​Quotes of the Day:

"Special Operations Forces were built to solve the hardest of hard problems. You are creative, you are entrepreneurial, you are committed to solving the most difficult things, and you never, ever, ever give up."

–​ Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine during SOF Week 2025 keynote, May 8.

"Somewhere in the world right now, at this very moment, a small SOF team is operating quietly, thousands of miles from home ... They are doing what SOF has always done: providing the asymmetric advantage America needs in a volatile world." 

–​ Mr. Colby Jenkins,​, PTDO ASD​/SOLIC​, SOF Week​, May 8

"​The name of the game is multi-domain. It's integration, it's interoperability, it's interchangeability. If we're going to make a return on investment and close kill chains to ensure SOF forces are capable, lethal, and resilient, we have to have interoperable mission systems."

​– SOCOM AE Melissa Johnson, SOFWeek​, May 7th

​1. SOF Week 2025—Clarity, Commitment, and Cognitive Edge

​2. What Is Strategy in War?

3. Special Operations Forces Week comes together to focus on the warrior ethos

​4. AFSOC experimenting with small cruise missiles, new ways to use old kit

5. Upgrades ahead across the special operations helicopter fleet

6. Harpoon Anti-Ship Missile-Armed AC-130J Gunships Could Be On The Horizon

7. Rapid fielding, adaptation dominate discussions at SOF Week 2025

8. Allies of Resistance: America Needs More Porcupine Partners

9. Why Beijing Is Worried About Chinese People’s ‘Well-being’

10. Investing in Strategic Influence: A National Security Imperative

11. Real ID Is Useless, Unconstitutional and Finally Here

​12. Russia’s Plans Are Bigger Than Conflict With the West or Camaraderie With China

13. Putin Parades China, North Korea Ties in Victory Day Show of Force

14. Could Taiwan Survive an EMP Attack by China?

15. China’s Exports to U.S. Plunge, in Sign of Bite From Trump Tariffs

16. How Putin Keeps Russia’s Battle-Hardened Veterans on His Side

17. China to Crack Down on Rare-Earth Materials Ahead of U.S. Trade Talks

18. Military AI: Angel of our Better Nature or Tool of Control?

19. How the Houthis Outlasted America

20. Russia’s False Euphoria

21. The shuttering of Voice of America hurts our ability to explain ourselves

22. How Trump’s Ending of U.S.A.I.D. Threatens a Nation’s Fragile Peace

23. America's new suicide bomber drone that creates its own kill list

1. SOF Week 2025—Clarity, Commitment, and Cognitive Edge

​Excerpts:

Notably, the day included multiple CLOSED TO MEDIA sessions, such as the symposium on Operations in the Information Environment (OIE). That secrecy is a signal in itself. In an age of digital conflict, where influence and narrative warfare operate at the speed of thought, information is not just classified—it’s contested. The closed-door discussions likely touched on the sensitive intersection of artificial intelligence, cognitive effects, and the future of irregular warfare.

Still, the week’s most human moment came through the cumulative tone of the closing. There was no parade, no pyrotechnics. Just clarity. As General Caine walked off stage, it wasn’t triumph that lingered—but trust. Trust in the force, in the future, and in the SOF community’s commitment to remain “quiet professionals” in a noisy world.

In a week that started with declarations about strategic competition and innovation ecosystems, it ended with something more enduring—a reaffirmation of values. Creativity. Persistence. Asymmetry. Partnership.

That’s the SOF advantage. And that’s the future being built—quietly, forcefully, one problem set at a time.

SOF Week 2025—Clarity, Commitment, and Cognitive Edge

By Chad Williamson

May 09, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/05/09/sof_week_2025clarity_commitment_and_cognitive_edge_1109228.html?mc_cid=c84338ed64

SOF Week 2025 Day Four—Closing the Week with Clarity, Commitment, and Cognitive Edge

By the fourth and final day of SOF Week 2025 in Tampa, the tempo may have slowed—but the significance did not. From keynotes that emphasized enduring SOF Truths about the nature of Special Operations Forces to panels pushing the envelope on unmanned systems and irregular warfare, Day Four offered a fitting culmination to a week that redefined readiness.

The morning opened with remarks from Colby Jenkins, performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC). Jenkins didn’t mince words. In a world filled with ambiguity, he described the quiet consistency of SOF teams operating far from home, “surrounded by danger, uncertainty, and the burden of mission success that no one else could shoulder.” His statement wasn’t just praise—it was strategic framing. Jenkins painted SOF not as a reactive force, but as proactive shapers of the global environment, executing the missions no one else can, in the places no one else dares.

This asymmetry—the defining advantage of SOF—remains a critical lever in the face of peer adversaries and irregular threats. Jenkins stressed the cognitive, cultural, and operational dimensions of this edge, implicitly reinforcing the week’s recurring theme in the aspect that narrative and influence aren’t support functions—they are core to deterrence and strategy.

Following his address was a powerful keynote from General Dan Caine, the newly appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose words echoed not only across the ballroom but across a generation of operators—“Special Operations Forces were built to solve the hardest of hard problems. You are creative, you are entrepreneurial, you are committed to solving the most difficult things, and you never, ever, ever give up.”

Caine’s comments offered more than encouragement—they were a call to strategic imagination. His use of language—"entrepreneurial" and “creative”—points to a doctrinal shift in how senior leaders view SOF. Not simply as kinetic strike teams, SOF skills are indicative of operators that are agile, and innovative problem-solvers in a cognitively complex battlespace. His presence alone, closing SOF Week as the top uniformed leader in the Department of Defense, sent a clear signal of SOF’s relevance being not only intact—but being foundational.

Innovation continued as a central theme throughout the day. A standout panel, “Enhancing the SOF Ecosystem through Innovation,” brought together thought leaders like Dr. Seth Jones from CSIS, and venture partners—Andreessen Horowitz—like Katherine Boyle to discuss the future of hyper-enabled operators. Their message was clear—staying ahead requires integrating emerging tech with timeless human traits—judgment, agility, and ethical reasoning.

Other sessions, such as the Program Executive Office (PEO) overviews on Rotary Wing and Tactical Information Systems, reminded attendees that technological dominance is not a luxury—it’s an operational necessity. These deep dives provided granular insights into acquisition priorities and modernization pathways that will shape the SOF toolkit in years to come.

Notably, the day included multiple CLOSED TO MEDIA sessions, such as the symposium on Operations in the Information Environment (OIE). That secrecy is a signal in itself. In an age of digital conflict, where influence and narrative warfare operate at the speed of thought, information is not just classified—it’s contested. The closed-door discussions likely touched on the sensitive intersection of artificial intelligence, cognitive effects, and the future of irregular warfare.

Still, the week’s most human moment came through the cumulative tone of the closing. There was no parade, no pyrotechnics. Just clarity. As General Caine walked off stage, it wasn’t triumph that lingered—but trust. Trust in the force, in the future, and in the SOF community’s commitment to remain “quiet professionals” in a noisy world.

In a week that started with declarations about strategic competition and innovation ecosystems, it ended with something more enduring—a reaffirmation of values. Creativity. Persistence. Asymmetry. Partnership.

That’s the SOF advantage. And that’s the future being built—quietly, forcefully, one problem set at a time.

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.

​2. What Is Strategy in War?

​An excellent tutorial to begin the day. I will be archiving this one for reference in the future. I will recommend this for use in PME and security studies in grad school.

I like these quotes emphasized by the authors throughout:

Strategy is not the execution of a fixed design, but a sustained effort to align military action with political objectives as both evolve. (x 2)

Tactical brilliance, disconnected from political purpose, is not strategy—it is just motion without meaning.

Strategy is the art of purposeful adaptation—the thread linking means to ends, and the compass that orients action through uncertainty.

And there is this from Sir Lawrence:

Freedman reminds us that even the best strategies may fail. But failure is more likely when leaders mistake control for certainty or confuse planning with prediction. The essence of strategy is not perfection—it is the ability to make decisions under pressure, adapt to changing conditions, and maintain clarity of purpose amid the chaos of war.

​Conclusion:

...

Words have meaning. And in war, few words matter more than strategy. If militaries are to fight purposefully, lead effectively, and win responsibly, they must be precise in how they define strategy and how they apply it. While many doctrines—such as those of NATO, the U.S. military, and others—offer formal definitions, the challenge lies in shared understanding across institutions, cultures, and levels of war. Without that clarity, strategic thinking risks becoming fragmented or confused. Only with a common conceptual foundation can militaries begin to understand what strategy requires—and how to evaluate its coherence, feasibility, and political alignment.

Understanding strategy—as defined by scholars like Clausewitz, Yarger, Freedman, and Gray—is more than understanding military power or its components like technology, force structure, or tactics. To grasp grand or military strategy in war requires confronting the broader strategic environment: politics, international relations, geography, culture, economics, sociology, and psychology. Only through this multidisciplinary lens can strategy be seen not merely as a military function, but as a political, social, and cognitive enterprise that shapes both the outcomes of war and the peace that follows.

Strategy does not operate in a vacuum. It is forged in the crucible of context, competition, and self-interest. Its success depends not just on battlefield prowess, but on a clear-eyed understanding of the conditions in which it must adapt, evolve, and endure.

Strategy is a dynamic function of leadership—how political purpose is translated into military power, and how military outcomes become lasting political results. As Clausewitz warned, to mistake strategy for mere planning is to reduce war to senseless destruction.

Strategy is the art of purposeful adaptation—the thread linking means to ends, and the compass that orients action through uncertainty. Like a conductor guiding an orchestra through turbulence, the strategist must maintain intent without controlling every note. Strategy is not perfection. It is persistence. And as Freedman reminds us, it is always a story still being written.

What Is Strategy in War?

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/09/what-is-strategy-in-war/

by John Spencer, by Liam Collins

|

05.09.2025 at 06:00am

In both popular discourse and professional military circles, few terms are more misused than “strategy.” It is invoked to describe everything from battlefield maneuvers to national policy, often without clarity or consistency. As military historian Hew Strachan warned in The Lost Meaning of Strategy, the word has become so elastic that it risks losing all analytical value. Too often, strategy is confused with a plan, a clever idea, or even just decisive action. But in war, strategy is something far more foundational—and far more consequential. It is not about how militaries fight, but why they fight, what they aim to achieve, and how armed force serves political purpose.

In the civilian world, “strategy” is often used interchangeably with planning—marketing strategies, business strategies, campaign strategies. But in the realm of statecraft and war, this understanding is far too narrow. Despite Strachan’s call for conceptual precision, even within the field of strategic studies, no universally accepted definition exists. Consider some of the leading definitions cited in Strategy in the Contemporary World:

• “(is) the use of engagements for the object of war.” — Carl von Clausewitz
• “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy.” — Basil Liddell Hart
• “a process, a constant adaptation to shifting conditions and circumstances in a world where chance, uncertainty, and ambiguity dominate.” — Williamson Murray and Mark Grimsley

Harry Yarger, in his influential paper Toward a Theory of Strategy: Art Lykke and the Army War College Strategy Model, cautioned against reducing “strategy” to a mere catchall for plans. He argued that strategy belongs to the realm of senior leadership and is defined by the comprehensive direction and coordination of power to achieve political ends. Strategy, in his formulation, is about aligning national instruments of power to shape a preferred future—not just reacting to crisis but anticipating and influencing it.

Lawrence Freedman, in his seminal Strategy: A History, offers perhaps the most expansive and modern interpretation. He rejects the notion of strategy as a flawless blueprint. Instead, he sees it as a continuous process of adaptation, storytelling, and negotiation. Strategy, he writes, “is one of bargaining and persuasion as well as threats and pressure, psychological as well as physical effects, and words as well as deeds.” For Freedman, strategy is fundamentally political: “the art of creating power,” of getting more from a situation than the original balance would suggest.

Strategy is not the execution of a fixed design, but a sustained effort to align military action with political objectives as both evolve.

He emphasizes that in war, strategy rarely unfolds as a linear execution of a master plan. It emerges instead from a series of responses to unfolding events and enemy decisions. Strategy, in this view, is less a product and more a behavior—a pattern of choices shaped by uncertainty, resistance, and risk. Freedman famously called it “a story told in retrospect,” a reminder that strategy often only becomes legible after the fact, once improvisation has hardened into a path.

This framing is essential for understanding modern war. In a dynamic environment filled with friction, chance, and an intelligent adversary, strategy must remain interactive and resilient. As Beatrice Heuser argues in The Evolution of Strategy, strategic thinking has never been static; it evolves in response to shifting political contexts, technologies, and societal values. The point, then, is not to find the “right” plan and stick to it, but to maintain coherence of purpose while adapting to unanticipated obstacles. Bernard Brodie famously emphasized that strategy is not a science of prediction, but an art of continual adjustment under pressure—one that demands judgment, not formulas. Strategy, properly understood, is not the execution of a fixed design, but a sustained effort to align military action with political objectives as both evolve.

Strategy is the Bridge Between Policy and War

Strategy is not the execution of a fixed design, but a sustained effort to align military action with political objectives as both evolve.

One of the most enduring definitions of strategy comes from Clausewitz, who famously stated, “War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.” In this formulation, strategy functions as the vital bridge between political aims and the application of military force. As Harry Yarger puts it, “Political purpose must dominate all strategy.” Strategy, in other words, does not begin on the battlefield—it begins with political intent.

Yarger describes strategy as the proactive orchestration of national power—diplomatic, military, economic, and informational—to shape a preferred future. It is not simply crisis response or battlefield management; strategy anticipates change, sets conditions, and aligns state actions with long-term political goals.

Freedman reinforces this understanding by arguing that strategy must ultimately serve political outcomes—not just military success. Tactical brilliance or operational victories may win battles, but if those actions fail to advance the political objective, the strategy has failed. In this way, Freedman and Clausewitz converge: strategy must remain politically rational, even when the battlefield appears chaotic. Heuser makes a similar point in The Evolution of Strategy, emphasizing that throughout history, strategy has always been about the purposeful alignment of military means to achieve political ends—no matter how that relationship has evolved across eras.

Colin Gray, one of the most influential strategic theorists of the modern era and author of Modern Strategy, further strengthens this conception. He argued that strategy is not only political but also inherently hierarchical—a continuous interaction between national purpose and military action that must remain coherent across all levels of war. As Gray emphasized, “Strategy is the bridge that connects the military instrument with political purpose,” and it must be judged not merely by its internal logic, but by its ability to achieve national objectives across time, domains, and adversarial responses. For Gray, losing sight of this linkage is one of the surest paths to strategic failure.

Confusing Strategy with the Levels of War

In the fog of modern conflict, it is easy to confuse strategy with other levels of war—particularly when tactical brilliance or operational momentum dominates headlines. Yet this confusion can have serious consequences: history offers many examples where tactical success masked strategic incoherence. To avoid such missteps, militaries across time and traditions have recognized the importance of distinguishing between the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war—each serving a distinct function in the design and execution of campaigns. While these levels have been formalized in modern doctrine, including Soviet and Western traditions alike, the underlying logic transcends any single military or era.

For example, the current Joint Publication (JP) 1-0: Joint Warfighting in U.S. doctrine articulates these three levels—strategic, operational, and tactical—as a way to help commanders “visualize a logical arrangement of missions, allocate resources, and assign tasks to the appropriate command.”

• The strategic level is the realm of national or multinational leadership—such as the President, Secretary of Defense, or Joint Chiefs—who define the overarching political objectives of war. It includes decisions about going to war, forming alliances, establishing deterrence postures, and setting theater-wide outcomes.
• The operational level links those strategic objectives to battlefield action. This is the domain of campaign planning and major operations, typically directed by theater-level commands (such as a Geographic Combatant Command or Joint Task Force Headquarters). For example, the planning and execution of Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria was an operational-level effort designed to achieve strategic goals.
• The tactical level is the domain of units on the ground. It involves the conduct of specific battles and engagements—whether a brigade seizing terrain or a platoon clearing a building. Tactical excellence matters—but only gains meaning when it supports higher-level objectives.

Understanding these distinctions is more than academic. Wars have been lost not because of tactical failure, but because tactical and operational actions lacked alignment with strategic ends. The Vietnam War offers a stark example: despite frequent battlefield success, U.S. operations failed to align with a sustainable political strategy for victory. The same pattern emerged in Iraq after 2003, where the toppling of Saddam Hussein was not matched by a coherent postwar strategy—leading to prolonged instability and strategic setbacks. Warfare unfolds in real time—shaped by domestic politics, media cycles, and global opinion. As Clausewitz cautioned, tactical victories, no matter how impressive, are meaningless if they do not contribute to coherent strategic outcomes.

Strategic success lies not in the accumulation of wins at lower levels, but in the consistent translation of military action into political results.

Ends, Ways, and Means – A Useful Model for Strategy

One of the most widely used tools in modern strategic thinking is the “ends, ways, and means” model developed by Colonel Arthur Lykke at the U.S. Army War College. It offers a simple but powerful framework: strategy is the alignment of three essential components:

• Ends – What do you want to achieve? These are the political or military objectives.
• Ways – How will you achieve them? These are the methods, plans, or concepts of operation.
• Means – What resources are available? This includes personnel, technology, funding, time, and political will.

Yarger emphasizes that effective strategy depends on maintaining a proper balance between these three elements. He compares them to the legs of a three-legged stool: if one is too long or too short, the entire structure becomes unstable. A mismatch—overly ambitious ends, inadequate means, or unclear ways—can render a strategy unworkable before it ever reaches the battlefield.

This model is especially useful because it translates abstract strategic logic into something that can be tested. It allows planners to ask: Are the objectives realistic given the available resources? Are the methods appropriate for the context? It also underscores that strategic failure often arises not from battlefield setbacks, but from poor alignment among ends, ways, and means.

But as Freedman reminds us, no model survives first contact with reality intact. In war, ends may shift. Means are depleted. Ways are often disrupted by enemy action. The strategist’s challenge is to remain adaptive—adjusting any of the three components of strategy while maintaining adherence to the strategy’s purpose. This is why strategy is more than planning—it becomes judgment under pressure. Thus, strategy must have explicit mechanisms for measuring progress, to learn and understand when, where, and how adaptation is necessary.

Strategy Is Also Hierarchical

As Gray wrote in Modern Strategy, “all strategy is grand strategy,” underscoring that strategy exists as a nested hierarchy—linking political purpose to military action at multiple levels. This structure ensures that decisions made on the battlefield, even at the tactical level, are connected to national objectives. Strategy, in this sense, is not a single activity, but a layered framework that governs how wars are conceived, fought, and concluded. Heuser reinforces this perspective by distinguishing between “Big S” Strategy—grand, national-level political-military direction—and “small s” strategies, which refer to more localized or functional approaches nested within the broader design. Recognizing this structure helps prevent the common mistake of treating every military plan or campaign as a stand-alone strategy, rather than a component of a politically coherent whole.

• Grand Strategy (or National Security Strategy) coordinates all instruments of national power—diplomatic, informational, military, economic, financial, intelligence, and law enforcement—to pursue long-term national objectives. Grand strategy spans peace and war, shaping alliances, deterring adversaries, and defining a state’s desired position in the world. In wartime, it provides the overarching framework that determines why the war is being fought and what the nation ultimately hopes to achieve beyond battlefield success.
• Military Strategy translates national policy into the use of armed force. It sets priorities, defines war aims, and guides the development and employment of military capabilities. Military strategy asks: How should the military be used to support political ends?
• Theater Strategy applies military strategy to a specific region or conflict. It connects national goals to campaigns and operations, typically through the efforts of a geographic combatant command or a joint task force.

Each level is, or should be, nested within the one above it and guide the one below it. Coherence between grand strategy, military strategy, and theater strategy is critical. Misalignment can result in campaigns that achieve operational or tactical success but fail to advance—or even contradict—the political purpose of the war.

Tactical brilliance, disconnected from political purpose, is not strategy—it is just motion without meaning.

This hierarchy is not just a matter of bureaucratic structure. It provides a strategic logic that allows policymakers and leaders to synchronize actions across multiple levels of war, ensuring that what happens on the battlefield meaningfully contributes to the outcome of the war and the peace that follows.

These strategies, however, are not purely hierarchical. While operating at their own level, there is an interaction between these various levels of strategy. Not only is there a need for them to be aligned, but it is also important to understand that each level influences the other levels.

Strategy vs. Operations vs. Tactics in War

Understanding the difference between strategy, operations, and tactics is essential to effective warfighting. Confusing these levels can lead to campaigns that succeed on the battlefield but fail politically.

• Strategy defines the overarching purpose of the war—the alignment of campaigns and operations to political objectives. It concerns the use of power across time and geography to achieve desired ends. Strategy asks not just how to win, but why we fight and what outcome we seek.
• Operations are the orchestration of tactical actions into a campaign. They define the sequencing and coordination of battles to achieve operational objectives—such as seizing territory, degrading enemy forces, or shaping a theater of operations. Operations serve as the connective tissue between tactics and strategy.
• Tactics involve the immediate conduct of combat—how forces maneuver, engage, and fight. Tactical decisions determine how battles are won, often at the level of units, platoons, or battalions.

As Freedman argues, this hierarchy is not academic—it is fundamental to how political intent is translated into military effect. Strategy mediates the tension between intention and reality, providing the coherence that ensures battlefield actions serve the larger political purpose.

Crucially, the enemy has a vote. Strategic clarity must allow for contingency, adaptation, and human agency—both our own and the adversary’s. Tactical brilliance, disconnected from political purpose, is not strategy, it is just motion without meaning.

Strategy Is About Choice and Risk

At its core, strategy is about making hard choices in an environment defined by constraint. It requires navigating a world of limited resources, imperfect information, and competing priorities. Every strategy involves tradeoffs—and every strategic decision entails risk.

Not all strategies are good ones. A good strategy does not guarantee victory. But it improves the odds by coherently aligning ends, ways, and means, while remaining anchored to political purpose. It provides a clear direction without prescribing a rigid path—balancing ambition with realism, and decisiveness with adaptability. A good strategy is one that can be sustained politically, adjusted operationally, and judged by whether it remains suitable, feasible, and acceptable amid changing conditions. No amount of cleverness, firepower, or technological advantage can eliminate the role of friction, chance, or the adversary’s will—but a good strategy helps leaders navigate that uncertainty with purpose and coherence.

Yarger argues that a sound strategy must pass three essential tests:

• Suitability: Does it achieve the desired objective?
• Feasibility: Can it be executed with the available means?
• Acceptability: Are the expected costs justified by the political and strategic benefits?

In war, political feasibility is often the most critical—especially for democracies, which must sustain public support, adhere to legal norms, and maintain international legitimacy. Democratic states frequently fight as part of coalitions, where success depends not only on aligning military efforts but also on coordinating political will across diverse partners. What is strategically sound on paper may still fail if it cannot be sustained politically in practice. In contrast, authoritarian regimes—such as Putin’s Russia—often face fewer domestic constraints and show open disregard for international norms. This asymmetry complicates democratic strategy: Western leaders must account for adversaries whose ends may violate basic principles of law and morality, and whose means include tactics that democracies would reject. Non-state actors like Hamas or the Islamic State further stretch this imbalance by pursuing maximalist or nihilistic objectives without regard for civilian protection or long-term governance. For democratic states and their coalitions, strategic planning must therefore grapple not only with internal political constraints but with adversaries whose objectives, risk tolerance, and methods fall far outside the bounds of acceptable behavior.

Strategy is the art of purposeful adaptation—the thread linking means to ends, and the compass that orients action through uncertainty.

Strategy does not exist in isolation. It exists in an ecosystem of other strategies from other nations. The interaction of the desired or developing strategy with other nations’ strategies must be considered.

Freedman reminds us that even the best strategies may fail. But failure is more likely when leaders mistake control for certainty or confuse planning with prediction. The essence of strategy is not perfection—it is the ability to make decisions under pressure, adapt to changing conditions, and maintain clarity of purpose amid the chaos of war.

Conclusion

In war, strategy is not a slogan, a checklist, or a plan dressed in impressive language. It is the essential function that links political purpose to the use of organized violence. Strategy is how militaries translate their national intent into military outcomes—and how those outcomes are turned into lasting political results. As Clausewitz cautions, misunderstanding strategy as mere planning or tactical brilliance reduces war to senseless destruction.

Properly understood, strategy is the purposeful alignment of ends, ways, and means to achieve political objectives in conditions of opposition and uncertainty. It is a behavior, not a blueprint—a pattern of decision-making that adapts to the actions of an intelligent adversary and the ever-changing realities of conflict. It unfolds across time and scale, structured by a hierarchy of grand, military, and theater strategies, and informed by a clear distinction between strategy, operations, and tactics.

A usable framework for thinking about strategy begins with asking:

• What are the political ends we seek?
• What are the ways we will pursue them?
• What means are available
• What risks do they carry?

The first, and probably most important, question to ask in modern war is: Is it politically feasible? Will the strategy withstand the pressures of public scrutiny, coalition demands, legal constraints, and moral legitimacy?

As Yarger reminds us, strategy must be suitable, feasible, and acceptable. As Freedman teaches us, it must also be flexible and responsive. A good strategy—one that improves the odds of success—is defined by its coherence across ends, ways, and means, its anchoring in political purpose, and its capacity to adapt under pressure. But effectiveness must be evaluated continuously. A strategy should be measurable not in terms of tactical wins alone, but against its progress toward political objectives, the adequacy of its means over time, and its ability to adjust when assumptions fail. Strategy is not about prediction—it is about persistence. It is the art of maintaining coherence in a world of friction, uncertainty, and adversarial resistance.

Words have meaning. And in war, few words matter more than strategy. If militaries are to fight purposefully, lead effectively, and win responsibly, they must be precise in how they define strategy and how they apply it. While many doctrines—such as those of NATO, the U.S. military, and others—offer formal definitions, the challenge lies in shared understanding across institutions, cultures, and levels of war. Without that clarity, strategic thinking risks becoming fragmented or confused. Only with a common conceptual foundation can militaries begin to understand what strategy requires—and how to evaluate its coherence, feasibility, and political alignment.

Understanding strategy—as defined by scholars like Clausewitz, Yarger, Freedman, and Gray—is more than understanding military power or its components like technology, force structure, or tactics. To grasp grand or military strategy in war requires confronting the broader strategic environment: politics, international relations, geography, culture, economics, sociology, and psychology. Only through this multidisciplinary lens can strategy be seen not merely as a military function, but as a political, social, and cognitive enterprise that shapes both the outcomes of war and the peace that follows.

Strategy does not operate in a vacuum. It is forged in the crucible of context, competition, and self-interest. Its success depends not just on battlefield prowess, but on a clear-eyed understanding of the conditions in which it must adapt, evolve, and endure.

Strategy is a dynamic function of leadership—how political purpose is translated into military power, and how military outcomes become lasting political results. As Clausewitz warned, to mistake strategy for mere planning is to reduce war to senseless destruction.

Strategy is the art of purposeful adaptation—the thread linking means to ends, and the compass that orients action through uncertainty. Like a conductor guiding an orchestra through turbulence, the strategist must maintain intent without controlling every note. Strategy is not perfection. It is persistence. And as Freedman reminds us, it is always a story still being written.

Tags: grand strategy, levels of war, Military strategy, operational level, strategy, tactics

About The Authors

• 
  
• John Spencer
• John Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, codirector of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast. He served twenty-five years as an infantry soldier, which included two combat tours in Iraq. He is the author of the book Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War and coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare.
• View all posts 
• 
  
• Liam Collins
• Liam Collins, PhD was the founding director of the Modern War Institute at West Point and a Future Security Program Senior Fellow with New America. He is a retired Special Forces colonel with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Horn of Africa, and South America. He is coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare and author of Leadership & Innovation During Crisis: Lessons from the Iraq War.
• View all posts

3. Special Operations Forces Week comes together to focus on the warrior ethos

Special Operations Forces Week comes together to focus on the warrior ethos

dvidshub.net

Photo By Tech. Sgt. Marleah Miller | Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provides a keynote speech during the kickoff of Special...... read more

Photo By Tech. Sgt. Marleah Miller | Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provides a keynote speech during the kickoff of Special Operations Forces Week 2025 in Tampa Bay, Florida, May 6, 2025. U.S. Special Operations Command and the Global Special Operations Forces Foundation annually co-host SOF Week for the international SOF community to share lessons learned across the Department of Defense, the interagency, allies and partners, academia and industry. These relationships demonstrate the power of partnership to ensure our warfighters’ readiness. The SOF Week venue provides the team of teams to gather for collaboration, education and modernization in support of national defense priorities. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Marleah Miller) | View Image Page

TAMPA, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES

05.08.2025

Story by Michael Bottoms

U.S. Special Operations Command

Delegates from more than 60 nations to include the King of Jordan Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein along with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and current and retired senior military leaders attended Special Operations Forces Week, May 6-9, 2025, in Tampa, Florida. The conference had 52 speakers, with 23,000 in attendance.

“Looking out at this crowd, I’m reminded of the First SOF Truth: ‘humans are more important than hardware.’ More than any other military formation, SOF is about people,” said Hegseth. “It starts and ends with troops downrange, but each of you in this room contributes to their success. Each of you — your commitment, your shared sense of mission, and your teamwork — is more important than all the cutting-edge hardware on display in the convention center. “

USSOCOM ensures the force is well-prepared for current and future challenges through 3 priorities: People – Win – Transform. The command’s philosophy is people are SOF’s comparative and competitive advantage. Special operations have eight decades of experience making the command tailor-made for this era. SOF’s warrior ethos is people-centric, and it starts with our partners.

USSOCOM focuses on deterrence, crisis response, and counterterrorism simultaneously. Through deterrence, SOF is prepared to address and deter potential threats before they escalate into full-scale conflicts. SOF Week provides the opportunity for attendees to engage with one another to exchange ideas and concepts on potential multifaceted SOF approaches that contribute to integrated deterrence and, should deterrence fail, enable the joint force to prevail in conflict.

The final pillar of the command’s philosophy is transformation, SOF places heavy emphasis on innovation and technology adapting to the fluid nature of warfare. SOF’s lethality is exemplified by speed of innovation, power of adaptability, and comfort in chaos. SOF is building an enduring advantage by the continued investment in people, technologies, and organizations – marked by a commitment to evolve, modernize, and optimize for future operating environments.

Gen. Bryan Fenton, commander, U.S. Special Operations Command and Command Sgt. Maj. Shane Shorter, command senior enlisted leader followed the Secretary of Defense.

“You heard the Secretary of Defense … we win by staying true to what makes us different— asymmetry. We offer decision-makers precise, fast, low-signature options across the spectrum—from crisis to conflict,” said Fenton. “And we’ve got an antidote to that fusion of foes. It’s right here in this room. The Global Special Operations Network. When we talk about winning… we talk about our obligation to this Nation to be the asymmetric scalpel – to not just be fast; but also, strategic. And to not just be lethal; but purposeful… tailor-made for this era.

“What does SOF transformation look like? What’s the blueprint? Because let me tell you what I am seeing: The innovation cycle has never been so compressed… when I came in the Army, we modernized across generations… I still used equipment from Vietnam… I'm old but not that old,” said Shorter. “Now we need to modernize in weeks… sometimes within days. This isn't just about keeping pace; it’s about setting the pace. And when you think about how SOF fights against a fusion of foes… I think we better be going after these game-changing advances.”

Throughout the week, international SOF commanders discussed ways to improve interoperability, increase lethality, and optimize how SOF sources global requirements and various training venues. SOF Week is a way for the global SOF community to meet, learn from each other and advance a coordinated effort to meet global security challenges.

Melissa A. Johnson, the acquisition executive for USSOCOM, who is responsible for over 1,000-plus personnel providing lethal, rapid and focused acquisition, technology, and logistics support to SOF also gave a keynote speech.

“The name of the game is multi-domain. It’s integration, its interoperability, its interchangeability,” said Johnson. “If we are going to make an investment and close kill chains to ensure SOF forces are capable, lethal and resilient, we have to have interoperable mission systems.”

SOF Week provided the opportunity for USSOCOM personnel to network with defense industry professionals and government attendees. Attendees viewed the latest in SOF equipment and capabilities from more than 800 exhibitors.

Conference attendees from the global SOF Community were provided a unique opportunity to strengthen enduring relationships, share current technologies, enhance cooperation, and identify commonalities and challenges. These events supported USSOCOM’s ongoing efforts to formalize and strengthen existing international network partnerships and engage with key stakeholder publics.

SOF Week is the premiere conference for the special operations community to interact with industry and collaborate on the challenges, initiatives, and way-ahead in delivering the most cutting-edge capabilities to SOF operators. The week provides educational sessions, demonstrations, interaction with exhibitors and many networking opportunities. The conference is the single most important opportunity for developing, nurturing, and exercising the growing network across industry, government, academia, and international partners.

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​4. AFSOC experimenting with small cruise missiles, new ways to use old kit

​Yes, innovation does not always have to be about developing new kit. It can also be about developing new ways to use old equipment (or weapons systems).

AFSOC experimenting with small cruise missiles, new ways to use old kit - Breaking Defense

"There's a reality that aviation is incredibly expensive," AFSOC head Lt. Gen. Michael Conley said. "So I'm really challenging the team to figure out, what can we do with the things we already have that we haven't done in the past?"

By  Andrew White

breakingdefense.com · by Andrew White · May 8, 2025

An OA-1K Skyraider II pilot conducts a walkaround on the flightline at Hurlburt Field, Florida, Jan. 28, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Natalie Fiorilli)

SOF WEEK — The head US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) said this week that his organization needs to figure out new ways to use the equipment it has, in order to keep up with America’s ongoing SOF requirements.

At the same time, Lt. Gen. Michael Conley told media during a Wednesday roundtable that his team is actively experimenting with new small cruise missiles and air launched effects, new technologies AFSOC hopes will provide it capabilities for future, unforeseen conflicts.

Broadly speaking, AFSOC is “built for this time … [and] perfectly positioned” to support special and conventional operations in any future conflict against near-peer adversaries as well as more traditional roles in CENTCOM and AFRICOM areas of operation, Lt. Gen. Michael Conley said.

FULL COVERAGE: SOF WEEK 2025

However, “There’s a reality that aviation is incredibly expensive. We are onboarding our newest capability, the OA-1K [Skyraider II], but aside from that, we have a pretty young and healthy fleet. So I’m really challenging the team to figure out, what can we do with the things we already have that we haven’t done in the past? How do we develop capabilities far out to make us relevant and in a good fit for theaters that we haven’t fought in before?”

According to Conley, AFSOC is in a position to focus on adapting, rather than “wholesale change. … I don’t think we need to do that.”

As an example of how AFSOC can learn to do different things with what it has, Conley pointed to the V-22 Osprey.

“I believe the best years of the CV-22 are still ahead of it. When we fielded that operationally in 2007 for the first time, we sent it to Afghanistan. It’s a complex aircraft that requires a lot of maintenance, and flying it in and out of hellacious dust clouds every single night, multiple times, was not really its sweet spot,” he said.

“I think as we get into theaters where distances are a lot longer, with its advanced avionics system, it can do things that nothing else can right now. So the long-range capability, the air refueling, the ability to train with both US partners and coalition partners, I think sets it up for the missions it was truly designed to do.”

Conley went onto state that the US Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) is currently “not on my list” of priorities at the moment.

“We’re not looking at FLRAA right now. We are working on the High Speed VTOL,” he said, referring to the DARPA-led program aiming to provide a next-generation airlift capability for special operations.

But he did concede: “What interests me more about FLRAA, more than the actual aircraft itself is, what are we learning from that technology that will help inform HSVTOL, or whatever eventually would replace a CV-22?”

Turning his attention to the OA-1K Skyraider II, the latest addition in AFSOC’s inventory of aircraft, Conley predicted it’s utility will only grow and grow in the future.

“Once we field operational crews here in the next few years, I think we will find ways to employ it, and maybe ways we’re not even thinking about yet. And when we get them to exercise with our ground SOF teammates and our SEAL teammates, I think the aperture is wider than we’re probably thinking right now.”

However, Conley also warned about increasingly contested airspaces around the world, blaming the proliferation of technological capabilities developed by the likes of China and Russia.

Conley cited Yemen as an example of an area of operation previously permissive for aircraft but one which is now home to technologies capable of putting aircraft at risk. In the last two months, seven MQ-9 Reapers have been reportedly shot down by Houthi rebels.

“[Yemen] for many years was an uncontested, permissive airspace, and now it isn’t. We see some of the new surface-to-air threats that are starting to populate there. You’ve seen the news on MQ-9 shoot-downs and those type of things. As an air force and as a nation, we have to be able to move a lot quicker on developing our threat recognition and threat avoidance technology,” he warned.

SOF Cruise Missiles, Air-Launched Effects

In terms of emerging technologies, Conley confirmed AFSOC is studying the deployment of “small cruise missiles” capable of being launched from a gunship, MQ-9 or Skyraider II.

“It’s not going to sink a battleship, but it will provide a capability that I think would be useful in theaters, If you could palletize all those and drop two or three pallets worth of small cruise missiles, I think that provides game changing capability.

“We are actively testing small cruise missiles right now. We’ve done two demonstrations already internally so there’s work to be done. I wouldn’t say we’re there yet, but we are working closely with that capability.”

Conley also suggested a bright future for launched effects within AFSOC.

“One of our big priorities from the acquisition lens is the Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E). We have already demonstrated capability to launch small UAS off of an MQ-9 aircraft, to link up with a team out in the water or onshore that could swarm together and do target identification.

“We’re working on the technology to put them out of a common launch tube off one of our aircraft, or palletize them, or put them on hard point on a wing. If you launch those, the capabilities are broad. It could be a kinetic effect, it could be an electronic warfare effect, it could be a cyber effect, it could be a jammer, a decoy. Those are all things that we’re looking at.”

Finally, Conley would not rule out a role for Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) in supporting special operations.

“I don’t know if I could give you a clear pathway on how to do that, but I think we’ve got skill sets within AFSOC, a lot of it with special tactics, on using unmanned technology. The Air Force has to figure out the CONOPS for CCA but I think the ideas could be unlimited,” he concluded.

breakingdefense.com · by Andrew White · May 8, 2025

5. Upgrades ahead across the special operations helicopter fleet

Upgrades ahead across the special operations helicopter fleet

militarytimes.com · by Todd South · May 8, 2025

TAMPA, Fla. – Special operators are upgrading nearly every aspect of their helicopter fleet as they await the Army’s newest addition to the rotary wing section.

From the MH-6 light attack assault “Little Bird,” to the MH-60 medium attack assault “Blackhawk,” to the MH-47 heavy assault “Chinook,” officials who develop the aircraft showcased ongoing upgrades Thursday at the Global SOF Foundation Special Operations Forces Week.

Developers continue to tweak the Little Bird, the small but powerful aircraft unique to SOCOM.

“It is your streetfighter,” said Paul Kylander, product manger of the aircraft for Program Executive Office-Rotary Wing. “When operators want to get to your front door, this is the aircraft they use.”

The “R” model project is finding ways to lighten the aircraft for greater speed and range by resetting the entire fleet’s fuselage with lighter materials.

RELATED

Hegseth champions special operations as the force for today’s threats

There has been a 200% increase in SOF missions over the past three years, the defense secretary said.

The project is also upgrading the cockpit for better avionics management and an advanced airborne tactical mission suite, Kylander said.

Those upgrades are part of ongoing efforts that will continue until 2034 for the aircraft. Then, plans call for a Block 4 upgrade or a possible divestment between 2035 to 2042.

They’re also lightening main and auxiliary fuel tanks and both the attack and assault planks for the aircraft.

The MH-60 is seeing some of its own upgrades.

Software updates, navigation tools for degraded visual environments, improved sensors, sensor data fusion and next generation tactical communications are currently being installed on the MH-60 fleet, said Lt. Col. Cameron Keogh.

There’s ongoing work to improve the engine life of the YT706 engine, and future efforts include building an open architecture common cockpit.

On the weapons side, the Blackhawk is adding the joint air-to-ground missile, a conformal lightweight armament wing, M-230 recoil dampers, the GAU-19 Gun Pod and a helmet display tracking system.

Those additions provide more options to Blackhawk crews.

“Having a quiver full of tools to do your job is pretty handy,” Keogh said.

The Blackhawk will also see an improved crew chief seat, AN/PQ-187 Silent Knight Radar nose door reconfiguration and upturned exhaust suppressor II, engine inlet barrier filter for dusty environments and the GE T901 Improved Turbine Engine.

On the heavy side, the MH47G Chinook is seeing increased demand for payloads, range and speed, said Lt. Col. Thomas Brewington, product manager for the Chinook at the PEO.

The oldest frame in the Chinook fleet will retire soon after 59 years of service, Brewington said.

But the aging platform is seeing its own set of advancements with a replacement of the existing flight control pallets, which augment manned flight by using a system called the Active Parallel Actuator Subsystem.

The system “augments manned flight by providing tactile cueing to prevent the pilot from exceeding an aircraft performance limit resulting in increased safety and operational usage while reducing pilot workload during the most critical stages of flight,” Brewington said.

An October 2024 test of the system allowed a “hands off” landing on a predesignated point by a Chinook crew at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, Brewington said.

The system is a “stepping stone” to autonomous pilot assist, he said.

About Todd South

Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

6. Harpoon Anti-Ship Missile-Armed AC-130J Gunships Could Be On The Horizon

​New ways to use existing systems.

Harpoon Anti-Ship Missile-Armed AC-130J Gunships Could Be On The Horizon

Harpoons would give AC-130Js a dedicated tool for engaging enemy ships and fit well with plans to boost their capabilities with new radars.

Joseph Trevithick

Published May 7, 2025 8:22 PM EDT

156

twz.com · by Joseph Trevithick

The TWZ Newsletter

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U.S. Special Operations Command has test-loaded an AGM-84 Harpoon missile onto an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship. The addition of the Harpoon to the AC-130J’s arsenal would give the gunship an all-new dedicated standoff anti-ship capability, which could be particularly relevant in a future large-scale conflict in the Pacific. Harpoon would also pair well with separate plans to expand the long-range targeting capabilities of the Ghostrider with the help of a new active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar.

Maj. Andrew Monroe, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command’s (SOCOM) Detachment 1, mentioned the Harpoon load test during a talk at the annual SOF Week conference earlier today, at which TWZ was in attendance. Based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, Detachment 1 is primarily responsible for developmental testing related to the AC-130J, as well as the MC-130J Commando II special operations tanker/transport and OA-1K Skyraider II special operational light attack aircraft. The unit also supports integration work for special operations aircraft, broadly, as well as special operations aviation capability demonstrations.

An AC-130J Ghostrider gunship. USAF Senior Airman Ty Pilgrim

“Over the last year, our team executed Precision Strike Package testing, Harpoon loading, and Small Cruise Missile integration and launch efforts off the AC 130J,” Maj. Monroe said.

Precision Strike Package (PSP) is the official term for the AC-130J’s armament package, as well as the associated sensors and fire control systems. Small Cruise Missile (SCM), which features a 400-mile range, is another current effort to add a new standoff strike capability to the Ghostrider, which you can read more about here.

This appears to be the first time the possibility of adding Harpoon to the arsenal of an AC-130 gunship has emerged. TWZ has reached out to Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), which operates all 31 Ghostriders currently in service, for more information.

A Marine F/A-18C Hornet fighter armed with a live AGM-84 Harpoon during an exercise. USMC

Each AC-130J is currently armed with a 30mm automatic cannon and a 105mm howitzer, both mounted in the main cargo hold and firing out of the left side of the fuselage. The gunships can also employ various precision-guided bombs and missiles via Common Launch Tubes (CLT) and underwing racks. This includes variants of the GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), a 250-pound-class glide bomb offering standoff range.

The Ghostrider has a demonstrated capability to engage maritime targets with its existing array of weapons, but it does not currently have the ability to employ a dedicated standoff anti-ship munition like Harpoon.

The potential for Harpoon-armed AC-130Js comes amid growing questions about the Ghostrider’s relevance in future high-end conflicts, especially a potential major fight with China across the broad expanses of the Pacific. The gunships are among a number of special operations aircraft facing these questions amid an ongoing U.S. military-wide shift away from primarily focusing on counter-terrorism and other lower-intensity missions. Even while supporting operations in largely permissive airspace over countries like Iraq and Afghanistan in the past two decades, AC-130s have operated almost exclusively under the cover of darkness to reduce vulnerability to ground fire.

The TWZ video below provides an overview of the evolution of the AC-130 gunship and its armament, as well as how the AC-130J variant is now evolving to meet new operational demands.

As TWZ wrote after the release of a video last year showing a Ghostrider pummelling the former Austin class amphibious warfare ship ex-USS Dubuque with its guns during the biennial Rim Of The Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise:

“The video from the RIMPAC 2024 SINKEX [sinking exercise] highlights how the Ghostriders, and their guns specifically, could be utilized against larger ships and in instances where the objective might not be to sink the vessel, such as during special operations boarding operations. The aircraft’s 30mm cannon, in particular, could be used to engage personnel on a ship’s deck.”

“However, during a future major conflict, just getting within gun range of a higher-value target like an amphibious warfare ship, likely operating as part of a larger group of warships further supported by air and other assets, would be a very tall order, if not impossible, for Air Force AC-130s. Ghostriders might still be able to leverage their guns against vessels in lower-risk areas or to help finish off severely damaged vessels separated from their companions. Armed overwatch over and around friendly forces on islands and anchorages could be another future maritime mission in a higher-end fight.”

A standoff anti-ship missile like AGM-84 would change the dynamic considerably for an AC-130J. Even just in the aforementioned force protection scenario around island outposts and ports, Harpoons would give Ghostriders a valuable new way to engage maritime threats at extended distances.

AGM-84 also has the benefit of being a weapon that is already in U.S. service. The Harpoon family is also still in production and upgraded versions continue to be developed. Current generation Block II Harpoons have a maximum range “in excess” of 77 miles (67 nautical miles), according to Boeing, which manufactures the missiles. The company also offers an extended range version with greater reach, thanks in part to a lighter, but also reportedly more advanced warhead.

Interest within the U.S. Air Force, as well as the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps, in expanding overall capacity to launch aerial anti-ship strikes has grown, in general, as focus has shifted to the Pacific region. A growing list of U.S. military aircraft are also in line to be armed with AGM-158C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) in the coming years. AFSOC MC-130Js are also among transport aircraft that have been tested as potential launch platforms for cruise missiles, including the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) from which the LRASM is derived, using a palletized munitions system called Rapid Dragon.

It is worth pointing out here that Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the C-130J and did the AC-130J conversions, has pitched Harpoon as an armament option for a maritime patrol variant of the aircraft in the past. Sometimes referred to as the SC-130J, this proposed version has also been depicted armed with AGM-84H/K Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) derivatives of the Harpoon. Integrating anti-ship Harpoons onto the AC-130J might also be a path to adding SLAM-ERs to the gunship’s arsenal.

A rendering of Lockheed Martin’s proposed SC-130J maritime patrol version of the aircraft with a pair of AGM-84 Harpoons seen under its right wing. The aircraft is also depicted here releasing an anti-submarine torpedo from a weapons bay inside an elongated landing gear sponson, another feature of the SC-130J concept. Lockheed Martin

Another rendering of the SC-130J concept with a pair of AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER missiles under each wing. Lockheed Martin

There are questions about how an AC-130J armed with Harpoons would be able to find targets at sea and cue the missiles to them. This is where separate plans to add a new AESA radar to the Ghostrider could come in. This is something SOCOM has been actively working toward since at least 2023.

“We’re looking to include or to deliver enhanced precision effects” on the AC-130J, “which includes AESA radar integration,” Lt. Col. Shawna Matthys, Division Chief for Integrated Strike Programs within SOCOM’s Program Executive Office-Fixed Wing (PEO-FW), also told TWZ and other attendees at SOF Week today. “This will allow us to see further [and offer] more accurate target tracking.”

Matthys also noted that radar might help with “operating in contested environments.” TWZ has highlighted in the past how an AESA radar would give the AC-130J improved threat warning and general situational awareness, and could offer new electronic warfare capabilities. When the Ghostrider fleet might begin receiving new radars remains to be seen.

USAF

“We’re doing some pathfinding with an APG-83, which is a very common solution in the Air Force,” Col. T. Justin Bronder, head of PEO-FW, also said today at the SOF Week conference. “We certainly look to leverage [non-special operations] service infrastructure where we can, because that gives us good economies of scale.”

The Air Force is currently in the process of integrating Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83, also known as Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR), onto a significant number of its F-16C/D Viper fighters. In addition to its aerial surveillance capabilities, the AN/APG-83 has a synthetic aperture mapping mode, also referred to as SAR mapping, which allows it to produce high-resolution images. That imagery, in turn, can be used for target acquisition and identification purposes, as well as general reconnaissance. An AC-130J could use that capability to help find and target enemy ships with Harpoons, as well as SDBs. You can read more about the SABR in this past TWZ feature.

The plan right now is to “leverage the existing technology and then tailor that to the AC-130J,” Lt. Col. Matthys added following Col. Bronder’s comments about current work with the AN/APG-83.

Much remains to be learned about the extent of plans to arm the AC-130J with Harpoon. Still, a dedicated anti-ship weapon would give the gunships an important capability boost, especially with an eye toward future fights in the Pacific, even if they were to still operate in lower-threat portions of the battlespace.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Joseph Trevithick

Deputy Editor

Joseph has been a member of The War Zone team since early 2017. Prior to that, he was an Associate Editor at War Is Boring, and his byline has appeared in other publications, including Small Arms Review, Small Arms Defense Journal, Reuters, We Are the Mighty, and Task & Purpose.

• Anti-Ship Cruise Missile
• Around The Globe
• Indo-Pacific
• Naval Munitions
• News & Features
• R/UGM-84 Harpoon
• Sea

twz.com · by Joseph Trevithick

7. Rapid fielding, adaptation dominate discussions at SOF Week 2025

Rapid fielding, adaptation dominate discussions at SOF Week 2025 - Military Embedded Systems

militaryembedded.com · by OpenSystems Media

Rapid fielding, adaptation dominate discussions at SOF Week 2025

News

May 08, 2025

Dan Taylor

Technology Editor

Military Embedded Systems

Stock photo

TAMPA, Florida. The need to rapidly field new technologies and quickly adapt to emerging threats dominated conversations at SOF Week 2025, with military leaders and industry representatives emphasizing the critical importance of shortening development timelines from years to months or even weeks.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth set the tone during his keynote address on Tuesday, highlighting the importance of rapid integration across the joint force.

"That rapid fielding, that rapid integration, that feedback loop is critical across the joint force," Hegseth said. "Today that means mortar and munitions, AI-enabled targeting platforms, and new counter-UAS systems."

Melissa Johnson, USSOCOM's acquisition executive, stressed during her keynote that speed is essential in today's technology-driven battlespace.

"It is critical ... that we adopt, we develop, we integrate, and we deliver advanced capabilities so that we can continue to meet the pace and stay at a competitive advantage," Johnson said.

The exhibition floor reflected this emphasis on rapid fielding, with numerous companies showcasing technologies designed for rapid deployment and adaptation. Many systems featured modular, open architectures allowing for quick updates and modifications as battlefield requirements change.

Johnson also highlighted USSOCOM's willingness to do what it takes to field systems faster.

"I will take that acquisition risk so that the operators don't have to take the operational risk, and we will work that through that life cycle," she stated.

The race to field cutting-edge systems like counter-drone technology and AI-enabled targeting platforms has accelerated as adversaries continue to demonstrate increasingly sophisticated capabilities. Multiple technology demonstrations at the event featured systems that could be rapidly deployed and updated in the field.

Hegseth praised special operations forces for their startup-like approach to innovation.

"You adopt advanced technologies early, you make them better, and... spread [them] to the rest of the joint force. You are willing to experiment and fail while learning from each failure and each success. We need you to keep doing that," he said.

Several industry exhibitors also emphasized the importance of power, storage, and computing capabilities – areas Johnson specifically identified as foundational to advanced systems.

"If we don't have a way to store all these advanced algorithms, we don't have a way to pass data quickly in this system of systems to close a kill chain, it's going to be really hard to win," Johnson said. "This is an area that we need investment in: power, storage, compute."

militaryembedded.com · by OpenSystems Media

8. Allies of Resistance: America Needs More Porcupine Partners

I​ will ask my Mongolian friends about this when I travel there next month.

Excerpts:

How to Raise a Porcupine

Despite these welcome moves in Taiwan, America can and should do more with at-risk partners facing potential aggression from U.S. adversaries. Washington should fully man, equip, train, and organize the Pentagon for these types of missions with frontline partners and allies at scale.

Good places to start would be Moldova, Georgia, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Guyana. The Pentagon and NATO should also double down on existing support efforts in the Baltics and Nordic countries, especially Finland, as well as rapidly increase resilience and resistance advising and asymmetric weapons deliveries to Taiwan.

While this somewhat niche type of military assistance directly supports all three of the Pentagon’s current main strategic objectives, it is also likely to appeal to many in the Trump administration because of its focus on burden sharing, or burden shifting. Fully embracing an allies of resistance framework will lead to more self-reliant defense partners while at the same time avoiding escalation risks, since this support is purely defensive in nature.

By forcing adversaries to think twice before attempting to swallow a neighbor, this type of porcupine strategy is a low-cost, potentially high-impact tool that is vastly undervalued and underused. Strengthening and extending America’s irregular deterrence and resistance warfare capacity building efforts will lay the groundwork for a prickly path to peace that will help deter, and if necessary, fight U.S. adversaries.

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/09/allies-of-resistance-america-needs-more-porcupine-partners/

by Alexander Noyes

|

05.09.2025 at 06:00am

The Pentagon loves to talk about deterrence. Nearly every Defense Department document or senior leader talking point, from the strategic to the tactical, calls out deterring U.S. adversaries as a central goal. Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a room full of special operations forces that they underpin “deterrence in the Indo-Pacific,” the most strategically important region for the Pentagon to counter what they refer to as the “sole pacing threat” from China.

Yet there is currently a major gap in U.S. deterrence strategy and posture. Washington rightly focuses on and fully resources expensive but critical nuclear deterrence, also known as strategic deterrence, and conventional deterrence capabilities (think sophisticated weaponry and troops stationed around the globe). Avoiding the devastating consequences of great power war is one of the most important and enduring goals of U.S. defense policy and grand strategy. Successive administrations over the last 80 years have been remarkably successful at achieving this objective through their deterrence strategies.

This past success does not guarantee future results, however, especially amid new threats, emboldened adversaries, and a rapidly changing world order. The potential for great power rivals like China and Russia to destabilize or annex key U.S. allies and partners like Taiwan or the Baltics present particularly worrying flashpoints that could very well push the great powers to the brink of war.

Washington needs a new approach to deterrence that better uses and fully resources all relevant tools across the spectrum of conflict, from the nuclear to the unconventional. In short, the Pentagon’s deterrence rhetoric is not adequately backed by action in the “left of bang” realm that falls short of major combat operations.

It’s past time for the Pentagon to walk the talk on asymmetric types of deterrence and truly prioritize unconventional advise and assist missions–so-called “porcupine” strategies–that will help deter, and if necessary, fight, U.S. adversaries.

Imbalance Remains Despite Past Efforts

The Biden administration made strides in advancing new deterrence concepts. The idea at the heart of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, integrated deterrence, aimed to better sync the many disparate efforts throughout the U.S. government and with allies and partners. The strategy also forwarded the associated idea of deterrence by resilience: “the ability to withstand, fight through, and recover quickly from disruption,” a concept that NATO, the Baltics and Nordic countries in particular, have likewise embraced over the past decade or so under the rubric of “total defense.”

Prior Pentagon efforts also pioneered new and updated old asymmetric deterrence concepts. The Resistance Operating Concept, a joint effort by the U.S. Joint Special Operations University and the Swedish Defence University released in 2020, established a framework to help operationalize resilience and resistance support to partners and allies at risk of adversary aggression.

The document defines resistance as: “A nation’s organized, whole-of-society effort, encompassing the full range of activities from nonviolent to violent, led by a legally established government (potentially exiled/displaced or shadow) to reestablish independence and autonomy within its sovereign territory that has been wholly or partially occupied by a foreign power.”

The second Trump administration’s Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance, distributed in late March, looks set to continue this enduring American focus on deterrence. The interim guidance forwards a three-pronged approach centered around protecting the homeland, deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and increasing burden sharing with partners and allies; all goals that ramped up deterrence efforts will help advance.

But the deterrence rhetoric has not been sufficiently backed by action. Last month, General Bryan P. Fenton, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he has had to turn down more than 40 recent requests for deterrence-related missions due to being stretched on other priorities, such as crisis response and direct action, like targeting terrorists.

Current U.S. efforts focused on building the porcupine capabilities of partners and allies remain paltry compared to the tens of billions of dollars spent annually on other forms of deterrence, such as nuclear or conventional. The Pentagon allocates over $4.6 billion annually to security cooperation activities around the world, but only $20 million or less is dedicated to irregular types of support.

Moreover, the United States does not currently have the necessary policy, doctrine, and legal authorities in place to effectively choose partners or quickly provide resilience or resistance warfare support.

Once support is provided, Washington also lacks a public and private communications plan to effectively signal partners and allies’ resilience and resistance capabilities. Deterrence rests on changing the cost-benefit analysis of an adversary, making smart strategic communication a critical piece of any successful deterrence strategy. If a resistance capability is formed in the forest but no one hears about it, the deterrent effect is lost.

Past Deterrent and Punishment Success

History suggests that this type of asymmetric deterrence approach can work, dating back to World War II when Switzerland deterred German designs on its territory with a so-called “porcupine” strategy. Likewise, Finland’s total defense approaches may have helped to deter aggression from Russia, especially in the decade prior to the country’s entrance into NATO in 2023 (when the country did not enjoy Article 5 protection).

The prospect of guerrilla warfare insurgencies has also deterred or slowed U.S. military actions in the past. In the endgame of Desert Storm and the early days of Bosnia in the early 1990s, U.S. officials warned of a quagmire in Iraq if they continued onto Baghdad and Serb nationalists promised a Vietnam in the heart of Europe, contributing to U.S. decisions to rule out ground invasions.

Washington has, intermittently, applied this same logic to deter and impose costs on its adversaries. For instance, in February 2022, Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine was met with a strong Ukrainian national resistance that shocked the world with its effectiveness. While the Ukrainians deserve much of the credit, a little-known U.S. effort to help build national resilience and resistance capabilities in the run-up to the invasion appears to have contributed to Ukraine’s increase in military effectiveness.

Although great power war has so far been avoided—no small achievement—U.S. and Ukrainian efforts were ultimately unable to deter the full-scale invasion. But U.S. support contributed to Ukraine’s success on the battlefield, helping to ensure the country’s sovereignty and survival, key American objectives.

Ironically, although deterrence failed, Russia’s much higher than expected costs, both in blood and treasure, are likely to promote future deterrence in future contingencies, such as Taiwan. Indeed, Taiwan has learned from the Ukrainian experience and is taking important steps to shore up its own resilience and resistance capabilities, with support from the United States.

How to Raise a Porcupine

Despite these welcome moves in Taiwan, America can and should do more with at-risk partners facing potential aggression from U.S. adversaries. Washington should fully man, equip, train, and organize the Pentagon for these types of missions with frontline partners and allies at scale.

Good places to start would be Moldova, Georgia, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Guyana. The Pentagon and NATO should also double down on existing support efforts in the Baltics and Nordic countries, especially Finland, as well as rapidly increase resilience and resistance advising and asymmetric weapons deliveries to Taiwan.

While this somewhat niche type of military assistance directly supports all three of the Pentagon’s current main strategic objectives, it is also likely to appeal to many in the Trump administration because of its focus on burden sharing, or burden shifting. Fully embracing an allies of resistance framework will lead to more self-reliant defense partners while at the same time avoiding escalation risks, since this support is purely defensive in nature.

By forcing adversaries to think twice before attempting to swallow a neighbor, this type of porcupine strategy is a low-cost, potentially high-impact tool that is vastly undervalued and underused. Strengthening and extending America’s irregular deterrence and resistance warfare capacity building efforts will lay the groundwork for a prickly path to peace that will help deter, and if necessary, fight U.S. adversaries.

Tags: China, Deterrence, Taiwan

About The Author

• 
  
• Alexander Noyes
• Alexander Noyes is a fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institution.

9. Why Beijing Is Worried About Chinese People’s ‘Well-being’

​At what point does this situation begin to threaten the CCP?

​Excerpts:

Financial pressures have intensified as the economy falters and labor market difficulties mount. Young people face intense academic pressure, only to find limited or unsatisfying employment opportunities when they leave school. China has reported an alarming rise in youth suicides. 

These factors have contributed to rising demand for psychological counseling and China has experienced a “psycho-boom” over the past decade. Even before the pandemic, more people were turning to online platforms for therapy. The number using online mental health services grew more than seven-fold from 2018 to 2020, with most of the increase coming in 2018 and 2019. 

Concerns about the extent of China’s mental health crisis have been heightened by the recent “revenge on society” attacks. The government is now doing more to promote awareness of mental health and is taking steps to make psychological counseling and self-help resources more widely available. In an announcement released three days after the reported car attack in Jinhua, China’s National Health Commission decreed that mental health screening would be required as part of routine medical care. 

China’s leaders pledged last November to do everything possible to crack down on the violence, and every new mass casualty attack is a reminder that they have not been able to stop the carnage. The cover up of the Jinhua school tragedy is a sign that Beijing is not only worried about the well-being of society, it is also worried about its own.

Why Beijing Is Worried About Chinese People’s ‘Well-being’

China’s leaders worry about how to keep society stable as more people struggle to manage the stress of daily life – and a few lash out with acts of horrific violence.

https://thediplomat.com/2025/05/why-beijing-is-worried-about-chinese-peoples-well-being/

By G.A. Donovan

May 08, 2025

Credit: Illustration by Catherine Putz

In a horrifying scene outside a primary school in the central Chinese city of Jinhua on April 22, a driver deliberately crashed his car into the crowd as parents collected their children at the end of the day. Censors acted quickly to delete images of the carnage as they began to circulate on social media.

Police at local stations declined to speak with journalists about the tragedy, which reportedly resulted in at least 14 deaths, including nine students. Authorities have still not confirmed the incident or released any information about it.

The sustained official silence came in sharp contrast to a similar incident in the southern city of Zhuhai on November 11 of last year, when a man drove his car onto an exercise track at a sports center, killing 38 and injuring dozens more. 

This was the most serious of a series of high-profile mass casualty incidents over the past year that sparked widespread unease. Labeled “taking revenge on society” attacks, many were carried out by people struggling with financial or family problems. The assailant in Zhuhai had reportedly been angry about his divorce. 

In the immediate aftermath, social media posts about the incident were quickly taken down, but the news spread rapidly, prompting an outbreak of public grief. Local officials removed flowers and tributes to the victims left at the crime scene, which only made citizens angrier.

China’s leaders were compelled to respond. An official police statement was released the following day, and over the next week authorities publicly called for more to be done to prevent future violence. Top leader Xi Jinping personally urged officials nationwide to step up efforts to prevent attacks. China’s Ministry of Public Security convened an emergency meeting of top officials and issued a statement on November 13 vowing to tighten control of society and increase patrols in places of public assembly. 

Over the following month, official media publicized events where local public security organs pledged to be more proactive in stopping lone wolf attacks by identifying individuals who show signs of severe financial stress or behavioral problems, and keeping close tabs on people on the margins of society whom they view as a potential threat. Concerned citizens were asked to report cases where family, marital, or neighborhood disputes could potentially escalate into violence. 

Throughout the first decades of the reform era that began in 1978, China’s leaders could point to rising standards of living as evidence that life was getting better. But by 2017 it had become obvious that the pace of growth was slowing, and since the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October of that year, the official party line has been that “the well-being of the people is the fundamental goal of development.” China’s economic policies began to place greater emphasis on eliminating poverty and making development more balanced and sustainable.

Making people’s lives better is a now high policy priority, and all levels of government now focus more on quality of life issues. Examples include the massive public expenditures on beautification projects and other public works that have made Chinese cities look more modern and attractive. Expanding the national network of highways and high-speed rail lines has made travel faster and more convenient. Air pollution has eased in many urban areas. All of these contribute to citizens’ contentment and sense of national pride.

However, building infrastructure is a lot easier than managing the social pressures building on China’s increasingly unsettled population. A major worry for China’s leaders is how to keep society stable as more people struggle to manage the stress of daily life. 

Financial pressures have intensified as the economy falters and labor market difficulties mount. Young people face intense academic pressure, only to find limited or unsatisfying employment opportunities when they leave school. China has reported an alarming rise in youth suicides. 

These factors have contributed to rising demand for psychological counseling and China has experienced a “psycho-boom” over the past decade. Even before the pandemic, more people were turning to online platforms for therapy. The number using online mental health services grew more than seven-fold from 2018 to 2020, with most of the increase coming in 2018 and 2019. 

Concerns about the extent of China’s mental health crisis have been heightened by the recent “revenge on society” attacks. The government is now doing more to promote awareness of mental health and is taking steps to make psychological counseling and self-help resources more widely available. In an announcement released three days after the reported car attack in Jinhua, China’s National Health Commission decreed that mental health screening would be required as part of routine medical care. 

China’s leaders pledged last November to do everything possible to crack down on the violence, and every new mass casualty attack is a reminder that they have not been able to stop the carnage. The cover up of the Jinhua school tragedy is a sign that Beijing is not only worried about the well-being of society, it is also worried about its own.

Authors

Guest Author

G.A. Donovan

G.A. Donovan is a fellow at the Center for China Analysis, Asia Society Policy Institute.

10. Investing in Strategic Influence: A National Security Imperative

​We have "self disarmed" and we are "self-deterred" in the information domain 

Yes this is a tired old trope: It is easier to get permission to put a hellfire missile on the forehead of a terrorist than it is to get permission to put an idea between the ears of anyone around the world.

But why are we restraining ourselves from strategic influence? 

That said sometimes our problem is that we seem to "try too hard" and think we must counter every negative narrative out there. We ought to identify the fundamentals and make sure we do that well. Something like consistent messaging based on our core American values and not trying to respond to every negative criticism of the US. And of course agencies like the GEC, USAID, and USAGM cannot be engaged in "culture wars" and "cancel culture" in any way.

​Conclusion:

Not an Option, A Strategic Imperative

Strategic influence is not an optional capability—it is a national security imperative. The US cannot afford to surrender the cognitive domain to foes that place greater weight on shaping global perceptions than deploying physical force. The last two decades have revealed that military superiority alone does not safeguard strategic success.

The US must abandon the flawed notion that divestment equals efficiency. A thoughtful and directed investment in a holistic strategic influence formation will ensure that the US does not merely react to malign influence but actively shapes global perception in its favor.

History demonstrates that influence is power. The nation ignores influence as a critical element of national power at its own peril.

Investing in Strategic Influence: A National Security Imperative

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/09/investing-in-strategic-influence-a-national-security-imperative/

by Steve Hunnewell

|

05.09.2025 at 06:00am

The recently published 2025 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) relays a stark outlook, that of a global landscape increasingly defined by the assertive and often malign activities of the “axis of upheaval”—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Two of these nations, which have struck a no-limits partnership, have demonstrated a sophisticated understanding and effective holistic application of strategic influence, often outpacing the United States (US) in this critical discipline of statecraft. This truth underscores a basic flaw in the US’s current approach. The flaw, in particular, is the recent divestment of key influence capabilities within the US Department of State, such as the Global Engagement Center (GEC), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

While a critical assessment of our current and past efforts was long overdue, the pendulum has swung too far, thus creating unnecessary risk by way of creating a void that the US’s adversaries are eagerly filling. The way forward cannot be retrenchment but rather an intentional reinvigoration of the US’s strategic influence construct. Optimization demands a profound reinvestment and a fundamental realignment of the US’s strategic influence enterprise to meet the exigencies of this new era.

Considering the complexities and potential of these vital agencies and the broader strategic influence ecosystem, a recalibration was necessary. Experience at attempts to pioneer holistic approaches to influence within geographic regional commands (US INDOPACOM Information Officer and the Fleet Information Warfare Command Pacific) illustrates the urgent need for such a recalibration – one that reduces the friction that has become a feature, not a bug, of influence with American characteristics.

The core truth remains: every action undertaken by the US government carries psychological weight, and actual influence lies in the deliberate and synchronized application to achieve and amplify desired effects to enhance national power.

Evolution and Devolution of US Strategic Influence

The historical evolution of US strategic influence began with the Coordinator of Information (COI), the predecessor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), where Major General “Wild” Bill Donovan served as COI’s first director. Its two divisions, Research and Analysis and the Foreign Information Service (FIS), evolved into the US Office of War Information (OWI); it then culminated during the Cold War public diplomacy efforts through the US Information Agency (USIA). This enterprise devolved into today’s ecosystem of interagency rivalries and a fragmented approach. However, the contemporary cognitive and information domains demand a unified and agile response.

Nevertheless, the notion that divestiture is the solution is a dangerous miscalculation, akin to removing a vital organ to improve the body’s overall health. Instead, the US government must focus on optimizing and integrating our capabilities instead of eliminating them without a systemic analysis. The core truth remains: every action undertaken by the US government carries psychological weight, and actual influence lies in the deliberate and synchronized application to achieve and amplify desired effects to enhance national power.

Defining Strategic Influence

Before charting a course for revitalization, it is important to firmly define strategic influence. Strategic influence is the deliberate and coordinated application of a nation’s resources—diplomatic, informational, military, economic, cultural, financial, intelligence, law enforcement, and technology—to shape the perceptions, decisions, and actions of key actors and demographics to advance national interests and long-term geopolitical objectives. This definition moves beyond simplistic notions of siloed influence disciplines: Public Affairs (PA), Public Diplomacy (PD), Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Civil Affairs (CA), Cyber, Space, and the hard versus soft power dichotomy. Rather, strategic influence recognizes that power is a unified force, an aggregate of capabilities that our adversaries, particularly China, so clearly understand and leverage. To this end, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a masterclass in geoeconomic strategic influence, weaving a web of economic dependencies and shaping global norms in their favor. Similarly, Russia’s multifaceted influence campaigns in Eastern Europe demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of leveraging foreign malign influence enhanced by energy extortion, sabotage, and proxies to attempt to achieve their strategic aims.

The Urgency of Strategic Influence in a Shifting World Order

The 2025 ATA’s assessment of China as the actor “most capable of threatening U.S. interests globally” should serve as a clarion call. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) intent to “expand its coercive and subversive malign influence activities to weaken the United States internally and globally” is explicitly stated.” Their leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance these capabilities and evade detection further underscores the urgency to build back better. Moreover, the growing cooperation among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea presents a compounding threat that necessitates a unified and strategic counterapproach.

From a realist perspective, this investment in strategic influence is a pragmatic necessity for a self-interested state operating in an anarchic global system.

To pause on the latter and relay the return on investment that is a revitalized strategic influence build, the notion of a “reverse-Kissinger strategy”—attempting to drive a wedge between Russia and China through strategic influence—is fundamentally flawed. Such an approach, predicated on the assumption of inherent and exploitable divisions, risks signaling to Beijing and Moscow the concern we harbor about their no limits-friendship. This, in turn, is likely to reinforce their alignment rather than fracture it. A robust strategic influence enterprise would have identified the faulty assumptions within such an approach and offered actionable data-driven alternate efforts that focus instead on building resilience within targeted societies, exposing the true nature of our adversaries’ actions, and offering compelling alternatives rooted in shared values and mutual benefit.

The Blueprint for Reinvigorating US Strategic Influence

To achieve this, the US government must move beyond the fragmented landscape and embrace a unified and agile model. This requires fundamentally altering our organizational structures and operational processes. Furthermore, the US government must consider a profound fusion of capabilities within the national security ecosystem. The evolving geopolitical landscape demands an entity combining the USIA’s multidisciplinary strategic communication prowess and the intelligence acumen and political and psychological warfare capabilities reminiscent of the OSS. It should report to the National Security Council and be a network of networks by design. This envisioned lean, decentralized, and technically enabled organization operating in close partnership with the private sector would represent a prevailing and potent instrument of national power. It would dissolve legacy friction, resulting in a comprehensive approach to strategic competition, integrating intelligence insight with proactive and reactive influence campaigns with actions across the other domains.

From a realist perspective, this investment in strategic influence is a pragmatic necessity for a self-interested state operating in an anarchic global system. It is about proactively shaping the strategic environment to favor our interests, deterring potential adversaries, and fostering an international order that aligns with our values without necessarily resorting to direct military confrontation.

Not an Option, A Strategic Imperative

Strategic influence is not an optional capability—it is a national security imperative. The US cannot afford to surrender the cognitive domain to foes that place greater weight on shaping global perceptions than deploying physical force. The last two decades have revealed that military superiority alone does not safeguard strategic success.

The US must abandon the flawed notion that divestment equals efficiency. A thoughtful and directed investment in a holistic strategic influence formation will ensure that the US does not merely react to malign influence but actively shapes global perception in its favor.

History demonstrates that influence is power. The nation ignores influence as a critical element of national power at its own peril.

Tags: China strategic influence, Cognitive Warfare, Foreign malign influence, Great Power Competition, information warfare, National Security Strategy, Rebuilding U.S. influence, Strategic Influence, U.S. global influence

About The Author

• 
  
• Steve Hunnewell
• Stephen J. Hunnewell, is a seasoned national security expert with extensive experience advising U.S. government and military leaders on strategic influence, economic statecraft, irregular warfare, and geopolitical risk. He has held key roles at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, NATO ISAF, and the Department of Defense, shaping policy and fostering international collaboration. He holds advanced degrees from The Fletcher School at Tufts University and the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College, specializing in international relations and marketing.

11. Real ID Is Useless, Unconstitutional and Finally Here

I traveled on May 7th (including through Atlanta) and I did not notice any differences.

Patrick Eddington gives us the libertarian analysis.

Real ID Is Useless, Unconstitutional and Finally Here

Among other problems, a REAL ID requirement potentially creates an end-run around direct regulation of the right to travel.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/real-id-useless-unconstitutional-finally-here?utm

May 7, 2025 • Commentary

By Patrick G. Eddington

Share

This article appeared in MSNBC​.com on May 7, 2025.

It’s been 20 years since Congress passed one of the most onerous, useless and constitutionally dubious pieces of legislation in modern history. The so-called REAL ID Act comes into force today, and if your driver’s license isn’t REAL ID-compliant and you don’t have some other form of government-approved identity card, you won’t be able to board a domestic flight unless you’re willing to go through as-yet unspecified extra steps.

At its core, the mentality behind REAL ID is that every American is a potential airline terrorist first and a citizen of the Republic a very distant second. Who do we have to thank for this terrible idea? The 9/11 Commission. In fact, it was one of its core recommendations.

As the commission noted in its final July 2004 report, “All but one of the 9/11 hijackers acquired some form of U.S. identification document, some by fraud. Acquisition of these forms of identification would have assisted them in boarding commercial flights, renting cars, and other necessary activities.”

Among other problems, a REAL ID requirement potentially creates an end-run around direct regulation of the right to travel.

In response, the commission recommended that the federal government “should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as drivers licenses.” The report noted: “Fraud in identification documents is no longer just a problem of theft. At many entry points to vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists.”

But that entire notion is refuted by the fact that the most effective last-ditch protection against bad actors among the public boarding an aircraft is physical screening of the passengers and their luggage.

I’m not aware of a single post‑9/​11 incident in which an actual terrorist — such as the so-called shoe bomber or the “underwear bomber” — boarded an aircraft with a fake ID. Yet those two made it aboard aircraft with explosive or incendiary devices that could’ve brought down the planes they were on and killed all aboard. TSA’s struggle with passenger screening technologies and procedures is well-known and represents a far bigger safety issue than determining who is boarding a given aircraft.

Indeed, years before REAL ID became law, the federal government used secret directives to airlines to prevent travelers from boarding airliners unless they presented identification.

In the case that challenged that practice, Gilmore v. Gonzalez, plaintiff John Gilmore argued that the Constitution did not permit the country’s air carriers to require passengers to display ID to travel by air. After reviewing the federal government’s secret airline security directives — which Gilmore’s lawyers weren’t permitted to see — the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the federal government, noting, “Although we recognized the fundamental right to interstate travel, we also acknowledged that ‘burdens on a single mode of transportation do not implicate the right to interstate travel.’”

Gilmore appealed to the Supreme Court, but it declined to take the case — an abdication of responsibility that has created a two-tiered, discriminatory travel system in America.

The premise that all air travelers must prove their identities through presenting REAL ID credentials implicitly treats all citizens as potential terrorists until declared otherwise by the federal government. The REAL ID Act effectively institutes a form of mass surveillance and verification that doesn’t discriminate between those who have given reason for suspicion and those who haven’t.

When the government imposes REAL ID requirements on air travel but not train travel (which it doesn’t), it creates a two-tiered travel system. Those who comply with REAL ID can access all modes of transportation, whereas those who don’t or can’t comply are restricted to radically slower modes of travel. This has real-world implications for the traveling public.

If I receive word that my sister in rural Missouri has suffered a stroke and may not survive much longer, I can catch a plane from an airport in the Washington, D.C., region and be at her bedside in less than 12 hours — if I have a REAL ID-compliant credential to board the aircraft. If not, it’s a two-day drive at least to reach her, by which time she may well be dead. Now that REAL ID has gone into effect, this won’t be a hypothetical scenario — it will happen to real families across the country.

The REAL ID ACT also raises several constitutional issues that have never been adjudicated.

The disparate approach to regulating different modes of travel implicates the constitutional doctrine of “unconstitutional conditions” — a principle that prohibits the government from conditioning the receipt of a benefit (in this case, the ability to use a particular mode of transportation) on the surrender of a constitutional right (the right to travel).

REAL ID also potentially creates an end-run around direct regulation of the right to travel. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the federal government can’t directly prohibit interstate travel, but by making it increasingly difficult to travel without REAL ID, the government accomplishes a similar result indirectly.

Moreover, it raises equal protection concerns. When fundamental rights are at stake, differential treatment of citizens requires a compelling government interest and narrow tailoring. The question becomes whether the security benefits of REAL ID justify the burden placed on particular modes of travel. The record to date clearly shows they do not.

Finally, it implicates the principle of proportionality in constitutional law — whether the restriction on rights is proportional to the government interest being served. The differential treatment of air and rail travel exposes the hypocrisy and inconsistency in how the government assesses security risks and the appropriate responses to those risks.

The government has no business knowing who I am or why I’m traveling domestically on an airliner unless I’m wanted for a crime or have given reason to suspect my intentions by having weapons on my person or in my luggage during screening. REAL ID obliterates the idea of freedom of travel, which is why it should be abolished.

About the Author

Patrick G. Eddington

Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

12. Russia’s Plans Are Bigger Than Conflict With the West or Camaraderie With China

​Geography matters because geography does not change.

Excerpts:

Conclusion

As U.S. President Donald Trump carries out negotiations with Putin, and the United Kingdom and European Union step up their defense efforts against Russia, Western diplomats and policymakers should zoom out and head back to the drawing board. An honest review of the current sanctions regime needs to be undertaken. 

Putin has been laying the groundwork against Western sanctions for over a decade and this has proved fruitful in blunting their impact. While there is high inflation, high interest rates, and serious labor shortages in Russia, the economy has fared better than expected. In 2023, Russia’s economy grew by 3.6 percent and it continued to grow in 2024. Many Russian businesses, including those in strategically important sectors, can access state-subsidized loans at very low interest rates.

With that in mind, Western decision-makers must find new and creative ways to understand Russia. It is important for the West to be clear about Moscow’s security interests not only in Europe but also in the regions to Russia’s south and east – and where Western states need to shore up their positions accordingly. 

There are several ways that they can go about this. The efforts of the U.S., U.K., the EU, and other powers should focus on a strategy that builds and strengthens their defense especially in the “gray zone.” They can deliver serious sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet and offshore holding companies with potential Kremlin links. It’s also important to monitor and counter any signs of Russian-government proxies and covert activities that destabilize businesses and seek monopolies in economic sectors in its neighboring countries. Western governments should ensure that a specialized task force of regional experts are proactively keeping an eye on developments and putting matters in context for diplomats and policymakers. 

This won’t be easy; as United States takes a more unilateral posture on the world stage, its interests will differ with those U.K. and the EU. Meanwhile, the West should anticipate that Russia will respond in kind and should mitigate the impact and ripple effects its presence will have as it builds its own sphere of activity. 

The West needs to be able to keep the doors open and cultivate access in Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, while also anticipating that Putin will be keeping a close watch. Crucially, Western policymakers need to remember that without encouraging key countries such as China, India, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to support their strategy, their plans to contain this “transformed” Russia will be difficult to achieve. 

Russia’s Plans Are Bigger Than Conflict With the West or Camaraderie With China

The Kremlin’s geopolitical strategy is increasingly preoccupied with the geography of its southern and eastern borders.

https://thediplomat.com/2025/05/russias-plans-are-bigger-than-conflict-with-the-west-or-camaraderie-with-china/

By Sophia Nina Burna-Asefi

May 08, 2025

Vietnam’s President To Lam (right) hosts Russian President Vladimir Putin for a reception during Putin’s state visit to Vietnam, June 20, 2024.

Credit: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office

There is a serious disconnect between Western pundits and the reality on the ground when it comes to understanding the Kremlin’s thinking. The current popular narrative surrounding Russia and its neighbors boils down to the following: Moscow poses a threat to the purported liberal world order; Russia is “destined” to remain on the “sidelines” of global politics; Central Asia is a “battleground” for Russia, China, and the West; the Russian economy is being “crippled”; and finally, Russia is supposedly growing “dependent” on China.

There are two common ideas guiding these beliefs. First, Russia is simultaneously a powerful and influential giant and a weak actor. Second, the actions of Russia’s neighboring countries are subordinate to Moscow’s interests rather than intrinsically derived. But these narratives miss a big point: There are more layers of affect that shape the Kremlin’s thinking and its assessment of the so-called near abroad. The way to understand how Russia works is to try and get inside this longer-term mindset. 

Putin’s Growing Interactions Along Its Southern and Eastern Borders Have Deep Roots

Despite the talk of an eventual peace in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin will continue to step up in countries neighboring Russia, and the West needs to be better prepared. Areas to Russia’s south and east are considered particularly important to Putin. Putin’s Look East policy was first introduced in 2012, and predates the two Ukrainian wars. In the same year Russia adopted a critical new law, the 2012 Federal Law, which for the first time set a clear definition of the Northern Sea Route and its geographical scope.

Putin’s emphasis on the south can been seen in the Kremlin’s ongoing ambitions vis-a-vis the North-South corridor project, otherwise known as the Iranian route, a 7,200-kilometer corridor that connects India with Russia via Iran. Like the Northern Sea Route, part of the northeastern passage connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic seas, the North-South corridor seeks to provide Russia an alternative to the Suez Canal and a way to sanction proof its supply chains. 

Likewise, Russia’s interest in the region to its east can be seen through the continued expansion of trade with China, underpinned by new infrastructure. That includes developments of the sea ports of the Russian Far East and projects across the Russia-China land border: new rail links and pipelines through Siberia, crossing to Mongolia, and along the Yangtze River Economic Belt. 

These transport infrastructure initiatives have a clear national security dimension in Putin’s eyes. The guiding idea is the creation of new modes and patterns of access. As Nicola P. Contessi has highlighted, “Access determines the ways and the conditions under which Country A can enter Country B’s (and vice versa) markets; how A is able to shape the attribution of contracts for the extraction of the resources contained in B’s territory and how they are exported to world markets; and how A is able to use B’s territory for other economic or military purposes.”

The various transit corridors in development under the broader North-South framework. Graphic by Sophia Nina Burna-Asefi.

Putin’s Southern Strategy 

Putin’s south-looking strategy hinges on Russia’s three southern seas – the Caspian, Azov and Black Seas – part of what Moscow calls the Unified Deep-Water System of European Russia (UDWS). The Volga Don Canal constitutes the primary component of the UDWS, which connects these three seas together. 

The importance of Russia’s southern strategy in the Kremlin’s thinking can be seen in a meeting held in the Russian city of Tolyatti on April 10, led by Nikolai Patrushev, assistant to the president of Russia, chairman of the Russian Maritime Collegium, and a close personal ally of Putin. The meeting discussed ways to integrate Russian railway infrastructure located along the UDWS with river ports to speed up transit for the North-South corridor. Patrushev reiterated the priority of creating a UDWS during the discussion. 

While it is Patrushev’s role as chairman of the National Maritime Collegium to get involved in waterways, he also plays a prominent role in post-Ukraine invasion policymaking. His attendance at this meeting signaled that the North-South transport corridor has been given greater importance in Putin’s thinking.

Putin’s Eastern Strategy 

Looking eastward, for the foreseeable future, Russia will be taking a two-pronged approach: it will continue expanding trade with China as Western trade ties reduce, while also building a bigger sphere of activity outside China, in South and East Asia and beyond. 

What this looks like in practice is Moscow developing both domestic and international rail, road, sea, and pipelines. For example, in April, in response to a TASS question about how long the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway, part of the North-South corridor, might take, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk revealed that Russian specialists “are already present in Iran and working” on the project.

In a Federation Council meeting on April 17, Overchuk spoke about the development of Russia’s North-South corridor with reference to extensions to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He emphasized the corridor as an opportunity for Russian companies to expand their market to “Greater Eurasia and the Global South.”  

Russia is also eyeing infrastructure cooperation farther afield. On April 9, Russian Deputy Minister for Transport Dmitry Zverev and Sudanese Ambassador to Russia Mohammed Siraj discussed expanding transport cooperation. According to the press service of the Russian Ministry of Transport, Sudan invited Russia to participate in the construction of railway and road projects in the country.  

Outreach efforts can also be seen on the cultural side. On March 28, Yevgeny Primakov, the head of Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian government PR tool, spoke about increasing and expanding Russian educational and cultural projects in Uzbekistan and the other countries of Central Asia at a briefing in the press center of the Russian sponsored media outlet, Sputnik Uzbekistan. Primakov stated that “the agency is refocusing its work on projects that promote international development within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).”

When it comes to Russia’s relationship with China, economic and strategic cooperation has visibly intensified but falls short of a “partnership” or “overreliance,” despite frequent claims in Western media. Indeed, there is an asymmetry in the economic relationships that is forecast to increase. In 2023, China-Russia trade jumped to $250 billion, compared to a meager $147 billion in 2021. But there is a lot of noise coming in the other direction too, which signals Putin’s long term game plan to derisk from China. Russian businesses have been quick to voice their concerns over Moscow’s increasing economic ties with China, and remain distrustful of China’s intentions. 

Southern and Eastern Neighbors Welcome a Strong Russia

India, the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, and China declined to align with the West against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In 2023, Russia exported half of its oil and petroleum products to China. India has also been a big consumer of Russian oil, which in 2024 comprised around 35 percent of its total crude oil imports. 

In the case of Central Asia, despite some linguistic and cultural backlash to the Russian language and Soviet past, economically, politically, and in terms of security, Russia will continue to play an influential role, notwithstanding China’s inroads. When it comes to two of Central Asia’s largest economies, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Russian involvement in trade and transport policy actually seems to be increasing. 

Most notably, Tashkent has invited Russia on a number of occasions (2018, 2022) to participate in the building of the Trans-Afghan Railway project. In early April 2025, the Russian and Uzbek transport ministries, together with their respective national railway operators, agreed to begin preparations for a feasibility study. They are looking to develop two routes: the Trans-Afghan Railway running from Termez to Naibabad, Logar, and Kharlachi, and a second line linking Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat, Dilaram, Kandahar, and Chaman. 

Similarly, Kazakhstan is in talks with Russia over developing a transit corridor linking Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, including deepening energy relations.

Conclusion

As U.S. President Donald Trump carries out negotiations with Putin, and the United Kingdom and European Union step up their defense efforts against Russia, Western diplomats and policymakers should zoom out and head back to the drawing board. An honest review of the current sanctions regime needs to be undertaken. 

Putin has been laying the groundwork against Western sanctions for over a decade and this has proved fruitful in blunting their impact. While there is high inflation, high interest rates, and serious labor shortages in Russia, the economy has fared better than expected. In 2023, Russia’s economy grew by 3.6 percent and it continued to grow in 2024. Many Russian businesses, including those in strategically important sectors, can access state-subsidized loans at very low interest rates.

With that in mind, Western decision-makers must find new and creative ways to understand Russia. It is important for the West to be clear about Moscow’s security interests not only in Europe but also in the regions to Russia’s south and east – and where Western states need to shore up their positions accordingly. 

There are several ways that they can go about this. The efforts of the U.S., U.K., the EU, and other powers should focus on a strategy that builds and strengthens their defense especially in the “gray zone.” They can deliver serious sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet and offshore holding companies with potential Kremlin links. It’s also important to monitor and counter any signs of Russian-government proxies and covert activities that destabilize businesses and seek monopolies in economic sectors in its neighboring countries. Western governments should ensure that a specialized task force of regional experts are proactively keeping an eye on developments and putting matters in context for diplomats and policymakers. 

This won’t be easy; as United States takes a more unilateral posture on the world stage, its interests will differ with those U.K. and the EU. Meanwhile, the West should anticipate that Russia will respond in kind and should mitigate the impact and ripple effects its presence will have as it builds its own sphere of activity. 

The West needs to be able to keep the doors open and cultivate access in Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, while also anticipating that Putin will be keeping a close watch. Crucially, Western policymakers need to remember that without encouraging key countries such as China, India, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to support their strategy, their plans to contain this “transformed” Russia will be difficult to achieve. 

Authors

Guest Author

Sophia Nina Burna-Asefi

Sophia Nina Burna-Asefi is a consultant for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, working on transport and energy projects in South and Central Asia. Sophia is also the founder and editor of Train of Thought, a project that produces monthly analysis on major railways and transport corridor projects in Russia, and South and Central Asia and their implications for Western policymakers and businesses. She has lived and worked in region for over a decade. 

13. Putin Parades China, North Korea Ties in Victory Day Show of Force

​Remember that these relationships are based on fear, weakness, desperation, and envy.

Video at the lnk.

Putin Parades China, North Korea Ties in Victory Day Show of Force

Moscow used a World War II commemoration to signal to Washington that Russia can be a helpful ally—or a fearsome foe

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-putin-victory-day-world-leader-gathering-7c4e1954?mod=hp_lead_pos9

By Thomas Grove

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May 9, 2025 8:13 am ET

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Foreign leaders, including Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, attended celebrations to commemorate Moscow’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Photo: Sergey Bobylev for Ria Novosti/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Vladimir Putin hosted the largest gathering of foreign leaders since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as the Russian president put on a display of military might to celebrate the Soviet Union’s defeat of the Nazis in World War II.

Putin drew parallels between Moscow’s war in Ukraine and World War II, as he delivered a speech to assembled world leaders in Red Square, covered in celebratory red banners. He has cast the invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” to root out Nazis there—a narrative that has been widely rejected internationally as a false justification for an imperialistic war.

“Truth and justice are on our side,” he said. “The entire country, the society, the people, support the participants in the special military operation.”

Putin also acknowledged the contributions of allied countries in World War II, but put them in the shadow of the battles the Soviet Union won against invading Nazi troops.

Moscow’s current backers took center stage on Friday. The celebrations included a parade, with Chinese troops marching alongside Russian soldiers and Iran’s Shahed drones on display, along with Russian tanks and missiles. Putin shook hands with five North Korean officers at the parade, including three generals that South Korea’s spy agency said were leading the thousands of troops fighting alongside Russians.

Russian drones were paraded during the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow’s Red Square. Photo: handout/epa-efe/shutterstock/Shutterstock

The celebrations took place in the shadow of growing violence between Russia and Ukraine. Kyiv has sent waves of drones into Russia in recent days, disrupting the arrival of some international leaders to Moscow.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said Russia wasn’t adhering to a cease-fire that Putin had called for from May 8-10, with its forces firing on civilian targets Friday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the purported cease-fire a “theatrical performance.”

The events in Red Square were an attempt at a diplomatic show of force for Putin, who has worked to defy Western efforts to isolate him. His guest list included leaders from Venezuela, Cuba and Vietnam, as well as a host of former Soviet states.

The Trump administration, which has raised the prospect of a rapprochement with Moscow as part of a peace agreement, has recently signaled frustration with Russian intransigence in the conflict. The Kremlin wants to underscore for Washington that it is still a powerful player on the world stage that could be a dangerous enemy or a potentially useful partner with ties to many countries.

“Putin wants to show that Russia is an important and well-connected player in the world and that cooperating with Moscow could help Trump,” said Vasily Kashin, director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics. “On the other hand, having Russia as an enemy is dangerous.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping stood next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the parade. Photo: handout/epa-efe/shutterstock/Shutterstock

Russia’s Victory Day celebrations took place in the shadow of growing violence in the Ukraine war. Photo: handout/epa-efe/shutterstock/Shutterstock

Xi’s presence in Red Square as part of a four-day trip to Moscow was a huge show of support for Russia, whose great-power status has increasingly slipped in recent years as the Kremlin’s attention has narrowed to its war in Ukraine. China has provided economic and diplomatic support to Russia and has remained a crucial conduit for dual-use goods deployed on the front lines.

Attendance at the parade has become a divisive issue in the European Union. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico made it to Moscow after blaming Estonia for denying his plane permission to transit to reach the parade. 

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the allied victory over Nazi Germany, and celebrations were staged across Russia’s 11 time zones and in occupied Ukraine. In the days and weeks leading up to the holiday, authorities have launched festivities with World War II trivia competitions for schoolchildren, Victory Day themed events at private shooting ranges and plays and musicals put on by theaters in Moscow and beyond.

“What we’re still seeing is a Russian fixation on pageantry, and there are people on the hook to deliver a big party, and that’s what they’re going to,” said Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees research on Russia and Eurasia. 

In the towns and cities of Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia provinces, Russian soldiers put on celebrations, singing World War II songs and distributing flowers to residents. In Krasnodar, in southern Russia near the border with Ukraine, children dressed up in World War II era uniforms took part in a military-themed parade, while parents and onlookers looked on filming and clapping.

Russian military jets flew over Red Square. Photo: handout/epa-efe/shutterstock/Shutterstock

Members of the Egyptian Armed Forces took part in the parade. Photo: handout/epa-efe/shutterstock/Shutterstock

World War II, or the Great Patriotic War as it is known in Russia, remains a powerful event in the country’s collective memory. Many families can recite the names of forebears who died in the conflict, either on the front line or as a result of the Nazi invasion. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in the war and Russian historians count nearly 9 million military casualties. 

While Russia takes credit for defeating the Nazis, some historians blame the Kremlin under Stalin for contributing to the outbreak of World War II by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler in 1939.

The holiday, which had stopped and started at different times during the Soviet Union, has become a defining feature of Putin’s reign. The Russian leader has sought to celebrate the Kremlin’s own version of history, and justify the costly war in Ukraine and ramped-up military spending. 

“It is so awfully disconnected from the Second World War,” said Sergey Radchenko, a Cold War scholar and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “It’s about today’s regime, Putin’s various conquests and the Kremlin’s legitimacy.”

The parade on May 9 has always been a show of the Kremlin’s military might, but this year Russia’s soaring arms production allowed Putin to showcase more weapons on the streets of Moscow than at any other time during the Ukraine war. Those included tanks and Russia’s hypersonic missiles. Russian drones, which are playing a huge role on the battlefield, were paraded through Red Square together with their operators.

“Their production is way up,” said Rob Lee, a Russian military analyst and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a foreign-policy think tank. “They want to show it off.”

Write to Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com

14. Could Taiwan Survive an EMP Attack by China?

​Is any country prepared for an EMP attack?

Excerpts:

The layered missile defense network, hardening initiatives, energy grid reforms, and increased emergency preparedness in the communication sector are enhancing Taiwan’s overall EMP resilience. Yet there remain significant gaps in this defensive posture. The last three defense measures are reactive rather than preventive, as they only help mitigate the large-scale consequences of an EMP strike instead of offering a direct defense against the attacks. Moreover, Taiwan’s current SAM systems are ineffective at intercepting HEMPs, while the hardening of civilian infrastructure is well below military standards. 

Addressing these vulnerabilities will be costly and out of reach for Taiwan in the near future. There currently aren’t any effective missile defense measures that can intercept HEMPs at the high altitudes where they detonate, and China’s rapid development of maneuverable missile systems capable of carrying HPMs only adds to these difficulties. 

Hardening critical infrastructures nationally to withstand military grade EMPs would also be expensive. To cite an example from the United States, the proposed 2025 South Carolina House Bill H. 4954, aimed at hardening the energy grid to EMPs, estimates this would cost the state of South Carolina $910 million over a ten-year period to carry through. If Taiwan pursued a similar hardening initiative, the costs would likely be a few billion dollars due to the larger size of its energy grid. Taiwan has four times the number of substations and close to four times the length of transmission lines as South Carolina. 

Although this may appear costly, compared to the large sums spent on conventional capabilities – such as the 66 F-16 fighter jets Taiwan purchased from the U.S. at a cost of $ 7.7 billion – the price appears more reasonable. Taiwan could potentially harden its entire energy grid for less than what it is spending on the F-16s.

Moreover, an advantage for policymakers supporting EMP defenses is that most of the measures listed in this article are dual-purpose, addressing many conventional and non-conflict threats. SAMs defend against all missiles, not just ones bearing EMP weapons. Decentralizing the energy grid would also help mitigate major blackouts caused by earthquakes, and alternative communication channels are critical during telecommunication disruptions caused by typhoons. Therefore, EMP resilience can be integrated into a broader preparedness framework, making it more likely to garner support and funding. 

Taiwan is moving in the right direction regarding EMP preparedness. President Lai Ching-te has made clear that his administration is focused on developing asymmetric capabilities, elevating a growing group of national security leaders advocating a shift away from the costly conventional platforms and strategies of the past. Although the EMP threat remains overlooked, with this fundamental shift toward asymmetric defense policy, it seems more likely than ever that Taiwan will finally attempt to address this threat in the near future.  

Could Taiwan Survive an EMP Attack by China? 

China’s electromagnetic pulse weapons are an increasing concern, but Taiwan remains underprepared for the threat.

https://thediplomat.com/2025/05/could-taiwan-survive-an-emp-attack-by-china/

By Tin Pak and Yu-cheng Chen

May 07, 2025

Credit: Depositphotos

In 2017, China began fielding an array of high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons that emit electromagnetic pulses (EMP) capable of disabling electronic systems. According to a RAND report, about 90 percent of HPM-related patents globally are owned by China-affiliated organizations, indicating continued advances in the precision and power of their HPM capabilities. These HPMs can be fitted onto land vehicles, aircraft, naval vessels, and cruise missiles. 

Additionally, China’s high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) – a nuclear warhead delivered with a missile that emits waves of EMPs when detonated above a target – arsenal is set to expand as China pursues an ambitious nuclear modernization program aimed at doubling its nuclear arsenal by 2035. 

Both HPMs and HEMPs are capable of disabling or destroying electronic equipment integrated into practically every sort of critical infrastructure, placing essential services such as water purification, hospitals, telecommunications, and transportation at risk of paralysis.

These advanced weapon systems have become a critical component of China’s “informatized” warfare strategy that guides its overall warfighting doctrine, according to the Science of Military Strategy, one of the Central Military Commission’s core strategic documents. Under this strategy, China seeks to dominate the cyber and electromagnetic domain by quickly disabling essential military and civilian electronic systems. 

When paired with major advances in China’s hypersonic cruise missiles capable of delivering EMP warheads, China will soon be able to disable large parts of Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, paving the way for further conventional attacks. Facing this threat, it is important to evaluate Taiwan’s existing resilience to EMP attacks and how current preparedness measures align with China’s capabilities.

Missile Defense

Taiwan fields a range of surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems capable of intercepting HEMP and missile-borne HPMs. Taiwan currently deploys three types of indigenous SAMs: the Tien Kung 2, 3, and 4 (the older Tien Kung 1 is being decommissioned). Hundreds of Tien Kung 2 and 3 missiles are stationed mainly along the west coast and outlying islands.

The exact capabilities of these SAMs are classified, and estimates are conflicting. According to Open Nuclear Network and the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, the maximum range of both the Tien Kung 2 and 3 missiles is between 70 and 160 kilometers. Regarding the maximum interception altitude for the Tien Kung 3, this is placed at 30 kilometers by the Open Nuclear Network and at 45 kilometers by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology. The Tien Kung 4, which passed initial combat tests in 2023, is being integrated into Taiwan’s SAM network at an undisclosed pace and can reportedly intercept threats up to 70 km altitude.

Additionally, Taiwan currently fields an estimated 380 PAC-3 and 200 PAC-2 air defense missiles purchased from the United States in various configurations. It is estimated that the most advanced version of the PAC-3 has a range of 70 kilometers and a maximum interception altitude of 24 kilometers. Earlier this year, Taiwan signed a $761 million deal with the U.S. for a National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) defense package set for delivery in 2030. According to a U.S. Congressional report, NASAMS is reported to have a 40 kilometer range. Its maximum interception altitude is estimated to be 15 kilometers, according to the Global Security think tank.

Few of these SAMs can intercept HEMPs across the spectrum of effective altitudes that HEMPs would likely detonate at – between 20 and 50 kilometers, according to a U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency report. Additionally, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has a large arsenal of maneuverable missile systems attached to multiple reentry vehicles and has been developing hypersonic cruise missiles, likely capable of carrying HPMs and HEMPs, that could overwhelm and evade Taiwan’s SAMs. Therefore, SAM systems are not a definitive defensive measure against HEMPs and missile-borne HPMs, and alternative resilience-building measures should be pursued.

Hardening

Taiwan’s military standard for electromagnetic hardening requires critical systems to withstand an EMP of at least 1 gigahertz in frequency and 80 decibels in intensity. This standard is borrowed from the U.S. Department of Defense regulation MIL-STD-188-125-1. This level of EMP protection primarily defends against the ultrawideband HEMP attacks, which are of a lower frequency than HPMs. Therefore, facilities designated as “hardened” under this regulation are still likely vulnerable to these higher-frequency attacks. 

The exact extent of hardening across military facilities is classified. According to open-source intelligence, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) has recently undertaken initiatives to harden certain critical military facilities. In 2023, the MND installed defensive measures at New Taipei City’s Sanzhi Naval Base to guard it against EMP attacks, including shielded rooms made of six-sided double-layer zinc-plated steel walls built to withstand the 1 gigahertz level EMP attacks. The Sanzhi Naval Base is affiliated with the Haifeng Brigade, an anti-ship missile unit set to incorporate Harpoon anti-ship missiles from the U.S. into their force, making it a critical unit for repelling a PLA amphibious assault. The Heng Shan Military Command Center, the Air Force Combatant Command, Chiashan Air Force Base, and the Shizishan facility at Chihhang Air Base are also reported to have installed EMP protection measures.

In the civilian sector, Taiwan’s Bureau of Standards, Metrology, and Inspection inspects over 1,065 electronic goods across all industries to ensure that they abide by the International Electro-technical Commission’s (IEC) EMP protection standards. The IEC advises that electronic devices should withstand electric fast transient and lightning-induced transient pulses, which are approximately 30 decibels strong. This level of protection is half that of the military standard of 80 decibels, so it would not defend well against high-intensity EMPs from either HEMPs or HPMs. 

Energy Grid Reform

As a highly modernized society, Taiwan relies deeply on electricity to sustain its critical infrastructures, including water supply, communications, healthcare, and transportation. Therefore, EMP strikes targeting the island’s energy generation and transmission systems could trigger widespread blackouts and system paralysis, severely undermining national stability. In response, Taiwan’s efforts to enhance grid resilience through energy grid reforms are crucial in mitigating the strategic risks of EMP attacks.

Following a major blackout in 2022, Taipower initiated a ten-year, $18 billion Grid Resilience Strengthening Construction Plan. The primary aim of the plan is to decentralize the electric grid by developing clusters of microgrids powered by locally generated energy sources. The plan also intends to direct the installation of more switching yards at critical substations and construct more power distribution nodes to isolate threats quickly. 

Taipower’s decentralizing efforts are building off Taiwan’s 2016 Electricity Act, aimed at diversifying Taiwan’s energy supply. The Electricity Act incentivized greater investments in renewable energy, stating that “priority shall be given to connecting and dispatching renewable energy.” Accordingly, Taipower seeks to shift energy production toward renewable sources such as solar, hydro, and wind. This energy diversification will lessen the nation’s reliance on a small number of fossil fuel power plants, reducing the risk of systemic and prolonged blackouts caused by natural disasters or attacks. 

These energy reforms will greatly enhance Taiwan’s energy grid resilience to EMP attacks by making it more difficult for the PLA to target centralized nodes throughout the grid to set off cascading blackouts. Instead, regions would be more self-sufficient in energy production, creating a more resilient grid nationwide. 

Communication Infrastructure Resilience

Another target for China’s EMP attacks would be communication infrastructure, as the disabling of telecommunications and networked devices would reduce military operational effectiveness and degrade governmental services. 

Facing these threats, Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) has been leading initiatives to ensure communication infrastructures remain functional in the event of a disaster or conflict. In addition to building redundancies into their networks, specifically for undersea cables, and improving repair times, a significant aspect of their efforts has been developing alternative communication channels that can be relied upon once traditional channels falter. For instance, MODA seeks to establish non-geostationary orbit satellites as an emergency communication network. In 2024, Taiwan’s largest telecommunication company, Chunghwa, and a U.K.-European company, Eutelsat OneWeb, signed an agreement to deploy low-earth-orbit satellites, similar to Starlink, over Taiwan in 2026. 

MODA has also established a Public Protection and Disaster Relief communication system that prioritizes access to telecom services for critical government personnel. Under this program, special SIM cards are distributed to emergency responders and other essential personnel, who will be given special access to services from surviving base stations during a large-scale emergency when standard telecommunications are disrupted. 

These emergency measures significantly strengthen Taiwan’s resilience by improving preparedness for disruptions to communication infrastructure in the event of EMP attacks. 

Moving Forward

The layered missile defense network, hardening initiatives, energy grid reforms, and increased emergency preparedness in the communication sector are enhancing Taiwan’s overall EMP resilience. Yet there remain significant gaps in this defensive posture. The last three defense measures are reactive rather than preventive, as they only help mitigate the large-scale consequences of an EMP strike instead of offering a direct defense against the attacks. Moreover, Taiwan’s current SAM systems are ineffective at intercepting HEMPs, while the hardening of civilian infrastructure is well below military standards. 

Addressing these vulnerabilities will be costly and out of reach for Taiwan in the near future. There currently aren’t any effective missile defense measures that can intercept HEMPs at the high altitudes where they detonate, and China’s rapid development of maneuverable missile systems capable of carrying HPMs only adds to these difficulties. 

Hardening critical infrastructures nationally to withstand military grade EMPs would also be expensive. To cite an example from the United States, the proposed 2025 South Carolina House Bill H. 4954, aimed at hardening the energy grid to EMPs, estimates this would cost the state of South Carolina $910 million over a ten-year period to carry through. If Taiwan pursued a similar hardening initiative, the costs would likely be a few billion dollars due to the larger size of its energy grid. Taiwan has four times the number of substations and close to four times the length of transmission lines as South Carolina. 

Although this may appear costly, compared to the large sums spent on conventional capabilities – such as the 66 F-16 fighter jets Taiwan purchased from the U.S. at a cost of $ 7.7 billion – the price appears more reasonable. Taiwan could potentially harden its entire energy grid for less than what it is spending on the F-16s.

Moreover, an advantage for policymakers supporting EMP defenses is that most of the measures listed in this article are dual-purpose, addressing many conventional and non-conflict threats. SAMs defend against all missiles, not just ones bearing EMP weapons. Decentralizing the energy grid would also help mitigate major blackouts caused by earthquakes, and alternative communication channels are critical during telecommunication disruptions caused by typhoons. Therefore, EMP resilience can be integrated into a broader preparedness framework, making it more likely to garner support and funding. 

Taiwan is moving in the right direction regarding EMP preparedness. President Lai Ching-te has made clear that his administration is focused on developing asymmetric capabilities, elevating a growing group of national security leaders advocating a shift away from the costly conventional platforms and strategies of the past. Although the EMP threat remains overlooked, with this fundamental shift toward asymmetric defense policy, it seems more likely than ever that Taiwan will finally attempt to address this threat in the near future.  

Authors

Guest Author

Tin Pak

Tin Pak is a researcher at the Institute of National Defense and Security Research and a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, Fu Hsing Kang College, National Defense University (Taiwan).

Guest Author

Yu-cheng Chen

Yu-cheng Chen is an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, Fu Hsing Kang College, National Defense University (Taiwan). He is also a member of the Research Project on China’s Defense Affairs.

​15. China’s Exports to U.S. Plunge, in Sign of Bite From Trump Tariffs

​When will we see major shortages and significant higher prices?

China’s Exports to U.S. Plunge, in Sign of Bite From Trump Tariffs

The drop in U.S.-bound shipments was offset by a surge in Chinese goods to Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/chinas-export-growth-remained-resilient-in-april-00bf93a6?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Hannah Miao

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Updated May 9, 2025 12:21 am ET

Workers load goods for export on a container at a logistics hub in China’s Zhejiang province. Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

China said exports to the U.S. plunged in April, as the Trump administration’s tariff assault forced the world’s second-largest economy to redirect more of its goods to Southeast Asia, Latin America, Europe and Africa.

Overall, China said its export growth demonstrated surprising resilience last month, with the headline figure showing exports rising 8.1% in dollar-denominated terms in April from a year earlier.

But beneath that rosy number was a marked shift in the composition of outbound shipments from China, which has spent the past three decades building up its status as the world’s factory floor.

Chinese shipment of goods to the U.S. dropped 21% in April from a year earlier, while exports to the bloc of Southeast Asian nations known as Asean surged 21%, according to official trade figures released Friday by China’s General Administration of Customs. Exports to Latin America jumped 17%, while shipments to Africa soared 25%, the data showed. Chinese exports to the European Union rose 8.3%.

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The figures underscore the degree to which U.S. tariffs on China, which have been cranked up by 145% in President Trump’s first three months in office, have altered the global trade map.

U.S. and Chinese officials are set to meet in Switzerland this weekend to talk, potentially paving the way for broader trade negotiations. Both U.S. and Chinese officials have indicated that the key objective for the weekend meeting is to de-escalate tensions amid what some White House officials have described as a total trade embargo between the two countries.

The figures for April represent China’s first release of official trade numbers since Trump ratcheted up tariffs on all Chinese goods by a cumulative 125% in a series of actions throughout April, on top of 20% levies placed on the country for its role in the fentanyl trade. Later in the month, he exempted smartphones and other electronics goods, many of which are made in China.

China imposed a 125% across-the-board tariff on U.S. goods in retaliation.

A cargo dock at Qingdao Port in east China. Photo: Li Ziheng/Zuma Press

In March, Chinese shipments to the U.S. had risen 9.1% from a year earlier, in what was likely an attempt to get ahead of the tariff increases that Trump had telegraphed for early April. Overall, Chinese exports to the U.S. during the first four months of the year fell 2.5% from the same period in 2024.

April’s headline export growth of 8.1% marked a slowdown from the 12.4% year-over-year rate reported in March, but it far outpaces the 2.5% growth rate that economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected.

Economists expect China’s exports to be impacted further in the coming months. A gauge of new export orders fell in April to its lowest reading since 2022. Goldman Sachs and S&P Global project that China’s exports could fall 5% this year.

Such a contraction would make it harder for China to meet its official target for gross domestic product to grow by about 5% this year. Last year, exports made up roughly one-third of China’s GDP growth, according to official data. Many economists are expecting China’s GDP growth this year to be closer to 4% or lower.

As the picture darkens for Chinese trade, the country’s central bank unveiled new measures on Wednesday designed to bolster the economy, the first concrete efforts from Beijing to support growth since Trump’s tariffs hit in April. The central bank said it would cut interest rates and inject more liquidity into the financial system. Beijing late last month pledged to implement measures to counter the challenge from the tariffs.

Meanwhile, trade talks have started to move forward after what appeared to be a prolonged standoff. Beijing’s outreach to Washington over fentanyl created an opening for trade talks between the two nations, the Journal has reported.

U.S. companies are complaining about soon-to-be empty store shelves, while factories in China are pausing production and some are putting workers on leave. Goldman Sachs has estimated that 16 million jobs in China are involved in the production of exports to the U.S., which would be jeopardized by a prolonged trade impasse.

The full tariff blow hasn’t yet shown up in China’s official economic statistics. Government data show China’s economy expanded 5.4% in the first three months of the year, boosted by a rush of exports as companies frontloaded orders in anticipation of higher tariffs.

Some analysts think China’s overall exports might yet remain resilient as some Chinese manufacturers look to other countries to reroute U.S.-bound goods to, especially countries that are currently enjoying a 90-day pause on “reciprocal” tariffs from the U.S. China’s exports to countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia surged by 23%, 28% and 37% respectively in April, compared with a year earlier.

At Dongguan City Jiaheng Toys, which makes products like frisbees and wiffle balls, U.S.-bound orders have more than halved for goods made in the company’s Chinese factories, while demand to move production to the manufacturer’s Vietnam factory has increased, according to salesperson Tian Jing.

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President Trump answered reporter questions on tariffs ahead of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s meeting with Chinese officials in Switzerland. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The manufacturer opened a factory in northern Vietnam in 2020 in response to tariffs during Trump’s first term. Now, Jiaheng Toys is building a bigger factory to move more manufacturing to Vietnam. The facility is expected to be finished around August.

For Sanmei Group, a maker of artificial plants and home decor with factories in southern China, orders from U.S. clients have been put on hold almost entirely, according to Cora Lei, a business manager. Those U.S. customers are asking Sanmei to move production to Vietnam, where the company is currently setting up a factory.

“It prompted us to speed up our operation,” said Lei of the tariffs.

In a sign of persistent weakness in domestic demand, China’s imports slipped 0.2% in April from the year prior, compared with a 4.3% drop in March.

That put China’s trade surplus at $96.18 billion in April, narrowing from the previous month’s $102.64 billion surplus.

Grace Zhu and Xiao Xiao contributed to this article.

Write to Hannah Miao at hannah.miao@wsj.com

16. How Putin Keeps Russia’s Battle-Hardened Veterans on His Side

How Putin Keeps Russia’s Battle-Hardened Veterans on His Side

Stalin feared them, but Vladimir Putin has learned to harness soldiers returning from Ukraine as a valuable base of support

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-putin-war-veterans-17ab4fd9

By Matthew Luxmoore

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Updated May 9, 2025 7:06 am ET

Russian servicemen took part in the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on Friday. Photo: handout/epa-efe/shutterstock/Shutterstock

Maj. Amyr Argamakov has commanded a military unit in Chechnya, served in Syria, overseen a battalion in Ukraine, and taken part in three World War II Victory Day parades in Moscow’s Red Square.

Now he has been thrust into a career in Russian politics.

The 30-year-old veteran is part of a growing crop of Russian soldiers who have been tapped to fill a wave of government positions after serving in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin describes them as a battle-hardened cohort who “will not back down, will not deceive, and will not betray,” while his deputies enlist them to lend a veneer of valor to their own political careers.

The veterans’ faces adorn billboards that line city thoroughfares. They are invited to give lectures at schools, some of which have been renamed in their honor. TV hosts extol their exploits on the front lines, ushering them into television studios to rapturous applause.

“Man is made not for peace, but for war,” state TV anchor Vladimir Solovyov said on one such show last year, echoing a sentiment that has gained mainstream appeal despite the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Russians in Ukraine.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin shakes hands with Maj. Amyr Argamakov, a war veteran who now has a political career. Photo: Dmitry Astakhov/TASS/Zuma Press

The war has transformed the perception of military service in Russia, which was long considered a refuge for the uneducated, unskilled and otherwise unemployable. Serving in the army now provides such a social lift that Russian celebrities travel to occupied parts of Ukraine to post photographs of themselves as evidence that they are helping the war effort, or to mend reputations tarnished by public scandal.

This elevation of Russia’s veterans aims to raise the prestige of military service and encourage more people to enlist. It also reflects Putin’s desire to head off any trouble from returning servicemen, many of whom might be traumatized by their experiences at the front. Some who have fought in Ukraine have committed violent crimes upon their return home.

“Veterans are a thorn in the side for any authorities, even if you have a victorious war,” said Russian political analyst Ekaterina Schulmann. “But especially if you don’t.”

For Argamakov—a member of the indigenous Altai ethnic group who grew up in a tiny, remote Siberian village on Russia’s borders with China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan—the route to national prominence began in the North Caucasus region, where he started his military service in 2013. He later served in Syria as part of Russia’s military intervention to shore up the regime of Bashar al-Assad in 2018.

Investigators at a crime scene in Derevyannoye, Russia. One of the suspects had been freed from a maximum-security prison to fight in Ukraine. Photo: Russian Investigative Committee/Zuma Press

Last year, after commanding a combined arms battalion in Ukraine, he was awarded the Hero of Russia medal, the country’s highest military award. In a speech after his return home, he insisted he’s “just a normal guy.”

When a close Putin ally became governor of Argamakov’s native Altai region, he took Argamakov under his wing and appointed him senator for the republic. Argamakov replaced his military fatigues with a navy-colored suit, and became a regular at parliamentary sessions in Moscow, stumbling through speeches about patriotism and service to the Motherland.

“Politics was never my goal,” Argamakov said in a telephone interview shortly after his appointment. “But I have a sense that I must be of use to my nation.”

Other veterans have been inducted into a Kremlin-managed program known as “Time of Heroes” which is designed as an explicit attempt to fast-track serving soldiers and Ukraine war veterans into government positions.

“Those who filled their pockets at the expense of our economy in the 1990s are definitely not the elite,” Putin said at its launch, railing against oligarchs who snapped up key enterprises in the post-Soviet years and whose names are now a byword for corruption. “The real, genuine elite are all those who serve Russia.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin at a ‘Time of Heroes’ event last year. Photo: alexander kazakov/Reuters

‘Time of Heroes’ is a Kremlin-managed program to fast-track serving soldiers and Ukraine war veterans into government positions. Photo: Alexander Kazakov/Zuma Press

A first batch of 83 soldiers was enrolled on a master’s degree in management and then on internships at government agencies. At its conclusion, they were handed jobs in local and national government.

One graduate, a former commander in east Ukraine, now serves as a presidential envoy for Putin. Another is the governor of the Tambov region south of Moscow. A third was appointed this week as labor minister in a southern Russian region, despite being accused by Kyiv of war crimes in Ukraine.

“Time of Heroes” graduates are paraded on state TV and lauded at banquet dinners. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, told them in November: “We understand the importance of what you do.” On Friday, Argamakov and other veterans stood in their uniforms in Red Square as Putin praised them and other servicemen at Russia’s World War II Victory Day parade.

The selection process is vigorously vetted. Only those with a higher education are chosen and any hint of disagreement with Putin’s leadership is snuffed out, contrasting sharply with purges in the military that followed a rebellion led by paramilitary founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who later died in a plane crash.

Analysts say Putin has learned lessons from Russia’s past.

The political risk posed by returning veterans was such that after World War II, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin decided to keep many of them abroad. He extended mobilization orders for years to prevent millions from coming home. And for almost a decade, celebrations of the Soviet victory over Hitler’s forces were banned, in a bid to prevent veterans from amassing a following or forging close bonds.

A screen promoting Russia’s armed forces in Moscow. Photo: yulia morozova/Reuters

In the 1980s and early 1990s, returning veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan were often treated as second-class citizens. There was almost no psychological support and widespread stigma about the wounded, a trend that is showing few signs of improvement today. Some veterans ended up organizing into political factions that sought to challenge Soviet rule, and accelerated its collapse.

“When soldiers start coming back, they will be earning less money and will receive none of the respect they expected from society. More likely they will be feared and distrusted by their neighbors,” said Schulmann, the political scientist. “To pre-emptively lessen that tension, the authorities need to create the impression that many positive things are happening.”

Crucially, Putin appears to be trying to ensure that the latest crop of returning soldiers will remain loyal to the Kremlin, and prevent them from becoming a political force down the road.

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Argamakov might be a good example. Despite his stratospheric rise, he has had little real influence on politics so far. But it is men like him, who come from humble beginnings and lack the charisma of the likes of Prigozhin, who are the main beneficiaries of the new mood in the country—chiefly because they openly support Putin and his moves to put Russia’s economy on a war footing.

Indeed, Argamakov said his goals as senator are modest. He wants to help soldiers on the front line and improve the lives of people back in Altai, much of whose population still live below the poverty line.

Last year, he visited his hometown school and praised his old teachers in an address to pupils. Not long after, a banner with his face was draped over the building’s facade. Large red letters spelled out the words: “Our Compatriot.”

Write to Matthew Luxmoore at matthew.luxmoore@wsj.com

Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the May 9, 2025, print edition as 'Putin Elevates Russia Veterans To Maintain Their Allegiance'.

17. China to Crack Down on Rare-Earth Materials Ahead of U.S. Trade Talks

China to Crack Down on Rare-Earth Materials Ahead of U.S. Trade Talks

Authorities pledged to step up the enforcement of export controls on strategic mineral resources

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/china-to-crack-down-on-rare-earth-materials-ahead-of-u-s-trade-talks-c41adffe

May 9, 2025 6:57 am ET

Chinese authorities on Friday pledged to step up the enforcement of export controls on strategic mineral resources. Photo: go nakamura/Reuters

China has announced a crackdown on the smuggling of critical minerals, coming just one day before trade talks with the U.S., in which rare earth restrictions could be on the table.

Chinese authorities–including ministries of commerce, public security and state security and customs–convened a meeting in the southern port city of Shenzhen on Friday. According to an official readout, the agencies pledged to step up the enforcement of export controls on strategic mineral resources.

Officials at the meeting said that since China implemented export controls on critical minerals such as gallium, germanium, antimony, tungsten and medium and heavy rare earths, some overseas entities have colluded with domestic actors and constantly updated their smuggling methods in an effort to evade enforcement. They did not specify which countries were involved.

China currently dominates global supply of many critical minerals and holds a near monopoly on the rare-earths industry, serving as the world’s leading miner, refiner and producer of rare earth magnets–essential components in a range of military and civilian technologies, including electric vehicles.

Beijing has been tightening its controls on the export of critical minerals and related technologies in recent years and has used such measures in retaliation against U.S. trade restrictions.

In December, following the Biden administration’s move to restrict China’s access to advanced memory chips vital to artificial intelligence applications, Beijing responded by banning the export of gallium, germanium, antimony and several other ultra-hard materials to the U.S. It also imposed stricter reviews on graphite exports.

In retaliation to President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs announced in April, Beijing imposed new export controls on rare-earth metals required for advanced defense systems such as missile-defense platforms, attack submarines and F-35 jets.

While the U.S. government has taken steps to reduce reliance on China–including the construction of new rare-earth processing and magnet-making facilities–progress has been slow. The U.S. remains heavily dependent on Chinese rare earths. This dependence is underscored by the Trump administration’s aggressive push for greater access to critical minerals–including nickel, lithium, cobalt, and graphite–in countries like Ukraine and Greenland.

Analysts expect Beijing to leverage its dominance and export control over critical minerals–particularly rare earths–as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with the U.S.

With senior officials from the world’s two largest economies set to meet in Switzerland this weekend, all eyes are on whether the two sides can reach an agreement on rare-earth relief measures for the U.S., in addition to potential tariff reductions.

Write to Singapore Editors at singaporeeditors@dowjones.com

18. Military AI: Angel of our Better Nature or Tool of Control?

​Thought provoking. I would not have thought to combine AI and My Lai to make the authors' point.

Excerpts:

That said, AI functioning as merely a coach may not be sufficient to prevent catastrophes like My Lai. What if a local commander ignored the Thompson drone’s order to stop attacking civilians, or fired on it to be rid of its pestering? To more effectively prevent a massacre, should humans be prevented from ignoring the Thompson drone?

The answers to these questions depend on the effectiveness of the drone in shaping outcomes. At a point, however, the ability to shape outcomes could come into tension with the agency of humans. In this sense, the military could face a critical tradeoff between enhancing operational effectiveness on the one hand, and preserving human agency and judgments on the ground, on the other. We aren’t advocating that the military grant AI greater discretion or more authority simply to enhance operational effectiveness. Rather, our aim is to encourage military leaders to carefully consider how their decisions to employ AI might affect the independent decision making of their service members.

Military AI: Angel of our Better Nature or Tool of Control? - War on the Rocks

Emelia Probasco and Minji Jang

warontherocks.com · by Emelia Probasco · May 9, 2025

March 16, 1968, is one of the darkest days in U.S. military history. On that day, the soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, who had suffered dozens of casualties in the campaign against the Viet Cong, assaulted the village of My Lai. Under the command of Lieutenant William Calley, the soldiers attacked the village based on faulty intelligence about the location of a Viet Cong unit. Instead of the expected enemy, they found local civilians, mostly old men, women, and children. In the end, a U.S. Army investigation found that C Company soldiers “massacred a large number of noncombatants” and committed torture, rape, and infanticide. The precise number of Vietnamese killed was between 175 and 500 people.

While it is difficult to believe, the My Lai massacre would have been worse had it not been interrupted by a U.S. Army helicopter crew led by then-Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr. Thompson witnessed the actions of C Company soldiers while circling above the village. At several points during the massacre, Thompson landed his helicopter to help the locals in an attempt to stop the killing, challenging Calley’s orders directly.

Now imagine a future battlefield, with soldiers as emotionally charged or misguided as those under Calley’s command. But on this future battlefield, Hugh Thompson’s counterpart might not be there. Instead, a drone will likely be flying overhead.

Could that drone play the same role as Hugh Thompson did in the My Lai massacre? This is a complex question military leaders must begin to confront.

While such a drone — let’s call it a Thompson drone — is not possible today, it is increasingly plausible. Infantry units are already training with drones to support ground assaults. Computer vision algorithms on drones are being advertised as able to distinguish unarmed civilians from combatants. And those same drones could use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to convey information about civilians or combatants to troops on the ground, either via text message or with increasingly realistic voices. It is therefore plausible that a future Thompson drone could be deployed to support military operations and intervene in a ground assault by communicating information in a way that could prevent or stop violations of the Law of Armed Conflict, the Geneva Conventions, and local rules of engagement.

Putting aside current technical capabilities and limitations of drones for the moment, our hypothetical Thompson drone should prompt us to consider the relationship between increasingly capable AI and humans engaged in armed conflict. What if AI could coach soldiers through difficult situations like My Lai? Does it mean we should consider AI to be not just a mere tool, but a coach instead? Or is “coach” too soft a concept? Could there be a potential role for AI as an “enforcer” of the principles regulating the professional conduct of armed conflict and the protection of civilians?

The discretion granted to drones and the relative agency retained by humans will determine whether an AI-enabled military system has the role of tool, coach, or enforcer. Future military commanders will increasingly face difficult decisions about employing AI as a tool, coach, or enforcer, and should thus think carefully about the ethical implications of each of the three roles.

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Thinking About AI as a Tool or as a Coach

A dominant interpretation of an AI system is that it functions merely as a tool. AI can be directed to follow a specific order and serve a specific purpose set by humans for their own benefit. In this sense, it is like using a hammer to drive a nail into a wall, rather than using your fist. The remit is narrow and the goal well-specified. Examples of tools could include target recognition algorithms or AI-enhanced missile defense. If a drone was just a way to conduct aerial surveillance or to provide a communications relay, it too could be considered a tool.

Our hypothetical Thompson drone, however, would have a larger remit and be allowed to arbitrate among “local” or “global” goals. Local goals in this case are short-term objectives tied to missions, sub-tasks, or decision points within a larger operation. These are often instrumental steps toward achieving global goals — high-level, overarching objectives that guide an entire operation. The discretion to arbitrate among local or global goals involves shaping these objectives or determining their relative priority when they come into conflict.

For instance, in sending a message to Lieutenant Calley that directly conflicts with his actions or stated intent, the Thompson drone engages in the arbitration of both global and local goals. At the global level, it weighs the overarching objective of destroying the enemy and protecting friendly forces against protecting non-combatants, and makes a recommendation on their relative priority for the unit. At the local level, the drone must navigate more immediate tasks, like temporarily halting fire while reassessing information.

Regardless of local or global goals, an AI with the discretion to recommend a wide range of options is much more than a simple tool, especially when it involves shaping and arbitrating among goals. For example, an alarm clock can effectively interfere with a person’s desire to sleep more, at least when they’re sound asleep in the morning. Yet, we wouldn’t think that an alarm clock is more than a useful tool for simply waking up on time for work. By contrast, what if an AI-enabled alarm clock went beyond simple ringing and instead recommended you get a new job that starts later in the day? An alarm with such discretion would be more like a coach than a mere tool. Accordingly, we can think of AI with limited or low discretion over arbitrating goals as a tool and AI with greater discretion over tasks as a coach.

Human Agency and the Distinction Between Coach and Enforcer

While the discretion of AI may delineate its role as a tool from that of a coach, it is crucial to consider the role of a human in relation to the AI. Here, we must bring in the concept of human agency — specifically, the agency a human has to ignore or contradict an AI system.

First, to explain what we mean by human agency, recall the example of an alarm clock that can interfere with a human’s intent to sleep but can also be snoozed, turned off, or thrown at a wall. Similarly, our hypothetical Thompson drone could easily interfere with human decision-making by, for example, presenting overhead imagery of civilians or sending persistent alerts. The Thompson drone could even assess the mental state of the soldiers on the ground and tune its communications accordingly. If these messages can be ignored or countermanded, much like a personal trainer’s instructions to exercise can be ignored, then the human has a high degree of agency relative to the AI coach.

But what if the unit incurred some consequence for ignoring the Thompson drone’s guidance? For example, what if the Thompson drone records the local commander’s decision to disregard the information and reports the violation to a higher headquarters? In this scenario, the human still has agency, though less than if the drone were merely relaying information to the soldiers on the ground. In these situations where humans have less agency, it is not like ignoring a personal trainer’s advice. Instead, it is more like disregarding a coach who could pull you off the field or kick you off the team.

Consider for a moment, however, what happened in My Lai:

[Hugh Thompson] tried to explain that these people appeared to be civilians, that we hadn’t taken any fire and there was no evidence of combatants in that area. The lieutenant [Calley] told him to mind his own business and get out of the way. They were face to face, screaming at each other. Hugh came back to the aircraft … He said: ‘They are coming this way. I’m going to go over to the bunker myself and get these people out. If they fire on these people, or fire on me while I’m doing that, shoot ’em!’

What if the Thompson drone had threatened the same? This would, rightly, give many commanders and soldiers pause. Humans on the ground would not be able to ignore or override the command of a drone that is ready to shoot. In this case, such a drone with lethal ability to enforce rules goes beyond the role of coach.

From this analysis, we find that an AI system that can enforce certain actions or decisions is not a coach but more closely resembles an “enforcer.” The dividing line between the status of an AI as a coach or as an enforcer hinges on the question of human agency. Where the human retains sufficient agency to disregard the AI, the AI functions as a coach. Where the human does not have agency to disregard the AI, the AI functions as an enforcer.

Of course, there is no clear dividing line between agency and no agency. Rather, human agency exists on a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum is an AI that only responds when prompted and can be ignored or disabled at the will of humans. At the other end of the spectrum is an AI that threatens to shoot if you do not follow its order. In between these two extremes there is a spectrum of different types of human-machine interactions with varying levels of human agency. There are also questions about which external factors might influence the exercise of human agency. For example, will humans be more hesitant to exercise their agency to ignore an AI recommendation if it is delivered through a human-like synthetic voice and anthropomorphized design, rather than a simple message displayed on a screen? Will humans be more inclined to heed the warning coming from a system labeled as an “expert advisor” than one called a “support tool,” even if it is an identical system? Would a persuasive chatbot reduce human agency? These are important questions, but beyond the scope of our analysis here.

Implications of Treating AI as a Tool, Coach, or Enforcer

U.S. military culture is accustomed to human coaches and technological tools, not technological coaches for human tools, much less AI systems as enforcers. In establishing an AI system as a tool, a coach, or an enforcer, militaries will be making choices that either conform with these cultural norms or begin to shift the norms entirely. Not all of these choices will be easy or straightforward.

Using AI as a tool to repel an incoming missile strike is a straightforward decision with historical precedent. The Department of Defense has established a policy on using autonomous and semi-autonomous functions in weapons systems. The narrow discretion allotted to the AI in tool-like employments can afford the human greater control over actions taken in specific conditions.

Granting wider discretion to AI, especially in shaping local and global goals for military operations, is more novel than using AI as a tool, though also not without precedent. For example, many U.S. servicemembers use apps that coach them toward fitness goals with motivational prompts. While less widespread, there are examples of emerging AI coaches. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency’s REASON project, for example, prompts intelligence analysts to seek out specific evidence to substantiate their conclusions or to consider alternative explanations. Moreover, a new class of AI-enabled decision support systems are emerging to coach military commanders through the decision-making process, especially at the operational level of war.

Further, as the sci-fi My Lai scenario suggests, there may be cases where AI could be used as an enforcer. It is unclear whether such a decision would be effective in reducing civilian harm — a topic worthy of investigation before our sci-fi scenario becomes reality. That said, no commander wants to be responsible for the willful killing of civilians. The My Lai massacre brought deep shame to the Army — which tried to cover it up — and became a global scandal still studied at military academies as a cautionary tale. The prospect of an AI backstop that a military commander could use to prevent or interrupt such a disaster has obvious appeal from both humanitarian and operational perspectives.

We have already shown how increasing AI discretion and reducing human agency shifts AI roles from tool to coach to enforcer. U.S. military leaders should therefore consider how AI system design and employment choices reflect their desire to use each role and their comfort level with the implications of that choice. Instructors in leadership and ethics should prompt conversations in their classrooms about what military leaders at all levels ought to consider in employing AI, including the potential implications for human agency. Theorists and ethicists, informed by AI researchers and developers, should offer their thoughts on the practical and ethical tradeoffs that commanders must consider between AI enforcement and servicemember agency. Program managers should reflect on ways to enable command discretion with respect to these technologies through training and human factors design choices. Technologists should consider their roles in both supporting these discussions and designing AI solutions and interfaces that will ethically serve operational goals. There is no clear line between “human agency” and “no human agency.” Even when AI coaches are easily ignored, the messages they send will influence human decision-making. That influence could be minor — a text message displayed on a screen — or more forceful, as in a loud voice on a radio or an emotionally manipulative message. These will be design choices made by technologists and commanders, and both should keep in mind the effects of such design decisions on the tool, coach, or enforcer framework.

Conclusion

Some may find a fictional Thompson drone which can override military orders under certain circumstances as infeasible because of long-established U.S. military principles of command, delegation, and human autonomy. However, there has been a steady diminution of individual unit independence and autonomy, going back to the installation of radios on navy warships and continuing through to the live streaming of combat operations.

Beyond the United States, our scenario may be even more realistic. Consider the Russian military’s embrace of algorithmic warfare and the struggles of China’s People’s Liberation Army in establishing competent and independent mid-level leaders. In both cases, there are signs that senior leaders might try to rely on technical systems to avoid relying on lower-level soldiers, who may lack training or good judgement.

Moreover, AI playing the role of a coach does not necessarily imply less agency for troops on the ground. The unit can still fully retain the ability to ignore or override recommendations made by an AI coach. In fact, the inclusion of an AI coach that can more effectively shape and arbitrate local and global goals might offer a way to support, rather than undermine, the continued exercise of autonomy and agency by the unit. What constitutes coaching and what might be considered AI manipulation is difficult to determine. Similarly, what might constitute human agency? Or is consent to deploy with an AI overseer sufficient to be considered an exercise of agency? These questions require further research and exploration.

That said, AI functioning as merely a coach may not be sufficient to prevent catastrophes like My Lai. What if a local commander ignored the Thompson drone’s order to stop attacking civilians, or fired on it to be rid of its pestering? To more effectively prevent a massacre, should humans be prevented from ignoring the Thompson drone?

The answers to these questions depend on the effectiveness of the drone in shaping outcomes. At a point, however, the ability to shape outcomes could come into tension with the agency of humans. In this sense, the military could face a critical tradeoff between enhancing operational effectiveness on the one hand, and preserving human agency and judgments on the ground, on the other. We aren’t advocating that the military grant AI greater discretion or more authority simply to enhance operational effectiveness. Rather, our aim is to encourage military leaders to carefully consider how their decisions to employ AI might affect the independent decision making of their service members.

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Emelia Probasco is a former naval officer and senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, where she studies the military applications of AI.

Minji Jang is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics (Ethics Lab) and Tech & Society Initiative. She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Emelia Probasco · May 9, 2025

19. How the Houthis Outlasted America

​Another scholar who is a former member of USIP.

Excerpt:

The Houthis bet from the beginning of the strikes that they could outlast the United States—and they did. Equally important, the cease-fire has dashed Yemeni hopes of U.S. support for a ground campaign, and there is a real chance that the already divided Yemeni government could buckle under the weight of financial pressure, which has been building since the Houthis blocked its oil exports in late 2022, as well as from the Houthis’ perceived victory. A potential collapse of the government would almost certainly lead to Houthi territorial expansion and/or allow al-Qaeda to make gains in the country’s south. Saudi Arabia, already wary of Washington’s reliability as a security partner, will now need to deal with a battered but emboldened Houthi movement on its southern border.

How the Houthis Outlasted America

Foreign Affairs · by More by April Longley Alley · May 9, 2025

Washington Needed an Off-Ramp, but the Group Can Still Imperil the Global Economy

April Longley Alley

May 9, 2025

A building destroyed by U.S. air strikes in Sanaa, Yemen, April 2025 Khaled Abdullah / Reuters

APRIL LONGLEY ALLEY is former Senior Expert for the Gulf States and Yemen at the United States Institute of Peace.

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After seven and a half weeks of heavy airstrikes on more than 1,000 separate targets, the Trump administration’s bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen ended as abruptly as it began. On May 6, in an Oval Office meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, President Donald Trump simply announced that the Iranian-backed Houthis “don’t want to fight any more” and that the United States would “accept their word” and “stop the bombings.” Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad al Busaidi confirmed on X that his country had brokered a cease-fire agreement between Washington and the Houthis, in which the two sides agreed not to target each other. Despite the Houthis’ highly effective attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea and continuing attacks against Israel, the agreement does not explicitly restrict Houthi actions against any country other than the United States; the absence from the agreement of Israel and “Israeli-linked” ships—a term the Houthis have interpreted broadly in the past—is notable.

What is puzzling about the White House announcement is that the Houthis’ position remains essentially unchanged from when the Trump administration began its escalated air campaign on March 15. Ostensibly, Operation Rough Rider—as the U.S. campaign was called—was launched to restore freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and to reestablish deterrence against Iran and its proxies. When the operation began, the Houthis were explicitly targeting Israel as well as Israeli-linked ships—though not U.S. ships—and saying they would continue to do so until Israel ends its war in Gaza. Since the outset of the U.S. campaign, Houthi leaders have made clear that if Washington stopped the bombing, they would stop attacking U.S. ships, but their attacks on Israel would continue. After Trump announced the May 6 agreement, the Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam reiterated this position. In other words, after a U.S. military operation that cost more than $2 billion and supposedly had a far-reaching impact on Houthi military capabilities, the U.S.-Houthi cease-fire does little but codify the Houthis’ original stance. Although Trump claimed that the Houthis “capitulated,” the group retains its hold on power and has called the deal a “victory for Yemen.”

For the Trump administration, the cease-fire offered a quick end to what was an increasingly untenable campaign. Not only was the bombing enormously expensive; it was also raising concerns among policymakers in Washington that the United States could slide into another forever war in the Middle East. This scenario was no doubt pushed by Vice President JD Vance and the more neo-isolationist members of the administration, who have been skeptical of U.S. military adventurism from the start.

It remains unclear if this denouement will create a meaningful enough pause for the Trump administration to wash its hands of the Houthi problem. But if Trump turns a blind eye to continued Houthi attacks on Israel, there is reason to believe that the Houthis will, for now, avoid attacking U.S. assets. The Houthis would almost certainly have survived, even if the U.S. bombing campaign had continued, but its termination nevertheless has many upsides for them. The group’s leaders can now claim to have gone head-to-head with a superpower and won and be relieved of the pressure the U.S. bombing was putting on them. They can also focus on Israel, which is engaged in its own punishing air campaign in retaliation for Houthi strikes, including a ballistic missile strike near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport in early May. Importantly, the deal with the United States makes it very unlikely that Washington will support a ground offensive against the Houthis by the internationally recognized government of Yemen, an internally divided coalition of anti-Houthi factions which controls the southern and eastern parts of the country. Combined with airpower, such an offensive would arguably be the most effective way to truly pressure the group and loosen its hold on power—although it would carry significant risks.

The Trump administration was right to try to find an off-ramp to an increasingly costly and open-ended air campaign, but the one it chose may cause more harm than good. Unless Washington quickly coordinates with allies in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, in a broader effort to maintain military, economic, and political pressure on the Houthis, the group will continue to wreak havoc both in Yemen and across the region. There is a better alternative: by supporting the UN and other mediators such as Oman, the United States and its allies in the region and beyond can push for a larger political settlement in Yemen, one that can constrain the Houthis’ military capabilities and ambitions. This may seem like a heavy lift, but it would be far more cost-effective than the alternative. In the absence of such efforts, the Houthis will recover and regroup, and may soon present much the same security threat that provoked the Trump administration’s campaign in the first place.

A ROUGH RIDE

The United States first began striking the Houthis under President Joe Biden, who launched a limited campaign of airstrikes in January 2024 to respond to the group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and specifically to its attack on a U.S. warship. The Biden administration sought a calibrated strategy: the aim was to retaliate for the Houthi attacks without intensifying the conflict, causing civilian casualties, or triggering greater regional escalation with Iran. By contrast, Trump was far more aggressive, lambasting Biden for a “pathetically weak” response to the Houthi threat. His administration was also likely emboldened by a much-weakened Iran, whose aligned forces in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria have been dramatically degraded over the past year by Israel’s war with Hamas and Hezbollah and by the fall of the Assad regime.

Even so, the scale of the campaign was unexpected. Operation Rough Rider has been the Trump administration’s biggest and most costly military intervention to date. It involved more than 1,000 strikes against a broad array of Houthi targets, including weapons depots, command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, critical infrastructure, and Houthi leaders. To carry out this ambitious operation, the administration deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and B-2 Stealth bombers, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses.

The Houthis’ position remains essentially unchanged.

Beyond dramatically stepped-up airstrikes, the administration also ramped up economic and political pressure. In March, it redesignated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, which carries heavy economic and diplomatic penalties. The FTO designation has choked the banking system in Houthi-controlled areas, restricted its ability to import fuel, and also rendered elements of a proposed UN-backed agreement to end the war, which was being negotiated before the Houthi’s Red Sea attacks began, impossible to implement. The implementation of this deal, which is supported by U.S. allies in the Gulf, would have resulted in a cease-fire and the beginning of a political process to determine power-sharing arrangements in Yemen. It also promised significant economic benefits, including a formula to pay all public salaries in Houthi-controlled areas. Given Yemen’s limited resources, this would have required significant external financial support, but an FTO designation by Washington criminalized financial transfers to the Houthis, making this element impossible to implement.

Washington’s actions put real pressure on the Houthis. Over the course of the campaign, Houthi ballistic missile launches against Israeli and U.S. targets declined by 87 percent, and drone attacks declined by 65 percent, according to the Pentagon. In addition, U.S. strikes forced most of the group’s leadership into hiding and slowed internal communications. The Houthis’ internal security services also stepped up arrests of Yemenis believed to be revealing targeting information to those who may share it with the U.S. or its allies.

The U.S. strikes also temporarily shifted the group’s military calculus. After the FTO designation, for example, the Houthis initially sought to take over oil and gas fields in the Marib governorate, east of the capital, Sanaa—a strategic resource that would have blunted some of the impact of the terrorist designation. But the U.S. air campaign temporarily delayed that ambition, which, if realized, would have bolstered the Houthis’ resources and paved the way for further offensives on other oil-producing governorates in the south and east now under Yemeni government control.

Before the May 6 cease-fire, the strikes also raised expectations among Yemen’s internationally recognized government that it could secure U.S. and regional backing for a new ground offensive to recapture Houthi-controlled territories. Yemeni government officials lobbied Washington hard for support, understanding the fleeting nature of the opportunity and knowing that if they did not take advantage, the Houthis would be able to use the “victory” of having withstood an American military campaign to strengthen their position further. The threat of a ground operation was deeply concerning to Houthi leaders who label any domestic opponents as agents of Israeli-American aggression.

ENDURANCE TEST

But Trump’s pressure campaign had limits and within a few weeks they began to show. U.S. forces hit Houthi targets almost daily, with enormous quantities of munitions, and the Pentagon claimed to have killed top Houthi leaders. There is little evidence, however, that members of the group’s top command structure have been eliminated; its inner circle is very much intact. Also important, the group’s ability to strike U.S. and Israeli targets does not appear to have been significantly diminished. The Houthis, for their part, claim to have shot down at least seven U.S. Reaper drones, each of which costs about $30 million, since March. On April 28, a $60 million U.S. fighter jet was lost at sea when its carrier made a hard turn to avoid Houthi fire. In early May, the Houthis also managed to get a missile through Israeli air defenses, with its strike near Tel Aviv airport, prompting a blistering response from Israel.

In short, U.S. tactical gains were coming at an increasingly high cost and with grave risks. Continued operations raised the chances that U.S. service members might be killed—a scenario that would almost certainly draw Washington further into the conflict. The United States was also burning through munitions at an alarming rate. The Defense Department was already struggling to keep up with weapons demand, having been stretched by earlier U.S. commitments to Israel and Ukraine, as well as by the Biden administration’s strikes against the Houthis and by the U.S. effort to defend Israel against direct Iranian attacks. Some U.S. officials were concerned that the sheer number of long-range weapons being used against the Houthis, as well as the movement of a Patriot air defense battalion from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to the Middle East, could weaken the United States’ readiness to address threats from China.

The cease-fire offered a quick end to an increasingly untenable campaign.

What’s more, U.S. airstrikes were increasingly harming civilians and civilian infrastructure in Yemen, a fact the Houthi media was quick to turn to the group’s advantage. A U.S. attack in mid-April on the fuel port and export terminal of Ras Issa in Hodeida, for example, killed more than 70 Yemenis, and a strike in early May on a Houthi-run detention center holding African migrants killed dozens, including civilians. The course of the earlier civil war demonstrates that such incidents do little to weaken domestic support for the Houthis: during a Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen in 2015, punishing strikes that resulted in high civilian casualties worked to the Houthis’ advantage, allowing them to deflect criticism and rally support against an external enemy.

From the beginning of the Trump campaign, the Houthis said that they could outlast the pressure and even emerge stronger from it, as they did after the Saudi-led intervention in 2015. After all, the Houthi movement’s greatest strength has always been armed struggle. As a radical offshoot of the Zaydi branch of Islam that is deeply anti-Israeli and anti-Western, the group was forged in war against the Yemeni government beginning in the early 2000s. Ensconced in the country’s rugged mountainous highlands, the Houthis have years of practice hiding their leadership and weapons. They also have a tremendous tolerance for withstanding attacks and losing fighters and weapons. Moreover, although their principal backer, Iran, has been greatly weakened, the Houthis have been able to diversify their supply lines. By developing new weapons smuggling networks, which now extend beyond Iran and into the Horn of Africa, and by building opportunistic ties with China and Russia, the group has become even more resilient.

In short, although the U.S. campaign put the Houthis under tremendous pressure, they were far from deterred, much less defeated, at the time of the cease-fire. By early May, the United States was making tactical gains in destroying weapons and capabilities, pushing the leadership underground, and stirring up Houthi fears that a new ground campaign against them might soon be launched. But the United States was unable to turn these pressure points into strategic advantage.

THE MISSING STRATEGY

It is possible for the United States to both limit its military engagement and support a path to settlement—or at least to containing the Houthi threat—by working with its allies to put military, economic, and political pressure on the group. To do this, the U.S. policymakers must first disabuse themselves of the notion that there can be a neat line drawn between what happens within Yemen and what happens in the Red Sea or the broader region, particularly in the Gulf. Both Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have conveyed disinterest in what happens in Yemen. In Vance’s words, if the Houthis stop shooting in the Red Sea, they can “go back to doing whatever it was they were doing before attacking civilian vessels.” The problems Washington and its allies face in the Red Sea, however, are precisely a product of Yemen’s internal power dynamic. As an increasingly well-armed and unchecked power, the Houthis have the ability to project power and threats beyond Yemen’s borders, and they will continue to do so until they face real domestic constraints. The United States cannot micromanage Yemen’s complex politics, and it does not need to lead on Yemen policy—but at a minimum, it must have one.

To ensure that Yemen maintains some balance on the ground, the United States should give the Yemeni government’s Gulf backers, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the security guarantees they need to continue to support the government politically and militarily. The two countries are the key suppliers of arms and money to Yemeni government forces, but they have both said publicly that they are not interested in reigniting the war. They also know that if Yemeni forces were to advance against the Houthis on the ground, the group would likely target them, too—possibly even if they had only assisted their Yemeni allies in defending current frontlines. Although Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are concerned about the long-term security threats posed by the Houthis, they are eager to shift their focuses to domestic economic priorities.

The United States was unable to turn pressure points into strategic advantage.

By offering Riyadh and Abu Dhabi security guarantees, Washington would in effect be pledging to protect its allies, allowing them to reinforce the forces that are opposing the Houthis domestically, and thus increasing the chances that a balanced power-sharing deal be reached. In addition, the United States could encourage Saudi Arabia and the UAE to better coordinate their military and political support for Yemeni government forces, divisions within which are often amplified by the two backers—for example, by Abu Dhabi’s long-standing aversion to working with fighters connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. This coordination is more important than ever, as disappointment among Yemeni government forces by the U.S. withdrawal, coupled with mounting economic distress and internal political infighting, threatens the government’s collapse—and with it, the very real possibility of Houthi expansion or an al-Qaeda resurgence in government areas.

Pressure on the Houthis must have a realistic goal. A military air campaign alone was never a practical option. With the U.S.-Houthi cease-fire, ground-level military pushback also looks increasingly unlikely. Reaching a deal with Iran that includes Tehran’s commitment to stop supplying the Houthis with high-tech weapons would be helpful, but it would not be a silver bullet to contain Houthi ambitions. A cease-fire in Gaza would also provide an opportunity to test the Houthi commitment to stop its attacks in the Red Sea and to pressure the group through coordinated multilateral diplomacy. But there is no easy solution to Yemen and no substitute for a more comprehensive, coordinated regional approach.

The United States and its partners should thus focus on an achievable, if difficult, goal: advancing a UN-backed agreement that provides stronger guarantees for Red Sea security, limits on Houthi weapons, and assurances of domestic power sharing. This could start with the parties’ reevaluation of the proposed UN agreement previously under negotiation—strengthening its cease-fire provisions, amending its financial distribution scheme to accommodate the FTO designation, and instituting stronger guarantees to back a power-sharing agreement between the Houthis and government forces. Achieving any of this, however, would be completely contingent on the Trump administration working with Gulf allies and Yemenis to hold the frontlines in Yemen and to continue exerting economic, political, and military pressure on the Houthis. If it fails to support the development of a balanced domestic power-sharing formula, Yemen’s problems will not stay within Yemen.

EMBOLDENED EXTREMISTS

In pulling the plug on its Yemen campaign, the Trump administration faced a hard reality: continuing to strike the Houthis at this rate could soon become both unsustainable and aimless, even as it was harming U.S. military needs elsewhere. Moreover, an air campaign and a terrorist designation, in themselves, were highly unlikely to resolve the Houthi threats to Red Sea security and to Israel. At the same time, U.S. support for Yemeni government forces would be risky, given the forces’ deep internal divisions, and it would be antithetical to Trump’s stated aversion to forever wars in the Middle East. Perhaps recognizing the need for a quick exit, Trump made the surprise announcement on May 6 to stop operations.

The abrupt halt, however, only emboldens the Houthis, likely aggravating the very security threats the United States had set out to address in the first place. The Houthis are now turning their attention to Israel and have reserved the right to hit “Israeli-linked” ships—the scope of which is completely unclear. More important, even if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, the Houthis, having experienced the leverage of holding Red Sea shipping hostage, might be tempted in the future to again use this tool for political gain. They may also try to continue to charge ships for safe passage through the Bab al Mandeb Strait, as they have done with commercial shippers in their Red Sea operations.

The Houthis bet from the beginning of the strikes that they could outlast the United States—and they did. Equally important, the cease-fire has dashed Yemeni hopes of U.S. support for a ground campaign, and there is a real chance that the already divided Yemeni government could buckle under the weight of financial pressure, which has been building since the Houthis blocked its oil exports in late 2022, as well as from the Houthis’ perceived victory. A potential collapse of the government would almost certainly lead to Houthi territorial expansion and/or allow al-Qaeda to make gains in the country’s south. Saudi Arabia, already wary of Washington’s reliability as a security partner, will now need to deal with a battered but emboldened Houthi movement on its southern border.

APRIL LONGLEY ALLEY is former Senior Expert for the Gulf States and Yemen at the United States Institute of Peace.

Foreign Affairs · by More by April Longley Alley · May 9, 2025

20. Russia’s False Euphoria

​Excerpts:

If the West were reopened to Russians and consumerism were able to flourish again, it might be enough to keep the depoliticized center compliant, even under a still harsher regime. There is already a good deal of speculation about the imminent return of Western brands to Russia. In March, about half of those polled by the Levada Center said that every Western company should be scrutinized and only those that are deemed loyal to Russia should be allowed back into the Russian market. Almost 20 percent said that all companies that have left should be allowed back in, without restrictions, whereas a quarter of respondents said that such companies should not be allowed in at all. In other words, many Russians seem to assume that Western companies will flood into Russia the moment the war is over. Here, too, they are prone to inflated expectations.

To satisfy any of these cravings, Putin will have to reach a peace agreement, preferably supplemented by an economic deal, or series of deals, with Trump. Only then will it be possible to prolong the Kremlin’s implied social contract with Russian society: in exchange for the state delivering peace and victory, citizens will be expected to show total loyalty to the regime (and those who do not will face reprisals). As a bonus, the market economy and normal levels of consumption will be preserved.

Of course, Putin has already made huge numbers of Russians into his accomplices, and to a certain extent, that guarantees their loyalty. But there is a downside to keeping an entire population as political hostages. If you remove this system’s main element—Putin—it will start to collapse. In such a scenario, as Russians adjust to new external circumstances, new inflated expectations may arise. But by that point, they will be directed at a new leader.

Russia’s False Euphoria

Foreign Affairs · by More by Andrei Kolesnikov · May 9, 2025

Trump’s Outreach to Putin Has Shifted Russian Opinion—but Failed to End the War

Andrei Kolesnikov

May 9, 2025

Russian soldiers rehearsing for a military parade, Moscow, May 2025 Yulia Morozova / Reuters

ANDREI KOLESNIKOV is a columnist for Newtimes.ru and Novaya Gazeta.

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For years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has used the annual Victory Day celebration on May 9, commemorating the Soviet victory over Hitler in World War II, to mark his own greatness. The Soviet triumph in 1945, has always been and remains one of very few historical events that truly unites the Russian people, and of course Putin, as his regime matured, could not help but take advantage of that. More than that, he personalized the event, appropriating its national meaning and even its public rituals. For example, the Immortal Regiment, the civil society organization that draws hundreds of thousands of ordinary Russians to march with portraits of ancestors of theirs who fought in the war, has been put completely under Kremlin control. In 2015, on the 70th anniversary of Victory Day, Putin personally led one of its columns through the center of Moscow.

Since Russia began its “special operation” in Ukraine in 2022, however, the annual holiday has taken on more contemporary meaning. Over the past three years, the Kremlin has aggressively promoted the idea that the conflict next door is a continuation of the Great Patriotic War against the West—an enemy that in past centuries was embodied by Napoleon and Hitler and now is represented by Ukraine and Europe (the United States having been, since the return to office of President Donald Trump, excluded from the list). This has become a central part of Russian state propaganda, and the Victory Day parade and related rituals are now designed to cement this thesis in people’s heads.

For all these reasons, Putin has been determined to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory with special fanfare. He also needs to show that he is not isolated from the world, that the best part of it—those countries and peoples who fought and are still fighting what the Kremlin calls “Western hegemony” and “colonialism”—support Russia, notwithstanding the pure imperial colonialism of the Ukrainian operation. For that reason, representatives of the “world majority”—the term the Kremlin uses to refer to countries from the so-called global South, of which Putin imagines himself to be the informal leader—were invited to march in this year’s Victory Day. The parade’s participants thus include soldiers from Myanmar, as well as various VIP guests from Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso, and other countries. Needless to say, these countries had nothing to do with the 1945 victory. Granted, one historic ally will be present: China, which will be represented by its formidable leader, Xi Jinping, who met with Putin at the Kremlin on Thursday. The show of unity and alliance between Moscow and Beijing carries important symbolic value, although Xi needs Putin much less than Putin needs him. It is hard not to notice, however, that the Soviet Union’s principal World War II allies—the co-authors of that historic victory—have been left out of Putin’s celebration. What is this, if not isolation from the world?

Still, lurking behind this year’s special anniversary is a more momentous change: the shifting relationship between Russia and the United States since Trump’s return to office. By now, the Russian euphoria that greeted improved relations with Washington this spring has diminished, but many Russian elites and ordinary citizens continue to pin their hopes on the Trump administration for successful mediation to end the war—and in getting U.S. support for Russia’s conditions and demands. For Putin, the new U.S. administration offers an opportunity not only for a favorable economic deal, at a moment of growing peril for Russia, but also to get out of the mess in Ukraine without losing face. Although neither Trump nor anyone else from his administration is attending the Victory Day celebrations, in official Kremlin rhetoric and propaganda the United States has been elevated to a partner, and a historic one at that, in direct contrast to Europe, which is now the main enemy. Not so long ago, it was the other way around.

TANGO WITH TRUMP

At least since the beginning of the Cold War, the United States has played a central role Russian collective consciousness. For decades, Russians have regarded their superpower rival with a mixture of admiration and hatred, condescension and envy. Often, they have seen themselves as spiritually superior but materially inferior to their Yankee counterparts. Of course, the conspiracy-minded have long asserted that the United Sates is behind every significant event in the world, including Russia’s own problems, which are, according to this type of thinking, the result of covert U.S. policies. In Russian propaganda in recent years, it has been standard to hear references to “Anglo-American imperialism” or “Anglo-Saxons”—a derogatory Russian expression for the threatening dominance of the United States and the UK. Europe, in this design of hatred, was simply included under the general “West.” As a result, even in Putin's time, Europe was treated in much the same way as the United States: if attitudes toward the United States worsened, Russians became more suspicious of the European Union.

Yet Trump’s victory and peacemaking efforts have upended the conventional thinking: now, Europe, including the UK, has become the principal source of evil, while the United States is good. Already in late February, during a visit to the Federal Security Service—the successor to his own alma mater, the KGB—Putin noted that contacts with the new administration in Washington “inspire certain hopes,” adding that “not everyone is happy to see Russian-U.S. contacts resume” and that the security services would need to be vigilant not to have the new “dialogue” be derailed. Continuing this line a few days later, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented that, contrary to long-standing Soviet and Russian doctrines, the United States has never been a warmonger toward Russia; Europe has always been the primary threat. “Over the past 500 years, all tragedies in the world originated in Europe or occurred owing to European policies,” he said.

Stirred up by such statements, many ordinary citizens and even elites have begun to entertain visions of peace. It had already become evident by the second half of 2024 that a majority of Russians desired peace talks, but this trend has notably intensified with the arrival of Trump. Many Russians now view the United States as a pragmatic partner and expect that the war will be settled through direct negotiations between Moscow and Washington. In a January survey by the independent Levada Center, respondents agreed that, in principle peace is only possible with a mediator, and of course, among others, that could be the United States. By February, however, the belief in U.S.-led mediation had notably taken root. In another Levada survey that month, a large majority of respondents—70 percent —said that the US should be at the table with Russia, and an even greater majority—85 percent—approved of the bilateral meetings between Russia and the United States in Saudi Arabia that began that month. As the Russian public sees it, although there will have to be agreements with Ukraine, the most important goal is to find common ground with Trump. By getting the president to back Putin’s key demands, Russia will be guaranteed a sustainable peace agreement now and beneficial economic ties in the future. Fueled by these expectations, Russians have notably softened their anti-American sentiment: whereas in September 2024 just 16 percent of respondents had a positive attitude toward the United States, by February 2025 the proportion had nearly doubled to 30 percent.

Many Russians have maintained a consensus of silence about the war.

The Kremlin’s rhetorical pivot toward the United States has also bolstered its own popularity. Perhaps on the expectation of peace, the approval rating of Lavrov, the foreign minister, which had previously been stagnating, has risen in Levada’s surveys, briefly making him the second-most trustworthy politician after Putin. (Although in April, as negotiations began to stall, Lavrov slipped back to third place again, behind Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the usual second-place holder.) The Russian business community has also been encouraged by the apparent willingness of Washington to make deals with Moscow, with some even claiming that the United States could be a source of revenue for the national budget. This could be important, given that oil revenues, which have for much of the war helped replenish Russian coffers, are significantly down in 2025 thanks to falling global prices. Russian political and business elites understand that Trump’s economic policies could further erode oil prices and complicate Russian energy exports.

As many Russians see it, Putin, with his psychological complexes (his sense of personal greatness) and geopolitical designs (his dream of Greater Russia), finally has a counterpart with whom he could agree on the redivision of the world. With Trump, the thinking goes, Putin can turn a hot war into a cold one and be satisfied with that—after all, Russian military and financial resources are not unlimited. These assumptions are fueled by the Russian understanding of Trump himself. A substantial portion of the population see Trump as a true peacemaker, a “sober and intelligent” politician, as some survey respondents put it. To many ordinary Russians, he is a businessman who understands the language of pragmatic deals—including the peace that Russians hope is coming their way. Moreover, in contrast with former U.S. President Joe Biden, most do not consider Trump to be anti-Russian. Despite the lack of progress, hopes for a U.S.-led mediation remain, and disappointment in Trump has not set in—at least not yet.

It is important to note that Russians’ newly positive attitudes toward the United States are only partly a consequence of high expectations that peace negotiations will succeed. Among Russia’s small liberal stratum, people separate Trump from the United States: they generally regard the MAGA president negatively, if not with horror, but tend to view the United States as a bastion of the Western world and democracy. This liberal segment hopes that the country’s democratic institutions will keep it from sinking into autocracy. Sociologically, these people include the more educated youth, people who disapprove of Putin’s policies, including his war, and those who are specifically liberal in orientation. These also tend to be consumers of independent news, often via YouTube (watched via VPN), which for many Russians is now a main platform for getting information and opinions outside of official channels. One way or another, how Russians view the United States remains a primary factor in how they see Russia’s own position in the world.

PEACE OR PROCRASTINATION?

In the immediate background to Russians’ new hopes for peace are the mounting psychological effects of the war. The extraordinary human cost, the overall ferocity, and the seemingly endless fighting have exacted a quiet toll on the population. The continued hostilities have disturbed the comfort of those who are not in the trenches. Even so, a majority of Russians have maintained what might be called a consensus of silence about the traumas of the war. In its April survey, Levada found that 40 percent of Russians now think that Putin’s expansionism has brought harm to the country, against 33 percent who believe it has benefited Russia. (Another 28 percent were unsure.) According to the survey, those who believe that the “special operation” has brought more harm than benefit talk about the great loss of life, whereas those who see more benefit than harm tend to mention, above all, the “return of historic Russian lands.”

For many Russians, it appears to be much easier to maintain a normal life by avoiding the true reality of the war or having to think about it. Apart from the regions of the country bordering the war, the “special operation” itself continues to remain elsewhere for most Russians: Ukraine’s invasion of the Kursk region and its drone strikes inside Russia, which tend to be mostly repelled, have not shaken this habit of psychological distancing. Nevertheless, a clear majority of the public wish the war would go away.

Of course, there are those who have always been against the war, but they constitute no more than 20 percent of the population—about the same size as the group of fervent Putin supporters known as “turbopatriots,” who want the war to continue, arguing that it is necessary for Russia to finish the job. Most ordinary people who are in favor of peace talks still set two fundamental conditions: Ukraine cannot join NATO and the conquered territories must remain part of Russia. But there is also another problem: many people have financially benefited from the military economy, and the various bonuses and salary increases that have come with it. Some thus view the prospect of impending peace as a threat to their possible earnings, something that the state, always strapped for manpower, has been quick to take advantage of: in recent months, posters have begun appearing calling on Russians to hurry to sign a lucrative military contract before the war ends.

Yet for anyone paying attention, peace remains elusive. And since Trump and Putin have talked up the idea, the Russian leader will have to begin portraying what has been accomplished so far as a victory. Because the Kremlin has avoided defining what “victory” means, the majority of the population will likely perceive a peace deal as meeting Putin’s minimal demands and therefore fit the bill. In other words, Russian troops do not necessarily have to move much farther West for Moscow to claim a win. Moreover, by continuing the war and incurring further Russian costs, Putin could make it harder to achieve an end that the public can call victory: there has been no economic catastrophe in Russia yet, but stagflation—the combination of slow economic growth with high inflation—has clearly taken root.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, May 8, 2025 Kirill Kudryavtsev / Reuters

A larger challenge for Putin is how to maintain stability when the fighting stops. Hundreds of thousands of veterans will return from the front. They are all war heroes and will demand to be treated as such. But not enough coveted job placements and other rewards will available. This is where the problems may start: the same mainstream society, conditioned for so long to be indifferent to the war, may start to perceive veterans as unwelcome competitors for jobs. Moreover, the structural changes to the economy the Kremlin has made since 2022—including higher wages and preferential treatment for businesses and workers in the military-industrial complex—will have to be reversed. This, too, could have destabilizing effects. Yet if the war continues and the government fails to address the needs of veterans, or to deal with the growing distortions in the domestic economy, it will face even greater trouble.

So Putin faces a crisis of inflated expectations. By dragging out negotiations with Trump, he is hedging: on the one hand, ending the hot phase of the conflict will create destabilizing shifts in the economy and society; on the other hand, the growing public assumption that peace is coming must be satisfied sooner or later. For now, he has no solution and is stalling. He may recognize that most Russians are willing to tolerate, at least for a little longer, his procrastination about ending the war.

But there is another factor at play: Trump’s limited patience. The Russian autocrat would not want to miss an unparalleled chance to turn a U.S. president into an ally, for both political and economic reasons: a peace treaty could turn out to be an economically favorable deal, the proceeds of which would prolong the life of Putin’s regime. No one can predict when Trump might in fact “walk away” from his peace efforts, as his administration has threatened, or how Putin might react to the disappearance of a potential deal. But refusing to negotiate would make the overall situation even more complex and dangerous. Such is Putin’s dilemma.

CONSUMER LOYALTY

Amid this uncertainty, Russia’s elites remain a black box. It is difficult to measure their desire for peace or their attitudes toward the regime they serve: the dissatisfied are silent, while the more adaptive rush to make careers in which they can combine political hyperloyalty with technocratic efficiency. But even many of the elites expect the war will end, albeit not soon. In one of his recent interviews, for example, Lavrov seemed to be taking aim at Russian liberal officials who were gaming out a different postwar future. If sanctions are lifted, he warned, some “liberals” will try to “roll back the achievements of import substitution, of the sovereignization of our economy.” It is unclear whom he had in mind, not to mention the fact that these wartime policies have little to show for them: “sovereignization” and uncontrolled levels of military spending have already created colossal long-term problems in the economy.

In any case, the mounting expectations of peace and victory should not be confused with hopes that the Kremlin is going to reliberalize: the Putin regime is rigid, highly repressive, and designed for repression. According to the OVD-info portal, an independent monitor of human rights in Russia, as of early May, the state has pending charges against 3,284 people for political offenses, of whom 1,590 are now in jail. Since The Ministry of Justice has now designated more than 900 Russian entities as “foreign agents,” with more added almost weekly: more than 500 of these are individual citizens, who face a colossal restriction of their rights. The state also maintains a separate list of undesirable organizations, whether Russian or foreign, for which anyone who cooperates with them could face criminal prosecution. All independent online media are blocked and can only operate illegally and can only be read and watched using VPN.

The garrison state will not simply disappear when the guns go silent. The ever-growing demands to show patriotic behavior—from the introduction of loyalty rituals in schools to verbal displays of loyalty to Putinism by the heads of businesses, universities, libraries, and other institutions—will not go away. Nor will the regime stop its war against civil society. Indeed, it is possible that the Kremlin, without the distraction of war, will double down on repression and the indoctrination of Russia’s youth.

Putin faces a crisis of inflated expectations.

If the West were reopened to Russians and consumerism were able to flourish again, it might be enough to keep the depoliticized center compliant, even under a still harsher regime. There is already a good deal of speculation about the imminent return of Western brands to Russia. In March, about half of those polled by the Levada Center said that every Western company should be scrutinized and only those that are deemed loyal to Russia should be allowed back into the Russian market. Almost 20 percent said that all companies that have left should be allowed back in, without restrictions, whereas a quarter of respondents said that such companies should not be allowed in at all. In other words, many Russians seem to assume that Western companies will flood into Russia the moment the war is over. Here, too, they are prone to inflated expectations.

To satisfy any of these cravings, Putin will have to reach a peace agreement, preferably supplemented by an economic deal, or series of deals, with Trump. Only then will it be possible to prolong the Kremlin’s implied social contract with Russian society: in exchange for the state delivering peace and victory, citizens will be expected to show total loyalty to the regime (and those who do not will face reprisals). As a bonus, the market economy and normal levels of consumption will be preserved.

Of course, Putin has already made huge numbers of Russians into his accomplices, and to a certain extent, that guarantees their loyalty. But there is a downside to keeping an entire population as political hostages. If you remove this system’s main element—Putin—it will start to collapse. In such a scenario, as Russians adjust to new external circumstances, new inflated expectations may arise. But by that point, they will be directed at a new leader.

ANDREI KOLESNIKOV is a columnist for The New Times and Novaya Gazeta.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Andrei Kolesnikov · May 9, 2025

21. The shuttering of Voice of America hurts our ability to explain ourselves

​Self. Inflicted. Wound.

Will it be terminal?

The shuttering of Voice of America hurts our ability to explain ourselves

by Robert R. Reilly, opinion contributor - 05/05/25 3:00 PM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/5282020-voice-of-america-off-air/?utm

The Voice of America is off the air for the first time in 83 years. The Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE did it.

I understand the impetus behind DOGE. The U.S. is in peril of financial collapse due to decades of deficit spending. Something radical needed to be done. Some indiscriminate damage was unavoidable.

However, the Declaration of Independence, the first public diplomacy document of the U.S., was addressed out of “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind” to the entire world. That decent respect is what VOA was designed to show. 

VOA is a creature born of war. It began in 1942 broadcasting in German, to explain to the German people what we were fighting for and against. It also gave Germans an accurate version of what was really happening in their totalitarian country.

Having lived and worked overseas, I am familiar with the distorted views of the U.S. that many people have formed, not only from foreign propaganda and disinformation, but from some American popular entertainment and the almost constant self-criticism in which the American people are engaged.

The latter is a sign of a healthy democracy and a source of our strength, but foreign audiences need to understand the broader framework within which this takes place. That is why the VOA Charter requires VOA to represent America in a balanced and comprehensive way. It is vitally important that VOA fosters an understanding of American institutions and the principles behind them. No less important is its essential charter obligation to “present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively.” 

I firmly believe that VOA should not be an echo chamber for American domestic media, which is already largely available overseas on the internet. This is the fault into which the newsroom fell. It has a different job. It should have been offering to audiences what was otherwise unavailable to them. Not operating under the constraints of commercial media, VOA can afford to tell the truth. That is its advantage.

The heart of VOA is not the newsroom, which has deserved the scathing criticism it has received from President Trump, but its 40 language services — the largest part of VOA that most people know nothing about.

Let me provide a small example of its hidden treasures. Harun Maruf is a member of VOA’s Somali service. He has more than 170,000 followers on Twitter in Somalia. He co-authored the popular and powerful book, “Inside Al Shabaab, the Secret History of Al-Qaeda’s Most Powerful Ally.” This is the kind of expertise the VOA language services employ — or rather employed. Harun was sent home. The Farsi service to Iran has also been shut, just as the nuclear crisis heats up and as media censorship in that country increases. Isn’t now exactly when we most need to reach the Iranian people?

My earliest stint as VOA director was in 2001-2002, a time when the agency was alive with a sense of purpose after the attacks of 9/11. Just as in 1942, we all knew how to support our country in a time of peril. It was an exciting place to work. It hummed. 

Does anyone suppose that that was the last war for the United States? How will we reach our Chinese adversaries and our Asian allies when conflict breaks out there, as it is almost certain to do?

VOA’s mission is to give voice to America, explain our purposes in the world and the justifications for our actions. “VOA’s job should be to advance the justice of the American cause, while simultaneously undermining our opponents’,” I wrote in a 2017 Wall Street Journal essay. 

The difference now, I’m sorry to say, is a loss of a sense of mission by certain elements of the agency, who have been led to believe that VOA is solely a news organization. It’s not, though news is an integral and essential part of it. It also has the obligation to disclose the character of the American people and their institutions in such a way as the underlying principles guiding American life are revealed. News is a means but not an end. 

Reliable news was always a part of U.S. broadcasting, but the mission has never been reduced to just that until recently. When the Dalai Lama called the VOA Tibet service “the bread of the Tibetan people,” and when Aun San Suu Kyi called the Burmese service “the hope of the Burmese people,” they were not just talking about the “news.” Hope is a theological virtue; it is not engendered by news alone. The Declaration of Independence was not a news bulletin. 

VOA’s foreign audiences must be puzzled as to why the VOA is no longer broadcasting to them. Some African listeners take national radio shutdowns as a telltale sign there has been a coup. Or perhaps, they might think, the U.S. no longer considers them worth reaching, or that it no longer has anything to say. Either answer is a self-inflicted public diplomacy disaster. What has happened to our “decent respect to the opinions of mankind”?

The U.S. has enduring interests in the world. We need to explain ourselves in the most persuasive way we can, and by the most effective means, particularly to those peoples and countries whose future is going to most affect ours. Destroying the Voice of America is not the way to do this.

Robert R. Reilly served as Voice of America director from (2001 to 2002) and from (2020-2021).

22. How Trump’s Ending of U.S.A.I.D. Threatens a Nation’s Fragile Peace

​Will we be able to consolidate all our soft power tools, e.g., diplomacy, development, information, under the SECSTATE and will we be better able to wield them in an orchestrated and synchronized manner with all overseen by a single agency?  

We can fight the plan or we can get on board and help make it work. 

How Trump’s Ending of U.S.A.I.D. Threatens a Nation’s Fragile Peace

The Trump administration cut off aid to Colombia that has been vital to keeping the promises of a peace deal with a major rebel group, as violence worsens in many corners of the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/world/americas/colombia-usaid-peace.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm

By Jorge Valencia

Reporting from Bogotá, Colombia

• May 5, 2025

Leer en español

When Colombia signed a landmark peace agreement with rebels in 2016, it was celebrated internationally for ending a war that had ravaged much of the country for decades. The United States bolstered the peace efforts, helping displaced farmers return to their land and helping prosecute war crimes.

Now, support from the U.S. government — the agreement’s biggest foreign economic backer — has vanished.

As the Trump administration has withdrawn most foreign assistance globally, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, it has undercut a deal designed, in part, to curtail the flow of drugs to the United States.

“This puts wind in the wings of armed groups,” said León Valencia, director of the Bogotá-based Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, an organization that works on post-conflict issues and had received U.S. funds. “They can tell demobilized guerrillas or victims that the government signed a peace agreement and didn’t keep its promise.”

Since 2001, U.S.A.I.D. has spent more in Colombia than any other South American country, about $3.9 billion.

Image

Credit...Nathalia Angarita for The New York Times

While the U.S. Defense and State Departments funneled military spending in the 2000s toward a much-debated plan to eradicate coca farming, U.S.A.I.D. poured money into related economic development projects.

Then, after Colombia signed the peace deal with the country’s biggest and oldest guerrilla group, the United States also directed spending to projects that helped Colombian officials fulfill the agreement — while also giving farmers alternatives to cultivating coca leaves, the base for cocaine. The rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had been fighting the government for six decades.

Compounding Colombia’s challenges during the second Trump administration has been the withdrawal of support from the State Department, which helped pay for efforts like major counternarcotics operations and the tedious process of removing land mines.

The results have been on-the-ground setbacks for the military and police that could benefit criminal groups.

“It’s hard to overstate what a big paradigm shift this is for the Colombians because they’re so interconnected with the Americans,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, which monitors and tries to prevent armed conflicts. “It’s a tectonic shift that the U.S. might not always be there.”

Image

Land mines handmade by the FARC and planted on a mountain ridge that was once a popular footpath during times of conflict, in April 2015.Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

In small towns and rural areas of Colombia where armed groups are still active, U.S.A.I.D. projects had been vital to helping maintain stability, according to interviews with 14 current or former agency employees or contractors based in Colombia. Most declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak, and out of concern that it would jeopardize the possibility of future work.

“There are parts of the country where there’s the bad guys and then there’s U.S.A.I.D.,” said one former contractor, who was working with a nonprofit that suspended its work trying to prevent young people from joining armed groups, after its U.S. financing was stopped.

U.S.A.I.D. had also helped Colombia provide services for the more than 2.8 million migrants from Venezuela who have arrived in the last decade, making Colombia the world’s largest recipient of people fleeing Venezuela’s political and economic crisis.

Still, American support isn’t entirely welcomed in Colombia. Many conservative politicians agree with the Trump administration’s claims that it’s an inefficient use of funds, while some leftist politicians say U.S. money is an instrument to control Colombian society.

Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, questioned why U.S. aid was going toward beefing up the country’s immigration and customs agencies, saying that type of spending infringed on the country’s sovereignty.

Image

President Gustavo Petro of Colombia has questioned the need for U.S. assistance in certain areas.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times

“Trump is right,” Mr. Petro said in a televised address. “Take your money.”

Colombia’s armed conflict goes back generations. Rooted in frustration over inequality and land distribution, it morphed into a complex battle among leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels and the government, fueled by drug money and other illicit business.

While FARC laid down its arms, offshoots remain, and existing and new armed groups have gained strength, according to analysts.

Today, the country faces eight separate armed conflicts, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which described the country’s humanitarian situation as reaching its most critical point since the signing of the peace accord.

Ariel Ávila, a senator for the Green Party who worked in peace-related projects before holding office, said U.S.A.I.D.’s withdrawal eliminated resources for a web of nonprofits that relied on U.S. support for democracy-building efforts, some of which have shut down.

Image

Hundreds of bags of humanitarian aid donated by U.S.A.I.D. sat in a warehouse on the Colombian side of a border crossing that connects Colombia to Venezuela in February 2019.Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

“For me, U.S.A.I.D. hasn’t been just about peace building,” Mr. Ávila said. “It’s been an agent for democracy.”

Central to helping the country cement a lasting peace has been the creation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a court dedicated to trying crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the internal conflict, which left at least 450,000 people dead.

American assistance — through U.S.A.I.D. and the State Department — represents about 10 percent of the court’s foreign support, court officials said.

The U.S. government provided technical and logistical support in three of the court’s large-scale cases — each representing thousands of victims — on sex crimes, crimes targeting Black and Indigenous people, and the systematic murder of leftist politicians. The agency also provided investigative tools, such as DNA test kits, to identify bodies found in mass graves.

The loss of U.S. help will slow down the court’s work, court officials said, which is worrisome because it has a 15-year deadline to reach verdicts and sentences in cases involving tens of thousands of victims and defendants living in rural and difficult to reach areas, said Judge Alejandro Ramelli, president of the court.

“We’re committed to finding the answers to thousands of questions that the victims have had for many years and have never had answered,” Mr. Ramelli said. “International aid is essential to being able to find that truth.”

Image

A group of FARC rebels in the jungle, in May 2016, months before the peace deal was signed ending decades of an internal conflict.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times

U.S.A.I.D. funding also helped the Colombian government map millions of acres in conflict-afflicted territories, which was key to the peace deal. Land inequality had been a core grievance since fighting erupted, so the government promised to give formal ownership to poor farmers working in rural lands.

Government officials are in the process of mapping broad chunks of territory for which little or no formal government record exists. Colombia’s National Land Agency, which oversees the process, said the U.S. government helped carry out land surveys, develop safety protocols for work in conflict areas and identify land used for illegal crops.

Officials have mapped more than 3.2 million acres through a program funded by U.S.A.I.D. Just in the town of Cáceres, in the mountainous Antioquia region, they were able to issue titles to 230 families who agreed to stop farming coca leaves in exchange for formal land ownership.

Without the support, much of that mapping is on hold because the National Land Agency does not have the budget to complete the work on its own, the agency said. “The importance of U.S.A.I.D. is evident,” the agency said in a statement.

U.S.A.I.D. support has also been key in regions experiencing new conflict.

In the northeastern Catatumbo region, near the Venezuela border, the country is seeing its worst period of violence in a generation. Since January, 106 people have been killed and more than 64,000 displaced from their homes, according to a local government count.

Image

Displaced families in a shelter in Tibu in January. The surrounding region has been one of several areas of Colombia experiencing new conflicts.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times

Theylor Villegas, 27, is among the displaced. In 2019, he helped found Corporación Pride, an L.G.B.T. advocacy group in the Catatumbo region, and last year his organization won a U.S.A.I.D.-financed contract to track violence affecting women, young people and minority groups.

In January, two major events flipped Mr. Villegas’s life upside down: Widespread gunfire erupted between offshoots of the disbanded FARC guerrillas, and the Trump administration ordered a global freeze on foreign aid. Mr. Villegas was forced to flee the region and lost both his contract and U.S.-sponsored psychological and legal support he was receiving for his work.

Now, Mr. Villegas’s future is uncertain, and his organization’s work tracking and supporting victims in one of Colombia’s most violent regions is on hold.

“I feel impotent,” he said. “An organization like ours in this part of the world rarely gets noticed.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 7, 2025, Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: How the Loss of U.S.A.I.D. Funding Threatens a Nation’s Fragile Peace. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

23. America's new suicide bomber drone that creates its own kill list

​Interesting. 

Sensational and hyperbolic? Or a potentially effective weapons system?

I was surprised that I did not read that there would be linkage with Palantir to assist in targeting.

America's new suicide bomber drone that creates its own kill list

By CHRIS MELORE, ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 14:58 EDT, 8 May 2025 | Updated: 17:07 EDT, 8 May 2025

Daily Mail · by CHRIS MELORE, ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM · May 8, 2025

The US military may soon have an army of faceless suicide bombers at their disposal, as an American defense contractor has revealed their newest war-fighting drone.

AeroVironment unveiled the Red Dragon in a video on their YouTube page, the first in a new line of 'one-way attack drones.'

This new suicide drone can reach speeds up to 100 mph and can travel nearly 250 miles. The new drone takes just 10 minutes to set up and launch and weighs just 45 pounds.

Once the small tripod the Red Dragon takes off from is set up, AeroVironment said soldiers would be able to launch up to five per minute.

After the weapon selects its target, AeroVironment video revealed that the Red Dragon goes into dive-bomb, slamming into the target like a missile.

Although the damage of the drone's explosive payload will likely vary based on what it hits, AeroVironment showed Red Dragon striking everything from tanks and military vehicles to enemy encampments and small buildings.

Red Dragon arrives as military officials have openly said the country is in a fight to maintain 'air superiority' as drones have changed the entire landscape of the battlefield - flying remote-controlled bombs into targets all over the world.

However, the new one-way attack drone is raising some moral issues. Since the suicide robot can choose its own target in the air, the US military may soon be taking life-and-death decisions out of the hands of humans.

An AI-powered 'one-way attack drone' may soon give the US military a weapon that can think and pick out targets by itself

US defense contractor AeroVironment said in a video that their new 'suicide drone' is ready for mass production

AeroVironment said that this autonomous and intelligent weapon is ready for mass production.

Simply put, the US military will soon have swarms of bombs with brains that don't land until they've chosen a target and crash into it.

The AI-powered drone also carries up to 22 pounds of explosives and can strike targets on land, in the air, and at sea.

Unlike other US military drones, which can carry their own missiles, Red Dragon is the missiles, with its manufacturers saying it's been built 'for scale, speed, and operational relevance.'

The lightweight drone was designed for quick deployment and flexibility on the battlefield, allowing smaller military units to deploy Red Dragon from almost anywhere.

Once airborne, its AVACORE software architecture functions as the drone's brain, managing all its systems and enabling quick customization.

Red Dragon's SPOTR-Edge perception system acts like smart eyes, using AI to find and identify targets independently.

Despite Red Dragon's ability to choose a target with 'limited operator involvement,' the Department of Defense (DoD) has said it's against the military's policy to allow such a thing to happen.

In 2024, Craig Martell, the DoD's Chief Digital and AI Officer, said: 'There will always be a responsible party who understands the boundaries of the technology, who when deploying the technology takes responsibility for deploying that technology.'

Additionally, the DoD updated its own directives to mandate that 'autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems' always have the built-in ability to allow humans to control the device.

Red Dragon's makers said the drone is 'a significant step forward in autonomous lethality' as it can make its own targeting decisions before striking an enemy

Soldiers would be able to launch swarms of the Red Dragon thanks to its easy setup that allows users to launch up to 5 per minute

Red Dragon's SPOTR-Edge perception system acts like smart eyes, using AI to find and identify targets independently

Red Dragon can carry is similar to the Hellfire missiles carried and launched by larger US drones.

These drones typically strike the same kind of targets as Red Dragon, but since it requires precise targeting and guidance for the missiles to hit their target, the simplicity of the suicide attack by a swarm of Red Dragons removes many high-tech complications.

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The US Marine Corps have become heavily involved in the evolution of drone warfare in recent years.

Lieutenant General Benjamin Watson said in April that, because of the widespread use of drones by America's allies and enemies, 'we may never fight again with air superiority in the way we have traditionally come to appreciate it.'

While the US is keeping a tight leash on AI-powered weapons, other nations and militant groups have allegedly ignored the ethical issues in recent years, including terror groups like ISIS and the Houthi rebels.

In 2020, the Centre for International Governance Innovation noted that both Russia and China were pursuing AI-driven military hardware with fewer ethical restrictions than the US.

As for Red Dragon, AeroVironment said that the suicide drone uses a 'new generation of autonomous systems' which allow it to make its own decisions once the operator launches it.

The drone's ability to rely on its own advanced computer systems without remote control guidance means Red Dragon is able to fly in areas where GPS and other communications don't work.

However, the drone still comes equipped with an advanced radio system, ensuring US soldiers can stay in contact with the weapon once it's airborne.

On their website, AeroVironment called Red Dragon 'a significant step forward in autonomous lethality.'

Daily Mail · by CHRIS MELORE, ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM · May 8, 2025

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com