percent of 12-month-olds against measles is one indicator of pandemic preparedness that the United States has encouraged other countries to adopt. Local HIV advocates have already started raising alarms over the impact of potential cuts to HIV prevention programs and services, even with a “miracle” HIV prevention drug on the horizon. If the United States is unable to manage known threats, how will it manage a new emergency?

Second, how are local health systems faring? The recent rescissions for state and local health authorities are leaving communities across the country high and dry as they struggle to respond to deadly threats from measles to bird flu. Just as mass layoffs at HHS were announced, the attorneys general and governors in 23 states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit against HHS alleging that the revocation of more than $11 billion in federal funding previously allocated to states will cause “immediate and irreparable damage in communities across the nation.” The funding was intended, in part, for programs to combat infectious disease outbreaks and address future health emergencies. Beyond immediate responses to emerging threats, these funds were also being used to strengthen health systems, including hospitals, clinics and long term care facilities, building on lessons in surge capacity and response from COVID-19. The operations of these systems are the foundation on which any new threat will be detected, and any effective response will be built.

Third, is there a new preparedness plan in place? Before the Trump administration began gutting U.S. biodefenses, the Biden administration finalized a playbook for outbreak response that was developed and refined across administrations. It included clear options, plans, and roles for responding to biological threats, regardless of the origin of the threat. With the elimination of USAID, the restructuring of HHS, and other changes across the federal government, the Trump administration will need to update or develop a new playbook to guide an effective response with the new teams in place. Without it, the federal government will be left defenseless and scrambling to figure out who is in charge in an emergency, rather than acting quickly to protect Americans.

Editor’s note: This piece is part of the Collection: Just Security’s Coverage of the Trump Administration’s Executive Actions

IMAGE: People participate in a candlelight vigil in front of the main offices of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on March 28, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

justsecurity.org · by Stephanie Psaki, Beth Cameron · April 3, 2025

14. Iran abandons Houthis under relentless US bombardment

Good. Of course the real target is Iran. Separate it from its proxies. And make sure we are deomtriangin we can come for the leadership there as well.

Iran abandons Houthis under relentless US bombardment

Air strikes on Yemeni rebel group weaken Tehran’s proxy network as military focusses on Trump

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/04/03/iran-abandons-houthis-us-air-strikes-trump-yemen-israel/

Akhtar Makoii

Regulated Democracy and Regulated Speech

justsecurity.org · by Daphne Keller · April 2, 2025

April 2, 2025

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Regulating Social Media Platforms: Government, Speech, and the Law, a symposium organized by Just Security, the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, and Tech Policy Press.

Lawmakers are right to worry about platforms’ power over public discourse and democracy. But legislative responses too often seek to empower the government to set new rules for online speech. Courts have rightly held that such laws violate the First Amendment. Attempted work-arounds like using Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authority or statutory immunities to target “lawful but awful” speech have similar problems.

For some lawmakers, this constitutional barrier is a bug. For the rest of us, it is decidedly a feature. The First Amendment is meant to protect us from the short-sightedness about state power that afflicted many Democrats during the Biden administration, and Republicans in this one.

Recent Political Context

Critics on the left and right often disagree about which speech is important for democracy. Social media posts about votes wrongly added to Biden’s tally in the 2020 election, for example, may strike some Republicans as important political discourse, but constitute dangerous disinformation in the eyes of many Democrats. These disagreements frequently center on speech that, while controversial and even dangerous, is clearly protected by the First Amendment.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers have also favored different legislative models to curb threats to democracy online. Democrats often seek to make platforms take down more content, while Republicans look for ways to make them leave it up. This divide is a major reason we have seen almost no new federal platform regulations despite years of Congressional hearings and posturing.

The legislative picture is different at the state level. There, both sides’ approaches have become laws. California’s Democratic-controlled statehouse passed legislation restricting election-related deepfakes, for example. Both New York and California enacted platform transparency mandates for content like disinformation and hate speech. Republican lawmakers in Texas, by contrast, adopted a “must-carry” law requiring viewpoint-neutral content moderation — meaning a platform could only remove racist content, for example, if it also removes anti-racist content. Florida sought to protect democratic debate by restricting platforms’ ability to moderate posts about political candidates. (These have run into substantial constitutional challenges, as discussed below.)

Shared Values and Fears

I believe some key underpinnings of these laws are genuinely bipartisan—among ordinary people, if not pundits and politicians.

First, few social media users actually want to see all the scams, pro-anorexia videos, racist screeds, and other Internet dross that most platforms weed out. People may disagree with some platform speech rules, of course. But wanting to avoid at least some lawful but awful speech is bipartisan.

Second, nearly everyone has reason to fear platforms’ power to suppress speech. Speakers of every political stripe have believed themselves unfairly silenced by platforms. Platforms also act as proxies for state power in ways that are almost embarrassingly obvious. Facebook and Instagram expanded their rules against Covid disinformation during the Biden administration, for example. But once President Donald Trump was re-elected, Mark Zuckerberg insisted that his prior stance was a product of bullying by Biden officials (who publicly said mean things about him, and threatened to ask Congress to change some laws). Meta is now, he says, committed to the anti-immigrant and anti-transgender policies preferred by Trump (who threatened to put Zuckerberg in jail and said Meta’s speech rule changes were “probably” a result).

The bottom line is that most Internet users want content moderation. At the same time, anyone can find themselves on the wrong side of platforms’ evolving rules, or simply mistrust tech companies as rulemakers for speech.

First Amendment Protections and Platform Regulation

Courts have blocked “democracy-protective” laws from both parties. A majority of Supreme Court justices rejected Texas’s and Florida’s must-carry rules for social media. Legislators could not, they explained, override Facebook’s editorial choices about its newsfeeds, or tell YouTube what videos must appear on its homepage.

First Amendment challenges to Democrat-backed state laws (including the New York and California laws mentioned above) have succeeded in lower courts. Using state power to burden lawful speech online is unconstitutional, courts have said, even under laws that attempt to avoid direct speech regulation by only requiring platforms to “mitigate” speech-based harms. These cases, mostly brought by platform trade associations, have unsurprisingly produced rulings emphasizing platforms’ First Amendment rights. But the laws affect Internet users, too. By regulating platforms’ choices about content, lawmakers may violate ordinary people’s First Amendment rights.

Using Section 230 Immunities to Regulate Lawful Speech

The same First Amendment standards that prevent state lawmakers from imposing new rules for lawful online speech also pose problems for a common federal approach: stripping platforms’ immunity for disfavored speech. A 2021 bill, for example, sought to amend a provision of the Communications Decency Act known as Section 230 to eliminate platform immunity for “medical misinformation” – leaving that term to be defined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). (Currently, that’s Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.).

Nothing in the bill purported to make publishing HHS-designated misinformation illegal in the first place, though. The proposed law would have done nothing to change platforms’ actual liability for most medical misinformation – much of which is lawful. Immunities don’t matter in court if no one actually violated any laws. For the most part, the bill just would have created a mechanism for HHS to formally designate state-disapproved legal speech and made it more expensive for platforms to litigate frivolous claims about that speech.

Using FCC Authority to Regulate Lawful Speech

The United States does have one major legal model for regulating otherwise lawful speech on privately owned communications channels: the rules administered by the FCC for media like broadcast and cable.

FCC speech rules deserve special attention for two reasons. First, the Supreme Court has applied more lenient First Amendment scrutiny in this context. It has upheld laws requiring suppression of lawful speech, and also laws requiring carriage of speech, including election-related material. This special leeway for regulation is, the Court said, justified by the scarcity of broadcast spectrum and by cable carriers’ “bottleneck” control over speech. The Court firmly declined to extend that reasoning to the Internet in its seminal Reno v, ACLU ruling. The Internet, it said, has no scarcity of avenues for speaking. The “vast democratic forums of the Internet” are thus not “subject to the type of government supervision” applied to older media. The Court could change its mind about that, though, perhaps pointing to platform consolidation as a grounds for doing so.. It is only a matter of time before litigants tee up the Court’s next opportunity to do so.

The second reason to pay close attention to the FCC is because of the Trump administration. Its position, and that of new FCC chair Brendan Carr, is that the Commission already has authority to regulate Internet platforms by interpreting Section 230. That assertion of authority is dubious for a whole lot of reasons. But the administration spelled out how it planned to use such authority back in 2020. Among other things, it would interpret Section 230 to protect platforms that remove harassing, violent, or sexual content – presumably including materials about reproductive health or LGBTQ+ identity – but to provide no such protection when platforms remove disinformation or hate speech.

FCC-watchers expect Carr to advance this agenda soon. In the meantime, he has kept busy with other priorities – like threatening to revoke NBC’s license based on Kamala Harris’s Saturday Night Live appearance; block a CBS merger because of Harris’s appearance on 60 Minutes; and intervene in ABC’s contracts with affiliates because the network “contributed to the erosion in public trust” by allegedly defaming President Trump. He has also formally accused platforms of “censorship” for appending fact-checking labels from a company, NewsGuard, operated by a former Wall Street Journal publisher.

* * *

Protecting democracy from threats created by Internet platforms is a laudable goal. But it is not worth the cost imposed by legislative attempts so far: empowering the government to control legal speech online. Lawmakers’ attempts to impose their own top-down speech rules are particularly unwarranted given the far more promising possibilities offered by user-controlled and decentralized content moderation systems. Twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court wrote that “Technology expands the capacity to choose; and it denies the potential of this revolution if we assume the Government is best positioned to make these choices for us.” That remains true today.

IMAGE: A speech bubble behind barbed wire (via Getty Images)

justsecurity.org · by Daphne Keller · April 2, 2025

16. Tariffs Can Actually Work—if Only Trump Understood How

Excerpts:

The bottom line is that, whereas the gaiatsu of that earlier era was surgical, Trump’s scattershot approach could very well tank the world economy while unraveling it for good. Pressure against Japan worked 30 years ago in part because it was singled out, and U.S. security guarantees during the Cold War meant that Japan was not going to retaliate.

But now, Trump is threatening to withdraw security protection from U.S. allies extending from Europe to South Korea, while at the same time threatening them over trade. They’re almost all going to retaliate, and tariffs could reach the same levels that helped exacerbate the Great Depression.

It’s not surprising that, rather than kowtowing to Trump, some governments and companies are ready to look for alternatives. Japan’s Suntory Holdings said on Thursday that it might bypass the U.S. market altogether and shift its whiskeys to its home market and other Asian nations.

French President Emmanuel Macron, calling the tariffs “brutal and unfounded” in remarks on Thursday, proposed a pause on investment in the United States.

“What would the message be, of having big European players that invest billions in the American economy at the same time they are hitting us?” Macron said. “We must have collective solidarity.”

Tariffs Can Actually Work—if Only Trump Understood How

Smart trade policy could help restore jobs, but the president’s carpet-bomb approach portends disaster.

April 3, 2025, 5:20 PM

A pencil drawing of the headshot of Michael Hirsh

Michael Hirsh

By Michael Hirsh, a columnist for Foreign Policy.

Foreign Policy · by Michael Hirsh

United States
China

Trump’s Second Term

Ongoing reports and analysis

As U.S. President Donald Trump launched his new global trade war on Wednesday—what he dubbed a “declaration of economic independence”—he delivered what may be the most delusional account of modern economic history ever to be heard from the White House.

Trump said the United States has been “looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered” by “friend and foe alike” for “more than 50 years.” He declared, absurdly, that “none of our companies are allowed to go into other countries” even though U.S. goods and services exports exceeded $3 trillion in 2024 after steadily rising over the past two decades. Trump suggested, even more absurdly, that the Great Depression would never have happened had Washington not lifted its tariff policies more than 100 years ago.

And on Wednesday by reimposing stiff tariffs on just about every country, Trump declared that “jobs and factories will come roaring back” to foster a new “golden age,” and that “April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn.”

That’s highly unlikely to happen. On the contrary, the neutron bomb that Trump dropped on the global economic system on April 2 could portend a death spiral—especially for leading U.S. manufacturers that depend on global supply chains. On Wall Street, the markets plunged on Thursday, led by a huge sell-off of technology stocks.

Moreover, the U.S. corporate sector—along with the rest of the world—reacted with horror at the crude arithmetic behind the new Trump policies, along with the investment-dampening uncertainties created by them. The array of tariffs that Trump announced appeared to be based on a simplistic formula by which U.S. trade deficits in goods (not services) were divided by imports—reflecting Trump’s ill-conceived idea that countries are like corporations and trade surpluses are in effect profits, while deficits are losses.

Take China. If one divides the U.S. deficit of $295.4 billion with China in 2024 by the amount of imported goods from China, $438.9 billion, the result is 67 percent, which is what Trump said on Wednesday is effectively China’s tariff on U.S. goods. The Trump team then divided that number approximately in half to determine that the United States’ “reciprocal” tariff on China would be 34 percent.

There is no apparent economic rationale to support this.

“This is not policy—it’s really stupidity,” said Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who has also long supported progressive trade that deploys tariffs.

Trump’s approach suggests that his pre-Adam Smith, mercantilist view of trade deficits, which he held in his first term, hasn’t changed at all. It also suggests that he’s largely unfamiliar with the last 250 years of economic theory, which have shown undeniably that trade is not the zero-sum game that Trump thinks it is but rather benefits all.

Trump appears to pine for an irretrievable past that was dominated, briefly, by his 1890s-era hero, President William McKinley, who—like Trump—described himself for a time as “tariff man.” That was an era when today’s strongest U.S. manufacturing sector, technology, didn’t exist, and no one even knew what “services” were.

“This is mind-boggling to economists,” said Stiglitz. “It’s absolutely absurd, particularly because it precludes services in a 21st-century economy in which services such as telecom, education, and finance represent 20 percent [of the country’s GDP], and manufacturing is only 10 percent.”

Adam Hersh of the progressive Economic Policy Institute, which has also long supported tariffs as a trade tool, was no less harsh.

“This is going to go down in history as the worst economic policy mistake that’s ever been made by a head of state,” he said. “It is so thoughtless and reckless it just boggles the mind.”

Donald Trump holds up both fists and appears to dance in front of a crowd of people, many of whom are wearing red hats and holding up cellphones as they record video. Behind Trump are stacks of metal parts in a manufacturing facility.

Donald Trump gestures while speaking at Drake Enterprises, an automotive parts manufacturer and supplier, in Clinton, Michigan, on Sept. 27, 2023, during his campaign to run for a second presidential term.Matthew Hatcher/AFP via Getty Images

The sad irony in all this is what Trump is missing. Smart and strategic trade policy—one that includes surgically targeted tariffs and other threats of trade sanctions—can actually achieve what the president has said is one of his main goals: pressuring other countries to invest in the United States and create American jobs.

U.S. policymakers proved that decades ago, when they took on the closed economy known as Japan Inc. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, both Republican and Democratic administrations imposed waves of sanctions and forced Tokyo to raise the value of the yen. In Japan, this was known as gaiatsu—and it helped restructure the economy. Japan’s giant corporations decided, over many years, to partially abandon what had become a slow-growth economy and started moving massive amounts of manufacturing to the United States.

As a result—to a startling degree, to many Americans—the Japanese companies became “us” rather than “them.” Thirty years ago, political hostility to Japanese manufacturing was so intense that people used to spit on or scratch parked Toyotas and Nissans. Today, “Japanese” cars are ubiquitous on U.S. roads, and almost no one cares because most are built or assembled in the United States. In 2024, Japanese automakers produced more than 3 million vehicles at production facilities in the United States—twice as many as were imported from Japan.

While the United States still has a substantial ($68 billion) trade deficit with Japan, it has declined over time. And when Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba visited Washington in February, he noted that Japanese companies have held the top spot for cumulative foreign direct investment in the United States over the past five years. Knowing how this would impress Trump, Ishiba added that Japan was looking to invest more in the United States.

Last week, after Trump announced 25 percent levies on imported cars and parts, Ishiba lamented that Trump’s views on tariffs were “difficult to understand.”

“There’s no question that the pressure we put on Japan back in the 1980s and ‘90s encouraged a lot of Japanese companies to invest more in the United States,” said Matthew Goodman of the Council on Foreign Relations, who served as an international economist at the U.S. Treasury Department in that era, including five years as a financial attaché at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. “They wanted to be behind any protectionist wall we would create,” he added.

Oddly, Trump seems unaware of this profound progress, slamming Japan in his remarks Wednesday and complaining that “94 percent of the cars in Japan are still made in Japan.” For good measure, he slapped Tokyo with another 24 percent tariff.

In this vintage black-and-white photo, people work to assembly cars that stretch out on a factory line to the distant far end of a massive building. Signs on the car show numbers and Japanese characters.

Cars are assembled on the production line at a Toyota factory in Japan on April 10, 1980. The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

Dozens of car doors move down a line at an auto manufacturing facility, hanging from a white metal scaffolding unit.

Doors for Honda Civics make their way down the assembly line at the Japanese automaker’s plant in Greensburg, a town in the U.S. state of Indiana, seen on March 17, 2011. Mira Oberman/AFP via Getty Images

Nonetheless, Trump is stumbling in the dark toward a similar goal, and he may have some limited success in building his own “protectionist wall.”

On the threat of greater tariffs—and because of the U.S. defense umbrella—South Korea’s Hyundai has just announced a $21 billion investment that will include a new steel plant with more than 1,400 employees in red-state Louisiana. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Japan’s SoftBank have also announced major U.S. onshoring plans in recent months in an effort to avoid Trump’s wrath and tariffs.

And some major U.S. companies are responding by gesturing, at least, at onshoring: Apple said in February that it is investing billions in microchip production facilities in Texas. Intel and Micron have also said they’re going to build at home.

It’s not that Trump isn’t registering a legitimate complaint. In his speech, he noted that he’s been complaining about chronic trade deficits for 40 years, since he was a brash builder in Manhattan, as well as the unfair extent to which the United States supports a stable global economy.

Trump announces tariffs

Trump’s Wanton Tariffs Will Shatter the World Economy

Economic warfare is also a test for U.S. democracy.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading in New York City.

Markets Greet Trump’s Tariffs With a Blizzard of Red Numbers

Stocks, the dollar, and crude oil are all down on fears of a trade war-induced slowdown.

A camera looks down the length of an open freezer shelf of a grocery store aisle. A large sign above the display says "100% Aussie tender beef." Beyond the sign, cuts of meat wrapped in plastic are seen, slightly out of focus.

Are Tariffs the End of the Australian-U.S. Friendship?

Politicians of all stripes are tripping over each other to bash the U.S. trade war.

“We take care of countries all over the world,” he said. “We pay for their military. We pay for everything they have to pay. And then when you want to cut back a little bit, they get upset that you’re not taking care of them any longer. But we have to take care of our people, and we’re going to take care of our people first, and I’m sorry to say that.”

That message has strongly resonated with U.S. voters disturbed by the cavalier approach that both the Republican and Democratic parties have taken toward open trade. They fecklessly promoted globalization and did little to compensate the middle class for the brutal displacement of old industries and jobs. For two generations, policymakers who questioned free trade and pushed for “fair trade”—more tariffs, unemployment insurance, and worker protections—were edged out of the discussion.

Washington also completely deregulated Wall Street, allowing investment flows to facilitate the offshoring of production to low-wage countries, especially China.

Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has even revived the idea of the 1985 Plaza Accord—an agreement between the then-Group of Five countries of France, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan for market intervention to depreciate the dollar, mainly against the Japanese yen.

Bessent and Stephen Miran, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers, have floated the idea of a “Mar-a-Lago accord” that would combine tariffs with a devaluation of the dollar, thus making U.S. products more competitive.

An illustration of a man in an old-fashioned 1890s suit at the center of a room holds a giant spoon and bottle of medicine. The walls are lined with sick men in hospital cots with signs above them labeling them as "Business man," "Populist," Jingoist," "Spoilsman," Anarchist," Filibuster," and "Monopolist."

A circa-1896 political cartoon depicts President William McKinley as a physician dispensing tariff medicine to various characters at a sanatorium. A sign on one man’s bed in the foreground reads “Hallucinations About Home Markets and Infant Industries.” Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Trump doesn’t seem to appreciate that this is not the 1980s. No nation is likely to go along with a Plaza Accord-style deal today—especially with Trump eager to withdraw the U.S. defense umbrella from Europe and other places. Beyond that, a strong dollar is a mainstay of U.S. global power. The fact that the dollar is the world’s reserve currency means that, unlike other currencies, it cannot devalue to correct trade imbalances. Hence, importers retain an advantage over U.S. domestic producers—which is one reason that the U.S. suffers chronic deficits.

It’s also not the 1890s, when McKinley declared, “I am a tariff man, standing on a tariff platform.” In his remarks on April 2, Trump harked back to that supposed shining moment. “From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation, and the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been,” he said.

But back then, the United States was still a developing nation that specialized in heavy industry and agriculture—and did not uphold the global order. Even McKinley himself eventually came out against tariffs. Nor is today’s business environment even remotely like it was just 20 years ago, before global supply chains for U.S. corporations became so complex and spread out across continents.

“The world has moved on,” Stiglitz said. “Even if we got back 10 percent more manufacturing jobs, which would be enormous, that’s only 1 percent of the labor force. That’s not going to transform our economy.”

Stiglitz added: “I was just in China recently. The fact is that they have 10 times or so the engineers we do. And they are committed to science, while the Trump administration is scaling back on investment in science. We cannot, without engineers, be the leaders in modern manufacturing. In addition, most modern manufacturing doesn’t even use much labor anymore. It uses robots.”

A worker in protective gear is surrounded by sleek metal and manufacturing devices as they move something on a circular metal work surface in a production facility.

A worker places components on a production line at a semiconductor production facility in Gao’an, located in China’s Jiangxi province, on Jan. 10, 2024. Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images

U.S. companies that rely on sophisticated supply chains are now going to be hit in multiple ways. In recent years, Apple and other high-tech companies have sought to diversify these chains, moving to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations to avoid the China tariffs that became common for President Joe Biden as well as Trump. But Trump now has slapped most of those countries with heavy levies. Goods from Vietnam, for example, face a 46 percent tariff.

Trump also jettisoned Biden’s industrial policy plans, which most progressive economists see as essential tools along with tariffs.

“It’s giving a bad name to tariffs, and tariffs have been and can be effective tools in promoting industrial development,” said Hersh, from the Economic Policy Institute. “But tariffs are not sufficient on their own. They have to be combined with all kinds of other policies, subsidies, and credits,” he added, including expenditures such as those that came out of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act as well as his CHIPS and Science Act.

All those uncertainties will more than counteract the incentives that Trump is creating, said Nathan Lane, an American economist at Oxford University, who calls the Trump tariff policy “more incoherent than we expected.”

“If you reshore something, those large capital projects take a long time, and so if policy is going to change by then, they’ve taken away the certainty that entails building here in the U.S.,” Lane said. “You really want to set expectations for the private sector properly. That clarity is part of doing industrial policy right.”

Not surprisingly, Apple led the Wall Street rout among the so-called Magnificent Seven group on Thursday. This reflects a long-term chilling effect on companies that rely not just on low-wage labor from abroad, but also on technical and scientific skills that many U.S. workers don’t have—and which, thanks to Elon Musk’s dramatic cost-cutting campaign affecting education and science, Americans are even less likely to get now.

As Forbes magazine commented, “For the first time in decades, tech giants must navigate a world where production costs are rising instead of falling.”

“I’m not sure it’s possible to revive U.S. manufacturing when your supply chain is subject to a global trade war,” Lane said. “You may incentivize bringing one slice of the value chain back. Yet you’re hitting the rest of the chain with volleys of tariffs.”

The bottom line is that, whereas the gaiatsu of that earlier era was surgical, Trump’s scattershot approach could very well tank the world economy while unraveling it for good. Pressure against Japan worked 30 years ago in part because it was singled out, and U.S. security guarantees during the Cold War meant that Japan was not going to retaliate.

But now, Trump is threatening to withdraw security protection from U.S. allies extending from Europe to South Korea, while at the same time threatening them over trade. They’re almost all going to retaliate, and tariffs could reach the same levels that helped exacerbate the Great Depression.

It’s not surprising that, rather than kowtowing to Trump, some governments and companies are ready to look for alternatives. Japan’s Suntory Holdings said on Thursday that it might bypass the U.S. market altogether and shift its whiskeys to its home market and other Asian nations.

French President Emmanuel Macron, calling the tariffs “brutal and unfounded” in remarks on Thursday, proposed a pause on investment in the United States.

“What would the message be, of having big European players that invest billions in the American economy at the same time they are hitting us?” Macron said. “We must have collective solidarity.”

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage of the Trump administration. Follow along here.

Foreign Policy · by Michael Hirsh

17. Greenland’s Military Possibilities for the United States

Every time I look at a map of Greenland and the northern hemisphere I am amazed by its size and proximity to the North Pole, and the American and European continents. Someone wrote that it is a dagger pointed toward the Arctic.

Conclusion:

Greenland is a strategic linchpin in the Arctic, offering the US significant opportunities to enhance security and power projection. Peace through strength around the world requires creating a broader geostrategic vision with an Arctic framework connecting the Pacific and Atlantic. Greenland is important terrain which should be integrated into this framework. Establishing autonomous air and maritime surveillance, improving infrastructure, and leveraging Greenland’s position for force deployment will bolster America’s and NATO’s security. These improvements do not require altering Greenland’s political status and could be supported through partnerships with Denmark. However, the biggest challenge is funding. As the United States prioritizes competition with China, Arctic investments risk being sidelined. Yet failing to act creates a dangerous gap that adversaries are preparing to exploit. American cost-effective investments now in the strategic potential of Greenland can secure a dominant position in the Arctic, simultaneously protecting the homeland and global interests.

Greenland’s Military Possibilities for the United States - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Aaron Brady · April 4, 2025

Over a thousand years ago, the Viking leader Erik the Red discovered a new land after being exiled for murdering his neighbor. To entice his fellow Vikings to settle the icy island, he called it Greenland, highlighting its more hospitable southern and western coasts. The settlers that took the bait struggled but endured.

Today, Greenland’s value needs no exaggeration. Its mineral wealth is well-understood, certainly by some in Washington, who seek to acquire the island — a Danish territory. Some of the same voices also promote Greenland’s military value. Gaining political control of the island may, in fact, be a bad deal for the United States, but Washington cannot afford to ignore Greenland’s importance to Arctic and North Atlantic security.

The 2024 Defense Arctic Strategy of monitor-and-respond is insufficiently resourced for competition and not viable for conflict. A geostrategic view shows that the United States should view the Arctic as a connective region with important military ramifications for Europe and the Indo-Pacific, rather than as a separate theater. The United States should re-imagine its strategic framework to view its geostrategic position as a large “line of contact” extending from the South China Sea, over the Arctic, to the Black Sea. Greenland is a linchpin in this framework, providing basing and sensor opportunities permissible by the 1951 Defense of Greenland treaty, with Danish concurrence. Modest investments in sensors and bases in Greenland would significantly enhance America’s strategic Arctic position.

Become a Member

America’s Arctic Strategy

The current American Arctic strategy prioritizes competition over conflict, emphasizing allied cooperation and regional stability, but may shift under the new administration. The Department of Defense follows a “monitor-and-respond” approach, detecting adversary actions rather than maintaining a strong continuous presence. This raises critical questions: What actions — by Russia, China, or any other adversary — would justify a military response? And if the president chooses to act, what options are available?

A new Arctic strategy should answer the first question.

The second question is a military challenge, central to strength in the Arctic. First, what should the United States “monitor” in the Arctic, and how can it do so effectively? Second, what response options exist, and how can they be expanded? More options tend to improve decision-making — more options can lead to better strategic execution. Addressing these issues requires stepping back to assess the bigger picture.

The Return of Geostrategy

As great power competition intensifies, geostrategy takes on a renewed importance. Historically, the Arctic’s harsh geography blocked most ships, allowing only the smallest, best-equipped vessels to navigate its waters. Aircraft, missiles, and submarines eventually operated there, but surface ships remained confined to limited areas during summer, and land travel remains extremely difficult.

Today, shrinking sea ice and expanding icebreaker fleets (especially Russia’s) are opening new shipping routes, primarily in the Eastern Hemisphere. Once a restricted space, the Arctic now provides a growing maritime link between the Pacific and the Atlantic, expanding strategic maneuverability, particularly for Russia.

Moscow aggressively claims vast Arctic territories and has heavily invested in building a formidable Arctic military presence. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine proves its willingness to use force in territorial disputes. Expanding access and growing military capabilities are making the Arctic increasingly volatile. While Russia has not yet destabilized the region, provocative actions, such as dropping paratroopers near the North Pole, signal its willingness to escalate. Competition in the high north will only intensify.

In a conflict, Russia’s expanding Arctic maneuver space and long-range missile capabilities pose a major security challenge. Opening seas allow Russian and Chinese forces to move between the Pacific and Atlantic, while aircraft and naval vessels can launch long-range missile strikes on North America or the North Atlantic from the relative safety of Russian-controlled waters and airspace.

More concerning, Russia and China are rapidly developing “precise mass” — autonomous air, sea, and undersea forces. China is building the first drone aircraft carrier, while Russia already operates autonomous maritime vehicles. The Russian Sarma autonomous undersea vessels can conduct long-endurance missions, enabling a persistent Russian presence unmatched by occasional American, Canadian, or Danish patrols.

Reframing Arctic Strategy into America’s Geostrategy

As the Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis strengthens, traditional American geostrategic views are outdated. Conventional threats no longer come only from the east or west — the Arctic now presents a growing danger beyond the existential risk of nuclear attack. It has become a zone of daily competition and a potential battleground in future Atlantic or Pacific conflicts. Modern threats extend beyond bombers and intercontinental missiles to include a diverse array of air and sea systems. Autonomous vehicles will fight alongside traditional ships and aircraft in large numbers.

America’s line of contact with adversaries stretches from the First Island Chain, through the Bering Strait, across the Arctic Ocean to Norway, then down the NATO’s eastern border to Turkey.

American national security depends on defeating Arctic-based threats to North America while blocking Russian and Chinese power projection into the North Atlantic and North Pacific. Greenland is the geostrategic linchpin connecting the Arctic, North America, and Europe — a potential the United States and Denmark have yet to fully leverage.

Greenland as the Linchpin in an Arctic Geostrategic Framework

Two strategic lines should be drawn in the Arctic, both anchored by Greenland, combining with existing strategic frameworks to create the global framework the United States needs. The first is a northern defense line linking Alaska to Greenland, emphasizing air and missile defense. The second extends from Greenland to northern Norway via Svalbard, a modernized version of the Cold War-era Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap. These lines would deliver the Arctic strategy’s “monitor” function and enable any “response” during competition. In a conflict, the surveillance capabilities establishing these lines should extend into Arctic strongholds like the Barents Sea, enabling the United States to destroy critical enemy targets.

Arctic Monitoring

U.S. Northern Command Commander Gen. Glen VanHerck repeatedly called for increased awareness across multiple domains, including better sensors and data sharing. The U.S. military defines five domains: space, air, land, maritime, and cyberspace. Some of the domains are broken into sub-domains (e.g., the maritime domain can be broken into surface, subsurface, and seabed). Effective monitoring boils down to maintaining coverage of these domains with appropriate sensors, synthesizing the collected data, then interpreting it to understand the situation and make decisions. Realizing the monitoring goal in the Arctic requires effort across these areas, but the primary shortfall is sensors, especially air and maritime sensors.

I will not dive deeper into space monitoring, since this is a well-researched area. Pituffik Space Base’s primary purpose today is as a crucial node of space detection capabilities, particularly for missile defense and polar orbits. The necessary investments are already being made, or at least debated, within the Department of Defense. Air and sea sensors, though, are a different story.

Air Domain Awareness

Most discussions on Arctic air domain awareness focus on space-based sensors, over-the-horizon radars, and occasional deployments of airborne assets such as large surveillance aircraft like the E-3 or unmanned aircraft. Shorter range radar systems, such as those in the Cold War-era North Warning System, receive little attention since long-range and maneuverable missiles have diminished their effectiveness.

The U.S. Space Force plans to field a space-based sensing constellation for air and surface tracking. The United States should increase this investment to add satellites with this functionality and seek Danish support. A robust polar low Earth orbit constellation would ensure full Arctic coverage while enhancing surveillance in other theaters. Additionally, the Danish Joint Arctic Command in Nuuk should have access to this space-based intelligence.

The United States should complement space-based sensors with air-based platforms, building resilience that improves tracking precision and bolsters communications capabilities, thereby enabling very long-range weapons. Large air surveillance aircraft like the E-3 are overburdened today and demand for its replacement, the E-7, will increase in wartime. High-altitude, long-endurance autonomous aircraft flying from Greenland could significantly improve Arctic surveillance, support American industrial base growth, and provide re-deployable assets for global sensing grids.

Existing systems like the RQ-4 are viable, but cost-effective off-the-shelf options can be rapidly acquired. Many companies offer stratospheric long-endurance autonomous aircraft carrying payloads up to 1,000 kilograms. Arctic weather presents challenges, but flying in the stratosphere mitigates most environmental impacts, with only sensor effectiveness and launch and recovery affected.

Basing these assets in Greenland facilitates patrolling both west across the northern line and east across the Greenland-Svalbard-Norway gap. The US footprint in Greenland would be minimal, potentially fewer than one hundred personnel, similar to a drone launch and recovery unit. Many positions could be contracted, reducing the need for uniformed personnel.

Maritime Domain Awareness

Like in the air domain, a space sensing network can provide surface detection, but the United States should expand its undersea surveillance beyond regular submarine patrols. A moderately sized autonomous maritime force in Greenland, similar to U.S. Central Command’s Task Force 59, could provide persistent coverage of the Arctic east of the Lomonosov Ridge and throughout the Greenland and Norwegian Seas. This force should leverage unmanned surface and undersea vessels, with undersea systems playing a particularly vital role.

Much like high altitude, long-endurance aerial drones, many companies offer surface and undersea systems that the United States could capitalize on quickly. Other unconventional opportunities exist, such as a self-sustaining autonomous system proposed by engineers for Arctic operations featuring a wind- and water-powered surface craft carrying both aerial and undersea drones.

Like its air counterpart, this maritime autonomous task force would also be small. Task Force 59 launched with just 21 sailors; a similar force in Greenland could likely be just a couple hundred personnel.

Positioning this force on Greenland’s east coast could maximize operational impact. Bases closer to patrol areas would increase on-station time while reducing transit time. Enhancing an existing Danish base like Mestersvig would bolster the infrastructure needed to improve Arctic response options.

Arctic Response Options

Thus far, I have focused on monitoring. Now I shift to responding. While the United States has strong response military options from Alaska, there is a notable gap in force posture between Alaska and Norway.

In the western Arctic (west of the Lomonosov Ridge), the U.S. has substantial military assets. Alaska hosts the world’s highest concentration of fifth-generation fighters (F-22s and F-35s) and the U.S. Army’s 11 th Airborne Division, reactivated in 2022. Deepwater ports like Kodiak support naval staging, while well-developed infrastructure in Alaska and northwest Canada enables rapid deployment of long-range missile and air defense units if necessary. These bases give the president multiple military response options in the Arctic.

In the eastern Arctic (east of the Lomonosov Ridge), options are far more limited. Year-round sea ice and sparse infrastructure limit deployment capabilities in northern Canada and Greenland. The Svalbard Treaty bars military bases in the Norwegian islands. Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command operates with minimal forces. While Denmark plans to boost defense spending, the impact will be marginal. Beyond Norway, the Arctic from Europe to Alaska lacks infrastructure capable of supporting even small force deployments (i.e., a long-range missile or air defense battalion) — leaving a 3,000-mile strategic gap across some of the planet’s harshest terrain.

Closing this gap does not require bases along its entire length. When needed, major power projection can still emanate from Alaska, northern Europe, or the Atlantic seaboard. However, expanding capacity in Greenland creates an additional staging point, offering strategic flexibility and mitigating political constraints from Canada or Norway during a crisis. In a war, the U.S. Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon and other long-range anti-ship or anti-air systems could allow missile units deployed to eastern Greenland to strike targets across the Russian Arctic and block enemy attempts to move across the Arctic or North Atlantic.

Power Projection

Greenland’s harbors and airstrips cannot currently support large-scale military operations, but the United States does not need large bases there. Targeted infrastructure improvements can significantly improve logistics and access when needed.

First, constructing a 9,000-foot runway in western Greenland at a site like Aasiaat would complement existing and planned capabilities at Pituffik and Kangerlussuaq. This third runway would enhance operational resilience, ensuring fighter or bomber operations continue despite Arctic weather or adversary attacks.

Secondly, establishing a U.S. outpost on Greenland’s east coast would enhance American presence in a strategically important area. A 2023 RAND report found that American ships operating near Greenland had limited on-station time due to distant bases. Creating a base could involve permanently stationed units or a cooperative agreement with Denmark, similar to the U.S.-Philippines Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Upgrading an existing Danish base like Mestervig to accommodate C-130 aircraft, frigate-class vessels, and a battalion-sized force would provide a valuable foothold. This base could serve as the hub of the maritime force described above and could be a site for deploying long-range anti-ship and anti-air missile units which could disperse along the rough Greenland littoral.

The Real Threat: Money

While investing in these opportunities would strengthen Arctic defense, their feasibility hinges on funding. The greatest obstacle is not a lack of strategic necessity but financial constraints. As the U.S. military balances immediate threats, primarily from China, with long-term modernization, tough budget choices lie ahead. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is leading a major reprioritization of the Defense Department budget. Some of the recommendations in this article, particularly improved sensing capabilities for North American defense, align with homeland and missile defense priorities. Others should be considered essential to President Donald Trump’s “Peace through Strength” initiative and merit serious funding consideration.

A key takeaway from this geostrategic discussion is that the Arctic connects these theaters. Prioritizing investments in the Pacific or Europe while neglecting even minor Arctic capabilities creates a dangerous strategic gap that Russia or China could exploit. However, any solution must remain cost-effective, or it will lose out to higher-priority defense programs.

Conclusion

Greenland is a strategic linchpin in the Arctic, offering the US significant opportunities to enhance security and power projection. Peace through strength around the world requires creating a broader geostrategic vision with an Arctic framework connecting the Pacific and Atlantic. Greenland is important terrain which should be integrated into this framework. Establishing autonomous air and maritime surveillance, improving infrastructure, and leveraging Greenland’s position for force deployment will bolster America’s and NATO’s security. These improvements do not require altering Greenland’s political status and could be supported through partnerships with Denmark. However, the biggest challenge is funding. As the United States prioritizes competition with China, Arctic investments risk being sidelined. Yet failing to act creates a dangerous gap that adversaries are preparing to exploit. American cost-effective investments now in the strategic potential of Greenland can secure a dominant position in the Arctic, simultaneously protecting the homeland and global interests.

Become a Member

Aaron Brady is a U.S. Air Force officer. He is currently a national defense fellow in forward defense at the Atlantic Center’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Air Force, Air University, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

Image: Spc. Andrew Estrad via DVIDS.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Aaron Brady · April 4, 2025

18. China and Russia Will Not Be Split

Conclusion:

Ultimately, trying to peel Russia away from China is both imprudent and wrong. It would be imprudent, above all, because it would hand Putin a dangerous amount of power. Moscow would become the pivot player in the competition between Beijing and Washington, with ties to both and space to maneuver to its advantage. The United States would be solving one of Putin’s core geopolitical problems: his excessive reliance on China and limited leverage with Beijing. Making nice with Moscow would also be wrong. It would mean endorsing Putin’s abhorrent, violent actions both in Ukraine and at home, where he has deepened his dictatorship by arresting protesters, activists, and opposition leaders, including Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most formidable political opponent, whose death in a Russian penal colony last year raised suspicions of Kremlin involvement. Embracing such a leader is not worth the limited gains of using him to balance against China. The sooner U.S. policymakers realize that this strategy will not work, the better for both U.S. interests and the integrity of American values.

China and Russia Will Not Be Split

Foreign Affairs · by More by Michael McFaul · April 4, 2025

The “Reverse Kissinger” Delusion

April 4, 2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia, October 2024 Maxim Shipenkov / Reuters

MICHAEL McFAUL is Professor of Political Science, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. From 2012 to 2014, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Russia. He is the author of the forthcoming book Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder.

EVAN S. MEDEIROS is Professor and Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a senior adviser with The Asia Group. He served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council during the Obama administration. He is the author of Cold Rivals: The New Era of U.S.-China Strategic Competition.

More by Evan S. Medeiros

Print Subscribe to unlock this feature or Sign in.

Save Sign in and save to read later

Many American foreign policymakers dream of being the next Henry Kissinger. Whether they admit it or not, they look to him as the model of shrewd calculation of national interests, geopolitical acumen, and devotion to diplomacy. He was a leader who struck grand bargains with global effects. And no diplomatic maneuver is more quintessentially Kissinger than the U.S. opening to China in 1972.

As great-power competition heats up again, today’s U.S. policymakers may be tempted to try to replicate that success by orchestrating a “reverse Kissinger”—pulling Russia closer to balance a rising China, in a reversal of what Kissinger did beginning in 1971, when he was serving as national security adviser to President Richard Nixon. In an influential paper published in 2021 by the Atlantic Council, the anonymous author, a former government official, proposed that Washington “rebalance its relationship with Russia” because “it is in the United States’ enduring interest to prevent further deepening of the Moscow-Beijing entente.” In its first few months, the Trump administration has seemed to warm to this idea. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called for the United States “to have a relationship” with Russia rather than let it “become completely dependent on” China. Running a “reverse Kissinger” is also the perfect alibi for President Donald Trump’s courtship of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Americans dislike Putin, but if Trump’s embrace of the Russian dictator can be presented as pragmatic, realpolitik, or otherwise Kissinger-esque, they might accept it.

In the abstract, drawing Russia away from China to shift the balance of power in favor of the United States sounds appealing. In reality, the idea is a bad one. Most important, the analogy to the Cold War of the 1970s is flawed. Back then, Washington recognized and exploited, rather than produced, a deep Sino-Soviet split to improve relations with Beijing. Not only does such a split not exist today, but Beijing and Moscow are now true strategic partners. Both Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping see the United States as the greatest threat to their respective countries and have built an institutionalized relationship based on converging material interests and common autocratic values. Putin has no reason to give up China’s extensive, concrete, and reliable support to Russia’s civilian economy and defense industry in exchange for ties to Washington that may not last past the end of Trump’s term, in 2028.

Moreover, in the improbable event that the United States could peel Russia away from China, a new rapprochement with the Kremlin would bring few real benefits to the American people and come at a steep cost to other U.S. interests. Putin would never help the United States deter or contain China. Instead, he would leverage American eagerness for better relations to play Washington and Beijing off each other as he rebuilds Russia’s economy and military. Even the process of courting Moscow would be damaging because any favor the United States shows Russia alienates Europe. Militarily, Russia has far less to offer the United States than NATO does, and it is an inferior trading and investment partner compared with the European Union. Trying to win Russia over would mean swapping a strong, rich, and dependable set of allies for a weak, poor, and fickle partner. It is an exchange Kissinger, a committed realist, would never have made.

HISTORY DOES NOT ALWAYS RHYME

The idea of rapprochement with China originated with Nixon, not with Kissinger. Nixon wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1967, before he became president, that “any American policy toward Asia must come urgently to grips with the reality of China,” that Washington “simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its neighbors.”

Nixon could hypothesize about a reconciliation because Mao Zedong, China’s leader, was interested in the same. Although Washington remained suspicious that Beijing and Moscow were secretly coordinating, in reality the Sino-Soviet alliance had been over since the late 1950s after sharp differences arose between Mao and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. By the late 1960s, China and the Soviet Union were practically at war: the combat at their northeast border around Zhenbao Island, located in the river that separated the two states, got so intense that Mao even evacuated political leaders from Beijing in August 1969. At the same time, China was being ravaged at home by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Thus, when Kissinger first arrived in Beijing in 1971, China was poor, isolated, dysfunctional, and fighting the Soviets. Kissinger did not need to convince his Chinese counterparts to distance themselves from Moscow. The former partners had already split.

Relations between Russia and China today could not be more different. There is no division to exploit. To be sure, Beijing has acted cautiously in response to Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022: it has abstained rather than voted against UN resolutions condemning the war; it has never recognized Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian territory; it has so far declined to send complete weapons systems to Russia; and it has carefully tiptoed around Western sanctions. These positions have disappointed the Kremlin but did not produce a major rift. Ultimately, what unites Putin and Xi greatly outweighs what divides them.

Rapprochement with the Kremlin would bring few real benefits to the American people.

The Russian and Chinese leaders have a common vision of global politics, anchored by their mutual commitment to autocracy and shared animosity toward the United States. Both feel threatened by democratic countries and democratic ideas. Putin and Xi have consistently criticized the United States for supporting “color revolutions” in their neighborhoods and for working to contain Russian and Chinese power in Europe and Asia, respectively. They believe the United States presents the biggest threat to their countries’ domestic stability and external security. In their view, Washington has far too much power in the world and has overreached in its promotion of democracy and human rights. They want to diminish U.S. economic, military, and political influence, as well as weaken the liberal international order that the United States has anchored since World War II—and they see each other as critical partners in that effort. Trump himself may not be committed to promoting democracy or sustaining the liberal international order, but both Putin and Xi expect that one president will not erase decades of U.S. strategy and foreign policy tradition.

Putin and Xi do not just want to make the world safe for autocracies; they also want to shape international rules, norms, and institutions to make autocracy and state-led development just as legitimate, if not more so, than democracy and capitalism. To advance their vision, the two leaders act through various multilateral organizations that exclude the United States, such as the ten-country grouping called BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which count Russia and China as founding members.

The close personal connection between Putin and Xi facilitates and reinforces their countries’ cooperation. Putin sees Xi as his most important partner in the world, and Xi, whose father managed the Sino-Soviet alliance under Mao, has a particular affinity for Russia. The two leaders have met dozens of times. They like each other—or if they do not, they are very good at faking it. Under different leaders, the history of betrayal and distrust between Russia and China, punctuated by Russian conquest of Chinese territory, clashing spheres of influence, cultural differences, and border disputes, could impede bilateral relations, but Putin and Xi’s personal ties neutralize these possible sources of tension. As long as both men remain in power, there will be no split between their countries.

All of this has also enabled the rapid expansion of economic and military interests between Russia and China. Over the past few decades, the two countries have increasingly cooperated on energy sales, investment deals, arms transfers, defense industrial projects, and joint military exercises. Russia’s reliance on China has deepened significantly since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in 2022. In 2023, bilateral trade topped $240 billion, its highest-ever value. After losing its European markets for oil and exports, Russia has become dependent on revenues from energy sales to China to finance its war. Russian defense companies receive critical components from China to build new weapons. And China has quickly scaled up its exports of consumer goods to Russia, filling the gap left by Western goods. According to the research firm Rhodium Group, in the automobile sector alone, China’s market share in Russia jumped from nine percent to 61 percent between 2021 and 2023.

A FOOL’S ERRAND

Issuing threats of annexation and new tariffs, Trump has muddied the waters of great-power competition with shocking speed by antagonizing the United States’ closest allies, especially those in Europe and North America. Trump has also tried to court Putin by taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table; voting with Russia, North Korea, and other rogue states on UN resolutions regarding the war in Ukraine; insisting that Ukraine cede territory to Russia to end the war; and hinting at lifting sanctions on Russian companies even before a peace deal is in place. The unnecessary alienation of allies weakens U.S. power and influence in the world—and directly cuts against the principles of Kissinger-style realpolitik. Trump’s eagerness to grant sweeping concessions to Putin also signals that he considers the U.S. relationship with Russia to be more important than ties to Ukraine or the rest of Europe.

Putin, unsurprisingly, is already exploiting Trump’s desire for friendship. In March, after Trump offered multiple concessions to Russia as an incentive for Putin to sign a cease-fire agreement, Putin asked for more, including demanding that Washington halt weapons transfers to and intelligence sharing with Ukraine and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky be removed from office. In private meetings with Trump administration officials, Putin and his team may flirt with using cooperation with the United States to balance China. But it will all be a game. In Xi, Putin has a stable ideological, military, and economic partner. He will not abandon that relationship for some vague promise of better relations with the United States.

Putin’s perception of the United States as his greatest enemy is decades in the making and unlikely to change now. His aides and propagandists still champion the same fundamental outlook. Although the Russian leader may believe that Trump wants closer ties, he will not think the same about the U.S. foreign policy establishment. He understands that the U.S. president has significant influence but not complete control over the making of U.S. foreign policy. He saw Trump fail to deliver tangible benefits to Moscow, such as lifting sanctions on Russia or cutting off U.S. military aid to Ukraine, during his first term. After Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the American public has become even more distrustful of the Russian autocrat. If Trump tries to peel Putin away from Xi, strong domestic headwinds will limit his options.

What unites Putin and Xi greatly outweighs what divides them.

Putin, moreover, knows that Trump will be president for only four years and may have control of Congress for only two, whereas Xi could rule China for a decade or more. With so little U.S. support beyond Trump for a pro-Russian pivot, Putin would expect any rapprochement to end quickly. Even Trump himself is unreliable. He is certainly more erratic than Xi. Trump’s self-professed affinity for the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his first term, for example, did not progress beyond effusive letters and two failed summits; it produced no significant shift in U.S.–North Korean relations.

Putin knows Trump cannot come close to offering him as much as Xi does. Washington cannot fill the gaps that Russia would be left with if it dropped its strategic partnership with China. For example, the United States will not replace Chinese contracts for Russian energy as the country is already self-sufficient. U.S. policymakers and defense firms would also be highly reluctant to rebuild Russian military and defense industrial capabilities. And given the losses they suffered from previous investments in Russia, the poor rule of law in Russia today, and the fear of renewed sanctions if Putin again invades Ukraine or another country, U.S. private banks and companies will hesitate to reenter the Russian economy.

If Trump seems to be making headway with Putin, Xi has cards to play to keep Russia in the fold. China could quickly expand its fossil-fuel cooperation with Russia, such as by finalizing the Power of Siberia 2 natural gas project, which has been delayed for years. Beijing could also increase its assistance to Russia’s defense industrial base. And there are plenty of ways that Beijing could tighten its diplomatic cooperation with Russia at the UN and in key regions of shared interest, such as the Middle East and Latin America.

A COSTLY PIVOT

When Kissinger and Nixon pulled China closer to the United States in the early 1970s, doing so gave Washington leverage in its negotiations with the Soviets on arms control, broader détente, and more. Later, following the normalization of U.S.-Chinese relations (and Moscow’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan), the United States and China established a joint facility to monitor Soviet nuclear and missile tests and started cooperating on defense. As China opened its economy to the world in the 1980s, American businesses and consumers benefited from the growth of China’s manufacturing sector. There are no parallel benefits to a U.S. partnership with Russia today.

Putin and Russia have little to offer that would serve U.S. security interests, and what they do have, they will not use. The purpose of luring Moscow onside would be to weaken Beijing’s position, including its ability to project military power in its neighborhood. But Russia’s armed forces, having barely held their own in Ukraine, cannot be expected to provide much in the way of containment of China. Even if Russia were to build up its military, Putin would never deploy it against China. Nor would he position additional Russian soldiers, missiles, or ships to deter Chinese aggression in Asia.

On the diplomatic front, Putin knows that fully realigning with the United States is off the table. Washington’s Western partners will never agree to invite Russia to join the European Union or NATO or even rejoin the G-7. Because of this, Moscow will not give up the position it has now by withdrawing from BRICS, the SCO, or other clubs anchored by Beijing. Policymakers dreaming of a new U.S.-Russian partnership might believe that Putin could help isolate China at the UN Security Council. This alone is not worth much to the United States, however, since Beijing still holds a veto in that body.

Putin is already exploiting Trump’s desire for friendship.

Moscow cannot make Washington a compelling economic offer, either. The United States is a net exporter of fossil fuels and does not need additional energy imports from Russia. Putin could extend all sorts of new investment opportunities to American firms, but those firms have been burned before when they tried to do business in Russia. The oil and gas company ExxonMobil, for example, signed a multi-billion-dollar joint venture with the Russian state-owned energy company Rosneft, only to have it end after Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. Cautionary tales abound of American businesspeople struggling to protect their property rights and, at times, their personal freedom amid the lawlessness of the Russian system. A diplomatic thaw, then, is unlikely to yield significant material benefits any time soon.

As the negotiations over a cease-fire in Ukraine have already shown, Putin has no interest in giving up anything for free or even after receiving significant concessions. He would certainly demand a lot from Washington to pivot away from Beijing. Handing Russia control of all of Ukraine would be one of them. Pulling U.S. soldiers out of Europe and weakening, perhaps even abandoning, NATO could be another. Having signed a new defense treaty with North Korea in 2024, Putin could even ask for changes to U.S. military deployments in South Korea, which Trump had already explored during his first term.

Pursuing closer relations with Russia would come at a high cost for the United States’ relationships with its more trustworthy and capable partners. A complete embrace of Moscow would send shockwaves through U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, further undermining the credibility of those alliances at a time when many countries are already concerned about U.S. commitments. Allies might stop buying U.S. weapons, cease sharing intelligence, and reduce their trade with and investment in the United States. European countries could even create a new alliance that excludes Washington. Some non-nuclear countries, especially in Asia, might decide to build their own nuclear arsenals if they see tightening U.S.-Russian ties as an indication that the United States no longer prioritizes the security of countries under its nuclear umbrella.

Ultimately, trying to peel Russia away from China is both imprudent and wrong. It would be imprudent, above all, because it would hand Putin a dangerous amount of power. Moscow would become the pivot player in the competition between Beijing and Washington, with ties to both and space to maneuver to its advantage. The United States would be solving one of Putin’s core geopolitical problems: his excessive reliance on China and limited leverage with Beijing. Making nice with Moscow would also be wrong. It would mean endorsing Putin’s abhorrent, violent actions both in Ukraine and at home, where he has deepened his dictatorship by arresting protesters, activists, and opposition leaders, including Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most formidable political opponent, whose death in a Russian penal colony last year raised suspicions of Kremlin involvement. Embracing such a leader is not worth the limited gains of using him to balance against China. The sooner U.S. policymakers realize that this strategy will not work, the better for both U.S. interests and the integrity of American values.

EVAN S. MEDEIROS is Professor and Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Senior Adviser with The Asia Group. He served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council during the Obama administration. He is the author of Cold Rivals: The New Era of U.S.-China Strategic Competition.Foreign Affairs · by More by Michael McFaul · April 4, 2025

19. The Economic Consequences of State Capture

Quite a critique.

Excerpts:

It is hard for states to recover from such extensive damage. New leaders struggle to patch the vast economic holes left by stolen assets because their ruined economies have no obvious tax base. The financial system is in tatters, so they struggle to borrow, as well. They can try to go after the poligarchs who hold much of this stolen wealth. But frequently, those elites now live abroad. The ones that remain have squirreled away their assets offshore, making it difficult for the state to collect what they owe.

The best way to address state capture is to avoid it.

Rebuilding state institutions is even more challenging. New leaders may want to purge the bureaucracy, but mass firings would look like a tit for tat, and they would gut institutions of needed staff. As a result, leaders have to take a slow-and-steady approach to reconstruction—which, for a time, means continuing to pay corrupt officials. Likewise, to avoid further devastation, new governments find they must keep paying corrupt companies. Societies need certain resources—food, water, power, medicine—and after years of capture, it takes time to find suppliers who are not the incumbents. Before new businesses enter the market, they have to be convinced that tenders are no longer rigged and that it is thus worth their time to bid for contracts.

The best way to address state capture, then, is to avoid it from the start. But unfortunately for Americans, Trump and Musk’s takeover is well underway. Years passed before Zuma granted the Guptas unfettered access to his administration; Trump gave it to Musk on his first day in office. The U.S. bureaucracy has already lost thousands of workers, and thousands more are at risk. Critical regulatory agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, are now led by Trump loyalists. The Internal Revenue Service has yet to be ravaged as SARS was, but Trump and Musk have made it clear the agency is in their cross hairs. So is the Federal Reserve. And Trump has staffed the FBI and the Department of Justice with favorites he hopes will go after his enemies.

If Trump and Musk succeed at capturing the American economy, they will not only distort U.S. markets. They will harm economies the world over. Since the United States is the planet’s largest economy and its main financial node, what happens there reverberates everywhere. And traditionally, Washington has been the world’s most powerful force for clean governance, pressuring and sanctioning corrupt elites elsewhere. But Trump has moved to suspend enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and backtrack on corporate transparency requirements. The United States, in other words, is not just abandoning its historical role as the world’s clean-governance policeman. It is changing sides and becoming a mob boss. It is turning into a very different kind of role model.

The Economic Consequences of State Capture

Foreign Affairs · by More by Elizabeth David-Barrett · April 4, 2025

Oligarchs Are Warping Markets and Corrupting Economies Around the World

Elizabeth David-Barrett

April 4, 2025

At a market in Colombo, Sri Lanka, September 2024 Thilina Kaluthotage / Reuters

ELIZABETH DAVID-BARRETT is Professor of Governance and Integrity and Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex.

Print Subscribe to unlock this feature or Sign in.

Save Sign in and save to read later

Since returning to office, U.S. President Donald Trump and his benefactor, the tech billionaire Elon Musk, have taken a chainsaw to the government. In just over three months, Musk has purged agencies of staff, replaced fired workers with loyalists, and canceled existing public contracts—including for completed work. Trump, meanwhile, has fired inspectors general and removed the head of the Office of Government and Ethics. Together, the two men have taken resources that Congress had appropriated, abusing the power of the purse to redirect funds toward themselves and away from their perceived opponents. The Trump administration has ordered more Musk-made Starlink satellite dishes and put Musk’s companies, already some of the government’s biggest clients, in the running for billions more in contracts. At the same time, Trump has canceled government funding for universities and law firms that don’t support his agenda.

To most Americans, this kind of corruption will seem unfamiliar. Never in modern U.S. history has a businessman president partnered with the world’s wealthiest man to seize control of the federal government. But globally, it is part of a worrying pattern. In struggling democracies around the world, small cliques of politicians, business elites, and politicians with business interests—what political scientists call “poligarchs”—have warped the state to serve their interests. Together, these unholy alliances change rules, fire bureaucrats, silence critics, and then eat up the country’s resources. The politicians commandeer banks, rewrite regulations, and take control of procurement contracts. Their friends in the private sector, meanwhile, provide kickbacks, donations, and favorable media coverage.

There is a name for this process: state capture. It has occurred in Bangladesh, Hungary, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and many other countries. Its exact economic effects can be difficult to quantify, and it often takes years before they fully manifest. But they are serious. In captured economies, the relationship between talent and success is severed. Skilled workers who lack the right political connections leave the country, and competent firms go under. Well-networked firms, meanwhile, grow fat without innovating or delivering quality products (or, sometimes, without delivering products at all). The country’s infrastructure deteriorates. Banks run out of money giving bad loans to favored businesses. The result is lower growth, fewer jobs, rising inequality, and high inflation.

Unfortunately, resisting and reversing state capture is an arduous process. It requires that whistleblowers, journalists, and activists continuously speak up, with no immediate reward and at significant personal risk. Such persistence can pay off in the long run: civil society groups in Bangladesh, South Africa, and Sri Lanka eventually chased out corrupt politicians. But success often comes only after captors have crashed the economy by milking it for everything it’s worth. And by then, rebuilding is extremely difficult.

THE ART OF THE STEAL

In captured countries, no sector is safe from political interference. But banks are especially at risk. Financial firms, after all, provide an economy with capital and facilitate transactions—both of which are essential to theft. In Bangladesh, for example, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina used her control over banks to loot at least $17 billion from the country, according to Bangladesh’s interim government. In Malaysia, former Prime Minister Najib Razak financed a variety of crony schemes by delivering government-backed bonds to allied companies through 1MDB, a state development bank. Those firms, in turn, gave Najib’s party funding. A cool $700 million found its way to his personal accounts. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan forces state-owned banks to lend more to local mayors who support him. Those mayors then use the funds for spending projects that help them and Erdogan win elections.

Politicians deploy any number of measures to seize control of a country’s financial institutions. In Turkey, Erdogan used his executive authority to appoint allies to state-owned banks. Najib created 1MDB from scratch, to act as his personal fiefdom. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban used a complicated scheme involving buying and selling discounted bank shares to secure control of his country’s largest private financial firm. And according to Ahsan Mansur, the governor of the central bank in Bangladesh, Hasina had the country’s military intelligence forces kidnap and threaten bank directors and board members to force them to sell their shares to her oligarch friends.

The economic toll of this kind of takeover can be devastating. Most obviously, it siphons billions of dollars out of a country’s economy: Najib, for example, used 1MDB to loot $4 billion from the Malaysian state (one percent of the country’s GDP), and Hasina may have looted up to $30 billion (seven percent of Bangladesh’s GDP). But the capture of banks corrodes markets in more insidious ways, as well. Banks have only so much money to give to companies, so when they lend on the basis of political connections, they forgo opportunities to extend credit to healthy or promising firms. Sometimes, they even run out of money lending to well-connected companies. Ordinary people then lose their deposits, and a financial crisis ensues. In Sri Lanka and Turkey, the result was extreme inflation, as the government kept printing money to cover budget deficits. (Turkey also refused to raise interest rates, in hopes of spurring continued economic growth.)

Captors dismantle bodies that might check their efforts.

State captors, of course, do not constrain their manipulations to banks. They also change the government’s economic policies and regulations. In Sri Lanka, governments led by members of the Rajapaksa family, which dominated the country from 2005 to 2022, slashed tariffs on sugar imports, effectively giving a trading company close to them a huge tax break. It worked:the company sold its stocks of cheaply imported sugar without cutting prices, reaping massive profits. But the country’s revenues took a major hit, losing a sum of money equivalent to 1.3 percent of Sri Lanka’s tax revenues for 2021.

In other cases, captors simply exempt favored firms from regulations. Former Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his family, for instance, owned companies that imported consumer goods such as cars and electronics, and so they should have had to pay a lot in tariffs. But his government allowed politically connected firms to evade such taxes with impunity. As a result, the Ben Ali family earned huge profits. Companies without connections, meanwhile, had to pay—putting them at a disadvantage and exacerbating inequality.

Such exemptions are illegal. But captors take care to dismantle whatever bodies might investigate them or otherwise check their efforts. In South Africa, former President Jacob Zuma, who led the country from 2009 to 2018, partnered with Ajay, Atul, and Rajesh Gupta—three businessmen brothers—to try to take down the South African Revenue Service. As a body, SARS was highly respected for investigating tax evasion and financial crime, and in 2013, the Guptas received a tip that they were under scrutiny. But in 2014, Zuma appointed a loyal commissioner who purged the agency’s management. He brought in consultants to recommend a restructuring that decimated SARS’s capability to carry out investigations. Meanwhile, to limit political blowback, the Guptas used their newspaper and television station to run a smear campaign undermining SARS’s reputation.

For Zuma and the Guptas, these efforts were a success. A hobbled SARS ditched its investigation into the Guptas’ companies. But the gutting of the institution proved terrible for South Africa. Since the restructuring, SARS has significantly undershot its revenue collection targets, resulting in cuts to spending on much-needed infrastructure.

HIGHWAY ROBBERY

Not every act of state capture is complex. Sometimes, oligarchs just steal directly from the state. Erdogan, for example, changed Turkey’s public procurement law multiple times so that he could personally dictate the outcome of tenders. He has since used this power to channel government business to five conglomerates, which are among the world’s ten most successful companies at winning public contracts. In exchange, these businesses, many of which own media properties, have showered the Turkish president with favorable news coverage, donated to charities run by his party, and pressured their employees to vote for Erdogan.

South Africa provides another case in point. Under Zuma, the Gupta brothers won contract after contract and used their connections to extract kickbacks from other firms. Having started with a small-time computer company, they soon had a multibillion-dollar business that was involved in sectors as varied as dairy, management consulting, and coal. They exercised enormous influence over Zuma’s government, choosing people he appointed to key cabinet roles and selecting the leaders of state-owned enterprises. The Guptas, in turn, channeled funds into Zuma’s pocket and pumped out pro-Zuma propaganda.

Corruption like this further suppresses growth. In a healthy economy, companies compete on quality and price. But in captured ones, firms succeed by forging the right relationships, giving them little incentive to innovate or be efficient. Some of the best companies lose out simply because they lack the right networks. Would-be entrepreneurs don’t bother starting businesses. Many skilled workers leave the country in search of markets in which talent, not proximity to power, is rewarded. Favored companies, meanwhile, overcharge and underdeliver. Economic output, in turn, declines. Quality of life worsens. Sometimes, people even lose their lives. According to multiple studies, the 2023 Turkish earthquake would have been less deadly if the country’s infrastructure had been better. But it wasn’t—because Erdogan had protected the construction companies who built it from competition and oversight.

The capture of South Africa’s state electricity provider, Eskom, offers another vivid illustration of how corruption causes damage. Eskom was once a star in its sector; it was voted the world’s leading power company at the 2001 Financial Times Global Energy Awards. It faced a big task in the 1990s and early years of the 2000s: to maintain its standards while extending electricity to the half of South African households that had not had access to it under apartheid. But the Guptas’ influence vastly exacerbated Eskom’s challenges. Under Zuma, Eskom was forced to buy coal from the Gupta family rather than on the open market. The Guptas were thus free to bill at exorbitant rates and deliver a poor-quality product. The brothers made a fortune, but Eskom now struggles to supply energy to South Africans, who must contend with daily blackouts. According to an estimate by the South African Treasury, failings at Eskom and another state-owned company, the railway operator Transnet, have shaved around 30 percent off South Africa’s economy over the last 15 years.

Eventually, these economic troubles cause problems for state captors. There is, after all, only so much money they can steal. But poligarchs rarely change course as markets collapse. Instead, they ride the economy into the ground, stealing from it until it fails. In Sri Lanka, for example, the Rajapaksas’ theft drove the debt-to-GDP ratio to 114 percent in 2022, triggering a balance-of-payments crisis that caused chronic shortages of fuel, food, and medicine. Inflation hit 49 percent. But President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, who served as prime minister, maintained tax breaks for cronies. They introduced controls on the purchase of foreign currency but granted friends continued access to dollars. They could have defaulted and asked the International Monetary Fund for a bailout, which might have allowed ordinary Sri Lankans to again buy essential goods. But instead, they kept paying back bonds, which were owned by their affiliates. (Sri Lanka eventually defaulted anyway.)

NO EASY FIX

Unless they govern full-blown autocracies, poligarchs do have to contend with opposition. Even flawed democracies have institutions that try to hold executive power to account. Courts reverse unlawful decisions, auditing bodies uncover fraud, and journalists expose corrupt deals. Brave people risk everything to blow the whistle on misconduct. Sometimes, they take to the streets in protest. But power-grabbing leaders push on regardless, and they usually succeed at avoiding accountability. State capture, after all, effectively ensures that the most powerful people in the country are the captors. They have the most money and control over the political apparatus.

Sometimes, however, the opposition succeeds. Hasina, Rajapaksa, and Zuma were eventually booted from office. But all too often, captors are evicted only after the economy is in deep trouble. In Sri Lanka, it took months of shortages and soaring prices before protesters were able to oust the Rajapaksas. In Bangladesh, demonstrators toppled Hasina after she tried to direct even more government jobs to allies. But by then, the country’s economy was ravaged. Today, the banking system is on the verge of collapse, with people unable to withdraw their deposits and thus buy even basic goods.

It is hard for states to recover from such extensive damage. New leaders struggle to patch the vast economic holes left by stolen assets because their ruined economies have no obvious tax base. The financial system is in tatters, so they struggle to borrow, as well. They can try to go after the poligarchs who hold much of this stolen wealth. But frequently, those elites now live abroad. The ones that remain have squirreled away their assets offshore, making it difficult for the state to collect what they owe.

The best way to address state capture is to avoid it.

Rebuilding state institutions is even more challenging. New leaders may want to purge the bureaucracy, but mass firings would look like a tit for tat, and they would gut institutions of needed staff. As a result, leaders have to take a slow-and-steady approach to reconstruction—which, for a time, means continuing to pay corrupt officials. Likewise, to avoid further devastation, new governments find they must keep paying corrupt companies. Societies need certain resources—food, water, power, medicine—and after years of capture, it takes time to find suppliers who are not the incumbents. Before new businesses enter the market, they have to be convinced that tenders are no longer rigged and that it is thus worth their time to bid for contracts.

The best way to address state capture, then, is to avoid it from the start. But unfortunately for Americans, Trump and Musk’s takeover is well underway. Years passed before Zuma granted the Guptas unfettered access to his administration; Trump gave it to Musk on his first day in office. The U.S. bureaucracy has already lost thousands of workers, and thousands more are at risk. Critical regulatory agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, are now led by Trump loyalists. The Internal Revenue Service has yet to be ravaged as SARS was, but Trump and Musk have made it clear the agency is in their cross hairs. So is the Federal Reserve. And Trump has staffed the FBI and the Department of Justice with favorites he hopes will go after his enemies.

If Trump and Musk succeed at capturing the American economy, they will not only distort U.S. markets. They will harm economies the world over. Since the United States is the planet’s largest economy and its main financial node, what happens there reverberates everywhere. And traditionally, Washington has been the world’s most powerful force for clean governance, pressuring and sanctioning corrupt elites elsewhere. But Trump has moved to suspend enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and backtrack on corporate transparency requirements. The United States, in other words, is not just abandoning its historical role as the world’s clean-governance policeman. It is changing sides and becoming a mob boss. It is turning into a very different kind of role model.

ELIZABETH DAVID-BARRETT is Professor of Governance and Integrity and Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Elizabeth David-Barrett · April 4, 2025

20. Is The U.S. About To Go To War With Iran?

The pirouette from the Middle East to Asia and back to the Middle East?

Is someone thinking "wag the dog?"

Is The U.S. About To Go To War With Iran?

The U.S. is pouring military assets into the Middle East as Trump's deadline for Iran to come to the negotiating table fast approaches.

Tyler Rogoway

Published Apr 3, 2025 1:18 PM EDT

twz.com · by Tyler Rogoway

https://www.twz.com/air/is-the-u-s-about-to-go-to-war-with-iran?utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&utm

The TWZ Newsletter

By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

In my line of work, I get asked a lot of questions. Sometimes they are on pretty heavy topics and other times they are on things that are downright bizarre. More often than not, they are driven by the news cycle. Over the last week, the one question I am suddenly getting all the time is if the United States is really preparing to go to war with Iran, and if so, why now?

This type of inquiry isn’t uncommon during times of great international tension, but this one is different. The situation seems more nebulous, and the idea that a U.S. attack on Iran could soon occur feels out of the blue for many, especially set amongst the ‘ludicrous speed’ news cycle that has been a hallmark of the first and now second Trump administrations.

Adding to people’s confusion is that there has not been one singular event to prompt the buildup to a potentially unprecedented and extremely volatile military action. This makes it harder for the public to wrap their heads around the possibility that this could really happen, and soon.

For the Trump administration, the catalyst for the buildup is the matured state of Iran’s nuclear program, which, by most accounts, could break out into a nuclear weapons program at any moment if Tehran were to decide to go that route. Any buffer time in this regard seems to have dwindled to nothing. But also orbiting around that issue is the totality of many other long-standing problems the United States has with Iran, some of which date back five decades. The threat it poses to Israel is center stage, especially for the Trump administration, as are its destabilizing actions in the Middle East through its proxy forces. It’s also personal. Iran has reportedly wanted to assassinate Trump, even going so far as to suggest a drone strike against him while he is golfing.

President Trump’s move to put Iran on a deadline has been eclipsed by other news, but that clock is ticking. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) Andrew Harnik

So, could an attack on Iran really happen in the near term? After all these decades of very uneasy restraint, is Trump going to follow through with his May deadline to get the regime in Tehran to come to the negotiating table over its nuclear program? And if that line is crossed without meaningful action on Iran’s part, is the United States really going to get rid of Iran’s nuclear program via unprecedented force? This is a military operation that has been avoided at all costs for decades, largely due to the massive ramifications it could have in the region and beyond.

I don’t think anyone knows the answer to these questions. Maybe not even Trump. But at this point, it seems very apparent that he at least wants the Iranian government to believe that will be the case. Brinkmanship on this level is a very risky game, especially as it is occurring in parallel with attempting a peace deal in Ukraine and as China accelerates its preparations to take Taiwan via military force. If Trump doesn’t follow through with his threat, his hand will become vastly weaker in those other very high-stakes geopolitical confrontations. This may put him in a very tough position, especially considering his persistent declarations of being a vehemently anti-war president who avoids getting America involved in foreign conflicts.

Regardless, make no mistake that a U.S. military buildup now underway in the Middle East is tangible and fitting to what we would see in a contingency situation like this. Moving in B-2 stealth bombers, fighters, support aircraft, another carrier strike group, air defenses, and more all fit the bill of a limited air operation and enhanced abilities to defend key interests in the aftermath. Deterrence — or intimidation — on this level is the strongest card to play at this time, but the hope is that you can achieve a favorable outcome just by posturing, not by actually using the forces you have flowed into the region.

We shall see if that ends up being the page in the history book that’s written or not.

On the other hand, if Iran continues with its ‘take a hike’ attitude in regards to Trump’s diplomatic and power projection overtures, what happens next is truly an unknown. Yes, cracking open Pandora’s box is a very real possibility. Still, we have seen multiple major kinetic escalations that took Iran and its primary foes — the U.S. and Israel — to the brink, only to see everyone get their shots in to check the box and/or to satisfy domestic concerns prior to rapid de-escalation.

NEW: Tehran has rejected direct negotiations with the United States regarding its nuclear program, responding to a letter from President Donald Trump, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. https://t.co/Q5yNfny8Z3

— ABC News (@ABC) March 30, 2025

While those cases were certainly dramatic and fraught with the risk of sparking a wider war, nobody has gone after Iran’s ace in the hole — its nuclear program — in a comprehensive, kinetic manner. Yes, Israel has done whatever it could short of all out conflict to slow its advance, via all different means, from assassinations to crippling cyber attacks, but blowing up extremely hardened Iranian nuclear facilities is a whole other animal entirely.

If negotiations don’t come to pass and Trump decides to pull the trigger, the most probable operation would be the use of tailored airpower to target Iran’s most critical nuclear sites. Short of a nuclear strike or irradiating the sites via radioactive contamination, nobody has the airpower capability to accomplish this aside from the United States.

Under #Iran’s Amad Superorganizational Plan, #Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (Al Ghadir) was built with the intention and purpose to make weapon-grade uranium for 1-2 #nuclear weapons per year. In this collaboration with @Orion__int, we present you Fordow as never seen before. pic.twitter.com/fdBQZDySYs

— The Intel Lab (@TheIntelLab) May 29, 2021

We have covered this unique capability at great length over the years. Basically, this is the B-2 Spirit and its 30,000 lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator’s (MOP) distinct mission set. America’s stealth bombers and their MOPs are the only conventional aircraft and munition combination that have a shot at striking at Iran’s most fortified nuclear facilities, some of which are literally tunneled into mountains. Even then, their collective ability to destroy them is questionable, but severely curtailing their utility, at least for a significant period of time, is highly likely.

A B-2 dropping a MOP, which it can carry two of at a time, during a test. (USAF)

The stealth bombers, as capable as they are, will not go it alone. A huge array of assets will be needed to ensure they reach their targets and return intact. This includes counter-air and suppression/destruction of enemy air defenses (SEAD/DEAD) support, electronic warfare support, combat search and rescue support, intelligence collection and exploitation at every level, and so much more. The B-2s would not be fighting alone. And, yes, the Iranians have an antique air force and second-tier air defense network, but this doesn’t mean the risk is low when putting B-2s and other aircraft, even with all the benefits of stealth, into a combat environment over the country. A lot can go wrong, and regardless of what popular culture may make you believe, stealth bombers are not invisible. No aircraft is.

Still, perhaps the only assured way to destroy the most hardened of these sites by conventional means is via special operations raids on the ground. We have detailed this reality for years and Israel recently executed something of a proof of concept for such an operation in Syria to deter Iran and sharpen its own capabilities in this respect. Regardless, it is highly unlikely the U.S. would commit its ground forces to such a high-risk operation.

Even if airstrikes just target command and control, air defenses, and nuclear sites, the reprisal could be extremely violent. Iran would likely throw everything it has — drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles primarily — at U.S. forces in the region. With this in mind, the U.S. military’s Iranian target taskings could also include standoff weapons facilities, as well as nuclear sites and air defenses, in anticipation of the execution of this retaliatory playbook. It’s possible that hitting Iran’s ballistic missile sites, including its large bunker complexes used for concealed launches and weapons storage, even before attacking nuclear program-related targets may be the way forward should such an air campaign be executed.

New #ballisticmissile UG facility near Bakhtaran base in Kermanshah. @Obs_IL and I combined skills on this new finding in #Iran . Two tunnels were excavated from January to September 2020. This 3D model is a possible layout of the UG facility when operational. #IMINT #JCPOA pic.twitter.com/j9hKHJsYBR

— Om Gothi | Orion Intel (@Orion__int) January 28, 2021

Regardless, the air operation would likely rapidly expand after its initial strikes on key strategic facilities to focus on destroying any threatening standoff weapons that are dispersed away from these sites before they can be launched. This is a very challenging mission, especially for such a large country like Iran, whose forces have spent years preparing for exactly this scenario.

A preemptive series of strikes on critical missile facilities and weapons being readied for launch would at least lessen the blow from a massive Iranian counter-strike and would give air defenses a shot at intercepting as much of the onslaught as possible. In addition, in this case, distance is not anywhere near as favorable as in the large-scale missile and drone strikes on Israel. Many U.S. installations are located just across the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman from Iran. Early warning and reaction times would be a fraction of what Israel had the advantage of twice last year.

There is also the Strait of Hormuz to worry about, with all its international stakeholders due to the energy supplies that flow through it. China, which depends on oil that transits this notorious choke point, is a real wildcard in this respect. If Iran were to close the Strait and start firing on anything it thought was aligned with the United States in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, we would be once again in uncharted territory. Iran has built up a massive anti-ship arsenal made up of a vast array of weapon types that is collectively designed to turn this region into a super anti-ship missile engagement zone.

This image from space shows the Strait of Hormuz, between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The Strait of Hormuz runs between Iran and United Arab Emirates. It is one of the world’s most volatile choke points. (Photodisc via Getty Images) Stocktrek

The Houthis are also another factor here, but they are more predictable and are now much more carefully watched compared to before they started taking regular shots at shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have already put the use of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in jeopardy with these constant attacks, although they could also throw everything they have at it suddenly at the direction of their Iranian benefactors. Mining the Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz are additional possibilities that would be highly problematic and could take a long time to clear, resulting in devastating economic impacts.

Iran also has the ability to execute strikes on targets far from the Persian Gulf region using vessels equipped with standoff weapons and via activating operatives around the globe. Simply put, Iran’s response could be very punishing and deadly, and have a real chance of pulling Gulf States that host U.S. forces, as well as key stakeholders dependent on energy from the region, into a wider conflict.

As noted earlier, we do have the benefit of recent history to game out how Iran could respond in such a circumstance. In the recent past, escalation has been limited to strike and counter-strike. After that, all involved stopped climbing the ladder. This very much could be the case in this instance, too, but considering that attempting to crush Iran’s nuclear program kinetically is a whole other level of escalation than what we have seen before, all bets are off as far as how far it can escalate and how fast.

Then there is Israel. Would they be part of such an operation? Their airpower and other military capabilities would be of great value, but involving them would instantly increase the volatility of an already massively volatile situation. So, at this time, it isn’t clear. Trump is extremely close to Netanyahu and, clearly, the current administration in Jerusalem would be begging to help finally neuter its biggest foe’s most terrifying capabilities if the United States is willing to take the lead. While the Israeli Air Force (IAF) is a highly experienced, very well-equipped force to be reckoned with, it is not capable of achieving the same results in regard to striking Iran’s nuclear program using its airpower alone without direct U.S. involvement.

An Israeli Air Force F-16 fighter aircraft flies over the city of Yokneam Illit in northern Israel on March 24, 2025. The jet carries a Delilah cruise missile and its associated datalink pod. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) JACK GUEZ

The price of oil could (and likely would) skyrocket, which would affect domestic economics and, as a result, politics back home in the United States, as well as around the globe. Such a shock could send markets tumbling, especially if the military action quickly expands into a protracted conflict. If oil exports from the region are significantly reduced for a prolonged period of time, it could trigger rising tensions and aggression elsewhere. It would also help Russian President Vladimir Putin fund his war in Ukraine, and it could have major humanitarian impacts in poorer countries around the globe.

These are just some of the general and most glaring factors at play. There is a massively complex mosaic of interests, tactical considerations, influences, and macroeconomic factors that would all impact what comes after the first bomb explodes. It is bewildering to try and parse it all.

Considering we are potentially entering into such a perilous geopolitical moment in time, it seems to have not really registered with the masses just yet. Once again, the news cycle is fast and furious, and people are already desensitized to conflict, especially after three years of a risky proxy war in Ukraine and two decades of perpetual fighting during the Global War on Terror. Trump’s messaging in regard to Iran has been consistent, but has not taken center stage. We have gotten no major addresses on such an action from the White House and open source intelligence has been driving the story in the media, above all else.

We can only hope that peace will prevail and that Iran and the Trump administration will work something out to avoid all this. It’s also possible that they could call Trump’s bluff and be successful in doing so if, subsequently, he chose not to act militarily. But considering there are so many other international crises, or ones brewing, that are running in parallel to this one, not doing anything of major consequence would be a big credibility hit for still a very young second Trump administration.

Amongst so much uncertainty, one thing is clear. We have entered into a massive game of chicken that has stakes that are so high they are truly incalculable. It’s time to pay close attention to what happens next.

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com

Tyler Rogoway

Editor-in-Chief

Tyler’s passion is the study of military technology, strategy, and foreign policy and he has fostered a dominant voice on those topics in the defense media space. He was the creator of the hugely popular defense site Foxtrot Alpha before developing The War Zone.

twz.com · by Tyler Rogoway

21. The Age of Tariffs

This conclusion saddens me.

Excerpt:

The United States has ceded its role as a bastion of free trade and is instead leading a resurgence of protectionism that will hurt consumers and businesses worldwide. These tariffs, if they remain in place, will define Trump’s legacy not as a savvy businessman but as a destructive and petulant hindrance to economic progress.

The Age of Tariffs

Foreign Affairs · by More by Eswar Prasad · April 3, 2025

Trump Is Launching a Turbulent New Era for the Global Economy

Eswar Prasad

April 3, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump announcing new tariffs in Washington, D.C., April 2025 Carlos Barria / Reuters

ESWAR PRASAD is a professor in the Dyson School at Cornell University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Print Subscribe to unlock this feature or Sign in.

Save Sign in and save to read later

The era of increasingly free and extensive international trade, built upon a rules-based system that the United States helped create, has drawn to an abrupt end. On April 2, in a theatrical White House event, U.S. President Donald Trump rolled out a series of massive tariffs that will affect almost every foreign country. In one sense, his announcement wasn’t a surprise: from the moment he took office, businesses and financial analysts knew that Trump would raise trade barriers. But the scale and scope of the tariffs confirmed their worst fears. In one fell swoop, Washington has severely restricted international commerce.

In justifying this new era of tariffs, Trump has argued that the United States is the victim of unfair trading practices. As with many of Trump’s ideas, there is more than a kernel of truth in his claims. China, for instance, has taken advantage of World Trade Organization rules to gain access to other countries’ markets for its exports while limiting access to its own markets. Beijing has also used extensive subsidies and other measures to boost the global competitiveness of Chinese companies, including by forcing foreign firms to hand over technology.

But rather than fixing the rules that some U.S. trading partners took advantage of, Trump has chosen to blow up the entire system. He has taken the hatchet to trade with practically every major U.S. trading partner, sparing neither allies nor rivals. China now faces high tariffs, yes, but so do Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Longstanding, mutually beneficial economic relationships and geopolitical alliances have counted for little.

Many people hope that Trump’s tariffs will prove ephemeral—that, confronted with tanking stocks and rising prices, Washington will roll the restrictions back. It is possible that the White House will lower some of its rates, especially as states lobby for exemptions. But the reality is that the age of free trade is unlikely to come back. Instead, any haggling between Trump and other states will shape an emerging economic system defined by protectionism, tensions, and transactions. The result will not be more jobs, as Trump has pledged. It will be turbulence for all, and for years to come.

BAD MATH

According to Trump, the United States needs massive tariffs to rectify its trade imbalances. There is little logic to this notion. It is true the United States runs trade deficits with most countries, but there is nothing wrong with that fact. Instead, it just means other countries are efficient at producing goods U.S. consumers want, and so Americans buy more from them than the other way around. Yet Trump believes that any country that runs a bilateral trade surplus with the United States is, by definition, cheating, and that reciprocal tariffs are needed to even things out.

To decide what tariffs to levy, Trump ostensibly calculated all the ways in which countries cheat—including through tariffs, nontariff barriers, and currency manipulation—to estimate the total “tariff” each country imposed on the United States. In practice, this meant dividing the U.S. trade deficit with a country by the amount of goods it exported to the United States. (These calculations conveniently exclude services trade—including tourism, education, and business services—in which the United States runs a surplus with most of its trading partners). Trump then generously gave each country a discount of 50 percent, imposing reciprocal tariffs on goods imports equivalent to half of that measure.

To see how this works, in practice, look at China. In 2024, the United States had a $295.4 billion trade deficit with this country, and it imported $438.9 billion worth of Chinese goods. Trump thus calculated that China has an effective tariff rate of 67 percent on imports from the United States—or $295.4 billion divided by $438.9 billion. Trump thus set the reciprocal tariffs on U.S. imports from China at 34 percent (half of 67 percent). This figure seems to be on top of 20 percent tariffs that are already in place, amounting to a total tariff rate of 54 percent on imports from China, but who’s counting.

The United States and South Korea have a free trade agreement, but South Korea does run a trade surplus with the United States. Therefore, by Trump’s logic, they must be cheating. According to the White House’s calculations, South Korea applies roughly a 50 percent tariff on U.S. exports. As a result, Trump slapped a 26 percent tariff on imports from South Korea.

Trump has blown up the entire trading system.

What about countries that the United States runs a trade surplus against? The United States exports more goods to Australia and the United Kingdom than it imports from these countries. Surely, this shows the United States to be the cheater in these two relationships. But in the White House’s view, only other countries cheat. In fact, these two countries were still hit with 10 percent tariffs. One might ask, why apply any tariffs in such cases? The answer, it seems, is why not?

Tariffs by themselves will not erase the overall U.S. trade deficit—unless the country completely walls itself off from international trade. That is because the trade deficit is, in effect, the gap between domestic savings and investment. The United States remains a good place to invest, but its private saving rate is low, and the government runs huge budget deficits. If Trump really wanted to bring the trade account into balance, he would be better off pursuing measures to promote national savings. And even if the United States were to have no overall trade deficit, it would still probably run trade deficits with some countries and surpluses with others. Bilateral trade imbalances are just the nature of international commerce.

Trump also views tariffs as a tool for reviving U.S. manufacturing. But that benefit is speculative, would occur far in the future, and is clearly outweighed the obvious costs. Trump’s tariffs encompass such a broad swath of products and trading partners that they will inevitably have adverse effects on the U.S. economy—with the costs of disruption borne by American consumers and businesses in practically every sector.

Industries with complex supply chains threaded through multiple countries, such as auto manufacturing, will face the most severe consequences. But any business that has benefited from supply chains that are efficient and cost effective (which is to say most of them) will now have to retrench in order to reduce its exposure to trade policy and geopolitical risks. This will inevitably drive up prices for consumers, as businesses prioritize resilience rather than efficiency. Even the agricultural products, machinery and equipment, and hi-tech goods the United States exports will be adversely affected, thanks to retaliatory tariffs imposed by Washington’s trading partners.

POINT OF NO RETURN

The rest of the world is still reacting to Trump’s announcement. But states will likely respond with a combination of retaliation, appeasement, and diversification. Each of these approaches has challenges.

Consider, first, retaliating against the United States. Multiple countries have already promised to tariff American-made goods in response to Trump’s provocations. Their citizens, too, are angry. Canadian consumers are boycotting U.S. products, and tourists from the rest of the world are likely to shun the United States. But retaliation carries its own costs, as it increases the uncertainty surrounding global trade, which hurts business investment.

Appeasement comes with fewer risks, and it certainly is in the interest of each country hit with tariffs to negotiate with Trump. Bilateral trade cannot be balanced overnight, but countries could promise to buy more goods from the United States and reduce barriers to those imports. Trump justified earlier rounds of tariffs on broader national security grounds, using them as a tool to get countries to limit illegal immigration and inflows of illicit drugs; U.S. trading partners could offer to take bold measures to stem those scourges from reaching American shores. Trump loves a deal, after all, so each country will have to find ways to allow him to claim victory (which he will do in any case). Yet even if other countries promise to buy more U.S. goods, it is unlikely that their trade surpluses with the United States will shrink rapidly enough to please the president, leaving them open to additional punitive measures. And if the American economy starts to sputter on account of the tariffs, Trump will inevitably heap even more blame on the rest of the world.

The United States is leading a resurgence of protectionism.

Other countries, particularly those that already have strong trade relationships, could perhaps bypass the United States altogether. For instance, China, Japan, and South Korea might try to collectively shield themselves from the effects of U.S. tariffs by intensifying their mutual trade linkages. But each of these countries relies heavily on exports to power their economies and is beset by weak domestic demand. China’s enormous excess capacity and weak import demand, in particular, threatens the other two economies. As a result, these countries are likely to be wary of opening up their markets fully to each other’s exports. The Europeans, for their part, have signaled that they are willing to work with other states on trade. But they do not want to be become dumping ground for other countries’ exports.

Nevertheless, faced with restricted access to U.S. markets and weaker U.S. consumer demand, the rest of the world will look to export market diversification, trade arrangements that exclude the United States, and other approaches to buffer themselves against a looming global trade war. But the reality is they can only do so much. In fact, even if the United States retreats from the broad-based, substantial tariffs that Trump has announced, the damage has been done to business and investor confidence. Washington has cast a pall on business investment and consumption demand, which could tip the softening US economy into a recession—and drag the rest of the world economy down with it.

The United States has ceded its role as a bastion of free trade and is instead leading a resurgence of protectionism that will hurt consumers and businesses worldwide. These tariffs, if they remain in place, will define Trump’s legacy not as a savvy businessman but as a destructive and petulant hindrance to economic progress.

ESWAR PRASAD is Professor in the Dyson School at Cornell University and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Eswar Prasad · April 3, 2025

22. CSA's Articles of the Month

The CSA is the busiest man in the US Army. But he still takes time to read. As we all should.

And the first thing he reads is what his soldiers write. So in addition to reading, we should all write for the boss.

CSA's Articles of the Month

General George's reading list for April

https://www.hardingproject.com/p/csas-articles-of-the-month?utm

Sarah Chamberlin

Apr 04, 2025

For April, the CSA highlights the future of warfare with AI, a new method for ammo requests, continually advancing strategies for UAS, and the importance of realistic training.

Black on Ammunition, Green on Forecasting: Ammunition Lessons Learned from a DIVARTY in a Division Warfighter Exercise

MAJ Mikhail Jackson

Soldiers assigned to the 41st Field Artillery Brigade unload an ammunition container from an M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System at a rearm, refuel, and resupply point during Dynamic Front 25 in Rovajärvi, Finland, 7 November 2024. (Photo by Sgt. Gianna Elle Sulger, U.S. Army)

In his article, MAJ Jackson discusses lessons learned for ammunition requests and forecasting at the Division level. He argues that forecasting ammunition will become much more difficult for sustainers in a LSCO environment. It’s not just about predicting how many rounds of ammunition will be needed, but rather understanding when they will be needed, and how best to distribute them across the units involved. He believes the answer to this multifaceted problem lies in understanding the phases of each operation and projecting the volume of fire (VOF).

The U.S. Army, Artificial Intelligence, and Mission Command

Benjamin Jensen and MG Jake S. Kwon

Photo courtesy of War on the Rocks.

This article explores the topic generating the most buzz in virtually every public and private sector: AI. The authors discuss how the U.S. Army is integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning into mission command to gain decision advantage in future multidomain operations. It emphasizes the importance of combining human judgment with data-driven insights, updating leader education, and developing data literacy to adapt to AI-enabled warfare by 2030.

Tactical UAS: Three-Tiered UAS Manning for Increased Lethality and Situational Awareness

CPT Charles J. O'hagan, 1LT Parker Mitchell, 1LT Noah Paffenroth, and 1LT Adam Hendrick

Soldier holding a Ghost-X. (Photo by SGT Charile Duke)

This article is penned by four junior officers advocating for a different approach to UAS planning and implementation. The group argues for a three-tiered approach to increase the lethality of UAS. This approach consists of creating an additional duty, dedicated positions, and a new military occupation specialty (MOS) to optimize the use of drones across the force. Similar to our previously mentioned AI article, these authors argue for a human-machine integrated approach.

Tough, Realistic Training Is a Form of Taking Care of Soldiers!

CSM LeVares J. Jackson Sr.

(U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Luis Solorio)

Last, but certainly not least, CSM Jackson’s article emphasizes the importance of training like we fight. An age-old adage that always seems to ring true. CSM underscores preparing mentally and emotionally for war, an arena that many neglect. He also discusses the more traditional realms of preparation like physical conditioning and tactical expertise. In closing, he argues that “Tough, realistic training is indispensable when preparing Soldiers for the complexities of future warfare.”

We will see you next month for CSA’s Articles of May!

23. On Defense, Trump’s Early Moves in Asia Have Been Notably Normal

This was my recommendation for the administration (below). He is actually building on the foundation he built in his first term and the Biden administration improved on. He does not need to throw out what the Biden administration did because he was really executing the Trump administration's strategy. You can see the throughline in the strategy documents.

"Silk Web of Alliances: Trump’s Legacy and the Indo-Pacific’s Future"

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/silk-web-of-alliances-trumps-legacy-and-the-indo-pacifics-future/

On Defense, Trump’s Early Moves in Asia Have Been Notably Normal

Despite its high-decible MAGA rhetoric, the administration has largely upheld the regional commitments made during Joe Biden’s presidency.

https://thediplomat.com/2025/04/on-defense-trumps-early-moves-in-asia-have-been-surprisingly-normal/

By Tom Corben

April 03, 2025

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth greets U.S. Soldiers with U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, March 25, 2025.

Credit: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Julian Elliott-Drouin

Throughout the Joe Biden presidency, it became a common refrain amongst policy analysts that his administration’s approach to foreign policy could be characterized as “America First, with a smile.”

It reflected what many saw as a “strange continuity” in substance, if not style, between the first Trump administration and the Biden era, including on Asia policy. Such constancy gave allies and partners some comfort that U.S. commitment to the region could withstand Trump’s return to the White House.

Trump 2.0, however, is evidently a different beast. Beyond unsettling policy shifts at home, his administration’s pillorying of European partners and its reckless approach to economic policy – including the considerable “Liberation Day” tariffs on many of the United States’ most important Asian partners that were announced this week – has left many rightly worried about the credibility of U.S. Indo-Pacific alliances and the future of U.S. regional strategy more broadly.

Yet amid all the noise, we’ve also had some welcome signs of normalcy on U.S. regional strategy, at least as far as defense is concerned.

Amid the fallout from “SignalGate” and Trump’s tariffs, it was easy to miss U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s first regional tour last week. Notwithstanding its MAGA idiosyncrasies, the vision presented by Hegseth in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Japan offered welcoming signs of continuity on U.S. regional security commitments.

Indeed, Hegseth’s major policy address in Honolulu was notable for its normalcy. As one colleague quipped to me, stripped of its ideological overtones, it was “a speech that any defense secretary could have given.”

Hegseth insisted that the Indo-Pacific – “the region of consequence” – would remain the United States’ top geographic priority, citing Trump’s 2017 “Indo-Pacific dream” speech in Vietnam as the genesis of that commitment. He reiterated that promise in Manila, declaring that Trump would walk the talk of prioritization “in a way that is unprecedented” through the quality and quantity of U.S. forces assigned to Asia. Granted, successive U.S. defense secretaries since the early 2000s have promised prioritization, but have not delivered in practice. Even so, Hegseth’s was a welcome pledge given regional concerns over the reliability of U.S. security guarantees amid projected troop drawdowns in Europe and growing military distractions in the Middle East.

On China, Hegseth made clear that collective deterrence remains the guiding concept for U.S. defense strategy. Pledges to posture U.S. forces for “warfighting” in that face of “Communist Chinese military aggression” may have struck a confrontational tone. Yet the underlying objective of achieving “robust, ready, and credible deterrence” together with allies and partners is broadly consistent with the Biden administration’s own approach to defense strategy, optimized for “denial, resilience, and collective cost imposition” with China as the “pacing challenge.” Alliances and partnerships also remain central to the Trump version of that strategy. Rather than “ignoring allies and partners,” Hegseth repeatedly stressed throughout his tour that U.S. success in Asia depends on paying “even greater attention to the relationships that matter the most,” noting that “America First does not mean America only.”

Such attention will, naturally, include a laser focus on burden-sharing, given Trump’s fixation on what he sees as free-riding by U.S. treaty allies. Hegseth’s insistence that collective defense “has to be a two-way street” and that Washington will “right-size [alliance] obligations and responsibilities needed for modern deterrence” made that much clear. Other influential Pentagon figures have already dismissed allied defense budgets of anything below 3 percent of GDP as “manifestly inadequate.” Japan’s experience under Trump 1.0 and recent U.S. engagements with European and Asian leaders also suggest that regional allies should expect greater pressure to buy U.S. weapons under the guise of “empowerment.”

But it’s also clear that Trump’s approach to alliances will, at least at face value, be about more than correcting alliance balance sheets. It will also involve modernizing alliances to equip them with the tools to better contribute to collective security. New force posture and defense industry initiatives announced with Australia, India, Japan, and the Philippines since January 2025, including several during Hegseth’s trip, are strong indicators that Trump will persist with Biden’s alliance modernization agenda, itself built upon the efforts of the first Trump administration.

Efforts to network U.S. regional alliances also appear likely to endure. Indeed, it was no coincidence that Hegseth’s Asia trip took place against the backdrop of trilateral Japan-Philippines-U.S. naval operations in the South China Sea aimed at countering Chinese encroachment. This, along with earlier endorsements of AUKUS and the Quad, which both received great attention under Biden, suggest that the administration is willing to stick with regional security groupings that are delivering practical outcomes.

After a frenetic first three months, Hegseth’s first Asia foray may help U.S. allies and partners in Asia breathe a little easier about America’s regional commitments – for this week, at least.

Yet while the early signs on bilateral defense policy are promising, there remain serious reasons to worry about the non-military tools of U.S. statecraft. Left unaddressed, the gutting of U.S. soft power and the president’s confrontational trade policies will likely undercut early gains, while focusing only on deterring Chinese military aggression could yet alienate key partners across the region. It is also difficult to reconcile Hegseth’s rhetorical commitments to prioritizing defense requirements in Asia with a renewed surge in the Middle East and the tasking of high-end military assets to the southern U.S. border for security operations. Together, all of these factors this would make for a hollow Indo-Pacific strategy.

While Hegseth might have sent the right signals this week, the Trump administration has much to do to in the coming months to show that the return of “America First, with a scowl” in Asia is more than a military equation.

Authors

Guest Author

Tom Corben

Tom Corben in a research fellow in the foreign policy and defence program at the United States Studies Centre.

24. Army Planners Are Weighing Force Reductions of Up to 90,000 Active-Duty Soldiers

Wow. I was not expecting this.

Army Planners Are Weighing Force Reductions of Up to 90,000 Active-Duty Soldiers

military.com · by Steve Beynon · April 3, 2025

The Army is quietly considering a sweeping reduction of up to 90,000 active-duty troops, a move that underscores mounting fiscal pressures at the Pentagon and a broader shift in military strategy away from Europe and counterterrorism, according to three defense officials familiar with the deliberations.

Internal discussions are exploring trimming the force to between 360,000 and 420,000 troops -- down from its current level of roughly 450,000. The potential cuts would mark one of the most dramatic force reductions in years, as military planners aim to reshape the Army from a blunt conventional force into what they hope could be a more agile, specialized instrument better suited for future conflicts. It's unclear whether any cuts are being mulled for the Army Reserve or National Guard.

The move comes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the Pentagon to come up with plans to cut 8% from the budget. Hegseth has long criticized what he describes as "woke" initiatives within the military, though that critique has centered on ill-defined cultural grievances and confused the force on how to comply and on what exactly needs scrubbing.

Efforts to combat climate change -- acknowledged by military leaders for years as a pressing national security issue -- have also come under scrutiny in Hegseth's Pentagon. Eliminating such programs alone would not yield anywhere close to 8% savings, making reductions in combat forces likely unavoidable.

The discussion of cuts comes as the Army is spread especially thin across the world, juggling counterterrorism missions in Africa and the Middle East, which are basically legacy missions from the Global War on Terrorism era, while building its footprint in the Pacific to counter Beijing's expansionist goals.

Moreover, the Army has effectively been the quarterback in bolstering NATO's front lines amid Russian President Vladimir Putin's ongoing war on Ukraine, a mission that the Trump administration has frequently scoffed at.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels, delivered a blunt message: President Donald Trump expects European nations to increase their military spending significantly.

"He's against a NATO that lacks the capabilities needed to fulfill its obligations under the treaty," Rubio said. "This is a hard truth, but one that must be addressed."

The Army has not detailed how or where potential cuts would be made, and the service declined to comment. One defense official cautioned that such internal reviews frequently consider a range of scenarios -- including extreme ones -- and that no final decisions have been made. Each of the three officials was granted anonymity to avoid retaliation because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Still, some officials have voiced concerns that a dramatic reduction in force levels could exacerbate an already difficult recruiting environment and drive skilled personnel away.

"If we reduce the force without a clear retention strategy, we risk losing talented people who have other options," another official said.

The idea of shrinking the Army may already be percolating within the Pentagon. Austin Dahmer, a former national security adviser to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is now a senior Defense Department policy staffer, who could play a key role in force structure.

In 2023, he penned a white paper for the Marathon Initiative, a Republican-centric national security think tank, that makes the case for dramatically scaling back the Army's size in favor of reallocating money spent on the land force to the Air Force and the Navy -- arguing that in a war with China, many of the Army's capabilities, such as the Paladin tracked artillery vehicle, would be obsolete in island-hopping campaigns.

However, the dramatic reductions would be difficult without cutting into the Army's light infantry brigades, which would likely be critical in seizing terrain in massive cities.

"One of the largest bill payers in resourcing the strategy of denial should be the Army. This is because the size of the Army's large-scale land maneuver forces is principally scaled to the threat of Russian invasion of NATO territory," Dahmer wrote in the white paper. "Large-scale land maneuver forces are of much less utility in the vast maritime and littoral theater of the Western Pacific."

One defense official noted that Dahmer has had no role in the Army war-gaming reducing the force.

On Thursday, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee criticized Pentagon "midlevel" staffers for what he described as a misguided plan to reduce the number of troops in Europe, though it's unclear what staffers he was referring to.

"There are some who believe now is the time to drastically reduce our military footprint in Europe," Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said at a hearing with U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command military leadership. "I'm troubled at those deeply misguided and dangerous views held by some midlevel bureaucrats within the Defense Department.

"They've been working to pursue a U.S. retreat from Europe, and they've often been doing so without coordinating with the secretary of defense," Wicker said.

If the Army reduced the size of its active-duty force by the estimates under consideration, it could be far more dramatic than the announced plan to reduce the size of the force by about 24,000 last year. Then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told reporters the service was cutting positions associated with counterterrorism.

The Army at the time announced a cut of about 10,000 positions for engineers and similar jobs that were tied to counterinsurgency missions. Additional cuts came from cavalry squadrons, whose relevance has dwindled with the advancement of drone technology. Support roles in special operations were also scaled back.

At the time, Wormuth noted the service wasn't cutting soldiers themselves out of the Army, but that the lion's share of those cuts were job positions, many of which weren't even filled.

The move also comes as the service is seemingly digging itself out of a yearslong recruiting slump, which has been attributed to a lack of qualified candidates.

The Army was uniquely affected, being by far the largest service and thus having the most ambitious enlistment quotas. Still, the Army met its recruiting goals last year and is on track to see a healthy haul of enlistments this year, largely due to pre-basic training courses for applicants who did not initially meet academic or body weight standards.

-- Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.

military.com · by Steve Beynon · April 3, 2025

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Declares National Emergency to Increase our Competitive Edge, Protect our Sovereignty, and Strengthen our National and Economic Security

New chaos in White House as top NSC officials sacked

Musk’s Task Force Begins Shutting Down Foreign Policy Research Center

Trump’s tariffs are the end of globalisation Europe can’t fight a trade war

'Will Trump get what he wants from these tariffs? In terms of reshoring manufacturing, the answer is probably yes.' Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty.

Europeans in particular should be wary of wishful thinking. There were plenty of gleeful projections of a more severe impact for the US than for Europe. In the short term, there will be a negative effect on the American economy, as the tariffs are a huge tax on US consumers.

“Will Trump get what he wants? In terms of reshoring manufacturing, the answer is probably yes.”

Wolfgang Münchau is the Director of Eurointelligence and an UnHerd columnist.

China Retaliates to Trump Tariffs; Investors Rush Into Bonds While Dow Futures Slide

China slaps 34% tariffs on U.S. goods starting April 10. Benchmark Treasury yields sink, oil tumbles, and Nasdaq futures drop.

Pinned Post

Trump Fires Director of National Security Agency

Move comes after the president let go of several National Security Council officials

Russian drone strike on Kharkiv homes kills several, say officials

Russian drone barrage hits Kharkiv homes, kills four people

Russian drone barrage hits Kharkiv homes, kills four people

U.S. Strikes in Yemen Burning Through Munitions With Limited Success

​

US bans government personnel in China from romantic or sexual relations with Chinese citizens

A Cold War throwback

Rising tensions, tighter controls

___

Exclusive-Musk team issued inaccurate USAID firing notices, must send correct versions, say sources

More in World

Defense officials considering cuts to military treatment facilities

Dropping U.S. Biodefenses: Why Cuts to Federal Health Agencies Make Americans Less Safe

How HHS Protects Americans from Biological Threats

Preventing Biological Catastrophes in America

Rapid Response

Biological Deterrence

What to Watch for

Iran abandons Houthis under relentless US bombardment

Regulated Democracy and Regulated Speech

Recent Political Context

Shared Values and Fears

First Amendment Protections and Platform Regulation

Using Section 230 Immunities to Regulate Lawful Speech

Using FCC Authority to Regulate Lawful Speech

Tariffs Can Actually Work—if Only Trump Understood How

Smart trade policy could help restore jobs, but the president’s carpet-bomb approach portends disaster.

Read More

Greenland’s Military Possibilities for the United States - War on the Rocks

China and Russia Will Not Be Split

The “Reverse Kissinger” Delusion

HISTORY DOES NOT ALWAYS RHYME

A FOOL’S ERRAND

A COSTLY PIVOT

The Economic Consequences of State Capture

Oligarchs Are Warping Markets and Corrupting Economies Around the World

THE ART OF THE STEAL

HIGHWAY ROBBERY

NO EASY FIX

Is The U.S. About To Go To War With Iran?

Editor-in-Chief

The Age of Tariffs

Trump Is Launching a Turbulent New Era for the Global Economy

BAD MATH

POINT OF NO RETURN

CSA's Articles of the Month

General George's reading list for April

On Defense, Trump’s Early Moves in Asia Have Been Notably Normal

Army Planners Are Weighing Force Reductions of Up to 90,000 Active-Duty Soldiers