Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Most people are not seeking truth – they are searching for comfort in illusions."

– Friedrich Nietzsche

“The reason facts don’t change most people’s opinions is because most people don’t use facts to form their opinions. They use their opinions to form their “facts.”

– Neil Strauss

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”

– Isaac Asimov

1. How Trump managed to get his much-needed China trade victory

2. Trump Sends Message to World: He’s Open for Business

3. Trump’s moment to reform the US intelligence community

4. How Spying Helped Erode American Trust (Book Review essay)

5. What Should Be Said About China

6. Why Trump Suddenly Declared Victory Over the Houthi Militia

7. Trump’s gifted Qatari 747 would be a security problem, officials say

8. 'Children handcuffed and shot' - ex-UK Special Forces break silence on war crime claims

9. Top UK Special Forces general oversaw blocking of Afghan 'war-crime' witnesses to Britain

10. Extraordinary Fidelity: Two CIA Officers Imprisoned in China - CIA

11. Strengthening Asia-Pacific Security: ASEAN, South Korea, And Japan’s Path To Collaboration

12. Will prices go down? And other China tariff questions, answered.

13. AI Will Change What It Is to Be Human. Are We Ready?

14. Trump Dashes Chinese Dreams of Attending US Universities

15. US eases trade war, pursues 'strategic decoupling' from China

16. Echoes of Influence: Saying Farewell to 1st IO

17. The Republic Myth: How a Weaponized Lie Is Undermining Democracy

18. Versailles, not Munich: Rethinking Ukraine’s Postwar Security

19. Navigating the Sea of Misinformation: Increasing Resilience to Russian Influence Operations through Military Education

20. The Technopolar Paradox: The Frightening Fusion of Tech Power and State Power

21. China Is Building Megaports in South America to Feed Its Need for Crops

22. Trump’s China Deal Makes Sense. How He Got Here Doesn’t.

1. How Trump managed to get his much-needed China trade victory

Some key points in these excerpts:

The China talks would always be the most difficult, labor-intensive and time consuming. The lessons from Trump’s first term negotiations are deeply internalized among not just his advisors, but Trump himself.

For Trump, trade is the lynchpin to everything. That includes the India-Pakistan ceasefire agreement he told reporters was, in his view, primarily attributable to his promises of rapid increases in trade flows to both nations.

It seemed fitting that the most astute observation in the rush to analyze the dramatic de-escalation in US-China trade relations came from the man who drove them to the brink on an entirely unrelated yet no less consequential matter.

“People have never really used trade how I use trade,” Trump told reporters Monday morning.

How Trump managed to get his much-needed China trade victory | CNN Business

CNN · by Phil Mattingly · May 12, 2025

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (L) and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer speak to the media in Geneva.

Valentin Flauraud/AFP/Getty Images

CNN —

President Donald Trump’s shock-and-awe tariff approach threatened to rupture the global financial system and drive the US economy into recession. Nervous about the prospect of empty store shelves and reignited inflation, Trump sent in his even-keeled and professional negotiators to Geneva to snag a win.

The unexpectedly dramatic de-escalation with China laid the groundwork for a growing series of trade negotiations that may produce a handful of rapid-fire, if less than fulsome, bilateral agreements to reduce US trade deficits.

“We actually have a fresh start with China,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said in an interview on CNN News Central. “That’s the way to think about these negotiations.”

The decision by both the United States and China to drop stratospheric tariffs by 115 percentage points at the conclusion of two days of talks marked the most significant development in a policy approach that has been equal parts maximalist and messy. The de facto trade embargo between the world’s two largest economies had produced domestic and global economic pressure that appeared on the brink of calamity.

The de-escalation sent markets soaring across the world Monday, as it shed light on a Trump administration’s strategy to maintain significantly higher tariffs while incentivizing its largest trading partners to come to the table with offers.

Sending the serious people

In Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Trump sent lead negotiators who are viewed by market participants and their Chinese counterparts as serious, levelheaded and empowered.

As those talks start in earnest, the ongoing effort to secure deals with roughly two-dozen other countries was given a boost last week after a small-scale agreement with the UK. That provided a model for what Trump wanted in the urgent scramble to secure bespoke deals with the US, according to several foreign diplomats involved in the bilateral talks.

The negotiators, parameters for negotiation and clearly serious approach from both sides that will drive the next three months are all viewed as tangibly positive signs by Trump’s advisors. Whether they lead to a substantive outcome remains an open question, but as one advisor put it to CNN, “this a hell of a lot better than the alternative both of us were staring down.”

“This is really the first time it’s been possible to actually see the path to land this plane without some cataclysmic economic disaster,” a Republican senator told CNN. “Doesn’t mean we will, but that’s a lot better than where we’ve been.”

The path from the market-panic-inducing “Liberation Day” tariff announcement on April 2 to this point was hardly linear. Trump’s advisors have long insisted, against plenty of evidence to the contrary, that it was all a deeply strategic roadmap that incorporated every possibility.

The fallacy of that insistence is laid bare by Trump’s own view that “flexibility” is paramount. Bessent, who is fond in private settings of talking through the game theory he sees as animating Trump’s approach, cites the value of the “strategic uncertainty” created by his boss.

It was Trump, after all, who hit the pause button on his hardest hitting “reciprocal” tariff rates on roughly 100 countries. And it was Trump who first publicly floated significant de-escalation with China after, in private internal discussions, his team weighed even more dramatic off-ramps to step back from the brink.

The bond market, supply chains blinking red and increasingly apocalyptic warnings from executives across major industries all served as critical accelerants for Trump’s personal pivots. The actions in some cases had the effect of hanging his own advisors out to dry hours after they’d been on television pledging there would be no exceptions, delays or revisions.

There has, however, been a broad strategy designed to push trading partners to the very place the administration finds itself now, officials say.

The new reality

In the end, the Trump administration has somehow managed to lock into place dramatically higher tariffs – a 10% universal rate across the globe and sector tariffs that largely stand untouched. And, while recognizing that tariffs aren’t going back to zero, trading partners are still lining up to get a deal done with the United States.

That lawmakers and foreign diplomats alike appear willing to overlook – or even outright accept – that a 10% global tariff rate is basically a nonnegotiable reality at this point is perhaps the best window into the moment Trump has led the world into.

Trump’s team said that shock-and-awe strategy to get a “win,” even out of significant tariffs that remain in place was the strategy all along.

“We have had a plan, we have a process in place, now with the Chinese, we have a mechanism in place for future talks,” Bessent told reporters in Geneva.

The China talks would always be the most difficult, labor-intensive and time consuming. The lessons from Trump’s first term negotiations are deeply internalized among not just his advisors, but Trump himself.

For Trump, trade is the lynchpin to everything. That includes the India-Pakistan ceasefire agreement he told reporters was, in his view, primarily attributable to his promises of rapid increases in trade flows to both nations.

It seemed fitting that the most astute observation in the rush to analyze the dramatic de-escalation in US-China trade relations came from the man who drove them to the brink on an entirely unrelated yet no less consequential matter.

“People have never really used trade how I use trade,” Trump told reporters Monday morning.

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.

CNN · by Phil Mattingly · May 12, 2025

2. Trump Sends Message to World: He’s Open for Business

One question I do not see addressed is will it be equipped with all the secure communications capabilities to execute his duties as Commander-in-Chief? Especially in a crisis.

Excerpts:

Those who have watched Trump closely for years say his willingness to accept Qatar’s gift is consistent with the transactional approach he applies to other aspects of his job. “He’s not a president who used to be a businessman, he’s a businessman who happens to be president,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist. “He’s been unafraid to communicate that to his supporters and his detractors.”

...

Trump said he doesn’t plan to continue using the plane after he leaves office and that it would instead go directly to his presidential library, comparing it to a decommissioned Air Force One plane displayed at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif.

...

U.S. Air Force officials said Monday that they were surprised to learn that a commercial airliner could be joining their fleet as it would mark the first time in modern history a nonmilitary aircraft could be tasked with transporting the president.

Trump Sends Message to World: He’s Open for Business

President says he would be ‘stupid’ not to accept a $400 million luxury airplane from Qatar as Democrats, others raise ethical concerns

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-defends-gift-of-plane-from-qatar-6ab522f8

By Annie Linskey

, Jacob Gershman

and Nancy A. Youssef

Updated May 12, 2025 6:48 pm ET

Trump’s moment to reform the US intelligence community

Charlie Edwards

Senior Adviser for Strategy and National Security

About Charlie Edwards

https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2025/05/trumps-moment-to-reform-the-us-intelligence-community/

Twenty years after the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Trump’s advisers have a rare chance to restructure America’s intelligence community to confront Beijing – if they can convince the president.

In his confirmation hearing on 15 January 2025, CIA Director John Ratcliffe was clear: China presents a ‘once-in-a-generation challenge’. This call to arms was reinforced just a few months later by Tulsi Gabbard, the new director of national intelligence (DNI), when she set out the intelligence community’s assessment that ‘China is our most capable strategic competitor’.

Ratcliffe’s appointment as director of the CIA, Gabbard as the DNI and Kash Patel as director of the FBI are seen by some as evidence of United States President Donald Trump’s fraught history with what he has called the ‘deep state’. These traditionally non-partisan posts are now held by individuals who share Trump’s view that government insiders have allegedly conspired against him. Notably, however, the appointments also provide Trump with an opportunity to make China the ‘organising principle’ for intelligence, and they signal an intention to impose a reorganisation of the intelligence community from the top down.

The impetus for reform

The demand for intelligence reform – something Republicans, Democrats and intelligence practitioners largely agree is overdue – is driven by the perception that the current structure, established over the past two decades and influenced by post-9/11 needs, is not equipped to effectively address the rapidly evolving threats of today, particularly from nation-state adversaries and in the cyber domain. This is compounded by internal bureaucratic challenges (such as requiring that approved National Intelligence Program funds be directed to priority areas) and resource challenges (such as managing personnel within multi-agency mission centres).

In 2004, Congress enacted the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which created the position of director of national intelligence. The aim was to improve information-sharing among the intelligence community and ensure better integration of intelligence reporting and analysis. To its critics, however, the act has not delivered the empowered DNI with the control over the intelligence community’s budget that its architects envisaged. Although the DNI was handed sweeping authorities, real budget and personnel levers remained with the executive departments that house the agencies comprising the intelligence community – not least the Department of Defense. Successive DNIs have had to rely on informal influence and the goodwill of presidents to prise open institutional silos. Nevertheless, agencies still answer first to their departments, and even community‑wide initiatives such as joint‑duty tours have been taken forward only after protracted negotiation.

Critics of this current structure argue that it has slowed the intelligence community’s pivot from a post‑9/11 counter‑terrorism focus to one on today’s challenges, including competition with China and Russia and the cyber threat facing the US and its allies. In truth, the swing of resources towards China has continued to build momentum since the early 2020s. For example, William Burns, CIA director under US president Joe Biden, committed substantial resources towards China-related intelligence collection, operations and analysis around the world. But the challenge remains of who is driving the intelligence community to fill important gaps (such as on Chinese technology and business-related issues like supply chains).

The blueprint

In response to these challenges, critics such as the authors of Project 2025’s blueprint for intelligence reform – drafted by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank and like‑minded groups – have set out more radical options for change. Two recommendations from the project, which were influenced by Ratcliffe, are worth focusing on.

First, Project 2025 calls for an update to Executive Order (EO) 12333, the policy directive governing the intelligence community, which was last amended under president George W. Bush in 2008. Such an update would include transferring more centralised power to the DNI, including provisions for the changing landscape of threats faced by the US, and improving the functional aspects of the United States’ intelligence enterprise. For an administration that is keen to centralise power and reshape the intelligence framework without needing consensus from congressional bodies, revising EO 12333 presents a significant opportunity. Politically, it allows Trump to refocus efforts and resources without triggering prolonged public or legislative debate. The last time EO 12333 was amended, consultation with congressional bodies took 16 months. Trump could therefore favour speedier change and update the EO without congressional input – though this could lead to litigation.

Significant challenges would remain, however, even if Gabbard were to succeed in gaining consensus among the 18 intelligence agencies to work together to face the threat posed by China. Firstly, the CIA’s February 2025 voluntary-exit programme, open to its entire workforce, has allowed hundreds of operational veterans to leave the government just as Beijing is making it even harder for US intelligence to operate in country. Only four years ago, senior intelligence leaders were raising concerns about the limited intelligence-community expertise on China; this move will certainly exasperate the issue. Secondly, the US Department of State’s leaked plans to drastically restructure the organisation, closing nearly all of its Africa operations and shutting down embassies and consulates across the continent, threaten the ability to engage Chinese officials. These included prime locations to spot and recruit Chinese officials working on Belt and Road Initiative projects – something that is much harder to do in mainland China. Finally, whilst there has been a swing of resources in recent years to focus on China, counter-terrorism still absorbs a significant slice of the National Intelligence Program budget. This slice will possibly grow to reflect Trump’s desire for America to ‘wage war’ on the cartels, having now designated them as ‘foreign terrorist organisations’.

An extra eye on the Indo-Pacific?

A second recommendation from Project 2025 is to expand intelligence-sharing aspects of international partnerships such as the Quad (Australia, India, Japan and the US) to counter threats from China. The Trump administration’s view that China is its main strategic competitor will likely serve as a catalyst for seeking to expand its intelligence alliances.

Japan, for instance, is already an important base of operations for US intelligence operations in Asia and, last November, it hosted members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, the first time a non-member has done so. The meeting emphasised Japan’s growing importance as an intelligence partner in the Indo-Pacific region.

While an expansion of the Five Eyes alliance to Six Eyes is unlikely to happen, the potential for a closer alliance against China is increasing as the US looks to build out its ‘hub-and-spoke’ model in the Indo-Pacific. The US approach could neatly lace Japan’s maturing intelligence reforms with India’s human-intelligence reach with the aim of both influencing partners’ security postures and informing US intelligence assessments. But alliances depend on trust, and trust depends on predictability. Pausing intelligence-sharing with Ukraine, the impulsive disclosures seen in Trump’s first term, and the continuing fallout from the administration’s trade policy suggest US partners will likely hedge in the near term, which will likely negatively impact Indo-Pacific security in the long term.

Twenty years after the Office of the DNI’s creation, calls to reform the intelligence community persist. Trump now has the opportunity to restructure it and, with no meaningful pushback from Congress so far, will likely see updating EO 12333 as the most effective route to a China-focused agenda, stronger DNI authority and centralised budgets and personnel. Yet the outcome is far from certain. Agency turf wars and congressional funding lines will remain obstacles, as will scepticism from career professionals mindful of politicisation and wary that sweeping reforms might hollow out the very institutional expertise the reforms are meant to strengthen. Success will hinge on whether Trump can couple decisive top-down change with the preservation of institutional trust and agility that underpin effective intelligence collection and analysis.

Author

4. How Spying Helped Erode American Trust (Book Review essay)

A number of interesting points worthy of continued discussion in PME and graduate schools.

I suppose if we are going to "reform" intelligence we need to recall our history.

Excerpts:

Washington left his most significant intelligence legacy as the nation’s first president. At his prodding, the first Congress created the Contingency Fund for the Conduct of Foreign Affairs, a presidential bank account for paying spies. Congress controlled the amount that went into the fund but otherwise had no say in how it was used. This arrangement was arguably sound as a matter of both policy and constitutional law. Endless public debate is no way to authorize time-sensitive covert activities, and the most natural way to read the Constitution on the subject (which it says nothing about) is by analogy to the president’s powers as commander in chief and head of state.

But in establishing the Contingency Fund, Congress surrendered not just its right to control intelligence operations but any right to know about them altogether. The president was required to tell lawmakers how much he’d spent, but not where the money had gone. The abdication was considerable, and the potential for abuse was great.

The decision to involve the United States in espionage aroused little public opposition, both in Washington’s day and for decades to come. Americans still considered spying on adversaries unsavory, but their government simply wasn’t doing that much of it. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was largely an ad hoc business conducted by diplomats, military officers, and adventurers. The Army and Navy developed intelligence divisions after the Civil War, but these were marginal outfits that amassed little power or bureaucratic respect. Especially in peacetime, the United States had no permanent, centralized system for collecting intelligence. Accordingly, few Americans saw in the president’s covert powers a threat to law or liberty.

How Spying Helped Erode American Trust

Espionage has always been with us, but its rapid growth over the past century raises questions about who we are.

By James Santel

The Atlantic · by James Santel · May 8, 2025

In 1973, William Colby, then the director of central intelligence, had a statue of the Revolutionary War spy Nathan Hale placed on the grounds of the CIA’s headquarters in Virginia. Hale struck many as an odd choice of icon; after all, he had been captured and executed by the British. One of Colby’s successors, William Casey, grumbled that Hale “fouled up the only mission he was ever given.” Casey left Hale alone, but compensated by commissioning what he considered a more appropriate statue in the lobby—a likeness of William Donovan, nicknamed “Wild Bill,” the man often credited as the father of the CIA.

Casey wasn’t wrong about Hale’s incompetence. Hale hadn’t bothered to use an alias, and he divulged his assignment to a British officer. Whether or not he actually uttered his famous last words about having only one life to give for his country, it appears that he was an idealist, if not an outright innocent. “He was simply too forthright and trusting to be a good spy,” concludes Jeffrey P. Rogg in his forthcoming book, The Spy and the State, one of two new histories of American intelligence. This is an interesting assessment because of what Rogg declares just a few pages earlier: that the business of intelligence “is inherently ‘un-American,’” a practice ill-suited to a “country that values honesty, transparency, and forthrightness.” A tantalizing inference can be drawn: If Hale had been a worse American, he might have been a better spy.

The question of whether espionage is compatible with American ideals is an old one. At the founding, the prevailing answer was no. Spying was an appurtenance of monarchy, and therefore incompatible with republican government. In 1797, James Monroe, recently recalled from his position as the minister to France, accused Secretary of State Timothy Pickering of using spies in a bitter letter: “The practice is of great antiquity, and is now in use in the despotic Governments of Europe,” he conceded, “but I hoped never to see it transplanted to this side of the Atlantic.”

Vigilance Is Not Enough - A History Of United States Intelligence

By Mark M. Lowenthal

One founding American who did not share his age’s discomfort with espionage was George Washington. Rogg casts him as the nation’s first great spymaster, and he is joined in this assessment by Mark M. Lowenthal, the author of Vigilance Is Not Enough. The mission that cost Hale his life was Washington’s idea, and he authorized at least three kidnapping plots during the war. As the commander of the Continental Army, he was a sophisticated consumer of intelligence, cultivating a wide range of sources. Lowenthal, a former high-ranking CIA official, approvingly quotes the postwar protest of a British officer: “Washington did not really outfight the British, he simply outspied us!”

Read: How the CIA hoodwinked Hollywood

Washington left his most significant intelligence legacy as the nation’s first president. At his prodding, the first Congress created the Contingency Fund for the Conduct of Foreign Affairs, a presidential bank account for paying spies. Congress controlled the amount that went into the fund but otherwise had no say in how it was used. This arrangement was arguably sound as a matter of both policy and constitutional law. Endless public debate is no way to authorize time-sensitive covert activities, and the most natural way to read the Constitution on the subject (which it says nothing about) is by analogy to the president’s powers as commander in chief and head of state.

But in establishing the Contingency Fund, Congress surrendered not just its right to control intelligence operations but any right to know about them altogether. The president was required to tell lawmakers how much he’d spent, but not where the money had gone. The abdication was considerable, and the potential for abuse was great.

The decision to involve the United States in espionage aroused little public opposition, both in Washington’s day and for decades to come. Americans still considered spying on adversaries unsavory, but their government simply wasn’t doing that much of it. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was largely an ad hoc business conducted by diplomats, military officers, and adventurers. The Army and Navy developed intelligence divisions after the Civil War, but these were marginal outfits that amassed little power or bureaucratic respect. Especially in peacetime, the United States had no permanent, centralized system for collecting intelligence. Accordingly, few Americans saw in the president’s covert powers a threat to law or liberty.

The pattern that defined this period—an uptick in spying during war, and then its ebbing in peacetime—poses a problem for Rogg and Lowenthal, whose accounts of the years between the Revolution and World War II are overstuffed with desultory detail. The reader who perseveres through hundreds of pages of bureaucratic infighting and military history in the hopes of fresh insight into later, more familiar chapters of American intelligence will be disappointed. There are suggestive episodes along the way—for instance, the Army’s use of waterboarding during a brutal campaign in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century, or the 1798 passage of the Alien Enemies Act, which President Donald Trump has recently dusted off in cruel fashion—but the inescapable conclusion is that little of what came before the start of the Cold War informed what came after.

Growing out of Wild Bill Donovan’s wartime Office of Strategic Services, the CIA was established in 1947 as part of the National Security Act, the law that also birthed the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Under the act, the CIA’s primary responsibility was coordinating intelligence gathering across the government. But the statute also directed the agency “to perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct.” This was a fatefully broad legislative grant. The CIA’s first general counsel concluded that Congress did not mean by these words to authorize covert action—a view shared by Walter Bedell Smith, the agency’s second director, who worried that “the operational tail will wag the intelligence dog.”

Read: How fake spies ruin real intelligence

Yet for President Harry Truman, the need to counter Soviet aggression outweighed any niceties about legislative intent. In late 1947, he authorized the CIA to intervene in Italy’s parliamentary elections, where the Communist Party was poised for a strong performance. The agency spent heavily in support of candidates from the centrist Christian Democratic Party, which won a clear majority at the polls in April 1948. For Truman and his successors, it was proof of concept: Covert operations seemed to offer a relatively cheap way to confront the Soviets without risking a wider war. President Dwight Eisenhower expanded the CIA’s brief from influencing elections to toppling governments, leading to regime changes in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954. More chillingly, in 1960, he approved (whether expressly or tacitly is still disputed) the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic leader of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the plot fizzled out, Lumumba was soon killed in the aftermath of a CIA-backed coup, and the Kennedy administration followed Eisenhower’s example with its futile campaign against Fidel Castro.

Rogg and Lowenthal acknowledge that the CIA’s forays into regime change and assassination damaged the American government’s reputation abroad and its standing at home. Yet their evaluations of CIA excesses are oddly muted, as if botched attempts to murder foreign leaders were just another form of intelligence failure. In fact, the Cold War coups and assassinations were not merely missteps. They were abuses, with shattering consequences still being felt today. For history that treats these shady events with the appropriate degree of outrage, one must look to such recent works as Stuart Reid’s The Lumumba Plot and Hugh Wilford’s The CIA: An Imperial History.

In the mid-1970s, thanks to an inquisitive press and a newly assertive Congress, the public began to learn about the CIA’s more outlandish undertakings: not just coups and killings but also mind-control experiments (the notorious MKUltra program) and the surveillance of American citizens. One result was reform; the president, for instance, is now required by law to inform Congress before launching a covert operation. Another consequence was a growing culture of suspicion. Revelations of a seemingly lawless intelligence state awakened Americans’ long-standing wariness of spies, which, in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, acquired a cynical, paranoid aspect, evident in films such as Three Days of the Condor that depict the agency as a sinister shadow government.

Another name for shadow government is “deep state.” At first blush, President Trump’s conspiratorial view of intelligence appears not so different from that held by many other Baby Boomers; witness his obsession with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But in raising the specter of unchecked spy agencies, Trump doesn’t see a threat to the nation. He sees a threat to himself. He has been a relentless antagonist of the intelligence community since 2016, when it concluded that Russia meddled in that year’s presidential election to aid his campaign. Newly emboldened in his second term, Trump appears determined to bend the spy agencies to his will, filling his administration’s key intelligence jobs with the likes of Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel, unqualified outsiders chosen for their willingness to parrot his false claims of witch hunts and rigged elections.

Read: Inside the fiasco at the National Security Council

In saner times, under sounder leadership, changes to the intelligence community would perhaps be welcome. The CIA never fully regained the trust it lost in the 1970s; what progress it made was largely undone during the War on Terror, when its use of torture, rendition, and drone strikes of questionable legality—alongside the National Security Agency’s mass-surveillance program—again underscored the danger that an unaccountable intelligence apparatus poses to the nation’s constitutional order. These transgressions should have led Congress to consider fundamental reforms to America’s spy agencies, including a long-overdue mandate that they forgo covert action and focus on the essential work of foreign-intelligence gathering and analysis. But no overhaul is forthcoming, leaving the CIA and its peers vulnerable to Trump’s demagoguery, and Americans vulnerable to the whims of a surveillance state. Now, like much of the rest of the federal government, the intelligence community finds itself subject to thoughtless demolition. In April, the president fired the head of the NSA after the conspiracist Laura Loomer accused him of disloyalty; in early May, the administration announced plans to cut more than a thousand jobs at the CIA and other spy agencies. The timing could hardly be worse. As the United States enters a new era of great-power competition, it urgently needs information about its adversaries abroad. But for at least the next few years, America’s spy agencies will have their hands full with the rogue government at home.

When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

The Atlantic · by James Santel · May 8, 2025

5. What Should Be Said About China

Excerpts:

That’s a minor criticism of a well-crafted book that otherwise offers a savvy and startling assessment of the reasons why so many in academia, business, finance, stardom, and even government are reluctant to say what needs to be said about China. These things are left unsaid by so many lest they call forth an unwelcome reckoning and a galling confession. Seven Things You Can’t Say About China is, at bottom, a tacit admission that more than 50 years of American economic, military, diplomatic, and informational policies for China have failed.

It’s a silence now kept at our own peril.

What Should Be Said About China – Ralph L. DeFalco III

lawliberty.org · by Ralph L. DeFalco III

Ralph L. DeFalco III

Senator Tom Cotton’s book is a tacit admission that more than 50 years of American policies toward China have failed.

Buy this title

Reviewed

Seven Things You Can't Say About China

by Tom Cotton

In March, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA). For the first time, the ATA identified the People’s Republic of China as the most capable threat actor that now confronts the United States. The reasons for ranking China as the top threat—militarily, economically, diplomatically, and informationally—are made clear in a crisply written new book by US Senator Tom Cotton.

Cotton’s slim volume is a very readable and clear-eyed look at China’s capabilities, actions, and intent to challenge the US. Intended for a general audience, the book reflects Cotton’s keen understanding of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) decades-long plan to undermine US global leadership and the insights about China’s leadership he has gained from serving as a member, and now chairman, of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In Seven Things You Can’t Say About China, Cotton pulls no punches and calls out the media conventions, ideological leanings, commercial interests, and diplomatic niceties that preclude our leaders saying that China is an “evil empire,” waging economic war on the world, preparing for armed conflict, infiltrating US society and government, and targeting American children. He makes the case for each of these “unsaid” six things and concludes with the sobering assessment that Beijing could win the struggle for global supremacy—another unpleasant truth that goes unsaid.

Evil, Intention, and Infiltration

Much of what Cotton has written in this book could be dismissed by some readers as hyperbole. But his sharp, short arguments—written clearly and succinctly—are well-reasoned and supported by salient facts. His claim that China is an evil empire, for example, is buttressed when he describes ways the CCP built a “dystopian police state to monitor, manipulate and master its people.” He cites forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations that were used to enforce the party’s One Child Policy; the suppression of religious freedom, and Christianity and the Falun Gong movement in particular; the genocidal campaigns against the people of Tibet and Chinese Uyghurs; and a social-credit score that measures the average Chinese citizen’s political reliability and determines access to everything from education to housing.

The author also argues that China is preparing for war by funding an unprecedented military build-up. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is now the largest ground force in the world; its navy is larger than the US Navy (and augmented with the world’s largest coast guard fleet and a militarized merchant fleet); and Beijing plans to have a stockpile of 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035. “This massive investment of national resources,” writes Cotton, “speaks volumes about the party’s intentions.”

Seven Things You Can’t Say About China also details the party’s infiltration of American cultural, economic, and academic institutions and government. The author describes, for example, how JP Morgan Chase created a “Sons and Daughters Program” to hire family members of the Chinese elite, which violated American anti-corruption laws, and coughed up a $264 million fine for so doing. Cotton also recounts the now-infamous Hunter Biden dealings with Chinese companies. But he has special ire for retired politicians who have become lobbyists for Chinese enterprises with close ties to the state, including former Senators David Vitner, Barbara Boxer, and Joe Lieberman.

Influence and Obeisance

In his eye-opening chapter “China is Coming for Our Kids,” Cotton moves far beyond the story of TikTok’s hold on American children (in 2023, more than 60 percent of American teens used the app) to describe the influence the CCP is exerting on schools. On college campuses and in primary and secondary schools, Beijing is promoting Chinese language and cultural programs. Innocent on their face, Cotton argues the programs are artfully contrived. He quotes a less than circumspect Chinese official who noted the programs “are an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.” The Chinese government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on these programs, supplementing them with billions of dollars in donations (most of which are underreported) to academic institutions.

The CCP cannot win its battle for global supremacy without Taiwan in hand, and Beijing is readying to take that island by force.

That kind of spending, Cotton acknowledges, buys influence not only on college campuses, but also in K-12 classrooms. Nearly all of the estimated 120 Confucius Institutes on American campuses were closed when they were designated as foreign missions, and Congress prohibited DoD funding to any university that played host to these fronts for the CCP’s notorious United Front Work Department. Many have re-emerged as rebranded programs or have been spun off into other schools.

From 2007 to 2020, a Chinese-funded guest-teacher program placed 1,650 Chinese nationals in Confucius Classrooms. These K-12 teachers taught Chinese language and cultural studies and sanitized versions of Chinese history and the party-line versions of geography and politics in more than 500 American classrooms. The teachers, according to the Department of Education professionals Cotton cites, are “trained to steer classroom discussions away from an ever-expanding list of issues: Taiwan, Tibet, Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, the South China Sea and more. The problem isn’t what is being said; the problem is what is not being said.” The overarching teaching objective is to “normalize” the activities of the CCP and suppress any criticism of China.

The cost of criticizing China can be painfully steep. Cotton recounts the notorious story of how the NBA was forced to kowtow to China after losing an estimated $400 million when Beijing pulled all NBA games from state-run television and suspended sales of the league’s branded merchandise. The NBA’s affront was to permit one team’s general manager to tweet his support for the democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. The CCP, Cotton explains, has “compromised American businessmen, academics, and celebrities,” and “uses fear and greed,” to influence them. The author notes that he has been “sanctioned” by China for his views on Hong Kong and sees that condemnation as a badge of honor.

Not so the business leaders, academics, celebrities, and influencers—like Disney’s Michael Eisner—who have issued self-abasing apologies after making any one of several statements deemed offensive by China. Cotton recounts actor John Cena’s mea culpa as one case in point. Cena referred to Tibet as a “country” when promoting the film Fast & Furious 9. At risk of losing access to the Chinese market of tens of millions of movie-goers, and millions in revenue, Cena groveled his apology in tutored Mandarin: “I made a mistake, I must say right now. It’s so so so so so so important, I love and respect Chinese people. I’m very sorry for my mistakes. Sorry. Sorry. I’m really sorry. You have to understand I love and respect China and the Chinese people.”

Then Taiwan

Throughout Seven Things You Can’t Say About China, Cotton builds a solid case for his claims. A Harvard Law graduate, the author assembles point-by-point arguments and usually avoids speculation that would open his arguments to criticism and counterargument. That objective and understandable approach to a complex topic gives way to informed speculation in the chapter, “China Could Win.” Here Cotton argues the CCP cannot win its battle for global supremacy without Taiwan in hand, and Beijing is readying to take that island by force. War for Taiwan would result in “a global depression, the fraying of US military alliances, nuclear proliferation, the decline of American influence, long term economic stagnation,” and “the sun finally setting on American power.”

Cotton handily explores these shocking claims in the same succinct style that characterizes the rest of his narrative—only to hedge by writing “no one can predict with certainty how a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would end up.” What is certain, however, is that Cotton has made the case here for the promulgation of an American strategy “to deter Chinese aggression in the first place.” But the author never hints at even a base outline of a deterrent strategy.

Seven Things You Can’t Say About China finishes on a weak note. The epilogue offers up seven things ordinary Americans can do to beat China, including boycotting Chinese-made products, buying American, and voting for candidates that will stand up to China. This is disappointing. Cotton could have provided a substantial call to action as he has been far more forthright with how to address the Chinese threat in other forums. For example, in his report, “Beat China: Targeted Decoupling and the Economic Long War,” Cotton called for severing most economic ties with China; reinvesting in scientific, technical and manufacturing fields where China has the lead; sanctioning China for the theft of intellectual property; and withholding visas for Chinese students. That report would have been a welcome appendix to this eye-opening book.

That’s a minor criticism of a well-crafted book that otherwise offers a savvy and startling assessment of the reasons why so many in academia, business, finance, stardom, and even government are reluctant to say what needs to be said about China. These things are left unsaid by so many lest they call forth an unwelcome reckoning and a galling confession. Seven Things You Can’t Say About China is, at bottom, a tacit admission that more than 50 years of American economic, military, diplomatic, and informational policies for China have failed.

It’s a silence now kept at our own peril.

Dr. Ralph L. DeFalco III, is a 25-year veteran of the US Navy and retired in the rank of Captain. His assignments included tours at the Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, on the staff of the Director of Naval Intelligence, and as Deputy Director of Intelligence, National Joint Operations and Intelligence Center. He is a graduate and former member of the faculty of the National Intelligence University and served previously as Fleet Professor, United States Naval War College. His articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in the pages of publications including the Naval Institute Proceedings, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, International Journal of Intelligence Ethics, and The National Strategy Forum Review, and H-net. The views expressed here are only those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the US Government.

lawliberty.org · by Ralph L. DeFalco III

6. Why Trump Suddenly Declared Victory Over the Houthi Militia

Excerpts:

The sudden declaration of victory over the Houthis demonstrates how some members of the president’s national security team underestimated a group known for its resilience. Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of Central Command, had pressed for a forceful campaign, which the defense secretary and the national security adviser initially supported, according to several officials with knowledge of the discussions. But the Houthis reinforced many of their bunkers and weapons depots throughout the intense bombing.

Significantly, the men also misjudged their boss’s tolerance for military conflict in the region, which he is visiting this week, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Trump has never bought into long-running military entanglements in the Middle East, and spent his first term trying to bring troops home from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

...

What’s more, Mr. Trump’s new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, was concerned that an extended campaign against the Houthis would drain military resources away from the Asia-Pacific region. His predecessor, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., shared that view before he was fired in February.

By May 5, Mr. Trump was ready to move on, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials with knowledge of the discussions in the president’s national security circle. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal discussions.

“We honor their commitment and their word,” Mr. Trump said in remarks at the White House on Wednesday.

A White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, said in a statement to The New York Times that “President Trump successfully delivered a cease-fire, which is another good deal for America and our security.” She added that the U.S. military had carried out more than 1,100 strikes, killing hundreds of Houthi fighters and destroying their weapons and equipment.

Why Trump Suddenly Declared Victory Over the Houthi Militia

The militant group in Yemen was still firing at ships and shooting down drones, while U.S. forces were burning through munitions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/politics/trump-houthis-bombing.html

By Helene Cooper Greg Jaffe Jonathan Swan Eric Schmitt and Maggie Haberman

Reporting from Washington

May 12, 2025

When he approved a campaign to reopen shipping in the Red Sea by bombing the Houthi militant group into submission, President Trump wanted to see results within 30 days of the initial strikes two months ago.

By Day 31, Mr. Trump, ever leery of drawn-out military entanglements in the Middle East, demanded a progress report, according to administration officials.

But the results were not there. The United States had not even established air superiority over the Houthis. Instead, what was emerging after 30 days of a stepped-up campaign against the Yemeni group was another expensive but inconclusive American military engagement in the region.

The Houthis shot down several American MQ-9 Reaper drones and continued to fire at naval ships in the Red Sea, including an American aircraft carrier. And the U.S. strikes burned through weapons and munitions at a rate of about $1 billion in the first month alone.

It did not help that two $67 million F/A-18 Super Hornets from America’s flagship aircraft carrier tasked with conducting strikes against the Houthis accidentally tumbled off the carrier into the sea.

By then, Mr. Trump had had enough.

Steve Witkoff, his Middle East envoy, who was already in Omani-mediated nuclear talks with Iran, reported that Omani officials had suggested what could be a perfect offramp for Mr. Trump on the separate issue of the Houthis, according to American and Arab officials. The United States would halt the bombing campaign and the militia would no longer target American ships in the Red Sea, but without any agreement to stop disrupting shipping that the group deemed helpful to Israel.

U.S. Central Command officials received a sudden order from the White House on May 5 to “pause” offensive operations.

Announcing the cessation of hostilities, the president sounded almost admiring about the militant Islamist group, despite vowing earlier that it would be “completely annihilated.”

“We hit them very hard and they had a great ability to withstand punishment,” Mr. Trump said. “You could say there was a lot of bravery there.” He added that “they gave us their word that they wouldn’t be shooting at ships anymore, and we honor that.”

Whether that proves to be true remains to be seen. The Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Israel on Friday, triggering air raid sirens that drove people off beaches in Tel Aviv. The missile was intercepted by Israeli air defenses.

Image

Police officers stand guard at a site near Ben-Gurion International Airport that was hit by a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis last week.Credit...Amir Levy/Getty Images

The sudden declaration of victory over the Houthis demonstrates how some members of the president’s national security team underestimated a group known for its resilience. Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of Central Command, had pressed for a forceful campaign, which the defense secretary and the national security adviser initially supported, according to several officials with knowledge of the discussions. But the Houthis reinforced many of their bunkers and weapons depots throughout the intense bombing.

Significantly, the men also misjudged their boss’s tolerance for military conflict in the region, which he is visiting this week, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Trump has never bought into long-running military entanglements in the Middle East, and spent his first term trying to bring troops home from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Tracking the First 100 Days ›

The Trump administration’s previous actions on Gaza

Earlier entries about Gaza

See every major action by the Trump administration ›

What’s more, Mr. Trump’s new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, was concerned that an extended campaign against the Houthis would drain military resources away from the Asia-Pacific region. His predecessor, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., shared that view before he was fired in February.

By May 5, Mr. Trump was ready to move on, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials with knowledge of the discussions in the president’s national security circle. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal discussions.

“We honor their commitment and their word,” Mr. Trump said in remarks at the White House on Wednesday.

A White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, said in a statement to The New York Times that “President Trump successfully delivered a cease-fire, which is another good deal for America and our security.” She added that the U.S. military had carried out more than 1,100 strikes, killing hundreds of Houthi fighters and destroying their weapons and equipment.

The chief Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, said the operation was always meant to be limited. “Every aspect of the campaign was coordinated at the highest levels of civilian and military leadership,” he said in an emailed statement.

A former senior official familiar with the conversations about Yemen defended Michael Waltz, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, saying he took a coordinating role and was not pushing for any policy beyond wanting to see the president’s goal fulfilled.

General Kurilla had been gunning for the Houthis since November 2023, when the group began attacking ships passing through the Red Sea as a way to target Israel for its invasion of Gaza.

But President Joseph R. Biden Jr. thought that engaging the Houthis in a forceful campaign would elevate their status on the global stage. Instead, he authorized more limited strikes against the group. But that failed to stop the Houthis.

Now General Kurilla had a new commander in chief.

He proposed an eight- to 10-month campaign in which Air Force and Navy warplanes would take out Houthi air defense systems. Then, he said, U.S. forces would mount targeted assassinations modeled on Israel’s recent operation against Hezbollah, three U.S. officials said.

Saudi officials backed General Kurilla’s plan and provided a target list of 12 Houthi senior leaders whose deaths, they said, would cripple the movement. But the United Arab Emirates, another powerful U.S. ally in the region, was not so sure. The Houthis had weathered years of bombings by the Saudis and the Emiratis.

By early March, Mr. Trump had signed off on part of General Kurilla’s plan — airstrikes against Houthi air defense systems and strikes against the group’s leaders. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named the campaign Operation Rough Rider.

At some point, General Kurilla’s eight- to 10-month campaign was given just 30 days to show results.

In those first 30 days, the Houthis shot down seven American MQ-9 drones (around $30 million each), hampering Central Command’s ability to track and strike the militant group. Several American F-16s and an F-35 fighter jet were nearly struck by Houthi air defenses, making real the possibility of American casualties, multiple U.S. officials said.

That possibility became reality when two pilots and a flight deck crew member were injured in the two episodes involving the F/A-18 Super Hornets, which fell into the Red Sea from the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman within 10 days of each other.

Image

An F/A-18 Super Hornet. Two of the fighter jets, which are worth $67 million, accidentally tumbled off an aircraft carrier into the sea during the campaign against the Houthis.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Meanwhile, several members of Mr. Trump’s national security team were battling disclosures that Mr. Hegseth had endangered the lives of U.S. pilots by putting operational plans about the strikes in a chat on the Signal app. Mr. Waltz had started the chat and inadvertently included a journalist.

American strikes had hit more than 1,000 targets, including multiple command and control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities and advanced weapons storage locations, the Pentagon reported. In addition, more than a dozen senior Houthi leaders had been killed, the military said.

But the cost of the operation was staggering. The Pentagon had deployed two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses, to the Middle East, officials acknowledged privately. By the end of the first 30 days of the campaign, the cost had exceeded $1 billion, the officials said.

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

And through it all, the Houthis were still shooting at vessels and drones, fortifying their bunkers and moving weapons stockpiles underground.

The White House began pressing Central Command for metrics of success in the campaign. The command responded by providing data showing the number of munitions dropped. The intelligence community said that there was “some degradation” of Houthi capability, but argued that the group could easily reconstitute, officials said.

Senior national security officials considered two pathways. They could ramp up operations for up to another month and then conduct “freedom of navigation” exercises in the Red Sea using two carrier groups, the Carl Vinson and the Truman. If the Houthis did not fire on the ships, the Trump administration would declare victory.

Or, officials said, the campaign could be extended to give Yemeni government forces time to restart a drive to push the Houthis out of the capital and key ports.

In late April, Mr. Hegseth organized a video call with Saudi and Emirati officials and senior officials from the State Department and the White House in an effort to come up with a sustainable way forward and an achievable state for the campaign that they could present to the president.

The group was not able to reach a consensus, U.S. officials said.

Now joining the discussions on the Houthi operation was General Caine, Mr. Trump’s new Joint Chiefs chairman, who was skeptical of an extended campaign. General Caine, aides said, was concerned about supply of assets he thought were needed for the Pacific region.

Also skeptical of a longer campaign were Vice President JD Vance; the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; and Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Mr. Hegseth, people with knowledge of the discussions said, went back and forth, arguing both sides.

But Mr. Trump had become the most important skeptic.

On April 28, the Truman was forced to make a hard turn at sea to avoid incoming Houthi fire, several U.S. officials said. The move contributed to the loss of one of the Super Hornets, which was being towed at the time and fell overboard. That same day, dozens of people were killed in a U.S. attack that hit a migrant facility controlled by the Houthis, according to the group and aid officials.

Then on May 4, a Houthi ballistic missile evaded Israel’s aerial defenses and struck near Ben-Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv.

On Tuesday, two pilots aboard another Super Hornet, again on the Truman, were forced to eject after their fighter jet failed to catch the steel cable on the carrier deck, sending the plane into the Red Sea.

By then, Mr. Trump had decided to declare the operation a success.

Houthi officials and their supporters swiftly declared victory, too, spreading a social media hashtag that read “Yemen defeats America.”

Ismaeel Naar contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent for The Times. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent.

Jonathan Swan is a White House reporter for The Times, covering the administration of Donald J. Trump.

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

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.

7. Trump’s gifted Qatari 747 would be a security problem, officials say

Trump’s gifted Qatari 747 would be a security problem, officials say

The luxury jet was moved five weeks ago to San Antonio International Airport, suggesting that preparations for improvements to the plane might already be underway.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/05/12/trump-qatar-747-gift-security/

May 12, 2025 at 8:04 p.m. EDTToday at 8:04 p.m. EDT

A Boeing 747 belonging to Qatar sits on the tarmac of Palm Beach International Airport after President Donald Trump toured the aircraft on Feb. 15. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

By Natalie Allison, Ellen Nakashima, Dan Lamothe, Derek Hawkins and Warren P. Strobel

President Donald Trump on Monday praised Qatar for offering his administration a free luxury jet, but current and former U.S. military, defense and Secret Service officials said he will likely have to waive existing security specifications to be able to use the plane.

Trump said he would be a “stupid person” not to accept the gift of a $400 million Boeing 747-8, and called it a “great gesture” by Qatar. The president said that he intended to use the plane for a “couple of years” while his administration waits for a pair of Boeing planes to be completed to the strict military standards befitting Air Force One.

A White House official said it was premature to say how long upgrades to the Qatari plane could take. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, like others interviewed, also declined to say when the Trump administration expects to take possession.

Flight records show that the Qatari jet was moved five weeks ago to San Antonio International Airport, suggesting that preparations for improvements might already be underway.

Follow Trump’s second term

The Wall Street Journal first reported this month that Trump had commissioned defense contractor L3Harris to retrofit the Qatari plane in Texas. ABC News reported Sunday that the plane would be transferred to the Trump administration as a gift.

The lavishly appointed double-decker jet — originally purchased for use by the Qatari royal family — left Doha on March 30, making a stop at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and then at Bangor International Airport in Maine on April 2, according to Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for the flight tracking service FlightRadar24. The plane then flew to San Antonio the next day.

Trump emphasized Monday that the Qatari jet is a significantly newer plane than the ones currently available for the president’s use, which — although fitted with state-of-the-art defensive countermeasures, in-flight refueling capability and secure communications equipment — date to the George H.W. Bush administration in the 1990s.

“You know, we have an Air Force One that’s 40 years old. And if you take a look at that, compared to the new plane … it’s not even the same ballgame,” Trump told reporters. “You look at some of the Arab countries and the planes they have parked alongside of the United States of America plane — it’s like from a different planet.”

The Qatari jet boasts two full bathrooms, nine lavatories, a main bedroom and guest bedroom, multiple lounges, a private office, and cream and tan-colored leather seating on both decks, according to photos of the interior provided by the Swiss aviation company AMAC Aerospace.

But retrofitting the 13-year-old aircraft to current Air Force One requirements would take years of work and billions of dollars, current and former U.S. officials say. Such a task would be impossible to complete before Trump leaves office.

The Air Force referred comment to the White House, and the Secret Service declined to comment. L3Harris also declined to comment.

Securing a new, modern Air Force One is such a priority for the president that he has on display in the Oval Office a model of one of the planes Boeing was contracted to deliver — finished with his preferred dark-blue paint trim. After debuting the model during his first term, Trump displayed it at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, before returning it to a coffee table in the White House. At his Commander-in-Chief inaugural ball in January, Trump cut a saber into a cake, atop which rested the model plane.

A model of the proposed Boeing Air Force One rests on a table during a meeting between Trump and Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's president, in the Oval Office of the White House on April 14. (Al Drago/For The Washington Post)

The White House official said Qatar offered to “donate a plane to the Department of Defense,” but that the gift would not be accepted by Trump this week during his visit to the country. Trump departed Monday on his first major foreign trip, which will include stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The president’s jet has a raft of security, communications and support requirements that are highly classified and have proven costly and cumbersome.

“This is a flying nuclear-hardened command post,” said a former U.S. official with knowledge of Air Force One operations. “It has to have secure capability at multiple levels.” The Air Force would have to “rip” open and rebuild the Qatari plane — which has been flown for years in service of other countries and individuals — to bring it up to standard, said the official.

Counterintelligence is also a concern, said former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. “We would have to be sure nobody had planted bugs on the airplane,” he said.

High-end communications have to be protected from jamming, cyberattacks and nuclear blasts, current and former officials said.

“You’d pretty much have to take that plane down to the skeleton and put it back together,” said Mac Plihcik, a retired Secret Service agent who worked on President Barack Obama’s detail. “The security of every individual component is a big deal.”

Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent who was a supervisor in Trump’s first administration, said rigorous inspections are performed after all presidential transport vehicles leave the production line. The gifting of a plane from a foreign government would probably warrant an even harder look, Eckloff said.

“They’re going to walk that thing inch to inch and say, ‘Does this nut belong here, does this bolt belong here?’” Eckloff said.

Trump can waive any of this due diligence, Kendall said. “He’s the commander in chief. The only way he’s going to be flying on this airplane while he’s in office is if he waives a lot of these requirements.”

Trump has already stepped inside the Qatari jet, less than a month after his inauguration. The aircraft was brought to Palm Beach International from Doha on the morning of Feb. 15 — when Trump toured the plane for more than an hour on his way to a play a Saturday round of golf.

At the time, White House spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that Trump was examining “the new hardware/technology,” noting that Boeing was running behind on delivering the new Air Force Ones.

During Trump’s first term, Boeing agreed to a fixed-price, $3.9 billion contract to deliver two modified Boeing 747 airliners that would take on the “Air Force One” moniker when the president is on board. But delivery for the first of the two jets isn’t expected until at least 2027 and Boeing has incurred billions of dollars in cost overruns that it has had to absorb.

Trump disembarks Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on April 11. (Nathan Howard/Reuters)

“Donald Trump is getting a plane that is outfitted for an emir,” said Garrett Graff, a historian who has written about presidential security, referring to the Qatari jet. The president would likely balk at dismantling some of the luxurious accommodations on board and replacing them with government-issued equipment, said Graff, who described the gift as a counterintelligence nightmare. Trump, he noted, has signaled his interest in the plane since February, giving adversary intelligence services months to figure out ways to penetrate it.

Trump’s acceptance of the Qatari plane comes after years of Pentagon frustration and skepticism about Boeing’s ability to meet U.S. government plans for the next Air Force One.

Last week, senior Air Force officials told lawmakers that Boeing now projects that two planes — originally scheduled to be delivered last year — may now be available by 2027, as security parameters that originally were a part of the project have been eased.

Darlene Costello, a senior Air Force official, told a group of House Armed Services Committee members that she “would not necessarily guarantee that date,” and trade-offs may be required to have the first aircraft available by then.

A former senior defense official with direct insight into the new Air Force One said Monday that failures at Boeing and the Pentagon have combined to put the executive branch “in this position,” with growing concerns about delays that were once “wished away” coming back to “kick their a--.”

The contract for the new Air Force One jets, signed with Boeing during the first Trump administration, included a number of requirements that were “gold-plated,” the former senior defense official said, noting significant requirements for electrical power, refrigeration units and in-flight medical capabilities. The program also calls for a four-engine design to increase redundancy if there are mechanical failures.

“When you have all that stuff lined up, I just think it’s almost an impossible task to get it done” in time, the former senior defense official said, questioning the Air Force’s wisdom to stick with its requirements when problems first emerged.

The official assessed that from a technical standpoint, refurbishing the Qatari jet can be done, but with no clear timeline and a limited supply of parts available for a plane that is no longer in production. Boeing ceased production on the 747 in January 2023.

While Democratic officials were quick to condemn the conflict of interest presented by Trump accepting the plane from a foreign government, even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), a Trump ally, told reporters on Monday that he wants “to make sure that this whole thing is kosher,” adding that “time will tell.”

White House and administration officials maintain that the gift is in compliance with relevant laws, despite concerns being raised by Trump critics about it violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

As discussions about the transfer of the plane were underway, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel drafted a memo explaining why it thought Trump’s receipt of the jet would be permissible, according to an official with knowledge of the memo. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was registered to lobby on behalf of Qatar during Trump’s first term, subsequently signed off on that memo.

Trump said Monday that once he leaves office, he will not use the Qatari jet and that it will be transferred to his future presidential library.

He suggested that the addition of a decommissioned Air Force One on display at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library — a plane that had been in use by the government for nearly 30 years when it was retired — “actually made the library more successful.”

Perry Stein, Ian Duncan, Aaron Schaffer and Jarrett Ley contributed to this report.

What readers are saying

The comments express significant concern over the potential security challenges and ethical implications of retrofitting the Qatari 747 to meet Air Force One standards. Many commenters highlight the risks of accepting a foreign gift, suggesting it could be a "Trojan Horse" filled... Show more

This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.

All comments 180

By Natalie Allison, Ellen Nakashima, Dan Lamothe, Derek Hawkins and Warren P. Strobel

8. 'Children handcuffed and shot' - ex-UK Special Forces break silence on war crime claims

Oh no.

Video a the link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3j5gxgz0do

'Children handcuffed and shot' - ex-UK Special Forces break silence on war crime claims

BBC

Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues

1 hour ago

Hannah O'Grady and Joel Gunter

BBC Panorama

A video compiled by UK Special Forces shows how members of one squadron kept count of their kills

Former members of UK Special Forces have broken years of silence to give BBC Panorama eyewitness accounts of alleged war crimes committed by colleagues in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Giving their accounts publicly for the first time, the veterans described seeing members of the SAS murder unarmed people in their sleep and execute handcuffed detainees, including children.

"They handcuffed a young boy and shot him," recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. "He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age."

Killing of detainees "became routine", the veteran said. "They'd search someone, handcuff them, then shoot them", before cutting off the plastic handcuffs used to restrain people and "planting a pistol" by the body, he said.

The new testimony includes allegations of war crimes stretching over more than a decade, far longer than the three years currently being examined by a judge-led public inquiry in the UK.

The SBS, the Royal Navy's elite special forces regiment, is also implicated for the first time in the most serious allegations - executions of unarmed and wounded people.

A veteran who served with the SBS said some troops had a "mob mentality", describing their behaviour on operations as "barbaric".

"I saw the quietest guys switch, show serious psychopathic traits," he said. "They were lawless. They felt untouchable."

Special Forces were deployed to Afghanistan to protect British troops from Taliban fighters and bombmakers. The conflict was a deadly one for members of the UK's armed forces – 457 lost their lives and thousands more were wounded.

Asked by the BBC about the new eyewitness testimony, the Ministry of Defence said that it was "fully committed" to supporting the ongoing public inquiry into the alleged war crimes and that it urged all veterans with relevant information to come forward. It said that it was "not appropriate for the MoD to comment on allegations" which may be in the inquiry's scope.

'Psychotic murderers' in the regiment

The eyewitness testimony offers the most detailed public account of the killings to date from former members of UK Special Forces (UKSF), the umbrella group which contains the SAS, SBS and several supporting regiments.

The testimony, from more than 30 people who served with or alongside UK Special Forces, builds on years of reporting by BBC Panorama into allegations of extrajudicial killings by the SAS.

Panorama can also reveal for the first time that then Prime Minister David Cameron was repeatedly warned during his tenure that UK Special Forces were killing civilians in Afghanistan.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because of a de facto code of silence around special forces operations, the eyewitnesses told the BBC that the laws of war were being regularly and intentionally broken by the country's most elite regiments during operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those laws state that on such operations people can be deliberately killed only when they pose a direct threat to the lives of British troops or others. But members of the SAS and SBS were making their own rules, the eyewitnesses said.

"If a target had popped up on the list two or three times before, then we'd go in with the intention of killing them, there was no attempt to capture them," said one veteran who served with the SAS, referring to people who had been previously captured, questioned and then released.

"Sometimes we'd check we'd identified the target, confirm their ID, then shoot them," he said. "Often the squadron would just go and kill all the men they found there."

One witness who served with the SAS said that killing could become "an addictive thing to do" and that some members of the elite regiment were "intoxicated by that feeling" in Afghanistan. There were "lots of psychotic murderers", he said.

Getty Images

Then Prime Minister David Cameron (r) was made aware, by the then Afghan President Hamid Karzai (l), of allegations of civilian killings, the BBC has been told

"On some operations, the troop would go into guesthouse-type buildings and kill everyone there," he said. "They'd go in and shoot everyone sleeping there, on entry. It's not justified, killing people in their sleep."

A veteran who served with the SBS told the BBC that after bringing an area under control, several soldiers would sweep through the area shooting anyone on the ground, checking the bodies and killing anyone left alive. "It was expected, not hidden. Everyone knew," he said.

Intentionally killing wounded people who do not pose a threat would be a clear breach of international law. But the SBS veteran told Panorama that wounded people were routinely killed. He described one operation during which a medic was treating someone who had been shot but was still breathing. "Then one of our blokes came up to him. There was a bang. He'd been shot in the head at point-blank range," he said.

The killings were "completely unnecessary," he added. "These are not mercy killings. It's murder."

More junior members of assault teams were told by more senior SAS operators to kill male detainees, according to the testimony, using instructions such as "he's not coming back to base with us" or "this detainee, you make sure he doesn't come off target".

Detainees were people who had surrendered, been searched by special forces, and were typically handcuffed. British and international law forbid troops from deliberately killing unarmed civilians or prisoners of war.

A former SAS operator also described learning of an operation in Iraq during which someone was executed.

"It was pretty clear from what I could glean that he posed no threat, he wasn't armed. It's disgraceful. There's no professionalism in that," the former operator said. The killing was never properly investigated, he added. According to the SAS veteran, the problem started long before the regiment moved across to Afghanistan and "senior commanders were aware of that".

One SAS veteran said that killing could be an "addictive thing to do"

The testimony, as well as new video evidence obtained by the BBC from SAS operations in Iraq in 2006, also supports previous reporting by Panorama that SAS squadrons kept count of their kills to compete with one another.

Sources told the BBC that some members of the SAS kept their own individual counts, and that one operator personally killed dozens of people on one six-month tour of Afghanistan.

"It seemed like he was trying to get a kill on every operation, every night someone got killed," a former colleague said. The operator was "notorious in the squadron, he genuinely seemed like a psychopath," the former colleague added.

In one incident that sources say became infamous inside the SAS, the operator allegedly slit the throat of an injured Afghan man after telling an officer not to shoot the man again. It was "because he wanted to go and finish the wounded guy off with his knife," another former colleague said. "He wanted to, you know, blood his knife."

Knowledge of the alleged crimes was not confined to small teams or individual squadrons, according to the testimony. Within the UK Special Forces command structure, "everyone knew" what was happening, said one veteran.

"I'm not taking away from personal responsibility, but everyone knew," he said. "There was implicit approval for what was happening."

To avoid scrutiny of the killings, eyewitnesses said, members of the SAS and SBS would plant so-called "drop weapons" on the bodies of the dead, to make it look as though they had been armed in the photographs routinely taken by special forces teams at the scene.

"There was a fake grenade they'd take with them onto target, it couldn't detonate," said a former SAS operator. Another veteran said operators would carry AK-47 rifles which had a folding stock because they were easier to fit into their rucksacks and "easier to bring onto a target and plant by a body".

Reports were 'fiction'

Officers would then help to falsify post-operational reports in order to avoid scrutiny for the actions of assault teams on the ground, according to the testimony.

"We understood how to write up serious incident reviews so they wouldn't trigger a referral to the military police," one of the veterans said.

"If it looked like a shooting could represent a breach of the rules of conflict, you'd get a phone call from the legal adviser or one of the staff officers in HQ. They'd pick you up on it and help you to clarify the language. 'Do you remember someone making a sudden move?' 'Oh yeah, I do now.' That sort of thing. It was built into the way we operated."

The reports were "a fiction", another UKSF veteran said.

An intelligence officer who worked with the SBS described reports which said they had been caught in a firefight, while the photos showed bodies with "multiple clean headshots".

Falsified paperwork could help prevent an investigation by the Royal Military Police, but British special forces operations generated deep concern from Afghan commanders and Afghan government officials.

David Cameron - who made seven visits to Afghanistan as prime minister between June 2010 and November 2013, the period now under scrutiny by the SAS public inquiry, was repeatedly made aware of the concerns by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to multiple people who attended the meetings.

Mr Karzai "consistently, repeatedly mentioned this issue", former Afghan national security adviser Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta told Panorama. He said Lord Cameron could have been left in no doubt that there were allegations of civilians, including children, being killed during operations carried out by UK Special Forces.

Former director of service prosecutions Bruce Houlder said he hoped the inquiry would examine what Mr Cameron knew

The Afghan president was "so consistent with his complaints about night raids, civilian casualties and detentions that there was no senior Western diplomat or military leader who would have missed the fact that this was a major irritant for him," said Gen Douglas Lute, a former US ambassador to Nato.

Gen Lute said it would have been "extraordinarily unusual if there were a claim against British forces that the British chain of command was not aware of".

A spokesperson for Lord Cameron told Panorama that "to the best of Lord Cameron's recollection" the issues raised by President Karzai were about Nato forces in general and that "specific incidents with respect to UK Special Forces were not raised".

The spokesperson also said that it was "right that we await the official findings of the Inquiry", adding that "any suggestion that Lord Cameron colluded in covering up allegations of serious criminal wrongdoing is total nonsense."

Unlike many other countries, including the US and France, the UK has no parliamentary oversight of its elite special forces regiments. Strategic responsibility for their actions falls ultimately to the prime minister, along with the defence secretary and head of special forces.

Bruce Houlder KC - a former director of service prosecutions, responsible for bringing charges and prosecuting those serving in the Armed Forces - told Panorama that he hoped the public inquiry would examine the extent of Lord Cameron's knowledge of alleged civilian casualties on British special forces operations.

"You need to know how far the rot went up," Mr Houlder said.

Do you have information about this story that you want to share?

Get in touch using SecureDrop, a highly anonymous and secure way of whistleblowing to the BBC which uses the TOR network.

Or by using the Signal messaging app, an end-to-end encrypted message service designed to protect your data.

SecureDrop or Signal: 0044 7714 956 936

Please note that the SecureDrop link will only work in a Tor browser. For information on keeping secure and anonymous, here's some advice on how to use SecureDrop.

It's proved a really important way for people to get in touch with us in the past.

9. Top UK Special Forces general oversaw blocking of Afghan 'war-crime' witnesses to Britain

Top UK Special Forces general oversaw blocking of Afghan 'war-crime' witnesses to Britain

BBC

2 hours ago

Hannah O'Grady, Joel Gunter and Rory Tinman

BBC Panorama

MOD

Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins led UK Special Forces (UKSF) in Afghanistan at a time when alleged war crimes were committed

A top general who failed to report evidence of alleged SAS war crimes in Afghanistan later oversaw the rejection of hundreds of UK resettlement applications from Afghan commandos who served with the elite regiment, BBC Panorama can reveal.

Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins led UK Special Forces (UKSF) in Afghanistan at a time when alleged war crimes were committed. He later appointed a UKSF officer under his command, who had also served in Afghanistan, to assess the Afghan commando applications after special forces headquarters was given a controversial veto over them.

Thousands of applications from individuals with credible evidence of service with Afghan Special Forces, including the units known as the Triples, were then rejected, leaving many of the former commandos at the mercy of the Taliban.

The rejections are controversial because they came at a time when a judge-led public inquiry in the UK had begun investigating the SAS for alleged war crimes on operations on which the Triples were present.

If the Afghan commandos were in the UK, they could be called as witnesses - but the inquiry has no power to compel testimony from foreign nationals who are overseas.

Some of those denied visas were subsequently tortured and killed by the Taliban, according to former colleagues, family members and lawyers.

According to internal emails and testimony from within the Ministry of Defence (MoD), obtained by Panorama, the UK Special Forces officer appointed by Gen Jenkins stood over civil service caseworkers from the resettlement scheme and instructed them to reject the Triples applications, one after another, on what sources described as spurious grounds.

A senior government source close to the process told the BBC that the UK Special Forces officer "would never have acted without direction", adding that "everything would have gone through Gwyn Jenkins".

Afghanistan's Triples commandos fought alongside British troops

At the time, in 2021-22, Gen Jenkins was the head of all UK Special Forces. He is now the chief strategic adviser to the Defence Secretary John Healey and is tipped to take over as First Sea Lord - the head of the Royal Navy.

Gen Jenkins was made aware of allegations that the SAS was committing extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan, but he failed to report the allegations to military police - Panorama has previously revealed - despite a legal obligation to do so. The suspected unlawful killings continued.

Panorama has now heard eyewitness testimony from veterans who served in UK Special Forces detailing alleged war crimes stretching over more than a decade and involving the SBS as well as the SAS.

Gen Jenkins did not respond to the BBC's request for comment on this story. The MoD responded on his behalf. It said in a statement that there is no evidence it has tried to prevent former Afghan troops giving evidence to the Inquiry and that "anyone can provide evidence… no matter where in the world they are".

The MoD added that it was "fully committed to delivering on our pledge to relocate and resettle eligible Afghans and their families to the UK".

"Each resettlement application is decided on its own merits against the criteria outlined in the ARAP [Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy] and immigration rules," the statement said.

The rejections of the Triples applications left caseworkers from the ARAP scheme questioning the validity of the process, given that many of the applications contained compelling evidence of service alongside British special forces.

One applicant was rejected even though they had submitted photos of themselves serving alongside Gen Jenkins.

Hundreds of rejections have since been overturned following a government review.

A letter obtained by Panorama shows that concerns were raised among cabinet ministers in January 2024 over the existence of the UK Special Forces' veto over the Triples applications.

The then Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer wrote to senior Conservatives to say the role of UKSF in denying the applications was "deeply inappropriate" and "a significant conflict of interest, that should be obvious to all".

He had been compelled to write, he added, because he had been shown evidence "that 5 members of these units have been killed having been rejected for resettlement".

Afghan commando (one of the blurred men) pictured with Gen Jenkins (r) in Afghanistan

Mr Mercer, who served alongside the SBS in Afghanistan before becoming an MP, went on to warn that the role of UKSF in the process had a "very high chance of being exposed by the Afghan Inquiry", which could "lead to serious questions of all those Ministers involved in the process".

The Triples units - so-called because their designations were CF 333 and ATF 444 - were set up, trained, and paid by UK Special Forces and supported the SAS and SBS on operations targeting Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.

When the country fell to the Taliban in 2021, they were judged to be in grave danger of reprisal and were entitled to apply for resettlement to the UK.

But, according to MoD documents obtained by Panorama, thousands of ARAP applications containing credible evidence of service alongside UK Special Forces were subsequently rejected.

Gen Jenkins and Prime Minister David Cameron in Afghanistan 2012 - at the time Gwyn Jenkins was Mr Cameron's military assistant based in Downing St

BBC Panorama first revealed last year that it had been UK Special Forces - the very force that trained and served with the Triples - that rejected them.

"We heard some of our Triples were already killed by the Taliban," said Jumakhan Joya, a former Afghan special forces commanding officer. "Some of them are in jail in a Taliban prison. Some of them have already been disabled by the Taliban. They're breaking their hands, their legs, their head," he said.

Mr Joya told the BBC he believed that the existence of the public inquiry was the "only reason" their applications had been vetoed.

Former Afghan special forces commanding officer Jumakhan Joya said some of the Triples had been jailed or killed

The rejections and reported reprisals have outraged some former members of British special forces. "What's happened is horrendous. It is a betrayal and it shames us all," one former UK Special Forces officer told Panorama.

Asked by Panorama about the government's rejection of Triples' applications, Bruce Houlder KC, who as a former director of service prosecutions was responsible for bringing charges against members of the armed forces, said the government must have known the Triples would have "highly relevant" evidence that would be "much easier to obtain" if they were in the UK.

"I can't think of any fair reason why we should exclude people from their right to live in this country, which is extended to others, simply because they might be in possession of information which would embarrass special forces," Mr Houlder said.

"If that is the reason, it's disreputable and it can't be supported in any way."

Do you have information about this story that you want to share?

Get in touch using SecureDrop, a highly anonymous and secure way of whistleblowing to the BBC which uses the TOR network.

Or by using the Signal messaging app, an end-to-end encrypted message service designed to protect your data.

SecureDrop or Signal: 0044 7714 956 936

Please note that the SecureDrop link will only work in a Tor browser. For information on keeping secure and anonymous, here's some advice on how to use SecureDrop.

It's proved a really important way for people to get in touch with us in the past.

10. Extraordinary Fidelity: Two CIA Officers Imprisoned in China - CIA

Another amazing story about two great Americans.

Extraordinary Fidelity: Two CIA Officers Imprisoned in China - CIA

cia.gov

What would it be like to have two decades pass, trapped by the enemy far from home… in dismal conditions, under constant psychological duress… no contact with loved ones or the outside world… not knowing when or if freedom would come calling? Few will ever know the hardships that CIA paramilitary officers John Downey and Richard Fecteau endured. Yet, through it all, they clung to the hope that the Agency would never abandon them. The Agency never did. This is their story of extraordinary fidelity.

* * * * *

In 1949, Chinese communist insurgents led by Mao Zedong seized power from the Chinese Nationalists and established the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Washington refused to recognize the PRC and instead embarked on a campaign to undermine and replace the communist regime.

The following year, in neighboring Korea, U.S.-led United Nations forces advanced across the 38th parallel to fight the Soviet-backed north that had invaded the south. Mao sent in forces to reinforce his communist allies. The Korean War turned the Cold War red hot.

John “Jack ” Downey and Richard “Dick” Fecteau joined CIA in 1951 fresh out of college and just as America pivoted from fighting fascists in World War II to rolling back the spread of communism. By the spring of 1952, Downey was in the Far East training teams of ethnic Chinese agents to operate inside communist territory.

CIA soon tapped Downey and Fecteau to accompany Civil Air Transport (CAT) pilots Norman Schwartz and Robert Snoddy on a flight mission to extract one of the Chinese agents and recover intelligence he had gathered. The plan involved the plane flying 50 feet above the ground with a hook designed to catch a line connected to the harness worn by the agent; the man would be jolted up into the air and safely reeled in. It was a daring maneuver that the Agency had never carried out before.

An illustration of a snatch pickup from a 1944 U.S. Army Air Forces manual.

On the evening of November 29, 1952, Downey and Fecteau boarded the C-47 with a final set of instructions from CIA’s ground crew: “If you get shot down, don’t tell ‘em you’re CIA. Tell ‘em anything, but don’t tell ‘em you’re CIA.”

The four men arrived at the drop zone shortly after midnight. A nearly-full moon lit the snowy terrain. As they swooped in to collect their target, anti-aircraft tracer fire came up through the floor. They had flown into a trap. The plane crash-landed, and Schwartz and Snoddy tragically died at the scene.

The painting, “Ambush in Manchuria,” depicts the C-47—piloted by Norman Schwartz and Robert Snoddy and carrying John Downey and Richard Fecteau—in the moments before it was shot down by the Chinese in 1952. © Dru Blair

A shaken Downey and Fecteau stumbled out of the wreckage and were surrounded by Chinese security forces. Once in custody, one captor warned: “Your future is very dark.”

* * * * *

Hours passed with no radar contact. When Downey and Fecteau’s team did not hear back from them and the Chinese were similarly quiet, CIA presumed all of the men were dead. However, the two survivors were actually transported to the Manchurian capital of Shenyang, where they were placed in solitary confinement.

The Chinese interrogated them month after month for up to 20 hours a day seeking names, locations, and other operational details. Downey and Fecteau were isolated, sleep-deprived, and dehumanized but did not divulge sensitive information.

Downey in captivity (left); Fecteau in captivity (right).

As the first anniversary of the C-47’s loss approached, CIA remained unaware that two of the men were actually alive. The Agency even officially declared them dead so that their surviving family members could have closure and receive benefits from insurance proceeds.

Nearly two years after their capture, the PRC put the Americans on trial in the fall of 1954. In the courtroom, Fecteau saw Downey—for the first time since their capture—wearing an ill-fitting prison suit. Shoulder-to-shoulder with his beleaguered friend, he quipped, “Hey Jack, who’s your tailor?”

The PRC court sentenced Fecteau to 20 years and Downey to life. After receiving their sentences, the young men returned to solitary confinement to face the prospect of dying inside a Chinese prison cell.

On the other side of the world, the U.S. was stunned when China finally broke its two-year silence. “This is Radio Peking. John Thomas Downey and Richard George Fecteau, both special agents of the Central Intelligence Agency, were convicted of seriously jeopardizing the security of China…”

* * * * *

The shock news that Downey and Fecteau were alive and incarcerated in communist China did not gain diplomatic traction because the U.S. and the PRC were locked in an impasse. More than 30,000 American troops had been killed in the Korean War, and now that it was over, senior U.S. Government officials feared that advocating for the CIA officers' release could endanger negotiations for military personnel still held in Chinese custody.

Nevertheless, the Agency continuously lobbied top State Department and Pentagon counterparts to pressure Beijing to release Downey and Fecteau and sought ways to support them and their families. Behind the scenes, CIA facilitated several family members’ trips to China to visit the prison beginning in 1958, periodically promoted the men alongside their peers, and placed their earnings in escrow to accrue interest. For Fecteau, the allotments covered his daughters’ education and his elderly parents’ living expenses. CIA hoped that the investments would provide financial security even if the Agency could not give back their lost years.

As the years passed, the men were deprived of their lives with loved ones back home and remained isolated from the world. Just outside the walls of their cells, Chinese society was reeling from famine brought on by the communists’ Great Leap Forward and the turmoil from the Cultural Revolution. Unbeknownst to the men, a rock and roll icon named Elvis had risen to fame, a man walked on the moon, and America was experiencing profound social and political transformation as the Civil Rights Movement and counterculture challenged traditional norms amid the escalating Vietnam War.

In an effort to unite the American people, newly-elected President Nixon initiated a bold foreign policy shift in the late 1960s. This strategy led to formal diplomatic rapprochement between the United States and the PRC beginning with Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing in 1971.

* * * * *

The date was December 10, 1971. In the middle of the night, Fecteau was spirited away by train and sent across the Lo Wu Bridge to Hong Kong. On the other side, a British Army officer awaited the unusual sight – an American, wearing a Mao suit.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Richard Fecteau. I was shot down during the Korean War.”

“What war?”

“The Korean War.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“I know.”

Fecteau was a free man and on his way home at last. Once on American soil, he noticed strangers all around with crazy hairdos, wearing strange clothes – it was as if he were in a foreign land. His twin baby girls were now young women. Most of all, he was worried about his friend who was still imprisoned.

When it was Downey’s turn to come home, he began the same journey that Fecteau completed on March 12, 1973 – after spending more than twenty years in Chinese captivity. He swelled with emotion when the British officer standing on the other side of the Lo Wu Bridge threw him a salute. He knew then that he was back amongst friends.

Downey, on his way to freedom, smiling while crossing into Hong Kong, 1973.

CIA hastened to offer both men their jobs back. After all, they were the consummate paramilitary officers who maintained extraordinary fidelity. The excitement had lost its allure, however, and the ever-humble Downey turned it down with, “I just don’t think I’m cut out for this kind of work.”

Downey, a Yale graduate, went on to pursue a law degree from Harvard and returned to his home state of Connecticut where he became a respected judge. Fecteau was honored when his alma mater invited him to return to Boston University as the assistant athletic director; he retired in 1989.

* * * * *

In 1998, CIA awarded Downey and Fecteau the Director’s Medal, and in 2013, Headquarters welcomed the heroes and their families back to Langley. An audience of CIA officers roared with applause as the former officers received the Agency’s highest honor, the Distinguished Intelligence Cross, for their valor and sacrifice.

Jack Downey (left) and Dick Fecteau (right) honored with CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Cross at Headquarters in 2013.

Fecteau thanked the Agency for the tremendous recognition. “On one hand, I really don’t know if I deserve this very special award. On the other hand, I am very pleased and very proud to be so honored. For all of you in the Agency who believe that Jack and I deserve this award, my heart goes out to you.”

Downey recognized his family for their support during and after his years in captivity, as well as the late Schwartz and Snoddy for their heroic piloting. “I want to thank my good friend Dick Fecteau. He couldn’t be a better guy to spend 20 years together with. We’ve had many good times before and especially since. Dick, it’s been a pleasure. If we had to do it again, you’d be the only one I’d want with me.”

Downey passed away in 2014. Today, Fecteau is a living legend at 98 years old and enjoys being with family in his hometown of Lynn, Massachusetts.

* * * * *

For a more in-depth look at the saga of Downey and Fecteau, check out Studies in Intelligence (Vol. 50. No. 4) "Extraordinary Fidelity: Two Prisoners in China, 1952-73," as well as the one-hour documentary, "Extraordinary Fidelity" (2010) that chronicles their captivity:

Warning: This video below may contain flickering or flashing scenes.

[This story was originally published in 2007. It has been updated to incorporate additional images and information.]

cia.gov

11. Strengthening Asia-Pacific Security: ASEAN, South Korea, And Japan’s Path To Collaboration

We need a new security architecture in Asia.

Excerpts:

Addressing these challenges requires a multi-layered approach that reinforces ASEAN centrality and fosters deeper trilateral cooperation. Trust can be enhanced by establishing a permanent ASEAN–Korea–Japan secretariat tasked with coordinating strategic responses and dialogue during crises, extending beyond existing annual forums. Cooperation in functional domains, such as public health, can build confidence and interoperability through joint pandemic preparedness exercises. Historical reconciliation should be pursued through sustained cultural diplomacy and educational exchanges, including joint history curricula and youth programs that engage civil society.

Revitalizing ASEAN-led mechanisms, particularly the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, through streamlined decision-making and integrated defense and cyber planning, will accelerate collective action. The expanding digital economy partnership, which includes initiatives in 5G standardization and e-payment platforms, can promote inclusive growth and eliminate technological barriers throughout the region. Additionally, transparent planning—encompassing defense strategies and agreed-upon annual budget guidelines—can help mitigate arms race dynamics and create a more stable security environment, fostering lasting peace. Furthermore, multilateral development banks and regional infrastructure funds can enhance resource mobilization and improve resilience against external shocks.

Ultimately, collaboration provides a blueprint for balancing prosperity and power while addressing twenty-first-century security challenges. A trust-based strategic framework promises to secure regional peace and contribute to a more resilient and equitable global order.

Strengthening Asia-Pacific Security: ASEAN, South Korea, And Japan’s Path To Collaboration – OpEd

eurasiareview.com · by Simon Hutagalung · May 12, 2025

In an era marked by increasing power dynamics and fierce competition, the Asia-Pacific region has become a crucial arena for shaping security and prosperity in the twenty-first century.

ASEAN’s steadfast commitment to regional stability, highlighted by its central role in diplomatic efforts, combined with South Korea’s evolving stance and Japan’s strong economic and strategic capabilities, creates a unique opportunity to develop a collaborative security framework grounded in multilateralism and shared norms. The collaboration between ASEAN, South Korea, and Japan is essential for enhancing regional resilience and promoting a rules-based international order. However, ongoing tensions, historical strategic competition, and non-traditional threats present significant challenges that must be tackled through innovative diplomacy and the building of strategic trust. This analysis will evaluate policies and their implications for sustainable regional security.

Over the past decade, ASEAN has experienced consistent economic growth, averaging a 4.1 percent expansion in 2023, despite global challenges. During this period, its digital economy nearly doubled in value between 2020 and 2024. Additionally, two-way trade and investment have strengthened under frameworks such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Meanwhile, the economies of South Korea and Japan remain closely linked, with ASEAN’s two-way trade reaching USD 241.1 billion with Japan and USD 196.6 billion with South Korea. This is complemented by foreign direct investment flows in 2023, amounting to USD 14.5 billion from Japan and USD 109 billion from South Korea. These figures underscore the economic importance of these stakeholders’ share in preserving and stabilizing open markets. The increasing strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China, along with the militarization of maritime domains, has created new uncertainty in regional security for ASEAN. This situation is forcing states to balance their relationships with major powers while striving to maintain neutrality.

Despite these pressures, shared interests foster strong incentives for collaboration. The foundational concept of a Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality has long emphasized conflict avoidance and multilateral dispute resolution. South Korea’s “Global Pivotal State” strategy and Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” vision both support a rules-based system that aligns with ASEAN’s objectives. In practice, economic synergies are evident in foreign direct investment, with Japan contributing USD 14 billion and South Korea USD 10.9 billion to ASEAN in 2023. Additionally, ASEAN-Japan cooperation has led to significant gains in services trade, which surged by 16 percent to reach USD 933.6 billion in 2022, returning to pre-pandemic levels. Longstanding cultural and educational exchanges have revitalized the societal foundation for deeper mutual trust and understanding. Efforts in maritime security cooperation involve patrols, joint information sharing, and fostering familiarity and confidence among participating navies.

Despite these achievements, the path to sustained collaboration faces significant challenges. Historical grievances between Japan and South Korea, unresolved wartime issues, and territorial disputes continue to erode mutual trust at both governmental and societal levels. Meanwhile, ASEAN’s principle of non-interference limits its capacity to address intra-regional security flashpoints, such as the South China Sea disputes, which arise when member states align with external powers. Geopolitically, the intensifying U.S.-China rivalry has created strategic ambiguity for ASEAN as its member states navigate the security guarantees offered by the United States alongside the economic incentives from China.

Furthermore, defense spending by Japan and South Korea has surged in recent years; Japan’s FY2025 defense budget reached a record 8.7 trillion yen (approximately USD 55 billion), while South Korea proposed a budget of 61.59 trillion won (around USD 46.3 billion) for 2025. These increasing defense expenditures are fueling perceptions of an arms race, complicating regional efforts, and contributing to militarization. Traditional non-threats such as pandemics, cyberattacks, and climate-induced disasters generate demand for cohesive responses. However, institutional fragmentation within ASEAN and East Asian forums often hampers rapid collective action. Building consensus across diverse political systems and strategic interests is a challenging and often painstaking process.

Addressing these challenges requires a multi-layered approach that reinforces ASEAN centrality and fosters deeper trilateral cooperation. Trust can be enhanced by establishing a permanent ASEAN–Korea–Japan secretariat tasked with coordinating strategic responses and dialogue during crises, extending beyond existing annual forums. Cooperation in functional domains, such as public health, can build confidence and interoperability through joint pandemic preparedness exercises. Historical reconciliation should be pursued through sustained cultural diplomacy and educational exchanges, including joint history curricula and youth programs that engage civil society.

Revitalizing ASEAN-led mechanisms, particularly the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, through streamlined decision-making and integrated defense and cyber planning, will accelerate collective action. The expanding digital economy partnership, which includes initiatives in 5G standardization and e-payment platforms, can promote inclusive growth and eliminate technological barriers throughout the region. Additionally, transparent planning—encompassing defense strategies and agreed-upon annual budget guidelines—can help mitigate arms race dynamics and create a more stable security environment, fostering lasting peace. Furthermore, multilateral development banks and regional infrastructure funds can enhance resource mobilization and improve resilience against external shocks.

Ultimately, collaboration provides a blueprint for balancing prosperity and power while addressing twenty-first-century security challenges. A trust-based strategic framework promises to secure regional peace and contribute to a more resilient and equitable global order.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own.

References

Lee, Shin-wha, and Jagannath P. Panda, eds. The United Nations, Indo-Pacific and Korean Peninsula: An Emerging Security Architecture. Routledge, 2023.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Diplomatic Bluebook 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 2023.
Baru, Sanjaya, ed. The Importance of Shinzo Abe: India, Japan, and the Indo-Pacific. HarperCollins India, 2023.

eurasiareview.com · by Simon Hutagalung · May 12, 2025

12. Will prices go down? And other China tariff questions, answered.

The questions:

1. Will this mean more products on shelves?

2. Are prices still going to go up?

3. What about grocery and gas prices?

4. Will there be more tariff changes?

5. Is the economy in the clear now?

Will prices go down? And other China tariff questions, answered.

Americans are getting a break on Chinese tariffs. What does this mean for consumers?

Today at 6:21 p.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/12/trump-china-tariffs-prices-deal/

Juston Herbert pushes two carts full of Morf Boards, a popular toy, through a Walmart in Phoenix in 2019. (Dominic Valente/For The Washington Post)

By Abha Bhattarai

The Trump administration tapped the brakes on its trade war Monday, temporarily rolling back tariffs on Chinese goods from 145 percent to about 30 percent, which the president hailed as a “total reset” on relations with China. In reality, tariffs on most Chinese goods will range from about 40 percent to 60 percent, including other tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump both this year and during his first term.

Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.

Still, it’s better than 145 percent, and many business owners breathed a sigh of relief. The stock market surged. Here’s what the 90-day reprieve means for American consumers.

What to know

1. Will this mean more products on shelves?

Return to menu

Yes, that’s the good news. Retailers and manufacturers are moving to restart shipments that have largely been on hold for the past five weeks or so, when imports from China were being taxed at 145 percent. Now that tariffs are lower, many are resuming plans — rushing to stock up on what they can within the next 90 days.

As a result, shelves may not be as empty as many had feared. There could still be some shortages, since fewer ships have been ferrying imports from China to the West Coast, though retailers say the worst shortfalls, predicted for this summer and beyond, have probably been averted.

Follow Trump’s second term

For Chasity Monroe, the timing of Monday’s reprieve could not have been better: Her Black beauty supply shop, Pink Noire, in Memphis, was starting to run low on a variety of products. She had paused shipments from China on her own line of shampoos, conditioners and curl creams since January. Customers, too, were starting to hoard products — buying a dozen bottles at a time — out of fear of upcoming shortages. Now she is finally placing new orders, buying three times what she normally would, even if that means cutting into the cash she will need to pay her employees this week.

“Starting at 4 a.m., I was cranking out emails, trying to get production restarted,” she said. “Everything had gotten so crazy with people coming in and wiping us out. Now this grace period means I can finally buy enough to keep us going a little longer.”

2. Are prices still going to go up?

Return to menu

Prices have begun to inch up as businesses pass on higher costs to consumers. Economists expect those increases to continue in the coming weeks, despite the temporary tariff relief for Chinese goods.

Overall, Americans now face an effective tariff rate of 17.8 percent across all imports, according to one estimate. That is down from 28 percent last week, but it is still the highest rate since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University. They expect shoe prices to rise 15 percent as a result of tariffs, clothing costs to go up by 14 percent, and cars to cost about 9 percent more.

Basic Fun, the toy company behind Tonka trucks, Care Bears and Lite-Brite, expects prices to rise by 10 percent to 15 percent this year as result of the tariffs.

“Sure, 30 percent compared to 145 percent sounds great, but everyone is still going to take a hit here,” chief executive Jay Foreman said. “That Tonka truck that was $30 will now cost $35.”

Clothing from low-priced sites like Shein has gone up in recent weeks, after the Trump administration canceled a “de minimis” policy that had allowed companies to bypass some customs charges on orders under $800. These imports will continue to face tariffs of 120 percent or a flat fee of $100 per package for now.

3. What about grocery and gas prices?

Return to menu

Americans have been hard hit by inflation, with prices for food and fuel rising by more than 25 percent in five years. Those costs have continued to inch up since Trump took office, in part because of 10 percent tariffs on all imports, including from Mexico and Canada.

But the China deal is not likely to have much bearing on grocery or gas costs. Economists say there could be some ripple effects — like higher prices for packaging or ink from China — though on the whole, those necessities are likely to be unaffected.

Instead, it is other categories that are disproportionately made in China, such as electronics, machinery, toys, sports equipment, furniture and clothing, where shoppers could see the biggest markups.

4. Will there be more tariff changes?

Return to menu

Tariffs have been a top priority for Trump, who wasted no time implementing a 10 percent tax on all imports and even higher duties on dozens of other countries. The 145 percent tax on China — which resulted in a 125 percent retaliatory tariff on U.S. exports to the country — was by far the most draconian.

Still, the White House has long maintained that it is open to negotiation. Its agreement to lower tariffs with China, announced early Monday, was widely hailed as a promising sign that the two countries may be willing to compromise. China’s Commerce Ministry called the weekend’s talks an “important first step.”

But what comes next is less clear. And business owners say that uncertainty is making it difficult to figure out how to proceed. Although some are resuming shipments from China, others are waiting to see if tariffs might be whittled down further.

“Now it’s like a moving target: Do you put [your products] on a boat and commit? Or do you wait to see what happens next?” said Drew Cleaver, founder of Higher Hangers, an Austin-based company that manufactures clothing hangers in China. “Thirty percent might be doable for some businesses to do an ordering blitz, but I still can’t afford it.”

5. Is the economy in the clear now?

Return to menu

The stock market spiked Monday as investors applauded the temporary cuts in tariffs. But the picture for the broader economy remains murky.

Tariff-related panic has weighed on the U.S. economy, causing it to shrink by an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the first quarter of the year, although most of that was from a trade mismatch, as American businesses loaded up on foreign-made goods.

The rush to get products into the U.S. in the next 90 days could complicate the outlook. Trade deficits — which occur when a country imports more than it exports — are a drag on the economy. Still, economists on Monday revised their forecasts for economic growth, saying improving trade relations with China could result in less turmoil in the U.S. economy. Oxford Economics now expects the economy to expand by 1.3 percent this year, up from its previous forecast of 1.2 percent, though it notes that growth will be “noticeably” slower than it would have been without tariffs, supply chain issues and lingering uncertainty.

“Recession risks will be elevated between now and early next year,” said Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

What readers are saying

The comments reflect skepticism and criticism regarding the temporary reduction in tariffs, with many expressing doubt that it will lead to lower prices for consumers. Several commenters highlight that tariffs are essentially a tax on American consumers, and the uncertainty... Show more

This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.

All comments 115

By Abha Bhattarai

Abha Bhattarai is the economics correspondent for The Washington Post. She previously covered retail for the publication.follow on X@abhabhattarai

13. AI Will Change What It Is to Be Human. Are We Ready?

Some food for (some deep) thought.

Excertps:

Our children and grandchildren will face a profound challenge: how to live meaningful lives in a world where they are no longer the smartest and most capable entities in it. To put it another way, they will have to figure out how to prevent AI from demoralizing them. But it is not just our descendants who will face the issue, it is increasingly obvious that we do, too.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman asserted in a recent talk that GPT-5 will be smarter than all of us. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei described the powerful AI systems to come as “a country of geniuses in a data center.” These are not radical predictions. They are nearly here.

In 2019, GPT-2 could barely count to five or string together coherent sentences. By 2023, GPT-4 was outperforming nearly 90 percent of human test-takers on medical licensing exams and the bar exam. In 2024, Claude 3.5 Sonnet was answering questions about complex scientific diagrams and charts with over 94 percent accuracy. Leading researchers at frontier AI companies increasingly believe we’ll achieve AI systems that can match or exceed human cognitive capabilities across virtually all domains before 2030.

Much of the commentary and punditry about AI has focused on things like the future of paralegals or consultants. But these are minor topics that overlook the most fundamental, existential question we will soon face: What does it mean to be human in an age of superintelligent machines? What exactly is special about our minds? What is there left for our species to do?

The purpose of this essay is to talk about what is coming and how to protect ourselves from the demoralization of such marvels.

...

We have many tricks up our sleeve, and we can find trouble in paradise should we need to. Indeed, there are early signs that we will want to.

In one episode in November at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, an exhibit of AI-generative art brought out hostility from the student body. Some of the art was trashed, some of it was protested, and students generated a petition that characterizes generative AI as a form of plagiarism.

In another recent example, Magnus Carlsen removed himself from the world championship chess cycle, mostly because he is no longer interested in enduring the extreme prep—mostly with AI—for competing in those matches. For Carlsen, this is computer work rather than playing “real chess.” Instead, he has insisted on playing rapid, speed, and blitz chess. He has also been playing Freestyle or “Fischer Random” chess, where the opening placement of the pieces is randomized, making extreme opening prep impossible. In this, Carlsen is ahead of the rest of the world in countering or bypassing the AIs to keep more meaning in his life.

The mini rebellions against AI already are here, and they could be a precursor of the future to come. After all, no machine is capable of changing human nature—at least not so far.

Powerful AI will transform our world. But our world has transformed many times—and few of us would choose to be on the other side of those transformations.

Humans are remarkably adaptable. We foraged and farmed, we built factories and spaceships, we wrote prayers, plays, poems, novels, and code. And now? Now we created this.

05.12.25 — Technology, Culture, and Artificial Intelligence

AI Will Change What It Is to Be Human. Are We Ready?

This technology can usher in an age of flourishing the likes of which we have never seen. It will also foment a crisis about what it is to be a person at all.

By Tyler Cowen and Avital Balwit

https://www.thefp.com/p/ai-will-change-what-it-is-to-be-human

his is the most important essay we have run so far on the artificial intelligence revolution. I’m excited for you to read it.

Given its importance, tomorrow I’ll be hosting a conversation about it with its authors, Tyler Cowen and Avital Balwit, at 4 p.m. ET. This conversation, like all our livestreams, is for paying subscribers only. (Sign up here to join our community.)

And click here to mark Tuesday’s conversation in your calendar.

— Bari

Are we helping create the tools of our own obsolescence?

If that sounds like a question only a depressive or a stoner would ask, let us assure you: We are neither. We are early AI adopters.

We stand at the threshold of perhaps the most profound identity crisis humanity has ever faced. As AI systems increasingly match or exceed our cognitive abilities, we’re witnessing the twilight of human intellectual supremacy—a position we’ve held unchallenged for our entire existence. This transformation won’t arrive in some distant future; it’s unfolding now, reshaping not just our economy but our very understanding of what it means to be human beings.

We are not doomers; quite the opposite. One of us, Tyler, is a heavy user of this technology, and the other, Avital, is working at Anthropic (the company that makes Claude) to usher it into the world.

Both of us have an intense conviction that this technology can usher in an age of human flourishing the likes of which we have never seen before. But we are equally convinced that progress will usher in a crisis about what it is to be human at all.

Our children and grandchildren will face a profound challenge: how to live meaningful lives in a world where they are no longer the smartest and most capable entities in it. To put it another way, they will have to figure out how to prevent AI from demoralizing them. But it is not just our descendants who will face the issue, it is increasingly obvious that we do, too.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman asserted in a recent talk that GPT-5 will be smarter than all of us. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei described the powerful AI systems to come as “a country of geniuses in a data center.” These are not radical predictions. They are nearly here.

In 2019, GPT-2 could barely count to five or string together coherent sentences. By 2023, GPT-4 was outperforming nearly 90 percent of human test-takers on medical licensing exams and the bar exam. In 2024, Claude 3.5 Sonnet was answering questions about complex scientific diagrams and charts with over 94 percent accuracy. Leading researchers at frontier AI companies increasingly believe we’ll achieve AI systems that can match or exceed human cognitive capabilities across virtually all domains before 2030.

Much of the commentary and punditry about AI has focused on things like the future of paralegals or consultants. But these are minor topics that overlook the most fundamental, existential question we will soon face: What does it mean to be human in an age of superintelligent machines? What exactly is special about our minds? What is there left for our species to do?

The purpose of this essay is to talk about what is coming and how to protect ourselves from the demoralization of such marvels.

Before we get there, allow us to tell you a bit about our relationship with this world-changing technology.

Here’s Avital:

I was Claude pre-Claude. I once prided myself on how quickly I could write well. Memos, strategy documents, talking points—you name it. I could churn out 2,000 words an hour.

That skill is now obsolete. I can still write better than the models, but their speed far outmatches mine. And I know their quality will soon catch up—and then surpass—my own.

Every time I use Claude to do a task at work, I feel conflicted. I am both impressed by our product and humbled by how easily it does what used to make me feel uniquely valuable.

It’s not just an issue at work. Claude has injected itself into my home life, too. My partner is brilliant—it’s a huge reason we are together. But now, sometimes when I have a tough question, I’ll think, Should I ask my partner, or the model? And sometimes I choose the model. It’s eerie and uncomfortable to see this tool move into a domain that used to be filled by someone I love.

It seems extraordinarily unlikely that humans—myself included—will be the smartest creatures along many intellectual dimensions, if any. Already, AI models are winning medals in international advanced math and computing competitions. They have functionally saturated benchmarks on un-googleable PhD knowledge. While there is disagreement about more subtle intellectual skills such as poetry or creative writing, the models have made extraordinary gains here as well.

We typically give young people advice to “try to find a room where you are not the smartest person in it.” But any room with a laptop or mobile device now satisfies this criterion.

And it’s not just intelligence. AI systems sometimes also outperform on much more “human” skills, too.

Since joining Anthropic, I had been begging my mom to try Claude. She had casually used it a few times, but claimed it didn’t help much with her work. Then she had her first serious interaction with Claude—she asked about avoiding isolation after retiring from teaching. The response made her tear up multiple times. Something about its empathy—the listening words “ah” and “oh”; how it reassured her that her fears were understandable; the way it called her “thoughtful”; and its assertion that her words “resonated” both moved her deeply and unsettled her. It also just gave solid advice.

As she put it, we all want that kind of wise friend who will lean in and really listen, someone infinitely patient and nonjudgmental who can help us process our anxieties while nudging us gently toward greater wisdom. The fact that Claude outperformed her human circle at providing this kind of support left her with a profound sense of grief, even as she found herself immediately attributing personhood to it, catching herself using “he” instead of “it” when describing their conversation.

Here’s Tyler:

I am a professional economist, but there are plenty of things I don’t know. In the world before AI, I would turn to libraries, the internet, and also my colleagues. These days, I go to the top AI models. And they can answer almost all of my questions. I can try to make the questions artificially hard, or “out of distribution,” to use a more technical term, but when it comes to questions I might ask in the natural course of events, the top models have good answers. I cannot really stump them. I also am relieved that I don’t have to query my colleagues nearly as often.

Another way to put the point is that the top models are better economists than I am. Or at least they are along one medium, namely answering questions. They are not better at inspiring students, and they are not better at posing questions. Not yet, at least. But I think of knowing economics, and answering questions about economics, as fundamental to my job. If some other entity can surpass me at that task, I need to rethink what I am doing. It is only a matter of time before some of my other advantages slip away too.

Demoralization is one natural reaction to this—and I’ve felt that way. But that’s not my only emotion. I also find the new AIs exhilarating. To me they are like magic and witchcraft, something I had often speculated about but never imagined seeing right before my eyes. I find myself entranced by watching them operate, whether I am posing economics queries, learning music history from them, or using them to help me interpret Shakespeare. That is why I tolerate the demoralization.

On X I have seen a few people describe me as a “human GPT,” and a precursor to the current AIs. They meant that as flattery, because I know a lot of facts, and indeed I was flattered. But it also is disturbing. Because now we have a nonhuman GPT not to mention plenty of other very good models. And, when it comes to a command of knowledge, those strong AI services are beating me.

A while back I tweeted: “I’ve grown not to entirely trust people who are not at least slightly demoralized by some of the more recent AI developments.” In other words, I think they are in a fog about what is going on, and so I do not trust their judgment.

I have a tenured job at a state university, and I am not personally worried about my future—not at age 63. But I do ask myself every day how I will stay relevant, and how I will avoid being someone who is riding off the slow decay of a system that cannot last.

(Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

So, What Should We Do?

You might think that most people will not face the demoralization issue to the same degree that we do. After all, Albert Einstein was pretty smart and famous, and his existence doesn’t seem to have made the human race feel bad.

AI will be different.

First, it is a general form of intelligence. You can’t say, “Well, Einstein did general relativity, but I have a pretty decent understanding of economics.” The machine beats you across the board—or soon will.

Second, most humans will be working with AI every day in their jobs. The AI will know most things about the job better than the humans. Every single workday, or maybe even every single hour, you will be reminded that you are doing the directing and the “filler” tasks the AI cannot, but it is doing most of the real thinking.

We don’t doubt that many people will be fine with that—and, in many cases, relieved to have so much of the intellectual burden removed from their shoulders. Still, for a society or civilization as a whole there is a critical and indeed quite large subclass of people who take pride in their brains.

What is to become of them and their sense of purpose?

Below we look at how the 8 billion of us currently sharing this planet will alter the way we work and live—and how we will raise our children and grandchildren given our coming reality.

Work

(Photo by David Talukdar/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The big story in the short-term is this: Blue-collar workers (carpenters, gardeners, handymen, and others who do physical labor) will become more valuable. And white-collar knowledge jobs, many of which are already near or under the waterline, like legal research and business consulting, will diminish in value. Ultimately, though, the people who will benefit most are those who use AI heavily to generate projects or guide them in their work.

There will also be new jobs. Many of these are hard to predict, but a few things seem likely. One is the energy sector, as strong AI will place significant demands on the U.S. energy infrastructure. Another area will be biomedicine, where the pace of scientific progress will dramatically accelerate. (The advent of more drugs and devices will mean more testing, more regulatory approval, and so on.) It also might be possible that the scientific advancements resulting from AI, such as cheaper water desalination, allow us to terraform more parts of the globe.

For these reasons, more jobs are likely to be outside rather than at a screen, compared to the status quo. And that may well be a good thing.

There also will be more coaches, mentors, and individuals who supply the services of inspiration. The AIs may be better therapists than humans, but lots of times we still desire human contact in our interactions, if only to satisfy our biological programming. The number of entertainers and comedians is likely to rise as well. (Maybe the AI can write funnier jokes, but most of us do not want to hear a robot deliver them.) For related reasons, we also can expect more humans to work as greeters, charmers, and flatterers.

For many jobs, such as building up businesses, persuading a judge or jury, or doing sales, humans will work alongside the AIs—at least for a while.

We see this already in software. AI allows people who are not very strong at coding, and in some cases, unable to code at all, to use AI systems to write software by specifying what they want in near natural language, admittedly with some human editing required. AI might allow analogous advances in many other technical fields.

“Being agentic” is an important human quality, and we expect the distribution of this trait, as expressed through actual behavior, to become more bimodal. That is, you either will work with the AIs to achieve all the more and become more agentic. Or you might respond by becoming passive and turning over more and more parts of your life to the models.

The most agentic people—people like Elon Musk and the CEOs of our future—may manage fairly large institutions, like companies, nonprofits, and parts of our government, with a handful of other people and plentiful AI tools. They will have a per person impact that was unimaginable in earlier times, save special cases such as FDR or Napoleon or Rockefeller.

But many other people—perhaps most—will be less agentic in their jobs. They will monitor and check the AIs, thus becoming testers and verifiers. Much of that work will be less creative than current tasks, less spontaneous, and also less proactive. These individuals may quite literally feel like “cogs in the machine.” They will be liberated from a lot of routine work, but they also may feel like box-checkers rather than agents of change.

In any case, we of the laptop class are more distanced from our labor than the small-plot farmer or the weaver on the handloom. With powerful AI, we will become more mediated still.

How will humans respond to these changes—particularly the extreme divisions when it comes to being agentic? One view is that many people will be frustrated by their more reactive, verification-heavy role in workplaces. The alternative view is that relatively few humans want to be bosses and entrepreneurs to begin with, and this new division of responsibilities will match human desires fairly closely, leading to a more satisfied workforce, and far more energy for outside pursuits.

Leisure

(Photo by Mark Peterson/Corbis via Getty Images)

So, will leisure time still fulfill us if we are working far less?

To live a happy and fulfilling life without work, one needs meaningful pursuits, social connection, and physical movement. We don’t expect any of those needs to go away in a world of AI ascendance. Indeed, those needs will likely become more intense.

Group hobbies and projects will proliferate, leading to a growth in sports, clubs, volunteering, religious services, walking, biking, and chasing your kids around, too.

Human taste will also become more important. We don’t doubt that the AIs can show great taste (just try asking them about the best Mozart recordings), but for so many matters of taste the key point is that it be yours.

What will matter is the song our mother recommends to us. The song a lover is entranced by. The song your child loves to hear before bedtime. The relative values of those pieces of music will rise to higher levels. As information becomes less scarce, we will seek other qualities from our relationships and douse ourselves in vividness, meaning, and emotional connection through interpersonal connections.

Given the ready tap of intelligence, we will place more value on other traits and value people more based on their style, charisma, generosity, kindness, beauty, honesty, or bravery.

We also will value other humans increasingly for their secrets, and for the non-legible knowledge they hold. AIs typically are trained on knowledge that is fairly generally available, and that makes human wisdom based on that same public knowledge less valuable. But your secrets will take on a special cachet, and sharing and trading them will become an important part of human interaction. More generally, non-legible, esoteric, and hidden forms of knowledge (or misinformation, as the case may be) will become more distinctly human.

The longer-term trend is toward more leisure time, and AI is likely to accelerate that trend. Depending on the policies that governments implement, more people may choose to not work at all. Even if there is no basic universal income, the calculus of benefits and costs may shift in a way where people retire earlier, or fewer people in the family may go to work in the first place.

Status

(Photo by Mark Peterson/Corbis via Getty Images)

AI will not create an egalitarian utopia. One thing that living with machines cannot change is our nature—and humans crave hierarchies and to be able to climb one rung above their peers. In this new world it will be increasingly important as a source of meaning. Since we will all be ranked below some other entity on intelligence, we will need to find new and different outlets for status competition.

Ideally, we’ll compete on our virtues, but maybe we’ll compete even harder on our looks, our physical strength, or how much AI systems like us—or some dimension as of yet unfathomable. Tech founder Avi Schiffmann suggests we will compete along the quality and interestingness of our AI companions. (Perhaps eventually the AIs may compete along the dimension of how interesting their human companions are.)

These forthcoming dimensions of status may seem quite weird to us, but go back to 1800. How would people have reacted if you told them we humans will compete along the status dimensions of Balinese vacations, electric cars, and crypto assets? To many of them it seemed far more natural to take pride in milking a cow, wielding a hammer, or doing quality embroidery. Many of today’s status markers will someday take on a similar antiquated status, and it should not surprise us if some of those older status markers make partial comebacks.

Human-Only Spaces

(Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP)

While these evolving status games will provide one avenue for maintaining a sense of meaning, humans will likely seek other enclaves. Just as we’ve created nature preserves to maintain biodiversity in the face of development, we’ll likely create experiential preserves—spaces and activities intentionally designed to remain distinctly and exclusively human.

It is likely that advanced AI services will spread throughout the world at very different paces. Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Silicon Valley may be soaked in AI availability—in homes, workplaces, and public spaces—well before rural Mexico, Zambia, or Laos. You may wish to visit such places all the more, if only for the sake of variety and exoticism.

Different jurisdictions will also handle AI transitions differently, making location increasingly consequential. Some governments may embrace rapid AI integration while others implement stricter regulations. Some may use AI to surveil or constrain citizens, while others let AI unlock new opportunities and ways of living. These policy differences likely will substantially affect the quality of life, economic opportunities, personal freedom, and the distribution of wealth. Where you live, work, and hold citizenship may become more significant than at any point in recent history.

Longer Lives—For Our Children and Our Grandchildren

(Photo by Karen Haibara/AFP via Getty Images)

This is arguably the most incredible change of all.

You can debate the pace at which this will happen, but AI is going to extend our lives, the result of radical biomedical advances. A typical 26-year-old (Avital’s age) is likely to benefit significantly from having a longer life, a healthier life, and one less likely to be plagued by dementia or other maladies of the brain. Ten or 15 extra years seems likely, and for many people, we may do much better yet.

How can we prepare our children and grandchildren not just to live alongside AI—but to prepare them to live meaningful and far longer lives? What should you be doing to get them ready?

If you raise them as we raise children now, they will run the high risk of ending up demoralized. If you raise your children with the uncritical expectation that if they work hard they can be a top person in their field, they will be disappointed. The skill of getting good grades maps pretty closely to what the AIs are best at. You would do better to instill in your kids the quality of taking the initiative and the right kinds of intellectual humility. You should also, to the extent you can, teach them the value of charisma, making friends, and building out their networks.

Your children are going to see a very high rate of change. In essence, they might live through several quite different technological eras. So do not coddle them, and prepare them for this volatility accordingly.

Here’s a cheat sheet:

Don’t set up being the smartest person in the room as the goal. Encourage them to develop to their fullest, challenge themselves, and to be virtuous.
Encourage them to find many sources of meaning and social connection. They should develop hobbies and learn how to do self-directed projects, and actively seek out friends.
Make it clear that meaningful endeavors don’t necessarily have to be compensated. Work is one way to contribute, but volunteering, making art, and building a family are some of the many others.
Familiarize them with AI. Teach them how to learn from it and how to let it augment them.
But choose their AI carefully! Don’t let them fall prey to the attentional black holes that will be built and offered to them.
Don’t teach them to expect stability. Make it clear the world will likely change a lot, but that this change brings opportunities for them.

Rebellion

Some UMBC students resorted to vandalism to express their outrage over a generative AI project. (Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed)

We have many tricks up our sleeve, and we can find trouble in paradise should we need to. Indeed, there are early signs that we will want to.

In one episode in November at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, an exhibit of AI-generative art brought out hostility from the student body. Some of the art was trashed, some of it was protested, and students generated a petition that characterizes generative AI as a form of plagiarism.

In another recent example, Magnus Carlsen removed himself from the world championship chess cycle, mostly because he is no longer interested in enduring the extreme prep—mostly with AI—for competing in those matches. For Carlsen, this is computer work rather than playing “real chess.” Instead, he has insisted on playing rapid, speed, and blitz chess. He has also been playing Freestyle or “Fischer Random” chess, where the opening placement of the pieces is randomized, making extreme opening prep impossible. In this, Carlsen is ahead of the rest of the world in countering or bypassing the AIs to keep more meaning in his life.

The mini rebellions against AI already are here, and they could be a precursor of the future to come. After all, no machine is capable of changing human nature—at least not so far.

Powerful AI will transform our world. But our world has transformed many times—and few of us would choose to be on the other side of those transformations.

Humans are remarkably adaptable. We foraged and farmed, we built factories and spaceships, we wrote prayers, plays, poems, novels, and code. And now? Now we created this.

Tyler Cowen is a columnist for The Free Press. Avital Balwit is chief of staff to the CEO of Anthropic. The views expressed here are her own and are not meant to represent those of Anthropic.

Last but not least. . . If you’re interested in how AI is reshaping our understanding of the world, we hope you grabbed tickets for our sold-out live debate this Thursday in San Francisco. We can’t wait to see 1,000 of you there. If you missed out, fear not—our next live debate is coming soon. Keep an eye out for the announcement!

14. Trump Dashes Chinese Dreams of Attending US Universities

Many universities significantly benefit from Chinese tuition revenue.

Conclusion:

For China, seeing talent considering non-US options will be helpful to achieve the long-term goal of cutting reliance on both American technologies and markets. As the country’s leading firms pivot to the Global South for growth, they will benefit from more Chinese studying and working in these new destinations. Better yet, as the consultant responds to the anxious mom, “Studying in an American university does not mean you need to stay and live there forever.”

Asia Sentinel

32Gift a subscription

Society

Trump Dashes Chinese Dreams of Attending US Universities

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/trump-dashes-chinese-dreams-usa-universities?utm

Numbers likely to fall sharply

May 12, 2025

∙ Paid

By: Xiaochen Su

Chinese graduate students pose at Columbia

As a college admissions consultant helping high school students across the world increase their chances of gaining acceptance into top US universities, I have a front-row seat in witnessing the changing perception of America and its educational system under the Trump administration. It is a rapidly changing dynamic as the US grows more hostile to outsiders of all stripes, not just the millions of undocumented immigrants on American soil.

“I am not sure if I still want my son to go to the US for university.” The mom immediately jumped to the conclusion when she joined me for an impromptu WeChat call about her son’s current college application process. “We are thinking about transferring all of the services we bought to the UK and EU applications. And we are thinking about applying to Hong Kong and Singapore universities on our own, too.” Such comments have become increasingly common over the past weeks during my conversations with students and their parents.

Overseas numbers peak

The number of international students in American universities actually reached an all-time high of more than 1.1 million during the 2023-2024 academic year, a 7 percent increase from the previous year although the number of Chinese students actually has been declining steadily since reaching a high of 372,532 in the 2019-20 school year according to a February 21 Los Angeles Times article, falling to 277,398 in the 2023-24 academic year, a 4 percent decrease from the previous year. India surpassed China for the first time since 2009 as the leading source of international students, with 331,602 Indian students in the 2023-24 school year.

Until the Trump government came to power, many Chinese students sought to study in the US in the belief that it offers a pathway to a better life. But it is easy to understand the new sense of ambivalence. In the past weeks, the administration has cited the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 as justifications for revoking more than 1,800 student visas in 280 universities across 32 states, targeting not just pro-Palestinian political activists but also those who only had minor legal issues like drunk driving. Some of those revocations have been reversed due to more than 100 lawsuits. But the psychological damage is already done: the country’s volatile policymaking can prevent students from graduating, introducing a clear and present danger to the already financially risky undertaking that is studying abroad in America.

The president’s politicization of visas is especially pertinent for students from China. During his first term as the president, the Department of Justice launched the China Initiative, which investigated ethnic Chinese scholars across the country for possible espionage. The initiative led to at least 112 losing their jobs in US schools before the Biden administration shut down the program for its ineffectiveness and which caused a spike in anti-Chinese sentiments. The prospect of the Trump administration reviving the initiative has led to an increasing number of Chinese scientists leaving US universities for institutions in China and elsewhere.

Indeed, the concrete actions taken under the current Trump administration suggest a concerted effort to limit the number of Chinese students studying popular high-tech fields in the US. As recently as last year, Chinese students were being interrogated for hours by US border agents on suspicion of linkages to the Chinese government and military before being deported. In response, steering Chinese students away from sensitive majors like nuclear engineering has become a normal part of the college admissions consultant’s job.

It isn’t just the Chinese. International students have been quoted saying they are afraid to leave their flats especially after publicity surrounding the case of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University with a valid visa who was grabbed off a Somerville, Mass., sidewalk in March and forced into an unmarked vehicle by ICE agents and taken to an immigration detention center more than 1,300 miles away in Louisiana where she has been held for six weeks after co-authoring a pro-Palestinian op-ed in her campus newspaper. Öztürk’s detention sparked national protest and viral outrage after a video emerged of the masked federal agents surrounding her.

Talent transfer out of the US

Little wonder then that last year, India overtook China as the largest source of international students in the US, despite China’s overall study-abroad population continuing to grow after the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anecdotal evidence from my work suggests that interest among Chinese students to study abroad remains high, no doubt because of the competitive higher education landscape back home. Even as a declining birthrate promises a less cutthroat future, in the short term, students are approaching potential destinations with more geographical flexibility, researching British, Australian, and even Japanese options. WeChat articles on university rankings in countries as diverse as Germany, the UAE, and South Korea gain traction in degrees unimaginable even a few years ago.

It is America’s loss. International students often pay higher tuition fees than domestic students, providing a significant revenue stream for colleges and universities. Their presence creates jobs in various sectors, including higher education, accommodation, dining, retail, and transportation. In the 2023-2024 academic year, international students supported over 378,000 jobs, according to the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers. Their economic impact reached a record US$43.8 billion in 2023-2024. Even more, many of those who remain in the US are in Silicon Valley and the other tech corridors across the country.

Even as more Chinese students give up their dreams of walking through Ivy League campuses, the bigger loser in America’s declining allure as a study abroad destination may be the American economy. As the US seeks to best China in the ongoing trade war, its quest for continued technological supremacy increasingly relies on Chinese talent. For instance, of the world’s top AI talent, 57 percent work in the US. But among these, 38 percent graduated from universities in China, more than the 37 percent who graduated from US universities, many of whom are also Chinese. Driving away bright Chinese youngsters will dent American innovation.

For China, seeing talent considering non-US options will be helpful to achieve the long-term goal of cutting reliance on both American technologies and markets. As the country’s leading firms pivot to the Global South for growth, they will benefit from more Chinese studying and working in these new destinations. Better yet, as the consultant responds to the anxious mom, “Studying in an American university does not mean you need to stay and live there forever.”

15. US eases trade war, pursues 'strategic decoupling' from China

US eases trade war, pursues 'strategic decoupling' from China - Asia Times

Chinese manufacturers boosted exports to the Global South to offset the decline in shipments to the United States

asiatimes.com · by Jeff Pao · May 12, 2025

China and the United States agreed to de-escalate their trade war by significantly lowering tariffs for each other and forming a mechanism to start a trade negotiation in the next 90 days.

According to a US-China joint declaration released on Monday, the US will reduce its tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%. This includes a 10% tariff that most other countries face and a 20% tariff pending China’s effort to stop the exports of fentanyl precursors to America.

The 30% tariff is in addition to an average 20% tariff imposed by the US during the Trump administration’s first trade war against China in 2018. That means the US still has a 50% tariff on imports from China.

At the same time, China will lower its tariffs on US goods from 125% to 10%. Bloomberg reported on May 2 that China has already exempted its reciprocal tariffs of 125% on around $40 billion of American goods, equivalent to a quarter of total imports from the US.

The tariff cuts, which will take effect on May 14, were more than expected, as US President Trump had said in a social media post on May 9 that “80% tariff on China seems right!”

Due to the de-escalation of the US-China trade war, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 3% to close at 23,549 on Monday.

The new development came after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Switzerland on May 10 and 11.

In a joint declaration on Monday, Washington and Beijing said they will establish a mechanism to continue discussions about economic and trade relations.

He Lifeng will represent the Chinese side, while Bessent and United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will represent the US side. Upon agreement of the two sides, they will hold meetings alternately in China, the US, or a third country. The two sides may also conduct working-level consultations on relevant economic and trade issues.

“The US has canceled 91% of the additional tariffs, and China has canceled 91% of the counter-tariffs. The US has suspended the implementation of a 24% ‘reciprocal tariff’ and China has also correspondingly suspended the implementation of a 24% counter-tariff,” a spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MoC) said on Monday.

“It is hoped that the US will continue to work with China based on this meeting, thoroughly correct the wrong practice of unilateral tariff hikes, continuously strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation, maintain the healthy, stable and sustainable development of China-US economic and trade relations and jointly inject more certainty and stability into the world economy,” the spokesperson said.

Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account operated by the state-owned China Central TV, which has access to top decision makers in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said the He-Bessent meeting has brought out three signals:

The atmosphere of the talks was candid, in-depth, and constructive. The two sides could reach a consensus due to two factors. First, China had resolutely countered to safeguard its own interests, which had led to both sides raising tariffs to a level equivalent to prohibitive tariffs; second, the US side, having misjudged the current situation and overestimated its capabilities, has made itself very proactive, urgent and problem-solving-oriented in the discussions.
China and the US have agreed to establish a trade consultation mechanism to maintain communication. Both sides will decide the time and place of future communication.
Any possible discussion results between both sides must align with China’s development interests.

Yuyuan Tantian said China’s decision to retaliate against Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs contributed to the substantial progress of an agreement between China and the US.

‘Resilient supply chains’

Bessent told CNBC on Monday that the trade agreement reached over the weekend represents progress in “strategic decoupling” from China.

“We do not want a generalized decoupling from China, but what we do want is a decoupling for strategic necessities, which we were unable to obtain during Covid,” Bessent said. “We realized that efficient supply chains were not resilient supply chains.”

“We are going to create our own steel to protect our steel industry, and work on critical medicines and semiconductors. So we are doing that, and the reciprocal tariffs have nothing to do with the specific industry tariffs,” he added.

He said the latest trade agreement represents another stage in the US shaking its reliance on Chinese products.

Commenting on the fentanyl issue, Bessent said, “We saw here in Geneva that the Chinese are now serious about assisting the US in stopping the flow of precursor drugs, because the Chinese brought their trade delegation led by the vice premier but they also brought a deputy minister for security, who was their fentanyl expert.”

He said US national security officials had a very long and in-depth talk with their Chinese counterparts about how the two countries could work together on the fentanyl issue.

The Chinese national security official who joined the He-Bessent meeting is China’s Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong, who is also deputy secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party.

Unwanted Chinese goods

After Trump imposed tariffs on almost all countries on “Liberation Day” (April 2), media reports said many Chinese factories lost all their US orders, while some faced financial difficulties as Chinese exporters cancelled their orders without compensation.

Chart: Asia Times

According to China Customs, the country’s total imports decreased 0.3% to US$220.1 billion in April from a year ago. China’s imports from the US fell 13.8% to $12.6 billion for the same period.

China’s total exports grew 7.9% to $315.7 billion in April from $292.5 billion a year earlier, faster than the 5.7% year-on-year growth recorded in the first quarter of this year.

A calculation can show where Chinese manufacturers shipped their unwanted goods during the trade war.

For example, China’s exports to Vietnam increased 22.5% year-on-year to $17.1 billion in April. However, if there had been no “Liberation Day,” the April figures could have maintained the first quarter’s 15.6% growth rate to grow to $16.2 billion. This means that Trump’s tariff war might have helped boost China’s exports to Vietnam by $975 million last month.

Sign up for one of our free newsletters

Under this calculation, about $10.9 billion of Chinese goods were not shipped to the US in April. The decline was entirely offset by China’s increased exports to Africa ($2 billion), Latin America ($1.6 billion), Singapore ($1.8 billion), Indonesia ($1.4 billion), Germany ($1.2 billion), Vietnam ($975 million), Malaysia ($972 million), India ($745 million), and Thailand ($714 million).

On April 9, the Trump administration announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for most countries and imposed only a 10% tariff on them. It will probably make tariff decisions based on whether a country is willing to lower its tariffs on American goods, take the initiative to reduce its trade surplus with the US, and limit the re-export of Chinese goods to the US.

Chart: Asia Times

Read: US, China have started to speak more diplomatically of each other

asiatimes.com · by Jeff Pao · May 12, 2025

16. Echoes of Influence: Saying Farewell to 1st IO

Are we giving up all our information and influence capabilities?

Echoes of Influence: Saying Farewell to 1st IO

https://www.army.mil/article/285439/echoes_of_influence_saying_farewell_to_1st_io

By Maj. Ally Raposa, 1st IO CommandMay 12, 2025

Share on Twitterhttps://www.army.mil/article/285439/echoes_of_influence_saying_farewell_to_1st_ioShare on FacebooShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn Share via Email

1 / 4

Show Caption +

2 / 4

Show Caption +

3 / 4

Show Caption +

4 / 4

Show Caption +

The story of the 1st Information Operations Command is a testament to how innovation in warfare often starts quietly – drawn out on butcher boards in briefing rooms and SCIFs (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) – by people who see what others don’t yet recognize.

From the sands of Iraq to the digital battlefields of today, its members helped pioneer Army Information Advantage.

The idea began as an INSCOM (U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command) concept; an intangible form of warfare that could determine a battle’s outcome. From that vision emerged the Army’s only active-duty information operations unit: the 1st Information Operations Command (Land), or 1st IO. Headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, the unit spent three decades deploying teams, providing reach-back support, conducting red team cyber threat assessments, and delivering IO training.

Tracing its lineage to the Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA), activated May 8, 1995, 1st IO was formally established on October 28, 2002.

This story goes beyond organizational charts and force structure realignment. It’s about the people who made it matter and a legacy that informs and empowers the next generation of information warriors.

Thirty years—to the day—after LIWA’s founding, 1st IO Command cased its colors on May 8, 2025. Its legacy set to be carried forward by Army information advantage forces and nascent Theater Information Advantage Detachments (TIADs). 1st IO deployed worldwide, embedded in joint and Army commands, training thousands and enabling commands to achieve an information advantage.

The unit’s heraldry captures a global mission: the green circle symbolizes land operations worldwide; black and white denote 24/7 vigilance; the lightning bolt and sword represent rapid response and force protection. 1st Battalion (Custodia Indicium Ausum – Protection, Information, Exploitation) features a chess piece, dragon, and knight’s helm for psychological operations, information warfare, and domain defense; while 2nd Battalion (Indicium Dominatus – Information Dominance) showcases a shield, lightning, and stars for network defense, agility, and global reach.

Until April 2025, the command maintained a sustained global presence, supporting multiple combatant commands in contested environments. Former and current members recounted stories of innovation under pressure and institutional depth. Lt. Col. Paul Hill, who led a deployed IO Field Support Team, providing support to Operation Atlantic Resolve, highlighted the demand for IO capabilities.

“Information operations teams have to be flexible, knowledgeable across a wide range of capabilities, and able to make an impact as soon as we hit the ground,” Hill said. “Our ability to understand the environment, integrate capabilities from across the joint force, and deliver an effect greater than the sum of its parts is essential. The need for this capability will only grow as the operational environment becomes more complex.”

1st IO adapted to the changing fight and proved that influence, access, and perception can matter as much as firepower. Maj. Blake Fitzgerald was assigned to 1st IO from 2022 through its inactivation in 2025 and led the final deployed Field Support Team.

“My FST deployment to Qatar, in early 2025 stands out most. It’s the teammates that made it unforgettable – shared challenges, shared responsibility, and a clear sense of impact. It was the best of three missions I led with the command,” said Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald also contributed to the Army’s early implementation of the Theater Information Advantage Detachment model, gaining firsthand insight into the Army’s campaign of learning.

“These experiences allowed me to see the full arc of information advantage; from its legacy in 1st IO to its future under ARCYBER (U.S. Army Cyber Command),” remarked Fitzgerald.

“The experience here went back to Bosnia in the 1990s. That kind of depth gave me clarity on how far we’ve come and confidence in where we’re going,” Fitzgerald added.

Others reflected on the mindset and institutional depth that made the command distinct.

Retired Col. Tammy Heath, who served in 1994 during LIWA and into the transition to 1st IO during its stand-up from 2003 to 2006, described those formative years as a rare privilege.

“We weren’t better than anyone else, we just had more exposure,” said Heath. “We got to eat and breathe IO every day, sitting in what felt like the IO capital of the world at the time.”

Heath recalled learning directly from leaders “building the plane in flight,” helping shape a generation of IO professionals trained in targeting, deception, and influence.

Lt. Col. Chris Telley, commander of 1st IO’s 1st Battalion, noted in his inactivation speech that “no other formation was as equipped to train, certify, and deploy teams capable of delivering full-spectrum information advantage.”

Retired Maj. Gen. John Davis, who commanded 1st IO in 2006, echoed that pride when he spoke at the unit’s final dining out, reflecting on its enduring impact. He emphasized the “sacred obligation to be prepared” for modern warfare, where success demands the convergence of “bullets, bombs, bits, and bytes.” Davis credited 1st IO with transforming military operations by embedding IO into the broader fight and shifting operational paradigms across the joint force.

“Warfare is evolutionary and mutable,” said Davis. “Adversaries have spent decades learning from us, exploiting effects under the threshold of armed conflict.”

In today’s digital age, where momentum is built through subtle, persistent effects, Davis credited 1st IO’s 30-year legacy for laying the foundation of information warfare at every level: tactical, operational, and strategic, while providing critical support across the Army, joint forces, and Joint Special Operations Command.

Lt. Col. Telley emphasized that while the story of the first IO battalion is exceptional, its fate follows a familiar trajectory.

In the wake of World War II, the U.S. divested key capabilities like the Office of Strategic Services, Office of War Information and the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. Those capabilities unconventional missions went largely unrecognized at the time, yet their pioneering ethos never truly vanished. They resurfaced decades later as the bedrock of modern information and influence operations needed to counter dynamic threats. 1st IO’s lineage traces directly to those same innovators; the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133rd Signal Company Special, the famed “Ghost Army,” whose cartoonists, architects and newspapermen brought talents well outside the standard Soldier’s playbook.

Strategic competition today demands the same creative agility that once fueled the reconstitution of U.S. capabilities after World War II. The legacy of 1st IO Command lies in its institutional knowledge and its ability to optimize an unending panoply of unconventional skills, much like those past units. What 1st IO built will be recalibrated, refined, and reemployed, ready to adapt, deliver, and decisively contribute to the next fight.

Long before “cyber” entered the Army’s lexicon, LIWA and later 1st IO shaped cyberspace operations.

2nd Battalion, 1st IO, held its inactivation ceremony in December 2024. its core mission, executing multifunctional red team cyberspace assessments remained vital. Lt. Col. Matthew Maness, the battalion’s final commander, characterized the inactivation not as an end, but as a strategic transition.

“By transferring the Red Team’s mission to the Cyber Protection Brigade, ARCYBER, we are aligning the personnel, resources, technology, and training to meet the challenges of tomorrow. We’re also guaranteeing the legacy of the Command,” stated Maness.

Now operating as the Army Cyber Red Team, the unit’s unique capabilities were explicitly retained in the ARSTRUC (Army Structure) as a critical enabler for Multi-Domain Operations (MDO).

The sentiment of pride in legacy was echoed at the inactivation ceremony by Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, commanding general of U.S. Army Cyber Command, who underscored the enduring heritage of 1st IO Command.

“People are the heart of what is to be preserved through the whole experience,” said Barrett.

Drawing a parallel to the legacy of Revolutionary War, she described 1st IO’s story as one of success. Establishing a critical bridge between the digital landscape and the land component. The unwavering dedication, innovation, and adaptability of 1st IO’s people laid the foundation for the information forces of tomorrow.

Matt LaChance, who served from 2002 through 2025 in multiple key roles including Deputy to the Commander, spoke of the unit’s consistent operational value.

“Our mindset was what set us apart. That’s why special operations customers kept asking us back,” said LaChance. “During Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority, we integrated IO with the ‘D’ in DIME, directly alongside diplomacy. That’s not something you see often, and it was the right capability at the right time.”

Jimmy Wade, the first acting command sergeant major during the LIWA/1IO transition, added, “Our strength wasn’t just in our toolset, it was the trust we built across commands. That’s what made us effective.”

“The inactivation of the command means the Army is turning a page,” said Col. Willie Rodney, the commander of 1st IO. “It doesn’t mean what the command has done is not still relevant, it just means we are going to do it a different way. 1st IO and information operations writ large were created because the Army didn’t know how to integrate non-kinetics into the fight. The rise of MDO demands the Army integrate the capabilities that are executed in domains other than air, land, and sea into the scheme of maneuver and operations process. The need for IO is not going away with the command; rather, the Army is forcing it to be integrated throughout the service and its forces. Overall, it’s a step toward where we’ve always wanted and needed to go.”

Asked what advice he’d give to the next generation, Rodney didn’t hesitate. “Change will inevitably come. You can fight it and become irrelevant, or you can understand it and influence it to achieve outcomes that still fit the vision.”

And in that legacy, 1st IO Command has earned its place. It gave the Army its first true glimpse of information advantage. The expertise 1st IO cultivated will now seed the next generation of information superiority units. Now, it passes the torch to a new construct, ready to fight and win in the next era.

“The inactivation of the command means the Army is turning a page,” said Col. Rodney. “It doesn’t mean what the command has done is irrelevant; we are just doing it a different way. The rise of MDO demands integrating capabilities beyond air, land, and sea into operations. IO’s need isn’t going away; it’s becoming integrated across the service.”

Rodney advised future leaders to embrace and influence change proactively. In that mindset, 1st IO Command has secured its place in Army history. It gave the Army its first glimpse of integrated information advantage. The legacy it leaves behind will inform, train, and empower the next generation of information warriors. The torch has passed, but it still burns brightly.

“Victory Through the Power of Information”

17. The Republic Myth: How a Weaponized Lie Is Undermining Democracy

This may be of interest to those who discuss democracy and republic. Unfortunately the author, while stating many correct facts about our own founding fathers and the interpretation of their intentions, has a strong anti-MAGA bias. Those with such bias will applaud this and those with other biases will pan this. But when you ignore the bias and try to read this as objectively as possible (without any personal agenda as well) there are some important facts within this piece that can be useful.

The simple answer (and what should not be a controversial statement at all) is that the US is both a democracy and a republic. (A federal democratic republic).

The Republic Myth: How a Weaponized Lie Is Undermining Democracy

The old lie that America isn’t a democracy is back—and it’s doing real damage.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-163393521

James B. Greenberg

May 12, 2025

My training as an anthropologist taught me to pay attention to the details most people overlook. So when Trump supporters insist that America is a republic, not a democracy—as if that settles the matter—I don’t hear a civics lesson. I hear a myth. A myth with history, purpose, and consequences. And like most myths, it survives not because it’s true, but because it’s useful.

This isn’t a debate over definitions. It’s a deliberate reframing. Strip the word “democracy” of its legitimacy, and you clear the path to replace it with something else. In this framing, democracy becomes mob rule. Disorder. Threat. And the solution? A strong hand, a singular will, a man who promises to save “the Republic” by dismantling the very thing that makes it one.

Anthropologists study how language shapes power. What’s said, what’s implied, what’s repeated. Discourse prepares the ground for action. It isn’t just commentary—it’s pretext. When right-wing media call democracy dangerous and cast Trump as the savior of the Republic, they’re not just telling a story. They’re normalizing the idea that democracy itself is the problem—and authoritarianism the cure.

But the historical record says otherwise. The Founders didn’t fear democracy because they equated it with chaos. They feared unchecked power—by kings, mobs, or capital. What they built was a representative system rooted in popular sovereignty. Rights were not designed to limit the people, but to protect them from domination. As Madison put it in Federalist No. 57, the aim of government is to elevate leaders who possess “the most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society.” Democracy wasn’t the threat. It was the answer to tyranny.

The U.S. is a constitutional republic built on democratic institutions—elections, representation, and the rule of law accountable to the people. The distinction isn’t between democracy and a republic, but between systems that serve the many and those that entrench the power of the few.

Still, the myth endures—revived whenever democracy expands. During Reconstruction. The New Deal. Civil Rights. And now, in the face of a multiracial, pluralistic electorate no longer willing to bow to inherited power.

The idea that the Founders rejected democracy is now pushed by those who see popular rule as a threat to their influence. It’s echoed by right-wing pundits, amplified by Murdoch-owned media, and laundered through think tanks dressed up as defenders of the Constitution. It’s embraced by Christian nationalists who fear demographic change, by oligarchs who resent regulation, and by cynics who mistake complexity for collapse.

Fox News has become a central hub for this narrative. From op-eds warning against “mob rule” to primetime rants about America losing its way, the message is consistent: democracy is fragile, and control is strength. Tucker Carlson may be gone, but the line lives on—in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and The Times of London. What they promote is not republican virtue. It’s a license for minority rule.

And the resonance isn’t limited to American ears. Russian state media regularly cite these same voices to argue that democracy is a failed experiment. Chinese and Iranian disinformation networks echo the sentiment, flooding social media with AI-generated content and fabricated posts that paint American democracy as chaotic and corrupt. The myth serves them too: the more discredited democracy looks, the stronger their systems appear by comparison.

This isn’t a Cold War redux. It’s something more insidious. Domestic and foreign authoritarians are converging around a shared strategy—undermine trust, destabilize truth, and sell control as stability. When they say “we’re a republic, not a democracy,” what they mean is: let the few decide, and call it order.

This myth isn’t just bad history. It’s a weapon. It was wielded in the 1930s by American fascists who echoed Hitler’s contempt for democratic governance. They called democracy a Jewish plot. They warned of chaos. And they offered a strongman as salvation. These weren’t fringe figures. The German American Bund filled Madison Square Garden. The Silver Shirts recruited in churches. And the Dies Committee—the forerunner to HUAC—documented how deeply their rhetoric had seeped into American life.

The rhetoric then isn’t much different than now. Same myth. New platforms.

So when someone parrots the line, ask what they’re defending—and who they’re trying to silence. The issue isn’t whether we’re a republic or a democracy. We are, by design, both. The real question is whether the republic still belongs to its people—or only to those who fear them

Versailles, not Munich: Rethinking Ukraine’s Postwar Security

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/13/ukraine-versailles-not-munich-us-security-guarantees/

by David Heiner, by John Nagl

05.13.2025 at 06:00am

This article challenges the overuse of the Munich analogy in framing U.S. policy toward Ukraine, arguing instead for lessons drawn from Versailles. Without firm postwar security guarantees, Ukraine may face long-term instability similar to that suffered by interwar France. Robust defense commitments alongside reconstruction are essential, as economic engagement alone is insufficient.

Munich: A Flawed Historical Comparison

While France and Britain emerged from Munich determined to deter further aggression through formal guarantees and military buildup, Washington risks underestimating the continued threat posed by a revanchist Russia.

As Ukraine and the United States contemplate the terms of a postwar settlement, policymakers and commentators naturally turn to history. The most commonly invoked parallel is the Munich Conference of September 30, 1938, where British and French leaders, in a failed attempt to prevent war, pressured Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. Today, some analysts argue that Ukraine is facing a similarly grim choice: surrender Crimea and parts of the Donbas in exchange for peace, while also accepting the burden of repaying U.S. military aid without the benefit of a formal security guarantee. Chairs of the foreign affairs committees of eight European parliaments urged President Trump on April 25 to end “the policy of appeasement” toward Russia and adopt a “resolute stance” against Moscow and historians like Timothy Synder draw on the Munich analogy to warn against appeasement. While the comparison offers superficial similarities, it misrepresents the British and French reaction to Munich and risks obscuring more useful historical lessons. A better framework for historical analysis lies in the aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which illustrates the dangers of failing to provide credible postwar guarantees to a shattered but sovereign state facing an inevitably revanchist adversary.

At Munich, Czech President Edvard Beneš, deserted by his French and British allies under the prevailing policy of appeasement—or as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain would have preferred to call it “Peace in Our Time”—made the difficult and unpopular decision to accede to German demands to surrender the Sudetenland. The danger of the agreement was prophesized by future wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill when he declared, “We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat… All the countries of Mittel Europa and the Danube Valley, one after another, will be drawn into the vast system of Nazi politics…And do not suppose that this is the end. It is only the beginning…”

At face value, the analogy fits: the United States is pressuring Ukraine to consider surrendering sovereign territory in exchange for peace, just as the Czechs were called upon to do; today’s version of appeasement is driven by a growing political desire to retreat from global commitments and focus inward; and just as Chamberlain’s concessions emboldened Hitler, a negotiated diplomatic “win” for Russia risks encouraging further aggression.

There are dozens of pieces drawing parallels between Munich and Ukraine, and while the comparison offers some relevant lessons, it ultimately falls short. For one, Czechoslovakia and Germany were not yet at war in 1938. More importantly, Britain and France, though shaken by the Munich debacle, responded by hardening their stance against future German aggression, extending guarantees to Poland and the remnants of the Little Entente, and began exploring a potential alliance with the Soviet Union. Less than two months after Munich, on November 12th, 1938, French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier informed Commander-in-Chief Maurice Gamelin to expect 25 billion francs in armament credits on top of the existing defense budget of 15 billion francs. Finance Minister Paul Reynaud projected that 85% of the 1939 budget receipts would go toward defense. Britain, under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, had already begun rearmament in 1938 and accelerated it following Munich, with British military spending reaching 4% of its GDP by the outbreak of war. On March 18, 1939, the British and French initiated serious talks with the Soviet Union about forming a “Triple Alliance” that would include France, Britain, Poland, the USSR, Romania, and Turkey in a joint front against Hitler, though mutual distrust ultimately doomed the effort. More successfully, on March 31, Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons that Britain had issued a formal security guarantee to Poland; France quickly confirmed it would also defend Poland with “all support in their power”

In contrast, the United States today is not retreating wholesale but appears to be channeling its postwar focus toward economic engagement—like the recently signed mineral rights deal—rather than laying the groundwork for a durable security architecture. While France and Britain emerged from Munich determined to deter further aggression through formal guarantees and military buildup, Washington risks underestimating the continued threat posed by a revanchist Russia. Reconstruction and investment are essential, but without parallel commitments to Ukraine’s long-term defense, they may amount to building on unstable ground.

Versailles, Not Munich

On January 18, 1919, the titanic minds who had led the Allied Entente through the most destructive war in human history up to that point—the First World War—gathered in Paris, a city that had stood perilously close to the German front lines throughout the conflict. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, “The Tiger,” and Marshal Ferdinand Foch, who had delivered the final blows that forced Germany’s capitulation, now faced a sobering reality: the war had ended, but the peace was merely an interlude. Though temporarily in disarray, Germany still possessed immense structural advantages over a shattered France. The war had devastated France’s northeastern industrial heartland, causing damages totaling 132 billion francs—equivalent to $269 billion today. More than 1.3 million French soldiers had perished, and the nation’s fertility rate had collapsed, with 1,400,000 fewer births between 1915-1919. France had won the war but stood weaker than ever against an adversary already beginning to recover.

Faced with a resurgent and embittered Germany, France requested security in two forms: a fixed border on the Rhine and full reparations to compensate for its wartime losses. French President Raymond Poincaré captured the sentiment, declaring, “Justice is not inert… it pursues a double object: to render each his due and to discourage the renewal of crime by impunity”, but Clemenceau and Foch’s demands met resistance from their allies. British Prime Minister Lloyd George and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson believed that fixing the border at the Rhine and forcing Germany to pay the full cost of French damages would cripple the German economy—an economy increasingly intertwined with British and American commercial interests. The compromise: Germany would repay France incrementally, and France would forgo its territorial demands in exchange for Anglo-American security guarantees.

Those guarantees never materialized. While both houses of the British Parliament approved the security guarantee for France, they did so only on the condition that the United States would also ratify it. In the wake of Wilson’s political collapse and a wave of American isolationism, the U.S. Senate refused. France, particularly Clemenceau and Foch, viewed this as a profound betrayal. Armaments returned to prewar levels on both sides, Germany retained its structural advantages, and France had neither the reparations it needed nor the security it was promised.

Thus, France’s postwar security depended on financial support to rebuild and firm security guarantees from its allies, particularly the United States and Britain. Neither came. Though much is made of the reparations imposed on Germany—132 billion marks—only about 22 billion were ever paid. Germany never came close to compensating France for the scale of destruction it had inflicted.

Worse, the one international safeguard available—the League of Nations—was fatally undermined by American isolationism. In a postwar America focused on domestic recovery and debt repayment, the Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League. Britain, similarly, reluctant to be drawn into another continental war, declined to commit to France’s defense. In the early 1920s, France was alone, vulnerable to a stronger, embittered neighbor that had invaded five times—in 1814, 1815, 1870, 1914, and 1918—and would do so again.

This is the better analogy for Ukraine today: a nation that will survive, but is utterly shattered, facing a revanchist and relatively stronger neighbor, whose “defeat” due to its failure to completely secure Ukraine’s subjugation is partial, whose economy will likely recover faster, and whose punitive costs—from sanctions to potential war crimes trials—have thus far been limited and reversible. Without credible financial and security guarantees from the West, the postwar settlement could, like Versailles, become a pause between wars rather than a foundation for peace. The minerals deal, though useful for helping to rebuild Ukraine, is only a band aid in the face of a revanchist Russia which, like Germany in 1919, already possesses far greater capacity to recover and attack again. Following its isolation, France had the benefit of nearly two decades of peace to reforge alliances, rearm, and build fortifications. Ukraine will have no such luxury.

Tags: Russo-Ukranian War, security guarantees, US Foreign Policy

About The Authors

David Heiner
David Heiner is a graduate student at The Korbel School of the University of Denver and a research intern at the United States Army War College.
View all posts
John Nagl
John Nagl is Professor of Warfighting Studies at the Army War College and Director of the Ukraine War Integrated Research Project. This article reflects their views and not those of the United States Army War College or the United States Army.

19. Navigating the Sea of Misinformation: Increasing Resilience to Russian Influence Operations through Military Education

Excerpts:

Russian influence operations have brought the threat to America’s doorstep, reminding us that the homeland no longer serves as a sanctuary. Between 2023 and 2024, Russia targeted over 30 U.S. civil society organizations through spear-phishing and misinformation campaigns. Russian state-run media also funded covert content creation, paying influencers to produce over 2,000 high-quality English language videos with pro-Russian narratives. These videos, spread across TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms, garnered millions of views, amplifying domestic divisions. Russian influence aims to erode trust in American values and governance. By infiltrating public discourse, Russia seeks to erode the trust between citizens and their government, thereby undermining the foundations of democracy. As the Department of Justice stated in 2024, these efforts are a “blatant attempt to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.”

Further, Russian influence operations target the U.S. civil-military triangle, undermining trust among the civilian public, political leaders, and the military. Peter Feaver illustrates the delicate balance of this triangle: “The United States has accomplished something remarkable — a military strong enough to do what the population demands of it through the authority of the civilian government, yet subordinate enough to do only what civilians authorize them to do.” Russian influence operations aim to upset the triangle’s balance in two ways: influence the civilian population and erode the legitimacy of political leaders and processes. These ultimately could lead to diminishing American influence abroad.

...

The U.S. military owes itself a deep and thoughtful examination of Romania’s experience. By critically reflecting on this troubling episode, the U.S. military can genuinely understand that influence operations are here to stay due to our overwhelming traditional military superiority, the mindset of our adversaries, and the tools of the digital age. Russian influence operations have taken root in the U.S. homeland. If left unchecked, Russian influence operations will eventually damage U.S. core interests, namely our values and democratic form of government. Russia will eagerly capitalize on this advantage, elevating influence operations to high-level statecraft channeled through the military instrument. History demonstrates how pernicious Russian influence operations portend more significant action and launch a multi-pronged attack on the civil-military-government triangle, which is the foundation of the delicate balance of U.S. military strength and subordination. The DoD can implement the 2023 SOIE recommendations through adult education and leadership development. Across all ranks, military123 members should be able to recognize and understand malign influence operations, ensuring a Joint Force that is resistant and resilient against influence operations. Doctrine and leadership must begin to engage with Russian influence operations profoundly. Finally, leaders at the highest levels should promote the understanding that information confrontation is an ongoing struggle. Leaders can invest in American resilience through advocacy, adult education, and nudging. Helping service members recognize, resist, and call out influence operations can be a necessary first step and exemplar for American society to navigate the sea of Russian misinformation.

Essay| The Latest

Navigating the Sea of Misinformation: Increasing Resilience to Russian Influence Operations through Military Education

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/13/navigating-the-sea-of-misinformation-increasing/

by Anne Furman, by Michael Posey

05.13.2025 at 06:00am

Russia seeks to undermine American values and interests using malign influence operations. As an example, the United States military should buttress servicemembers’ resilience through education. By educating through engaging discussions, enhancing digital literacy, and employing well-crafted nudging, the U.S. military can improve the Joint Force’s understanding of how Russia operates across its competition continuum and how to recognize and develop defenses against Russian propaganda, ultimately resulting in a resistant and resilient force.

Lessons from Russian Influence Operations in Romania

Romania’s beauty astonishes visitors, but its history is even more astonishing. Romania transformed from a Warsaw Pact member to a NATO ally and functioning democracy, demonstrating resilience in the face of geopolitical pressures. Sharing a 381-mile border with Ukraine makes this scenic country a vital corridor for Western military aid, particularly since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Romania’s importance to the NATO Alliance continues to grow with the construction of NATO’s largest base, solidifying its role as a key regional player.

In late 2024, Russia sought to exploit vulnerabilities in Romania’s democracy by orchestrating a massive influence operation during its elections. Utilizing platforms like TikTok, Russian operatives activated dormant accounts and deployed bots to manipulate public opinion, successfully skyrocketing the popularity of a pro-Russian candidate, Calin Georgescu. Russian operations to multiply these fabrications included covert funding, misinformation, and violations of Romanian campaign laws. These influence operations affected the Romanian election, which the Romanian government annulled. Nearly successful, this influence campaign demonstrated Russia’s ability to exploit social media, one of its preferred tools for cyber-enabled influence operations. Romania’s decision to expose the operation provides a playbook for other democracies under similar threats.

Social Media as a Force Multiplier in Influence Operations

The pernicious Russian threat will remain in the information environment for the foreseeable future. Russia views global competition as a persistent and enduring struggle. Currently, Russia wages a hybrid war using cyber and conventional means in Ukraine, an escalating “shadow war” in Europe, and an information war against the West through malign influence activities. The 2020 Irregular Warfare Annex highlights how U.S. conventional military superiority drives adversaries, such as Russia, to exploit unconventional tactics because “conventional overmatch encourages adversaries to pursue indirect approaches.” Further, the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment reminds us that Russia aims to sow doubt in American democratic processes and challenge U.S. global leadership, seeking to reshape international norms.

Cyber-enabled influence operations remain a central component of Russia’s strategy. The rise of social media has enabled Russia to weaponize these efforts, leveraging platforms’ salient attributes to undermine democracies. Social media has revolutionized the conduct of influence operations, transforming them from covert activities to substantial mass persuasion tools capable of shaping perceptions on a global scale. Studies suggest that social media may even change how people think. Russia’s mastery of the social media domain is evident in its exploitation of three key properties: speed, volume, and reach.

Social media’s speed facilitates the rapid dissemination of disinformation, creating anchoring biases. Platforms like TikTok and X enable Russian operatives to react rapidly, disseminating narratives before factual rebuttals take hold. First impressions matter—individuals are more likely to accept the first information they encounter, even if it is later proven false. This phenomenon enables misinformation to significantly influence public discourse.

Meanwhile, volume overwhelms users, inhibiting critical thinking and creating echo chambers. Russian influence campaigns inundate the digital landscape with RT’s hub-and-spoke system, overwhelming users with large amounts of content and capitalizing on their tendency to rely on shortcuts when processing information. Bots, troll farms, and artificial intelligence amplify the reach of Russian narratives. RAND scholars writing on Russia’s Firehose of Falsehood note, “messages received in greater volume and from more sources will be more persuasive.” The sheer volume of Russian messaging results in a polluted information ecosystem where fake narratives gain traction.

Lastly, reach allows Russia to micro-target audiences, from niche communities to vulnerable demographics, polarizing them and, in some cases, inciting real-world consequences. Russia’s ability to target specific audiences through social media enables campaigns to polarize communities, reinforcing biases and exacerbating divisions. Algorithms can amplify these divisions, creating echo chambers where extreme views are normalized. These tactics have tangible consequences, as seen in shifts in public sentiment or, in rare cases, real-world violence.

Russia Seeks to Undermine Americans’ Trust in Democracy and the Civil-Military Triangle

Russian influence operations have brought the threat to America’s doorstep, reminding us that the homeland no longer serves as a sanctuary. Between 2023 and 2024, Russia targeted over 30 U.S. civil society organizations through spear-phishing and misinformation campaigns. Russian state-run media also funded covert content creation, paying influencers to produce over 2,000 high-quality English language videos with pro-Russian narratives. These videos, spread across TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms, garnered millions of views, amplifying domestic divisions. Russian influence aims to erode trust in American values and governance. By infiltrating public discourse, Russia seeks to erode the trust between citizens and their government, thereby undermining the foundations of democracy. As the Department of Justice stated in 2024, these efforts are a “blatant attempt to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.”

Further, Russian influence operations target the U.S. civil-military triangle, undermining trust among the civilian public, political leaders, and the military. Peter Feaver illustrates the delicate balance of this triangle: “The United States has accomplished something remarkable — a military strong enough to do what the population demands of it through the authority of the civilian government, yet subordinate enough to do only what civilians authorize them to do.” Russian influence operations aim to upset the triangle’s balance in two ways: influence the civilian population and erode the legitimacy of political leaders and processes. These ultimately could lead to diminishing American influence abroad.

Figure 1: The civil-military triangle

With the rapidly changing character of war, trust among the three groups of the triangle remains a vital component in formulating national security. Russia weakens the civilian public’s ability to provide informed oversight by spreading misinformation. House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner stated, “We see, directly coming from Russia, attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.” Russia attempts to erode the strength of the U.S. civil-military triangle by reducing cohesion and amplifying divisions among the American people through misinformation that political leadership sometimes echoes. Large divisions in American politics and public opinion have hindered the U.S. government’s ability to innovate in both policy and spending matters. By amplifying existing divisions to the point of dysfunction, Russia seeks to diminish U.S. power gradually.

The Role of the U.S. Military in Countering Influence Operations

The U.S. military must adapt to address the insidious threat of Russian influence operations. Military members reflect the population and, as such, share vulnerabilities to misinformation. Also, Russian influence campaigns often serve as precursors to more significant actions, setting the stage for military operations. For instance, Russia’s cyber-attacks in Georgia and disinformation campaigns in Crimea illustrate how influence operations can facilitate broader military objectives. The military must incorporate training, doctrine, and education to build resistance and resilience to counteract these information-enabled tactics. The Department of Defense’s 2023 Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment (SOIE) emphasizes the need to equip service members to navigate contested information spaces. Most significantly, we argue that the DoD should promote awareness of Russian influence tactics and educate military personnel to develop cognitive tools that enable them to identify and counter such tactics.

Doctrine and Leadership: Nudging the Path Forward

The U.S. military should continue to develop robust doctrine to share best practices among the services and aid commanders in navigating the complexities of the modern information environment. Training programs should integrate lessons on identifying and countering malign influence, drawing on principles of effective adult education. Finland, one of NATO’s newest additions, offers a highly successful comprehensive approach to digital disinformation detection. Taking a cue from their model, the U.S. military can cultivate resilience within its ranks and among families, contractors, and civilian communities.

Senior leaders must champion these efforts, embedding the understanding of influence operations as a perpetual challenge across the DoD. Conventional weapons often receive significant advocacy; influence operations require similar attention and the gravitas of respected senior leaders behind them. Denying Russian influence increases the maneuver space for the United States on all three axes of the civilian-military triangle. Training service members to recognize and resist Russian and other malign influence operations is an investment in resilience, culminating in deterrence through denial. Leadership can also establish policies that nudge service members to practice their critical thinking skills.

Nudging, also known as choice architecture intervention, subtly encourages people to reconsider their actions or decisions, often through gentle reminders that leverage existing knowledge and awareness. For example, a 2020 review of 174 studies found that nudges can have statistically significant effects in specific contexts, such as when nudging engages “System 2” or logical, effortful thinking. Nudging aligns with the principles of adult learning, which emphasize the importance of relevance and immediate applicability, making it especially effective for military education.

Next steps – Educate the Joint Force

The U.S. military owes itself a deep and thoughtful examination of Romania’s experience. By critically reflecting on this troubling episode, the U.S. military can genuinely understand that influence operations are here to stay due to our overwhelming traditional military superiority, the mindset of our adversaries, and the tools of the digital age. Russian influence operations have taken root in the U.S. homeland. If left unchecked, Russian influence operations will eventually damage U.S. core interests, namely our values and democratic form of government. Russia will eagerly capitalize on this advantage, elevating influence operations to high-level statecraft channeled through the military instrument. History demonstrates how pernicious Russian influence operations portend more significant action and launch a multi-pronged attack on the civil-military-government triangle, which is the foundation of the delicate balance of U.S. military strength and subordination. The DoD can implement the 2023 SOIE recommendations through adult education and leadership development. Across all ranks, military123 members should be able to recognize and understand malign influence operations, ensuring a Joint Force that is resistant and resilient against influence operations. Doctrine and leadership must begin to engage with Russian influence operations profoundly. Finally, leaders at the highest levels should promote the understanding that information confrontation is an ongoing struggle. Leaders can invest in American resilience through advocacy, adult education, and nudging. Helping service members recognize, resist, and call out influence operations can be a necessary first step and exemplar for American society to navigate the sea of Russian misinformation.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, or the Department of Defense.)

Tags: Education, influence operations, NATO

About The Authors

Anne Furman
Anne Furman is an Air National Guard Officer who previously commanded the 193rd Special Operations Force Support Squadron. She is currently a student at the U.S. Army War College.
View all posts
Michael Posey
Michael Posey is an active-duty Naval Flight Officer with a subspecialty in Information Systems and Operations. He holds business degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Florida. He is pursuing his doctorate in education at Pennsylvania State University and currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the U.S. Army War College.
View all posts

20. The Technopolar Paradox: The Frightening Fusion of Tech Power and State Power

Excerpts:

Caught between these poles is Europe, once seen as a potential counterweight to the power of Big Tech. The EU has few indigenous tech giants of its own and is mired in a structural growth and productivity trap. As a result, its ability to translate regulatory ambitions into digital sovereignty is limited. Brussels faces mounting pressure to soften AI regulations for American firms and may even hesitate to tax U.S. digital service exports in response to Trump’s tariffs.

Concentrated tech power poses risks to democracy and individual freedom.

Meanwhile, the few remaining efforts at state-led and global tech governance are under siege—undermined by American Big Tech actors such as Musk and stifled by a vacuum of global leadership. As geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geotechnological fragmentation deepen, the checks on technopolar power are rapidly eroding, leaving technopolarity to grow unchecked.

The result is likely to be not a fully technopolar world but a more technopolar United States mirrored by a tightly state-controlled digital bloc in China. Most advanced industrial economies will have little choice but to align with the U.S. model, while much of the global South will find the Chinese offering more attractive.

Yet beneath their ideological differences, the American and Chinese models are converging in function. One is driven by market logic, the other by political imperatives—but both prioritize efficiency over accountability, control over consent, and scale over individual rights. In a world where authority accrues to those who control the digital space, it may matter less whether power resides in public or private hands than how effectively it can be centralized.

The great paradox of the technopolar age is that, rather than empowering individuals and bolstering democracy as early Internet visionaries once hoped, technology may instead be enabling more effective forms of hypercentralized, unaccountable control. AI and other breakthrough technologies may even render closed political systems more stable than open ones—where transparency, pluralism, checks and balances, and other key democratic features could prove liabilities in an age of exponential change. Whether lodged in governments or corporate actors, concentrated tech power poses risks to democracy and individual freedom. In 2021, I wrote that “Big Tech’s eclipse of the nation-state is not inevitable.” But it seems as if Big Tech’s eclipse of democracy, at least, has already begun.

The Technopolar Paradox

Foreign Affairs · by More by Ian Bremmer · May 13, 2025

The Frightening Fusion of Tech Power and State Power

Ian Bremmer

May 13, 2025

Tesla CEO Elon Musk at a White House cabinet meeting, Washington, D.C., March 2025 Carlos Barria / Reuters

IAN BREMMER is President and Founder of Eurasia Group.

Print Subscribe to unlock this feature or Sign in.

Save Sign in and save to read later

In February 2022, as Russian forces advanced on Kyiv, Ukraine’s government faced a critical vulnerability: with its Internet and communication networks under attack, its troops and leaders would soon be in the dark. Elon Musk—the de facto head of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), xAI, the Boring Company, and Neuralink—stepped in. Within days, SpaceX had deployed thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine and activated satellite Internet service at no cost. Having kept the country online, Musk was hailed as a hero.

But the centibillionaire’s personal intervention—and Kyiv’s reliance on it—came with risks. Months later, Ukraine asked SpaceX to extend Starlink’s coverage to Russian-occupied Crimea, to enable a submarine drone strike that Kyiv wanted to carry out against Russian naval assets. Musk refused—worried, he said, that this would cause a major escalation in the war. Even the Pentagon’s entreaties on behalf of Ukraine failed to convince him. An unelected, unaccountable private citizen had unilaterally thwarted a military operation in an active war zone while exposing the fact that governments had remarkably little control over crucial decisions affecting their citizens and national security.

This was “technopolarity” in action: a technology leader not only driving stock market returns but also controlling aspects of civil society, politics, and international affairs that have been traditionally the exclusive preserve of nation-states. Over the past decade, the rise of such individuals and the firms they control has transformed the global order, which had been defined by states since the Peace of Westphalia enshrined them as the building blocks of geopolitics nearly 400 years ago. For most of this time, the structure of that order could be described as unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar, depending on how power was distributed among countries. The world, however, has since entered a “technopolar moment,” a term I used in Foreign Affairs in 2021 to describe an emerging order in which “a handful of large technology companies rival [states] for geopolitical influence.” Major tech firms have become powerful geopolitical actors, exercising a form of sovereignty over digital space and, increasingly, the physical world that potentially rivals that of states.

In 2021, the power of those companies seemed poised to grow, and over the last three years, it has. I argued that governments would not go down without a fight, and in the time since, their struggle for control over digital space has intensified. But the balance of power between technology firms and states has shifted in some surprising ways. What is emerging as a result of this contest is not quite any of the scenarios I originally envisioned—neither a globalized digital order, in which tech companies wrested control of digital space from the state, nor a U.S.-Chinese tech cold war, in which governments reasserted authority over the digital realm, nor a fully technopolar world, in which Westphalian state dominance gave way to a new order led by tech firms.

Instead of a clean triumph of states over firms or vice versa, the future is taking on a more hybrid form—a bifurcated system pitting a technopolar United States, where private tech actors increasingly shape national policy, against a statist China, where the government has asserted total control over its digital space. Most of the rest of the world is under pressure to reluctantly align with one pole or the other, but with both models offering little in the way of democratic accountability and individual freedom, the choice is less stark than it may seem. As tech power and state power fuse everywhere, the question is no longer whether tech companies will rival states for geopolitical influence; it is whether open societies can survive the challenge.

Technopolar Consolidation

In late 2021, the tech industry was riding high. Companies that controlled major technology platforms were at the zenith of their power. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg promised to create a fully immersive parallel “metaverse” free from real-world and government constraints, and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum were starting to go mainstream, promising a viable decentralized alternative to governments’ authority over financial and payment systems. The COVID-19 pandemic had forced people to spend more time online than ever before, cementing tech’s influence as digital platforms became essential for work, education, entertainment, and interpersonal connection.

This period accelerated the adoption of digital tools and made tech companies even more central to private, social, economic, and civic life. As the world grew ever more dependent on digital connectivity, decisions made in corporate boardrooms—about what products to launch, how algorithms worked, and what rules and regulations to enforce—determined much of what billions of people saw and heard, shaped their opportunities, and even rewired their thought patterns.

But Big Tech companies didn’t just become more autonomous masters of their virtual walled gardens. They also expanded their influence in the physical realm, with their products and services becoming critical infrastructure. Data centers, cloud computing systems, satellite networks, semiconductors, and cybersecurity tools increasingly underpinned the operation of national economies, militaries, and governments.

This shift was on full display in the early days of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. If American companies such as SpaceX, Microsoft, and Palantir hadn’t chosen to leap to Ukraine’s defense—enabling communication, repelling cyberattacks, analyzing intelligence, and powering drones—Russia could have knocked the country offline, decapitated its command structure, and seized the capital. Ukraine might have lost the war within days.

No longer content to transcend the state, techno-utopians now seek to capture it.

But it wasn’t long before governments realized that what technologists giveth, they can as easily taketh away. The Starlink-Crimea episode—and the pandemic-era supply shortages before it—exposed the fragility created by reliance on a few dominant companies for key services and supplies. A single point of failure, or a single CEO’s decision, could have catastrophic consequences.

Faced with these risks, states struck back. In 2022, a wave of legislation and regulatory action targeted Big Tech on issues such as market power, content moderation, user protection, and data privacy. The EU passed the landmark Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, some of the most ambitious efforts to constrain tech power anywhere. The United States advanced high-profile antitrust cases, congressional oversight efforts, and state-level privacy rules. India, South Africa, and others followed suit, while the EU, United Kingdom, Brazil, and others took more aggressive enforcement action against big platforms. But these rearguard actions did little to dent Big Tech’s control of the digital space, where they—not governments—continued to act as the primary architects, actors, and enforcers.

Big Tech’s power deepened further in late 2022 with the debut of large language models and the subsequent explosion of artificial intelligence—a breakthrough technology that has entrenched the tech industry’s lead over nation-states. The development and deployment of advanced AI systems demands immense computational power, vast data troves, and specialized engineering talent—resources concentrated in a handful of firms. These entities alone determine and understand (most of) what their models can do, and how, where, and by whom they are used. Even if regulators could design adequate governance regimes to contain the technology as it presently exists, AI’s exponential pace of advancement would quickly render them obsolete.

As AI becomes more powerful and more central to economic, military, and geopolitical competition, the tech firms that control it will grow even more geopolitically influential.

Revenge of the Nation-State

But as tech companies expanded their influence, traditional geopolitics came roaring back. Rising protectionism fueled by a populist backlash to globalization, a post-pandemic push for economic security reinforced by the shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and, above all, intensifying U.S.-Chinese strategic rivalry converged to shatter the illusion of a global tech ecosystem.

In Washington, an effort to limit China’s technological development began with targeted export and investment controls on a narrow set of strategically sensitive advanced technologies—a “small yard, high fence” approach, as the Biden administration framed it. But the campaign soon widened into an ever-expanding domain of restrictions on a vast array of goods that could be considered dual-use. Even mundane data became a national security concern, as did the apps and devices that generate it. Everything from social media to electric vehicles to fitness trackers was pulled into the vortex of “de-risking,” as U.S. policymakers scrambled to limit China’s access to anything that could give Beijing an edge in technological competition. Economic and security interests became indistinguishable, and technological fragmentation—if not outright decoupling from China—became the norm.

Meanwhile, industrial policy made a comeback as Western governments poured billions into subsidy programs to build strategic capabilities at home. Those carrots, however, came with sticks: build at home and leave China, or miss out on U.S. government largesse. As Washington imposed limits on semiconductors and AI tools and Beijing tightened control over its critical minerals, supply chains balkanized and cross-border data flows slowed.

This unraveling of digital and physical globalization has since undermined the globalist business model adopted by firms such as Apple and Tesla, which relied on open markets and integrated supply chains to maximize their global profits. Even before Trump’s return to office, many of these firms had begun “friend shoring” some of their operations, shifting them from China to countries such as India, Mexico, and Vietnam to hedge against rising geopolitical risk. Last month, however, Trump announced massive tariffs that would hit allies and adversaries alike. The move signaled Washington’s retreat from globalization and dealt a blow to the globalist paradigm. By contrast, so-called national champions, such as Microsoft and Palantir, now find themselves in a new golden hour, able to leverage their long-standing alignment with the U.S. government to thrive in a fractured, post-globalization environment.

Washington’s statist turn has been more surprising but far less complete than Beijing’s. Since 2020, when the Chinese Communist Party cracked down on Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, whom officials believed had grown too powerful and independent, Beijing has reasserted total control over its tech sector. Today, even China’s largest tech firms—regardless of their formal ownership structure—serve at the pleasure of President Xi Jinping, and the question of who controls China’s digital future has been decisively answered: the state.

From Libertarians to Leviathans

In the West, the answer to that question is still up for grabs. Complicating matters is the fact that it is not only control of digital space that is unsettled; it is control of the state itself.

A subset of Silicon Valley visionaries such as Musk, Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen once saw technology not just as a business opportunity but as a revolutionary force—one capable of liberating society from the limits of government and ultimately rendering the state obsolete. These “techno-utopians,” as I defined them in 2021, were skeptical of politics and “look[ed] to a future in which the nation-state paradigm that has dominated geopolitics since the seventeenth century has been replaced by something different altogether.”

But in recent years, some of these figures have taken a techno-authoritarian turn. No longer content to transcend the state, they now seek to capture it—repurposing public power to advance private ambitions. Part of this shift has been self-interested, driven by a desire to secure favorable regulations, tax breaks, and public contracts, as the wealthy and special interests in America often try to do. But it also reflects the rising stakes and changing balance of technological power in a geopolitically contested era.

Unlike earlier digital platforms, which blossomed under minimal government intervention, most of today’s frontier technologies—such as aerospace, AI, biotech, energy, and quantum computing—actively require implicit or explicit state backing to scale up. As these domains grew central to U.S.-Chinese competition and national security engulfed more of the digital realm itself, alignment with Washington evolved from a nuisance into a strategic necessity, making the techno-utopian vision less viable—and the national champion model more attractive. The incentives for state capture soared along with the spoils of it.

Tech CEOs and others attending the Presidential Inauguration, Washington, D.C., January 2025 Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Reuters

Yet for some, the choice of state capture wasn’t only pragmatic—it was also ideological. Several prominent tech figures, most notably Musk and Thiel, have embraced an antidemocratic worldview. They see American governance (and republican governance more generally) as irreparably broken, and its pluralism, checks and balances, and professional civil service as bugs, not features. These figures want the U.S. government to be run like a startup, with an unelected “national CEO” wielding concentrated power in the name of technological progress. In their view, control of the state—and the future—should shift to self-anointed techno-elites who are fit to lead the country through an era of exponential change. Thiel declared as early as 2009 that he no longer believed “freedom and democracy are compatible.” In 2023, Musk called for a “modern day Sulla,” referring to the Roman dictator whose reign was credited with the collapse of the republic.

Although he may have been joking at the time, Musk has in fact spent the past four months attempting to seize the reins of the U.S. government. But this is not a hostile takeover, as some have characterized it. It’s a leveraged buyout. Musk alone spent nearly $300 million to help elect Trump and a Republican Congress in 2024—not including the cost of remaking X into a pro-Trump social media platform. In return, the most transactional president in American history rewarded the world’s richest man with unparalleled influence over the mightiest state on earth.

Trump was already predisposed toward crony capitalism. But in his second term, tech moguls haven’t just been empowered to shape policy—they have been invited to hire (or fire) their own regulators and write (or erase) their own rules. Since he was put in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and granted “root access” to federal government systems, Musk has purged tens of thousands of civil servants, installed loyalists across dozens of agencies, slashed congressionally appropriated funding, and acquired terabytes of confidential data belonging to millions of Americans.

He and many of his techno-authoritarian allies embedded throughout government have retained their private-sector roles despite conflicts of interest. These technologists now hold sway over federal personnel and policy—shaping rulemaking, regulatory enforcement, procurement, taxation, and subsidies, affecting not only their own firms but their rivals’ firms, as well. A recent Senate report estimated Musk’s financial gains from this arrangement at $2.37 billion, excluding the potential value of public contracts and competitive advantages that his newfound access could unlock.

The tech right’s alliance with Trump was always transactional, not ideological.

Already, there are reports that DOGE is collecting and consolidating troves of sensitive government data—tax filings, immigration databases, Social Security records, health information, and more—with the purported aim of uncovering “waste, fraud, and abuse” in federal spending to enhance government efficiency, especially when combined with AI tools. But with no legal firewall between Musk’s public role and private interests, there is no way to know whether he has already begun feeding this data into his company xAI’s proprietary AI models—and, if he has, whether the outputs will serve the public good or his own. This master dataset could generate significant productivity gains for the U.S. economy, which other countries would soon try to adopt themselves. It could also give him a decisive edge in the race to build superintelligent AI systems that no rival could match, enable new forms of consumer profiling and behavioral targeting, and tighten his grip on markets and platforms.

The implications go beyond self-enrichment. Once in place, the same algorithmic infrastructure that delivers economic advantage could be weaponized for political control. Whistleblowers allege that DOGE is using AI to flag anti-Musk and anti-Trump sentiment among civil servants, and IRS officials have resigned over the Trump administration’s plans to mine tax data to track immigrants. The danger isn’t exactly an American version of China’s CCP-run surveillance regime, which exists primarily to secure the party’s hold on power. What Musk might produce is something more diffuse: an algorithmically powered, decentralized surveillance network leveraging captured state power but infused with market incentives, built to advance the commercial and political interests of select technology owners.

To be clear, Big Tech’s grip on Washington may not be permanent. Musk has claimed that DOGE is a time-limited initiative, and he has already signaled plans to step back from government amid plummeting public popularity and rising consumer backlash against his companies. Prominent figures in the populist wing of Trump’s coalition, such as Steve Bannon, have also denounced Musk and his peers as “technofeudal” globalists bent on turning Americans into “digital serfs.” The tech right’s alliance with Trump was always transactional, not ideological. The administration’s policies thus far—on trade, immigration, and science funding—have often run counter to the accelerationist ethos that these technologists espouse. The partnership may yet fray.

But for now, the capture is real, inverting the logic of the national champion model: where the state once directed technology firms to serve the public interest, policy is increasingly subordinated to the private objectives of technologists. Even if this doesn’t last, the damage will. In just a few months, DOGE has so hollowed out U.S. state capacity that after it is gone, private technology firms may become essential to help fill the void.

The Hybrid Future

In 2021, I posited three possible paths for our digital future: “Will we live in a world where the Internet is increasingly fragmented and technology companies serve the interests and goals of the states in which they reside, or will Big Tech decisively wrest control of digital space from governments, freeing itself from national boundaries and emerging as a truly global force? Or could the era of state dominance finally come to an end, supplanted by a techno-elite that assumes responsibility for offering the public goods once provided by governments?”

Today, the digital realm seems to be heading toward a more hybrid future—a world bifurcated into two digital spheres of influence. One pole is formed by an unmistakably more technopolar United States, where a handful of tech firms and leaders wield digital dominance, control critical infrastructure, and exert direct influence over U.S. foreign and domestic policy. These companies and the individuals who run them can manipulate the global information environment, destabilize foreign governments, and shape geopolitical outcomes. What makes this influence more potent now is that these actors now boast the implicit (and sometimes explicit) backing of the American state. Foreign governments are increasingly reluctant to crack down on U.S. tech firms—not just because of their digital leverage and economic clout but also because doing so could provoke official backlash from Washington. In effect, politically endorsed components of Big Tech enjoy geopolitical impunity: shielded by the state but not accountable to it. This fusion of public and private power should allow U.S. firms to push countries to adopt their products, platforms, and standards.

The opposing pole is anchored by China and its state-capitalist model, where technology champions remain fully subordinated to the CCP. Although Beijing’s statist approach may sacrifice some long-term innovation potential and economic dynamism at the margins, it ensures that strategic technologies are aligned with national priorities. And recent breakthroughs—from DeepSeek’s latest AI reasoning models to Huawei’s CloudMatrix 384 chip cluster—demonstrate that China’s model, despite these political constraints and U.S. export controls, remains highly competitive.

Caught between these poles is Europe, once seen as a potential counterweight to the power of Big Tech. The EU has few indigenous tech giants of its own and is mired in a structural growth and productivity trap. As a result, its ability to translate regulatory ambitions into digital sovereignty is limited. Brussels faces mounting pressure to soften AI regulations for American firms and may even hesitate to tax U.S. digital service exports in response to Trump’s tariffs.

Concentrated tech power poses risks to democracy and individual freedom.

Meanwhile, the few remaining efforts at state-led and global tech governance are under siege—undermined by American Big Tech actors such as Musk and stifled by a vacuum of global leadership. As geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geotechnological fragmentation deepen, the checks on technopolar power are rapidly eroding, leaving technopolarity to grow unchecked.

The result is likely to be not a fully technopolar world but a more technopolar United States mirrored by a tightly state-controlled digital bloc in China. Most advanced industrial economies will have little choice but to align with the U.S. model, while much of the global South will find the Chinese offering more attractive.

Yet beneath their ideological differences, the American and Chinese models are converging in function. One is driven by market logic, the other by political imperatives—but both prioritize efficiency over accountability, control over consent, and scale over individual rights. In a world where authority accrues to those who control the digital space, it may matter less whether power resides in public or private hands than how effectively it can be centralized.

The great paradox of the technopolar age is that, rather than empowering individuals and bolstering democracy as early Internet visionaries once hoped, technology may instead be enabling more effective forms of hypercentralized, unaccountable control. AI and other breakthrough technologies may even render closed political systems more stable than open ones—where transparency, pluralism, checks and balances, and other key democratic features could prove liabilities in an age of exponential change. Whether lodged in governments or corporate actors, concentrated tech power poses risks to democracy and individual freedom. In 2021, I wrote that “Big Tech’s eclipse of the nation-state is not inevitable.” But it seems as if Big Tech’s eclipse of democracy, at least, has already begun.

IAN BREMMER is President and Founder of Eurasia Group.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Ian Bremmer · May 13, 2025

21. China Is Building Megaports in South America to Feed Its Need for Crops

China Is Building Megaports in South America to Feed Its Need for Crops

State grain trader Cofco plans world’s biggest export terminal in Brazil to substitute U.S. soybeans and other foodstuffs

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/china-is-building-megaports-in-south-america-to-feed-its-need-for-crops-8831748e?st=HdjLeB&utm

By Samantha Pearson

May 12, 2025 9:00 pm ET

Cofco is building its biggest export terminal outside China in the Brazilian port of Santos. Photo: Roosevelt Cassio/Reuters

Key Points

What's This?

China is investing in South American infrastructure to secure agricultural imports.
Santos, Brazil’s main port for exports to China, is struggling with capacity and infrastructure.
Brazil’s fertilizer supply issues and soil nutrient depletion pose challenges to increased crop production.

SANTOS, Brazil—China has reassured its citizens they would have enough to eat without U.S. crops. It will have to unclog Latin America’s largest port first.

The decrepit port in this Atlantic coast city is the main gateway for South American exports of soybeans and other agricultural goods that represent China’s only viable alternative supply to U.S. exports. Though China has reduced its reliance on U.S. foodstuffs, crops are still among the top U.S. exports to China.

China’s state-owned agricultural conglomerate, Cofco, is building its biggest export terminal outside China at the port to manage shipments of corn, sugar and soybeans. It would increase the company’s annual export capacity to 14 million tons from 4.5 million, but isn’t expected to reach full capacity until next year.

The Santos port fits into China’s wider plan to secure access to South America’s agricultural bounty amid shortages of water and arable land at home. Chinese companies are laying hundreds of miles of railroad across Brazil’s agricultural heartland and finishing work on a $3.5 billion deep-water port on Peru’s Pacific coast.

The trade war with the U.S. has heightened the urgency of these projects. Chinese leader Xi Jinping met South American leaders including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Beijing on Monday to discuss their deepening ties.

Brazilian officials are welcoming the chance to draw foreign investment to the country’s rickety roads, railroads and ports.

“We need more and more infrastructure,” Renan Filho, Brazil’s transportation minister, said in an interview.

A worker in the Cofco terminal at the Port of Santos in January. Photo: Tuane Fernandes/Bloomberg News

Squeezed between rows of warehouses and the ruins of colonial-era sugar mills at the heart of the Santos port, a towering crane was putting the finishing touches to three Cofco silos, each the size of an apartment building.

Since entering the Brazilian market in 2014 by acquiring Dutch grain trader Nidera and the agricultural unit of Hong Kong-based Noble, Cofco has relied on third-party terminals at an extra cost of some 15%. But in March 2022, Cofco secured a 25-year concession to develop the STS11 terminal at Santos Port, committing to invest some $285 million into the site.

China’s state ports conglomerate China Merchants Port Holdings had already acquired a 90% stake in the operator of Paranaguá, another busy port in Brazil’s south, in 2017 for $925 million. The state company China Railway has also been building part of a railroad that connects Brazil’s central farming belt to ports in eastern and northern Brazil.

In Peru, Cosco Shipping built a deep-water megaport to speed trade between Asia and South America. Beijing has also discussed with the region’s governments a vast railroad running from Peru’s Pacific coast to Brazilian ports on the Atlantic.

Chinese officials on April 28 said they can easily drop U.S. crop imports and still hit their 5% growth target this year. Brazil—and, to a lesser extent, Argentina—would fill the void, according to analysts tracking agricultural markets.

Trump’s China Deal Makes Sense. How He Got Here Doesn’t.

The president’s tactics undercut his own rationales, while in some ways treating China better than allies

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/trumps-china-deal-makes-sense-how-he-got-here-doesnt-c42738a7

By Greg Ip

May 13, 2025 5:30 am ET