Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide."

– Viktor Frankel

Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable."

– Kurt Vonnegut

“We must admit the vanity of our faults distinctions among men, learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves, and then our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortune of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done to great to let the spirit flourish any longer in our land.”

– Robert F Kennedy, April 5, 1968

1. Xi Switches to Fight Mode as Trump Trade Deal Looks Unlikely

2. Trump Turns Screws on China, Leaves Door Open to Deals With Other Countries

3. U.S. and Iran to Hold High-Stakes Nuclear Talks

4. Lutnick’s Strategy Flummoxes Business Leaders and White House Aides

5. Global Leaders Rush to Woo Trump, Hoping to Sway Him on Tariffs

6. Exclusive: how the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg got added to the White House Signal group chat

7. Defense Spending Cuts and Strategy Shifts Could Lead to Major U.S. Army Downsizing

8. In a Strongman State, a Trump Order Extinguishes Flickers of Freedom

9. Foreign journalists at US-backed media fear being sent to repressive homelands after Trump's cuts

10. Trump administration appoints junior officer to oversee US Foreign Service, sources say

11. After a backlash, National Park Service restores old Underground Railroad webpage that prominently features Harriet Tubman

12. Navy SEAL. Harvard Doctor. NASA Astronaut. Don’t Tell Mom About This Overachiever.

13. Trump, Hegseth Tout $1 Trillion US Defense Budget

14. A Bodyguard of Lies

15. ‘The Determined Spy’ Review: The Cold War Was His Playground

16. JFK Files: Revelations from the Covert Operations High Command

17. Taiwan lines up sweeteners for US after Trump tariff blow. But how far will they go?

18. How this special operations leader ended up shuttering a US embassy and destroying sensitive materials just before Russia invaded Ukraine

19. Top US admiral at NATO removed amid Trump’s growing military firings

20. How the CIA smuggled Orwell and Le Carré into the eastern bloc

21. Russia’s army is being subordinated to its security services

22. Schooled by Trump, Americans are learning to dislike their allies

23. How China Will Informationally Throw U.S. to the Mat

24. I Loved Being a Soldier by Gen. Charles Jacoby

25. Putin’s Spies for Hire: What the U.K.’s Biggest Espionage Trial Revealed about Kremlin Tactics in Wartime Europe

26. The New US Tariffs Are a Wake-Up Call For ASEAN

27. A retired Green Beret in Congress wants to ban GNC stores from military bases

28. How Trump Could Dethrone the Dollar

29. The Dangerous New Civil-Military Bargain

30. Pentagon considering proposal to cut thousands of troops from Europe, officials say

1. Xi Switches to Fight Mode as Trump Trade Deal Looks Unlikely

Excerpts:

“We believe that before we can sit down to negotiate a deal we have to fight, because the other side wants to fight first,” Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University’s Center for American Studies in Shanghai, said of China’s stance. On the possibility of a Trump-Xi call, Wu added: “You just slapped my face and I’m not just going to call you and beg your pardon.”

As China confronts the reality that rising US levies are unavoidable — and now at a rate Bloomberg Economics says will mostly wipe out bilateral trade — top leaders are ramping up efforts to bolster the domestic economy. Policymakers huddled in Beijing over the weekend to discuss plans to accelerate stimulus to boost consumption, Bloomberg News reported earlier, as Xi leans on China’s vast consumer base to help absorb the country’s manufacturing output.

Xi has called for strengthened efforts to “fully unleash” the country’s consumption potential to spur growth, China’s state-run broadcaster reported Monday, without specifying when and where he made those comments.

Xi Switches to Fight Mode as Trump Trade Deal Looks Unlikely

By Bloomberg News

April 7, 2025 at 8:30 AM EDT

Updated on April 7, 2025 at 6:30 PM EDT

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-07/china-s-retaliation-signals-xi-s-growing-frustration-with-trump-tariffs?sref=hhjZtX76

President Xi Jinping’s decision to quickly retaliate against Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs sent the world a clear message: If the US wants a trade war, China is ready to fight.

After weeks of responding with only targeted measures and calling for dialogue, China signaled a tougher approach on Friday by answering Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs with blanket duties of its own and more export controls. The Communist Party’s official newspaper followed that up with a Monday editorial declaring Beijing is no longer “clinging to illusions” of striking a deal, even as it leaves a door open to negotiations.

China’s defiant response has left investors bracing for a prolonged and disruptive trade war. Trump deepened those worries Monday, threatening an additional 50% in tariffs if Beijing does not withdraw its planned retaliation. Trump also warned in a social media post that the US would cut off all future meetings and negotiations with China if action wasn’t taken in the coming days.

“We believe that before we can sit down to negotiate a deal we have to fight, because the other side wants to fight first,” Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University’s Center for American Studies in Shanghai, said of China’s stance. On the possibility of a Trump-Xi call, Wu added: “You just slapped my face and I’m not just going to call you and beg your pardon.”

As China confronts the reality that rising US levies are unavoidable — and now at a rate Bloomberg Economics says will mostly wipe out bilateral trade — top leaders are ramping up efforts to bolster the domestic economy. Policymakers huddled in Beijing over the weekend to discuss plans to accelerate stimulus to boost consumption, Bloomberg News reported earlier, as Xi leans on China’s vast consumer base to help absorb the country’s manufacturing output.

Xi has called for strengthened efforts to “fully unleash” the country’s consumption potential to spur growth, China’s state-run broadcaster reported Monday, without specifying when and where he made those comments.

Stocks tumbled on concerns over the trade war’s impact on global trade, as relations between the world’s largest economies spiral. Asia capped its worst day since 2008, with a gauge of Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong falling into a bear market, while the city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index plunged the most since 1997. Europe’s Stoxx 600 tumbled more than 6% at one point.

Pressure and Pride

The escalation of tensions is dimming the prospect of any imminent leadership call. Trump hasn’t spoken with Xi since returning to the White House, the longest a US president has gone without talking to his Chinese counterpart post-inauguration in 20 years.

“Trump and Xi are locked in a paradox of pressure and pride,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “But here’s the dilemma: if Xi refuses to engage, the pressure escalates; if he engages too soon, he risks looking weak.”

What Bloomberg Economics Says...

“Given the broadside to China’s economy from US tariffs, we’ve been expecting policymakers to expedite stimulus — and news they’ve discussed measures to stabilize the economy and markets appears to confirm it’s in the works.”

— Chang Shu, David Qu and Eric Zhu

Read the full note here.

The Chinese leader is walking a tightrope. He needs to project strength at home, while supporting an economy grappling with deflation. One major challenge is restoring consumer confidence, which has been deeply shaken by a years-long property slump that wiped out a significant chunk of household wealth.

Several major global banks — including UBS Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley — sounded the alarm over the weekend about the potential fallout from the US’s steepest tariff hikes in a century. They warned the levies could put more pressure on already modest 2025 growth forecasts for China, which are already as low as 4% — below the official target of about 5%.

Growing Arsenal

While Xi has ramped up China’s response, he still hasn’t hit full retaliation: Beijing has several tools it could reach for if tensions with Washington worsen. If past actions are a guide, it could let the yuan weaken to offset the impact of tariffs, tighten export controls on critical minerals or increase pressure on US companies operating in China.

China may also widen its diplomatic outreach by building stronger economic ties elsewhere. Officials from China, Japan and South Korea last month jointly called for open and fair trade. During a recent visit to Brussels, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Liao Min expressed a willingness to work with the European Union to defend the multilateral trading system. The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa also made similar overtures about partnering with Canada.

Xi’s expected visit to Southeast Asia later this month takes on added importance. Beijing will likely be watching what countries like Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam might offer Washington in hopes of tariff relief, and whether those moves could undercut Chinese interests.

“What may be tougher for China to manage would be the knock-on protectionist measures other economies will take to shield their industries from an expected flood of cheaper Chinese goods as demand in the US and other key markets tighten,” said Lee Sue-Ann, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

Despite the increased pressure, there’s no sign China is looking to fully decouple from the US. Instead, it seems to be asserting its position and bracing itself for a prolonged standoff, while keeping its options open.

“China wants to convey to the US that it is not intimidated and is willing to stand its ground,” said Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University, who researches Chinese trade policies. “Rather than aiming to inflict significant damage, the goal seems to be to exert pressure and encourage dialogue.”

Reduced Reliance

China’s confidence stems from the belief it’s better prepared than during Trump’s first trade war, having learned from the past eight years. Beijing has broadened its network of trade partners, reducing its dependence on the US for both imports and exports.

The US took less than 15% of Chinese exports last year, down from 19% in 2017 before the trade war, although trade routed through third countries likely made up for some of the shortfall. Imports from the US — already relatively small — have become less critical for China.

US Less Important as Soybean Supplier to China

Only 25% of Chinese imports over past 12 months came from US, down from a third in 2017

Source: China's General Administration of Customs

Note: Shows imports of HS # 1201

Agricultural products are a prime example, with China seeking to reduce its reliance on US soybeans. American exporters — which once dominated the Chinese market — saw their share fall to just 20% last year as China ramped up purchases from Brazil instead.

All this may buy Beijing more time until the two sides agree to meet at the negotiation table.

China expects Trump’s efforts will run out of momentum soon, according to Wang Yiwei, professor of international relations at Renmin University.

“Soldiers would be most willing to fight when the first battle drum sounds,” he said. “But that begins to fade by the second round.”

(Updates throughout)

2. Trump Turns Screws on China, Leaves Door Open to Deals With Other Countries

Excerpts:

One official from a large technology firm said they weren’t seeing any credible indications of deals to spare companies or specific products from tariffs, saying that any relief would probably come through bilateral negotiations with other nations. But the prognosis there is murky as well: Foreign governments seeking to negotiate with the U.S. are unsure about the content or structure of any potential talks, said a person familiar with the situation.

“There will be fair deals,” Trump said, noting that a number of foreign leaders have contacted the White House since he announced the tariffs last week. However, he ruled out a broad reprieve to the levies after erroneous reports earlier in the day that he was considering a 90-day pause.

“They’re offering things to us that we would have never even thought of asking them for,” he said of foreign countries, adding: “Nobody but me would do this.”

China was set to face 34% tariffs Wednesday, which Trump said he would increase by an additional 50% if Beijing didn’t drop a set of retaliatory levies it imposed on the U.S. Trump also threatened to terminate “all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us.”

Trump Turns Screws on China, Leaves Door Open to Deals With Other Countries

Administration sent conflicting messages, but president rules out a broad pause

https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-turns-screws-on-china-leaves-door-open-to-deals-with-other-countries-d13646b6

By Gavin Bade

Follow, Annie Linskey

Follow and Kim Mackrael

Updated April 7, 2025 8:04 pm ET

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President Trump threatened an additional 50% tariff on China if it didn’t remove its retaliatory tariff but left the door open for negotiations with other countries. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—President Trump hit back hard against China but left the door open for talks to lower tariffs on other countries, trade-war moves that left much of the world confused as countries raced to avoid damaging new duties on their goods.

“They can both be true,” Trump said Monday when asked whether the tariffs are permanent or up for negotiation.

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Trump’s comments leave countries and industries to fend for themselves ahead of his self-imposed deadline Wednesday for imposing steep duties on nations such as China, Japan and Vietnam. More than 50 countries have reached out to the White House in recent days to try to cut a deal with Trump, officials said, putting the president in the middle of a global rush to placate him.

The U.S. on Saturday imposed a baseline 10% tariff on imported goods from virtually every country, and the additional duties expected this week were meant to target nations the administration views as bad actors on trade. Aides close to Trump offered conflicting messages on whether the tariffs could be negotiated down.

White House trade and manufacturing adviser Peter Navarro penned an op-ed in the Financial Times on Monday declaring “this is not a negotiation” with respect to tariffs. Earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tweeted that the administration would “open negotiations” with Japan.

“There are conflicting narratives because everyone’s got an opinion,” said Stephen Miran, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “That’s fine. Disagreement is how you can avoid group think.” Miran didn’t give any clarity on whether any deals to reduce tariffs are forthcoming.

U.S. senators urged administration officials to be consistent in the messaging. “They went on television this weekend and all offered different scenarios,” Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.,) said Monday. Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) echoed those concerns saying that “very few” people know if this is for revenue or negotiations.

Exchange Square in Hong Kong’s financial district on Monday. Photo: Keith Tsuji/Zuma Press

One official from a large technology firm said they weren’t seeing any credible indications of deals to spare companies or specific products from tariffs, saying that any relief would probably come through bilateral negotiations with other nations. But the prognosis there is murky as well: Foreign governments seeking to negotiate with the U.S. are unsure about the content or structure of any potential talks, said a person familiar with the situation.

“There will be fair deals,” Trump said, noting that a number of foreign leaders have contacted the White House since he announced the tariffs last week. However, he ruled out a broad reprieve to the levies after erroneous reports earlier in the day that he was considering a 90-day pause.

“They’re offering things to us that we would have never even thought of asking them for,” he said of foreign countries, adding: “Nobody but me would do this.”

China was set to face 34% tariffs Wednesday, which Trump said he would increase by an additional 50% if Beijing didn’t drop a set of retaliatory levies it imposed on the U.S. Trump also threatened to terminate “all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us.”

Trump’s threat to escalate his tariff assault on China by a big margin all but rules out any near-term negotiations with Beijing. Senior Chinese officials have for months tried to engage the administration in meetings with little luck, The Wall Street Journal has reported. China, whose hopes for engagement have increasingly turned toward defiance, is unlikely to back down, said people who consult with Chinese officials.

“We have stressed more than once that pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage with us,” a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington said.

Meanwhile, Trump left the door open to talks with Japan, Israel and others willing to reduce their trade surplus with America.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sitting next to Trump in the Oval Office, said he wants to completely erase the trade deficit between the U.S. and Israel. Trump has railed against the trade deficit and calculated reciprocal tariff rates based on nations’ trade imbalances with the U.S.

“We intend to do it very quickly. We think it’s the right thing to do. And we’re also going to eliminate trade barriers,” Netanyahu said. He added, “I think Israel can serve as a model for other countries who ought to do the same.”

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Ursula von der Leyen said Europe is always ready for a good deal but the bloc would also be prepared to impose countermeasures. Photo: Virginia Mayo/Associated Press

The European Union appears to have chosen a middle road: Stand up to Trump but not overly antagonize him. The EU has twice delayed the pace of its retaliatory tariffs, in part to allow more time for negotiations with the Trump administration. On Monday, a top European Union official said the bloc had offered “zero-for-zero” tariffs for industrial goods during trade discussions with U.S. officials.

The EU is moving forward with plans to place tariffs on hundreds of American products, but removed Kentucky bourbon from the hit list and said it won’t respond to Trump dollar for dollar. The levies are part of the EU’s first round of retaliation, and are in response to tariffs the U.S. applied on steel and aluminum in March.

The bloc has separately said it is considering retaliating against Trump’s reciprocal and auto tariffs, though deciding on those measures may take several weeks or longer.

Protectionist advisers close to the administration are already piling on pressure for Trump not to back down. They include the influential protectionist advocacy group the Coalition for a Prosperous America, which advised Trump on his reciprocal tariff plan and whose former CEO Michael Stumo is now the trade economist at the Office of Management and Budget.

“Doing ‘zero-for-zero’ tariff deals w/ countries like Vietnam—a transshipment hub for China—is free trade by another name,” CPA Executive Vice President Nick Iacovella posted on X. “This misguided approach won’t rebuild U.S. industry—it perpetuates the same failed globalist policies that decimated American [manufacturing] & workers for decades.”

Write to Gavin Bade at gavin.bade@wsj.com, Annie Linskey at annie.linskey@wsj.com and Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com

3. U.S. and Iran to Hold High-Stakes Nuclear Talks

Excerpts:

If the U.S. and Iran hold face-to-face talks, they would be the first direct nuclear talks between the countries since former President Barack Obama reached a nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015, from which Trump withdrew during his first term. Iranian officials reiterated Monday, before Trump’s remarks, that they would only agree to indirect talks for now, mediated by a third party.

Trump officials say they are intent on direct negotiations to avoid prolonged and possibly inconclusive talks, such as the failed effort early in the Biden administration to revive the scrapped nuclear deal that Trump abandoned.

Iran refused to negotiate directly at the time. Many of the diplomats involved said that approach made talks slower and harder.

“You know, a lot of people say, ‘Oh, maybe you’re going through surrogates, or you’re not dealing directly, you’re dealing through other countries.’ No, we’re dealing with them directly,” Trump said.

Araghchi said Sunday that direct talks with the U.S. would be “meaningless,” given the threats the U.S. had made recently against Iran.

Iran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes, as allowed under international law, and that it has no intention of building nuclear weapons.

U.S. and Iran to Hold High-Stakes Nuclear Talks

Trump wants direct negotiations, but Tehran says it is planning for indirect talks in Oman

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-says-u-s-will-hold-direct-talks-with-iran-d9eed5e5?mod=hp_lead_pos2

By Alexander Ward

Follow, Michael R. Gordon

Follow and Laurence Norman

Updated April 7, 2025 8:09 pm ET

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President Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran would be in “great danger” if the talks weren’t successful. Photo: Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

WASHINGTON—The U.S. and Iran said Monday that they would convene nuclear talks Saturday, launching the two adversaries with clashing objectives into high stakes negotiations.

President Trump said the meeting would involve direct negotiations between high level U.S. and Iranian officials, while Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, said they would be indirect talks in Oman.

The talks will test Trump’s ability to roll back Iran’s nuclear program that has left it closer than ever to a workable weapon and to improve upon a prior agreement that he ripped up in his first term.

For Iran, the challenge will be to convince Trump to ease sanctions and to avoid a military conflict with the U.S. and possibly Israel, while keeping key elements of its nuclear work intact, analysts say.

While Trump has stressed his hope for a diplomatic solution, he has also threatened to take military action against Iran if no deal is reached.

The negotiations thus present a major new foreign policy risk for the administration, which is already struggling to end fighting between Russia and Ukraine, conducting airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen and seeking to defuse the conflict in Gaza.

Trump revealed the planned talks on Monday after a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious,” Trump said, apparently referring to military strikes on Iran. “So we are going to see if we can avoid it, but it’s getting to be very dangerous territory, and hopefully those talks will be successful.”

Araghchi said in announcing the talks in a post on X, “It is as much an opportunity as it is a test. The ball is in America’s court.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that direct talks with the U.S. would be ‘meaningless,’ given threats the U.S. had recently made against Iran. Photo: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy on Middle East and Russia issues, will likely be a member of the U.S. negotiating team, which Trump said would be “at almost the highest level.”

If the U.S. and Iran hold face-to-face talks, they would be the first direct nuclear talks between the countries since former President Barack Obama reached a nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015, from which Trump withdrew during his first term. Iranian officials reiterated Monday, before Trump’s remarks, that they would only agree to indirect talks for now, mediated by a third party.

Trump officials say they are intent on direct negotiations to avoid prolonged and possibly inconclusive talks, such as the failed effort early in the Biden administration to revive the scrapped nuclear deal that Trump abandoned.

Iran refused to negotiate directly at the time. Many of the diplomats involved said that approach made talks slower and harder.

“You know, a lot of people say, ‘Oh, maybe you’re going through surrogates, or you’re not dealing directly, you’re dealing through other countries.’ No, we’re dealing with them directly,” Trump said.

Araghchi said Sunday that direct talks with the U.S. would be “meaningless,” given the threats the U.S. had made recently against Iran.

Iran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes, as allowed under international law, and that it has no intention of building nuclear weapons.

Its supply of highly enriched fissile material has grown substantially. It would take just a week or two to have enough weapons-grade fissile material for a nuclear weapon but at least several months more for Tehran to assemble an actual nuclear device if it chose to field a weapon, according to Western estimates.

The Trump administration’s demands go far beyond the 2015 nuclear accord negotiated by the Obama administration, under which Iran secured the right to enrich uranium for what it claims is a peaceful nuclear program. That accord, until it was abandoned by the U.S., suspended most international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for tight but temporary limits on its nuclear program.

President Barack Obama, standing with Vice President Joe Biden, at a 2015 press conference in response to the Iran Nuclear Deal negotiated by his administration. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Press Pool

U.S. national security adviser Michael Waltz has said that in a new agreement Tehran should have no enrichment capabilities, no ability to produce a nuclear weapon and no strategic ballistic missiles.

Iran has already produced enough highly enriched uranium for more than half a dozen nuclear weapons and any new agreement will have to roll back its stockpile of material. The U.S. also would have to deal with a problem that wasn’t seen as imminent in 2015: Iran’s relatively swift ability to build some kind of nuclear weapon.

That could entail the kind of intrusive inspection regime, including of Iran’s military sites, that Tehran has resisted in the past. U.S. intelligence agencies told Congress last month that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hadn’t given the go-ahead to build a weapon, though pressure had probably grown on him to do so.

A deal would also need to handle the Iranian insistence that Washington won’t tear up a new accord, as it did before.

Iran will go into talks under greater pressure than it has been in many decades. The country is struggling with a weak economy, including high inflation, and Iran has seen its most powerful militia allies in the region, such as Hezbollah, severely weakened by Israel. That has taken away its most powerful deterrent against an Israeli attack.

Also, Iran’s most advanced air-defense systems were wiped out last year in tit-for-tat military strikes with Israel, making any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities easier.

Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com, Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com

Appeared in the April 8, 2025, print edition as 'Trump Says U.S. Is Set For Nuclear Discussions With Iran'.

4. Lutnick’s Strategy Flummoxes Business Leaders and White House Aides

I would imagine that if things go bad on tariffs that Mr. Lutnick will be the fall guy.

Lutnick’s Strategy Flummoxes Business Leaders and White House Aides

Some executives have come away from meetings with the commerce secretary confused and exasperated

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/howard-lutnick-trump-trade-agenda-messaging-75d84e01

By Josh Dawsey

April 7, 2025 8:00 pm ET

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick boarding Air Force One last month. Photo: brendan smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has tried to sell President Trump’s trade agenda to American companies for months. Business leaders say they are often confused about what he wants.

Lutnick has played a supersize role in Trump’s first months in office, driving tariff discussions, meeting with dozens of business leaders, appearing on television and often standing alongside Trump.

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The former Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive has come to frustrate executives and senior White House officials, who have come away from interactions with Lutnick exasperated, according to roughly a dozen people who have interacted with him.

In private meetings with business leaders, Lutnick has browbeat executives to support Trump’s tariffs, while at other times expressing sympathy and telling them he wants to help their companies. Lutnick has taken contradictory positions on key issues, including on whether certain imports should be exempted from tariffs, executives say.

Lutnick, 63 years old, is running point on Trump’s disruptive and combative trade agenda, which has rocked the stock market and unsettled governments around the world. When Trump unveiled his far-reaching tariffs last week it was Lutnick standing next to him in the Rose Garden, holding the large chart that explained the punitive measures against dozens of countries. It will also be Lutnick attempting to manage the economic fallout, Trump aides say, amid growing predictions that Trump’s trade agenda could tip the U.S. into a recession.

Frustration with Lutnick is spilling over into public view as the stock market plummets, with hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, a Trump ally, criticizing him on social media. The irritation at Lutnick partially reflects the challenge of representing a president known for making last-minute policy U-turns.

Lutnick has been responsible for several of the administration’s most unorthodox ideas—some of them unvetted by staff—and his TV appearances have proven so challenging to White House officials that he was asked to curb them last month, according to senior administration officials.

He has openly mused about wanting to run for elected office himself, people who have spoken to him say.

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Lutnick told Bloomberg that President Trump’s tariffs marked ‘the start of a rebalancing of the way the world works.’ Photo: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Trump has asked why Lutnick is at the White House so often, and he has grown frustrated with his commerce secretary at times, advisers said, particularly when Lutnick grows emotional in White House meetings. White House officials said he is at the White House more than any other cabinet secretary.

“Secretary Lutnick has always been a staunch defender of President Trump’s America First agenda, and his immensely successful private-sector career makes him an integral member of and communicator for the President’s trade and economic team,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesman. “The entire Trump administration is playing from the same playbook—President Trump’s playbook—to restore American Greatness from Main Street to Wall Street.”

Benno Kass, a Lutnick spokesman, declined to comment.

Lutnick, who has long been an associate of Trump’s on Wall Street, frequently touts his relationship with the president, telling associates they once caroused at Studio 54 in Manhattan, according to people who have heard his comments. Some White House advisers say he has exaggerated their closeness.

Lutnick has hosted fundraisers for Trump in the Hamptons and he co-chaired Trump’s presidential transition team, helping to identify personnel for hundreds of open jobs across the government. In the weeks before Trump took office, Lutnick lobbied to become Treasury secretary, but lost out to investor Scott Bessent. During the transition, he clashed behind the scenes with some senior advisers to Trump, people familiar with the matter said.

Lutnick is amplifying Trump’s message, according to a Republican strategist. Photo: kent nishimura/Reuters

He often speaks like Trump, saying what is on his mind with a New York brashness. “We are the sumo wrestler of this world,” Lutnick said on CNN last week, explaining how the U.S. wouldn’t be bullied by other nations.

“Lutnick has sent the message that he is going to amplify the message of everything Trump says and serve as an ambassador to the public of the Trump brand. The broader view is he’s amplifying Trump, not curbing him,” said Kevin Madden, a longtime Republican strategist.

Asked if that is working, Madden pointed to the stock market: “You see the Dow ticker today.”

Mangoes and lilies

Business executives have left their interactions with Lutnick wondering whether he adequately understands Trump’s thinking. Last month, Lutnick met with oil executives who were concerned about how the tariffs might be designed and wanted exemptions from Trump’s duties. But Lutnick said he didn’t want industry-specific exemptions, people at the meeting said. It would be like picking one lily from a field of lilies, Lutnick said, according to an attendee.

In the same meeting, he said there would be some exemptions on imports of products like mangoes that couldn’t be domestically produced at the level needed to meet U.S. demand, the people said. When Trump rolled out the tariff plan on Wednesday, there were no exemptions for mango imports. And Trump did give an exemption to the oil industry.

Before a call between Trump and American auto executives last month, Lutnick told the executives they needed to be supportive of Trump and not critical of his policies or antagonistic in their questions, according to people with knowledge of the call. After delaying a meeting with top automaker CEOs earlier this year, Lutnick asked them to get on a video call so he could show them he was traveling with Trump on Air Force One, people briefed on the call said.

Those who have observed Lutnick say he has a knack for telling people what they want to hear. Photo: Yuri Gripas/Bloomberg News

He has repeatedly told executives that he is in charge of the tariff portfolio and that they don’t need to deal with others in the administration, industry officials say. Lutnick often dominates the calls with long riffs, people on the calls say. At times, some executives say, Lutnick has been aggressive on calls.

At one point, he told steel executives that he wanted to help push through a deal for U.S. Steel to be bought by a foreign company. But later, he said he no longer could help make the deal happen, frustrating some involved, according to people familiar with the matter.

Those who have observed him say Lutnick has a knack for telling people what they want to hear.

In meetings with senators ahead of his confirmation, he sometimes delivered conflicting messages about trade. If a senator expressed concerns about tariffs and local industries that could be hurt, Lutnick told them not to worry about it, the people said. Tariffs are going to be used sparingly and would be targeted. In meetings with more Trump-aligned senators, he praised tariffs and stressed how important they were, people familiar with the meetings said.

Lutnick has told associates he joined the government out of a desire to help the president, noting that he could afford to leave his lucrative private-sector job because he has already amassed vast wealth.

The night he was confirmed, he threw a party at his opulent Washington mansion, complete with a putting and chipping green, a heated pool, a floor-to-ceiling wine display and a spa. He bought the house for $25 million from Fox News anchor Bret Baier.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at a cabinet meeting in February. Photo: Al Drago/Press Pool

‘Like President McKinley’

At a reception with executives last month, Lutnick said he came up with the idea for the Department of Government Efficiency and encouraged Trump to be more expansionist “like President McKinley,” a person who heard his comments said. Trump has mused about acquiring Greenland, taking back control of the Panama Canal and making Canada the 51st U.S. state.

People close to Trump have sometimes been annoyed by Lutnick’s propensity for proposing ideas to the president that haven’t yet been vetted, according to three White House officials.

White House aides grew frustrated when Lutnick went on television and called for eliminating income taxes for those making under $150,000 a year. White House staff later learned that he had talked about the idea at a private dinner with Trump, and the president seemed to like it, officials said. Members of Congress flooded the White House with questions: Was this going to be a new policy? It wasn’t, White House aides assured them.

White House staffers were also stunned when Lutnick went on Fox News in February and said the administration wanted to abolish the Internal Revenue Service. Several Trump aides said Lutnick hadn’t seemed to think through how the public might interpret the commerce secretary calling for the closing of the IRS in the middle of tax season.

Lutnick has promoted the idea of a “gold card,” which would grant wealthy foreigners permanent U.S. residency for $5 million. Lutnick said the idea came out of a call between Trump, investor John Paulson and himself. Some in the White House have privately raised concerns that the idea is unworkable or potentially violates the law, but Trump loves the cards, which are emblazoned with his face. Lutnick has said he is already selling them.

He has weighed in on topics far afield from commerce, particularly on immigration, senior administration officials said.

Trump so far seems to be sticking by him. As the president flew on Air Force One to Florida late last week, Lutnick appeared with Trump during a question-and-answer session with reporters.

“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate,” the president said. “They always have.”

Lutnick had put it differently one day earlier during a televised interview: “The president is not going to back off,” he said.

President Trump with Howard Lutnick, when Lutnick was nominee for commerce secretary, in February. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg News

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Do you think Lutnick is a positive or negative influence in the Trump administration? Join the conversation below.

Write to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com

Appeared in the April 8, 2025, print edition as 'Frustration Over Commerce Chief Mounts'.

5. Global Leaders Rush to Woo Trump, Hoping to Sway Him on Tariffs

Excerpt:

Only a handful of countries — including Mexico, Canada and Russia — have escaped Mr. Trump’s new levies. In an interview Thursday, Luis Rosendo Gutiérrez Romano, the Mexican deputy secretary for international trade, said that Mexico had been working hard to establish a constructive and positive dialogue with the United States over the past five weeks, and that the decision to exclude Mexico and Canada from the tariffs was a signal of the value of the trade agreement between the countries.

Global Leaders Rush to Woo Trump, Hoping to Sway Him on Tariffs

Dozens of foreign governments were trying to appeal to the president to have steep tariffs rolled back, but the president and his advisers have indicated negotiations could be difficult.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/us/politics/trump-tariffs-foreign-governments-negotiations.html

President Trump speaking with the press pool on Air Force One as he traveled from West Palm Beach, Fla., to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Sunday.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

By Ana Swanson Alexandra Stevenson Damien Cave and Jeanna Smialek

Ana Swanson reported from Washington, Alexandra Stevenson from Manila, Damien Cave from Ho Chi Minh City and Jeanna Smialek from Brussels.

April 7, 2025

Updated 6:32 p.m. ET

Sign up for Your Places: Global Update. All the latest news for any part of the world you select. Get it sent to your inbox.

President Trump’s plan to impose sweeping tariffs on most of America’s trading partners has governments across the globe racing to schedule phone calls, send delegations to Washington and offer up proposals to lower their import taxes in order to escape the levies.

On Monday, European officials offered to drop tariffs to zero on cars and industrial goods imported from the United States, in return for the same treatment. Israel’s prime minister was expected to personally petition Mr. Trump on Monday in meetings at the White House. Vietnam’s top leader, in a phone call last week, offered to get rid of tariffs on American goods, while Indonesia prepared to send a high-level delegation to Washington, D.C., to “directly negotiate with the U.S. government.”

Even Lesotho, the tiny landlocked country in Southern Africa, was assembling a delegation to send to Washington to protest the tariffs on its exports to the United States, which include denim for Calvin Klein and Levi’s.

Mr. Trump and his advisers have given mixed signals on whether the United States is willing to negotiate. On Sunday, Mr. Trump said that the tariffs would remain in place until U.S. trade deficits disappeared, meaning the United States is no longer buying more from these countries than it sells to them. But the administration still appeared to be welcoming offers from foreign nations, which are desperate to try to forestall more levies that go into effect on Wednesday.

On Monday, as markets recoiled for a third day and Mr. Trump threatened even more punishing tariffs on China, the president said that “negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”

“Countries from all over the World are talking to us,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. “Tough but fair parameters are being set. Spoke to the Japanese Prime Minister this morning. He is sending a top team to negotiate!”

The turmoil in the stock markets since the president announced tariffs last Wednesday has prompted speculation that the president might be willing to strike some deals to roll tariffs back. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, predicted that tariffs would be “a short-term issue while the negotiations are actually happening.”

“I think once the president starts announcing some negotiations in some different countries we’ll start to see the market calm, and we’ll start to see the rates come down pretty quickly,” Mr. Lankford said.

Image

Workers at the Nien Hsing Textile factory, a global manufacturer of Levi’s jeans, on the outskirts of Maseru, the capital of Lesotho.Credit...Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

But both Mr. Trump and many of his advisers have downplayed the prospect of any immediate changes. On Sunday night, Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he would not reverse tariffs on other nations unless the trade deficits that the United States runs with China, the European Union and other nations disappeared.

“Hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose with China,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “And unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal.” He added that he was “willing to deal with China, but they have to solve their surplus.”

Tracking Trump’s First 100 Days ›

The Trump administration’s previous actions on North American tariffs

Earlier entries about North American tariffs

See every major action by the Trump administration ›

The tariffs that go into effect Wednesday range from 10 percent to 40 percent on nearly 60 countries. They are calculated based on the U.S. trade deficit with each country and will be added to a 10 percent global levy that went into effect on Saturday.

Some countries — like Europe and Canada — have threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on American goods, while others have decided to hold off to avoid Mr. Trump’s ire. On Monday, Mr. Trump responded angrily to China’s decision to retaliate and said he would impose “additional tariffs on China of 50 percent, effective April 9.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, reiterated a threat of retaliatory tariffs Monday even as she proposed dropping some tariffs between the United States and Europe to zero. “We are also prepared to respond through countermeasures, and defend our interests,” she said.

Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s president, said in a video address on Sunday night that Taiwan had no plans to retaliate with tariffs. He added that investment commitments made by Taiwanese companies to the United States would not change as long as they remained in the national interest.

Image

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan answering questions about the tariff measures imposed by the Trump administration, during a parliamentary committee session in Tokyo on Monday.Credit...Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Across Asia — where Mr. Trump has targeted some of his harshest levies and where factories specialize in making electronics, auto parts and shoes for the United States — leaders have been offering to strike deals and working to set up meetings with Mr. Trump. The tariffs are a particular threat to multinational companies that have relocated factories from China to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand in recent years, after Mr. Trump opened a trade war with China in his first presidency.

On Monday, the trade secretary of the Philippines said the country would reduce tariffs on goods coming from the United States and meet “soon” with the U.S. economic team. The leader of Cambodia — which faces the highest tariff rates of any Asian country, at 49 percent — sent a letter to Mr. Trump on Friday, saying it was reducing tariffs on 19 categories of American imports immediately. Thailand, which is facing tariffs of 36 percent on its exports, expressed its “readiness to engage in dialogue.”

In Vietnam, where many people had been expecting tariffs of around 10 percent, the announcement of 46 percent tariffs came as a blow. Vietnam’s deputy prime minister, Ho Duc Phoc, was scheduled to leave Sunday for a trip to the United States with a delegation that included executives with the country’s two main airlines, which have been promising to buy Boeing aircraft.

Vietnam’s trade ministry asked the Trump administration to suspend the 46 percent tariff, and requested a phone call with the U.S. trade representative, Jamieson Greer, “as soon as possible,” according to a statement on the government’s website.

In a call with Mr. Trump last week, Vietnam’s top leader, To Lam, promised to slash tariffs to zero on liquefied natural gas, cars and other U.S. goods coming into the country, and suggested his counterpart do the same, according to a statement from the Vietnamese government.

“Just had a very productive call with To Lam, who told me that Vietnam wants to cut their Tariffs down to ZERO if they are able to make an agreement with the U.S.,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday morning.

But speaking on CNBC Monday this morning, White House trade counselor Peter Navarro said Vietnam’s offer to lower tariffs would not be enough to convince Mr. Trump to back off given concerns about other barriers, beyond tariffs, that countries use to block American exports, like taxes or regulations.

“When they come to us and say, we’ll go to zero tariffs, that means nothing to us, because it’s the nontariff cheating that matters,” Mr. Navarro said.

Mr. Navarro also urged the European Union to drop barriers like its value-added taxes, which Trump officials claim discriminate against the United States. “You steal from the American people every which way is possible. So don’t just say we’re going to lower our tariffs,” he said.

But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who along with Mr. Greer was put in charge of negotiations with Japan, sent a very different message in an interview late Monday, saying that Mr. Trump was ready to negotiate.

“President Trump, as you know, is better than anyone at giving himself maximum leverage,” he said, adding, “And at a point, President Trump will be ready to negotiate.”

In Japan, where stock markets fell by more than 7 percent Monday, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he would be willing to meet with Mr. Trump to discuss the levies and would stress to Mr. Trump that Japan “is not doing anything unfair.”

Japan’s trade minister, Yoji Muto, did not hide his disappointment over the tariffs. He told reporters that he had immediately held “an online meeting” with Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, to tell him the “unilateral tariff steps were extremely regrettable.”

Image

A worker standing in a coffee warehouse in Guaxupe, Brazil, in February.Credit...Carla Carniel/Reuters

“The Ishiba government would prefer to negotiate rather than escalate,” said Tobias Harris, founder of Japan Foresight, a firm that advises clients on Japanese politics. “It is struggling to determine with whom it can negotiate, if anyone.”

Mr. Muto had traveled to Washington last month as the tariffs loomed for urgent talks with Mr. Lutnick. Mr. Muto argued for Japan to be given an exemption based on the roughly $1 trillion that his nation has invested in the United States, including in huge automobile plants built by Toyota and other Japanese automakers.

South Korea’s trade minister, Cheong In-kyo, also planned to visit Washington this week to try to lower the blanket 25-percent tariff Mr. Trump imposed on goods from South Korea. Mr. Cheong is expected to meet with Trump administration officials, including Mr. Greer, to express concern about the new duties and seek ways to minimize their impact on South Korea’s export-driven economy.

European officials have also been flocking to Washington to try to negotiate. On Friday, the E.U. trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, met with his American counterparts via videoconference for what he described as a “frank,” two-hour meeting, and pledged that conversations would continue.

Mr. Sefcovic has traveled to Washington repeatedly in recent weeks, but progress so far has been halting. E.U. officials who met with Mr. Lutnick and Mr. Greer had found that they were not prepared to negotiate before the tariff announcement on April 2.

European leaders have expressed a willingness to lower tariffs in some sectors and have dangled other potential carrots, like buying more American liquid natural gas and ramping up military expenditures. But they are also preparing to retaliate, hoping that hitting back with the power of the European economy will drive the United States to the negotiating table.

E.U. officials have spent the last several weeks refining a list of counter-tariffs that they plan to put into place starting on April 15. They sent the refined list out to member state representatives on Monday, and a vote on the list is expected on Wednesday.

While that initial wave of retaliation is in response to only steel and aluminum tariffs, policymakers have indicated that more is coming if negotiation fails. Some national officials are even open to hitting America’s big technology companies with trade barriers, and E.U. policymakers have signaled that all options are on the table.

European nations export a lot of pharmaceutical products, cars and machinery to the United States, and companies across the continent are bracing for pain as the fresh U.S. tariffs kick in.

Asked on Monday afternoon if Europe’s offer of zero tariffs on American cars or industrial products was enough, Mr. Trump replied: “No, it’s not. The E.U. has been very tough over the years.”

Only a handful of countries — including Mexico, Canada and Russia — have escaped Mr. Trump’s new levies. In an interview Thursday, Luis Rosendo Gutiérrez Romano, the Mexican deputy secretary for international trade, said that Mexico had been working hard to establish a constructive and positive dialogue with the United States over the past five weeks, and that the decision to exclude Mexico and Canada from the tariffs was a signal of the value of the trade agreement between the countries.

Mr. Lutnick had been speaking with Marcelo Ebrard, the Mexican economy secretary, weekly by phone or in meetings at the commerce department in Washington, Mr. Gutiérrez said. Mexican officials assured the Americans that Mexican exports were different than those from Vietnam or China, because Mexican manufacturers use far more parts and raw materials from the United States in their factories.

Reporting was contributed by Martin Fackler, Tung Ngo, Sun Narin, Meaghan Tobin, River Akira Davis and Choe Sang-Hun.

Ana Swanson covers trade and international economics for The Times and is based in Washington. She has been a journalist for more than a decade.

Alexandra Stevenson is the Shanghai bureau chief for The Times, reporting on China’s economy and society.

Damien Cave leads The Times’s new bureau in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, covering shifts in power across Asia and the wider world.

Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.

6. Exclusive: how the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg got added to the White House Signal group chat

I have to confess that my contacts list is full of issues like Mike's. E.g., wrong email addresses with the wrong names, etc

As I have changed phones and imported contact lists my contact list has grown out of control. My contact lists go back to the days of Blackberries. So I can see this mistake being made (though this information still should not have been discussed via Signal).

Exclusive: how the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg got added to the White House Signal group chat

Internal investigation cleared the national security adviser Mike Waltz, but the mistake was months in the making

The Guardian · by Hugo Lowell · April 6, 2025

Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz included a journalist in the Signal group chat about plans for US strikes in Yemen after he mistakenly saved his number months before under the contact of someone else he intended to add, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The mistake was one of several missteps that came to light in the White House’s internal investigation, which showed a series of compounding slips that started during the 2024 campaign and went unnoticed until Waltz created the group chat last month.

Trump briefly considered firing Waltz over the episode, more angered by the fact that Waltz had the number of Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic – a magazine he despises – than the fact that the military operation discussion took place on an unclassified system such as Signal.

Trump fires six national security staffers after meeting with far-right activist Laura Loomer

But Trump decided against firing him in large part because he did not want the Atlantic and the news media more broadly to have the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by the findings of the internal investigation.

The disclosures nonetheless triggered a “forensic review” by the White House information technology office, which found that Waltz’s phone had saved Goldberg’s number as part of an unlikely series of events that started when Goldberg emailed the Trump campaign last October.

According to three people briefed on the internal investigation, Goldberg had emailed the campaign about a story that criticized Trump for his attitude towards wounded service members. To push back against the story, the campaign enlisted the help of Waltz, their national security surrogate.

Goldberg’s email was forwarded to then Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes, who then copied and pasted the content of the email – including the signature block with Goldberg’s phone number – into a text message that he sent to Waltz, so that he could be briefed on the forthcoming story.

Waltz did not ultimately call Goldberg, the people said, but in an extraordinary twist, inadvertently ended up saving Goldberg’s number in his iPhone – under the contact card for Hughes, now the spokesperson for the national security council.

A day after that Goldberg story was published, on 22 October, Waltz appeared on CNN to defend Trump. “Don’t take it from me, take it from the 13 Abbey Gate Gold Star families, some of whom stood on a stage in front of a 30,000 person crowd and said how he helped them heal,” Waltz said.

According to the White House, the number was erroneously saved during a “contact suggestion update” by Waltz’s iPhone, which one person described as the function where an iPhone algorithm adds a previously unknown number to an existing contact that it detects may be related.

The mistake went unnoticed until last month when Waltz sought to add Hughes to the Signal group chat – but ended up adding Goldberg’s number to the 13 March message chain named “Houthi PC small group”, where several top US officials discussed plans for strikes against the Houthis.

Waltz said in the immediate aftermath of the incident that he had never met or communicated with Goldberg. He also suggested on Fox News that Goldberg’s number had been “sucked” into his phone, seemingly in reference to how his iPhone had saved Goldberg’s number.

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The White House did not comment on this story, and the investigation did not resolve the extent of Waltz’s relationship with Goldberg, if any. Reached by phone on Saturday, Goldberg said: “I’m not going to comment on my relationship with Mike Waltz beyond saying I do know him and have spoken to him.”

Mike Waltz’s team set up at least 20 Signal chats for national security work – report

Trump was briefed on the findings of the forensic review last week around the time he decided to keep Waltz, a person familiar with the matter said. Trump accepted Waltz’s mea culpa and has publicly defended him in recent weeks since the group chat situation became public.

When Trump left the White House on Thursday, he was joined aboard Marine One by his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his personnel chief, Sergio Gor, and Waltz, which aides took as a show of support for the embattled national security adviser.

Waltz also appears to have also engendered some sympathy from inside Trump’s orbit over the group chat because the White House had authorized the use of Signal, largely because there is no alternative platform to text in real time across different agencies, two people familiar with the matter said.

Previous administrations, including the Biden White House, did not develop an alternative platform to Signal, one of the people said. As a temporary solution, the Trump White House told officials to use Signal as they had done during the transition instead of regular text-message chains.

The Guardian · by Hugo Lowell · April 6, 2025

7. Defense Spending Cuts and Strategy Shifts Could Lead to Major U.S. Army Downsizing

Circular reporting based on the original Military.com report.

While I can see how there is logic to this speculation, I have heard from people in the Pentagon that Army end strength will not be reduced and there is even discussion that it may increase. But for now talk of reductions and increases is merely uni informed speculation.

Defense Spending Cuts and Strategy Shifts Could Lead to Major U.S. Army Downsizing

Peter Suciu / Apr 7, 2025

https://news.clearancejobs.com/2025/04/07/defense-spending-cuts-and-strategy-shifts-could-lead-to-major-u-s-army-downsizing/

Military

The United States Army, along with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy, has struggled in recent years to fill its ranks. While all of the services met their respective recruiting goals for fiscal year 2024 (FY24) and are already off to a strong start for fiscal year 2025 (FY25), the U.S. Army could be looking to cut its active-duty force.

Military.com first reported that the largest and oldest branch of the U.S. military is quietly discussing the pruning of up to 90,000 active-duty troops. That move “underscores mounting fiscal pressures at the Pentagon and a broader shift in military strategy away from Europe and counterterrorism,” the report stated, citing three unnamed defense officials familiar with the matter.

That could see the force trimmed to between 360,000 and 420,000 uniformed personnel, down from its current strength of 450,000. It isn’t clear if any cuts would impact the Army Reserve or National Guard.

The goal would be to transform the U.S. Army from its current “blunt conventional force” into a “more agile, specialized instrument better suited for modern conflicts.”

More Than Just a Slimmer Fighting Force

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has been highly critical of what he described as “woke” initiatives within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), has called for trimming up to 8% of the Pentagon’s budget as part of the White House’s goal of reducing federal spending. Critics of his plans have warned that cutting the DEI program won’t be enough to meet the budget goals, so reductions in combat forces would be needed.

There were 17 areas – including border operations, nuclear weapons, missile defense, and certain munitions programs – that are off-limits. Yet, as the current defense spending topped $850 billion in 2024, the remaining cuts could still be deep.

“The proposal comes as a surprise, particularly on Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers have been pushing for more defense spending, not less. Just last month, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) floated the idea of adding $200 billion to address threats from China, Iran, and other global adversaries,” ClearanceJobs editor Jillian Hamilton wrote in February.

A Shift Away From Europe?

The potential reduction of the size of the U.S. Army comes as the Pentagon continues to be spread thin around the globe – maintaining a presence in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Europe. It is the latter that could see less emphasis from Washington.

During his recent visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the U.S. commitment to the international alliance but also called upon Europe to increase its defense spending. Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has suggested that the United States’ NATO allies should increase defense spending to 5% of their respective GDP – an increase from the 2% benchmark the alliance currently calls for.

“The United States President Trump’s made clear he supports NATO, we’re going to remain in NATO,” Rubio told reporters in Brussels, while he stressed that the U.S. wants the alliance to be stronger against any potential threat.

“The only way NATO can get stronger and more viable is if our partners, the nation states that comprise this important alliance, have more capability,” Rubio added.

Trump didn’t make clear if the U.S. would also increase spending, but the 5% call would be in contrast to Hegseth’s calls to cut defense spending, as about 3.6% of the U.S. GDP is currently spent on defense. By GDP, the U.S. is now third after Poland and Estonia, while Lithuania announced earlier this year that it would increase its defense spending to as much as 5%.

Army Cuts Even as It Faces Recruiting Challenges

Supporters of a small, leaner U.S. Army argue it would be better suited to a conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific, where much of its land-based platforms would take a backseat to the Navy’s warships and the Air Force’s aerial capabilities.

However, critics have voiced a concern that none of the branches of the military should be scaling back after years of coming up short of recruitment goals.

“If we reduce the force without a clear retention strategy, we risk losing talented people who have other options,” an official told Military.com.

Peter Suciu is a freelance writer who covers business technology and cyber security. He currently lives in Michigan and can be reached at petersuciu@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.

8. In a Strongman State, a Trump Order Extinguishes Flickers of Freedom

RFA and the organizations they support all punch well above their weight.

Excerpts:

Today, almost every independent media outlet in Cambodia has been shuttered, although some, like Radio Free Asia, still operate from outside the country. Political parties have been dissolved by a pliant judiciary. Hundreds of Cambodians who decried the country’s autocratic turn are in prison or in exile. In January, a veteran opposition politician was assassinated on the streets of Bangkok, a hit that the Thai police linked to an adviser to Mr. Hun Sen.

“In Cambodia, RFA is the last independent media outlet operating in Khmer,” said Bay Fang, the broadcaster’s president, referring to the local language service, which has eight million Facebook followers. “If we close down, the ruling party gets to completely control the narrative. It’s no wonder that Hun Sen celebrated the news of RFA’s possible demise.”

After his release from prison, Mr. Uon Chhin eventually found work at a news collective formed by outcasts of other shuttered media outlets. Half of the group’s annual budget of $810,000 came from American aid. The collective, called CamboJA, only has enough money to operate until June. They have stopped providing drinking water at the office to save $30 a month.

In a Strongman State, a Trump Order Extinguishes Flickers of Freedom

Cambodia’s authoritarian dynasty had silenced almost all of the country’s independent media. The remaining few are facing extinction because of an executive directive from President Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/world/asia/in-a-strongman-state-a-trump-order-extinguishes-flickers-of-freedom.html

Uon Chhin, left, and Yeang Sothearin, former journalists with Radio Free Asia, arriving at a court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 2019.Credit...Samrang Pring/Reuters

By Hannah Beech and Sun Narin

Reporting from Phnom Penh, Cambodia

April 7, 2025

Updated 10:31 a.m. ET

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

His father was marched to a forest and killed, like so many victims of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Before he was led away, the father told his young son, Uon Chhin, to stand up and speak the truth, even if it might compromise his liberty.

Decades later, Mr. Uon Chhin became a journalist during the muckraking heyday of the free press in Cambodia. But in 2017, he and a colleague at Radio Free Asia were charged with espionage. Their nine-month imprisonment presaged an evisceration of human rights in Cambodia by Hun Sen, the longtime leader who refashioned a young democracy into a dictatorial dynasty.

Now, the slashing of American foreign aid and President Trump’s executive order last month to gut American-funded news media like Radio Free Asia and Voice of America are erasing what little space for free speech remains in Cambodia. Thirty projects funded by the United States Agency for International Development have been canceled, including those supporting civil society and an independent media.

It is a tectonic shift in this Southeast Asian nation, which was once a laboratory for internationally mandated democracy-building in the post-Khmer Rouge era, then later devolved into a strongman state.

And it underscores the rise of another power, China, eager to influence a small country desperate for cash and for a model for developing its fast-growing economy.

Like China, Mr. Hun Sen celebrated Mr. Trump’s executive order targeting Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. Silencing these American-funded news organizations, he said, would be “a major contribution to eliminating fake news, disinformation, lies, distortions, incitement, and chaos around the world.”

Image

Hun Sen, left, and his son, Hun Manet, in Phnom Penh last year.Credit...Tang Chhin Sothy/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Two years ago, Mr. Hun Sen nominally handed over power to his oldest son, Hun Manet. Educated at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Mr. Hun Manet has not changed course. (The transfer of power from father to son has been replicated for the positions of defense minister, chief of the navy and interior minister.)

Today, almost every independent media outlet in Cambodia has been shuttered, although some, like Radio Free Asia, still operate from outside the country. Political parties have been dissolved by a pliant judiciary. Hundreds of Cambodians who decried the country’s autocratic turn are in prison or in exile. In January, a veteran opposition politician was assassinated on the streets of Bangkok, a hit that the Thai police linked to an adviser to Mr. Hun Sen.

“In Cambodia, RFA is the last independent media outlet operating in Khmer,” said Bay Fang, the broadcaster’s president, referring to the local language service, which has eight million Facebook followers. “If we close down, the ruling party gets to completely control the narrative. It’s no wonder that Hun Sen celebrated the news of RFA’s possible demise.”

After his release from prison, Mr. Uon Chhin eventually found work at a news collective formed by outcasts of other shuttered media outlets. Half of the group’s annual budget of $810,000 came from American aid. The collective, called CamboJA, only has enough money to operate until June. They have stopped providing drinking water at the office to save $30 a month.

“My colleagues and I, we know that something like this happens in Cambodia all the time, but we never expected it to happen from America,” Mr. Uon Chhin said. “It’s like Cambodia and America have traded places.”

Image

The offices of Radio Free Asia in Washington. An executive order by President Trump last month gutted American-funded news media like Radio Free Asia and Voice of America.Credit...Reuters

There are Cambodian news outlets that make money. They eschew criticism of the Hun family and its cronies, including individuals who have been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for alleged corruption and human rights abuses. The most popular is called Fresh News, and it publishes online in Khmer, English and Chinese. Last year, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which is led by the Huns, ordered all officials to use the Fresh News messaging service, CoolApp, rather than foreign options like WhatsApp or Signal.

“Cambodia has complete freedom, more than some countries in the region,” said Lim Cheavutha, founder and chief executive of Fresh News, which is the ruling party’s preferred mouthpiece for disseminating information.

As the United States and other Western nations, like Sweden, withdraw funding for independent media and democratic institutions, China has stepped in with money that it says is not tied to pesky human rights concerns.

Last summer, Heng Sreylin, 25, traveled with other Cambodian journalists and influencers on an all-expenses paid junket to northeast China. She marveled at the modern buildings and clean streets. She produced 20 tourism and culture stories from her trip.

“We don’t have freedom of expression in Cambodia,” said Ms. Heng Sreylin, who works for a small outlet that focuses on things like travel stories and celebrity news. “I do stories that don’t bring problems to me. I don’t want to touch politics.”

Image

Journalists covering the shut down of Voice of Democracy, an independent news outlet, in 2023.Credit...Kith Serey/EPA, via Shutterstock

Independent journalists have been absorbed into government. The information minister, Neth Pheaktra, was once an editor at a respected daily publication that uncovered corruption, political malfeasance and oligarchs acting badly.

He now glorifies the Hun dynasty, and in an interview in his expansive office filled with trees and gilded accouterments, the minister listed flattering facts about Mr. Hun Manet.

“Our prime minister himself, he monitors TikTok and social media and Facebook,” he said. “Sometimes he reads the comments from the local people on his phone.”

Mr. Neth Pheaktra said he could not answer questions about the media crackdown that shuttered dozens of outlets in Cambodia because that happened before he became information minister in 2023.

Soy Sopheap worked for a Japanese news agency before veering into pro-government political punditry. He is now the Cambodian co-president of the Cambodia-China Journalist Association, which organizes the media tours to China. (He said he does not know who his Chinese co-president is exactly, nor why he was chosen for the job.)

At the group’s founding, a diplomat from the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, celebrated the advent of “promoting positive news about our two countries.”

“Human rights are words that the West likes to use,” Mr. Soy Sopheap said. “But China is a dependable friend to Cambodia.”

Ith Sothoeuth has lost U.S. funding for his new journalistic startup, an online news site. His previous employer, Voice of Democracy, was forced off the airwaves in 2023. He doesn’t know how he will continue without American support, and he isn’t sure he will avoid prison. But, he said, he will continue standing up for free expression.

“If you go with the flow, you are a dead fish,” he said. “If you fight the current, it means you are alive.”

Hannah Beech is a Times reporter based in Bangkok who has been covering Asia for more than 25 years. She focuses on in-depth and investigative stories.

A version of this article appears in print on April 8, 2025, Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Authoritarian State Cheers as Trump Order Extinguishes Press Freedom. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

See more on: Cambodian People's Party, Radio Free Asia, Agency for International Development, Voice of America, Hun Sen, Donald Trump

9. Foreign journalists at US-backed media fear being sent to repressive homelands after Trump's cuts

This is sad because these journalists have been supporting the American mission of a free press and to get information into the denied areas of authoritarian regimes.

Foreign journalists at US-backed media fear being sent to repressive homelands after Trump's cuts

Reporters and human rights groups say the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media have put dozens of journalists at risk, especially those who defied authoritarian regimes to help fulfill the U.S. mission of deliver...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/foreign-journalists-us-backed-media-fear-repressive-homelands-120531155

ByDIDI TANG Associated Press

April 6, 2025, 12:09 AM

National headlines from ABC NewsCatch up on the developing stories making headlines.

WASHINGTON -- After hiding in Thailand for seven years, two Cambodian journalists arrived in the United States last year on work visas, aiming to keep providing people in their Southeast Asian homeland with objective, factual news through Radio Free Asia.

But Vuthy Tha and Hour Hum now say their jobs and legal status in the U.S. are at risk after President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order gutting the government-run U.S. Agency for Global Media. The agency funds Radio Free Asia and other outlets tasked with delivering uncensored information to parts of the world under authoritarian rule and often without a free press of their own.

“It fell out of sky,” Vuthy, a single father of two small children, said through a translator about the Trump administration's decision, which he says threatens to upend his life.

“I am very regretful that our listeners cannot receive the accurate news,” Hour said, also through a translator.

Both men said they're worried about providing for their families and being allowed to stay in the U.S. They say it's impossible to return to Cambodia, a single-party state hostile to independent media where they fear being persecuted for their journalistic work.

The administration has been dismantling or slashing the size of federal agencies, leading tens of thousands of government workers and contractors to be fired or put on leave. But the targeting of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, whose decades-old networks aim to extend American influence abroad, means journalists who have defied authoritarian regimes to help fulfill a U.S. mission of delivering pro-democracy programming could be deported and face harassment and persecution in their homelands.

Eleven journalists associated with the U.S.-funded media outlets are behind bars overseas, including RFA's Shin Daewe, who is serving 15 years in Myanmar on a charge of supporting terrorism.

At least 84 U.S. Agency for Global Media, or USAGM, journalists in the United States on work visas could face deportation, including at least 23 “at serious risk of being immediately arrested upon arrival and potentially imprisoned," according to the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders and a coalition of 36 human rights organizations.

“It is outrageous that these journalists, who risk their lives to expose the extent of repression in their home countries, might be completely abandoned," said Thibaut Bruttin, director general of Reporters Without Borders.

“The U.S. Congress must take responsibility for protecting these reporters and all USAGM-funded outlets, funded by Congress itself,” Bruttin said. “This responsibility is not just moral — it stems from the United States’ commitment to defending the principles of democracy and press freedom.”

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee did not respond to requests for comment. The White House did not comment.

The State Department said it is coordinating with USAGM on imprisoned journalists and that it condemns unjust detentions of journalists for exercising their freedom of expression.

A number of journalists for Voice of America, a news service also overseen by USAGM, have sued in a federal court. That includes two unnamed foreign journalists on temporary visas.

If deported, one could risk imprisonment for 10 years for his work for VOA, and the other, a member of a persecuted minority in his home country, could be in “physical danger," the lawsuit said.

The court has temporarily halted contract terminations, preventing the visa holders from being forced to leave for now.

Both RFA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, another USAGM-funded media outlet, also have sued seeking restoration of funding.

Trump's cuts come after the U.S. last year helped free Alsu Kurmasheva — a dual U.S.-Russian citizen and journalist with RFE/RL — in a high-profile prisoner swap that included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

In February, the Trump administration announced the release of Andrey Kuznechyk, a Belarusian journalist with RFE/RL’s Belarus service. The network still has four journalists jailed — one each in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea.

Voice of America has a contributor jailed in Myanmar and another in Vietnam, said Jessica Jerreat, VOA's press freedom editor.

In Vietnam, four RFA reporters are in jail and another is under house arrest, according to Tamara Bralo, the outlet's head of journalist security. She said she's concerned that American support in seeking their release could diminish if RFA folds.

Vietnam consistently ranks near the bottom in the Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, which says about 40 journalists are held in Vietnam's prisons where mistreatment is widespread.

Khoa Lai, a Vietnamese journalist who joined RFA in Washington on a work visa only days before Trump took office, said returning to Vietnam is risky for him.

“I could face prosecution or be in prison,” said Lai, who produces video stories on freedom of speech, freedom of religion and political corruption for RFA's Vietnamese service. “I don't know for sure, but it won't be good."

Both Vuthy and Hour began working for RFA in Cambodia but had to leave in 2017 when Cambodia's top court dissolved the main opposition CNRP party, authorities arrested their colleagues and RFA closed its office.

In neighboring Thailand as refugees, both continued to report for RFA, but with their identities hidden. They still risked getting sent back to Cambodia until RFA brought them to the U.S. on work visas last year. They have reported on issues ranging from politics, corruption and human rights to climate change and environment.

Cambodia’s autocratic former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who ruled his country for nearly four decades and passed power to his son Hun Manet, praised Trump in a Facebook post for “having the courage to lead the world to combat fake news” by cutting funding to USAGM.

Vuthy says he's still hopeful that RFA might survive, adding that it “is fighting for its existence."

___

Associated Press writers Kanis Leung in Hong Kong, Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Elsie Chen in Washington contributed to this report.

10. Trump administration appoints junior officer to oversee US Foreign Service, sources say

DIsruption. This is the great bureaucratic reset.

Excerpts:

The move comes as Trump is looking to revamp the U.S. diplomatic corps to ensure a dedicated implementation of his "America First" policies.

His appointment sent shockwaves across the State Department workforce and drew an objection from the American Foreign Service Association, which represents foreign service officers, saying it was "deeply concerning" to appoint Olowski and compared the move to putting a junior military officer in charge of the Pentagon’s personnel system.

"Placing an untenured, entry-level officer who has only served one complete overseas tour into this critical role, even in an acting capacity, not only disregards that tradition but also sends a clear message about the value this administration places on experience and professional progression," the Association said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear when the administration was planning to nominate a Director General for the Foreign Service, which is a Senate-confirmed position.

...

At least one diplomat has threatened to resign over the appointment.

Kent Logsdon, a career diplomat and a former ambassador to Moldova who served as the principal deputy assistant secretary in the bureau that Olowski would be leading, said he would quit in protest in a meeting on Thursday at the State Department, two U.S. officials familiar with the conversation said.

Trump administration appoints junior officer to oversee US Foreign Service, sources say

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-appoints-junior-officer-142341801.html

Humeyra Pamuk

Sat, April 5, 2025 at 10:23 AM EDT3 min read

FILE PHOTO: The seal of the United States Department of State is seen in Washington

By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration has appointed a national security lawyer who entered the foreign service just four years ago as the top official overseeing the State Department's global workforce, according to three sources familiar with the matter and an internal email seen by Reuters.

The hiring of Lew Olowski to run the department's Global Talent Management Bureau comes as President Donald Trump shrinks the federal workforce and looks to revamp the U.S. diplomatic corps to ensure a dedicated implementation of his "America First" policies.

Olowski served as a senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security under the first Trump administration. He was named the Senior Bureau Official at the Department's Global Talent Management Bureau, officials said.

Olowski, who entered the foreign service in 2021, will temporarily fill a position traditionally occupied by veteran foreign service officers, including ambassadors, typically with decades of experience.

The move comes as Trump is looking to revamp the U.S. diplomatic corps to ensure a dedicated implementation of his "America First" policies.

His appointment sent shockwaves across the State Department workforce and drew an objection from the American Foreign Service Association, which represents foreign service officers, saying it was "deeply concerning" to appoint Olowski and compared the move to putting a junior military officer in charge of the Pentagon’s personnel system.

"Placing an untenured, entry-level officer who has only served one complete overseas tour into this critical role, even in an acting capacity, not only disregards that tradition but also sends a clear message about the value this administration places on experience and professional progression," the Association said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear when the administration was planning to nominate a Director General for the Foreign Service, which is a Senate-confirmed position.

"MOMENT OF TRANSITION"

In an internal email to some State Department staff, Olowski's predecessor Catherine Rodriguez, who had led the Global Talent Management Bureau since the start of the Trump administration, described the past few months as a "profound moment of transition" and urged staff to welcome Olowski, who will take up his new role starting next week.

At least one diplomat has threatened to resign over the appointment.

Kent Logsdon, a career diplomat and a former ambassador to Moldova who served as the principal deputy assistant secretary in the bureau that Olowski would be leading, said he would quit in protest in a meeting on Thursday at the State Department, two U.S. officials familiar with the conversation said.

Logsdon referred any queries to the State Department.

"We are not going to comment on internal personnel matters," a State Department spokesperson said when asked about Olowski's appointment.

The State Department's nearly 70,000 global workforce is bracing for potential job cuts and closures of U.S. overseas missions as Trump, with the help of billionaire Elon Musk, presses ahead with an effort to cut the federal workforce.

Olowski is a Ben Franklin fellow, a network that includes many individuals who have served under Trump including the current Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.

In February, Trump issued an executive order directing U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revamp the foreign service to ensure "faithful and effective implementation" of Trump's foreign policy agenda.

The order said failure to implement the president's agenda is grounds for professional discipline, which may result in the termination of personnel.

During his campaign, he had repeatedly pledged to "clean out the deep state" by firing bureaucrats that he deems disloyal.

Trump, along with Musk, has already fired thousands of federal workers and dismantled Washington's top aid agency U.S. Agency for International Development, jeopardizing the delivery of life-saving food and medical aid and disrupting global humanitarian relief efforts.

(This April 5 story has been corrected to fix the spelling of diplomat Kent Logsdon's name in paragraphs 11 and 12)

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Don Durfee and Diane Craft)

11. After a backlash, National Park Service restores old Underground Railroad webpage that prominently features Harriet Tubman

Good to have this special operator and unconventional warrior and resistance leader back where she belongs.

Excerpt:

Asked about the restoration of Tubman’s image and quote to the page, an NPS spokesperson told CNN, “Changes to the Underground Railroad page on the National Park Service’s website were made without approval from NPS leadership nor Department leadership. The webpage was immediately restored to its original content.”

After a backlash, National Park Service restores old Underground Railroad webpage that prominently features Harriet Tubman | CNN

CNN · by Zoe Sottile · April 7, 2025

American abolitionist leader Harriet Tubman.

MPI/Archive Photos/Getty Images

CNN —

The National Park Service on Monday returned an image of and quote from Harriet Tubman to a webpage about the Underground Railroad, following backlash after her presence on the page was dramatically reduced.

The agency said the reduced mention of Tubman had been made without approval by top leadership.

Until mid-February, the top of the NPS’ “What is the Underground Railroad?” page featured a large photo of Tubman, the railroad’s most famous “conductor,” records from the Wayback Machine show. Next to it was a quote from Tubman about her experience coordinating the clandestine network for slaves seeking freedom.

In this image provided by the US Air Force, armorers and other ground personnel undergo training at Chanute Field, Illinois, during World War II. This photo is one of the photos flagged for removal as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content.

US Air Force/AP

But sometime in February it was changed, swapping the large image of Tubman for small commemorative stamps of five abolitionists – among them Tubman – a screen grab from the webpage on March 19 captured by the Wayback Machine shows. Text on the stamps touted “Black/White Cooperation.” Tubman’s quote was removed and the text amended significantly in the updated version.

The Washington Post first reported on the change Sunday, which prompted backlash from historians and educators.

Asked about the restoration of Tubman’s image and quote to the page, an NPS spokesperson told CNN, “Changes to the Underground Railroad page on the National Park Service’s website were made without approval from NPS leadership nor Department leadership. The webpage was immediately restored to its original content.”

The edited version – without Tubman’s quote or image – had been live since at least February 21, the Wayback Machine shows.

The edited webpage featured revised text that did not mention slavery until the third paragraph and cut a reference to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 entirely. The edited article had swapped a description of enslaved peoples’ efforts to free themselves with two paragraphs that emphasized the “American ideals of liberty and freedom.”

The recent reduction of Tubman’s presence on the webpage, coming after several other prominent changes to government websites as the administration enacts a sweeping anti-DEI agenda, incurred criticism from some who said the change minimized Tubman’s crucial contributions to the Underground Railroad. The abolitionist is credited with helping free scores of enslaved people during the Civil War period.

One historian, Fergus Bordewich, had called the edits “both offensive and absurd” in an interview with CNN.

Before the page was reverted Monday afternoon, an NPS spokesperson defended the changes, telling CNN “the idea that a couple web edits somehow invalidate the National Park Service’s commitment to telling complex and challenging historical narratives is completely false and belies the extensive websites, social media posts, and programs we offer about Harriet Tubman specifically and Black History as a whole.”

The spokesperson highlighted the two national historical parks named for Tubman.

“The National Park Service recognizes Harriet Tubman as the Underground Railroad’s best known conductor and we celebrate her as a deeply spiritual woman who lived her ideals and dedicated her life to freedom,” the NPS said.

There is a separate National Park Service page dedicated to Tubman, who was born into slavery in Maryland before fleeing to Philadelphia. She returned to Maryland over a dozen times to help free other slaves, guiding them through the “Underground Railroad,” a secret network of routes and safe houses. The park service webpage on Tubman does not seem to have been changed since January 28, 2025.

CNN · by Zoe Sottile · April 7, 2025

12. Navy SEAL. Harvard Doctor. NASA Astronaut. Don’t Tell Mom About This Overachiever.

Overachiever is not even strong enough to describe this great American. He is simply an amazing human being.

What is really inspiring about him is that he is likely intellectually superior to Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos (to name a few). He could have turned his skills toward becoming a billionaire like them. But instead he has chosen to use his unique gifts and dedicated his life to service to our country.

While he is of course of Asian descent, he has been able to accomplish all of this because he is an American.

Navy SEAL. Harvard Doctor. NASA Astronaut. Don’t Tell Mom About This Overachiever.

Jonny Kim’s achievements at age 41 have been a global source of inspiration—and mild dismay; ‘Every Asian kid’s worst nightmare.’

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/jonny-kim-nasa-astronaut-navy-seal-harvard-doctor-nasa-astronaut-7ad0e523

By Stu Woo

April 7, 2025 9:00 pm ET

Jonny Kim applied to NASA’s astronaut program and, naturally, got accepted on the first try. Photo: NASA/Zuma Press

In half a lifetime, Jonny Kim has achieved the American dream three times over. He was a Navy SEAL. Then he graduated from Harvard Medical School. And on Tuesday, he blasts off as part of his latest act: astronaut.

When novelist Wesley Chu first learned about Kim, a 41-year-old father of three who is also a Navy pilot, his first reaction was awe.

His second: “Thank God my mom is not friends with his mom.”

After word of his feats spread, Kim became a global source of inspiration. And yet, to many of the same people who glance at his résumé and can’t help but compare it to theirs, he has also conjured up a bit of another feeling.

Dismay.

This has been especially true in the Asian-American community, where Kim, the son of South Korean immigrants, has been simultaneously lauded as a hero—and feared, only half-jokingly, as “every Asian kid’s worst nightmare.”

The worry: No matter what they achieve, their high-demanding immigrant parents will say Jonny Kim already did that—only better. “We accomplished all this stuff, but really, it’s what he did that matters,” Chu said.

Kim became an internet meme among Asian Americans, who frequently take to social media to express gratitude that he’s not a relative. NASA’s social-media posts about Kim are flooded with comments expressing similar sentiments. “As a fellow Asian, I hope my parents do not get to read this. But, safe journey my man,” one wrote.

Chu wrote about that feeling of inadequacy in a viral post, which inadvertently hammered in the point by containing a typo.

Kim never set out to achieve this trifecta of lifetime achievements. His power, he said, is focus.

“I had no aspirations to be a physician, an astronaut,” Kim said on the Jocko Podcast in 2020. “That’s really important to me even to this day, that you have one singular goal, because you should be all-in on what you’re doing. You should be genuine in what you’re doing, not have some social-climbing, some professional ladder.”

In his telling, it happened because of a series of accidents that included an Ultimate Frisbee injury, a college job doling out parking tickets and a memorization hack that helped him get through medical school.

It all started with trauma during his childhood in Los Angeles. Kim said he witnessed his father, who he described as alcoholic and abusive, pull a gun on their family. Police shot his father dead in their attic.

His desire to physically protect his mother and brother led him to become a Navy SEAL. But an Ultimate Frisbee ankle injury delayed his plan to join the Navy as an operations specialist. When he recovered, a recruiter steered him toward becoming a medic.

In 2005, Kim joined SEAL Team Three, serving as a medic and sniper, among other roles. He earned a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for treating wounded comrades during two tours in Iraq, an experience that motivated him to attend medical school.

But first was college at the University of San Diego. Despite scholarships, he needed a job to take care of tuition. So he handed out parking tickets. “Never think you’re too good for any job,” he said on the Jocko podcast, saying that the gig taught him to stay humble.

Former Vice President Mike Pence with Kim and other NASA astronaut candidates in 2018. Photo: NASA/Getty Images

Then came Harvard Medical School, where he juggled studies, fatherhood, and exercise on a 3:30 a.m. wake-up schedule. He sought time hacks, he said on the “Stories Behind the Scrubs” podcast, and found one called spaced-repetition learning.

Using electronic flashcards, he graded each card from 1 (had no clue) to 5 (easy answer). In the next session, the system showed him cards at varying frequencies that would optimize learning. “There are small things you can do to enhance your memory retention,” he said.

While studying medicine, Kim met Scott Parazynski, a physician-turned-astronaut, and asked about a career in space. Impressed by Kim’s skills, intellect and poise, Parazynski said Kim would be a strong candidate to become an astronaut.

Kim never dreamed of space as a child. But he liked the idea of inspiring the next generation. He applied to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s astronaut program and, naturally, got accepted the first time.

“He really is superhuman,” Parazynski said. “He’s the world’s most interesting man, the Dos Equis guy, in real life.”

Kim spoke at SEAL Team Three’s 40th anniversary commemoration. Photo: Chelsea D. Meiller/U.S. Navy

As part of what NASA calls the Artemis Generation, Kim is a candidate for the agency’s Artemis missions to the moon and potentially Mars.

At astronaut graduation in Houston, Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) quipped that it was ridiculous that Kim was already a Navy SEAL and a Harvard-trained doctor. “He can kill you and then bring you back to life,” Cruz said, “and do it all in space.”

It was around this time that he became the Asian-American community’s living legend—and source of slight existential dread.

“He’s a Navy SEAL. That’s badass. He’s a doctor, which is every Asian mom’s dream. Now he’s an astronaut, which is every kid’s dream,” said Chu. “We, as Asian Americans, are fans of Jonny out of pride, but also a little bit out of fear. He’s scored, like, 140% on the life test.”

After astronaut graduation, Kim wanted to maximize his potential, so he cross-trained with the Navy and became a certified pilot. But as he prepared for his first space mission, there was one last hurdle.

He is set to blast off on Tuesday in a Soyuz capsule, hitching a ride to the International Space Station with two Russian cosmonauts. In a recent news conference from Star City, Russia, he was asked about the biggest challenge of his mission.

Kim referred to the months he spent acquiring one more skill, because his journey to space won’t be conducted in English. “The hardest part was certainly learning Russian,” he said.

Write to Stu Woo at Stu.Woo@wsj.com

13. Trump, Hegseth Tout $1 Trillion US Defense Budget

I am not sure this will go over well with the majority of the American people right now.

Trump, Hegseth Tout $1 Trillion US Defense Budget

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-07/trump-hegseth-tout-1-trillion-us-defense-budget?sref=hhjZtX76

By Roxana Tiron

April 7, 2025 at 7:45 PM EDT

President Donald Trump said his administration had approved a defense budget in the “vicinity” of $1 trillion.

“We are very cost conscious but the military is something that we have to build and we have to be strong because you have a lot of bad forces out there now,” Trump said at the White House on Monday during a meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Donald Trump, right, with Benjamin Netanyahu during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on April 7.Photographer: Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg

Trump added his administration will approve a budget that will be “the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed up with a post on social media platform X: “COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar @DeptofDefense budget. President @realDonaldTrump is rebuilding our military — and FAST.”

Earlier: Austin Pushes for Almost $1 Trillion in Defense Spending

The Trump administration has yet to release the budget request for fiscal year 2026 as the government is operating under a stopgap funding measure for this year. The budget blueprint is not expected until later this spring.

Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recommended the US government boost defense spending by about $50 billion more than projected in fiscal year 2026 with increases that would push the Pentagon budget past $1 trillion in the years to come.

Pete Hegseth during a bilateral meeting.Photographer: Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg

Hegseth has also been among the most vocal supporters of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting efforts, and the Pentagon, with a budget totaling $850 billion a year and some 2 million employees, is the government’s biggest.

The secretary in February directed reducing some unspecified Pentagon and military services spending categories by 8% and shifting those dollars to higher priority programs such as missile defense.

— With assistance from Anthony Capaccio

14.

14. A Bodyguard of Lies

Do we have the patience and foresight to prepare the strategic and operational environment for future deception?

Excerpts:

This creates an interesting conundrum. Assuming that the optimal situation is to avoid wars with peer or near peer threats, actively dissuading them from conducting any action that will risk our retaliation is desirable. To this end, having clearly known and acknowledged overmatch is a strong deterrence. A false narrative that our combat power is significantly greater than it is, would be both more effective and less expensive than what we might otherwise be able to field but would entail a far greater deception from the government or military than the US electorate would accept.

Lying is an integral part of the battle for hearts, minds, and morale in a time of conflict, armed or otherwise. As part of the British campaign to encourage the US to enter World War II, their intelligence services planted false stories in the American media, infiltrated pressure groups advocating to join the war, and created a fake map of Hitler’s plan to invade South America. The last of these they ensured landed on FDR’s desk, leading to him denouncing German’s designs on the Americas and against the US, which in turn may have precipitated German’s declaration of war. In essence, a foreign power used deception operations against the American people and government in their own homelands in order to pull the country into an armed conflict. If we do not hold it against ‘Perfidious Albion’ that they did this, should we not afford our own intelligence community the right to use similar means to set conditions for the nation to be best postured against peer threats now and in the future.

Given that any future large scale combat operation is likely to be preceded by an extended period of competition below the threshold of armed conflict, the question of when the US can begin laying the foundations of its wartime deception narrative is critical. If we wait until war is declared or bullets are flying, we are probably too late. With the existing conflicts around the globe that the nation is already on the peripheries of, the US would be prudent to recognize the wisdom of setting conditions to create or maintain advantages in the information dimension sooner rather than later. The bodyguards of lies need to start getting into position to protect America’s precious truth.

A Bodyguard of Lies

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/04/08/a-bodyguard-of-lies/

by Paul Brannan, by Patricia Schmaltz

04.08.2025 at 06:00am

As Churchill drolly observed, the truth is so precious that it should always be protected by a bodyguard of lies.

Summer 1943, in a nod to this maxim, Operation Bodyguard was initiated in order to deceive German intelligence into believing a false narrative for the allied invasion of Northwest Europe. Although there are disagreements amongst historians as to the impact of the deception operations that were conducted under the Bodyguard umbrella, it is worth considering how the United States might employ similar techniques in a future large scale combat operations (LSCO) environment.

Ideally, deception operations should be constructed around central narratives so that, through their connective tissue, certain falsehoods can gain the sheen of truth by way of repetition. This framework ensured that even as some ruses were uncovered or discounted by the enemy, a confirmation bias was inculcated in the German intelligence and leadership that would negatively impact their response to the actual Operation Overlord plan. The core fiction of the July invasion at Pas-de-Calais was still being successfully sold to the Germans over a month after the landings at Normandy.

If the US is to leverage deception operations in future LSCO then it will need to create similar unified narratives. Successful deception requires not only the ability to mislead the enemy, but to direct what he believes and, as far as possible, how he reacts to it. Giving the enemy multiple competing narratives risks having him latch onto the wrong one. Additionally, per the Central Intelligence Agency’s ‘Deception Maxims’, deception operations need to be postured to be either ambiguity-reducing, or ambiguity-enhancing. It is important to recognize the difference between the two. Deceptions to reduce ambiguity serve to create certainty about the reliability and accuracy of a belief, encouraging the enemy to confidently follow the wrong course of action. Conversely, ambiguity-enhancing deceptions serve to sow doubt in the mind of the enemy, undermining his trust in real information or inducing inaction through uncertainty, timidity, or the need to expend time or other resources towards gaining better clarity.

As the US came out of World War II, there were under 30 million telephones in the country, all of them landlines. Today there are over ten times that number, with the majority carried on the person and capable of transmitting audio, video, and vast quantities of data across the globe in seconds. A feature of this new global information environment is the colossal amounts of information available, often with little to no delay or filtering. As anyone who has completed their annual Operational Security (OPSEC) training can attest, the risk that this can present is significant. From another perspective, however, this information spillage can also be leveraged in the service of deception operations.

The low barrier to creating such notional elements and photographic evidence of their existence underlines the potential for building ghost forces in the cyber domain that can be used to create friction for the enemy intelligence gatherers, who must then direct real-world assets to confirm or deny the element’s existence and hold combat forces in reserve until the existence is disproven.

In 1943, the British Fourth Army, headquartered at Edinburgh Castle and comprising of II Corps and VII Corps was tasked with the invasion of Norway (Operation Tindall); it would again be tasked with the same mission in 1944 (Operation Fortitude). Although the British Fourth Army had a celebrated history in The Great War, its combat role in World War II would be greatly reduced owing to it existing in a purely notional sense as part of Bodyguard. Beyond a small staff, primarily comprised of radio operators to create a credible amount of radio traffic and members of the Twenty Committee (a sly nod to the Roman Numeral equivalent) who ran the British double agents, Fourth Army never existed. As vital as the false reports and radio chatter were, equally important to maintaining the deception were the social media messages of the day. Local newspapers carried wedding banns announcements for soldiers and their sweethearts, results of soccer games between teams formed by the soldiers were reported over the radio, and details of local events that had been supported by army units were duly covered and used to produce evidence of the Army’s existence that could be sent back to the Germans to pore over and draw conclusions from about troop locations and sizes. Although Operation Tindall was a failure – Germany correctly assessed that the Allies lacked the capability for the invasion – the existence of the Fourth Army was accepted as real, leading to German intelligence’s assessment that the Allies had significantly more divisions in the British Isles than was the case. This may have played into Germany’s decision, in response to Operation Fortitude, to station 13 Divisions in Norway, greatly impacting their ability to provide sufficient coverage throughout France and the Benelux countries and limiting their ability to counterattack the Operation Overlord landings.

Ironically, a modern equivalent of this ploy has already found its place in the current conflict in Ukraine. In early 2023, eight decades after the daily lives of Britain’s Fourth Army soldiers had been shared through the media of the day, the Ukrainian Army’s 88th Mechanized and 13th Jager Brigades were posting photos on Facebook of their brave soldiers and the equipment with which they would push back the Russian invaders. Suspicious of their unconventional numbering, journalists reached out to the Ukraine Army’s General Staff, who quickly discounted the existence of these units. Theories posited for the basis of the Facebook pages included psychological operations, financial scams, or lower echelon elements unofficially embracing self-appointed names and emblem for their own reasons. Whatever the case, the low barrier to creating such notional elements and photographic evidence of their existence underlines the potential for building ghost forces in the cyber domain that can be used to create friction for the enemy intelligence gatherers, who must then direct real-world assets to confirm or deny the element’s existence and hold combat forces in reserve until the existence is disproven. A carefully constructed deception operation that embedded agents as Public Affairs Officers with real-world friendly forces, could, with suitable patches and vehicle marking overlays, create ‘evidence’ of larger forces than are actually employed in a given theater without the need for artificial intelligence (AI) or photo manipulation. With location spoofing and suitable background selection, these ghost forces could potentially be positioned anywhere in the world. Additionally, real world forces could be stood up using the insignia of these ghost units once the enemy is known to have dismissed them as fake, allowing confirmation bias to diminish the enemy’s trust in any evidence spillage that might give them away.

On the home front, assuming our enemies in future wars will monitor online media for any potential information sources, the US must be alert to the need to prepare the information battlefield well before hostilities occur. In today’s world, we should anticipate that, much like the British Fourth Army’s wedding bands and soccer results, the minutia will be used to extrapolate potential intelligence. A social media feed purporting to be of a military spouse or child will be given far less credence if it only started posting shortly before war is declared (and will face a harder time getting noticed by potential enemy agents); ideally, it should have a long enough pedigree (with perhaps a different focus and only obliquely referencing the military family life) that enemy agents will be aware of it – and following it – long before it is needed for deception operations. Creating such accounts with a view to sowing disinformation in a future war has the potential to be controversial. Already a request by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) for funding to create “convincing online personas for social media platforms, social network sites, and other online content” has caused concern, with one commentator asserting that such technology usage has “no legitimate use case besides deception”. We are happy to agree with their assessment, even as we disagree with their opposition. Sowing the fields of social media with numerous feeds that will be of interest to our enemies now will provide a ripe crop of avenues to spread misinformation in times of hostility. Additionally, such a strategy will provide a measure of protection for the real accounts of family members that might be targeted. Ceding victory in deception to our adversaries to accommodate sensibilities is akin to former Secretary of State Henry Stimson stating, “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail” and dissociating the State Department’s funding of the Cipher Bureau in 1929.

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) as an intelligence discipline is new enough to still be refining its guiding policies and building its capacity. It collects information in the public domain, such as social media or published media like the British Fourth Army’s soccer scores, for use as intelligence information. It has passive and active components in how it collects information proving a valuable component of deception operations. It collaborates with cyber operations and is the modern equivalent of sending a spy behind enemy lines, though this spy is made of electrons and the cost of being discovered is more likely to be embarrassing rather than the life of the spy. There are reasonable concerns with OSINT and cyber active operations, but their value as a force multiplier is worth enabling, particularly as adversary nations compete in that space.

The purpose of spies (whether comprised of flesh or electrons) is to provide information to confirm or deny planning assumptions, and from there inform the strategic leadership’s decisions about possible courses of action. Such an undertaking has two critical components – positioning suitable agents (real or virtual) so that they can harvest the information and determining the relevance and accuracy of the intelligence gathered.

One of the critical successes of British World War II espionage (at least as important as cracking the enigma machine) was the early identification of agents sent by Germany to spy upon the nation. Recognizing that simply neutralizing the agents would only encourage the Germans to send more, possibly more capable, agents, British intelligence instead elected, where possible, to turn the spies and have them operate as double agents in the service of the Crown.

Assuming our nation’s enemies already have agents in place, then there is value in identifying any that are capable of being employed for our own ends. This may involve inducing them to actively work as double agents for us but could also be as simple as feeding them accurate but minimally useful intelligence through apparently poor OPSEC in preparation for one day using them as part of a deception operation. In a reverse of ‘catfishing’, it may even be helpful to create a disgruntled, careless, or compromisable service member or vulnerable family member for them to befriend or entrap online. Such contact should not be too easy for them to build a relationship with. Information should never be too easily available. A perverse trait of human nature is to equate exertion with reward; the greater the cost in terms of effort or resources that the enemy has had to expend in obtaining the false information, the greater their incentive to champion (to themselves and to their handlers) its certainty in order to justify their hard work.

In 1941, a critical agent for German intelligence in the UK was a mid-level Spanish official, codenamed “Alaric”. Alaric continually and spectacularly proved his worth, building a large network of valuable agents and informants and providing highly respected intelligence. Unbeknownst to German intelligence, however, “Alaric” was, in truth, one Juan Pujol Garcia, a fervent anti-fascist and his network of spies was fictional. Among the techniques Pujol and his handlers utilized was providing accurate troop information that was too late to action a response to, alongside false narratives about the ‘real’ invasion, that would be undertaken the following month. So successful was the ruse, that studies of German intelligence reports afterward found they praised Pujol’s work as highly important and accurate, contributing to the Germans holding over twenty divisions in reserve to counter this second invasion, and providing the Allies with the time to solidify their hold on their beachhead at Normandy.

Pujol’s concocted network of spies was a boon to the Allies’ counterintelligence operations. Most obviously it offered a conduit for feeding the false narrative to the enemy that was already highly trusted by their intelligence services, while also syphoned resources away from the Germans, who rewarded Alaric and his network with several hundred thousand dollars in payments and expense reimbursements. Just as critically, however, it filled key needs – multiple well-placed agents and robust intelligence gathering – that the Germans would otherwise have expended the necessary effort to create.

A stimulating exercise for anyone interested in deception operations is how might the US, absent a self-starter like Pujol, set conditions for creating a similar fake spy network to take control of the enemy’s intelligence gathering operations in a future LSCO environment (or even during operations below the threshold of war) as a counter to them creating their own. Perhaps if Aldrich Ames had expended his energy creating such a network (using it to feed false or minimal use intelligence to his Russian handler) he might have been able to secure, through payments for all his agents, even greater remuneration in the service of his nation rather than in its betrayal.

Like nature, intelligence gathering abhors a vacuum. Had the British focused on preventing their German counterparts obtaining valuable information then it might have only encouraged them to try harder. Instead, by deciding what information, both real and false, the double agents provided and weaving it into a greater narrative supported by planted information Germans collected by other means, the British spymasters behind Operation Bodyguard were able to manipulate the German commanders in their decision making for the defense of the European mainland. This was particularly effective when the false information fed into what the German planners already believed. By Spring 1944, German Intelligence strongly believed there were far larger forces stationed in the British Isles preparing for the invasion than was actually the case. Further, they were confident that the main invasion was planned to take place at Pas-de-Calais in July of that year. Any information that confirmed this belief was given greater credence than that which went against it.

Given that any future large scale combat operation is likely to be preceded by an extended period of competition below the threshold of armed conflict, the question of when the US can begin laying the foundations of its wartime deception narrative is critical.

In deception operations this is referred to as Magruder’s Principle and posits that it is easier to use deception to reinforce pre-existing notions and beliefs than to change them. If we are to successfully employ this principle in future wars, then there is value in identifying the greater scope narratives we want to have in place now, both to determine how we might feed pre-existing erroneous notions about the US and its capabilities and set conditions, if needed, to create and nurture new ones.

Jones’ Dilemma suggests that the more sources that a deception target can access to confirm or deny the veracity of information, the harder it will be to deceive them. Turning this around, one can, through the creation or manipulation of multiple sources, create a web of falsehoods that reinforce each other in support of the desired narrative. With multiple avenues to feed untruths to German intelligence, the British were able to create false narratives, such as the date and location of the invasion, that made any accurate information appear to be the deception. The mounting intelligence collected via different messages reinforced the credibility of the deception. As a result, and with conditions set through confirmation bias, even with reports from German units stationed in Normandy providing both accurate and trustworthy information about the size and disposition of Allied forces at and after Overlord, it was still possible to sell the narrative that this was a feint.

This may seem to offer a far greater challenge in the current information rich environment. The British Fourth Army’s Scottish base of operation was sufficiently remote for the Germans to be unable to properly assess its nature, and so they relied upon the radio traffic, newspaper stories and (false) reports from their compromised agents in the country. As a result, it was possible to craft a plausible fiction of multiple additional divisions standing ready to invade the European mainland. Further south, decoy and dummy units, such as fake tanks, provided visual evidence of Allied troop levels and locations that only needed to withstand the scrutiny of enemy aircrafts. For modern US planners seeking to deceive the enemy, such a scenario seems a luxury; a decoy tank is far less effective if you have people posting ‘selfies’ with it. Additionally, as an open and accountable democracy, the US cannot summon notional legions of steely eyed killers ready to defend its shores to deter its enemies without also lying to its citizens. As referenced earlier, even the creation of false online social media accounts by the Pentagon as a means to monitor or counter enemy falsehoods raises concerns, so any deliberate release of false information in support of future deception operations would, if uncovered, cause an uproar.

This creates an interesting conundrum. Assuming that the optimal situation is to avoid wars with peer or near peer threats, actively dissuading them from conducting any action that will risk our retaliation is desirable. To this end, having clearly known and acknowledged overmatch is a strong deterrence. A false narrative that our combat power is significantly greater than it is, would be both more effective and less expensive than what we might otherwise be able to field but would entail a far greater deception from the government or military than the US electorate would accept.

Lying is an integral part of the battle for hearts, minds, and morale in a time of conflict, armed or otherwise. As part of the British campaign to encourage the US to enter World War II, their intelligence services planted false stories in the American media, infiltrated pressure groups advocating to join the war, and created a fake map of Hitler’s plan to invade South America. The last of these they ensured landed on FDR’s desk, leading to him denouncing German’s designs on the Americas and against the US, which in turn may have precipitated German’s declaration of war. In essence, a foreign power used deception operations against the American people and government in their own homelands in order to pull the country into an armed conflict. If we do not hold it against ‘Perfidious Albion’ that they did this, should we not afford our own intelligence community the right to use similar means to set conditions for the nation to be best postured against peer threats now and in the future.

Given that any future large scale combat operation is likely to be preceded by an extended period of competition below the threshold of armed conflict, the question of when the US can begin laying the foundations of its wartime deception narrative is critical. If we wait until war is declared or bullets are flying, we are probably too late. With the existing conflicts around the globe that the nation is already on the peripheries of, the US would be prudent to recognize the wisdom of setting conditions to create or maintain advantages in the information dimension sooner rather than later. The bodyguards of lies need to start getting into position to protect America’s precious truth.

(Disclaimer: The work presented here reflects the opinions of the authors and does not reflect an official for the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, or any other agency of the United States Government.)

Tags: Cyber Espionage, deception, espionage, intelligence, MILDEC, military deception, military intelligence

About The Authors

Paul Brannan
MAJ Paul Brannan is an active duty armor officer in the US Army, currently a doctrine author in the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate focusing on Multinational and ABCANZ doctrine.
View all posts
Patricia Schmaltz
MAJ Patricia Schmaltz is an active duty intelligence officer in the US Army, currently a doctrine author in the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate focusing on NATO doctrine.
View all posts

15. ‘The Determined Spy’ Review: The Cold War Was His Playground

‘The Determined Spy’ Review: The Cold War Was His Playground

Frank Wisner’s career in espionage began in World War II, but his legacy was the creation of a CIA department that aimed to remake nations around the world.

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/the-determined-spy-review-the-cold-war-was-his-playground-f22f91cc?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

By Philip Terzian

April 4, 2025 11:39 am ET

Frank Wisner in OSS Headquarters in Paris in mid-1945. Photo: Wisner Family Collection

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the early history of the Central Intelligence Agency—its evolution from the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS) through its midcentury berth in downtown Washington—makes for more interesting reading than the latest from its present suburban redoubt, where a massive bureaucracy awaits the inevitable knock on the door from Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency visitors.

Grab a Copy

The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner

By Douglas Waller

Dutton

656 pages

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Romantic memory recalls the agency’s ex-ROTC officers, recruited at Yale in the 1940s and ’50sand presided over by the mustachioed Allen Dulles, their internecine turf wars and clandestine battles fought by the seat of their pleated trousers, and all without spilling their martinis—dashing and impressive and, to borrow an intelligence term, the stuff of legends.

Was the earlier, swashbuckling CIA a more successful enterprise than its present, decidedly less picturesque incarnation?

In “The Determined Spy” Douglas Waller, a historian and journalist, investigates that question by chronicling, in considerable detail, the “turbulent” life of Frank Gardiner Wisner (1909-65), a recognizable product of the early CIA who, in the dozen years after World War II, masterminded many of the agency’s most famous foreign adventures—some successful, some not. As head of the shadowy Office of Policy Coordination (OPC, later the Directorate of Plans), Wisner invented and perfected many of the techniques, objectives and protocols of Cold War propaganda, political sabotage, economic warfare and assistance to resistance armies and guerrilla movements. His legacy lives on, partly in folklore, but it’s a complicated legacy.

Wisner was a prototypical CIA pioneer. Born and raised in Laurel, Miss., the son of an Iowa-born lumber baron who had migrated to Laurel’s piney woods, Frank attended the University of Virginia, where he excelled and earned a law degree. Bored by his apprenticeship in Franklin Roosevelt’s old Manhattan law firm, Wisner was commissioned in the Navy five months before Pearl Harbor and, bored yet again, transferred to the OSS in 1943.

He had found his vocation. Wisner was a charming workaholic with an adventurous streak, highly intelligent, with a gift for organization and management. This was precisely the sort of capable gentleman-spy most appealing to the OSS’s founder-mastermind, William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, and Wisner quickly rose through the ranks. He spent much of the war as the OSS chief in Bucharest, briefly served in the occupation of Germany, then returned to New York and the practice of law.

Not for long, however. The CIA was born in 1947; that year Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson recruited Wisner as deputy assistant secretary for occupied areas. This led to the creation, in 1948, of the OPC, which put Wisner at the crossroads of his country’s fledgling attempts to duplicate the work of the British intelligence services and, once and for all, break the longstanding American resistance to a permanent spy apparatus.

By most measures, Wisner was a success. Always full of ideas and energy, he coordinated the 1953 Anglo-American project to subvert Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran’s mercurial left-wing prime minister, exploiting domestic discontent to restore the power of the more amenable Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. And it was Wisner who, the following year, organized the slow-motion overthrow of Jacobo Árbenz, Guatemala’s hapless and communist-friendly president.

But there were failures as well, not least a protracted attempt to undermine Enver Hoxha’s surreal communist regime in Albania, which consumed a number of lives, mostly Albanian, and ultimately helped persuade the Eisenhower administration to redirect the CIA away from regime change and toward intelligence-gathering. This coincided with Ike’s angry disapproval in October 1956 of the British-French-Israeli plan to wrest the newly nationalized Suez Canal from Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and his reluctance the same month to risk a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union by intervening on behalf of the Hungarian revolt against Moscow.

Wisner was discouraged by these shifts that led in short order to a loss of Dulles’s influence at the White House and much soul-searching at the CIA. Whether coincidentally or not, it was also at about this time that Wisner began to show distressing symptoms of the manic depression (now called bipolar disorder) that, in 1958, led to a full breakdown requiring a prolonged hospitalization.

Wisner’s treatment seemed to be successful. By the time he returned to his duties, however, his authority had largely dissipated. Dulles generously transferred him to London as station chief, a prestigious but largely diplomatic assignment. Any chances Wisner might have had to become CIA director were effectively gone and, inevitably, his cyclical illness recurred. He retired from the CIA in 1962, found lucrative work as a consultant and rejoined the Georgetown social set he and his wife had adorned. In October 1965, Wisner shot himself at his farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

For decades Wisner’s many friends and admirers wondered whether his breakdown had been caused by his chronic habits of overwork or by his loss of power and influence, and whether his depression had been exacerbated by disappointment at the outcome of the Suez and Hungarian crises.

Mr. Waller tends to reject these explanations, and persuasively: Wisner died of the effects of a disease that, in his day, was frequently lethal. He was not the first public official in history to succumb to mental illness. Still, readers may wonder about Wisner’s long tenure at a famously secretive agency that claims to closely monitor human behavior.

Mr. Terzian is the author of “Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century.”

Appeared in the April 5, 2025, print edition as 'The War Was His Playground'.

16. JFK Files: Revelations from the Covert Operations High Command

JFK Files: Revelations from the Covert Operations High Command | National Security Archive

nsarchive.gwu.edu

Published: Apr 7, 2025

Briefing Book #

890

Edited by Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi

and Peter Kornbluh

For more information, contact:

202-994-7000, or

arturoj@usf.edu

peter.kornbluh@gmail.com

CIA Director John McCone with President Kennedy

CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Helms

Cheddi Jagan, Prime Minister of British Guiana

Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo

The CIA funneled several million dollars into the 1964 presidential campaign of Eduardo Frei Montalva in Chile to ensure his election.

James R. Killian, Chairman of the PFIAB under President Kennedy until April 1963

Clark Clifford, PFIAB Chairman, April 1963-1968

Washington, D.C., April 7, 2025 - Just six months before the 1964 military coup that overthrew the government of João Goulart in Brazil, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Plans Richard Helms briefed the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) on CIA clandestine operations in South America’s largest country. “[CIA] is carrying out covert action in the labor movement and CIA believes that Communist control can be weakened,” he advised board members who monitored intelligence operations on behalf of President Kennedy, according to a fully declassified summary of the September 10, 1963, Top Secret briefing posted today for the first time by the National Security Archive.

Helms and his deputies also updated the PFIAB on the status of covert actions and regime-change operations in other targeted countries. In Cuba, the CIA was shifting “from external raids to internal sabotage operations,” running ten “black” operations per month, and targeting “dissident Cuban elements,” among them Cuban military officers. In British Guiana, the CIA secretly financed a 79-day general strike to destabilize the elected government of Cheddi Jagan, funneling money for the strikers through the AFL-CIO. CIA plans to organize an exile force against Haitian dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier were foiled when Juan Bosch, president of the Dominican Republic, refused to let the agency use his country as a base of operations.

The Top Secret White House memorandum titled “Board Panel on Covert Action Operations” was declassified, uncensored, as part of the 80,000 pages of Kennedy assassination records released in March. Numerous other PFIAB records were included in the release, along with the unredacted minutes of the “Special Group”—the elite interagency committee that vetted and approved U.S. covert operations around the world. The National Security Archive is posting a special selection of these unique records today.

New Details and Revelations

Unredacted, the documents add considerable detail to the history of previously reported covert programs, including intelligence sources and methods, specific expenditures, agent identities, and the names of collaborating nations, intelligence agencies and foreign officials. In some cases, the declassified documents reveal operations that were not previously known. Among the key details and revelations contained in the documents:

** In Cuba, the CIA listed 108 covert agents and assets on the island in 1963, including “friendly diplomatic personnel” in foreign embassies in Havana. Sixty agents targeted Cuban shipping, and there were “31 penetrations of Cuban installations abroad,” according to a report to the PFIAB. CIA staff in Washington and Miami devoted to overthrowing the Castro government totaled 384 individuals. Among the other assets were 83 contractors, 525 foreign nationals (the majority of them Cuban exiles), 45 agents in overseas posts, and 12 analysts in the Agency’s intelligence division working on Cuba.

** Regarding British Guiana, the documents confirm CIA collaboration with the British intelligence service, MI6, to finance and sustain labor unrest and a protracted general strike to undermine the elected government of Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan. Minutes of an April 25, 1963, Special Group meeting noted that “CIA was instructed to look into this and jointly with MI6 take such action as might be indicated as desirable to ensure the continuation of the strike.” At a PFIAB meeting at the White House after the strike ended, CIA Deputy Director for Plans, Richard Helms reported that the Agency had “worked out with [AFL-CIO union leader] George Meany a program of CIA financial support ($435,000) to the strike under the cover of ‘AFL-CIO contributions’” and that “A CIA cover representative ran the strike program.” The documents also strongly infer that CIA director John McCone met with MI6 official James Fulton in Paris to discuss this joint operation to overthrow the Jagan government.

** In Chile, the CIA provided Christian Democrat candidate Eduardo Frei with $750,000 in March 1964 and another $1.25 million in May 1964 to finance his campaign for the presidency. At a June 5, 1964, PFIAB meeting at the White House, Deputy Director for Plans Richard Helms warned the board that “the coming Presidential elections there on September 13 are viewed with serious concern” given the prospects of a victory by Socialist candidate Salvador Allende. Helms stressed that it was essential to act; if Allende won, he warned, “the constitutional-minded Chileans would accept a regularly elected Communist as President and would not take coup action to put him out of office.”

** Regarding Congo, the Special Group meeting minutes add new details on the CIA role in the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba. Five months prior to Lumumba’s assassination, CIA officer Thomas A. Parrott informed the Special Group that the agency had developed “broadly three (or as Mr. [DCI Allen] Dulles later described them ‘2 ½’) operational lines that we are following in mounting an anti-Lumumba campaign in the Congo.” These included: operations through the chief advisor of the Christian Trade Unions; the planned attempt of a Socialist politician to arrange a vote of no confidence in Lumumba; “and a brand new contact with an alleged leader of certain independent labor groups”—the latter a likely reference to Cyrille Adoula, the CIA’s chosen candidate to replace Lumumba once he was removed.

** On Haiti, the Special Group meeting minutes reveal that CIA plans to depose dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, whose dynastic regime was energizing the rise of the left, were compromised by resistance from the new president of the Dominican Republic, Juan Bosch. The CIA had been building an exile force to invade Haiti from the DR, but Bosch, according to one document in mid-1963, “has now decided that he is unwilling to allow such an [Haitian] exile force to use his country as a base for military operations against Duvalier.” The CIA’s chief for Western Hemisphere operations, Colonel J.C. King, then informed members of the Special Group that “everyone concerned with the project agrees that Duvalier must be removed in some manner or other” but that the current plan is “unworkable.” (Bosch subsequently became the target of Lyndon Johnson’s decision, in April 1965, to invade the Dominican Republic and install a compliant regime through U.S. military force.)

The selection of documents posted today also includes a series of intriguing PFIAB recommendations and proposals, among them:

That the CIA consider the proposal (made to the PFIAB by representatives by the Israeli Intelligence and Security Service) “extended CIA-Israeli coordination of intelligence activities in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.”
That the CIA explore the feasibility in Japan “of intensifying covert actions against the sizeable and effective influence of Communists among Japanese intellectuals, educators, and students.”
“That the National Security Agency make an on-the-scene technical review of CIA’s covert Communications/Electronics Intelligence collection efforts in Behshahr, Iran, to ensure maximum technical use of this strategically-positioned activity against Soviet missiles and satellite operations.”

The PFIAB and Special Group

Among the documents posted today is a lengthy chronological compilation of memoranda and minutes of PFIAB meetings during President Kennedy’s 1000 days in office that includes a short history of the special board of White House advisors on intelligence matters. The impetus for the board was a recommendation by the Hoover Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch to create a “Watch Dog Committee” on intelligence matters, made up of members of Congress and “public-spirited citizens.” To preempt the creation of an outsider supervisory committee, in February 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued an Executive Order creating the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities.

In the wake of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President Kennedy issued a new directive designating the committee as the President’s Foreign Intelligence Board, and empowering it to advise the President “with respect to the objectives and conduct” of covert actions, including “highly sensitive covert operations relating to political action, propaganda, economic warfare, sabotage, escape and evasion, subversion against hostile states or groups and support of indigenous and anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world,” according to a Top Secret December 1, 1963, report on PFIAB’s genesis, prepared for Lyndon Johnson after the Kennedy assassination.

Among the PFIAB’s duties was to monitor the efforts of the “Special Group,” a senior interagency committee made up of representatives of U.S. national security agencies which acted as the high command for the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administration’s secret foreign policy. Between January 1961 and the fall of 1962, the Special Group—which was also known as the 5412 Committee for the room number it met in—approved approximately 550 covert operations, most of which were shared with the PFIAB in some detail. After the Bay of Pigs debacle, President Kennedy appointed his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to chair an even more elite “high command” of covert operations—the Special Group (Augmented), which determined major covert programs, among them, Operation Mongoose, targeting Cuba.

According to Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi, Associate Professor of Instruction in international affairs at the University of South Florida and a research fellow at the National Security Archive, the PFIAB and Special Group minutes provide a distinct and unique history of covert operations: “These documents shed light on the inner workings of the U.S. government’s covert action high command: their motivations, priorities, frustrations, and determination to employ political violence, economic sabotage, and large sums of money to intervene in the internal affairs of countries the world over.”

The Documents

Document 1

CIA, Minutes of Special Group Meeting, Top Secret, August 25, 1960

Aug 25, 1960

Source

National Archives, JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, Doc ID: 157-10014-10100

At a meeting of the Special Group, amid discussion of the “operational lines” then being followed “in mounting an anti-Lumumba campaign in the Congo,” PFIAB member Gordon Gray “wondered whether the plans as outlined” by the CIA were sufficient to unseat the Congolese prime minister, saying that “his associates had expressed extremely strong feelings on the necessity for very straightforward action” against Lumumba. “It was finally agreed that planning for the Congo would not necessarily rule out ‘consideration’ of any particular kind of activity which might contribute to getting rid of Lumumba,” according to the summary.

Document 2

White House, “Minutes of Meeting of January 30, 1964,” [The President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board Meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson], Top Secret, January 30, 1964

Jan 30, 1964

Source

National Archives, JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, Doc ID: 206-10001-10002

This lengthy compilation of records about the PFIAB was prepared for the benefit of President Johnson who met with the board chairman on January 30, 1964. The document includes a brief history of the PFIAB, a full chronology of the minutes of PFIAB meetings during the Kennedy Administration, and a list of the 170 recommendations that the PFIAB had made to President Kennedy

Document 3

CIA, “Minutes of Meeting of the Special Group, April 25, 1963,” Secret/Eyes Only, April 25, 1963 [with April 26 Memorandum for the Record attached]

Apr 25, 1963

Source

National Archives, JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, Doc ID: 104-10306-10024

This memorandum reveals previously unknown details of the joint CIA-MI6 covert regime-change operation against Cheddi Jagan in British Guiana. Among other new information is that the CIA estimated it would need $10,000 per day to sustain a general strike against the Jagan government and that U.S. officials believed it would be worth the price if Jagan were eventually overthrown. Covert political action programs in Italy and the Congo are also discussed.

Document 4

CIA, “Minutes of Meeting of the Special Group, 20 June 1963,” Secret, June 20, 1963

Jun 20, 1963

Source

National Archives, JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, Doc ID: 104-10306-10024

CIA, NSC and State Department officials at the Special Group meeting discuss a series of programs and proposals on intelligence operations in Southeast Asia and covert action in Cuba, Haiti and elsewhere. The Special Group agrees on a political action program to overthrow Haitian president François Duvalier, even though the chief of the CIA’s Western Hemisphere division, J.C. King, voices his concern about who will replace him after he is deposed. “Colonel King, in support of the paper's recommendations, said that in his opinion we have no feasible alternatives but to cooperate with [Dominican Republic President Juan] Bosch in attempting to unseat Duvalier, and that if this is not done, we are likely to end up with a far worse situation.”

Document 5

CIA, “Minutes of Special Group Meeting, July 18, 1963,” Secret, July 18, 1963

Jul 18, 1963

Source

National Archives, JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, Doc ID: 104-10306-10024

In this meeting, the Special Group grapples with major obstacles in its covert plan to overthrow the Duvalier regime. Agency officials have been trying, but has so far failed, to convince Dominican Republic President Juan Bosch to allow them to use that country as a staging ground for an exile force that would invade Haiti and depose Duvalier—the same modus operandi used against the Arbenz government of Guatemala in 1954, when the CIA organized a small band of rebels in Honduras. CIA officials say the plan is not working in Haiti because, “It has been demonstrated that these exiles are of very little use, because of insecurity, lack of cohesive purpose or of adequate leadership, etc.” Another newly revealed detail in the 2025 declassification of this record are U.S. efforts to leverage U.S. military aid to persuade “the Pakistani government to go along with expansion of special intelligence facilities in that country.” It was agreed that the “best approach” was to make clear that U.S. military assistance was dependent on “the maintenance and expansion of U.S. intelligence facilities at Peshawar.”

Document 6

White House, PFIAB, “Board Panel on Covert Action Operations,” Top Secret, September 10, 1963

Sep 10, 1963

Source

National Archives, JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, Doc ID: 206-10001-10016

This revealing record of the September 10, 1963, PFIAB meeting summarizes CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Helms’ briefing on covert operations in British Guiana, Haiti, Italy, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba and Vietnam. In Cuba, CIA operations were undergoing “a shift from external raids to internal sabotage operations,” running ten “black” operations per month, and targeting “dissident Cuban elements,” among them Cuban military officers. In British Guiana, the CIA has secretly financed a 79-day general strike to destabilize the elected government of Cheddi Jagan, funneling money for the strikers through the AFL-CIO. In Italy, the CIA has clandestinely financed the Christian Democratic party “to the tune of $1 million in the campaign leading up to the June elections (plus $600,000 to other political elements in Italy).” The CIA planned to continue such covert funding to foster “the establishment of a center-left government coalition.”

Document 7

White House, PFIAB, Covert Action Panel Meeting 6/5/64 (Discussion with Secretary, Special Group, et al.),” Top Secret, June 5, 1964

Jun 5, 1964

Source

National Archives, JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, Doc ID: 206-10001-10014

At what appears to be a special meeting between Special Group representatives and the PFIAB, the board members are not only briefed on specific operations in Cuba, Chile, Laos and elsewhere, but also on the general work of the Special Group. According to the minutes, “most of the covert actions considered by the Special Group are CIA proposals, although other members suggest actions; for example, State Department brought up for discussion the matter of supplying arms in Tangayika. “The State Department is considered to serve as the ‘conscience’ of the Special Group in its consideration of proposed covert actions,” the PFIAB members are told.

The document also reveals that around half of all the covert actions they considered by the Special Group pertained to overhead reconnaissance missions: “During the current year some 23 of 39 proposals were favorably considered by the Group. About 50 per cent of the covert actions coming before the Special Group are carried out by the Joint Reconnaissance Center (JRC) of the JCS, in the aerial reconnaissance field. Since January 1, the Group has approved actions with respect to Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Panama; Chile, Congo, Angola, Tibet, Zanzibar, and China, among others. For example, the April 29, 1964, meeting included discussions of the Chilean elections; Cuba; a JRC forecast of peripheral missions; and reconnaissance coverage from India of a Chinese Communist test range.”

In The News

Kennedy Assassination: What the Secret Documents Reveal (in Japanese)

Mainichi Shimbun

Apr 5, 2025

The JFK Files

History As It Happen

Apr 1, 2025

Revelan más pruebas del espionaje a Chile y del caso JFK

La Jornada

Mar 29, 2025

Las revelaciones sobre Chile en los nuevos archivos de JFK

La Tercera

Mar 29, 2025

JFK wanted to splinter CIA ‘into a thousand pieces.’ Why didn't he?

Responsible Statecraft

Mar 27, 2025

Covert ops, Oswald surveillance and the JFK files. Here's more we've learned.

USA Today

Mar 21, 2025

Declassified JFK Assassination Files Expose Covert CIA Operations from the Vatican to Latin America

Democracy Now

Mar 21, 2025

Were the Kennedy Files a Bust? Not So Fast, Historians Say.

The New York Times

Mar 21, 2025

JFK Assassination: The Final Secrets

The Nation

Mar 21, 2025

The Kennedy Files Are an Early Easter Basket Full of CIA Hijinks

Esquire

Mar 19, 2025

nsarchive.gwu.edu

17. Taiwan lines up sweeteners for US after Trump tariff blow. But how far will they go?

Who would have thought we would engage in a trade war with the PRC and Taiwan?

Taiwan lines up sweeteners for US after Trump tariff blow. But how far will they go?

Taiwan has launched backchannel efforts in hopes of easing the impact, but its large US trade surplus may pose a hurdle, analyst warns

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3305695/taiwan-lines-sweeteners-us-after-trump-tariffs-blow-how-far-will-they-go?module=top_story&pgtype=homepage

Lawrence Chungin Taipei

Published: 6:26pm, 8 Apr 2025Updated: 6:35pm, 8 Apr 2025

Taiwan is offering a sweeping package of zero duties on American goods, non-retaliation pledges and increased US investments as it rushes to prepare the ground for talks with Washington aimed at easing the impact of steep new import tariffs.

However, analysts said that US President Donald Trump’s hardline, transactional approach to world affairs meant how far Taiwan’s goodwill gestures would work remained to be seen.

Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te, who has hailed Taipei’s relationship with the United States as the “best ever”, approved billions of US dollars in semiconductor investments in America last month.

But the island still got hit by a 32 per cent export tariff last week as part of Trump’s latest “America first” action, signalling that even close partners would not be spared his economic and trade onslaught.

Trump’s across-the-board tariff hike last Wednesday targeted dozens of trade partners, with Taiwan – which posted a US$74 billion trade surplus with the US last year – set to be among the hardest hit.

The move has prompted a flurry of backchannel diplomacy, with several of the worst-affected economies – including Vietnam and Cambodia – rushing to seek exemptions or special negotiations with the Trump administration.

Premier Cho Jung-tai said on Tuesday that Taiwan was also vying for a place at the table, and had initiated behind-the-scenes outreach through established channels to push for talks on possible tariff reductions.

Taipei would present Lai’s “full negotiation framework at the appropriate moment”, Cho told reporters in Taipei. “For now, we cannot disclose the timing or details. But please trust that this effort began even before the tariffs were announced.

“We are fully prepared – with a comprehensive plan and the right team – to enter constructive negotiations, just like other US trading partners.”

World leaders react to Trump’s new tariff blitz as global trade war escalates

Taiwanese foreign minister Lin Chia-lung confirmed that the vice-premier, Cheng Li-chun, was leading a special task force on tariff issues.

“We’ve already established contact with the US,” Lin said. “Whether it’s tariff cuts, procurement deals, or long-standing non-tariff trade barriers, we’re ready with multiple proposals. Once the format and timing are finalised, we can start talks immediately.”

Taiwan has been caught off guard by the Trump tariff blitz. Just weeks earlier, the Lai administration approved a US$100 billion expansion by chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in Arizona – widely seen as a move to placate Trump.

Lai also promised to raise defence spending to 3 per cent of gross domestic up from 2.5 per cent, after Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” American chip jobs and not contributing enough to its own defence.

On Friday, Cho called an emergency press conference where he announced a NT$88 billion (US$2.67 billion) aid package to mitigate the impact of US tariffs on Taiwanese businesses.

Lai has also sought to allay public concerns. In a video aired on Sunday, he said: “Taiwan’s economy remains fundamentally resilient … As long as we respond strategically and [the] public and private sectors work together, we can weather the storm. Please do not panic.”

Taiwan was willing to explore “zero tariffs” with the US and had “no plans for retaliatory tariffs”, he added.

Lai also pledged not to scale back corporate investments in the US as long as they aligned with Taiwan’s interests, and to expand American imports so as to shrink the trade surplus.

“We’ll increase investments in tech, electronics, [information and communication technology], petrochemicals, and natural gas,” he said.

He also promised to address long-standing non-tariff trade barriers affecting US exporters, saying Taiwan would “proactively uphold fair trade principles”.

Still, the economic fallout has been swift. Taiwan’s stock market suffered its biggest single-day drop in history on Monday, plunging nearly 10 per cent or 2,065.87 points. It slid a further 4 per cent on Tuesday, shedding another 772.4 points to hit a 14-month low.

According to Dachrahn Wu, a professor of economics at Taiwan’s National Central University, Taiwan may not be able to secure tariff exemptions from the US – even if it offers zero duties on American goods.

“Switzerland has already been very friendly to US products, imposing zero tariffs – yet it’s still being hit with steep duties [31 per cent],” Wu told reporters on Monday.

“The real issue is the trade surplus. Like Switzerland, Taiwan runs a large surplus with the US, so simply lowering tariffs, in my view, is of little help.”

Wu also said that there was no need for Taiwan to rush into talks with Washington, as Trump was more likely to prioritise negotiations with major economies like mainland China, the European Union and Japan.

“Taiwan can wait and see how those negotiations play out,” he said.

Lawrence Chung

Lawrence Chung covers major news in Taiwan, ranging from presidential and parliament elections to killer earthquakes and typhoons. Most of his reports focus on Taiwan’s relations with China, specifically on the impact and possible developments of cross-strait relations under the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party and mainland-friendly Kuomintang

18. How this special operations leader ended up shuttering a US embassy and destroying sensitive materials just before Russia invaded Ukraine

The SF operators who were on the ground likely recommended that they remain and continue to advise and assist their counterparts. Leaving was not something they expected to do and running away from the fight was likely the hardest thing these operators had ever had to do.

How this special operations leader ended up shuttering a US embassy and destroying sensitive materials just before Russia invaded Ukraine

Story by cpanella@businessinsider.com (Chris Panella) • 43m • 3 min read

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-this-special-operations-leader-ended-up-shuttering-a-us-embassy-and-destroying-sensitive-materials-just-before-russia-invaded-ukraine/ar-AA1CvQQg?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=e86f10b235ce4088bf3ad6d9016992c8&ei=119

Sensitive information, personal effects, and more were destroyed weeks before Russia's full-scale invasion. Anadolu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

A US Army special operations leader recalled shuttering the US embassy in Kyiv before Russia's invasion.
Col. VanAntwerp said destroying sensitive information and clearing the office was a tough moment.
VanAntwerp and his team had been on the ground in Ukraine to help train the Ukrainians.

Just weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a US special operations leader that Business Insider met last week found himself unexpectedly shuttering America's embassy in Kyiv.

It was an unusual job, one for which US Army Col. Lucas VanAntwerp, then-commander of 10th Special Forces Group, had not specifically prepared, but that was the mission.

In early 2022, Russian forces surrounded Ukraine, raising concerns it had plans to launch a full-scale invasion. US intelligence had assessed that Russia had moved military equipment and soldiers to borders along Ukraine, and the Ukrainians were preparing the troops and civilians for an attack.

Russia invaded on February 24, 2022, bombarding Ukraine and launching assaults aimed at swiftly seizing Kyiv.

Shuttering the embassy in those early days before Russia's invasion began wasn't as simple as turning off the lights and locking the doors. VanAntwerp and his team had to destroy any and all sensitive information to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Russian army.

"There is a part of you in the moment that's like, 'I don't really know what I'm doing,'" VanAntwerp, now the director of US Army Special Operations Command's Capability Development Integration Directorate, told BI during last week's USASOC Capabilities Exercise at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

US Army rangers fast rope off a MH-47 Chinook as part of an airborne assault demonstration. US Army photo by Sgt. Benjamin D. Castro

VanAntwerp got the call in early 2022 to shuffle his forces out of Kyiv. At that point, he and his team took over embassy security.

He said that the 10th Special Forces Group had built trust with the Ukrainian military after long working with its operators since Russia's initial invasion in 2014.

The goal for the US special operations advisors stationed in the country had been to help Ukrainian operators break away from their Soviet-style approaches and adopt more Western-style methods, changing how the individual soldier and the critical non-commissioned officer make battlefield decisions.

"I'm not going to say we transformed everything," VanAntwerp explained, but "it was a big contributor to how they thought and how their SOF operated."

Empowered NCOs have given Ukraine combat and decision-making flexibility that is vastly different from Russia's top-down approach that requires generals for battlefield decision-making, keeping them close to the front lines.

When it was time to evacuate the embassy and shutter it, VanAntwerp got the call because of the relationship he and his team had cultivated in Ukraine. Embassy staff were moved to Lviv, and then the 10th Special Forces Group leader and his team shifted over to security and began sanitizing the diplomatic outpost.

Col. VanAntwerp during the 10th Special Forces Group change of command in July 2023. US Army photo by Cpl. Alec Brueggemann

With an invasion looming, the amount of potentially sensitive materials in the embassy that needed to be swiftly removed was vast. Servers and computers were destroyed, and the personal effects of workers were tossed out.

That experience in particular, VanAntwerp said, was eerie "because you're still sitting there seeing pictures of people's families on their cubicles, pictures of people's kids."

When they wrapped, the office looked normal but empty.

Once the embassy was cleared, the team went outside and watched the US flag come down. "It was probably one of the toughest moments of my military career, standing there watching that happen," he said.

Despite the unusual nature of this particular job, VanAntwerp explained that it's often typical for special forces to fulfill roles that are sometimes out of the ordinary, particularly because of the relationships operators build with partners and allies.

Rangers with the 4th Regiment of Ukraine's Special Operations Forces holding DDM4 rifles. Courtesy of the 4th Ranger Regiment

That is a key aspect of SOF's role in the US military, especially as it shifts from decades focusing on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency to great-power competition, with US rivals like China and Russia front of mind.

Various SOF leaders have highlighted that operator presence around the world and the relationships that they have built are vital to success.

VanAntwerp noted the importance of the partnership between the US and Ukraine, as well as between the US and Europe as a whole.

"We're able to tie all that together with a very small footprint, small signature," he said, "and it really is all based on relationships."

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19. Top US admiral at NATO removed amid Trump’s growing military firings

Yes, all officers serve the pleasure of the President. But what is the reason for her firing? All the reports from people who have served with her have noted her excellent leadership and experience.

Don't these people know that these officers have to execute policies whether they agree with them or not? Is this really just because of DEI? Why are we punching officers for doing their jobs and executing the policies of the administration in which they were serving?

Excerpt:

Chatfield was previously the first woman to lead the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Her tenure there later made her a target of conservative advocacy groups, one of whom claimed she was overly concerned with diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives in a December letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Top US admiral at NATO removed amid Trump’s growing military firings

Defense News · by Noah Robertson · April 7, 2025

Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, a top U.S. military official at NATO, has been fired as the Trump administration continues its widespread removal of senior uniformed officers, according to multiple U.S. and European officials.

It’s unclear whether the firing originated from the Pentagon or the White House, which last week removed several national security officials — including Gen. Timothy Haugh, head of the NSA and Cyber Command — after President Donald Trump met with far-right activist Laura Loomer.

Loomer later took credit for Haugh’s dismissal in a post on the social media platform X.

Chatfield served as America’s representative to the NATO Military Committee, the alliance’s group of top uniformed officials. The body advises NATO’s two most senior military leaders and helps guide long-term strategy.

Brig. Gen. Sean Flynn, the deputy representative, will serve on an acting basis until a successor is named, said a U.S. official, like others, permitted to speak on background to discuss the removal.

Chatfield was previously the first woman to lead the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Her tenure there later made her a target of conservative advocacy groups, one of whom claimed she was overly concerned with diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives in a December letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Pentagon did not respond to questions about why Chatfield was fired, who made the decision and whether other officers were affected. Reuters first reported Chatfield’s firing.

In its opening months, the Trump administration has overseen the swift removal of officers at the top of the U.S. military, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, and the Air Force’s Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jim Slife.

So far, the firings have prompted public criticism from mostly Democrats in Congress, though lawmakers from both parties called Brown’s firing “unfortunate” last week at a confirmation hearing for retired Gen. Dan Caine, Trump’s pick for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The removal of a senior U.S. officer in NATO concerned multiple European defense officials, who worry America is retreating from its role in the alliance. Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the head of European Command and Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, is set to retire this summer.

About Noah Robertson

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

20. How the CIA smuggled Orwell and Le Carré into the eastern bloc

I do not think we laypersons can grasp how important these activities were. A natural extension of Donovan's OSS enlisting John Steinbeck to write The Moon is Down to support the resistance in occupied Europe during WWII.

Excerpt:

Inside and outside the CIA, the scholarly scheme has received little attention and credit, until now. Mr English concludes that the programme was hugely successful, though it may have been one of “the most highbrow intelligence operations ever”. You could even call it bookish.

How the CIA smuggled Orwell and Le Carré into the eastern bloc

The agency’s most highbrow covert op

https://www.economist.com/culture/2025/04/03/how-the-cia-smuggled-orwell-and-le-carre-into-the-eastern-bloc

Photograph: Getty Images

Apr 3rd 2025

Listen to this story

The CIA Book Club. By Charlie English. William Collins; 384 pages; £25. To be published in America by Random House in July; $35

ooks were smuggled on boats, trains and trucks, concealed in food tins, baby nappies and even the sheet music of travelling musicians. Over three decades before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the CIA funnelled 10m books into the eastern bloc, including George Orwell’s “1984”, John le Carré’s spy thrillers and Virginia Woolf’s writing advice. The programme was “the best-kept secret of the cold war”, writes Charlie English, an author, in a new book.

George Minden, the leader of the literary-propaganda scheme, described it as “an offensive of free, honest thinking”. Censors in the eastern bloc banned books for ideological reasons or because they depicted life in the West. Rulings were draconian and absurd. Detective novels by Agatha Christie with no political message were forbidden; a book about carrots was destroyed because it described how they could grow in individuals’ gardens, not only in collectives. The state controlled printing presses. Typewriters had to be registered, and a permit was sometimes needed to buy paper.

So the CIA sent printing supplies to dissidents. When Poland was under communist rule, the ink, typesetters and photocopiers sent by the agency helped sustain an underground publishing network. One Polish printer has compared this equipment to “machine guns or tanks during war”, enabling the opposition to reproduce banned books and publish their own newspapers. Adam Michnik, a former Polish dissident, told Mr English that illicit tomes saved his country: “A book was like fresh air. They allowed us to survive and not go mad.”

Inside and outside the CIA, the scholarly scheme has received little attention and credit, until now. Mr English concludes that the programme was hugely successful, though it may have been one of “the most highbrow intelligence operations ever”. You could even call it bookish. ■

For more on the latest books, films, TV shows, albums and controversies, sign up to Plot Twist, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter

21. Russia’s army is being subordinated to its security services

Could we see a Stalin-like purge of his generals?

Russia’s army is being subordinated to its security services

Vladimir Putin mistrusts his generals

https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/04/03/russias-army-is-being-subordinated-to-its-security-services

In case the army gets ideasPhotograph: Getty Images

Apr 3rd 2025

Listen to this story

WO WEEKS after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Sergei Beseda’s mobile phone went dead. Mr Beseda, a general in the FSB, Russia’s main security agency, had been responsible for informing Vladimir Putin about internal dynamics in Ukraine. He was one of the bosses of the FSB’s Fifth Service, set up in the 1990s to spy on former Soviet republics. His information led to Mr Putin’s mistaken expectation that Ukraine would crumble.

When Ukraine instead fought Russia to a standstill, reports circulated that Mr Beseda had been arrested. Yet on March 24th the 70-year-old spy chief, now an adviser to the head of the FSB, sat in a hotel conference room in Saudi Arabia opposite Michael Waltz, America’s national security adviser, negotiating a possible ceasefire.

The security services’ prominence in the negotiations carries two messages, argues Andrei Soldatov, an intelligence expert living in exile. One is that Mr Putin sees the negotiations as a stage in his military operation rather than a path to ending the war. The other is that the spooks have been rehabilitated: the disastrous invasion is now presented as a success.

Those doing the fighting may disagree. Russia’s army has made almost no progress in two years. At least 200,000 soldiers are dead and 600,000 wounded, says Britain’s defence ministry. Yet the army must confront not just Ukrainian forces, but its own country’s security services. The FSB’s military counter-intelligence force, heir to Stalin’s infamous SMERSH, is the largest and fastest-growing directorate, says Mr Soldatov. Its job is to watch the armed forces, curb the influence of popular generals and prevent political self-organisation. The scale of purges evokes the Soviet era.

Many countries’ armed forces have strained relations with their spy agencies, but in Russia they can be deadly. Mr Putin mistrusts his army, particularly given its thinly veiled resentment at the start of the war. A few days before the invasion Leonid Ivashov, a retired general often used by the general staff to voice its opinions, warned that the use of force against Ukraine would be a disaster. As the blitzkrieg failed, Russia’s main journal of military theory implicitly blamed the FSB. Soldiers did not understand its goals or their roles. “Instead of flowers…the rear columns of our troops were met with civilian resistance,” it wrote.

To spur the army, Mr Putin let Evgeny Prigozhin (then boss of Wagner, a state-backed mercenary group) criticise Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top commander, and Sergei Shoigu, then the defence minister. But Prigozhin led a mutiny in July 2023 that enjoyed sympathy among some senior officers. The army neither joined nor did much to stop it. After Prigozhin was placated (later dying in a plane crash), several generals disappeared from view. Ivan Popov, a popular commander who criticised the war’s conduct, was demoted.

Most importantly, the media resources that Prigozhin used for independent criticism have been brought under control. Telegram, one of Russia’s biggest social-media platforms, hosts dozens of voyenkory, or independent war bloggers, with an estimated cumulative audience of 13m. They often diverge from state-directed television propaganda. Igor Strelkov, a war blogger who openly criticised Mr Putin, was arrested after Prigozhin’s mutiny. Others have muted their dissent.

Some months later, the FSB began purging the army and defence ministry. Mr Shoigu, a close ally of Mr Putin, was moved to a different post. Three of his former deputies and about 30 staff were arrested. The aim, says Mikhail Komin of the Centre for European Policy Analysis, headquartered in Washington, was both to redistribute cashflows associated with the ministry and to dismantle Mr Shoigu’s “clan” of connections in government. His replacement, Andrey Belousov, belongs to no clan. A month after his appointment he met war bloggers, encouraging them to direct their concerns to him. He was allowed to choose only one of his deputies, says Mr Komin; the other two seem to have been picked by Mr Putin. One is Mr Putin’s niece.

Three generals have also been arrested, including Vadim Shamarin, deputy head of the general staff, and Mr Popov. The latter recently wrote an open letter to Mr Putin, asking to be transferred back to the front. “I never asked questions, but blindly and without thinking followed the path that was determined by sacred duty, oath, orders and your decrees,” he wrote. The Kremlin confirmed that Mr Putin has received the letter. He has yet to respond. ■

To stay on top of the biggest European stories, sign up to Café Europa, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.

22. Schooled by Trump, Americans are learning to dislike their allies

One of the things I have found most troubling is among the various social media groups that I monitor. I notice people who have otherwise spent their careers working with friends, partners, and allies, are now irrationally touting anti-alliance sentiment. The victim and grievance cards are being played quite liberally by many of these self professed conservatives. The belief that our freeloading allies are plundering the US is rampant. It is like they have rejected that the US has any agency in international security affairs and that since World War II the US has simply been taken advantage of and exploited.

See the charts at the link.

Schooled by Trump, Americans are learning to dislike their allies

Our polling shows that Americans’ and Europeans’ attitudes towards each other are changing quickly

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2025/03/31/schooled-by-trump-americans-are-learning-to-dislike-their-allies

Mar 31st 2025

RESIDENT DONALD TRUMP repeatedly claims that the European Union was “formed in order to screw the United States”. Canada, America’s northern neighbour and second-largest trading partner, is “one of the nastiest countries”. Russia was “doing what anyone would do” when it bombed Ukraine’s energy infrastructure during a pause in American intelligence sharing. Our polling with YouGov shows how this rhetoric is reshaping people’s opinions about their countries’ allies.

Unsurprisingly, in America it is Republican opinions that have changed most dramatically since Mr Trump returned to office (see chart 1). Before the election our YouGov polling showed that just 12% of Republican voters thought that Canada was “unfriendly” or an “enemy”. In the most recent survey, which took place between March 22nd and 25th, that share more than doubled to 27% (these negative feelings were increasing before the election, too). Similarly, last year 17% of Republicans viewed the EU as “unfriendly” or as an “enemy”; that has now grown to 29%.

Chart: The Economist

Perceptions of Russia are moving in the opposite direction. After its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 Americans were united in condemnation: around 85% of registered voters thought that Russia was “unfriendly” to or an “enemy” of America. That share remained steady until the presidential election in 2024. Then views split along party lines. Now 72% of Republican voters think Russia is a foe. Over the same period the share of Republicans who think Ukraine is hostile rose by ten percentage points (see chart 2).

More surprising is that even Democrats appear to be slowly softening towards Russia and becoming more suspicious of America’s long-standing allies. It is difficult to know yet whether these small changes are enduring shifts in opinion.

Non-Americans’ perceptions of America are also changing. In August 2024 half the people polled by YouGov in seven western European countries had a favourable view of America. Since Mr Trump’s inauguration, however, America’s favourability has tumbled. The share of Danes who approve of America fell from 48% to 20%, no doubt largely because Mr Trump repeatedly threatens to seize Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory.

Hard-right voters in Europe are the exception. In Britain, Germany and Italy they have grown fonder of Mr Trump’s America (see chart 3). Although these voters are divided over his stance on Ukraine, and many are angered by his disdain for Europe, they tend to share his views on immigration and other domestic issues.

Voters often take their cues from political leaders, says Yanna Krupnikov of the University of Michigan. But this swing in perceptions on both sides of the Atlantic has been particularly dramatic. In just a few months Mr Trump has brought discord where there was friendship.■

23. How China Will Informationally Throw U.S. to the Mat

This graphic is a must view for anyone who studies influence operations.

Please go to the ink to view the graphic.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7315180833915502592/

How China Will Informationally Throw U.S. to the Mat

Mike Studeman

• 2nd

2nd

Leader | Strategist | National Security Expert | Author | Speaker

Beijing will reap a propaganda windfall from Washington's recent policy choices. They are already capitalizing to portray America as a malign hegemon, a black hat on the global scene.

A superpower worth its salt could put its information machinery into motion to explain its strategic choices, but not only has Washington further weakened our already anemic information instrument, now America doesn't appear to have a good story to tell, much less a constructive vision for the world community.

Expect PRC messaging to take full advantage of these dynamics, which will allow China to capture more global influence by pushing its view of how the world should constructively work together. These developments will open more opportunities for the PRC to displace the U.S. across key terrain, especially in the Global South.

The PRC is not afraid to push for advantage in the Global North as well--it has already made moves to peel ROK and Japan off into a separate economic trilateral. Expect other charm offensives in Europe and with disenchanted neighbors in the Americas.

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24. I Loved Being a Soldier by Gen. Charles Jacoby

I Loved Being a Soldier - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Gen. Charles Jacoby · April 8, 2025

Introductory note from Ryan Shaw:

Gen. (ret.) Chuck Jacoby, who capped a 37-year Army career as commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, passed away unexpectedly at his home in North Carolina on April 1.

I had the privilege of helping him craft his retirement speech in 2014, and with the encouragement of several who attended, we adapted it for publication in War on the Rocks. It became one of the publication’s most read articles of that year.

Today, with War on the Rocks, I’m honored to share the essay again, in memoriam.

A decade later, his insights and warnings on education, deterrence, and civil-military relations feel even more prescient. But it’s his reflections on leadership and service, and his love for his family, his country, and his fellow soldiers that stand out most — and they are timeless.

I won’t attempt to eulogize Gen. Jacoby here — he wouldn’t have wanted that, and the article speaks for itself — but I will say this: My life and career have been immeasurably more than they might have been because he saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself, and he trusted me to do things I didn’t know I could do. Any contribution I’ve made since is, in no small measure, a tribute to him. And I know that’s true for countless others, as well.

From all of us who benefited from your leadership and mentorship. Thank you, Sir. Be Thou at Peace.

At the end of a military career, it’s appropriate to reflect on your years of service and what they meant. This is a simple task for me in some ways; the course of my career was largely set by a small number of pivotal, personal events. Their importance to my time in the U.S. Army was not always clear while I was in the midst of them, but they are in retrospect.

I never specifically made a choice to serve a full career in the Army. It just kind of happened. In the back of my mind, I always thought I had reserved a small sliver of a choice to step away, but it never really occurred to me to do so (… except maybe once or twice while I was on the Joint Staff!). Each key event or decision in my career seemed to re-validate the original, simple purpose: to be a soldier.

Of course, the first key decision was that initial decision to serve. For that, I have my father, mother, and uncles to thank. My dad was one of four brothers, and they all served: three in World War II and one in the brand-new U.S. Air Force just after the war. One was badly wounded at Okinawa, one with Patton’s Third Army in Europe, and my father was an amphibious combat engineer who participated in 13 landings while island-hopping across the Pacific.

All the brothers were enlisted. They had very little good to say about officers (until I became one, of course). But they were my heroes. So that first decision was a no-brainer — I never really considered doing anything else. I grew up at a time when Army-Navy surplus stores were like the “Best Buy” and “GameStop” stores of the day, and a new helmet liner, an M1 cartridge belt, or leggings stamped “1943” were as delightful a gift as a Call of Duty video game is today.

I’ll be forever grateful to that generation of Jacobys — like that entire generation of Americans — for setting such a compelling example of service, sacrifice, and patriotism. They didn’t talk about it in those terms, they just lived it in those terms and I can only hope to have done it some justice.

My father was a hard man; he was a Depression-era kid. But he was a loving father. And I never doubted his love for all of us and his pride in my choice to serve. (He got past the officer problem once I was commissioned in 1978.) My mother was a beautiful, talented woman, ahead of her time. She poured herself into her kids until her last breath. I wish my parents could have seen how this all worked out; they did all the heavy lifting in building whatever values and character I had — the Army just gave me the opportunity to put it to work.

Become a Member

ROTC

I wanted to be a soldier and I wanted to go to West Point. But West Point didn’t want me right away. I didn’t get in. So I went to Lafayette College in Pennsylvania and did ROTC.

The Army I was exposed to there in 1972 was still at war in Vietnam. It was still shooting M14s in training, still eating C-rats that came with cigarettes and John Wayne bars. We trained under a couple of majors and captains who were paratroopers, Vietnam vets, Silver Star, and Purple Heart winners. Those men were hard and they were experienced and they only worried about what was important. And they inspired us.

I had a blast in ROTC. It was fun — even when protesters set fire to our ROTC building in protest of the Linebacker II bombings of Hanoi. What a different time in our history that was.

West Point

But I still wanted to go to West Point. So while I was having fun, my mother was applying and reapplying to the academy on my behalf. On our third try, West Point, for reasons unknown, finally caved and let me in. So my second big decision was starting over again at West Point. Had I stayed at Lafayette, I would have been commissioned with the Class of ’76, with guys like Stanley McChrystal, Ray Odierno, David Rodriguez, and David Barno. With competition like that, I would almost certainly have tapped out at lieutenant colonel, so it was a good choice to move on to a different year group.

But when I made the choice to go to West Point, I quickly discovered that West Point, as opposed to ROTC, was not fun at all! The academy I entered in 1974, in the immediate aftermath of Vietnam, was struggling to revalidate itself to the American people. It was rocked by a major cheating scandal, and we struggled to integrate women. The Academy leadership struggled — just as the whole Army did — with the fall of Saigon in 1975. There was a palpable effect throughout the force when that happened.

But the officers they put in front of us were special — again, Vietnam vets and accomplished soldiers. Men like my company tactical officer, Lt. Col. Boyd Harris, who inspired and challenged us. These were men I wanted to emulate. West Point accomplished its mission for me and my classmates. And we built real bonds of brotherhood. I wasn’t the best soldier in that class — that was probably my roommate, Mike Scaparrotti, or maybe former Secretary of the Army Louie Caldera — but there’s no doubt I’ve been the luckiest.

Paratrooper

Happy to be on my way from West Point, I went to the 82nd Airborne, where I was a platoon leader for three years, followed by a year at the brand new Joint Special Operations Command. I embraced the Army machine, and, frankly, it was good to me. My neighbors across the street were Keith and Debbie Alexander. That was fun, and I’m sure they have been monitoring my activities ever since. Harold Simmons was my first platoon sergeant. He was a good man, with biceps as big as my head! A Vietnam vet from the 173rd, he showed me how to lead, allowed me to lead, and supported my leadership as I grew as an officer. In 1983, I went to Grenada and commanded a company with Operation Urgent Fury — the only combat opportunity that was available in those days. It was just the luck of the draw that my battalion was the Global Response Force, loaded and ready when the call came.

I was so fortunate with the start I had. It was all about my leaders. I didn’t know our Army was broke — fiscally and professionally — didn’t know we were in a post-Vietnam malaise, didn’t know I should be worried about a certain career path. I just knew I had missions to do and I loved being a paratrooper.

Back to West Point

But you can’t stay on the line forever. Thinking about the impact that officers and NCOs had on me as a cadet at ROTC and West Point, I applied to teach there. That meant two years in grad school, three at the academy — five years out of the force. I probably didn’t realize at the time just what a risk that was for my career.

Unfortunately, teaching at West Point is still a career risk. We’ve got a new generation of captains and majors who are still willing to take that risk. They’re incredibly bright, they teach, train, and inspire cadets every day, they do a great service to the nation and the academy. But they do so at a significant risk to their own careers.

We need to do better that that. The men and women we put in front of cadets — as tactical officers, instructors, coaches, and sponsors — may be the most important institutional personnel decision we make.

Looking back at it, my junior officer time — while unscripted — was the Army at its best. I was kept focused on leader development challenges, sheltered from things I couldn’t affect, taught by example about my profession (but not my career), and blessed with positive but serious bosses and professional NCOs, all in a period advertised as a troubled time for the Army. We’ve got our own challenges today, and I hope we’re still doing the same for our junior officers. Our company-grade leaders should not be worried about the federal budget or the promotion rate to O-6. They should be worried about training and leading soldiers and learning their craft.

For Capt. Jacoby, the hook was set. And I didn’t even realize that the Army was changing fast and reinventing itself every year through initiatives like urinalysis, the Battalion Training Management System, MILES, the real integration of women and civilians into the formation, and the development of true jointness. That all took root during those early days of the ‘80s. And I got to grow up in that.

Education and Marriage

In 1990, as a major, I was selected for the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). I thought that was a good thing. But then the awful, horrible, unthinkable happened to Maj. Jacoby: I found myself stuck at Fort Leavenworth during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Five years out of the force for West Point, and then I missed the big war. I was sure that my career was over.

But I never really regretted Leavenworth or SAMS — or, for that matter, any Army or joint school I have attended. It was there at SAMS that I began to think critically about my profession, and there I learned the value of continuing education for military leaders at all levels. And I remain convinced today: When we come down to our last dollar, we should spend that dollar educating and training leaders — to include our NCOs — to be critical thinkers about soldiering, about themselves, and about the profession of arms.

And while I was at Leavenworth, I married Grace. Grace gave me love, balance, and babies. Having a center of gravity in your life other than work is such a great thing — it’s made me a better person in every way, including a better soldier. For 24 years now, Grace has been not only the love of my life and the mother to our boys, but she has been the best partner imaginable in my military service. Retired as a lieutenant colonel herself, she was as good an officer as I have served with. Duty and sacrifice were instinctive to her. And she “got it” that my professional duties didn’t out-prioritize my duties to my family, but were bound to compete with them. We sometimes present that as a choice we have to make, but it’s a false choice. It is simply the balancing act of the life we lead. I was blessed with a wife who has given me that love and balance.

Battalion Command

Despite missing the big war — and I was sure it would be my last chance — in 1993, I got the opportunity to command a battalion: an infantryman’s dream. I felt like I had more influence as a battalion commander — over the lives of my soldiers, over training, over the accomplishment of missions — than in almost any other job. That is why we love our battalions, our squadrons, ships, and garrisons. And I really loved commanding the Red Devils of the 1st of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

I thought I’d finally got my career back on track after that. I made O-6 and was selected for brigade command in 1997. But I didn’t get 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Brigade of any division, as any officer in my position would have wanted. Instead, I got Joint Task Force-Bravo, conducting theater security cooperation in Honduras. That, I was sure, was the Army’s way of telling me I’d culminated.

I went into what I presumed was exile for 16 months, unaccompanied, working for a tough, smart marine named Charlie Wilhelm at Southern Command. Gen. Wilhelm was one of the most admirable men with whom I’ve been associated and that experience was an education beyond what I could have imagined. That’s where I learned to work in complex, joint, interagency, multi-national, and multicultural environments. That’s also where I learned that, while there are different cultures in the various organizations that serve our country, we all have similar values and building trust is a personal endeavor.

9/11 Wars with a Detour

Shortly after that, as a new brigadier, on one bright September morning, I was working in the western wedge of the Pentagon as a deputy director in the Joint Staff J5 when a plane crashed into our building. The nation was at war, and we all knew that the next phase of our service would be very different from anything we’d known before.

I spent three years as assistant division commander in the 25th Infantry Division, getting the 25th ready for its first combat deployment since Vietnam. I was determined not to miss the next big one. So we took the division to Afghanistan, and it was there that I truly learned the operational art: how to employ military forces in support of theater-strategic end-states. I also learned that partnering and trust in combat were even more vital than in peace. And I became a believer, learning that the Afghans could be worthy partners and the mission was worthy of the sacrifice we were making.

When I was privileged enough to get two-star command in 2005, it was not the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd or any other division. It was U.S. Army Alaska. I thought to myself: This is Joint Task Force-Bravo all over again! And Grace, a warm-blooded girl from Puerto Rico, said “Have a nice tour!” She felt like we’d been exiled to the ice planet Hoth. But, once again, I learned more there than I could possibly have imagined.

I came to love Alaska. It was where I really learned to be a complete general officer. And it wasn’t terminal. From Alaska to Fort Lewis, Grace gladly traded snow for rain, and I had the privilege of taking command of I Corps in 2007.

There, we had the great challenge, and great opportunity, of getting the Corps — which was fundamentally a theater security cooperation headquarters — ready to assume duties as Multi-National Corps-Iraq, its first combat deployment since Korea. Shortly after taking command, Dick Cody, then vice chief of staff of the Army, told me, “Chuck, you have a problem. … you’re on the patch chart, but you’re not in the Transformation Campaign Plan.” That meant no equipment, no people, no training programmed for the Corps. But, with his sly wink and the stroke of his infamous blue pen, Gen. Cody got us started on the path to Iraq, and with several other dedicated senior leaders, we got the Corps ready. It was an opportunity to learn what a group of general and flag officers can accomplish when they work as a team with a common purpose and a vision.

In the larger sense, it was a remarkable team that transformed the Army even while we fought in two different theaters. Retired Gens. Sullivan, Abizaid, McCaffrey, and Luck and many others all helped along the way. The memory of their selfless assistance causes me to lament the passing of that senior mentor program that was so valuable to me and many others headed to fight in theater.

Together, we ran a successful parliamentary election in 2010, implemented the security agreement, transitioned control to Iraqi Forces, and began the withdrawal of U.S. forces and equipment. The course of events in Iraq since then cannot change the fact we accomplished our mission — all of our missions — and we gave the Iraqi people the opportunity to establish a unified, democratic government. We gave them the chance to be a great power for growth and stability in the Middle East. And it’s my opinion that it’s too soon to write the eulogy for that Iraq. I will always be tremendously proud of what we did there, and I will always treasure the relationships I built with the great folks who got it done, especially my teammates in I Corps.

Joint Staff

Thanks to a push from Gen. Petraeus and the good sense of humor of Adm. Mike Mullen, after I Corps I got to serve as the Joint Staff J-5. If MNC-I was the height of the operational art, it was not until my second tour on the Joint Staff, with Adm. Mullen, that I truly learned what it means to serve the at the national strategic level. And I learned about the very substantial differences in trying to affect joint and interagency coordination at Forward Operating Base D.C. versus at FOB Courage in Iraq or FOB Shkin in Afghanistan.

And it was in this assignment that I really started to think — and really started to worry — about the interactions between our senior military leaders and our political masters. I will tell you that I think we’re facing a real challenge in our civil-military relations right now, in a way that we haven’t in many generations. It’s going to take some hard thinking and some inspired leadership on the military side, as well as the civilian side, to figure out who we want to be and what we want to look like going forward — and we’ll have to do it in stride, even as we manage the various crises that the strategic environment continues to present. I know we are up to the challenge, but we must be deliberate and determined about it. The American people deserve it, and our future security depends on it.

Back to Command and Reflections on Fatherhood

And finally, I had the great honor to command North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command. The odds against this Detroit-kid-turned-paratrooper becoming the unified combatant commander for North America had to be about a million to one. But miracles happen. And though generations of fighter pilots rolled over in their graves at the prospect an infantryman in charge of NORAD, for three and a half years we managed to neither lose Santa Claus nor compromise the defense of our homelands.

I will say again how much it’s meant to me to take on the sacred trust of homeland defense with our best and most exceptional partners in Canada. In recent years, the vulnerability of the homeland has markedly increased, and our ability to create and think about a modernized, complex deterrence has been seriously eroded. The vital task of supporting civil authorities in the homeland is a growth industry that has absolutely become a core Department of Defense task. And I will emphasize again that we have no greater strategic blessing, no greater competitive security advantage, than being part of the community of like-minded, democratic nations that comprise North America. Cultivating our partnerships with Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas is the best security investment we can make, and I am immensely grateful for my counterparts in those great nations and their willingness to partner with us.

And somehow, in the course of this unlikely journey, Grace and I managed to be blessed with three great boys. My sons are the only thing that competes with my military experience as the great pride and privilege of my life. And, in fact, there is no competition — the boys win, hands down. They are absolutely the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and the best thing I’ll ever achieve. Grace and I got a late start, and our boys grew up the sons of a senior officer, with all the good and bad that comes with that, and they did so respectfully, responsibly, and with humility. And my sons also grew up within the range of the echoes of many rifle salutes from memorial services at the post chapel. They understand the hardest, most personal side of an Army at war.

In Retrospect

And now, at last, I have hung up my uniform. What does this all mean to me, looking back? Well, a few things.

First, my unlikely career path, with all the fits and starts and should-have-been dead ends, is proof that it’s not always about knowing the right person, or getting the right job, or checking the right block. It’s about blooming where you’re planted. It’s about commitment, service, and duty, and trying every day to do the right thing. And it’s about regaining your balance after stumbling, no matter where you are. Our professional United States military represents one of the great meritocracies in the world, and I got to live it.

The Army can be a big, ugly, bureaucratic monster, but the Army made room for me and let me follow this path, and for that I am immensely grateful. From Alaska to Central America, across Asia and the Middle East, and all over this great homeland of ours, for almost 37 years I have been motivated and happy going to work every day. And every day I came home tired, but grateful for the chance to make a contribution to the Army, to the joint force, and to my nation. I have been privileged to work for, and with, some truly great Americans, and I have been blessed at every step with great bosses, from Johan Lawton, my first company commander, to George Casey, to Marty Dempsey, our courageous chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Secretaries Gates, Panetta, and Hagel.

The other thing that occurs to me as I reflect on the past, oddly enough, is a concern for our future. Watching our Army and our nation and our world develop for these many decades, I am convinced that we’ve got some big fights ahead.

We always will, of course, because we are one among the few nations on Earth who are willing to dream of a better world, and to fight for it when necessary, because we have the courage and the character to define ourselves by what we’re willing to fight and die for. And so the burden of leadership, in a world that desperately needs leadership, is that we are bound to be either fighting, or working to deter a fight.

Together with those concerns about civil-military relations, it’s that deterrence mission that concerns me going forward. I’m afraid we’ve lost the bubble on the idea of deterrence. We need to work on it, so we can get back to a place where we’re picking our fights instead of having them picked for us. The strategic environment has changed quickly, drastically, and continually since the end of the Cold War. Our deterrence theory needs to catch up.

For two centuries now, we’ve been in a debate with ourselves about whether we’re going to be a big nation or a great nation. Today, bigness is both less relevant and less sustainable than it used to be. So we need to find ways to achieve greatness. We need to be a great country with a great Army, not just a big country with a big Army.

We haven’t seen our last crisis. But one thing that I have always believed, one thing that I have tried to instill in my soldiers and leaders and in my sons, is the fact that hidden in every crisis there is a great opportunity. My career has been proof of that. Our history has been proof of that.

Finding that great opportunity is, to my mind, the essence of positive leadership at every level. Our opportunity to be a great nation exists in all the crises, big and small, that seem to beset us in these troubled times. Our measure as a great nation is to be better coming out of these moral and strategic tests than we were going into them.

All this means that there will always be a high demand for competent and committed military professionals. Fortunately, we’ve got them in abundance. I am absolutely convinced that the colonels and one-stars we have coming up are the best generation this country has seen. They’re smart, they’re battle-hardened, and they’re ready to assume greater leadership. The field grades that work for them are innovative and motivated, the NCO corps is stronger and more professional than it’s ever been. And somehow, in spite of our missteps and our shortcuts and our years of combat, this generation of 17 and 18-year-olds continue to raise their hands and volunteer for a life of service at the rate we need them to. I know we have the leaders and the soldiers to continue being that great Army and Joint Force that our country needs. So I feel good about stepping out of the way and letting others lead.

The final thing that occurs to me as I reflect on a life of service — of which I’ve got almost 41 years in uniform, if you count the fun cadet time and the not-fun cadet time — is how I feel about the many times people have thanked me for my service.

It’s thoughtful, and it’s appreciated. It’s different from the Vietnam era, and they mean it mostly for our young warriors. But it always feels a little strange. Because the truth is, I feel like I got a lot more out of being a soldier than I was ever able to give back.

I hit the “I believe” button early and have kept pressure on it. I have had so many great experiences and known so many wonderful people, seen so much of this amazing world, and I have partaken in the camaraderie and pride that comes from being part of something greater than yourself, and working for something that you truly believe in. And who can ask for more out of life than that?

In his fourth and final novel, Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald referred to the brutal World War I battles of Verdun and the Somme as “the Love Battles,” because he couldn’t think of any other explanation, no other force powerful enough to compel so many hundreds of thousands of young men to march straight to their certain deaths, than a sublime love for their countries, for their values, for their heritage and their cultures — for each other.

We often conceive of the life of service as a life of sacrifice, and it is. But it is also, as Fitzgerald implies, a life of love. And I have been blessed with a life full of that love: I have loved every opportunity I’ve had to serve around the world. I have loved my time standing the watch over our homelands. I have loved being a father and a husband. I have loved the men and women with whom I have served. I haven’t loved the Army every day, but I have loved the life and the noble purpose it has provided me. And I have loved being a soldier.

That is the best summation I can give you of the 41 years I’ve spent in uniform—I have loved being a soldier … every day.

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Gen. (ret.) Charles H. Jacoby, Jr. retired from the U.S. Army in December 2014 after nearly 37 years of commissioned service. He commanded at every level of joint and Army service. He was born in 1954 and passed away on April 1, 2025 in Waxhaw, North Carolina. He is survived by his loving wife, Grace, their three boys, CJ, Victor, and Michael, and countless others who were touched by his wisdom, humility, and his example of selfless service.

Image: U.S. Northern Command

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Gen. Charles Jacoby · April 8, 2025

25. Putin’s Spies for Hire: What the U.K.’s Biggest Espionage Trial Revealed about Kremlin Tactics in Wartime Europe

Graphics at the link: https://warontherocks.com/2025/04/putins-spies-for-hire-what-the-u-k-s-biggest-espionage-trial-revealed-about-kremlin-tactics-in-wartime-europe/

Excerpts:

At the time of writing, how the spy ring was uncovered remains unclear. In espionage cases, details of discovery are rarely made public, as they often rely on intelligence sources and methods that are not admissible in court and are kept tightly classified to protect ongoing capabilities.

Crucially, the network’s operational timeline demonstrates a shift in Moscow’s intelligence priorities. Early missions revolved around surveilling Kremlin critics, but after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the clients’ taskings escalated sharply in ambition, urgency, and risk. Moscow no longer sought just information or revenge; it wanted influence, disruption, and military advantage.

Disturbingly, this espionage-for-hire model was never just about six Bulgarians or one courtroom drama. Roussev and Marsalek plotted further ventures, including targeting a Munich-based group investigating China’s Uyghur abuses and offering captured battlefield tech to Beijing. The scope of their ambitions pointed to a marketplace of espionage for hire. Meanwhile, the human cost is ongoing: Christo Grozev lives apart from his family. Roman Dobrokhotov has been warned by police of a second suspected Russian cell operating in the United Kingdom. The war in Ukraine rages on. This may have been the U.K.’s largest-ever spy trial — but it will not be the last.

Putin’s Spies for Hire: What the U.K.’s Biggest Espionage Trial Revealed about Kremlin Tactics in Wartime Europe - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Daniela Richterova · April 8, 2025

In early 2023, in the sleepy English seaside town of Great Yarmouth, a covert operation was quietly revving into gear. Second-hand Chryslers and a Mercedes Viano van were being transformed into mobile spy units — outfitted with tinted windows, cloned foreign license plates, and kitted out with military-grade surveillance tech. International mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catchers — devices that mimic mobile towers to intercept phone data — were to be placed into the blacked-out cars and powered by their batteries. Behind it all was a middle-aged Bulgarian man holed up in a cluttered, three-story, former guesthouse, working tirelessly to configure the IMSIs and build hidden cameras disguised as bottles, fake stones, and a birdhouse, which would allow him to monitor the operation in real time.

Soon, he planned to deploy his operatives to ferry the refitted vehicles across Europe. Their destination: Patch Barracks just outside Stuttgart, Germany — an unassuming U.S. military base housing U.S. European Command and Special Operations Command Europe. Their mission: to circle the base for a months-long surveillance operation designed to grab the ID numbers of mobile phones belonging to Ukrainian soldiers. One year into Russia’s full-scale invasion, these soldiers were believed to be training in the operation of U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems. The ultimate goal: deliver targeting intelligence to Putin’s security services, which could be used to kill the operators and destroy the critical missile batteries.

The operation never got off the ground. On February 8, 2023, as the team was preparing to set off for Stuttgart and begin months of clandestine surveillance around the key U.S. base, the plan was abruptly halted. Officers from SO15, Scotland Yard’s elite counterterrorism and counter-espionage command, moved in, arresting most of the suspects in a coordinated sweep across the United Kingdom. By November 2024, six Bulgarian nationals stood before the Old Bailey — the storied London court known for trying the Kray twin gangsters, an ensemble of Cold War terrorists, and the infamous Portland Spy Ring. During the pre-trial hearings, the group’s top three operatives stepped forward, each with a nervous smirk, and pleaded guilty. The remaining three faced a three-month trial. On March 7, 2025, the jury returned its verdict: guilty. The group was convicted of conspiring to collect information that would be directly or indirectly useful to Russia, explicitly referred to as an enemy during the trial, and of endangering public safety and the U.K.’s national security interests.

This was the largest spy ring ever tried in the United Kingdom. I attended the trial alongside two dozen journalists. The 80,000 Telegram messages, financial, travel records, and court testimonies offered unprecedented access to the inner workings of modern espionage networks, providing a rare glimpse into the Kremlin’s evolving espionage playbook. Here is what we learned.

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The Contractor Network

The trial pulled back the curtain on the anatomy of an unusual espionage structure. Rather than a traditional “spy ring,” led by an experienced intelligence officer or “principal agent” — a senior asset trusted with running other agents — the structure exposed in the Old Bailey resembled a state-commercial contractor relationship. In this multilayered, delegated chain, Russia’s domestic security services — the Federal Security Service (FSB) and military intelligence, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), now officially known as the GU — acted as the “clients.” According to lead Prosecutor Alison Morgan, they were looking to fill a “gap in the market” that emerged following expulsions of Russian spies shortly after the GRU’s 2018 attempt to poison Sergei Skripal. To fill this need, they outsourced operations to a “contract manager,” Jan Marsalek, the Prada-wearing, disgraced, Austrian ex-Wirecard Chief Operating Officer (COO) believed to be hiding in Russia since the company’s collapse in June 2020. Marsalek, who had pre-existing networks of private operatives and longstanding ties to Russian intelligence, appeared to volunteer for FSB or GRU operations — perhaps as a means to sustain his shadowy business ventures — or to ingratiate himself with the government on whose whims his life now depended.

Acting as a liaison with his Russian clients, Marsalek brought on board a U.K.-based “country manager” — that tech-savvy, middle-aged Bulgarian operating from the cluttered three-story guesthouse in Great Yarmouth. Orlin Roussev, with a murky background in private investigation and IT, had met the Wirecard COO in 2015. By 2020, they were plotting operations on behalf of Russia: Marsalek would bid for covert missions, and Roussev would refine them into detailed operational plans. Together, the pair acted as espionage contractors, fulfilling Moscow’s requests and hustling for the next job.

With the client’s approval, Roussev delegated further operational responsibilities to his close associate, Biser Dzhambazov, who acted as second-in-command or “deputy country manager”. The Bulgarian-born medical courier and community organiser based in the United Kingdom assembled a curious crew of amateur, also Bulgarian-born, “sub-contractors” — individuals who were personally or romantically intertwined — with no formal intelligence training. They included: Dzhambazov’s long-term partner and fellow laboratory assistant Katrin Ivanova; his lover and beautician Vanya Gaberova; her ex-boyfriend, a painter and decorator named Tihomir Ivanchev; and Dzhambazov’s close friend and laboratory colleague, mixed martial-arts fighter Ivan Stoyanov. While Roussev and Dzhambazov planned all operations, typically with Marsalek’s input, the four sub-contractors executed them. Referring to them as the “minions,” Roussev kept them at arm’s length, maintaining a degree of insulation from direct fieldwork.

Image: MET Police; visual by Barbora Ruscin.

However, at times, Roussev was forced to step out of the shadows — especially when the “minions” struggled to operate the high-tech gadgets he had assigned for each mission. Fashioning himself as “Q” — a nod to the technology mastermind from the James Bond franchise — Roussev assembled what SO15 described as a “spy factory,” packed with hundreds of surveillance and espionage tools. His arsenal included three IMSI catchers, which the jury heard were valued at around $250,000, nearly a dozen drones, and covert cameras concealed in sunglasses, ties, a Coca-Cola bottle, and even a Minion soft toy. There were also Wi-Fi and GPS jammers, bug detectors, eavesdropping gear, vehicle trackers, and an ID card printer, alongside counterfeit passports and driver’s licenses from nearly a dozen European countries.

This equipment gave Marsalek’s contractors the means to conduct surveillance, identity theft, and collect intelligence in multiple countries, and they were all paid handsomely for this work. Records show Dzhambazov receiving a sum equivalent to $215,000, which he distributed to other network members. The hefty rewards received by Roussev’s sub-contractors are in stark contrast with the paltry amounts paid to so-called gig-economy agents-saboteurs — online recruits hired by Russia to conduct high-risk, one-off surveillance and sabotage operations across Europe.

While well paid, the ring was rife with romantic entanglements and personal drama. Dzhambadzov and Ivanova were in an open relationship, but he secretly began an affair with another member of the spy crew, Vanya Gaberova. To further complicate matters, he also recruited Gaberova’s ex-boyfriend, Tihomir Ivanchev. In a bizarre twist, Dzhambadzov is believed to have faked a brain cancer diagnosis — possibly to cover for his double life and elicit sympathy from his partners.

Tracking Opponents

While uncovering this corporate espionage structure, the trial also offered a rare window into the Kremlin’s evolving intelligence priorities from August 2020 to February 2023. The operations detailed in court spanned several tactics. These included pattern-of-life surveillance of regime critics, classic Soviet-style “active measures” aimed at discrediting adversaries or gaining political advantage, and reconnaissance missions focused on gathering military targeting intelligence. The network used the United Kingdom as a hub to run covert operations across five other European countries — Spain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Montenegro — taking full advantage of the Schengen system to move operatives and equipment freely across borders. Crucially, the evidence reveals how Moscow’s focus shifted and sharpened shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In the first year and a half of its existence, the network was mostly hired to conduct surveillance of key Kremlin opponents or critics. It began with a Telegram message. On December 14, 2020, just hours after a damning report about how Putin’s spies poisoned prominent Russia opposition leader Alexei Navalny was made public, Marsalek contacted the British-based Roussev. “We’d be interested in a Bulgarian guy working for Bellingcat: Christo Grozev,” Marsalek wrote. “Can we look into this guy, or would it raise too many eyebrows?”

Roussev replied with interest, clearly unaware of Grozev’s prominence but intrigued by the opportunity. So began their first big espionage venture. Over the next three years, Christo Grozev, the Bulgarian-born journalist dubbed “modern-day Sherlock Holmes” then serving as Bellingcat’s lead Russia investigator, became a primary target for Roussev’s team of sub-contracted operatives. Bellingcat, the open-source collective that pioneered 21st-century data journalism, had struck a nerve with its forensic exposure of Russian covert operations, and Grozev was at the center of the investigative journalism that uncovered them.

Roussev’s sub-contractors tracked Grozev across Austria, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Spain, monitoring his movements, assessing his vulnerabilities, and considering methods to compromise him. Plans were considered to steal his devices, burn his property, or honeytrap him — a tactic where seduction is used to gain trust, extract information, or compromise the target. One particularly elaborate proposal as heard in court involved feeding Bellingcat false intelligence about a Wuhan lab leak, only to later expose the story as fake; in this way the group could “publicly ruin” the organization. The most chilling moment came when Marsalek told Roussev: “Some f**ing genius just suggested again to kidnap Grozev and take him to Moscow. These people never learn .” Roussev, unfazed by the Russian demand, immediately started suggesting ways this task could be achieved, referencing the Mossad’s 1960 capture of Adolf Eichmann as inspiration. He wrote, “If you are serious about it…and if Grozev is in Bulgaria I have the resources to kidnap, drug him and lock him up in one secure cave… We will need a plane or a boat…” Marsalek laughed the idea off — barely. “It’s likely a Hydra—cut off one head and two new ones emerge. But if they want it, I’m happy to give it a shot. It’d be a good project. ” Ultimately, the network’s plots stopped at surveillance, several attempted break-ins, and the theft of one of Grozev’s laptops. But it was only the start of a wider campaign against Kremlin critics abroad.

A year into tailing Grozev, the network turned its attention to a high-profile Russian journalist: Roman Dobrokhotov, editor-in-chief of The Insider. Tracked from Budapest to Berlin in November 2021, he found himself seated next to Roussev’s operative, Katrin Ivanova, on a flight. She filmed him with a hidden camera and relayed her observations to Roussev in real-time via Telegram. In August 2022, Marsalek revived the idea of abduction. “We might get the opportunity to kidnap RD,” he wrote. “Any ideas?” Roussev proposed several, including a maritime operation dubbed Operation Boat Trip. Other suggestions were disturbingly theatrical, such as assassinating Dobrokhotov by burning him alive, spraying him with VX — the highly-toxic nerve agent used in 2017 by North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to assassinate his half-brother — or poisoning him by taking inspiration from Israel’s 1997 failed poisoning attempt on Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal.

Neither the journalists nor the other two targets contracted out to Roussev’s team — a Russian investigator exiled in Montenegro and a Kazakh dissident living in London — were ultimately harmed. However, it was the obsessive, years-long pursuit of these targets that laid bare how far Russia’s security services were willing to go — and how dangerously willing their amateur subcontractors had become.

Image: Barbora Ruscin.

Upping the Ante

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the tasks handed to Roussev’s team shifted from targeting opponents to carrying out missions driven with more strategic objectives. Shortly after the start of the war, the Kremlin began using this covert network to not only track its opponents but also to manipulate perceptions, win over allies, and gain advantage in a protracted war. The operations also grew more urgent and more dangerous. Roussev’s team were no longer just eyes and ears — they were also expected to create realities favorable to Moscow’s interests.

Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, Marsalek’s network was asked to kickstart an anti-Ukraine graffiti and sticker propaganda campaign in Austria and most likely Germany. Although these activities were not center stage during the Old Bailey proceedings, this active measure marked a key shift in Moscow’s tasking. The plot was simple: Roussev’s team would spray graffiti and distribute stickers suggesting links between Ukraine, President Zelensky, and right-wing extremism. Slogans such as “I love Azov” — referencing a Ukrainian battalion associated with right-wing ideas that Putin used as a pretext for invasion — and the battalion’s logo were placed in sensitive locations, including the Jewish Museum’s Judenplatz in Vienna.

The network was also hired to produce anti-Russia stickers — images of pigs crossed out with the slogan “Russian,” and yellow labels with a struck-through “Z.” These were to be plastered on Vienna’s Soviet war memorial and Russian-owned shops and hotels, as well as the luxurious Hotel Sacher. The aim was most likely to create the illusion of an organised, aggressive, anti-Russian campaign sponsored by Ukraine, which would allow Moscow to portray itself as a victim of Russophobia. In the summer of 2022, the team located where Vienna-based journalists lunched and targeted these cafes and nearby benches. Marsalek was pleased but warned, “But let’s be careful please, it must not look artificial. The journalists are rats but not stupid.”

In September 2022, Marsalek’s network escalated its efforts by targeting the Kazakh Embassy in London, located near Trafalgar Square and some of the capital’s most exclusive clubs. The objective was to stage a fake protest, creating the illusion of a Kazakh opposition group in exile. Russia intended to pass this fabricated intelligence to Kazakh officials to position itself as a useful ally in suppressing dissent. Appearing helpful, the move would also aim to repair Moscow’s strained relationship with Astana, a key regional player that balances ties between Moscow and the EU.

Roussev’s “minions” were assigned to spray fake pig’s blood on the embassy walls, followed by a message claiming it symbolized the blood of innocent Kazakhs on the hands of the regime. In an unusual twist, Marsalek was to become directly involved, orchestrating a letter-writing campaign to U.S. and European officials urging sanctions against Kazakhstan and its leadership for supporting Putin. The aim was to deceive Kazakh authorities into believing Russia was protecting their regime’s internet, tighten Astana’s dependency on Moscow, and reshape regional dynamics through manufactured threats.

In October 2022, Marsalek upped the ante. Moscow’s appetite for operations abroad had clearly risen. He messaged Roussev with a bold request. “…can we use the IMSI catcher in Germany? We need to spy on Ukrainians at a German military base.” Roussev, unfazed, replied, “Sure we can… both are sitting and gathering dust in my Indiana Jones garage .” The base in question was Patch Barracks near Stuttgart, believed by Marsalek to be training Ukrainian troops to use the Patriot missile defense systems — highly mobile surface-to-air interceptors vital to Ukraine’s defensive efforts against Russian aerial assaults. The goal of the mission was to gather phone data from individuals inside the base, particularly mobile identifiers of Ukrainian soldiers.

Roussev sprang into action. He dispatched Dzhambazov and Ivanova on a covert reconnaissance mission to scout the base’s perimeter and identify ideal spots, such as parking lots and apartments, where the spy kit could be deployed. After they returned, Roussev moved to the next phase: transforming second-hand vehicles into mobile intelligence units. His team refitted Chryslers and a Mercedes with dark-tinted windows, cloned license plates, and two IMSIs catchers. The plan was set: the team would launch a high-risk surveillance mission to extract digital fingerprints of Ukrainian soldiers — intelligence Moscow could use to track and target them on the battlefield.

Just days after Roussev confirmed to Marsalek that the vehicles and operatives were ready, the plan, which the prosecutor argued had “potential to damage U.S., Allied and Ukrainian interests, at a crucial time,” was dismantled in dramatic fashion. On February 8, 2023, Roussev, his deputy country manager, and the four sub-contractors were arrested, halting what would later be described as the largest counter-espionage operation in U.K. history.

Although the network never made it to Germany or staged the fake anti-Kazakh protest, its exposure laid bare an important chapter from Russia’s contemporary espionage playbook. This was not classic Cold War spycraft. It was espionage by contract. The Kremlin had effectively outsourced sensitive intelligence work to a decentralized network of private operatives, mirroring how governments contract out defense or infrastructure projects. The structure — layered, fragmented, and packed with amateurs — was arguably not primarily designed to ensure deniability. Rather, the arrangement filled the intelligence void following the 2018 wave of expulsions and those that followed the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, aimed to increase the Kremlin’s operational capability, speed, and flexibility. The main contractors, Marsalek and Roussev, realized the enormous monetary value of this opportunity and hired complete amateurs to carry out Russia’s outsourced operations. However, this dangerous mix bred chaos, incompetence, and risk. In the end, it was this model that helped unravel the entire operation.

At the time of writing, how the spy ring was uncovered remains unclear. In espionage cases, details of discovery are rarely made public, as they often rely on intelligence sources and methods that are not admissible in court and are kept tightly classified to protect ongoing capabilities.

Crucially, the network’s operational timeline demonstrates a shift in Moscow’s intelligence priorities. Early missions revolved around surveilling Kremlin critics, but after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the clients’ taskings escalated sharply in ambition, urgency, and risk. Moscow no longer sought just information or revenge; it wanted influence, disruption, and military advantage.

Disturbingly, this espionage-for-hire model was never just about six Bulgarians or one courtroom drama. Roussev and Marsalek plotted further ventures, including targeting a Munich-based group investigating China’s Uyghur abuses and offering captured battlefield tech to Beijing. The scope of their ambitions pointed to a marketplace of espionage for hire. Meanwhile, the human cost is ongoing: Christo Grozev lives apart from his family. Roman Dobrokhotov has been warned by police of a second suspected Russian cell operating in the United Kingdom. The war in Ukraine rages on. This may have been the U.K.’s largest-ever spy trial — but it will not be the last.

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Daniela Richterova, Ph.D., is associate professor in Intelligence Studies at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She specializes in the history of Cold War espionage, counterterrorism and state-based threats. She is author of Watching the Jackals: Prague’s Covert Liaisons with Terrorists and Revolutionaries. Bsky: @drichterova.bsky.social * Insta: @drichterova_kcl * LinkedIn.

Image: Midjourney and the Crown Prosecution Service.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Daniela Richterova · April 8, 2025

26. The New US Tariffs Are a Wake-Up Call For ASEAN

Some interesting arguments.

Excerpts:

Trump’s tariffs represent not merely a trade dispute, but a structural rupture in the international economic order that has prevailed since World War II. This unprecedented crisis will also pose a crucial test of ASEAN’s unity and resilience. If ASEAN responds piecemeal – country by country, sector by sector – it will lose ground. But if it acts collectively, it can emerge stronger, tempered by the economic crisis.

To begin with, the region must deepen intra-ASEAN economic integration by accelerating initiatives such as the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement upgrade, further harmonizing standards, and reducing non-tariff barriers to intra-ASEAN trade. Investment in regional infrastructure, digital trade, and sustainable industries can create new engines of growth, less dependent on volatile external markets. Crucially, ASEAN must also present a unified voice in global forums like the WTO and the G-20, advocating for fair and open trade.

Above all, policies must be crafted with people at the center. Social safety nets, upskilling programs, and SME support mechanisms must be scaled up to cushion Southeast Asian citizens from the impact of the current global shifts. A more connected and compassionate ASEAN – one that not only competes but also fosters trust – will help determine whether ASEAN can successfully weather the coming storm.

The New US Tariffs Are a Wake-Up Call For ASEAN

If the bloc fails to prioritize human rights in its response to the coming economic turmoil, it will emerge more divided, more unequal, and less free.

https://thediplomat.com/2025/04/the-new-us-tariffs-are-a-wake-up-call-for-asean/

By Lee Chean Chung

April 08, 2025

On April 4, in a move that has sent tremors through global markets, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a sweeping series of country-specific tariffs. This included harsh levies on all 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Justified by trade imbalances, alleged unfair subsidies, and national security concerns, Washington’s decision signals a serious recalibration of global trade dynamics – and places Southeast Asia directly in the line of fire.

Effective from April 9, the tariffs, which range from 10 percent (in the case of Singapore) to nearly 50 percent (in the case of Cambodia), will apply to almost all products exported from ASEAN countries to the U.S., with only a few exceptions. For individual ASEAN economies, the implications could well be profound. Many have long depended on export-led growth, with the United States playing a crucial role as a major market.

The claim that developing nations have taken advantage of the U.S. economy overlooks the fact that American consumers have reaped the benefits of affordable, high-quality goods for decades. These products are manufactured through the tireless labor of workers across the Global South, including many Southeast Asians.

These new tariffs threaten to disrupt global supply chains, deter investment, and slow GDP growth, at a time when ASEAN nations urgently need robust economic performance to combat poverty, improve education, and address climate change.

At the regional level, fragmented trade flows risk weakening ASEAN’s collective influence in the global economy. As U.S. measures weaken or sever interconnected supply chains, intra-ASEAN trade may falter, especially if member states begin adopting inward-looking policies to protect their own domestic industries.

ASEAN’s status as a unified economic bloc, which is projected to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2030, risks being undermined if countries fail to coordinate responses to these external shocks.

Beyond economic metrics lies the likely human toll of the Trump tariffs. Millions of working-class citizens –particularly in manufacturing hubs like Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam – face the grim prospects of declining export demand, reduced factory output, and job losses. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which make up more than 90 percent of ASEAN businesses, are especially vulnerable. Operating on narrow margins and often lacking access to credit, many SMEs will struggle to absorb the impact of new tariffs or pivot to alternative markets.

Consumers, especially, will feel the pain. As demand softens and supply chains shift, imported goods will become costlier and scarcer. The situation could worsen if the U.S. dollar strengthens or interest rates remain high, which could cause inflation in essential goods such as food, fuel, and drugs. These inflationary pressures will disproportionately affect lower-income households, deepening inequality across a region still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and grappling with the rising cost of living. Without meaningful interventions by Southeast Asian governments, these economic shocks will undermine people’s dignity, security, and livelihoods, and could potentially translate into social crises.

Moreover, history shows us that economic instability often leads to political instability. In Southeast Asia, where democratic institutions in several countries remain fragile, there is a real risk that this economic shock could fuel populism, xenophobia, or authoritarian consolidation.

Governments, desperate to maintain control or stave off unrest, may curtail freedoms, silence dissent, or target vulnerable communities. Civil society, independent media, and labor unions, already under pressure in parts of the region, could face greater restrictions. The narrowing of civic space and erosion of democratic checks and balances must not be seen as collateral damage, but as a central concern in how we navigate this crisis.

If ASEAN fails to respond with rights-based and democratic governance at its core, the region may emerge from this crisis more divided, more unequal, and less free.

Trump’s tariffs represent not merely a trade dispute, but a structural rupture in the international economic order that has prevailed since World War II. This unprecedented crisis will also pose a crucial test of ASEAN’s unity and resilience. If ASEAN responds piecemeal – country by country, sector by sector – it will lose ground. But if it acts collectively, it can emerge stronger, tempered by the economic crisis.

To begin with, the region must deepen intra-ASEAN economic integration by accelerating initiatives such as the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement upgrade, further harmonizing standards, and reducing non-tariff barriers to intra-ASEAN trade. Investment in regional infrastructure, digital trade, and sustainable industries can create new engines of growth, less dependent on volatile external markets. Crucially, ASEAN must also present a unified voice in global forums like the WTO and the G-20, advocating for fair and open trade.

Above all, policies must be crafted with people at the center. Social safety nets, upskilling programs, and SME support mechanisms must be scaled up to cushion Southeast Asian citizens from the impact of the current global shifts. A more connected and compassionate ASEAN – one that not only competes but also fosters trust – will help determine whether ASEAN can successfully weather the coming storm.

Authors

Guest Author

Lee Chean Chung

Lee Chean Chung is a Member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya, a member of the Malaysian Parliamentary Select Committee Member on Economy and Finance, and a member of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights.

27. A retired Green Beret in Congress wants to ban GNC stores from military bases

I had no idea GNC was owned by a Chinese company.

But do we really need legislation? Can't the military (and specifically the exchange system) just take action based on common sense?

A retired Green Beret in Congress wants to ban GNC stores from military bases

Republican Rep. Pat Harrigan's bill would ban companies with owners based in China, Russia, North Korea or Iran from operating on military bases. GNC was bought by a Chinese company in 2020.

Patty Nieberg

Published Apr 7, 2025 4:59 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg

A retired Green Beret now in Congress wants to ban a chain of supplement and nutrition supply stores from military bases because of ties to Chinese owners.

With a bill titled the “Military Installation Retail Security Act,” Rep. Pat Harrigan, a Republican from North Carolina, would ban companies from operating on military bases if they were owned or financially controlled by entities in based in China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran.

GNC, a nationwide retail chain that sells protein powders and other nutritional supplements, has 75 outlets on U.S. military bases, most near or within Base Exchanges or other central shopping facilities.

The chain began as a family-owned store in Pittsburgh in 1935 and now has more than 2,300 stores in the U.S, and 1,300 others in 50 countries. A GNC spokesperson told Task & Purpose that the company operated stores on military bases as a U.S.-owned company for more than two decades before it was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2020 by Harbin Pharmaceutical Group Co, a Chinese firm.

GNC is one of the most popular stores across the U.S. for gym-goers and health fanatics to buy protein powders, nutritional and dietary supplements. In a post on X, Harrigan alleged that the Chinese government could be “potentially collecting personal data from our troops, including elite units like our Green Berets and Navy SEALs.”

Harrigan’s bill follows growing concerns over Chinese-owned businesses near military bases, like a bitcoin farm near a nuclear site and an agribusiness facility near Grand Forks Air Force Base.

“We owe it to our servicemen and women to protect them from the moment they step onto base. That means locking down their data, cutting off foreign influence, and shutting the door on adversaries who never should’ve been allowed on our military bases to begin with,” Harrigan wrote on X.

An official with GNC disputed Harrigan’s contention that the stores could provide information to Chinese intelligence services.

“We are run by a U.S.-based leadership team and are governed by strict U.S. security protocols. Customer data is protected by third-party controls approved by the Department of Defense, and no data is shared with or accessible to our parent company,” Nick Sero, a spokesperson for GNC said in an email to Task & Purpose. “We remain committed to protecting our customers, following our compliance, and meeting the trust placed in us by the U.S. military community.”

In 2018, the Committee on Foreign Investment looked into the potential GNC acquisition and found no national security concerns.

“In the event of a directive to close these stores due to national security concerns, AAFES would exercise a 180-day notice provision to close each individual location,” Chris Ward, a spokesperson for AAFES told Task & Purpose in a statement.

Supplements are popular in the military

An Army Public Health Center study found that active-duty troops were more likely to use dietary supplements than civilians. The broad use of supplements across the force led to the 2022 Department of Defense policy on use of dietary supplements which requires that all service members receive training on dietary supplements and education on banned products. In 2024, the House jumped on the fitness supplement bandwagon and asked the military to consider adding a muscle-building supplement called creatine to the prepackaged Meal, Ready to Eat, or MREs.

GNC has long-term contracts with on-base exchanges like AAFES, NEXCOM, and MCX which Harrigan’s office says are exempt from federal contracting standards that require disclosures of foreign ownership. The bill would also require more reviews of on-base retailers with foreign ties.

In June 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department announced a proposed update to expand the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’ jurisdiction over foreign real estate purchases. In January, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced the Protecting Military Installations and Ranges Act to expand CFIUS jurisdiction over investments with links to China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea, that are within 100 miles of a base or 50 miles of a military training route, special use airspace, controlled firing area, or operations area.

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Patty Nieberg

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

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg

28. How Trump Could Dethrone the Dollar

We must protect the dollar as the reserve currency if we want to maintain our military power. Without it we will not be able to fund a $1 trillion military budget.

Excerpts:

Even if these threats do not dethrone the dollar entirely, any reduction in its standing would have serious consequences for the United States and the world. The dollar’s reserve status provides immense benefits to the United States, including lower interest rates on government debt and the power to impose hard-hitting sanctions. Other countries also find operating in the global economy easier with a readily transferrable, highly liquid, trusted currency used by most actors. The result of the dollar’s decline will be higher costs, more complicated trade, and reduced living standards—at least until another currency comes along to replace it.

The dollar has not always been the world’s reserve currency or the currency of choice for international trade. In the nineteenth century, it was the pound sterling that enjoyed that status, and British financiers would have felt secure in its reign. The United Kingdom had deep, liquid capital markets, and the British empire was the world’s largest economy and the central player in global trade. Yet after two world wars and decades of political and economic decline, London watched as sterling’s global status ebbed away. There was nothing inevitable about the pound’s slide or the dollar’s emergence, just as there is nothing inevitable about the dollar’s potential demise today. Choices, not destiny, determine reserve currencies; if the dollar is finally dethroned, it will be a disaster of the Trump administration’s own making.

How Trump Could Dethrone the Dollar

Foreign Affairs · by More by Edward Fishman · April 8, 2025

The World’s Reserve Currency May Not Survive the Weaponization of U.S. Economic Power

April 8, 2025

Outside a currency exchange office in Moscow, Russia, March 2025 Evgenia Novozhenina / Reuters

EDWARD FISHMAN is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP). He is the author of Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare.

GAUTAM JAIN is a Senior Research Scholar at CGEP.

RICHARD NEPHEW is a Senior Research Scholar at CGEP and an Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has served in various roles at the U.S. National Security Council and the U.S. State Department.

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The U.S. dollar has been the dominant currency in global trade and finance for more than seven decades. Over that time, little has ever truly threatened its position. Global economic systems operate with significant inertia. Major players, from governments to banks to multinational corporations, prefer tried and tested mechanisms for conducting trade and finance. Breathless headlines frequently declare that countries are seeking alternatives to the dollar, that a new consortium is attempting to create a rival currency, or that the latest political crisis in Washington will finally end the dollar’s reserve status. But through decades of changing economic growth around the world, periods of turmoil in global markets, and questions about the future of U.S. economic policy, the dollar’s dominance has remained secure.

Until now. On April 2, U.S. President Donald Trump announced steep new tariffs on almost every U.S. trading partner. His plans, which have sent U.S. and global stock markets plunging, are the latest example of a consistent theme in his approach to governance: the weaponization of U.S. economic power. Trump has slapped tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico in response to a variety of purported ills and reinvigorated the maximum pressure campaign against Iran begun in his first term. Combined with Trump’s attacks on the rule of law, his clumsy, erratic attempts to weaponize Washington’s economic advantages pose the greatest threat so far to the dollar’s status as a reserve currency.

Should that threat be realized, the United States and the world will be worse off. Without the dollar to ease trade and financial flows, growth will be slower and people everywhere will be poorer. And U.S. isolation will not bring the manufacturing revival the Trump administration claims to be aiming for, as imported raw materials grow more expensive and capital markets dry up. The true result of a declining dollar will be the demise of the very economic power Trump is attempting to wield.

COMMON CURRENCY

Although the dollar overtook the British pound sterling in the mid-1920s as the currency of choice in global foreign exchange reserves, its stature as the world’s reserve currency was secured only at the Bretton Woods conference toward the end of World War II. That conference resulted in new institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and a new system in which currencies were pegged to the U.S. dollar, which was convertible to gold at a fixed price. Both the institutions and the dollar peg put currency stability at the center of the global economy. Since then, the dollar has retained its commanding position through multiple upheavals, surviving even the turmoil that followed U.S. President Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to break the fixed dollar-to-gold exchange rate.

The dollar’s status depends on several features that any currency must possess if it hopes to make up the lion’s share of most countries’ foreign exchange reserves. At the most basic level, such a currency must be liquid—that is, easily bought and sold—and most people, banks, and businesses must agree to use it in their transactions. The dollar has long been dominant on both fronts. For more than three decades, between 85 and 90 percent of trades between currencies on foreign exchange markets have involved dollars. On the financial messaging system known as SWIFT, which international banks use to exchange tens of trillions of dollars each day, approximately 50 percent of transactions take place in dollars, up from around 35 percent a decade ago.

The world’s reserve currency doesn’t just need to be liquid and widely used; it also needs to function as the common unit of account for globally traded goods. Around the world, sales of commodities from oil to metals to crops are almost universally denominated in dollars. Some 54 percent of global trade invoices use dollar amounts, even though the United States accounts for only around ten percent of global trade.

The final requirement for a successful reserve currency is that people, businesses, and central banks consider it a reliable store of value. For that, the currency’s home country needs to have large and open financial markets with attractive investment opportunities predictably governed by the rule of law. Low and stable inflation helps, too, so the currency’s holders know the value of their assets will not evaporate overnight. The U.S. equity market is the largest in the world, with an overall value of $63 trillion at the end of 2024—amounting to nearly half the total value of the world’s equities, even after this year’s market rout. The U.S. economy is open to foreign investment: there are few restrictions on bringing capital into and out of the country. The Federal Reserve is widely viewed as independent and credible. And U.S. courts and regulators are trusted around the world to resolve business disputes, govern the economy predictably, and prevent significant corruption.

It also helps that the U.S. government bond market is the largest in the world, at around $28 trillion, over a quarter of the global market for government debt. U.S. government bonds (usually called Treasuries) are also the most liquid form of government debt, with around $900 billion in average daily transactions. That ease of buying and selling gives central banks comfort that Treasuries are a safe place to park cash. Taken together, these factors—liquidity, widespread use, and safety—make it hardly surprising that the dollar makes up the majority of international reserves and has done so for decades.

ONE OF A KIND

The dollar’s other great advantage as the world’s reserve currency is that it faces no credible challengers. The Chinese renminbi looms on the horizon, but China lacks open and liquid financial markets, one of the most important requirements for a reserve currency. The renminbi does not float freely on foreign currency exchanges. The Chinese government restrains the free flow of capital through measures such as controls on inbound and outbound investments and restrictions on international bank transfers. Foreigners face regulatory hurdles when investing in Chinese financial markets, including the local bond market, which also lacks the liquidity and depth of the world’s leading debt markets. China has attempted to promote its home-grown competitor to SWIFT, the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), especially since sanctions excluded some of Russia’s largest banks from SWIFT in 2022. But so far, CIPS has attracted just 0.2 percent of SWIFT’s transaction volume.

The dollar’s closest competitor is the euro, which meets many of the conditions for use as a global reserve currency. The eurozone has open and liquid capital markets, and the euro is the world’s second-most widely traded currency and the second-most commonly held reserve currency. Yet the eurozone does not include a fiscal union, and the bloc’s largest country, Germany, was, until earlier this year, reluctant to issue significant quantities of government debt. The lack of a unified eurozone fiscal policy led to the 2010-12 European debt crisis, which in turn caused a sharp drop in euro trading volumes on foreign exchange markets, euro-denominated SWIFT transactions, and the euro’s share in central bank reserves. The eurozone’s design flaws have been compounded by the fact that U.S. equities have returned nearly five times as much as their European peers over the past 15 years, leading asset allocators to concentrate investments in the United States. To make matters worse for the euro, the geopolitical threat to Europe posed by Russian imperialism has given central bankers yet another reason to steer clear of the currency.

Efforts to promote other upstart reserve currencies have so far gone nowhere. The BRICS group, a club of major non-Western economies, has floated a potential new currency that would compete with the dollar. In the near term, at least, this new currency, which will purportedly be backed by a basket of currencies from the participating countries, will pose no threat to dollar dominance. Not only is there no plan to create a common monetary or fiscal union within the BRICS, but the countries involved also differ widely in their domestic and international priorities. A currency created by a group far more fragmented than even the eurozone has no serious prospect of becoming the default choice for global business, especially since the BRICS has not yet explained how it might work.

Nor have shinier alternatives, such as bitcoin and gold, found much success. Cryptocurrencies lack many of the necessary characteristics to function as reserve currencies, including liquidity, price stability, and backing from either a government or another clear source of value. Gold has been used as currency for millennia and formed the basis for many monetary systems until relatively recently, but its weaknesses are now apparent. For one thing, governments cannot control the supply, so relying on gold constrains their ability to respond to economic crises.

THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT

Commanding as the dollar may be, Trump’s return to office has created a genuine threat to its status for the first time in generations. Given the lack of ready alternatives, the damage is unlikely to be immediately fatal, but the risk, and probable pace, of terminal decline has increased. At the least, Trump’s actions will erode the factors supporting the dollar’s dominance.

In his first weeks in office, Trump pursued policies that led to a strong dollar, but since then, the greenback has slumped against other currencies. At first, the dollar rallied as U.S. interest rates rose on the back of Trump’s inflationary policies, including tariffs, deportations, and proposed tax cuts. Those same policies, however, and the economic uncertainty they have created, are now weighing on the dollar, as markets expect them to hurt U.S. growth substantially, especially following the announcement of Trump’s aggressive and far-reaching global tariffs. Supply-chain disruptions driven by the trade war, labor shortages caused by deportations, and overall policy uncertainty are hurting business and consumer sentiment, leading to lower spending, lower growth, and lower interest rates. Largely as a result of Trump’s policies, European stocks outperformed the leading U.S. stock index by almost 20 percent over the first quarter of 2025, the biggest margin in more than three decades.

Look beyond the immediate horizon, and the risks of Trump’s policies are even greater. To begin with, Trump’s dramatic global tariffs, in addition to destabilizing the U.S. economy, will irrevocably damage the credibility of the United States as a trading partner. This will, in turn, undermine the need for and use of the dollar. U.S. allies will suffer the gravest harm, since many of them will face higher tariff rates than U.S. adversaries. Israel, Japan, and the EU, for example, are all subject to higher rates than Iran or Russia. Economists have shown that countries are more likely to hold reserves of currencies from their geopolitical partners. By alienating the United States’ closest allies, Trump is pushing away the countries that have been the most willing to rely on dollar-facilitated trade. Trump’s decision to turn against Ukraine in its conflict with Russia and his open questioning of NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense commitment are amplifying concerns about the United States’ willingness to keep its promises. As countries search for ways to limit their exposure to Trump’s whims, they are unlikely to rapidly reduce their dollar dependency, but in time, growing trade relations with China and other major economies could give businesses an incentive to replace the dollar in some transactions.

Sanctions will provide another reason to look elsewhere. The administration’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran and the forceful measures it has deployed against Venezuela indicate that the already widespread use of sanctions could ramp up even further in Trump’s second term. As more countries come under U.S. sanctions, they will be motivated to do what Russia did after 2018 and reduce their reliance on the dollar for cross-border trade and currency reserves. Even if these countries don’t shift away from the dollar entirely or replace it with a single dominant alternative, other payment systems like CIPS could start looking more attractive. China is the biggest trading partner for roughly two-thirds of the world’s countries; if CIPS becomes the only way to do business with Chinese companies, financial institutions in those places will have a powerful incentive to sign up. Rather than reshaping their trade patterns to fit U.S. preferences, countries will reshape their financial infrastructure to keep trade flowing.

Trump’s actions will erode the factors supporting the dollar’s dominance.

Perhaps the biggest danger to the dollar’s dominance comes from Trump’s threats to the rule of law, which will shake the foundation on which the dollar’s standing rests. The risk is not only that the administration may precipitate a constitutional crisis by defying the courts but also that a more corrupt and personalist form of government may become entrenched under a president inclined to cut deals with his friends and punish his enemies. A serious impediment to adoption of the Chinese renminbi is the rule of law, or rather the lack of it: companies would rather end up in an American courtroom than a Chinese one any day of the week. Should this U.S. advantage erode, the results could be catastrophic.

U.S. government debt, which the Congressional Budget Office has projected will rise from 100 percent of GDP to almost 150 percent by 2050, provides an additional risk. If Congress cuts taxes further without curbing spending (regardless of the budgetary tricks used in the process), the resulting debt will mean that a greater share of government revenue will go to interest payments rather than other spending priorities, hurting long-term economic growth and the appeal of U.S. assets. Some in the administration’s orbit have floated ideas, often under the title of a proposed Mar-a-Lago accord, that would make this problem significantly worse. These include compelling foreign investors to swap their U.S. government bond holdings for zero interest hundred-year bonds, which would hurt the credibility of the United States as a borrower and, by extension, the dollar’s standing. Forcing countries to take a loss on their U.S. bond holdings will scare away future buyers and, if the swap is involuntary, may even be classified as a default by credit rating agencies.

Finally, if the economy weakens, as many Wall Street banks are now projecting, Trump could find himself on a collision course with the Fed, as happened in his first term. The Fed has indicated that it will need more clarity on the inflationary effect of Trump’s tariffs before cutting interest rates further, while Trump is already demanding a looser monetary policy to stimulate a slowing economy—pressure that is likely only to increase. Should Trump’s pressure succeed, he will damage the Fed’s independence and credibility, which will, in turn, hurt the dollar’s global standing as countries begin to fear that politics, not economics, is steering U.S. monetary policy. The Fed anchors the entire dollar-based system, and once it has been politicized for one reason, it will be easier to politicize its operations for another. Central banks in such places as Canada, Japan, and Europe would, for example, rightly worry that, in a crisis, a politicized Fed might even cut off their prized ability to borrow dollars through swap lines in an effort to extract concessions.

Even if these threats do not dethrone the dollar entirely, any reduction in its standing would have serious consequences for the United States and the world. The dollar’s reserve status provides immense benefits to the United States, including lower interest rates on government debt and the power to impose hard-hitting sanctions. Other countries also find operating in the global economy easier with a readily transferrable, highly liquid, trusted currency used by most actors. The result of the dollar’s decline will be higher costs, more complicated trade, and reduced living standards—at least until another currency comes along to replace it.

The dollar has not always been the world’s reserve currency or the currency of choice for international trade. In the nineteenth century, it was the pound sterling that enjoyed that status, and British financiers would have felt secure in its reign. The United Kingdom had deep, liquid capital markets, and the British empire was the world’s largest economy and the central player in global trade. Yet after two world wars and decades of political and economic decline, London watched as sterling’s global status ebbed away. There was nothing inevitable about the pound’s slide or the dollar’s emergence, just as there is nothing inevitable about the dollar’s potential demise today. Choices, not destiny, determine reserve currencies; if the dollar is finally dethroned, it will be a disaster of the Trump administration’s own making.

EDWARD FISHMAN is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP). He is the author of Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. During the Obama administration, he served as Russia and Europe Sanctions Lead and as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State.

GAUTAM JAIN is a Senior Research Scholar at CGEP.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Edward Fishman · April 8, 2025

29. The Dangerous New Civil-Military Bargain

We must never fear having frank and objective discussions about civil-military relations. I am not sure this passes an objectiveness test but it contributes to the necessary discussion nonetheless.

Excerpts:

The bargain that the Pentagon’s new civilian leadership is pushing on the U.S. military is a bad deal for the country—and for the military itself. Subject to partisan litmus tests, military leaders might be wary of offering advice that contradicts the administration’s priorities. They may skew their views toward what the president wants to hear rather than what objective assessments say about the costs, risks, and benefits of military operations, from the war in Ukraine to air strikes on the Houthis. That reticence could conceivably involve suppressing concerns about how the U.S. military’s increasing involvement in domestic missions is placing strains on resources and readiness.

The civilian Pentagon leadership’s prioritization of internal security missions will take time and attention away from external challenges that are more in the military’s traditional wheelhouse, including in the Asia-Pacific. That distraction will be even greater if the military’s growing domestic role, or its permissive new approach to weighing civilian harm in overseas operations, embroils it in public controversy. To avoid these potentially destabilizing effects, military leaders will need to explain what the country stands to lose if the military devotes excess time, resources, and attention to domestic operations and fails to adhere carefully to the laws of war.

Defense experts must raise the alarm about the Trump administration’s emerging vision for the U.S. military. The military has a nonpartisan tradition for a reason. It enables officers to offer candid advice to the administration, ensuring an unbiased vetting of decisions on the use of force. Nonpartisanship also helps the military maintain the public’s trust. If Trump and Hegseth succeed in imposing their new bargain, the U.S. military will no longer excel at its main purpose: defending American citizens against serious threats from abroad.

The Dangerous New Civil-Military Bargain

Foreign Affairs · by More by Risa Brooks · April 8, 2025

Trump’s Demands for Loyalty Will Weaken the U.S. Armed Forces

Risa Brooks

April 8, 2025

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth tours a military base, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, March 2025 U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Madelyn Keech / Reuters

RISA BROOKS is Allis-Chalmers Professor of Political Science at Marquette University.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has spearheaded a dizzying array of controversial changes at the Pentagon. In late February, he fired General Charles Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the navy chief, as well as top lawyers for the army, navy, and air force. While prioritizing domestic missions at the U.S. border with Mexico—and testing the precedents for military involvement there—Hegseth has ordered the “disestablishment” of the Office of Net Assessment, which supported planning for future wars, including against China. Meanwhile, Hegseth’s campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the Pentagon has led the Defense Department to remove from its websites thousands of images of Black, Latino, and female service members from Arlington National Cemetery’s online memorials as well as references to the Black baseball player Jackie Robinson’s military service and to the Navajo code talkers’ secret operations during World War II. Although some of these images have been restored after a public backlash, vast swaths of less-known military history have been wiped from Defense Department sites. (President Donald Trump is also reportedly planning a four-mile military parade, at an estimated cost of $92 million, to be held on June 14—the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army, which also happens to be Trump’s 79th birthday.)

Each of these measures is shocking on its own. Together, they reveal a much larger transformation unfolding in U.S. civil-military relations. The Pentagon’s civilian leaders are pushing a new bargain with the U.S. military. The uniformed military, resolutely nonpartisan by tradition, tradition, and law, will now be expected to align itself with the administration’s partisan priorities and echo its ideological worldview. Officers will be required to prioritize domestic security operations, including at the border, against cartels and even against U.S. citizens—a significant departure from the military’s core mandate to protect the country from external threats. In exchange, commanders will be given more operational autonomy in overseas conflicts, including permission to disregard civilian casualties when executing their missions.

This new orientation is dangerous for the U.S. military and for the country it serves. A military that is absorbed in controversial internal security missions will lose public trust and be less prepared to protect the United States in wars against foreign adversaries. Military leaders fearful of losing their jobs or of being marginalized will have few incentives to advise their superiors on the risks or costs of military operations that are at odds with the Trump administration’s priorities. And overseas, a permissive attitude toward civilian harm will degrade U.S. influence with allies and partners and could invite significant blowback that damages U.S. national security.

FALLING STANDARDS

Nonpartisanship is a crucial element of the U.S. military’s professional ethic. Officers are appointed and promoted based on merit, not because they hold particular ideological views or align with a certain party. Past presidents and civilian officials have for the most part respected this tradition.

The Pentagon’s current leadership has signaled that it has little time and patience for this tradition, indicating instead that it expects military leaders to fall in line with its ideological worldview. Hegseth has given no clear reasoning for why top officers such as Brown and Franchetti were fired, claiming simply that Brown is “not the right man for the moment.” But there are no reported complaints about either military chief’s performance, and Hegseth’s anti-DEI views loom large. In his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth speculated that Brown was made chairman because he is Black and accused him of supporting efforts to increase diversity in the military. The secretary similarly lambasted Franchetti in the book, questioning her qualifications and suggesting that she was given the navy’s top job only because she is a woman.

The Trump administration and some defenders of these moves point to dismissals of military leaders by past presidents, including Barack Obama, whose defense secretary, Robert Gates, replaced General David McKiernan before the United States began its expansive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan in 2009. Yet most of the examples cited, including McKiernan’s ouster, stemmed from differing opinions on military strategy or questions of competence—not differing ideologies.

That distinction became all the more evident when Brown’s replacement was revealed. Trump’s nominee, the retired Air Force lieutenant general Dan Caine, is not an active service member and lacks the experience normally required for the job by law. Although the president can waive the requirement, the chairman is supposed to have previously served as vice chairman, as chief of one of the branches of the armed forces, or as a combatant commander, which Caine has not. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2024, Trump praised Caine, claiming that the lieutenant general had told him: “I love you, sir. I think you're great, sir. I'll kill for you, sir,” and had then donned a “Make America Great Again” hat. It is not clear that this interaction actually took place or that Caine has ever behaved unprofessionally. But in keeping with many of the new administration’s hiring decisions, Caine’s appointment seems primarily motivated by his perceived loyalty to Trump.

Under Hegseth, the Defense Department’s new civilian leadership is sending a message that an ideological worldview is now grounds for being fired and hired in the U.S. military. Talented officers might be disqualified from promotions simply because they have acknowledged that service members have varied backgrounds or that racial or gender bias exists in the military.

“THE ENEMY FROM WITHIN”

The Pentagon’s civilian leadership is driving another, less publicized change. It is laying the groundwork for the military to take on a much larger role in domestic security. Although the regular military has occasionally participated in civil disturbance missions and natural disaster relief at home, it has mostly focused on external threats.

Foremost among these internal security roles is the Defense Department’s growing involvement in immigration enforcement, following Trump’s declaration on January 20 of a national emergency at the southern border. Since Hegseth’s confirmation four days later, the defense secretary has repeatedly emphasized immigration in his public remarks about the department’s priorities under his leadership. As he put it in early February, “Border security is national security, and that . . . needs to be and will be a focus of this department.”

Soon after Trump’s inauguration, and even before Hegseth had been confirmed, the Pentagon sent new troops, helicopters, and aircraft to the border with Mexico under the authority of the U.S. Northern Command, which typically oversees military operations within the continental United States. The administration has used costly military aircraft, including C-17s and C-130s, to deport migrants in order to send a message about the seriousness of its approach to immigration. Migrants have also been detained in facilities at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, which was used to hold suspected terrorists after 9/11, and the Pentagon has been building facilities on military bases in the United States to house migrants apprehended in raids until they can be deported.

According to the Pentagon, more than 6,600 active-duty troops are currently involved in border security. In early March, the administration sent a Stryker Brigade (a mechanized infantry force of approximately 4,400 soldiers) to the southern border and dispatched two naval guided-missile destroyers to assist in the mission; one of the destroyers, the Spruance, was recently used to defend international shipping lanes from Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Although such warships occasionally help interdict drugs in international waters, the use of naval assets for domestic border control is very unusual. To coordinate the Defense Department’s efforts at the border, the U.S. Northern Command has also established a new joint task force at Fort Huachuca, an army installation in southeastern Arizona.

So far, the military’s border mission has been limited to supporting the efforts of federal and state authorities, which it has the legal authority to do. But the legal boundaries are being tested. Although the military can help build and manage facilities for migrants, the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law passed in 1878, prohibits the use of regular military forces in most domestic law enforcement functions, including the apprehension of undocumented migrants. At the end of March, the Pentagon also authorized active-duty service members to carry out patrols on foot or with military vehicles and to transport civilian border control agents.

According to The Washington Post, Pentagon officials are discussing the possibility of creating a temporary military installation on an existing 60-foot buffer zone that was established in 1907 on federal land for border security in the Southwestern desert. This would enable service members to detain migrants who enter that buffer zone.

The uniformed military will now be expected to align itself with the administration’s partisan priorities.

Trump’s January 20 executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern border included a mandate for officials at the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to report by April 20 on whether the 1807 Insurrection Act will need to be invoked to control immigration. That law was last invoked in 1992, during the Los Angeles riots. If Trump invoked the Insurrection Act, the military would be exempted from the Posse Comitatus restrictions, enabling it to apprehend migrants and perform other civilian law enforcement functions.

The military is also increasingly involved in domestic security operations against the Mexican cartels that direct much of the drug and human trafficking across the U.S.-Mexican border. Trump has long expressed interest in taking military action against Latin American cartels and has designated eight of them, including six from Mexico, as terrorist organizations. In his joint address to Congress in early March, the president stated that it was time for the United States to “wage war on the cartels.”

As part of that effort, the U.S. Northern Command is now flying sophisticated surveillance aircraft normally used against foreign adversaries over parts of the southern United States and in international waters to gather information on cartel activity. Green Berets are training alongside Mexico’s elite marine infantry units in conventional and nonconventional combat techniques. Members of the Tenth Mountain Division, a light infantry force trained for war, are using ground-based radar systems to spot and track cartel-owned drones at the border. Some Trump administration officials are advocating an even more aggressive role for the U.S. military, including unilaterally attacking cartels without seeking the Mexican government’s approval, according to The New York Times. In a preview of what may come, Mike Waltz, then a member of Congress and now Trump’s national security adviser, introduced legislation in 2023 to enable the U.S. military to mount operations against the cartels.

There may soon be an even darker side to the civilian leadership’s push for the U.S. military to become involved in domestic security missions—one that targets the administration’s political opponents. In October, Trump called some who oppose him “the enemy from within” and raised the specter of using the military against them. “We have some sick people, radical left lunatics,” he told Fox News. “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.” He has also spoken of sending the military into Democrat-run cities and states to combat crime. Troops might also be used to confront and forcibly disperse citizens protesting in the streets. During Hegseth’s confirmation hearings, the Democratic senators Elissa Slotkin and Mazie Hirono asked about the nominee’s views on using the military to suppress peaceful protests. Hegseth repeatedly skirted the questions but refused to rule out using the military for such purposes. In 2021, Trump himself expressed regret, in an interview with the Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, for not “immediately” sending the military into the streets during the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, and he has warned that the next time he faces large protests, he will not exercise such restraint.

BROKEN GUARDRAILS

The Pentagon is meanwhile offering major “concessions” to military commanders, releasing them from what some civilian officials portray as needless oversight of and concern with protecting civilian lives in carrying out military missions. Hegseth has long expressed skepticism about the need to protect civilians in war. In 2019, he lobbied Trump to pardon Clint Lorance, an army lieutenant who was convicted of having committed war crimes in 2012 in Afghanistan, and Mathew Golsteyn, an army major who was charged with the 2010 killing of an Afghan man, as well as to restore the rank of the Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was accused of committing war crimes while serving in Iraq in 2017. Since becoming secretary, Hegseth has de-prioritized the military’s adherence to the laws of war that are designed to limit civilian harm in armed conflict but, in his view, unnecessarily constrain soldiers on the battlefield. In early March, Hegseth gutted the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response program, which assists commanders in accomplishing their missions while minimizing civilian deaths and responding to those that occur.

When he fired Brown and Franchetti in February, he also called for nominations to replace the top lawyers in the army, air force, and navy who are in charge of advising the service chiefs about legal issues affecting their forces, including the laws of war and civilian protection. Hegseth explained that the dismissals were part of an effort to remove “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.” In March, Hegseth commissioned his personal lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, as a reserve officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he will oversee the retraining of military judges. Parlatore first became widely known for his successful defense of Gallagher against war crimes accusations. Parlatore is may encourage a more lenient attitude within the JAG Corps in advice provided to commanders about the laws of war.

While signaling that he may be willing to countenance greater risk to civilians, Hegseth has also expanded the operational autonomy of military commanders. In February, he delegated greater authority over the conduct of counterterrorism missions from the Pentagon to combatant commanders, including the conduct of air strikes and special operations raids, while simultaneously increasing the list of targets eligible for attack. These powers cut through the layers of approval that such missions required from the Pentagon and White House under President Joe Biden and give commanders more latitude to decide when and how to carry out their missions, including when to risk that civilians will be killed.

Loosening adherence to the laws of war may help some commanders achieve tactical objectives such as expeditiously attacking a target or taking out terrorist leaders. But killing civilians in the course of military missions comes with serious strategic risks. It can turn local populations against the United States and alienate allies and partners. It undermines the U.S. military’s considerable soft power around the world. Indeed, in addition to the moral basis for maintaining restraint and limiting civilian harm in war, there is an equally powerful strategic rationale.

To be sure, this delegation of authority does not amount to a blank check to kill civilians, nor does it mean that military commanders will disregard the laws of war. But it does create new risks. Commanders seeking to achieve their tactical objectives quickly and effectively might be more willing to accept greater costs to civilians in choosing targets and carrying out missions.

BAD BARGAIN

The bargain that the Pentagon’s new civilian leadership is pushing on the U.S. military is a bad deal for the country—and for the military itself. Subject to partisan litmus tests, military leaders might be wary of offering advice that contradicts the administration’s priorities. They may skew their views toward what the president wants to hear rather than what objective assessments say about the costs, risks, and benefits of military operations, from the war in Ukraine to air strikes on the Houthis. That reticence could conceivably involve suppressing concerns about how the U.S. military’s increasing involvement in domestic missions is placing strains on resources and readiness.

The civilian Pentagon leadership’s prioritization of internal security missions will take time and attention away from external challenges that are more in the military’s traditional wheelhouse, including in the Asia-Pacific. That distraction will be even greater if the military’s growing domestic role, or its permissive new approach to weighing civilian harm in overseas operations, embroils it in public controversy. To avoid these potentially destabilizing effects, military leaders will need to explain what the country stands to lose if the military devotes excess time, resources, and attention to domestic operations and fails to adhere carefully to the laws of war.

Defense experts must raise the alarm about the Trump administration’s emerging vision for the U.S. military. The military has a nonpartisan tradition for a reason. It enables officers to offer candid advice to the administration, ensuring an unbiased vetting of decisions on the use of force. Nonpartisanship also helps the military maintain the public’s trust. If Trump and Hegseth succeed in imposing their new bargain, the U.S. military will no longer excel at its main purpose: defending American citizens against serious threats from abroad.

RISA BROOKS is Allis-Chalmers Professor of Political Science at Marquette University.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Risa Brooks · April 8, 2025

30. Pentagon considering proposal to cut thousands of troops from Europe, officials say

Pentagon considering proposal to cut thousands of troops from Europe, officials say

Experts warn that the timing of the potential drawdown could alarm NATO allies and embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.

NBC News · by Gordon Lubold, Dan De Luce and Courtney Kube · April 8, 2025

Senior Defense Department officials are considering a proposal to withdraw as many as 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe, sparking concern on both continents that it would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to six U.S. and European officials who have been briefed on the matter.

The units under consideration are part of the 20,000 personnel the Biden administration deployed in 2022 to strengthen the defenses of countries bordering Ukraine after the Russian invasion. The numbers are still being discussed, but the proposal could involve removing up to half of the forces sent by Biden.

Internal discussions about reducing American troop levels in Romania and Poland come at a time when President Donald Trump is trying to persuade Putin to agree to a ceasefire.

The six U.S. and European officials, all of whom requested anonymity, described multiple details of the proposal that have not been previously reported to NBC News. If the Pentagon adopts the proposal, it will reinforce fears that the United States is abandoning its longtime allies in Europe who view Russia as a growing threat, European officials said.

The Russians would “assess a downsizing of U.S. forces as a weakening of deterrence, and it will increase their willingness to meddle in various ways across the spectrum in Europe,” said Seth Jones, a senior vice president with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Trump administration has made it clear that it wants European allies to take more responsibility for their own defense, allowing the United States to focus its military resources on China and other priorities.

In his first trip abroad as defense secretary, Pete Hegseth said in a speech in Brussels in February that “stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.” Instead, the United States would focus on securing its southern border and countering China, Hegseth said.

Elbridge Colby, whom the Senate is expected to confirm soon to be the Pentagon’s top policy adviser and No. 3 official, has called for a greater focus on China. Colby has argued against devoting more resources to Ukraine and called for reductions in the number of troops in Europe in favor of focusing on the threat from China.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, appeared to criticize that approach at a hearing Thursday. “There are some who believe now is the time to reduce drastically our military footprint in Europe,” Wicker said, without providing any details.

“I’m troubled at those deeply misguided and dangerous views held by some midlevel bureaucrats within the Defense Department,” he added, without identifying the officials. “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.”

A Pentagon spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The Army declined to comment.

“The President is constantly reviewing deployments and priorities to make sure he keeps America First,” National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement to NBC News.

As the Pentagon undergoes budget cuts under Trump, shrinking the U.S. military’s footprint in Europe would free up resources, potentially for the Indo-Pacific region, which administration officials have said they see as a higher strategic priority. Canceling the deployment of combat units to Eastern Europe could also save money for the Army, which is trying to boost investments in innovative equipment and weapons.

Roughly 80,000 American troops are stationed in Europe. After Russia launched the war, lawmakers from both parties backed a strong U.S. military presence along NATO’s eastern flank, seeing it as an important signal to Putin that the United States remains committed to the defense of those border states.

But Trump campaigned on a promise to end the war quickly and is now pushing for a ceasefire. He has taken a very different stance toward Ukraine from that of Biden, who vowed to provide weapons and other aid to Kyiv “as long as it takes” to prevail.

Trump has pressed Ukraine to make concessions upfront. He suspended military and intelligence assistance for a week after a public clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and he has made no specific commitment about future U.S. military aid.

Ben Hodges, a retired three-star general who oversaw the Army in Europe, said he wondered what kind of analysis was done to lead officials to consider the proposal to withdraw troops in the region.

“You’ll have a lot less deterrent capability,” Hodges said. “Now Poland obviously is growing its capability, the Romanians are, other European countries are, but that’ll be a hole that’ll have to be filled.”

Russia is pursuing a major rebuilding and reform of its military, including modernizing equipment and ratcheting up weapons production, according to a Danish intelligence assessment released in February.

If the war in Ukraine ends or is frozen in a ceasefire arrangement, Russia could be capable of waging a large-scale war in Eastern Europe within the next five years if NATO failed to bolster its defenses, the report said.

NBC News · by Gordon Lubold, Dan De Luce and Courtney Kube · April 8, 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

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