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Quotes of the Day:
“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.“
– E. O. Wilson
“You think evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots. It doesn’t come like that. Look at language. It begins in the language.”
– Joseph Brodsky
"Under the influence of great fear, almost everybody becomes superstitious. Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd. Fear generates impulses of cruelty, and therefore promotes such superstitious beliefs as seem to justify cruelty. Neotha a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think samely under the influence of great fear.
– Bertrand Russell
1. Make big things small and small things big: SOCOM’s gear wishlist
2. The Army’s bold plan needs to watch out for these three pitfalls
3. The US is crushing China in real time in the Americas
4. China has spent billions developing military tech. Conflict between India and Pakistan could be its first major test
5. Exclusive | White House rejects Hegseth chief of staff pick who trashed Trump and Vance as ‘crazy,’ ‘dumb’
6. India, Pakistan Agree to Cease-Fire After U.S.-Mediated Talks
7. The High-School Juniors With $70,000-a-Year Job Offers
8. Losing Taiwan Would End US Hegemony – Losing Eastern Ukraine Would Not
9. Senior Officers Are Not the "Villain"
10. Taiwan’s New Strategy: Make China Fear the Pain of an Invasion
11. Trump envoy relied on Kremlin interpreter in meetings with Putin to end war in Ukraine
12. Indo-Pacific Chessboard: Strategic Importance Of Indo-Pacific, Quad Alliance, And Maritime Power Plays
13. Pentagon directs military to pull library books that address diversity, anti-racism, gender issues
14. Trump Promised to End Two Wars Quickly. In Private, He Admits He’s Frustrated.
15. What happens when a hegemon falls?
16. Saudi Arabia is pulling off an astonishing transformation
17. What a $15,000 Electric SUV Says About U.S.-China Car Rivalry
18. As America goes rogue, China eyes an opening
19. Neocentaur: A Model for Cognitive Evolution Across the Levels of War
20. Economists warn Trump's research cuts could have dire consequences for GDP
1. Make big things small and small things big: SOCOM’s gear wishlist
"A wider set of missions?"
Didn't SOF always have a wide range of missions (or activities)?
When you peruse these lists does it seem like CDR, USSOCOM should be a permanent member of the Joint Chiefs?
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/05/from-the-shadows-to-the-summit-elevating-special-operations-to-the-joint-chiefs/
10 U.S. Code § 167 - Unified combatant command for special operations forces
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/167#:
(k)Special Operations Activities.—For purposes of this section, special operations activities include each of the following insofar as it relates to special operations:
(1)Direct action.
(2)Strategic reconnaissance.
(3)Unconventional warfare.
(4)Foreign internal defense.
(5)Civil affairs.
(6)Military information support operations.
(7)Counterterrorism.
(8)Humanitarian assistance.
(9)Theater search and rescue.
(10)Such other activities as may be specified by the President or the Secretary of Defense.
USSOCOM Fact Book 2025
https://www.socom.mil/FactBook/2025 Fact Book.pdf
What USSOCOM Does
- Civil Affairs
- Counterinsurgency
- Counterterrorism
- Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Direct Action
- Foreign Humanitarian Assistance
- Foreign Internal Defense
- Hostage Rescue and Recovery
- Military Information Support Operations
- Security Force Assistance
- Special Reconnaissance
- Unconventional Warfare
Title 10 Authorities
- Develop special operations strategy, doctrine and tactics
- Prepare and submit budget proposals for special operations forces
- Exercise authority, direction and control over special operations expenditures
- Train assigned forces - Conduct specialized courses of instruction
- Validate requirements
- Establish requirement priorities
- Ensure interoperability of equipment and forces
- Formulate and submit intelligence support requirements
- Monitor special operations officers’ promotions, assignments, retention, training and professional military education
- Ensure special operations forces’ combat readiness
- Monitor special operations forces’ preparedness to carry out assigned missions
- Develop and acquire special operations-peculiar equipment, materiel, supplies and services
- Command and control of U.S.-based special operations forces
- Provide special operations forces to the geographic combatant commanders
- Activities specified by the President or secretary of defense
Make big things small and small things big: SOCOM’s gear wishlist
As special operations forces prepare to take on a wider set of missions, their tech needs are growing more ambitious.
defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker
TAMPA, Florida—At least part of the public's fascination with special operations forces concerns the cutting-edge gear they use. Some of it gets its start at the SOF Week conference here, where operators peruse state-of-the-art products and lay out their wishlist. This year, many requests from Special Operations Command centered on “making big things small,” like a DNA forensics lab or an emergency room; or “make a small thing large”: the amount of data that troops can transmit on battlefields where emissions can get you killed.
Special operators often work in very small teams and secretly. So if someone gets wounded, medical help can’t easily be summoned. Extending the so-called “golden hour,” that critical time after injury when trauma care is most successful, is key. One official described a need for man-portable technologies to extend that golden hour “canopy” well beyond a day. It’s a massive technical and science challenge—in part, because blood for transfusions must be refrigerated. The U.S. military is funding research into blood substitutes, but, the official said, there may be other useful technologies as well.
SOF are also looking to shrink their operational footprint and blend in with local communities. Humvees and combat vehicles are big, obvious, and require a long maintenance tail. To be less obvious and more nimble, SOF operators often rely on modified commercial vehicles, called “non-standard vehicles,”—like regular trucksoutfitted with armor, gun mounts, electronic warfare capabilities, or other gear.
But sneaking battle-modified commercial vehicles into countries where U.S. forces are operating covertly can be difficult and even risky. So SOCOM is looking for a way to allow operators to modify easily-obtainable commercial vehicles themselves, developing a kit “where we're basically taking the SOF [commercial vehicle] modifications, instead of having them built already into a vehicle, having this kind of transportable kit,” said another official.
CSI lab on a phone
In TV detective shows like CSI, forensic detectives spend long portions of each episode in a lab examining biometric data like fingerprints or DNA, or trying to hack phones. It may look high-tech but it really isn’t. Today, according to another SOCOM official, fingerprint collection still involves old-fashioned lifting kits. SOCOM has spent eight years trying to replace that with a digital system to collect fingerprints without the need for dust or even contact, said another official.
“We're getting some new tech out there for the contactless collection of the fingerprints,” they said.
When hunting for targets within civilian populations, operators work to keep track of people by taking biometric data, such as DNA and iris scans, and sending it off to a database. But DNA samples require cold storage, which makes it difficult or impossible to get the sample back to the lab.
“We're looking for a man-portable, rapid DNA solution” for missions that may be too sensitive to bring such equipment, said the official.
Even sending iris scans, which just involve bits and not atoms, can be difficult in low-connectivity areas, so SOCOM is looking for ways to use scans to verify identities without connecting to a faraway database.This year, SOCOM is hoping to launch a research project in a “university-type setting” to test a new method.
They’re also seeking a way to detect certain chemicals—like illegal narcotics—with a phone instead of a lab. That likely reflects the White House’s newly militarized approach to fighting drugs. SOCOM is looking for a technology that “can put [chemical detection] into everyone's hands so they can understand, ‘Hey, I ran into a huge thing of fentanyl, but I didn't know this was fentanyl at the time. So either I had to bring a collection back, and maybe it doesn't get back for 30 days. How can I identify that at the edge?’”
Smart headgear
SOCOM is also looking for smart glasses that can help the wearer identify faces around them—something like Meta’s but not made by a data-hungry social media company.
“We really just want to be able to take that full-moon video, be able to detect a face, be able to match a face and report back to the operator.” This would enable operators in a strange town to receive messages like: “‘Hey, that guy up there, you probably should have gone and talked to him. He's on our watch list.’”
The shocks of combat can cause brain damage in ways that aren’t immediately apparent. SOCOM is launching a program to outfit helmets with sensors to better detect when such an injury might have occurred. Combined with other biometric data and perhaps AI, the system could anticipate future health problems, enabling operators to address them in their most treatable phase. “How can we correlate data from wearables” and “other sensors that you may already have on your body–whether it's a blast-exposure monitor or some other piece of kit—to see if there's things that we wouldn't pick up as humans that might be indicators or signs to tell us more about how to protect our soft operators?” one official said.
Smaller AI for small drones
As Defense One has covered, today’s consumer-facing AI solutions typically rely on cloud and high-volume data connectivity to perform their astounding feats. (It’s no wonder why big enterprise cloud companies have such a big interest in the future of AI.)
The U.S. military, particularly the special operations community, has a longstanding need for drones with on-board intelligence—not just to fly, navigate, and evade, but to analyze intelligence or reconnaissance data. This could allow a drone to detecting a particular phone user, rather than just pass data to someone in a trailer for analysis.
“Some of that processing has to occur on a [unmanned system] so that [the data the drone is] sending down is smaller…Digital signal processing sort of goes along hand in hand with signal identification classification and geolocation,” said another official. That’s increasingly important in an environment where adversaries, including non-state actors, have more and more sophisticated tools to avoid U.S. intelligence collection.
“You know, violent extremist organizations, they're getting more complex.”
Caveats
As if all of that wasn’t challenging enough, SOCOM also has a growing need for tech that works well not just one for one team or service element but across the entire force–and that can be shared with international partners (as appropriate) said Melissa Johnson, SOCOM’s acquisition executive. She said that SOCOM’s program managers are “all working different programs, different contractors, sometimes for a different component. It's a different individual requirement [for each]. But the way you thread that all together is through open architecture and open mission systems interoperability.”
Open architectures are also critical to keeping up with high-tech adversaries like China and Russia that are constantly updating their own tools and techniques.
“The character of war is changing fast. So how do you keep up or even get ahead?” Johnson said. “You have to be able to quickly go, ‘Hey, that sensor, it might be working today in a certain [area of responsibility] under certain conditions.’ But if the threat changes, you need to make sure that either you can make the changes within that sensor, or put a different sensor on there without the system being down for a year and costing X millions of dollars.”
SOCOM is also more and more in favor of tech built from components not made in China, said David Breede, SOCOM’s program manager for special reconnaissance systems. He urged industry to “make sure that your own infrastructure is also cyber secure, not only what you're delivering to us but then the supply chain, too, the security, right? We've seen several things over the past year. So that will tell you that supply chain is pretty important. You want to know where your pagers are getting built,” he said, to knowing laughter.
defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker
2. The Army’s bold plan needs to watch out for these three pitfalls
Excerpts:
The first challenge will come from those whose portfolios are impacted. As a rule, anyone losing their money, people or power will be louder than those who are gaining, so ensuring that the leadership team can withstand the heat once more details emerge is important. That’s where the top cover from Hegseth can help, as he will have the final say on internal disagreements in the building.
The second challenge, and perhaps a harder one, is making sure the plan can survive the Pentagon’s famous inertia. Much of the plan hinges on the workforce actually taking advantage of all of the acquisition flexibilities that exist, and left to its own, the Army’s Acquisition Corps will revert back to the old ways of business.
To guard against this, the secretary of the Army must firmly exercise his statutory authority and restructure the acquisition corps to better support the warfighter. One way to do this is to move the acquisition program managers away from their current locations and put them embedded with the operational units they will support. A good starting point would be immediately move the parachute acquisition team to live, work, and operate with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg.
And the final challenge? As always, it comes down to funding.
Very little of this plan can be accomplished without money and soldiers. With the administration “short sheeting” the FY26 defense budget, the secretary of defense must let the Army keep the money it has. Additionally, the Army must be able to compete within the OSD resourcing process for its fair share of the broadly designed $150 billion in reconciliation funds. Lastly, the Army must be able to keep its end strength (faces) at its current level, even while it reduces its formations (spaces).
The Army’s bold plan needs to watch out for these three pitfalls - Breaking Defense
John Ferrari examines potential challenges to come from the Army's new Transformation in Contact plan.
breakingdefense.com · by John Ferrari · May 9, 2025
Gen. Randy George, Chief of Staff of the Army, discusses next generation command and control (C2) system capabilities with a 1st Infantry Division Soldier during a human machine Integration demonstration at Project Convergence – Capstone 4. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Brahim Douglas)
As the Army prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, it appears poised for major changes, bolder than the Marine Corps Force Design effort. And as with the Marine’s Force Design push, the Army is almost certain to see some dissent from those who stand to lose from the new paradigm.
As the service tries to move fast, change its organizational structure, and rapidly acquire and integrate drones and other advanced technology-enabled weapons, leadership will have to withstand that pressure and hold firm.
Change of this scope is only possible because of the alignment of power and money. Internally, the Army’s entire leadership team is uniquely aligned in a way they have not been since the late 1970s. Much of the plan was clearly under development by Gen. Randy George before the arrival of Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, but the two have so far appeared in lockstep, and having the plan officially rolled out by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gives them top cover support for changes.
Perhaps most importantly, Congress has voiced limited objections to these changes, such as the potential reduction to the Blackhawk and some ground vehicles, and within the $150B reconciliation package, Congress is providing broad and flexible funding that is essential to carry out the procurement, at scale, of drones, network technologies, and AI infrastructure.
In the Army’s plan, called Transformation in Contact, calls to change how they are organized, eliminate unneeded systems, and deliver new capabilities, at scale, by the end of 2027, a mere 32-months. By design, the Army leadership has chosen to be ready for conflict with China by the 2027 date INDOPACOM estimates the People’s Liberation Army aims to be prepared for a Taiwan invasion. Appreciating the importance of this window, Driscoll and George are standing up and being asked to be held accountable.
The scope of the proposed organizational change makes this uniquely impressive, leaving almost no part of the Army untouched, including the Guard and Reserve. The change combines headquarter organizations, divesting certain armor and aviation formations, and beginning a much-needed consolidation and perhaps closure of excess logistics and production infrastructure, such as depots and arsenals. The end state the Army is looking for is to be optimized for both homeland defense and China at the same time.
Most impressive is the Army’s pivot towards drones and AI enabled weapons, which appears based on lessons from Ukraine. The Army is betting its future on cheaper and more plentiful long-range missiles as well as unmanned systems that it will procure every year. This is a generational change, and will require an unprecedented level of cooperation and integration of new defense tech firms with traditional prime contractors. New tech is good at software and thinking differently, while the traditional firms may have the production facilities to build at-scale.
And yet, history has taught us that any push for bold changes inevitably hit headwinds. While there is much to admire in the Army’s plan, leadership needs to be prepared for three kinds of challenges.
The first challenge will come from those whose portfolios are impacted. As a rule, anyone losing their money, people or power will be louder than those who are gaining, so ensuring that the leadership team can withstand the heat once more details emerge is important. That’s where the top cover from Hegseth can help, as he will have the final say on internal disagreements in the building.
The second challenge, and perhaps a harder one, is making sure the plan can survive the Pentagon’s famous inertia. Much of the plan hinges on the workforce actually taking advantage of all of the acquisition flexibilities that exist, and left to its own, the Army’s Acquisition Corps will revert back to the old ways of business.
To guard against this, the secretary of the Army must firmly exercise his statutory authority and restructure the acquisition corps to better support the warfighter. One way to do this is to move the acquisition program managers away from their current locations and put them embedded with the operational units they will support. A good starting point would be immediately move the parachute acquisition team to live, work, and operate with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg.
And the final challenge? As always, it comes down to funding.
Very little of this plan can be accomplished without money and soldiers. With the administration “short sheeting” the FY26 defense budget, the secretary of defense must let the Army keep the money it has. Additionally, the Army must be able to compete within the OSD resourcing process for its fair share of the broadly designed $150 billion in reconciliation funds. Lastly, the Army must be able to keep its end strength (faces) at its current level, even while it reduces its formations (spaces).
Change is never easy, and ambitious change is almost never successful, so the odds may be against the Army. However, the service needs this plan to succeed, and with the backing of the president, secretary of defense, key congressional leaders, and most importantly, internal DoD and Army power centers, this might be the one of the few times that bold change is successful.
The Army secretary and chief of staff have now done the easy part in putting this plan in place. The hard part of executing has just begun.
Retired US Army Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at AEI. Ferrari previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.
Networks & Digital Warfare, Sponsored
Networks & Digital Warfare, Sponsored
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Cybersecurity skills must evolve in near-real time as Zero Day threats continue and AI provides new challenges.
From Breaking Defense
Cybersecurity skills must evolve in near-real time as Zero Day threats continue and AI provides new challenges.
From Breaking Defense
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“My best guess is that they will start to realize in the coming days, weeks and months, that they are going to have to adapt and change or die. We are not going to come to bail them out again as a nation,” said Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll.
breakingdefense.com · by John Ferrari · May 9, 2025
3.The US is crushing China in real time in the Americas
Note the author's bio: Arturo McFields is an exiled journalist, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS..
Excerpts:
The new U.S. leadership is not looking back. It is closing the doors to China influence in the commercial arena and beyond. The head of the U.S. Southern Command emphasized that they are protecting vital maritime routes for global trade.
Another clear example of how US leadership has weakened China’s influence was seen in Brazil. The foreign ministers of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) attempted to issue a joint statement on President Trump’s trade policies and the U.N. security Council. All failed; there was no joint declaration, but rather a marginal statement from Brazil, the host country.
Although China continues to have influence and power in many countries, its influence is being weakened. Its leadership is being eroded. America is back, and it is not willing to continue ceding ground in the political, trade, security, and energy arenas. Perhaps these transformations are not making headlines, but they are making a huge difference. The geopolitical map is already changing.
The US is crushing China in real time in the Americas
by Arturo McFields, Opinion Contributor - 05/07/25 11:30 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5286407-us-china-influence-americas/?utm
This month, the U.S. is ratifying its commitment to review and reverse China’s nefarious presence in the Americas and beyond.
The dismantling of a Chinese hacking system in Guatemala, the strengthening of military cooperation in Argentina, the interruption of a space project in Chile, the failure of an anti-Trump BRICS Summit in Brazil, and the strengthening of military alliances on the Caribbean are some of the compelling examples of how America is breaking China’s influence in the U.S. backyard.
Oh yes, none of these key achievements were televised on the daily news but still is happening and is changing the geopolitical map in the western hemisphere.
A joint cybersecurity meeting between the Government of Guatemala and the U.S. Southern Command identified that the entire information technology system of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been hacked by cyberespionage groups based in China.
But why Guatemala? Because it is the only country in Central America that has said “no” to China and remains firm in its relationship with Taiwan.
This has resulted in a series of economic and political retaliation by China. Thanks to new leadership in the United States, Beijing cyber guerrillas are being exposed and expelled. In a new milestone, the U.S. is supporting a more free and safer Guatemala, helping the Central American nation to fight back against global threats and building a more secure digital infrastructure for regional prosperity.
A Chilean space observatory’s collaboration from China has also been reviewed and reversed. In 2023, China’s communist regime had reached an agreement to participate in the Transient Objects Monitoring Project, an educational initiative that involves the National Astronomical Observatory of China and the Catholic University of Northern Chile.
This was another potential Chinese Trojan horse. The communist regime was rubbing its hands together and seemed to have bypassed all official security controls. But the Trump administration’s accession has changed everything. The project has been halted and subjected to a detailed and exhaustive inspection. The Chilean government has said that the scope of the project needs to be analyzed in full detail, and even its institutional framework must be reviewed.
The U.S. is also strengthening its presence and power in the Caribbean. A military exercise known as Tradewinds 25 began in Trinidad and Tobago a few days ago, bringing together 26 allied nations. The U.S. is also helping to save lives and building strong partnerships.
Just a few days ago a tour by the U.S. Navy Hospital Ship USNS Comfort was announced. China has never offered such cooperation in this region. The hospital ship will visit Grenada, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic.
The tour will help strengthen U.S. presence in the region and weaken communist efforts such as the so-called medical brigades, a modern slavery scheme promoted by Cuba, China’s most important ally in the Caribbean.
In Argentina, the U.S. has also reinforced its crusade against communist China and highlighted the need to promote greater security cooperation. The head of the U.S. Southern Command, Adm. Alvin Holsey, visited military installations in Argentina, some of which were once on the verge of falling into Chinese hands. Not anymore.
The new U.S. leadership is not looking back. It is closing the doors to China influence in the commercial arena and beyond. The head of the U.S. Southern Command emphasized that they are protecting vital maritime routes for global trade.
Another clear example of how US leadership has weakened China’s influence was seen in Brazil. The foreign ministers of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) attempted to issue a joint statement on President Trump’s trade policies and the U.N. security Council. All failed; there was no joint declaration, but rather a marginal statement from Brazil, the host country.
Although China continues to have influence and power in many countries, its influence is being weakened. Its leadership is being eroded. America is back, and it is not willing to continue ceding ground in the political, trade, security, and energy arenas. Perhaps these transformations are not making headlines, but they are making a huge difference. The geopolitical map is already changing.
Arturo McFields is an exiled journalist, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS, former member of the Norwegian Peace Corps and former alumni of the Security Seminar of the National Defense University and The Harvard and HarvardEx Leadership Course.
4. China has spent billions developing military tech. Conflict between India and Pakistan could be its first major test
I am sure our IC and military analysts are paying close attention.
China has spent billions developing military tech. Conflict between India and Pakistan could be its first major test | CNN
CNN · by Nectar Gan, Simone McCarthy, Brad Lendon · May 9, 2025
Hong Kong CNN —
The escalating conflict between India and Pakistan could be offering the world a first real glimpse into how advanced Chinese military technology performs against proven Western hardware – and Chinese defense stocks are already surging.
Shares of China’s AVIC Chengdu Aircraft rose 40% this week, as Pakistan claimed it used AVIC-produced J-10C fighter jets to shoot down Indian combat aircraft – including the advanced French-made Rafale – during an aerial battle on Wednesday.
India has not responded to Pakistan’s claims or acknowledged any aircraft losses. When asked about the involvement of Chinese-made jets, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday he was not familiar with the situation.
Still, as Pakistan’s primary arms supplier, China is likely watching intently to find out how its weapon systems have and potentially will perform in real combat.
A rising military superpower, China hasn’t fought a major war in more than four decades. But under leader Xi Jinping, it has raced to modernize its armed forces, pouring resources into developing sophisticated weaponry and cutting-edge technologies.
It has also extended that modernization drive to Pakistan, long hailed by Beijing as its “ironclad brother.”
Over the past five years, China has supplied 81% of Pakistan’s imported weapons, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Those exports include advanced fighter jets, missiles, radars and air-defense systems that experts say would play a pivotal role in any military conflict between Pakistan and India. Some Pakistan-made weapons have also been co-developed with Chinese firms or built with Chinese technology and expertise.
“This makes any engagement between India and Pakistan a de facto test environment for Chinese military exports,” said Sajjan Gohel, international security director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a think tank based in London.
Chinese and Pakistani militaries have also engaged in increasingly sophisticated joint air, sea and land exercises, including combat simulations and even crew-swapping drills.
“Beijing’s long-standing support for Islamabad – through hardware, training, and now increasingly AI-enabled targeting – has quietly shifted the tactical balance,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“This isn’t just a bilateral clash anymore; it’s a glimpse of how Chinese defense exports are reshaping regional deterrence.”
That shift – brought into sharp focus by rising tensions between India and Pakistan following a tourist massacre in Kashmir – underscores a broader geopolitical realignment in the region, where China has emerged as a major challenge to American influence.
An army soldier examines a building damaged by an Indian missile strike near Muzaffarabad, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, on Wednesday, May 7, 2025.
MD Mughal/AP
Related article Pakistan and India are blaming each other as their Kashmir conflict spirals. Here’s what we know
India and Pakistan have gone to war over Kashmir three times since their independence from Britain in 1947. During the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union backed India, while the United States and China supported Pakistan. Now, a new era of great-power rivalry looms over the long-running conflict between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors.
Despite its traditional policy of nonalignment, India has drawn ever closer to the US, as successive American administrations courted the rising South Asian giant as a strategic counterweight to China. India has ramped up arms purchases from America and its allies, including France and Israel, while steadily reducing its reliance on Russian weaponry.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has deepened ties with China, becoming its “all-weather strategic partner” and a key participant in Xi’s signature global infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative. According to SIPRI’s data, the US and China each supplied about one-third of Pakistan’s imported weapons in the late 2000s. But Pakistan has stopped buying American arms in recent years and increasingly filled its arsenal with Chinese weapons.
Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher in the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program, noted that while China has been an important arms supplier to Pakistan since the mid-1960s, its current dominance largely comes from stepping into a vacuum left by the US.
More than a decade ago, the US accused Pakistan of not doing enough to fight “terrorists” – including Taliban fighters – that it said were operating from or being supplied in Pakistan. Wezeman said that added to Washington’s existing frustrations over Islamabad’s nuclear program and lack of democracy.
“(The US) finally found India as an alternative partner in the region. As a result, (it) more or less cut Pakistan off from US arms,” he added. “China’s arms supply on the other hand significantly increased – one can say that China used the opportunity to show itself as the only real friend and ally of Pakistan.”
China has expressed regret over India’s military strikes against Pakistan and has called for calm and restraint. Before the latest escalation, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed support for Pakistan in a phone call with his counterpart, calling China Pakistan’s “ironclad friend.”
A woman stands outside a house destroyed by Pakistani artillery shelling at the Salamabad village in Uri, about 110kms from Srinagar, on May 8, 2025.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Military showdown
With Pakistan armed largely by China and India sourcing more than half of its weapons from the US and its allies, any conflict between the two neighbors could effectively be a showdown between Chinese and Western military technologies.
After weeks of rising hostilities following the killing of 26 mostly Indian tourists at the hands of militants at a scenic mountain spot in Indian-administered Kashmir, India launched missile strikes early on Wednesday morning, targeting what it said was “terrorist infrastructure” in both Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Many analysts believe the missiles and other munitions were fired by India’s French-made Rafale and Russian-made Su-30 fighter jets.
Pakistan, meanwhile, touted a great victory by its air force, claiming that five Indian fighter jets – three Rafales, a MiG-29 and a Su-30 fighter – were shot down by its J-10C fighters during an hour-long battle it claimed was fought by 125 aircraft at ranges over 160 kilometers (100 miles).
“(It) is now being characterized as the most intense air-to-air combat engagement between two nuclear-armed nations,” said Salman Ali Bettani, an international relations scholar at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. “The engagement represented a milestone in the operational use of advanced Chinese-origin systems.”
India has not acknowledged any aircraft losses, and Pakistan has yet to provide evidence to support its claims. But a French Defense Ministry source said at least one of India’s newest and most-advanced warplanes – a French-made Rafale fighter jet – was lost in the battle.
“If … confirmed, it indicates that the weapon systems at Pakistan’s disposal are, at the minimum, contemporary or current compared to what Western Europe (especially France) offers,” said Bilal Khan, founder of Toronto-based defense analysis firm Quwa Group Inc.
Despite the absence of official confirmation and hard proof, Chinese nationalists and military enthusiasts have taken to social media to celebrate what they see as a triumph for Chinese-made weapon systems.
Shares of China’s state-owned AVIC Chengdu Aircraft, the maker of Pakistan’s J-10C fighter jets, closed 17% higher on the Shenzhen exchange on Wednesday, even before Pakistan’s foreign minister claimed the jets had been used to shoot down India’s planes. Shares in the company rose an additional 20% on Thursday.
The J-10C is the latest version of China’s single-engine, multirole J-10 fighter, which entered service with the Chinese air force in the early 2000s. Featuring better weapon systems and avionics, the J-10C is classified as a 4.5-generation fighter – in the same tier as the Rafale but a rung below 5th-generation stealth jets, like China’s J-20 or the US F-35.
China delivered the first batch of the J-10CE – the export version – to Pakistan in 2022, state broadcaster CCTV reported at the time. It’s now the most advanced fighter jet in Pakistan’s arsenal, alongside the JF-17 Block III, a 4.5-generation lightweight fighter co-developed by Pakistan and China.
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) also operates a larger fleet of American-built F-16s, one of which was used to shoot down a Soviet-designed Indian fighter jet during a flare-up in 2019.
But the PAF’s F-16s are still stuck in an early-2000s configuration – far behind the upgraded versions currently offered by the US – while the Chinese-made J-10CEs and JF-17 Block IIIs feature contemporary technologies such as active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, Khan said.
“So, the F-16s are still a major piece to any PAF-led reprisal, but not the central or indispensable one,” he said.
Senior Col. (ret) Zhou Bo, senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy in Beijing, said if Chinese-made J-10Cs were indeed used to shoot down the French-made Rafales, it would be “a tremendous boost of confidence in Chinese weapon systems.”
Zhou said it would “really raise people’s eyebrows” particularly given China has not fought a war for more than four decades. “It will potentially be a huge boost for Chinese arm sales in the international market,” he said.
An Indian paramilitary soldier guards along the banks of Dal Lake in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on May 9, 2025.
Firdous Nazir/NurPhoto/Getty Images
‘A powerful advertisement’
The United States remains the world’s largest arms exporter, accounting for 43% of global weapons exports between 2020 and 2024, according to data from SIPRI. That’s more than four times the share of France, which ranks second, followed by Russia.
China ranks fourth, with nearly two-thirds of its arms exports going to a single country: Pakistan.
Khan, the defense analyst in Toronto, agreed the downing, if confirmed, would go a long way in promoting China’s defense industry, noting there would likely be interest from “powers in the Middle East and North Africa” who typically can’t access “the most cutting-edge Western technology.”
“With Russia set back as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, I’m sure the Chinese have begun pushing hard at Moscow’s traditional markets – e.g., Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, and Sudan – to secure big-ticket sales,” he said.
Experts in Pakistan and China say the J-10Cs deployed by the Pakistan Air Force are likely to have been paired with the PL-15, China’s most advanced air-to-air missile – which has a reported beyond-visual-range of 200-300 kilometers (120-190 miles). The known export version has a reduced range of 145 kilometers (90 miles).
Last week, amid spiraling tensions, the Pakistan Air Force released a three-minute video showcasing its warplanes. It featured the JF-17 Block III armed with PL-15 missiles, describing them as “PAF’s potent punch”.
People read morning newspapers leading with the story of India firing missiles into Pakistani territory, in Karachi, Pakistan, Wednesday, May 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
Fareed Khan/AP
Related live-story May 8, 2025 - India-Pakistan conflict escalates after Kashmir massacre
“From China’s perspective, this is essentially a powerful advertisement,” Antony Wong Dong, a Macau-based military observer, said of the Pakistan claims.
“It will shock even countries like the United States — just how strong is its opponent, really? This is a question that all countries potentially looking to buy fighter jets, as well as China’s regional rivals, will need to seriously reconsider: how should they face this new reality?”
But some experts have expressed caution. India’s losses, if confirmed, could stem more from poor tactics and planning by the Indian Air Force than from the perceived advancements in Chinese weapons.
“If reports of India losing multiple jets holds up, it would raise serious questions about the IAF’s readiness, not just its platforms. The Rafales are modern, but warfighting is about integration, coordination, and survivability — not just headline acquisitions,” said Singleton, the analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
What’s also not known is what intelligence India had on the PL-15.
If, for instance, it believed Pakistan only possessed the shorter-range export version, Indian aircraft might have lingered in vulnerable areas.
Rules of engagement may also have prevented Indian pilots from firing first, or firing back against Pakistani aircraft, according to Fabian Hoffman, a defense policy research fellow at the University of Oslo.
In such cases, Indian misjudgments may have made the Pakistani weaponry look more effective, Hoffman wrote on his Missile Matters blog.
Experts also note that India’s strikes successfully hit multiple targets in Pakistan – suggesting its missiles penetrated Pakistani air defenses, which are armed with Chinese surface-to-air missiles, including the long-range HQ-9B.
“If Chinese-origin radar or missile systems failed to detect or deter Indian strikes, that’s (also) bad optics for Beijing’s arms export credibility,” said Gohel, the defense expert in London.
CNN · by Nectar Gan, Simone McCarthy, Brad Lendon · May 9, 2025
5. Exclusive | White House rejects Hegseth chief of staff pick who trashed Trump and Vance as ‘crazy,’ ‘dumb’
Sigh... We do not need this kind of drama on the E Ring.
Exclusive | White House rejects Hegseth chief of staff pick who trashed Trump and Vance as ‘crazy,’ ‘dumb’
By Steven Nelson
Published May 9, 2025, 11:10 a.m. ET
New York Post · by Steven Nelson · May 9, 2025
WASHINGTON — The drama surrounding Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon has a new lead player: a top aide known to his detractors as “Rasputin Ricky.”
Ricky Buria, the defense secretary’s de facto chief of staff, is a rare Biden administration holdover and an internal critic of Vice President JD Vance’s “wackamamie crazy” and “isolationist” views — who has also slammed President Trump’s use of the military for immigration enforcement as “dumb.”
Buria, 43, is also considered “incredibly intelligent and hardworking,” has fashioned himself as a China hawk and is seen by Hegseth as an effective administrator who keeps the office running smoothly — but the White House has blocked him from a permanent chief of staff appointment due to concern about his alignment with the commander-in-chief.
Ricky Buria, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s newest right-hand man. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sergeant Samuel Ruiz
“There is an ideological component to this,” said one Buria critic. “Hegseth is elevating a Democrat who does not share the vice president’s or the president’s worldview and who weaponized his position to push out internal rivals, including people who had very strong histories of being supporters of the MAGA agenda.”
Buria’s elevated status has triggered a brouhaha among factions close to Trump, who has had aides hold varying views throughout his terms in office — while often changing his own in response to circumstances.
Trump often vacillates between denouncing military action abroad and ordering its use in specific instances, and Buria has positioned himself on one flank, while those with whom he’s clashed internally have diverse points of view.
“He is more interventionist than most of the people in Trumpworld,” the Buria detractor added. “But everyone wants to distill this story down to one neat narrative. Yeah, Ricky didn’t like the VP’s worldview, I think that’s an element. But Ricky’s ascendency isn’t a part of that clash.”
Though the Trump White House recently turned down Hegseth’s request to make Buria his top adviser, he nonetheless continues as right-hand man to the defense secretary — who last month fired, with Buria’s encouragement, three top aides including well-known non-interventionist Dan Caldwell, who had served as a senior adviser to the defense secretary.
The Post spoke to eight sources inside or close to the Pentagon and White House to investigate Buria’s rapid ascent from serving Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, as a junior military aide — a prestigious but largely bag-carrying role — to reaching the top of Trump’s Defense Department’s leadership.
Buria chats with Elon Musk at the Pentagon on March 21. DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Spencer Perkins
Buria’s criticism of the administration he serves has not previously been reported, but is well known within both the Pentagon and White House, and one source speculated that his candor may have been the result of not realizing that he would emerge unscathed from last month’s purge.
“There was absolutely no withholding of his personal sentiments on any of this stuff,” one source said. “He would talk about the ‘wackamamie crazy’ of [Vance] and the New Right. He was a military officer, which makes it even worse.”
Buria, who put in his paperwork to retire from the Marine Corps last month to allow for a possible political appointment that would cement his current role, in February condemned Trump’s decision to use military aircraft to repatriate migrants and to use Guantanamo Bay to facilitate deportations — declaring it a “dumb waste of money” — three independent sources said.
“He hated and loathed the border mission,” one person said. “He thinks it’s a waste of money, resources, and time, and we got to focus on China—China, China, China … He never said ‘China’ once the first couple weeks.”
The extent of Buria’s influence on the implementation of administration policy is unclear, and Trump has stood by Hegseth, who is viewed as being on the more hawkish wing of the administration while maintaining good personal relationships with other key figures, including Vance.
Two sources said Buria specifically condemned Vance’s views on foreign policy after the VP expressed internal opposition to airstrikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis in mid-March, a stance which was reported by Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg after he was mistakenly added to a Signal chat that included administration officials.
Days earlier, on March 5, Buria clashed with Vance’s team during a trip to the Mexican border when the VP’s staff denied Buria’s repeated demands to be included on a helicopter flight with Vance and Hegseth despite being told the manifest was full and there was no space for him, four sources said.
‘We don’t like texting the secretary … we don’t know who is responding’
Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon has been defined by a series of reports alleging a lax approach to information security — including that he discussed sensitive work with family members and used an insecure internet line to connect to Signal.
The Post’s sources described additional operational security concerns.
Buria’s wide-ranging advisory and logistical roles include managing Hegseth’s personal cellphone, according to three sources, two of whom said they saw him flout security protocols by bringing it into the secretary’s office — which is deemed a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, where personal devices are not allowed.
Hegseth, accompanied by Buria (in uniform, carrying bag), at President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement. The Washington Post via Getty Images
One source said they personally witnessed Buria bring Hegseth’s phone into the SCIF “at least a dozen times.”
A second person scoffed that such behavior is more common within the US government than the public would know.
A third tipster said: “Ricky has both custody of and access to the secretary’s phone in the workplace. The uncomfortable joke is we don’t like texting the secretary because we don’t know who is responding.”
The Pentagon and White House did not offer comment for this story or push back on a detailed list of claims made by sources. Multiple attempts to reach Buria for comment via email, phone, and through the Defense Department press office were unsuccessful.
Vance’s office told The Post that limited seats were the only factor in Buria not being allowed on the helicopter during the border visit.
“I think the secretary’s calculus on this thing is it’s better to keep Ricky close than to have him out there talking,” said one source, who described Hegseth as reluctant to create yet another issue for reporters to investigate that could generate fresh instability.
While Trump’s Office of Presidential Personnel (PPO) has rebuffed Hegseth’s attempts to install Buria officially, White House leaders have deferred to Hegseth over whether to keep Buria as an adviser.
“PPO, the White House, everybody’s impression was, ‘Look, if [Pete] wants to detonate, sometimes you just got to let him.’ They couldn’t understand why or what was compelling this,” said one person familiar with the matter.
“I think this is someone who is largely responsible for putting Pete in the position he’s in,” another source said. “I’m not saying the secretary is blameless, but [Buria] weaponized his closeness to the secretary and his wife [Jennifer Hegseth] to undermine aides who were loyal to the secretary and president’s agenda.”
‘These guys need to go’
Many sources described Buria’s influence with Hegseth as mysterious, with several likening him to the Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin, who gained influence over the Romanov court through his relationship with Czar Nicholas II’s wife.
Buria — described as a handsome and charismatic helicopter pilot known for wearing his flight jacket around the office — was one of the first officials to greet the Hegseths at the Pentagon in late January and survived an initial purge of military aides close to Austin.
He quickly became close to Jennifer Hegseth, a former Fox News producer who became Pete Hegseth’s third wife in 2019, and has accompanied the couple to their home in Tennessee on weekends, four sources said.
Buria charmed Jennifer, who was deeply suspicious of disloyalty after enduring a grueling confirmation process in which Senate Democrats highlighted allegations against her husband of excessive drinking, mismanagement of a nonprofit, and sexual assault — the last of which police determined was unfounded.
In an unusual move, Buria handed over his cellphone for Jennifer Hegseth to peruse in a gesture of reassurance that he was loyal to the secretary and not a leaker.
Some sources said the handover occurred after Buria told colleagues in late February or early March that he was still in touch with Biden’s defense secretary.
Hegseth proclaimed, “No, Jen looked through his phone, and there were no Lloyd Austin messages,” one source recounted.
President Trump and Vice President JD Vance. AFP via Getty Images
The phone swap was “really bizarre to me because Ricky literally has five phones” and “could have shown her any phone. But Jen didn’t understand,” another source said.
It’s unclear to what extent Jennifer Hegseth vouches for Buria to her husband, but five sources with knowledge of the matter said he encouraged her to sway her husband to fire Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, who was chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg.
“He said, ‘These guys need to go,'” one source said.
Another said Buria “would over-embellish the idea that there was all this chaos and this drama … that never really was. Ricky took advantage of all the time and access he had with the family.”
Buria “always felt like he should be in a position of more authority and respect. He’s incredibly intelligent and hardworking, but he was always trying to position himself in a way to gain what he felt he was due,” said a third observer.
The full justification for the terminations has never been made fully clear, but Caldwell, Carroll, and Selnick were all suspected of leaks, which they denied, and had a rocky relationship with Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s first chief of staff, who left his own role days later amid tensions with Buria.
A fifth official, top Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, also resigned and penned a blockbuster Politico op-ed on April 20 expressing concern about the direction of department leadership.
Each of the five was a longtime adviser or ally to Trump, and some, including Caldwell, had worked with Hegseth for years before joining the government.
Buria’s survival — and Hegseth’s attempt to enshrine him as chief of staff — stunned insiders.
Meanwhile, two sources — one from the Pentagon and a second close to the White House — said Buria has openly talked about wanting to run as a Democratic candidate for Florida governor.
“He made it very clear that he wore a different political stripe. And I think that culminated when he, on several instances, discussed his ambition to run for governor of Florida one day as a Democrat. That wasn’t just in front of me — that was in front of multiple people,” one source said.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, walk to the House Chamber before President Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. AP
Public records show Buria donated $100 to a Democratic congressional candidate in 2023.
Detractors, meanwhile, have circulated an image of him applauding the Jan. 12 unveiling of a portrait of Mark Milley, the anti-Trump former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as a LinkedIn post in which he praised Biden Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh, writing, “I can’t wait to serve with you again.”
“This is without question the worst in a string of bad judgment calls recently by Secretary Hegseth,” one source told The Post of Buria’s elevation.
“It’s a big issue,” said another. “All political appointees go through a vetting process, and anyone with Ricky’s past would not make it through step one.”
New York Post · by Steven Nelson · May 9, 2025
6. India, Pakistan Agree to Cease-Fire After U.S.-Mediated Talks
India, Pakistan Agree to Cease-Fire After U.S.-Mediated Talks
The cease-fire comes after days of intensifying cross-border clashes
https://www.wsj.com/world/india/india-and-pakistan-step-up-attacks-as-u-s-seeks-ways-to-de-escalate-298a12e1
By Tripti Lahiri
Follow
Updated May 10, 2025 9:03 am ET
An aerial attack from Pakistan caused damage in a residential area in Jammu, India. Photo: Anindito Mukherjee/Getty Images
Key Points
What's This?
- Trump said India and Pakistan agreed to a full cease-fire after U.S. mediated talks.
- Tensions rose after a militant attack in Kashmir, with both sides accusing each other of strikes.
- The conflict escalated with new tech, risking a full war.
India and Pakistan agreed to a full and immediate cease-fire in the worst violence between the two nuclear-armed rivals for more than two decades, after what President Trump described as a long night of U.S.-mediated talks.
In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump congratulated both countries “on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence.”
The confrontation between India and Pakistan had intensified Saturday with each accusing the other of drone and missile strikes overnight as the U.S. urged them to get round the table.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to his counterparts in both countries Friday, to urge the clashing nations to resume direct talks “to avoid miscalculation.”
The cease-fire ends days of clashes in the wake of a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi blames on Islamabad. Pakistan denies involvement in the attack.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said the two countries had agreed to a cease-fire with immediate effect. “Pakistan has always strived for peace and security in the region, without compromising on its sovereignty and territorial integrity!” he wrote on X.
India’s foreign secretary confirmed the halt in fighting starting at 5 p.m. local time in India on Saturday.
Trails from an Indian air-defense system above Jammu on Friday. Photo: rakesh bakshi/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
U.S. intervention between the two countries has been influential in the past, though political analysts had warned that Washington’s influence over Islamabad had waned in recent years as China pulled the South Asia nation closer into its orbit.
Trump had this week called on Pakistan and India to stop the fighting, saying he knew both sides very well.
The U.S. continues to be seen as a trustworthy intermediary by both sides. Political experts were concerned in recent days that Trump wasn’t focused enough on the risk of another major war breaking out in the world as he turned his attention to trade deals following tariff announcements in early April.
India and the U.S. have drawn significantly closer in recent years amid increased tensions with China.
Earlier this week, India launched what it called retaliatory strikes for the militant attack in its part of Kashmir that left 26 people dead. Pakistan said it shot down Indian jets involved in those strikes. India hasn’t commented on the allegation.
Until the latest flare up, India and Pakistan had maintained a frosty peace as both sides focused on internal issues, and India largely followed a strategy of not engaging with Pakistan.
But the first direct clashes this week—including the use of new types of weapons and claims by Pakistan that it downed Indian jets—risked the simmering conflict between them erupting into a full-blown war.
India has said the militants involved in the Kashmir attack last month belong to Lashkar-e Taiba, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization based in Pakistan that carried out the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
India accuses Pakistan of backing the militants, Pakistan has denied any involvement in the April attack.
A man stands on the roof of a damaged house in Jammu. Photo: adnan abidi/Reuters
Political analysts initially expected the latest hostilities to follow the pattern of a similar confrontation in 2019, when, following a deadly attack on security personnel in the part of Kashmir it governs, India launched a strike over the border that it said targeted what it said were Pakistani terror camps. Pakistan responded at that time by shooting down an Indian jet fighter. The tit-for-tat de-escalated after Islamabad repatriated the pilot.
This time, both countries deployed types of weapons they haven’t used against each other before, such as drones and loitering munitions in large numbers making the outcome more unpredictable.
The cease-fire represents a win for the Trump administration. Bringing the recent fighting between India and Pakistan to a halt demonstrates the power Washington retains to influence global conflicts.
Technological changes on the battlefield are changing the way in which conflicts precipitate, said Harsh Pant, a visiting professor at the King’s College India Institute and vice president of the foreign policy program at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.
“It has added another layer to the escalation ladder,” he said. “That’s something militaries are learning from other battlefields.”
Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947 during the partition of the Indian subcontinent, but both countries claim the Himalayan region in full. They have fought three wars over the territory, the most recent one in 1999.
Clashes this week included cross-border shelling for the first time in years, across the line of control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
Indian army soldiers stood next to debris on the outskirts of Amritsar, India, on Saturday. Photo: narinder nanu/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Saturday that a local government official had died when Pakistan shelled the town of Rajouri in the Jammu and Kashmir region. Pakistan didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Indian Air Force Wing Commander Vyomika Singh earlier Saturday said as well as military targets, Pakistan attacked civilian sites such as a medical center and a school at several air bases. Singh said India was only targeting identified military sites, such as technical infrastructure, radar sites and weapons-storage facilities.
Singh also alleged that Pakistan’s army had moved soldiers into forward positions closer to India, “indicating offensive intent to further escalate the situation.” She said that Indian soldiers were in a high state of readiness, but said India was committed to non-escalation, “provided it is reciprocated by the Pakistan military.”
Pakistan said before the cease-fire announcement on Saturday that it had begun an operation against India and was only targeting military bases from where New Delhi was launching attacks against it. It didn’t respond to a request for comment about alleged troop movements.
A spokesman for the Pakistani military said that India had targeted three of its air bases with ballistic missiles overnight and that multiple drone strikes were reported across the country.
Write to Tripti Lahiri at tripti.lahiri@wsj.com
7. The High-School Juniors With $70,000-a-Year Job Offers
- THE FUTURE OF EVERYTHING | WORK
The High-School Juniors With $70,000-a-Year Job Offers
Companies with shortages of skilled workers look to shop class to recruit future hires; ‘like I’m an athlete getting all this attention from all these pro teams’
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/skilled-trades-high-school-recruitment-fd9f8257?mod=djemLifeStyle_h
Welding instructor Joe Williams, left, teaches students at Father Judge High School in Philadelphia.
By Te-Ping Chen
Follow
| Photographs and video by Hannah Yoon for WSJ
Updated May 7, 2025 3:11 pm ET
Key Points
What's This?
- Employers are increasingly recruiting high-schoolers in skilled trades due to worker shortages as baby boomers retire.
- High schools are revitalizing shop classes and teaming up with businesses that offer students opportunities for part-time work and academic credit.
- Welding students at Philadelphia’s Father Judge are getting job offers paying $50,000 and above, with no college debt.
PHILADELPHIA—Elijah Rios won’t graduate from high school until next year, but he already has a job offer—one that pays $68,000 a year.
Rios, 17 years old, is a junior taking welding classes at Father Judge, a Catholic high school in Philadelphia that works closely with companies looking for workers in the skilled trades. Employers are dealing with a shortage of such workers as baby boomers retire. They have increasingly begun courting high-school students like Rios—a hiring strategy they say is likely to become even more crucial in the coming years.
Employers ranging from the local transit system to submarine manufacturers make regular visits to Father Judge’s welding classrooms every year, bringing branded swag and pitching students on their workplaces. When Rios graduates next year, he plans to work as a fabricator at a local equipment maker for nuclear, recycling and other sectors, a job that pays $24 an hour, plus regular overtime and paid vacations.
“Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming—like, this company wants you, that company wants you,” says Rios, who grew up in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington around drug addicts and homelessness, and says he was determined to build a better life for himself. “It honestly feels like I’m an athlete getting all this attention from all these pro teams.”
High-school junior Elijah Rios, left, already has a $68,000 job offer for when he graduates. At right, the welding classroom at Father Judge High School.
Increased efforts to recruit high-schoolers into professions such as plumbing, electrical work and welding have helped spur a revitalization of shop classes in many districts. More businesses are teaming up with high schools to enable students to work part-time, earning money as well as academic credit. More employers are showing up at high school career days and turning to creative recruiting strategies, as well.
Employers say that as the skilled trades become more tech-infused, they anticipate doing even more recruitment at an early age, because they need workers who are comfortable programming and running computer diagnostics. “I’m not looking to hire the guy I used to have 20 years ago,” says Bob Walker, founder of Global Affinity, the Bristol, Pa.-based manufacturer who offered Rios a job. The equipment he uses is highly advanced, including a $1.7 million steel laser cutter, and he says he needs tech-savvy workers to operate it.
Angie Simon, until recently chief executive of a mechanical contractor in California, in 2021 started the “Heavy Metal Summer Experience,” a nonprofit summer program that exposes high-school students to careers in the trades, including welding, plumbing and piping. She is now executive director of the program, which is free to participants who apply. It will enroll 900 students this summer in 51 locations across the country, mostly hosted by local contractors who often hire former campers after they graduate.
“You got to stop thinking someone else is going to solve your problem,” says Simon, whose former company at times struggled to fill certain roles. “Why don’t you do something about it?”
Jenny Cantrill, at table right, participated in the Heavy Metal Summer Experience in Boston. Photo: Sasha Parfenova
Jenny Cantrill, 18, is working at Cannistraro, a plumbing and HVAC mechanical contractor that hosted her summer camp in Boston. She credits the camp for piquing her interest in plumbing, and accepted Cannistraro’s job offer without looking elsewhere. “I already had that connection,” she says.
A decade ago, administrators often snubbed employers in the skilled trades who tried to get a table at a high school career fair, says Aaron Hilger, CEO of the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association. But with more high schools trying to give students alternatives to college, he says, that attitude has changed.
Constellation Energy, an operator of U.S. nuclear power plants based in Baltimore, offers maintenance technician and equipment-operator roles that are open to high-school graduates without four-year college degrees, and pay as much as six figures. “These are family-sustaining careers,” says Ray Stringer, a vice president overseeing workforce development at the company. Last year, Constellation launched a work-based learning program outside Chicago that invites high-school students to shadow workers at the company’s nuclear facilities while also earning community-college credit.
High-school juniors work on sought-after welding skills at Father Judge.
The company sponsors SkillsUSA, a national organization that annually convenes a week-long conference where students learning the trades can show off their skills at a venue the size of 31 football fields. The organization, founded in 1965, has seen an influx of interest from employers in the past few years, as well as students. Hundreds of companies now attend SkillsUSA each year to get their name in front of prospective hires, says the group’s executive director, Chelle Travis.
The smartest employers get a foot into high schools early on by offering internships, says Roxanne Amiot, an automotive instructor at Bullard-Havens Technical School in Bridgeport, Conn. “I tell them, don’t call me for students when they graduate, grab them now when they’re 16 or 17, or I have nobody to work for you.”
An open house at the high school last fall attracted a record 1,000 people, Amiot says, and all her classes have wait lists.
Students at Father Judge get instruction on auto technology.
Dan Schnaufer, service and body shop director at the nearby D’Addario Automotive Group, brings on several high-school students every year to work part-time in his shop, including from Bullard-Havens. They receive academic credit for their work, and he has the benefit of seeing their skills and temperament in action and being first in line to hire them once they graduate.
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“The idea of growing your own talent has gotten more critical in recent years, when you have fewer and fewer people going into this industry,” he says. At his shop, fresh high-school graduates can make around $50,000 a year, he says, and six figures within five years, without college debt.
For years, the pendulum swung too far in the direction of a college-for-all mindset, and it’s important to make sure students are made aware of all their options, says Steve Klein, a researcher who focuses on vocational education at the nonprofit Education Northwest. At the same time, as interest in vocational education rises, he worries that sentiment runs the risk of swinging too much in the other direction.
“There’s no one answer that works for all people,” he says, adding that too much of a focus on the skilled trades in high school means students risk losing exposure to broader career interests, too.
Aiden Holland, a senior at Father Judge, has been recruited for a welding position that pays $75,000 a year.
At Philadelphia’s Father Judge, all 24 graduating seniors in the welding program have job offers, each paying $50,000 and above, says welding instructor Joe Williams. More employers, he says, reach out to him every semester.
Aiden Holland, a senior at the high school, was recruited earlier this spring to become a nuclear submarine welder at a defense contractor in New Jersey, a position paying $75,000 a year. The 18-year-old says he’s grateful to have landed a job like that, with no college debt, and that his college-bound peers are often astonished to learn how much he can make with no degree.
“It feels good knowing we’re very, very much in demand,” he says.
Write to Te-Ping Chen at Te-ping.Chen@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
Cannistraro, a plumbing and HVAC mechanical contractor, hosted a summer camp in Boston. An earlier version of the article stated the summer camp was in Seaport, Mass. (Corrected on May 7)
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Appeared in the May 8, 2025, print edition as 'High-School Juniors Attract Job Offers Topping $70,000'.
8. Losing Taiwan Would End US Hegemony – Losing Eastern Ukraine Would Not
Conclusion:
The notion that preservation of a past legacy in Europe should serve as a cornerstone of America’s strategic decisions today is perhaps the most concerning piece of Europe-centric policies. Americans know their main adversary is not in Europe, as it was in the Second World War. How the U.S. and Europe respond to Beijing’s drive for global dominance is what will define legacies in this century.
Losing Taiwan Would End US Hegemony – Losing Eastern Ukraine Would Not
https://providencemag.com/2025/05/losing-taiwan-would-end-us-hegemony-losing-eastern-ukraine-would-not/
By Rebecca Munson & Tony Cothron on May 8, 2025
“No one should question the resolve of the United States of America to defend our interests in the Indo-Pacific and beyond” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in March. But Beijing is certainly questioning U.S. resolve as the West vacillates over how to resolve Ukraine.
Fears are growing that the second Trump presidency will disengage from NATO and Europe. Some Europeans equate the risk of U.S. withdrawal from European security commitments to a Russian nuclear strike. And even amid concerns that Trump is dismantling the U.S.-led world order, an explicitly Europe-first approach is gaining traction, contending that other U.S. national security problems “can only be dealt with effectively once the Atlantic foundation of Washington’s global strength is secure”.
Yet, the reality is that Europe’s economic interests are tied to Asia. Any serious U.S. partnership with Europe necessitates serious U.S. engagement in Asia. Europe must recognize that its own economic stability and long-term security are at stake if Asia becomes wholly dominated by the CCP.
Last week, EU President Ursula von der Leyen flaunted that Europe’s “hallmark is not only that we are the biggest market in the world but that we are reliable and predictable.” If the EU has such potential, then it should assume a corresponding leadership role. If the Europeans think themselves serious partners, then they will work with the U.S. to build much-needed deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and push back against Xi Jinping’s alternative architecture for a new global order.
Building deterrence in the Indo-Pacific is in everyone’s economic interest. Consider, for example, how China is the EU’s largest imports trading partner. While the U.S. began reducing economic dependency on China in 2018, European reliance on China has increased. Thanks to short-sighted European economic policies, the U.S. is still tied to China via Europe, negating the benefits of American divestment away from China. Europe needs must do its part and make a full, clean economic break from China.
China’s own predatory economic behavior has already re-written many of the rules for the world economy, forcing other countries into protectionist policies. Until the EU dramatically shifts away from China, revisionist powers will continue to leverage and exploit Europe economically and politically. While Europe is making new efforts to reduce reliance on China and establish alternative partners, such as India, it has a long way to go.
In the long-run, if U.S. national security strategy remains fixated on Europe, the EU economy will suffer serious consequences.The Indo-Pacific region accounts for two-thirds of global economic growth, indicating that Asian regional stability is vital to the economic security of our European allies.
At the same time, the Trump Administration should cooperate with European tariff negotiation efforts and carefully calibrate trade polices to ensure the EU does not find financial solace in Beijing’s embrace. Otherwise, the whole deterrence project could backfire.
There is no real danger of “losing” Europe if the NATO alliance remains a convincing deterrent and the US maintains nuclear power parity with Russia. Russia annexation of parts of Ukraine, though tragic, does not mean U.S. “eviction” from Europe as strong Europe-first advocates contend. While there are good reasons to be alarmed that Trump’s desired peace plan makes a dangerous moral equivalency between Ukraine and Russia, that does not mean an imperfect peace in Eastern Europe would lead to a geostrategic collapse. In contrast, the risks associated with Beijing’s aims to re-shape the international world order are far more defined and pressing.
Compared to a Europe with greater accommodations of Russian interests, a Taiwanese crisis is far more threatening to both the U.S. and Europe. Breaking through the first island chain would give Beijing critical control over the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) advanced chip making capabilities. Though TSMC is moving some capacity abroad, CCP control over Taiwan would still heavily impact Europe and jeopardize critical global trade routes in the South China Sea.
Europeans are already beginning to take on more of their own defense responsibilities, but more must be done. While the United States receives great benefits from facilitating the flow of goods and services around the globe, it also incurs great expense in doing so, expenses that would be more fairly shouldered if Europe stepped up. For example, the U.S. recently conducted strikes against the Houthis in Yemen for attacking shipping chokepoints in the Red Sea traversed by only a small fraction of U.S. goods. “There’s a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this”, Vice President Vance texted a few weeks ago in the infamous Signal gate chat. Trump should frame a fair bargain with Europe with these examples in mind.
Europe-firsters have one thing right – a deep concern that the U.S. is has no desire to engage in multiple theatres. But prudent national security policy means finding a way to synchronize efforts to meet all threats. It means leveraging NATO in a way that reduces tensions with Russia coupled with open intent to break the “no limits” Russia-China alliance. Simultaneously, the U.S. must swiftly secure the main ingredients needed to build comprehensive deterrence by securing global supply chains.
New hemispheric defense efforts, if handled correctly, can shelter Mexico and Canada, America’s largest trading partners,from corrosive Beijing-backed infiltrations and advance national security objectives in multiple regions. But already-failed policy approaches towards China cannot continue without serious economic repercussions to the United States and Europe.
The Europe-first versus Asia-first dichotomy is not helpful because the core problem is not which region to prioritize. The problem is lack of deterrence capabilities predicated on actualized capacity to win in multiple theaters. A fixed focus on Europe gambles away the economic stability needed for both the U.S. and Europe to build credible deterrence.
The notion that preservation of a past legacy in Europe should serve as a cornerstone of America’s strategic decisions today is perhaps the most concerning piece of Europe-centric policies. Americans know their main adversary is not in Europe, as it was in the Second World War. How the U.S. and Europe respond to Beijing’s drive for global dominance is what will define legacies in this century.
Aggression | Foreign Policy | Geopolitics | Taiwan | The Latest | The West | Ukraine
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) | European Union (EU) | North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) | Pete Hegseth | Taiwan | Trump Administration | Ukraine
Rebecca Munson is the department chair for government and public policy at Liberty University’s Helms School of Government. She holds a PhD in political science from George Mason University. Her current book project is on US foreign policy on human trafficking.
Admiral Anthony Cothron served as the 62nd director of Naval Intelligence, as the Deputy Director for Customer Requirements at the National Security Agency, as the Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, and as the Commander of the U.S. European Command’s Joint Analysis Center. After his distinguished career in the U.S. Navy, in 2009, Adm. Cothron began a career in the industry as Vice President for Customer Engagement for General Dynamics Information Technology’s Intelligence and Homeland Security Division. Currently, he serves as an Associate Professor at Liberty University where he oversees undergraduate national security programs.
9. Senior Officers Are Not the "Villain"
Excerpts:
The flag officer footprint as of March 2024 is 809, with up to 20 four-star officers allocated to the Secretary of Defense for joint officer employment. Thirty-seven such billets currently exist with the Army in control of fifteen, the Air Force 11, the Navy just seven, and the Marine Corps and Space Force with two each. Each is paid around $210,00 to $223,000 per year. Reduction of a few of these leaders is not exactly vast cost savings. Consolidations of existing staff and outright cuts of some will save more money over time than cutting individual flag officer billets. Taking a hard look at the vast array of new joint staffs that have developed since the end of the Cold War, as well as the Defense Department’s own expansive bureaucracy might also be a good starting point for cuts.
Flag officer reductions would undoubtedly figure in cuts that begin with examining the staffs that demand flag leadership. That said, it is unlikely that the ratio of enlisted people to generals and admirals will return to World War two levels so often referenced by those who think there are too many flag and general officers. The continued automation of war alone has reduced the number of enlisted service members, and that trend is likely to continue.
Calls for flag officer reductions appeal to many constituencies, from defense budget hawks intent on cost reductions to some veteran groups who think current U.S. leaders are like the much-maligned “chateau generals” of the First World War. Real savings in defense spending, and the support that comes with that takes time, and can be achieved through a deep dive into the nation’s vast defense bureaucracy rather than high-profile cuts in high-ranking leadership.
Senior Officers Are Not the "Villain"
By Steve Wills
May 09, 2025
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/05/09/cut_staffs_before_flag_and_general_officers_for_real_savings_1109414.html
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to cut 20% of four-star officers and 10% of the rest of the general and flag officer community is yet another in a long series to manage what has been perceived as an excess of senior military leaders in the U.S. armed forces.
Critics of current flag officer numbers some times compare current rosters of admirals and generals to the much smaller number of such leaders relative to enlisted personnel during the Second World War. Large numbers of flag and general officers have been said to reduce efficiency and limit warfighting potential. Having more admirals and generals produces more retired officers in those ranks who often get accused of trying to influence defense acquisition choices as members of corporate boards after they retire. The real villain in this process is not the senior officers but rather the explosion of joint and interagency staffs since the end of the Second World War, and especially since the inception of the Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986. This growth in joint and interagency positions has in turn demanded a larger number of senior leaders to manage them. Any meaningful reductions in the general and admiral ranks must begin with a look at the staff swamp that created them.
The number of admirals and generals relative to the overall number of troops has been the operative question in flag officer limitations for decades rather than their overall numbers, which by the end of World War two were in the thousands of officers. Before 1980 the military services controlled officer promotions, and the Army and Navy employed quite different systems of officer management. The 1980 Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) mandated common officer management processes across the services, using an “up or out” system that forced officers out of service earlier than in civilian careers. It also imposed some initial caps on numbers of flag officers which had risen over the Cold War, not so much in overall numbers, but instead relative to the overall number of people in uniform. DOPMA stated that no general officer appointments that created more than 25% of all flag and general officers above two star rank could be made. In 1987, Congress replaced the ad hoc grade cap exemptions, many of which had occurred since DOPMA, with a general mechanism allowing up to 15 percent of all three- and four-star grades to be transferred between services by offsetting any increase in one service with a corresponding decrease in another service, keeping the total number constant.[
While DOPMA may have capped the flag and general officer numbers, the Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986, and its massive effort to expand the joint force control over the armed forces again drove up flag officer numbers. Many new senior flag officer jobs were created to build the joint oversight of the armed forces mandated by the legislation. These included the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (VCJCS,) the entirely new Unified Transportation (TRANSCOM,) and Special Operations (SOCOM,) commands (with attendant flag level leaders from four star and down,) The 400 person cap on the Joint Staff was repealed by the Goldwater Nichols legislation as well, allowing that organization to expand in size and scope to first 1600 military and civilian personnel in 1990, with some shrinkage back to 1250 by 2007. It was four thousand persons in 2016. This included new senior officer positions as well. The national Guard’s addition to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2011 and the creation of the Space Force in 2020 further expanded the overall flag and general officer footprint. Finally, there was an explosion in the interagency staffs in the wake of the 1986 legislation, with dozens of new agencies created for joint work, and after 1991 for the post-Cold War, interagency efforts. Post 1991 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq created additional joint commands and organizations needing flag level leadership. While many of those have been deactivated, there are many opportunities for further reductions and cost-saving in reducing the larger “joint” footprint where effort is already supported by the uniformed services.
The flag officer footprint as of March 2024 is 809, with up to 20 four-star officers allocated to the Secretary of Defense for joint officer employment. Thirty-seven such billets currently exist with the Army in control of fifteen, the Air Force 11, the Navy just seven, and the Marine Corps and Space Force with two each. Each is paid around $210,00 to $223,000 per year. Reduction of a few of these leaders is not exactly vast cost savings. Consolidations of existing staff and outright cuts of some will save more money over time than cutting individual flag officer billets. Taking a hard look at the vast array of new joint staffs that have developed since the end of the Cold War, as well as the Defense Department’s own expansive bureaucracy might also be a good starting point for cuts.
Flag officer reductions would undoubtedly figure in cuts that begin with examining the staffs that demand flag leadership. That said, it is unlikely that the ratio of enlisted people to generals and admirals will return to World War two levels so often referenced by those who think there are too many flag and general officers. The continued automation of war alone has reduced the number of enlisted service members, and that trend is likely to continue.
Calls for flag officer reductions appeal to many constituencies, from defense budget hawks intent on cost reductions to some veteran groups who think current U.S. leaders are like the much-maligned “chateau generals” of the First World War. Real savings in defense spending, and the support that comes with that takes time, and can be achieved through a deep dive into the nation’s vast defense bureaucracy rather than high-profile cuts in high-ranking leadership.
Dr. Steven Wills currently serves as a Navalist for the Center for Maritime Strategy at the Navy League of the United States. He is an expert in U.S. Navy strategy and policy and U.S. Navy surface warfare programs and platforms.
10. Taiwan’s New Strategy: Make China Fear the Pain of an Invasion
What does the supporting US campaign plan look like to support "Taiwan's porcupine defense?" Who wrote it and what HQ has responsibility for executing it?
Please go to the link to view the interactive graphics and charts.
https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/taiwans-new-strategy-make-china-fear-the-pain-of-an-invasion-dfe28815?st=GjNhSj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Taiwan’s New Strategy: Make China Fear the Pain of an Invasion
Facing rising threat from China, Taiwan races to overhaul its military and secure President Trump’s backing
By Joyu Wang
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Updated May 10, 2025 12:03 am ET
Key Points
What's This?
- Taiwan is overhauling its defenses to deter a Chinese invasion, aiming to hold out until the U.S. can intervene.
- Taiwan’s shift from conventional war preparation to asymmetric defenses, like drones, was influenced by Ukraine’s resistance.
- Taiwan faces hurdles: staffing shortages, low birthrates, and the need for better U.S. military coordination.
TAIPEI—Taiwan’s leaders have embarked on an urgent overhaul of the island’s defenses to prepare for what they see as the possibility of a Chinese invasion by 2027. The purpose: be able to hold on long enough for the U.S. to come to the rescue.
But many doubt the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own, can be ready in just two years, given the radical changes it is pursuing.
Taiwan wants to scrap a longtime focus on equipping the island for a conventional war. Instead, it is racing to build up new, asymmetric defenses aimed at making China’s much more powerful military think twice before attacking. Failing that, it aims to inflict enough pain to slow China while it seeks help from Washington.
How quickly Taiwan upgrades its military could determine whether Beijing decides to invade, and whether it would succeed in seizing the island.
“They are improving their military readiness in all three areas: policy, procurement and personnel,” said Mark Montgomery, a retired rear admiral who is now a senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. “But this is a five- or six-year-to-go process, and they need to get to work on each one of those as fast as they can.”
Here are some of Taiwan’s tools to detect, deter and repel a Chinese invasion.
Radar
To monitor missile threats from China, Taiwan has developed early-warning systems with help from the U.S. The Pave Paws radar system, based in Taiwan’s mountains about 8,500 feet above sea level, is capable of detecting threats up to nearly 3,500 miles away.
Anti-air systems
Air defenses, using U.S.-made and locally produced technology, aim to counter threats from long-range missiles, aircraft, helicopters and drones. Taiwan has Patriot missile launchers, is receiving its purchase of the U.S.-made NASAMS, a medium-range system, and increased production of missiles including the Sky Bow series.
Anti-ship missiles
Taiwan has invested in missiles, including its own Hsiung Feng series, to be able to stop amphibious landings and take out sea targets. The navy has two anti-ship missile brigades and several mobile units. A coming addition is the U.S.-made Harpoon coastal defense cruise missile, part of a 2020 arms deal.
Mines
One budget-friendly way to make any amphibious attack a lot more painful is sea mines. Since 2016, Taiwan’s Navy has committed to investing in minelayers that could quickly deploy the explosives at ports to help deter an invasion.
Drones and portable weapons
Taiwan is stockpiling attack drones and Javelin missiles that could be useful to strike Chinese tanks if invading forces manage to conduct a landing.
Sources: Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (Stinger missile, Sky Bow series, NASAMS); Army Recognition Group (Patriot, Altius-600M); CSIS Missile Defense Project (Hsiung Feng series, Javelin missiles); Lockheed Martin (HIMARS); AeroVironment (Switchblade); U.S. Naval Institute (Harpoon); U.S. Air Force (MQ-9B Reaper); Space Policy Project (Pave Paws); ArmyTechnology (TOW 2A & 2B missiles)
Emma Brown/WSJ
Many military experts say that China isn’t yet ready to overcome the geographical and military obstacles to an invasion. However, recent Chinese exercises simulating a blockade of the island have jolted Taiwan, which worries that the drills could be a precursor to an attack.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s leaders want to show President Trump that they are doing enough to deserve U.S. military intervention in case of a Chinese attack, after he said Taiwan needs to do more in its own defense.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said foreign military assistance is one of several ways it is accelerating the buildup of its defense capabilities and not the only option. “It’s our country and we will defend it ourselves,” it said.
A different type of war
Taiwan’s goal now is to build layers of coastal defenses to hold off an amphibious invasion. That involves stockpiling new weapons and expanding and training an army that can use them. Taiwan’s navy is establishing a coastal command, a shift from a focus on control of the sea to a focus on fending off attacks.
The overarching approach is known as the “porcupine strategy,” in which points of resistance are established throughout the island to deter and inflict pain on a larger adversary.
“With this solid military buildup employed through asymmetric approaches…[China] will learn that any attempt to invade Taiwan would not only entail significant costs but also prove futile,” Defense Minister Wellington Koo wrote in a defense blueprint published in March.
Using weapons that are cheaper to acquire and faster to deploy will be key to fending off China, said Alessio Patalano, professor of war and strategy in East Asia at King’s College London.
Taiwan’s approach has been influenced in part by Ukraine’s successes fighting Russia’s invasion. It plans to buy more than 3,200 drones from domestic companies in a five-year period to boost local production—mirroring Kyiv’s homegrown drone makers—in an industry currently dominated by China. The army opened an academy last year to teach soldiers how to operate them.
Another lesson from Ukraine has been that weapons and ammunition can quickly be depleted. Taiwan’s geography would make resupply a challenge if China has it surrounded.
“We definitely need to further increase our stockpile of antiship and air-defense missiles,” Chen Ming-chi, deputy foreign minister, said in December before he took his current role.
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te inspects troops during a visit to a military base. Photo: I-Hwa Cheng/AFP/Getty Images
The obstacles to the new strategy are considerable. Koo, a rare civilian to serve as defense minister, has to contend with an army establishment that has been committed to preparing for a conventional war for a generation.
Trump’s return to the White House has also raised the pressure on Taiwan. He and members of his administration have suggested Taiwan should spend as much as 10% of gross domestic product on its military—a tall order for Taiwan when the figure has long hovered around 2%.
Buying the smaller and cheaper weapons that would be used in an asymmetric conflict could also make it harder for Taiwan to satisfy that demand.
President Lai Ching-te said in March he would raise military spending to 3% of GDP by the end of the year, but he has encountered resistance to his budget in parliament from opposition politicians who advocate a friendlier approach toward Beijing.
Taiwan’s military “will only be as ready and as proficient as the Taiwanese people and the Taiwanese political elites want them to be,” said Patalano, of King’s College London.
Building an army
One of the biggest obstacles facing Taiwan’s military is staffing. It has set a goal of having a military numbering around 215,000, which would still be dwarfed by China’s two million-strong force.
At the end of last year, only 78% of Taiwan’s military positions were filled, according to the Defense Ministry. It has been difficult to draw recruits from an educated young population raised in an era of economic growth and demilitarization.
Meanwhile, the conscription pool is shrinking in Taiwan, which has one of the world’s lowest birthrates.
“There is already an understaffing of volunteers in combat units,” said Chieh Chung, a defense analyst who teaches at Taiwan’s Tamkang University. Increasing demands for combat readiness and force-building exacerbate the problem, he said.
Mandatory military service was tripled last year to 12 months. To make enlistment more appealing, the military has raised salaries by 3%—or as much as $400 a month—and upgraded dormitories.
A recruitment campaign is under way, with ads on buses that run through the heart of Taipei showing three uniformed cadets with the tagline: “Safeguard the homeland, create an extraordinary life.”
The military is looking to upgrade its reserve forces, in particular by improving its ability to quickly mobilize reservists.
Training has been reoriented in line with strategic changes. In the past, conscripts rarely left their bases to train or handled sophisticated weapons. Taiwan is increasingly training soldiers to use drones and more advanced weapons, such as Stinger surface-to-air missiles, in locations where they would be expected to defend the island.
Coordination with the U.S.
For Taiwan’s military to be prepared to fend off China, it will also need to know how to work together with the U.S. in a time of crisis. The U.S. and Taiwan are still learning to coordinate their combat plans and are far from being able to conduct a joint operation, said Chung, the defense analyst.
“Taiwan really needs to cooperate more closely with the U.S.,” said Chen, the deputy foreign minister. “Taiwan has almost no experience with war, so we need to learn from those with the most experience.”
The Pentagon didn’t respond to a request for comment about U.S. military cooperation with Taiwan.
Taiwan will also need to know if U.S. forces will show up. Officials in Taipei—who watched with alarm as Trump dropped U.S. support for Ukraine—are increasingly confident they have the U.S. president’s backing as the White House confronts Beijing.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Do you think Taiwan’s efforts will be enough to deter China from attempting an invasion? Why or why not? Join the conversation below.
Write to Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com
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Appeared in the May 10, 2025, print edition as 'Taiwan Aims to Make China Fear Invasion Pain'.
11. Trump envoy relied on Kremlin interpreter in meetings with Putin to end war in Ukraine
I hope our expert interpreters have not been eliminated by DOGE.
Excerpts:
A short video of the meeting released by the Kremlin shows a smiling Witkoff entering the room alone before he shakes hands with Putin, who is also broadly beaming. Witkoff does not appear to be accompanied by any advisers or experts who typically support American officials conducting delicate and complicated negotiations.
As a woman joined Witkoff on his side of the table, he pointed at her and said, “Interpreter? From the embassy? OK.”
Kelly, the White House deputy press secretary and Witkoff’s team did not identify the woman when asked by NBC News. The State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the Kremlin have also been asked for comment.
Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said using the Kremlin’s interpreter was “a very bad idea” that put Witkoff “at a real disadvantage.”
“I speak Russian and have listened to Kremlin interpreters and U.S. interpreters at the same meeting, and the language is never the same,” McFaul said via email Wednesday.
Having a U.S. interpreter present also ensures a more accurate written account of the meeting for the rest of the government, known as a memorandum of conversation or “memcon,” said McFaul, now professor of political science at Stanford University.
Trump envoy relied on Kremlin interpreter in meetings with Putin to end war in Ukraine
Using the Kremlin’s interpreter was “a very bad idea” that put Witkoff “at a real disadvantage,” Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, told NBC News.
Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff in the Oval Office on Tuesday.Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/russia/russia-ukraine-war-trump-envoy-witkoff-interpreter-kremlin-rcna205878?utm
- /
- Updated May 10, 2025, 6:06 AM EDT
By Keir Simmons, Carol E. Lee, Dan De Luce and Courtney Kube
MOSCOW — President Donald Trump’s special envoy broke with long-standing protocol by not employing his own interpreter during three high-level meetings with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, opting instead to rely on translators from the Kremlin, a U.S. official and two Western officials with knowledge of the talks told NBC News.
Steve Witkoff, who has been tasked with negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, met with Putin in Moscow for several hours on Feb. 11, on March 13, and in St. Petersburg on April 11, and “used their translators,” one of the Western officials said. “If they speak to each other in Russian, he doesn’t know what they are saying,” the official added, referring to Putin and the interpreters.
Witkoff, a former real estate mogul and cryptocurrency trader, does not speak Russian. By using Kremlin interpreters, he ran the risk that some of the nuance in Putin’s messages was missed and he would not have been able to independently verify what was being said to him, two former American ambassadors said.
Anna Kelly, a White House deputy press secretary, said in a statement that Witkoff “abides by all security protocols in coordination with the State Department.” Witkoff’s team did not respond. Both the State Department and the Kremlin have also been asked for comment.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Trump campaigned on ending the war on “day one” and has made it one of his top priorities. Putin, meanwhile, has shown little interest in ending the conflict, and in remarks broadcast Sunday, referenced Russia’s nuclear capability as he talked about bringing the war to an end.
The Russian leader, who is known to speak some English, communicates through an interpreter during negotiations and when he is conducting official meetings. At a meeting with Witkoff on April 25, he was flanked by his special adviser Yuri Ushakov, who served as Russia’s ambassador to the United States between 1998 and 2008, and Kirill Dmitriev, his special envoy for investment and economic cooperation. An interpreter joined Putin’s team.
A short video of the meeting released by the Kremlin shows a smiling Witkoff entering the room alone before he shakes hands with Putin, who is also broadly beaming. Witkoff does not appear to be accompanied by any advisers or experts who typically support American officials conducting delicate and complicated negotiations.
As a woman joined Witkoff on his side of the table, he pointed at her and said, “Interpreter? From the embassy? OK.”
Kelly, the White House deputy press secretary and Witkoff’s team did not identify the woman when asked by NBC News. The State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the Kremlin have also been asked for comment.
Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said using the Kremlin’s interpreter was “a very bad idea” that put Witkoff “at a real disadvantage.”
“I speak Russian and have listened to Kremlin interpreters and U.S. interpreters at the same meeting, and the language is never the same,” McFaul said via email Wednesday.
Having a U.S. interpreter present also ensures a more accurate written account of the meeting for the rest of the government, known as a memorandum of conversation or “memcon,” said McFaul, now professor of political science at Stanford University.
“At the end of every meeting that I attended, I debriefed the interpreter to make sure we heard everything correctly, to get the ‘memcom’ exactly right. You can’t do that using a Russian official,” he added.
Not having detailed notes about the meetings could create problems for other senior members of the Trump administration, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, as they try to advance discussions, McFaul said.
“How does Kellogg know what Witkoff agreed to with Putin? He only knows it through a ‘memcom,’” he added.
Witkoff’s dealings with sensitive information as he plays a key role in trying to resolve not only the war in Ukraine, but also the conflict in Gaza and the nuclear deal with Iran, have also raised eyebrows.
Witkoff’s plane, which he uses to fly to Russia for the meetings, is not fitted with a secure government communications system, according to two Western officials, including one previously quoted in this article. However, the officials said he has made sensitive calls from the U.S. Embassy before boarding the plane and has a secure cellphone.
NBC News approached the White House National Security Council for comment and was referred to Witkoff’s team, which did not respond. The State Department has also been asked for comment.
Witkoff’s efforts appear to have yielded little results in ending the war, at least from Russia’s side.
A proposal that Trump should meet with Putin on his trip to Saudi Arabia next week was nixed because there was no movement on Russia’s part toward a ceasefire, according to two administration officials and one U.S. official familiar with the planning. A meeting would have been contingent on Russia agreeing to a ceasefire in Ukraine, the administration officials said.
Separately, a European official said intelligence assessments indicate Putin remains committed to maximalist goals in the war in Ukraine and has no interest in coming to a negotiated settlement.
Putin has previously said he wants Ukraine to withdraw from four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — which Russia illegally annexed shortly after invading Ukraine in February 2022. He has also insisted that Ukraine promise never to join NATO, accept restrictions on the size of its army, and protect Russian culture and language inside the country.
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Biden slams Trump’s ‘appeasement’ of Putin over Ukraine war
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Since his last meeting with Witkoff, the White House has signed an “economic partnership” with Ukraine that will give Washington access to some of the war-torn nation’s critical minerals and natural resources.
“The Ukrainians have been cooperative, flexible, supportive and eager to move forward, but the Russians have not,” said William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now a fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, adding that it was “standard, basic practice that you have your own interpreter,” in high-level diplomatic meetings.
Ukraine, he said, had agreed to U.S. proposals on a comprehensive air, sea and land ceasefire, while extending a truce to Black Sea shipping lanes.
A “term sheet” with 22 proposals, including a 30-day ceasefire, has been drawn up by American, European and Ukrainian negotiators, one of the Western officials said, adding that it met Putin’s demand that the U.S. will not support Ukraine joining NATO.
“If Putin wants a way out, here is his way out,” the official said of the proposals. Witkoff will have to present them to the Russian president, they added.
In remarks published Sunday, Putin said Russia had sufficient strength and resources to take the war in Ukraine to its logical conclusion, though he hoped there would be no need to use nuclear weapons.
In a film broadcast by state television titled “Russia, Kremlin, Putin, 25 years,” he said, “There has been no need to use those weapons ... and I hope they will not be required.”
Keir Simmons reported from Moscow. Carol Lee, Dan De Luce and Courtney Kube reported from Washington, D.C.
12. Indo-Pacific Chessboard: Strategic Importance Of Indo-Pacific, Quad Alliance, And Maritime Power Plays
(note, with fingers crossed it looks like the US might have influenced a ceasefire between India and Pakistan according to reports today - Reports are that our SECSTATE exerted decisive influence).
Excerpts:
It’s difficult to see how much influence the US can exert in the current India-Pakistan conflict. The current US administration is finding it difficult to come up with a solution to the Russian Ukraine war, and has contributed to the genocide in Gaza. The bombing of Yemen appears nonsensical with no strategy value to the US. US strategists make a big issue out of Taiwan, which may not be in the danger the Pentagon espouses at all. US diplomats just don’t seem to have the appreciation of the region’s history, culture, and geography, and just don’t see the reality on the ground in Asia today that one would see walking around the streets of any major south east Asian city.
US strategic competitiveness in the region maybe more like a ‘paper tiger’ than reality. There are issues in question about the efficacy of US arms in battle. Its more propaganda that props up the US image. Sooner of later PAX Americana must accept the new realities of a multi-polar world and go back to the drawing board to create a new doctrine where it can co-exist with today’s realities.
This should become a serious issue for discussion by academics and think tanks during the rest of this decade.
Indo-Pacific Chessboard: Strategic Importance Of Indo-Pacific, Quad Alliance, And Maritime Power Plays – Analysis
eurasiareview.com · by Murray Hunter · May 10, 2025
The Indo-Pacific is generally regarded as a US construct covering the Indian Ocean from the African Coast, the western and central Pacific Ocean, to the seas and straits connecting the two oceans. As such, the Indo-Pacific includes nations such as Korea and Japan, down to Australia, south-east Asia, India, Pakistan, and the Persian and Arabian Gulfs. China features in the centre of the Indo-Pacific, and as such the Indo-Pacific paradigm is used as a template to view contested primacy. Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s speech in 2007, around the time when the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) began. The term became commonly used during the Trump 1.0 presidency.
US foreign and defence policy within the Indo-Pacific has been based upon the perception of US primacy within the region, in tandem with its allies including Japan, South Korea, and Australia. It’s only in this generation that US primacy is challenged by the rise of China into the South China Sea. This began in 2013, when the Tianjing dredger was sent to Cuarteron Reef to reclaim land to build a military base. A number have been built since around the Spratly Islands, and surrounding reefs, reflecting the Nine-Dash-Line protruding as far south as the coast of northern Borneo, that is seen by China as within their sphere of influence.
As the Peoples’ Liberation Army has been rapidly growing and enhancing capabilities, the Chinese have been able to challenge US primacy in the region. This has resulted in numerous local incidents with nations that share coasts along the Nine-Dash-Line, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Over the last decade, US forces have entangled themselves with PLA forces on “freedom of navigation’ exercises, from one of the many bases surrounding coastal China.
China and the United States have different views about their respective presence within this region. China may see itself as a patriarch of the group of nations around south-east Asia. China espouses co-existence, trade and cultural interaction. China views its military presence as a need to protect its trade ways in the south China Sea and straits vital to free passage. This is the ancient Silk Road, which is being manifested into modern trade by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to create multiple routes for China-world trade. China supports this with soft power, cultural and trade relations.
This continues on from the traditional Chinese presence that has been within the region for centuries, interrupted only by the 1949 revolution and self-imposed isolation until the late 1970s.
In contrast, the United States has taken a strategic cold war view of China. China is seen as a potential threat of a growing superpower within the cold war paradigm. This is a carry-on from US doctrine during both the Korean Conflict and Vietnam war. Militarily, the US has continued a containment position, while economically, the US economy has become integrated with China. A policy dissonance.
However, the concept of containment still exists for the US, with military bases in Korea, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Singapore, and Australia. This has been going on for more than 70 years. Rhetoric, such as China wishes to takeover Taiwan by force serves US purposes to justify its current policy approach.
Both the US and Chinese views of the region fuel the flurry of engagements occurring on a daily basis in this region. This is the catalyst of The AUKUS agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US, to focus on the containment of China. This is also dragging the United Kingdom with its dwindling military capabilities into the Indo-Pacific, and forced the hand of Australia to invest in extremely expensive strategic platforms, when there is a great need for cheaper tactical platforms closer to the coastlines and shipping routes around Australia.
The weakness of Australia’s AUKUS strategy was clearly seen with the recent flotilla of Chinese People’s Liberation navy ships and a possible nuclear powered submarine circumnavigating Australia, and conducting live fire drills near commercial airspace in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand. It took almost two weeks into the Chinese voyage before Australian Naval frigate HMAS Stuart was able to commence monitoring of the Chinese vessels in the Great Australian Bight. Australia does not need nuclear powered submarines, it needs highly agile coastal defence systems.
This puts focus upon other long-standing agreements in the region. There is perhaps a lot of misunderstanding about what the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (known as The Quad) really represents. The Quad is more a diplomatic grouping rather than any security partnership. The Quad made up of the United States, Australia, India, and Japan has found it very difficult be relevant, especially when its members have diverging interests. The Quad is more a relic of the beginning of the Millennian, emerging out of the 2004 Tsunami as a means of response to Indo-Pacific emergencies.
Although there were once some shared military exercises amongst the members of the Quad, the organization has been very spasmodic in its sense of purpose. The US wanted to consolidate military relations with India, using the Quad as a platform, but India has shown more independence in is defence policy since. Of late the Quad has become more a forum for issues of climate change, disaster response, maritime security, infrastructure security, and cyber security.
India has been more concerned with its role within BRICS and strengthening its relations with Russia. India is primarily supplied with military equipment by Russia and supplies Russia with light arms used in the Russian-Ukraine war. The Quad cannot be seen as a military grouping and may not even survive the decade as an organization, having once been put into mothballs already.
While China has been focused on building trade and cultural links with the region, the south east Asia nations have in the majority tried to maintain neutrality between China and the US. As the Indonesian puts it, “sailing between two reefs”. However, just the rumours Trump was going to place tariffs on Asian countries brought much apprehension, even before they were formally announced. There was a general view that tariffs would force much of the region into an unnecessary recession.
It would be an understatement to say that the new tariffs imposed by US president Trump on countries within the region have damaged US-regional relations. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand are now moving even quicker than before within the economic orbit of China. China’s President XI just made a goodwill visit to Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
The White House may see many Asian nations heading to the State Department to make new trade agreements, as a big win. However, the Trump administration is blind to the enhanced goodwill China is receiving through the tariff issue. Trump’s tariffs have been the biggest US foreign policy debacle for over a century. Chinese influence is now filling the vacuum Trump just created.
Certainly, the Chinese are skilled at the art of diplomacy, soft power, and exhibit nuances that the region feels comfortable with. In contrast, US diplomacy changes direction every five years, creating grave concern. President Obama promoted the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement during his pivot to Asia 15 years ago, then Trump just withdrew from it, destroying all the goodwill and trust south east Asian nations had in the US. Now BRICS provides positive aspirations leaders of the region are looking for, and the US have nothing to compete with. Indonesia just became a full member of BRICS earlier this year and Malaysia and Thailand became BRICS partners late last year.
It’s difficult to see how much influence the US can exert in the current India-Pakistan conflict. The current US administration is finding it difficult to come up with a solution to the Russian Ukraine war, and has contributed to the genocide in Gaza. The bombing of Yemen appears nonsensical with no strategy value to the US. US strategists make a big issue out of Taiwan, which may not be in the danger the Pentagon espouses at all. US diplomats just don’t seem to have the appreciation of the region’s history, culture, and geography, and just don’t see the reality on the ground in Asia today that one would see walking around the streets of any major south east Asian city.
US strategic competitiveness in the region maybe more like a ‘paper tiger’ than reality. There are issues in question about the efficacy of US arms in battle. Its more propaganda that props up the US image. Sooner of later PAX Americana must accept the new realities of a multi-polar world and go back to the drawing board to create a new doctrine where it can co-exist with today’s realities.
This should become a serious issue for discussion by academics and think tanks during the rest of this decade.
eurasiareview.com · by Murray Hunter · May 10, 2025
13. Pentagon directs military to pull library books that address diversity, anti-racism, gender issues
Sigh... when are we going to stop with cancel culture? Why are we so afraid of these books? Can't we see how these actions make us look like we are censoring our education and undermine our credibility? Does this really uphold American values - I am talking about our fundamental unalienable rights and our rights and values as expressed in our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights - not the disagreements and disputes about social norms as expressed in the culture wars.
Pentagon directs military to pull library books that address diversity, anti-racism, gender issues
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Updated 5:44 PM EDT, May 9, 2025
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AP · May 9, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon has ordered all military leaders and commands to pull and review all of their library books that address diversity, anti-racism or gender issues by May 21, according to a memo issued to the force on Friday.
It is the broadest and most detailed directive so far on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign to rid the military of diversity and equity programs, policies and instructional materials. And it follows similar efforts to remove hundreds of books from the libraries at the military academies.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the memo, which was signed Friday by Timothy Dill, who is performing the duties of the defense undersecretary for personnel.
In addition, Hegseth put out a memo Friday ordering the military academies to make sure they are admitting students based solely on merit —- with “no consideration of race, ethnicity, or sex.” He underlined the word “no,” but added that the schools can consider “unique athletic talent,” prior military service or those from a military prep school.
He said the secretaries of the services must certify within 30 days that the admissions offices are adhering to those standards. And he said the academies must rank student candidates by their “merit-based scores” within each nomination category.
Those categories include students whose parents are service members or were troops killed or injured in duty, as well as those nominated by the vice president, senators or members of Congress.
The memo on the latest library purge says that educational materials at the libraries “promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology are incompatible with the Department’s core mission.” It says department leaders must “promptly identify” books that are not compatible with that mission and sequester them by May 21.
By then, the memo says, additional guidance will be provided on how to cull that initial list and determine what should be removed and “determine an appropriate ultimate disposition” for those materials. It does not say what will happen to the books or whether they will be stored away or destroyed.
According to the memo, a temporary Academic Libraries Committee set up by the department will provide information on the review and decisions about the books. That panel provided a list of search terms to use in the initial identification of the books to be pulled and reviewed.
The search terms include: affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender, transsexual and white privilege.
Early last month the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, removed nearly 400 books from its library after being told by Hegseth’s office to get rid of those that promote DEI.
About two weeks later, the Army and Air Force libraries were told to go through their stacks to find books related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
The Naval Academy’s purge led to the removal of books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism, and Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” based on the list of 381 books that have been taken out of its library.
In addition to Angelou’s award-winning book, the list includes “Memorializing the Holocaust,” which deals with Holocaust memorials; “Half American,” about African Americans in World War II; “A Respectable Woman,” about the public roles of African American women in 19th century New York; and “Pursuing Trayvon Martin,” about the 2012 shooting of the Black 17-year-old boy in Florida that raised questions about racial profiling.
AP · May 9, 2025
14. Trump Promised to End Two Wars Quickly. In Private, He Admits He’s Frustrated.
Hopefully Secretary Rubio ended the India-Pakistan conflict today if reports are true.
Regarding the other conflicts - the enemy (and both parties to the conflict) always has a vote (though war is not a democracy you still get to 'vote' with your actions).
Trump Promised to End Two Wars Quickly. In Private, He Admits He’s Frustrated.
The president has told donors resolving the conflicts has been more difficult than he thought
https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-israel-gaza-russia-ukraine-war-f847b04a
President Trump has been unable to resolve the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza despite his vows to do so quickly once in office. Photo: leah millis/Reuters
By Josh Dawsey
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and Alexander Ward
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Updated May 10, 2025 9:11 am ET
Key Points
What's This?
- President Trump has found that resolving foreign conflicts is harder than he had expected, despite vowing quick ends to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
- Trump has privately griped to advisers that Putin doesn’t want to end the war in Ukraine, and that both sides refuse to compromise.
- The Trump administration is also in talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
When President Trump spoke to a room of top donors at his Florida club last week, he described ending Russia’s war in Ukraine as a growing frustration that keeps him up at night, people in the room said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was particularly tough to negotiate with, and wanted “the whole thing,” Trump said, referring to Ukraine, according to an attendee. His comments came in response to a donor’s question about his biggest foreign-policy concerns.
The war in Gaza was also notably challenging, Trump told the crowd. Finding any solution was hard because “they’d been fighting for a thousand years,” he said.
When Trump campaigned to return to power, he vowed to end both of those wars diplomatically and argued that neither conflict would have begun if he was in the White House at the time. He would even end the war in Ukraine on “on day one,” he said.
Instead, as he passes the 100-day mark of his second term with neither conflict closer to a resolution, negotiations to end Iran’s nuclear program stalled, and a trade war straining relationships with allies, Trump is finding solving the world’s problems more difficult than he had thought.
“Bluster and theatrics have their role in diplomatic high wire acts, but so do details and hard work,” said Dan Baer, a former ambassador in the Obama administration who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a Friday ceremony in Moscow, has refused to agree to a cease-fire with Ukraine. Photo: evgenia novozhenina/Reuters
Trump has since said he was joking about ending the Russia-Ukraine war in record time, and that supporters know he was being hyperbolic.
Kyle Haynes, a professor of U.S. foreign policy at Purdue University, said: “If he hadn’t promised such things repeatedly throughout the campaign it’d be wildly unfair to criticize him for failing to achieve them. But he did.”
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump and his team had been “laser-focused on delivering peace around the world and stopping bad actors from doing harm to Americans and our allies.”
“Their approach has been successful—Houthis agreed to a cease-fire, 47 Americans detained abroad have come home, NATO countries are increasing defense spending, China is deterred, and we are closer to peace in the Russia-Ukraine War than ever before,” she said.
On Saturday, Trump said the U.S. helped broker a cease-fire between India and Pakistan, after growing clashes in which both countries said they were acting defensively. The de-escalation marked a diplomatic success for Trump, though the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have proven more intractable.
Too many asks
In recent weeks, Trump has privately griped to advisers that Putin doesn’t want to end the war, and that both sides refuse to compromise. Trump has also asked advisers if they believe Putin has changed since Trump’s last time in office, and expressed surprise at some of Putin’s military moves, including bombing areas with children, according to people familiar with the remarks.
Earlier this year, Trump said he believed Kyiv would be harder to convince than Russia unless the deal terms were Ukraine’s terms, resulting in a combative Oval Office encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky live on television.
More recently, senior Trump administration officials have acknowledged that Russia remains the biggest holdout, refusing to agree to an unconditional 30-day cease-fire that Kyiv has already supported and instead seeking more concessions from Ukraine.
“I wouldn’t say that the Russians are uninterested” in ending the conflict, Vice President JD Vance told a Munich Security Forum event in Washington on Wednesday. “We think they’re asking for too much.”
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Trump’s early plans for the conflict were also upended within weeks. Russia complained about Trump’s first Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, over the retired general’s daughter’s support for Kyiv.
Trump then told Kellogg only to talk with the Ukrainians, and tapped Steve Witkoff, his longtime friend serving as the Middle East envoy, to step in. Kellogg and his team have argued that the diplomat has been effective in getting Kyiv to buy into Trump’s peace process.
Steve Witkoff is tasked with helping to resolve multiple foreign conflicts. Photo: francis chung/Press Pool
Witkoff has repeatedly pressed both sides to accept some terms they don’t like. Now, Witkoff has told others he just wants to get the two sides to the table, which he hasn’t yet been able to do.
Other U.S. officials have also suggested Trump may consider his job done if he gets the Russians and Ukrainians to engage in serious direct negotiations. What happens after that would be up to them, allowing the U.S. to focus on other priorities, the officials said.
‘Trying their best’
On Gaza, too, the Trump administration is pushing for a negotiated end to the war between Israel and Hamas.
Witkoff helped the departing Biden administration execute its cease-fire plan in January, just moments before Trump took office. But that agreement crumbled in March, and now the war has resumed. Israel has stopped all aid from reaching vulnerable Palestinians in Gaza, sparking a deepening humanitarian crisis.
Israel’s cabinet this week approved a measure to capture all of Gaza should Hamas keep on fighting and hold the remaining hostages. The Israeli government said Hamas has until the end of Trump’s Middle East visit next week to release the hostages.
Israel has resumed its military operations against Hamas in Gaza.
Ariel Schalit/Associated Press (2)
Some administration officials have been frustrated by Israel’s renewed attacks. But Trump has continued to talk about rebuilding the area, and effectively given Israel the green light to continue its military operations until Hamas changes course.
Meanwhile, Witkoff has widened his net of advisers to prepare for a postwar Gaza, including meeting with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and lawyer Alan Dershowitz, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Whether they’ll succeed remains to be seen, but they’re trying their best,” Dershowitz, a former Harvard professor said, adding: “I sense it’s more challenging than they hoped.”
‘Total dismantlement’
The Trump administration’s position on Iran’s nuclear program has also been mixed and sparked significant internal debate, administration officials say.
Trump says the nuclear talks with Iran are going well. Witkoff has met indirectly three times with Iranian counterparts about curbing Tehran’s nuclear development, and is expected to hold a fourth meeting in Oman this weekend.
Witkoff has proposed that the U.S. would lift sanctions and take military action off the table if Iran agreed to dismantle its nuclear program and purchase enriched uranium from the U.S. So far, Iran has sought to keep its centrifuges, and shown no sign of dismantling any of its nuclear work. There is also no firm U.S. position on what dismantlement looks like.
“We haven’t made that decision yet,” Trump told reporters Wednesday, after telling NBC News days earlier that “total dismantlement” was all he would accept. Trump administration officials have been surprised at the amount of criticism from Republicans on the topic.
An Iranian newspaper featured a caricature of a beat-up Trump. Photo: abedin taherkenareh/EPA/Shutterstock
Trump has threatened military action against Iran if it refuses strict limits on its nuclear work, but has yet to convince most other allies.
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said in an interview that France and others need tougher measures against Tehran than the 2015 nuclear deal that Trump exited, but ruled out a military option.
“We believe there is no other path towards a resolution of the Iranian problem than a diplomatic path,” he said.
Write to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com
Appeared in the May 10, 2025, print edition as 'Trump Vowed to End Two Wars, But He Is Increasingly Frustrated'.
15. What happens when a hegemon falls?
The “Kindleberger Spiral” – "...the Depression was such a disaster because the global economy lacked a leading nation to stabilise it."
Excerpts:
“The World in Depression” answers fundamental questions: “How and where the Depression originated, why it spread so widely and why it went so deep and lasted so long.” The book starts with the venomous diplomacy of first-world-war debts and reparations, travels through the stockmarket crash of 1929, the turn to protectionism, subsequent bank failures and the seemingly never-ending economic slump, until it concludes with German rearmament—stopping short of the second world war.
Kindleberger’s conclusion is that the Depression was such a disaster because the global economy lacked a leading nation to stabilise it. “Britain could not and America would not,” he wrote. Britain, which under the gold standard was the dominant economic as well as military power, was exhausted by the first world war. America was isolationist, protectionist and overrun by hard-money thinking, which insisted on balanced budgets and a gold peg. France was too small to stabilise the world but big enough to destabilise it, he wrote, as when the country attached conditions to bail-outs or dug in its heels over German reparations. The Kindleberger gap refers to this void of economic leadership
What happens when a hegemon falls?
Why economists are turning to a 50-year-old book on the Depression
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/05/08/what-happens-when-a-hegemon-falls
Illustration: Álvaro Bernis
May 8th 2025
T
he “Kindleberger Spiral”, a graph of world trade between 1929 and 1933, looks like water circling a drain, or a small animal curling up into a ball. It was produced by Charles Kindleberger, an economic historian, in “The World in Depression”, a book published in 1973, and has recently enjoyed a new lease of life as a demonstration of the self-harm that protectionism inflicts. From month to month, Kindleberger charted how the global economy turned in on itself throughout the late-1920s and 1930s, spiralling towards disaster. Another idea from his work—the “Kindleberger gap”, referring to a leadership void—is also proving helpful.
Kindleberger had a front-row seat for the Depression. As a graduate student completing his thesis in the 1930s, he worked at the US Treasury for Harry Dexter White, chief architect of the post-first-world-war system of fixed exchange rates. Graduation led to a job at New York Federal Reserve. After the second world war, during which he worked at the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA, he moved to the State Department, where he helped shape the Marshall Plan, America’s programme for the reconstruction of Europe. In time he found his way to academia—he had probably had enough excitement, his biographer speculates—becoming one of the first members of the economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At MIT, Kindleberger was something of a pre-war figure in a post-war world. He was not a mathematical-model builder in the mould of Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow, two supremely talented colleagues. Instead, he followed a methodology he called historical economics, not economic history. “It is better, I believe, to err on the side of an artistic feel for the relationships and the data,” he wrote. Despite this, in 2009, it was his work to which Larry Summers turned as he co-ordinated America’s response to the financial crisis while director of the National Economic Council.
“The World in Depression” answers fundamental questions: “How and where the Depression originated, why it spread so widely and why it went so deep and lasted so long.” The book starts with the venomous diplomacy of first-world-war debts and reparations, travels through the stockmarket crash of 1929, the turn to protectionism, subsequent bank failures and the seemingly never-ending economic slump, until it concludes with German rearmament—stopping short of the second world war.
Kindleberger’s conclusion is that the Depression was such a disaster because the global economy lacked a leading nation to stabilise it. “Britain could not and America would not,” he wrote. Britain, which under the gold standard was the dominant economic as well as military power, was exhausted by the first world war. America was isolationist, protectionist and overrun by hard-money thinking, which insisted on balanced budgets and a gold peg. France was too small to stabilise the world but big enough to destabilise it, he wrote, as when the country attached conditions to bail-outs or dug in its heels over German reparations. The Kindleberger gap refers to this void of economic leadership.
Stability, Kindleberger argued, is a global public good that must be provided. It is not a naturally occurring equilibrium. The leading economy—a “hegemon”, as later thinkers would term it—can capture some of the benefits of this stability for itself, and push the system in a direction favourable to its interests. However, it needs to take on the burden of providing, among other things, an open market for goods, countercyclical finance and the role of lender of last resort. President Donald Trump now appears to reject this thinking altogether. He demands that allies pay for military protection and views a trade deficit as straightforward evidence of being ripped off. Members of his administration have mooted charging countries for the privilege of lending to the American government. All told, he simply does not see the gains that emerge from global stability as being worth their cost.
Hélène Rey of the London Business School identifies a “New Kindleberger Gap”. This time a “self-destructing hegemon” is, she says, uninterested in providing global public goods, while an ascendent one (Ms Rey refers to the European Union, but China is another candidate) lacks the ability. The Fed’s swap lines lie at the heart of her concerns. These offer central banks in allied countries, including the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan, access to dollars in exchange for their own currency. They should help forestall any crisis that bids up the price of dollar borrowing, but are just the sort of burden-sharing to which Mr Trump normally objects. In an attempt to bolster their position, sophisticated policymakers are talking in Trumpian terms. “The reason we do it is it’s really good for US consumers,” Jerome Powell, chairman of the Fed, has said.
Greenbacked
What are the contingency options? Despite Mr Powell’s assurance that America will continue to offer swap lines, Ms Rey suggests that European central banks should encourage commercial lenders to reduce exposure to dollar assets, build up precautionary dollar reserves and play a part in turning the euro into an international currency. Robert McCauley of Boston University advocates the creation of a “dollar coalition of the willing”, pointing out that the central banks which would normally receive swap lines from America already have $1.9trn-worth of dollar-reserve assets, which they could agree to pool in advance of a crisis. That amount is far more than they borrowed from the Fed during either the global financial crisis of 2007-09 or the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic. In the short term, such actions may help cement the role of the dollar, as central banks build up reserves. In the longer term, however, it may mean that American monetary hegemony becomes a subject fit only for historical economics. ■
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16. Saudi Arabia is pulling off an astonishing transformation
Excertps:
To truly transform the economy, mbs must seize the chance to curb vanity projects that offer scant hope of a return. The government could retrench from areas such as tech, where private firms may invest. Improving areas where they will not, such as education and enhancing the business environment, would do more for long-term growth. A new investment law is welcome, but businesses remain unsure that their rights will be upheld, especially if they clash with the government.
The stakes for MBS and his country are high. Social liberalisation has bought him time among a youthful population. However, if economic change stalls and Saudis’ livelihoods suffer, their goodwill could easily dissipate. Unrest at home could lead the government to crack down, undoing the progress the kingdom has made. Saudi Arabia has come a long way in just a few years. It still has far to go.
Saudi Arabia is pulling off an astonishing transformation
Muhammad bin Salman is going from troublemaker to peacemaker
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/05/08/saudi-arabia-is-pulling-off-an-astonishing-transformation
May 8th 2025
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W
HEN DONALD TRUMP lands in Saudi Arabia on May 13th for the opening state visit of his second term in office—a reprise of his very first state visit eight years ago—you should pause for a moment to take in just how unexpectedly the situation has changed. Mr Trump has become wilder and more autocratic. By contrast, his host, the crown prince and de facto Saudi ruler, Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), has transformed his country into a force for order.
The familiar image Saudi Arabia conjures up is not just of fabulous riches but also of political repression and the subjugation of women. The kingdom has exported religious extremism, and thereby shares responsibility for the terrorism and violence that this has fomented. Today the country is still an autocracy. Its crown prince does not tolerate dissent. However, the Saudi Arabia you used to know no longer exists.
The kingdom is now a stabilising influence in the Middle East. At home it has undergone a stunning social revolution that has few parallels. The pressing question is over the third part of Saudi Arabia’s transformation, from a petrostate into a globalised, 21st-century economy. Here change has begun, but it is not fast enough—with potentially grave consequences for MBS’s entire project of reform.
The most surprising attribute of the new Saudi Arabia is its constructive role in world politics. The kingdom has both oil wealth and a hefty population. That clout once made it a menace. It was a financier and exporter of jihadism. In 2015, after his father, King Salman, ascended the throne, mbs began a disastrous war in Yemen against the Houthis. In 2018 came the shocking murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and dissident, on the orders of the Saudi regime.
The stain of those disgraces remains, but Saudi Arabia’s recent actions count for something, too. It no longer sponsors terrorism. It now counsels other countries to wind down their conflict with the Houthis. It has helped Syria’s new government by paying some of its debts to the World Bank, and promising to invest in the country if American sanctions are lifted.
Saudi Arabia’s influence in the region and with Mr Trump means that MBS could yet do more. His country has already hosted talks aimed at bringing a ceasefire to Ukraine. He advises dealmaking with Iran and an end to the war in Gaza. America’s president might just listen.
One reason for believing in Saudi Arabia’s foreign-policy rethink is that it furthers mbs’s central concern, which is to bring about bold social and economic change at home. He needs those changes because oil revenues cannot be counted on to sustain Saudi Arabia for ever. If young Saudis, who are two-thirds of the native population, are to thrive and, in the long run, to sustain the House of Saud in power, they need jobs. An unstable neighbourhood is a headache, because it inflames Saudis at home and raises the risk premium foreign investors attach to the country. A flourishing Middle East, by contrast, would mean more customers for the products Saudi Arabia hopes to make, and for its glittering new tourist resorts.
Social change is the second component of MBS’s new contract with his people, and it has been nothing short of extraordinary. Less than a decade ago half the country’s population—its women—were shut out of public life and much of the labour market. Cinemas and concerts were banned. Any fun was had indoors, in the desert or abroad, away from the eyes of the religious police. Today women are free to travel, work and live where they like. The vice squad has been disbanded. Like the rest of the world, Saudis can now watch rock stars on stage and superheroes on the silver screen. Even in conservative parts of the country crowds of young people are out and about, revelling in their new freedoms.
The area where Saudi Arabia’s reinvention remains incomplete is the economy. Since 2016 the government has spent heavily in order to diversify away from oil. The main targets have been gaudy “giga-projects”—such as the futuristic city of NEOM and a giant cube the size of 20 Empire State buildings—which by 2030 were projected to gobble up nearly $900bn. To cultivate new industries, the sovereign-wealth fund has backed more than 100 firms in areas from electric vehicles and e-sports to coffee-making and chip manufacturing.
Despite this, the economy remains stubbornly oily. About 60% of the government’s revenues still comes from selling crude. Although the hospitality and leisure industry is thriving, the flood of money being channelled into public spending is raising costs and crowding out private enterprise. Foreign investors are not yet excited about Saudi Arabia.
Worse, the fiscal strain is growing. Oil prices are at $61 a barrel, well below the $92 that the imf reckons the kingdom needs to balance the books. The country’s debt stock, though low, has doubled as a share of gdp since 2016. Although Saudi Arabia has got off with a so-called “reciprocal” tariff of just 10%, Mr Trump’s trade war will only worsen the strain. If the world economy slows, then oil prices and foreign investment could sink further.
No more white camels
To truly transform the economy, mbs must seize the chance to curb vanity projects that offer scant hope of a return. The government could retrench from areas such as tech, where private firms may invest. Improving areas where they will not, such as education and enhancing the business environment, would do more for long-term growth. A new investment law is welcome, but businesses remain unsure that their rights will be upheld, especially if they clash with the government.
The stakes for MBS and his country are high. Social liberalisation has bought him time among a youthful population. However, if economic change stalls and Saudis’ livelihoods suffer, their goodwill could easily dissipate. Unrest at home could lead the government to crack down, undoing the progress the kingdom has made. Saudi Arabia has come a long way in just a few years. It still has far to go. ■
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17. What a $15,000 Electric SUV Says About U.S.-China Car Rivalry
Imagine a 15,000 EV in the US? Toyota could make a killing. Even with a 20% tariff it would still be $18,000.
What a $15,000 Electric SUV Says About U.S.-China Car Rivalry
World’s two biggest vehicle markets increasingly look like Mars and Venus
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/what-a-15-000-electric-suv-says-about-u-s-china-car-rivalry-43cd564e?st=d65Bec&utm
By Peter Landers
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May 3, 2025 8:00 pm ET
The Toyota bZ3X, an electric-powered SUV, starts at about $15,000 and is available only in China. Photo: Peter Landers/WSJ
Key Points
What's This?
- Toyota is selling an electric SUV, the bZ3X, in China for $15,000, featuring a sunroof.
- The Chinese car market is dominated by EVs and plug-in hybrids from local brands, with advanced features at lower prices.
- U.S. and Chinese auto markets diverge over different supply chains and consumer demands.
SHANGHAI—The offer sounds like a scam—a new Toyota electric-powered sport-utility vehicle for about $15,000, complete with sunroof and cup holders.
But the Toyota bZ3X is real, and it is actually on sale starting at that price. There is a catch: To buy one, you have to be in China.
Auto executives once dreamed of a world car that could be designed once and sold everywhere. That world has fractured, and nowhere more so than in the two biggest markets, China and the U.S., which together account for nearly half of global vehicle sales.
“Decades ago, it was very easy to develop to produce one standard and to provide it globally,” said Volkswagen’s chief executive, Oliver Blume. “Today, it’s impossible because the expectations of the customers are different. The ecosystems are different, the regulations are different.”
“There is no such thing as a world car anymore,” said Jürgen Reers, global lead for the automotive business at Accenture.
For an American used to a $50,000 gasoline-powered SUV as the standard family choice, the Chinese market is hardly recognizable.
A majority of new vehicles sold in China are either fully electric or plug-in hybrids, and a look around the recent auto show in Shanghai showed that local makers have mostly stopped introducing new gasoline-powered models. In the U.S., by contrast, the traditional combustion engine still powers about eight in 10 new vehicles.
Most Chinese buyers these days are buying a local brand. Some, such as BYD, have begun to gain international recognition, but the malls are filled with dealers that offer brands virtually unknown abroad—Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Aion, Aito and many more.
BYD, China’s top EV seller, showcased new models at the recent Shanghai auto show. Photo: Kyodo News/ZUMA Press
The price difference is overwhelming. Chinese car buyers no longer need to debate whether an EV can be made affordable, not when a decent starter model costs $10,000 and a luxury seven-seater with reclining massage chairs can be had for $50,000. Because of customer demand, even the low-end models come with advanced driver-assistance software.
Compared with four years ago, “The prices of our competitors have fallen dramatically,” said Tetsuya Miyahara, a Honda Motor executive in China.
Tesla is better-positioned than other American automakers to compete in China, since its models have always been all-electric and it makes the vehicles in Shanghai with Chinese batteries.
Yet it has fallen behind in another aspect that makes China special: speed of development. Tesla has two models widely available—Model 3 and Model Y—and both have been on the market for years. China’s BYD has about 25 models, according to the market-analysis firm Inovev, and is constantly introducing more.
Tesla’s sales in China in the first quarter were slightly up at around 135,000, but its market share has plateaued at around 3%.
For a global company such as Toyota to compete in China, it needs a development process different from the one that serves American consumers with gasoline-powered RAV4 SUVs and Tacoma trucks.
Toyota said its bZ3X—the recently introduced model that starts at $15,000—was designed in China by the company’s engineers in the country, who worked with a local joint-venture partner. It is made in Guangzhou with Chinese batteries and driver-assistance software from Momenta, a Chinese leader in that field.
“This couldn’t happen without a Chinese supply chain,” said Masahiko Maeda, head of Toyota’s Asia business. “Unless you localize, it’s out of the question.”
A Toyota spokesman said the company received 15,000 orders on the first day the bZ3X went on sale in China in March, more than expected. Many buyers are choosing to spend a few thousand dollars extra to get more advanced driver-assistance functions, he said.
Maeda said the U.S. has a “costly supply chain,” meaning Toyota’s U.S. showrooms won’t be selling a $15,000 electric SUV soon. The closest equivalent, a slightly longer model called the bZ4X, starts at around $40,000 in the U.S.
People in the industry say that thanks to China’s supply chain, it is still possible to make money on a $15,000 vehicle. BYD, the leader in that price range, said its first-quarter profit doubled to more than $1 billion.
Toyota unveiled new models at the Shanghai auto show. Its bZ3X model was designed in China. Photo: Ng Han Guan/AP
Like other foreign automakers, Toyota needed a jolt in its China business after local rivals surged in recent years. Still, it retains a market share near 10%.
Toyota officials said the market remained important. China accounts for nearly one in five Toyota and Lexus vehicles sold worldwide, and Toyota is building a new, wholly owned Lexus factory in Shanghai that is scheduled to open in 2027.
The American and Chinese car markets are likely to diverge further with the two countries’ deepening trade conflict. President Joe Biden’s administration hit Chinese EVs with a 100% tariff, all but ruling out imports into America. President Trump has made it clear he doesn’t want more car imports.
The Detroit three automakers—General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis’s U.S. arm—are settling into niches in China. U.S. brands collectively had a 5.7% market share in China in the first quarter of this year, according to the China Passenger Car Association, down from 8.5% three years ago.
Almost all of the U.S.-branded vehicles sold in China are Chinese-made, taking advantage of the country’s supply chain. Imports from the U.S. are minuscule as a proportion of the total market.
Write to Peter Landers at Peter.Landers@wsj.com
The EV Transition
More coverage of the auto industry's challenging shift, selected by the editors
Appeared in the May 5, 2025, print edition as '$15,000 SUV Is Sign Of Car-Market Split'.
18. As America goes rogue, China eyes an opening
That is the question: Can China capitalize on it?
Or are the tariffs really self-defeating? What if they work? But I think it will be some time before we can see the positive effects. What if President Trump remakes the global trade system?
Opinion
Eduardo Porter
As America goes rogue, China eyes an opening
Trump’s self-defeating tariff offensive gives Beijing leverage. But can China capitalize on it?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/06/china-trump-opportunity-global-leadership/?utm
May 6, 2025
A man walks past an advertisement promoting China's renminbi (RMB) or yuan, U.S. dollar and Euro exchange services at a foreign exchange store in Hong Kong on Aug. 13, 2015. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters, File)
Days before “Liberation Day,” when President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of tariffs against everybody, something unusual happened in Asia. For the first time in five years, Chinese officials met with counterparts from South Korea and Japan to talk about trade. A few days later, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Spain considers China “a partner of the E.U.”
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There is a risk of overstating the relevance of such overtures. Japanese and Korean officials clarified they were not coordinating with Beijing on how to respond to Trump’s tariffs. And, as Sánchez was enjoying Beijing, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned Chinese Premier Li Qiang against redirecting exports blocked from the United States into Europe.
Still, the budding diplomatic maneuvers underscore how Washington’s wanton behavior — cutting aid, coercing longtime allies, ignoring international rules and undermining multinational institutions — has opened an unprecedented opportunity for China to reconfigure international alliances and shift the balance of power in its favor.
Whether Beijing plays its hand well is another matter.
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), negotiated by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations with 11 nations around the Pacific Rim, was an attempt at a strategic response: to knit together China’s neighboring economies with that of the U.S. — and either isolate China or get it to play by the rules. Such strategic reasoning has now been replaced by nearsighted thuggery. Discarded by Trump during his first term in office, sacrificed to the protectionism that swept American politics over the past decade, the TPP has been superseded by a “plan” to somehow overpower China with tariffs even as the U.S. also picks fights with every other country in the world.
The best news for the national security types in the White House is that China has not yet taken full advantage of Washington’s muddled thinking. But will their luck hold? Today, the question is whether Beijing will look beyond its narrow understanding of its own self-interest and make the concessions needed to take advantage of the strategic opportunities offered by the U.S. going rogue.
China will certainly suffer from the trade war. Trump’s tariff of 145 percent is a formidable wall around the American market, which took nearly $440 billion worth of Chinese goods last year. A loss of this size is likely to further strain China’s slowing economy.
And yet Trump’s belief that the U.S. holds the upper hand is upside down. Sure, the U.S. only exports about $144 billion worth of goods to China. But it is dependent on Chinese imports, relying heavily on them in more than 10 percent of all product categories, according to one recent analysis. These include rare-earth elements, toys, machinery and electronic equipment. For many, it has few or no alternative suppliers.
It’s relatively easy for China to replace American products. One of its biggest imports — $33 billion worth of agricultural products it bought from U.S. farmers in 2023 — can be sourced in, say, Brazil, which accounts for over a quarter of China’s food imports, almost double the 13.5 percent share coming from the U.S. American consumers and businesses, by contrast, are stuck between buying more expensive Chinese stuff or going without.
Another imbalance in China’s favor is that while China is in a trade war with the U.S., the U.S. is in a trade war with everybody. And though Trump seems to believe he can coerce other countries into cutting off China in exchange for lower U.S. tariffs, he may not find many takers. Who will trust Trump’s America to stick to a deal? Major economies from Japan and India to South Korea, Australia and Brazil trade more with China than with the U.S.
To win the moment, China must do some hard thinking about where its interests lie.
China put a lot of effort into building alternative economic networks to rival the U.S.-led order. It launched the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure investment program in some 150 countries. It cobbled together the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a trade agreement that includes 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. It tried to turn the BRICS, founded with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, into a meaningful economic alliance. It even applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — negotiated by the remaining participants in the TPP after the U.S. dropped out.
These initiatives increased China’s influence around the world. Still, Beijing has largely failed to generate substantial goodwill. It is often seen as an unreliable partner, willing to deploy economic coercion, as it did against Australia and Japan, and beggar-thy-neighbor trade tactics that flood foreign markets with its exports.
For China to play a leadership role, it will have to behave less like a bully and more like a leader, willing to sacrifice some interests to achieve coalitions to serve the larger strategic goal.
Such a transformation is not unimaginable. Beijing’s long-standing strategy to prop up its economy by dumping goods overseas has come to a dead end. Its relentless focus on greasing business investment to expand production and generate jobs is inefficient, requiring ever greater amounts of capital to generate additional output and employment. It distorts the economy: China’s household spending amounts to less than 40 percent of gross domestic product, compared to 60 percent on average across the industrialized nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Critically, the strategy produces a wave of goods that must be sold in other countries, swamping their industries and generating ill will. Boosting domestic demand — by, say, offering Chinese citizens easier access to consumer credit, building a safety net to reduce their outsize savings or simply granting them handouts to spend — would aid Chinese prosperity and reduce China’s dependence on foreign consumers. Indeed, a revitalized Chinese consumer economy might offer a great opportunity for exporters around the world.
There are other ways to take advantage of the moment. The run on the dollar sparked by Trump’s erratic policymaking opens an opportunity for other currencies to take a greater role in international trade and finance. But for the renminbi to take a larger global role would require Beijing to do away with its array of controls on capital flows.
To be sure, these reforms carry political risk. They require loosening the grip of the state over the economy and, ultimately, Chinese society. An empowered consumer economy may be more difficult to contain politically. Steering policy will be harder as the government cedes latitude to markets.
But that’s the price to exert greater influence over the world.
China could also be more transparent about its international lending and cooperate with multinational efforts to relieve poor countries’ debt burden. It could help revive multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the world’s arbiter of trade left to wither by the U.S.
Overall, China would have to stop pleading poverty to get better deals, stop subsidizing selected industries to gain an edge in foreign markets, stop stealing intellectual property from foreign firms and stop tying infrastructure loans to rules requiring it be built by Chinese contractors. It should stop behaving like a scurrilous upstart trying to gain an edge at every turn and start behaving like the power it has become.
Most critically, it would need to refrain from bullying. If its only response to Trump’s attempts to pummel the world into submission is to offer menacing words of its own, it will fail.
It’s impossible to predict how the global standoff will end. U.S. tariffs against Chinese imports may be negotiated down. Or not. Those deployed against the rest of the world — mostly suspended at the moment — may be switched back on, ratcheted up, lowered, canceled and restarted, exchanged for bitcoin, dipped in chocolate, or repositioned as a weapon against, say, human trafficking.
But, when the dust settles, and especially if the Chinese play their cards right, the world’s center of gravity may well have moved some substantial way across the Pacific.
What readers are saying
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By Eduardo Porter
Eduardo Porter is an editorial writer and columnist at The Washington Post. He formerly worked at the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Opinion and Notimex. He is the author of "American Poison” and “The Price of Everything.”follow on Xportereduardo
19. Neocentaur: A Model for Cognitive Evolution Across the Levels of War
Excerpts:
The Problem: Machine limitations and Military Decision-Making
The Solution: Neocentaur Evolution
Where Do We Go From Here?
The neocentaur, a model for human-hybrid relationships across the levels of war in the cognitive dimension, requires tailored technical solutions and experimentation during exercise and wargaming. There are two big takeaway from this analysis. First, leaders must avoid minotaur drift in their organizations. The desire to off-load cognitive burdens and achieve manpower efficiencies is natural. The likely danger, under crisis escalation and the fury of combat, is the outsourcing of moral obligations to autonomy in the name of efficiencies and combat necessity. This will have devastating effects on the level of warfare’s carnage, in addition to ushering unintended consequences into planning and course-of-action development. Second, leaders must recognize the tendency toward automation bias and create hybrid organizations, or systems of human-hybrid teams, to mitigate the risk of overreliance on AI. Generative AI solutions must be implemented with discretion by leaders who are algorithmically literate and treat AI as a weapon system across their organizations. They must know what forms of augmentation are right for which environment at which echelon and in which directorate. What is good for the G5 or J5 operations staff may not be right for the G33 or current operations floor. What is right for intelligence may not be suitable for fires. For now, war is still a human endeavor. Investing in a high-quality force by maintaining high recruiting standards and directed professional military education is the center of gravity for the neocentaur. In the growing age of AI enthusiasm, the Army cannot direct investment away from developing its critical asymmetric advantage: the quality of the American soldier.
Neocentaur: A Model for Cognitive Evolution Across the Levels of War - Modern War Institute
William J. Barry and Blair Wilcox | 05.09.25
mwi.westpoint.edu · by William J. Barry · May 9, 2025
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The US Army is at an inflection point. Geostrategic and technological shifts are requiring rapid adaptation. On May 1, the secretary of the Army and the Army chief of staff published a letter to the force recognizing several initiatives to deliver warfighting capabilities, optimize force structure, and eliminate waste. Among the guidance to increase warfighting lethality, the Army’s seniormost civilian and uniformed leaders noted the requirement to shift toward capability-based portfolios that integrate AI into command-and-control nodes to accelerate decision-making and preserve the initiative. At the US Army War College, new approaches to AI capabilities are both a concept and a reality. The neocentaur model, which describes human-hybrid intelligence across the levels of war, has been tested in the classroom and in strategic wargaming. Furthermore, our ongoing research presents a technical solution, presenting deterministic AI capabilities that are more suitable for military use when lives are on the line. To maintain military superiority, the United States must adopt a human-hybrid approach—the neocentaur model—that leverages deterministic models, rather than purely generative, to mitigate the risks of cognitive atrophy and formulaic decision-making.
The Problem: Machine limitations and Military Decision-Making
Current research on the impacts of generative AI and critical thinking should cause military leaders some pause. Cognitive off-loading to autonomous agents, for example, may deprive staff officers of the “routine opportunities to practice their judgement and strengthen their cognitive musculature, leaving them atrophied and unprepared.” Survey research of 319 “knowledge workers” funded by Microsoft determined that generative AI solutions reinforce shifts in critical thinking away “from information gathering to information verification,” “from problem-solving to AI response integration,” and “from task execution to task stewardship.” Generative AI course-of-action development tools, for example, appealing in their ability to reduce cognitive load on a staff and potentially free manpower, may have unintended consequences. To be fair, the thinking required to edit a 70 percent solution from a generative AI course-of-action tool may require some degree of creativity. However, the automation bias inherent in human psychology will likely accept machine solutions, particularly under the duress of combat operations. This concept is further reinforced by David Hume’s hypothesis that people favor what is already established, “imbu[ing] the status quo with an unearned quality of goodness, in the absence of deliberative thought.” What was intended, therefore, as a tool to augment human intellect begins, instead, to direct human cognition. This automation bias, or natural proclivity for a minotaur relationship—call it a minotaur drift—is a persistent threat with generative AI solutions. It must be recognized and avoided at the strategic level and permitted at the operational and tactical level only by deliberate fiat.
Generative AI’s impacts on creative processes are one concern, but not the greatest. The inherent advantages of human cognition, and likely the essence of effective command, is at risk with an unfettered acceptance of generative autonomy in cognitive dimensions of warfare. Cameron Hunter and Bleddyn Bowen, in an article published in the Journal of Strategic Studies, correctly note, “Command decisions . . . require multiple kinds of logical inference, and the good judgement to know when to use each one. Command decisions at their heart require judgement, which is something AI technologies cannot do.” Complex environments in which there are no right answers, no patterns for retrospective analysis, and no emergent practices for a priori reference—often the realm of the military commander in the crucible of combat—are beyond the realm of generative AI. Generative AI models are trained on existing bodies of knowledge and dependent on algorithms that, by design, will inhibit novel recommendations in unforeseen circumstances. Generative AI systems are capable of inductive logic (“deciding based on predictions drawn from prior observation”). Command decisions, however, require abductive logic (“deciding in the face of the unknown and unknowable”)—and generative AI is unable to manifest that ability. The genius required of commanders is both intellectual and temperamental, and uniquely human.
Our current research at the US Army War College highlights these concerns. Barry’s bounded novelty theorem, for example, demonstrates generative AI is unreliable, is inconsistent, and uses deceptive anthropomorphism. The model outputs are not answers; rather, they are probabilistic pattern responses. Without proper implementation, AI models will suppress novelty and diminish initiative. The determinations of this research support hybrid applications of AI at the strategic level of war and prudent applications at the tactical and operational levels. We are now working to take existing model outputs from probabilistic to deterministic, presenting a simulacrum of symbolic AI through generative systems. The applications of this development are groundbreaking for wargaming applications. Rigorous model testing among some of the Army’s most hard-hitting wargamers has validated its use. Despite its success, however, the Army must invest in the real thing: true hybrid systems that combine symbolic and generative AI (something like Jarvis from Iron Man) to train the centaur when human lives are on the line.
The Solution: Neocentaur Evolution
What should the military do with generative AI considering its pernicious potential? Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is ill-advised. Leaders across echelons must be informed and implement tools within their commands with a full understanding of the risks, particularly with the advent of Next Generation Command and Control. AI is not a monolithic tool. When understanding AI as a weapons system, this finding is not surprising for the military leader. Just as certain weapons systems are best suited for certain tasks—and not everyone is adept at handling every weapon (carrying an M240B for a week isn’t for everyone)—so AI as a weapon system must be adapted for purpose and users properly trained before implementation. The following concepts help describe proper relationships between humans and machines.
The centaur model, popularized by Paul Scharre, emphasizes human control in the machine dyad. Minotaur relationships, on the other hand, are characterized by machine control over human activity. Notably, current AI development is far more adept at performing cognitive tasks relevant to warfighting than “performing the functions of the human body most relevant to warfighting.” In other words, advances in robotics are lagging behind cognitive tools. Jack Watling reinforces this point, pointing to the complexities of dismounted maneuver in variable and uncertain terrain—common requirements for infantry squads in the field, whose abilities are unlikely to be matched by autonomous systems in the foreseeable future. Advances in generative AI present tools now that appear to outperform humans in creative functions, however. Generative solutions to offload “knowledge work” within the cognitive domains of warfare in higher-echelon headquarters are occurring now. The neocentaur (strategic, operational, and tactical centaurs) extends Paul Scharre’s description into the cognitive dimension of warfare across the levels of war. How should AI systems integrate with humans across the levels of war in the cognitive dimension of warfare? The relationships are not what you would immediately expect.
Strategic Centaur
The requirements, logic, and utility of the strategic centaur have been discussed. James Johnson, in The AI Commander , reinforces the salience of human-hybrid relationships with AI at the strategic level of war. (The “human-hybrid” relationship refers to human pairing with hybrid AI systems—symbolic and generative). He correctly asserts that human abductive reasoning and introspection (“metacognition”) allow for novel responses to unforeseen circumstances. “Algorithmic designers cannot remove entirely unforeseen biases or prepare AIs to cope with a priori situations,” he contends, requiring a modern-day centaurian pact with hybrid AI to fully leverage the advantages of human and machine (the neocentaur). Andrew Hill and Stephen Gerras, from the US Army War College, contend, however, that human intuition will likely be a limiting factor in fully leveraging machine performance to enhance US allocation of power. Although their assertion may be true at the operational level and below, primordial violence, enmity, and hatred are part of the Clausewitzian coup d’oeil required of strategic thinkers. Strategic centaurs (human-hybrid teams) are essential in directing military power to achieve political outcomes, particularly within a hyperaccelerating operational tempo.
Operational Centaur
It is the operational level of war that presents the greatest challenges and risks to AI implementation. This level of war is within proximity to the forward edge of the battlespace—yet must be responsive to creative requirements for contingency planning. The dual nature of this responsibility—to be both tactically responsive and simultaneously responsible for novel thinking—is a cognitive burden on the staff and requires deliberate tuning to ensure automation bias doesn’t pressure cognitive off-loading.
During a conversation with an Army division operations officer recently, he commented that limited personnel or experience during crisis and conflict often make it easier to “to edit than create.” Every leader sympathizes with this dilemma. At the corps, division, and lower levels the suite of available tools, network capability, and pressures of the tactical fight on the modern battlefield will overwhelm fighter management in the headquarters. If a headquarters could acquire a generative AI tool to execute the steps of mission analysis through course-of-action development, the logic is that it would free the staff to support elements in contact and provide higher-echelon headquarters feedback in a timelier manner.
This is where nuance and leadership are critical when implementing AI tools within a headquarters. Deterministic AI or hybrid solutions at the corps and division level that optimize science of war calculations to enable operational art are a priority. Determining how much time and fuel it would take for an infantry brigade combat team to travel from the air port of debarkation to an objective in restricted terrain and establish battle positions with estimations for ammunition and fuel resupply would take a talented planner several hours. Probabilistic solutions cannot be fully trusted for precise, iterative analysis. Hybrid AI would provide an answer within seconds.
Not all hybrid applications would have the same effect for each warfighting function, however. An Israeli AI system, termed Lavender, was able to supply an almost endless list of targets for action during the conflict in Gaza. The combination of human fury and machine processing, arguably, unleashed greater levels of violence than would have occurred were it not for AI target designation. Lavendar, intended to operate with deliberate human oversight, instead became a mechanism for off-loading human decision-making. This is the danger of AI systems when paired with human behavior. Under the duress of combat, humans obviate their oversight roles in favor of efficiency to achieve effects—effects that in the end may be far more devastating than intended. This is the essence of minotaur drift, ceding undue authority to machines that were designed to be used with human oversight in the name of expediency. The greatest risk of this dynamic is at the operational level of war—most specifically the division headquarters during competition and crisis and the corps headquarters in large-scale combat operations.
Leaders at the corps and division levels may consider a deterministic generative AI cordon to relevant staff sections—the fires planning and intelligence directorates, for example. Target and terrain analysis and basic course-of-action development within a planning cycle of twenty-four to forty-eight hours would be optimized by deterministic generative AI systems. Parameterization and integration must be deliberate. More experimentation is required to understand how best to implement and check outputs from hybrid relationships at this level. Sustainment and planning teams may best be shielded from purely generative AI course-of-action decision tools based on the likely suppression of novel recommendations to commanders and higher-echelon headquarters. Instead, these personnel, effectively knowledge workers, should be reinforced with deterministic or hybrid cognitive augmentation devices akin to capabilities demonstrated in August 2024 at the US Army War College.
Tactical Centaur
The tactical level—where you would suspect AI-enabled autonomous systems to be most prevalent and permissive for use—is likely the most difficult level of war at which to employ these tools dynamically. Robert Sparrow and Adam Henschke, researchers in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, note the persistent problem in robotic perception, locomotion, and manipulation. Computer scientist Donald Knuth correctly observes, “AI has by now succeeded in doing essentially everything that requires ‘thinking’ but has failed to do most of what people and animals do ‘without thinking’”—that, somehow, is much harder. Jack Watling, in Advanced Land Warfare, writes, “The movements of an infantry section are highly complex, context dependent, and rely upon teamwork. It is unlikely autonomous systems will be able to do this in the foreseeable future.” Aerial munitions (loitering and drone swarming) notwithstanding, the complications of ground-based autonomous movement in complex terrain often precludes their use in the tactical requirements of combat. AI support to the cognitive fight at the tactical level, as opposed to the physical fight, is a near-term necessity for lethal ground forces, however. The tension of AI-enabled warfare is the increasing importance of tactical actions on strategy. The small-unit actors at the chaotic edge of the battlespace are sensors and agents. They create new pathways that must be rapidly understood by the larger enterprise—and synchronized broadly. In this world, small-unit leaders become strategic leaders. The world’s best armies must have the best small-unit leaders linked to the best AI-enabled networks.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The neocentaur, a model for human-hybrid relationships across the levels of war in the cognitive dimension, requires tailored technical solutions and experimentation during exercise and wargaming. There are two big takeaway from this analysis. First, leaders must avoid minotaur drift in their organizations. The desire to off-load cognitive burdens and achieve manpower efficiencies is natural. The likely danger, under crisis escalation and the fury of combat, is the outsourcing of moral obligations to autonomy in the name of efficiencies and combat necessity. This will have devastating effects on the level of warfare’s carnage, in addition to ushering unintended consequences into planning and course-of-action development. Second, leaders must recognize the tendency toward automation bias and create hybrid organizations, or systems of human-hybrid teams, to mitigate the risk of overreliance on AI. Generative AI solutions must be implemented with discretion by leaders who are algorithmically literate and treat AI as a weapon system across their organizations. They must know what forms of augmentation are right for which environment at which echelon and in which directorate. What is good for the G5 or J5 operations staff may not be right for the G33 or current operations floor. What is right for intelligence may not be suitable for fires. For now, war is still a human endeavor. Investing in a high-quality force by maintaining high recruiting standards and directed professional military education is the center of gravity for the neocentaur. In the growing age of AI enthusiasm, the Army cannot direct investment away from developing its critical asymmetric advantage: the quality of the American soldier.
William J. Barry, PhD is the professor of emerging technology in the Center for Strategic Leadership at the US Army War College.
Lieutenant Colonel Aaron “Blair” Wilcox is an assistant professor and deputy director in the Strategic Landpower and Futures Group at the US Army War College.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Technical Sgt. Luke R. Sturm, US Air National Guard
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mwi.westpoint.edu · by William J. Barry · May 9, 2025
20. Economists warn Trump's research cuts could have dire consequences for GDP
I think cutting research and development funding may be one of our biggest strategic mistakes. Research and development is one of America's most important super powers.
Economists warn Trump's research cuts could have dire consequences for GDP
NPR · by Geoff Brumfiel · May 8, 2025
The International Space Station serves as an orbiting scientific laboratory where astronauts conduct experiments. The Trump administration has proposed cutting its budget by roughly $500 million and reducing research at the outpost. AP/Roscosmos Space Agency Press Service
When Casey Dreier saw President Trump's proposed budget for NASA, he couldn't believe the numbers.
"This is the worst NASA budget I've seen in my lifetime," says Dreier, the chief of space policy for the Planetary Society, a nonprofit that advocates for space exploration.
The budget proposes deep cuts for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, which oversees everything from telescopes peering deep into space to robotic probes exploring planets like Mars. Many of these projects cost billions of dollars to build and launch, but the budget cuts are so deep "that it will require NASA to turn off active spacecraft that are producing good science for pennies on the dollar for what the U.S. taxpayer paid for them," Dreier says.
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It's not just spacecraft — Trump's proposed budget for the federal government would switch off huge swaths of America's scientific enterprise. The National Science Foundation (NSF) would be slashed in half. The National Institutes of Health would lose $17 billion in funding. Other agencies like the Energy Department, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would all see deep cuts totaling billions of dollars.
These proposals "would be catastrophic if they were implemented," says Sudip Parikh, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. If the Republican-controlled Congress follows Trump's budget outline, Parikh warns, it will slash science at every university and laboratory in the United States.
"It hollows out science across the country, not just in the places that I know the administration sometimes likes to single out, but across the entire country," he says.
The aurora australis glows near the South Pole Atmospheric Research Observatory in Antarctica. The lab is operated by staff from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in conjunction with the National Science Foundation. Both agencies are facing deep cuts to research. Patrick Cullis/AP/NOAA
Long-term losses
So far, much of the focus of Trump's economic policy has been on tariffs. The president has said that they could raise the prices of some items, causing short-term pain.
But some economists warn that his dismal budget for research, unveiled last week as part of a larger plan, also carries long-term risks.
That's because fundamental science underpins America's economic growth, according to Andrew Fieldhouse, an economist at Texas A&M University who studies R&D's effect on the economy.
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"In dollar terms, the economic returns are really, really high," he says. Since World War II, "government R&D investments are pretty consistently driving about 20 to 25 percent of all U.S. private-sector productivity growth."
Consider NSF grant 8107494. It was given to a scientist named John J. Hopfield in 1981 for the theoretical study of biological molecules and processes. The grant was worth just under $300,000 back then (a hair beneath a million dollars today), and it funded Hopfield's work on an obscure topic: artificial neural networks. That science now underpins the multibillion-dollar AI revolution powering the tech economy. It also won Hopfield a Nobel Prize in physics last year.
Some economists believe the private sector could have done the same thing. Richard Stern, who directs economic and budget policy studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, believes that industry should be funding most of the basic research in the United States.
"I think getting the federal money out of this — making these labs sing for their supper and get money from private entities that want to research things that are practical for people — I think is the better way to stimulate growth by far," he says.
However, even Stern says these cuts to scientific research wouldn't be a priority for him.
"If I was rank-ordering government spending to get rid of, this would not be at the top of the list," he says.
And many other economists say industry can never replace the government as a funder of basic research.
"Very often, the private sector ends up underinvesting in these fundamental basic research areas," says Vasudeva Ramaswamy, an economist at American University.
The knowledge generated is too general, and the economic payoff too distant, he says.
The president's proposed cuts are just that — proposals. It's Congress that actually sets the budget. But if lawmakers choose to follow Trump's budget outline, Ramaswamy projects that America's future gross domestic product could be more than 4% smaller as a result of these cuts. That's roughly the size of the contraction experienced during the Great Recession, which lasted from December 2007 to June 2009 and was the country's longest recession since World War II.
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Ultimately, he says, these cuts could end up costing the government itself a lot of money.
"The economy tomorrow is going to be smaller because you decided to cut that funding today," he says. "And if your economy tomorrow is smaller, you're going to be raising less in taxes."
NPR · by Geoff Brumfiel · May 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
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