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Quotes of the Day:
"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair."
– C. S. Lewis
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
– Thomas Jefferson
"The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him."
– Henry L. Stimson
A four minute film worth watching:
Shortfilm Wim Wenders: The Keys to Freedom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slcNOnogtps&t=2s
There are places where history was written – and yet nobody knows about them! To mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, award-winning director Wim Wenders (Wings of desire, Paris-Texas, Perfect Days, etc.) has shot a short film that takes us to the most secret place in Europe at that time: a map room in a school in Reims, France, which served as a war room for the Allies. On May 7, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered there and the world war ended. Today, "The Keys to Freedom" are more than just a museum piece. The question is how we use them today. Because freedom cannot be taken for granted, you have to do something for it.
1. FM 1 THE ARMY: A PRIMER ON OUR PROFESSION OF ARMS
2. The Risk of War in the Taiwan Strait Is High—and Getting Higher
3. Trump’s Pledge to the Middle East: No More ‘Lectures on How to Live’
4. Indo-Pacom Commander Highlights Army's Regional Contribution
5. General Clark Underscores Land Power's Pivotal Role in Indo-Pacific Security at LANPAC
6. Army prepping for Pacific conflict with prepositioned equipment, logistics hubs
7. Pacific multidomain task forces are looking for long-range drones
8. Rogue communication devices found in Chinese solar power inverters
9. Navy SEAL takes command of year-old Joint Task Force-Micronesia
10. Army task forces ‘centerpiece’ for deterring China: INDOPACOM boss
11. FROM HYPERSONICS TO ALLIANCES: RUSSIA’S EMERGING THREATS TO U.S. AND NATO SECURITY
12. New Joint Chiefs boss steps into role with prelude to high-stakes NATO summit
13. Claims a Fired Air Force General Was Sentenced to Death Have Spread Online. They're Not True.
14. Beijing is a ‘red line’: Hungary vows it won’t decouple from China if pushed by Trump
15. Taiwanese celebrities caught up in military conscription evasion scandal
16. Taipei in Four Days
17. The Logics of Military Force: Or, How India and Pakistan Fought Each Other and Didn’t Use the Bomb
18. US lawmakers mull State Department shake-up as trade partners seek new alliances
19. Asia without America, part 2: Japan’s Tang renaissance
20. Asia’s Population Lessons For Donald Trump
21. 'Russians need to be taught a lesson' – why foreign soldiers keep fighting for Ukraine amid growing uncertainty
22. Asia’s Role In the US Shipbuilding Surge
1. FM 1 THE ARMY: A PRIMER ON OUR PROFESSION OF ARMS
The 104 page publication can be downloaded at this link: https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN43687-FM_1-000-WEB-2.pdf
A comment from a friend who flagged this for me. I too wish I was staring over in our Army.
"Just in case you haven't received this yet, I have attached the new FM 1. I started reading it this morning. It makes me wish I was 18 again."
This is the most comprehensive yet succinct description of our profession. I love the quotes, the anecdotes, and the sketches. But I really like the professional description of our profession.
May 01, 2025 — FM 1 THE ARMY: A PRIMER ON OUR PROFESSION OF ARMS
An American Soldier
A Warrior
A Professional
A Leader
What Our Army Does
Our Mission
Our Structure
Our Soldiers
Obligations of Our Army
To our Army’s Teammates
To our Civilian Leaders
To our Fellow Citizens
Foreword
This book is written for our Army. It explains our profession, our purpose, and what it means to be an American Soldier. You will notice this book is not written like other military doctrine; it touches on values and concepts through stories and in non-prescriptive terms. It requires judgment in application.
The book is intended to be read from cover to cover. It progresses through three sections—what it means to be an American Soldier, what the Army does, and how the Army serves and supports our country. While the stories may be of past battles and heroic actions, it also reflects the increasingly challenging times we live in. It offers the reader a serious, solemn, and sober perspective of the Army’s tasks ahead.
FM 1 is relevant to every Soldier, for we share common responsibilities and a common commitment to each other. As we each move through our Army journey, we should all pick this text up from time to time to refresh our understanding of our priorities and our sense of purpose.
This book should be informative, too, for our joint teammates, aspiring Soldiers, and fellow citizens not in uniform. After all, our Army belongs to the country— we serve the American people.
This We’ll Defend!
RANDY A. GEORGE GENERAL, UNITED STATES ARMY
CHIEF OF STAFF
2. The Risk of War in the Taiwan Strait Is High—and Getting Higher
The Davidson Window of 2027.
The Minihan Memo of 2025.
But every day that we enhance our deterrence capabilities and Taiwan's willingness and capability to defend itself (and demonstrate strategic reassurance and strategic resolve) we move the probability of an attack on Taiwan to the right.
Excerpts:
U.S. and allied policymakers must not overlook these shifts in China’s perceptions of Taiwan and its actions regarding the island. As Lai’s term continues, Beijing and Taipei are likely to enter an even more dangerous situation. Chinese experts believe that Lai may take more radical measures to promote Taiwan’s independence in 2027 ahead of the next presidential elections. If Lai is not faring well in the polls, Chinese analysts worry that he could ratchet up his anti-Beijing stance to win electoral support, much as Chen did in 2008. Xi himself has set a deadline of 2027 for the PLA to have the capability to forcefully take Taiwan. Given Xi’s push to accelerate the PLA’s modernization, it is unlikely that his military leaders will tell him in 2027 that China is not capable of successfully executing large-scale military operations against Taiwan, meaning that Xi may feel more confident then—and willing to provoke a crisis or conflict.
Beijing’s diminished patience and hardened intent make it even more important for the Trump administration to ensure that China clearly understands the resolve of the United States and its willingness to counter Chinese aggression. There is extraordinary work that the United States must do to deter a conflict or, failing that, to deny and defeat Chinese military adventurism. In addition to building up its own military capabilities—as well as those of Taiwan and its allies—and significantly increasing allied and partner defense spending, Washington must better integrate different elements of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan to enhance deterrence and reduce the risks of misperception by potential adversaries.
This is important because Beijing is not just assessing American resolve by looking at what the United States is doing on defense. For example, as Chinese experts watch the U.S.-Chinese tariff and trade negotiations, some are noting how rapidly Washington has both scaled up and temporarily backed down on tariffs, suggesting that Trump was bluffing initially and that the administration now recognizes that it needs to cooperate with China despite its focus on competition.
As the United States is moving fast on multiple fronts, it will be important to pay attention to how Beijing may be connecting the dots of different U.S. policies in cobbling together a larger understanding of American strategy and intentions. To the extent that China is misunderstanding the United States, it will be crucial for the Trump administration to correct and push back against Chinese narratives, both in public and in private.
If the Trump administration does not want a crisis on its hands, it should not leave such a door open for Beijing. The Taiwan Strait will be volatile enough over the next few years without adding to the mix muddled Chinese perceptions of what the United States is willing—or not willing—not do.
The Risk of War in the Taiwan Strait Is High—and Getting Higher
Foreign Affairs · by More by Bonny Lin · May 15, 2025
Beijing’s Worry About the Future Could Spur a Deadly Miscalculation Soon
May 15, 2025
Taiwan’s President William Lai visiting an airbase in Taipei, March 2025 Ann Wang / Reuters
BONNY LIN is Director of the China Power Project and Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
JOHN CULVER is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings. He served for 35 years as a Central Intelligence Agency officer, including as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2015 to 2018.
BRIAN HART is Deputy Director and Fellow of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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Tensions in the Taiwan Strait are growing. Even before Taiwan elected William Lai as its president, in January 2024, China voiced strong opposition to him, calling him a “separatist” and an “instigator of war.” In recent months, Beijing has ramped up its broadsides: in mid-March, the spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office labeled Lai a “destroyer of cross-Straits peace” and accused him of pushing Taiwan toward “the perilous brink of war.” Two weeks later, as Beijing launched a large-scale military exercise around Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) circulated cartoon images that portrayed Lai as an insect. One image depicted a pair of chopsticks picking the “parasite” Lai out of a burning Taiwan.
This effort to dehumanize Lai reflects Beijing’s deep anxiety about the trajectory of cross-strait relations, particularly what China views as Lai’s desire to push Taiwan toward independence. Compared to his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, Lai has taken a stronger and more defiant stance in the face of growing Chinese threats to the island, as evident in his rhetoric and new policy measures. This March, Lai characterized Beijing as a “hostile foreign force” and announced a plan to implement 17 wide-ranging strategies to defend the island from Chinese infiltration.
China’s vilification of Lai echoes Beijing’s denunciations, roughly two decades ago, of Chen Shui-bian, then president of Taiwan. Beijing labeled Chen a “die-hard separatist” and “a troublemaker” who “is riding near the edge of the cliff, and there is no sign that he is going to rein in his horse.” Beijing escalated external pressure against Chen and worked with opposition parties within Taiwan to frustrate his political agenda. China did come dangerously close to using military force against the island in 2008 and might have gone through with it if Chen had been more successful in winning Taiwan’s public support for his referendum.
Beijing’s attitude now should very much concern Washington. China does not view Lai’s rule as merely a continuation of that of Tsai. Instead, Beijing sees Lai as a disruptor like Chen and is treating him much in the same way. Since Lai became president, Beijing has demonstrated growing willingness to use military might to intimidate and punish the island. And it is far more prepared to use force against Taiwan today than it was in the 2000s.
Apparent divisions within U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration about how to approach Taiwan compound these risks. If Beijing doubts U.S. commitments to the island, that could encourage China to engage in more coercive actions against Taiwan. All of these factors dramatically increase the chances that Beijing will miscalculate—and that it could very well use force against the island around 2027, as China approaches critical military modernization milestones and Taiwan gears up for its next presidential election.
ESCALATION SPIRAL
China’s official narratives have long emphasized that its peaceful unification with Taiwan is inevitable. But in recent months, anxiety has mounted in Beijing that Lai intends to systematically decouple Taiwan from China. Chinese media outlets have accused Lai of militarizing Taiwanese society as Lai prioritized efforts to increase Taiwan’s defensive resilience, reinstated the military court system to handle espionage and treason by Taiwan military officials, and accelerated training and preparations for the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Beijing is highly critical of Lai’s efforts to thwart Chinese infiltration and to counter Chinese cognitive warfare, arguing that Lai is preventing the resumption of tourism, suppressing and prosecuting pro-Chinese groups and individuals, discouraging Taiwanese citizens from applying for Chinese identification documents, imposing barriers on academic collaboration between universities in China and Taiwan, and altering Taiwan’s textbooks to undermine historical and cultural affinity.
In March, a Chinese government spokesperson claimed that Lai’s 17 strategies were aimed at “obstructing exchanges and cooperation across the Taiwan Strait.” China has also denounced Lai’s efforts to encourage Taiwanese businesses to invest more in democratic countries, including in the United States. Beijing has cast these measures as doomed to fail and mocked Taipei when the United States threatened to impose high tariffs on the island in April.
Many Chinese analysts believe that Lai’s political position is weak compared with that of his predecessor, Tsai. But they worry that this weakness may make Lai bolder, as he might want to ramp up confrontation with China to try to win public support.
Based on this analysis of Lai and domestic conditions within Taiwan, hawkish voices within China are urging an ever more aggressive approach toward Taiwan. Some are calling for the use of military force against the island or the resurrection of so-called civil war operations, non-peaceful ways for Beijing to unify with the island, such as by imposing a maritime blockade of the island. Other hawks have publicly wondered if Beijing can engineer a crisis in Taipei similar to the 1936 Xian incident, in which generals serving under Chiang Kai-shek—who was leading the government of the Republic of China and its Nationalist forces—seized Chiang and forced him to ally with the Chinese Communist Party to fight against Japanese forces that had invaded northern China.
The pace and scale of Chinese military activities is increasing.
A more resonant parallel may be to one of the most dangerous periods during Chen’s tenure. To boost turnout in Taiwan’s March 2008 presidential election, Chen paired that vote with a popular referendum on whether the island should join the United Nations under the name Taiwan instead of the Republic of China.
This proposal came perilously close to crossing a redline for Beijing: in 2005, Beijing had passed the Anti-Secession Law, which established China’s right to use military force against Taiwan under several conditions, including if “major incidents entailing Taiwan’s secession from China should occur.” When the law was passed, a spokesperson for the Chinese government suggested that an island-wide referendum could be considered a major incident. And in 2007, after Chen proposed the referendum, Chinese President Hu Jintao warned U.S. President George W. Bush that Beijing interpreted the Taiwan referendum in this way.
Beijing accompanied these warnings with significant military signaling. China increased its deployment of short-range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan sevenfold from the beginning of Chen’s term in 2000 to early 2008. Prior to the referendum, the Bush administration detected that the PLA had put mobile short-range missile units near the Taiwan Strait on heightened alert. The U.S. military and intelligence community believed that China could fire missiles around Taiwan, as it had during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis—or, worse, China could actually attack the island.
Fortunately, the 2008 crisis passed without bloodshed. Low voter turnout invalidated Chen’s referendum, and the opposition Kuomintang candidate beat the candidate from Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party in the presidential race. U.S. deployment of significant forces near Taiwan may also have given Beijing pause. Taking the risk of escalation seriously, Washington had publicly opposed Chen’s referendum and positioned two aircraft carriers to the northeast and southeast of Taiwan, and a third near Singapore, ahead of the vote. Nevertheless, the episode suggested that Beijing was serious about using force if provoked by what it viewed as “pro-independence” activities.
BAD OMENS
Since the 2008 crisis, China’s military capabilities have grown significantly. Its army, navy, and air force have rapidly modernized, and its conventional rocket forces now field a far more capable array of longer-range missiles, including advanced hypersonic and antiship ballistic missiles. China has also doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal over the past five years. Beyond advances in hard capabilities, Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched sweeping organizational reforms to enable the PLA to conduct more joint high-tech operations, and he has waged unparalleled anticorruption campaigns to root out obstacles to military readiness.
Beijing’s willingness to use its military is growing, too. China has long engaged in military exercises to hone its capabilities and intimidate Taiwan. During Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s tenure from 2008 to 2016, Beijing limited these provocations as it sought to encourage greater cross-Strait engagement. But China resumed major exercises when Tsai, who emphasized Taiwan’s sovereignty and security, succeeded Ma. In August 2022, toward the end of Tsai’s term, China mounted larger and more provocative drills near Taiwan than it had ever held before.
Now the pace and scale of Chinese military activities is increasing. Not even a year into Lai’s term, China has broken precedent by staging three large-scale exercises, which were given names to raise their profile and distinguish them from smaller drills.
In a significant shift, the PLA is now using such large-scale military exercises to punish Lai’s administration for domestic political acts. All of China’s past major exercises—in 1995–96, 2022, and 2023—were launched after Taiwan’s leaders traveled to the United States or met with senior U.S. officials. Last December, China did engage in a major—but unnamed—drill after Lai made stops in Hawaii and Guam on a tour of the Pacific. However, all three recent large-scale exercises responded to domestic speeches or statements by Lai.
These military activities have become markedly more provocative, unpredictable, and complex. In April’s exercise, named Strait Thunder-2025A, PLA naval vessels reportedly ventured within 24 nautical miles of the island’s shores. China is engaging in large-scale operations around Taiwan year round and increasing activities to the east of Taiwan. In a break with the past, the PLA now provides little to no advance warning of its drills. This has raised concerns in Washington and Taipei about how much lead time the United States and Taiwan might have should China decide to use force to seize the island.
Washington must ensure that China clearly understands the resolve of the United States.
In another shift from earlier years, recent rounds of exercises have witnessed China’s coast guard joining with the navy to practice blockading Taiwan. China’s maritime militia, a state-backed network of civilian vessels often deployed to assert Chinese territorial claims, has also become increasingly involved. The participation of these new actors suggests that China is preparing to conduct a broad variety of operations, such as an invasion, a PLA navy-led blockade, and a China Coast Guard led-quarantine of Taiwan.
Finally, China is also operating across a bigger geographic range: its exercise in December involved one of the largest-ever deployments of maritime forces from all three of the PLA’s coastal commands. China conducted operations around Taiwan and in the East and South China Seas, demonstrating its ability to dominate areas within the first-island chain—an arc of islands and countries in the Western Pacific stretching from Japan to parts of Indonesia —and block external forces from entering to assist Taiwan.
Apart from such major operations, China now conducts near-daily military incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, a self-declared area that extends beyond the island’s official airspace. In 2024, the Chinese military flew a record-shattering 3,075 sorties into this zone, an increase of over 80 percent from 2023. These operations aim to delegitimize Taiwan’s claims to its surrounding air and seas and complicate Taiwan’s ability to monitor and track activities around the island.
Some of these air incursions occur as part of “joint combat readiness patrols,” involving not just air assets but also coordinated maritime operations. These patrols are now occurring on a near-weekly basis and offer China opportunities to quickly step up coercion against Taiwan short of much larger-scale exercises. Days after Lai unveiled his 17 strategies this March, for instance, China launched two joint combat readiness patrols and then followed up two weeks later by holding its Strait Thunder-2025A exercise.
WILD CARD
U.S. officials are issuing warnings about these remarkable Chinese military activities. In February, Samuel Paparo, the commander of the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command, asserted that China’s “aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan right now are not exercises. . . .They are rehearsals.”
Yet as China increases its military activities against Taiwan, many in Beijing don’t know where Washington stands. Beijing is relatively confident that the Trump administration wants to intensify competition with China, with a particular focus on the economic relationship. Chinese analysts also generally believe that Trump will try to use Taiwan as a card in this competition, but there is no consensus on how he will do so.
Chinese experts assess that Trump and his team are divided on Taiwan. Many believe that Trump wants to negotiate deals with China and that he and many of his supporters want to avoid foreign military entanglements. But national security hawks in the administration, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are still focused on checking Chinese aggression and influence. Chinese interlocutors note that Trump’s national security team is not receptive to Chinese concerns about Lai, and they worry that when it comes to day-to-day Taiwan policy, this administration will likely strengthen relations with Taipei through deepened cooperation and increased arms sales.
These conflicting assessments leave Beijing less certain that the United States will defend Taiwan from large-scale attacks or lower-intensity scenarios. But Chinese officials believe that, if left unchecked, the United States is likely to move even closer to Taiwan. That creates a dynamic ripe for miscalculation. China could determine that it needs to treat Taiwan more aggressively to make it clear to Trump’s national security team that it will tolerate neither growing U.S.-Taiwan ties nor moves by Taiwan that it sees as provocative. Meanwhile, China’s perception that Trump is not altogether willing to defend Taiwan may lead Beijing to consider still more escalatory actions against the island.
COURSE CORRECTION
U.S. and allied policymakers must not overlook these shifts in China’s perceptions of Taiwan and its actions regarding the island. As Lai’s term continues, Beijing and Taipei are likely to enter an even more dangerous situation. Chinese experts believe that Lai may take more radical measures to promote Taiwan’s independence in 2027 ahead of the next presidential elections. If Lai is not faring well in the polls, Chinese analysts worry that he could ratchet up his anti-Beijing stance to win electoral support, much as Chen did in 2008. Xi himself has set a deadline of 2027 for the PLA to have the capability to forcefully take Taiwan. Given Xi’s push to accelerate the PLA’s modernization, it is unlikely that his military leaders will tell him in 2027 that China is not capable of successfully executing large-scale military operations against Taiwan, meaning that Xi may feel more confident then—and willing to provoke a crisis or conflict.
Beijing’s diminished patience and hardened intent make it even more important for the Trump administration to ensure that China clearly understands the resolve of the United States and its willingness to counter Chinese aggression. There is extraordinary work that the United States must do to deter a conflict or, failing that, to deny and defeat Chinese military adventurism. In addition to building up its own military capabilities—as well as those of Taiwan and its allies—and significantly increasing allied and partner defense spending, Washington must better integrate different elements of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan to enhance deterrence and reduce the risks of misperception by potential adversaries.
This is important because Beijing is not just assessing American resolve by looking at what the United States is doing on defense. For example, as Chinese experts watch the U.S.-Chinese tariff and trade negotiations, some are noting how rapidly Washington has both scaled up and temporarily backed down on tariffs, suggesting that Trump was bluffing initially and that the administration now recognizes that it needs to cooperate with China despite its focus on competition.
As the United States is moving fast on multiple fronts, it will be important to pay attention to how Beijing may be connecting the dots of different U.S. policies in cobbling together a larger understanding of American strategy and intentions. To the extent that China is misunderstanding the United States, it will be crucial for the Trump administration to correct and push back against Chinese narratives, both in public and in private.
If the Trump administration does not want a crisis on its hands, it should not leave such a door open for Beijing. The Taiwan Strait will be volatile enough over the next few years without adding to the mix muddled Chinese perceptions of what the United States is willing—or not willing—not do.
BONNY LIN is Director of the China Power Project and Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
JOHN CULVER is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings. He served for 35 years as a Central Intelligence Agency officer, including as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2015 to 2018.
BRIAN HART is Deputy Director and Fellow of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Foreign Affairs · by More by Bonny Lin · May 15, 2025
3. Trump’s Pledge to the Middle East: No More ‘Lectures on How to Live’
I would frame this as our national interest is in the protection of and respect for sovereignty. But the fundamental American value is the right of self determination of government for all people.
One thing is for sure - the President knows his target audience.
Some of the commenters are absolutely right, the US (and all naitons) acts in its own interests. It is just that different presidents have defined those interests in various ways.
Excertps:
In the ballroom in Riyadh, Mr. Trump received a standing ovation.
“The president’s speech was actually quite consequential,” Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said at a news conference on Wednesday, describing it as an “approach of partnership, of mutual respect.”
Mr. Alamer, a senior resident fellow at the New Lines Institute, a Washington research group, said in an interview that the president’s words reflected themes “that are normally associated with leftist and anti-imperialist intellectuals.”
“While this is surprising in the sense that we, as Arabs, used to be the subject of American lecturing and interventionism, it is also not surprising when we consider that new right-wing populist movements — both in the Gulf and the U.S. — have borrowed some of this rhetoric from leftists and socialists and repurposed it to advance a conservative worldview,” said Mr. Alamer.
Negad el-Boraie, a prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer, said he was reluctant to read much into Mr. Trump’s speech, given that he was in Saudi Arabia primarily to talk about investments.
But for Mr. el-Boraie, Mr. Trump was merely being honest about what U.S. presidents had always really cared about — American interests — regardless of how much previous presidents draped their agendas in comments about human rights and democracy.
“The U.S. prioritizes its own interests,” he said. “Trump expresses his opinions frankly, and that’s clear in all his speeches.”
Trump’s Pledge to the Middle East: No More ‘Lectures on How to Live’
In Saudi Arabia, the president denounced Western intervention and nation-building, garnering both praise and eye rolls.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/world/middleeast/trump-middle-east-nation-building.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm
Listen to this article · 8:26 min Learn more
President Trump declared that the United States would no longer be “giving you lectures on how to live” on Tuesday during an investment conference in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
By Vivian Nereim
Reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Published May 14, 2025
Updated May 15, 2025, 3:51 a.m. ET
Leer en español阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
When President Trump declared from the stage of an opulent ballroom in Saudi Arabia that the United States was done nation-building and intervening, that the world’s superpower would no longer be “giving you lectures on how to live,” his audience erupted in applause.
He was effectively denouncing decades of American policy in the Middle East, playing to grievances long aired in cafes and sitting rooms from Morocco to Oman.
“In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday, during a sweeping address at an investment conference in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. “And the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand.”
He urged the people of the region to chart “your own destinies in your own way.”
Reactions to his speech spread swiftly on mobile phone screens in a Middle East where the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan — and more recently, U.S. support for Israel as it intensifies its war in Gaza, which is on the brink of starvation — are ingrained in public consciousness and criticized by monarchists and dissidents alike.
Sultan Alamer, a Saudi academic, joked that Mr. Trump’s remarks sounded like they came from Frantz Fanon, a 20th century Marxist thinker who wrote about the dynamics of colonial oppression. Syrians posted celebratory memes when Mr. Trump announced that he would end American sanctions on their war-ravaged country “in order to give them a chance at greatness.”
And in Yemen — another country mired in war and subject to American sanctions — Abdullatif Mohammed implied agreement with Mr. Trump’s notion of sovereignty, even as he expressed frustration with U.S. intervention.
Image
A market in Sana, the capital of Yemen.Credit...Yahya Arhab/EPA, via Shutterstock
“When will countries recognize us and let us live like the rest of the world?” Mr. Mohammed, a 31-year-old restaurant manager in the capital, Sana, said when asked about the speech. American airstrikes pounded his city under both former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Mr. Trump, targeting the Iran-backed Houthi militia, until Mr. Trump abruptly declared a cease-fire this month.
“Who is Trump to grant pardons, lift sanctions on a country, or impose them?” Mr. Mohammed said. “But that’s how the world works.”
Mr. Trump’s remarks came at the start of a four-day jaunt through three wealthy Gulf Arab states: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He was focused in large part on business deals, including more than $1 trillion in investment in the United States pledged by the three Gulf governments.
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But his address in Riyadh made clear that he had broader diplomatic ambitions for his trip. He expressed a “fervent wish” that Saudi Arabia follow two neighbors, the Emirates and Bahrain, to recognize the state of Israel. (Saudi officials have said that will happen only after the establishment of a Palestinian state.) He said he had a keen desire to reach a deal with Iran over its nuclear program, adding that he “never believed in having permanent enemies.”
And on Wednesday, he met the new leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Shara — a former jihadist who led a rebel alliance that ousted the brutal strongman Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Trump posed for a photograph with Mr. al-Shara and the Saudi crown prince in an image that dropped jaws in the region and beyond.
Video
President Trump met with the president of Syria, Ahmed al-Shara, an ex-militant who led the rebel alliance that ousted Bashar al-Assad, and who once led a branch of Al Qaeda before he broke ties with the jihadist group.CreditCredit...Bandar Al-Jaloud/Saudi Royal Palace
“Dude, what happened is truly unbelievable,” said Mr. Mohammed, the Yemeni restaurant manager.
Mr. Trump’s address was a sometimes-rambling speech that lasted more than 40 minutes.
In Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, he neglected to mention that he has said before that “Islam hates us” and that the Quran teaches “some very negative vibe.” Instead, he praised the kingdom’s heritage.
His friendliness in front of the Saudi crowd stood in contrast to Mr. Biden’s chillier approach to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler who directed a yearslong bombing campaign in Yemen and has overseen a widespread crackdown on dissent while drastically loosening social restrictions. When Mr. Biden visited Saudi Arabia, he said that he told the crown prince he believed he was responsible for the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist critical of the royal family’s rule.
Mr. Trump instead heaped plaudits on the Arabian Peninsula and Prince Mohammed, calling him an “incredible man.”
“In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins,” Mr. Trump said.
Image
Mr. Trump and Prince Mohammed bin Salman touring Diriyah, the ancestral home of the Saudi royal family, on Tuesday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
His remarks left some Arab listeners worried about what the potential evaporation of American pressure over human rights violations could mean for their countries.
Ibrahim Almadi is the son of a 75-year-old American-Saudi dual national who was arrested in the kingdom over critical social media posts; his father was released but is not allowed to leave Saudi Arabia. In an interview, Mr. Almadi said he had hoped Mr. Trump would speak to Saudi officials about his father’s case during his visit — and that he had tried without success to reach out to officials across his administration. He sees it as the type of human rights violation that previous U.S. administrations would have pressed Saudi officials on.
“They are normalizing my dad’s case, which is not normal,” he said of the Trump administration.
A White House spokeswoman did not answer questions about whether the president or his aides had raised human rights issues with Saudi officials. Asked about the reaction to his address, the spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, said, “The president has received widespread praise for his speech.”
Abdullah Alaoudh, a member of a Saudi opposition party in exile and the son of a prominent cleric imprisoned in the kingdom, called the speech a public relations stunt for the benefit of Prince Mohammed.
He added that he found it ironic that Mr. Trump was praising a Middle East built “by the people of the region” when he was speaking to an audience dotted with foreign billionaires and “in front of an authoritarian leader who has brutally silenced all dissent.”
In the ballroom in Riyadh, Mr. Trump received a standing ovation.
“The president’s speech was actually quite consequential,” Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said at a news conference on Wednesday, describing it as an “approach of partnership, of mutual respect.”
Mr. Alamer, a senior resident fellow at the New Lines Institute, a Washington research group, said in an interview that the president’s words reflected themes “that are normally associated with leftist and anti-imperialist intellectuals.”
“While this is surprising in the sense that we, as Arabs, used to be the subject of American lecturing and interventionism, it is also not surprising when we consider that new right-wing populist movements — both in the Gulf and the U.S. — have borrowed some of this rhetoric from leftists and socialists and repurposed it to advance a conservative worldview,” said Mr. Alamer.
Negad el-Boraie, a prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer, said he was reluctant to read much into Mr. Trump’s speech, given that he was in Saudi Arabia primarily to talk about investments.
But for Mr. el-Boraie, Mr. Trump was merely being honest about what U.S. presidents had always really cared about — American interests — regardless of how much previous presidents draped their agendas in comments about human rights and democracy.
“The U.S. prioritizes its own interests,” he said. “Trump expresses his opinions frankly, and that’s clear in all his speeches.”
Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting from Sana, Yemen; Rania Khaled from Cairo; Ismaeel Naar from Dubai; Hwaida Saad and Jacob Roubai from Beirut; and Muhammad Haj Kadour from Damascus.
Vivian Nereim is the lead reporter for The Times covering the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. She is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
4. Indo-Pacom Commander Highlights Army's Regional Contribution
Indo-Pacom Commander Highlights Army's Regional Contribution
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4186821/indo-pacom-commander-highlights-armys-regional-contribution/
May 14, 2025 | By Matthew Olay, DOD News |
Yesterday, during the 2025 Land Forces Pacific Symposium and Exposition in Honolulu, the U.S. military's senior leader in the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility discussed ways the Army contributes to the joint force's overall mission throughout the region.
Navy Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said "fires" or weapons systems that strike targets are the capability he needs the most.
"The ability to deliver fast, accurate and lethal fires across domains is fundamental," he said.
Paparo referenced China's potential invasion of Taiwan as an example, noting that U.S. maritime and air superiority aren't necessarily needed to prevent an invasion. Rather, the joint force needs the capability to deny China's use of the Taiwan Strait.
"And the Army's fires capability, integrated with the … joint force, is essential to deny that zone by imposing devastating costs [to China]," he added.
Paparo also said that, over the past nine years, the Army has risen to meet a challenge issued by a previous Indo-Pacom commander to forge a capability to "Sink ships, neutralize satellites, shoot down missiles and deny the enemy's command and control."
"The Army responded decisively [to the challenge] with the creation of multidomain task forces," Paparo said.
He added that there are currently MDTFs in the field bringing land-based capability to oppose the enemy's command, control, communications, computers and information systems' surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting capabilities.
"This fundamentally alters the strategic calculus in the contested environment," Paparo said, adding that the MDTF capability allows the joint force to place fires and effects "precisely at the time and the place of our choosing."
Paparo also praised the Army's short-range, ballistic Precision Strike Missile capability, calling it "a game-changer that fundamentally alters China's risk calculus; this is a matter of record." He noted that the missile system is capable of potentially neutralizing numerous enemy targets before any kinetic conflict begins.
"These capabilities — along with space, cyber and electronic warfare — operate from key terrain in the first island chain and near strategic maritime choke points, creating … persistent and lethal effects," Paparo said, adding that he considers the Army's fires capability to be the most valuable and lethal asset in the region.
Paparo also spoke about the command's air and missile defense components. He said the missile threat posed by China and North Korea is growing in "both quality and sophistication," and that the command's AMD needs to be resilient, adaptive and responsive to evolving challenges.
He also said interoperability with allies is key.
"By connecting these defense systems, sharing intelligence and coordinating responses, we create a common operating picture and then, accordingly, a combined defense shield," Paparo said.
He also discussed the Army's role in sustainment throughout the region, stating that effective sustainability is "existential."
Paparo said integrating artificial intelligence into the process is "revolutionizing sustainment" because it allows his command to anticipate requirements in all classes of supply — fuel, ammunition and missiles.
The admiral said the Army provides the "backbone" of the joint force's ability to sustain combat power throughout the region, and its role in theater-wide sustainment cannot be overstated.
He said the challenges in the Indo-Pacific region are "formidable but not insurmountable."
"The Army's contributions to joint conflicts are transformative and inspiring, but we all must do more," Paparo said. "And we need to do it now."
5. General Clark Underscores Land Power's Pivotal Role in Indo-Pacific Security at LANPAC
General Clark Underscores Land Power's Pivotal Role in Indo-Pacific Security at LANPAC
https://www.army.mil/article/285497/general_clark_underscores_land_powers_pivotal_role_in_indo_pacific_security_at_lanpac
By Sgt. Johanna PullumMay 13, 2025
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U.S. Army Pacific commanding general, Gen. Ronald P. Clark, delivered a keynote address at the Land Forces Pacific (LANPAC) Symposium, emphasizing the pivotal role of land power in ensuring security and deterring aggression within the Indo-Pacific region. He asserted that land forces, operating in conjunction with naval and air capabilities, are indispensable for joint operations and fostering robust partnerships. Clark highlighted that a strong strategic land power network grounded in trust is critical as is interoperability with allied nations.
Themes and Messages:
Land Power as a Cornerstone: Land power serves as a cornerstone for guaranteeing sovereignty, fortifying borders, and enabling the joint force to attain its objectives.
Synergy Through Joint Operations: The U.S. military achieves success through collaborative joint and combined operations, training alongside allies and partners across all domains.
Strategic Land Power Network as a Foundation: A robust strategic land power network, built upon trust and seamless interoperability, is paramount for effectively responding to crises and deterring potential aggression.
Proactive Campaigning Forward: Strategically applying combat power on key terrain during exercises and rehearsals for potential operations is essential for deterring adversaries and empowering the joint force.
Setting the Stage for Joint Operations: The Army and its strategic land power network play a crucial role in setting the stage for joint operations, facilitating the movement of personnel and equipment, establishing vital supply chains, and maintaining essential infrastructure.
Key Quotes:
"We prevail as part of a joint and combined force. We train together, our allies and partners, and we prevail in all domains, land, sea, air, space, cyberspace and the information environment. It is impossible to create those synergistic effects without all those domains converging together, both traditional and non traditional."
"250 years ago, our allies and partners provided us legitimacy and direct military support, direct support from France in the terms of naval support in North County, crushing military terrains, loans from the Dutch, welcome military pressure on the British from Spain and not to be lost in this discussion, the indigenous people of the United States who helped us to understand and leverage both the physical terrain and the human terrain."
"Thank you for allowing us to work together for stability and security and lay the groundwork for the clarity of all of our nations."
"We will prevail, combined, through all domain operations on and from the land."
6. Army prepping for Pacific conflict with prepositioned equipment, logistics hubs
Army prepping for Pacific conflict with prepositioned equipment, logistics hubs
Moving weapons, ammunition, fuel, and even water around the vast theater will be a huge challenge.
defenseone.com · by Meghann Myers
HONOLULU – The Defense Department has struggled to get U.S.-made diapers to commissaries in Korea in the past, the former head of the Defense Commissary Agency said Tuesday, so logistics in the Indo-Pacific has a long way to go to be ready for war with China.
Preparing for conflict requires not just manpower and sophisticated weapons, but the logistical might to get everything where it needs to go while enemies are trying to jam up the system.
“Now we may be at a point where we can bring all that together, with good data, good tools, AI,” Bill Moore said during AUSA’s Land Forces Pacific symposium here.
In the Pacific, the Army no longer has the benefit of a safe haven to which they can send tons of equipment and supplies, then allow units weeks and months to search through it for their shipments.
“Many of us grew up with a Kuwait, or a big place you could stage from, right?” Lt. Gen. Jered Helwig, deputy commander of U.S. Transportation Command, said during the panel. “In this fight and in this theater, that will not be an option. We can’t dump a whole bunch of stuff in a place that can’t absorb it and move it on, because that will bring the Pacific to a halt, just as not having [supplies] would bring it to a halt.”
Neither the Army, nor any of the other services, can risk jamming up a port on a small island partner nation with shipping containers.
“Every palette position has got to count, every piece of equipment that we mis-ship or put in the wrong place—particularly in some of the areas—creates a lot of additional friction that is not going to be helpful, and also holds that valuable space,” he added.
Part of the solution is prepositioning stock in the region, which the Army has done in recent years with floating barges. More recently, the service has considered setting up some of these caches in partner countries, similar to the way U.S. Army Europe prepositions equipment in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy.
“We don’t need any more bases, but we need a lot more places – places that give us access, places to give us resources that we need for the combined Joint Force,” said Maj. Gen. Gavin Gardner, who heads the 8th Theater Sustainment Command.
There should also be enough of them that if one goes down, another can step in.
“So there's been a lot of decisions lately from Army policymakers...to really get the right equipment and stocks munitions set forward in this theater, west of the International Date Line,” he said.
The key will be a management system that gives real-time data on stock but that also uses technology, particularly artificial intelligence, to predict what’s going to be running low well before it happens.
“Our ability to leverage AI today is terrible, okay?” Gardner said. “My staff…love Excel. It's like their favorite tool, right?”
But the vastness and geography of the Indo-Pacific means that logistics strategy has more limitations than a theater like Europe and the Middle East. That means thinking smarter about resource usage in general.
“We have to do a little bit of demand reduction,” he said. That includes smart grids, solar and wind power and even water generation, so that “we're not always moving around liquid fuel, and also water.”
Water is of a particular concern, given the Pacific’s hot, humid climate year-round.
“Moving water on the modern battlefield is a pain in the butt,” Gardner quipped.
defenseone.com · by Meghann Myers
7. Pacific multidomain task forces are looking for long-range drones
Pacific multidomain task forces are looking for long-range drones
MDTFs are getting their chance to experiment as Transformation-in-Contact units.
defenseone.com · by Meghann Myers
HONOLULU—Drones that can fly long distances in stormy Pacific weather are at the top of the wishlist for the 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force, which is now part of the Army’s rapid experimentation and fielding “Transformation in Contact” program.
All three of the Army’s MDTFs are now part of TiC, combining the development of a new type of unit with the next generation of Army acquisitions.
“We know where our gaps are, and we live in them every single day,” Brig. Gen. Mike Rose, 3rd MDTF’s commander, told Defense One Tuesday at the AUSA Land Forces Pacific symposium. “The discussion now is about campaigning to identify those gaps, and to experiment with the capability that can help potentially fill those gaps, and then feed that back up into the machine.”
One of those key gaps is long-distance sensing, Rose said. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command covers about 100 million square miles, and while one platform doesn’t need to have eyes on every square inch, Army formations do need to be able to cover thousands of square miles in a conflict.
“Without getting into specific ranges, there's really two considerations that I think about: No. 1, I have to be able to see as far as I can shoot,” Rose said.
To do that, the Army is looking at small, solar-powered, lightweight drones that are suited to INDOPACOM’s size and climate, Col. Charles Kean, who commands the 1st MDTF, told Defense One.
“Unheard of distances that we're talking about, that we're trying to achieve, and unheard of duration in the elements when, you know, at 12 o'clock noon, when you're sitting in the Philippines this time of year, there's a thunderstorm that comes rolling through,” he said.
The TiC program allows units to test out systems the larger Army has its eye on, but also allows individual units to request specific capabilities.
“So we have a pretty good idea of who's working on what. So that's a good place to start. You know, when you ask for stuff, generally speaking, the preferred method is to ask for capability,” Rose said. “And you know, what are your threshold and objective needs? And then the machine will kind of take over and find you that capability.”
Or, in the case of TiC 2.0, units operating in the U.S. and Europe have had a chance to give feedback to industry on systems in those environments and are now being tested in the Pacific, with a new set of demands.
“The 1.0 version of it that's available now, we continue to incentivize the improvements on it to buy more of it at the 2.0 version, or potentially even competitor vendors, to come to the table with something that's an improvement,” Rose said.
defenseone.com · by Meghann Myers
8. Rogue communication devices found in Chinese solar power inverters
Every piece of technology, especially those with chips, must be considered a vulnerability.
This is not new reporting, This is from Congressman Scott Perry's web page in 2024. But perhaps we have not been paying attention or taking this seriously. Time to re-read China's Unrestricted Warfare.
Government officials say solar panels could pose national security risk, depending on where they're sourced
After China flooded the market in recent years, some government officials are concerned certain solar panels may pose security concerns.
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Washington, July 1, 2024
Tags: Defense and National Security
China installed more solar panels in 2023 than the United States has in its entire history.
Meanwhile, a 2022 FBI investigation found that equipment sold by Chinese-based companies can be used to disrupt U.S. military communications. And in 2019, a Chinese transformer was stopped at the Port of Houston and found to have potential spyware technology within it.
Facts like those, among others, lead many U.S. officials to worry that certain solar panels could pose a national security risk.
"When it comes to products like solar panels, communications equipment, transformers, all of that -- they're [China] always going to have an eye to 'how can we control it? How can we shut it off? How can we manipulate it in our favor, at the time of our choosing, to serve our purpose, our interests?'" U.S. Representative Scott Perry (R-Cumberland-Dauphin-York) said.
Congressman Perry is not alone.
https://perry.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=402899
Rogue communication devices found in Chinese solar power inverters
By Sarah Mcfarlane
May 14, 202512:55 PM EDTUpdated 8 hours ago
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/ghost-machine-rogue-communication-devices-found-chinese-inverters-2025-05-14/
Item 1 of 4 Solar panels are arrayed on Earth Day in Northfield, Massachusetts, U.S., April 22, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
[1/4]Solar panels are arrayed on Earth Day in Northfield, Massachusetts, U.S., April 22, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SummaryCompanies
- Rogue communication devices found in Chinese solar invertersUndocumented cellular radios also found in Chinese batteriesU.S. says continually assesses risk with emerging technologyU.S. working to integrate 'trusted equipment' into the grid
LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) - U.S. energy officials are reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices that play a critical role in renewable energy infrastructure after unexplained communication equipment was found inside some of them, two people familiar with the matter said.
Power inverters, which are predominantly produced in China, are used throughout the world to connect solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids. They are also found in batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers.
Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here.While inverters are built to allow remote access for updates and maintenance, the utility companies that use them typically install firewalls to prevent direct communication back to China.
However, rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by U.S experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues, the two people said.
Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers, one of them said.
Reuters was unable to determine how many solar power inverters and batteries they have looked at.
The rogue components provide additional, undocumented communication channels that could allow firewalls to be circumvented remotely, with potentially catastrophic consequences, the two people said.
Both declined to be named because they did not have permission to speak to the media.
"We know that China believes there is value in placing at least some elements of our core infrastructure at risk of destruction or disruption," said Mike Rogers, a former director of the U.S. National Security Agency. "I think that the Chinese are, in part, hoping that the widespread use of inverters limits the options that the West has to deal with the security issue."
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said: "We oppose the generalisation of the concept of national security, distorting and smearing China's infrastructure achievements."
Using the rogue communication devices to skirt firewalls and switch off inverters remotely, or change their settings, could destabilise power grids, damage energy infrastructure, and trigger widespread blackouts, experts said.
"That effectively means there is a built-in way to physically destroy the grid," one of the people said,
The two people declined to name the Chinese manufacturers of the inverters and batteries with extra communication devices, nor say how many they had found in total.
The existence of the rogue devices has not previously been reported. The U.S. government has not publicly acknowledged the discoveries.
Asked for comment, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said it continually assesses risk associated with emerging technologies and that there were significant challenges with manufacturers disclosing and documenting functionalities.
"While this functionality may not have malicious intent, it is critical for those procuring to have a full understanding of the capabilities of the products received," a spokesperson said.
Work is ongoing to address any gaps in disclosures through "Software Bill of Materials" - or inventories of all the components that make up a software application - and other contractual requirements, the spokesperson said.
TRUSTED EQUIPMENT
As U.S.-China tensions escalate, the U.S. and others are reassessing China's role in strategic infrastructure because of concerns about potential security vulnerabilities, two former government officials said.
"The threat we face from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is real and growing. Whether it's telecom hacks or remotely accessing solar and battery inverters, the CCP stops at nothing to target our sensitive infrastructure and components," said U.S. Representative August Pfluger, a Republican member of the Committee on Homeland Security.
"It is about time we ramp up our efforts to show China that compromising us will no longer be acceptable," he told Reuters.
In February, two U.S. Senators introduced the Decoupling from Foreign Adversarial Battery Dependence Act, banning the Department of Homeland Security from purchasing batteries from some Chinese entities, starting October 2027, due to national security concerns.
The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on March 11 and has yet to be enacted.
It aims to prevent Homeland Security from procuring batteries from six Chinese companies Washington says are closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party: Contemporary Amperex Technology Company (CATL) (300750.SZ), opens new tab, BYD Company (002594.SZ), opens new tab, Envision Energy, EVE Energy Company (300014.SZ), opens new tab, Hithium Energy Storage Technology Company, and Gotion High-tech Company (002074.SZ), opens new tab.
None of the companies responded to requests for comment.
Utilities are now preparing for similar bans on Chinese inverter manufacturers, three people with knowledge of the matter said.
Some utilities, including Florida's largest power supplier Florida Power & Light Company, are attempting to minimise the use of Chinese inverters by sourcing equipment from elsewhere, according to two people familiar with the matter. FPL did not respond to requests for comment.
The DOE spokesperson said: "As more domestic manufacturing takes hold, DOE is working across the federal government to strengthen U.S. supply chains, providing additional opportunities to integrate trusted equipment into the power grid."
'CATASTROPHIC IMPLICATIONS'
Huawei is the world's largest supplier of inverters, accounting for 29% of shipments globally in 2022, followed by Chinese peers Sungrow and Ginlong Solis, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
German solar developer 1Komma5 said, however, that it avoids Huawei inverters, because of the brand's associations with security risks.
"Ten years ago, if you switched off the Chinese inverters, it would not have caused a dramatic thing to happen to European grids, but now the critical mass is much larger," 1Komma5 Chief Executive Philipp Schroeder said.
"China's dominance is becoming a bigger issue because of the growing renewables capacity on Western grids and the increased likelihood of a prolonged and serious confrontation between China and the West," he said.
Since 2019, the U.S. has restricted Huawei's access to U.S. technology, accusing the company of activities contrary to national security, which Huawei denies.
Chinese companies are required by law to cooperate with China's intelligence agencies, giving the government potential control over Chinese-made inverters connected to foreign grids, experts said.
While Huawei decided to leave the U.S. inverter market in 2019 - the year its 5G telecoms equipment was banned - it remains a dominant supplier elsewhere.
Huawei declined to comment.
In Europe, exercising control over just 3 to 4 gigawatts of energy could cause widespread disruption to electricity supplies, experts said.
The European Solar Manufacturing Council estimates over 200 GW of European solar power capacity is linked to inverters made in China - equivalent to more than 200 nuclear power plants.
At the end of last year, there was 338 GW of installed solar power in Europe, according to industry association SolarPower Europe.
"If you remotely control a large enough number of home solar inverters, and do something nefarious at once, that could have catastrophic implications to the grid for a prolonged period of time," said Uri Sadot, cyber security program director at Israeli inverter manufacturer SolarEdge.
STRATEGIC DEPENDENCIES
Other countries such as Lithuania and Estonia acknowledge the threats to energy security. In November, the Lithuanian government passed a law blocking remote Chinese access to solar, wind and battery installations above 100 kilowatts - by default restricting the use of Chinese inverters.
Energy minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas said this could be extended to smaller rooftop solar installations.
Estonia's Director General of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Kaupo Rosin, said the country could be at risk of blackmail from China if it did not ban Chinese technology in crucial parts of the economy, such as solar inverters.
Estonia's Ministries of Defence and Climate declined to comment when asked if they had taken any action.
In Britain, the government's review of Chinese renewable energy technology in the energy system - due to be concluded in the coming months - includes looking at inverters, a person familiar with the matter said.
In November, solar power inverters in the U.S. and elsewhere were disabled from China, highlighting the risk of foreign influence over local electricity supplies and causing concern among government officials, three people familiar with the matter said.
Reuters was unable to determine how many inverters were switched off, or the extent of disruption to grids. The DOE declined to comment on the incident.
The incident led to a commercial dispute between inverter suppliers Sol-Ark and Deye, the people said.
"Sol-Ark does not comment on vendor relationships, including any relationship with Deye, nor does it have any control over inverters that are not branded Sol-Ark, as was the case in the November 2024 situation you referenced," a Sol-Ark spokesperson said.
Deye (605117.SS), opens new tab did not respond to requests for comment.
The energy sector is trailing other industries such as telecoms and semiconductors, where regulations have been introduced in Europe and the U.S. to mitigate China's dominance.
Security analysts say this is partly because decisions about whether to secure energy infrastructure are mostly dictated by the size of any installation.
Household solar or battery storage systems fall below thresholds where security requirements typically kick-in, they said, despite now contributing a significant share of power on many Western grids.
NATO, the 32-country Western security alliance, said China's efforts to control member states' critical infrastructure - including inverters - were intensifying.
"We must identify strategic dependencies and take steps to reduce them," said a NATO official.
Additional reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Editing by David Clarke
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
9. Navy SEAL takes command of year-old Joint Task Force-Micronesia
Navy SEAL takes command of year-old Joint Task Force-Micronesia
Stars and Stripes · by Alex Wilson · May 15, 2025
Rear Adm. Joshua Lasky greets a Navy corpsman in Limon, Costa Rica, July 22, 2024, Lasky took command of Joint Task Force-Micronesia on May 15, 2025. (Jasmin Aquino/U.S. Navy)
A Navy SEAL with a distinguished background in special operations has taken command of Joint Task Force-Micronesia, a unit overseeing U.S. military operations across a broad expanse of the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
Rear Adm. Joshua Lasky relieved Rear Adm. Greg Huffman on Thursday during a change-of-command ceremony in the fitness center at Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz.
“This region has long been the linchpin of American presence and partnership in the Pacific,” Huffman said at the ceremony, livestreamed on Facebook. “Guam, in particular, holds a unique place in our national defense, known as the ‘tip of the spear.’ It is a symbol of our enduring commitment to the Indo Pacific security and stability.”
Joint Task Force-Micronesia — the Defense Department’s first two-star command in the region in over 70 years — was founded last year and is responsible for coordinating defense and humanitarian missions in the region. It answers directly to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Its primary focus includes the U.S. territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and Wake Island, along with the independent Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau.
Huffman, who left Joint Region Marianas to become the task force’s first commander in June 2024, reflected on his time leading both commands.
“It is one team, and it is one Guam; it is one Marianas and one Micronesia,” he said. “It has been the honor of my career to lead Joint Task Force-Micronesia during a time of both challenge and opportunity.”
Rear Adm. Greg Huffman greets South Korean navy Rear Adm. Dong-Lae Kim in December 2024. Huffman handed command of Joint Task Force-Micronesia to Rear Adm. Joshua Lasky on May 15, 2025. (Samantha Jetzer/U.S. Navy)
Before relinquishing command, Huffman received several honors, including the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Guam Governor’s Award, an exceptional service citation, and a certificate of special congressional recognition.
“This task force represents not just a command, it represents a commitment to the defense of our homeland and to the values of freedom and democracy that we all share,” he said, adding that its strategic importance could not be overstated. “Micronesia is a bridge between peoples and a bulwark against coercion.”
Huffman is slated to lead Navy Education and Training Command at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida.
Lasky described the defense of the region as a “living legacy” built on “trust, shared history and common purpose.”
“Their legacy is one of courage, commitment and an unshakable belief in our shared values,” he said. “We stand at the foundation that they built, and we carry their example forward. We remain steadfast in our obligation under the compacts of free association.”
Lasky previously served as commander of Joint Interagency Task Force-South in Key West, Fla. A 1994 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he began his career as a surface warfare officer before transferring to Naval Special Warfare. He completed Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training with Class 223 in June 1999m according to his Navy bio.
His operational assignments included SEAL Team 4, platoon commander of SEAL Team 2, task unit commander for SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 2, executive officer of SEAL Team 1 and commander of SEAL Team 10.
Lasky also served as deputy commander for the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, commander of Naval Special Warfare Unit 10 and Naval Special Warfare Group 4.
He holds a master’s degree in military studies from Marine Corps University in Quantico, Va.
Stars and Stripes · by Alex Wilson · May 15, 2025
10. Army task forces ‘centerpiece’ for deterring China: INDOPACOM boss
Excerpts:
The service’s task forces are the “centerpiece” of how the joint force denies Chinese military access to key areas, said Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Tuesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual Land Forces Pacific conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Paparo said such units, combined with the Army’s firepower, enable land forces to contribute fires that counter China’s military aggression in the region.
“We’re facing a profoundly consequential moment here in the Indo-Pacific and, accordingly, the world,” Paparo said.
Army task forces ‘centerpiece’ for deterring China: INDOPACOM boss
militarytimes.com · by Todd South · May 14, 2025
The head of the largest U.S. combatant command praised the fires capabilities that the Army’s multidomain task forces bring to a potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
The service’s task forces are the “centerpiece” of how the joint force denies Chinese military access to key areas, said Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Tuesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual Land Forces Pacific conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Paparo said such units, combined with the Army’s firepower, enable land forces to contribute fires that counter China’s military aggression in the region.
“We’re facing a profoundly consequential moment here in the Indo-Pacific and, accordingly, the world,” Paparo said.
In a call with media before the event, Army Gen. Ronald Clark, head of U.S. Army Pacific, further framed the use of the task forces.
“What we have developed over time through the joint force is the capability to flip the script if you will that land forces can provide access to air and maritime capabilities on the land,” Clark said.
Units such as the multidomain task force, or MDTF, of which the Army has two operational in the region and is building a third, are “not easily targetable,” dispersed, easy to camouflage and dominate in time and space for targeting, Clark said.
Paparo pointed specifically to the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, and its recent use in the Valiant Shield military exercise in Palau.
PrSM’s long-range strike capability, coupled with midrange strike capabilities from maritime assets such as the Tomahawk cruise missile and long-range hypersonic weapons at the strategic layer, creates a deterrence posture across the region.
PrSM is being used to give even tactical units a beyond 500-kilometer strike, putting them in the strategic fires ranges, Army Times previously reported.
Lockheed Martin is currently fielding the Increment 1 version of the PrSM, which has a range of at least 500 kilometers, according to the company. Increment 2 is a land-based, anti-ship seeker. Increment 3 adds lethal payload options, while Increment 4 seeks to push existing ranges beyond 1,000 kilometers.
Meanwhile, the Hawaii-based 3rd MDTF is slated to receive a Typhon midrange missile launcher battery, Defense News reported in March.
The Lockheed Martin-built system, consisting of a vertical launcher that uses the Navy’s Raytheon-built Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk missiles, can strike targets between 500 to 2,000 kilometers. The system has a battery operations center, four launchers, prime movers and modified trailers.
The 3rd MDTF plans to add hundreds of soldiers to the formation over the next 18 months as it seeks to fill the 2,000-soldier formation. The ultimate configuration will include a headquarters and four battalions, including a long-range precision fires battalion and a sustainment battalion, Defense News previously reported.
About Todd South
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
11. FROM HYPERSONICS TO ALLIANCES: RUSSIA’S EMERGING THREATS TO U.S. AND NATO SECURITY
Excerpt:
The war in Ukraine ravaged Russia and its military; however, after three years of warfare, some threats that the United States faces grow while others have weakened. While the Russian threat of massed maneuver operations and offensive potential has receded, the development of hypersonic weapons and the strengthening of strategic partnerships to sustain operations and gain geographic advantage represent growing challenges to the United States’ ability to operate in the region. With increasingly effective Russian missiles posing to overwhelm Western air defense and Russian-aligned partners willing to ease the munition burden for Russia and provide geographic advantage for future operations, the United States must reorient its strategy to meet these challenges. By identifying emerging threats early on, the United States can focus on and reprioritize its defense spending, innovation, and diplomatic power in areas to counter them. For example, U.S. investments in weapons innovation on technology such as next-generation full-band Patriot radar and its own hypersonic capability can aid in restoring the regional offense-defense balance. Economically, the Institute for the Study of War proposes that the West could sanction Belarus in kind with Russia. This action could not only stifle munition provision and sanction evasion but also discourage Belarus from fully integrating with Russia, thereby decreasing the likelihood of unrestricted troop access inside the country. Finally, U.S. and allied national decisionmakers can pursue more unconventional means to disrupt the flow of munitions into Russia from its allies. The United States, NATO allies, or partners like Ukraine could employ, or support, covert action to target production facilities or logistical sites that transfer munitions to Russia. Doing so may provide a way for the United States to disrupt the threat presented by Russia’s Arsenal of Autocracy. A renewed strategic emphasis by the U.S. interagency and our NATO allies on the threats outlined above remains critical to meeting, countering, and overcoming the challenges the Russian military poses in the coming years.
FROM HYPERSONICS TO ALLIANCES: RUSSIA’S EMERGING THREATS TO U.S. AND NATO SECURITY
warroom.armywarcollege.edu · by Eric Uribe · May 15, 2025
Russian innovations with short/medium-range hypersonic weapons present the main challenge to the United States.
As the conflict in Ukraine continues into its fourth full year of full-scale war and with the entrance of a new U.S. presidential administration, the security environment for the United States vis-à-vis Russia has changed rapidly. Russian lessons learned, strategic innovations, and battlefield successes and failures have generated new challenges that will threaten U.S. national security in the near term. Within this article, a strategic threat is defined as a factor that denies or mitigates the United States’ ability to employ its current warfighting doctrine, conduct combat operations, or effectively protect its allies. Despite the recent focus on Russian ground operations, in the next 3-5 years, the most prominent Russian strategic threats to the United States will be advancements in hypersonic technology, Russia’s use of its regional and global partnerships to bolster munitions production, and Russia’s leveraging of partnerships to expand its geographic advantage. Also, Russia’s massed offensive maneuver capability will remain a challenge but likely will decrease over the next 2-3 years as the Russians seek to reconstitute their losses.
Emerging Threat #1-Advanced Weapons Development: Hypersonic Missiles
Russian innovations with short/medium-range hypersonic weapons present the main challenge to the United States. These weapons can destabilize the current offense-defense balance that informs the military strategy for both the United States and Russia. The new Russian Khinzal and Zircon hypersonic missiles can defeat U.S. and European air defenses not only through the massing of effects, supported by Russia’s increased production rates, but also due to the weapons ability to maintain its radar defeating plasma layer through the terminal phase when striking static targets. This capability would tilt the offensive advantage in favor of Russia, which could conduct strikes on strategic infrastructure across Europe that hinders the U.S. ability to respond to adversary aggression or come to the aid of NATO allies with resources both inside and outside the theater of operations.
The urgency to address this threat grows more pressing for several reasons. First, due to the relative success of the Patriot air defense system in Ukraine against Iskander, Kalibr, and Geran-2 drones, NATO and the United States have doubled down on investments in these systems. Several countries, including Germany and Romania, are actively pursuing the procurement of additional batteries, while the United States is investing in expanding interceptor and platform production. Expanded focus on the Patriot system as a European shield consumes large amounts of precious capital with little tangible alternative if a superior weapon renders that investment obsolete. Second, Russia’s hypersonic weapons are increasing their effectiveness against the Patriots. In early 2024, Russian and Ukrainian sources reported the employment of Zircon hypersonic missiles in Ukraine. Officials claimed Patriots intercepted only one Zircon, which departs from this system’s typically high intercept rate. Finally, with its mass serial production announced in February 2024 and the development of a ground-based launcher, the Zircons’ initial effectiveness over the Patriot system threatens to negate the effectiveness of U.S. and NATO air defense in the region. Furthermore, considering the similar $3 million cost of Patriot interceptors and Zircon missiles, Russia will seek to harness its increased industrial production base over the next several years to outproduce the West. These factors will support Russia’s drive to gain an asymmetric advantage over Western air defenses. If achieved, this advantage will enable Russia to target infrastructure critical to U.S. warfighting and ally support at its chosen time.
Emerging Threat #2-Russia’s Alliances: Munitions and Manpower
In the immediate future, Russia’s strengthening of alliances with regional and global partners will increasingly challenge the United States. The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) echoes this sentiment, indicating that due to deteriorating Western relations, Russia will continue to expand ties with countries in its Near- and Far-East.
Russia’s partnerships open avenues for increased munition sourcing and combat power replacement. Russia has already demonstrated the impact of this threat in Ukraine by procuring thousands of conventional munitions from North Korea and acquiring drones from Iran. The initial augmentation of ammunition supply now appears to be transitioning into a permanent arrangement as North Korean facilities operate at max capacity to sustain Russian demand. Similarly, Russia and Iran have deepened their material cooperation, including the transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles and the establishment of domestic Shahed/Geran drone production. These relationships dubbed the “Arsenal of Autocracy” by the Atlantic Council, allow Russia to receive critical conventional ammunition, thereby allowing their domestic production lines to focus on missile and rocket production that directly facilitates the first threat outlined above.
This Arsenal of Autocracy has also become a conduit through which Russia seeks to replenish manpower in recent months. In October 2024, news outlets first reported that North Korea had dispatched 1,500 special forces soldiers to Russia for potential use in combat operations in Ukraine. This estimate swelled to nearly 12,000 at the end of 2024, and despite reported heavy losses, North Korea continues preparing to deploy further troops to the region. The provision of not only weapons but also manpower further underscores how the deepening of ties between Russia and its Arsenal of Autocracy partners will complicate the security environment in the coming years, not only in Europe but also in the Indo-Pacific.
Emerging Threat #3-Russia’s Alliances: Geographic Advantages
The third emerging threat, Russia’s gaining of geographic advantage and positioning, also derives from its increased relations with regional partners. This threat primarily stems from Russia’s increasing control of Belarus but can also benefit Russia in areas where it seeks to project power to counter U.S. moves. With the Russian army suffering devastating losses in Ukraine, some argue that Russia would be incapable of affecting NATO countries after only taking 18% of Ukrainian territory. However, the United States must not discount the advantage that geographical placement would provide to Russian ground forces. As seen in 2008, 2014, and even in the limited gains of 2022, geographical proximity played a pivotal role in the rapid seizure of land by Russian troops. This threat will grow as Russia seeks to increase its ties and influence with regional partners that may be willing to host Russian forces.
The Russian-Belarus exercises in early 2022, which became the northern invasion axis, clearly demonstrated that Russia can utilize its allies’ territory to devastating effect.
Russia has already used cooperation with Belarus to improve its military posture. The Russia-Belarus exercises in early 2022, which became the northern invasion axis, clearly demonstrated that Russia can utilize its allies’ territory to devastating effect. In two to three years, strengthening of regional partnerships can likely allow Russia to place reconstituted forces permanently or via “joint exercises” in nearby territories, threatening the Baltics or Ukraine once again. This type of posturing will directly threaten the U.S. strategic interests as a Russian presence outside its borders will decrease transparency of pending operations, as was the case with Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. Additionally, it would increase the reaction time of a NATO/U.S. response if Russia conducted a swift, limited action, likely resulting in their ability to achieve fait accompli objectives. Each of these outcomes would be unacceptable to the United States, reinforcing that Russia’s renewed efforts to seek a geographic advantage through its allies will only increase as a threat in the coming years.
Diminished Threat- Massed Maneuver Potential
Though Russia poses several growing strategic threats to the United States, its ability to conduct large-scale operations will likely decrease over the next 2-3 years. In the initial phases of the Ukrainian invasion, Russia committed many of its most cohesive, well-trained and -equipped ground units, which suffered severe losses and withdrew for reconstitution. Most recent Russian offensive operations have occurred only at the company level or below. Until the war concludes, this scale of operations will likely continue for the next two years as units continue to reconstitute. There are conflicting reports on the time it will take for Russia to reconstitute its forces, with Lithuanian officials estimating 2-3 years. At the same time, former Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell asserts that Russia has already reconstituted its forces. Even if Russia fills its manning charts and delivers new equipment, its capability to operate at echelon and scale in a manner that poses an offensive threat to the United States is likely several years in the future. The ATA underscores this assessment, stating that Russia will face a multi-year recovery and must rely on other strategic capabilities and avenues such as those discussed above.
Way Forward
The war in Ukraine ravaged Russia and its military; however, after three years of warfare, some threats that the United States faces grow while others have weakened. While the Russian threat of massed maneuver operations and offensive potential has receded, the development of hypersonic weapons and the strengthening of strategic partnerships to sustain operations and gain geographic advantage represent growing challenges to the United States’ ability to operate in the region. With increasingly effective Russian missiles posing to overwhelm Western air defense and Russian-aligned partners willing to ease the munition burden for Russia and provide geographic advantage for future operations, the United States must reorient its strategy to meet these challenges. By identifying emerging threats early on, the United States can focus on and reprioritize its defense spending, innovation, and diplomatic power in areas to counter them. For example, U.S. investments in weapons innovation on technology such as next-generation full-band Patriot radar and its own hypersonic capability can aid in restoring the regional offense-defense balance. Economically, the Institute for the Study of War proposes that the West could sanction Belarus in kind with Russia. This action could not only stifle munition provision and sanction evasion but also discourage Belarus from fully integrating with Russia, thereby decreasing the likelihood of unrestricted troop access inside the country. Finally, U.S. and allied national decisionmakers can pursue more unconventional means to disrupt the flow of munitions into Russia from its allies. The United States, NATO allies, or partners like Ukraine could employ, or support, covert action to target production facilities or logistical sites that transfer munitions to Russia. Doing so may provide a way for the United States to disrupt the threat presented by Russia’s Arsenal of Autocracy. A renewed strategic emphasis by the U.S. interagency and our NATO allies on the threats outlined above remains critical to meeting, countering, and overcoming the challenges the Russian military poses in the coming years.
Eric J. Uribe is a major in the U.S. Army and a Foreign Area Officer (FAO), with an area concentration in Europe. He holds a Master of Arts in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service with a concentration in International Security. Prior to service as a FAO he served in a variety of armor assignments, including command at the company level and has previously deployed to Afghanistan and Eastern Europe.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Photo Description: The 3M22 Zircon is a Russian scramjet-powered, nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missile. Produced by NPO Mashinostroyeniya for the Russian Navy, the missile utilizes the 3S-14 launch platforms on frigates and submarines. The missile has a reported top speed of Mach 9. The weapon was first used during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Минобороны РФ via Wikimedia Commons
warroom.armywarcollege.edu · by Eric Uribe · May 15, 2025
12. New Joint Chiefs boss steps into role with prelude to high-stakes NATO summit
New Joint Chiefs boss steps into role with prelude to high-stakes NATO summit
Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · May 14, 2025
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine visits Joint Task Force Southern Border in Sierra Vista, Ariz., April 19, 2025. He is in Brussels this week for his first visit to NATO in the new role. (James Mullen/U.S. Navy)
STUTTGART, Germany — The top U.S. general is making his debut this week at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where defense chiefs are preparing for a leader summit in June that is expected to focus on deterrence and spending.
Gen. Dan Caine, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was deliberating Wednesday with top U.S. and European commanders on plans for bolstering the alliance.
The meeting of allied generals and admirals coincides with a separate gathering the same day in Turkey, where U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is meeting with NATO foreign ministers for two days of talks.
“We encourage all to do more, investing in capabilities that will allow us to face current threats and be fully prepared for the future,” Italian Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chairman of NATO’s military committee, said as talks got underway.
The meetings in Belgium and Turkey are two of the final high-level conferences before a NATO summit in late June in the Netherlands, where President Donald Trump will be in attendance.
The high-stakes summit in The Hague is expected to put pressure on European and Canadian allies to boost their defense spending.
Italian Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chairman of NATO’s military committee, shakes hands with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine on May 14, 2025, at NATO headquarters in Brussels. (X/Giuseppe Cavo Dragone)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine was at NATO headquarters in Brussels on May 14, 2025, to meet with top U.S. and European commanders on plans for bolstering the alliance's deterrence and increasing defense investments. (NATO)
NATO countries also are looking for more information about the Trump administration’s plans for the U.S. military presence in Europe. Allies are anticipating possible American troop level reductions.
Regarding defense spending, Trump wants countries to boost investments in their respective militaries to 5% of gross domestic product rather than the current 2% benchmark.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was asked last week about a possible plan that could call for allies to dedicate 3.5% of GDP to defense and 1.5% to military-related infrastructure. Such a formula could be a way to meet Trump’s demand.
Speaking Friday during a news conference, Rutte declined to confirm those numbers but said internal discussions related to elevating spending requirements are taking place.
“I’ve always said this: If we stick at the 2%, we cannot defend ourselves,” Rutte said. “So we have to really increase defense spending.”
In Brussels on Wednesday, Dragone made the same argument.
“Preparing for war is our vaccine for maintaining peace,” he said.
John Vandiver
John Vandiver
John covers U.S. military activities across Europe and Africa. Based in Stuttgart, Germany, he previously worked for newspapers in New Jersey, North Carolina and Maryland. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.
Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · May 14, 2025
13. Claims a Fired Air Force General Was Sentenced to Death Have Spread Online. They're Not True.
What is the matter with us? Why do we do these things? How can anyone believe these "rumors," this obvious disinformation?
This certainly proved the adage:
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Charles Spurgeon
Claims a Fired Air Force General Was Sentenced to Death Have Spread Online. They're Not True.
military.com · by Thomas Novelly · May 14, 2025
Social media accounts have been spreading a claim that a former top official in the Air Force who was fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this year was charged with treason and sentenced to be hung by the military.
It isn't true.
Real Raw News -- a website that has been called out for spreading misinformation -- wrote on May 8 that former Air Force Vice Chief of Staff James "Jim" Slife was "convicted of treason and sentenced to hang to death" by the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corp and the Office of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Snippets of the article were then spread on multiple social media accounts, Snopes reported. The fictitious report added that Slife's capital punishment was set for May 12.
A spokesperson for the Office of Military Commissions told Military.com that the claim was inaccurate, and an expert on misinformation said the article is a sad example of how bogus stories can spread on the internet.
Ronald Flesvig, a spokesperson for the Office of Military Commissions-Convening Authority, told Miltiary.com in an emailed statement that the commission was established at Guantanamo Bay to "try alien, unlawful, enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States" and that it would never be used against an American citizen.
"The Military Commissions has never tried a case against U.S. Air Force Gen. James Slife or any U.S. citizen," Flesvig said. "Under the Military Commissions Act of 2009 and USC 948 Section 10, the commission cannot try cases against U.S. civilians."
The Department of the Air Force also told Military.com that the claim being spread online was inaccurate. A number listed for Slife in public records did not return a phone call or text messages seeking comment.
Military.com reported Feb. 21 that Slife had been fired from his position alongside the Navy's top officer, the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and several top judge advocates general for the service branches.
No reason has been given by the Pentagon for the public firings. Slife was criticized by Republicans for past concerns he raised as the head of Air Force Special Operations Command about racism in the ranks following the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, which caused protests, riots and outcry across the country.
Shortly after the firing, Real Raw News published an article titled "Army CID Arrests former Air Force Vice Chief of Staff James C. 'Jim' Slife After Trump Fires Him." The author claimed that led to Slife's fictitious sentencing this month.
Notably, the Joint Chiefs chairman was fired by Trump, while Slife and other service leaders were fired by Hegseth.
Kris Goldsmith, an Iraq combat veteran as well as the CEO and founder of Task Force Butler, a nonprofit that trains veterans to research and counter extremism, told Military.com in an interview that the author of the Real Raw News story, "Michael Baxter," had his real identity revealed in a 2021 Poynter story.
Goldsmith called the author of the piece "a predator" who finds enjoyment in "getting people upset." He added that it's important to call out that behavior.
"Americans need to start talking about sources of disinformation this way," Goldsmith said. "This guy is not doing this simply to spread false narratives. He's doing it because it's clickbait, and he earns ad revenue from it."
Snopes reported that sections of the Real Raw News article were picked up on Truth Social, X and, mostly, on Facebook.
In Real Raw News' "About Us" section, it notes the content is "for informational and educational and entertainment purposes," adding that "this website contains humor, parody and satire. We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice on [sic] legal counsel."
military.com · by Thomas Novelly · May 14, 2025
14. Beijing is a ‘red line’: Hungary vows it won’t decouple from China if pushed by Trump
Excerpts:
“Definitely not. That’s a red line for us, we’re having excellent trade relations with China, and China has become one of the biggest investors in Hungary,” said Levente Magyar, a deputy minister for foreign affairs and trade, when asked in Brussels on Thursday if Hungary was willing to decouple from China, “if that’s what Trump wants”.
The official pointed to a swathe of Chinese investment in Hungary, with research showing that 44 per cent of capital pumped into Europe in 2023 went into the country, allowing it to overtake Germany, France and Britain as the most popular destination for Chinese funds.
“We are highly over-represented, considering our population and the size of our economy. So Hungary is benefiting from these very intensive Chinese economic and trade relations. We’re not willing to give that up,” Magyar said.
China-EU relations
ChinaDiplomacy
Beijing is a ‘red line’: Hungary vows it won’t decouple from China if pushed by Trump
‘Hungary is benefiting from these very intensive Chinese economic and trade relations. We’re not willing to give that up’: Budapest official
Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels
Published: 7:01pm, 15 May 2025
Decoupling from China is a “red line” in Hungary’s relations with the United States, a deputy minister has said, in rare remarks clarifying Budapest’s thinking on its close ties with both superpowers.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has spent years cementing his position as Europe’s most pro-Trump and pro-China leader. With the US government now suggesting that its allies must choose between the two, many speculate that Budapest could find itself in an awkward position.
“Definitely not. That’s a red line for us, we’re having excellent trade relations with China, and China has become one of the biggest investors in Hungary,” said Levente Magyar, a deputy minister for foreign affairs and trade, when asked in Brussels on Thursday if Hungary was willing to decouple from China, “if that’s what Trump wants”.
China and Hungary hail ‘all-weather’ partnership as Xi Jinping gets red carpet treatment in Budapest
The official pointed to a swathe of Chinese investment in Hungary, with research showing that 44 per cent of capital pumped into Europe in 2023 went into the country, allowing it to overtake Germany, France and Britain as the most popular destination for Chinese funds.
“We are highly over-represented, considering our population and the size of our economy. So Hungary is benefiting from these very intensive Chinese economic and trade relations. We’re not willing to give that up,” Magyar said.
EU officials have long wondered how Orban would thread the needle as superpower hostilities escalated. Several of Trump’s aides have said they want to cut Beijing out of global supply chains, and will lean on American allies to do so.
“Eventually, [Orban] will have to make a choice,” a senior EU official told the South China Morning Post after last year’s US election. “It’s Trump or China. We don’t know which one he would choose.”
Big Chinese companies such as CATL, the global leader in batteries, and BYD, the world’s biggest EV maker, have invested heavily in the central European country. CATL’s €7.3 billion (US$7.8 billion) plant in the eastern city of Debrecen is expected to start production this year. BYD’s Hungarian facility is also set to start producing EVs this year.
Magyar made the remarks on arrival at a meeting of EU trade ministers in Brussels, where officials are discussing a package in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs, as well as a suite of economic security policies aimed at reducing the risk of technology spillages to China.
The meeting comes on the heels of a dramatic climbdown in the US-China trade war, with a deal cut in Geneva last weekend leading to a significant rollback in tariffs on both sides.
European officials have broadly welcomed the move, which they believe may ease the threat of redirected, cut-price Chinese shipments hitting European ports and imperilling local producers.
“We are seeing elements of de-escalation on the American side. The US has begun conversations with China. They reached a sort of an agreement with [the] UK, and that’s a good sign – negotiations with the EU are speeding up,” said Michal Baranowski, Poland’s deputy minister for development and technology.
“The agreement with China is a good first step when it comes to de-escalation of tensions … it’s good for us as well because Europe is very focused on trade diversion. With US-China tensions de-escalating, we’re less likely to see it in Europe,” Baranowski said.
China, US slash most tariffs on each other after first round of trade talks
The deal was welcomed at the EU level too, with the bloc’s economy chief, Valdis Dombrovskis, describing it as “heading in the right direction”.
“Obviously, this easing of trade tensions between the US and China is heading in the right direction but it is worth noting that the 30 per cent tariffs, which the US would continue to apply to Chinese goods, also in this 90-day period, is still quite a high tariff level and correspondingly trade distortive,” the Latvian commissioner said.
“But of course it may ease, somewhat, the trade diversion concerns we had.”
Finbarr Bermingham
FOLLOW
Finbarr Bermingham reports on Europe-China relations for the Post. He joined the newspaper in 2018, initially on the Political Economy desk reporting primarily on global trade, economics and geopolitics. After a decade on the trade beat in London and Hong Kong, he took up the role o
15. Taiwanese celebrities caught up in military conscription evasion scandal
This is not helpful for Taiwan demonstrating the will to fight and defend its nation.
Taiwanese celebrities caught up in military conscription evasion scandal
Singer Nine Chen, Choc7 drummer Jushe Lee and former boy band star William Liao among accused in fake medical certificates investigation
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3310437/taiwanese-celebrities-caught-military-conscription-evasion-scandal?utm
William Zheng
Published: 4:00pm, 15 May 2025Updated: 4:55pm, 15 May 2025
Authorities in Taiwan are investigating a cluster of cases involving local artists accused of evading the island’s compulsory military service, with nearly a dozen entertainers swept up in coordinated police raids on Wednesday, according to local media reports.
The interior ministry said 11 celebrities were detained in the raids early on Wednesday, which were part of an investigation into broader allegations that a criminal syndicate has been orchestrating schemes to help male residents avoid conscription.
The entertainers included the singers Nine Chen and Daniel Chen, as well as Jushe Lee, drummer with local band Choc7, William Liao from the former boy band Lollipop, and comedian Daikon Huang Liang Jun.
Liao, the Lollipop member, posted a photograph on social media of himself reporting to a police station, saying that he was “cooperating voluntarily”.
The investigation into conscription evasion has intensified as Taipei has stepped up efforts to bolster the island’s defence amid Beijing’s increased its military pressure in the Taiwan Strait.
Responding to questions from Taiwan’s legislators on Wednesday, the director general of the Department of Conscription Administration, Shen Che-fang, said investigations last year identified 11 entertainers among 120 people accused of evading conscription.
Anybody identified with illegal conduct would face court action, but any of the suspects older than 36 would not be called back for service, as they had passed the age limit for conscription, Shen said.
He added that his agency had recommended that the island’s national defence ministry should revise standards for physical classification to establish stricter regulations.
The sweeping investigation was launched after actor Darren Wang was found to have spent a substantial amount of money on a false medical certificate that said he was not fit for military duties in February. Wang was ordered to serve a year’s military service and sent to an army camp on March 13.
Taiwanese comedian Daikon Huang Liang Jun was among nearly a dozen entertainers caught up in an investigation into conscription evasion. Photo: Facebook/Daikon Huang Liang Jun
According to Taiwanese media reports, Jushe Lee was suspected of paying a syndicate NT$250,000 (US$8,240) to help him avoid military service by creating a cardiovascular disease medical record showing abnormal blood pressure. He was released on bail of NT$150,000 (US$4,945).
Comedian Daikon Huang Liang Jun was said to have spent more than NT$300,000 (US$9,891) on a fake blood pressure test. The syndicate was alleged to have used someone who actually had high blood pressure to produce the false result.
Singer Nine Chen was also suspected of paying about NT$300,000 for similar forged medical certificates.
Military conscription has long been a contentious matter in Taiwan, which Beijing regards as part of its territory to be reunified, by force if necessary.
Like most countries, the US does not recognise the island as a sovereign state but Washington is opposed to any unilateral change to the status quo and is committed to its defence, as well as its largest arms supplier.
Despite the serious and growing threat posed by the mainland’s People’s Liberation Army, military service is widely unpopular among Taiwan’s young people and its armed forces have historically struggled to attract enough volunteer recruits.
During the 2010s, Taiwan reduced the period of compulsory service for young men in multiple rounds, from two years to one at first, followed by a further cut to just four months from 2017.
The four-month compulsory military service was criticised as woefully inadequate, with many deriding it as a “summer camp” experience that lacked rigorous and meaningful training for most recruits.
In December 2022, the administration of the then Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen announced plans to extend the island’s programme of mandatory conscription and military training for young men, bringing it back to 12 months.
The island is also planning to increase its defence budget to a record high of roughly 3 per cent of GDP this year.
William Zheng
FOLLOW
William Zheng is a veteran journalist who has served and led major Hong Kong and Singaporean media organisations in his 20-year career, covering greater China. He is now a senior correspondent on the China desk at the Post.
16. Taipei in Four Days
While some might find this scenario far fetched it also provides some rationale for why Taiwan could benefit from a whole of society resistance capability. (they just need a few celebrities willing to sign up to do it. - apologies for the sarcasm).
Taipei in Four Days
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/15/taipei-in-four-days/
by Bill McAllister
|
05.15.2025 at 06:00am
Consider China’s potential invasion of Taiwan. For policymakers and military planners who think conventionally, or believe that time is on their side, it is easy to brush away any potential invasion as illogical. Nonetheless, those policymakers and planners would be wise to add five basic assumptions to the understanding of the situation.
Assumptions:
- China wants Taiwan for national sovereignty.
- China wants Taiwan for its advanced technologies and industries.
- China wants to protect its military capabilities.
- The international community will not act preemptively.
- The international community is dependent on attribution.
- The international community wants to keep Taiwan from being decimated.
There are at least two pertinent lessons from Ukraine that China can apply to its assumed planning for Taiwan. From the 2022 invasion, it’s obvious that much of the international community does not support a military buildup and drawn-out invasion of an independent country. Speed is of the essence. From the 2014 occupation and conquering of Crimea, there is more than one way to exert military power. Using “little green men” was a stroke of military genius that confused the international community long enough to be effective.
China has the manpower to infiltrate Taiwan with sufficient quantity to disable most means to defend Taiwan. This would be a multi-phase plan to infiltrate 50,000 to 100,000 soldiers, possibly less, into Taiwan as businessmen, tourists, laborers, and ship workers with no uniforms. Using basic small arms, grenades, explosives, and possibly rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), small units can take down critical infrastructure, blockade chokepoints, and tie up island defenses. In a Tet Offensive scale of attack model, small units, mission-focused infantry, and special forces can wreak havoc on communications, transportation, command and control, and island defenses.
The second phase, an air campaign to support the forces on the ground, would quickly be followed by a full invasion. Troops and material flown into airfields, possibly airborne troops, and airstrikes would do what the “little green men” could not. Unlike 2014, this phase will be violent. Once the initial assault takes down the Taipei government, it will be nearly impossible for the international community to come to their aid. China will now consider this as an internal security matter, further negating international options to intercede. The initial commando attacks and shaping operations will do the important work of decapitating the government, while the invasion forces from the mainland will consolidate control of the island.
Prepositioned troops and weapons can be concealed in shipping containers delivered around the island or still on vessels at all the ports, sea, and air. The police will be overwhelmed and ineffective. If not pre-armed and staged, the Taiwan military will be neutered, unable to arm or deploy with their bases and routes under siege. Coastal and air defenses can likewise be negated long enough for the Chinese air assault to take effect. Small units of 4-6 men can take down cell towers, server farms, police stations, and power substations. Larger formations can attack military armories, barracks, bridges, tunnels, railways, and critical government buildings. All of this will be supported by massive cyber operations and likely co-opted actors.
Every means of commercial conveyance can be used to ferry these troops and weapons in advance and up to zero hour. Commercial flights can be used to deliver armed troops to airfields, even under the guise of in-air emergencies. Using taxis, Ubers, and absconded police cars, attacking troops can quickly move over the island to their targets. The greater the shock, surprise, chaos, and violence, the better conditions for the attackers. Taiwanese leadership will be challenged to define the attacks as anything matching a military operation before it is too late. The first 24 to 48 hours would be the most critical. Anything after that would be consolidation and mop-up operations. Once the objective is consolidated, there will no longer be a non-China government to rescue. The break-away province of Taiwan will cease to exist.
From the outside, it will appear that Taiwan is in chaos and China is planning an imminent invasion. However, the overthrow and occupation of the island will already have occurred. Much like 1939, there may be “calls” from the island to China asking for assistance. Unopposed, the Chinese military could flood onto the island in astronomical numbers and solidify their hold. Any response would then have to weigh the means of expelling the Chinese military against preserving Taiwan.
If China plans and executes a traditional, massive military invasion, it risks some kind of failure or outsized expense. Does China need to conduct this campaign in a way that shows the full power and modernization of its military, or does the result speak for itself? The faster and less resource-dependent route is beneficial in a few ways. Taking Taiwan in a matter of days, not weeks, prevents interference and limits responses. Success is success. Not getting into a large-scale military fight with those who might defend Taiwan, including the Taiwanese, protects the reputation of the Chinese military as well. Not knowing if China’s military could take Taiwan is a better unknown than any glaring failures that show their military is not yet ready for other challenges.
Tags: China strategic influence, Cyber Activities, Lessons from Ukraine, Phased Hybrid Warfare, Strategic Shock and Denial
About The Author
- Bill McAllister
- Bill McAllister is a former reconnaissance Marine, having served in the Gulf War and Somalia, and a former intelligence officer, having served in Afghanistan and East Africa. Bill has a bachelor’s degree in history from San Jose State University.
17. The Logics of Military Force: Or, How India and Pakistan Fought Each Other and Didn’t Use the Bomb
Excerpts:
Nuclear crises are no different. Analysts have paid careful attention not only to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s language around nuclear weapons, but also when and how he has mobilized nuclear forces. These actions can serve as signals of the intensity of his interest in the conflict to other actors—especially the United States—with the goal of deterring their deeper involvement. Likewise, India’s mobilization of its Territorial Army, while appearing escalatory, may simultaneously have sent strong signals of resolve that ultimately helped bring the conflict to a resolution. It is notable (and fortunate) that neither India nor Pakistan felt the need to signal their willingness to use nuclear weapons during this most recent crisis. However, as the example of Putin’s nuclear signaling shows, there would have been plenty of other opportunities to signal that the stakes were rising to nuclear levels.
This all presumes that strategic logics are only shaped endogenously by technology and environment, however. A concern that should animate us all is the possibility that strategic logics are shaped exogenously by the international order as well. The current American-built liberal international order is undergoing a period of profound challenge from other great powers. Historically, transitions of international orders have been violent, and only since World War II have they encompassed the possibility of multiple strategic logics that are now available to nuclear-armed states. If order shapes logic, then at some point the continued challenge to and evolution of the extant international order could usher in a new strategic nuclear logic—an invalidation of the stability-instability paradox—that would not be known until, say, India and Pakistan have their next crisis. The sigh of relief after a successful future de-escalation may not come as quickly and fully as it did this time.
The Logics of Military Force: Or, How India and Pakistan Fought Each Other and Didn’t Use the Bomb - Modern War Institute
Max Margulies and Patrick Sullivan | 05.14.25
mwi.westpoint.edu · by Max Margulies · May 14, 2025
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Global catastrophe seems to have been narrowly avoided this past weekend, after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire following the most tense military confrontations between the two states in decades. While any ceasefire is inherently fragile and vulnerable to accusations of violations, both sides have stepped back from the brink and seem committed to de-escalation. Any outbreak of violence between two nuclear-armed states is particularly fraught, and the world is right to pay attention. Yet, fortunately, no instance of such confrontation has ever resulted in a nuclear exchange. This is explained by the phenomenon that international relations theorists and security scholars term the stability-instability paradox: Because nuclear weapons fundamentally change the strategic logic of conflict, they may prevent major conflict between two nuclear-armed actors while simultaneously increasing the amount of minor conflict.
Beyond the latest episode, this phenomenon explains the continuation and outcome of much of Pakistan and India’s rivalry since Pakistan’s successful nuclear tests in 1998. Indeed, this is not the first time since they have both demonstrated nuclear capabilities that India and Pakistan have fought each other. Only a year after Pakistan first tested a nuclear weapon, India and Pakistan fought the brief Kargil War over Kashmir. There have been several flare-ups since then, the most recent of which was in 2019. Nor is this the only example of two nuclear-armed states using force against each other: The Soviet Union and China fought a brief but bloody border war in 1969, and more recently Indian and Chinese forces skirmished over their Kashmir border in 2020 and 2021.
Crises between nuclear states are never guaranteed to end so peacefully. They still require delicate diplomacy to manage and de-escalate tensions. Yet, through a better understanding of the strategic logic of nuclear and conventional conflict, we can breathe a sigh of relief at this apparent latest validation of the stability-instability paradox.
Logics of Military Force
There is often a presumption that the risk of nuclear war will prevent two nuclear-armed states from fighting each other directly due to the logic of mutually assured destruction, which many scholars cite as a major reason why there were no large-scale direct confrontations between Soviet and American forces during the Cold War and as a reason why a direct war between China and the United States is unlikely. This is because nuclear-armed powers have sufficient variety in their nuclear weapon delivery systems for their arsenals to survive and deliver a response strike if they were struck first. This, coupled with the fact that a single nuclear weapon has disproportionately devastating attack potential, makes nuclear weapons effectively impossible to defend against and nuclear wars nigh unwinnable. Accordingly, the strategic logic of nuclear weapons is to avoid war altogether.
So, when nuclear-armed states use force against each other, does it mean that deterrence has broken down? Yes and no, with this duality speaking to what underlies the stability-instability paradox: a choice between two different strategic logics. The strategic logic of nuclear weapons works to deter threats against vital interests or state survival. However, because states know that using a nuclear weapon is almost guaranteed to invoke a response in kind, they cannot credibly threaten to use nuclear weapons against attacks that do not reach that threshold. Neither side in a conflict wants to use nuclear weapons, and so will only do so in the most dire circumstances to protect its most fundamental interests.
This means states can safely use conventional force to try to achieve lesser interests, where the strategic logic of nuclear weapons breaks down. There is no single logic of conventional force—it can contribute to compellence and deterrence as well as to brute force outcomes—but overall it involves a conscious decision to signal that a conflict’s stakes do not rise to the level of an existential threat or vital interest. This sets up a situation in which a state can deter another state from threatening its vital interests, while simultaneously fighting that same state over lesser issues using conventional weapons. As long as both states know how the other defines the boundary between the two, they can fight conventionally over anything that does not rise to the level for which they are willing to risk mutually assured destruction. In short, strategic logic operates differently for high- and low-stakes issues, with high-stakes issues favoring nuclear deterrence. Conversely, lower-stakes disputes enable conventional fighting, or even make it likely.
It would be a mistake to automatically infer a cycle of escalation that ends with a nuclear exchange, even when overt conflict breaks out between nuclear-armed states. This would mean that every issue the states would be willing to fight over is an existential one, which is simply not true for the vast majority of war decisions that states have made in the nuclear era. On the contrary, most wars are so-called wars of choice, involving issues for which the combatant states have limited relative intensities of interest. In such wars—which, by definition, fall short of the existential threshold—there is only so much states are willing to spend in terms of blood and treasure to win, with the fighting itself mostly being useful to clarify expectations for both sides on what the outcome of the fighting would be. Once that probable outcome is clear to both sides, there is an incentive to negotiate the war’s end rather than to continue fighting. Stated simply, neither side’s commitment would rise to the imperative to win at all costs.
The only difference with nuclear-armed states in wars of choice is that they self-select into the conventional weapons logic; in choosing the war, they choose the strategic logic of conventional weapons by default. There are some vital interests that nuclear-armed states would choose to secure through nuclear deterrence and other interests that they would choose to secure through conventional deterrence—and if deterrence fails, fight a war over using conventional means. It stands to reason, then, that nuclear-armed states do not truly contemplate nuclear escalation to secure interests that they have remanded to the conventional realm.
Residual Risks
The risk of escalation is not zero, however, and the self-selection into conventional weapons logic is not all-comforting. A primary concern is the relatively sparse empirical support for the strategic logic of nuclear weapons. While there are good reasons to think nuclear weapons have successfully deterred great power conflict, this nuclear peace may also be a function of the small number of nuclear states. The longer-established nuclear states have historically exercised great restraint when it comes to their nuclear arsenals. Even when retaliating or defending against attacks by nonnuclear adversaries, nuclear powers have held back from using all available force at their disposable, as evidenced by the United States after the 9/11 attacks, Russia during its current war with Ukraine, and Israel’s muted response to recent Iranian ballistic missile attacks.
Nonetheless, the successful deterrence of nuclear war during the Cold War was not necessarily easy or a foregone conclusion. As Thomas Schelling emphasizes, conflict in a nuclear world is fundamentally a contest of wills and risk-taking. The only way to win in a world characterized by mutually assured destruction is to get the other side to back down by convincing its leaders that you have a stronger interest than they do (despite the self-selection dynamic described above). This is often accomplished by demonstrating your willingness to actually use your nuclear weapons, which can of course heighten the risk of nuclear war. Managing this risk requires not only a shared interest in avoiding nuclear war, but also a shared understanding of how to signal red lines and resolve.
As nuclear weapons have proliferated to states with less stable governments or more hostile relations with neighbors, however, the risks of misunderstandings, accidental use, and imprudent escalation understandably amplify concerns that a nuclear war of some scale is simply a matter of time. New and aspiring nuclear-armed states may lack sufficient experience developing shared understandings with their adversaries, or may not have the institutional safeguards to insure against accidental or unauthorized deployments. In this context, India and Pakistan may prove to be the most responsible and rational of new and aspiring members to the nuclear club.
Lastly, the development of tactical nuclear weapons blurs the line between where each strategic logic operates. While proponents believe they offer another mechanism to signal rising stakes without escalating immediately to mutually assured destruction, critics have raised important questions about whether such a message can be sent clearly amid the fog of war. In this case, it would be difficult for either side to know whether the use of a tactical nuclear weapon signals an immediate shift toward the high stakes of nuclear logic or not.
Coming to an Understanding
States have always used a variety of means to indirectly communicate their intentions and capabilities. Often, decisions about when, where, and how military force is used—or not used—are intended to convey a message about what will come next, if the situation does not change. For example, while it is easy to assume that Iran’s ineffectual strikes against Israel merely indicate military weakness, some argue that they were carefully calculated to demonstrate precision-targeting capabilities without further raising the stakes by creating more casualties.
Nuclear crises are no different. Analysts have paid careful attention not only to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s language around nuclear weapons, but also when and how he has mobilized nuclear forces. These actions can serve as signals of the intensity of his interest in the conflict to other actors—especially the United States—with the goal of deterring their deeper involvement. Likewise, India’s mobilization of its Territorial Army, while appearing escalatory, may simultaneously have sent strong signals of resolve that ultimately helped bring the conflict to a resolution. It is notable (and fortunate) that neither India nor Pakistan felt the need to signal their willingness to use nuclear weapons during this most recent crisis. However, as the example of Putin’s nuclear signaling shows, there would have been plenty of other opportunities to signal that the stakes were rising to nuclear levels.
This all presumes that strategic logics are only shaped endogenously by technology and environment, however. A concern that should animate us all is the possibility that strategic logics are shaped exogenously by the international order as well. The current American-built liberal international order is undergoing a period of profound challenge from other great powers. Historically, transitions of international orders have been violent, and only since World War II have they encompassed the possibility of multiple strategic logics that are now available to nuclear-armed states. If order shapes logic, then at some point the continued challenge to and evolution of the extant international order could usher in a new strategic nuclear logic—an invalidation of the stability-instability paradox—that would not be known until, say, India and Pakistan have their next crisis. The sigh of relief after a successful future de-escalation may not come as quickly and fully as it did this time.
Dr. Max Margulies is the chief research officer of the Modern War Institute at West Point.
Colonel Patrick Sullivan, PhD, is the director of the Modern War Institute at West Point.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Max Margulies · May 14, 2025
18. US lawmakers mull State Department shake-up as trade partners seek new alliances
"An economic war without an 'economic Pentagon.'"
Excerpts:
While the participants disagreed over how much authority the US State Department should have, they supported the idea that diplomatic missions should work more to advance America’s commercial interests abroad, with Kim and Cutler suggesting that the Commerce Department’s Foreign Commercial Service should be moved to State.
Cutler said that other reforms would be needed throughout the State Department, including more robust recruitment and promotion of officers with economic backgrounds.
Another witness, Elaine Dezenski – senior director of the Centre on Economic and Financial Power at The Foundation for Defence of Democracies – agreed.
“We must begin … with a recognition that we may have launched an economic war without an economic Pentagon,” Dezenski said.
“We are now in what I think is a full-scale pivot to an economic security power projection era that is foreign policy now, so I believe it makes sense to create a leadership function within State Department.”
US-China trade war
ChinaDiplomacy
US lawmakers mull State Department shake-up as trade partners seek new alliances
Witnesses warn subcommittee hearing that previously ‘impossible’ economic partnerships are moving ahead after tariff confusion
Robert Delaneyin Washington
Published: 12:18pm, 15 May 2025
Major economies are beginning to work around the United States as Washington breaks away from the global trading rules that it established, witnesses told lawmakers on Wednesday, in a hearing called to assess how to restructure the US government to align economic and foreign policy goals.
Witnesses and lawmakers in the hearing organised by the House East Asia and Pacific subcommittee – chaired by Young Kim, a California Republican – generally agreed that a policy of closer economic engagement with trading partners was necessary, particularly to counter China’s growing influence, but needed closer coordination between numerous US government agencies.
Trump says he can see himself dealing directly with Xi on US-China trade deal details
Kim said her committee aimed to craft legislation to address concerns expressed by US President Donald Trump and some of his predecessors that “economic security, economic policy is foreign policy”.
She argued that “the current alignment of functions and agencies charged with leading our economic statecraft effort is in need of structural reform”.
Against the backdrop of Trump’s bewildering series of tariff impositions, rescissions, and threats, witnesses including Wendy Cutler – a former US trade negotiator and now vice-president at the Asia Society Policy Institute – warned that economic partnerships that would have been “impossible just years ago” are moving ahead.
Cutler cited a landmark free-trade pact between India and Britain, clinched last week, and the European Union’s interest in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which China aims to join.
“If the EU and the CPTPP as trade groups link together it would create the biggest free-trade area in the whole world,” Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Trade Benjamin Dousa said in an interview with Reuters this week.
“At a time when the US is closing itself off … there are good opportunities for Europe to open itself up … to investment and trade.”
Meanwhile, Cutler said that other countries are expressing interest in either joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), CPTPP “or different digital agreements, and ultimately, as all of these agreements are being forged without us, we are disadvantaged”.
California Republican Representative Young Kim, who chairs the House East Asia and Pacific subcommittee in Washington. Photo: TNS
The RCEP is a free-trade agreement (FTA) involving the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and five of their FTA partners.
“Over the past few months, I have travelled to Asia extensively and have conversed with many delegations in Washington negotiating trade agreements. My Asian colleagues have shared with me their deep concerns about the direction of US trade and economic policy, and the atmosphere of uncertainty it has created,” Cutler said.
“They do not understand the US end game, particularly if we seek their cooperation to counter China.”
Matthew Goodman, director of the Greenberg Centre for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said mixed signals from the US on trade policy, that pushed some countries to cooperate bilaterally or multilaterally without Washington, predated Trump’s controversial “Liberation Day” tariffs announced last month.
“I’m very concerned that we have no Asian economic strategy to speak of at the moment, and arguably haven’t for a number of years, leaving others to move ahead with their own arrangements to advance their economic and strategic interests and spread their own preferred rules against this backdrop,” Goodman told the hearing.
Democrats on the subcommittee were the most vocal in pushing for stronger economic ties with allies. California Representative Ami Bera, for example, lamented Trump’s withdrawal in 2017 from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the initial incarnation of the CPTPP, during the president’s first term in the White House.
Xi meets Lula: China, Brazil call for ‘more just’ world order amid Trump tariff turmoil
Republicans generally pushed for a restructuring of the foreign policy machinery that would advocate for American business interests, particularly market access abroad, more aggressively.
However, one Republican – James Moylan of Guam – joined Democrats in calling for more partnership.
“Large partnerships with organisations like Asean or smaller free trade agreements have continued to demonstrate the willingness and success that comes with less constrained economic policies,” he said.
“It’s clear that we must combine greater domestic investments while collaborating with our allies in areas where the United States has comparative disadvantages.”
While the participants disagreed over how much authority the US State Department should have, they supported the idea that diplomatic missions should work more to advance America’s commercial interests abroad, with Kim and Cutler suggesting that the Commerce Department’s Foreign Commercial Service should be moved to State.
Cutler said that other reforms would be needed throughout the State Department, including more robust recruitment and promotion of officers with economic backgrounds.
Another witness, Elaine Dezenski – senior director of the Centre on Economic and Financial Power at The Foundation for Defence of Democracies – agreed.
“We must begin … with a recognition that we may have launched an economic war without an economic Pentagon,” Dezenski said.
“We are now in what I think is a full-scale pivot to an economic security power projection era that is foreign policy now, so I believe it makes sense to create a leadership function within State Department.”
Robert Delaney
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Robert Delaney is the Post’s North America bureau chief. He spent 11 years in China as a language student and correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires and Bloomberg, and continued covering the country as a correspondent and an academic after leaving. His debut novel, The
19. Asia without America, part 2: Japan’s Tang renaissance
"Men with chests"
"purgatorial equilibrium"
"civilian stagnation"
"national incoherence"
"bonsai nation"
Asia without America, part 2: Japan’s Tang renaissance - Asia Times
Japan has everything to gain from America’s military departure and rebuilding a nation of men with chests
asiatimes.com · by Han Feizi · May 15, 2025
Tokyo girl, Tokyo girl
You’ve got the moves to rule the world
That cute inscrutability
Tokyo girl, you’re a mystery
Ace of base
The liberal democracies of Northeast Asia – Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – have survived and even thrived in a purgatorial equilibrium where their fate is dependent on:
-
an America in Asia but not of Asia (see here) and
- a China gathering its strength and biding its time.
There are costs associated with this equilibrium, this status quo, this interminable present – costs not just of treasure and strategic risk but of civilizational stagnation and national incoherence.
While Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have avoided the American dumpster fires of crime, drugs and obesity, they have not been able to dodge the nihilism and cultural anomie of end-state capitalism and liberal democracy. As much as this writer likes to bash Francis Fukuyama, the good professor did cover his rear on the pitfalls awaiting the Last Man at the End of History:
Liberal democracy produced “men without chests,” composed of desire and reason but lacking thymos, clever at finding new ways to satisfy a host of petty wants through the calculation of long-term self-interest. The last man had no desire to be recognized as greater than others, and without such desire no excellence or achievement was possible. Content with his happiness and unable to feel any sense of shame for being unable to rise above those wants, the last man ceased to be human.
Image: Reddit / Jordan Peterson
In liberal democratic Asia, men without chests are the product of political design more than they are naturally occurring Last Men at history’s end.
Postwar Japan is a concoction of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has been in power almost exclusively since its founding in 1955.
The dark but now open secret of the LDP is that it was founded by accused war criminals (including Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi) and had received financial and intelligence support from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for decades.
While Germany went through a denazification program, the US “reversed course” in Japan after Mao’s communists won China’s civil war in 1949. Japan’s right-wing militarists, expecting to be purged and charged with war crimes, were instead rehabilitated to form a political bulwark against communist expansion.
Cold War expediencies were certainly justifiable to many – but ultimately, for the Japanese, it meant that their country was less than sovereign, never adequately confronted its wartime past and never had a real say in its military occupation by the US.
Japan became a bonsai nation – a well-tended miniature state denuded of thymos. When the Japanese absentmindedly forgot about their bonsai status and dared to challenge the US in the auto and semiconductor industries, sanctions on Toshiba, the Plaza Accord and “voluntary” export quotas quickly reminded them of their place.
Japan is sui generis – no economy has stagnated for so long after outperforming so spectacularly for even longer. That is the tragedy of a bonsai nation – men without chests are allowed to dream only so big. And so, Japan – once the land of samurai warriors and hardened salarymen – has been reduced to a theme park filled with kawaii anime, Pokémon, Super Mario and schoolgirl manga in not-so-hidden corners.
In a future in which America’s military is no longer tenable in the Western Pacific, Japan will have to find a new equilibrium. Japan’s interminable bonsai present cannot be all that satisfying, hanging over the nation the way regret haunts a Murakami novel.
Without America, Japan will be forced to grow up and wrestle with sovereignty, to break out of its bonsai pot and be liberated from creepy hentai, hikikomori and tentacle porn – to become men with chests again.
Much of this will be very off-putting to many Japanese. Casting aside the comfort of a long-familiar equilibrium for an unknown future will be terrifying. Much of Asia has unfinished business with Japan. And not just any kind of unfinished business – but blood debt of the rawest, most impassioned kind, remembered for generations if not already immortalized in legend.
Japan had little to fear from China for almost all of its history prior to World War II. Mongols from the Yuan Dynasty attempted to invade the Japanese islands twice and were defeated by inclement weather both times. (England and France, in comparison, fought 41 wars against each other since the Dark Ages.)
This time, however, is different. A China with a military strong enough to muscle out the US (hypothetically, of course) and nursing deep historical grievances can be somewhat worrisome. Without the US military, much of Asia – from China to South Korea to Southeast Asia – will want to settle unfinished family business.
World War II, however, was a long time ago. A lot of water has passed under the bridge. Only a handful of Japanese war veterans are still alive. Few living Asians have memories of Japanese atrocities. It is difficult to imagine Asia demanding from Japan anything but “symbolic” gestures of atonement.
But in the land of thymos, symbolic gestures, like teaching war atrocities in Japan’s schools or removing war criminals from the Yasukuni Shrine, are the most difficult to swallow.
On November 25, 1970, novelist Yukio Mishima, aided by four disciples, stormed a military base in central Tokyo, tied up the commandant, barricaded the doors, donned a white headband, stepped onto the balcony and delivered a rousing speech to soldiers gathered below.
Yukio Mishima at the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Forces’ Eastern Region on the day of his death. Photo: AAP
Meant to inspire a military coup d’état restoring direct rule to the emperor, the speech was met with puzzlement and jeers. Shortly after his speech, Mishima apologized to the tied-up commandant and committed hara-kiri (seppuku), disemboweling himself like samurai of yore before being decapitated by a disciple.
Mishima spent all his adult life trying not to be a “man without a chest.” In the hopeless last days of the war, Mishima avoided almost certain death by getting rejected from the army for an erroneous tuberculosis diagnosis, which he may or may not have faked.
Cheated from or having cheated the glory of battlefield death, Mishima lifted weights obsessively, became a skilled kendo swordsman and lamented the emptiness of modern Japan. Mishima identified Japan’s men without chests decades before Francis Fukuyama:
Japan has lost its spiritual tradition, and instead has become infested with materialism. Japan is under the curse of a green snake now. The green snake is biting Japan’s chest. There is no way to escape this curse.
In 1959-1960, protests erupted across Japan in opposition to the United States-Japan Security Treaty, Anpo in abbreviated Japanese. The treaty would formally allow the United States to maintain military bases in Japan.
Opposition was immense from both the left and the right. At its height, hundreds of thousands of protestors surrounded Japan’s parliament in Tokyo. On June 15, 1960, students breached the building, resulting in violent clashes with police.
The original Anpo contained egregious terms:
- no specific end date or means of abrogation,
- allowing the US military to use bases for any purpose without consulting the Japanese government,
- authorization for US troops to put down domestic protests.
The 1959-1960 protests were in opposition to Anpo, even with those terms specifically removed. Despite the protests, the revised Anpo was ratified, but at the cost of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi’s resignation and the cancellation of a celebratory visit by US President Dwight Eisenhower.
The revised Anpo provided abrogation opportunities at 10-year intervals, with student protests erupting again in 1968-1969 but in much-attenuated form. Today, opposition to Anpo is largely confined to residents of Okinawa who bear the brunt of the environmental impact (noise pollution, chemical run-offs, live-fire exercises) and service member criminality of the US occupation.
Yukio Mishima was radicalized by the Anpo protests. In 1961, Mishima wrote the short story “Patriotism,” which was made into a popular 1966 short film in which he directed and starred.
The film climaxed with Lieutenant Takeyama, unable to reconcile loyalty to the Emperor and loyalty to his comrade-in-arms, committing hara-kiri, with the strings of Wagner playing in the background. In an interview, Mishima explained:
In samurai tradition, the sense of beauty was always connected with death. For instance if you commit hara-kiri, the samurai was requested to make-up his face by powder or lipstick in order to keep his face beautiful after his suffering death.
Spiritually, I wanted to revive some samurai spirit through it… I don’t want to revive hara-kiri itself but through the vision, very strong vision of hara-kiri, I want to inspire and stimulate younger people… I wanted to revive some traditional sense of honor or sense of very strong responsibility… a sense of death in honor. That’s my purpose.
Mishima’s suicide at the prime of life was a political call to arms, a personal cri de cœur, an artistic expression of ultimate beauty, a reclamation of the glorified death that slipped through his fingers as a young man.
This all proved too much for 1970 Japan. Just when the nation was coming into its cosmopolitan own, its most famous writer makes a feudal spectacle of himself, gratuitously conjuring up unpleasant memories. The stunt was certainly beyond the pale in neighboring China and both Koreas, whose inhabitants likely had had enough samurai swords, bushido and hara-kiri for a few centuries.
Mishima was on a mission to Make Japan Great Again. Unfortunately, World War II survivor guilt bound him to the most objectionable period in Japan’s history.
After Commodore Perry and his black ships forced open Japan under threat of cannon fire, shattering 250 years of splendid seclusion, tumultuous changes swept through Japanese society, toppling centuries-old institutions like the shogunate and the samurai.
The Meiji restoration overturned the isolationist Edo period, centralized government and industrialized the economy, but ultimately went down an unfortunate militarist path. The rest is, shall we say, history. Any hint of Meiji-Shōwa militarist revival surely would set off ear-piercing alarm bells across all of Asia.
Fortunately, Japan’s renaissance need not begin with Commodore Perry’s black ships. Modern Japan has almost certainly retained more of the Tang Dynasty than modern China.
Kimonos, geisha make-up and Kyoto-style architecture would look less out of place in the ancient Chinese city of Chang’an (present day Xi’an), capital of the Tang Dynasty, than anything in Beijing, Shanghai and even Shenzhen.
Emperor Taizong (Li Shimin), the second emperor of the Tang dynasty, ruled from 626 to 649. A follower of Confucius and a rationalist, he saw himself as a servant of the people. Japan learned much from the Tang Dynasty. Photo: National Palace Museum via Wikimedia Commons
The Tang Dynasty (605 to 907, minus a 690-705 interregnum) had a profound impact on all facets of Japanese culture, from aesthetics to language to religion to government.
The Tang was perhaps the most cosmopolitan of China’s dynasties, with 25,000 foreigners living in its capital. Japanese, Turks, Koreans, Vietnamese, Persians, Indians and Central Asians filled Chang’an’s restaurants, wine-houses and temples (Buddhist, Nestorian Christian, Zoroastrian).
In this atmosphere, Tang China was in constant contact with Japan, receiving 19 official missions (kentoshi) of up to 600 people who made the two-year round-trip journey (some staying decades before returning).
Japanese envoys and scholars who had completed kentoshi instituted Chinese-style laws, bureaucracy, calendars and measurements in their official capacity. In their unofficial capacity, they brought back Chinese fashion, literature, musical instruments and artistic taste.
Fears of China collecting on Japanese blood debt in draconian fashion are highly misplaced. Without a barbarian military on China’s maritime border, the Communist Party of China can relax into its Confucianism. While the political West swings left and right, political China swings between Legalism and Confucianism.
In anxious times, Legalism and its authoritarian impulses prevail – there can be no fun and games when Qin Shi Huang is consolidating the Qin Dynasty. And only after Emperor Taizong defeated the Eastern and Western Turks could the Tang Dynasty relax, allowing Chang’an and Yangzhou to become cosmopolitan cities where commerce, poetry, painting, calligraphy, drunken parties and dancing girls flourished.
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President Xi Jinping has been battening down China’s hatches along Legalist lines for over a decade, reining in the loosey-goosey free-for-all of the Hu-Wen era. China is no longer hiding its strength and biding its time.
China’s shipbuilding capacity is more than 200 times that of the US. It is only a matter of time. Without the US Navy Seventh Fleet stationed in Yokosuka, the Qin-esque Communist Party of China will mellow out and become Tang-esque – a version of China much more amenable to an anxious Japan.
Abandoning a known equilibrium to wrestle with Japan’s past and secure an unknown future is a high-risk/high-reward undertaking. Japan has everything to lose. Without US protection, an unforgiving China bent on vengeance would be the end of Japan.
Japan, however, also has everything to gain. The presence of the US military has warped Japanese politics and society for decades. A forgiving China not interested (much) in settling scores is the only real future Japan has. The status quo has stunted Japan in a bonsai pot – purgatorial torture for its novelists.
Mishima went out in a macabre blaze of glory. Murakami is perpetually wistful for what could have been. And Ryū (the other) Murakami wants to set it all on fire. In a hypothetical future undistorted by America’s alien presence, Japan can finally exorcise the ghost of the Meiji-Shōwa era and let its Tang renaissance wash across Asia.
asiatimes.com · by Han Feizi · May 15, 2025
20. Asia’s Population Lessons For Donald Trump
Oh no. Not this.
The subtitle is perfect clickbait.
But we must consider this demographic threat.
Excerpt:
The Trump administration, increasingly worried about the falling US domestic birth rate, could take a lesson from East Asia, where countries have been initiating imaginative policies to increase their birth rates for decades. The lesson is that nothing seems to work. Women no longer want to have babies.
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May 15, 2025
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The Trump administration, increasingly worried about the falling US domestic birth rate, could take a lesson from East Asia, where countries have been initiating imaginative policies to increase their birth rates for decades. The lesson is that nothing seems to work. Women no longer want to have babies.
The administration is said to have embraced a so-called pro-natalist philosophy out of a belief that the human population is on the verge of collapse, and that low birth rates present a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming, although the world is adding 70 million people annually, and that according to UN projections, population will increase from today’s 8.2 billion to more than 10 billion in the 2080s, raising the danger of collapse from breaching planetary limits due to overpopulation and overconsumption.
Policy experts and advocates of boosting the birthrate have been meeting with White House aides, according to the New York Times, with written proposals on ways to help or convince women to have more babies. Musk aside, given Asia’s experience, it seems unlikely there will be widespread success, especially given the unspoken objective that likely all these new babies be white. If they can find any measures Asia doesn’t know about, they will be welcome.
China, which in 1979 implemented its brutal one-child policy, ended it officially 37 years later in 2016, and has been trying ever since to get its birth-age women to get pregnant as its population has actually begun to shrink, as has Japan’s. China’s fertility rate today is 1.01 according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs World Fertility Report 2024 (which supplied all the population figures for this article), well below the 2.1 required for replacement. Projecting a "medium variant" scenario assuming a constant total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.18, China's population could shrink by more than half by 2100, to 800 million, population analysts say.
With America’s TFR having fallen to 1.62 births per woman, far below the global average of 2.2, this generation is not replacing itself without immigration, anathema to a government that came to power vowing to drive out millions of immigrants, legal and illegal. The White House has proposed a US$5,000 cash post-“baby bonus” to every American mother, reserving 30 percent of prestigious Fulbright program fellowships for applicants who are married or have children and funding programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles in part so they can better understand when they are ovulating and able to conceive.
None of the Trump administration’s proposals is anywhere near implementation. Even if they were, they have all been tried in most of East Asia in vain. For instance, Hong Kong’s TFR – the birth rate per woman – has fallen to 0.73, and the population is being propped up by immigration from China; Singapore’s has fallen to 0.95; South Korea’s, 0.73. North Korea is outbreeding the South at 1.78 but is still below replacement. Thailand is at 1.20; Taiwan, 0.86; Maldives, 1.56; Malaysia, 1.54. Even in India, now the world’s most populous nation, TFR has fallen to 1.96, below replacement. In Catholic Philippines, where the clergy waged a decades-long fight against sex education that ended a decade ago, TFR fell below replacement in 2022 and is continuing to fall year by year, now at 1.89.
Most of Asia’s Muslim nations, including Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, continue to grow, although almost all of them are seeing their TFR falling
Tiny, affluent Singapore is likely the first to have discovered to its alarm that its birthrate was starting to decline – in the early 1960s, after serving as a third-world model with its “Stop at Two” campaign to limit population growth in the 1960s. Singapore’s total fertility rate fell below replacement in 1975, then declined further to “ultra-low” levels in the early 2000s and has remained there ever since. Affluence and consumerism emptied the elementary schools. In attempts since 1975 to raise the birth rate, the National Population and Talent Division, which is under the Prime Minister's Office, has offered cash gifts for all eligible children, with higher amounts for the first and second, and an even higher amount for the third and beyond. There are grants and co-matching caps within the Child Development Account, increased paternity leave, with doubled government-paid leave for fathers of babies born from 2024, subsidies for artificial reproduction measures up to 75 percent of costs, flexible work arrangements for prospective parents, and other benefits.
Singapore’s most notable – and most derided – attempt to foster an increased birthrate came in 2003, including a state-sponsored speed-dating program and a “Love Boat” package offering couples a boat cruise and one night at an Indonesian holiday resort, along with a fertility education program and a sex counselor. Sponsored by the Social Development Uni, or SDU, the acronym quickly came to stand for "Single, Desperate and Ugly.” It didn’t work any better than any of the other provisions.
“This is a consumerist society, stressing achievement and upward mobility,” according to a 2015 United Nations policy brief on Singapore’s dilemma. “Singaporeans are vastly wealthier than they were four or five decades ago, but, paradoxically, many feel a sense of relative deprivation, which means that aspirations can only be met by both parents working. The financial and opportunity costs of raising children are considerable, particularly as parents face enormous pressure for their children to succeed in a competitive system described as an education ‘arms race.’”
Most of the other countries have similar packages. Japan’s measures include financial incentives, childcare support, and work-life balance initiatives. China, late to the game, is considering establishing a maternity subsidy system and strengthening reproductive medical services to provide financial and medical support to families. The tiny kingdom of Bhutan (TFR 1.5) has discovered that its Gross National Happiness philosophy isn’t enough to stimulate births and is implementing a third-child cash incentive program providing Nu10,000 (US$116.00) per month for third and subsequent children until age 3. The government is also exploring other measures like increasing access to Early Childhood Care and Development.
Taiwan, with a TFR at only 0.89, offers what appears to be the most extensive measures, including maternity bonuses of NT$40,000 to NT$50,000 (US$1,324-1,655), monthly family payments, tax breaks for children under 5, six months of maternity leave for both parents, subsidies for Nursing and Childcare, public daycare centers, reduced Preschool Student-Teacher Ratios and a long list of others. In response, Taiwan’s TFR reached a historic low of 0.87 children per woman in 2022. The island’s high was 7.0 in 1951 as increased education, urbanization, and other factors changed societal values.
In fact, there are no developed countries with a fertility rate above 2.1 as of 2024, according to the UN world fertility report 2024. The only exception is Israel (2.78), although its TFR has been falling rapidly as well.
Then there is centibillionaire Elon Musk, who is said to have fathered 14 children with four different women, and whose philosophy, according to published reports, is rooted in his belief that humanity is facing a global underpopulation crisis and an existential threat to civilization. He has repeatedly stated that having more children is crucial for humanity's future and that he is taking steps to combat the issue. He has become a hero of sorts to the Trump administration by having a large family himself.
The administration is said to have embraced a so-called pro-natalist philosophy out of a belief that the human population is on the verge of collapse, and that low birth rates present a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming although the world is adding 70 million people annually, and that according to UN projections, population will increase from today’s 8.2 billion to more than 10 billion in the 2080s and will remain at this level throughout the end of the century, raising the danger of collapse from breaching planetary limits due to overpopulation and overconsumption. By 2015, 83 countries had below-replacement fertility, accounting for 46 percent of the world's population. Even in most of the countries with low total fertility, they will continue to grow as the world’s population bulge works its way through the system.
Policy experts and advocates of boosting the birthrate have been meeting with White House aides, according to the New York Times, with written proposals on ways to help or convince women to have more babies. Musk aside, given Aia’s experience, it seems unlikely there will be widespread success, especially given the unspoken objective that likely all these new babies be white.
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21. 'Russians need to be taught a lesson' – why foreign soldiers keep fighting for Ukraine amid growing uncertainty
Excerpts:
The exact number of foreigners fighting for Ukraine is not publicly known. Ukraine’s International Legion alone includes both experienced fighters and beginners from more than 50 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and various countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, according to Ukraine's military intelligence.
The Kyiv Independent spoke with five foreign volunteers who came to fight for Ukraine about their motivation, battlefield experiences, and plans for the future.
'Russians need to be taught a lesson' – why foreign soldiers keep fighting for Ukraine amid growing uncertainty
kyivindependent.com · by Daria Shulzhenko · May 14, 2025
Editor's Note: This article contains graphic descriptions.
Soldiers interviewed for this article are identified by their callsigns only due to security reasons.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, shocking the world, thousands of foreigners flocked to defend Ukraine – many with little to no connection with the country.
More than three years later, many of them remain in Ukraine’s military ranks, while new volunteers continue arriving from abroad to join the fight, risking their lives in the battle against unprovoked Russian aggression.
Even as uncertainty grows around continued support from the U.S. – Ukraine’s largest backer – and the country’s long-term capacity to defend itself, many foreign volunteers remain committed to fighting for Ukraine.
"This is a war with a clear line of right and wrong," says a soldier from the United Kingdom, who goes by the callsign "Oni."
The exact number of foreigners fighting for Ukraine is not publicly known. Ukraine’s International Legion alone includes both experienced fighters and beginners from more than 50 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and various countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, according to Ukraine's military intelligence.
The Kyiv Independent spoke with five foreign volunteers who came to fight for Ukraine about their motivation, battlefield experiences, and plans for the future.
'Oni,' United Kingdom
Inspired by reports of Ukraine's courageous resistance against Russian aggression, a 24-year-old English-born fabrication engineer – who now goes by the callsign "Oni" – began to rethink his life and career.
"Ukraine has been attacked and has been constantly defending itself for hundreds of thousands of years. Yet it still stands strong," Oni told the Kyiv Independent.
"What inspired me the most is that Ukrainians don't give up. They always band together and keep defending themselves against an opponent that is eight times stronger."
"I will fully put my life on the line to defend the Ukrainian people."
Oni also sees his decision to join the fight as a way to free up at least one Ukrainian from being mobilized.
"With me being here, I can take up the job of the person who should have been mobilized. So, while someone can stay home safe and look after their family, I will fully put my life on the line to defend the Ukrainian people."
Oni joined the 25th Airborne Brigade as a drone pilot in May 2024. He says he also received military training in Ukraine from other brigades.
"In a short amount of field time, I've accumulated quite a few confirmed kills and vehicle hits," he says.
He recalls his first combat mission: "My first flight, I got over to the target, and I immediately and accurately went straight inside the blindage and achieved my first four confirmed kills."
Fighting near Pokrovsk, an embattled city that used to be a crucial logistics hub for Ukrainian troops in Donetsk Oblast, showed him "the true horrors of the war," which is "completely different from how the Western media portrays it."
Through his drone, Oni says he witnessed Russian troops executing Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) – a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
"Instead of providing aid or taking them, POWs are just being straight up executed," he says.
"This is a war with a clear line of right and wrong."
Even after the war is over, Oni does not plan to leave Ukraine.
"I would probably stay here and help train new soldiers. Because I'm very much aware that if the war does come to an end, it's not going to return to normal for a while," he says.
A Ukrainian demining unit carries out a combat mission to plant remotely controlled mines between Ukrainian and Russian positions on the Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, in Ukraine on Nov. 17, 2024. (Kostya Liberov / Libkos / Getty Images)
'Dundee,' Australia
When "Dundee" from Australia was preparing to join the French Foreign Legion last year, he was contacted by a friend with a different request – to come and join his fight to defend Ukraine.
The friend, he says, sent him photographs capturing the evidence of Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians, including the Bucha massacre — the mass killing of civilians during Russia's occupation of the town in Kyiv Oblast in 2022.
One photo, showing a mother and her children, lying dead on a bed, with their hands tied, struck Dundee to his core: "I just thought to myself, how can a human being do this to another human being?" he told the Kyiv Independent.
"But more specifically, how can a professional soldier from an allegedly world-leading military just murder children?" he says.
Though aware of the risks, Dundee still decided to come and fight for Ukraine. To pay for his trip, Dundee, now 38, sold his property in Australia.
Dundee, in an undated photo in Ukraine. (Personal Archive)
With a background in private security, he joined the 80th Air Assault Brigade, conducting reconnaissance special forces operations – mostly in the Russian Kursk Oblast – after Ukraine launched the cross-border incursion into the region in August 2024.
During one of the missions, Dundee accidentally stepped on a mine.
"I saw this bright light, this explosion, and I thought our guys accidentally dropped a grenade on us because I didn't feel anything," he recalls. "I lifted my right leg — it was fine, aside from a few small spots of blood seeping through the material."
"Then I lifted my left leg, and from the shin down, it was basically gone. I thought: 'Oh no, I better get a tourniquet on it.' But when I went to apply the tourniquet, I realized the leg was still attached; it was just snapped at the shin, and the foot was blown apart."
Despite multiple injuries, Dundee says he had to keep fighting: "There was a shrapnel in my hand so I couldn't work my hand properly. It was just bleeding so much. The boys finally got everything under control, and they dragged me out of there," he recalls.
Dundee lost part of his leg and returned to Australia for treatment and prosthetics, but he plans to come back to Ukraine when possible.
"Just because I've sustained an injury doesn't change my view on what I feel I can do for this country and my obligation to humanity," Dundee says.
A T-80 tank from the 80th Air Assault Brigade fires during training near Chasiv Yar, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on July 20, 2024. (Ethan Swope / Anadolu via Getty Images)
'Rabat,' United States
For "Rabat," it started with a one-way ticket.
"I saw what was happening here in Ukraine, and one day, I took a flight to Poland and never came back," says the 25-year-old American national.
"I was truly disgusted with Russia's actions throughout the years."
A former U.S. lineman, Rabat had no military experience and had never met a Ukrainian before traveling to the country in 2023. But he recalls watching documentaries about Russia's annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea as a teenager, deeply struck by the events since 2014.
"I was truly disgusted with Russia's actions throughout the years," Rabat told the Kyiv Independent.
He says coming to fight for Ukraine was not a spur-of-the-moment decision.
"I was never at a point where I was second-guessing myself," Rabat says. "When I was at the border, the only thing I was concerned with was how long this (the line at the border crossing) was going to take."
"It's the existence of a nation and a people that we're talking about. If people are not willing to support, if other nations are not willing to support, then an entire nation is at stake of being erased," he says.
Rabat now serves as a drone operator with the International Legion’s Second Battalion. He has fought in Donetsk Oblast and later in Sumy Oblast, after Ukraine launched a surprise cross-border incursion into Russia’s neighboring Kursk Oblast in August 2024.
"The worst I've had to deal with was the fighting outside of Andriivka (a small village near Bakhmut)," Rabat says. "In terms of the intensity of Russian attacks and the amount of artillery bombardments.”
"But the hardest one you have to deal with is watching your friends die," Rabat adds, saying that he has lost "quite a lot."
Despite the losses, he remains committed to Ukraine and sees his future here.
"I wanted to find a new home, and I think I found it."
Soldiers carry a generator in Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on April 17, 2023. (Viktor Fridshon / Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
'Kruk,' Sweden
Having traveled to Ukraine several times since 2007, a former Swedish civil servant who now goes by the callsign "Kruk" says those visits gave him the privilege to experience the country’s land and people — and eventually, to fall in love with Ukraine.
"I have felt at home, welcomed and embraced," the 58-year-old told the Kyiv Independent.
After the full-scale invasion began, Kruk decided to help Ukrainian refugees in Stockholm by hosting them in his apartment. But that didn’t feel like enough. Watching the country he loved being destroyed by Russian bombardments, he decided to come to Ukraine last spring.
He felt that if the Ukrainian people had to "walk through the fire, then why should not I?"
"The fate of Ukraine is the fate of Europe's peace and stability."
"This is not only a war for Ukraine but for the freedom of Europe," he says.
As a combat medic with the International Legion’s Second Battalion, Kruk has had very limited battlefield experience due to an accident during training that left him with a dislocated shoulder, requiring surgery and a long rehabilitation. Though he had to leave Ukraine for several months, he plans to return and sign a contract with the Ukrainian Azov Brigade, which recently began accepting foreigners.
"The fate of Ukraine is the fate of Europe's peace and stability," Kruk says. "Russians need to be taught a lesson."
"The EU and NATO membership might not be the answer, but rather the necessary change away from the post-Soviet reality and history to find its own unique persona in the European family."
Ukrainian combat medics evacuate a wounded serviceman from the front line near Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on March 8, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Sergey Shestak / AFP via Getty Images)
'Sphinx,' Belgium
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, "Sphinx," then working as a postman in Belgium, was furious. He couldn’t understand why NATO and Europe didn’t step in to defend Ukraine, instead continuing to talk about "red lines" for the Kremlin regime.
With no prior military training and almost no knowledge of English or Ukrainian, he took a bus to Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, in May 2023 to join the country's International Legion.
After two months of training, Sphinx, now 37, joined the International Legion's Second Battalion as a marksman and was deployed to the area of Serebrianskyi forest in Luhansk Oblast. He later became a drone operator, taking part in Ukraine's offensive into Russia's Kursk Oblast, launched in August 2024.
Having fought in some of the most intense areas on the front line, Sphinx says the hardest part of the war is losing friends.
Sphinx, in an undated photo in Ukraine. (Personal Archive)
"You have two phases when losing someone," he says. "The first one is when you ask yourself: 'What am I doing here, maybe it's not my place?'"
"But the second one is not just revenge; it also gives you strength," Sphinx says.
He also understands that, despite the hardships of the war, "someone still needs to do it."
"President (Volodymyr) Zelensky asked for help, and I felt concerned about it because it's not only Ukraine's security, it's Europe's security, and the world's security,” Sphinx says.
Note from the author:
Hi! Daria Shulzhenko here. I wrote this piece for you. Since the first day of Russia's all-out war, I have been working almost non-stop to tell the stories of those affected by Russia’s brutal aggression. By telling all those painful stories, we are helping to keep the world informed about the reality of Russia’s war against Ukraine. By becoming the Kyiv Independent's member, you can help us continue telling the world the truth about this war.
22. Asia’s Role In the US Shipbuilding Surge
I heard a statistic at a conference this week that said China outproduces the US in shipping by 200 times.
My recommendation is a JAROKUS Shipbuilding consortium.
Excerpts:
Assess the viability of U.S. shipbuilding efforts with Asian allies in competing against the scale of China’s shipbuilding capabilities.
National security experts increasingly recognize there is no viable path to addressing the shipbuilding gap between the United States and China that does not involve close cooperation with U.S. allies. U.S. shipyards are too far behind, and the obstacles to an industry turnaround are too great to be quickly remedied. Such cooperation, both through expanded partnerships and the construction of vessels in allied yards, would be mutually beneficial.
By leveraging its allies’ shipbuilding capabilities, the United States can meet its naval and commercial shipping needs more quickly and at lower cost. Allied shipyards, meanwhile, could tap into a new source of demand at a time when Chinese shipyards appear increasingly dominant. Indeed, allowing the use of allied-built commercial vessels could unlock significant latent U.S. demand for domestic water transportation (ships account for just 2 percent of domestic freight movement largely due to inflated capital costs) to help fill allied orderbooks.
Developing such a symbiotic relationship, however, is contingent on addressing daunting political obstacles – namely, the Jones Act and laws prohibiting the construction of military vessels outside the United States. Whether the Trump administration can overcome these laws will go a long way toward determining the scope and scale of allied shipbuilding cooperation.
Asia’s Role In the US Shipbuilding Surge
Insights from Colin Grabow.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/05/asias-role-in-the-us-shipbuilding-surge/
By Mercy A. Kuo
May 15, 2025
The U.S. Military Sealift Command’s Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Wally Schirra (T-AKE 8) departs Hanwha Ocean shipyard after a seven-month overhaul at Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea, Mar. 12, 2025.
Credit: Grady Fontana, Military Sealift Command Far East
The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Colin Grabow – associate director of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute – is the 461st in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”
Examine the feasibility of the Trump administration’s plans to revive the shipbuilding industry in the United States.
Any revival of U.S. commercial shipbuilding must overcome several formidable obstacles. Foremost is the chasm in competitiveness between U.S. shipyards and their international counterparts. U.S.-built oceangoing merchant ships can be four or more times the world price, and recent examples suggest this price differential is approaching a factor of six.
Closing that gap is a gargantuan task – indeed, it is likely impossible.
Competitive merchant ship construction requires building at scale to justify the large expenditures on infrastructure and technology needed to compete. U.S. shipyards, however, collectively build small numbers of ships – averaging less than three per year in recent decades – and thus cannot make the investments required to operate on the shipbuilding frontier.
The result is a longstanding and well-known technological inferiority.
But the problems go deeper. U.S. shipyards face a well-documented shortage of skilled labor that hinders their ability to meet current demand, much less raise output. Other challenges include the lack of a domestic supply chain – U.S.-built ships extensively rely on imported materials – and rising input costs. Shipbuilding consumes significant quantities of steel, yet tariffs are driving up its cost.
Such factors make the construction of large commercial ships through comparative advantage alone highly unlikely. If this is to take place, it will almost certainly have to be as a subsidized, money-losing enterprise.
Explain the impact of the Jones Act of 1920 on U.S. shipbuilding capabilities.
Reasons for U.S. shipbuilding’s decline are multicausal, but the Jones Act and its protectionist antecedents bear substantial blame for a lack of shipbuilding competitiveness that dates to the late 1800s. Rather than developing a niche within the fiercely competitive large global market, U.S. shipyards build small volumes and feature reduced specialization by operating in a captive domestic market. Shipbuilding success requires innovation, scale, and specialization, but Jones Act protectionism deters all three.
The result is a mounting cost/quantity trap. As prices rise, demand falls, triggering further price increases as economies of scale further erode. Notably, three 3,600 TEU containerships ordered from the Philly Shipyard in 2022 feature anticipated delivery costs of $334.5 million each. One Jones Act carrier recently took the extraordinary step of spending millions of dollars to convert a 1980-built steamship to LNG propulsion in China rather than purchase a new U.S.-built vessel.
U.S. shipbuilding now accounts for one-tenth of one percent of global commercial output, trailing even far smaller European countries. That the world’s largest and most innovative economy has been reduced to such a state is perhaps the clearest indication of the Jones Act’s tranquilizing effect on shipbuilding competitiveness.
Analyze the role of Japan and South Korea in U.S. shipbuilding development.
South Korean firms are no strangers to U.S. shipbuilding, having partnered with General Dynamics NASSCO since 2006 and been longtime suppliers of designs and materials for Philly Shipyard. South Korea’s integration into U.S. shipbuilding supply chains is extensive. Veteran class tankers built by the Philly Shipyard, for example, each required approximately 500 containers of material and 25 bulk shipments of larger items from South Korea.
More recently, South Korea has become more directly involved through Hanwha Ocean’s $100 million acquisition of the Philly Shipyard. Hyundai Heavy Industries, meanwhile, has signed memoranda of understanding with Fairbanks Morse Defense, which produces ship engines and components, and Huntington Ingalls Industries, America’s largest military shipbuilder.
Such developments are welcome, but expectations should be tempered by what may be accomplished. Korean ownership and partnerships will not single-handedly produce Korean levels of productivity and efficiency. Without the orderbook to justify significant upgrades and investments, a substantial capabilities gap will persist.
How are Asian shipbuilders responding to the prospects of U.S. demand for their capabilities?
U.S. interest in leveraging the world-class shipbuilding capabilities of its allies has not gone unnoticed in South Korea. Last year, Hanwha Ocean began performing maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) operations on U.S. naval auxiliary vessels. One such operation has been completed, and another is underway. The company is seeking contracts to repair up to six ships this year.
Beyond MRO, Hanwha’s acquisition of the Philly Shipyard is also widely viewed as a means of entering the market for military vessel construction, which is statutorily limited to U.S. shipyards.
Hyundai Heavy Industries, meanwhile, has also signaled its interest in both MRO (seeking contracts for 2-3 repairs this year) and building ships for the U.S. Navy. Although building military vessels overseas currently faces significant legal barriers, President Trump has indicated a willingness to work with Congress to enable the purchase of “top of the line” ships from allied shipyards. If successful, South Korean shipyards appear poised to capitalize.
Assess the viability of U.S. shipbuilding efforts with Asian allies in competing against the scale of China’s shipbuilding capabilities.
National security experts increasingly recognize there is no viable path to addressing the shipbuilding gap between the United States and China that does not involve close cooperation with U.S. allies. U.S. shipyards are too far behind, and the obstacles to an industry turnaround are too great to be quickly remedied. Such cooperation, both through expanded partnerships and the construction of vessels in allied yards, would be mutually beneficial.
By leveraging its allies’ shipbuilding capabilities, the United States can meet its naval and commercial shipping needs more quickly and at lower cost. Allied shipyards, meanwhile, could tap into a new source of demand at a time when Chinese shipyards appear increasingly dominant. Indeed, allowing the use of allied-built commercial vessels could unlock significant latent U.S. demand for domestic water transportation (ships account for just 2 percent of domestic freight movement largely due to inflated capital costs) to help fill allied orderbooks.
Developing such a symbiotic relationship, however, is contingent on addressing daunting political obstacles – namely, the Jones Act and laws prohibiting the construction of military vessels outside the United States. Whether the Trump administration can overcome these laws will go a long way toward determining the scope and scale of allied shipbuilding cooperation.
Authors
Contributing Author
Mercy A. Kuo
Mercy A. Kuo is Senior Contributing Author at The Diplomat.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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