​Quotes of the Day:

"Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control."

– Epictetus

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot."

– Mark Twain

“If you feel pain, you’re alive. If you feel other people’s pain, you’re a human being.”

– Leo Tolstoy

1.Special Forces Does Not Have an Identity Crisis. SOF Has a Special Forces Identity Problem: A Response to Colonel Croot

2. Reimagining Irregular Warfare: The Case for a Modernized OSS 2.0

3. On Russia, Trump Is More of the Same

4. No clear plan for supporting Guam missile defense system, GAO finds

5. Elon Musk is leaving the Trump administration after leading effort to slash federal government

6. Venezuela’s Gray War: A Criminal Army, a Migrant Wave, and the US ‘Invasion’?

7. CIA chief faces stiff test in bid to revitalize human spying

8. Disasters, Conflict, and Myanmar’s Uncertain Future

9. Pentagon Diverts $1 Billion from Army Barracks to Fund Border Mission

10. Navy SEAL Veteran Is First GOP Candidate for Tuberville’s Alabama Senate Seat

11. The Electromagnetic Spectrum for Golden Dome To Succeed

12. Pentagon sunsets Elon Musk's "what did you do last week" email requirement

13. Trump says he believes US is close to reaching a new Iran nuclear deal as he confirms he told Israel not to disrupt the talks

14. Putin’s demands for peace include an end to NATO enlargement, sources say

15. Trump Downplays Prospect of New Sanctions on Russia

16. U.S. Will ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas of Chinese Students, Rubio Says

17. Leadership at the Tip of the Spear – Reflections from SOF Week in Tampa

18. Why Putin Believes He Can Win His 'Civilizational War' Against the West

19. Make Them Fight! If You Want a More Lethal Military, Have Generals Compete in Wargames

20. Bookshelf: Preserving the US technological republic

21. Lessons Learned from Pakistan’s Use of Chinese-Provided Weapons

22. Women in the Ranks, but Not in the Clear

23. China pushes for a new ‘Asian alliance’ as it signs deals with Asean, Gulf states

24. These historians oversee unbiased accounts of U.S. foreign policy. Trump fired them all.

25. As U.S. Retreats on the Global Stage, Is China Winning?

1. Special Forces Does Not Have an Identity Crisis. SOF Has a Special Forces Identity Problem: A Response to Colonel Croot

A very interesting rebuttal to Ed Croot's waar college thesis/JSOU report.

A lot of issues and controversy stemming from Ed's original thesis.  

Three things stand out:

1) Where you stand depends on where you sit. We all have unique views of these issues based on our experiences (and for those not in SF/SSOF - their observations of SF/SOF).

2). Both Ed and Dave are giving their heartfelt analyses to try to make the regiment (SF and SOF writ large) better and neither are afraid to address controversial issues which is to their great credit and should be applauded and hopefully will inspire others.

3) Lastly, I give credit to JSOU for publishing both views. We need these docussions to advance the disclosure and look critically at our profession.

There are other issues in this piece that are very much worth discussing about promotions and assignments as well as the ethical and moral issues.

Special Forces Does Not Have an Identity Crisis. SOF Has a

Special Forces Identity Problem: A Response to Colonel Croot

By Sergeant Major (Retired) David Shell

https://sway.cloud.microsoft/aeBhg5OmLcdQMQx2?accessible=true

JSOU Report 25-11

May 16, 2025

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this work are entirely those of the author and do not

necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of the U.S. Government, Department of

Defense, United States Special Operations Command, or the Joint Special Operations

University.

This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Senior provincial government Jirga-SF engagement; 12-man SF A-Teams are routinely the face of US military efforts in remote regions of

conflict zones. They function as primary advisors to provincial governors, mayors and village chiefs and provides security through

superior firepower coupled with force multiplication. Photo provided by author.

As a former Special Forces (SF) Sergeant Major with a 34-plus-year investment in the SF

Regiment, I frequently peruse professional journals, including monographs published by the

Joint Special Operations University (JSOU). After reading one of these publications, JSOU

Report 24-5 titled There Is an Identity Crisis in Special Forces: Who are the Green Berets

Supposed to Be by Colonel Edward Croot, I felt compelled to respond and express my

disappointment with what I feel to be a number of serious academic shortcomings and one

major bombastic charge.

In the Introduction, Croot states “There is an identity crisis in SF, and it is influencing the

culture and behavior of Green Berets...strong leadership must address the identity crisis now

to restore the morale and honor of the force” (p. 1). Croot’s up-front assertion that the

“morale and honor of the force” need restoration are rhetorical words that lack quantifiable

data and are based solely on claims by the author that SF has ethical failings manifested by

low morale that consequently undermines the SF mission and perpetuates increased

incidents of misconduct. Tying this charge to a study of how soldiers within the SF Regiment

self-identify is tawdry hyperbole used to draw attention to the study and one of many

examples throughout the monograph of lack of overall academic rigor. Both Croot and his

study’s endorsers, Lieutenant General John W. Brennan and Lieutenant General Francis L.

Donovan, acknowledge that the work is controversial but maintain that it’s healthy for the

force to debate these issues. However, it seems unthinkable that these same senior leaders

would champion any suggestion that the Ranger Regiment, Joint Special Operations

Command (JSOC), Marine Special Operations Command, or Naval Special Warfare

Command—considering some very high-profile misconduct incidents within their ranks—

have lost their honor.

Croot addresses SF’s temporary mission adaptations and how they can be disfiguring,

creating “mission drift” that erodes unique capabilities. On page 1, he goes on to say that

over the last two decades, expectations have changed from “peacekeeping operations” in

the late 1990s to counterterrorism (CT) and counterinsurgency (COIN) operations post-9/11,

and then to great power competition with Russia/China circa 2015–2017. In fact,

peacekeeping operations are not a doctrinal SF mission, nor are there examples of SF ever

performing this mission. Furthermore, Croot does not cite proper references to corroborate

his claim; however, the premise figures prominently in his methodology as presented in

Figure 2.1: Research model: 3-legged stool (p. 16).

Croot’s up-front assertion that the “morale and honor of the force”

need restoration are rhetorical words that lack quantifiable data.

Croot argues vehemently that surgical strike is not mission-appropriate for SF, categorizing

direct action (DA) as one of three SF sub-identities to illustrate his identity crisis posit. This

ignores SF’s CT and COIN mission-core competencies that predate 9/11 by decades (i.e.,

Blue Light [1977], commanders in-extremis forces [CIFs, mid 1980s], and COIN since the

advent of SF). Croot goes on to state that “SF can and will support ‘traditional’ warfare

efforts, but once those efforts are complete, SF is expected to return to their primary form

of warfare, ‘irregular’ warfare,” asserting that “‘Resistance’ is the subject of their profession

and what makes SF special” (p. 6). His position begs the question of how SF avoids the

appearance of “mission drift” considering that irregular warfare (IW) is defined as including,

among other activities, the specific missions of unconventional warfare (UW), stability

operations, foreign internal defense (FID), CT, and COIN. (1) The claims that SF suffers

mission drift, considering the depth and breadth of SF’s core competencies, actually

suggests that SF is designed to mission drift based on emergent necessity. To support his

assertion, the colonel subjectively and without evidence portends that the establishment of

Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) was due to “SF mission drift” as if it was an

abrogation of responsibility. SF was in fact directed by United States Special Operations

Command (USSOCOM) to shift focus to the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), and the

establishment of SFABs was a stopgap to ensure we honored our commitments to our

partner nations. In conjunction with that, Croot also claims that “since 1952, this [FID]

mission was the sole domain of the uniquely manned, trained, and equipped Green

Berets” (p. 3); however, major theater command country plans suggest otherwise. The fact is

all branches of service, including federal agencies, have long been involved in training and

working with partner-nations in an impressively broad combined mutual security effort.

The claims that SF suffers mission drift, considering the depth and

breadth of SF’s core competencies, actually suggests that SF is

designed to mission drift based on emergent necessity.

Croot builds his case for an SF identity crisis on the premise of the GWOT being the catalyst.

Spotlighted by him as evidence was the number of survey respondents who expressed

opinions that hostage rescue (24 percent), countering weapons of mass destruction (29

percent), counterproliferation (30 percent), and kill/capture (47 percent) were appropriate SF

activities. In fact, Green Berets responded affirmatively regarding UW (89 percent), FID (88

percent), COIN (77 percent), CT (64 percent), and security force assistance (SFA; 57 percent),

which does demonstrate a solid SF identity and within reasonable proportions considering

the times. Variations are indicative of SF group priorities based on original design that

regionally orients each SF Group. No two regions are alike; the core missions emphasized

within each SF Group reflect those differences. This is why individual SF soldiers, by policy,

move between SF Groups by exception only. Those biases carried over to the GWOT. For

example, if you were a 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) (SFG[A]) team and you had, for

the last couple of decades, spent your time kicking doors, then you would likely gravitate

toward CT- and DA-type operations, which was evident to anyone who worked with them. I

recall one of 3rd Group’s early commanders (1990s) going on the record saying that the

only language 3rd SFG(A) soldiers needed to speak was 5.56. He was applauded for that and

went on to be promoted to brigadier general. This declaration is still a routine part of 3rd

Group’s new personnel in-briefing. 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) (SFG[A]), on the

other hand, are nation-builders and have throughout the GWOT used all of SF’s core

competencies to strengthen alliances and improve defense capabilities wherever they go.

These examples of SF identities are notably pre-9/11. Inconsistencies in survey recipient

responses are to be expected. Clearly, each SF group has a unique subculture e.g., the

number of Hispanics in 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) (SFG[A]). The inherent flaw in

the colonel’s analysis is assessing SF culture as an entity that can be singularly defined.

Croot attempts to use congressional queries directed at SF as further evidence, stating that

“public and congressional questioning of Green Beret activities renders recent Department

of Defense [DoD] decisions to modify Army and SF capacity, and SF’s slow transition from

the [Global War on Terrorism] GWOT leaves the Green Berets unrecognizable” (p. 1). I have

to ask—because his bibliography and references are noticeably weak for a paper of this

depth—what congressional or public questioning of Green Beret activity? The reader should

be able to review this for accuracy.

There is a similar issue with his claim that DoD decisions to modify Army and SF capacity

have left SF unrecognizable. In fact, the referenced DoD decisions pertain primarily to

reducing the size of SF enablers (i.e., PSYOPS and civil affairs), not SF personnel themselves.

While this would impact 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne)’s ability to conduct IW, I

don’t think it’s a constraint that renders Green Berets on the ground unrecognizable

considering their drive and ability to establish and leverage partner-nation capabilities to

meet emergent needs.

The inherent flaw in the colonel’s analysis is assessing SF culture

as an entity that can be singularly defined.

The only significant change in SF that can be attributable here is the standing down of the

CIFs due to what some have labeled as “redundancy and duplicity” within Special

Operations Forces (SOF). This, of course, is in deference to JSOC. JSOC is a highly fluid

organization with a practice of filling key positions throughout United States Army Special

Operations Command (USASOC), to include SF, by seeding the community with people who

identify culturally as other than SF while temporarily filling coveted leadership position

within the SF Regiment. Many of those who fill these leadership positions will likely return to

JSOC at some point, and, if not, will most probably always self-identify as a JSOC auxiliary

member. This would seem to be an obvious stressor on Green Beret identity. If, as Croot

concludes, the identity crisis within SF rests on the shoulders of SF and SOF leadership,

should we end this practice as a means of regaining control of who we are? On this note,

Croot and his cited endorsers are examples of those who have benefited from this practice

—all having successfully rotated in and out of JSOC—indicating a potential cultural bias and

conflict of interest regarding this study.

While I agree with Croot’s conclusion that his data and research indicate that issues with SF

identity reside squarely on the backs of senior SOF leaders, what’s unsaid but well known in

SF is that promotions go overwhelmingly to those with DA- or surgical strike-centric careers.

Soldiers who identify culturally as Green Berets (i.e., those with IW-, FID-, and UW-centric

careers), are noticeably underrepresented in top leadership positions throughout

USSOCOM. In fact, the last seven USSOCOM commanders have all served extensively within

JSOC and the Ranger Regiment. To understand JSOCs preeminence in USSOCOM, one need

no more than look at the distribution of resources to understand how they dominate within

SOF culture and how they precipitate the emergence of subcultures in SF. In fact, the five

Tier-1 units within USSOCOM all fall under the JSOC umbrella. No serious discussion of

remedy to a posited SF identity crisis can be conducted without endorsing the elevation of

Green Berets who professionally self-identify as Green Berets into positions that give them

the influence and the authority to impact and direct SF missions across the globe.

If conduct issues in SF are indicative of an identity crisis, then why

is Croot setting a timeline beginning at 9/11 to make this claim?

A highly questionable part of Croot’s study is his attempt to incorporate instances of “recent

moral-ethical transgressions” (p. 2) within the SF Regiment into a product billed as a study

of identity crisis within SF. It seems evident that this is the pretense of his claim of lost honor

and morale due to identity failings. He cites the ambush of Green Berets in Tongo-Tongo,

Niger (2017) as one example. While the mission was a colossal failure, it does not fit into the

category of misconduct or a moral-ethical transgression. In fact, every SOF unit I know of

has had their share of colossal failures. Most were able to spin them in a way that avoided

public interest or veiled the facts. As an example, it would be misguided to conclude that

JSOC lost its honor after the failure of Operation EAGLE CLAW or Operation GOTHIC

SERPENT, or the SEALs lost their honor after Operation RED WINGS, or the Rangers lost their

honor because of the Pat Tillman fratricide.

A second, and particularly dubious, example cited by the colonel is the murder of Green

Beret Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar in Bamako, Mali (2017). How is it that an SF soldier who

was murdered by two Navy SEALs and two Marines while asleep in his assigned billet is

guilty of a moral-ethical transgression or misconduct? In fact, Staff Sergeant Melgar was

attacked by his assailants out of fear that he would report their misappropriation of official

funds.

Another example used was the November 2019 presidential pardon of two U.S. soldiers and

one U.S. sailor for war crime convictions. Only one of those was a SF soldier, Major Mathew

Golsteyn. Golsteyn’s crime had little to do with an identity crisis or a possible morale issue.

His crime was a very flawed error in judgement where, through manipulation of a detained

person, he thought he created legal legitimacy in his desire to eliminate a person he

perceived as a bona fide threat to his team and the local populace. His subsequent post-

conviction presidential pardon was purely political and cannot be construed as justice. On

the SF side, he was deemed guilty at every level of command up to USASOC. Interestingly,

the U.S. sailor involved, Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher, retained his trident and retired

as a Navy SEAL by the order of President Trump—this was not the case with Golsteyn. In an

official act that preserved the honor of SF, his SF Tab and Silver Star Medal were revoked,

and he was booted from the SF Regiment.

The last of Croot’s misconduct vignettes was the arrest of Master Sergeant Daniel Gould

(7th SFG[A]) and Sergeant First Class Henry Royer (20th Special Forces Group [Airborne]) for

smuggling 90 pounds of cocaine into the U.S. from Columbia in 2018. Three out of four

does not win the point. If conduct issues in SF are indicative of an identity crisis, then why is

Croot setting a timeline beginning at 9/11 to make this claim? There were many serious

conduct issues in the 30 years prior to 9/11 that were discounted in the study’s calculations.

There are contemporary studies on SOF culture and identity, inclusive of SF, that have been

produced at various academic and professional institutions and that were held to a laudably

high academic standard. Two of these products (2) focus their analysis on SOF as an

enterprise, which paints a more accurate picture of cultural and identity issues within

USSOCOM as a whole and is the best approach to answering questions about the identity of

any of the elements within. In contrast, Croot’s study routinely blurs the line between SF and

SOF while purporting to be focused exclusively on the question of SF’s identity.

I close by expressing my disappointment in JSOU’s judgement in publishing this study. This

rebuttal highlights the most egregious, but not all the study’s flaws, assumptions, and

outright stretches, which should have been properly addressed by project overseers,

academic advisors, reviewers, and endorsers. However, they weren’t (3), which leaves us with

a distortion of the SF Regiment and an unwarranted and irresponsible declaration of a stain

on the regiment’s honor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Retired Sergent Major David M. Shell served in Signal Company, 5th Special Forces Group

(Airborne) from 1982 to 1984 and in 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) from 1984 to 2010

with interim tours as a Special Forces Qualification Course instructor (1988–1991) and

Noncommissioned Officer in-charge (NCOIC) of International Training at Special Operations

Command – Pacific (1999–2002). His Operational Detachment-Alpha (ODA) time includes

ODA-121 (Scout Swim); ODA-124/126 (HALO); ODA-135 (Combat Dive); ODA-134 (Regional

Survey); Team Sergeant – ODA-183 (Scout Swim); and Team Sergeant – ODA-165 (Advanced

Special Operations). Shell also served as Signal Detachment NCOIC, 1st Bn,1st SFG(A); First

Sergeant, 3rd Bn, 1st SFG(A); Maritime Operations Facility Director/Diving Officer, 1st SFG(A);

Operations Sergeant Major, 2nd Bn, 1st SFG(A); Special Operations Task Force 2/1 SGM; and

Special Project Sergeant Major, 1st SFG(A). Conflict zone tours include Afghanistan, Nepal,

Southern Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Mindanao (Republic of the Philippines). He served in India

as the Operations Officer – Pacific Situational Awareness Team on two occasions, including

the India-Pakistan nuclear crisis of 2002. After military retirement, Shell continued to serve

the SOF community in contractor roles, such as a maritime operations technician with 1st

SFG(A), a surveillance team leader at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School of Advanced

Special Operations Techniques, and a resume writer with the USSOCOM’s Wounded Warrior

Program. Shell is the recipient of the Special Forces Association Saint Philip Neri Award

(Bronze) and is a Center for Army Lessons Learned Distinguished Author (project team lead/

writer/editor of Appendix C – Population and Resource Control to FMI 3-07.22 –

Counterinsurgency Operations).

NOTES

1. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Irregular Warfare: Countering Irregular Threats, Joint Operating

Concept (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2010), https://www.jcs.mil/portals/36/documents/

doctrine/concepts/joc_iw_v2.pdf?ver=2017-12-28-162021-510

2. Seth A Buckley’s 2021 Naval Postgraduate School Thesis – Undermined, Overused, and

Mission Obsessed: An Analysis of the Erosion of Ethics and the Proliferation of Combat

Culture in Special Operations Forces: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/trecms/pdf/AD1150876.pdf;

United States Special Operations Command Comprehensive Review–23 January 2020

https://sof.news/pubs/USSOCOM-Comprehensive-Ethics-Review-Report-

January-2020.pdf

3. Editor’s note: JSOU Press realized that Col. Croot's book would be controversial. We even

solicited feedback via an author’s note (p. 65) to support academic discourse about this

topic and continue to welcome feedback. Croot participated in a Fireside Chat with JSOU in

February 2025 to discuss his research and book in more detail. Please visit ThinkJSOU on

YouTube to view. Part 1 link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8dnXO9CxOg. Part 2

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr7kbzekefM

2. Reimagining Irregular Warfare: The Case for a Modernized OSS 2.0

​Where you stand depends on where you sit. A former CIA officer has one view, an SF officer has another view.

I have a third view:

Seizing the Initiative in the Gray Zone: The Case for a US Office of Strategic Disruption

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/seizing-the-initiative-in-the-gray-zone-the-case-for-a-us-office-of-strategic-disruption/

But the bottom line (at least for me and Doug Livermore) is that we need to learn from the OSS and adapt what it did well for the 21st Century.

And for any proposals to work in various forms it needs two ingredients that existed at the time of World War II: a president who wanted and supported the development of the capability and a radical but strategic thinker to establish and execute it.

Reimagining Irregular Warfare: The Case for a Modernized OSS 2.0 - Foreign Policy Research Institute

fpri.org · by Doug Livermore

A rebuttal to J.R. Seeger’s “A New Office of Strategic Services?” published by FPRI in May 2025.

A recent piece in the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) penned by a retired Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer argues against proposals to revive the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) model for today’s strategic competition environment. In the piece, the author argues: “Reviving the OSS would add additional bureaucracy without any additional capability and could easily risk intelligence fratricide at a time when the United States needs more focus rather than more capability.” As the co-author of one of the critiqued proposals, I am compelled to note that this argument ignores two fundamental advantages of reviving an OSS 2.0 construct.

First, the assumption is invalid that any updated OSS proposal requires creating more redundant capabilities or excessive additional bureaucracy, rather than simply streamlining existing resources, eliminating redundant capabilities and functions, and breaking down organizational barriers between agencies with identical authorities but different cultures. Secondly, there is no acknowledgement of the very real operational fratricide that is already occurring today because of competing interests between organizations vying for missions and resources in an era of increasing government efficiency. The paralysis this interagency competition causes costs us opportunities that we could better realize through a unitary irregular warfare department under the Department of Defense (DoD).

The Real Opportunity: Streamlining Existing Resources

A modern OSS 2.0 would not require creating entirely new structures from scratch. Instead, it would consolidate and optimize existing resources that are currently fragmented across multiple agencies under the purview of the “Department for Special Operations and Irregular Warfare” (DSOIW), created by redesignating and hyper empowering the DoD’s existing Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. This is especially critical as recent reports indicate the CIA is planning to cut 1,200 positions over the next several years, even as the Trump administration requests a historic $1 trillion budget for the DoD.

Given this stark resource disparity and diverging priorities, we face a clear choice: continue with fragmented irregular warfare capabilities split between a shrinking CIA and an expanding DoD or create a more unified approach that eliminates redundancies and maximizes operational effectiveness. Keeping the smaller, shrinking organization as the lead for these efforts threatens limiting and potentially choking off these critical activities just as they are needed most.

Identical Authorities, Broader Capabilities

Both the DoD’s U.S Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the CIA’s Special Activities Center possess many overlapping and complementary functional capabilities, with both also having the ability to leverage Title 50 authorities to conduct irregular warfare activities. These authorities and capabilities extend beyond kinetic paramilitary activities, such as those made famous in the 2011 raid into Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, to include psychological operations, information warfare, and political influence campaigns—areas where DoD has historically relied almost exclusively on its Title 10 (“Armed Forces”) authorities to enable sensitive operations supporting “traditional military activities” that nonetheless far exceed the scope and scale of those conducted by its interagency counterparts.

As I argued in my 2019 Military Times article, “transferring primary responsibility for paramilitary activities from the CIA to Defense Department would simply be a recognition that the majority interest in and capacity for paramilitary activities resides in the Defense Department [with USSOCOM executing].” While such a move would require the assertion of more robust oversight of these USSOCOM activities through existing DoD structures, this would also resolve longstanding congressional concerns that go back decades.

This principle applies equally to the full spectrum of irregular warfare activities. DoD’s Military Information Support Operations (MISO) teams, cyber warfare units, and strategic communications capabilities represent a formidable information-centric arsenal that could be more effectively leveraged in a unified irregular warfare structure under a broader application of the DoD’s Title 50 (“War and National Defense”) authorities. These capabilities, coupled with USSOCOM’s robust operational infrastructure, provide a comprehensive toolkit for influence activities that complement traditional paramilitary operations.

Executive Order 13470 already established the process for assigning covert action responsibility to agencies other than the CIA when “another agency is more likely to achieve a particular objective.” This order already identifies the DoD as the lead for covert action “in time of war declared by the Congress or during any period covered by a report from the President to the Congress consistent with the War Powers Resolution.” And there is precedence for such an arrangement, such as during the Vietnam War when, dissatisfied with the CIA’s performance, President John F. Kennedy transferred primary responsibility for covert action against communist North Vietnam to the DoD. Given USSOCOM’s robust global access and placement, larger personnel reserves, superior technical infrastructure, and significantly greater budgetary resources, it is increasingly clear which organization is better positioned to lead the full range of irregular warfare efforts in today’s strategic environment.

The Global Placement and Capabilities Advantage

USSOCOM has unmatched global access and placement through its network of forward-deployed operators working with partner forces worldwide. These established relationships provide an invaluable foundation for irregular warfare activities without the need to build separate networks or capabilities. A modernized OSS 2.0 structure would leverage this existing infrastructure rather than duplicating efforts.

Human intelligence collection and liaison relationships are critical to the conduct of effective irregular warfare, and the Department of Defense already maintains its own parallel and extensive intelligence networks across the globe. These efforts are spearheaded by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which specifically focuses on foreign military intelligence and could be more effectively leveraged within a unified irregular warfare framework reporting to DSOIW. However, as a key advisor to the Department of State’s deployed chiefs of mission (or ambassadors), the CIA maintains virtual veto authority over any proposed DoD intelligence and many of its Title 10 irregular warfare activities overseas. The arrangement oftentimes creates tensions driven by divergent organizational interests.

Information Dominance in the Digital Age

Beyond traditional paramilitary operations, today’s irregular warfare landscape demands sophisticated cyber, information, and psychological operations capabilities where DoD has made substantial investments. Of the 18 organizations in the intelligence community, nine fall under the direct purview of the DoD and many focus on those required capabilities. MISO teams, U.S. Cyber Command elements, and strategic communications specialists throughout Defense Intelligence Enterprise (DIE) represent a formidable irregular warfare capability that dwarfs similar resources within the non-DoD intelligence community, including at the CIA.

In an era where influence campaigns, cyber operations, counter-disinformation efforts, and strategic narratives are increasingly decisive in strategic competition, these capabilities must be fully integrated with other irregular warfare tools. Under a unified DSOIW structure, these complementary capabilities could be better synchronized for maximum strategic effect, rather than operating in separate organizational silos with limited coordination.

Efficiency in the Era of Great-Power Competition

Today’s strategic competition with near-peer adversaries requires coherent, efficient application of irregular warfare capabilities. The current bifurcated approach between CIA and DoD creates significant operational inefficiencies that undermine our national security interests. Our intelligence community and special operations forces face duplicative reporting chains that produce redundant intelligence products and congressional oversight, often at considerable taxpayer expense. This unnecessary duplication extends to operational costs as well, with parallel capabilities often maintained across agency boundaries despite serving nearly identical functions.

Perhaps most concerning is how the current structure leads to competing priorities and objectives between agencies engaged in irregular warfare activities. In my own dealings with the congressional intelligence committees, I found that different organizations often briefed the same operations with no mention of other organizations that supported, causing confusion and frustration amongst those elected members charged with overseeing and funding our irregular warfare efforts. This fierce competition for limited resources and attention can compromise operational effectiveness and strategic coherence. Additionally, our limited pool of specialized personnel—individuals with rare skill sets and extensive experience—are inefficiently allocated across multiple organizations rather than being concentrated where they can have maximum impact.

The proposed DSOIW offers a clear solution to these systemic problems. By redesignating and empowering the current Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, we would establish proper unitary organizational authority and accountability. This new department would serve as the lead agency for all irregular warfare efforts, eliminating jurisdictional disputes and ensuring unity of effort across the full spectrum of activities and operations.

A Budget Reality Check

The Trump administration’s announcement of a $1 trillion defense budget stands in stark contrast to the CIA’s planned workforce reductions. This dramatic resource disparity makes the case for consolidation even more compelling. Why maintain separate, overlapping irregular warfare capabilities when we could optimize resources under a unified command structure? This move would also unburden the CIA of responsibilities always seen as secondary, allowing the spy organization to refocus on its primary mission: gathering information, generating exceptional analysis, and providing critical strategic insights to national decision-makers.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently stated, “President Trump is rebuilding our military—and fast,” while pledging that taxpayer dollars would be spent “wisely, on lethality and readiness.” A modernized OSS 2.0 structure within DSOIW would ensure that irregular warfare capabilities receive appropriate resources while eliminating wasteful redundancies between agencies.

Conclusion: The Path Forward

As we prepare for a new era of strategic competition, we must move beyond institutional turf battles and optimize our irregular warfare capabilities. The proposed OSS 2.0 concept is not about creating something new, but rather about breaking down unnecessary barriers between existing capabilities to create a more efficient and effective approach to irregular warfare. Moreover, the establishment of a single entity fully responsible for and empowered to expand such activities would give Trump a more powerful weapon akin to that wielded by President Franklin Roosevelt in Gen. William “Wild Bill” Donovan’s original OSS during the Second World War.

The timing could not be more appropriate. With CIA resources diminishing while DoD funding reaches historic highs, we face a clear opportunity to streamline our irregular warfare capabilities under a unified structure. Rather than seeing this as a threat to agency prerogatives, we should recognize it as an opportunity to better serve our national security interests in an increasingly complex and dangerous global environment.

Doug Livermore

Doug Livermore is a Special Forces soldier with over two decades of national security experience at tactical, operational, strategic, and policymaking levels.

The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent official US Government, Department of Defense, or Department of the Army positions.

Image Credit: US Army photo by Sgt. Eli Baker

fpri.org · by Doug Livermore

3. On Russia, Trump Is More of the Same

​But are President Trump and all the president's to blame? Or is it because of Putin? 

​Nearly the same case can be made for north Korea (though President Trump did something in 2018-2019 with Kim that no president has previously tried - and it did not work). 

Why do the press and pundits want to blame our presidents? They are not the bad guys. It is the existence of Putin in power that is the problem (and Kim as well). We have to deal with these problems as they really are and not as we would wish them to be.

On Russia, Trump Is More of the Same

His Moscow overtures are little different from those of Bush, Clinton, Biden and Obama. All failed.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/on-russia-trump-is-more-of-the-same-065f2672

By Seth Cropsey and Harry Halem

May 28, 2025 3:23 pm ET

Illustration: David Gothard

Critics and fans alike treat President Trump’s Russia policy as revolutionary: His outreach to Moscow despite Russia’s war of conquest against Ukraine is either a betrayal of American values or a cold-blooded, brilliant attempt at geopolitical realignment against China. In reality, it’s a thoroughly conventional policy, in line with every U.S. administration’s approach since 1989. Like the rest, it will fail—unless Mr. Trump tries something truly radical.

The Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 presented a unique opportunity to check Moscow’s revanchism. With vast territorial reserves and a centralized, militaristic society, Russia had preyed on Europe for centuries. In the 20th century alone, Moscow gobbled up the Baltic states, Belarus and Ukraine and extended its dominion to eastern Germany. World War II left Europe—without America until the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s founding in 1949—too weak to respond.

German reunification and the Soviet implosion drove Russia back onto the Eurasian steppe and resurrected Eastern Europe’s smaller states—including Poland, the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine and the Black Sea powers. With Moscow weak and German expansion no longer a threat, it suddenly became possible to build a coherent European security system to block Russian conquest. This would have been workable if it fully integrated Poland and Ukraine—the only nations between Germany and Russia large enough to field major militaries.

From 1989 on, successive White Houses took the opposite approach. Presidents preferred reaching out to Russia over cultivating European strategic balance. As the Soviet Union came apart, George H.W. Bush’s administration desperately sought to prop up Mikhail Gorbachev. The Bush team rebuffed Ukrainian outreach seeing petty nationalism as a greater concern than re-emergent Russian power.

Bill Clinton, too, ultimately made Moscow a priority. His White House considered creating a pseudo-preferential role for Russia in European security structures through overlapping treaty arrangements, and it strong-armed Ukraine into surrendering its nuclear weapons with no formal security guarantees or real financial support.

George W. Bush initially broke this pattern, hoping to defuse antagonism with Russia through strength. The White House immediately assigned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to gain Russia’s acquiescence to new U.S. ballistic-missile defenses, a potential challenge to Moscow even in 2001. But then the Sept. 11 attacks reverted American policy to its post-Cold War norm of Russia outreach. America got some access to Central Asian bases in former Soviet states but little long-term goodwill or tangible cooperation, especially after the Iraq war.

Barack Obama and his administration were fixated on a “reset” with Moscow—with only marginal results for European security. In his notorious March 2012 hot-mic incident, Mr. Obama told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility,” particularly on missile defense, after reelection. Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine forced the administration to scale back its reset plans. Still, Mr. Obama allowed France and Germany to compartmentalize the Ukraine issue and maintain economic ties with Russia despite its violations of a democratic nation’s sovereignty.

Joe Biden’s administration also sought the elusive Russian reset, organizing a summit with Vladimir Putin six months after Inauguration Day—and seven months before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Against this background, the second Trump administration’s Moscow outreach looks far from radical—and bound to fail. The only question is whether Mr. Trump will prove he is a disrupter after all and do in Ukraine negotiations what no post-1989 president has managed: confront and defeat Russia.

Mr. Trump can’t achieve a peace deal under the current talks format. He has blown through two self-imposed deadlines—first that he’d end the war on day one and then within his first 100 days. Ukraine has proved itself a tough, spirited interlocutor. But Kyiv has carefully given the Trump administration what its wants: acquiescence to negotiations. Ukraine’s only demand is that negotiations begin with a cease-fire and have no preconditions.

Russia, by contrast, has sought to bind the U.S. in open-ended talks. Moscow is trying to shift the subject of negotiation to broader European security architecture and has insisted through intransigence that Ukraine must capitulate, not negotiate. Perhaps the Trump administration, eager to make a deal of any kind. would be amenable to that. But the White House has realized that it can’t coerce Kyiv into a peace deal that amounts to surrender without causing an irreconcilable rupture with Europe and undermining American relationships with Asian partners.

The only route forward is to impose enough of a cost on Russia to bring Moscow to the table. That would be a sharp break from recent history. Even under the Biden administration, which after February 2022 pursued the most confrontational policy toward Moscow since 1989, the U.S. hesitated to provide Ukraine with advanced military equipment for fear of provoking Russian “escalation.” This approach condemned tens of thousands of Ukrainians to death and it has prevented Ukraine from posing the sort of offensive threat that could force Moscow to talks.

It will take more than sanctions, which work too slowly, to force Russia to the table. A truly revolutionary policy would require that Washington give Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states priority over Russia. Such a policy would commit U.S.-led military staffs, intelligence and other support assets to a European-led military deployment on Ukrainian soil.

This would guarantee Ukraine’s sovereign independence and alignment with the West because it would create a red line for Moscow. It would make clear that Washington would meet further Russian military action with a full suite of U.S. military transfers to Ukrainian forces and actively support Ukrainian attacks inside Russia. There would be no slow-rolling of F-16s or Himars. The might of America’s military materiel would rain down. Washington would also escalate intelligence activity against Russian spies in Europe and apply sanctions and intelligence pressure to Georgia, Belarus and even within Russia if Moscow doesn’t negotiate in good faith.

Mr. Trump was right when he said Mr. Putin has been “just tapping me along.” The only answer is effective deterrence—or history, with its many failures, will repeat itself.

Mr. Cropsey is president of Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as a deputy undersecretary of the Navy and is author of “Mayday” and “Seablindness.” Mr. Halem is a senior fellow at Yorktown.

How are you, Mr. President?

0 of 5 minutes, 6 secondsVolume 0%

03:59

00:0105:06

Free Expression: After a meeting at the Vatican, Donald Trump toughens his rhetoric toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Appeared in the May 29, 2025, print edition as 'On Russia, Trump Is More of the Same'.

4. No clear plan for supporting Guam missile defense system, GAO finds

​Not a good sign. I would argue that Theater Missile Defense and integrated missile defense with our allies is the most important capability that will provide the US and allies with the strategic agility to address contingencies and defend interests in Indio-Pacom. Missile defense (along with cyber defense and offense) must be a top priority if we are going to deter war and fight and win when deterrence fails.

The full GAO report can be accessed here: https://files.gao.gov/reports/GAO-25-108187/index.html

No clear plan for supporting Guam missile defense system, GAO finds

Defense News · by Jen Judson · May 28, 2025

The Defense Department has yet to develop a clear strategy to guide the construction, deployment and long-term management of the missile defense architecture it is building on Guam, the Government Accountability Office has determined.

The office is concerned that without such a plan, the effort risks cost and schedule overruns and an infrastructure unready to accommodate the additional personnel required to operate the defensive shield.

In a report released May 22, the government watchdog notes that while the Pentagon has set up organizations to manage the Guam Defense System and has now designated lead services for sustaining and operating it, there is no strategy to transfer responsibilities from the Missile Defense Agency to the various service leads.

“As a result, DOD risks schedule delays for the deployment of GDS [Guam Defense System] elements and incomplete plans for organization, training, personnel levels, and facilities, among other things,” the report states.

The Army, which is leading the effort to establish the system on the strategic island in the Pacific, also faces hurdles to advocate for construction and installation support from the other military services well-established on Guam.

And the Defense Department has yet to come up with firm numbers for personnel required to operate and sustain the system and estimates of when they might arrive, according to the report.

“Without clear personnel requirements or deployment schedules, the services will not be able to adequately plan for necessary support systems, which will reduce service personnel readiness and may exacerbate existing infrastructure,” the watchdog states.

At the end of 2023, the Pentagon pointed to 2024 as critical for establishing the planned missile defense architecture on Guam. As the threat from China continues to grow, DOD pledged to deliver a foundational capability to help stave off a potential attack directed at Guam by the end of 2024. That schedule is already slipping.

Guam is an island of nearly 170,000 people that sits in a vulnerable position — it is closer to Beijing than it is to Hawaii. The island plays host to a significant amount of U.S. combat power and would therefore be an attractive target for China in the event of a war in the Taiwan Strait.

The Missile Defense Agency and the Army sought a combined $1.5 billion in the fiscal 2024 budget to begin preparing the island by moving assets into place and integrating capabilities.

The Pentagon designated the Army in 2023 as the lead service overseeing the acquisition and execution plan for defending Guam.

Competing for resources

The current plan, according to the report, is to distribute elements of the architecture across 16 sites on the island and establish a Guam command center. The Pentagon is planning for its first deployment to begin in fiscal 2027, with final GDS elements coming in fiscal 2032.

The architecture is a tall order, considering the Army’s previous experience establishing a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system on Guam in 2013.

The THAAD battery, known as Task Force Talon, was first deployed as expeditionary but became permanently stationed in June 2016 to defend against possible ballistic missile threats from North Korea.

Over a decade later, the report points out that the Army does not have sufficient installation support for the THAAD battery and has had trouble getting approvals from the Navy for construction to support the system. The Army’s status on the island leaves it without its own construction planners, forcing it to rely on other services.

For example, GAO reports that the THAAD unit did not receive approval to start environmental work until January 2024 to construct a temporary maintenance facility for equipment after a typhoon hit the island in May 2023.

GAO previously reported Guam’s limited housing is a concern as the Marines build up a presence there, and the Air Force and Navy both have construction priorities for their own bases that could compete for resources needed for the missile defense system’s establishment. (LCpl. Garrett Gillespie/U.S. Marine Corps)

The unit also has limited storage space for parts and has to leave some parts outside unprotected, resulting in continuous corrosion issues.

And austere conditions have resulted in “morale challenges,” GAO found. The THAAD unit had just installed a latrine with running water and an ice machine in 2023. There is still no drinkable water at the location.

The Army is going to require a much larger number of facilities to support the new missile defense architecture and wants to “make Guam a duty station of choice,” the report states.

The Army will continue to have to rely on installation support from the other services because it won’t be establishing its own base on the island, GAO said.

“The Army will likely face challenges in advocating for construction priorities and coordinating installation support across multiple locations.”

At the same time, the Pentagon is looking to move personnel to the island for the missile defense system. The Marine Corps is also relocating 1,700 Marines from Okinawa, Japan, to Guam. The plan is to move them all by 2029, the report notes.

The agency previously reported Guam’s limited housing is a concern as the Marines build up a presence there, and the Air Force and Navy both have construction priorities for their own bases that could compete for resources needed for the missile defense system’s establishment.

The Pentagon also struggled to determine which service would be responsible for operating and sustaining which elements of the Guam architecture. GAO indicated there were some internal disputes over the division of responsibilities for various aspects of the system.

Determining density

Despite the deputy secretary of defense directing the Army in June 2023 to determine how many personnel would be required for GDS within 120 days, the service did not complete the task and still had not produced a number by August 2024, according to the report.

The Army told GAO it was waiting for the Pentagon to decide the lead organizations for operations and sustainment before determining personnel levels, facility needs and training plans.

The Pentagon has also not established a timeline for transferring responsibility, according to the report.

“DOD has proposed multiple military services to manage GDS, which makes developing a plan for operating and sustaining GDS particularly challenging,” the report states. “Specifically, DOD officials told us that this missile defense program will be the department’s largest and most complicated, presenting communication and planning challenges among the various DOD stakeholders.”

Without some prediction of personnel that will flow onto the island over what timeline, the Pentagon faces the prospect of “deploying personnel to Guam without adequate facilities or installation support services in place, including security of sites, fire protection and emergency management at bases operated by three different military services in Guam,” according to the report.

Some estimates state there will be a need for roughly 913 Army personnel in Guam by fiscal 2028, while another calculates a possible growth of 4,464 personnel by the same year.

Overall, the island’s population is estimated to grow from 17,917 personnel and dependents to 26,605 by fiscal 2034.

In its report, GAO recommends that the Pentagon develop a strategy with a timeline for transferring responsibilities to lead organizations and services for the various elements of the architecture.

The Army should also develop a “long-term strategy” for its organization as a supported command on the island.

And the defense secretary should determine personnel requirements needed for the architecture “to allow sufficient time for completing construction of necessary support facilities on Guam,” the report states.

About Jen Judson

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

5. Elon Musk is leaving the Trump administration after leading effort to slash federal government

​And two articles follow asking if DOGE is dead and why DOGE failed.

I am reminded of a lesson I learned as far back as OCS and the Basic and Advanced courses. If you want to deviate from doctrine you must first know the doctrine. The lesson here is that if you want to fix the government you must first know how it works and it is obvious none of the DOGE wiz kids know how the government works, much less how a federal democratic republic functions. Of course my assumption that they wanted to fix the government may be wrong. It could be their only function was to break the government - tear it down so it could be rebuilt. That may be okay but they need to remember that the fundamental blueprint for our government remains the Constitution which is why every government official must take the oath to support and defend the Constitution. Did the DOGE wiz kids ever have to take such an oath? If so, did they understand the enormity of that responsibility?

Elon Musk is leaving the Trump administration after leading effort to slash federal government

By  CHRIS MEGERIAN

Updated 10:30 PM EDT, May 28, 2025

AP · May 28, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk is leaving his government role as a top adviser to President Donald Trump after spearheading efforts to reduce and overhaul the federal bureaucracy.

His departure, announced Wednesday evening, marks the end of a turbulent chapter that included thousands of layoffs, the evisceration of government agencies and reams of litigation. Despite the upheaval, the billionaire entrepreneur struggled in the unfamiliar environment of Washington, and he accomplished far less than he hoped.

He dramatically reduced his target for cutting spending — from $2 trillion to $1 trillion to $150 billion — and increasingly expressed frustration about resistance to his goals. Sometimes he clashed with other top members of Trump’s administration, who chafed at the newcomer’s efforts to reshape their departments, and he faced fierce political blowback for his efforts.

Musk’s role working for Trump was always intended to be temporary, and he had recently signaled that he would be shifting his attention back to running his businesses, such as the electric automaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.

But administration officials were often vague about when Musk would step back from his position spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, and he abruptly revealed that he was leaving in a post on X, his social media website.

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” he wrote. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

A White House official, who requested anonymity to talk about the change, confirmed Musk’s departure.

Musk announced his decision one day after CBS released part of an interview in which he criticized the centerpiece of Trump’s legislative agenda by saying he was “disappointed” by what the president calls his “big beautiful bill.”

The legislation includes a mix of tax cuts and enhanced immigration enforcement. Musk described it as a “massive spending bill” that increases the federal deficit and “undermines the work” of his Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.

“I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful,” Musk said. “But I don’t know if it could be both.”

Trump, speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday, defended his agenda by talking about the delicate politics involved with negotiating the legislation.

“I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it,” he said.

Trump also suggested that more changes could be made.

“We’re going to see what happens,” he said. “It’s got a way to go.”

AP AUDIO: Elon Musk criticizes Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ a fracture in a key relationship

AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports on Elon Musk criticizing President Trump’s legislative centerpiece.

Republicans recently pushed the measure through the House and are debating it in the Senate.

Musk’s concerns are shared by some Republican lawmakers. “I sympathize with Elon being discouraged,” said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.

Speaking at a Milwaukee Press Club event on Wednesday, Johnson added that he was “pretty confident” there was enough opposition “to slow this process down until the president, our leadership, gets serious” about reducing spending. He said there was no amount of pressure Trump could put on him to change his position.

Speaker Mike Johnson has asked senators to make as few changes to the legislation as possible, saying that House Republicans reached a “very delicate balance” that could be upended with major changes. The narrowly divided House will have to vote again on final passage once the Senate alters the bill.

On Wednesday, Johnson thanked Musk for his work and promised to pursue more spending cuts in the future, saying “the House is eager and ready to act on DOGE’s findings.”

The White House is sending some proposed rescissions, a mechanism used to cancel previously authorized spending, to Capitol Hill to solidify some of DOGE’s cuts. A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said the package will include $1.1 billion from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, and $8.3 billion in foreign assistance.

Musk occasionally seemed chastened by his experience working in government.

“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,” he told The Washington Post. “I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.”

He also recently said that he’ll reduce his political spending, because “I think I’ve done enough.”

Musk had previously been energized by the opportunity to reshape Washington. After putting at least $250 million behind Trump’s candidacy, he wore campaign hats in the White House, held his own campaign rallies, and talked about excessive spending as an existential crisis. He often tended to be effusive in his praise of Trump.

“The more I’ve gotten to know President Trump, the more I like the guy,” Musk said in February. “Frankly, I love him.”

Trump repaid the favor, describing Musk as “a truly great American.” When Tesla faced declining sales, he turned the White House driveway into a makeshift showroom to illustrate his support.

It’s unclear what, if any, impact that Musk’s comments about the bill would have on the legislative debate, especially given his departure from the administration. During the transition period, when his influence was on the rise, he helped whip up opposition to a spending measure as the country stood on the brink of a federal government shutdown.

His latest criticism could embolden Republicans who want bigger spending cuts. Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee reposted a Fox News story about Musk’s interview while also adding his own take on the measure, saying there was “still time to fix it.”

“The Senate version will be more aggressive,” Lee said. “It can, it must, and it will be. Or it won’t pass.”

Only two Republicans — Reps. Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — voted against the bill when the House took up the measure last week.

Davidson took note of Musk’s comments on social media.

“Hopefully, the Senate will succeed with the Big Beautiful Bill where the House missed the moment,” he wrote. “Don’t hope someone else will cut deficits someday, know it has been done this Congress.”

The Congressional Budget Office, in a preliminary estimate, said the tax provisions would increase federal deficits by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would reduce spending by slightly more than $1 trillion over the same period.

House Republican leaders say increased economic growth would allow the bill to be deficit-neutral or deficit-reducing, but outside watchdogs are skeptical. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the bill would add $3 trillion to the debt, including interest, over the next decade.

___ Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Milwaukee, and Kevin Freking, Lisa Mascaro and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

AP · May 28, 2025

Is DOGE Dead?

The world’s richest man is back to ‘spending 24/7’ at his old jobs, but left behind devotees who are accumulating power and influence.

By Gabe Kaminsky

05.28.25 — U.S. Politics

https://www.thefp.com/p/is-doge-dead-elon-musk-steve-bannon

“Musk made himself a total pariah,” Steve Bannon told The Free Press. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Elon Musk was back at SpaceX this week, planning to update the world about the company’s plans “to make life multiplanetary” right after launching the latest test flight of its Starship rocket. The update was canceled after the rocket spun out of control, but at least it didn’t explode after liftoff like SpaceX’s last two flights. Notwithstanding the two failed launches, Musk is back to doing what he does best.

But now that the world’s richest man has returned to a mission he had long before Donald Trump tapped him to lead DOGE, what will become of the bureaucracy-hunting, cost-cutting attack dog that Musk unleashed on the federal government?

Musk, who said this week he is back to “spending 24/7 at work” for X, xAI, Tesla, and SpaceX and “sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms,” might find more success in his quest to reach Mars than he did as the leader of DOGE. His exit followed a chaotic five months that spurred a conveyor belt of legal challenges and resistance from top Trump officials, as well as pushback from Republicans to what looked like DOGE’s inflated estimates of how much in federal spending it helped cut. DOGE’s website puts the total at $175 billion, but outside budget experts and some conservative critics have said the actual savings are much smaller due to DOGE overcounting grants and contracts awarded by the government.

“Musk made himself a total pariah,” Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist in Trump’s first White House, told The Free Press. “He had access, admiration, unlimited resources—and by his own actions toward people, blew it all.”

On Wednesday night, Musk thanked the president in a post on X and wrote that DOGE’s mission “will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

While Musk is gone, he is leaving behind dozens of DOGE staffers that he helped install at federal agencies across the bureaucracy to cut the waste, fraud, and abuse that Musk said was rampant. They have backgrounds in software engineering, human resources, law, finance, and real estate. Many are young and had no prior government experience.

Most importantly, many of these staffers have begun to accumulate power and influence that they believe will help them keep the mission of DOGE alive. “DOGE as a construct has now gone from this specialized task force that shocked the system into something else, with most of the key policy people embedded at the agencies,” a senior DOGE official said.

While early on DOGE was mostly working across agencies as “landing teams,” it soon became clear that some of the people on Musk’s team should convert to political appointees to have broader authority, the DOGE official added. For example, lawyer Jeremy Lewin, who reported to Musk and was assigned to various agencies, now reports to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Lewin, 28, also is acting director of the agency’s Office of Foreign Assistance and is helping dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development as its acting deputy administrator for policy and programs.

Other DOGE staffers joined Musk’s team as unpaid volunteers. And some paid DOGE employees who reported to Musk are now embedded at agencies such as the General Services Administration, which oversees federal contracts; the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources agency; and the U.S. Digital Service, temporarily renamed by Trump as the U.S. DOGE Service, to work on software and IT modernization.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told The Free Press that DOGE’s mission to cut waste, fraud, and abuse “will surely continue” and that employees from DOGE “who onboarded at their respective agencies will continue to work with President Trump’s cabinet to make our government more efficient.”

But perhaps the biggest challenge that DOGE faces is overcoming the chaos caused by its unconventional tactics that had strained its relationships with Trump administration officials. A painful “inflection point,” described one senior DOGE official, was when the directors of some federal agencies told their employees to ignore Musk’s directive in February to email what they did the last week at work—partly out of concerns that the emails could result in the accidental sharing of classified materials.

The resistance “was a moment of realignment,” the DOGE official said. “There was then kind of a shift in thinking where we were working in lockstep with the cabinet secretaries on everything—and there’s no going around that.”

However, the feuding never stopped, and it remains to be seen if the post-Musk DOGE can overcome Musk’s infighting with Trump’s inner circle. In March, Musk criticized Rubio in a tense meeting for supposedly failing to fire enough employees, and Musk accused Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy of continuing to employ officials tied to President Joe Biden’s diversity, equity, and inclusion push. In April, Musk got into a shouting match in the West Wing with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over who should lead the IRS. Musk reportedly called Bessent a “Soros agent” because he worked at an investment firm founded by Democratic megadonor George Soros.

Former DOGE official Sahil Lavingia wrote on his personal website Wednesday that Trump’s agency chiefs “were wise to let DOGE act as the ‘fall guy’ for unpopular decisions.” As the public saw news report after news report detailing “mass firings that seemed cruel and heartless,” many assumed that “DOGE was directly responsible.”

Meanwhile, DOGE’s website is still riddled with omissions that make it nearly impossible for the public to track its work. The website also contains whopping errors, such as its claim that DOGE cut a $1.9 billion IRS contract that was canceled by Biden last fall.

“We received the message on the website,” one DOGE official told The Free Press. DOGE is “trying to do a better job” of showcasing its work and is planning to revamp the website.

Musk also left behind a new fight that is now underway in Congress over codifying DOGE’s spending cuts. Since any spending cuts made by DOGE are for funding that was initially appropriated by Congress, members of the House and Senate need to vote to rescind them for those savings to be final.

“You may be able to cancel spending on a particular grant or contract or building, but you don’t actually realize the savings of doing so until you go to Congress and they agree to rescind the funds that they provided,” said Devin O’Connor, a senior fellow at the D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “The rescissions process should almost be seen as like the scoreboard on how much savings DOGE actually lawfully achieves.”

Trump loyalists in Congress who have backed proposals to lock in the cuts have faced resistance from some Republican lawmakers, including about some of DOGE’s reductions in foreign aid. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that he is “eager” to approve cuts and will aim to do so through the budget appropriations process, or after the White House sends a “rescissions package” recommending specific cuts.

Next week, the White House will reportedly send a proposal to Capitol Hill to target foreign-aid funding as well as NPR and PBS, the public broadcasting companies that Trump has defunded through executive orders that accused them of left-leaning bias.

Now on the sidelines, Musk has lamented the failure of Republicans to codify DOGE’s cost-cutting so far. “Yeah (sigh),” he replied to a user on X who criticized the GOP.

The billionaire seems only more and more disappointed with Republicans. In an interview with CBS this week, Musk said the domestic-policy bill passed in the House last week “undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.” The tax provisions in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion by 2034, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” Musk said about the bill, which is the centerpiece of Trump’s legislative agenda, “but I don’t know if it can be both.”

That opinion puts Musk at odds with Trump, who has urged the Senate to pass the legislation so that the president can sign it into law. But Trump seems to care less these days about what Musk has to say—and has stopped posting about him online.

Once the main character of DOGE—and perhaps the entire Trump administration—Musk has even expressed second thoughts about all the time he dedicated to helping Trump. “I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” Musk said Tuesday. “It’s not like I left the companies. It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I’ve reduced that significantly in recent weeks."

To conservative critics, it was time for DOGE’s head honcho to hang it up anyway. “The thing was totally performative,” Bannon said.

Why DOGE Failed

You can’t fix the government unless you know how it really works. Musk never did.

By Joe Nocera

05.28.25 — U.S. Politics

https://www.thefp.com/p/why-doge-failed

“Now that Musk has left town, it’s becoming clear that DOGE did very little that was useful,” writes Joe Nocera. (Samuel Corum via Getty Images)

Charlie Peters, the late, great editor of The Washington Monthly, was a connoisseur of bureaucracy.

After serving as John F. Kennedy’s West Virginia campaign manager, he arrived in Washington to join a brand-new agency, the Peace Corps, where he was handed one of the most unusual positions ever in the federal government. His title was “director of evaluation,” and his job was to travel to Peace Corps locations, spend enough time there to get a read on what was working and what wasn’t, and then report back to the agency’s director, Sargent Shriver. Charlie’s tough-minded reports didn’t exactly endear him to his fellow Peace Corps officials, but it gave Charlie insight into how bureaucracies worked—or more precisely, how they didn’t work.

I often thought of Charlie—my first boss in journalism—and his expertise in government bloat in the months since the inauguration, as I watched Elon Musk and his merry band of DOGE minions try—and fail—to get their arms around the federal leviathan. Now Musk has returned to Tesla while complaining that Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” undermined DOGE’s work. Like Trump, he’s not one to admit failure, but the rest of us can see that he failed.

If only Musk had read Peters’ 1980 book How Washington Really Works before he arrived in D.C. (The fourth and final edition was published in 1993.) In it, Charlie described how the primary—and often the sole—focus of government agencies was to ensure that their budgets never shrank. If a new department was created because of a sudden emergency, he explained, it would become an entrenched part of the permanent government long after the emergency was forgotten. And the work bureaucrats did, he wrote, could best be described as “make-believe.”

“Suppose you work in the Department of Energy and the energy problem disappears,” he wrote. “What will happen to you?” The answer, of course, is that you’ll be out of a job. Thus, the better course of action is to pretend you’re working on the energy problem—thus ensuring your job security.

How Washington Really Works was written 45 years ago, and the only thing that’s really changed is the scale of the federal government, best exemplified by the growth of the budget, from $579 billion in 1980 to $6.8 trillion last year. Just think of how much Musk and his Musketeers could have gotten done if they’d understood Washington better.

Now that Musk has left town, it’s becoming clear that DOGE did very little that was useful. It canceled scientific research contracts because they referenced DEI in passing—even though the research had nothing to do with diversity, and the mention of DEI was to satisfy the previous administration. It tried to fire employees with no consideration or understanding of who was deadwood and who was genuinely needed. It cut down agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because President Trump and Musk found them unpalatable; Trump claimed that USAID was “run by radical lunatics,” and a White House memo described the CFPB as a “woke, weaponized arm of the bureaucracy.” Again, no distinction was made between the actions these agencies took that were useful versus those that were senseless.

I understand that in his desire to slash the bureaucracy, Trump wanted to come out of the gate fast—to “move fast and break things,” as Musk’s buddies in Silicon Valley like to say. The president wanted to move so quickly that the “deep state,” as he calls the permanent government, wouldn’t know what hit them. And in that, he certainly succeeded. But a more deliberate approach would have been more effective. In their haste, Trump and Musk ran roughshod over federal rules covering the firing of government officials, and courts are forcing them to hire many of them back. And for all of Musk’s claims of saving billions, the federal budget is going up instead of down. Naturally, Musk is blaming this on Trump rather than acknowledging that DOGE did almost nothing to shrink the budget.

Like millions of Americans, I agree with Trump and Musk that too much of my tax money is going to pay for a federal government that is far bigger and more bloated than it ought to be. On the off chance Trump decides to give it another go, allow me to offer a suggestion: Next time, do it the Charlie Peters way.

What I mean by that is instead of racing into government agencies determined to slash and burn everything in sight, bring in people who can serve, in effect, as the “directors of evaluation.” And instead of the 15-minute interviews that DOGE conducted with federal employees, the director of evaluation and his team will spend months getting to know employees and the roles they play. They will learn what works and what doesn’t. And when they fire employees and eliminate or shrink departments, their decisions will be backed up by data and observation.

A program like this can’t be accomplished overnight. But understanding the federal bureaucracy ought to take time if it is done in a serious manner. If Trump had given his directors of evaluation—who would be thoughtful adults instead of Musk’s kiddie corp—six months to figure out what should stay and what should go, he would still have plenty of political juice to make the changes his directors suggest. Backed by solid data, their recommendations might even have gotten through Congress.

The Elon Musk route was never going to work, something that is now obvious. The Charlie Peters route could well have worked—and done the country some good. It’s still not too late for Trump to give it a try.

6. Venezuela’s Gray War: A Criminal Army, a Migrant Wave, and the US ‘Invasion’?

​Excerpts:

Some may question whether irregular tactics, criminal proxies, and migration pressures constitute an invasion. However, the concept has evolved. Modern strategic thought increasingly recognizes that invasions need not involve massed armies. An invasion occurs when hostile actors, under state direction or encouragement, penetrate a rival’s territory to destabilize, disrupt, or subvert societal functions.

By this definition—and based on the regime’s use of criminal proxies, embedded operatives, and strategic destabilization—Venezuela’s campaign already meets the threshold of an irregular invasion.

El Centro| Opinion / Perspective

Venezuela’s Gray War: A Criminal Army, a Migrant Wave, and the US ‘Invasion’?

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/28/venezuelas-gray-war-a-criminal-army-a-migrant-wave-and-the-us-invasion/

by Ron MacCammon

|

05.28.2025 at 02:54pm

Tren de Aragua Leaders Wanted Posters. Source: US Department of State, International Narcotics & Law Enforcement (INL), @StateINL, X, July 2024.

Venezuela’s regime under Nicolás Maduro[1] is waging a gray zone war[2] against the United States and its neighbors through irregular means. Criminal proxies, narcotics, and forced migration are no longer only side effects of state collapse—they are also tools of strategic destabilization. This article examines how Venezuela’s use of violent gangs, particularly Tren de Aragua (TdA),[3] and embedded operatives, aligns with modern hybrid warfare doctrine and poses serious security challenges for the United States and the region.

Introduction 

Most outside observers still view Venezuela’s collapse as a humanitarian crisis.[4] That view is incomplete. Nicolás Maduro’s regime has adopted irregular warfare tactics—similar to those used by Russia, Cuba, China, and Iran—to weaken its neighbors and rivals without direct conflict.[5] Narcotics trafficking, forced migration, and violent gangs are being used deliberately, not incidentally.[6]

The United States is now under pressure on multiple fronts. Transnational gangs have grown stronger and political instability has spread throughout the region. The intent behind these actions matters—when a regime backs criminal networks that cross borders, disrupt communities, and undermine institutions, the result is strategic and is not coincidence.

Whether it qualifies as an “invasion” is open to debate.[7] But the old definition—tanks and troops—no longer fits today’s world. When hostile actors cross borders with the purpose of creating disorder under a regime’s direction or protection, the term may apply.[8]

This article looks at how Venezuela’s government has turned disorder into a weapon, the role of Tren de Aragua[9] in this strategy, and how the United States should respond.

Venezuela’s Gray War Strategy

Venezuela isn’t fighting a conventional war—but that doesn’t mean it’s at peace. Maduro’s regime has adopted a strategy that falls somewhere in between, relying on irregular tactics to weaken its rivals without ever firing a shot. This ‘gray zone’ warfare uses criminal networks, political disruption, and mass migration to pressure rivals while staying below the threshold of open conflict.

Over the past decade, the regime has used these tools to shift its internal crisis outward. Pushing millions to leave the country reduces strain at home and creates problems for neighbors. Drug trafficking brings in revenue and fuels instability across the region. And gangs like Tren de Aragua don’t just operate with impunity—they operate with purpose, acting as armed proxies in a broader campaign.

None of this is accidental. It’s tied to an ideology that sees the United States and liberal democracy as obstacles to be dismantled. Cuban intelligence services[10] have long influenced Venezuela’s security strategy, and groups like the São Paulo Forum give that strategy an ideological backbone.[11] The Forum brings together leftist movements from across the region and encourages the idea that US power must be challenged—by any means available.

For the Maduro regime, exporting crime and chaos isn’t just a way to stay afloat. It’s part of a long-term effort to undermine democratic governments and expand the influence of anti-US forces across Latin America.

Forced Migration as a Weapon

Nearly one in four Venezuelans—about 7.7 million people—have left the country.[12] Most people see that as a humanitarian crisis. The Maduro regime sees something else: an opportunity.

Mass migration shifts the burden outward. It overwhelms schools, hospitals, and housing in countries that take people in. It also opens space for organized crime. Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil—all of them have struggled to manage the fallout. Now the United States is dealing with it, too.

This isn’t new. One of Maduro’s closest allies, the Cubans, have done this before. In 1965, Fidel Castro opened the port of Camarioca and let thousands leave—some were dissidents, many were criminals—triggering the Freedom Flights.[13] In 1980, during the Mariel Boatlift, over 125,000 Cubans came to the US, again including large numbers released from prisons and mental institutions.[14] And in 1994, during the Balseros [rafters] Crisis, Cuba allowed tens of thousands of desperate rafters to leave, forcing Washington into tough negotiations.[15]

That history isn’t just background—it’s a model. Maduro is following it. By pushing people out, Venezuela reduces pressure at home and passes the cost to everyone else. The result is social strain, political backlash, and rising instability across the region. Remittances sent back to Venezuela—sometimes from migrants working legally, but also from criminal networks like Tren de Aragua—further entrench this strategy by adding up to $5.4 billion in 2023, accounting for approximately 6% of its GDP. These funds reached about 2.5 million households, or close to 29% of the population. Notably, around 9% of these remittances were via cryptocurrencies.[16]

Tren de Aragua: From Prison Gang to Proxy Force

Until recently, few outside Latin America had heard of Tren de Aragua. The group started inside Venezuela’s prison system but has grown into a well-organized criminal network. It now plays a central role in drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, extortion, and human trafficking across the region—including inside the United States.

In March 2025, the Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua a Foreign Terrorist Organization, stating that the group had “infiltrated the United States”[17] and was “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions.”[18] The designation also tied the group directly to the Cártel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns)—the Maduro regime’s state-run narco-trafficking network.[19]

US intelligence reports clarify that this growth wasn’t organic.[20] Venezuelan officials have allowed, and in many cases helped, the group move north. Tren de Aragua now operates in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and throughout the US Its purpose is not just profit—it’s disruption. They bring disorder, fuel violence, and undermine the public trust. In short, they serve as a tool of irregular warfare.

And they’re not alone. The Maduro regime leads the Cartel of the Suns, a vast narcotrafficking network so deeply entrenched that the US government has charged Nicolás Maduro himself as its leader—and placed a $25 million bounty on his capture.[21] According to court filings and public indictments, Maduro helped coordinate large shipments of cocaine produced by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC), also a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

The Maduro regime has supplied the FARC with military-grade weapons, and worked with traffickers in Honduras and elsewhere to move drugs through the region.[22] He also oversaw the training of an armed militia force in Venezuela—one that functioned as a paramilitary arm of the cartel.

None of this is distant history. It’s part of the current playbook: use criminal networks to extend state power, attack rivals, and generate income. And TdA, once just a prison gang, is now at the center.

The Danger of Escalation

So far, Venezuela’s campaign has stayed just below the line that would trigger open conflict. But gray zone warfare doesn’t stay static. It shifts, often in response to pressure. If the United States increases its efforts to disrupt the Maduro regime or its criminal partners, the response may not come through diplomacy or conventional means. It could come from inside the United States—from criminal operatives already in place, acting on orders to sabotage infrastructure or sow chaos.

Critical infrastructure would be the most obvious target—power grids, transportation systems, water supplies. Disruptions in any of these areas could cause widespread public alarm and paralyze emergency response. Large public gatherings like sporting events or political rallies are vulnerable as well. So are economic centers such as ports and supply chains, where a well-timed act of sabotage could have ripple effects across entire regions. A sudden attack could cripple local emergency services, delaying responses or causing panic and confusion.

The United States has long recognized sabotage as a core part of irregular warfare. According to the 2007 Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept irregular warfare is “a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations.”[23] Such attacks disrupt, delay, or destroy an adversary’s capabilities and morale—often through targeting vital systems. Venezuela already has the infrastructure in place. Its criminal networks in the US and across Latin America offer a means to strike if the regime escalates.

There’s precedent for this kind of strategy. Iran has spent decades embedding operatives through Hezbollah and its Quds Force, often utilizing commercial or religious networks to silently establish influence.[24] In Latin America, Iran has mirrored that approach, embedding assets in diaspora communities and creating logistical routes. Iran and Venezuela have joint interests—illicit financial ventures, direct flights, shared rhetoric—raise the real possibility that Iranian tactics and doctrine influence Maduro’s security services.[25]

Russia offers another point of comparison. In places like Ukraine and Georgia, Moscow used criminal networks, cyberattacks, and information warfare to destabilize targets before military operations begin.[26][27] The goal wasn’t to win quickly, but to weaken from within—to confuse, divide, and exhaust.

The concern is not that Venezuela would act alone. It’s that it has studied the playbook and built the relationships. Between the ties to Iran, Cuba, Russia, and China, and the operational networks that already exist in the Americas, the pieces are there. China, while more cautious in its public posture, has provided political cover for the Maduro regime in multilateral institutions, helped deflect sanctions, and may offer deniable support in the event of confrontation.[28]

What makes the situation even more dangerous is what has already occurred at the US border. Between 2021 and 2024, lax enforcement allowed a wide range of actors to enter the country without being screened.[29] An estimated 1.5 million “got-aways” slipped into the United States during this period.[30] It’s not much of a stretch to believe that among them were individuals tied to criminal groups and state-backed networks. Cartels and trafficking organizations—many with ties to Venezuelan operatives—almost certainly took advantage.

Meeting the Challenge

Recognizing the threat is only the first step. What matters most is what comes next. Venezuela’s campaign—strategic, criminal, and ideological—cannot be treated as a routine law enforcement problem or a nagging diplomatic dispute. This is a long-term threat, demanding a multi-pronged strategy.

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies must stop viewing groups like TdA as just gangs. They are part of a Venezuela’s broader irregular warfare effort. They act as a proxy force—operating across borders, spreading instability, and providing a source of illicit funding for the regime. They must be treated accordingly. Local roundups of street-level operators won’t be enough. The focus has to be on dismantling the networks that give them power, protection, and purpose.

Financial pressure is another critical front. The Maduro regime survives off oil revenues, drug trafficking, and illegal gold mining. Independent estimates suggest oil exports bring in around annually. Drug trafficking adds another. Gold smuggling, often tied to sanctioned operators, may be worth another or more. That cash flows through informal networks, front companies, and corrupt actors across the region and disrupting these flows should be the priority of effort.

The Maduro regime also benefits from Chinese credit lines, infrastructure investments, and state-backed transactions that shield it from Western scrutiny.[31] As the US cracks down on conventional smuggling and trafficking routes, it must also monitor Chinese-built platforms that facilitate surveillance and financial opacity, including digital currency experiments and state-aligned telecom infrastructure.

The US should make Venezuelan crude effectively radioactive in global markets—using targeted tariffs, exposing intermediaries, and revealing backdoor deals. The 25% tariff imposed by the Trump administration is a strong start, but it must be enforced with precision.[32] Violators must be identified and penalized—that’s what will have an impact on the regime. The same approach applies to gold: identify the smugglers, sanction their enablers, and disrupt the laundering networks. None of this will be easy, and progress won’t come overnight. It will take a sustained, coordinated effort. As pressure mounts, those who run these networks—often paranoid, greedy, and violent—will begin making mistakes, or turn on the regime in search of concessions or protection.

This can’t be done alone. The US should advocate for a regional coalition focused on coordination, pressure, and accountability. Countries like El Salvador, Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, and Uruguay have already dealt with the fallout too—rising crime, strained services, and political instability fueled by Venezuela’s exported chaos.[33] They need to be brought together—not in a bloated summit, but in a small, focused group willing to act. More countries can join based on their exposure to Venezuelan criminal activity.

The United States has to be proactive in its strategy. If pressure on the regime increases, it may lash out—directly or through proxies. Key infrastructure, transportation hubs, and public venues could become targets. Federal agencies and local partners should prepare now: not just for sabotage, but for another wave of forced migration in the region.

And finally, the most difficult challenge may already be inside the United States. Mapping and monitoring hostile actors—whether embedded operatives, affiliated gangs, or criminal networks—is essential. They may be quiet now, focused on trafficking or staying under the radar. But if tensions rise, they could shift quickly. In a country as open as ours, it doesn’t take much to cause real damage. Vigilance—not just after the fact, but before—is the only way to stay ahead.

Criminal groups will adapt. They always do. But the goal isn’t to eliminate every cell or stop every plan. It’s keeping them off balance—force them to make mistakes, drain their resources, and reduce their impact. That starts with understanding what this is: not just a criminal threat, but an ideological one.

Conclusion

Some may question whether irregular tactics, criminal proxies, and migration pressures constitute an invasion. However, the concept has evolved. Modern strategic thought increasingly recognizes that invasions need not involve massed armies. An invasion occurs when hostile actors, under state direction or encouragement, penetrate a rival’s territory to destabilize, disrupt, or subvert societal functions.

By this definition—and based on the regime’s use of criminal proxies, embedded operatives, and strategic destabilization—Venezuela’s campaign already meets the threshold of an irregular invasion.

Venezuela’s collapse is not simply a humanitarian tragedy. It is a theater of irregular war. Tren de Aragua’s infiltration into the United States and across the hemisphere marks the transformation of criminal actors into state-aligned proxies.

This is a gray war—quiet, subtle, and dangerous. If left unchallenged, it will continue to destabilize American society and erode the nation’s security from within. Venezuela’s hybrid invasion is underway. Whether the United States sees it clearly—and acts—will decide if it can be stopped.

Endnotes

[1] “Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro: Dictator or defender of socialism?” BBC News, 28 January 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-20664349.

[2] “Report on Gray Zone Conflict.” US Department of State, 2009–2017, https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/266849.pdf.

[3] Chris Dalby, Tren de Aragua: The Guide to America’s Growing Criminal Threat. Virtual: World of Crime, 2025.

[4] “Venezuela Crisis: Aid, Statistics and News.” United Nations High Counsel for Refugees (UNHCR). Nd, https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/venezuela/.

[5] Moises Rendon and Claudia Fernandez. “The Fabulous Five: How Foreign Actors Prop up the Maduro Regime in Venezuela.” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). 19 October 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/fabulous-five-how-foreign-actors-prop-maduro-regime-venezuela.

[6] This criminal-state interface has been called the “Joint Bolivarian Criminal Enterprise.” See Douglas Farah and Caitlyn Yates, “Turmoil in the Western Hemisphere: The Role of the Bolivarian Joint Criminal Enterprise in Latin America’s Unrest.” Perry Center Occasional Paper. Washington, DC: William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies. March 2020,https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-D5-PURL-gpo177170/pdf/GOVPUB-D5-PURL-gpo177170.pdf and Douglas Farah, “The Maduro Regime’s Illicit Activities: A Threat to Democracy in Venezuela and Security in Latin America.” Atlantic Council. August 2020, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/The-Maduro-Regime-Illicit-Activities-A-Threat-to-Democracy-in-Venezuela-and-Security-in-Latin-America-Final.pdf/

[7] The weaponization of migration can be a feature of hybrid warfare. See, for example, Sean S. Costigan and Michael A. Hennessy, Eds. Hybrid Threats and Hybrid Warfare Reference Curriculum. Brussels: Partnership for Peace (PfP) Consortium; NATO Headquarters. June 2024, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_227643.htm, at pp. 26, 34 (re organized crime specifically), and 36.

[8] This proposition is controversial, especially under current US law. See Rebecca Ingber, “Judicial Deference and Presidential Power Under the Alien Enemies Act.” Just Security. 20 May 2025, https://www.justsecurity.org/113589/political-question-alien-enemies-act/ for an overview of the competing perspectives. In addition, for the case against ‘invasion’ see Molly Redden, “The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy.” ProPublica. 23 May 2025, https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-administration-immigration-invasion-rhetoric-courts. The Trump Administration’s case is stated at Donald J. Trump, “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua.” The White House, 15 March 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/invocation-of-the-alien-enemies-act-regarding-the-invasion-of-the-united-states-by-tren-de-aragua/. The outcome of the controversy remains subject to ongoing litigation.

[9] “Tren de Aragua.” InSight Crime. 25 April 2025, https://insightcrime.org/venezuela-organized-crime-news/tren-de-aragua/.

[10] “Cuba’s Intelligence Masterstroke in Venezuela.” Geopolitical Monitor. 9 August 2017, https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/cubas-intelligence-masterstroke-in-venezuela/.

[11] Mike Gonzalez, “The Marxist Influence of the São Paulo Forum in Latin America.” The Heritage Foundation. 30 August 2023, https://www.heritage.org/americas/commentary/the-marxist-influence-the-sao-paulo-forum-latin-america.

[12] “Far from the Headlines: One in four Venezuelans have left the country.” United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC). 30 November 2020, https://unric.org/en/far-from-the-headlines-one-in-four-venezuelans-have-left-the-country/.

[13] “Fidel Castro announces that Cubans are free to leave the island.” HISTORY. 28 September 1965, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fidel-castro-announces-cubans-are-free-to-leave-the-island.

[14] “Mariel boatlift.” Encyclopedia Britannica. n.d, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mariel-boatlift.

[15] Fabiola Santiago, “20 years ago, 35,000 ‘balseros’ fled Castro’s Cuba on anything that would float.” Tampa Bay Times. 18 August 2014, https://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/20-years-ago-35000-balseros-fled-castros-cuba-on-anything-that-would-float/2193473/.

[16] Vince Quill, “Crypto Remittances in Venezuela Surge as Economic Situation Worsens.” Cointelegraph. 5 July 2024, https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-remittances-venezuela-surge-economic-situation-worsens.

[17] Op. Cit., Donald J. Trump “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua” at Note 7.

[18] Ibid.

[19] “Cartel de los Soles.” InSight Crime. 14 May 2022, https://insightcrime.org/venezuela-organized-crime-news/cartel-de-los-soles-profile/.

[20] United States of America v. Nicolás Maduro Moros et al. US District Court, Southern District of New York. 26 March 2020, https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/32f71f10c36cc482/d90251dpdf.

[21] Nicolás Maduro Moros. United States Department of State. 10 January 2025, https://www.state.gov/nicolas-maduro-moros/.

[22] “Nicolás Maduro Moros and 14 Current and Former Venezuelan Officials Charged with Narco-Terrorism, Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Criminal Charges.” Press Release. United States Department of Justice. 26 March 2020, https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros-and-14-current-and-former-venezuelan-officials-charged-narco-terrorism.

[23] “Irregular Warfare (IW): Joint Operating Concept (JOC),” Washington, DC: US Department of Defense, 11 September 2007, at Section 2.a., p. 6, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joc_iw_v1.pdf and Col. Todd Schmidt, “Irregular Warfare: Defining the Debate.” Military Review. November–December 2024, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/Nov-Dec-2024/Irregular-Warfare/.

[24] Unidad Investigativa de Venezuela, “Honduras and Venezuela: Coup and Cocaine Air Bridge.” InSight Crime. 23 May 2018, https://insightcrime.org/investigations/honduras-venezuela-coup-cocaine-air-bridge/.

[25] Irfan ul Haq, “Iran and Hezbollah: Proxy Power Play.” Institute for Security and Development Policy. 26 March 2024, https://www.isdp.eu/iran-and-hezbollah-proxy-power-play/ and Moises Rendon, Antonio De La Cruz, and Claudia Fernandez, “Understanding the Iran-Venezuela Relationship.” Center for Strategic and International Studies. 4 June 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/understanding-iran-venezuela-relationship.

[26] Kateryna Zarembo and Sergiy Solodkyy, “The Evolution of Russian Hybrid Warfare: Ukraine.” Center for European Policy Analysis. 29 January 2021, https://cepa.org/comprehensive-reports/the-evolution-of-russian-hybrid-warfare-ukraine/.

[27] Natia Seskuria, “Russia’s ‘Hybrid Aggression’ against Georgia: The Use of Local and External Tools.” Center for Strategic and International Studies. 21 September 2021, https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-hybrid-aggression-against-georgia-use-local-and-external-tools.

[28] Diana Roy, “China’s Growing Influence in Latin America.” Council on Foreign Relations. 10 January 2025, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-influence-latin-america-argentina-brazil-venezuela-security-energy-bri.

[29] “Terror at Our Door: How the Biden-Harris Administration’s Open-Borders Policies Undermine National Security and Endanger Americans.” Interim Staff Report of the Committee on the Judiciary and Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, US House of Representatives. 5 August 2024,https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/FILE_6538.pdf.

[30] Steven Nelson, “1.5M ‘Gotaways’ Have Slipped into the US Under Biden—Three Times as Many as During 3 Years of Trump.” New York Post. 15 May 2023, https://nypost.com/2023/05/15/1-5m-gotaways-have-slipped-into-the-us-under-biden-three-times-as-many-as-during-3-years-of-trump/.

[31] Benjamin Creutzfeldt and Parsifal D’Sola Alvarado, “Venezuela, the State That Refuses to Collapse.” Stimson Center. 16 February 2024, https://www.stimson.org/2024/venezuela-the-state-that-refuses-to-collapse/.

[32] “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Imposes Tariffs on Countries Importing Venezuelan Oil.” The White House. 25 March 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-imposes-tariffs-on-countries-importing-venezuelan-oil/.

[33] Op. Cit., “Tren de Aragua” at Note 6.

Tags: Bolivarian Joint-Criminal Enterprise, Hybrid Warfare, Tred de Aragua (TdA)

About The Author

• 
  
• Ron MacCammon
• Ron MacCammon, Ed.D., is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel and former political officer at the US State Department who has written extensively on security, governance, and international affairs. He has lived and worked in Latin America for more than 20 years and was assigned to the US Embassy, Caracas, Venezuela, from 1999 to 2002.
• 
  

7. CIA chief faces stiff test in bid to revitalize human spying

​Espionage (or spying) - the oldest or second oldest profession? I forget.

Seriously, I do not think the golden days of espionage are past. And I think human intelligence remains relevant and will likely be more important than ever. Obviously there are new challenges because of technological and biometric and other advances but collecting human intelligence will remain as critical as ever (unless our adversaries allow AI to make all their national security, military, and economic  decisions - I say this only half in jest as well).

CIA chief faces stiff test in bid to revitalize human spying

Director John Ratcliffe wants to rebuild the CIA’s diminished ranks of foreign agents. But have espionage’s golden days passed?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/05/28/cia-spy-china-russia-ratcliffe/

May 28, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EDTYesterday at 5:00 a.m. EDT

9 min

220

A security officer keeps watch in March during a session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

By Warren P. Strobel and Ellen Nakashima

The CIA earlier this month unveiled a new gambit to persuade disgruntled Chinese officials to spy for the United States: a pair of Hollywood-quality videos that play on divisions within President Xi Jinping’s government and offer instructions on how to anonymously contact the CIA.

Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.

One video highlights the vast wealth disparities between working-class Chinese and Communist Party elites; another depicts how top party officials suddenly disappear — a real-life occurrence in Xi’s anti-corruption purges. The videos, narrated in Mandarin and posted on social media, are part of a new CIA strategy for recruiting potential foreign agents from afar.

It’s a strategy that has already borne some fruit in Russia, CIA officials say. The spy agency in 2023 released similar videos aimed at recruiting Russians disaffected by the Ukraine war. Intelligence officials said that people there had contacted the CIA as a result, but they declined to provide details. CIA officials say they have evidence their messages aimed at China are being viewed there, despite heavy internet censorship.

But the videos also highlight a problem: The CIA needs more spies. The traditional tactics of human espionage, increasingly, are not working, current and former U.S. intelligence officials say.

The CIA’s success in recruiting foreigners to share vital secrets with the United States has declined sharply in recent years, the officials said. Recruitment of new agents has dropped by double-digit percentages since 2019, one former official said. The precise numbers are highly classified.

“We all know that the human intelligence collection isn’t where it needs to be,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said at his Senate confirmation hearing in January.

Ratcliffe has made reversing the trend one of his top priorities at the CIA. But the spy chief’s challenge is a difficult one, said the officials, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

The potential intelligence gaps are not widely appreciated outside government national security circles. At stake is the depth of the U.S. government’s knowledge about urgent security threats: whether Iran will sprint to a nuclear weapon; what Russia’s next moves on the battlefield in Ukraine will be; and whether China will invade or try to economically strangle Taiwan.

Signals intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency, including intercepted phone calls, texts and emails, is a bedrock of intelligence collection and contributes to at least 60 percent of articles in the president’s daily brief, U.S. officials say. But an effective spy program needs both human and electronic intelligence, as well as other technical collection, such as imagery.

Current officials and former spies say there is no substitute for a well-placed human source to penetrate places a wiretap or satellite cannot reach, confirm fragmentary information or provide insight into the intentions of adversarial leaders such as Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sometimes, the most exquisite intelligence comes from a human asset enabling the NSA’s ability to hack computer systems, especially in sensitive places such as a military headquarters or Chinese Communist Party leadership. “Some of our best recruits aren’t going to tell you what Xi Jinping thinks,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official. “They work in communication departments and have access to those key systems. That’s why we target them. The top person we want to recruit in the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. isn’t the ambassador. It’s the code clerk.”

Spying — for both the CIA and hostile intelligence services — took a big hit from the coronavirus pandemic. As streets emptied, in-person meetings evaporated and social gatherings were canceled, CIA case officers were limited in their ability to target and recruit new sources. Meeting even trusted longtime sources was difficult.

“That was something we’re recovering from,” said Susan Miller, a former five-time CIA station chief who retired last year after 39 years with the agency.

Running networks of spies is much harder, more expensive and more manpower-intensive than it used to be.

The CIA faces a long-term threat from a phenomenon known as ubiquitous technical surveillance, or UTS. CIA officers and their foreign agents must now navigate an electronic gantlet of surveillance and monitoring devices that challenge their ability to keep their true identities hidden and their meetings covert.

James Bond merely had to outwit a few henchmen, meet a contact and get away in his gleaming sports car. His real-life counterparts contend with batteries of CCTV cameras in buildings and on city streets, cellphone-tracking devices, biometric sensors at border crossings and more.

Beijing alone is believed to have more than 1 million CCTV cameras. One former U.S. official who recently visited the city said there were so many cameras on the street it felt like being in a TV studio. The cameras are often paired with sophisticated facial recognition programs that can simultaneously track millions of individuals.

Incriminating data can live forever online, said Glenn Chafetz, a former CIA officer who served as the agency’s first chief of tradecraft and operational technology. A hostile intelligence service such as China’s could discover days, or even months, later that a traitor in its ranks had met with a CIA officer by running big data feeds from cameras across the country through sophisticated artificial intelligence filters. “You have to be perfect now, in order to be clandestine ... perfect forever, before any op, during the op and forever after,” Chafetz said.

Increasingly, much of what U.S. spy agencies need to know isn’t secret at all, but out in the open in the form of social media feeds, commercial data and other forms of “open-source” intelligence. But human intelligence, or HUMINT, is still a crucial, if shrinking, slice of the pie, current and former officials said.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe, center, leaves an event at the White House Rose Garden on May 1. (Yuri Gripas/Pool/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Ratcliffe has disclosed little in public about his plans to shore up human intelligence, one of the CIA’s core missions, which involve highly classified budgets and operations. One person who met with the CIA director recently described him as alarmed by the state of the agency’s human espionage capabilities.

“Under Director Ratcliffe, CIA is laser-focused on its core mission of recruiting spies and collecting foreign intelligence to ensure President Trump and his national security team have a decisive advantage against any organization, terrorist, or nation that threatens harm to America,” a CIA spokesperson said.

A senior U.S. intelligence official added that human intelligence collection against China, which Ratcliffe has said is the CIA’s top target, “has greatly improved.”

Ratcliffe recently chose a veteran CIA officer with multiple foreign tours to be his deputy director of operations, a powerful post whose occupant runs the agency’s clandestine and covert work. The CIA requested that The Washington Post not publish the officer’s name because he is still undercover.

The news for the CIA isn’t all grim. The agency’s adversaries have to operate in the same sensor-soaked environment that U.S. operatives do. “It’s making it more difficult for the Chinese and Russians, too, because they keep getting caught,” said one recently retired CIA officer. Ratcliffe’s predecessor, William J. Burns, established a UTS Center to grapple with the challenge of omnipresent surveillance. But the puzzle remains unsolved, former agency officials said.

“Today’s digital environment poses as many opportunities as it does challenges,” a CIA official said. “We’re an adaptable agency, and it is not beyond the ingenuity or creativity of our officers to develop ways in which we can navigate just as effectively or more effectively in complex environments.”

Miller, who ran CIA espionage operations around the world, said that the advent of ubiquitous surveillance has forced a focus on quality over quantity.

“I’d rather have one good agent who will work quietly and won’t come to the attention of the [adversary] services than 20 mediocre ones,” she said. “It’s not fair” to the mediocre agents, either, Miller said. “They could land in prison for something inconsequential. We’re more picky now.”

Under the watchful eye of surveillance cameras and plainclothes security personnel, tourists visits Tiananmen Gate in Beijing in 2021. (Ng Han Guan/AP)

Some former officials said that the CIA moved too rashly to recruit large numbers of officials in China in the early 2000s, making errors along the way. Beijing’s security services rolled up the network of U.S. spies beginning in 2010, executing or imprisoning as many as two dozen CIA assets in a devastating blow to the agency’s operations in the country.

Another former CIA officer blamed the long decline in human intelligence in part on bureaucrats at headquarters and their aversion to risky operations that could blow up in the agency’s face. Others warn about more recent unintended consequences of the Trump administration’s government belt-tightening.

The administration is considering plans to close 10 U.S. embassies and 17 consulates overseas, leaving some veterans worried. “Closing them would really affect our ability to get cover,” Miller said.

Worse, sloppiness in the administration’s haste to trim government agencies potentially undermined years of CIA work. In February, responding to a Trump executive order mandating a downsizing of the federal workforce, the CIA sent the Office of Personnel Management an unclassified email containing the first name and the first initial of the last name of each employee hired over the last two years.

Former officials described the lapse as a counterintelligence disaster, potentially blowing the cover of dozens of young officers. Many were hired as part of an effort begun under Burns to increase the CIA’s focus on China.

One former official said that many of the probationary employees had their assignments put on hold as a result of the leak. It affected “the entire junior officer cadre,” he said.

What readers are saying

The comments overwhelmingly express skepticism and criticism regarding the CIA's new strategy of using Hollywood-quality videos to recruit potential foreign agents under the Trump administration. Many commenters highlight a lack of trust in the administration, citing incidents... Show more

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

All comments 220

By Warren P. Strobel

Warren P. Strobel is a reporter at The Washington Post covering U.S. intelligence. He has written about U.S. security policies under seven presidents. He received numerous awards, and was portrayed in the movie "Shock and Awe," for his skeptical reporting on the decision to invade Iraq. Send him secure tips on Signal at 202 744 1312follow on X@wstrobel

By Ellen Nakashima

Ellen Nakashima is an intelligence and national security reporter at The Washington Post. She's been a member of three Pulitzer prizewinning teams, for probing the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the hidden scope of government surveillance. Send her secure tips on Signal at Ellen.626 follow on X@nakashimae

8. Disasters, Conflict, and Myanmar’s Uncertain Future

​Excerpts:

Continuity and Change: Comparing the Junta’s Position in 2008 and Today

Any doubt concerning how the Tatmadaw’s response to the earthquake would differ from its response to previous natural disasters was put to rest when hours after the earthquake, military generals ordered airstrikes on targets in Shan State and Karen State. Further evidence of the government’s aim to capitalize on the tragedy is its delayed response to the unilateral ceasefire announced by the NUG and the Three Brotherhood Alliance. The military junta waited five days after the earthquake and the opposition’s announcement of a ceasefire before issuing a statement calling for a two-week halt – until April 22 – in hostilities.

Nevertheless, a confluence of regional and international factors have drastically changed the political and economic landscape in which the junta currently finds itself. First, China’s decision to support all sides to the conflict and hold its own talks with opposition groups signals that Beijing views the odds of the military junta obtaining a decisive victory and regaining territory are low. Second, the ongoing war in Ukraine means that Russian parts for the junta’s tanks and missiles may not be readily available when needed. Third, concerns about a global economic recession and decreased aid mean that economic recovery from the disaster will be slow, affecting the junta’s ability to buy public support as well as support from the military’s rank and file, given the unpopularity of conscription. Fourth, Myanmar’s increasing isolation from some of its ASEAN allies threatens to deteriorate already fragile regional relations, for example, Indonesia and Malaysia are increasingly wary of the junta’s failure to honor ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus for peace.

Toward an Uncertain Future

Unlike 2008, the current political landscape is marked by a far more organized and well-funded armed resistance, greater international scrutiny, growing fatigue by ASEAN neighbors, and deepening economic isolation. As a result, elections in December 2025 may not offer the junta the same level of legitimization as it did in 2008. Instead, the earthquake response and its continued disregard of the April 2 ceasefire, will serve to undermine whatever goodwill it has accrued in the international community and, rather than using the crisis to consolidate power, as it did following Cyclone Nargis, the military risks accelerating its loss of control—both territorially and diplomatically.

Disasters, Conflict, and Myanmar’s Uncertain Future

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/29/disasters-conflict-and-myanmars-uncertain-future/

by Shelli Israelsen, by Andrea Malji

|

05.29.2025 at 06:00am

People watch as rescuers search for survivors trapped in the collapsed Sky Villa Condominium building in Mandalay on March 29, 2025, a day after an earthquake struck central Myanmar. Rescuers pulled a woman alive from the wreckage of a collapsed apartment building in Mandalay on March 29, AFP journalists saw, 30 hours after a devastating quake hit Myanmar. (Photo by Sai Aung MAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAI AUNG MAIN/AFP via Getty Images)

Abstract

A powerful earthquake struck central Myanmar on March 28, 2025, leaving thousands dead and tens of thousands more displaced—but the most profound impact from this disaster may be on the country’s already fragile political future. In a nation already torn by civil war, the disaster has become a new front in the junta’s attempt to maintain control.

Despite a temporary ceasefire declared by opposition forces, the military delayed its own response and resumed airstrikes within hours of the quake. Aid convoys have been attacked, medicine blocked, and supplies confiscated—mirroring the junta’s obstruction during Cyclone Nargis (2008) and Cyclone Mocha (2023). But unlike in 2008, the regime is more isolated and militarily weakened.

A highly coordinated resistance now controls more than 40% of Myanmar’s territory, as morale within the Tatmadaw weakens amid a growing number of defections and forced conscriptions. Internationally, China is engaging with both the junta leadership and the opposition. Meanwhile, several ASEAN neighbors are growing increasingly frustrated with the military’s failure to honor basic peace commitments. General Min Aung Hlaing’s recent rare appearance at the BIMSTEC summit reflects a bid to revive the regime’s legitimacy through disaster diplomacy. However, with shifting power dynamics and mounting global scrutiny, the junta’s old playbook may no longer be effective. In fact, we argue that it is more likely that this earthquake may lead to a further unraveling of the military’s decades-long rule over Myanmar.

This piece draws on exclusive sources and historical comparisons to examine whether the earthquake will entrench authoritarian rule — or hasten its collapse. As Myanmar approaches pivotal elections in December 2025, the regime’s response to this crisis could prove decisive. At stake is not just recovery from a natural disaster, but the possibility of a political turning point in one of the world’s most protracted conflicts.

The tragic March 28, 2025, earthquake near Mandalay, Myanmar, has already claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people and displaced tens of thousands. The disaster’s impact has been magnified by the country’s ongoing civil war, which has destroyed the country’s fragile infrastructure, making aid delivery and the retrieval of survivors difficult. Relief efforts have been hampered by attacks on aid convoys, military checkpoints, and a lack of access to rebel-held and remote regions. Although opposition forces, and later, the military junta, declared a temporary ceasefire to allow for a disaster response, clashes continue in some areas, and the ceasefire’s scope remains limited. While this lull in fighting offers the junta an opportunity to engage in disaster diplomacy, our contact on the ground confirms that the military regime is confiscating aid and blocking the delivery of medicine to areas controlled by opposition forces in an effort to strengthen its weakened position in the ongoing conflict.

The junta’s obstructive behavior mirrors its deadly inaction after Cyclone Nargis in 2008 and Cyclone Mocha in 2023, when it denied visas to aid workers and delayed relief at customs while still publicly requesting assistance. However, compared to previous disasters, the junta is now in a much worse military and economic position. The military government has lost effective control over significant portions of the country in the face of a highly coordinated and militarily effective opposition, including the People’s Defense Forces (PDF), the armed wing of the government in exile, the National Unity Government (NUG), and allied ethnic armed organizations. Together, these groups have captured military bases and built cross-ethnic alliances in regions previously under military control. Additionally, the junta was already facing serious morale issues, marked by widespread defections and a new reliance on forced conscription. Amid these multiple crises, Myanmar’s junta chief, General Min Aung Hliang, made a rare international visit to the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok to speak to regional leaders. Hlaing’s attendance at the regional conference confirms the Tatmadaw’s desire to capitalize on the current wave of international goodwill, after having been previously barred from participating in meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), since the army seized power in the February 2021 coup and began to brutally suppress opposition.

Drawing on sources knowledgeable of the junta’s actions in the aftermath of the earthquake, we compare Myanmar’s 2025 earthquake response to previous disasters and examine what these patterns reveal about the future of the regime. Will the junta alter its strategy of using disaster diplomacy to legitimize its rule, strengthen its military position, and garner economic concessions – or will it double down on its authoritarian survival strategies? The answers to these questions will shape not only Myanmar’s recovery but also the broader question of whether disasters can create space for peace in even the most fractured states.

Cyclone Nargis and the Limits of Disaster Diplomacy

Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar in 2008, had a profound impact on the country’s civil war and internal political dynamics. The storm killed at least 138,000 people and devastated the Irrawaddy Delta. The military junta’s slow and inadequate response, coupled with its refusal to accept international aid, eroded public trust and exposed its prioritization of control over humanitarian needs.

In the aftermath of the cyclone, widespread displacement and weak local authority, especially in neglected or contested regions, demonstrated the junta’s weakness, if not complete absence, in areas outside the main urban centers of the Irrawaddy Delta. In these contested areas, ethnic armed groups—particularly in Karen and Shan states—stepped in to provide aid and expand their influence. Despite the widespread devastation, the military continued its offensive against minority populations, further militarizing conflict zones and deepening instability.

Just a week after the storm, as much of the country remained without any relief, the junta moved forward with a constitutional referendum. The referendum sought to entrench military power by reserving 25% of parliamentary seats for the armed forces and granting the military control over key ministries and emergency powers. Furthermore, it set the groundwork for the 2010 elections, which the military’s Union Solidarity and Development Party won. However, Cyclone Nargis also galvanized the pro-democracy movement. The National League for Democracy (NLD) and other opposition groups leveraged the crisis to highlight the junta’s incompetence, gaining both domestic support and international sympathy.

In exposing the regime’s fundamental weaknesses, the cyclone intensified both civil unrest and calls for reform. While the junta initially tightened its grip, the disaster also created openings for political change, setting in motion a limited but notable shift toward democratization. Between 2010 and 2020, Myanmar underwent a period of limited democratization marked by the transition from direct military rule to a quasi-civilian government. This fragile progress was abruptly reversed by the military coup in February 2021.

State of the Conflict: Assessing the Junta’s Hold on Power

The earthquake comes in the midst of a devastating civil war between the junta’s ruling State Administration Council and rebel groups scattered around the country. Following the 2021 coup, Myanmar descended into civil war after the military seized power from the democratically-elected National League for Democracy (NLD after unsuccessfully trying to have the results of the 2020 election – which the NLD won in a landslide – overturned.

The first two years of the civil war were largely a stalemate between Myanmar’s armed forces, called the Tatmadaw, and a plethora of armed opposition groups scattered across the country. The tide of the conflict changed in 2024, when, after a series of military defeats and territorial losses, the Tatmadaw extended a peace offer to opposition forces. Then, in December 2024, the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed group based in Rakhine state in the north, laid siege to military forces and managed to wrestle control of the country’s western border with Bangladesh.

Adding to the government’s woes are reports of spies within the ranks. These soldier-spies, referred to as “Watermelons” (green on the outside, but rebel red within), provide invaluable information that armed groups use to tip the balance of the conflict in their favor, resulting in their control of 42 percent of the country.

Worried about defectors within its ranks and concerned about Chinese support for all sides to the conflict, the Tatmadaw has come to rely on conscription and weapons from Russia to remain in power. In December 2024, after major wins over the Tatmadaw, two members of the powerful Three Brotherhood Alliance – a coalition of three ethnic armed groups: the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army – accepted China’s request for a ceasefire. However, not all armed groups are ready to lay down arms and negotiate with the junta. Ethnic armed organizations like the Karen National Union (KNU), which has been fighting the central government for decades, have stated that any post-conflict Myanmar should not include the military in politics.

Continuity and Change: Comparing the Junta’s Position in 2008 and Today

Any doubt concerning how the Tatmadaw’s response to the earthquake would differ from its response to previous natural disasters was put to rest when hours after the earthquake, military generals ordered airstrikes on targets in Shan State and Karen State. Further evidence of the government’s aim to capitalize on the tragedy is its delayed response to the unilateral ceasefire announced by the NUG and the Three Brotherhood Alliance. The military junta waited five days after the earthquake and the opposition’s announcement of a ceasefire before issuing a statement calling for a two-week halt – until April 22 – in hostilities.

Nevertheless, a confluence of regional and international factors have drastically changed the political and economic landscape in which the junta currently finds itself. First, China’s decision to support all sides to the conflict and hold its own talks with opposition groups signals that Beijing views the odds of the military junta obtaining a decisive victory and regaining territory are low. Second, the ongoing war in Ukraine means that Russian parts for the junta’s tanks and missiles may not be readily available when needed. Third, concerns about a global economic recession and decreased aid mean that economic recovery from the disaster will be slow, affecting the junta’s ability to buy public support as well as support from the military’s rank and file, given the unpopularity of conscription. Fourth, Myanmar’s increasing isolation from some of its ASEAN allies threatens to deteriorate already fragile regional relations, for example, Indonesia and Malaysia are increasingly wary of the junta’s failure to honor ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus for peace.

Toward an Uncertain Future

Unlike 2008, the current political landscape is marked by a far more organized and well-funded armed resistance, greater international scrutiny, growing fatigue by ASEAN neighbors, and deepening economic isolation. As a result, elections in December 2025 may not offer the junta the same level of legitimization as it did in 2008. Instead, the earthquake response and its continued disregard of the April 2 ceasefire, will serve to undermine whatever goodwill it has accrued in the international community and, rather than using the crisis to consolidate power, as it did following Cyclone Nargis, the military risks accelerating its loss of control—both territorially and diplomatically.

Tags: Civil Unrest, civil war, Myanmar, resistance, Unconventional Warfare

About The Authors

• 
  
• Shelli Israelsen
• Shelli Israelsen, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of conflict studies at the Centre for International Conflict Analysis & Management (CICAM), Department of Political Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on gender and conflict and women’s post-conflict development in Southeast Asia. She has conducted field research in Myanmar and Thailand, and her work has been published in International Area Studies Review, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Global Society.
• View all posts
• 
  
• Andrea Malji
• Dr. Andrea Malji, PhD is a Professor of International Relations, Security, and South Asia at the Daniel K Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI-APCSS), a US Department of Defense regional center. Her research focuses on South Asia and conflict and security and she has extensive experience conducting field research in South Asia. Her work has been published in Cambridge University Press, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Hoover University Press among others. Prior to working at DKI-APCSS, she served as a department chair at Hawaii Pacific University.

9. Pentagon Diverts $1 Billion from Army Barracks to Fund Border Mission

​Priorities. When the President/SECDEF gives an order the military must execute it.

But I am sure the Army comptrollers are handling this in a way that will move money back to these accounts in short order so there will be little to no impact. I am sure that the continuing resolution authority (CRA) from Congress is not helping them and likely has a more negative impact on soldiers than moving this money around.

Pentagon Diverts $1 Billion from Army Barracks to Fund Border Mission

military.com · by Steve Beynon · May 28, 2025

The Pentagon is shifting $1 billion meant for maintaining and renovating Army barracks to instead fund its surge of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, a move that coincides with the service's gradual deprioritization of quality-of-life initiatives for soldiers.

Redirecting the barracks funding erodes much of the additional money the Army started pouring into living quarters during the previous administration. The funding could be partially replaced by a separate $1 billion in proposed barracks investments across all services in Congress' so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill,” but that legislation, designed to enact President Donald Trump's agenda, would still leave the Army with an enormous financial loss on maintaining living quarters for junior troops.

The shift of Army barracks money to the border mission was laid out in a wide-ranging Defense Department plan, sent to Congress on May 8, to move funding between various programs. The service declined to comment on how the cut might affect ongoing projects.

The Pentagon has broad flexibility to move money between accounts, a move called “reprogramming,” without an act of Congress.

The diversion of funds away from soldier housing contrasts with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's public persona. Having served 11 years as an Army National Guard officer, Hegseth has frequently portrayed himself as a champion for the rank and file, telling troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, last week, "I've been in your boots."

"The message from the commander in chief, straight from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, is he has your back," he added.

The shift also reflects a change in the Army's priorities. During the previous administration, service planners made a point of tying soldier well-being to the Army's ability to fight. The idea was that quality-of-life issues were part of preparing for war, that when troops and families are taken care of, soldiers are more focused and ready to deploy to combat.

Current service leadership has moved away from that framework, scrubbing the Army’s mantra of “People First,” focusing more narrowly on traditional warfighting priorities such as weapon systems and acquisition reform.

The funding move is déjà vu for those watching defense budgets under Trump. During his first term, the Pentagon transferred $1 billion from its military personnel budget to fund 57 miles of border wall, siphoning funds away from the pot of money that includes troop pay and enlistment bonuses.

At the time, the reprogramming of the money to the border wall drew sharp backlash from Democrats, who accused the administration of sidestepping congressional authority. Trump had also claimed that Mexico would pay for the construction of the wall, though that never happened.

"Taking money out of facilities to fund near-term readiness isn't new; it's how the military got into this hole in the first place," Jacob Freedman, who was chief of staff to former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, told Military.com. "Instead of digging out of it, we're now digging even deeper."

Many buildings that house junior enlisted troops are decades old, with persistent issues ranging from mold and pests to failing plumbing and broken HVAC systems.

In some cases, those issues have led to soldiers getting sick from constant exposure to mold and other unsanitary conditions. According to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, the Army has a backlog of $20 billion worth of repairs and renovations to its facilities, a figure that continues to climb, worsened by inflation, with the average building being 47 years old.

“It’s shameful for the Defense Department to divert resources dedicated to improving living quarters for military personnel for a political stunt,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Military.com in a statement.

The Army has acknowledged that some barracks have been allowed to deteriorate due to funding shortfalls and shifting priorities. Maintenance teams have struggled to keep pace with demand, and soldiers have reported lengthy wait times to fix basic issues like non-working air conditioning in the sweltering summer months.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has deployed more than 9,000 troops to the border since January, including part of the 4th Infantry Division with armored Stryker vehicles out of Fort Carson, Colorado. The surge is part of Trump's crackdown on border crossings, which is itself part of a wider national effort at large-scale deportations.

The border has always had some level of troops for decades, most notably the Texas National Guard through Gov. Greg Abbott's troubled Operation Lone Star mission. Trump's megabill includes an $11 billion provision to reimburse the state of Texas for its mission that started in 2021.

"This, now with the lack of comments on quality-of-life improvements … it really gives the impression it's not a priority," said Rob Evans, who runs Hots & Cots, a Yelp-style app for troops to review barracks and dining facilities.

military.com · by Steve Beynon · May 28, 2025

10. Navy SEAL Veteran Is First GOP Candidate for Tuberville’s Alabama Senate Seat

Navy SEAL Veteran Is First GOP Candidate for Tuberville’s Alabama Senate Seat

military.com · by al.com | By Mike Cason Published May 28, 2025 at 1:23pm ET · May 28, 2025

Jared Hudson, a former Navy SEAL who founded an organization to fight human trafficking, has announced he will run for Tommy Tuberville’s seat in the U.S. Senate.

Hudson’s announcement comes one day after Tuberville said he is running for governor next year instead of reelection to the Senate.

Hudson becomes the first announced candidate for the Republican primary.

“I’ve spent my life taking the fight to America’s enemies,” Hudson said in a press release. “Now it’s time to continue the mission in Washington.

“I’ll be a warrior for President Trump’s America First Agenda.”

Hudson and his wife and three children live in Birmingham. They are active members of their church, the press release said.

Hudson ran for sheriff of Jefferson County in 2022, losing to Sheriff Mark Pettway. Hudson, who was making his first run for office, got 48% of the vote.

Hudson is a graduate of Mortimer Jordan High School. Following graduation, Hudson completed fire college and became a firefighter but said he felt led to join the military.

He served as a SEAL operator with Naval Special Warfare and was deployed multiple times to combat zones including Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Foal Eagle.

He served one year as a deputy with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and worked as a reserve deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

He also worked as an investigator with a prosecutor’s office in Indiana and is certified with the Alabama Peace Officer Standard Training Commission.

Hudson, who has his MBA, is CEO of his business, The Shooting Institute, which he founded. Through the institute, he has trained area law enforcement agencies, military personnel and civilians in self-defense.

He and his wife. Lauren, founded the Covenant Rescue Group, which fights human trafficking. Through Covenant Rescue, Hudson and his team train law enforcement agencies and also work with them to carry out human trafficking operations.

Hudson becomes the second candidate in the race, following Kyle Sweetser of Mobile, who announced in April that he would seek the Democratic nomination.

Sweetser is businessman and former two-time Donald Trump voter who bashed the president at last year’s Democratic National Convention.

Potential Republican candidates include Attorney General Steve Marshall, former Congressman Mo Brooks, U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, former Congressional candidate Caroleene Dobson, former Secretary of State John Merrill, and former Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner Kent Davis.

©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit al.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

military.com · by al.com | By Mike Cason Published May 28, 2025 at 1:23pm ET · May 28, 2025

11. The Electromagnetic Spectrum for Golden Dome To Succeed

This is an area most of us lay people overlook or do not understand. (I certainly don't)

Excerpts:

As Bryan Clark, an expert on missile defense, testified before the Senate, “The U.S. military will require more, not less, access to the electromagnetic spectrum in the coming decade. Facing numerical and geographic disadvantages against an opponent like China, U.S. forces will need electronic warfare systems that can jam, decoy, and deceive enemy sensors by operating outside traditional US frequencies and inside those used by adversaries…To prevent the U.S. from fielding these critical capabilities, China is attempting to convince the U.S. government to unilaterally disarm in the spectrum.”

Mr. Clark went on to note that without access to these critical spectrum frequencies, President Trump’s missile defense plans will be impossible to execute.

This latter view was echoed by Sen. Deb Fischer, chair of the Senate Strategic Forces subcommittee, who noted that “for Iron Dome to work, DoD must retain access to the Spectrum bands.” Similarly, Sen. Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, stated that “the potential auction of certain spectrum bands could have serious implications for our ability to collect intelligence on key adversaries.”

Notably, a recent exchange between Senator Mike Rounds and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe noted the implications for intelligence collection during open testimony before Congress:

The Electromagnetic Spectrum for Golden Dome To Succeed

By Robert Peters

May 28, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/05/28/the_electromagnetic_spectrum_for_golden_dome_to_succeed_1112856.html

There is a huge debate going on right now in Washington regarding the electromagnetic spectrum.

The crux of the debate centers around whether the Federal government should auction additional portions of the electromagnetic spectrum to private industry, or if it should refrain from doing so in the name of national security.

The portions of the electromagnetic spectrum in question are those that fall between 3.1 to 3.45 gigahertz (GHz) and 7 and 8 GHz. Telecommunication companies for years have utilized parts of the electromagnetic spectrum to deliver faster internet speeds, more reliable connectivity, and breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.

By auctioning off additional parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, as the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved to do earlier this month, the government could not only reap billions of dollars in tax revenues, but also enable advances in wireless technology in the private sector that could support the development of driverless cars, more reliable remote surgeries, or other types of technological breakthroughs.

President Trump indicated in a May 20 post that the U.S. government should auction off large chunks of the spectrum in order to ensure that the United States can remain a world-leader in 6G technologies and WiFi accessibility. These are critically important goals, and President Trump is correct that America must remain a leader in these technology areas.

Such an auction, however, could come with a significant cost if certain parts of the spectrum were not fenced off for national security reasons.

In particular, the 3.1 to 3.45 GHz band of the spectrum that may be auctioned off is currently reserved for military applications and are critical to missile defenses such as the Navy’s Aegis system. These systems are central to defending against ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles—all of which are required if the United States is going to build the Golden Dome for America missile defense architecture.

As missile defense expert Matt Costlow noted during an interview for this piece, "Auctioning off those parts of the spectrum that U.S. missile defenses use would endanger the entire Golden Dome project, leave us more vulnerable to missile attacks, and could potentially cause tens of billions of dollars in added costs for workarounds, not to mention years of delays."

As then Commander of US Northern Command, Gen. Glan Van Herck, testified before the Senate in 2023, “I am concerned about the potential national security impacts of auctioning or selling off that spectrum. It’s my assessment there will be impacts… to our domain awareness capabilities…There are multiple platforms to include maritime homeland defense platforms, airborne early warning platforms, ground-based early warning platforms that enable me to provide threat warning, attack assessment, and defend from potentially airborne assets” that rely on the 3.1 to 3.45 GHz spectrum.

A 2023 Congressional Research Service report noted that “while an auction of the segment for commercial use could drive wireless expansion and generate significant revenues, technical experts assert that reallocation of the band from federal to nonfederal use would require complex and high-cost modifications to DOD systems and would affect DOD operations.”

In 2023, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb told Congress that replacing Aegis radar with one capable of using different frequencies would cost more than $100 billion. Plumb went on to note “that particular portion of the band… from 3.1-3.45, is absolutely essential for DoD operations. And I’ll just say we’ve looked at what it might take to vacate, by which mean leave that band and go somewhere else, and we don’t know where else we would go.”

Similarly, then Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro testified that it could cost a quarter of a trillion dollars to relocate simply the Navy systems to a different spectrum band if it loses access to bands of the spectrum that would be auctioned off.

In 2024, General Stephen Whiting, the commander of U.S. Space Command opposed the sale of both the 3.1 to 3.45 GHz and the 7.0 to 8.0 GHz parts of the electromagnetic spectrum when he testified before Congress that “the electromagnetic spectrum is vital to us. It's the only way to get information back from space. That's our satellite communications, our missile warning, our positioning, navigation and timing.”

While there is a potential for sharing key frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum between the military and the private sector, and the Defense Department has even put out a report examining how such an arrangement may be done, critics are skeptical of the efficacy of such a “spectrum sharing” arrangement.

As Bryan Clark, an expert on missile defense, testified before the Senate, “The U.S. military will require more, not less, access to the electromagnetic spectrum in the coming decade. Facing numerical and geographic disadvantages against an opponent like China, U.S. forces will need electronic warfare systems that can jam, decoy, and deceive enemy sensors by operating outside traditional US frequencies and inside those used by adversaries…To prevent the U.S. from fielding these critical capabilities, China is attempting to convince the U.S. government to unilaterally disarm in the spectrum.”

Mr. Clark went on to note that without access to these critical spectrum frequencies, President Trump’s missile defense plans will be impossible to execute.

This latter view was echoed by Sen. Deb Fischer, chair of the Senate Strategic Forces subcommittee, who noted that “for Iron Dome to work, DoD must retain access to the Spectrum bands.” Similarly, Sen. Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, stated that “the potential auction of certain spectrum bands could have serious implications for our ability to collect intelligence on key adversaries.”

Notably, a recent exchange between Senator Mike Rounds and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe noted the implications for intelligence collection during open testimony before Congress:

JOHN RATCLIFFE: “a public auction at certain levels would have an impact on our ability to deliver an accurate intelligence picture…. we can talk about the specific reasons about why in a classified setting that would cause, um, a diminishment of our ability to deliver a good threat picture to the commander in chief.

MIKE ROUNDS:

And in some cases, life-or-death consequences as well?

JOHN RATCLIFFE:

Absolutely.

In short, while the United States government should auction significant parts of the spectrum to ensure the long-term competitiveness of America’s tech industry, the 3.1 to 3.45 GHz and the 7 to 8 GHz bands should be fenced off from the public auction, so as to ensure that Golden Dome can be built and America’s intelligence agencies can stay ahead of their competitors in China and Russia.

Robert Peters is a Senior Research Fellow for Strategic Deterrence in The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security.

12. Pentagon sunsets Elon Musk's "what did you do last week" email requirement

This is actually indicative of one of the real problems in the federal government and that is "make work edicts" imposed by higher authority (and Congress) that do not contribute to productivity. It would have been nice if DOGE had helped to weed out these requirements that hinder productivity rather than impose them. Unfortunately their approach to the federal workforce was their erroneous assumption that they are all just living off the taxpayer dime and are not professional and productive.

Pentagon sunsets Elon Musk's "what did you do last week" email requirement

Axios · by Jason Lalljee · May 28, 2025

3 hours ago - Politics & Policy

Pentagon sunsets Elon Musk's "what did you do last week" email mandate

• Jason Lalljee

Musk told CBS on Tuesday that he was disappointed in the budget legislation that Trump called a "big, beautiful bill." Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Department of Defense has officially ended Elon Musk's "what did you do last week" emails, a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday.

Why it matters: In the wake of Musk's short but consequential time leading DOGE, the move suggests elements of the government are starting to move on from some of his more controversial policies.

State of play: Defense Department official Jules Hurst told employees on Friday that the weekly "What You Did Last Week" initiative would end the following Wednesday, per the statement.

• Hurst asked employees to share "one concrete idea to enhance efficiency or root out waste" in final submission emails.
• "This initiative provided leaders and supervisors with additional insights into their employees' contributions, fostered accountability, and helped to identify opportunities for greater efficiency and effectiveness throughout the Department," the statement said.

Catch up quick: Musk said in February that all federal employees would be required to send an email reporting what they had accomplished in the previous week — saying that failure to do so would be considered a resignation.

• It was a page straight out of the playbook he used when he took over Twitter, making workers justify themselves to stay employed.
• Federal workers sued over the email.
• Only about half the federal workforce responded to Musk's initial email, and many agencies told employees to ignore it.

Axios · by Jason Lalljee · May 28, 2025

13. Trump says he believes US is close to reaching a new Iran nuclear deal as he confirms he told Israel not to disrupt the talks

​Like "America First," Israel has "Israel First " (like all countries put their country's interests first). And Israel will do what it believes is necessary for its national security which may be contrary to what POTUS wants.

Trump says he believes US is close to reaching a new Iran nuclear deal as he confirms he told Israel not to disrupt the talks | CNN Politics

CNN · by Kylie Atwood, Alayna Treene, Jennifer Hansler · May 28, 2025

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on May 28 in Washington, DC.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

CNN —

President Donald Trump believes his administration is “very close to a solution” on an Iran nuclear agreement and he has personally warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to disrupt the talks, he said on Wednesday.

Trump cautioned his close ally last week that any move to upend the negotiations would be “inappropriate,” he told reporters.

Sources familiar with the discussions echoed Trump’s optimism and told CNN that they are closing in on a broad agreement that could be clinched when the US and Iran meet next, most likely in the Middle East.

But concerns about Israel derailing the process are clearly high. Asked about reports that he warned Netanyahu against disrupting the talks during a phone call last week, Trump said, “Well, I’d like to be honest. Yes I did.” He added: “It’s not a warning – I said I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

Trump said that his team is having “very good discussions” with Iran. Talks have taken place over the last several weeks led by special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and moderated by Oman.

“Right now, I think they want to make a deal. And if we can make a deal, I’d save a lot of lives,” Trump said.

Trump’s candid admission about the Netanyahu call follows CNN reporting last week that the US obtained new intelligence suggesting Israel is making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. Netanyahu has long been a staunch opponent of any kind of deal with Tehran and he applauded Trump’s decision in his first term for the US to exit the nuclear agreement agreed to by President Barack Obama in 2015.

The stakes are enormously high – an Israeli strike could undo the progress the US has made, risk triggering a wider regional conflict and ruin Trump’s chances of achieving a major foreign policy breakthrough as progress on brokering ceasefires in the wars in Ukraine and Gaza has stalled.

Trump’s comments come after Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson expressed openness to compromises, telling CNN on Monday that there are “so many ways” an agreement on the future of its nuclear program could be reached.

Enrichment has a key focus of talks

Still, the issue of whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium remains the key sticking point. And Trump himself acknowledged Iran “still (has) to agree to the final stages of a document.”

The fifth round of talks, which took place in Rome on Friday, dealt more heavily with the question of enrichment.

“Everyone is feeling good,” a Trump administration official said following the talks in Rome. “We have a much better understanding of everyone’s positions.”

The Trump administration had demanded Iran stop all uranium enrichment, which Witkoff has said “enables weaponization” and called a red line in the talks. Uranium, a key nuclear fuel, can be used to build a nuclear bomb if enriched to high levels. Iran has advanced its nuclear program in recent years but also maintains that its program is peaceful. Iran says it is willing to commit not to enrich uranium to weapons-grade as part of an agreement but has said it would reject an outright ban on all enrichment.

Trump – who said that he wants a “very strong document” – seemed to indicate on Wednesday that the current talks have included discussions on increased inspections inside Iran and the dismantling of at least a part of Iran’s nuclear program.

“I want it very strong where we can go in with inspectors. We can take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want, but nobody getting killed. We can blow up a lab, but nobody’s going to be in the lab, as opposed to everybody being in the lab and blowing it up,” Trump said.

Trump administration officials, including Witkoff, have said publicly said that the US red line is any Iranian enrichment. But Trump’s comments on Wednesday indicated that he may be open to allowing limited enrichment with inspectors as a solution to the impasse.

Previously, US officials have also floated the idea of Iran importing enriched uranium, rather than doing so in the country – a notion that Iran has repeatedly rejected.

US could invest in Iran’s nuclear power program

The current discussion includes the US possibly investing in Iran’s nuclear power program and standing up a consortium – expected to include nations from the Middle East and the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency – that would produce enriched uranium for Iran’s reactors, explained one of the sources.

But nothing has been agreed to regarding Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program, a White House official said.

Iran’s ballistic missile program is not a part of the current discussion, despite some administration officials initially pressing for it to be included. Given how far the talks have advanced at this point sources did not expect an expansion of the topics under discussion. Witkoff in early May suggested that topics other than the nuclear file were “secondary” issues.

“We don’t want to confuse the nuclear discussion because that to us is the existential issue,” he told Breitbart at the time.

Following the Rome talks, the two sides brought the latest proposals to their countries’ respective leaders to confer and are planning to meet again soon, most likely in the Middle East.

The goal is to strike an overall deal at the next meeting between the two sides that lays out specific markers for implementation but also leads to follow-up discussions on technical details, White House officials and sources familiar with the ongoing discussions said.

Witkoff and Michael Anton, the director of policy planning at the State Department, have been taking the lead on all talks in addition to a technical team that has begun working out more specific details for an agreement. However, it is widely expected the technical team will take over and be far more involved once a broad agreement is struck.

Despite Trump touting the expectation of “good news” in the near future, progress in the negotiations has been bumpy at times.

In the fourth round of talks, the US shared a proposal with Iran outlining some of the key requirements the Trump administration is looking for in a deal. But at one point an idea under discussion, which the negotiators on both sides appeared to support, was rejected by Trump, said a source familiar with the matter.

And while Trump is projecting confidence that a deal is on the horizon, he also claimed on Wednesday that the situation “could change at any moment – could change with a phone call.”

CNN · by Kylie Atwood, Alayna Treene, Jennifer Hansler · May 28, 2025

14. Putin’s demands for peace include an end to NATO enlargement, sources say

​Will we let ourselves and NATO and Ukraine be coerced in this way?

Excerpt:

The three Russian sources said Putin wants a “written” pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the U.S.-led NATO alliance eastwards — shorthand for formally ruling out membership to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and other former Soviet republics. Russia also wants Ukraine to be neutral, some Western sanctions lifted, a resolution of the issue of frozen Russian sovereign assets in the West, and protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine, the three sources said.

Putin’s demands for peace include an end to NATO enlargement, sources say 

hawaiitribune-herald.com · by none · May 29, 2025

Nation and World News »

Putin’s demands for peace include an end to NATO enlargement, sources say

Thursday, May 29, 2025 12:05 am

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend a joint press conference, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Nina Liashonok/File Photo

By GUY FAULCONBRIDGE Reuters

Share this story

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin’s conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards and lift a chunk of sanctions on Russia, according to three Russian sources with knowledge of the negotiations. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the deadliest European conflict since World War Two and has shown increasing frustration with Putin in recent days, warning on Tuesday the Russian leader was “playing with fire” by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kyiv as his forces made gains on the battlefield. After speaking to Trump for more than two hours last week, Putin said that he had agreed to work with Ukraine on a memorandum that would establish the contours of a peace accord, including the timing of a ceasefire. Russia says it is currently drafting its version of the memorandum and cannot estimate how long that will take.

Kyiv and European governments have accused Moscow of stalling while its troops advance in eastern Ukraine.

“Putin is ready to make peace but not at any price,” said one senior Russian source with knowledge of top-level Kremlin thinking, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The three Russian sources said Putin wants a “written” pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the U.S.-led NATO alliance eastwards — shorthand for formally ruling out membership to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and other former Soviet republics. Russia also wants Ukraine to be neutral, some Western sanctions lifted, a resolution of the issue of frozen Russian sovereign assets in the West, and protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine, the three sources said.

The first source said that, if Putin realizes he is unable to reach a peace deal on his own terms, he will seek to show the Ukrainians and the Europeans by military victories that “peace tomorrow will be even more painful”.

The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment on Reuters’ reporting. Putin and Russian officials have repeatedly said any peace deal must address the “root causes” of the conflict — Russian shorthand for the issue of NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine.

hawaiitribune-herald.com · by none · May 29, 2025

15. Trump Downplays Prospect of New Sanctions on Russia

Trump Downplays Prospect of New Sanctions on Russia

The president says he will know in about two weeks if Putin is serious about ending the war with Ukraine

https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-downplays-prospect-of-new-sanctions-on-russia-747825aa

By Tarini Parti

Follow

 and Alex Leary

Follow

Updated May 28, 2025 3:56 pm ET

And do you still believe

0 of 1 minute, 39 secondsVolume 0%

President Trump said he would know in about two weeks whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is committed to ending the war in Ukraine. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Key Points

What's This?

• Trump said he would know in about two weeks if Putin is committed to ending the war in Ukraine.
• Trump distanced himself from the war, calling it Biden’s, Zelensky’s and Putin’s war.
• Trump confirmed he had asked Netanyahu to avoid military action that could jeopardize Iran talks.

President Trump played down the possibility of new sanctions on Moscow and said he would know in about two weeks if Russian President Vladimir Putin is committed to ending its war in Ukraine. 

“If I think I’m close to getting a deal, I don’t want to screw it up by doing that,” Trump said Wednesday of sanctions, which he has raised in recent days as Russia has waged aggressive attacks on Ukraine.

“We’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not, and if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was prepared to meet representatives from Ukraine on June 2 in Istanbul for a second round of direct talks, following a prisoner exchange between the two countries.

Trump has expressed frustration with Putin in recent days, saying he was “playing with fire” as peace talks with Ukraine stalled. Trump over the weekend indicated he was considering sanctions against Moscow. People familiar with the matter said new measures could come as early as this week.

“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD,” Trump wrote Tuesday on social media.

The president again distanced himself from the conflict on Wednesday. “This isn’t my war,” he said. “This is [former President Joe] Biden’s war, [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky’s war, and Putin’s war. This isn’t Trump’s war.”

Trump has been unable to persuade Putin on concessions toward a negotiated peace with Ukraine, and the Russian leader has recently intensified the war, launching its largest-ever drone-and-missile assault on Ukraine earlier this week.

Trump pivoted to talking about Iran and Gaza, when pressed for more on the consequences Putin would face for continuing to attack Ukraine. “We’re not happy about that situation,” he said. “I think we’re doing very well with Iran. We’re doing very well with Gaza.”

Trump said the administration was having “very good talks” with Iran over the two-decade dispute regarding the country’s nuclear work. “We’ll find out whether that means anything.” He confirmed that he had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to take any military action that could jeopardize talks with Iran. “To be honest, yes, I did,” he said.

The U.S. wants Iran to roll back Iran’s program, which American officials think has put it within a few months of being able to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran says it is open to scaling back the program if the U.S. lifts sanctions over its nuclear work, providing relief for its economy.

“They still have to agree to the final stages of a document, but I think you could be very well surprised what happens there, and it’d be a great thing for them,” he said. 

U.S. Special Envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff, who was in the Oval Office with Trump, said he was on the “precipice” of sending a new proposal for a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Write to Tarini Parti at tarini.parti@wsj.com and Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com

16. U.S. Will ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas of Chinese Students, Rubio Says

Graphic at the link. But why are we also aggressively revoking (or at least have stopped issuing) student visas to our allies as well? Why are we treating our allies in the same category as China?

The impact could be increased tuition for American students and reduced university services. Despite the rhetoric of some pundits, most foreign students pay full tuition.

But I am sure all this is part of the coherent plan (along with tariffs and other actions) to put pressure on China in any and all future negotiations).

And it is about protecting US intellectual property. 

U.S. Will ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas of Chinese Students, Rubio Says

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the students who will have their visas canceled include people with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and those studying in “critical fields.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/us/politics/china-student-visas-revoke.html?unlocked_article_code=1.K08.sBFx.Z6th_W9So-2y&smid=url-share

Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

By Edward Wong

Reporting from Washington

Published May 28, 2025

Updated May 29, 2025, 3:02 a.m. ET

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday evening that the Trump administration would work to “aggressively revoke” visas of Chinese students, including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or who are studying in “critical fields.”

He added that the State Department was revising visa criteria to “enhance scrutiny” of all future applications from China, including Hong Kong.

The move was certain to send ripples of anxiety across university campuses in the United States and was likely to lead to reprisal from China, the country of origin for the second-largest group of international students in the United States.

Mr. Rubio’s brief statement announcing the visa crackdown did not define “critical fields” of study, but the phrase most likely refers to research in the physical sciences. In recent years, American officials have expressed concerns about the Chinese government recruiting U.S.-trained scientists, though there is no evidence of such scientists working for China in large numbers.

China has a large share of student visas

600,000 visas

400,000

Other countries

In 2024, about 20% were

granted to Chinese students

200,000

China

2008

2012

2016

2020

2024

Note: Count shows F1 visas. Years are fiscal years.Source: U.S. Department of StateBy Agnes Chang

Similarly, it is unclear how U.S. officials will determine which students have ties to the Communist Party. The lack of detail on the scope of the directive will no doubt fuel worries among the roughly 275,000 Chinese students in the United States, as well as professors and university administrators who depend on their research skills and financial support.

American universities and research laboratories have benefited over many decades by drawing some of the most talented students from China and other countries, and many universities rely on international students paying full tuition for a substantial part of their annual revenue.

“I think it is terribly misguided, counterproductive and another way in which we are shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University.

The move against Chinese students comes as the Trump administration has sought a broader crackdown on elite universities and international students. And it coincides with heightened tensions between the United States and China over President Trump’s trade war. The foremost target of Mr. Trump’s expansive tariffs is China, which he has asserted has taken unfair advantage of the international trade system for decades.

It is unclear how quickly the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security will move to cancel the visas of affected students, or whether China will now take retaliatory actions on the relatively fewer number of American students in the country and move to expel some of them.

Until now, family members of most Chinese Communist Party officials could study at American universities. Many top party officials sent children to American universities in recent decades. Mr. Xi sent his daughter, Xi Mingze, to attend Harvard under a pseudonym. Harvard administrators and a few professors knew who she was before her graduation in 2014.

Around the same time, Bo Guagua, the son of a prominent former Politburo member who is now imprisoned in China, got a master’s degree at Harvard Kennedy School and attended Columbia Law School.

In 2020, officials in the first Trump administration canceled the visas of more than 1,000 Chinese graduate students and researchers after announcing they were banning from campuses Chinese citizens with direct ties to military universities in their country. It was the first time the U.S. government had moved to bar a category of Chinese students from getting access to American universities, a ban the Biden administration kept in place.

U.S.-China relations were in a fraught state throughout the Biden administration, but Chinese officials sought to stabilize them in part by emphasizing the need for more person-to-person exchanges, including at educational institutions. The number of American students in China has been tiny compared with that of their Chinese counterparts in the United States. On a visit to San Francisco in November 2023, Mr. Xi announced that China was ready to welcome 50,000 American students over five years while it would keep sending its students to the United States.

“America has always thrived by welcoming the brightest minds from around the world,” said Gary Locke, a U.S. ambassador to China in the Obama administration and chairman of the Committee of 100, an advocacy group of prominent Chinese Americans. “Shutting the door on Chinese students doesn’t just betray our values — it weakens our leadership in science, technology and innovation.”

A report published last year by the State Department and the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit group, said that China had the second-largest share of the more than 1.1 million international students who enrolled in American higher education institutions in the 2023-24 term. More than 277,000 students came from China, behind India, with its more than 331,000 students. The number of Chinese students had dropped 4 percent from the previous academic year, while the number from India had surged by 23 percent.

In another move on visa restrictions, Mr. Rubio announced Wednesday that the State Department would not give visas to foreign officials who engage in censorship of the speech of American citizens.

“It is unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants on U.S. citizens or U.S. residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on U.S. soil,” he said in a statement.

He added that “it is similarly unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States.”

Trump administration officials have criticized European governments and Brazil for what the officials call efforts to censor free speech on social media platforms run by American companies. Those include Meta and X, a platform once called Twitter that is owned by Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser to Mr. Trump who was by far the biggest donor to the president’s 2024 election campaign. Some European governments ban certain types of online posts by far-right groups.

Mr. Rubio’s latest announcement on visa restrictions came a day after he sent a cable to U.S. embassies and consulates telling them to halt interview appointments for foreign citizens applying for student and exchange visas. Those are the visa categories called F, M and J.

The Homeland Security Department announced last week that it was revoking the certification that allows Harvard University to enroll foreign students, although a federal judge temporarily blocked the move. In the policy’s announcement, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said the administration was seeking to hold Harvard “accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”

The words “Chinese Communist Party” were emphasized in boldface, though Ms. Noem did not explain what she meant by that coordination or provide evidence of such activities.

“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” she said.

Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that Harvard University should have a cap on the number of international students it admits to create more spots for Americans. About one-quarter of Harvard’s student body is from abroad. Mr. Trump suggested that the figure should be no more than 15 percent.

On Chinese social media, the immediate reaction to Mr. Rubio’s announcement appeared to be limited. But broader discussion of the Trump administration’s various announced restrictions on international students and on universities, and on Harvard in particular, had been trending for days.

Those who commented on Mr. Rubio’s announcement expressed both resignation and triumph. Some nationalist citizens celebrated the notion that Chinese students who had previously looked up to the United States would be disillusioned, or that Chinese universities would benefit from the return of talent.

Shen Yi, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, said in a post that Mr. Rubio had acted “as expected.”

Bernard Mokam contributed reporting from New York, and Vivian Wang from Beijing.

Edward Wong reports on global affa

17. Leadership at the Tip of the Spear – Reflections from SOF Week in Tampa

Leadership at the Tip of the Spear

By Jameson “J.R.” Johnson

May 29, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/05/29/leadership_at_the_tip_of_the_spear_1113120.html?mc_cid=50c9e7e069

Reflections from SOF Week in Tampa

A Gathering Beyond Technology

This year, I had the privilege of attending Special Operations Forces (SOF) Week in Tampa, Florida—a convergence of the global special operations community that evolved from a showcase of cutting-edge technology into a reaffirmation of what makes SOF truly exceptional: its people.

I was reminded that the true strength of the SOF community lies not in technology, but in leadership. Representatives from United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) stood alongside elite counterparts from Europe, the Pacific, Latin America, East Asia, and Africa. The impressive displays of technology were only part of the story. The deeper narrative was about leadership—authentic, grounded, and visionary leadership that remains the bedrock of special operations success.

With over four decades of experience inside and around the Department of Defense, I’ve worked with extraordinary leaders. Yet what I encountered at SOF Week 2025 was exceptional. I spoke with individuals ranging from battalion commanders to the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the USSOCOM Commander, and other key leaders.

These were not figureheads. They were humble, mission-focused leaders with an unwavering commitment to their people. Whether in formal discussions or chance hallway conversations, I encountered consistent depth of experience, integrity, and care for the force. Leadership, I realized, remains the decisive advantage in special operations.

The Human Factor

This people-first ethos is embedded in SOF culture. SOF culture has long recognized that technology can enable, but never replace, human judgment and resilience. At SOF Week, this ethos was unmistakable. Leadership excellence was not the exception; it was the standard.

The U.S. special operations community is undergoing a generational shift, guided by leaders who are both guardians of tradition and pioneers of future capabilities. Their professionalism and shared sense of purpose left me encouraged about the direction and future of the enterprise.

One of the most poignant moments of SOF Week was attending a small-group session with the Secretary of Defense and about 50 foundation leaders dedicated to caring for SOF personnel and families.

These foundations provide critical support ranging from mental health care to trauma recovery and assistance for Gold Star families. Witnessing the dedication of volunteers—many of whom have turned personal loss into purpose—was deeply humbling. It underscored the extraordinary culture of care and responsibility within the SOF community, a quality unmatched in both military and civilian spheres.

The Future is in Good Hands

Amidst many professional highlights over the week, I experienced a personal one: reconnecting with Pete Hegseth, now Secretary of Defense, whom I mentored during his senior year at Princeton.

Back then, I volunteered to mentor a promising cadet through the ROTC program. I worked closely with Pete, helping him navigate decisions about his Army career. Though we lost touch over the years, it was incredibly rewarding to see his dedication and leadership today. Regardless of politics, I can confidently say his commitment to the nation and its defense community is unwavering. I am proud of the leader he has become.

Military readiness is often measured by hardware and posture. But at SOF Week 2025, it was evident that the most critical element of readiness remains leadership.

The U.S. Special Operations enterprise is thriving, led by one of the finest generations of leaders I have encountered. They are principled, capable, and fiercely committed to the mission. As someone who has spent decades working alongside this community, I can say with full confidence: the mission is in strong hands, and the future is bright.

Colonel Johnson (U.S. Army, ret.) is the President and CEO of Sabre Global, a leading provider of innovative security, defense, and intelligence solutions for government and commercial clients worldwide. With over 40 years of experience in military operations and national security, Johnson has held various leadership roles across the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and the private sector.

18. Why Putin Believes He Can Win His 'Civilizational War' Against the West

​Excerpts:

A hundred days of the Trump administration’s efforts to reach a workable ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine have shown that the plan it is pursuing doesn’t fully factor in the historical determinants of this war and the realities on the ground. As such, it has zero chance of producing an enduring solution to the conflict, regardless of the tactical concessions Putin may or may not offer in the course of these negotiations. The principal objective of the Putin regime is to stay in power while continuing to pursue its imperialist path, and paradoxically, this war has had a consolidating and stabilizing impact on the regime, allowing for social mobilization at an acceptable cost. It has allowed Moscow to extract concessions from the West while also laying the groundwork for a new spheres-of-influence great power deal, which is the ultimate objective of the Putin regime.

If anything, the fact that the Trump administration has already taken Russia out of isolation and offered multiple concessions while leaning on Ukraine to induce it to negotiate is a signal to Moscow that its strategy is working and its ultimate objective of reconfiguring the European security landscape may be within reach. And while it is true that Russia’s hard power indices are not a match for the GDP and population numbers commanded by the “collective West,” Putin seems ever more confident that today’s Western democracies have no fire in their bellies for a fight. As such, his strategy for fighting for the restoration of Russia’s imperial dominion and influence offers a path to victory on his terms.

Why Putin Believes He Can Win His 'Civilizational War' Against the West

19fortyfive.com · by Andrew A. Michta · May 28, 2025

The Trump administration made the Russia-Ukraine ceasefire its priority foreign policy initiative shortly after the inauguration. Setting aside Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric that he would end the bloodshed in Ukraine in twenty-four hours, predictably, the trials and tribulations of American diplomacy since the new administration took office have shown that reaching a workable and enduring cessation of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine was always a bridge too far.

The reason for this has yet to register with the Trump administration fully: Russia is simply not interested in any outcome in Ukraine short of achieving the primary policy objectives that drove it to invade the country again in 2022 in the first place. The fact that the US administration continues to negotiate the Ukraine ceasefire shows that Washington also doesn’t fully understand the very nature of the Russian state, the drivers of Putin’s policy, and most of all, that Moscow believes it can continue to pursue the war and achieve its objectives at an acceptable cost to the regime.

Russian Front

For Russia, this war has never been about conquering this or that piece of Ukrainian territory, about the language rights of the Russian minority living in Ukraine, or—as many critics of the war seem to believe—about keeping Ukraine out of NATO. Nor has the US policy of NATO enlargement into post-communist Eastern Europe and the Baltic States after the Cold War been the true casus belli for Moscow. From the start, for Vladimir Putin and his inner circle in the Kremlin, this has been a war for the restoration of the Russian empire, one that Putin, in effect, declared at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 when he rejected the security order the West has built, and when he later opined that the disintegration of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. Taken in this context, the two invasions of Ukraine—the first in 2014, the second in 2022—must be understood not as the result of a Western blunder because the harsh reality is that NATO allies never reached a consensus to bring Ukraine into the alliance, but merely as another battle in this larger war, with the first campaign fought against Georgia in 2008.

Restoring Russia

Putin’s war for the restoration of the Russian empire has, from the start, had three fundamental objectives: First, to restore the Eastern Slavic “inner core” of the imperial state by subjugating Belarus and then Ukraine to, in effect, reincorporate both into the Russian sphere of exclusive domination as the constitutive foundation of russkiy mir (Pax Russica) that Putin has set about to restore.

Second, his simultaneous objective is to undermine and ultimately fracture the NATO alliance by showing its inability to provide an effective deterrent to Russia’s expansion into Europe.

Third, the overarching objective in Putin’s war for empire is to push the United States out of Central Europe and the Baltic region—and ultimately out of the European continent altogether—so as to end the era of transatlantic security that for eighty years has rested on Europe and America being bound by a shared security system.

Putin’s goal is to restore Russia to its imperial position on the eve of World War I, achieving a spheres-of-influence agreement with the largest European powers, particularly Germany, that will once again make Russia a great power in Europe. Putin communicated his overarching objectives in no uncertain terms on the eve of the second invasion of Ukraine when he called for returning the regional power configuration to its pre-1997 status quo, i.e., nullifying the consequences of NATO enlargement altogether.

Trump’s Dislike of War

The Trump administration seems to continue to operate on the assumption that Putin is genuinely interested in ending the slaughter to save lives and that a territorial settlement and guarantees of Ukraine’s de facto neutrality will meet Moscow’s goals and end the conflict. Still, the concessions the administration has already made to Moscow to bring it to the negotiating table, the totality of which amounts to easing Russia’s international isolation, are not enough to induce Putin to negotiate in good faith.

In the event Putin stretches the negotiation beyond the reasonable timeline the Trump administration is willing to tolerate, no amount of added sanctions on Russia will force him to sit down at the negotiating table in earnest, for the only pressure that could potentially induce Putin to negotiate in good faith would be a direct threat to the survival of his regime.

Anything short of that, especially policies that rely on economic leverage, continues to exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Russian regime and the key drivers of Russia’s policy towards the West, as well as where the battle for Ukraine fits into this larger design.

It is high time the West acknowledges that Russia has been waging a war of imperial reconquest, driven by the Great Russian narrative that is foundational to its systemic evolution throughout history—one that spans the legacy from the Romanovs through the Bolsheviks and now its Putinist variety. Empire is the only form of state behavior Russia is familiar with, characterized by top-down structures steeped in a history of violence. It remains a constant existential threat to the countries facing Russia on NATO’s eastern frontier of the kind post-modern Western Europe can no longer recognize, and the United States has never been able to truly grasp.

The Trump administration’s policy of ending the war in Ukraine through a negotiated cessation of hostilities misses the mark because it views the problem through Western eyes, assuming that the horrific loss of life and the destruction of property that has been taking place over the last three years matters to Putin’s calculus—it does not. Hence, the proposals for a ceasefire that the Trump administration continues to put on the table miss the fundamental point insofar as they address issues that are irrelevant to Moscow. Putin has demonstrated repeatedly that he neither cares for the lives of his soldiers nor is he willing to alter his economic calculus to lower the costs of the war.

The harsh reality of the war in Ukraine that Washington has yet to recognize is that the conflict is only a subset of a larger civilizational war against the West that Russia has been waging for over two decades now. This Russian war for empire—whether in a non-kinetic or ultimately its kinetic variety—will not stop until Russia suffers a decisive defeat that will pose a direct threat to Putin’s regime at home. This doesn’t mean that Moscow will not engage in a tactical pause in its war against the West from time to time, but we should always be mindful that such a peredyshka or “breather” will only serve to offer Putin an opportunity to rearm and rebuild. Since 2022, Russia has reoriented its economy to support the war effort, demonstrating that it can reconstruct its military faster than most Western analysts had thought possible.

Backed by China’s economic supply base and money flowing in through energy sales worldwide, Russia’s military is well positioned to continue the war in Ukraine for a number of years while gaining combat experience and “going to school” on Western weapons and procedures, aided by the realist expectation that Ukraine’s defenses will ultimately break. If anything, Washington’s efforts to reach a negotiated ceasefire in Ukraine, including considerable pressure on Kyiv to do so, have only served to encourage Moscow to believe that time is on its side.

Suppose we are to make progress towards stopping the slaughter in Eastern Europe. In that case, the Trump administration should start by factoring into its assessment the root causes and consequences of the conflict in Ukraine, recognizing that it is not a “discrete war” that began through a series of policy miscalculations by the Biden administration or its predecessors. Still, in effect, it is the latest phase in a larger war Moscow has been waging against the West. There is a keen understanding of NATO’s eastern flank, be that in Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, or Warsaw, that Russia is following a strategy of sequenced conflicts, whereby the defeat of Ukraine would be but a stepping stone to direct Russian pressure against those countries, and—should the security system in the Indo-Pacific implode—to an all-out Russian attack. Such talk may sound excessively alarmist in Washington these days, but it is part of the national security calculus on the flank, and it should be the same across Western Europe.

It should be noted that while it was the brave Ukrainian men and women who have bled in this war, Russia ultimately sees the war as an extension of its conflict with what it likes to call the “collective West.” As such, it has found Western democracies wanting, both in means and in resolve, to counter its imperial onslaught. Taken together with the last two decades of Westen complicity and appeasement when it came to repeated acts of Russian aggression, we should take seriously the prospect that Putin will continue to probe NATO’s defenses and, should an opportunity arise, would not hesitate to move across NATO’s defensive perimeter.

A hundred days of the Trump administration’s efforts to reach a workable ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine have shown that the plan it is pursuing doesn’t fully factor in the historical determinants of this war and the realities on the ground. As such, it has zero chance of producing an enduring solution to the conflict, regardless of the tactical concessions Putin may or may not offer in the course of these negotiations. The principal objective of the Putin regime is to stay in power while continuing to pursue its imperialist path, and paradoxically, this war has had a consolidating and stabilizing impact on the regime, allowing for social mobilization at an acceptable cost. It has allowed Moscow to extract concessions from the West while also laying the groundwork for a new spheres-of-influence great power deal, which is the ultimate objective of the Putin regime.

If anything, the fact that the Trump administration has already taken Russia out of isolation and offered multiple concessions while leaning on Ukraine to induce it to negotiate is a signal to Moscow that its strategy is working and its ultimate objective of reconfiguring the European security landscape may be within reach. And while it is true that Russia’s hard power indices are not a match for the GDP and population numbers commanded by the “collective West,” Putin seems ever more confident that today’s Western democracies have no fire in their bellies for a fight. As such, his strategy for fighting for the restoration of Russia’s imperial dominion and influence offers a path to victory on his terms.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew A. Michta

Andrew A. Michta is Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council of the United States. Views expressed here are his own.

19fortyfive.com · by Andrew A. Michta · May 28, 2025

19. Make Them Fight! If You Want a More Lethal Military, Have Generals Compete in Wargames

​Excerpts:

Defense leaders say they want a more lethal force. That will require changing the culture and making senior leaders fight each other. The military briefs readiness, so why not the outcome of simulated combat? Unless defense leaders force US officers—especially senior ones—to routinely compete in digital gaming environments that simulate modern conflict, America’s warriors are just managing a bureaucracy, not leading a military.

The historical record is clear: The best militaries embrace continuous rehearsal and analysis of operational dilemmas. Officers fight on maps and in simulations before they ever fire a shot in anger. Today, the US military has the tools to do this at scale. The only thing missing is the will.

It’s time to build the infrastructure, train AI agents, and institutionalize a culture of competition. The US military needs to create a fight club from the top down that’s more than a metaphor. It is time to track performance, tailor learning, and reward mastery. If senior leaders are serious about the future fight, then generals should have to prove they can fight in complex, multidomain battles and campaigns. Not once. Not hypothetically. But routinely, under pressure, against an opponent trying to win.

If warriors don’t practice fighting, they shouldn’t be surprised when they forget how.

Make Them Fight! If You Want a More Lethal Military, Have Generals Compete in Wargames - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Benjamin Jensen · May 29, 2025

Share on LinkedIn

Send email

The lights dim, and the screens flicker to life. Across the room, a dozen general officers lean over virtual terrain maps, eyes scanning for anticipated enemy movements tied to intelligence feeds as they look for candidates for possible pulse strikes. Each general is fighting another general, guided by only an AI staff assistant and a playbook with decision points and tailored options in lieu of a long operational plan. There is no staff circus churning out endless amounts of PowerPoint briefs. No legion of contractors running white cells and resurrecting their inner dungeon masters as they throw dice and debate overly complicated combat adjudication tables. It’s more Thunderdome than Title 10 and global games of old.

One general tries to pull the enemy out of position using deception. Another gambles on a high-risk, high-payoff multidomain deep strike against command-and-control nodes. There are no referees—just results. A publicly visible leaderboard ranks all officers in the room by their ability to synchronize effects and outfight a thinking opponent.

This isn’t science fiction. It’s what should happen when we talk about preparing our senior leaders for war. It describes a modern kriegsakademie built not on endless seminars, lectures, and games too big to fail, but actual competition. In this professional fight club commanders are forced to prove they can actually fight against someone trying to beat them.

While Washington is filled with calls to cut the number of generals and consolidate headquarters, these measures will prove insufficient to increasing lethality barring a deeper change to modern military culture. Cutting billets won’t make the joint force better at its core mission—fighting and winning wars—if the officers who remain don’t regularly compete, rehearse, and prove they can outthink and outfight a capable adversary. The core question we should be asking is simple: Do our senior leaders fight enough to understand advantage in modern war? Being the best marksman or top gun graduate when you’re young is no guarantee you have what it takes to fight large formations in multiple domains.

The sad truth is that senior officers spend more time navigating policy meetings than practicing the art and science of war. Without a culture of competition—of trial by simulated fire—we risk fielding a military led by assistant managers of violence rather than warfighters. Lethality isn’t a budget line or a briefing slide; it’s a habit built through pressure, repetition, and the humility of losing in a safe-to-fail environment.

This article is a call to renew the “fight club” spirit in the profession of arms, but from the top down. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should sign a policy requiring general officers to fight each other in wargames tailored to modern scenarios. These games should capture objective data that helps leaders refine their ability to make decisions under pressure and hone their judgment in relation to tactics, doctrine, enemy order of battle, and emerging capabilities. Getting it right will require more than the proverbial stroke of the policy pen. The Department of Defense will need to invest in AI and data infrastructure, using the new fight club as an experiment for broader, more dynamic, and creative AI applications across the services integrated with emerging ideas about training and education in the US Army and the US Marine Corps in the era of agentic AI.

Why the Revolution Stalled

This isn’t a new idea. It’s a return to one long championed by voices across the profession of arms. Over a decade ago, multiple think tanks and federally funded research corporations created new wargaming centers and outlets like War on the Rocks starting publishing more appeals for renewing a culture of wargaming to transform the military profession. These calls paralleled service initiatives such as the Warfighting Society in the US Marine Corps. In many ways, they were made possible by senior leaders like Bob Work. Underpinning this wargaming movement was a shared premise that the best way to prepare for future wars was to create spaces where officers compete, fail, and learn. The hope was that gaming would unlock a revolution transforming military training and education. The effort later influenced a range of academic efforts including work at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity and Risk and Security Lab, MIT, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and King’s College London, among others. This academic turn viewed games as a method for systematically analyzing decision-making in international relations.

Yet, as one of those authors and an early proponent of integrating AI into wargaming, it’s clear to me that we made a fatal assumption. We assumed that a culture of warfighting could be organically built from the bottom up. As fight clubs proliferated—largely led by officers like Arnel David and others across NATO countries—they never seemed to take hold and produce enduring institutional change in military services. Why?

There is a simple but sad answer: No one required the leaders to fight. And as Stephen Rosen told us back in the 1990s, military innovation is a function of clashing communities inside the military profession. Change requires making champions and champions need to be flag officers. In other words, no change to the promotion pathways and expectations of general officers, no military innovation and corresponding increase in lethality.

In place of honing the craft of modern joint warfighting, today’s generals find their days destroyed by endless meetings and bureaucratic nonsense. Each passing year takes them further from honing their ideas about large-scale combat through constant sets and reps. The bureaucracy and a Gordian knot of policy nonsense have taken their toll. Contrast the state of affairs with how UFC fighters train. They don’t get better by talking about fighting. They get better by sparring and aligning entire training regiments against their strengths and weaknesses alongside those of their opponents.

The dominant culture in the military today sadly still rewards briefing fluency over battlefield fluency. Incremental efforts to increase the use of games across the force have yet to trigger real action at the flag officer level.

In defense of senior leaders, the biggest thing they lack is time. Again, the bureaucracy takes its toll. Senior leaders in corporate America would never allow their days to be as colonized by nonsense and broken administrative processes as the situation that confronts American flag officers daily. It is a disgrace. Our only hope is that in addition to stealing American intellectual property, the Chinese Communist Party also copied the blueprint of this broken system.

Fight to Learn: Competitive Wargames as a Professional Mandate

To escape the current malaise, the first step is simple but radical: Make general officers fight each other. At least quarterly, officers should compete in time-constrained, decision-forcing games linked to major warfighting scenarios and emerging threat capabilities. These games should include a mix of scenarios involving joint task force–level organizations integrating multiple domains in large-scale combat as well as competition games that align multiple instruments of power and even bring in senior officials from the Departments of State, the Treasury, Commerce, and Justice, as well as the intelligence community, consistent with the joint concept for competing.

General officer means just that, a generalist. Hence, infantry division commanders should fight reserve staff officers. J2 intelligence officers should fight J4 logistics officers. Guardians should fight sailors and airman should fight soldiers. While the effort could grow to include small numbers of supporting senior field-grade officers and a mix of scenarios linked to warfighting functions, the core would stay the same: Make them fight. Make general officers hone their decision-making skills and use the games to collect critical data. As stated above, the scenarios should range from campaigns linked to major war plans to competition operations, activities, and investments designed in peacetime to set conditions and deny benefits and impose costs on adversaries.

These are not sprawling, week-long planning events. They are tight, tactical and operational contests—thirty to ninety minutes—where leaders must outthink, outmaneuver, and outfight opponents. Think of it as tactical chess with joint effects and defined by uncertainty and feedback loops. Around each match is a tailored learning environment. Officers receive updated packets on adversary capabilities, emerging doctrine, and new strategic conditions and objectives. They build cognitive fluency through repetition. And unlike most professional military education programs, these contests rank performance. Every officer gets feedback. Every decision gets reviewed. The goal isn’t shame—it’s sharpening. The only unforgivable sin is failing to prepare for the next fight.

From Data to Dominance: Analytics-Driven Training Transformation

Games are great, but data is king in an AI era. Having general officers fight each other provides a unique forum for capturing data on decision-making critical to both training AI agents and transforming training and education.

Every battle generates structured data about each leader: decision timelines, synchronization of fires and effects, doctrinal comprehension, and cognitive load under pressure. Combined across the force, this data becomes a diagnostic engine. Imagine a fusion of the Army’s synthetic training environments and the Marine Corps’s Project Tripoli. Both aim to deliver adaptive, AI-enhanced training—but they need fuel. That fuel is rich wargaming data that can be used to better understand decision-making at the individual and force levels. At the individual level, general officers can receive tailored self-development reading lists based on the results of the game. One general might need a refresher on joint air planning. Another might need a deeper dive into the electromagnetic spectrum and space effects. As the games collect data, they also provide a snapshot of core knowledge gaps across the force. These could be harvested and used to adjust requirements for downstream professional military education courses. This would produce a more dynamic feedback loop for updating training and education requirements than the current process of workshops, councils, and PowerPoint briefings on loosely assessed outcomes-based education

Furthermore, this data-rich environment would allow for better statistical analysis of how general officers performed across core warfighting competencies. It would create data dashboards on performance that told a richer story than narrow, bulletized comments on officer evaluation forms and the buddy network gossip about who has what it takes for the next level. It would also complement procedures implemented at lower-echelon commands like the US Army’s Command Assessment Program.

Competition without consequence is just a game. To change the culture, performance in these wargames must be tied to what matters: command selection, school slating, and promotion boards. Just as physical fitness and weapons qualification shape enlisted progression, warfighting scores should shape officer trajectories. Did a general consistently finish in the top decile for managing joint fires? That should matter for career progression and command opportunities. Did a leader repeatedly fail to demonstrate integration of joint effects under stress? That should raise flags for command. Reward mastery. Identify gaps early. Build a system that says, loud and clear, if you want to lead in war, you have to prove you can fight.

Build the Infrastructure: Invest in Agents and Distributed Combat Labs

To make this vision a reality, the Department of Defense must invest in the infrastructure required to run distributed battles between senior officers, collect the data, and train AI agents linked to refining self-development alongside training and education. That is no small task. Gaming companies and services like Steam offer illustrative cases. These platforms enable millions of users to simultaneously fight, analyzing a wide range of data to improve gameplay. Steam’s top games often have over one million people playing daily, while its library exceeds forty thousand games. This scale offers interesting insights for the US military, which should build its general officer fight club network in a manner that supports future scalability across the force. Furthermore, this network would need to operate at the secret level, which is often more expensive than unclassified compute infrastructure. In other words, the bill is not going to be small.

The ideal architecture includes—like Steam—the ability to play online and offline. Generals could run leader development programs locally at commands and service academies both refining their judgment and teaching their subordinates how to fight. The data would still be harvested, tagged, and used to train a wide range of AI agents. These agents could include mentors on doctrine, domains, and warfighting functions as well as enemy emulators that learn to fight like key adversaries but adapt their approaches to the profile of the each specific general they are matched against. This last dimension would enable a culture of continuous improvement based on a dynamic digital profile for each officer.

These profiles in turn would unlock deeper human-machine integration for the coming age of agentic AI. If the military moves to having clusters of AI agents running analysis in lieu of large staffs, the better these agents understand the commander, the better they are able to pass information, balancing channel output (data flows) with source and coding theory (i.e., tacit knowledge exchange). Working with AI agents should be second nature to every officer, just like running battle drills and more complex joint planning processes. In the future fight, human-machine teaming will define tempo. The side that better integrates agents into planning and rehearsal will hold the cognitive high ground.

The Courage to Compete

Defense leaders say they want a more lethal force. That will require changing the culture and making senior leaders fight each other. The military briefs readiness, so why not the outcome of simulated combat? Unless defense leaders force US officers—especially senior ones—to routinely compete in digital gaming environments that simulate modern conflict, America’s warriors are just managing a bureaucracy, not leading a military.

The historical record is clear: The best militaries embrace continuous rehearsal and analysis of operational dilemmas. Officers fight on maps and in simulations before they ever fire a shot in anger. Today, the US military has the tools to do this at scale. The only thing missing is the will.

It’s time to build the infrastructure, train AI agents, and institutionalize a culture of competition. The US military needs to create a fight club from the top down that’s more than a metaphor. It is time to track performance, tailor learning, and reward mastery. If senior leaders are serious about the future fight, then generals should have to prove they can fight in complex, multidomain battles and campaigns. Not once. Not hypothetically. But routinely, under pressure, against an opponent trying to win.

If warriors don’t practice fighting, they shouldn’t be surprised when they forget how.

Benjamin Jensen is the Frank E. Petersen Chair of Emerging and Disruptive Technology at the Marine Corps University School of Advanced Warfighting and the Director of the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also an officer in the US Army Reserve. The views expressed are his own and he is open to fighting against any officer in joint warfighting games to facilitate learning.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: David Poe, Fort Bliss Public Affairs Office

Share on LinkedIn

Send email

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Benjamin Jensen · May 29, 2025

20. Bookshelf: Preserving the US technological republic

​Excerpts:

But it remains true that technology is an important aspect of the great power rivalry between the US and China. Continued technological dominance will be key to ensuring the continued prosperity and security of the West. Indeed, one of the many lessons of conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East is that technology is transforming the practice of war.

Karp’s and Zamiska’s book is therefore a valuable reflection on the state of a sector at the forefront of global security. While some readers may be troubled by the authors’ stark positioning on some topics and strident forms of expression, The Technological Republic has much to offer to both expert and non-expert audiences.

Bookshelf: Preserving the US technological republic | The Strategist

aspistrategist.org.au · by John West · May 27, 2025

Alexander Karp and Nicholas Zamiska make a strong case for strengthening the United States’ standing in the tech world. In their recent book—The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West—they argue that:

The United States since its founding has always been a technological republic, one whose place in the world has been made possible and advanced by its capacity for innovation. But our present advantage cannot be taken for granted.

Both authors are executives at Palantir Technologies, a prominent US-based software and artificial intelligence company. Karp is chief executive and co-founder (entrepreneur Peter Thiel is the other co-founder), while Zamiska is head of corporate affairs and legal counsel to the CEO.

Karp and Zamiska are committed to defending the West and see this defence as a key mission of Palantir. They also believe that the new era of advanced AI provides geopolitical adversaries with a great opportunity to challenge the US global standing.

A key argument of the book is that ‘Silicon Valley has lost its way’. The initial growth of Silicon Valley—a region in California associated with technological development—came from Pentagon funding during the 1950s and 1960s. The subsequent boost to technological innovation strengthened US security during the Cold War.

Today, the sector should be refocusing its efforts on helping the US retain its global edge in the technological arms race with China. Instead, it is fixating on the consumer market, prioritising projects such as video-sharing apps, social media platforms, advertising algorithms and online shopping websites.

Karp and Zamiska argue that Silicon Valley must rebuild its relationship with government, and that tech companies must get over their aversion to working with the Pentagon. They deride the tech bosses who take moralist postures against the US and other democratic governments while silently collaborating with authoritarian regimes. The authors argue that these attitudes have been influenced by the decline of rigorous classical education, and the weakening of national identity among cosmopolitan tech elites.

The authors mourn the prime of US technological leadership, when president Franklin D Roosevelt was mobilising technology for the military and great minds such as J Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein played prominent roles. Moreover, they are concerned that consumer technology and social media are weakening national unity by increasing polarisation and eroding mental health.

The authors don’t doubt the capabilities of the US tech sector. On the contrary, as of 2024, US tech companies were worth US$21.4 trillion—equivalent to 86 percent of the total value of the world’s 50 biggest tech companies. But China threatens US tech predominance. China leading in certain tech sectors, and has demonstrated its ability to catch up and copy in others, especially AI.

But Silicon Valley is not solely to blame. The authors believe that the state has retreated from the pursuit of breakthroughs of similar scale to those that gave rise to the atomic bomb and the internet. Instead, it is unwisely placing its faith in the private sector. They argue that the US and its allies should commit to launching a new Manhattan Project to retain exclusive control over the most sophisticated forms of AI for the battlefield.

Karp and Zamiska seem to be overstating the Silicon Valley problem and understating the region’s contribution to US national security. Indeed, the authors may well be talking their book, emphasising the contributions of Palantir Technologies.

But it remains true that technology is an important aspect of the great power rivalry between the US and China. Continued technological dominance will be key to ensuring the continued prosperity and security of the West. Indeed, one of the many lessons of conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East is that technology is transforming the practice of war.

Karp’s and Zamiska’s book is therefore a valuable reflection on the state of a sector at the forefront of global security. While some readers may be troubled by the authors’ stark positioning on some topics and strident forms of expression, The Technological Republic has much to offer to both expert and non-expert audiences.

John West is the author of Asian Century … on a Knife-edge and executive director of the Asian Century Institute. His career has included major stints at the Australian Treasury, the OECD, the Asian Development Bank Institute and Tokyo’s Sophia University.

aspistrategist.org.au · by John West · May 27, 2025

21. Lessons Learned from Pakistan’s Use of Chinese-Provided Weapons

Lessons Learned from Pakistan’s Use of Chinese-Provided Weapons - War on the Rocks

Michael Kugelman, Daniel Markey, Oriana Skylar Mastro, and Sameer Lalwani

https://warontherocks.com/2025/05/lessons-learned-from-pakistans-use-of-chinese-provided-weapons/

May 28, 2025

Members

In the latest conflict between Pakistan and India, Pakistan used weapons systems imported from China, with varying degrees of success. Pakistan is a crucial customer for Chinese weapons exports, with 63 percent of China’s arms exports going to Pakistan between 2020 and 2024. The conflict offered an opportunity to observe how Chinese-provided weapons performed against Western-provided and Indian weapons. We asked four experts: What lessons are Pakistan and China — as well as their partners and adversaries — learning from the recent Indo-Pakistani conflict, in terms of how Pakistan used Chinese-supplied weapons and technology?

Read more below.

Michael Kugelman

South Asia analyst and writer of Foreign Policy magazine’s weekly South Asia Brief newsletter

Three key lessons emerge for China and Pakistan from this important battlefield test of Chinese weaponry. First, with no clear victor in the clash, it’s apparent that Chinese arms and technology can hold their own against India and its Western arms imports — which many observers have long deemed superior to Pakistani and Chinese weaponry. Second, there are clear areas for improvement. India’s deep penetration of Pakistani airspace with a wide range of weaponry highlights the limits of Chinese air defense technologies. Third, Pakistan’s battlefield use of Chinese arms demonstrates how Pakistan is successfully transitioning away from its previous reliance on American weaponry. Amid a deepening U.S.-Indian defense partnership and U.S. efforts to prevent Pakistan from using American weapons against India, Pakistan must rely more heavily on China and other suppliers like Turkey to address its battlefield needs.

Daniel Markey

Senior Fellow, Stimson Center

The recent conflict taught Pakistan that its new Chinese-built J-10CE jets with beyond-visual-range PL-15 missiles are highly effective against India’s French-built Rafale jets. China anticipates that its now “battle-tested” J-10CEs will surge on the export market, and their success reinforces Pakistani confidence in China — offsetting lingering concerns about the U.S. strategic tilt to India and Washington’s grudging maintenance of Pakistan’s F-16 fleet. China’s ambassador to Pakistan has “assured full technical assistance” to Pakistan’s military for air defense, which will be essential because Indian cruise missiles readily penetrated Pakistan’s Chinese-built HQ-9P air defenses. Pakistan knows it must improve missile and drone defenses across the whole of its territory — not only the contested swaths India had targeted before 2019. It also would welcome new offensive systems to evade India’s S-400 air defenses. Beijing will cheer Islamabad’s likely buying spree, expecting future Indo-Pakistani battles to show off Chinese arms and helpfully spotlight India’s military vulnerabilities.

Oriana Skylar Mastro

Center Fellow

Freeman SpogIi Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

While the deployment of Chinese-provided weapons systems in live conflict presents us with an opportunity to assess the operational effectiveness of Chinese defense systems, the lessons are not straightforward. On the one hand, some Chinese commentators have argued that the success of Chinese-made J-10C fighters and PL-15E air-to-air missiles against India’s Rafale jets demonstrates China’s ability to compete with Western military technology, especially because China’s most advanced systems remain reserved for domestic use. In particular, Pakistan’s use of the HQ-9P air defense system to intercept Indian ballistic missiles shows the reliability of Chinese air defense technology in contested environments.

On the other hand, Western experts have always assessed Chinese missiles — including air-to-air missiles — to be very capable. The missiles’ successful employment therefore provides no information about the maneuverability of the aircraft itself. Moreover, Pakistani pilots have more flight time than Chinese pilots, and U.S. pilots have more than Indian pilots, so Pakistan’s success is not cause for a reassessment of what air-to-air combat between the United States and China would be like.

Sameer Lalwani

Non-resident senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Chinese weapons systems appear to have had mixed results in the recent conflict. Pakistan’s Chinese-origin J-10C fighter aircraft likely downed much more expensive Indian fighter aircraft, but Chinese air defenses — including YL-8E counter-stealth radars and medium- and long-range surface-to-air-missile systems (HQ-16FE and HQ-9BE) — failed to intercept many of India’s missile strikes. Chinese air-to-surface missiles likely also failed to reach their targets.

Despite limited information, it is worth considering whether Pakistan overperformed owing to more seamless systems integration of mostly Chinese technologies compared to India’s “hodgepodge” of systems. Pakistan’s ability to integrate sensors, shooters, and command and control into a low-latency battle network might present the case for increasing returns to scale of operating Chinese equipment while leveraging China’s technology spine of military satellites, secure communication networks, and data fusion centers.

Observers should pay attention to Chinese-Pakistani joint training. After delivery of J-10Cs in 2022, Pakistan’s air force likely benefitted from training on this new platform in the two major bilateral exercises — Shaheen-X and Indus Shield-C — with their Chinese air force counterparts. The Chinese military welcomes the opportunity to learn from the Pakistan Air Force to better understand Western concepts and tactics, which may concern Washington.

22, Women in the Ranks, but Not in the Clear

Conclusion:

In the meantime, full sex integration of the U.S. military continues to be an “unfinished revolution.” Until women are no longer seen as exceptions to a male norm, this debate will keep resurfacing. But history also tells us that, in time, today’s controversies will become tomorrow’s common sense.

​I concur.

Women in the Ranks, but Not in the Clear - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by M. Alejandra Parra-Orlandoni · May 29, 2025

When the Pentagon opened combat roles to women in 2015, many assumed the debate on full sex integration in the U.S. military was over. But Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth’s March 12 order to review military fitness, body composition, and grooming standards, followed by a March 30 order to establish sex-neutral physical standards for combat arms roles, signals that the debate is anything but settled.

In addition to his directives on military standards, Hegseth and the current administration fired most top-ranking female military officers, leaving no women in four-star general or admiral leadership positions. According to the most recent Defense Department demographics report in 2023, women represented just 4 out of 27 total four-star officers and 9 percent of generals and admirals overall. Hegseth’s office also directed the removal of all diversity, equity, and inclusion content from military websites pursuant to President Donald Trump’s executive order, erasing so many references to trailblazing “firsts” by female servicemembers. Citing the same executive order, Navy and Marine Corps officials paused sexual assault prevention and response training, threatening a culture of awareness, prevention, and support, and putting the safety of sexual assault victims, who are mostly women, into question.

The stated purpose of these directives? In Hegseth’s words, to ensure the U.S. armed forces remain “the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force.” But to anyone familiar with the fraught history of women in the military, these moves follow well-worn patterns, where opponents of sex integration turn to national security and claims to nature to justify the exclusion of women. Hegseth’s recent orders are just the latest iteration of a conflict that has played out time and again.

The issue of full sex integration has been on my radar since serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy post-9/11. In 2009, while selecting my second tour of duty, nearly half the billets available during my selection cycle happened to be off-limits to women. This was a high number but not unheard of for surface warfare officers like me, despite women officially being permitted to serve on combat ships since 1994. Reasons for this included berthing configurations and privacy concerns on certain ship platforms, as well as ongoing ground combat restrictions affecting Marine Corps, riverine, and special warfare assignments. The irony was striking: During this time, female engagement teams, cultural support teams, and Navy “individual augmentations” were increasingly sending women into ground support roles alongside the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.

I support full integration, but my focus here is not on arguing for it. Both sides have long since stopped listening to each other. In fact, both proponents and opponents of integration are guilty of recycling century-old rhetoric. Instead, I examine how military necessity has historically driven policy changes advancing the integration of women, while the ideologically driven discourse has kept the fight raging even after policy changes are implemented. I then offer a playbook of sorts, lifting some hard-earned lessons from those who have successfully made changes stick in the past: show, don’t tell; change the narrative; and give reforms time to take root.

Become a Member

The 2015 Order: Real or Pyrrhic Victory?

To appreciate the current landscape, we must first rewind. Jeanne Holm’s book, Women in the Military, recounts some of the significant sex integration policy shifts. For instance, during mobilization efforts in World War I, then Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels noted a deficit of yeomen. Once he confirmed no law required a yeoman to be a man, Daniels put out the order to “enroll women in the Naval Reserve as yeomen.” In World War II, the Navy established a division called Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, and the Marine Corps established one called Marine Corps Women’s Reserve. These all-women divisions primarily staffed shore establishments to free men for duty at sea and overseas.

The Gulf War precipitated further policy changes. Over 40,000 women deployed to combat zones, despite a technical ban on women in combat assignments. On the heels of the war, President Bill Clinton rescinded the “Risk Rule” in 1994, formally allowing women to serve in all military positions except direct ground combat roles. The post-9/11 era saw additional barriers removed, including the Navy’s 2010 decision to permit women on submarines and a 2012 policy opening over 14,000 positions to women.

Then in January 2013, then Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, announced the rescission of the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule — the last legal restriction barring women from serving in frontline roles. Implementation of the new policy would first require reviews by each service branch. However, Panetta and Dempsey clarified that “[a]ny recommendation to keep an occupational specialty or unit closed to women must be personally approved first by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then by the Secretary of Defense.” On Dec. 3, 2015, then Defense Secretary Ash Carter officially lifted the ban on women in combat. To many, this was the final victory. Inch by inch, proponents of full sex integration of the military had seemingly crossed the finish line.

However, the integration was not universally celebrated. In fact, Gen. Joseph Dunford, U.S. Marine Corps, did not attend the announcement event, even though he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time. Prior to becoming chairman, he was commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, the only military branch to request exceptions to the new policy based on the results of what became a controversial study. However, Ray Mabus, Navy secretary at the time, denied the request. Effectively, this meant all branches of the military — even the Marine Corps — would be required to comply.

Voilà! Arguments That Can’t Be Beat

In a 2015 study while I was in law school, I mapped the discourse surrounding women in combat to understand why this debate remained so entrenched despite wartime realities that had, in practice, already placed women on the front lines. I analyzed sources including news articles, books, congressional reports and testimony, scientific and academic research, documentaries, and blog posts.

The most striking revelation? The arguments had barely budged over 100 years.

Both proponents and opponents of full sex integration invoke immutable claims to nature and the sanctity of the nation. In other words, this is a debate rooted in ideologies. The stakes are existential — any compromise is not just illogical but unnatural and sacrilegious.

The arguments Dunford and others deployed in 2015 echo those used to resist women’s integration into the military during previous decades. My analysis uncovered a two-step playbook for opponents: (1) establish national security as a sacred duty and (2) recognize men as nature’s designated protectors. Mission First, always — even if that means excluding women from military service. Similarly, advocates for sex integration have their own playbook: (1) establish civic equality as a sacred truth within democratic nations and (2) root all citizens’ inherent equality in shared mortality. Égalité, always — lest the military undermine the very principles it defends.

These competing worldviews create an impasse:

Opponents

The military’s first priority is military readiness. Its whole reason for existence is to protect the nation and keep it secure from attack. Our military as-is meets readiness needs, and experimenting by integrating women into combat specialty units would be a waste of resources and unnecessarily compromise our military readiness. The progress of women in this country, although important, cannot be put ahead of our national security.

Proponents

Although national security and military readiness are undoubtedly important, our nation is founded on the very principle of civic equality. Any group (provided age, physical, and cognitive standards are met) categorically excluded from any aspect of military service — women in this case — is implicitly considered of lesser value than other groups that are not excluded. Our military cannot purport to be protecting this nation when the military institution itself is violating the nation’s most fundamental principle.

This ideological deadlock means that advancements in sex integration policy should originate elsewhere, namely, from the battlefield where necessity forces adaptation in ways discourse cannot.

Back in 2015, although I’d been eager to share my study, I happily put it away since the final ban on women in combat had been lifted. Fast forward a decade, and I’m reluctantly wiping the dust off. Hegseth’s recent orders shouldn’t have come as a surprise. His directive to review military standards designates Jan. 1, 2015, as the benchmark date. This is no accident — the date falls squarely within the shift to full sex integration, raising an implicit question: Did integrating women make the military weaker? Hegseth doesn’t state it outright, but he has unquestionably opened the door to that interpretation.

National Security: The Ultimate Justification

Presumably, Hegseth considers his recent orders as essential to readiness, lethality, and “bring[ing] the warrior culture back.” Although he recently softened his stance on women in combat, Hegseth’s past statements suggest a deeper skepticism that goes beyond fitness standards. “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal,” he said during a podcast interview last November, leveraging the long-standing argument that national security should always come first.

And Hegseth isn’t alone in this. Government leaders have long invoked national security to justify otherwise questionable policies, such as Guantanamo detentions and bulk surveillance. The nation is, first and foremost, something to be protected. That it should be protected because it is a harborer of liberty and equality is not far behind — but it is secondary.

Proponents of integration have historically worked within this framework, arguing that inclusion strengthens rather than weakens the military. Otherwise, their arguments risk being dismissed outright, even perceived as heretical. Even Panetta, when lifting the combat ban, carefully framed his justification around national security: “[B]y opening up more opportunities for people to serve in uniform, we are making our military stronger.”

Yet, this approach — then as now — has historically failed to convince opponents of full sex integration. Proponents can argue that integration strengthens national security, but they cannot overcome opponents’ foundational belief that women’s very nature makes them a liability in combat. As Hegseth put it, “The gender integration of the military is a huge part of our modern confusion about the goals of war. In particular, the choice to put women in combat roles.” Submitting to the primacy of national security is only half the battle; overcoming claims about biological destiny remains a challenge.

In any case, how can anyone argue with the Defense Secretary’s call to action? “We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force.” Wrapped in the language of strength and security, it’s a statement no one could reasonably oppose. Nevertheless, it subtly plants the idea that today’s military is weaker than it should be, with compromised standards in the name of inclusion to blame.

The Physical Standards Debate: “It’s Logical Because It’s Natural”

One of the most enduring arguments against women in combat is that biological differences dictate a natural division of labor, where men are best-suited for military service. Opponents maintain that sex-based roles are not just logical but inevitable, citing men’s superior strength, along with women’s reproductive role and increased susceptibility to injury and even urinary tract infections (a point infamously echoed by Newt Gingrich). Notably, studies supporting these claims often rely on group averages. Ironically, this contradicts Hegseth’s own “laserfocus” on meritocracy, under which individual performance earns military achievements.

Each generation views its contemporaneous debate over women in combat as fundamentally different from past discussions. But like the rest of the discourse, core arguments about physical standards remain unchanged. Two themes persist: whether women possess necessary physical abilities for combat and whether shifting battlefields demand shifting skill sets. In 1987, congressional testimony noted that warfare had evolved beyond brute strength on new battlefields with blurred boundaries. By 2008, calls to revise the Combat Exclusion Policy framed the modern battlefield as having “no front lines.” Yet in 2013, marine officers still described infantry as a “male organization” due to the physical demands of carrying 100-pound packs. And today, the increased adoption of battlefield robots and other technologies contemplates appropriate physical fitness standards for this new, “different kind of warrior.” Nearly four decades, and the song remains the same!

While opponents insist that “women cannot physically meet the same standards as men,” those standards have never been fixed. Military requirements have historically evolved with warfare — except when the question involves women, the goalposts seem to move.

Science is often cited as an objective measure, yet for opponents it somehow always reinforces traditional gender roles. Consider Capt. Katie Petronio’s, U.S. Marine Corps, stance: “Even if a female can meet the short-term physical, mental, and moral leadership requirements of an infantry officer, by the time that she is eligible to serve in a strategic leadership position … there is a minuscule probability that she’ll be physically capable of serving at all.” Her reasoning turns science into a pretext, using speculation about a future physical decline to deny opportunities in the present, even though similar concerns about men are rarely, if ever, considered. Former Navy Secretary Mabus once exposed another double standard: “Women got injured a lot or more than men on duty. Men got injured four times as much as women off duty … So, do we keep men from being in the infantry because they get hurt so much off duty? I don’t think so.” In any case, the Navy SEALs and certain Marine Corps ground combat specialties have applied gender-neutral physical standards since 2015, effectively mooting the “same standards” argument within those communities.

In the end, the debate isn’t really about standards. It’s about who gets to define them and how.

The fallout from Hegseth’s March 31 order illustrates this. The Army recently unveiled a new fitness test as directed by Congress following a RAND study that found certain existing test events failed to predict combat task performance. The Army made its new standards sex-neutral for combat jobs, not in response to but nevertheless aligning with Hegseth’s order. Bethany Russell (71st woman Ranger tab recipient) and Rita Graham (field artillery officer in the first year of integration), recently wrote:

Some claim that the Army’s public revisions of its new fitness test mark a lower standard for women. However, there is a difference between a poorly constructed test and one built to accommodate women — and the fitness test is the former.

If performance-based evidence fails to convince, as it typically has, opponents can still turn to difficult-to-refute appeals to nature: “Some of the revulsion to the idea of women in combat comes from very deep hardwiring.” These essentialist ideas about gender roles reinforce the notion that women’s natural place is in nurture, not warfare. Interestingly, similar appeals have been used to exclude men from certain military roles, such as nursing.

In his book, Hegseth proclaims, “Women bring life into the world. Their role in war is to make it a less deathly experience.” He piles on: “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.” The idea that nature prescribes immutable roles remains a powerful force in this debate. Ultimately, Hegseth’s order isn’t about fitness standards. It’s about deeply ingrained beliefs entangling science, natural law, and cultural norms in ways that have proven remarkably resistant to change.

Conversion or Compliance? The Limits of Policy-Driven Change

If history is any guide, the most effective force for changing military integration policy isn’t discourse. It’s military necessity. The Pentagon has incrementally expanded women’s combat roles not from moral victories, but because the battlefield demanded it. Yet today, the urgency that drove integration in the 2010s has faded. The memory of 9/11 no longer fuels national unity to the extent it once did. Without the pressure of “war at home,” sex integration policies risk stalling — or worse, regressing.

The lesson? Policy shifts alone aren’t enough. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction: Every policy “win” provokes cultural backlash. The 2015 decision to open combat roles to women was a milestone, but in the years since, opposition remains alive and well. It took an act of Congress in 2020 to force the Marine Corps to desegregate men and women in its boot camp, and the process drags on today. Only in 2023, under legal pressure, did the Army end a policy that barred enlisted women from combat battalions without at least two women “leaders” already assigned, effectively blocking enlisted women from serving in combat units. Not to mention, policy decisions can be reversed. That’s why this fight isn’t just about changing regulations. It’s about changing hearts, too.

So, what works?

First: Show, don’t tell. In this debate, where opponents elevate national security as a sacred duty, changing hearts is about as difficult as religious conversion. When the Women’s Army Corps was established and granted official military status in 1943, the shift was dubbed “The Conversion.” A few years later, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, U.S. Navy, testified before Congress about his own change of heart: “I was one of the doubters in the early days and I was definitely reluctant to see [the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service] program started. However, after it started and after I saw it work, I became a convert.” A military blog from 2015 frames it as a “personal journey from opposing women in combat arms to supporting it.”

And second-hand accounts don’t cut it. Hearing about accomplishments like women competing in the prestigious and selective Best Ranger Competition or the number of women in special operations forces jumping from 7.9 percent in 2016 to 12 percent in 2023 isn’t enough to convert non-believers. True acceptance doesn’t come from a policy memo; it’s a slow, personal transformation typically catalyzed by first-hand experience — the “see it to believe it” effect.

Hegseth has shown no signs of such a transformation. This is a man who titled chapter five of his 2024 book, The (Deadly) Obsession with Women Warriors. Despite stating that women are “some of our greatest warriors” during his confirmation hearings, it’s unlikely he abandoned his convictions overnight. At best, he is going along to get along — not ideal, but perhaps it’s enough to keep the 2015 decision from unraveling.

In the meantime, proponents of integration should create opportunities for skeptics to witness women’s military capabilities firsthand. Document and publicize women’s achievements without fanfare or special treatment. And normalize women’s presence in previously closed roles through consistent visibility and performance.

Second: Change the narrative. Consider how people once argued that women weren’t biologically fit to vote. A 1912 satirical play mocked this idea: “Women’s suffrage is the reform against nature. Look at these ladies sitting on the platform. Observe their physical inability … All nature is against it.” Today, no one questions women’s right to vote in the United States and most of the world.

Sometimes all it takes is an old narrative dying out and a new one grabbing hold. For instance, once we stopped telling women and girls they couldn’t do pull-ups — a quintessentially “male” feat — women of all ages, even in their 70s, have proven otherwise.

It’s remarkable how much the power of expectation shapes reality. So instead of entering the integration debate via the usual, still-deadlocked themes, proponents should create new narratives showcasing women’s concrete capabilities and contributions in action. The focus needs to shift away from “Should women serve?” to stories about how “Women can lift heavy,” “Women can excel under pressure,” and so on. Like with pull-ups, narrative shifts work by establishing new cultural and societal norms instead of stubbornly colliding with a debate that’s as immovable as a brick wall.

And finally: Give reforms time to take root. This is perhaps the least satisfying playbook element because it feels passive, and time moves at its own pace. But the reality is that institutional and cultural transformations take time, often spanning generations. As we’ve witnessed with women in the military, policy victories can backfire without the cultural foundation to support them. Still, transformation does come: Women becoming sailors, pilots, submariners, and even astronauts has become less noteworthy over the years — and that’s precisely the point!

For proponents of integration, this is a wake-up call: Don’t rest on laurels! But don’t lose hope, either. Policy shifts open doors, and it’s what comes after that keeps those doors open. The work happens in the quiet periods between headline-making policy announcements: mentoring emerging women leaders, documenting successes, building networks of support that transcend political appointments.

In the meantime, full sex integration of the U.S. military continues to be an “unfinished revolution.” Until women are no longer seen as exceptions to a male norm, this debate will keep resurfacing. But history also tells us that, in time, today’s controversies will become tomorrow’s common sense.

Become a Member

M. Alejandra Parra-Orlandoni is a former surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy. She is currently the chief operating officer at an AI-driven physics simulation company and chief executive officer of Spirare Tech, a boutique leadership and responsible tech consultancy. You can find her on Substack and LinkedIn.

Image: U.S. Air Force photo by 2nd Lt. Kaylin P. Hankerson

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by M. Alejandra Parra-Orlandoni · May 29, 2025

23. China pushes for a new ‘Asian alliance’ as it signs deals with Asean, Gulf states

​While the CRInK "alliance" is built on fear, weakness, desperation, and envy, this action by China illustrates that it envies the S silk web of friends, partners,and alliances.

Excerpts:

But the Asean and GCC members may be wary of drawing too close to China, as they must also carefully manage their long-term relationships with the United States, especially as their trade surpluses with the US continue to grow, she added.

In the joint statement, China, Asean and the GCC also agreed to expand the use of local currencies in trade settlement and cross-border payments between the three regions.

“Amid rising tensions in China-US relations, China may be aiming to use the yuan more widely in trade,” Su said. “However, structural challenges remain, and while the US dollar may weaken, it is unlikely to be fully replaced.”

Also on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron warned during a speech in Vietnam that the superpower politics being pursued by Beijing and Washington was creating risks for countries across Asia.

“The conflict between China and the United States of America is a geopolitical fact that casts a shadow of a risk of a much larger conflict in this important region,” Macron said.

US-China relations

EconomyChina Economy

China pushes for a new ‘Asian alliance’ as it signs deals with Asean, Gulf states

China is already deepening ties with Southeast Asia and Middle East, and may even be paving way for a powerful new ‘Asian Union’, analysts say

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3312111/china-pushes-new-asian-alliance-it-signs-deals-asean-gulf-states?module=top_story&pgtype=homepage​

Ji Siqiin Beijing

Published: 5:00pm, 28 May 2025

China is pushing to forge a powerful new economic bloc with countries across Southeast Asia and the Middle East to counteract rising US protectionism, with some analysts suggesting a prototype for an “Asian Union” may be taking shape.

Premier Li Qiang attended the opening of a new forum bringing together leaders from China, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Tuesday, where he remarked that the current global tensions offered an opportunity to bring the three sides closer together.

“Facing escalating geopolitical conflicts and confrontations, we can create long-term strategic opportunities by deepening mutual trust and strengthening solidarity,” Li said at the opening ceremony of the Asean-China-GCC Economic Forum held in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.

Earlier the same day, the three parties also held a summit where they signed a joint statement pledging to cooperate more closely on trade, supply chains, infrastructure and finance.

Asean comprises 10 nations from across Southeast Asia, while the GCC includes six Arab states bordering the Persian Gulf – namely, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

“These three parties make up a quarter of the world’s people and economy but only 5 per cent of global trade – showing huge potential for expansion,” Li said during his speech.

The new summit has the potential to create a new paradigm for multilateral collaboration in Asia, putting China in a stronger position to withstand US trade pressure, said Wang Huiyao, the founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization think tank in Beijing.

“Asean and China have now become a new and mutually reinforcing economic powerhouse. In my view, this effectively forms a ‘mini Asian alliance’,” Wang said. “Amid global uncertainties and the ongoing trade war, this provides China with a powerful new strategic lever.”

The inclusion of the Gulf states in the new forum would “further strengthen this alliance”, he added.

Play

Su Yue, principal economist for China at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the joint statement signalled China’s intention to support more infrastructure projects to enhance connectivity between the three regions.

“As trade tensions between China and the US deepen, Asean and the GCC countries are increasingly positioned as strategic connectors between the two major powers,” Su said. “China’s investment in these regions is expected to grow.”

But the Asean and GCC members may be wary of drawing too close to China, as they must also carefully manage their long-term relationships with the United States, especially as their trade surpluses with the US continue to grow, she added.

In the joint statement, China, Asean and the GCC also agreed to expand the use of local currencies in trade settlement and cross-border payments between the three regions.

“Amid rising tensions in China-US relations, China may be aiming to use the yuan more widely in trade,” Su said. “However, structural challenges remain, and while the US dollar may weaken, it is unlikely to be fully replaced.”

Also on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron warned during a speech in Vietnam that the superpower politics being pursued by Beijing and Washington was creating risks for countries across Asia.

“The conflict between China and the United States of America is a geopolitical fact that casts a shadow of a risk of a much larger conflict in this important region,” Macron said.

Ji Siqi

FOLLOW

Ji Siqi joined the Post in 2020 and covers China economy. She graduated from Columbia Journalism School and the University of Hong Kong.

24. These historians oversee unbiased accounts of U.S. foreign policy. Trump fired them all.

​Oh no. Why would we do this? Or is this just cleaning house to rid us of the "deep State" and this capability will be sustained:

Excerpt:

A senior State Department official responded that “there is a plan in place to maintain the committee.” The State Department website currently lists all of the positions as vacant.

I am reminded of these cautionary quotes:

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

 george Orwell, 1984

“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase his memory. Destroy its books, it's culture, it's history. Then have someone write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.”

– Milan Kundera.

These historians oversee unbiased accounts of U.S. foreign policy. Trump fired them all.

The volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States have been written since Abraham Lincoln’s time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2025/05/28/us-foreign-policy-state-department-historical-record-trump-firing/

May 28, 2025 at 8:00 a.m. EDTYesterday at 8:00 a.m. EDT

6 min

414

The Foreign Relations of the United States, or FRUS, contains more than 450 volumes chronicling foreign affairs from diplomacy to covert actions. (U.S. State Department)

By Petula Dvorak

Huge volumes, bound in the timeless, red buckram linen of legacy books, are historians’ gold — and crucial to the nation’s understanding of how U.S. foreign policy is made.

There is a dispatch from Japan to President Abraham Lincoln’s administration describing the “bloody affair” of July 1861, the “daring and murderous attacks” by samurai warriors on British diplomats stationed in Edo, now known as Tokyo.

There is the top-secret report that pushed President Harry S. Truman to authorize covert actions in peacetime in 1947 to counter the “vicious psychological efforts” by the Soviet Union.

And then there’s the telegram handed over at 12:15 p.m. on April 18, 1961, from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to President John F. Kennedy hours after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, warning that the action endangers peace “for the whole world. … It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America.”

An advisory committee of diverse historians helps ensure that the record of America’s history — especially classified and covert actions — remains unbiased, transparent and thorough.

Follow Trump’s second term

Follow

President Donald Trump just fired all of the members of the committee.

These advisers help oversee the exhaustive publication series called the Foreign Relations of the United States — or the FRUS, as insiders call it — and lawmakers rely on it daily. It is available to the public in major libraries and online.

The volume began in 1861, when Congress demanded a full account of Lincoln’s foreign policy during the Civil War. More than 450 volumes have been printed since.

Later accusations that the documentation was partisan or incomplete were addressed with a congressional statute requiring the setup of an advisory committee of diverse historians.

Without proper oversight, “a great many of the important facts of recent history still remain secret long after security requirements have expired,” Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) wrote in a June 1953 editorial in the Rutland Daily Herald, pointing to huge gaps in the historical records from the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration during the early 1930s.

“Instead, the American people have had only the charges and counter-charges of political campaigns on which to base their impressions,” Smith said. She said she was worried that the historical narrative will “rely on the politically-colored partisan accounts of some of the participants.”

Banners with images of President Donald Trump and former president Abraham Lincoln are seen this month hanging near the entrance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)

Sarah B. Snyder, a history professor at American University who specializes in the Cold War and was one of the historians fired by Trump, says the FRUS is “important for historical scholarship.”

“But it’s also important for the reputation of the United States in the world, to be seen as forthright about our country’s history,” she said after receiving the one-line message the other committee members received in April:

“On behalf of President Donald Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” said one of the termination emails obtained by The Washington Post and sent on April 30 by Cate Dillon, the White House liaison to the State Department.

Dillon did not respond to a request for comment on the reasons for the terminations.

A senior State Department official responded that “there is a plan in place to maintain the committee.” The State Department website currently lists all of the positions as vacant.

The current listing of members of the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee shows all of the positions as vacant after each of them received emails last month informing them of their terminations. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

The Historical Advisory Committee — “the HAC,” in Washington lingo — is made up of nine academics nominated to serve rotating terms by the biggest and most prestigious associations in the discipline. That’s what the 1991 statute mandated.

According to the committee chair, the associations have heard nothing more from the Trump administration about maintaining the committee since receiving the termination letters just weeks before their next gathering.

Margaret Chase Smith, wife of the late Rep. Clyde H. Smith (R-Maine), was sworn in on June 10, 1940, to fill the vacancy left by her husband. She was elected to a Senate seat nine years later. (Harris & Ewing)

Trump issued executive orders in March stating that he wants to shape the narrative of U.S. history in curriculum and museums to avoid “a sense of national shame.” But disbanding a committee created under President George H.W. Bush won’t impact the way the story of Trump’s administration is told anytime soon, historians said.

The committee reviews classified material and covert actions from past administrations that have reached the 30-year mark, which allows them to be declassified.

“Right now, the office is still trying to get volumes out from the Reagan era,” said James Goldgeier, a professor and former dean at American University’s School of International Service, who was chair of the HAC before he was fired. “There’s no work that’s being done here regarding the current administration.”

Goldgeier said he suspects the committee’s dismantling may be part of the federal firings that have been the hallmark of Trump’s first 100 days.

“It just seems to me like they just got a list from all the agencies” of federal advisory committees, he said. “I can’t imagine they looked much into what any of the particular ones did. And I don’t know that they understood that this one is congressionally mandated.”

The firings don’t hold up as a cost-cutting move to target government waste, said Melani McAlister, an American University professor of American studies and international affairs who served on the HAC and got a stipend of about $250 for each of the quarterly meetings.

“It’s not about the money,” McAlister said. “The idea that this is somehow about government efficiency can’t be true.”

It’s largely a prestige post, and a chance to work with highly classified materials that historians wonder about but rarely get to see. All of the historians on the committee have full security clearance, and much of their work is sifting through huge amounts of classified material and working with agencies like the CIA to declassify, organize and present the massive volume of information each administration generates.

The State Department historians regularly request that historical documents be declassified for their compilation of the Foreign Relations of the United States. (Library of Congress)

Richard Immerman, past chair of the committee and a history professor at Temple University, said that Trump spoke of dismantling the committee during his first term. But a compromise was reached requiring term limits for committee members to encourage more rotation.

The committee meets four times a year to report on its progress organizing, declassifying and analyzing mounds of information from telegrams, emails, field dispatches, letters, status reports, agreements and more.

They are the ones who collect declassified material and are the apolitical watchdogs over what is released and how it is presented, especially when it comes to covert, sensitive or possibly embarrassing revelations. They write reports summarizing their findings and edit what the State Department historian presents for publication.

Without their input, the State Department’s publications and declassification would be without oversight, as was the case in 1953, when Smith called the reports “partisan” and incomplete.

McAlister said she believes the firings are an intentional move to have power over the telling of history.

“You would have to try very hard to even know the HAC existed,” she said. “When people start targeting the telling of history, that becomes very dangerous for democracy.”

What readers are saying

The comments express significant concern and outrage over the firing of historians responsible for maintaining unbiased accounts of U.S. foreign policy. Many commenters view this action as an attempt by President Trump to rewrite history, likening it to authoritarian tactics and... Show more

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

All comments 414

More from Retropolis

HAND CURATED

• 81 years after he died in World War II, a young aviator comes home
• May 26, 2025
• 
  
• This man sold liquor to politicians during Prohibition. He told The Post his story.
• May 26, 2025
• 
  
• New Orleans jailbreak recalls brazen prison escape by the ‘Texas Seven’
• May 21, 2025
• 
  

View 3 more stories

View 3 more stories

By Petula Dvorak

Petula is a columnist for The Post's local team who writes about homeless shelters, gun control, high heels, high school choirs, the politics of parenting, jails, abortion clinics, mayors, modern families, strip clubs and gas prices, among other things. Before coming to The Post, she covered social issues, crime and courts.follow on X@petulad

25. As U.S. Retreats on the Global Stage, Is China Winning?

As U.S. Retreats on the Global Stage, Is China Winning?

Experts see a concerted effort by China to fill gaps created by recent White House policies

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/china-winning

 29 May, 2025

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with his Russian counterpart at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 8, 2025. (Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

By The Cipher Brief

EXPERT INTERVIEWS – As the U.S. retreats on several global fronts -- foreign aid, global health, global alliances and others -- is China taking advantage? Many experts and critics of the Trump administration are worried that Beijing will seek (or is already seeking) to fill vacuums created by the gutting of U.S. support for global programs, and a turn away from traditional American alliances.

In some cases, it's already happening. China announced last week that it will give $500 million to the World Health Organization over five years, replacing the U.S. as the institution’s biggest donor. President Trump announced soon after his inauguration that the U.S. was withdrawing from the WHO.

related

U.S. Counterintelligence in the 21st Century: Confronting the Russia–China Threat Nexus

Dear Mr. President: A Former CIA Officer’s Unvarnished Brief on Putin

Other examples: the U.S. has slashed support for USAID and other foreign assistance programs, while China’s aid to the developing world has increased; the U.S. has moved to shut down Voice of America and other federally funded media, while Chinese has expanded its efforts to boost China-friendly media in many parts of the world; and while the U.S. has cut funding for scientific research and places for foreign students at U.S. universities, China has recently opened its doors to global talent, including Americans of Chinese origin.

Beyond the funding cuts, there are changes in the U.S. approach to longtime allies – and China’s efforts to take advantage in that space as well. After Vice President JD Vance took to the stage at this year’s Munich Security Conference and criticized many of the European nations represented there, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a case for multilateralism and closer China-Europe cooperation.

“While not everything Beijing does on the global stage harms the United States, China will fill the vacuum President Trump has created in ways that benefit its interests and its people,” Michael Clark, a research associate for China policy at American Progress, wrote recently. “Trump is weakening the foundations of American strength and prosperity.”

How much does this matter? The Cipher Brief put that question – and others – to two experts with deep experience in China and the U.S.-China relationship: Orville Schell, Director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations; and Martin Petersen, who served as Acting Executive Director at the CIA.

“With the United States retreating, particularly from the Global South, Africa, Latin America, and other less-developed countries, it does create an opportunity for China,” Schell said. “Without competition, China has an easier job of gaining influence in the world.”

Schell and Petersen spoke with Cipher Brief Managing Editor Tom Nagorski. The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Watch now at The Cipher Brief YouTube channel.

The Cipher Brief: Do you believe China benefits in any way from policies taken by the White House over the past several months?

Schell: The first thing to note is that nature abhors a vacuum. And with the United States retreating, particularly from the Global South, Africa, Latin America, and other less-developed countries, it does create an opportunity for China. They are incredibly tenacious, and as we all know from the Belt and Road [Initiative], they're moving into this vacuum. That said, I think it's the absence of America that creates the opportunity for China, not the attributes of their system and their society, or that what they're offering that is particularly appealing. But without competition, China has an easier job of gaining influence in the world.

Petersen: China will certainly attempt to take advantage of any openings, but there's a second question that hasn't been asked. Equally important is China's ability to exploit those opportunities.

What does China have to offer to others as a way of building better relationships, as the U.S. retreats? I think it comes down to three things. Certainly technical assistance and aid, particularly if you look at what they've been doing in Africa and Latin America—they've been very active there. Some of the bloom is off of the Belt and Road program, but it’s still a tool China has and will use.

Second is expanding their trade with nations other than the U.S. – but here's the issue: something like $103 billion, around 15% of China’s foreign trade, has gone to the U.S. Some 16 million jobs in China depend on trade with the U.S., and the PRC has a lot of problems right now finding jobs for college graduates. And that's a lot of trade to move someplace else, including to Europe and the Middle East. I'm not sure those countries are going to be all that happy with aggressive Chinese trade policies that may swamp local products and industry. So there's certainly room to move that trade, but it's not going to be easy to do.

And then the last thing China has used is support for various issues in the region and around the world. The Chinese have been very active in the Middle East — often as a counter to the U.S. — but it doesn't really translate into a lot of influence that I can see at this point. And furthermore, if you're a foreign leader, you have to decide how you are going to react to Chinese initiatives. How comfortable are you going to be, getting close to the PRC?

And so, yes, I think there are going to be openings for the Chinese. I think they're going to be harder to exploit than some would have you believe.

Experts are gathering at The Cipher Brief’s NatSecEDGE conference June 5-6 in Austin, TX to talk about the future of war. Be a part of the conversation.

The Cipher Brief: To the point about Africa, there are cuts looming at the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs and elsewhere. There was a piece from the AEI recently that called the cuts in the U.S. presence in Africa “a preemptive surrender” to China. Do you agree with that assessment?

Petersen: I would argue that that's a bit of an overstatement. There are opportunities in Africa. The Chinese have been active there, but frankly, what does it get? I mean, you can pour more money in there, but I'm not sure that in terms of Chinese priorities — domination in East Asia and that sort of thing — spending a lot of their political capital in Africa is going to get them very far.

Schell: As we are closing consulates in Africa, or at least threatening to, China is upping its diplomatic presence in every conceivable way, whether it's through media, or investing massive amounts of money through the Belt and Road infrastructure projects in these countries, whereas the United States is really in retreat. So I think it does matter.

But again, there is the inescapable fact that China represents a very different political system, which isn't always appealing. And its soft power also is a little bit less lustrous than the United States. So it's not like it's a clean sweep, but I'd have to say we've exited the stage of much of the world, and we show no sign of upping our game — and that does give China an advantage.

The Cipher Brief: Is there a national security ramification to the U.S. retreat, and China’s filling the vacuum? The phrase we hear all the time from the intelligence community and the national security establishment – for years now – is that China is the “pacing threat.” Is this just about soft power, or is there a nexus between what we've been talking about here and national security for the U.S.?

Schell: There is a real national security question here. There are a couple of elements. One is the mining industry — whether it's lithium, graphite, rare earths, cobalt — China tends to have a real lock on a lot of these mining operations in other countries. And that means that it's all well and good as long as we were getting along in the old world of globalization, where it didn't matter where things came from or what kind of governments the countries had, as long as you could get it quickly and fast and at a good price. But now as politics enters the scene, who owns the mines? And even more important, who owns the processing industry? In the case of rare earths, China not only mines most of the ores from which rare earths are extracted, but it controls over 90 % of the rare earth processing facilities.

That means that even if we have a mine in Ukraine, which Trump has just signed up for, the question is who's going to process it to extract the ores for the magnets and the various things that we need, for consumer goods and military hardware. So there are lots of choke points in the global supply chain that China has quietly occupied. And one of them is in the mining industry, but also in things like silicon, polysilicon, solar panels, battery technology, which depends on a lot of lithium and other minerals. China has quietly just moved in and invested in these areas, and we have not.

Petersen: Yes, there is a national security element to this. I think Trump is forcing the nations of Asia to consider and make some decisions between the U.S. and China. That’s a national security issue. Our trade imbalance with India and with Vietnam is pretty significant too. At what point is this economics and at what point is it national security? You can't really separate the two completely. They're interwoven.

And here I think the world needs a predictable U.S. with a clear vision – and “America First” is not a clear vision. But look at Trump. He turns on a dime, and I think we've got to factor his personality into this. I think he likes big statements, he likes to push out and then — back off may not be the right word, but he adjusts his position. I would like the U.S. to be able to articulate a little clearer exactly what our foreign policy priorities are, and be able to explain those to our allies and to our adversaries.

Sign up for The Cipher Brief’s Nightcap newsletter: the best way to unwind every day while still staying up to speed on national security. Sign up today.

The Cipher Brief: The Chinese are trying very hard for obvious reasons to engage more with areas of the world where the U.S. has retreated — and not just in Africa and the Global South. They are pushing for better relations with the Europeans, and even the Canadians. To what extent is that going to be a boon for China?

Schell: The answer to your question is, we don't really know. But in regard to Europe, China is going to aggressively seek to switch exports away from America that now may not be able to take them because of high tariffs to Europe. But Europe is frightened to death because they don't want to have low-cost Chinese goods. Consumers will love it, but it'll put people out of business. The auto industry, for instance — Germany is dependent on its auto industry. If they let in Chinese cars that are well designed and well made at a much lower cost, it's going to kill their industry.

The other thing that China is trying to do is to ship things to Malaysia, Vietnam, other countries and have them assembled there, or actually sometimes ship fully manufactured goods and have them re-labeled as being made in these other countries. So we can certainly do something about this, too, in terms of our customs and tariffs, but it creates a tremendously complicated system where you constantly have to be vigilant about massively expensive systems and administrative branches of the government to investigate where things actually come from. So the old system is dead, where nobody really cared where anything came from, as long as you could maintain low inventories, get the things quickly and cheaply.

Petersen: I think if you're sitting in Beijing, you're balancing two or three different issues. And certainly your relationship with the United States is one of those. You also got your relationship with the North Koreans, the Iranians, and the Russians, and you've got to factor that in. There's talks between the U.S. and Iran on nuclear issues. I don't know how that's going to play out, but there are foreign policy pieces that are moving that Beijing is looking at.

They've also got economic issues, not just the trade issues with the U.S. but job generation within China. Finances aren't what they should be. The investments are not in the areas that are probably ideal for the long-term development of the Chinese economy and whatnot. So that's a second set of issues.

A third set of issues is, to the degree that Xi is talking about unification with Taiwan, a more aggressive Chinese military posture, and certainly in Asia, he's got to be taking a look at what happened with the Russians in Ukraine and think, do I have equipment that will function? Do I have armed forces that will be able to work together to achieve goals? What about initiative at the company and battalion and brigade levels? Will they be able to maneuver on a complex modern battleship? So Xi Jinping is balancing three balls. There's the U.S. ball, which is a big one. He's got his relationship that he's tied himself to with Putin and North Korea and Iran, and he's got these economic issues at home. He's got a lot on his plate.

The Cipher Brief: So have these first months of the second Trump administration been a good thing for China? A terrible thing? Somewhere in between?

Schell: I think China is — in a different way than the United States — in a difficult position because its economy is so dependent on the global market system functioning as it has, and that's now under threat. Moreover, the property market in China has crashed and is in a grave state of affairs. And this was the heart and soul of an important element of China's economic well-being. And there are other things that China has to concern itself with, like aging demographics, no immigration to irrigate the society with younger immigrants from elsewhere. And it also has a political system that for most countries, if they had their druthers, is not that appealing. They wouldn't choose it, but the United States has made itself so indigestible in some ways, that it makes it more appealing for them to buddy up with China. But that game is not over yet.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief because National Security is Everyone’s Business.

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