Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.”

– Jerry Seinfeld

"The best people possess a feeling for beauty., the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.

– Ernest Hemingway

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. Forging a new national security alliance (Commander USSOCOM)

2. NDIA POLICY POINTS: SOF’s Past Makes it Perfect for the Future

3. SOCOM Shows Interest in Hybrid, AI-Enabled Vehicles

4. New Maritime Technology for Navy SEALs on the Way

5. Cut the Chaff–Acquisition Revolution at SOCOM in the Age of Irregular Warfare

6. Hegseth orders elimination of 10% of general, admiral jobs

7. Hegseth Used Multiple Signal Chats for Official Pentagon Business

8. How Ukraine's Cheap Sea Drones Are Revolutionizing Naval Warfare

9. Accepting 'Ugly Terms': Is This the Only Path to End the Ukraine War?

10. Ukraine Is A Military Laboratory

11. China’s Expanding View of “Taiwan Independence” and Implications for U.S. Policy

12. Understanding NATO’s Burden-Sharing Debate: Political Rhetoric and Defense Spending Realities

13. How Images of the Dalai Lama Landed a Tibetan Woman in China’s Dragnet

14. Xi Can’t Trust His Own Military

15. Spy Agencies Do Not Think Venezuela Directs Gang, Declassified Memo Shows

16. Trump’s Hope for Gaza Deal Fades as Israel Plans Major Escalation

17. America’s Coming Brain Drain

18. Print, Crash, and Reprint: How the Air Force Should Rethink Small Drones

1. Forging a new national security alliance (Commander USSOCOM)

There are many innovative things happening to USSOCOM. I was very impressed with the briefings and discussion briefings today and impressed with some f the a lof the new equipment that is being fielded

Forging a new national security alliance

The commander of U.S. Special Operations Command wants to knit traditional and non-traditional government, industry, and academic partners.

By Gen. Bryan P. Fenton

Commander, USSOCOM

defenseone.com · by Gen. Bryan P. Fenton

In a not-so-distant future, the United States may face a combination of National Defense Strategy competitors in a shooting war while still holding terrorist groups at bay and responding to yet more crises across the globe. It is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which things go badly, quickly.

The opening days of combat see U.S. and partner ground forces engaged in close combat, recognizable to World War I and II veterans yet infused with waves of uncrewed land, air, and maritime surface and sub-surface systems. U.S. stocks of hypersonic weapons, small drones, loitering munitions, and autonomous systems are gone within 72 hours. Some weapons and systems simply fail to work, sabotaged at some point via vulnerable supply chains for semiconductors and electronics. Despite U.S. arms makers’ efforts to increase production capacity, they cannot match the pace of combat expenditure. And the contested transit time between the point of final manufacturing and the point of need, combined with ongoing enemy sabotage, reduces resupply efforts to irrelevance.

This scenario is as plausible as it is dire, thanks to the ever-increasing complexities of global geopolitics, international supply chains, the lack of national industrial capacity to produce the materiel required to win a future fight, and the changed character of warfare that features the rapid employment and adaptation of relatively inexpensive drones, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems.

The challenges cannot be solved by the military alone. They require concerted effort across government, industry, allies, and partners. The U.S. government can lead efforts to address and avert these challenges, but the time and space to do so is rapidly dwindling.

Fortunately, within the Defense Department, the U.S. Special Operations Command is well-positioned to provide some of the necessary assistance and connective tissue between a wide array of traditional and non-traditional government, industry, and academic partners. By stitching together this network of collaboration, and highlighting opportunities for private capital within an expanded industrial base, the Special Operations Forces can be part of a unified approach that creates new and unsolvable strategic dilemmas for competitors.

A fusion of foes

The Chinese Communist Party seeks to subvert the international rules-based order and supplant U.S. influence. To do this, they harmonize diplomatic, informational, military, and economic levers, from military aggression in the Indo-Pacific to the wanton theft of intellectual property, to transnational repression against China’s ethnic diaspora. They aim to undermine Western values, longstanding military and economic relationships, and potential beneficial outcomes.

Russia, Iran, and North Korea pose their own increasingly intertwined challenges. They are combining their strengths and capabilities—military, political, financial, technical—to create new dilemmas for the U.S. and its partners and allies.

As examples, Ukraine is not just fighting Russia. Iran provides materiel and weapons support; China provides materiel support; and the North Koreans have sent troops. In Yemen, Iranian-backed Houthis disrupt commercial shipping lanes, with targeting help from Moscow.

Further complicating all this is the increasingly fluid nature of warfare, driven by rapidly emerging and increasingly capable digital technologies. Cheap, uncrewed systems allow state and non-state actors without a competitive Air Force or Navy to contest maritime and air domains. The cycle of innovation, from development to employment to enemy adaptation, is now measured in weeks. Cheap weapons can kill expensive ones, and attritable forces can rout exquisite ones.

Toward a better industrial base

When the U.S. economy transformed into a production behemoth that could overwhelm U.S. foes in World War II with aircraft carriers, bombers, and tanks, it built upon a solid skeleton of manufacturing capacity. Too many technologies of the wars of today and tomorrow—autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, and batteries— rely on overseas materials and factories, and indeed on ones controlled by potential adversaries. Fixing that relies on strengthening partnerships, using private capital, and building friendly production ecosystems.

At the U.S. Special Operations Command, partnerships increasingly determine how far we go, how fast we go, and when we get there. These are not just the traditional military partnerships, such as training events, joint exercises, military education exchanges, and military alliance structures. They also include newer partnerships with research institutions and industry help to counter the growing array of irregular challenges. With Special Operations providing the connective tissue, working side-by-side at the coffee-breath close level, we can create a unified approach towards deterrence.

The command is also working to help companies in the U.S. and its partners and allies to find the private capital they need to bring to market key innovations in sensors, artificial intelligence, uncrewed systems, and quantum computing.

The entire ecosystem must develop friendly production and consider expanding the traditional U.S. defense industrial base with non-traditional companies, and where appropriate, alongside that of allies and partners. This starts with looking at the components of dual-use technologies and ensuring they do not rely on a potentially compromised—or hostile—actor for critical resources or stages of production. Commercial decisions have increasingly strategic consequences for security. We must find ways to incentivize U.S. firms to onshore or “friend-shore” the industrial production of batteries, small robotics parts, electric vehicles, commercial drones, and autonomous systems. Meanwhile, the U.S. government should continue to identify and highlight assessed supply chain risk, using analysis from interagency efforts to facilitate improved decision-making and inform conversations with industry.

The opening scenario of this article represents what could happen if the United States fails to adapt to geopolitical realities, address increasingly glaring vulnerabilities, and adjusting its strategic approach. Partnerships, coupled with private capital, and used within the ecosystem of an expanded industrial base will drive unstoppable advancements and unmatched deterrence.

This year’s Special Operations Forces Week in Tampa, Florida, is just one way the U.S. Special Operations Command is working to link the global special operations community with industry, government, interagency, and academic partners. Featuring more than 60 partner nations, numerous U.S. government and partner senior leaders, over 800 companies, and 40-plus non-profits, SOF Week aims to more closely knit this network behind a shared purpose.

General Bryan P. Fenton serves as the 13th Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command.

defenseone.com · by Gen. Bryan P. Fenton

2. NDIA POLICY POINTS: SOF’s Past Makes it Perfect for the Future

Every time or anyone mentions SOF history, I hear comments that what we did in WWII will no longer work today. But such narrow thinking is troubling. The people who make those comments are only evaluating what took place and they are not assessing the creative problem solving capabilities that existed (and still existed within the force. No one who advocates for learning from our history is advocating doing things like it is WWII again. But there is so much to learn from what we did do but it has to now be employed in and adapted for the modern operational environment as we know it and as we expect it to be. (as well as train for certainty and EDUCATE for uncertainty).

SPECIAL OPERATIONS

NDIA POLICY POINTS: SOF’s Past Makes it Perfect for the Future

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2025/5/6/sofs-past-makes-it-perfect-for-the-future

5/6/2025

By Dean Hoffman and Joe Mariani

The National Defense Industrial Association’s annual Special Operations Symposium is often a window into the future of Special Operations Forces, so it was perhaps unusual that the 35th symposium on Feb. 20 began with a bit of a history lesson.

Army Gen. Bryan Fenton, Special Operations Command commander, described how research had showed that the organization’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, “had shortened World War II by five months.”

“But what if it had been there in 1939? How much shorter would the war have been? Would there have been a war at all?” he asked.

More than just historical trivia, the question comes loaded with implications for today.

For the first time in decades, the military is not directly engaged in a conflict, yet at the same time, demands have never been greater.

Deterring an aggressive China and non-state groups from narcotics cartels to terrorists around the world is proving a massive task.

It is a task that requires more than traditional tools. As retired Lt. Gen. Ken Tovo, former commander of Army Special Operations Command, said: “Conventional strength is necessary but not sufficient [for] deterrence.”

So, it is no surprise that when faced with so many diverse threats, leaders are calling on Special Operations Forces more and more. In recent years, requests for special operators have increased by 30 percent, reinforcing the need to align force sizing with this increased demand.

But the demand is driven by more than just numbers, it is because a strategic calculus built on deterrence is tailor-made for Special Operations Forces. From its very beginning, the force focused on asymmetric capabilities needed to shorten and even avoid direct conflicts. That was the core of Fenton’s analogy to the Office of Strategic Services.

Today’s Special Operations Forces renaissance does not require new doctrinal terms or discovering new capabilities, it is more a question of others awakening to its capabilities that have been there all along.

While the nature of today’s deterrence environment suits special operators’ traditional strengths well, the character of conflict is undoubtably changing. New technologies like first-person drones, artificial intelligence and autonomy are having outsized impacts on the battlefield, while familiar capabilities are being recombined into new architectures.

Nowhere is this more on display than in Ukraine, where Air Force Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, director for joint force development on the Joint Staff, cited the example of one drone pilot who singlehandedly caused 434 enemy casualties, destroyed 42 tanks, 44 tracked vehicles and countless other vehicles in only five months.

In some cases, these capabilities are becoming mutually dependent. The “irregular triad” of special ops, space and cyber is one such example. Cyber and space are integral enablers of Special Operations Forces, and their unique access and placement enable the joint and integrated effects of the other two.

These new capabilities are so important in meeting the needs of today’s operating environment that Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Francis Donovan, SOCOM vice commander, describes “synchronization of SOF effects from seabed to low-earth orbit” as the key to the command’s effectiveness in future conflicts.

But new capabilities mean new ways of doing business. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, homed in on this point, saying: “The biggest problem is a focus on being requirements-driven, not outcome-focused.”

When new capabilities call for new ways of operating, ossified processes such as the requirements process can stand in the way. After all, it is difficult to articulate detailed requirements for operating environments that do not yet exist. A better way is to focus on the outcomes that special operators need and work iteratively to create those outcomes.

This is precisely where industry partners can help Special Operations Command prepare to prevent and, if necessary, prevail in future conflicts. Precisely because rapidly evolving technology and changing strategic environments make it difficult to predict future needs, Special Operations Forces need partners in discovery, not just things. As Fenton summarized, “it’s not the what, it’s the how.”

This may mean that industry is asked to work in new ways as well. Rather than just responding to prescriptive requirements, it may take more co-development to reach the outcome that Special Operations Forces need. Army Lt. Gen. Richard Angle, commander of NATO Allied Special Operations Forces Command, envisions small teams working iteratively.

“Put an operator, a coder, a developer, all together and closer to the problem,” and you will foster the innovation Special Operations Forces need, he said.

While today’s challenges are multiple and varied, Special Operations Forces’ roots are about transformation and made for this era. They do not wait for the future; they shape it.

With industry and Special Operations Command working together, today’s special operators can build on the success of their World War II predecessors and not just shorten the next conflict but perhaps prevent it entirely. The future of modern warfare is here, and Special Operations Forces are ready! ND

Retired Army Col. Dean Hoffman is division chair, and Joe Mariani is communications chair of NDIA’s Special Operations Division.

Topics: Special Operations, Special Operations-Low Intensity Conflict

3. SOCOM Shows Interest in Hybrid, AI-Enabled Vehicles

Imagine being able to roll up on the objective in a quiet mode with no combustion engine running and only battery power? I hope capabilities like this are not rejected because someone associates them with climate change. This capability makes sound tactical sense.

SOCOM Shows Interest in Hybrid, AI-Enabled Vehicles

3/9/2021

By Yasmin Tadjdeh

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/3/9/socom-shows-interest-in-hybrid-ai-enabled-vehicles

Ground Mobility Vehicle 1.1

Defense Dept. photo

Special Operations Command is experimenting with emerging technologies as it works to bolster its ground vehicle fleet with new capabilities.

The command’s family of vehicles — which features 3,000 platforms — includes the Ground Mobility Vehicle 1.1, light tactical all-terrain vehicles, non-standard commercial vehicles and mine-resistant ambush protected platforms, said Navy Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a SOCOM spokesman.

Special Operations Command is currently investing its research, development, testing and evaluation dollars for vehicles in lightweight armor, hybrid-electric systems, advanced situational awareness and autonomy/semi-autonomy, Hawkins said in an email to National Defense. It is seeking technology that maximizes mobility, payload and protection.

Last year, the organization and its industry partner finished production of the Ground Mobility Vehicle 1.1, a highly mobile platform that supports both lethal and non-lethal special ops missions.

The vehicle — which is manufactured by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems — is “becoming a mainstay of our capabilities throughout the force,” said Col. Joel Babbitt, program executive officer for SOF Warrior, which oversees the command’s vehicle portfolio.

The system offers SOCOM increased mobility including internal CH-47 Chinook transportability, he noted during the 2020 Virtual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association.

Key capability areas of interest for the GMV include lightweight armor material, improved payloads, storage capacity, vehicle weight reduction, terrain-specific tire alternatives as well as command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance integration cost reductions, according to Babbitt’s slides.

Additionally, the command is currently building two GMV 1.1 hybrid prototypes to explore the usefulness of hybrid-electric technology, Hawkins said.

“We expect to conduct performance testing and gather SOF operator feedback this summer,” he said. “The results will help inform future decisions on whether to invest in outfitting the existing GMV 1.1 fleet with the technology.”

A spokesperson for General Dynamics said the company is not involved in the hybrid-electric prototype effort.

The command also plans to purchase hybrid-electric prototypes of its light tactical all-terrain vehicle in the coming fiscal year, Hawkins added. “The LTATV prototypes will be evaluated by the program office and SOF operators to help inform any future requirements and possible procurement of the technology,” he said.

The LTATV is a Special Operations Command-modified, commercial-off-the-shelf lightweight platform that can be internally transported via V-22s, H-53s and H-47s, according to Babbitt’s slides. There are two variants including a two-seat and a four-seat platform. The vehicle is intended to perform a variety of missions including reconnaissance and medical evacuation.

Last year the General Services Administration awarded a multi-year contract in support of the command for the lifecycle replacement of its LTATV fleet to Polaris with a value of up to $109 million.

Polaris offered SOCOM its MRZR Alpha platform, a lightweight vehicle with off-road capabilities that was purpose-built for the command.

Mark Schmidt, manager of defense programs at Polaris Government and Defense, said the company would be providing SOCOM with a hybrid-electric variant of the LTATV in year three of the program.

“We’re really excited to test and field a vehicle like this with Special Operations Forces as it will open up even more operational use cases with a high level of export power and even quieter operational modes,” he said in an email.

The company leveraged work from its commercial product lines as it developed the new vehicle, said Shane Novotny, director of engineering at Polaris Government and Defense.

“The MRZR Alpha is engineered and designed to meet specifications and requirements that greatly expanded on the durability, payload and performance of the current LTATV, the MRZR Diesel,” he said.

The platform has a durable chassis, powerful drivetrain and modular vehicle design, he noted. It features an expanded exportable power system and can carry more payload.

“We’ve also increased the size of the cargo area by 60 percent and added greater functionality through the incorporation of a flatbed design that includes cargo tie-down rails for added adaptability,” he said. “For example, with the tailgate installed and flat, two litters can be secured without any modifications to the second row or its seating capacity.”

The vehicle is powered by an 8-speed automotive transmission and a 4-stroke, 118 horsepower turbo-diesel engine, according to the company.

That provides 200 foot-pounds of torque. Additionally, the four-seat version includes 2,000 pounds of payload, run-flat tires and can reach top speeds over 60 miles per hour.

Earlier this year the company wrapped up the critical design review phase of the program, Schmidt said.

“Our rigorous testing and extensive off-road mission profile field evaluation miles … [have] proven the MRZR Alpha’s performance and durability at extreme heat, in the cold chamber and when operating on desert sand dunes or rocky terrain at elevation,” he said.

Production of the platform will be followed by government durability and user testing, as well as air transportation certifications, he said.

Because the effort is an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, the number of vehicles is not specified. However, Schmidt said the company could produce 1,500 MRZR Alphas per year on its current production line.

Nick Francis, director of Polaris Defense, said the contract was structured in a way that did not limit the vendor from expanding on the vehicle’s capabilities, which allowed the company to exceed requirements in some areas.

“This was a great approach, because it doesn’t put a limit on a very qualified industry base,” he said.

Previous MRZRs have been outfitted with a variety of payloads including counter-drone systems, direct-fire weapons, ISR systems and autonomy packages. Schmidt noted that with the Alpha’s increased payload capacity, exportable power and physical space, it is easier to

incorporate a variety of payloads.

In year two of the program, testing and delivery will focus on an Arctic mobility package, Schmidt said.

This “includes a full cab enclosure and tracks,” he said. “This will greatly expand the terrain and environments the MRZR Alpha can operate [in], to include snow and ice.”

Planning is also ongoing to outfit the LTATV with autonomous capabilities, Hawkins said. The command is considering purchasing a few autonomous platforms in the coming fiscal year.

“We will then test the prototypes and conduct user evaluations to help determine the usefulness of the technology, which will also help inform any possible future requirements for integrating autonomy into any portion of our fleet,” he said.

Other artificial intelligence efforts include a data-logger system that collects vehicle operational parameters to help advise maintenance efforts, Hawkins said.

“Machine learning is used in this logger to help project managers and logisticians determine when a vehicle will reach the end of its economical usefulness,” he said. “This a key factor when making informed decisions on whether vehicles should be replaced or receive lifecycle extensions.”

Meanwhile, one new vehicle Special Operations Command has indicated it may be interested in pursuing is the Joint Armored Ground Mobility System, or JAGMS.

Currently, no formal acquisition process is planned, Hawkins noted. However, last year the command conducted a market analysis of the industrial base for vendors that could produce such a platform. That report is under review,

he said.

In a request for information released last year, Special Operations Command said it was seeking industry input about an armored ground tactical vehicle that could transport nine to 11 passengers as well as be internally transported in a C-130 aircraft.

“The government is primarily focused on understanding the marketplace for commercial and non-developmental items and/or commercial items easily modified,” the solicitation said.

Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ International Security Program, said many of SOCOM’s vehicle programs are well suited for counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations, which the command has become known for in the past two decades. However, with the Pentagon emphasizing great power competition with advanced adversaries such as Russia and China, those types of platforms are not as ideal.

The other services are moving “toward armored vehicles because of the higher level of threat,” he said. “SOCOM would have to at least balance its vehicle inventory with some sort of armored vehicle that could operate in a higher threat environment.”

A heavily armored vehicle such as JAGMS could be particularly useful in great power competition, Cancian said.

Meanwhile, Special Operations Command is maintaining its fleet of mine resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, which consist primarily of SOF-modified MRAP all-terrain vehicles and RG-33-A1 platforms.

MRAPs gained fame during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after being rushed into the field to protect troops from roadside bombs.

“We are actively resetting those at this point in time and managing the obsolescence of them,” Babbitt said.

Areas of interest for the command include active reset operations, obsolescence management and sustainment cost reductions, according to his slides.

One of the largest vehicle programs for the military writ large has been the Army and Marine Corps’ acquisition of Oshkosh Defense’s joint light tactical vehicle. Special Operations Command does not plan to purchase purpose-built JLTVs, Hawkins said, but is currently collaborating with the JLTV Joint Program Office and its user community “to determine the potential configuration and cost of a future JLTV ‘SOF-kit.’”

Babbitt noted that the JLTV will be brought into the SOF fold via the services.

“This is a service-provided solution from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines to their components within USSOCOM,” he said. “It’s a great capability and will certainly be a mainstay of our capabilities into the future.”

A potential future acquisition opportunity is a lifecycle replacement for the non-standard commercial vehicle fleet in the coming years, Hawkins said.

SOCOM uses the platform — which resembles regular trucks found on highways all over the United States — when they want to blend in with local populations overseas, Babbitt said.

“If you want to look like just another jingle truck, this is what you’re driving, except ours are armored, ... much better maintained and can go a lot of places that some of the local vehicles may or may not be able to,” he said.

Capabilities of interest for the current fleet include lightweight armor materials, lightweight vehicle components, C4ISR cost reductions and suspension technology, according to Babbitt’s slides.

4. New Maritime Technology for Navy SEALs on the Way

I always thought the MK V and RIBs were pretty cool boats but some of the ones I saw today make the them look oh so 20th century.

SPECIAL OPERATIONS

New Maritime Technology for Navy SEALs on the Way

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2018/6/26/new-maritime-technology-for-navy-seals-on-the-way

6/26/2018

By Yasmin Tadjdeh

Two Navy SEALs navigate through murky waters during a training dive.

Photo: Navy

Navy SEALs — some of the U.S. military’s most elite forces — are tasked with carrying out covert, dangerous and challenging missions across the globe. To assist them, Special Operations Command is investing in new maritime technology that will give them a tactical advantage.

“One of the primary things that make the SEALs unique within the [special operations forces] community is the environment that they operate in,” said Lisa Sanders, director of SOCOM’s science and technology office.

While SEALs operate in a variety of domains, they often find themselves conducting missions in the maritime environment. Choppy seas and murky waters present a number of challenges to them, including limited access to communications, she said during a meeting with reporters at the National Defense Industrial Association’s annual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Florida.

“We have been focusing on technologies particularly in the area of underwater communications,” she noted. Because radio frequency does not travel in the water column, “communicating in that space right now is very, very limited, so we’re working on some underwater communications to help them.”

On the S&T side, the command is looking at a variety of ways to address the need, she said.

“One of the things that we try to do is open the aperture wide,” she said. “We try to identify the problem that we have and seek other people’s ideas on how they could address that. So we talk about the distance that they need to be able to communicate, the amount of information they need to be able to communicate, and allow the technologists to come out with the technological approach to resolve that issue.”

Special Operations Command’s program executive office for maritime is also developing new communication technology, John Bailey, chief engineer at the office, told National Defense.

“Really when you think about where we’re trying to go with maritime communications, it’s the whole network,” he said.

Jim Knudson, program manager for special operations forces combat diving, said this network will connect individual divers to surface assets and to other divers, giving them clear communications and access to text and data.

“We have to have that data rate that allows them to have clear comms, positioning and so forth back to the vehicles, back to the host where they are coming from,” he said. This is particularly important as divers work increasingly in colder and deeper water columns, he noted.

Capt. Chad Muse, program manager for naval special warfare, said such a network could enable man-machine teaming. For instance, a small unmanned underwater vehicle could be used as a scout and send information back to a SEAL delivery vehicle.

“Those type of use cases would be of interest to us if anyone is working on those types of technology efforts,” he said.

A small, body-worn device could give operators increased communication and situational awareness capabilties, Knudson said.

“We are looking to make it compact,” he said. “Not a big bulky system but a wrist-worn, compact, smartphone-type effort” that can be attached to the diver’s body. That system will also need to provide operators precise location information, he added.

“We need to have a good track of direction of where we are headed without floating too many buoys,” he said. “[We are] trying to figure out how do we get that good accurate GPS tracking.”

PEO maritime is working with SOCOM’s program executive office for command, control, communications and computers on the communication relay issue, Bailey said. PEO maritime will take items developed and marinize them for use on its platforms, he said.

The office is reaching out to a variety of organizations to help crack that technological nut and will put out a series of solicitations over the next few years, Bailey said.

“We’re really looking to build a community of academia, industry as well as service labs that are all interested in figuring out how their individual technologies can talk to each other,” he said.

Enhancing communications for divers is one way the office plans to get at SOCOM’s new “hyper-enabled operator” concept, he said. The effort — which was announced at the SOFIC conference — aims to give special operators enhanced capabilities and is focused on communication, computing, data/sensors, and human-machine interfaces.

PEO maritime is also examining new power and energy technologies, Bailey said.

That is “probably the biggest need common across all the platforms” within the office’s portfolio, which includes Navy SEAL equipment, special operator watercraft and other maritime platforms, he said.

The office is interested in developing a safe, high-energy battery or other technology solution that can effectively power up many of the devices and equipment under its purview, he said.

Lithium-ion batteries, which can sometimes present safety challenges, are usually not allowed on submarines. SOF divers are often transported on such vessels, requiring the development of alternative power sources, he noted.

“The reality is that for us to put something into a submarine or … even onto a surface craft or into an aircraft, they all have to meet Navy or Air Force standards,” he said. “Lithium-ion batteries are a challenge.”

Muse said putting a safe, high-energy battery on a submarine is “our Holy Grail in terms of managing our power and energy systems so that we can maximize our ability to project power.”

PEO maritime has been working with the science and technology directorate to test a variety of safe lithium-ion battery technologies, and has embarked on a few “game-changing” efforts, Bailey added. The office is now looking to engage with industry to find options that will work.

The command is also looking at ways to more efficiently transport operators underwater via SEAL delivery vehicles, Muse said.

SOCOM is currently replacing the legacy platform, known as SDV Mk 8, with a next-generation free-flooding wet combat manned vehicle known as the shallow water combat submersible, or SWCS.

“It has been a very good year for that program. We have Teledyne Brown [Engineering] as a prime contractor, and right now we have the first production article … going through government acceptance testing as we speak,” he said during the conference.

The new vehicle will offer increased payload capacity and range in shallow environments, he noted.

This gives “our guys more capacity to project combat power or to get to areas they need to go,” he added.

SWCS has nearly twice the displacement of the legacy system and is also a little longer and taller, he said. However, it is still able to fit in the standard dry deck shelter needed to transport it on modified submarines.

PEO maritime is coming to the end of the performance period evaluation and will soon put five systems on contract.

Dry deck shelters used by special operators are also undergoing modernization, said Capt. John Newton, program manager for SOF mobility. The shelters — which essentially act as an underwater garage for SEAL delivery vehicles and other equipment — are primarily used on Ohio-class submarines, but that capability will transfer to Virginia-class boats when the former undergo decommissioning in the 2020s, he said.

The shelters were designed in the 1970s and built in the 1980s, he noted.

SOCOM will be maintaining the shelters for the next 30 years, he said.

“We think there is enough life left in these to get these shelters really to the next two classes of submarines,” Newton said. There is “a lot of life left in it, a lot of viability left in the shelters.”

The modernization program seeks to give the shelters a 30 percent increase in payload volume and a 300 percent increase in payload capacity and weight through a series of modifications, he said.

“We view this as a building block to the future,” he said. Not only will the modified system be able to hold the shallow water combat submersible, but potentially other equipment such as the Navy’s large displacement unmanned underwater vehicle, which is in the pipeline, Newton noted.

PEO maritime is also looking at developing new training technologies to improve operator performance, Bailey said.

“We do have a pretty long history with undersea trainers,” he said. The office is looking at how to incorporate augmented reality and virtual reality technologies into its systems, and plans to make significant investments, he added.

Signature management is another major area of interest for the office, Muse said.

“We do operate under the water [which] … is the stealthiest environment, but we do have to break that air and water interface to project that combat power over the beach and get to an objective,” he said.

Managing those signatures — whether they are acoustic, electro-optical, infrared or radar — is of interest across the office’s portfolio, he added.

Bailey noted, however, that it can often be difficult for industry to break into that technology field, which tends to be technically complex.

Overall, PEO maritime plans to execute about $1.5 billion over the future years defense program, said Program Executive Officer Navy Capt. Kate Dolloff. It is currently enjoying widespread support in Congress, she noted.

“We have got quite a bit of support on the Hill right now,” she said. “Anytime we’ve gone to Congress and asked for anything they’ve helped us out.”

That’s a marked turn over the past five years, when the office had not received as much support, she noted. The change, she said, is a “credit to the folks that we do business with.”

Bailey noted that the office is open to working with anyone and is interested in utilizing a variety of contracting options, he said. “If you have a technology that we want, we will work with you and figure out how we can get there.”

Topics: Maritime Security, Special Operations, Special Operations-Low Intensity Conflict, Navy News

5. Cut the Chaff–Acquisition Revolution at SOCOM in the Age of Irregular Warfare

Excerpts:

At the helm of this innovation is Melissa Johnson, Acquisition Executive for SOCOM, who is guiding an elite team with a vision that breaks from legacy defense models. It’s a vision that emphasizes agility, trust, and close collaboration with both operators and industry partners.

Her call to action is simple, cut the chaff.

The “chaff” is everything that slows us down—layers of paperwork, process, misaligned incentives, and outdated assumptions about how industry, operators, and acquisition professionals should interact. If war is now defined by speed of decision and speed of adaptation, then Johnson’s acquisition philosophy is no longer just procurement strategy—it’s battlefield strategy.

“I want to cut out every last bit of chaff,” Johnson said. “I want industry to be able to understand. The more informed they are, the fewer iterations we need. And that means we get capability into the field faster.”

Cut the Chaff–Acquisition Revolution at SOCOM

By Chad Williamson

May 05, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/05/05/cut_the_chaffacquisition_revolution_at_socom_1108091.html

Cut the Chaff–Acquisition Revolution at SOCOM in the Age of Irregular Warfare

As today’s adversaries move at the speed of commercial innovation and the modern battlefield grows increasingly ambiguous, U.S. Special Operations Command—known as SOCOM—is leading the way with a faster, flatter, and more human-centered approach to acquisition. At the helm of this innovation is Melissa Johnson, Acquisition Executive for SOCOM, who is guiding an elite team with a vision that breaks from legacy defense models. It’s a vision that emphasizes agility, trust, and close collaboration with both operators and industry partners.

Her call to action is simple, cut the chaff.

The “chaff” is everything that slows us down—layers of paperwork, process, misaligned incentives, and outdated assumptions about how industry, operators, and acquisition professionals should interact. If war is now defined by speed of decision and speed of adaptation, then Johnson’s acquisition philosophy is no longer just procurement strategy—it’s battlefield strategy.

“I want to cut out every last bit of chaff,” Johnson said. “I want industry to be able to understand. The more informed they are, the fewer iterations we need. And that means we get capability into the field faster.”

That capability—whether a counter-UAS system, advanced software overlay, or a critical modification to a conventional airframe—must now move through the pipeline not in years, but in months or weeks. In SOCOM’s counter-drone efforts, for example, Johnson’s team went from requirement to contract in three months and from contract to demonstration in another three. That level of speed isn’t just nice to have—it’s mission-critical.

Requirements to Relationships

Traditional acquisition systems often begin with a requirement and end with a product. But Johnson flips the model. “Tell me what a day in the life is supposed to look like,” she said. Her teams aren’t interested in rubber-stamping a shopping list—they want to understand the mission, the user environment, and the cognitive load on the warfighter.

Only then can they co-create solutions that actually work.

This shift from commodity-based thinking to relationship-based problem-solving requires small, agile teams with deep trust between the operator, the acquisition professional, and the industry partner. In SOCOM’s world, success is defined by shared context, not rigid specs.

That kind of trust isn’t built through a PowerPoint. It’s built over time, across domains, and often around the messy cocktail napkins of early-stage innovation. And it’s exactly what Johnson believes SOCOM does best. “Acquisition is not just a supporting function—it’s a warfighting function,” she noted. “We take acquisition risk so the operator doesn’t have to take operational risk.”

Small Teams, Big Moves

SOCOM’s unique structure—co-located acquisition teams tied directly to the commander—allows for decentralization and speed. Johnson empowers her program executive officers (PEOs) to make more than 90% of decisions on their portfolios. Her job? Remove roadblocks, not micromanage.

This approach is paying dividends. Whether prototyping software tools to automate mission functions or modifying conventional platforms with soft-specific capabilities, her teams are accelerating delivery without compromising on technical rigor.

Crucially, this isn't speed for speed’s sake. It's speed to relevance. “Sometimes no is the best answer we can give to industry,” Johnson said. “It saves everyone time. And time is our most precious commodity.”

New Industrial Base

One of the most promising shifts in SOCOM’s acquisition model is its evolving relationship with the industrial base. Johnson’s team doesn’t just interface with the five usual defense primes—they cultivate a growing ecosystem of small businesses, startups, and dual-use technology providers. Through platforms like SOFWERX and tools like Other Transaction (OT) agreements, SOCOM can experiment, test, and scale emerging capabilities with fewer bureaucratic constraints.

But Johnson is clear-eyed about the tradeoffs. Not every small business pitch will get funded. Not every prototype will succeed. But the transparency of SOCOM’s ecosystem—via assessment events, monthly small business roundtables, and collaborative forums—ensures that even “no” can be a productive answer if it’s delivered early and constructively.

“We’re seeing apps and automation tools from small businesses integrated into programs of record in months, not years,” she said. “That’s the pace we need.”

Innovation to Integration

Rather than chasing the latest tech for its own sake, Johnson is focused on how advanced technologies can be layered onto existing platforms—extending the life, survivability, and lethality of assets the military already owns. This approach reflects SOCOM’s broader emphasis on smart modernization—maximizing value and capability through creative integration rather than costly overhauls.

This blend of fiscal prudence and innovation-through-integration reflects the command’s ethos—flexible, lethal, efficient. And it allows SOCOM to be the “first mover” on technologies that the services can later adopt at scale.

Acquisition as Art

Melissa Johnson’s message to industry, to operators, and to Washington is consistent—speed, clarity, and trust must define the future of defense acquisition. Her framework is a model for irregular warfare—where the ability to learn, adapt, and iterate at the edge determines who holds the advantage.

SOCOM isn’t just building better tools. It’s building a better system to discover, test, and field them. In an era when our adversaries are accelerating, we can’t afford to admire the problem. We must act—and act quickly.

Cut the chaff. Accelerate the mission.

Chad Williamson is a military veteran and is currently pursuing his graduate degree in national security policy. He lives on Capitol Hill with his wife, Dr. Heather Williamson, and their two chocolate labs, Demmi and Ferg.

6. Hegseth orders elimination of 10% of general, admiral jobs

Hegseth orders elimination of 10% of general, admiral jobs

defenseone.com · by Meghann Myers

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks with three Marine Corps generals at Iwo To, Japan, on March 29, 2025. Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Wright / 3rd Marine Logistics Group

Memo also orders the elimination of one-fifth of 4-star posts. No deadline, few guidelines given for shakeup.

By Meghann Myers

Staff Reporter

May 5, 2025 05:56 PM ET

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took the first step to turn his rhetoric about bloated senior military ranks into policy on Monday with a memo ordering the services to eliminate at least 20 percent of their active-duty four-star general and flag officer billets, as well as at least 20 percent of all general officer jobs in the National Guard, plus another 10% of general and flag officer billets across the entire military.

The move comes as the Trump administration has been pushing for widespread personnel reductions and realignments across the Defense Department, and days after Hegseth ordered the Army specifically to start cutting senior billets.

“We won World War II with seven four-star generals,” Hegseth said Jan. 14 at his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing. “Today we have 44.…There is an inverse relationship between the size of staffs and victory on the battlefield. We do not need more bureaucracy at the top. We need more warfighters empowered at the bottom. So, it is going to be my job…to identify those places where fat can be cut, so it can go toward lethality.”

The Pentagon did not immediately return a request for a list of four-star general billets across the Defense Department’s five services.

Hegseth’s order likely amounts to hundreds of positions being eliminated or reduced in rank, accounting for more than 100 generals and admirals and their staffs. His memo does not specify whether he wants the positions downgraded or simply eliminated, but either scenario would reduce the number of staff in each organization, both uniformed and civilian. The memo sets no deadline for the services to eliminate the jobs, nor direct the services to send him a list of proposed cuts.

The 10-percent cut is to be done “with the realignment of the Unified Command Plan,” the memo says. That may be a reference to the Jan. 20 executive order giving U.S. Northern Command a border-protection mission.

The Army, for its part, announced Friday that it would move its Training and Doctrine Command under Army Futures Command, effectively knocking the TRADOC commander down from a four-star bullet.

The service had already been working on eliminating roughly 5 percent of its general officer positions.

As of September 2023, there were 809 active-duty generals and admirals serving in the military, a few dozen below the legal limit of 857. That’s a much lower number than Cold War levels from the 1960s to the 1980s, according to a 2024 Congressional Research Service report, when the military was much larger.

“However, while always very small in comparison to the total force, the GFO corps has increased as a percentage of the total force over the past five decades,” the report found.

7. Hegseth Used Multiple Signal Chats for Official Pentagon Business

Here is the buried lede: "government systems are having a hard time keeping up with the required pace of business." So the question is what are we doing about this? Or will we just continue to hyperventilate and flog the users who are trying to overcome poor and unwieldy and non-supporting communications systems to do their jobs.

Excerpt:

“The use of personal phones and commercial apps introduces unnecessary risk. Signal is considered unclassified by the government for a reason,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior U.S. intelligence officer. “It’s clear that U.S. government systems are having a hard time keeping up with the required pace of business.”

Hegseth Used Multiple Signal Chats for Official Pentagon Business

In at least one message, he asked aides to tell foreign countries about a military operation

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pete-hegseth-signal-chats-defense-department-pentagon-ec9a4daa

By Alexander Ward

and Nancy A. Youssef

May 5, 2025 5:52 pm ET

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Photo: will oliver/Shutterstock

Key Points

What's This?

Defense Secretary Hegseth used Signal extensively for Pentagon business, including discussing military operations.
Hegseth’s aide posted info on a Yemen attack in a Signal chat including family, part of inspector general’s investigation.
Hegseth’s Signal use raises concerns about security, record-keeping, and compliance with Pentagon directives.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used Signal more extensively for official Pentagon business than previously disclosed, engaging in at least a dozen separate chats, people familiar with his management practices said.

In one case, he told aides on the encrypted app to inform foreign governments about an unfolding military operation, the people said. He also used the nongovernmental message service to discuss media appearances, foreign travel, his schedule, and other unclassified but sensitive information, two people said.

The former Fox News host set up many of the chats himself, sending texts from an unsecured line in his Pentagon office and from his personal phone, the two said.

Some of Hegseth’s messages were posted by his military aide, Marine Col. Ricky Buria, who was given access to the secretary’s personal phone, the people said. It was Buria who posted information in March about an imminent U.S. attack on Houthi militants in Yemen into a Signal chat group that included the secretary’s wife, brother, and private lawyer, the people said.

Hegseth’s frequent use of the app in his daily duties and Buria’s role in posting information on his behalf haven’t been previously reported.

The Pentagon and Buria didn’t respond to requests for comment.

How Ukraine's Cheap Sea Drones Are Revolutionizing Naval Warfare

19fortyfive.com · by Julian McBride · May 5, 2025

Key Points: Ukraine’s innovative naval drone warfare continues to evolve, significantly impacting the conflict with Russia and future naval operations.

-Beyond using explosive-laden Magura-5 drones to decimate Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, forcing its withdrawal from Crimea, Ukraine reportedly deployed the upgraded Magura-7 in early May 2025.

-Armed with air-to-air missiles, this variant allegedly shot down two Russian Su-30 fighter jets near Novorossiysk—a potential first in drone warfare history.

-This demonstrates Ukraine’s rapidly advancing domestic drone capabilities, offering crucial lessons in asymmetric naval and air defense strategies for allies facing similar challenges globally, particularly in the Indo-Pacific.

Ukraine’s Seaborne Drone Capabilities and Future Implications in Naval Warfare

Ukraine is currently embroiled in the largest conventional war against Russia, not seen since the Iran-Iraq War. Fighting a stronger adversary with advantages in artillery, missiles, and fighter jets, Kyiv needed to counter Moscow’s aggression.

Ukraine’s drone warfare is one such strategy to counter Russia’s military excess. Aerial and seaborne drones scored major military success against the Russian military. Adapting to the rapidly changing battlefield, Kyiv utilizes seaborne drones to limit the freedom of movement of Russia’s Air Force and Black Sea naval capabilities.

The Downing of Two Russian SU-30s

In early May, Ukraine’s military intelligence (GUR) conducted a major operation against Russia’s base near Novorossiysk. Using the Magura-7 sea drone, equipped with AA-11 Archer air-to-air sidewinders, the GUR shot down two Russian SU-30 fighter jets.

The downing of the two SU-30s is the first time in history a drone was able to eliminate a prized fixed wing with air-to-air missiles—which Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Lt. General Kyrylo Budanov, would later state to the Kyiv Independent.

The Magura-7 is a more advanced air defense drone, upgraded from the Magura-5 variation, which downed and destroyed two Russian MI-8 helicopters in late December 2024. The Magura-5 is also used to ram enemy Russian warships, as this drone variation is packed with explosives upon contact.

Naval News first published images of the Magura-7, equipped with AIM-9 missiles, underscoring Ukraine’s growing seaborne drone capabilities. According to Naval News, the Magura-7 is larger than the Magura-5, which allows upgrades to the version 7 with more capable missiles.

Ukraine’s Growing Seaborne Drone Capabilities

Developing domestic drone technology through growing manufacturing giant Ukroboronprom, Kyiv continues to enhance drones capable of reaching strategic targets deep inside Russia. Ukraine currently has over 100 teams working 24/7 to produce millions of armed drones to incapacitate Russia’s war machine.

Alongside the Magura-5 and 7 variants, Ukraine also produces the TLK-150 and 400 sea drones. The TLK-150 has a maximum range of 100 kilometers, while the TLK-400 can reach distances of 1,200 kilometers.

Ukraine’s seaborne drones changed the trajectory of war as Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was incapacitated, with one-third of its vessels either damaged or destroyed during the past three years. Due to the significant losses of naval ships, the Kremlin instructed the Black Sea Fleet to be withdrawn from Crimea to Novorossiysk, which is more fortified and tenable against Ukrainian attacks.

The Black Sea Fleet’s withdrawal has been demonstrated to be strategic and symbolic. The fleet’s absence of naval support leaves Russian forces exposed in the South and additionally safeguards Ukrainian cities from missile barrages.

Regarding symbolism, the Black Sea Fleet represents Putin’s strongman aura and the prize of the Russian navy. It was the most powerful of Russia’s current fleets and was considered a major challenge to NATO, which, unless reconstituted, would remain out of the fight.

An Opportunity for Conventional Military Partners to Study and Learn

Ukraine’s seaborne drones are changing the trajectory of Russia’s invasion and the face of future naval warfare and operations. Through sea drones, conventional militaries will need to adapt to growing technological changes and enhance their capabilities in amphibious operations.

The United States, which faces a major challenge from China’s military (PLA), could learn or perhaps share technology with Ukraine to develop capable sea drones in the Indo-Pacific. With Ukraine holding major economic and diplomatic partnerships with Japan, Taiwan, and the United States, all three latter countries could benefit from deep ties learning from Ukrainian drone technology.

Seaborne drones that mirror Magura-5 and 7 in the South China Sea could limit the PLA’s freedom of movement across the various sporadic islands before capable forces can be amassed to counter the threat against allies such as the Philippines. Simultaneously, sea drones can benefit Taiwan, which not only needs to deter a Chinese invasion but potentially defend against an amphibious assault or naval blockade until substantial U.S. forces can defend Taipei.

Regarding Japan’s existential threats posed by the Russian occupation of the Kuril Islands and China’s growing naval violations of the Japanese archipelago, seaborne drones would further bolster Tokyo’s remilitarization. Already sharing synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data with Ukraine, Japan can learn from Ukrainian intelligence to produce their own Magura variants, which would hamper naval and aerial movements by the Chinese navy and the Russian Pacific Fleet.

Kyiv’s sea drones are not only a turning point on the Black Sea front of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but also a game changer in naval warfare. With sea drones fitted to become makeshift air defense batteries, conventional militaries now need to plan contingencies to protect their fighter jets and naval assets against an unmanned enemy.

About the Author: Julian McBride

Julian McBride is a forensic anthropologist and independent journalist born in New York. He is the founder and director of the Reflections of War Initiative (ROW), an anthropological NGO which aims to tell the stories of the victims of war through art therapy. As a former Marine, he uses this technique not only to help heal PTSD but also to share people’s stories through art, which conveys “the message of the brutality of war better than most news organizations.” Julian is also a new 19FortyFive Contributing Editor.

19fortyfive.com · by Julian McBride · May 5, 2025

9. Accepting 'Ugly Terms': Is This the Only Path to End the Ukraine War?

Excerpt:

If Ukraine or Europe will not make the hard right call and take the ugly terms available, Trump should make good on his threat and walk away. The absence of American support may be the only thing left to open the eyes of the unbelieving.

Accepting 'Ugly Terms': Is This the Only Path to End the Ukraine War?

19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Davis · May 5, 2025

There is a major blind spot afflicting many of the Western elite, in both the United States and Europe, regarding the drive to find a peaceful settlement of the Russia-Ukraine War. There is a widespread belief that with the right pressure on Russia or new support for Ukraine, that Moscow can be compelled to accede to a negotiated settlement palatable to Kyiv. However understandable such sentiments, such hopes are divorced from reality.

Time for Ugly Terms in the Ukraine War?

There is no pressure the West can bring to bear on Russia and no military support that can be given to Ukraine which can produce any definition of a positive outcome for Ukraine.

The longer the West travels down the road of seeking the diplomatic and militarily unattainable, the greater the final cost of the failure for the Ukrainian people. The blunt, painfully evident truth is the war was lost long ago.

Trump, who has been trying to bring the war to an end since his inauguration, has become “increasingly frustrated,” White House Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, that neither side seems willing to make the concessions necessary to reach a mutually agreeable settlement.

State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the U.S. has reached the point “where concrete proposals” need to be quickly agreed upon by both sides, or the U.S. will “step back as mediators in this process.” Many establishment figures in Washington, and a host of voices in Europe, are aghast at such talk, accusing Trump of blaming Zelensky for the war and for failing to “put pressure on Putin.”

Yet what all these contrarian voices utterly fail to recognize is that the chance to cajole Russia into a less-than-maximalist concession to end or prevent the war – an outcome that could have been at least tolerable to Kyiv – was available in the past and categorically rejected.

We now know that both German and French leaders, who helped craft the Minsk accords of 2015, never put any pressure on the Ukrainian government to implement the central requirement on the Russian side (the requirement to adjust their constitution to grant limited autonomy to the Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian people) – though Putin repeatedly argued for implementation of the accords in the years prior to 2022.

The (in)famous potential agreement in April 2022 to end the war when it was barely two months old at Istanbul was rejected by the West and by Zelensky. The last chance to negotiate an end on anything resembling advantageous to Ukraine was rejected in November 2022, when then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, argued that there would be no better time to seek a diplomatic end than when Russia was “really hurting bad”. According to the New York Times, however, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken shot down that idea.

Then came the disastrous 2023 Ukraine offensive that utterly failed to dent the Russian defenses in eastern Ukraine, and fatally weakened the Ukrainian military. At this point in the war, the logical, rational, and wisest course of action would have been to seek the best terms possible to end the war. With that massive offensive failure, there was no rational hope that the conditions would change in the future.

Russia withstood the best Ukraine and NATO support had to offer, and from the end of 2023 went on a general offensive, that continues to this day. The Russian military continues to get bigger, stronger, and more experienced. The defense industrial base in Russia is considerably more productive than the cumulative West. Ukraine cannot force-mobilize enough troops to even offset losses, let alone grow their force. They struggle to have even moderate industrial capacity to generate war material.

In short, there is clearly no military bases to believe that with more time, more supplies, more ammunition, the Ukraine side can reverse the tide of war. To ignore these painful realities is merely to subject the Ukrainian military and people to even greater losses in the future.

As former NATO officer Col. Jacques Baud said on my show on Monday, Russia considers winning this war on their terms to be of an existential cultural basis, and will sacrifice whatever is necessary to end the war on terms they can live with – whether by negotiations or by force of arms. There is no other path or outcome for Moscow.

If no negotiated settlement is found now, the most likely result will be that Russia merely continues its war until it has defeated the Ukrainian Armed Forces and they are forced to surrender.

Trump appears to recognize military reality. It is why he has tried to get the sides to agree to an end-of-war negotiation that will stop the pointless dying, almost no matter the cost. Many in Europe remain blind to the balance of power that irrevocably favors the Russian side, and still believe that Trump should try to “force” Putin into concessions. They do not recognize that Trump possess no such leverage.

No Easy Way to End the War for Ukraine and the West

The hard truth is that Russia is well aware of its position of strength and is confident it can demand total compliance with its negotiating demands or it will simply win what it believes it needs on the battlefield. And Russia is right. As painful as that is to admit for us in the West, Russia can demand draconian terms, because it is able to militarily conquer Ukraine, even if it takes many more months.

Msta-S in Ukraine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

If Ukraine or Europe will not make the hard right call and take the ugly terms available, Trump should make good on his threat and walk away. The absence of American support may be the only thing left to open the eyes of the unbelieving.

About the Author: Daniel L. Davis

Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow & Military Expert for Defense Priorities, is a retired Army Lt. Col. with four combat deployments, and host of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive show on YouTube.

19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Davis · May 5, 2025

10. Ukraine Is A Military Laboratory

Ukraine Is A Military Laboratory | Opinion

Newsweek · by Ilan Berman · May 5, 2025

These are difficult days for Ukraine. More than three years into Russia's war of aggression, the country faces redoubled resolve from Moscow, as the Kremlin pushes to maximize its gains ahead of any possible settlement. It is also weathering flagging enthusiasm from Washington, where the Trump administration has adopted a decidedly skeptical stance toward Kyiv's continued fight. This has confronted the Ukrainian government with the prospect that—despite Europe's ongoing pledges of support—it will be forced to confront Russian aggression with less backing from the United States.

But in this grim calculus, Kyiv possesses a trump card. The past three years of war have seen Ukraine's brave defenders make massive military advancements, as battlefield necessity has become the mother of invention. In the process, Ukraine has singlehandedly managed to change the shape of modern warfare.

A Ukrainian military member of the State Border Guard Pomsta Brigade, Phoenix Drone Unit, performs a test flight of a Vampire hexacopter drone prior to his mission, in the Donetsk region, on March 19, 2025,... A Ukrainian military member of the State Border Guard Pomsta Brigade, Phoenix Drone Unit, performs a test flight of a Vampire hexacopter drone prior to his mission, in the Donetsk region, on March 19, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP via Getty Images

This can be seen most clearly in the context of drones. Since February 2023, a veritable revolution has taken place in drone warfare, as unmanned platforms have increased in versatility, affordability, and function. Ukraine has blazed the trail in this regard, pioneering a robust indigenous drone manufacturing capability, establishing cutting edge drone units, and erecting drone workshops on the war's frontlines, where they can rapidly resupply forward-deployed units. These capabilities are now proliferating at an astonishing rate; the state and private industry currently produce some 200,000 drones a month, and will manufacture a total of 2.5 million or more this year. This surge, in turn, has allowed Ukraine to offset at least some of Russia's advantages in conventional firepower.

These advances have also had a trickle-down effect, creating significant innovations in fields like military medicine. For instance, Ukrainian forces are increasingly using unmanned systems to transport casualties from the frontlines, or to provide medical supplies to them—thereby reducing risks to medical personnel and allowing for more immediate life-saving treatment for those wounded in combat.

New technologies have seeped into the way the country's soldiers train as well. Ukraine's armed forces have leaned into the use of virtual reality (VR) to more cheaply and efficiently train troops in disciplines like air defense and drone piloting. This burgeoning ecosystem, moreover, is being actively fed by a growing number of start-ups, effectively leading to a democratization of the country's defense sector.

So far, though, these innovations haven't received enough sustained attention. A cohort of activists, like those of the Snake Island Institute, a Ukrainian-based defense and security think tank, is aiming to change that—by sharing the military advancements and innovations made by their country with Western audiences.

There is already a great deal to tell, and still more to come. This spring, Ukraine's Defense Ministry allocated a third of its annual budget for the development of high tech weaponry. If the recent past is any indication, this new infusion of funds will spur yet another cycle of military innovation on the part of Ukraine's military. That's because, as the Snake Island Institute noted in a recent study, "Ukraine's battlefield has become the world's most dynamic proving ground for defense technology. In this environment, innovation is no longer theoretical—it's tactical, urgent, and iterative."

That's an important message for Washington to hear. Since taking office back in January, the Trump administration has focused much of its foreign policy criticism on Europe's need to do more to shoulder the burden for collective security. The language has been pointed, but it's hardly new; American presidents of both parties have long complained about Europe's chronic underinvestment in defense. That state of affairs is now beginning to change, as more and more European nations—forced to contemplate a potential future without America—belatedly get serious about their own security.

Ukraine's defenders, though, already are serious. And while it undoubtedly needs continued support from the West to weather Russia's military aggression, Kyiv is already transforming the modern battlefield. Or, as the Snake Island Institute put it, "Ukraine is reshaping the defense innovation cycle. Those who act with us will help build the future of deterrence, security, and strategic advantage."

For a Washington increasingly focused on efficiency and burden-sharing, it's a message worth heeding.

Ilan Berman is senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Newsweek · by Ilan Berman · May 5, 2025

11. China’s Expanding View of “Taiwan Independence” and Implications for U.S. Policy

Excerpt:

China’s expanding characterization of “Taiwan independence” threatens regional stability and warrants careful, sustained countermeasures. Taiwan’s consistent stance — de facto independence under the name Republic of China — remains a moderate, democratic posture that seeks stability without provocation. To protect the delicate balance of peace in the Taiwan Strait, the United States should continue to expose and oppose Beijing’s legal and narrative manipulation of “Taiwan independence,” while affirming that the political status quo provides no grounds for coercion or aggression. The battle for legal and discourse supremacy is not a side issue but a strategic front line in the struggle for peace, sovereignty, and international order.

Essay| Guest Authored| Opinion / Perspective

China’s Expanding View of “Taiwan Independence” and Implications for U.S. Policy

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/06/china-taiwan-independence-narrative-shift/

by Cheng Deng Feng

05.06.2025 at 06:00am

China’s shifting interpretation of “Taiwan independence” is reshaping red lines and threatening peace and security in the Taiwan Strait. Alongside increasingly aggressive military operations, Beijing is advancing a narrative that frames any expression of political autonomy by Taiwan as a move toward independence. Those who decline to endorse Taiwan’s subordination to China, or simply affirm Taiwan’s democratic system irrespective of formal statehood, are now labeled “pro-independence.” This approach implies that the status quo— Taiwan’s operation as a self-governing democracy under the Republic of China constitution — is itself a form of separatism.

China’s rhetorical evolution on “Taiwan independence” has shifted significantly over the past two decades. In the past, Beijing defined “Taiwan independence” as formal legal moves toward statehood, such as constitutional amendments or declarations of independence. Today, however, the PRC increasingly frames a much broader range of activities—including support for Taiwan’s democracy, international participation, and rejection of Communist Party rule—as evidence of “separatism.” This shift has expanded the scope of political persecution against Taiwanese individuals and groups. Individuals residing in or interacting with the mainland are being targeted for political expression that Beijing deems separatist. Behind this shifting of red lines, Beijing has increasing latitude to construct legal and narrative justifications for aggression under the guise of defending sovereignty and territorial integrity against fabricated provocations.

Taiwan’s de facto Independence

Beijing’s view of “Taiwan independence” is at odds with the long-established position of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). In May 1999, through the “Resolution on Taiwan’s Future,” the DPP declared: “Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country. Its current official name is the Republic of China. Any change to the status quo must be decided by the people of Taiwan through a referendum.” This resolution affirmed Taiwan’s de facto independence, grounding its sovereignty in democratic legitimacy and rejecting Beijing’s “One China” narrative. It also clarified that there was no need for a formal declaration of independence, as Taiwan was already functioning as a sovereign state.

The DPP’s mainstream stance remains aligned with the resolution. Former President Tsai Ing-wen’s “Four Commitments” reiterated its enduring relevance by noting in 2021 that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are “not subordinate to each other.” Similarly, in his 2024 inaugural address, President William Lai declared, “Taiwan is already a sovereign and independent country. There is no need to declare independence again.” This longstanding principle of “substantive independence, status quo maintenance” has guided cross-Strait policy for over two decades and has become a unifying theme in Taiwan’s political discourse.

Legal Ambiguity as a Basis for Force

As China’s rhetoric on “Taiwan independence” expands, the likelihood grows that Beijing will manufacture a justification for aggression under its Anti-Secession Law. Enacted in 2005, the law establishes conditions for using force against Taiwan. Article 8 mandates “non-peaceful means” if Taiwan formally declares independence, “major incidents entailing Taiwan’s secession” occur, or prospects for peaceful unification are exhausted.

These terms are deliberately ambiguous, allowing Beijing broad interpretive discretion to authorize force in response to any move that falls within its view of “Taiwan independence.” The “major incidents” clause is particularly worrisome because it can encompass virtually any political development regarding Taiwan. As the former Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, James Moriarty, warned, the law is a “ticking time bomb” that China can use to justify military aggression based on its internal assessments. The law serves not just as deterrence but as a pretextual legal groundwork for potential military escalation, representing a cornerstone in Beijing’s lawfare playbook.

Beijing’s Lawfare, Discourse Control, and Diplomatic Isolation of Taiwan

China leverages lawfare, discourse control, and diplomatic isolation to delegitimize Taiwan’s international standing and shape global perceptions in line with Beijing’s evolving narrative of “Taiwan independence.” Beijing’s new “anti-separatism” guidelines — sometimes called “22 Rules for Punishing Taiwan Independence” — signal increased legal readiness for enforcement actions against perceived separatists, while implicitly reinforcing the claim that Taiwan is moving toward independence. As a supplement to the Anti-Secession Law, these guidelines mark a further escalation in Beijing’s lawfare campaign.

At the same time, China supports its expanding view of “Taiwan independence” by manipulating discourse on Taiwan’s legal status. A key example is its distortion of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758. While the resolution recognized the People’s Republic of China as “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations,” Beijing has falsely claimed it extinguished Taiwan as a political entity. This distortion is part of a broader strategy of defining any international or diplomatic interaction with Taiwan as a step toward independence, regardless of its actual content or intent.

Diplomatic pressure further amplifies Beijing’s narrative. China routinely coerces other countries into using Beijing-approved language in bilateral communiqués and discourages official interactions with Taiwan. By labeling routine engagements as acts of secession, Beijing is expanding the definition of “Taiwan independence”. In parallel, China continues to poach Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and suppress Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, despite Taiwan’s strong democratic credentials and meaningful contributions to global health and trade. Through these efforts, Beijing has broadened its view of “Taiwan independence” to encompass a wide range of political, diplomatic, and international interactions that are fundamentally neutral and non-threatening. Collectively, this campaign is reshaping global discourse over Taiwan’s sovereignty and challenging U.S. strategic messaging and alliance coordination in the Indo-Pacific.

U.S. Policy: Recalibrating to Resist Beijing’s Narrative War

Historically, the United States emphasized that it does not “support Taiwan independence,” which Beijing has repeatedly misinterpreted as implied support for non-intervention and unification on China’s terms. In 2025, the U.S. Department of State updated its Taiwan Fact Sheet, removing the phrase “does not support Taiwan independence” and instead stressing: “We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo and encourage peaceful resolution of cross-Strait differences acceptable to both sides.” This revision appears to reflect Washington’s awareness of Beijing’s expanding interpretation of “Taiwan independence” to encompass a broader range of actions that Beijing deems threatening, such as Taiwan’s participation in international organizations or foreign relations that do not follow Beijing’s strict parameters.

U.S. officials have also been careful not to echo China’s phrasing in bilateral meetings. In a recent exchange, China claimed that U.S. officials “reaffirmed opposition to Taiwan independence,” but the U.S. readout did not contain such language, signaling Washington’s sensitivity to Beijing’s rhetorical manipulation. The United States should continue this trend — emphasizing peace, opposing force, and respecting the will of the Taiwanese people — while rejecting Beijing’s efforts to distort views on “Taiwan independence” as a pretext for coercion or aggression.

Conclusion

China’s expanding characterization of “Taiwan independence” threatens regional stability and warrants careful, sustained countermeasures. Taiwan’s consistent stance — de facto independence under the name Republic of China — remains a moderate, democratic posture that seeks stability without provocation. To protect the delicate balance of peace in the Taiwan Strait, the United States should continue to expose and oppose Beijing’s legal and narrative manipulation of “Taiwan independence,” while affirming that the political status quo provides no grounds for coercion or aggression. The battle for legal and discourse supremacy is not a side issue but a strategic front line in the struggle for peace, sovereignty, and international order.

Tags: Diplomatic Isolation, Taiwan Independence, U.S. Policy

About The Author

Cheng Deng Feng
An officer in the armed forces of the Republic of China(Taiwan). Currently serving as an operational law advisor with Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense. I had previously coordinated unofficial legal engagement with the U.S. Defense Institute of International Legal Studies and the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

12. Understanding NATO’s Burden-Sharing Debate: Political Rhetoric and Defense Spending Realities

Excerpts:

Perhaps Trump’s rhetoric on NATO is just the most recent iteration of the art of the deal, perhaps not. Regardless, rhetoric carries risks. There is growing discussion of Europeans shifting priorities from NATO to a European-only defense structure. This could open the aperture for Europeans to seek a more reliable partner to augment their capabilities and subsequently erode the benefits the United States receives from NATO.

Short of that reprioritization, disenfranchised allies may be less likely to provide the United States Article 5 collective defense support in the future, as they offered in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They will likely be similarly frugal in supporting American military and clandestine operations marred with legal and ethical ambiguities. Winston Churchill offered sage advice to that overarching theme: “The only thing worse than fighting with allies, is fighting without them.”

With bipartisan support in 2023, Congress limited any President’s power to unilaterally withdraw from NATO, thereby minimizing the most significant threat to the trans-Atlantic relationship. Additionally, as Trump continues pressuring European and Canadian leaders for increased defense spending, he has committed to the alliance’s Article 5, further reducing the foundational threat to the alliance. Nonetheless, in the words of NATO Chief Stoltenberg, grandiose rhetoric that misses the nuanced details of burden-sharing undermines “all of [NATO’s] security, including that of the United States.”

Opinion / Perspective| The Latest

Understanding NATO’s Burden-Sharing Debate: Political Rhetoric and Defense Spending Realities

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/06/understanding-natos-burden-sharing-debate/

by Cody Schuette

05.06.2025 at 06:00am

The famed Prussian strategist, Carl von Clausewitz, argued that war is a tool for achieving political goals, and alliances, as an extension of war, similarly seeks to achieve political objectives through cooperative relations. Like all heads of state, President Donald Trump evaluates his nation’s alliance commitments, weighing the cost against the political objectives gained. Despite the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) being the bedrock of American foreign policy for nearly 76 years, it is under increased scrutiny.

During his first term and since returning to the White House, President Trump has consistently stated the United States provides a disproportionate amount of financial support to NATO and stresses the need for European allies and Canada to increase their contributions. Amidst the complexities of NATO funding, exacerbated by political rhetoric, the United States’ disproportionate contribution to the alliance is a calculated investment that advances American interests, while also preserving its global hegemony. The President’s critiques of current funding dynamics likely reflect an effort to realign the terms of this investment and secure a more favorable position for the United States.

To avoid getting lost in the rhetoric, it is essential to understand where President Trump stands on this issue and the fundamentals of NATO to gain perspective on the burden-sharing debate. This debate centers on America’s disparate spending supporting collective defense, raising concerns about allied free-riding. While the U.S. allocates substantially more towards NATO’s collective defense, a broader look at NATO’s funding, including non-defense contributions, shows that the burden-sharing debate is misleading; it overlooks the diverse expenditures that advance NATO’s objectives and ensures trans-Atlantic stability. Moreover, the U.S. benefits significantly from its leadership role, and recent progress by NATO members in increasing their defense contributions further erodes the argument of unequal burden.

The Political Rhetoric of NATO

Every American administration has criticized Europe’s investments in collective defense; President Trump has amplified these issues. During his first term, he focused on the “unfairness” of the United States paying the most for NATO’s collective defense, arguing it was nearly 90% and repeated claims that members were “delinquent” on payments. He asserted that these nations “owed” NATO and the United States billions of dollars and that they should settle the balance for the years they underspent on their defense. He later concluded that, unlike previous administrations, his approach reversed the multi-year trend of members under-contributing to the alliance’s collective defense.

The rhetoric persisted throughout his 2024 campaign and into his second term. While campaigning, he asserted that only nations paying their fair share and meeting the previously agreed thresholds should receive alliance protection. Since returning to the White House, Trump and his administration have continued the same message. That said, in February 2025, Trump offered direct public support for the United States honoring its Article 5 commitment and the administration clarified that it did not intend to withdraw from the alliance.

However, the administration’s messaging creates an element of ambiguity, suggesting that the United States’ participation in joint exercises, force posture in Europe, and collective defense commitments may be contingent upon allies meeting specific defense spending thresholds, potentially as high as 5% of GDP. This administration’s policy on NATO is open for interpretation and consequently perceived by some allies as unclear if or to what extent U.S. policy will change. Accordingly, it appears that Trump is attempting to use rhetoric, albeit fierce, to make a geopolitical deal.

How is NATO funded?

Alliance members predominantly fund NATO through direct and indirect financial contributions. Based on NATO’s latest figures as of December 2024, NATO expects to receive around $4.9 billion of direct funding from its members in 2025. These are funds allocated directly from an alliance member to NATO and used for costs associated with the NATO Headquarters, the command structure, and certain infrastructure investments. Although all members provide direct funding, the six wealthiest nations provide over two-thirds. The United States and Germany are the largest providers through the agreed-upon cost-sharing formula, contributing 15.8% of each. In comparison, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Italy each average 9% of total direct funding, with all other alliance members averaging 1.2%.

NATO estimates there will be over $1.4 trillion of indirect funds in 2024, roughly 66% of that coming from the United States. These funds reflect alliance members’ defense expenditures on their militaries. Each nation seeks to meet an agreed-upon amount based on an individual nation’s GDP. This is the often-cited 2% threshold many fault alliance members for not meeting. However, one must understand the origins of that threshold before judging a nation’s contribution effort.

How did the current indirect funding threshold originate?

NATO’s founding members signed the Washington Treaty in 1949 promoting the “preservation of peace and security” in the North Atlantic area amid the escalating Cold War.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO decreased defense expenditures throughout the 1990s. This trend reversed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the American-led Global War on Terror. During the George W. Bush administration in 2006, nations agreed to allocate a minimum of 2% of GDP on defense, ensuring military readiness and projecting a unified political front. In response to the 2008 financial crisis, most allies decreased their defense budget and assumed risk with what they perceived to be an economically weak and militarily unproven Russia. This changed following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Obama administration helped lead efforts for NATO’s Defense Investment Pledge (DIP), which specified members halt declining defense spending, spend 20% of defense expenditures on major new equipment, and “aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade.” Members have routinely reaffirmed these commitments, most recently at the 2024 Washington Summit. So, how have members fared against the three parts of the DIP since 2014?

Has the DIP achieved its intended objectives?

Data on the first two parts of the DIP are unambiguous and generate minimal debate. As of December 2024, current NATO data shows all nations exceeded their 2014 baseline, with growth measured in current and constant 2015 prices in national currencies. Over the same period, NATO went from having 6 of 28 members spending at least 20% of defense expenditures on new equipment to 29 of 32 members doing so, with a projected mean of 32% for 2024. Belgium improved from sitting at less than 4% in 2014 to exceeding 20% in 2022 and 2023, but sliding to 15% in 2024. Canada invested 13% in 2014 and is nearing the target goal with 18.6% invested in new equipment in 2024. Iceland, although a member of the alliance, lacks a military. An assessment of the final part of the DIP, meeting the 2% threshold, is complex and invites debate.

Despite considerable progress in burden-sharing for collective defense, some members still fall short. In 2014, 3 of 28 members met the 2% goal, with European allies and Canada averaging 1.43%. However, in 2024, NATO estimates that 24 of 32 members will meet the 2% goal, with European allies and Canada averaging 2.02%. So, although most members are meeting all parts of the DIP, eight still fall short of the 2% threshold, two of which are Canada at 1.37% and Italy at 1.49%. More troubling, Canada is one of the two nations falling below the 2% of GDP threshold for overall defense spending and the 20% threshold for defense spending on new equipment; Belgium is the second.

What is missed with a singular focus on the 2% threshold?

Three factors provide a nuanced perspective and highlight why an exclusive focus on the 2% defense spending target is misleading. First, focusing solely on the 2% GDP target overlooks the fact that European allies have largely met the other parts of the DIP. Two related points also bear repeating. According to the unanimously agreed-to pledge, the 2% target is a “guideline” and not a strict requirement, and the “within the decade” provision means by 2024, not annually through 2024.

Second, equitable indirect financial contributions do not significantly increase NATO’s absolute security capacity. For example, Germany’s GDP is ten times larger than that of the 10 smallest economies in NATO. Meaning there is a substantial difference in the overall military capacity gained by NATO when large economies verse small economies meet the 2% goal. It is important to emphasize that a significant increase in NATO capability, not simply equitable inputs, advances America’s interests. That said, 2024 is the first year Germany is expected to meet the 2% goal.

Another perspective, nations nearing the 2% goal in 2024, such as Croatia at 1.81%, could slightly increase defense spending on operational support costs like personnel pay, thereby meeting the guideline without increasing NATO’s security capacity. Again, simply meeting the 2% target would proportionately share the financial burden but would not contribute substantially to NATO’s collective defense. Smaller nations’ most significant contributions are supporting trans-Atlantic unity and granting NATO members access, basing, and overflight privileges. Overall, individual nations’ contributions to the alliance remain mixed, and focusing solely on the 2% defense spending target fails to highlight a broader perspective.

Third, meeting the 2% defense spending target does not encompass all costs that advance NATO’s objectives. The Kiel Institute tracks assistance to Ukraine in its fight against Russia; NATO described this war as “the most significant and direct threat to the allies’ security and peace, and the stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.” As of February 2025, European allies and Canada have allocated $87 billion, representing 31% of the total bilateral financial, humanitarian, and military assistance to Ukraine. This figure increases to $141 billion, accounting for 49% of the total when including the direct contributions made by the European Union Commission and Council. Despite spending less than 2% of GDP on defense, Canada ranks 4th among NATO members in total bilateral assistance allocation. Similarly, many European nations have spent billions restructuring their energy networks to reduce dependency on Russian oil and gas; Germany was the largest importer of Russian energy but is now independent.

Furthermore, a recent CSIS report concluded that including costs like these in NATO’s 2023 defense spending numbers would result in 11 members exceeding 3% and 14 members exceeding 4%. In fact, only three NATO members would not meet the 2% threshold. Of these, Iceland lacks a military, and there was insufficient publicly available data on Montenegro and North Macedonia to complete the analysis. Note that these numbers would increase if factored into 2024 data, as members’ defense spending has continued to increase over the past year. Although not defense expenditures, these additional state expenses align with the Washington Treaty and bolster trans-Atlantic security, thereby supporting American interests.

Defense Spending: Rhetoric to Reality

Although Trump’s comments on NATO invite debate, his underlining theme has legitimacy. The United States accounts for nearly 66% of NATO’s indirect funding, despite accounting for just over 50% of the alliance’s collective GDP value. Given that indirect funding is measured as a percentage of GDP, the United States’ contribution should proportionally reflect its economic size and therefore nearly equal the combined indirect funding of all other allies. Similarly, the Kiel Institute reports that the United States has allocated $123 billion, representing 43% of total bilateral assistance to Ukraine. Additionally, the U.S. has roughly 84,000 military members stationed in Europe, which is equal to the 10 smallest NATO members’ militaries combined. It bears repeating that past administrations, from both sides of the political aisle, have made the fair-share argument, albeit, often with a more measured tone. Nevertheless, with Canada as the most significant outlier, European allies have largely met the unanimously agreed-to goals established a decade ago. Criticism of NATO must be nuanced.

Furthermore, even though the United States spends more on collective defense, it benefits in ways others do not. NATO advances American interests by offering support and legitimacy to American foreign policy and facilitates American strategic goals of defense-in-depth and power projection. This is seen through access and basing for American forces, specifically strategic bombers, naval craft, and tens of thousands of ground forces. European bases and intelligence sharing support American-led operations across Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. These missions, directly supported by NATO or by NATO members, have cost other members thousands of casualties in conflicts that would have otherwise burdened the United States.

The NATO alliance also helps promote favorable trade agreements for the United States and facilitates investments into American industries from foreign military sales. Internally to the alliance, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander is responsible for all NATO operations and is always an American. Overall, the United States pays a disproportionate price for a disproportionate benefit. And not to be forgotten, the United States does not have the largest defense budget in the world to advance NATO’s interests; over 3% of the world’s largest GDP goes towards preserving American preeminence.

What lies ahead?

Allied defense spending is increasingly converging towards the target of equal burden-sharing, demonstrating a commitment to collective responsibility and advancing American interests. Full adherence to the DIP by all allies will likely also be perceived as a demonstration of enhanced political unity and military capability, regardless of attribution. Since Trump’s return to the White House, French and British leaders have emphasized the need for Europeans to “more fairly share the security burden.” To demonstrate this, Denmark and the United Kingdom stated they will increase their defense budgets to 2.5% and 3% of GDP respectively by 2026, whereas Latvia and Lithuania will seek to achieve at least 5% of GDP. Although Trump is not the first to pressure Europeans and Canada to meet the 2% goal, many credit him with the recent acceleration of allies meeting or exceeding DIP goals.

Perhaps Trump’s rhetoric on NATO is just the most recent iteration of the art of the deal, perhaps not. Regardless, rhetoric carries risks. There is growing discussion of Europeans shifting priorities from NATO to a European-only defense structure. This could open the aperture for Europeans to seek a more reliable partner to augment their capabilities and subsequently erode the benefits the United States receives from NATO.

Short of that reprioritization, disenfranchised allies may be less likely to provide the United States Article 5 collective defense support in the future, as they offered in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They will likely be similarly frugal in supporting American military and clandestine operations marred with legal and ethical ambiguities. Winston Churchill offered sage advice to that overarching theme: “The only thing worse than fighting with allies, is fighting without them.”

With bipartisan support in 2023, Congress limited any President’s power to unilaterally withdraw from NATO, thereby minimizing the most significant threat to the trans-Atlantic relationship. Additionally, as Trump continues pressuring European and Canadian leaders for increased defense spending, he has committed to the alliance’s Article 5, further reducing the foundational threat to the alliance. Nonetheless, in the words of NATO Chief Stoltenberg, grandiose rhetoric that misses the nuanced details of burden-sharing undermines “all of [NATO’s] security, including that of the United States.”

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Tags: and Collective Defense, Burden Sharing, Defense Spending, NATO

About The Author

Cody Schuette
Major Cody R. Schuette is an active-duty Army officer and has graduate degrees in National Security Studies and Public Administration. He has served in a variety of leadership and staff positions, with multiple operational assignments. He currently serves as an FA59 Army Strategist.

13. How Images of the Dalai Lama Landed a Tibetan Woman in China’s Dragnet

The immense fear China has of the Dalai Lama hardly seems rational to us.

Excerpts:

China asserted its control over the Tibetan plateau in 1950, maintaining that the region had always been a part of China. But despite decades of harsh policies to assimilate the region, many Tibetans continue to see their land, with its unique ethnic identity, religion and language, as distinct from China and remain devoted to the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959.

Today, China is tightening its grip on Tibet. Street cameras, police checkpoints and increasingly sophisticated monitoring of digital devices have helped enforce Chinese rule and tamp down on even the faintest hint of support for Tibetan independence.

Firsthand accounts from Tibetans about what is happening there, such as those provided by Nam Kyi, have become increasingly rare because of China’s expanding clampdown. Since 2020, fewer than 100 people have escaped to India, the most common destination for people fleeing, according to Tibetan exile leaders. Nam Kyi’s descriptions of the surveillance provide fresh evidence of how Beijing is tightening the screws.

How Images of the Dalai Lama Landed a Tibetan Woman in China’s Dragnet

The rare account of the woman who escaped from Tibet sheds new light on China’s harsh policies aimed at bringing the region to heel

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/dalai-lama-photo-china-jail-tibet-d6b96c23

By Tripti Lahiri

, Austin Ramzy

and Krishna Pokharel

| Photographs by Sumit Dayal for WSJ

May 5, 2025 11:00 pm ET

Key Points

What's This?

Nam Kyi, a Tibetan activist, was arrested for online activity referencing the Dalai Lama, considered a separatist by China.
China is tightening control over Tibet with surveillance, making it harder for critics to leave and communicate with the outside world.
Nam Kyi escaped to India in 2023 and is now an activist, describing the surveillance she experienced in Tibet.

DHARAMSHALA, India—Nam Kyi, a young Tibetan activist, had been out of prison for only a few years when she was picked up by Chinese police in 2022.

At the station in her hometown high in the Tibetan plateau, officers showed they had printouts of her messages on the Chinese social media app WeChat that referred to the Dalai Lama, regarded by China as a dangerous separatist.

Authorities had previously imprisoned Nam Kyi for three years for carrying the Tibetan Buddhist leader’s photo at a public protest. Now, over hours of questioning, they drew her attention to her WeChat account where she had posted visual hints of the Dalai Lama—his hands, his feet, a hat worn by high lamas—and the words, “Uncle, we are waiting for you.”

“Why are you posting such garbage?” asked one police officer. “Demon, weren’t three years in prison enough for you?” he asked.

Nam Kyi has long believed Tibet had been an independent nation. Photo: Sumit Dayal for WSJ

China asserted its control over the Tibetan plateau in 1950, maintaining that the region had always been a part of China. But despite decades of harsh policies to assimilate the region, many Tibetans continue to see their land, with its unique ethnic identity, religion and language, as distinct from China and remain devoted to the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959.

Today, China is tightening its grip on Tibet. Street cameras, police checkpoints and increasingly sophisticated monitoring of digital devices have helped enforce Chinese rule and tamp down on even the faintest hint of support for Tibetan independence.

Firsthand accounts from Tibetans about what is happening there, such as those provided by Nam Kyi, have become increasingly rare because of China’s expanding clampdown. Since 2020, fewer than 100 people have escaped to India, the most common destination for people fleeing, according to Tibetan exile leaders. Nam Kyi’s descriptions of the surveillance provide fresh evidence of how Beijing is tightening the screws.

Many Tibetans are made to download an antifraud app, according to Human Rights Watch and other rights groups, which gives authorities sweeping access to their phones and communications. In recent years, Tibetans caught communicating with people outside China have faced lengthy sentences. Posters across Tibet offer rewards for informants with tips about these kinds of violations.

The surveillance also makes it harder for critics of Chinese authority to leave. China has fortified the border with an extensive network of security infrastructure, including large surveillance drones with live video monitoring, according to papers published by Chinese border-security officials. In the most remote areas, radar systems and motion-sensor wiring have been installed, they wrote.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t respond to a request for comment. Beijing has for years portrayed the Dalai Lama as a political exile who uses the cloak of religion to oppose China and promote separatism. It also says Tibet is an internal matter.

A brief protest

As a teenager from a herding family, Nam Kyi, who is now 25, said she became aware of growing Chinese control over Tibetans’ traditional culture and religious beliefs.

Nam Kyi’s region, which Tibetans know as Amdo and part of which falls in China’s Sichuan province, was home to a monastery at the center of many self-immolations, a form of protest adopted by some Tibetans following a 2008 uprising against Chinese repression. Locals called the road leading up to Kirti Monastery “Martyrs’ Road.”

Tibetans surreptitiously circulated CDs showing some of these acts of protest, which they sometimes referred to online as “a lamp offering” to evade Chinese censorship.

“My heart could not bear it,” said Nam Kyi, who had a family member who was among those to protest in this way. After seeing such videos, “I thought that I couldn’t just stay like this, doing nothing.”

Nam Kyi herding yak in Tibet, and with her horse collecting herbs that helped pay for her escape.

In 2015, she participated in a brief protest that lasted a matter of minutes, walking down a street carrying the Dalai Lama’s photo, and was arrested by police. It was a bold act, given that China has criminalized the possession of the religious leader’s image.

For nearly a week afterward, police beat and interrogated her about where she got the photo and whether she belonged to separatist groups. They were horrified when she said she had seen Tibet’s red, blue, white and yellow flag, which is also banned, and described it to them.

She was convicted of separatist acts against the nation and sent to prison. Authorities pressed her to disavow the Dalai Lama, and again she refused.

“He knows all about the beatings you give us here,” she said she told her captors. “The way you can look through security cameras, the Dalai Lama can see things.”

Under surveillance

Upon her release, Nam Kyi found that she and her family and villagers had become the target of unrelenting police scrutiny. Village leaders were warned they would be punished if she protested again.

She still occasionally sent messages to friends that referenced the Dalai Lama.

Nam Kyi with some of the belongings that she carried during her escape from Tibet. Photo: Sumit Dayal for WSJ

Nam Kyi holds soil from her hometown that she carried with her when she escaped from Tibet. Photo: Sumit Dayal for WSJ

She knew she was being watched. At times, messages she had posted didn’t reach people. One and then another of her social-media accounts were blocked from posting.

She was summoned by police over her online activity in 2022.

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What lies ahead for Tibetan supporters of the Dalai Lama? Join the conversation below.

It was clear they had been monitoring her WeChat account and had seen images and texts she had shared. The police eventually let her go, but only after she signed a statement saying she understood she would go to prison if she again posted online or joined any groups.

She decided she had to leave Tibet, something she had been thinking about since her imprisonment years earlier.

A bold escape

Thousands of Tibetans used to flee China for India every year. Since the wider deployment of police and surveillance, however, doing so has become harder, with anyone who gets caught facing imprisonment or the possibility of being sent to re-education camps. Most Tibetans aren’t allowed to hold passports.

Undeterred, Nam Kyi saved the $9,000 she would need for a guide and other costs by gathering and selling herbs used for Chinese traditional medicine.

She embarked on her journey from Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet autonomous region, with her aunt in May 2023, carrying just a small backpack. The two carried out prayers and protective rituals at a monastery before setting out.

As a child, Nam Kyi found it easy to wander the mountains with her animals. But after her three years in prison, she found the physical exertion of her escape from Tibet draining and faced severe altitude sickness.

At one point, the two women had to skirt around a military camp whose floodlights swept across the terrain. When the spotlight shined in her direction, she recalled, they would dive onto the ground and lie flat; when it passed by, they would keep moving.

Nam Kyi in a classroom at a school in Dharamshala for young exiles. Photo: Sumit Dayal for WSJ

She was afraid of other Tibetans who might spot her along the way and report her. Some herders accept payments from the authorities in exchange for such information, she said.

She declined to provide some details of the passage out of concern it could tip off authorities to the route and to people who helped her.

When she crossed into Nepal after a two-week journey, she saw the Dalai Lama’s photograph and the Tibetan flag openly displayed for the first time in her life.

“Getting that first taste of freedom was overwhelming,” she said.

Now, in exile, Nam Kyi is enrolled in a school in the Indian city of Dharamshala for young exiles. It used to be full, but nowadays, only a handful of students study there. In her dorm room, a shrine on a desk has a Dalai Lama photo at its center.

Write to Tripti Lahiri at tripti.lahiri@wsj.com, Austin Ramzy at austin.ramzy@wsj.com and Krishna Pokharel at krishna.pokharel@wsj.com

14. Xi Can’t Trust His Own Military

How can we exploit this?

Opinion

Guest Essay

Xi Can’t Trust His Own Military

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/opinion/china-taiwan-xi-jinping.html

May 6, 2025

Credit...Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

Listen to this article · 7:04 min Learn more

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By Phillip C. Saunders and Joel Wuthnow

Dr. Saunders and Dr. Wuthnow are experts on the Chinese military at National Defense University in Washington, D.C.

President Xi Jinping of China is believed to have ordered his armed forces to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027, if necessary, raising the specter of a catastrophic military conflict in the next few years that would almost inevitably draw in the United States.

But an ongoing purge by Mr. Xi of his top military ranks casts doubt on that deadline and, in the longer term, whether he can trust his generals to successfully wage war.

Over the past two years, two defense ministers and a host of senior People’s Liberation Army officers have been removed from their positions, including top leaders of the Rocket Force, which controls China’s nuclear weapons.

Heads continue to roll, including, according to recent reports, one of the highest-profile ousters yet: Gen. He Weidong, the country’s second-ranking officer, who reported directly to Mr. Xi and has been deeply involved in planning for a theoretical Taiwan invasion.

It is impossible to say for sure whether such dismissals are related to corruption — a stubborn and serious problem in the People’s Liberation Army — to ideological differences or to other reasons. But the tumult raises serious questions about the competence and reliability of Mr. Xi’s military commanders. This is likely to weaken his appetite for war, offering Taiwan and the United States time to strengthen their defenses.

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There is no question that China’s military has come a long way. Once antiquated, it is now the world’s largest armed force and rivals the United States in air, naval and missile power. China’s military has been rehearsing an invasion or blockade of Taiwan for years — including exercises in early April — and is working out some of the challenges of transporting tens of thousands of troops across the Taiwan Strait.

But hardware and logistics alone don’t ensure victory. Military effectiveness depends heavily on battlefield leadership — experienced commanders able to make tough calls, quickly, in the fog of war. China has not fought a war since 1979, and today’s generation of Chinese officers, unlike their American and Russian counterparts, has no battlefield experience, a fact that Mr. Xi himself has lamented.

The deeper problem — underscored by the internal turmoil — is that Mr. Xi and the Chinese Communist Party may not even have a solid grip on their army.

Unlike the U.S. military, whose personnel swear an oath to the Constitution and are supposed to be apolitical, the People’s Liberation Army is the Chinese Communist Party’s army. Its officers swear allegiance to the party — of which they are members — and take their orders from Mr. Xi as head of the party and chairman of its powerful Central Military Commission. In theory, they should be under firm party control, but that’s not the case.

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The People’s Liberation Army, with its combined army, navy and air forces, occupies a powerful position in China. This was immortalized by Mao Zedong, who said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” The army’s status resulted in party leaders granting it a high degree of autonomy to ensure generals remained loyal, essentially allowing it to police itself.

As Chinese military spending soared over the years, so did opportunities for corruption. Party leaders, some of whom were themselves accused of being corrupt, often looked the other way. But after Mr. Xi took power in 2012, he began an anti-graft campaign throughout the party that rooted out corrupt or potentially disloyal senior military officers. He also undertook the largest restructuring of the armed forces since Mao.

The long-running purge indicates he’s still struggling to assert control.

Most of the recent dismissals appear related to corruption. But like his predecessors, Mr. Xi needs the military’s backing to maintain his grip on power and can go only so far in attacking its culture of graft. Illustrating the intractability of the problem, those brought down in the past two years have been his own appointees.

Corruption undercuts military preparedness in important ways. It can fuel the rise of officers more skilled at receiving kickbacks than at commanding troops and lead to the purchase of subpar equipment. A report released last year by the U.S. Department of Defense suggested that corruption in China’s Rocket Force might have been so severe that some missile silos required repairs.

Perhaps more important, the wave of dismissals may mean that Mr. Xi cannot fully trust what his military advisers tell him about China’s readiness for war. General He’s case, in particular, raises doubts regarding Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China claims as its own territory. As a former chief of the Eastern Theater Command, General He was responsible for planning a potential invasion of Taiwan until Mr. Xi elevated him in 2022 to vice chairman of the military commission, where he was the Chinese leader’s top adviser on a Taiwan campaign.

All of this adds to another key problem common in the armies of autocratic countries: political interference. Chinese officers and soldiers spend substantial amounts of time on political indoctrination, including studying Mr. Xi’s speeches. Ever-present political commissars make sure the party’s orders are followed, which can slow down decision making and inhibit individual initiative. In democratic countries, by contrast, officers have more freedom to make their own decisions and learn from their mistakes.

None of this means Taipei or Washington can afford to be complacent. China’s huge army would fight if ordered to, even if not fully ready, especially if China perceives Taiwan moving toward outright independence.

But Mr. Xi is probably not spoiling for a fight. The disastrous invasion of Ukraine by President Vladimir Putin of Russia showed the world that military might alone does not ensure victory over a smaller foe that is dug in and determined. Win or lose, a war with Taiwan could devastate China’s economy — which already faces slowing growth and hefty U.S. trade tariffs — and a military failure could threaten Mr. Xi’s hold on power.

Taiwan should use this time to radically increase spending on weapons that are especially useful in repelling an invasion, such as anti-ship cruise missiles, sea mines and drones. The United States should deploy more long-range missiles and other weaponry to the region to deter a Chinese attack against the island. It also could capitalize on American military ingenuity by devising innovative ways to thwart an invasion that exploit Chinese commanders’ inexperience and inability to quickly respond to unforeseen situations.

The greatest risk today is that the fear and tension stoked by aggressive Chinese behavior and language lead to a miscalculation and war. China’s threats will continue. But leaders in Taiwan and the United States must avoid overreacting and recognize that for the foreseeable future, Mr. Xi will be reluctant to send a scandal-plagued military into battle.

Spy Agencies Do Not Think Venezuela Directs Gang, Declassified Memo Shows

The release of the memo further undercuts the Trump administration’s rationale for using the Alien Enemies Act to deport scores of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/us/trump-venezuela-gang-ties-spy-memo.html

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela in the country’s capital, Caracas, this year.Credit...The New York Times

By Charlie Savage and Julian E. Barnes

Reporting from Washington

May 5, 2025

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A newly declassified memo released on Monday confirms that U.S. intelligence agencies rejected a key claim President Trump put forth to justify invoking a wartime statute to summarily deport Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.

The memo, dovetailing with intelligence findings first reported by The New York Times in March, states that spy agencies do not believe that the administration of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, controls a criminal gang, Tren de Aragua. That determination contradicts what Mr. Trump asserted when he invoked the deportation law, the Alien Enemies Act.

“While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the memo said.

INTELLIGENCE MEMORead the assessment by intelligence agencies concluding that Venezuela’s government does not control the gang Tren de Aragua.

The memo’s release further undercuts the Trump administration’s rationale for using the Alien Enemies Act and calls into question its forceful criticism of the ensuing coverage. After The Times published its article, the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation and portrayed the reporting as misleading and harmful. The administration doubled down a month later after similar coverage in The Washington Post, citing the disclosures in both articles as a reason to relax limits on leak investigations.

The document, known as a “sense of the community” memo, was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The foundation provided a copy to The Times.

Lauren Harper, the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy for the foundation, said the memo was at odds with the administration’s portrayal of its contents as a dire threat to public safety.

The government “almost immediately declassified the same information in response to a FOIA request,” she said.

Ms. Harper continued: “The declassification proves that the material should have been public from the start — not used as an excuse to suppress sharing information with the press.”

But administration officials continued to defend Mr. Trump’s policy.

“It is outrageous that as President Trump and his administration work hard every day to make America safe by deporting these violent criminals, some in the media remain intent on twisting and manipulating intelligence assessments to undermine the president’s agenda to keep the American people safe,” Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement.

The White House and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Until Mr. Trump invoked it in mid-March, the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century law, had been used only three times in American history, all during declared wars. It says the government may summarily remove citizens of a country that is at war with the United States or otherwise engaged in an invasion of or predatory incursion into U.S. territory.

Immediately afterward, the administration sent planeloads of Venezuelans to a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador with no due process. Courts have since blocked further transfers under the proclamation. Citing evidence that some of the men sent there were likely not gang members, the American Civil Liberties Union has asked a judge to order the Trump administration to bring back the Venezuelans for normal immigration hearings.

On its face, the Alien Enemies Act appears to require a link to a foreign government. Mr. Trump declared that Tren de Aragua had committed crimes to destabilize the United States “at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.”

But The Times reported days later that the intelligence community had circulated findings on Feb. 26 that reached the opposite conclusion. The shared assessment was that Venezuela’s government and the gang were adversaries, even though some corrupt Venezuelan officials had ties to some gang members. It also said the gang lacked centralized command-and-control and was too disorganized to carry out any instructions.

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The Times also reported that only the F.B.I. partly dissented and thought there was some kind of link, but it was based on information the other agencies — like the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. — thought was not credible.

The Trump administration asked the National Intelligence Council, made up of senior analysis and national security policy experts who report to Ms. Gabbard, to take another look at the available evidence.

On April 7, it produced the memo released on Monday. The Washington Post reported on the memo, which remained classified, later that month, further angering the administration.

Now in public view, the memo said the intelligence community based its conclusion on a series of factors. Venezuelan security forces have arrested Tren de Aragua members and have “periodically engaged in armed confrontations with TDA, resulting in the killing of some TDA members,” the memo said, showing that the government treats the gang as a threat.

While there is evidence that some “mid- to low-level Venezuelan officials probably profit from TDA’s illicit activities,” the memo said, the gang’s decentralized makeup would make it “logistically challenging” for the organization as a whole to act at the behest of the government.

The memo also shed additional light on the F.B.I.’s partial dissent.

It said that while F.B.I. analysts agreed with the other agencies’ overall assessment, they also thought that “some Venezuelan government officials facilitate TDA members’ migration from Venezuela to the United States and use members as proxies in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the United States to advance what they see as the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing governments and undermining public safety in these countries.”

The F.B.I. based its view on “people detained for involvement in criminal activity in the United States or for entering the country illegally.” But “most” of the intelligence community “judges that intelligence indicating that regime leaders are directing or enabling TDA migration to the United States is not credible,” the memo said.

In examining the available evidence, the National Intelligence Council evaluated whether detainees “could credibly have access to the information reported” and whether they had offered details that could be corroborated about support the Maduro government had purportedly provided the gang in exchange for following its directions.

While portions of this section were redacted, the memo signaled skepticism. The detainees’ legal troubles, it said, could “motivate them to make false allegations about their ties to the Venezuelan regime in an effort to deflect responsibility for their crimes and to lessen any punishment by providing exculpatory or otherwise ‘valuable’ information to U.S. prosecutors.”

In late March, the memo noted, Chilean officials told the International Criminal Court that they suspected that the murder of a Venezuelan man in Chile last year was carried out by “a cell or group linked to the Tren de Aragua that was politically motivated” and originated from an order by Venezuela’s government. The Maduro administration denied that accusation.

But the memo also said other parts of the intelligence community had not observed or collected evidence of communications or funding flows showing government officials providing directions to leaders of the gang, even though such a relationship would likely require “extensive” such interactions.

Judges so far have stayed away from second-guessing the truth of Mr. Trump’s factual claims in deploying the Alien Enemies Act.

The day after the initial Times article, Todd Blanche, a former defense lawyer for Mr. Trump who is now deputy attorney general, announced that the Justice Department had opened a criminal leak investigation.

In a statement, he criticized the article, saying the information in it was classified but also “inaccurate.” But the declassified memo supports The Times’s reporting.

In an interview on Megyn Kelly’s podcast last week, Ms. Gabbard said that the reporting on the intelligence community’s conclusions was “being investigated.” Leakers had “selectively and intentionally left out the most important thing,” she added, pointing to the F.B.I.’s belief that the Maduro government was supporting the gang’s activities in the United States.

But the articles in both The Times and The Post discussed the F.B.I.’s contrary view.

Last month, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a memo that she would roll back protections for press freedoms in leak investigations, citing the Times and Post articles as damaging examples of leaks of classified information.

In an Espionage Act case, prosecutors must prove that someone knowingly made an unauthorized disclosure of defense-related information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary. The government’s declassification of the memo raises questions about any case that could be brought over the Times and Post articles.

Charlie Savage writes about national security and legal policy for The Times.

Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades.

16. Trump’s Hope for Gaza Deal Fades as Israel Plans Major Escalation

Trump’s Hope for Gaza Deal Fades as Israel Plans Major Escalation

Ahead of a trip to the Middle East, President Trump has disengaged from the conflict, analysts said, but must now decide how to respond.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/us/politics/trump-israel-gaza.html

Analysts say that President Trump and his senior officials have grown distracted from the Israel-Hamas conflict, giving something of a free hand to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

By Michael Crowley

Reporting from Washington

May 5, 2025

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When President Trump hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House in early April, a reporter reminded Mr. Trump that his 2024 campaign promise to end the war in Gaza remained unfulfilled.

Israel had recently broken a tenuous cease-fire in its 18-month war with Hamas and renewed its bombardment of Gaza. But Mr. Trump professed optimism.

“I’d like to see the war stop,” he replied. “And I think the war will stop at some point that won’t be in the too-distant future.”

One month later, prospects for peace in Gaza have dimmed even further.

Mr. Netanyahu warned on Monday of an “intensive” Israeli escalation in the Palestinian enclave after his security cabinet approved plans to call up tens of thousands of reservists for a fresh assault there.

Israeli hawks insist that only force can pressure Hamas into finally releasing the more than 20 hostages it still holds captive and end the conflict. But many analysts say a major Israeli escalation could kill any hope left for peace.

The question now is how Mr. Trump will react. Analysts said that, after an early flurry of diplomacy to free the hostages and reach a long-term settlement, Mr. Trump and his senior officials have grown distracted from the conflict. That has amounted to something of a free hand for Mr. Netanyahu, who appears prepared to use it.

Tracking the First 100 Days ›

The Trump administration’s previous actions on Gaza

Earlier entries about Gaza

See every major action by the Trump administration ›

Trump’s Hope for Gaza Deal Fades as Israel Plans Major Escalation - The New York Times

“In the beginning of the administration, all the promise was on Gaza,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East specialist in the Obama and Biden administrations. “But when the cease-fire fell apart, Trump basically gave the Israelis the green light to do whatever they wanted.”

“My sense is he’s not that involved,” added Mr. Goldenberg, who is now a senior vice president at J Street, a center-left Jewish political advocacy group. “He kind of got bored.”

Mr. Trump plans to travel to the Middle East next week, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

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A violent escalation in Gaza would be frustrating for Mr. Trump, a stark reminder that he has failed to deliver the peace he promised.

Yet it is possible that Mr. Trump has lost patience and welcomes talk in Israel of inflicting a final, crushing blow against Hamas in what Mr. Netanyahu said his military officials told him would be “the concluding moves” of the war.

Mr. Trump may also have a high tolerance for Israel’s use of heavy force. He has warned Hamas that “all hell” will break loose if the group does not release the remaining hostages.

Michael Makovsky, the president and chief executive of the hawkish Jewish Institute for National Security of America, agreed that Mr. Trump was less engaged with Israel on the subject of Gaza than the Biden administration was.

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his top officials spent a vast amount of time after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks trying to manage Israel’s Gaza campaign. Their goal was to limit civilian suffering in Gaza and save Israel from international condemnation, even if critics called them far too tolerant of Israel’s use of force.

Mr. Trump has shown flashes of concern for Gaza’s population, and said on Monday that he would help Gazans “get some food” amid an Israeli blockade.

But his attention to the conflict has been sporadic.

“It’s like night and day with the Biden administration, which was trying to micromanage Israel’s operations,” Mr. Makovsky said.

Israeli officials are not “getting phone calls,” he said. “I don’t think they’re being pressed about how many aid trucks are coming in.”

Axios reported on Monday that Israel would launch a new ground operation in Gaza if a deal with Hamas was not reached by the time Mr. Trump returned from his trip to the region. Mr. Makovsky, who recently attended meetings with senior Israeli officials, said that report matched his understanding.

When it comes to the Middle East, he added, Mr. Trump has been more focused on nascent diplomacy aimed at stopping Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

In a statement on Monday, Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that Mr. Trump “remains committed to securing the immediate release of hostages and an end to Hamas rule in Gaza.” He added that “Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict and for the resumption of hostilities.”

One sign of the shifting focus is the portfolio of Mr. Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. In the early days of Mr. Trump’s presidency, Mr. Witkoff threw himself into Israel-Hamas diplomacy in pursuit of extending a temporary cease-fire agreement reached on Jan. 15.

But Mr. Witkoff has since become a kind of roving super envoy who juggles many missions. The former real estate developer and longtime Trump friend has also taken on the Iran file and met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia four times to discuss Ukraine.

There is little to suggest that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stepped in. Mr. Rubio, whom Mr. Trump last week also gave the job of national security adviser, has yet to visit Israel.

Michael Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He has reported from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the secretary of state.

17. America’s Coming Brain Drain

A self inflicted wound that will take decades to heal. Is this the "win" in the culture wars that we want?

Excerpts:

American universities are not perfect. But many of them are extremely successful institutions by global standards, and the country depends on them. To defund universities because of faults that have nothing to do with research is to recklessly shut off the spigot to innovation.

Just as the center of gravity in science and technology moved away from Europe to the United States during the twentieth century, it can also move to Asia in the twenty-first. The economies of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea approach or surpass the United States in the proportion of GDP they devote to R & D, and China is working hard to catch up. India, which ranks third in the number of research publications produced globally, is poised to advance in science by the end of the decade (as it also becomes the world’s third-largest economy). U.S. government policies that fail to comprehend the importance of advancing science and technology are hastening this transition.

The United States, once solidly on the front lines of technology, is now on its way to becoming a much weaker player. And so far, it is responding to this decline by taking steps that will only weaken it further. There has never been anything inevitable about U.S. leadership in science and technology. What is inevitable is that if Washington does not work to maintain its lead on this battlefield, others will take its place.

America’s Coming Brain Drain

Foreign Affairs · by More by L. Rafael Reif · May 6, 2025

Trump’s War on Universities Could Kill U.S. Innovation

L. Rafael Reif

May 6, 2025

Commencement at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 2022 Brian Snyder / Reuters

L. RAFAEL REIF is President Emeritus and the Ray and Maria Stata Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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In June 2024, at a national science and technology conference, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the high-tech sector had become “the frontline and main battlefield of international competition, profoundly reshaping the global order and the pattern of development.” He is, of course, absolutely right. The United States and China compete for economic, military, and diplomatic dominance through the development of new technologies, including those with both military and civilian applications.

China is an increasingly formidable rival on this front. Since announcing the “Made in China 2025” plan in 2015, Beijing has invested in a whole-of-government focus on advancing critical emerging technologies. Now, China is giving the United States a run for its money. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Chinese automaker BYD surpassed Tesla in sales of battery electric vehicles. In addition to being bigger than Tesla, BYD is arguably more inventive, with vehicles that can slide sideways into parking spots and float during emergencies, and chargers that can replenish up to 250 miles of range in a mere five minutes—several times faster than Tesla superchargers. The state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China also intends to rival U.S. leaders in the aerospace manufacturing field; this March, the company released plans for a long-range supersonic jet that produces supersonic booms no louder than a hairdryer. Also in March, Beijing sent quantum-encrypted images to South Africa using a small, cheap satellite—an enormous advance in quantum communications. Chinese biotech companies are competing with their U.S. counterparts in creating new drugs. And as the energy demands of artificial intelligence make fusion power—a potentially massive source of carbon-free electricity—even more desirable, China has more new public fusion projects, fusion patents, and fusion Ph.D.s than any other country.

Much of the U.S. government response to this increasing competition in recent years has been protectionist, including tariffs on EVs, curbs on Chinese investments in strategic sectors, and export controls on the GPU chips and chipmaking equipment used for advanced artificial intelligence. But the success of Chinese AI company DeepSeek, spun out of a Chinese hedge fund, has made clear that this approach is ultimately futile. In January, DeepSeek launched a high-quality AI tool that it developed without access to the enormous number of high-end GPUs thought to be required for such a model. Sooner or later, China is going to invent its way around whatever roadblocks Washington imposes.

That’s why it is so important that the United States not let up on its own innovation. When the government in Beijing decides that China must lead in a certain technology, resources are not an issue, and neither is short-term profitability. Washington, on the other hand, traditionally respects market forces and opposes government-led industrial policy. On the battlefield of technology, Americans must both continue to do what they do best and find new ways to improve competitiveness.

SinceWorld War II, the United States has regularly created and commercialized groundbreaking technologies. But that success should not be taken for granted. Through its recent initiatives to cut federal funds for university research, the Trump administration risks draining a crucial source of new ideas for industry and the military, even as the geopolitical threats it faces continue to grow. To avert scientific and technological stagnation, the United States must significantly increase public investments in university-based research, ensure that it capitalizes on discoveries that emerge from academia, and devise sensible immigration policies that allow the world’s best students to study and then work in the United States. Right now, however, the administration seems hellbent on damaging, rather than fostering, this crucial source of American strength.

THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

One thing the United States has done best over the past eight decades is invent foundational technologies. The wellspring of that innovation is very often U.S. research universities. Many of the most significant technologies of our day—including the Internet, the artificial neural networks that enable generative AI, quantum computing, nucleic acid sequencing, DNA amplification, CRISPR genome editing, mRNA vaccines and therapeutics, 3D printing, and checkpoint inhibitors for cancer treatment—arose from pioneering explorations in U.S. university laboratories. These university-based discoveries and inventions then led to the creation of startups and/or were taken up by existing tech companies that invested in and developed them further to bring them to market.

The best innovation tends to occur where the best science occurs. In other words, science advances knowledge, and this advanced knowledge creates new ideas, tools, and processes that enable and accelerate innovation—and that further advance knowledge. As of 2021, the United States still invested far more than any other nation in the conduct of basic scientific research. Universities were by far the largest performers of such research, and the federal government was its largest supporter. The spillover effects for the U.S. economy have been enormous.

A May 2023 analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that U.S. government support for nondefense research and development has accounted for at least one-fifth of total factor productivity growth in the U.S. business sector since World War II—a far greater return than federal investments in infrastructure have yielded or than private R & D has produced. (Most industry research is inevitably more focused on narrower questions with nearer-term commercial benefits.) But despite the centrality of university-based research to the United States’ high-tech economy and the federal government’s role in such research, in recent decades government support has become increasingly lackluster. Although the dollars spent have increased in real terms, as a percentage of the federal budget, R & D has fallen from over ten percent in the mid-1960s, when the United States was competing with the Soviet Union, to a meager three percent today, when the United States is facing a much more adept competitor in China. And under the current administration, the funding devoted to research is likely to be cut dramatically.

Protesting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 2025 Nicholas Pfosi / Reuters

As the federal government’s share of academic research funding has declined—from 61 percent in 2012 to 55 percent in 2021—U.S. universities have increased the share of their own funds spent on research, including endowment income, from 21 percent in 2012 to 25 percent in 2021. But income from even the largest endowment cannot replace the loss of federal funds to academic R & D, which amounted to nearly $60 billion in fiscal year 2023. In 2021, the United States ranked23rd among 32 nations reporting to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in terms of academic spending on R & D as a percentage of GDP.

The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act was designed to correct some of this underinvestment, with $200 billion authorized for R & D and workforce and economic development. The budget of the National Science Foundation, which supports nonmedical academic research in the United States, was supposed to double by 2027. Instead, Congress never fully appropriated the funds, and the agency’s budget was cut in 2024 and kept flat this year.

China, in contrast, announced earlier this year a ten percent increase to its central government science and technology spending and an increased focus on basic research. Many of Beijing’s political leaders earned degrees from Tsinghua University, often referred to as “China’s MIT.” These officials understand science and technology and its impact on all else. As a result, Chinese leaders view universities as key to the country’s “national rejuvenation” and technological self-reliance, and they have tripled the country’s number of higher education institutions since 1998. Over the past two decades, China has produced more Ph.D.s in STEM fields than the United States, and in 2016, China exceeded the United States in research publications for the first time. China is not merely increasing the scale of its inputs to innovation but also their quality. In the 2016 Nature Index, which tracks scientific output, five of the world’s top ten academic institutions generating high-quality research were American and one was Chinese. In the most recent index, from 2024, the roles had reversed: eight of the world’s top ten were Chinese and two were American.

LOSING CRITICAL MASS

Today, the Trump administration is allowing scientific discovery and technological innovation to become collateral damage amid a culture war on universities. Vice President JD Vance has explained the political impetus for upending U.S. universities very clearly in a February 2024 interview with The European Conservative: “We should be really aggressively reforming them in a way to where they’re much more open to conservative ideas.” But is the perceived liberal bent of universities a reason to sow chaos in a research system that is key to U.S. national competitiveness? If a researcher can find a way to prevent cancer or Alzheimer’s, it should not matter whether they are conservative or liberal.

In just a few months in office, the Trump administration has already managed to inflict a remarkable amount of damage on the country’s research enterprise—damage that will have lasting effects. This includes hollowing out research agency staffs and freezing the process by which grants are awarded. The administration has also canceled already-awarded grants deemed to be in violation of executive orders, such as those related to gender identity or diversity, equity, and inclusion, or at disfavored institutions such as Columbia. Most sweeping are the structural changes in the funding system for university research. The Trump administration has tried to cap reimbursement at the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation for the indirect costs of research—including the costs of maintaining and operating buildings and providing information infrastructure for laboratories—at 15 percent, which does not reflect the real costs shouldered by leading universities. Although the courts have halted this policy change thus far, if the administration is able to proceed, the country’s greatest research universities will be severely harmed. Trump’s proposed 2026 budget would starve U.S. science, including by cutting the budget of the National Institutes of Health by about 40 percent and that of the National Science Foundation by roughly 57 percent. Proposals to tax university endowment income at 14 or 21 percent—or to take away universities’ tax-exempt status—would hobble those universities hoping to make up some of the difference with their own funds.

The Trump administration is imposing costs not only on universities’ budgets but also on their recruitment. The United States has long benefited from an enormous brain gain, with the most talented scientists and engineers around the world coming to U.S. research universities to teach and to learn. But with its funding cuts, academic censorship, and hostile immigration policies, the Trump administration is provoking a brain drain. Three-quarters of the respondents to a recent Nature poll of U.S. researchers said that they were considering leaving the United States because of the Trump administration disruptions to science. European universities are now gladly recruiting that U.S. scientific talent. Research centers in cities including Barcelona and Madrid are reporting dozens of applications from U.S. scientists. Promising and distinguished researchers of Chinese origin in fields essential to U.S. competitiveness—artificial intelligence, robotics, mathematics, and nuclear fusion—are leaving leading U.S. research universities to return to China. This outflow is an acceleration of the exodus of Chinese-born scientists that began during the first Trump administration, when U.S. academics of Chinese descent were targeted unfairly for prosecution by the Department of Justice’s China Initiative.

The best innovation tends to occur where the best science occurs.

Freezes and cuts in research funding have also had an immediate impact on the next generation of talent. Research universities are limiting the number of graduate students they admit and postdoctoral researchers they hire and are even rescinding offers they already made. The National Science Foundation has cut the number of graduate fellowships it offers in half. In a survey of postdoctoral researchers conducted by the National Postdoctoral Association at the end of the first six weeks of Trump’s second term, 43 percent of respondents said that their position was “threatened,” and 35 percent said that their research was “delayed or otherwise in jeopardy.” Some of these young people may be driven out of science entirely.

The detention and potential deportation of international graduate students and the revocation of student visas, sometimes without explanation, is likely to make the United States a much less desirable destination for the world’s best students and therefore weaken American leadership in emerging technologies. Nationwide, international students earn 64 percent of doctorates in computer and information sciences, 57 percent of those in engineering, and 54 percent of those in mathematics and statistics. The United States clearly could do a better job of developing homegrown talent for these fields, but it is important to recognize how much the country gains by attracting brilliant people from around the world. The overwhelming majority of international doctoral students educated in the United States intend to stay on in the United States after earning their degrees, including more than three out of four doctoral recipients from China. And these students contribute to the U.S. economy; the National Foundation for American Policy’s most recent analysis found that 25 percent of U.S. billion-dollar startup companies have a founder who came to the country as an international student. But increasingly, the best international students have other choices. Tsinghua University and Peking University are now 12th and 13th, respectively, on the Times Higher Education world university rankings. Peking is rated first in the world for its AI research output, and Tsinghua is second.

Fraught confrontations at U.S. borders are now reportedly making foreign scientists hesitate before coming to scientific conferences. In March, for example, a French scientist who works in space research was detained and denied entry when attempting to travel to a conference near Houston. U.S. officials claimed that he was turned away because he had confidential information from Los Alamos National Laboratory, but French officials said that he was denied because his phone contained messages critical of the Trump administration’s science policies. If the United States cannot even convene the world’s best scientists, it will struggle to preserve the open exchange and free inquiry that it has championed for so long—and that science thrives on.

The Trump administration seems to be taking U.S. leadership in science and technology for granted. Doing so would be a dangerous mistake. Americans are accustomed to U.S. companies delivering astonishing innovations with regularity, including the iPhone, cloud computing, the Tesla Model S, and ChatGPT. And there are certain aspects of U.S. history and culture that have encouraged inventiveness and risk-taking. But the United States did not become the world’s leading scientific and technological superpower because its people are somehow innately smarter and more creative than those in the rest of the world. It became a leader because it has had the world’s best system for science and innovation—a system that is now under attack from the Trump administration.

ENGINES OF GROWTH

The modern research university is a German invention, dating back to the early nineteenth century, when the intellectual founders of the Humboldt University of Berlin argued for the linking of teaching and research, for expanding academic freedom, and for the idea that research should be pursued without a view of immediate utility. They believed that the state should support such explorations—but not direct them. This model was so appealing that, in the nineteenth century, it was Germany that welcomed the world’s best and brightest: about 10,000 U.S. scholars earned their doctorates or other advanced degrees in German universities. Some of those German-educated Americans founded the first U.S. research university, Johns Hopkins, in 1876.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the university where I work and served as president, began operating in 1865 on a different model, the polytechnic model. It focused on applied science and engineering rather than on theory, aiming to produce technically trained graduates for a young, industrializing country. MIT did not initially have the funds or the interest to do much research, but in the early years of the twentieth century, after taking an academic tour through Germany, MIT President Henry Pritchett returned with the conviction that MIT should do more than teach. He established the university’s first major research laboratories.

MIT quickly became a powerhouse in applied research done to benefit U.S. industry and society. And it was often conducted in partnership with the leading U.S. companies at that time, including AT&T and General Electric. The federal government was not yet in the business of funding university research. Although industry support was a matter of financial survival, the experience of working with industry made MIT particularly adept at moving its inventions into the marketplace. By the 1920s, MIT’s leaders and alumni began to worry that a commercial focus was limiting the university’s reach. In 1930, the institute recruited as its president nuclear physicist Karl Compton. Compton had argued in 1927 that university research should not be focused merely on industry; he believed that universities were, in fact, the only places where pure science could be investigated without the pressures of commercialization. He also advocated that such research should be funded by taxes on any enterprise that profited from science.

It was not until World War II that the federal government devoted a large quantity of tax dollars to university-based research, thanks to the leading engineer Vannevar Bush. Bush, while on the faculty at MIT, designed and built a pioneering analog computer. He also had a fantastic mind for science policy. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Bush persuaded U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt to create an organization to oversee research of interest to the military. In 1940, Roosevelt established the National Defense Research Committee with Bush as its leader. (Its power later expanded as it became the Office of Scientific Research and Development, with Bush still in charge.) MIT President Compton, a member of the committee, was put in charge of identifying technologies to detect German aircraft and ships—which led to the founding of the Radiation Lab at MIT. Named to deceive the Nazis, the laboratory was not focused on radioactive materials but on microwave radar systems—a technology that was arguably more important for the outcome of the war than even the atom bomb. Leading scientists, a number of whom would go on to win Nobel Prizes, were recruited from around the country to the Rad Lab. Over the next five years at MIT, more than 100 radar systems were developed to counteract the threat of German U-boats and V-1 flying bombs.

At Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, April 2025 Vincent Alban / Reuters

With federal funding, universities across the country were able to devote time and effort to wartime projects. The University of Chicago, Columbia, and the University of California, Berkeley, conducted initial research for the Manhattan Project, and many leading universities lent their talent to it. The California Institute of Technology worked on rocketry. Harvard researched how to use sonar against Nazi submarines and how to muffle noise in long-range bombers, contributing to the development of fiberglass. In 1942, Johns Hopkins launched its Applied Physics Laboratory, which developed the proximity fuse—another crucial technological innovation for the Allied victory—and which later, during the Sputnik era, developed the concept for GPS.

After Germany surrendered, Vannevar Bush presented a landmark report to U.S. President Harry Truman titled Science: The Endless Frontier, in which he argued for the continuation of federal support for university-based research. Bush cited how decisive government-funded science had been to the Allied victory, including the development of scalable penicillin production, saving lives. And, as he pointed out, the United States could no longer rely on a “ravaged Europe” for fundamental discovery science as it had in the past. Bush’s argument for the peacetime federal funding of research and scientific education was not only about national security and public health but also about economic growth. As he saw it, by continuing to “study nature’s laws,” the United States could create new manufacturing industries and expand old ones—an assessment that turned out to be prescient. Just over a decade later, MIT economist Robert Solow published groundbreaking research establishing that modern economic growth depends on technological advancements and not exclusively on capital and labor, as the classical paradigm had held—work for which he would win a Nobel Prize.

Bush had a linear view of innovation: the federal government would give universities funds for basic research projects inspired by curiosity and not profit. These projects trained brilliant students and produced discoveries; industry would then develop those discoveries and find practical applications for them.

Although Bush’s ideas were not implemented precisely as he envisioned, the government continued to provide federal support for university research after the war, helping to turn the United States into the world’s dominant scientific and technological power, producing a unique concentration of world-class research universities, and making the country a magnet for the best STEM talent from around the world. Under this model, leading U.S. research universities both supported existing industries and became hotbeds of entrepreneurship themselves. In 2011, a study at Stanford University calculated that since the 1930s, its alumni and faculty had started nearly 40,000 companies that employed 5.4 million people and generated $2.7 trillion in annual revenues, putting Stanford among the world’s ten largest economies. A similar MIT analysis found that as of 2014, MIT’s living alumni had founded over 30,000 companies that employed 4.6 million people and generated nearly $2 trillion in annual revenues. The Bush model could certainly use some updating—and expansion—for a world in which China is pulling ahead of the United States in science and technology. But it is hard to see anything in this model that demands to be torn down.

KEEPING THE LEAD

Most Americans today were born long after Vannevar Bush and The Endless Frontier. Throughout their entire lives, the United States has dominated in science, technology, industry, innovation, and culture, and they may assume that this is the natural order of things. But if the United States can no longer afford to conduct the productive explorations enabled by government investment, it will lose the technological race with China. Its military will suffer, because it depends on technologically advanced commercial products that the defense market alone cannot support. It will also see less growth among high-tech entrepreneurs. A 2021 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed the strong connection between increases in federal research support for a university and the formation nearby of startups with significant potential for growth. Another paper, published in 2020, detailed that university researchers who experienced large cuts in federal research funding are 80 percent less likely to launch a high-tech startup.

Shoring up U.S. leadership in scientific innovation will require three things. First, the country must make public investments in university-based research that are commensurate with the geopolitical threats it faces. This should include “use-inspired” basic research, which takes place at the frontiers of science but is directed toward overcoming particular obstacles in U.S. economic or national security, as was the case at MIT’s Rad Lab. Appropriating the funds already approved by Congress for the “science” part of the CHIPS and Science Act would be a terrific start. The United States will also need to design immigration policies that allow its research universities to continue attracting the world’s best science and engineering students, and that allow those students to contribute to U.S. competitiveness by remaining in the country after they finish their education.

China is increasing the scale and quality of its inputs to innovation.

Finally, the country needs to do a much better job of capturing the value of the discoveries and inventions made at U.S. universities, rather than allowing a lack of patient capital to drive critical technology manufacturing and development elsewhere. For example, a company named A123—spun out of MIT Professor Yet-Ming Chiang’s laboratory in 2001—was the first to commercialize a superior lithium-ion battery chemistry for EVs. But because the U.S. market for EVs was not sufficiently developed for the company to become profitable, A123 declared bankruptcy in 2012 and was bought by a Chinese auto parts company. Today, China dominates lithium-ion battery manufacturing. This is a foundational enabling technology of the kind the United States should have supported until it could stand on its own in the marketplace. At MIT, about a decade ago, I became deeply concerned about this very issue—that some of the most groundbreaking science-based inventions emerging from our laboratories, despite their huge potential to benefit society, were not advancing to commercialization. The timeline to market for risky new technologies in fields such as regenerative medicine and clean energy is simply too long for most private investors—there is a reason that 39 percent of U.S. venture dollars go to software startups and just two percent go to energy startups. So MIT decided to create a combination accelerator and patient venture capital fund, called “The Engine,” for such “tough tech.” The Engine offers initial support to startups that have included Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a company that uses high-temperature superconducting magnets to develop small, low-cost fusion power systems. In December, the company announced that it will be building the world’s first grid-scale commercial fusion power plant in Virginia and expects to have it running by the early 2030s. But The Engine is just one investment organization—and the United States needs many more. Although the CHIPS and Science Act authorized the National Science Foundation to help launch similar organizations, Congress has not yet funded this endeavor.

American universities are not perfect. But many of them are extremely successful institutions by global standards, and the country depends on them. To defund universities because of faults that have nothing to do with research is to recklessly shut off the spigot to innovation.

Just as the center of gravity in science and technology moved away from Europe to the United States during the twentieth century, it can also move to Asia in the twenty-first. The economies of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea approach or surpass the United States in the proportion of GDP they devote to R & D, and China is working hard to catch up. India, which ranks third in the number of research publications produced globally, is poised to advance in science by the end of the decade (as it also becomes the world’s third-largest economy). U.S. government policies that fail to comprehend the importance of advancing science and technology are hastening this transition.

The United States, once solidly on the front lines of technology, is now on its way to becoming a much weaker player. And so far, it is responding to this decline by taking steps that will only weaken it further. There has never been anything inevitable about U.S. leadership in science and technology. What is inevitable is that if Washington does not work to maintain its lead on this battlefield, others will take its place.

L. RAFAEL REIF is President Emeritus and the Ray and Maria Stata Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Foreign Affairs · by More by L. Rafael Reif · May 6, 2025

18. Print, Crash, and Reprint: How the Air Force Should Rethink Small Drones

Excerpts:

Decentralized drone production is essential for tactical and strategic superiority, and it’s happening right now. The United States Air Force cannot afford years to develop new technologies, policies, or organizations without risking obsolescence. Rapidly designing and deploying mission-specific drones enables real-time adaptation, leveraging America’s greatest advantage: the resourcefulness of U.S. servicemembers.

Black Phoenix isn’t just a new way to produce drones — it’s a template for how the Air Force can embrace automation and rapid adaptation to outmaneuver adversaries. To fully leverage this potential, we should act now, reforming policies that prioritize speed, flexibility, and innovation. As seen in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh, those who adapt first shape the battlefield. Delay, on the other hand, can lead to strategic irrelevance.

This approach requires a huge shift in how the military thinks about fielding new capabilities. While there are costs to changing how Americans fight wars, there is little alternative. Black Phoenix proved that we can design, build, and fly a drone in under a day. Yet approval to operate that same drone may take months — an unacceptable mismatch in a rapidly evolving fight. This should change. The United States is at risk of being technologically outmaneuvered by the adversary.

Print, Crash, and Reprint: How the Air Force Should Rethink Small Drones - War on the Rocks

Dustin Thomas, Jordan Atkins, and Peter Dyrud

warontherocks.com · by Dustin Thomas · May 6, 2025

What if the U.S. Air Force could adapt small, low-cost drones on the battlefield in a single day, and do that each and every day? That reality might be realized sooner than you think, if leaders make the right decisions.

The ongoing war in Ukraine demonstrates the devastating effectiveness of aerial drones. They have been credited with destroying up to 44 percent of Russian tanks and disrupting supply lines, perhaps even changing the character of modern warfare. The U.S. Air Force has not fully capitalized on new drone technologies because of risk-averse policies governing procurement and operations. A Defense Innovation Unit project manager described stakeholders in the drone arena as lacking an “awareness that drones have changed the way war is fought,” with the services “still treating a 3-pound quadcopter like it’s an Apache or a Cobra in almost every single way.” Gen. David W. Allvin, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, recently asserted that “the appearance of drones and the appearance of rapidly replicable, low-cost, mass airborne platforms offers both a threat and an opportunity.” The Air Force has an opportunity to change drone-focused policies, organization, and culture. These changes will empower airmen to seize the advantage on future battlefields.

We set out to develop a practical solution that could empower airmen with adaptable, low-cost airpower at the tactical edge. During our time at the Air Force Center for Strategy and Technology Blue Horizons fellowship, we launched Project Black Phoenix to create a system to enable warfighters to design, build, and fly mission-specific drones in under 24 hours. We realized the possibility of creating custom, low-cost, on-demand aircraft in remote locations for rapidly evolving combat needs. This would enable operators to innovate at the tactical edge, shortening the battlefield adaptation cycle from six months to a single day. Despite demonstrating a viable prototype at multiple locations and briefing multiple senior Air Force leaders in 2024, current policies and procedures restrict the U.S. military from building, testing, and iterating in realistic operational settings.

Time and again, it was apparent that we were hampered by Cold War-era bureaucracy while trying to innovate using 21st-century technology. Changing outdated policies to allow airmen to operate diverse types of drones would enable rapid technological adaptation while encouraging airmen to see drones as opportunities instead of as threats.

To unlock this capability, the Air Force should take four immediate actions. First, it should streamline approval processes by delegating airworthiness and cyber certification authority for low-risk drones to tactical-level commanders, supported by expert advisors. Second, the service should fund software-driven airworthiness validation to enable near-instantaneous certification of mission-specific designs. Third, the Air Force should speed up the stand-up of a dedicated drone program office to manage small drone operations, procurement, and policy across the force. Fourth, it should establish drone “sandboxes” at select bases, allowing airmen to design, build, and fly drones safely and legally.

These steps will empower airmen, shorten adaptation cycles, and reclaim strategic advantage in an era where speed and agility win wars.

Become a Member

Recent Drone Wars

The Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 provided a stark demonstration of how drones can revolutionize the battlefield. Azerbaijan’s success hinged on its innovative use of loitering munitions, particularly the Israeli-made Harop drones. These “kamikaze” drones were instrumental in destroying many of Armenia’s air defense systems, including S-300s and radar installations. By neutralizing these defenses, Azerbaijan gained air superiority and created opportunities for tactical maneuver, allowing ground forces to advance unimpeded. These drones also targeted logistics and artillery positions, creating a cascading effect that rendered Armenia’s forces unable to mount an effective defense. This demonstrated that small, low-cost systems could achieve disproportionate strategic effects, reshaping the character of modern warfare.

Later, the conflict in Ukraine became a proving ground for drones, with rapid innovation and counter innovation cycles defining modern warfare. Ukraine’s military leveraged off-the-shelf Chinese-made Mavic drones for reconnaissance and artillery targeting, enabling precise strikes at less than $3,000 each, a fraction of the cost of traditional military systems. These drones have been responsible for identifying and targeting Russian tanks and infantry positions during key phases of the conflict. However, Russian forces have countered with advanced electronic warfare systems, such as the Krasukha-4 and Zhitel, which have jammed Global Positioning System signals and disrupted drone communications across large areas. These countermeasures forced Ukraine to innovate and rethink its approach to drone operations.

In response, Ukraine deployed first-person view kamikaze drones in increasing numbers. These drones, often built for under $500, have been highly effective in targeting Russian vehicles, ammunition depots, and forward positions. To counter electronic interference, many of these drones incorporate redundant systems and are operated manually. Russian units have struggled to keep pace with Ukraine’s decentralized and rapidly evolving drone operations. The drone’s low cost and tactical agility underscore the disruptive potential of low-cost innovations in large-scale warfare.

Ukraine’s innovation has not only been in drone use, but also in manufacturing. They established pop-up factories in locations close to the front lines to produce drones tailored to specific missions, reducing the time from design to deployment to mere days. One such factory reportedly produces over 3,000 drones per month, enabling Ukraine to sustain operations despite heavy attrition. On the Russian side, Lancet loitering munitions have emerged as a significant threat, with hundreds of successful strikes on Ukrainian artillery, air defense systems, and supply lines. Russia has employed swarms of decoy drones to exhaust Ukrainian defenses and create openings for precision strikes with more deadly systems. On the other side of Asia, China has taken note and placed an order for nearly one million kamikaze drones, deliverable by 2026.

Gen. Allvin cautioned against directly applying lessons from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific. The true benefit of drones lies not just in their utility but in their ability to empower innovative responses, enabling militaries to dominate the decision cycle and seize the initiative in dynamic battlespaces. To realize this benefit, Black Phoenix took the ingenuity of Ukraine’s pop-up factories, automated it, and made it mobile.

Not Just for Trinkets Anymore

Black Phoenix was made up of U.S. Air Force Blue Horizons members and a new start-up company named Titan Dynamics. Our team wanted to put the rapid design, manufacture, and assembly of drones directly into the hands of warfighters. Our project combined decentralized design, custom manufacturing, and rapid operations to reimagine the way the United States conducts and deters war. In early 2024, we deployed Black Phoenix’s capabilities with Task Force 99 in Southwest Asia, produced the first known drone to be rapidly designed and validated by a computer, and conducted two successful flights. Our mission: test how quickly we could design, build, and fly drones tailored to real-world combat scenarios. It took 48 hours to design, build, and fly a drone, and we knew it could be much faster.

After our initial success, the Black Phoenix team headed to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida to push the limits of rapid production even further. The goal was to design, build, and fly six different drones, each within 24 hours. We based our design and manufacturing operations out of a small trailer with a laptop, a bank of six 3D printers, spools of filament, and inexpensive off-the-shelf internal components and batteries. Using Titan Dynamics’ automated design software, we created and validated aerodynamic structural designs optimized for mission and payload requirements in under 10 minutes. These designs were then fed into 3D printers to produce the drone aero-body. We found we could go from mission requirements to flight in under 24 hours. Not everything was perfect yet.

Several initial crashes taught us that the internal avionics and payloads were virtually unbreakable in a crash. As needed, we reprinted the outer structure at a cost of $20 to $50 and sent it back up. In true Black Phoenix spirit, even our crashes were learning moments. “We’ll just print another one” became our new motto. Black Phoenix demonstrated the ability to design a drone in minutes, manufacture it in hours, and fly it the same day, providing warfighters an edge in adaptability and operational tempo.

These tests demonstrated not only the production capabilities of the Black Phoenix project but also the shift in operational thinking that needs to occur. Crashing any aircraft, no matter the size, would normally be a significant safety event. However, with an on-demand, extremely inexpensive drone, operators can be unconventional and uninhibited to test new designs. They can iterate faster, addressing a wide variety of battlefield challenges in near-real time including military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, decoy operations, kinetic strikes, or on-demand delivery of mission-critical payloads.

The U.S. Air Force needs tools like this: resilient systems designed for specific missions, built quickly, and capable of operating in environments where traditional aircraft cannot. Rather than waiting on defense contractors to provide soldiers, airmen, and allies with the latest drones, it is now possible for U.S. forces to design, print, and operate their own custom drones on an as-needed basis.

What is Stopping Us?

To avoid tragedy or obsolescence, the U.S. Air Force should change policy and organization. Current Defense Department and Air Force policies treat drones as if they pose the same operational and security risks as large, manned aircraft. As a result, complex, time-consuming, and labor-intensive approval processes impede the acquisition and fielding of drones. This reduces the demand and capital for domestic innovation. Instead, the Air Force should take four actions:

Streamline Approval Processes

Currently, any unit within the Department of the Air Force seeking to operate or procure a small drone faces an extensive and bureaucratic approval process. This process is governed in part by a memo issued in 2021 by the deputy secretary of defense on the operation and procurement of unmanned aerial systems, which imposes strict scrutiny and approval processes, withheld at senior levels.

For the Air Force, this creates a choke point. At present, no authorizing officials have been designated to issue authorities to operate for drones, meaning requesting an exception to policy is often the only available path. These requests are routed through major commands, office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitions, and the office of the Air Force’s chief information officer, often stalling in layers of staff bureaucracy. As a result, even low-risk, domestically developed aircraft may take months to approve, if they are approved at all.

This policy environment has effectively centralized risk decisions in staff offices far removed from operational needs. Commanders at the group or wing level, who routinely approve high-risk flight tests, live-fire evaluations, and classified operations do not have delegated authority to approve even benign drone use in controlled environments. Meanwhile, staff advisors and contractors, often acting as de facto gatekeepers, can halt approvals without providing mission-aligned alternatives or appreciating the operational imperative to move quickly.

This misalignment has contributed to a chilling effect on innovation across the force and a strategic liability in pacing competition with adversaries. It also harms U.S. industry by reducing demand for domestic platforms, as developers struggle to navigate the complex approval system. By contrast, Ukraine is showing the world how to upgrade drones at combat-relevant speeds.

They are showing that there is a better way.

In the United States, it would begin by coordinating with updated guidance, lowering barriers, and incentivizing U.S.-made drone production. Furthermore, the risk management framework should be adjusted to allow delegation of approval authority to O-6 commanders, supported by trained cyber advisors. These changes would align authority with responsibility, reduce administrative delays, and enable tactical adaptation in time-sensitive environments.

The Department of the Air Force should also push to fully utilize the exemptions available under Section 1825 of the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and the American Security Drone Act of 2023, which allow for operations and procurement in the national interest for training, testing, evaluation, and development purposes. While the Defense Innovation Unit’s “blue list” authorizes the use of some off-the-shelf drones, it is time-consuming and expensive to add a drone to the list. Instead, there should be a list of pre-approved subcomponents like flight controllers, transmitters, and receivers. This would allow for quick development of new drones while still meeting the intent of Congress.

Fund Software-Based Airworthiness Certification Development

The current airworthiness certification process in the Air Force is tailored to large, manned platforms and is ill-suited for small, low-risk drones. During the Black Phoenix project, we demonstrated that a mission-specific drone could be designed, built, and flown in under 24 hours, but it still took over five weeks to receive flight approval. This delay highlights a bigger issue: Each new drone design should navigate a manual review process, typically through the Air Force Special Operations Command A3OU Office, which is inundated with a constant flow of requests for exceptions to policy and frequently gets backlogged.

To break this bottleneck, the Air Force should fund the development of software-driven certification tools like the one created by Titan Dynamics to automate drone designs during the Black Phoenix project. This software can generate small drone designs, weighing less than 20 pounds, in minutes and was developed to support automated airworthiness validation. By integrating aerodynamic modeling, stability checks, and mission-specific profiles, it could provide rapid risk assessments before flight, reducing the need for protracted manual reviews.

This approach would allow small drones up to 55 pounds to be cleared via software, with final authority delegated to local commanders or designated reviewers. Higher-risk use cases should still follow traditional review channels.

Validated software-based certification can cut approval timelines from months to hours, enabling operators to adapt at the speed of conflict. This is not speculative — it’s achievable with modest investment and existing tools. If the Air Force is serious about accelerating innovation, automating certification for small drones is a critical first step.

Accelerate Program Office Stand-Up

While we executed the Black Phoenix project, no dedicated program office existed within the Air Force to manage small drone operations, approvals, or acquisitions across the enterprise. We were left to navigate fragmented approval pathways involving cybersecurity, airworthiness, and procurement policies. This mismatch reduces demand signals to industry and places unnecessary burdens on units seeking to adapt quickly at the tactical edge.

Today, there are plans to set up a formal program office within the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Special Operations Force Directorate, with limited initial funding projected for the next fiscal year. However, without immediate acceleration of resourcing and delegation of key authorities, this office will not meet urgent operational needs.

The Air Force should fast-track the establishment of this office by providing near-term funding, assigning experienced personnel, and empowering it to coordinate across acquisition, cybersecurity, and airworthiness functions. The office should also span combat, base operations, research, testing, and training missions and should serve as the lead integrator for cleared technical components, contracting solutions, and enterprise policy guidance. Accelerating this stand-up will remove institutional friction, align policy with battlefield realities, and help the Air Force lead the future of uncrewed airpower.

Institute Drone Sandboxes

Earlier this year, Trevor Phillips-Levine and Walker D. Mills advocated for the U.S. military to equip its infantry with drones, analogous to individual firearms. Another recent article described future small-drone units, with the further recommendation “to cultivate innovation and creative new ideas and tactics.” This is a good first step that would help define the roles of how airmen operate drones in the fight for air superiority. Airmen need dedicated environments, or “sandboxes,” where they can safely test, iterate, and operate drones. These hubs of experimentation could act as the Air Force’s “forward labs,” accelerating discovery and transition into operational units. Test ranges like those at Edwards Air Force Base and Eglin Air Force Base have the pedigree of pioneering aerospace technology and are the perfect locations to create small drone sandboxes airmen need to collaborate with innovative companies.

Sandboxes complement initiatives like the Drone Crucible Competitions being organized by the new U.S. Drone Association by providing a secure environment for high-risk testing and development out of the public eye. This approach ensures continuous, iterative innovation, allowing only the most refined technologies to advance to competitive showcases, ultimately boosting the military’s adaptability and effectiveness in dynamic battlefields.

The Risks of Lethargy

Decentralized drone production is essential for tactical and strategic superiority, and it’s happening right now. The United States Air Force cannot afford years to develop new technologies, policies, or organizations without risking obsolescence. Rapidly designing and deploying mission-specific drones enables real-time adaptation, leveraging America’s greatest advantage: the resourcefulness of U.S. servicemembers.

Black Phoenix isn’t just a new way to produce drones — it’s a template for how the Air Force can embrace automation and rapid adaptation to outmaneuver adversaries. To fully leverage this potential, we should act now, reforming policies that prioritize speed, flexibility, and innovation. As seen in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh, those who adapt first shape the battlefield. Delay, on the other hand, can lead to strategic irrelevance.

This approach requires a huge shift in how the military thinks about fielding new capabilities. While there are costs to changing how Americans fight wars, there is little alternative. Black Phoenix proved that we can design, build, and fly a drone in under a day. Yet approval to operate that same drone may take months — an unacceptable mismatch in a rapidly evolving fight. This should change. The United States is at risk of being technologically outmaneuvered by the adversary.

Become a Member

Dustin “Whiz” Thomas is the commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency’s office in Palmdale. He is an advocate for agile adaptation in the Air Force and has extensive experience integrating cutting-edge technologies into operational frameworks.

Jordan Atkins is an Air National Guard officer serving in the Air National Guard Plans and Programs Directorate. A career space operations officer, he has held positions at the squadron, numbered air force, major command, and headquarters levels.

Peter Dyrud serves on the U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Strategic Studies Group as director of the Pathfinder Task Force. A career combat rescue officer, he has commanded the Air Force Special Warfare Pararescue School and two expeditionary rescue squadrons. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he conducted research on U.S. policy implications of the Chinese-Indian relationship and on deterring transnational kidnapping.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Defense Contract Management Agency, the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

Image: U.S. Air Force

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Dustin Thomas · May 6, 2025

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

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