Quotes of the Day:

“In all of this, we should be careful how we label our own side. Our side would be wrongly labeled as the world of democracies, not only because something such as anti-Semitism has rooted itself inside democracies themselves (witness our university campuses), but because our own side also includes conservative autocracies such as the regimes in the Arabian Gulf, Jordan, Egypt, and elsewhere, which stand for the regional status quo, as opposed to the revolutionary chaos that a regime like Iran threatens to bring about. In fact, this is a bipolar struggle between status quo powers like ourselves and leaders and movements that want to topple the existing post–Cold War order, whether by territorial acquisition like Russia in Ukraine, or like China in regard to Taiwan, or by the eradication of an entire people—the goal of Iran’s coalition regarding Israel. Order versus disorder. That is what it’s about. World War II was similar, since the Nazis and Japanese fascists attempted to replace an orderly world, with all of its faults, with revolutionary mass murder, military conquest, and extremism. Our Cold War adversaries were cautious by comparison.”

— Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis by Robert D. Kaplan

https://a.co/8xgomI8

“War is no longer made by simply analyzed economic forces if it ever was. War is made or planned now by individual men, demagogues and dictators who play on the patriotism of their people to mislead them into a belief in the great fallacy of war when all their vaunted reforms have failed to satisfy the people they misrule.”

—Hemingway

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”– Elie Wiese

Apologies for combined news days. We spent the past day experiencing 13th Century Mongolia and although the beginning of "globalization" we only had Chinggis Khan's "internet" of the "Yam system" for connectivity (which was a postal system based on pony transport much like our Pony Express a few hundred years later.)

1. Trump’s Two-Week Pause Is a Big Gamble Iran Nuclear Crisis Will Break His Way

2. Inside Bibi’s Trump–Iran Psyop

3. Surprises Ahead in the Israel-Iran War?

4. Shifting World Order Threatens to Expand the Nuclear-Arms Club

5. queries by a savvy reader – this is what dialogue allows by Dr. Cynthia Watson

6. No One's Going to Use a Nuclear Weapon Against Fordow

7. Iran Remains Defiant as Pressure Builds to End Nuclear-Fuel Enrichment

8. Meet SOCOM, the special US forces that may enter Iran to take care of 'loose nukes'

9. Russia just accidentally admitted to its staggering troop losses in Ukraine

10. Army expanding ‘Transformation in Contact’ initiative to Army Guard

11. Firms led by US military veterans deliver aid in Africa and Gaza, alarming humanitarian groups

12. A U.S. Attack on Iran Would Show the Limits of China’s Power

13. Xi and Putin present united front over Israel-Iran crisis, in veiled message to Trump

14. Voice of America gutted by Trump adviser Kari Lake

15. Putting Operation Spider’s Web in Context

16. Intelligence, Strategy, and the Israeli-Iranian War

17. “THIS WE’LL DEFEND”: THE ENDURING ROLE OF FM 1 IN THE ARMY PROFESSION

18. Close NATO’s Door to Ukraine

19. Will Iran Surrender? by Sir Lawrence Freedman

20. Progress Without Programs: Reforming U.S. Department of Defense Global Health Engagement for Economic and Strategic Advantage

21. The Right Path to Regime Change in Iran

22. The Obsolete Divide: We Need a New Rank System for the Future Fight

23. Americans Are Thriving. Why Don’t We Feel Like It?

24. America Is on the Verge of Catastrophe in the Middle East

25. Lessons from the New Cold War: America Confronts the China Challenge

1. Trump’s Two-Week Pause Is a Big Gamble Iran Nuclear Crisis Will Break His Way

Excerpts:

Israel’s continued strikes are likely to take a further toll on Iran’s missile launchers, meaning that the U.S. would confront a less capable Iranian military if it decides to join the Israeli military campaign.

“From our standpoint, it allows some time to make sure we are fully prepared,” said Joseph Votel, a retired Army general who led U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East.

The risks to U.S. forces in the event of an American strike might come not just from Iran directly but from Iranian-backed militant groups, such as the Houthis in Yemen or Shiite militias in Iraq. Sitting on the sidelines indefinitely, however, might not avert an escalation of the Israel-Iran war, with broader repercussions for the U.S. and the region.

Despite his penchant for reversing course, Trump said he wasn’t likely to support Iranian appeals for a cease-fire. He discounted the possibility that the Europeans would make headway in their talks with the Iranians. He said he was hopeful Iran would “come to their senses.”

Trump’s Two-Week Pause Is a Big Gamble Iran Nuclear Crisis Will Break His Way

The president sidesteps a decision on striking Iran—but for how long?

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-iran-two-week-pause-nuclear-deal-b52d8771

By Michael R. Gordon

Follow and Lara Seligman

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Updated June 21, 2025 2:37 am ET

President Trump speaking to reporters in New Jersey on Friday. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Key Points

What's This?

• President Trump is weighing military action against Iran in the midst of stalled negotiations and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
• Trump is giving diplomacy a chance, while Iran insists on enrichment and demands that Israel halt attacks before talks with the U.S.

WASHINGTON—After moving to the precipice of military action against Iran, President Trump finds himself caught between negotiations that show few signs of yielding a nuclear deal and a war he is reluctant to join.

By deferring a decision on a military strike, Trump’s calculation is that Israel’s continued blows against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure or Tehran’s capitulation at the negotiating table might deliver the outcome he has long sought: an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment.

The risk is that Iran concludes that Trump is bluffing, opts to endure Israel’s bombs and clings to its longstanding position that it has the right to an enrichment program. 

Then Trump would face enormous pressure to order an attack against a foe that, though already battered by Israel, retains several options for striking back at the U.S. and its allies. 

Since beginning his second term as president, Trump has been adamant that Iran can’t enrich uranium, a capability that Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes but that is also an essential component of a nuclear bomb.

At the same time, Trump has sought to avoid a Middle East war that many of his supporters fear could drag American forces into an open-ended conflict, no matter how much damage the U.S. and Israel inflict on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Smoke rising Monday from an oil-storage facility in Tehran after an apparent Israeli strike. Photo: Vahid Salemi/AP

Dennis Ross, who served as a senior official on Middle East issues in Democratic and Republican administrations, said that for Trump’s gambit to work, Tehran needed to have no doubt Trump is prepared to use force and isn’t bluffing.

“There ought to be very clear messages to the Iranians that the president is giving one last time frame for diplomacy,” Ross said. “Here are the conditions that would prevent him from acting militarily.”

Asked Friday if the Iran crisis reminded him of Iraq in 2003, when President George W. Bush went to war claiming it was necessary to halt Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs, Trump said no.

“There were no weapons of mass destruction,” he said of Iraq. But with Iran in “a matter of weeks, or certainly within a matter of months, they were going to be able to have a nuclear weapon,” he added. “We can’t let that happen.”

He dismissed an assessment by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in March that Iran hadn’t made a decision to build a nuclear weapon. After being criticized by Trump, she said there was no disagreement between them.

In addition, Trump said he isn’t planning to use U.S. ground troops if he orders American military action. 

A building in Israel on Friday following an Iranian strike. Photo: Florion Goga/Reuters

Tehran told diplomats in several conversations this past week that it wouldn’t end its enrichment of nuclear fuel and wouldn’t enter talks with the U.S. unless Israel stops its attacks, said Arab and European officials.

The most effective way to take out Iran’s heavily defended Fordow nuclear-enrichment site, which is buried in a mountain, is with massive ground-penetrating bombs carried by U.S. B-2 bombers, according to experts. Trump told aides this past week that he had approved attack plans, but held off giving the final order to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program.

Israel, according to analysts, might feel compelled to move ahead soon with its own military operation against the Fordow site out of concern that Trump might never approve a U.S. strike, even though an Israeli action might be riskier and more challenging.

If Israel fails to effectively damage the site in the coming days, Trump will face even more pressure to intervene, while Iran’s leader would have less reason to accede to his demands.

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Trump has been clear about his goal of denying Iran a nuclear weapon but less so about taking military action.

He left the Group of Seven meeting a day early, saying he had to rush back for a National Security Council meeting Tuesday on how to bring about a “real end” to Iran’s nuclear program. Trump two days later put an additional two weeks on the clock.

Despite the mixed signals from Trump, Iranian leaders are almost certainly factoring into their decision-making that the U.S. president has taken direct action against them before, targeting one of their top commanders by ordering a drone attack on Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020.

Yet Trump pulled back from a retaliatory strike against a target on Iranian territory out of fear that it would result in too many casualties after Iran shot down a U.S. drone in 2019.

Politically, the two-week pause might make it easier for the president to straddle the divisions between his Republican supporters, who have been torn over the prospects of U.S. military action.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) has urged Trump to act militarily to end Iran’s nuclear program, saying on Fox News that Trump “will, at the end of the day, help Israel finish the job.” Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, has been skeptical of the case for U.S. military action, saying that “the Israelis have to finish what they started.” 

Trump’s pause gives the U.S. military more time to deploy forces to the Middle East. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Vice President JD Vance tried to bridge the gap between the isolationist and hawkish elements of the Republican Party in a recent social-media post, noting that “the president has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military’s focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens.” Vance added, “He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment.”

In military terms, Trump’s move gives the U.S. military more time to deploy forces to the Middle East and prepare for an Iranian counterblow if Trump eventually opts to pull the trigger.

Israel’s continued strikes are likely to take a further toll on Iran’s missile launchers, meaning that the U.S. would confront a less capable Iranian military if it decides to join the Israeli military campaign. 

“From our standpoint, it allows some time to make sure we are fully prepared,” said Joseph Votel, a retired Army general who led U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East.

The risks to U.S. forces in the event of an American strike might come not just from Iran directly but from Iranian-backed militant groups, such as the Houthis in Yemen or Shiite militias in Iraq. Sitting on the sidelines indefinitely, however, might not avert an escalation of the Israel-Iran war, with broader repercussions for the U.S. and the region. 

Despite his penchant for reversing course, Trump said he wasn’t likely to support Iranian appeals for a cease-fire. He discounted the possibility that the Europeans would make headway in their talks with the Iranians. He said he was hopeful Iran would “come to their senses.”

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com

2. Inside Bibi’s Trump–Iran Psyop

Excerpts:

Trump, however, continues to maintain what he sees as his singular competitive advantage: unpredictability. And he, too, appears to be playing for time. Yesterday, Trump told reporters, “I may do it, I may not do it.” Today, the White House gave itself a two-week window and pointed to “a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.” If you followed the retreating horizon on when Trump would impose tough new sanctions on Russia, which receded two weeks at a time, you’ll recognize that time frame: two weeks seems to be Trump’s way of saying “maybe never.”

It is quite possible that Bibi will go too far, making Trump realize he’s being boxed in and manipulated. Then again, it’s Trump. He could easily take the thank-yous and the credit for an Israeli military job well done, pocket it, get cold feet, and give nothing in return. Which is perhaps why Bibi, standing at an Israeli hospital bombed by Iran on Thursday, declared that, actually, Israel can finish the job alone.

Inside Bibi’s Trump–Iran Psyop

https://puck.news/inside-benjamin-netanyahus-trump-iran-psyop/

An apparent Israeli campaign to credit Trump for the attack on Iran, and to flatter the president into joining the war, has met internal resistance and plenty of eye-rolling in the national security world. Still, there’s no question that Bibi knows how to play his counterpart—and that the American president is uniquely susceptible to ego stroking.

But in the week since the Israeli attack on Iran commenced, it’s been looking more and more like the story of that brilliant Trump–Bibi psyop was itself a psyop, with Trump as the target Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Julia Ioffe

June 19, 2025

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Almost as soon as Israeli bombs started falling on Tehran last Thursday, a debate sprung up in Washington: Had Benjamin Netanyahu ignored Donald Trump’s request to hold off on striking Iran until the nuclear talks ran their course? Or was Trump, as some in the D.C. national security establishment contended, in on it the whole time? It’s a particularly fateful question now, as Trump publicly weighs whether the United States should join Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure or stick it out at the negotiating table. Today, he said he would make a decision “within the next two weeks.”

Unless, of course, the decision had already been made, and the president’s equivocation was just a smokescreen. According to this school of thought, Trump hadn’t just given Bibi the greenlight to start bombing last week, two days before U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff’s planned meeting with the Iranians in Oman; he’d been helping Israel prepare for the attack, and his warnings against such an operation were all part of an elaborate disinformation campaign to lull the Iranian leadership into complacency. “It was pre-agreed,” one D.C. foreign-policy insider assured me.

It sounded fantastical—can you imagine Trump keeping a secret of that magnitude?—especially when the U.S. continues to withhold the heavy ordinance the Israelis say they need. And there were others in the national security world who dismissed it as lunacy. Still, this theory was circulating on social media and on prominent OSINT channels, and being pushed by people like Aviva Klompas, a pro-Israel activist, who claimed that a “senior U.S. intelligence official” had told her that “the U.S. provided real-time reconnaissance support to Israel before, during, and after the ongoing strikes—using secure channels to coordinate every step.” The ostensible involvement of the U.S. was also reported in Israeli media, which was why I started hearing from friends in Israel that Trump and Bibi had run a brilliant psyop on the ayatollahs.

By Friday morning, this idea had found its way into a story by Axios’s ace Israel reporter, Barak Ravid. His piece was sourced to two Israeli officials, who insisted the attacks were “all coordinated with Washington,” and that the pretense of U.S. objections to them was actually just meant “to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel’s target list wouldn’t move to new locations.” And though Ravid noted that “the U.S. side hasn’t confirmed any of that,” the fact that someone of his caliber had printed the suggestion gave it a whole new life in Washington.

But in the week since the Israeli attack on Iran commenced, it’s been looking more and more like the story of that brilliant Trump–Bibi psyop was itself a psyop, with Trump as the target. Whatever the president’s level of involvement in, or assent to, Israel’s bombing campaign—and all we have now are conflicting accounts—it’s clear that Bibi knows how to manipulate his counterpart, possibly right into a war that Trump has claimed he doesn’t want.

For the Win

In the intelligence world, agents tailor their approach to a target based on that person’s specific psychological makeup and desires. Two classic weak points, of course, are money and ego, so bribes and elaborate flattery can be simple ways to get someone to do what you want. This is why, for example, Daimler, now known as Mercedes-Benz Group, bribed the dictator of Turkmenistan with a German translation of his book of philosophical musings, the Ruhnama, stuffing hundreds of copies of it into a solid gold chest. (Daimler got the contract—and, in 2010, was charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.)

Anyway, Trump has never been shy about what he likes: money, and winning. You could get on his good side by, say, giving him a $400 million jet or investing in his family’s crypto business. But if you don’t have Gulf levels of cash sloshing around, you can always try to engineer something that looks like a win for him. Bibi was presumably aware that he risked doing the opposite—making Trump look like he’d failed to score a big, beautiful nuclear deal with Iran and ward off yet another Middle East conflict. But he has, at every step since beginning his bombing campaign, found ways to flatter Trump and attribute the stealth and ingenuity of the operation at least partly to the American president. 

After all, Bibi’s goal isn’t just to keep Trump from being angry at him, but to get Trump to finish the job of destroying Iran’s nuclear program with B-2s and bunker busters. He has been so shrewd in publicly over-attributing the campaign’s successes to Trump, and constantly showering him with praise. “Happy birthday to you, Donald J. Trump,” Bibi said in a cringey video over the weekend, in which he wished “a double happy birthday” to Trump and the U.S. Army. “You’ve been an extraordinary leader: decisive, courageous, clear-visioned, clear-actioned. You have done great things for Israel. You have been an extraordinary friend to the Jewish state, and to me personally. And we appreciate what you’re doing now, helping protect Israeli lives against the criminal regime in Iran.” A few days later, he added that “American pilots are intercepting drones alongside our pilots.”

Trump likes a winner, which is why he changed his tone on the Israeli operation as soon as it became clear that it was being praised as a daring, ingenious success. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio put out a hasty statement last Thursday night to disclaim any American involvement in the just-commenced Israeli bombing campaign, by Friday morning Trump was calling reporters to praise what he called “a very successful attack, to put it mildly,” and to affirm that “we of course support Israel, obviously, and supported it like nobody has ever supported it.” By Tuesday, Trump was using the first-person plural to describe the Israeli attack, writing that “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” adding, “Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”

Two Weeks Later

Bibi’s been happy to let Trump take as much ownership as he wants, praising him, giving credit where it’s not necessarily due and—perhaps learning from Zelensky’s Oval Office experience—making sure to say thank you. For good measure, according to some reports, he has also reminded Trump that the Iranian regime has tried to kill him.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government continues to box Trump in by playing up the likelihood he will join their military operation. The closer he gets to his decision, it seems, the more anonymous Israeli officials are telling American reporters that Trump is leaning toward busting those Iranian bunkers. (In fairness, American officials are leaking much the same.)

Trump, however, continues to maintain what he sees as his singular competitive advantage: unpredictability. And he, too, appears to be playing for time. Yesterday, Trump told reporters, “I may do it, I may not do it.” Today, the White House gave itself a two-week window and pointed to “a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.” If you followed the retreating horizon on when Trump would impose tough new sanctions on Russia, which receded two weeks at a time, you’ll recognize that time frame: two weeks seems to be Trump’s way of saying “maybe never.”

It is quite possible that Bibi will go too far, making Trump realize he’s being boxed in and manipulated. Then again, it’s Trump. He could easily take the thank-yous and the credit for an Israeli military job well done, pocket it, get cold feet, and give nothing in return. Which is perhaps why Bibi, standing at an Israeli hospital bombed by Iran on Thursday, declared that, actually, Israel can finish the job alone.

3. Surprises Ahead in the Israel-Iran War?

Surprises Ahead in the Israel-Iran War?

As the Israel-Iran war enters its second week, an update on the war and an examination of potential surprises and branch plans for American offensive operations against Iran.

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/surprises-ahead-in-the-israel-iran?r=7i07

Mick Ryan

Jun 21, 2025

∙ Paid

Source: @IAFsite

Israel’s stunning, multifaceted strike against Iranian nuclear, ballistic missile, and regime leadership targets has thrown much into chaos: Iran’s ability to project power, Trump’s nuclear diplomacy, and US-Israel regional coordination. Daniel B. Shapiro, Atlantic Council

The Israeli campaign to dismantle the Iranian nuclear program, and its associated missile development and manufacturing capability, has entered its second week.

The Israelis thus far appeared to have caused considerable damage to the Iranian nuclear program, have killed multiple senior scientists (some by a yet-to-be- revealed weapon) and destroyed facilities that conduct research and hold the archives and key data for nuclear weapons development.

While early estimates indicate that Israel has set back the Iranian nuclear program by years, these assumptions need to be tested through more robust post-strike analysis once the bombs stop dropping. In war, first reports are always wrong. Frankly, it is too early to state the degree of degradation to the Iranian nuclear program with great confidence, even with the level of destruction the Israelis have caused over the past 8 days.

So far, the Iranians have fired hundreds of ballistic missiles (about 470) and drones at Israel in response. Somewhere between 10% and 30% of these (depending on whose statistics you believe) get through Israeli defences. This has resulted in at least 24 killed and hundreds of wounded in Israel.

The Next Two Weeks

President Trump has set a two-week period for his consideration of the Iranian problem and for a decision about the way ahead with any American participation in offensive action. You can watch the statement about this by his press secretary here.

The past couple of days have seen a struggle in Washington DC between those who wish to stay out of this war, and those who believe that the U.S. has an opportunity to significantly reduce the threat posed from Iran by assisting Israel.

As this story from the Washington Post today describes:

In recent days, a relentless battle for Trump’s ear has swirled around the president…The advice — some solicited, others not — from prominent donors, right-wing media figures and elected officials played on Trump’s own conflicting impulses on Iran. On the one side, Trump resolutely has stuck to his long-held belief that Iran must be stopped from developing a nuclear weapon. On the other, he has tried to avoid war — an approach that is a major element of his political movement.

This battle for the President’s ear over the direction of policy, and American support, for Israel-Iran war will probably intensify, publicly and behind the scenes, in the coming days.

While President Trump ponders a decision on attacking Iran, diplomacy will continue. Trump’s special envoy will remain in contact with the Iranians, and the Europeans will also conduct meetings with the Iranians, although their first round of talks did not result in any outcomes rather than to agree to continue talking.

And, as this all happens, Israel will to continue destroying as much Iranian nuclear and missile launch and manufacturing infrastructure as possible. It will be doing this with as much urgency as possible in case there is some kind of deal cut by the Trump administration in the next couple of weeks that sees Israel having the cease it strikes.

At the same time, Israel will also need to continue defending itself against Iranian missile strikes. Whether Israel has sufficient stocks of munitions to attack Iran, and interceptors to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks over this period remains a question. Israel is likely to have planned for this major confrontation with Iran for some time however and ensured it had sufficient munitions for a sustained campaign.

That said, the U.S. Navy, which is surging ships towards the Middle East, will probably play an increasing role in the defence of Israel as Israel’s interceptor stocks begin to run low.

For other views on the next couple of weeks, you can view this interesting conversation hosted by CSIS in the past couple of days.

Source: IDF

Surprises Ahead? Almost Certainly

As I have written many times in the past few years, surprise is an enduring element of war. As Prussian military officer and theorist Carl von Clausewitz once wrote, “surprise lies at the foundation of all undertakings without exception, only in very different degrees according to the nature of the undertaking and other circumstances.”

The next two weeks could see several surprises in this war. What might some of these surprises look like?

• Potential surprise (1): President Trump might give the go ahead for a U.S. strike well before the end of the two-week period and only announce his decision after the strike. He has indicated this is possible in comments in the past day noting that two weeks is the “maximum”. The U.S. military is gathering a large naval task force in the Middle East and has aircraft prepositioned on the ground in the Middle East, Diego Garcia and elsewhere if such a decision is taken.
• Potential surprise (2): President Trump might agree to a deal with Iran in the two-week period. This might either be endorsed by Israel or not. What happens if Trump reaches a deal with Iran which Israel does not like?
• Potential surprise (3): Europe reaches a deal with Iran. The UK, Germany and France have held talks with Iranian officials about the ongoing Israeli bombing campaign but have yet to reach any deal. This is probably unlikely given Israel and the U.S. may not endorse a deal.
• Potential surprise (4): Iran lashes out and attacks Saudi / Kuwaiti oil refineries and infrastructure. This will clearly make them more unpopular with Trump and with their neighbours and probably gains them little.
• Potential surprise (5): Israel decides not to wait for a U.S. decision and launches a ground attack and penetration into the Fordow nuclear facility.

There are sure to be other twists and turns in this war in the coming days and weeks. While Iran’s airspace may be wide open to Israeli (and possibly American) aircraft and drones, this does not mean the Iranians are without agency. We will find out just how many options remain open to the Iranians in the coming days.

In a recent article, Shalom Lipner has written that “Iran will seek to exact a heavy toll on both Israel and the United States.” We will see in the coming days whether Iran can match its action to its words.

U.S. Intervention or Non-intervention

Israel has planned this attack on Iran for a long time. It has been one of the most important contingency plans on the shelf of Israel’s military planners for years. Back in 2022, Israel rehearsed such an attack over the Mediterranean.

Israel is also likely to have developed what military planners call ‘branch plans’ for if the US intervenes militarily or if the American military doesn’t participate in offensive operations against Iran.

What are the options for President Trump if he commits the U.S. to intervene with military force"?

• There could be different levels of U.S. intervention, from just dropping some of the bunker busters on Fordow to something that includes that and a short air campaign (using cruise missiles and munitions dropped from US aircraft) to destroy Iranian missiles, launchers and missile manufacturing capacity.
• Israel may play a role in escorting U.S. bombers, or the U.S. might carve out its own airspace and only use its own bombers, fighters, refuelling aircraft for such a mission.
• The ultimate military contribution could be an American ground intervention to secure and destroy Fordow. As this article describes, this is a type of mission that U.S. special forces have been preparing for in the past few years. It is unlikely that the current American administration would be keen to undertake such an operation however.
• Backfill of munitions for those used by Israel with an airlift from U.S. stocks elsewhere.

What are Israel’s options if the U.S. does not intervene to conduct offensive military operations against Iran?

• If the U.S. does not intervene with military force and a deal is not achieved, Israel will have probably planned for its own ground operation to seize, assess and destroy the Fordow facility as well as any other hardened and deeply buried nuclear facility.
• This would be a very complex operating involving parachute and air landed troops, securing the area around the facility from attacks by Iranian ground forces, and the penetration into the facility which is likely to involving breaching multiple heavy doors and other infrastructure. The IDF Parachute Brigade, accompanied by special forces and specialist engineer elements, might be the core of such a force, supported by IDF long-range airlift assets.
• This Fordow mission would not be a short operation – it would probably require a few days to complete. During this time, the deployed force would not only need to breach into the facility, conduct exploitation and then destroy it, a ground force would need to cordon and defend the site from Iranian forces.
• But even if the U.S. does not participate in offensive operations, Israel would still seek continued American missile defence assistance.

Clearly there are a huge array of advantages and disadvantages for the U.S. administration to consider as it works through its calculus for supporting or not supporting offensive operations against Israel. Given Trump’s propensity to avoid foreign conflicts (in general), any American commitment to offensive operations in Iran is very likely to be limited in scope and time and designed to bring Iran to the negotiating table under conditions very favourable to Israel and America.

And to make things even more complex, the Chinese today stepped up their operations around Taiwan.

A new brief from the CSIS also points out that besides bunker buster bombs and ground assaults, there are some other ways of neutralising hardened and deeply buried Iranian nuclear facilities. Heather Williams writes that “the destruction of Fordow is shaping up to be a Rubicon as the crisis escalates. The GBU-57 may not fully destroy the facility, so regardless of Trump’s decision, Fordow will likely remain a challenge for nonproliferation efforts.” Williams lists five methods to deal with Fordow:

• The GBU-57 bunker buster bomb.
• Sustained Israeli Strikes with other bombs.
• Sabotage.
• Nuclear Weapons.
• Dismantlement by Diplomacy.

The full report can be read at this link.

U.S. Air Force B2 bombers - coming to Iran soon? Image: @AFGlobalStrike

What Comes After the Bombing?

Regardless of the issues above, the key question about Israel’s attack is what comes next?

Military operations should always be conducted in order to achieve a desired political outcome. The key outcome of Israel’s attack is not just to destroy Iran’s nuclear and missile program, but to dissuade Iran from rebuilding it and targeting missile and nuclear weapons at Israel again in the future. It is uncertain whether the current Israeli attacks will achieve this.

While the attacks may remove the nuclear threat to Israel for some time, and demonstrate to regional nations that Iran is weaker than many believed, it remains an open question whether these attacks will ultimately make Israel more or less secure in the medium and long term.

There is much uncertainty about the end game for this war. Lawrence Freedman sums this up wonderfully when he wrote recently that:

As is always the case with Israel they can be extremely impressive in mounting complex military operations against multiple targets, but you never get a sense that they have thought through the end game. There is never a political strategy to go with a military strategy. Hence the Gaza catastrophe. If the regime stays in place it is not clear at what point the Israelis will be able to say that they have done enough nor whether they believe that there will be a later role for resumed negotiations between the US and a weakened Iran.

I would conclude with the following questions. At what point can the Israelis say they have achieved their strategic objectives for this war? And what will the security situation in the Middle East look like then?

4. Shifting World Order Threatens to Expand the Nuclear-Arms Club

"To arm or not to arm. That is the question." Did Shakespeare ask that?

Shifting World Order Threatens to Expand the Nuclear-Arms Club

Wars in Ukraine and Iran, and rising doubts about the reliability of the U.S., are making countries around the world wonder if having their own nukes is the key to survival.

https://www.wsj.com/world/nuclear-proliferation-us-ally-1920b3da

By Yaroslav Trofimov

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June 20, 2025 8:00 pm ET

Key Points

What's This?

• Ukraine’s disarmament is viewed by some as a mistake, while North Korea’s nuclear pursuit is seen as a challenge to security.
• Some U.S. allies consider nuclear weapons due to doubts about American protection, fueled by Trump’s questioning of NATO’s value.
• The contrast between Ukraine’s vulnerability and North Korea’s immunity highlights the debate on nuclear proliferation.

When it came to nuclear weapons, the U.S. had two top priorities in the 1990s. One was to ensure that newly independent Ukraine handed over its vast arsenal to Russia. The other was to prevent North Korea from obtaining its own nukes.

The first effort was a success, but today, many regard Ukraine’s disarmament as a strategic blunder, leaving it vulnerable to a Russian invasion that has triggered the bloodiest European war in generations. The second attempt was a failure: Pyongyang deftly exploited American reluctance to use military force and became a nuclear-armed state that can challenge global security.

Now, as Israel unleashes its military seeking to prevent what it says could be a similar nuclear breakthrough by Iran, these examples are being carefully studied around the world. Is the lesson that countries facing existential threats need nuclear weapons to survive? Or that pursuing those weapons is too dangerous, encouraging enemies to strike while they still can?

In the past, it was mostly rogue states like Libya, Syria and Iraq that tried to obtain nukes. Today the option is being seriously contemplated by American allies such as South Korea, Japan, Poland, Germany and Turkey, who worry that they can no longer rely on Washington’s protection. President Trump has fueled this existential dread by questioning the value of NATO, cutting off military aid to Ukraine and considering a pullback of American forces from South Korea.

A Ukrainian defense official examines a nuclear missile in Dnipro before it is dismantled, 1999. Many Ukrainians now regret that the country agreed to give up the nuclear weapons in its possession after the fall of the Soviet Union. Photo: Sergey Pashchenko/Associated Press

Meanwhile, North Korea emerged from isolation to join a formal military alliance with Russia, sending troops to fight on European soil and testing its ballistic missiles on Ukrainian cities. It could do so with impunity because, unlike Tehran’s theocracy, Pyongyang’s totalitarian regime has a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and doesn’t fear being challenged with military force.

“A lot of countries will now be thinking that nuclear weapons are the ticket to sovereignty,” said Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO who served as special envoy for Ukraine in the first Trump administration. “If we don’t change our behavior—and I don’t expect we will—the world we’re going to live in 20 years from now will be a world with lots of nuclear-weapons states.”

A ruthless new world

Nuclear-weapons technology is some 80 years old, and it’s within reach of any determined industrialized nation. Yet the nuclear club has remained small. The five nuclear powers recognized by the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—the U.S., Russia, China, France and the U.K.—are all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The other four nuclear powers don’t belong to the NPT. India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998; North Korea tested its first bomb in 2006. Israel, whose program drew on French assistance in the 1960s, is believed to have at least 90 warheads, but maintains a formal policy of ambiguity about its nuclear status.

The U.S. has long encouraged allied nations to rely on the American nuclear umbrella for protection rather than building their own arsenals. Despite all the fears sparked by the Trump administration, American officials insist that security commitments to allies remain ironclad. “We’re not going anywhere,” said Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, at a conference in Brussels this month. “The United States cannot go alone into this very dangerous world, and so we need our allies. But we need allies that are capable, that are strong as well, and that can join the fight if a fight breaks out.”

Yet those promises sound less convincing in a ruthless global environment where interlocking conflicts continue to expand. “The international order, which we knew for 80 years after World War II, has fallen apart. That international order created a certain predictable environment, including nonproliferation treaties on so many types of weapons,” said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský. “Clearly, we now see a discussion on nuclear weapons—and Vladimir Putin is to blame for that because he opened this Pandora’s box. He’s challenging borders and so, logically, others are asking: how can we now protect our own borders?”

Destruction in Kyiv following a Russian drone and missile attack on June 17. Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament in the 1990s left it vulnerable to Russian invasion decades later. Photo: Serhii Korovayny for WSJ

To France, the decision by President Charles de Gaulle to develop a fully independent nuclear capability in the 1960s, instead of relying on American promises, looks like a stroke of historic genius today. That decision went against American wishes at the time, noted French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu. “We have always believed that we cannot delegate our security to others,” he said.

Yet Lecornu noted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also shown that nuclear weapons are no substitute for conventional military strength. “Nuclear deterrence doesn’t solve all your problems. Even though it is a nuclear power, Russia hasn’t been able to succeed in its conventional military operations in Ukraine where, three years later, the once great Russian army is stalled and has yet to conquer four oblasts,” or regions, he said. “This must be food for thought for our South Korean and Japanese friends when it comes to North Korea.”

Ukraine’s choice

The contrast between Ukraine’s vulnerability and North Korea’s immunity looms large in the deliberations of governments worldwide. When Ukraine became independent in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia swiftly removed tactical nuclear weapons from Ukrainian soil. But Kyiv retained sole physical custody over some 1,800 strategic warheads, the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, as well as a fleet of strategic bombers and intercontinental missiles. Ukraine did not have the ability to launch these weapons independently, but officials familiar with the program say the country, where a large part of the Soviet Union’s military industries were located, had enough technical expertise to rewire the warheads and gain full control if it wanted.

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“It shouldn’t surprise anybody that the United States wanted to eliminate those weapons, because they were designed, built and deployed to incinerate American cities,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv. Faced with economic collapse and fierce American pressure, Ukraine agreed to transfer its nuclear arsenal to Russia in accordance with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. In exchange, the U.S., Russia and the U.K. gave “security assurances” to respect Ukraine’s independence and existing borders, commitments that ultimately turned out to be worthless.

A refusal would have put Ukraine on a very different geopolitical trajectory, Pifer noted: “If Ukraine had tried to keep nuclear weapons, it would not have been as ostracized as North Korea. But Ukraine would have had no relationship with NATO and the European Union, and Ukraine might have found out that if did get to a crisis point with Russia, it was having no support from the West.”

Former President Bill Clinton, in an Irish TV interview in 2023, said he felt “terrible” about having forced Kyiv to give up nukes, suggesting Russia wouldn’t have invaded otherwise.

Lithuania’s Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė agreed, saying the West’s reluctance to help Ukraine after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, which violated the Budapest Memorandum, shows that Kyiv should not have given up its arsenal.

“The message that this sends to other countries is: if you have weapons, don’t abandon them, if you have the ability to produce weapons, produce them. Weapons of all kinds,” she said. “As you see, countries that do have a nuclear weapon, somehow they do not get attacked fiercely…Saying let’s disarm, let’s be peaceful pigeons—that’s suicidal. Now we understand.”

The remains of an Iranian ballistic missile that struck northern Israel, June 18. Israel attacked Iran this month seeking to prevent what it says could be an imminent nuclear breakthrough. Photo: Gil Eliyahu/Reuters

Now that Ukraine has lost a fifth of its territory to Russia, and faces Putin’s demands to essentially relinquish sovereignty over the rest, many Ukrainians agree that the country made a mistake in the 1990s. They point out that, after initially imposing sanctions, the U.S. eventually acquiesced to India and Pakistan going nuclear. Ukraine might have followed the same path if it had insisted on keeping its nukes.

Some Ukrainian officials have even hinted that the door to pursuing nuclear weapons could be reopened. Retired Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, Ukraine’s former military chief and current ambassador to London, raised eyebrows in March by saying that Ukraine has become the bulwark of European security even though “for now, it doesn’t possess its own nuclear weapons.” The Ukrainian government says it’s committed to the NPT.

While North Korea pursued a secret nuclear-weapons program primarily based on producing plutonium, Iran—which is a member of the NPT—developed an ostensibly civilian nuclear-energy program based on enriching uranium. Israel and the U.S. say that was a cover for its nuclear-weapons ambitions, and the program has cost Iran an estimated $1 trillion, between direct spending and the impact of sanctions. Yet it has turned out to be worse than useless in preventing the current Israeli onslaught.

“Instead of being a strategic asset, the nuclear program has proven a huge strategic liability for the regime,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “But when the dust of this war settles, there is a danger that the takeaway of Iran’s next leadership will be not that the mistake was to pursue nuclear weapons—they may think that the mistake was not to pursue nuclear weapons more rapidly.”

Iran’s neighbors are watching, too. In Turkey, TV commentators and some nationalist politicians have already called for developing nuclear weapons to deter Israel. “The future of the Middle East will be the rivalry between Israel and Turkey, given the weakening of Iran,” said Gérard Araud, a former French ambassador to the U.S. and the UN. “And in a region with a nuclear-armed power that uses military force to the extent that it does, if I were a Turkish strategist, I would consider the hypothesis of going nuclear to face an aggressive Israel.”

The end of nonproliferation?

For Turkey and other potential nuclear states, any attempt to acquire nukes would incur considerable political and economic costs. Most existing nuclear powers oppose any erosion of their edge, and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have historically used sanctions to punish violations of the NPT. But that international consensus is dwindling. Russia’s commitment to nonproliferation is particularly in doubt given its close ties to North Korea and Iran, including the transfer of technologies that could have nuclear applications.

“NPT is not dead, but it is now in a crisis mode,” said Ukraine’s former foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin, who was involved in nuclear disarmament talks in the 1990s as a young diplomat. “The NPT is not sustainable when a lot of countries feel that they are not secure delivering on NPT. And if they feel that they are not secure, they will think of something else.”

Kim Jong Un inspects a nuclear material production site in a photo released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency. The country’s growing nuclear arsenal has prompted South Koreans to support acquiring their own nuclear weapons. Photo: KCNA/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Nuclear experts say that it could take between two and five years for an industrial nation to gain nuclear capability—if it isn’t stopped by an attack, the way Israel ended Syria’s nuclear program in 2007 and Iraq’s in 1981. North Korea may have similar intentions when it comes to its southern neighbor. “What is happening in Iran is making South Koreans think twice about going nuclear. North Korea would have a strong incentive to prevent that, especially because South Korea has a conventional superiority,” said Lami Kim, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, a Honolulu-based think tank affiliated with the Pentagon.

Nuclear capability doesn’t come cheap. Obtaining weapons and the means to deliver them, such as missiles, would cost at least several billion dollars, and potentially much more if international sanctions are imposed.

“Everyone wants to be able to fight outside their weight class, which is what being a nuclear power allows,” said Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Yet many countries that considered going nuclear in the past “stepped back and said, we just simply can’t afford to do that because we would have to put all those other things aside, despite our desire.”

The U.S. and other existing nuclear powers long argued against proliferation on the grounds that a planet with dozens of nuclear-armed states would be inherently much more unstable, even threatening the survival of humanity as a whole. When India and Pakistan clashed in May following a terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir, “You had a world on edge in a way that would not have otherwise been because they were two nuclear powers that were in direct conflict directly next to one another,” noted Mast.

Yet some argue that the clash ended quickly, and didn’t turn into a full-scale war, precisely because both sides could exercise nuclear deterrence. That’s a lesson for South Korea, which sees its strategic position increasingly endangered by the growth of North Korean military strength.

Indian soldiers in the Jammu and Kashmir region in May, during a military clash between Pakistan and India. Both countries possess nuclear weapons. Photo: Mukesh Gupta/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The expanding range of North Korea’s missiles and the potency of its nuclear arsenal mean that it now has the ability to threaten the U.S. mainland, which could deter future U.S. military action to protect South Korea. That leaves South Korea facing the same dilemma that prompted France to go nuclear, after de Gaulle asked President John F. Kennedy whether the U.S. would risk having New York City destroyed to protect Paris—and failed to obtain a clear-cut answer.

Opinion polls now show that a majority of South Koreans view American promises of security as insufficient, and some three-quarters want the country to acquire its own nuclear weapons. Support for nukes now “is in the middle of the mainstream,” said Eric Ballbach, an expert on Korea at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, noting that backing for a nuclear option has expanded beyond its traditional conservative base to parts of the center-left led by newly elected President Lee Jae-myung.

“Trump is certainly not going to take nuclear risks for allies, that’s just painfully obvious,” said Robert E. Kelly, a professor at Pusan National University in South Korea. He has authored several papers arguing that Seoul should develop an independent nuclear deterrent.

“Nobody believes that South Korea is going to launch a nuclear weapon out of the blue, nobody thinks that if Poland builds a nuclear weapon, they’re going to drop it on Moscow,” Kelly said. “These are democracies, and if they build a nuclear weapon, that’s OK. It’s only the American hubris that convinces us that we are the only ones responsible enough to manage these weapons.”

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com

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

Appeared in the June 21, 2025, print edition as 'The Nuclear-Weapons Club Could Get a Lot Bigger Do Countries Now Need Nukes to Survive?'.

5. queries by a savvy reader – this is what dialogue allows by Dr. Cynthia Watson

A brilliant response from my mentor Dr. Cynthia Watson to my critical comments of her recent column. As an aside I first met Dr. Watson when I was a student at the National War College. It is conversation and dialogue like this that reminds me why the National War College is so valuable and had such an impact on me and my professional development as both a student and as a member of the military faculty.

queries by a savvy reader

this is what dialogue allows

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/queries-by-a-savvy-reader?utm

Cynthia Watson

Jun 20, 2025

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En lieu of a Friday column, I want to share my responses to appropriately incisive questions from COL Dave Maxwell, a retired Army legend who’s forgotten more on Korea than I will ever know. Dave raised the following points in response to arguments I made yesterday in my column entitled “Powell’s 14th Rule”.

“with great trepidation I have some disagreement with my long time friend and mentor.

First, I fear the pottery barn rule is the excuse for not taking action when that action may be necessary. If we break it, do we really buy it? Do we have to buy it?

I do agree that externally imposed regime change is a folly because it leads Americans to make the strategic error of trying to rebuild the new nation in the US or western image.

But if a regime falls organically from within it will be up to the people of that sovereign nation to rebuild their own new country. Sovereignty and self determination of government (by the people themselves) are the principles we should believe in and adhere to. We should not conduct operations to externally impose regime change but we should take action if it is US and international security interests. Even if that means violating the sovereignty of a country like Iran to eliminate the nuclear threat.”

My responses to Dave are, with bracketed comments additions I subsequently realized I should have offered.

“Thank you so much for the feedback. If you think about the pottery barn, we do indeed buy it, regardless of what the outcome.

I am not comfortable saying we can’t act but we damned well need recall there will be consequences. I am guilty of not having made that clear as your response alludes.

Of course any regime falling organically is the responsibility of those it ruled {I should refine that to “those inheriting of the mechanisms of governance—cw} but how can we differentiate between a conflict externally created and internal affairs? That one is hard because the Iranians {themselves} have been resistant to this regime for decades but unsuccessful at changing it. This is a fine line that I find may serve our purposes but not recognize the implications.

Thank you again. I welcome any and all responses you get to this as well. I am NOT the font of knowledge by any stretch but worry a lot about steps we may have the capacity to instigate without the resilience to withstand later. Same pertains to Israel. I am well aware and sympathetic to the dangers but consequences can be ugly later.

As you point out, how do you weigh those relative questions?”

My column yesterday in no way meant to forgive the Islamic Republic of its repulsive deeds over the past forty-five years, whether it was holding U.S. hostages for 444 days, treating women like chattel in stifling, dehumanizing garb, funding and encouraging terrorism across the region, developing the infrastructure intent on acquiring a Persian nuclear capacity, or attacking a hospital amid the current conflict. Under the guise of protecting the Shi’ia sect, several generations of men made their own country virtually unbearable as a society while continuing to menace outsiders.

My point, however, was that regime change would be neither easy nor likely to be satisfying for all. Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe this time, the follow-on regime will likely result in better relations under a less nationalistic and more benevolent regime, one that is intent on adopting a sustainable governing style that responds to the frustrations of more than 90 million Iranians living stagnant lives.

Someone, however, will have to pick up the pieces of a post-mullah Teheran. Decades of externally-driven sanctions (even if justifiable) and domestic mismanagement, a central cause of why many Iranians have sought to oust the religious rulers for years, leave a broken nation.

For most of the post-1945 years, we were the nation that leaped in to provide funding and technical help to rebuild societies while opening the door to trade that was relatively beneficial for both the state undergoing repair and ourselves. We did this repeatedly not because we were stupid or altruistic (although we occasionally see ourselves that way) but because it gave us the inside track on helping them craft a regime that we found to our liking. We kid ourselves if we ignore this.

Did we make mistakes? Abolutamente. Did we spend trillions of dollars in places that fell back into their same abysmal conditions? Yes, we did, but being the nation to whom others turned for decisions was in our interest as it gave us an overwhelming voice in the international system as well as in many other countries. Would the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, or Korea be who they are today without this role and our influence, whether as a result of regime change or incentives to evolve into global participants?

I do not dispute that we no longer wish to assume that responsibility. Got it. We want to put down that burden, and other states are delighted to see us relinquish the torch, but that does not mean the rest of the world does not understand the history we forget. Someone will fill the void.

That someone, of course, is likely to be China in parallel with Western Europe. I suspect most of us expect our European colleagues to take the torch. Still, I am dubious that Paris, London, Berlin, or Stockholm will take on supporting the much nearer problems of Ukraine in addition to a post-Islamic Republic Iran.

China, dependent on Tehran’s petroleum, will welcome stepping into this greater leadership role, even if the options it offers the Iranians are incomplete or ultimately untenable. Beijing consistently studies our history, even if we don’t, making them acutely aware of the source of U.S. power over the past eighty years. We may not want them to do this, but if we walk away, as Dave’s comments hint, Beijing is the obvious interlocutor and rebuilder of choice for Tehran (to be clear: COL Maxwell did not advocate that we leave things open for Beijing). I can’t see how things work otherwise because no one else is out there.

Earlier this week, the highly nationalistic Chinese news source Global Times chortled when the Lowy Institute in Sydney released a poll where 56% of Australians—arguably our closest allies in the Indo-Pacific along with Japan and Korea—”believe China will be the most powerful country in ten years, while only about a quarter of (27%) say the same of the U.S.”. China’s role around the world, whether it’s in finance, peacekeeping, trade, or potentially supporting other regimes, is growing, plain and simple. This description may shock Americans, particularly as many have come to prefer isolationism while demanding that others bear the burdens traditionally associated with American strength. Still, the rest of the world does not seem to view our behavior in quite the same manner. Were the rest of the world overly dependent on us? Likely, but we were reliable, talented, and able, none of which are descriptions used about us these days. China would be delighted to assume that position as the world’s indispensable force.

The current conflict and potential choices offer a dismal state of affairs because we do not want a nuclear-capable Iran. Still, the aftermath of regime change, even for Iranians themselves, is fraught with potential dangers, and we do not have the financial or political wherewithal these days to take on additional burdens.

The burdens, however, still arise, whether due to the actions of others or our actions at times. Ignoring the ramifications of our actions strikes me, at the very least, as wishful thinking of the worst kind. But I may be erring on the side of pessimism too far.

The Spanish-born historian George Santayana offered a quotation that has stuck with me as the conflict in Iran accelerates: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Similarly, Shakespeare’s words on the National Archives Building in our capital are worth considering: “The past is prologue.”

I pray that we see no repeats of frustrations and failures following regime changes, so we must recognize possible outcomes rather than assuming only the most positive, in which we hold no long-term role.

I am incredibly aware of the pain and fears driving Israel to this junction. Israel, day in and day out worries about its ability to survive as a home for the Jewish people and as a nation-state. Jerusalem and Washington believe these steps can prevent further strengthening by this mortal enemy in Teheran. However, it will hardly be cost-free, so we need to face that as events unfold.

In the end, the best answer primarily results from identifying clear priorities; put otherwise, what is your ultimate prize? If Israel or the United States seeks to rid the world of the Islamic Republic above anything else, then we are willing to tolerate many adverse effects. If Israel’s (or the American, for that matter) goal is unconditional security cost-free, there is likely no good answer. If our goal is to prevent China from gaining a more prestigious role in the world system, then regime change in Tehran may exacerbate our challenges.

We often conflate goals as if there were no costs associated with them. I don’t see a consequence-free outcome for the current conflict. Choosing between the evils is painful and not one I endorse with any joy as there is rarely an outstanding result from these types of choices. But, choosing is an affirmative action that many seek to exercise rather than providing time (a fickle part of this entire play) longer is a seemingly far less desirable option.

Again, I admit I don’t know the best solutions, but I sought to provide due diligence by asking these questions and examining the pitfalls we have experienced. I am not responsible to the U.S. or Israeli populations, so I recognize the luxury of analyzing versus policy-making. Yet, strategy dictates that we look beyond the immediate to the longer term before executing options. I most of all hope we isolate our goals to keep our eye on the prize. However, we explain it unequivocally.

I welcome your comments in addition to COL Maxwell’s, Col. Hudson’s and Ms. Route’s on this topic. My goal is to expand civil, measured discussion of topics precisely as pressing as those raised above. Discussion requires multiple voices so please chime in, whether on the comments section for paid subscribers or to me directly. I welcome your thoughts.

I appreciate the subscribers a great deal because they advance my work. A commitment of $8 monthly or $55 per year is a well-appreciated support to this work. I thank anyone, however, who reads the column.

We had massive storms last night, bringing out lushness in the greenery and at least one lovely monarch butterfly and a pollinator on echinacea during this morning’s walkabout.

6. No One's Going to Use a Nuclear Weapon Against Fordow

Excerpt:

All this said, my expectation that this point is that more likely than not, the U.S. does not hit Fordow until the Israelis use whatever option they’ve got cooked up (probably something involving special forces). The Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago that “Israel has a plan for Fordow and the ability to carry it out on its own.”

No One's Going to Use a Nuclear Weapon Against Fordow

Thoughts on nuclear solutions to nuclear problems.

https://panda.substack.com/p/no-ones-going-to-use-a-nuclear-weapon?

Ankit Panda

Jun 21, 2025

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The fate of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant continues to draw interest more than a week now into the Israel-Iran war. There’s a story in the Guardian that offers the following tidbits on the sorts of military options the president of the United States (Donald Trump) has apparently been presented with:

The effectiveness of GBU-57s has been a topic of deep contention at the Pentagon since the start of Trump’s term, according to two defense officials who were briefed that perhaps only a tactical nuclear weapon could be capable of destroying Fordow because of how deeply it is located.

Trump is not considering using a tactical nuclear weapon on Fordow and the possibility was not presented by defense secretary Pete Hegseth and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Gen Dan Caine in meetings in the White House situation room, two people familiar with the matter said.

But the defense officials who received the briefing were told that using conventional bombs, even as part of a wider strike package of several GBU-57s, would not penetrate deep enough underground and that it would only do enough damage to collapse tunnels and bury it under rubble.

The defense officials were also told that to completely destroy Fordow, which Israeli intelligence estimates to go down as far as 300ft, it would likely require the US to first soften the ground with conventional bombs and then ultimately drop a tactical nuclear weapon from a B2 bomber.

This has led to some understandable concern. Even as the story makes clear that Trump “is not considering” using nuclear weapons, there’s some surprise, discomfort, and anxiety around the fact that U.S. nuclear weapons are in the picture whatsoever.

First, as a factual matter, the United States does not currently possess a “tactical” nuclear weapon suitable for the purpose described here. The sole nuclear earth-penetrating weapon suitable for the destruction of hard and deeply buried targets (HDBT, in the world of defense acronyms) is the B61-11, which, as Jeffrey Lewis pointed out, is solely and routinely described as a “strategic” weapon with a suspected yield in the ~400kT range. (NOT a low-yield weapon!)

The B61 program traces its origins back to the Cold War and comes in many variants. The newest variants—the B61-12 and the B61-13 (announced under the Biden administration)—are important in various ways. The first will replace the older mods (with the exception of the Earth-penetrating B61-11) and the second, which just entered the stockpile recently, is for “certain harder and large-area military targets” (not Fordow).

The B61-11 really exists to allow the United States to hold at risk deeply buried military sites within the context of a nuclear war. Think, for instance, a hardened or super-hardened command bunker in North Korea, where Kim Jong Un might be tucked away after having initiated a nuclear war. This problem set (of command-critical hardened and super-hardened facilities) pre-dates Fordow and the end of the Cold War.

Second, let’s talk about why certain people (apparently not those near the president, so far) are talking about presumably using the B61-11 against Fordow. The general way in which things work is that the president will ask for options on how best to accomplish a particular task (i.e., destroy Fordow), and the military will go over the tools in the American toolkit, the risks/benefits of using each tool, and the probability of success (that the operation will succeed).

In the context of the Fordow conversation, this probably means that there are plans that range from using the B61-11, to multiple GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP, the big conventional bombs designed for the Fordow mission), and potentially other options like sending in special forces. With the GBU-57 MOP option, there may be multiple concepts for employment: such as using a smaller number of MOPs against portals to the underground facility and a larger number to try and achieve sufficient blast effects that the centrifuge cascades lose power and presumably render themselves degraded or destroyed as a result.

The probability of success (kill) question is more interesting. Modeling the effects of earth-penetrating weapons is hard and very sensitive to assumptions about the precise geology of the target at question. Geoff Brumfiel did a nice thread about this over on BlueSky, showing some back-of-the-envelope math for the MOP. Targeting comes with a degree of epistemic uncertainty that’s fine to appreciate in an academic context, but more uncomfortable for planners and certainly political decision-makers, who might not be the best in thinking rigorously about probabilities anyways. In a sense, this is why militaries will almost never assign a single weapon to a target: particularly a high-value one. With MOPs, this is a forgone conclusion, I think. You’d never see the sort of Star Wars-esque single proton torpedo strike that’d result in a satisfying conclusion, but the use of multiple weapons. I think this would also be true with B61-11s (probably two). Remember that weapons systems also have some non-zero probability of failure (fuzing, electronics, and various other components can fail).

Another way to think about this is that military planners aren’t necessarily thinking about what are the non-nuclear ways to do this, but essentially trying to think through whatever options the president may or may not opt for (in extremis). In essence, if Trump decides, at some point within the next two weeks1, that he does want all options presented on Fordow, he’ll get nuclear, non-nuclear, and maybe special forces options.

Now, practically, there’s an interesting question about the legality of employing a B61-11 against Fordow. Nominally, the president shouldn’t be presented with illegal military options that would result in effects inconsistent with the Law of Armed Conflict principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity.2 In extremis, within a nuclear war, you can quite easily lawyer your way into employing a B61-11 against a hard command bunker—particularly if striking that target could be war-terminating.3 I could well be wrong, but the idea of lawyering up a legal justification for using nuclear weapons against Fordow seems, prima facie, absurd.

First, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, until right before the Israeli strikes, was under IAEA safeguards. It is associated with the production of highly enriched uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon, but it is not a site known to be directly associated with weaponization, weapons storage, or military operations. The military necessity case is that destroying it would prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. (Despite this war, Iran continues to have not taken the overt political decision to weaponize—though it may have done so covertly).

Second, you don’t need to dig particularly deep (no pun intended) into what we know about nuclear effects from penetrating ground bursts to understand that the B61-11, paired with reasonable assumptions about the geology of the Fordow site, would result in massive amounts of fallout, with exceptional resulting civilian harm within Iran. The site’s proximity to Qom is of greatest concern, but it is not too far from Tehran either (at least, as far as fallout could go given prevailing wind patterns). That’s on the order of ~10-12 million civilians, with expected deaths from fallout in the range of tens of thousands (with many more harmed). In short, the civilian harm would be highly disproportionate to the military benefit here.

Let me just punctuate the three preceding paragraphs by noting that I am aware that Pete Hegseth is probably not going to give much of a hoot about the legality question, and we saw top JAGs fired back in February. This raises the possibility that what shouldn’t, ideally, under normal circumstances be on the table, could be on the table for consideration by the president in due course. But under normal circumstances, I have no doubt that nuclear weapons use against Fordow would be a colossal war crime and probably one of the dumber ways for the U.S. to break the nuclear taboo.

All this said, my expectation that this point is that more likely than not, the U.S. does not hit Fordow until the Israelis use whatever option they’ve got cooked up (probably something involving special forces). The Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago that “Israel has a plan for Fordow and the ability to carry it out on its own.”

1

It’s always “two weeks” for any hard decisions for Trump.

2

You can read more about these here.

3

This is very debatable, but out of scope for this post.

7. Iran Remains Defiant as Pressure Builds to End Nuclear-Fuel Enrichment

Graphics at the link.

Iran Remains Defiant as Pressure Builds to End Nuclear-Fuel Enrichment

Outlook for diplomacy darkens as talks with European officials sputter and Israel warns of a long war

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-remains-defiant-as-pressure-builds-to-end-nuclear-fuel-enrichment-4900fce4?st=5G8obF&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Summer Said

Follow, Laurence Norman

Follow and Benoit Faucon

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Updated June 20, 2025 6:25 pm ET

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(7 min)

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in Geneva on Friday, said Iran would consider diplomacy if Israel stopped its attacks. Photo: Sedat Suna/Getty Images

Key Points

What's This?

• European officials support the U.S. demand that Iran cease uranium enrichment amid rising tensions with Israel.
• Iran refuses to end uranium enrichment or negotiate with the U.S. unless Israel halts its attacks, defying growing pressure.
• Trump says he will decide whether to join Israel’s attacks within two weeks to give time for negotiations to work.

GENEVA—Top European officials have lined up behind the Trump administration’s demand that Iran give up its uranium-enrichment program, as pressure mounted on Tehran to make deep concessions if it wants a diplomatic off-ramp from the fighting with Israel.

That fighting threatens to intensify with the possible entry of the U.S., a prospect that has alarmed officials in the oil-rich Persian Gulf who fear an escalatory spiral if Iran retaliates. President Trump says he will decide whether to join Israel’s attacks within two weeks to give time for negotiations to work.

Despite the growing pressure, Iran has remained defiant, raising doubts about whether a negotiated solution can be found. Tehran has told diplomats in several conversations this week that it won’t end its enrichment of nuclear fuel and won’t enter talks with the U.S. unless Israel stops its attacks, Arab and European officials said.

Israel has shown no signs of being willing to stop the campaign it began a week ago with surprise airstrikes and intelligence operations that targeted Iranian military leaders, nuclear sites and air defenses. Israel’s top general said Friday the country is ready for a prolonged campaign to degrade Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli strikes in Iran since June 13

Reported strikes

turkmenistan

Tabriz

Caspian Sea

turkey

Tehran

Kermanshah

Iran

iraq

Isfahan

afghanistan

Shiraz

pakistan

Persian Gulf

saudi Arabia

Gulf of Oman

Note: ISW (June 13-17, 6 p.m. ET), Storyful (June 18 as of 12 p.m. ET), Israeli military (June 18-19)

Sources: Institute for the Study of War; Storyful-verified footage; Iranian state media; Israeli military; staff reports

Carl Churchill/WSJ

Talks with European foreign ministers on Friday failed to move Iran any closer to the concessions it would need to make to halt the fighting. Later on Friday, President Trump said only talks between the U.S. and Iran would be able to resolve the situation. “Europe is not going to be able to help in this one,” he said.

Trump administration special envoy Steve Witkoff presented Iran with a proposal earlier this week that would require it to stop enriching uranium but would give it access to fuel enriched elsewhere by a regional consortium, the Arab and European officials said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty discussed the U.S. proposal and Iran’s response on separate calls with Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Tuesday and Friday. Iran said it was willing to cap its enrichment at 3.67%, a level consistent with civilian uses, but wouldn’t give it up, the Arab and European officials said. That position hasn’t been acceptable to the U.S.

The U.S. wants Iran to come back with a clear answer to its latest offer before resuming nuclear talks, the Arab and European officials said.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday reiterated Trump’s stance that any deal with Iran must ban the country from enriching uranium and developing a nuclear weapon. Leavitt also said Witkoff has continued to correspond with the Iranians directly and through intermediaries.

Trump: Iran Decision to Come Within Two Weeks

Play video: Trump: Iran Decision to Come Within Two Weeks

President Trump sees a “substantial chance of negotiations” and will decide within two weeks whether the U.S. gets involved in the Israel-Iran conflict, says White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Photo: Mehmet Eser/Zuma Press

While Iran avoided making concessions on Friday, it was clear that its room to maneuver was shrinking. Ahead of the European meeting with Araghchi on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said any talks will have to involve Iran giving up the ability to make the fuel that powers nuclear weapons.

“It is absolutely essential to prioritize a return to substantive negotiations, which include nuclear issues to move toward zero enrichment, ballistics to limit Iranian activities and capabilities, and the financing of all the terrorist groups destabilizing the region,” Macron said. 

While there is no common European position on enrichment, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul made a similar call for a ban, and some British officials indicated in recent weeks they agree with that goal. Previously, Britain, France and Germany had been willing to allow Iran to enrich uranium but under tight limits.

The meeting ended with no new date set for further talks between Iran and the Europeans.

Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

“We urge Iran to continue their talks with the United States,” U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said after the Geneva talks. “This is a perilous moment.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar expressed doubt about Iran’s openness to talks given the lack of progress over the spring.

“Iran is saying ‘we will not negotiate when we are attacked.’ But when they were not attacked, nothing happened with the negotiations,” Sa’ar said in an interview Friday with Japan’s NHK. “So personally, I don’t believe that Iran wants to find a solution.”

Israel struck Iran a week ago in a surprise attack that knocked out air defenses, hit nuclear sites and killed a number of top military leaders. It came as the U.S. and Iran were preparing to meet for a sixth round of negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran says it was tricked.

Since then, Israel has gained air superiority and has carried out hundreds of strikes against a range of targets including in the capital, Tehran. Iran has rained more than 450 missiles down on Israel in response. The fighting and threats the U.S. could join in have set off a flurry of diplomatic efforts to calm the situation.

Locations of Iranian Strikes in Israel

Lebanon

SYRIA

Tamra

Rosh Pinna

Haifa

Irbid

Mediterranean Sea

Nablus

WEST

BANK

Tel Aviv

Amman

Jerusalem

Rehovot

Hebron

Dead

Sea

GAZA

STRIP

Beer Sheva

Israel

Jordan

Egypt

Note: Map includes locations of reported strikes between June 13-19 and is not exhaustive.

Sources: Institute for the Study of War; Storyful-verified footage; Israeli military; staff reports; Weitzman Institute

Badly battered by the waves of Israeli attacks, Iran had signaled earlier through Arab intermediaries that it wanted an end to hostilities and a resumption of talks over its nuclear program. A pause would give it breathing space and potentially help keep the U.S. from joining the attacks. 

Uranium must be enriched to turn it into fuel for a nuclear weapon. The United Nations atomic agency says Iran has amassed large stockpiles of fuel enriched to just below weapons grade—enough to make 10 nuclear bombs. Iran has continued to accumulate enough highly enriched uranium for one nuclear weapon every month despite the start of talks in April.

Cutting off enrichment would be a major impediment to developing a bomb. But Iran considers its right to enrich its core red line in the negotiations.

Trump pushed for a diplomatic solution to the standoff for much of the year, but has turned more bellicose as Israel’s initial successes became evident, hinting earlier in the week that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be a target and calling for Iran’s unconditional surrender.

The U.S. military has been building up its forces in the Middle East. A third U.S. Navy destroyer entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and a second U.S. carrier strike group was heading toward the Arabian Sea, better positioning the U.S. to join the attacks. 

On Wednesday, Khamenei said his country wouldn’t surrender and warned any U.S. military intervention would bring irreparable consequences.

Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com, Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com

8. Meet SOCOM, the special US forces that may enter Iran to take care of 'loose nukes'

A view from India.

Meet SOCOM, the special US forces that may enter Iran to take care of 'loose nukes'

ET OnlineLast Updated: Jun 20, 2025, 02:00:00 PM IST

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/new-updates/meet-socom-the-special-us-forces-that-may-enter-iran-to-take-care-of-loose-nukes/articleshow/121971247.cms?from=mdr

Synopsis

President Trump is considering military action against Iran, with a decision expected within two weeks, contingent on potential negotiations. The U.S. is concerned about Iran's nuclear program, particularly the possibility of unsecured nuclear material. SOCOM, a specialized force, is prepared to address unconventional threats, including those involving weapons of mass destruction, amid rising tensions.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to decide within two weeks whether to launch military action against Iran, according to reports.

"Based on the fact that there is a substantial chance of negotiations with Iran in the near future — which may or may not materialize — I will make my decision on whether or not to go forward within the next two weeks," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday, quoting Trump.

According to The War Zone (TWZ), U.S. ground operations could be initiated if Iran attempts to disperse components of its nuclear program or if the Iranian government collapses, potentially leaving behind unsecured nuclear material — or so-called "loose nukes."

To address such high-stakes contingencies, the United States reportedly relies on a specialized force: the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), formed in 2016 to deal with unconventional threats, including those involving weapons of mass destruction.

Notably, earlier Leavitt warned that Iran is just "a couple of weeks" away from being able to produce an atomic bomb.

Currently, Iran is believed to be enriching uranium to 60% — well above the 3.67% limit set by the 2015 nuclear deal, although still below the 90% threshold required for weapons-grade material. Meanwhile, Iran’s powerful Guardian Council has threatened a “harsh response” if "the criminal American government and its stupid president" take any action against the Islamic Republic.

What is SOCOM?

According to the U.S. government, the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM) "oversees the special operations capabilities of the various military branches, coordinates their training, strategy, interoperability, and operations."

It is also the lead agency for Counter-Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) missions.

SOCOM has emerged as the U.S.'s primary counterterrorism force over the last two decades. Even prior to the 9/11 attacks, the command was active in tracking and confronting violent extremist groups globally. It has conducted operations against narco-trafficking cartels in Central and South America, transnational criminal networks in the Balkans, the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, as well as ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

9. Russia just accidentally admitted to its staggering troop losses in Ukraine

Russia just accidentally admitted to its staggering troop losses in Ukraine

kyivindependent.com · by Chris York · June 19, 2025

A senior Russian official on June 19 inadvertently confirmed the staggering troop losses incurred by Moscow's forces during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In an interview with CNN, Russian Ambassador to the U.K. Andrey Kelin was asked about Moscow's maximalist intentions in Ukraine and its ability to recruit enough soldiers to fulfill them.

Despite ongoing U.S.-led peace efforts, Russia continues to demand Ukraine withdraws from the four partially occupied regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — as a precondition for negotiations.

Meanwhile, according to figures from Kyiv, Russia has suffered more than 1 million dead, wounded, and missing soldiers since the start of its full-scale invasion.

Kelin dismissed the 1 million casualties figure but did confirm that "about 600,000" Russian soldiers were fighting in Ukraine, a number which tallies with Ukrainian estimates from January.

The number is actually lower than the 700,000 (Russian President Vladimir) Putin claimed in June 2024, and the 617,000 he claimed in December 2023.

Kelin was then asked about Russian army recruitment.

"I'm not a specialist in this area, but as I understand it we have 50-60,000 a month, those volunteers who are coming, recruiting, posting, and they would like to get engaged in this thing (in Ukraine)," he replied.

He did not explain why the size of the Russian army fighting in Ukraine has gone down despite what would amount to around 250,000 extra troops being recruited and sent to the front since the beginning of the year.

According to figures from Ukraine's General Staff, Russia has lost 217,440 troops since Jan. 1, 2025.

Kelin's acknowledgement of the huge turnover rate is an inadvertent confirmation of Russia's staggering losses.

The discrepancy tallies with Western analysis of Russia's staggering losses.

"They lose somewhere in the ballpark of 35,000 to 45,000 people per month, and perhaps they recruit a little bit north of that number," George Barros, Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), told the Kyiv Independent earlier this month.

Given that Russia is having to pay people to sign up, the losses have potentially huge ramifications for the country's economy.

According to an analysis by economist Janis Kluge, Russia's daily bill just for sign-up bonuses is $24 million.

The ballooning bills come at a time when Russia's economy is already under huge strain from Western sanctions and falling oil and gas revenues.

"The implications for Russia are grave," energy security analyst Wojciech Jakobik wrote in an op-ed for the Kyiv Independent this week.

According to Barros, making any predictions about whether or not the Russian economy is going to collapse is "supremely difficult to do," but the signs for the Kremlin "don't bode well."

"If you look at the current Russian economic indicators, for example their inflation rate, their overnight lending interest rates, Russian monetary constraints… government spending is out of control — it's a very loose fiscal policy and so the economy is at risk of overheating," he said.

"I don't know to what extent the economy can continue to last."

Kelin also said Ukraine must accept Moscow's terms for ending the war or face further military advances and eventual "surrender" — you can read the full story here.

Hi, this is Chris. Thank you for reading this article. The Kyiv Independent doesn't have a wealthy owner or a paywall. Instead, we rely on readers like you to keep our journalism funded. If you liked this article, consider joining our community today.

As Russian losses in Ukraine hit 1 million, Putin’s war economy heads toward breaking point

Russian losses in Ukraine hit a massive, and grim milestone on June 12 — 1 million Russian soldiers killed or wounded during the 39-month-long full-scale war, according to figures from Kyiv. Although hugely symbolic, the number is unlikely to prompt a change in tactics from Moscow as it gears up for

The Kyiv IndependentChris York

kyivindependent.com · by Chris York · June 19, 2025

10. Army expanding ‘Transformation in Contact’ initiative to Army Guard

Army expanding ‘Transformation in Contact’ initiative to Army Guard

militarytimes.com · by Todd South · June 18, 2025

The Army’s ongoing brigade modernization program is headed to the Guard.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George told members of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee during a hearing Wednesday that Guard units are being identified for the service’s Transformation in Contact, or TIC, initiative.

“We want to do that as fast as we can in the Guard as well,” George said. “They are identifying those units who can do that in the Guard.”

The initiative seeks to deliver new equipment — such as Infantry Squad Vehicles, drones, counter-drone equipment and increased electromagnetic warfare capabilities — to operational units as they prepare for major training events and deployments.

George noted that those same capabilities will be in the Guard as well.

“They’re going to have the same systems,” George said. “They will not look any different.”

RELATED

First armor brigade conducts combat center rotation with new tools

One brigade just became the first armored unit to undergo a new Transformation in Contact modernization effort.

The TIC initiative started with three infantry brigades: 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division; 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division; and 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

Those units saw increased capabilities, mobility and command-and-control systems accelerate how the traditionally dismounted units perform.

The work led to changes in the structure of the infantry brigade, which have been dubbed “Mobile Brigade Combat Teams.”

The Army has since shifted its focus to TIC 2.0 with Armor Brigade Combat Teams and division-level assets.

The 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, launched Exercise Combined Resolve in early May in Hohenfels, Germany, at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center.

“Raider Brigade is spearheading the Army’s Transforming in Contact initiative and experimenting with new capabilities to enhance battlefield effectiveness while deployed to Europe,” said Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, commanding general of the 3rd Infantry Division, in a May release. “The lessons learned through this exercise will help inform the Army how an armored brigade combat team fights on future battlefields.”

Members of 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, maneuver an M1A2 Abrams to simulate an assault on opposing forces while participating in the Army’s Transforming in Contact initiative. (Spc. Deliah Cottle/Army)

The 1st ABCT’s participation in TIC is structured around four key phases: adapting how the unit fights, integrating emerging technologies, reorganizing formations to suit mission needs and rapidly incorporating new capabilities as they become available.

Another armor unit is also in the midst of TIC changes.

Soldiers with the 1st Cavalry Division began their TIC 2.0 work in April, shortly after returning from their Europe rotation.

Armor units are creating their own plans for what a new type of armor brigade might look like.

“An ABCT has a lot of different moving pieces,” Maj. Gen. Thomas Feltey, division commander, told Army Times in April. “Our battlespace is much larger, and things move faster.”

Though ubiquitous drone coverage helped infantry units, various kinds of drones will be needed for the longer-reaching, longer-ranging armored units, for example.

The division’s artillery, air cavalry squadron and electronic warfare units have all been designated as part of the TIC initiative.

The division is modernizing its main equipment, with the A4 variant of the Bradley and the A7 variant of the Paladin artillery system. It’s also on track as the next unit to receive the new Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, Feltey said.

Feltey expects to see communications upgrades, much like the infantry units did as part of TIC, with systems such as the Integrated Tactical Network, Star Shield satellite communications and the Mobile User Objective System, an improved UHF satellite communications system.

The 1st Cavalry Division’s culminating TIC event is expected to take place at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, in 2027.

About Todd South

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

11. Firms led by US military veterans deliver aid in Africa and Gaza, alarming humanitarian groups

Firms led by US military veterans deliver aid in Africa and Gaza, alarming humanitarian groups

AP · by ELLEN KNICKMEYER · June 18, 2025

ON A PLANE OVER UPPER NILE STATE, South Sudan (AP) — Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict.

Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development: private contracting firms led by former U.S. intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts.

A Fogbow aid plane is loaded at an airport in Juba, South Sudan, on Monday, June 9, 2025, before conducting airdrops of food in the Upper Nile region. (AP Photo/ Florence Miettaux)

The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend that could allow governments or combatants to use life-saving aid to control hungry civilian populations and advance war aims.

In South Sudan and Gaza, two for-profit U.S. companies led by American national security veterans are delivering aid in operations backed by the South Sudanese and Israeli governments.

The American contractors say they’re putting their security, logistics and intelligence skills to work in relief operations. Fogbow, the U.S. company that carried out last week’s air drops over South Sudan, says it aims to be a “humanitarian” force.

“We’ve worked for careers, collectively, in conflict zones. And we know how to essentially make very difficult situations work,” said Fogbow President Michael Mulroy, a retired CIA officer and former senior defense official in the first Trump administration, speaking on the airport tarmac in Juba, South Sudan’s capital.

Fogbow COO Eric Oehlerich stands in the cockpit of his plane during an airdrop of food in Nasir, Upper Nile, South Sudan, Monday, June 9, 2025. (AP Photo/ Florence Miettaux)

But the U.N. and many leading non-profit groups say U.S. contracting firms are stepping into aid distribution with little transparency or humanitarian experience, and, crucially, without commitment to humanitarian principles of neutrality and operational independence in war zones.

“What we’ve learned over the years of successes and failures is there’s a difference between a logistics operation and a security operation, and a humanitarian operation,” said Scott Paul, a director at Oxfam America.

“‘Truck and chuck’ doesn’t help people,” Paul said. “It puts people at risk.”

‘We don’t want to replace any entity’

Fogbow took journalists up in a cargo plane to watch their team drop 16 tons of beans, corn and salt for South Sudan’s Upper Nile state town of Nasir.

Residents fled homes there after fighting erupted in March between the government and opposition groups.

Mulroy acknowledged the controversy over Fogbow’s aid drops, which he said were paid for by the South Sudanese government.

But, he maintained: “We don’t want to replace any entity” in aid work.

A Palestinian shouts to the camera in Arabic, “We get food with the taste of death and blood,” as he carries a bag containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed organization, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

Shared roots in Gaza and U.S. intelligence

Fogbow was in the spotlight last year for its proposal to use barges to bring aid to Gaza, where Israeli restrictions were blocking overland deliveries. The United States focused instead on a U.S. military effort to land aid via a temporary pier.

Since then, Fogbow has carried out aid drops in Sudan and South Sudan, east African nations where wars have created some of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises.

Fogbow says ex-humanitarian officials are also involved, including former U.N. World Food Program head David Beasley, who is a senior adviser.

Operating in Gaza, meanwhile, Safe Reach Solutions, led by a former CIA officer and other retired U.S. security officers, has partnered with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed nonprofit that Israel says is the linchpin of a new aid system to wrest control from the U.N., which Israel says has been infiltrated by Hamas, and other humanitarian groups.

Starting in late May, the American-led operation in Gaza has distributed food at fixed sites in southern Gaza, in line with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated plan to use aid to concentrate the territory’s more than 2 million people in the south, freeing Israel to fight Hamas elsewhere. Aid workers fear it’s a step toward another of Netanyahu’s public goals, removing Palestinians from Gaza in “voluntary” migrations.

Since then, several hundred Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded in near daily shootings as they tried to reach aid sites, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Witnesses say Israeli troops regularly fire heavy barrages toward the crowds in an attempt to control them.

The Israeli military has denied firing on civilians. It says it fired warning shots in several instances, and fired directly at a few “suspects” who ignored warnings and approached its forces.

It’s unclear who is funding the new operation in Gaza. No donor has come forward, and the U.S. says it’s not funding it.

In response to criticism over its Gaza aid deliveries, Safe Reach Solutions said it has former aid workers on its team with “decades of experience in the world’s most complex environments” who bring “expertise to the table, along with logisticians and other experts.“

Workers load food aid onto a Fogbow truck as part of an aid program operated by retired American military officers at an airport in Juba, South Sudan, Monday, June 9, 2025. (AP Photo/ Florence Miettaux)

South Sudan’s people ask: Who gets our aid drops?

Last week’s air drop over South Sudan went without incident, despite fighting nearby. A white cross marked the drop zone. Only a few people could be seen. Fogbow contractors said there were more newly returned townspeople on previous drops.

Fogbow acknowledges glitches in mastering aid drops, including one last year in Sudan’s South Kordofan region that ended up with too-thinly-wrapped grain sacks split open on the ground.

After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan has struggled to emerge from a civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people. Rights groups say its government is one of the world’s most corrupt, and until now has invested little in quelling the dire humanitarian crisis.

South Sudan said it engaged Fogbow for air drops partly because of the Trump administration’s deep cuts in U.S. Agency for International Development funding. Humanitarian Minister Albino Akol Atak said the drops will expand to help people in need throughout the country.

But two South Sudanese groups question the government’s motives.

“We don’t want to see a humanitarian space being abused by military actors ... under the cover of a food drop,” said Edmund Yakani, head of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, a local civil society group.

Asked about suspicions the aid drops were helping South Sudan’s military aims, Fogbow’s Mulroy said the group has worked with the U.N. World Food Program to make sure “this aid is going to civilians.”

“If it wasn’t going to civilians, we would hope that we would get that feedback, and we would cease and desist,” Mulroy said.

In a statement, WFP country director Mary-Ellen McGroarty said: “WFP is not involved in the planning, targeting or distribution of food air-dropped” by Fogbow on behalf of South Sudan’s government, citing humanitarian principles.

A ‘business-driven model’

Longtime humanitarian leaders and analysts are troubled by what they see as a teaming up of warring governments and for-profit contractors in aid distribution.

When one side in a conflict decides where and how aid is handed out, and who gets it, “it will always result in some communities getting preferential treatment,” said Jan Egeland, executive director of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Sometimes, that set-up will advance strategic aims, as with Netanyahu’s plans to move Gaza’s civilians south, Egeland said.

The involvement of soldiers and security workers, he added, can make it too “intimidating” for some in need to even try to get aid.

Until now, Western donors always understood those risks, Egeland said. But pointing to the Trump administration’s backing of the new aid system in Gaza, he asked: “Why does the U.S. ... want to support what they have resisted with every other war zone for two generations?”

Mark Millar, who has advised the U.N. and Britain on humanitarian matters in South Sudan and elsewhere, said involving private military contractors risks undermining the distinction between humanitarian assistance and armed conflict.

Private military contractors “have even less sympathy for a humanitarian perspective that complicates their business-driven model,” he said. “And once let loose, they seem to be even less accountable.”

___

Knickmeyer reported from Washington. Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

___

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

AP · by ELLEN KNICKMEYER · June 18, 2025

12. A U.S. Attack on Iran Would Show the Limits of China’s Power

Everthing is connected

Excerpts:

But as President Trump openly ponders deploying American forces to join Israel in attacking Iran, the limits of China’s clout in the region are coming into focus.

China has much to lose from a runaway conflict. Half of the country’s oil imports move in tankers through the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s southern coast. And Beijing has long counted on Tehran, its closest partner in the region, to push back against American influence.

But despite those strategic interests, China, which has little sway over the Trump administration, is unlikely to come to Iran’s defense militarily, especially if the United States gets involved.

“The reality is they don’t actually have the capability to insert Chinese forces to defend Iran’s installations,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “What they would prefer to do is very quietly provide some material support, some rhetorical support and maybe some humanitarian aid.”

Though China favors stability in the Middle East, it could also gain if the United States gets roped into a prolonged war there, which might divert American troops, ships and other military resources away from Asia.

Whether Mr. Trump decides to strike Iran will offer lessons for Beijing that could shape its own geopolitical strategy. China will be trying to understand Mr. Trump’s approach to foreign policy and his willingness to use force. The outcome could influence Beijing’s assessment of whether the United States would come to the defense of Taiwan, the self-governed island that Beijing claims, should China decide to invade it.

A U.S. Attack on Iran Would Show the Limits of China’s Power

China, which depends on Iran for oil and to counter American influence, has a lot to lose from a wider war. But there’s not much it can do about it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/world/asia/us-iran-israel-china.html

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Smoke rose over Tehran after Israel attacked the Iranian state broadcaster on Monday.Credit...Majid Asgaripour/Wana News Agency, via Reuters

By David PiersonKeith Bradsher and Berry Wang

David Pierson and Berry Wang reported from Hong Kong and Keith Bradsher from Beijing.

June 20, 2025

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When China helped negotiate a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023, it hailed the breakthrough as a victory for Chinese diplomacy and a sign that America’s chief geopolitical rival had emerged as a major power broker in the Middle East.

But as President Trump openly ponders deploying American forces to join Israel in attacking Iran, the limits of China’s clout in the region are coming into focus.

China has much to lose from a runaway conflict. Half of the country’s oil imports move in tankers through the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s southern coast. And Beijing has long counted on Tehran, its closest partner in the region, to push back against American influence.

But despite those strategic interests, China, which has little sway over the Trump administration, is unlikely to come to Iran’s defense militarily, especially if the United States gets involved.

“The reality is they don’t actually have the capability to insert Chinese forces to defend Iran’s installations,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “What they would prefer to do is very quietly provide some material support, some rhetorical support and maybe some humanitarian aid.”

Though China favors stability in the Middle East, it could also gain if the United States gets roped into a prolonged war there, which might divert American troops, ships and other military resources away from Asia.

Whether Mr. Trump decides to strike Iran will offer lessons for Beijing that could shape its own geopolitical strategy. China will be trying to understand Mr. Trump’s approach to foreign policy and his willingness to use force. The outcome could influence Beijing’s assessment of whether the United States would come to the defense of Taiwan, the self-governed island that Beijing claims, should China decide to invade it.

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Despite China’s close relationship with Iran, its rhetoric about the current conflict has been strikingly measured at the highest levels. After its top leader, Xi Jinping, called for a cease-fire during a call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday, a summary of the call released by the Chinese government did not overtly criticize Israel for violating Iran’s sovereignty.

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Mr. Xi also refrained from directly urging the United States not to attack Iran, saying only that the “international community, especially major powers that have a special influence on the parties to the conflict, should make efforts to promote the cooling of the situation, rather than the opposite.”

Image

Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, has not explicitly criticized Israel for violating Iran’s sovereignty.Credit...Agence France-Presse, via Kazakhstan'S Presidential Press

When China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, called his counterpart in Israel, he expressed Beijing’s opposition to Israel’s attacks, according to the Chinese summary of the call. But he stopped short of saying that China “condemns” them, as he had in a call with Iran.

In another call, with the foreign minister of Oman, Mr. Wang said that “we cannot sit idly by and watch the regional situation slide into an unknown abyss,” according to a Chinese government statement. But it is unclear what, if any, specific efforts China has made to find a diplomatic solution. In any case, Israel would likely be skeptical of China’s neutrality as a mediator because of its alignment with Iran and engagement with Hamas, the Palestinian ally of Iran that attacked Israel in October 2023.

China’s efforts, at least in public, have been focused on evacuating more than 1,000 of its citizens from Israel and Iran.

Middle East Tensions: Live Updates

Updated June 20, 2025, 8:11 p.m. ETJune 20, 2025

• An Iran deal in two weeks? Hard to achieve, even if Trump really wants one.
• Accusations fly at a heated U.N. Security Council session on Iran and Israel, amid pleas for peace.
• Trump’s rebuke of Tulsi Gabbard signals an uneasy moment.

“Beijing is scrambling to keep up with the rapid pace of events and is prioritizing looking after Chinese citizens and assets in the region rather than any sort of broader diplomatic initiative,” said Julian Gewirtz, who was a senior China policy official at the White House and the State Department during President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration.

Discussions of the conflict on China’s heavily censored online forums have largely centered on the poor performance of Iran’s military and security apparatus, though some participants have noted the limits of China’s support for Iran.

Zhu Zhaoyi, a Middle East expert at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said in a post that China could not provide Iran with “unconditional protection” and confront the United States and Israel militarily. He said Beijing could only exert pressure through the United Nations Security Council, of which China is a permanent member.

“The turmoil in the Middle East is both a challenge and a test for China,” Mr. Zhu wrote.

China’s tempered response resembles that of its like-minded partner, Russia, which has done little more than issue statements of support for Iran, despite having received badly needed military aid from Tehran for its war in Ukraine. Both Beijing and Moscow were also seen as bystanders last year when their shared partner, the Assad regime, was overthrown in Syria.

Image

Damascus, Syria, in January, weeks after President Bashar al-Assad was ousted. China had ties to the Assad government but did little to save it.Credit...David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

Their relative absence raises questions about the cohesiveness of what some in Washington have called the “Axis of Upheaval” — the quartet of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which have drawn closer diplomatically and militarily around a common opposition to the U.S.-dominated world order.

Of the four nations, only China is deeply embedded in the global economy, which means it has much to lose from turmoil in the Middle East. It buys virtually all of Iran’s exported oil, at a discount, using clandestine tanker fleets to evade U.S. sanctions. And its ships depend on safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz to transport additional oil from Gulf states.

Higher energy prices would present another major headache for Beijing, which is trying to turn its sluggish economy around.

Besides energy, Iran provides China with a crucial foothold in the Middle East for advancing its interests and countering the United States, which has tens of thousands of troops across the region. Beijing has cultivated closer ties with Gulf states for the same reasons.

Chinese analysts often argue that Beijing is an attractive mediator in the Middle East because it will not lecture other countries about issues like human rights. “It’s the only major power trusted by rival factions in the region, capable of achieving breakthroughs where the U.S. cannot,” said Wen Jing, a Middle East expert at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

But some Western analysts say China played only a small role in the détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, toward the end of those negotiations. Washington has also been frustrated by Beijing’s reluctance to put pressure on Iran to stop Houthi rebels from attacking ships off the coast of Yemen, except in cases involving Chinese vessels.

That unwillingness to apply pressure on its partners undercuts China’s standing in the Middle East, said Barbara Leaf, a former assistant secretary of state for near Eastern affairs at the State Department who is now a senior adviser at Arnold and Porter, a Washington-based law firm.

“Nobody is saying, ‘We better call up Beijing and see what they can do here,’ because Beijing has played a purely commercial and economic role,” Ms. Leaf said, describing the attitudes of Middle Eastern officials with whom she has spoken over the years.

“They just sort of take it as a given that China is going to look out for China,” she said.

David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.

Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic.

A version of this article appears in print on June 21, 2025, Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: A U.S. Attack on Iran Would Show the Limits of China’s Power. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

13. Xi and Putin present united front over Israel-Iran crisis, in veiled message to Trump

CRInK unites.

Xi and Putin present united front over Israel-Iran crisis, in veiled message to Trump | CNN

CNN · by Nectar Gan · June 20, 2025

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Getty Images

Hong Kong CNN —

China and Russia positioning themselves as voices of reason, calling for de-escalation of a conflict the United States is contemplating on entering — these are the optics Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin sought to project during a phone call on Thursday.

As US President Donald Trump weighs joining Israel in attacking Iran, the fast-spiralling conflict between two sworn enemies in the Middle East has presented Beijing and Moscow another opportunity to cast themselves as an alternative to US power.

In their call, Putin and Xi strongly condemned Israel’s actions, calling them a breach of the UN Charter and other norms of international law, according to the Kremlin. (The elephant in the room, of course, is Russia’s own violations of international law in its ongoing war against Ukraine — which Beijing has consistently refused to condemn.)

In Beijing’s readout, Xi struck a more measured tone and stopped short of explicitly condemning Israel — unlike his foreign minister, who did just that in a call with his Iranian counterpart last week.

Instead, the Chinese leader urged the warring parties, “especially Israel,” to cease fire as soon as possible to avoid further escalation and regional spillover.

And notably, in a veiled message to Trump, Xi emphasized that “major powers” that have a special influence on the parties to the conflict should work to “cool the situation, not the opposite.”

Beijing has long accused Washington of being a source of instability and tensions in the Middle East — and some Chinese scholars are now seizing on the Iran crisis to underscore that point.

Liu Zhongmin, a Middle East expert at the Shanghai International Studies University, attributed the latest flareup to the uncertainty created by Trump’s second presidency and the chaotic, opportunistic and transactional nature of his Middle East policy.

“(Trump) has seriously undermined the authority and credibility of US policy in the Middle East, eroded America’s leadership and image among its allies while also weakening its ability to threaten and deter regional adversaries,” Liu wrote in state media this week.

Another Middle East ‘forever war’?

Some Chinese online commentators have noted that Trump appears on the brink of pulling the US deeper into another so-called forever war in the Middle East.

At the outset of his second term, officials close to Trump repeatedly stressed the need for Washington to redirect its focus and resources toward countering China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. Yet five months in, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza continue to rage on — and Trump is now weighing US involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict.

Beijing has no interest in seeing an all-out war against Iran that could topple the regime. Under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran has emerged as a formidable power in the Middle East and a vital counterweight to US dominance — just as China is working to expand its own diplomatic and economic footprint in the region.

In 2023, Beijing helped broker a surprise rapprochement between arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran – a deal that signaled its ambition to emerge as a new powerbroker in the region.

China has long backed Iran through sustained oil imports and its seat on the UN Security Council. In recent years, the two countries have deepened their strategic ties, including holding joint naval exercises alongside Russia. Beijing welcomed Tehran into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS – groupings led by China and Russia to challenge the US-led world order.

Iran is also a critical node in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its global infrastructure and investment drive. The country lies near the strategic Gwadar port — a key BRI outpost in Pakistan that gives China access to the Indian Ocean — and borders the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for Chinese oil imports from the Persian Gulf.

Like Russia, China has offered to be a potential mediator in the Israel-Iran conflict, casting its role as a peace broker and an alternative to US leadership.

During his call with Putin, Xi laid out four broad proposals to de-escalate tensions, including resolving the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and safeguarding civilians, according to the Chinese readout.

Meanwhile, Xi’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has had a busy week on the phone, speaking with his counterparts in Iran, Israel, Egypt and Oman in a flurry of diplomatic outreach.

Yet it remains unclear what Beijing is willing and able to do when it comes to actually mediating the conflict. In the early stages of Israel’s war on Gaza, China made a similar offer and dispatched a special envoy to the region to promote peace talks — efforts that ultimately yielded little in terms of concrete results.

Brokering peace in the Middle East is a tall order, especially for a country with little experience or expertise in mediating protracted, intractable conflicts – in a deeply divided region where it lacks a meaningful political or security presence.

And in the one conflict where China does hold significant leverage — the war in Ukraine — Xi has offered diplomatic cover and much-needed economic support to help sustain Putin’s war effort, even as China continues to cast itself as a neutral peace broker.

Still, at a time when America’s global leadership is under growing scrutiny, particularly in the eyes of the Global South, presenting itself as a voice of restraint in the Iran conflict may already count as a symbolic win for Beijing.

CNN · by Nectar Gan · June 20, 2025

14. Voice of America gutted by Trump adviser Kari Lake

This is troubling and disappointing and a major national security error.

VOA (and RFA, etc) is a national treasure.

Certainly some bureaucratic dysfunction below.

Excerpts;

"For decades," she added, "American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that's been riddled with dysfunction, bias, and waste. That ends now."

Lake had effectively silenced the Voice of America in March by putting the workforce on leave and also sought to cut off all funding approved by Congress for the other networks. Last month, the agency fired more than 500 contractors.

Sahil Lavingia, former DOGE engineer, says he didn't see the fraud and abuse in government spending that he was expecting.

Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent'

In the past week, as the conflict between Israel and Iran heated up, Lake brought back dozens of staffers to resurrect the Persian-language service. A significant number of those called back received the layoff notice on Friday too, according to several staffers, including one from the Persian-language newsroom. They spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity, citing fear of repercussions.

This move "spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds U.S. ideals of democracy and freedom around the world," three employees suing Lake said in a joint statement. The three staffers are Voice of America White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara and Press Freedom Editor Jessica Jerreat and U.S. Agency for Global Media Director of Strategy Kate Neeper.

Voice of America gutted by Trump adviser Kari Lake

June 20, 20254:02 PM ET

David Folkenflik

Kari Lake, senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, has slashed its workforce by 85%, or 1,400 positions.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Senior White House adviser Kari Lake issued mass layoff notices Friday to 639 employees of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal outlet which owns the Voice of America and through which Congress directs money for other government-funded international networks, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.

The vast majority of the job cuts, intended to be a permanent reduction in the size of the workforce, affects Voice of America, the government-owned international network that has beamed news reports to countries under autocratic regimes since World War II.

In a press release, Lake called her action "part of a long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy." She said 85% of jobs, or 1,400 positions, had been eliminated in total, in keeping with an executive order in mid-March from President Trump.

"For decades," she added, "American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that's been riddled with dysfunction, bias, and waste. That ends now."

Lake had effectively silenced the Voice of America in March by putting the workforce on leave and also sought to cut off all funding approved by Congress for the other networks. Last month, the agency fired more than 500 contractors.

Interview highlights

Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent'

In the past week, as the conflict between Israel and Iran heated up, Lake brought back dozens of staffers to resurrect the Persian-language service. A significant number of those called back received the layoff notice on Friday too, according to several staffers, including one from the Persian-language newsroom. They spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity, citing fear of repercussions.

This move "spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds U.S. ideals of democracy and freedom around the world," three employees suing Lake said in a joint statement. The three staffers are Voice of America White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara and Press Freedom Editor Jessica Jerreat and U.S. Agency for Global Media Director of Strategy Kate Neeper.

"We call on Congress to continue its long transition of bipartisan support for VOA," they said. "Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and extremist groups are flooding the global information space with anti-American propaganda. Do not cede this ground by silencing America's voice."

They are among those who received the layoff notices. The reduction in force is to take effect Sept. 1.

"The scope of the agency's actions appears massive and would eviscerate Voice of America's congressionally mandated role to provide objective news to closed societies and other places around the world," said Michael Abramowitz, the Voice of America's director, who had not received a layoff notice by Friday afternoon, but is currently on involuntary paid administrative leave.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks have each sued Lake and the Trump administration as have journalists from Voice of America in separate litigation.

Lake has revived claims that the agency has operated with such poor security that its networks are rife for espionage by foreign powers, assertions made by Trump's appointee to lead it in 2020, toward the end of his first term.

Lake is set to appear Wednesday at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which is led by U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican who is a Trump ally. The title of the hearing is "Spies, Lies and Mismanagement: Examining the U.S. Agency for Global Media's Downfall."

"I am not a traitor," said Anita Powell, Voice of America's senior White House correspondent before nearly the entire network's workforce was put on leave by Lake earlier this year. "I dispute this mass mischaracterization of me and my colleagues, who have dedicated years to serving our wonderful country." She received her own termination letter mid-afternoon Friday.

15. Putting Operation Spider’s Web in Context

Excerpts:

Given that I am writing this article for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, I also argue we must continue to work together to break down the artificial and often illogical conceptual barriers between irregular and conventional warfare. There probably has not been a recorded conventional war that did not include some type of so-called irregular operation leveraging clandestine intelligence, sabotage, resistance forces, or raids. Deep airfield raids and all types of novel technical adaptations are regular “irregular” components of conventional warfare.

And while I join others in arguing that the line between irregular and conventional war is artificial, we must also refrain from immediately attaching greater meaning to special operations exploits. As exciting and novel as combat or special operations might look from time to time, war goes on in places like Ukraine. Soldiers fight in trenches, assault across open ground, fire artillery at one another, and kill each other with rifles, grenades, and even knives. They also use evolved 100-year-old drone technology. Two things can be true at once without one devaluing or erasing the other. Operation Spider’s Web does not indicate a change in the way wars are fought. It does highlight the importance of human adaptability in war. We must periodically remind ourselves that all Western militaries describe war as a fundamentally human endeavor. In that context, technology is a useful tool only when applied by humans. I recommend focusing here on more immediate and practical lessons. Foremost: Given the broader historical context of deep-penetration raids and indirect-fire attacks on vulnerable airfields, Ukraine’s operations certainly recommend a careful review of standing Western airfield security measures.

Putting Operation Spider’s Web in Context

irregularwarfare.org · by Ben Connable · June 20, 2025

On June 1, 2025, the Ukrainian special intelligence services launched Operation Spider’s Web, a remotely triggered drone attack that may have damaged or destroyed over 40 Russian strategic aircraft at four air bases deep inside the Russian Federation’s borders. Spider’s Web was undeniably successful: Russia’s capacity to launch cruise missiles into Ukrainian cities and kill civilians has been sharply curtailed. Part of the Russian nuclear triad may have been reduced by more than 30%. And Russia certainly will have to reallocate some precious combat manpower for internal security missions. I and others who support Ukraine in its war against Russia celebrated these attacks.

But nothing about Operation Spider’s Web changes either the nature or character of warfare, however those overused terms might be defined. Nor is this special intelligence operation indicative of any broader change in war that might already have been underway. Drones have been a feature of warfare since World War II and have been in regular use in conflict since the early 1980s. Irregular operations like Spider’s Web have long been a consistent feature of even large-scale conventional war. Moreover, successful deep penetration airfield raids have routinely occurred since they were first mastered by special operations forces in the early 1940s.

So why is there so much inclination to bite on the idea that a novel integration of an old technology with an old tactic indicates a change in the very nature of war itself? I argue in my book Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War, that a yawning gap in modern military historical analysis has made it difficult to put emerging events in context. Ahistoricism, a disregard or lack of concern for historical context, makes us more prone to buy into the idea that the very nature of war is in constant, uncontrollable flux.

War is not in constant or high-amplitude flux. Instead, it evolves in form and remains far more steady in function. But this overreaction to Operation Spider’s Web—and more broadly to the use of drones and AI in some modern wars—provides an excellent opportunity to help put exciting irregular operations like these in historical context.

Airfield Raids in World War II

The lack of high-speed trucks, the density of the frontlines, and the newness of air warfare effectively precluded ground attacks against airfields in World War I. However, there were at least 130 ground attacks on airfields conducted in World War II resulting in 367 aircraft destroyed. In Snakes in the Eagle’s Nest: A History of Ground Attacks on Air Bases, Alan Vick recorded a total of 645 ground attacks on airfields worldwide from 1940 through the early 1990s that resulted in 843 aircraft destroyed and 1,207 aircraft damaged. Many such attacks have occurred in the intervening years.

Getting more to the point: many of these attacks were long-range infiltration missions conducted deep in the enemy’s rear security zone. Some were launched from submarines, small boats, or by air assault. Vick briefly recounts the British use of deep-penetration ground raids, particularly in North Africa, to illustrate the historical precedent for such operations.

Small teams of commandos would form into raid platoons mounted on about a dozen light trucks, each packed tight with water, fuel, food, explosives, radios, machineguns, and even antiaircraft and antitank guns. As early as 1940, the Long Range Patrols were pushing hundreds of kilometers behind enemy lines to raid Axis airfields, destroying planes and immolating thousands of gallons of precious aviation fuel.

Long-range special operations raiding forces all but lived behind the Axis front lines. Sometimes they conducted raids within a hundred kilometers of the front, but other raids required dangerous round-trip treks of 2,000 or even over 4,000 kilometers. For example, in January 1941, a long-range patrol pushed over 1,100 kilometers forward of friendly lines to attack an Italian airfield and base at Murzuk.

Another deep raid in December of that year simultaneously targeted four Axis airfields. As part of that multi-pronged attack, Captain Bill Fraser and a four-man team sneaked onto the airfield at Agedabia, Libya and destroyed 37 aircraft with explosive charges while suffering no casualties. Perhaps the best-known British raid occurred at Sidi Haneish (an airfield in northwestern Egypt), where British raiders drove their light trucks across the airfield, firing machineguns to destroy or damage well over 40 aircraft. They took only two casualties and escaped.

Airfield Raids after World War II through the 21st Century

Airfield attacks were also a routine occurrence in major wars following World War II. Vick recounts the nearly 500 attacks by Vietnamese forces against U.S. airbases in Vietnam and Thailand. In contrast to World War II, only a handful of those—20, or about 4% of the total—were ground assaults or clandestine sapper attacks. Vietnamese attackers primarily relied on a mix of mortars, rockets, direct fire, and other weapons to destroy or damage well over 1,000 aircraft.

For example, on October 1, 1964, in a carefully planned small-unit raid, a Vietnamese insurgent team moved six 81-mm mortars into position near the Bien Hoa airfield and launched 83 rounds onto target. This simple, very-low-cost raid destroyed five B-57 bombers and damaged 15 more, effectively putting a U.S. bomber squadron out of commission. Four American personnel died and 70 were wounded. No attackers were killed or captured.

In the Falklands War, a British Special Air Service unit landed by small boat and helicopter to raid the Argentine airfield at Pebble Island, destroying 11 aircraft with only two soldiers wounded. Throughout the post-2001 Iraq and Afghanistan wars, insurgents routinely attacked airfields by infiltrating close enough to launch indirect fire attacks or—less frequently—infiltrate or assault the airfield perimeters. In probably the best-known of these attacks, Taliban fighters infiltrated and attacked the coalition airfield at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan in 2012. They destroyed six AV-8B fighter-bombers and damaged two more.

A Very (very) Brief History of Drones in War and Changes in Our Perceptions

While the proliferation of small drones is fairly new, drones themselves are old technology. Probably the first electronically guided drone was built before 1910. Suicide drones like the Kettering Bug were successfully tested by the end of World War I. Television guided attack drones were employed many times during World War II: at least 18 U.S. Navy drones hit their targets in the Pacific theater.

By the 1980s, both the Israelis and South Africans were routinely using large and small drones in combat in places like Lebanon and Angola. Mini-quadcopter drones with cameras were developed in the late 1980s. American military and intelligence services routinely used drones starting in the early 1990s. And by the 2010s, drones were in wide use by most regular and irregular forces on the planet.

Why, then, is there a collective sense that drones are suddenly and radically altering warfare? I argue in Ground Combat that several converging factors are at play. Primarily, long-running drone operations emerged from the shadows. Military forces that had tried to classify and hide drone flights for decades lost control of the narrative as flight trackers, mobile phones, and online videos uncovered once secretive operations.

In parallel, all militaries increasingly recognized the information warfare value of drones and competed to promulgate their own videos. And the sheer volume of publicly available drone videos multiplied as small, commercial drones went into mass production. These trends contributed to a collective and broadly mistaken sense that drones were a sudden phenomenon “changing everything” about war.

Back to Operation Spider’s Web: A novel technical means in broader context

Also contrary to popular perception, Spider’s Web was certainly not the first surprise close-proximity drone attack on a military airfield. We do not have a full accounting of all incidents from every battlefield in the world, but I was able to find references to about 20 historical attacks with a basic internet search.

For example, Iraqi insurgents have been launching small drones at airfields with some frequency for years (and continue to do so). Syrian rebels launched attack drones at the Russian airbase at Khmeimim several times in 2018. Rebels in Myanmar routinely attack junta airbases with small drones. A mid-2024 article describes junta efforts to improve their airfield counter-drone defenses with help from the Indian Air Force in the face of repeated small-drone attacks.

In this historical context, Ukraine’s recent airfield attacks take on different meaning. They clearly were ingenious in context. But this was a narrow, carefully planned operation conducted by a country that can ill-afford to risk its elite troops on long-range airfield raids. It combined over 100-year-old drone technology with over 80-year-old deep airfield raid tactics and likely equally proven clandestine logistics techniques.

Based on the videos and results of the operation, the Ukrainians traded risk for effect. In other words, greater effect might have been achieved with a human raid. Russia’s airfields appear to have been poorly secured; one could easily imagine a Special Air Service–like special operations ground raid taking out far more aircraft than the remote-controlled drones actually destroyed or damaged.

In the Ukrainian raid and in other modern operations, technology was used in place of humans at the point of attack. As a result, human adaptability and resilience were removed from the operational equation. At one site, Russian civilians may have been able to knock some drones out of action by throwing rocks at them. As previous attacks in Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere show, airfields can be successfully protected against drones with layered counter-drone systems. We should not perceive a temporary or isolated security failure as a revolution in warfare.

Implications for Understanding Modern Irregular and Conventional Warfare

Foremost, it is imperative that we improve our collective historical understanding of modern warfare to reduce our vulnerability to hyperbole, technophilia, and technophobia. Anyone armed with this collective knowledge of the history of drones, of deep-penetration airfield attacks, and of the many small-drone attacks on military airbases in the past decade certainly would be less inclined to see Operation Spider’s Web as revolutionary. This dynamic applies to all of warfare: understand history in width, depth, and context to better understand the present and to better forecast the near future.

Given the proclivity of senior military leaders and politicians to bite on revolutionary-technology hyperbole, it is also imperative to routinely point out the inherent tradeoffs between risk acceptance and risk avoidance, between commonsense use and overreliance on technology, and between exciting tactical effects and enduring strategic success. It is good to applaud the Ukrainians as they adapt and sometimes dramatically succeed in this war. But we should not extrapolate our entire understanding of warfare from their narrow contextual experience.

Given that I am writing this article for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, I also argue we must continue to work together to break down the artificial and often illogical conceptual barriers between irregular and conventional warfare. There probably has not been a recorded conventional war that did not include some type of so-called irregular operation leveraging clandestine intelligence, sabotage, resistance forces, or raids. Deep airfield raids and all types of novel technical adaptations are regular “irregular” components of conventional warfare.

And while I join others in arguing that the line between irregular and conventional war is artificial, we must also refrain from immediately attaching greater meaning to special operations exploits. As exciting and novel as combat or special operations might look from time to time, war goes on in places like Ukraine. Soldiers fight in trenches, assault across open ground, fire artillery at one another, and kill each other with rifles, grenades, and even knives. They also use evolved 100-year-old drone technology. Two things can be true at once without one devaluing or erasing the other. Operation Spider’s Web does not indicate a change in the way wars are fought. It does highlight the importance of human adaptability in war. We must periodically remind ourselves that all Western militaries describe war as a fundamentally human endeavor. In that context, technology is a useful tool only when applied by humans. I recommend focusing here on more immediate and practical lessons. Foremost: Given the broader historical context of deep-penetration raids and indirect-fire attacks on vulnerable airfields, Ukraine’s operations certainly recommend a careful review of standing Western airfield security measures.

Ben Connable, PhD, is the executive director of the Battle Research Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to military field research and modern historical analysis. He is also adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University and a part-time principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses.

[Left] Image Description and Credit: Lieutenant Colonel David Stirling, officer commanding the Special Air Service in the Middle East, speaks with Patrol Commander Lieutenant McDonald. Lieutenant Colonel Stirling led the raid on the Sidi Haneish Airfield. Date: 18 January 1943. Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.

[Right] Image generated by AI using OpenAI’s DALL·E, June 2025.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, the United States Army, Headquarters, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

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16. Intelligence, Strategy, and the Israeli-Iranian War

Excerpts:

Good intelligence also helps with wartime diplomacy, which is particularly important in the current conflict. The fact that U.S intelligence has reached different conclusions than Israel is interesting. Policymakers might learn something important about the war by asking why. They might also benefit by using intelligence as a diplomatic tool. Handled with care, intelligence can increase policymakers’ freedom of action, as Johnson illustrated in the Six-Day War. Possession of independent assessments allows policymakers and diplomats to overcome information asymmetries, giving them bargaining leverage. The fact that the CIA bolstered Johnson’s position helped him fend off Israeli overtures. The current conflict is different because Trump already rejected a key intelligence judgment, publicly. But it may be that the administration finds value in using U.S. intelligence to challenge Israeli claims, especially if the president gets cold feet about intervening.

U.S. intelligence, for instance, might suggest the limits of airstrikes on Fordo. It may be that even the most lethal conventional bomb will not be able to do lasting damage to such a deeply buried target. Indeed, there might be reason to believe that a ground operation has a better chance of succeeding, especially given that Israeli air superiority gives it the opportunity to deliver special operations forces directly to the site. The ground option has not received a great deal of attention in public, though it has come up this week. Such an operation would carry real dangers, of course. The nightmare scenario for Israel would be a stranded task force deep in Iran if the mission goes sideways. Yet if Iran’s latent nuclear capabilities are an existential threat, as Netanyahu claims, then Israel should be willing to take extraordinary risks.

In either case, the Trump administration should force the conversation rather than simply accepting Israeli judgements about the best way forward. Evaluating the prospects for military options requires good intelligence — and a willingness among policymakers to pay attention.

Intelligence, Strategy, and the Israeli-Iranian War – War on the Rocks

Joshua Rovner

warontherocks.com · June 20, 2025

States use intelligence to inform their strategic decisions — and to influence their friends. Israel has a long history of passing secret intelligence to the United States in order to win its support, and according to multiple reports, it is trying again. The White House is more likely to join the war against Iran if it accepts Israeli intelligence at face value. But in doing so, it will sacrifice its strategic flexibility and risk losing diplomatic leverage. For a president who cherishes bargaining power, this would be a grave mistake.

History helps shed light on the relationship between intelligence, strategy, and clandestine diplomacy. In 1967, Israeli officials approached the White House in search of material support in advance of the coming war with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. To make the case, they shared a pessimistic intelligence analysis of the balance of forces and the danger of fighting a Soviet-backed alliance that surrounded Israel on all sides. President Lyndon B. Johnson had offered rhetorical support, but they wanted much more.

Although the administration had reasons to avoid entanglement in a Middle Eastern war, Johnson was sufficiently concerned to ask the CIA for its assessment of the looming conflict. The agency predicted that Israel would win decisively and quickly. Armed with this analysis, Johnson parried Israeli requests. “All of our intelligence people are unanimous that if [Egypt] attacks,” he told the Israeli foreign minister, “you will whip hell out of them.”

The CIA got it right. The famously lopsided war began with an Israeli surprise attack and ended six days later with a comprehensive Israeli victory. Johnson limited military support and avoided U.S. intervention, managing to spare the country from involvement in another war at a time when public opposition to Vietnam was increasing.

A similar story is playing out today. Israeli officials are making ominous statements about Iran’s nuclear capability. Invoking the Holocaust, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that a comprehensive attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was needed to stave off disaster, “We can’t leave these threats for the next generation,” he said, “if we don’t act now, there won’t be a next generation.” And as was the case in 1967, Israel has reportedly shared intelligence on Iranian nuclear research and its progress towards the bomb.

Israeli officials are also trying to reason with Washington: American participation would help prevent Israel’s diplomatic isolation and alleviate concerns about dwindling stockpiles in a potentially protracted war. Further, U.S. airstrikes might be able to target deeply buried targets like Fordo, the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities located under a mountain near the city of Qom. At 30,000 pounds, the U.S. GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator may be able to damage or destroy the site. Israel does not possess this weapon.

BECOME A MEMBER

Dueling Assessments

Israel’s argument for U.S. intervention rests on the same claim as Israel’s stated reason for launching the crippling strikes against Iranian military infrastructure and security leadership: that Iran was and perhaps still might be going nuclear. U.S. intelligence agencies disagree. In March, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reported that Iran was not on the verge of building nuclear weapons, and that there was no indication that Iranian policy had changed. This was consistent with intelligence estimates going back to the George W. Bush administration, which concluded that Iran had shelved its weapons program even though it continued to seek to improve its work along the nuclear fuel cycle. As she told Congress, the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ali] Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Her summary of intelligence did not ignore other Iranian nuclear work. Indeed, Gabbard noted that norms against discussing nuclear weapons have eroded in Iran, and that its “enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”

Still, the U.S. intelligence community appeared convinced that Iran was not an imminent threat, suggesting that Israeli claims were overwrought. The other implication of U.S. intelligence is that that Israel can handle Iran without U.S. assistance, given that the basic problem is Iranian research that might one day allow it to weaponize its stockpile of fissile material. Israel’s air campaign might not be able to destroy Fordo, but it has clearly done a great deal of damage to Iran’s research infrastructure and the enrichment halls at Natanz. In addition to damaging multiple facilities, Israel has also killed at least 14 nuclear scientists since the war began. Such efforts are likely to delay any future Iranian nuclear efforts. While U.S. and Israeli agencies appear to agree on the substance of current intelligence, they do not share the same assessment. If news reports are correct, then U.S. intelligence seems less concerned.

President Donald Trump, however, does not seem interested in U.S. intelligence. Asked about Gabbard’s statement about Iran’s nuclear program, he dismissed the question: “I don’t care at all about what she said. I think they were very close to having one.” Trump’s casual remark follows a pattern of indifference to U.S. intelligence findings that began in his first term. For all the concerns that Trump would politicize intelligence, he seems more inclined to ignore it. He earned a reputation for neglect during his first term, reducing the frequency of intelligence briefings and disregarding intelligence estimates. His consumer habits seem the same today.

The president is well within his rights to ignore intelligence. Policymakers are under no obligation to pay attention to intelligence. Presidents in particular reserve the right to make decisions based on their own sources of information and insight. But indifference to one’s own intelligence community has serious consequences. Most obviously, it removes a potentially important voice from the policy process. Intelligence agencies control unique sources — providing the kind of granular detail about ongoing conflicts which can help corroborate (or undermine) policymakers’ assumptions. Clear-eyed strategy requires the ability to assess the outcome of military operations. Ignoring intelligence means cutting off the assessors.

Intelligence Among Friends

Good intelligence also helps with wartime diplomacy, which is particularly important in the current conflict. The fact that U.S intelligence has reached different conclusions than Israel is interesting. Policymakers might learn something important about the war by asking why. They might also benefit by using intelligence as a diplomatic tool. Handled with care, intelligence can increase policymakers’ freedom of action, as Johnson illustrated in the Six-Day War. Possession of independent assessments allows policymakers and diplomats to overcome information asymmetries, giving them bargaining leverage. The fact that the CIA bolstered Johnson’s position helped him fend off Israeli overtures. The current conflict is different because Trump already rejected a key intelligence judgment, publicly. But it may be that the administration finds value in using U.S. intelligence to challenge Israeli claims, especially if the president gets cold feet about intervening.

U.S. intelligence, for instance, might suggest the limits of airstrikes on Fordo. It may be that even the most lethal conventional bomb will not be able to do lasting damage to such a deeply buried target. Indeed, there might be reason to believe that a ground operation has a better chance of succeeding, especially given that Israeli air superiority gives it the opportunity to deliver special operations forces directly to the site. The ground option has not received a great deal of attention in public, though it has come up this week. Such an operation would carry real dangers, of course. The nightmare scenario for Israel would be a stranded task force deep in Iran if the mission goes sideways. Yet if Iran’s latent nuclear capabilities are an existential threat, as Netanyahu claims, then Israel should be willing to take extraordinary risks.

In either case, the Trump administration should force the conversation rather than simply accepting Israeli judgements about the best way forward. Evaluating the prospects for military options requires good intelligence — and a willingness among policymakers to pay attention.

BECOME A MEMBER

Joshua Rovner is associate professor of international relations at American University, and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His most recent book is Strategy and Grand Strategy.

Image: U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons

warontherocks.com · June 20, 2025

17. “THIS WE’LL DEFEND”: THE ENDURING ROLE OF FM 1 IN THE ARMY PROFESSION

“THIS WE’LL DEFEND”: THE ENDURING ROLE OF FM 1 IN THE ARMY PROFESSION

 Chase Metcalf  June 19, 2025

https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/fm-1/

FM 1 reflects the Army’s enduring ethos—rooted in trust, character, and constitutional duty.

In May 2025, the U.S. Army released a new edition of Field Manual 1: The Army – A Primer to Our Profession of Arms. General Randy George, Chief of Staff of the Army, notes in the foreword that FM 1 “is written for our Army” and it explains the Army as a profession, its purpose, and what it means to be an American soldier. FM 1 reflects the Army’s enduring ethos—rooted in trust, character, and constitutional duty. This is not doctrine in the traditional sense but a narrative declaration of who we are as soldiers and why our service matters.

As a career soldier approaching 30 years of service, this version of FM 1 resonated with me in a fundamental way. Looking back on my career, I found myself reflecting on the role this publication might play at different stages of a soldier’s career: from understanding the Army’s ethos and culture, to inspiring one to build and lead teams capable of working with a range of partners, to reminding them of the Army’s and their obligations to their fellow citizens and the Nation. Ultimately, FM 1 is not merely a publication—it is an embodiment of the Army’s professional conscience in print and an inspiration to live up to the example of those who have gone before.

FM 1 – An Overview

Billed as a “primer to our profession of arms” and written for every soldier, FM 1’s themes should speak to aspiring soldiers as well as those simply wishing to understand the Army. Departing sharply from the 2005 version, FM 1 adopts an unconventional, reflective, and narrative-driven tone. Decidedly non-doctrinal, this style effectively engages the reader. FM 1 provides a values-based ethos that demands judgment in its application rather than a checklist for compliance.

The manual comprises ten concise, story-driven chapters across 74 pages. It is organized into three broad sections: what it means to be a soldier, what the Army does, and the Army’s obligations to teammates, leaders, and citizens. Each chapter incorporates historical vignettes that humanize the profession and should inspire readers to carry forward the legacy of those who served before them.

FM 1 describes the soldier as a warrior, a professional, and a leader. These roles are integral to a soldier’s identity, demanding grit, discipline, moral courage, and an “indefatigable force of will.” In describing what the Army does, FM 1 reaffirms that warfighting remains our most critical task, but that our contributions go beyond battle, encompassing defense support to civil authorities, humanitarian assistance, and strategic deterrence.

The manual emphasizes the soldier as the Army’s most important weapon system. It declares the Army focuses on “equipping the man,” not simply manning the equipment. This requires soldiers to be fit, lethal, disciplined, and adaptive. The American soldier makes up the Army and, when well trained and led, ensures the Army will achieve its mission.

FM 1’s final chapters stress the Army’s enduring obligations to its teammates, civilian leaders, and fellow citizens. Here, the manual underscores that the Army’s legitimacy flows from trust—trust within the ranks, with civilian authorities, and with the American people. That trust, the manual reminds us, forms the foundation of our profession.

Enduring Relevance Across a Soldier’s Career

As a foundational document, FM 1 is essential reading for new soldiers and those seeking to understand the Army ethos and culture. However, the manual applies across the entire arc of a soldier’s career.

Reading FM 1 brought me back to my first assignment as a second lieutenant. Trained but untested and now responsible for leading non-commissioned officers and soldiers with far more experience. Mentally and physically ready but yet uncertain if I would measure up. Like Sergeant First Class Michael Tackett, that seasoned NCO who took the time to mentor me, FM 1 serves as a guide to what a leader is and does, providing a clear articulation of expectations.

For freshly minted Second Lieutenant Metcalf, and all soldiers new to the profession, FM 1 serves as a “welcome letter” and introduction to the profession. FM 1 provides grounding—a sense of identity and values to navigate the inevitable challenges of Army life. It reinforces that being a soldier means mastering the warrior tasks while embodying restraint, courage, and ethical judgment.

Perhaps most importantly, FM 1’s historical vignettes connect today’s soldiers with those who came before—those such as Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shugart, Captain Ben Salomon, or Corporal Alvin York. Their stories are more than lore—they are examples to emulate and sources of strength when adversity strikes. Looking back with the benefit of experience, I appreciate more than ever a theme linking these vignettes: the critical importance of putting your soldiers first and remaining calm in a crisis.

Almost a decade later, now a combat-tested and experienced captain, I deployed my unit from Germany to an exercise in South Korea. Trusted by my boss, I was granted significant freedom of action to accomplish the mission of deploying, drawing war stocks, and conducting a live-fire exercise. I remember the sense of empowerment and pride this gave me, and FM 1 reminded me how that empowerment is earned.

Reading FM 1, I thought of my younger self and reflected on the personal and professional values that are especially essential to mid-career soldiers and leaders. Those values are essential as your scope of responsibility and impact as a leader grow. At this point in your career, doing what is right regardless of the consequences is expected. A commitment to developing subordinates while embracing and encouraging disciplined initiative, as well as building effective teams, is essential. To that end, three themes from FM 1 are especially relevant: ethical leadership, mission command, and team building.

Ethical leadership is a persistent theme throughout the manual. The Army expects leaders to not only know what right looks like—but to model it, enforce it, and develop it in others. The story of Major George C. Marshall risking his reputation by challenging General John J. Pershing, despite his mind appearing made up, is just one example highlighted in this manual. FM 1 challenges non-commissioned officers and junior officers to reflect on figures like George Marshall and lead with moral courage. This is particularly important as one moves into positions at the operational or strategic level where speaking truth to power is not always welcomed and can come with a cost.

Given the conditions expected in large-scale combat operations, FM 1 rightly reminds us that leaders are not entitled to empowerment but rather earn it through competence and trust.

The manual’s treatment of mission command is especially insightful as the Army prepares for large-scale combat operations. These operations will differ markedly from the Global War on Terror with its permissive operating environments and large command posts, which allowed leaders to exert unprecedented levels of control on events. A future conflict with a peer adversary will likely be very different with every domain contested, fires applied at depth, and subordinates required to execute disciplined initiative in real-time.

Given the conditions expected in large-scale combat operations, FM 1 rightly reminds us that leaders are not entitled to autonomy but rather earn it through competence and trust. Leaders must develop subordinates who can execute with initiative and judgment thus earning the trust that is essential to mission command. Here, I recall particularly my time as a troop commander, developing trust up and down the chain of command through competence, consistency, and communication over time.

FM 1 also emphasizes a team-centric perspective. Warfighting is a collective endeavor, and leaders must forge cohesive, lethal, and disciplined teams that can perform effectively both individually and in conjunction with joint, interagency, and multinational partners. This is particularly true for leaders in the middle of their careers who must increasingly work with a range of partners from outside their organization.

Once again, FM 1 reminded me of my mid-career staff officer time working across the countering weapons of mass destruction, special operations forces, and interagency communities. Lacking command or directive authority, I found that demonstrating competence and taking a team-centric approach, which valued collaboration, communication, and the unique perspective each stakeholder brought to addressing a problem was essential to creating effective teams.

Late in my career, as a lieutenant colonel and colonel, I had the opportunity to serve as a strategist and strategic advisor at multiple three- and four-star commands. Broadly educated and experienced at this point, I would find FM 1’s reminder of the Army’s, and thus our senior leaders’, obligations to policymakers particularly relevant.

At senior levels, FM 1 reinforces the moral obligations of advising policymakers while owning the missions entrusted to the force. Leaders must provide candid advice, but they must also accept that policymakers ultimately decide. Once a policy decision is made, military leaders must own the mission and act with clarity, professionalism, and decisiveness to achieve it.

As a former commander’s action group director, and thus part of the “inner circle,” I have seen this in action and am confident in the Army’s senior leaders’ ability to do this. Providing military advice is an art. It should be grounded in analysis but informed by experience and judgment. It must be tailored to the audience and their preferred method of receiving information. Finally, it must provide context but be clear and succinct. Ultimately, it should be viewed as an opportunity to inform and influence, yet simply as advice, since, as FM 1 reminds us, the decision is for policymakers to make.

Importantly, FM 1 reminds us that war involves risk, and failure is possible. Senior military leaders must communicate the risks and provide policymakers with a range of feasible options. Similarly, senior leaders must ensure that soldiers understand they are responsible for the mission, not the policy, and that even when policy fails, their sacrifice is not in vain as they serve the American people. Clear, consistent messaging to subordinates is key here to ensure they understand that, ultimately, it is our job to be whatever our Nation needs us to be.

FM 1 also reminds senior leaders that their example sets the tone for the force. Upholding the Army’s apolitical character, modeling disciplined decision-making, and cultivating institutional trust is not optional. They are essential for maintaining legitimacy in the eyes of the civilian leadership and the Nation.

Conclusion

FM 1 is more than a field manual—it renders the Army’s character, culture, and conscience in print. All who lead, serve, or steward the profession of arms will find wisdom and inspiration in this work. FM 1 offers soldiers a moral compass and a professional north star in a time of uncertainty.

While written for the Army, FM 1 applies to a much broader range of readers. Civilians and those who partner with the Army would benefit from understanding the Army’s culture and ethos. For other militaries, FM 1 offers something to emulate—an organization with an unwavering commitment to the Constitution, ethical leadership, disciplined initiative, and a readiness to fight the Nation’s wars.

“This We’ll Defend” is not just a motto but a charge. FM 1 gives that charge meaning. And for soldiers past, present, and future, it reminds us all of why we serve.

Chase Metcalf is a colonel, an Army strategist and an instructor at the U.S. Army War College. He most recently served as Deputy Director of the Russia Strategic Initiative at the United States’ European Command.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.

Photo Description: Then Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, and acting Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General Randy George shakes hands with a U.S. Army Soldier at Clay Kaserne, Wiesbaden, Germany, Aug. 24, 2023.

Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Thomas Mort

18. Close NATO’s Door to Ukraine

Excerpts:

The proposal that has emerged from Trump’s diplomatic efforts is sound: a cease-fire, with Russia holding on to the roughly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory that it currently occupies. But that deal is acceptable only if the remaining 80 percent of Ukraine emerges as a sovereign, secure, and prosperous democracy. Arriving at that outcome will require that NATO provide Ukraine the military capability, training, and intelligence needed to block further Russian advances, enabling Kyiv to make it clear to Putin that he has already conquered as much of Ukraine as he is going to get. Ukraine is unlikely to give up on restoring its territorial integrity. But that goal should be pursued at the negotiating table with a post-Putin Russia, not on the battlefield. For now, Kyiv should focus on securing a durable cease-fire and turning a free Ukraine into a success story.

Taking Ukraine’s NATO membership off the table will make such a deal much easier to attain. Putin is more likely to end the war if he is confident that Ukraine will not thereafter join NATO. In return, NATO should demand that Russia agree to not only a permanent end to the war but also a renunciation of further territorial claims as well as any restrictions on Ukraine’s armed forces and its ability to defend itself.

A NATO consensus behind this plan may be elusive; some members, particularly along NATO’s eastern flank, remain keen to bring Ukraine into the alliance. Trump, however, should employ his trademark willingness to say out loud what others are thinking but not dare say, and acknowledge a simple truth: NATO membership for Ukraine is unattainable. He should make it clear that his administration is ready to provide Ukraine the help it needs to defend itself, but that when it comes to the country’s accession to NATO, the door is now closed.

Close NATO’s Door to Ukraine

Foreign Affairs · by More by Charles Kupchan · June 20, 2025

Years of Empty Promises Have Not Helped Kyiv or Fostered Peace

Charles Kupchan

June 20, 2025

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a NATO meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, June 2025 Ints Kalnins / Reuters

CHARLES KUPCHAN is Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent book is Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself From the World.

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President Donald Trump returned to the White House promising to end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours.” Since then, his administration has badly mishandled diplomatic efforts to bring about a cease-fire. Trump underestimated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s determination to subjugate Ukraine and has consequently failed to confront the Kremlin with the coercive pressure needed to stop its ongoing aggression.

But amid its bungled Ukraine diplomacy, the Trump administration has gotten one important strategic issue right: it is time to take NATO membership for Ukraine off the table. After years of promises to bring Ukraine into the alliance, Washington is finally changing course. In February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”

Taking membership off the table will make it easier to negotiate a cease-fire with Russia, whose legitimate objections to Ukraine’s entry into NATO partially motivated its invasion in 2022. And the Trump administration, for its part, is not alone in opposing Ukraine’s NATO membership; despite past pledges, a consensus within the alliance to invite Ukraine to join has never emerged and is unlikely to materialize in the foreseeable future. Although they have spent the last three years arming Kyiv, NATO members have not put their own boots on the ground. In doing so, they have made it clear that the alliance does not believe that defending Ukraine should warrant war between NATO and Russia. Pretending otherwise only encourages Kyiv to futilely push for membership, weakening the Ukrainian leadership when it inevitably falls short. Instead, Ukrainians should be pursuing more realistic options for securing their future.

At this year’s NATO summit, which takes place next week in The Hague, the alliance should commit to providing Ukraine what it needs to defend itself against Russia. But NATO should also seize the moment to make clear that membership is not in Ukraine’s future. Closing the door on Ukraine will allow Kyiv and its supporters to get on with the task of making other plans for providing the country the security it needs and deserves.

NOT IN MY BACKYARD

Since the end of the Cold War, the world’s most formidable military alliance, which prevailed over the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, has been adding new members to its ranks and moving highly capable forces steadily closer to Russian territory. Over seven waves of enlargement, NATO has grown from 16 members in 1991 to 32 members today.

Moscow objected to NATO enlargement as soon as the alliance hatched the idea in the early 1990s. In 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin warned against the alliance’s eastward expansion, arguing that Moscow “would no doubt perceive this as a sort of neo-isolation of our country in diametric opposition to its natural admission into Euro-Atlantic space.” Two years later, Yeltsin was more pointed with U.S. President Bill Clinton: “For me to agree to the borders of NATO expanding towards those of Russia,” Yeltsin proclaimed during a visit by Clinton to Moscow, “would constitute a betrayal on my part of the Russian people.”

Russian disgruntlement has grown in step with NATO’s ranks, especially after Putin took office in 1999 and pursued a more confrontational foreign policy. At the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin described NATO enlargement as “a serious provocation” and asked, “Why is it necessary to put military infrastructure on our borders?” The following year, the George W. Bush administration, despite the objection of Germany and other European allies, convinced NATO to declare at its Bucharest summit that Georgia and Ukraine would become members. Soon thereafter, Russia wrested control of two restive regions of Georgia, effectively preventing the country’s accession to NATO. Similarly, Putin’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 aimed, at least in part, at blocking its entrance into the alliance. In his address at the beginning of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022, Putin cited “the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia,” singling out “the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.”

Moscow objected to NATO enlargement as soon as the alliance hatched the idea.

The United States has consistently dismissed these objections. As he launched the first round of enlargement at NATO’s 1997 summit, Clinton argued that NATO’s open door would “erase the artificial line in Europe drawn by Stalin at the end of World War II.” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright attempted to assuage Russian concerns by arguing that NATO remained a “defensive alliance that . . . does not regard any state as its adversary,” reassuring Moscow that “NATO poses no danger to Russia.”

Washington and its allies continued to take this line during successive waves of enlargement and through both Democratic and Republican administrations. Indeed, as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border in early 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden insisted that “the United States and NATO are not a threat to Russia,” a claim echoed by then NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated that “NATO itself is a defensive alliance. . . . And the idea that Ukraine represents a threat to Russia or, for that matter, that NATO represents a threat to Russia is profoundly wrong and misguided.”

Yet such arguments are either geopolitically naive or disingenuous. It is entirely understandable that Russia is reluctant to allow into its neighborhood an alliance that, though defensive, nonetheless brings to bear ample military power. Whether it is NATO’s best tanks and aircraft, long-range strike weapons, or installations collecting intelligence, NATO’s arrival in Ukraine would pose a threat to Russia by dint of its sheer proximity. Russia, including its exclave of Kaliningrad, already has five NATO members on its borders and many more in its neighborhood. But given Ukraine’s strategic location, size, and historical connections to Russia, Moscow is particularly adamant that it not join NATO’s ranks.

NATO’s arrival in Ukraine would pose a threat to Russia by dint of its sheer proximity.

Russia is hardly the only major power keen to keep rivals out of its neighborhood. In fact, Moscow’s objections to Ukraine’s accession to NATO should be readily legible to policymakers in the United States, which has throughout its history made it a priority to expel other great powers from its neighborhood. From the founding era into the twentieth century, Washington used a mix of diplomacy and coercion to push its European rivals out of the Western Hemisphere. Since the late 1800s, it has repeatedly resorted to military intervention to maintain its influence in Latin America.

Guardianship of the neighborhood continued during the Cold War, with Washington working hard to box the Soviet Union and its ideological sympathizers out of the region. The competition came to a head with the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which brought the two countries to the brink of war. More recently, State Department spokesperson Ned Price promised that the United States would “respond swiftly and decisively” after Russia mused about again deploying its troops in Latin America in 2022. Its own history fresh in mind, Washington should have been more attentive to Russia’s concerns about Ukraine’s membership in NATO.

These arguments by no means justify Russia’s 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine, nor do they legitimate Putin’s imperial ambitions or his delusions about the unbreakable civilizational ties between Russia and Ukraine. But it is time for U.S. officials to recognize the geopolitical realities staring them in the face. As he explained why “Ukraine coming into NATO is not on the table” in May, Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg admitted that Russian objections were “a fair concern.” Such sobriety and strategic prudence will come in handy as the Trump administration seeks to convince Putin to end the war.

LEADING THEM ON

Ending Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership would not only make it easier to negotiate a cease-fire, it would also be to shoot straight with Kyiv instead of continuing to make promises that will likely never be fulfilled. NATO’s 2008 declaration that Georgia and Ukraine would eventually become members was a compromise; the Bush administration wanted to move them toward membership, although European leaders feared that doing so would inflame relations with Moscow. The declaration’s formulation that the two countries “will become members” was designed to be aspirational and anodyne; NATO set out no timetable or concrete plan for the accession of either country.

But the mild language nonetheless had explosive consequences. Not long after NATO’s statement, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili provoked a violent clash with pro-Russian separatists in the South Ossetia region. The incident offered Russia an excuse to send in military forces and grab control of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. NATO barely lifted a finger in response. Saakashvili, in the end, badly overestimated the West’s support.

Though it took a different path than Georgia, Ukraine has ended up in a similar position. Heading westward since the 2014 Maidan Revolution and Russia’s subsequent invasion of Crimea and Donbas, Ukrainians enshrined their NATO aspiration in their constitution in 2019. But when Russia invaded again in 2022, although NATO countries rushed weapons to Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers have been on their own.

Many NATO members understandably feel a moral obligation to continue honoring the pledge to extend membership to Ukraine. But the result has been dashed expectations and growing frustration. After President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a blistering statement calling NATO’s unwillingness to move ahead on Ukraine’s membership “absurd” at the 2023 summit in Vilnius, NATO edged forward, asserting that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO.” Again under pressure from Kyiv, the alliance in 2024 took yet another step, assuring Ukraine that its path to membership was “irreversible.”

But the rhetoric only misleads; Ukraine remains on NATO’s doorstep, encouraged to keep waiting outside but never allowed to enter. Kyiv is ultimately better off knowing the hard truth.

LOUDER THAN WORDS

Although they have yet to acknowledge it, member states have already taken a decisive step toward closing the door on NATO membership for Ukraine: they have made it clear through their actions that they do not deem it in their interests to go to war with Russia to defend Ukraine. Amid more than three years of fighting, around 500,000 Ukrainians have lost their lives or been wounded valiantly resisting Russia’s onslaught. The United States and its partners have provided close to $300 billion in military and economic assistance to Ukraine. But NATO countries have not dispatched a single soldier to join the fight, having concluded that defending Ukraine does not warrant a direct war between NATO and Russia. Their caution extends beyond the refusal to put boots on the ground. Ukraine’s NATO patrons have also carefully metered the lethality and range of the weapons provided in order to reduce the risk of escalation with Russia.

Alliance leaders may declare that Ukraine is fighting for the future of the West; that the war represents the frontline in the battle for democracy; that the defense of the rules-based order requires the expulsion of Russian troops from Ukraine; and that if Putin is not defeated in Ukraine, a NATO country could be next. But actions speak louder than words. Led by Washington, NATO has decided that the defense of Ukraine is not worth World War III.

Accordingly, NATO should not extend a security guarantee to Ukraine once the war ends, thereby obligating the alliance to go to war with Russia should it again invade. If Ukraine were attacked by Russia after becoming a NATO member, NATO could, of course, decide not to fight on its behalf. But failure to defend a member state would corrode the alliance’s credibility. In short, NATO would find itself in an impossible position: fight a war against Russia it has previously determined not worth fighting or stand down and irreversibly—and perhaps fatally—undermine the Western alliance in the process.

APART BUT NOT ALONE

Seeing its bid for NATO membership fail will be a harsh and painful reality for Ukraine as it continues to suffer ruthless Russian attacks. But putting an end to the illusion that Ukraine is on the path to NATO membership is by no means abandoning the country’s security. On the contrary, Kyiv will know where it stands, encouraging it to focus on more attainable goals.

Kyiv should concentrate on convincing Washington and other partners to keep the arms coming and make the most of the multiple bilateral security pacts that emerged from negotiations on the margins of NATO’s 2023 summit. Ukraine should also expedite its accession to the EU, a process that would speed up economic and political reforms and ultimately give the country at least a version of the security guarantee it seeks; Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union is a mutual defense clause. Moscow has indicated that it can live with Ukraine’s integration into the EU, which it sees as a more benign economic and political bloc, not a military alliance.

The proposal that has emerged from Trump’s diplomatic efforts is sound: a cease-fire, with Russia holding on to the roughly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory that it currently occupies. But that deal is acceptable only if the remaining 80 percent of Ukraine emerges as a sovereign, secure, and prosperous democracy. Arriving at that outcome will require that NATO provide Ukraine the military capability, training, and intelligence needed to block further Russian advances, enabling Kyiv to make it clear to Putin that he has already conquered as much of Ukraine as he is going to get. Ukraine is unlikely to give up on restoring its territorial integrity. But that goal should be pursued at the negotiating table with a post-Putin Russia, not on the battlefield. For now, Kyiv should focus on securing a durable cease-fire and turning a free Ukraine into a success story.

Taking Ukraine’s NATO membership off the table will make such a deal much easier to attain. Putin is more likely to end the war if he is confident that Ukraine will not thereafter join NATO. In return, NATO should demand that Russia agree to not only a permanent end to the war but also a renunciation of further territorial claims as well as any restrictions on Ukraine’s armed forces and its ability to defend itself.

A NATO consensus behind this plan may be elusive; some members, particularly along NATO’s eastern flank, remain keen to bring Ukraine into the alliance. Trump, however, should employ his trademark willingness to say out loud what others are thinking but not dare say, and acknowledge a simple truth: NATO membership for Ukraine is unattainable. He should make it clear that his administration is ready to provide Ukraine the help it needs to defend itself, but that when it comes to the country’s accession to NATO, the door is now closed.

CHARLES KUPCHAN is Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent book is Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself From the World.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Charles Kupchan · June 20, 2025

19. Will Iran Surrender? by Sir Lawrence Freedman

Excerpts:

The clerical regime’s priorities have blown up in its face. It presented itself as leader of the anti-Israeli forces in the region, when past relations between the two countries had been amicable; it armed proxies to cause trouble but then was unable to defend them when Israel went on to the offensive; it spent vast resources and was sanctioned by the West to pursue a nuclear programme that only made sense if it was geared to eventual weapons while always denying that this was the case; it relied on a ballistic missile threat that failed to deliver a knock-out blow, while its own air defences were taken out by Israel with little difficulty; it resorted constantly to bombast and bluster even as weaknesses were being exposed. When your bark is worse than your bite it is best not to bark.

All this is in addition to its responsibility for the hardship and repression suffered by the Iranian people. The regime has been losing its grip for some time, and the big question, whatever happens in the fighting and diplomacy, is whether or not this grip can be regained and what will happen if it cannot.

This is why this feels like it is such a transformational moment in the Middle East. It has confirmed Israel as the strongest military power in the region, but Israel is not going to occupy Iran. The clerical regime intends to cling onto power but will now come under pressure from reformists to show that it can change. This is always a hard trick to pull off. Once restrictions on how people are allowed to live and express themselves are eased it will become difficult to hold a new line. The end game for this round of fighting may just be the prelude to an even bigger end game.

Will Iran Surrender?

What might the endgame look like for the regime and for Israel?

https://samf.substack.com/p/will-iran-surrender?

Lawrence Freedman

Jun 21, 2025

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The first round of high-level diplomacy geared to persuading Iran that the game is up and that it should accept the strictest limits on its nuclear programme took place on 20 June in Geneva between European foreign ministers and their Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi.

The talks ended with European claims that the discussions had been constructive, Iranian insistence that nothing could be done until Israel abandons its aggression, and President Trump suggesting it was all a waste of time. It wasn’t that he was opposed to diplomacy, or even a ceasefire. His point was that only direct talks between the US and Iran would make any sense. Israel was not involved in any of these discussions, although it did participate in a fiery debate at the United Nations. Otherwise its main contribution was to remind everyone, and in particular Iran, that it was prepared to keep up its campaign for some time.

If Trump had looked more carefully at what the Europeans were saying he would have appreciated that they were also urging the Iranians to talk to the Americans, and on a much broader agenda than before. Not only will they need to make major concessions on its nuclear programme, of the sort they were unprepared to make at the start of the month, but they will also need to restrict their missile programme and activist role in the region. These concessions will only happen, if at all, when the Iranians are not only convinced privately that they are losing but that they are prepared to acknowledge it publicly. This moment may not come as long as they can keep firing missiles into Israeli cities.

In July 1988, battered after eight years of gruelling war with Iraq, with its army demoralised and retreating, Iraq using chemical weapons, and fears that the US might join the war against them, Iran’s leadership abandoned their previous readiness to fight to the finish and accepted a ceasefire. The supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, made a statements that was read out in a radio address, conveying his displeasure at this turn of events:

Happy are those who have departed through martyrdom. Happy are those who have lost their lives in this convoy of light. Unhappy am I that I still survive and have drunk the poisoned chalice.

Might his successor, the Ayatollah Khamenei end up making a similar statement?

In my previous post I noted Israel’s efforts to draw the US into the fight and Netanyahu’s focus on regime change. In this post I explain how the prior weakness of the regime provided Netanyahu with his opportunity and how it has now been exposed even more by the Israeli campaign. Despite his best efforts, however, Netanyahu has yet to succeed in getting Trump to order US strikes. Instead he is still embracing the possibility of diplomacy. The post is divided into two parts. The first is my piece which has already appeared in the New Statesman, and is republished here with their kind permission. The second part brings the story up to date.

Part One

The war between Israel and Iran is limited only because of the distance between the two countries. They share no border and so, unlike most wars, this one is not about territory and does not involve armies. Instead it is being fought with long-range aircraft, drones and missiles. For this reason, so long as it remains confined to these two countries, it cannot go on indefinitely. Their capabilities will become depleted, Iran’s before Israel’s, but exactly when is hard to say.

The possibility that Israel would one day hit Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and wider military capabilities has been discussed for years. The conflict has been much more contained than expected, however. Iran’s regional proxies, once expected to punish Israel with barrages of their own rockets and missiles, have largely been spectators. The Gulf states, who would once have been urging Israel on (and may still do so privately) have publicly condemned the strikes and provided no grounds for Iran to bomb their oil facilities, as it has done before.

Tehran may still decide to disrupt the movement of oil by closing the Gulf of Hormuz, hoping to create a sufficient international crisis to pressure Israel. But the big difference with the old scenarios concerns the Americans. They assumed that unilateral Israeli action would be risky because it was doubtful the country could eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities without US support. Yet Israel has gone it alone, leaving Iran with a quandary: if it hits American assets to punish them for supporting Israel, an unbearable US response would be triggered. This would suit Benjamin Netanyahu.

Part of Netanyahu’s electoral appeal is that he knows how to play the US political system better than any of his political rivals.

He has been around long enough to have exasperated every American president since Bill Clinton. This has largely been because of his refusal to allow any serious progress towards a Palestinian state. But his inflexibility, which has varied according to the nature of his coalition, has been combined with the consistent denunciation of Iran as the deadliest threat not only to Israel but to the rest of the Middle East. His demand for US action became more urgent once it emerged early in the century that Iran had embarked on a covert nuclear programme.

Netanyahu actively opposed the Obama administration when it negotiated, along with European states and Russia, capping Iran’s uranium enrichment. He even appealed directly to Congress but his efforts were thwarted when a deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was agreed in 2015. He resumed his opposition, with Saudi support, in Trump’s first term from 2017. Trump was sympathetic to the complaints about the limits of the JCPOA, largely because it was negotiated by Obama, so in 2018 the US abandoned it. This was followed by tougher sanctions on Iran but not, as Netanyahu might have hoped, direct military action against the nuclear sites (though attacks on US personnel in Iraq led to the assassination of the Revolutionary Guards leader Qasem Soleimani). Trump always said that his aim was to get a better deal.

The Israelis have previously explored a variety of means to disrupt and delay Iran’s nuclear programme, including cyberattacks and occasional assassinations of scientists and engineers.

Two factors always held the Israelis back from mounting the sort of attack now underway. The first was the difficulty of being sure that any military action would be successful, a problem that only got more difficult as the Iranians increased protection of facilities they knew would be targeted. The second was the threat of retaliation from nearby Iranian proxies – Hamas in Gaza to the south and Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north. Hezbollah, in particular, was kept well supplied by Iran, including with rockets and missiles. The group showed itself to be a tough opponent for Israel in 2006. In Hezbollah, Iran had a valuable deterrent, ready to be unleashed if either the US or Israel, or both, took military action against it.

The events set in motion by Hamas’s attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 changed all these calculations. A variety of reasons have been adduced for the assault – stopping an imminent Israel-Saudi deal to normalise relations; revenge for right-wing settlers’ push to take more of East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Palestinians; exposing the ineffectuality of the rival Palestinian Authority; and acquiring Israeli hostages to use in exchange for getting militants released from Israeli prisons.

The horror of the attack and the unrelenting ferocity of the Israeli response transformed all the power dynamics in the region. Netanyahu set the elimination of Hamas as a political objective. This has still not been achieved, despite all the carnage and the humanitarian calamity inflicted on the people of Gaza. Hamas, however, is no longer able to take the fight into Israel. More problematic for Iran: nor can Hezbollah. In October 2023 Hezbollah’s leadership, undoubtedly in consultation with Tehran, decided they had to do something. With Hamas, they were part of the Iranian-led anti-Zionist “axis of resistance”. But they did not commit all their capabilities, for these still needed to be kept in sufficient reserve as a deterrent. They were also well aware that provoking a full-scale war with Israel would be deeply unpopular in Lebanon. So instead of throwing the full weight of its military strength at Israel in concert with Hamas, which would have put Israel under severe pressure during the early stages of the war, Hezbollah opted for a limited operation, opening another front with regular exchanges of fire – but remained relatively restrained.

This turned out to be a poor strategy. Once Israel had done enough in Gaza to release troops, it turned on Hezbollah. Israel began its campaign in September 2024 in spectacular fashion, using exploding pagers to take out much of the organisation’s command structure, followed by strikes against key figures in its leadership, including the secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, and much of its military capacity. With its losses growing, Hezbollah had to abandon its solidarity with Hamas and accept a ceasefire.

Then came a further blow for Tehran: the Syrian government suddenly collapsed in December. Bashar al-Assad had only survived a long civil war with the help of Iran, Hezbollah and Russia. By late 2024, none were able to do much for him. Of Iran’s regional allies, only the Houthis in Yemen kept up a fight by continuing to threaten shipping in the Red Sea and occasionally lob missiles in Israel’s direction.

All this left the clerical regime in Tehran looking increasingly beleaguered. The economy was in a mess, there were increasing signs of popular disaffection and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was ailing without there being an obvious successor. When given the chance, Iranians voted for the most moderate candidate allowed – Masoud Pezeshkian was elected president in July 2024. The return of Trump to the White House, with his threat of additional sanctions, didn’t ease anxieties in Tehran.

Netanyahu celebrated Trump’s victory. He was always happier with Republicans, even though the Democrats had paid a heavy political price for the cover Joe Biden had given him over Gaza. Now Netanyahu had a president who would not expect Israel to make concessions to Palestinians and would also use his own good relations with the Saudis to press for normalisation. This was despite Saudi Arabia continuing to stress that this was dependent upon Israel recognising the need for a Palestinian state.

Yet Trump had his own agenda. Even before his inauguration, the US president told Netanyahu he wanted a ceasefire in Gaza. This was arranged by officials from the Biden administration, working with Steve Witkoff, who has since become Trump’s all-purpose negotiator. The agreement with Hamas, which led to the release of hostages, lasted until mid-March. By that point, extremists in Netanyahu’s coalition were getting edgy. The questions he was desperate to avoid about the future governance and reconstruction of Gaza were coming to the fore. So Netanyahu broke the ceasefire, which clearly made Witkoff unhappy. But Trump did nothing, his mind now on other matters. No attempt was made to restrain Israel.

With Iran, Trump took the possibility of a deal seriously and Witkoff was once again his negotiator. (It is a measure of the lack of capacity at the top of the administration that Witkoff serves as Trump’s main negotiator, including with Vladimir Putin, while Marco Rubio is secretary of state, national security adviser and head of the US Agency for International Development, or USAID.) Trump also made it clear to Netanyahu, both privately and publicly, that so long as there was the chance of a diplomatic breakthrough, he should not even think about unilateral military action.

With Oman providing the venues and some mediation, both the US and Iran made positive noises about how the talks were progressing. Iran, however, could only agree a deal that allowed them a substantial amount of nuclear enrichment. Congressional hawks, as well as Israel, objected to this, insisting that the only acceptable outcome was no enrichment at all. After the last round of talks on 23 May, Witkoff passed on a proposal that offered much less than the Iranians had hoped – the regime rejected it. More talks were scheduled, so the process had not quite run its course, but the mood had turned pessimistic.

Netanyahu had the opening he wanted. He spoke to Trump on 9 June, outlining his plan. Trump offered neither a red nor a green light. Without a clear veto, Netanyahu seized the moment. That evening he agreed for the operation to start on 13 June.

The Israeli prime minister’s confidence that any threat from Hezbollah had been neutralised proved justified. His assessment that Trump would not condemn the attacks was also correct, while he acknowledged that the decision to launch the strikes against Iran was his, and undertaken without expectation of any American contribution. Yet his task would be much easier if the US did join in.

Trump campaigned last year against getting involved in more wars. Other than permitting his military to provide additional defence against Iranian missiles, Trump first confined himself to praising Israel’s military effort, suggesting it was doing fine on its own. He has warned Iran of dire consequences should it attack American targets. Posting on Truth Social, Trump said “we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran”, and claimed the US knows Khamenei’s location but isn’t going to kill him – “at least not for now”. The administration also revealed it told Netanyahu not to kill Khamenei, and Trump has even spoken about how that well-known peacemaker Vladimir Putin might be able to mediate. The US President believes that deals are the way to solve all international problems. By contrast, Netanyahu distrusts deals about two big issues – the Palestinians and Iran.

At first, and perhaps too hastily, Iran insisted that there was no point in negotiations. They called off talks with the US scheduled for 15 June. They have complained that the Americans not only knew Israel was about to attack – self-evident as the US told its non-essential personnel to leave the country two days before it took place – but also that they actively supported the strikes, which is less clear. They have, however, refrained at the time of writing from acting on this suspicion, and have concentrated on the “Zionist” enemy. We can assume that every country Iran is talking to is urging them to keep it that way.

Israel has attacked many sites connected with the nuclear programme. It does not yet appear to have hit the stockpile of enriched material (which would create a substantial radiation risk). It has struck Iran’s two key enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow and both have been damaged, but by how much remains uncertain. Pre-war assessments suggested that many strikes would be needed to destroy these underground facilities and, at Fordow, built deep into a mountain; only the US has the capacity to do this. So the war may end with Iran’s programme degraded but not eliminated. Netanyahu has increasingly suggested regime change is also an objective. The concern about Iranian nuclear weaponry is genuine (and it is always worth noting Israel already has its own), but the actual Iranian threat since its 1979 revolution, before which the two countries were friends, has been to organise and arm its regional armies and make Israel’s destruction the centrepiece of its foreign policy. Ending that regime would be a triumph for Netanyahu.

Even before the war, Iran’s regime was fragile. Israeli strikes have weakened it further, and it is now fighting for its survival. It has shown defiance and enough of its missiles have got through to hurt Israel. But the regime has also lost control of its air space and can do little to protect its people and its economy. What happens next, however, is up to the Iranian people. Israel can engineer neither an insurrection nor a coup.

Against this backdrop, might Trump’s offer of talks appear attractive? Iran needs them more than Israel. Hints from the administration that it might be prepared to enter the war may be designed to encourage Iran to move quickly, though if it doesn’t Trump could be tempted to finish what Israel has started, when Tehran is unable to resist. Iran might prefer a simple ceasefire, but Trump has pressed for “unconditional surrender” – which means Tehran must negotiate on the verge of defeat, with the old agenda now dated, ending up with something far worse than the proposal it recently rejected. The prospect of becoming a “threshold” nuclear state will then be remote, however much the Israeli attacks have left the regime wishing it had its own nuclear deterrent. Yet Iran has few options left. It may no longer even be able to widen the war, as the Americans are gearing up to finish it off if Iran doesn’t raise a white flag.

Part Two

The previous paragraph was written just after news had come in of Trump’s shift to a more belligerent stance. Trump seems to have decided on this shift while at the G7 meeting in Canada. (An account of why this came about can be found here).

The initial US position was to insist that the Israeli action was unilateral and emphasise to Teheran that this now really was the time to make a deal. Israeli pressure on Washington to join in to ensure that the Iranian programme was damaged beyond repair was resisted. Trump wanted to use the Israeli campaign as leverage to get the Iranians to agree on US terms. This initially appealed to neither side.

On 16 June Trump mused openly about the possibility that the threat to the life of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, might provide even more leverage. He also appeared attracted by the possibility of associating the US with a successful campaign. He asked for options on how best to join in, with most attention given to the potential employment of the 30,000lb ‘massive ordnance penetrator’ (or GBU-57) against the deep structures of the Fordow enrichment facility. In the process he gave a nod in the direction of the Israeli claim that the Iranians had accelerated their nuclear programme, disavowing in the process the conclusions of Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence, and now it would seem Gabbard herself.

This led almost immediately to a backlash from many of his supporters, who saw the US getting embroiled in yet another Middle Eastern war because Israel had started something it couldn’t finish. Probably a less important factor in giving Trump pause were Iranian warnings about the terrible things that would befall the US if they attacked (Khamenei spoke implausibly of ‘irreparable damage’), though the possibility of US assets in the region being struck was not one that could be ignored. In addition, and more positively, European governments sought to keep the diplomatic option alive and the conflict contained. Witkoff also appears to have been in touch with his Iranian counterpart, foreign minister Araghchi.

So Trump did what he often does in such situations – he praised himself for refusing to offer clarity on his intentions (‘I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.’) and then set a vague two-week deadline in the hope that the Iranians would come forward with big concessions before he had to decide. This timetable comes naturally to Trump. It was the one he used for a decision, which was in the end made by default, on whether to impose tougher sanctions on Russia. He has also used it with tariffs. It is short enough to convey urgency but long enough for something to come up or for people to have forgotten that he made it.

For Netanyahu this is frustrating. Exactly how much damage has been done to the Iranian programme, and how lasting it will be, is uncertain. There is more that they might be able to do to give themselves more certainty, but some of those, including commando raids, are risky. (Mark Urban has a good analysis of the options in his Substack).

The Israelis are unlikely to trust any negotiated outcome that allows Iran some residual nuclear capacity. As important now is their effort to dismantle Iran’s long-range ballistic missile capabilities, including factories as well as launchers. They have so far coped with Iranian missile strikes, and are steadily taking out the launchers as they are found. Inevitably some have got through, with painful consequences, and Israel may have to ration its air defence missiles, already used in large numbers. Giving priority to the more strategic sites may mean that more residential areas are hit.

With Iranian air defences now virtually non-existent, Israel has enough offensive capabilities to keep going for some time, although they will not want to use up all of their smartest ordnance. Lastly the economic strain is also starting to tell. Netanyahu will want to wait to see if Trump decides to order US forces into action. If not, whatever this campaign is going to achieve Israel militarily will have had to achieve on its own.

The Israelis have demonstrated superior military strength, and extraordinary penetration of the Iranian system by their intelligence agencies, but they are yet to be sure that this is the end of Iran’s nuclear aspirations. Nor can they be sure that this is the end of the Iranian regime. Israel has not quite embraced this as a war aim, accepting that at most it could be triggered because of the regime’s humiliation at Israeli hands. If the regime does survive then the underlying conflict will remain – the one that began with the 1979 revolution, when the Ayatollah Khomeini ended the Shah’s policy of cordial relations with Israel and handed its embassy over to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

The situation is far more urgent for Iran. Vital infrastructure has been destroyed, military assets built up over decades have been destroyed and depleted, senior commanders are dead. The longer this goes on the harder it will be to recover, and an already disaffected population is likely to grow angry. Pride and a reluctance to negotiate under duress means that they are so far refusing to consider major concessions. But the clock is ticking and their position is unlikely to improve. A failure to agree a deal risks the Americans joining the Israeli campaign, which means that there would be precious little of the programme left to salvage. The current diplomatic choreography has to be about helping Iran make its surrender at least appear conditional, though Trump demanded that it be unconditional. As always the key issue will be sequencing: does the ceasefire come before or after the major Iranian concessions?

The clerical regime’s priorities have blown up in its face. It presented itself as leader of the anti-Israeli forces in the region, when past relations between the two countries had been amicable; it armed proxies to cause trouble but then was unable to defend them when Israel went on to the offensive; it spent vast resources and was sanctioned by the West to pursue a nuclear programme that only made sense if it was geared to eventual weapons while always denying that this was the case; it relied on a ballistic missile threat that failed to deliver a knock-out blow, while its own air defences were taken out by Israel with little difficulty; it resorted constantly to bombast and bluster even as weaknesses were being exposed. When your bark is worse than your bite it is best not to bark.

All this is in addition to its responsibility for the hardship and repression suffered by the Iranian people. The regime has been losing its grip for some time, and the big question, whatever happens in the fighting and diplomacy, is whether or not this grip can be regained and what will happen if it cannot.

This is why this feels like it is such a transformational moment in the Middle East. It has confirmed Israel as the strongest military power in the region, but Israel is not going to occupy Iran. The clerical regime intends to cling onto power but will now come under pressure from reformists to show that it can change. This is always a hard trick to pull off. Once restrictions on how people are allowed to live and express themselves are eased it will become difficult to hold a new line. The end game for this round of fighting may just be the prelude to an even bigger end game.

20. Progress Without Programs: Reforming U.S. Department of Defense Global Health Engagement for Economic and Strategic Advantage

Conclusion:

The “Progress Without Programs” model represents a fundamental shift in Department of Defense global health engagement. The model replaces ineffective and disjointed assistance that often falls short of meeting strategic and operational objectives with a transparent, investment-driven approach that reinforces American health, economic, and strategic interests. By restructuring the department’s role, enhancing transparency, and aligning assistance with recipient nations’ security and development strategies, as well as the combatant command campaign plan, the United States can regain its competitive edge. The department can establish a more resilient, economically empowered global health partnership network that better represents the contribution of global health engagement to American security, strength, and prosperity. Implementing these reforms will not only bolster the department’s influence but also contribute to a strengthened rules-based international order through which American intellectual property, innovation, and therapies can regain market share and assure the United States’ health security.

Essay| The Latest

Progress Without Programs: Reforming U.S. Department of Defense Global Health Engagement for Economic and Strategic Advantage

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/06/20/progress-without-programs/

by Derek Licina, by Charla Geist, by Peter Cloutier

|

06.20.2025 at 06:00am

Sergeant Erika O'Meara (L) of the Illinois Air National Guard administers a Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to Richard Persha at a vaccination center established at the Triton College in River Grove, Illinois, on February 3, 2021. - The site is the second large-scale vaccination center in Cook County, which includes the city of Chicago. More than 4,000 vaccines are expected to be given at that location on a weekly basis. (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / AFP) (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Introduction

The shuttering of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the complete overhaul of the United States’ $58 billion annual investment in foreign assistance is raising eyebrows in the Department of Defense. In particular, the global health engagement community of practice may not be immune to a similar fate if they don’t reflect on and adapt to the current operating environment.

Foreign assistance, in its broadest economic definition, includes all international support that results in commercial transactions and mutual benefits for both recipient and donor states. Such forms of U.S. support include philanthropic and charitable giving, official development assistance and development finance from the U.S. government, remittance from the United States, and the many forms of American private sector engagement and investment overseas. Department of Defense global health engagement can be a form of foreign assistance. Policy defines global health engagement as the “interaction between individuals or elements of the department and those of a Partner Nation’s armed forces or civilian authorities, in coordination with other U.S. government departments and agencies, to build trust and confidence, share information, coordinate mutual activities, maintain influence, and achieve interoperability in health-related activities that support U.S. national security policy and military strategy.” It is a long and broad policy definition. Like foreign assistance, global health engagement is characterized as misaligned with broader strategies, lacking funding transparency, and employed through a fragmented workforce. It leads to duplication and creates questions about substitution and attribution, resulting in recipient nation frustration, cost escalation, and lost economic opportunities.

The crescendo of dissatisfaction with disconnected official development assistance, coupled with the Department of Defense’s inability to articulate what global health engagement encompasses, contributes to a rise in alternative forms of partnership, particularly from China, which committed to escalating global health diplomacy efforts in September 2024. Still, Department of Defense efforts abroad continue to be underappreciated, leaving space for competitors like China to strengthen their alternative global health engagement-like approaches that achieve global influence through more seemingly transparent and project-oriented health assistance. It is time for a transformative approach to Department of Defense global health engagement efforts, which can reverse recent dampening trends by replacing its ineffective model with a “Progress Without Programs” framework. The framework rebuilds competitive American prosperity and economic resiliency in recipient states while reinforcing strategic objectives found in the National Security, Defense, and Military Strategies. The approach is further warranted given the recent dissolution of the U.S. Agency for International Development, providing a catalyst for such reform.

Problem Statement

The current global health engagement framework is outdated, fragmented, and ineffective in responding to modern health security, geopolitical, and economic challenges. Department of Defense global health engagement comprises multiple stove-piped agencies, components, services, and other stakeholders, often operationalizing plans to support their own command’s objectives without adequate coordination. The absence of a centralized accounting system for all assistance mechanisms creates confusion among providers and recipients. As a result, the department cannot adequately attribute successes, track progress, assess gaps, or address failures, nor can recipient nations effectively integrate and leverage the assistance into their security or development strategies. This lack of clarity undermines trust, reduces impact, and cedes influence on competitors.

Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China is emerging as a dominant foreign assistance provider through its Belt and Road Initiative, offering well-defined, investment-driven, and infrastructure-focused health aid, known as the Health Silk Road. Unlike traditional Western health engagement models, which impose complex conditionalities, China’s apparent “no-strings-attached” approach positions it as an attractive alternative for many nations. China’s strategic investments in natural resources and critical infrastructure further exacerbate American vulnerabilities in security supply chains essential for health security.

Moreover, institutional inefficiencies in multilateral policy enforcement allow adversaries to exploit informal, unregulated markets, including illegal, unreported, and unregulated natural resource extraction. These shadow economies fuel corruption, criminal networks, and economic instability while also diminishing the United States’ economic leverage in recipient nations.

Policy Objectives

To address these challenges, we recommend a restructured approach to global health engagement under the banner of “Progress Without Programs,” emphasizing the following principles:

1. Greater Transparency and Coordination: Establishing a unified repository of all global health engagement to increase accountability and coordination, improve recipient nation planning, and maximize impact.
2. Decoupling global health engagement from Foreign Assistance: Eliminating less collaborative engagement while employing a “whole-of-society” approach focused on leveraging philanthropic, private sector, and remittance-driven investments for greater strategic impact.
3. Empowering global health engagement Practitioners: Strengthening their role in convening, coordinating, and catalyzing health engagement efforts rather than responding to isolated situations in haste and without attempt for unison.
4. Aligning Assistance with National Economic Interests: Shifting from a strictly Department of Defense global health engagement-driven programmatic aid to an investment-based approach that implores partnership to attain greater diplomatic and socioeconomic relationships that respond to both need and opportunity.
5. Countering Chinese Influence through Economic Statecraft: Developing competitive, transparent, and accountable Department of Defense-based health assistance strategies that reinforce the prominence of a largely independent private sector – supported by, but detached from, its public sector, as the best means by which any country achieves and sustains long-term socioeconomic resilience that best serves its population.

Case Study: Angola as a Model for Progress Without Programs

The U.S. Agency for International Development Country Development Cooperative Strategy for Angola (2014) took a new approach. Designed by the lead author, the strategy provides a successful early iteration of this model. The strategy features four lines of effort to drive sustainable development across multiple, interrelated sectors essential for Angola’s health and economic resilience:

• Strategic Alignment with Angola’s National Health Plan: U.S. Agency for International Development’s efforts supported, rather than replaced, Angolan-led initiatives.
• Tapered United States Programmatic Footprint – Foreign Service Officers transitioned from direct implementation of U.S.-designed and to serving as a convening authority between public and private sectors.
• Public-Private Partnerships – Oil and gas companies collaborated with the U.S. Agency for International Development on malaria control, maternal-child health initiatives, and public financial health system development.
• Peer-to-Peer Knowledge Transfers – The Angolan Ministries of Health and Finance leveraged technical expertise from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of the Treasury, along with Duke University and the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, to fulfill its health financial accounts and governance structures that persist today.

Ten years after implementation, the following outcomes are maintained: 

• The United States’ influence increased despite reduced programmatic aid, proving economic resilience can be supported without traditional official development assistance programs.
• Angola’s 2024 Millennium Challenge Scorecard received a “green” rating for corruption control, a key signal of improved public financial management and governance.
• The Lobito Corridor Project, linking the Lobito port in Angola to Zambia through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, remains the largest U.S. infrastructure investment in Africa, directly challenging China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Policy Recommendations

Key changes are required in policy across U.S. government agencies engaged in foreign assistance to facilitate “Progress Without Programs.” The recommendations below are a starting point for global health engagement reform, enabling economic and strategic advantage.

1. Centralizing and Enhancing Health Engagement Transparency

• Establish a digital platform under the Department of State that consolidates all U.S. foreign assistance health engagement data, including the Department of Defense, private sector, philanthropic, and government contributions.
• Reinforce real-time reporting of United States contributions to recipient nations, ensuring that American health aid is visible, quantifiable, and comparable to other donors.
• Develop standardized impact measurement tools to assess the long-term benefits of United States health assistance in recipient countries.

1. Elevating the Role of Global Health Engagement Practitioners.

• Expand the mandate of personnel to act as health engagement liaisons as well as program implementers for greater asymmetry toward achieving interoperability.
• Equip personnel with the resources and authority to facilitate private sector engagement, government outsourcing, and strategic economic partnerships.
• Enhance collaboration between the military health system and embassies’ economic sections to align global health engagement activities with the United States’ trade and investment strategies.

1. Expanding the role of the National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program

• Leverage the National Guard’s dual military-civilian role to serve as a catalyst for integrating civilian health capabilities.
• Incentivize states to incorporate civilian engagement into their global health engagement efforts, including state and local governments, academic institutions, and private industry.
• Align global health engagement activities with combatant command campaign plans, United States trade policy, and private investment initiatives, ensuring recipient nations build self-sustaining health economies.

1. Reinforcing Recipient Nation efforts to consolidate ‘One Sector, One Plan’ approaches where governments, health partners, and the private sector agree to a single, costed, national health plan and related ‘investment case’ with emphasis on health security

• Revive the United States National One Health Framework to guide interagency coordination, surveillance and research investments for greater transparency, accountability, and foreign reporting.
• Reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies by eliminating duplicative reporting structures and aligning all joint, interagency, intergovernmental, multinational, plus commercial health assistance initiatives under a single governance mechanism.
• Leverage universities, think tanks, and research institutions to provide technical assistance in health data management and governance reform.

1. Strengthening Economic Statecraft and Market Governance

• Prioritize trade partnerships and foreign direct investment over U.S. government-only health assistance programs to foster long-term economic resilience in recipient countries.
• Establish incentives for domestic health sector businesses to invest in emerging markets by providing risk-mitigation frameworks and regulatory support.
• Expand joint venture health opportunities between the Department of Defense and local businesses to reinforce partner nation industry, create jobs, and reduce economic reliance on adversarial powers.

1. Enhancing Oversight to Counter illegal, unreported, and unregulated Supply Chains

• Strengthen monitoring mechanisms to track and eliminate illegal, unreported, and unregulated health resource exploitation, particularly pharmaceuticals, and counterfeited supplies.
• Leverage digital technologies and open-source artificial intelligence to enable leapfrogging more traditionally cost- and time-intensive knowledge transfer gaps, as well as electronic health supply chain monitoring and compliance with international trade and labor standards.
• Implement stricter trade policies that penalize companies and entities engaging in exploitative or illegal economic activities.

Expected Outcomes

Four strategic outcomes are anticipated with implementing the “Progress Without Program” model across DoD global health engagement:

• Increased Strategic Influence: By ‘crowding in’ private and public health sector entities without foreign or military aid stimulus, the United States demonstrates new partnership power in pursuit of greater, long-term socioeconomic and security resilience. This generates a greater sense of American authenticity to save lives, alleviate suffering, and achieve greater health security via sweat equity when compared to more monetary transactional approaches employed by adversaries seeking a shorter-term advantage.
• Economic Growth and Stability: Redirecting global health engagement toward trade, investment, and governance helps resolve more acute health sector issues while concurrently working with recipient nations to develop stronger public financial management and self-sustaining health systems, private health enterprise and greater outsourcing potential, and reduced aid dependency.
• Stronger Institutional Partnerships: Full alignment of multi-sectoral health assistance strategies with recipient nations’ priorities will enhance defense and diplomatic relationships, fostering mutual trust.
• Greater National Security and Economic Competitiveness: Countering illegal, unreported, and unregulated counterfeit medicines, their supply chains, and the criminal networks that take advantage of their efficiencies reaffirms health sector rules-based order for domestic firms and their risk-return evaluations along with upstart health-related entrepreneurs seeking legitimate market opportunity.

Conclusion

The “Progress Without Programs” model represents a fundamental shift in Department of Defense global health engagement. The model replaces ineffective and disjointed assistance that often falls short of meeting strategic and operational objectives with a transparent, investment-driven approach that reinforces American health, economic, and strategic interests. By restructuring the department’s role, enhancing transparency, and aligning assistance with recipient nations’ security and development strategies, as well as the combatant command campaign plan, the United States can regain its competitive edge. The department can establish a more resilient, economically empowered global health partnership network that better represents the contribution of global health engagement to American security, strength, and prosperity. Implementing these reforms will not only bolster the department’s influence but also contribute to a strengthened rules-based international order through which American intellectual property, innovation, and therapies can regain market share and assure the United States’ health security.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the US Government, the US Department of Defense, or any other portion of the US Government)

Tags: China, global health, health, Influence, U.S. Department of Defense

About The Authors

• 
  
• Derek Licina
• COL (Ret) Derek Licina, DrPH, MPH. Derek is a recognized expert in global health, military health systems, and security cooperation working closely with national and multinational agencies. He has over 28 years of experience solving health and security challenges and building partner capacity in health, defense, and consulting sectors, most recently across Asia and the Middle East. Derek is a full-time consultant to the United States Department of Defense Joint Trauma System, part time faculty for the George Washington University where he teaches in the DrPH and MPH programs as an Adjunct Professor, and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Uniformed Services University. www.linkedin.com/in/derek-licina-drph
• 
  
• Charla Geist
• View all posts 
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• Peter Cloutier
• View all posts 

21. The Right Path to Regime Change in Iran

Excerpts:

Given how weak the Iranian government may be after the current Israeli assault concludes, it might not take much to keep the Islamic Republic politically unstable. And an intense American propaganda campaign through social media and other channels should continuously highlight the calamitous and corrupt rule of the mullahs. The Iranian elite stashes a lot of money abroad. At a minimum, the U.S. Treasury should track and expose those funds. And whatever and wherever opposition forces emerge inside Iran, the United States should aid them with financial backing and technological assistance to the extent possible, so long as these forces aren’t politically extreme.

Iran belongs to the Iranians. They are the only ones who can in the end determine the direction of their country. They have taken to the streets in 1906, 1922, and 1979 and they can be counted on to do so again. All the United States and Israel can do is weaken the regime and accentuate its vulnerabilities. The Islamic Republic has never faced a crisis like the one unleashed by this month’s attacks. It’s a great irony that Israel—disparaged relentlessly by the Iranian leadership as a savage, illegitimate colonial settler state aiming to humble Muslims everywhere—may, just possibly, have opened the door for a new future for the long-suffering Iranian people.

The Right Path to Regime Change in Iran

Foreign Affairs · by More by Eric Edelman · June 20, 2025

How America and Israel Can Create the Conditions for the Toppling of the Islamic Republic

June 20, 2025

At an anti-Israeli rally in Tehran, June 2025 Majid Asgaripour / West Asia News Agency / Reuters

ERIC EDELMAN is a Counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Finland from 1998 to 2001, as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey from 2003 to 2005, and as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 2005 to 2009.

REUEL MARC GERECHT is Resident Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Earlier, he was an officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, where he worked on issues related to Iran.

RAY TAKEYH is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty.

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• More by Ray Takeyh

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There are many paths to regime change in Iran. In 2020, two of us (Edelman and Takeyh) wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs in which we outlined a way to topple the Islamic Republic. At that time, we assumed that the use of force was off the table, and that outside powers could only gradually erode the regime’s sources of strength. Israel’s attack on Iran this month has introduced a new and volatile element into the mix, but the underlying logic remains the same. In all cases of regime change, the indispensable preconditions for success are that the government becomes weaker and the populace becomes bolder.

In the past week, Israel has done a significant amount to establish the first condition. It has not just disabled key Iranian nuclear facilities but also essentially decapitated Iran’s military leadership. As of this writing, Israel has attacked 20 out of 31 provinces and killed scores of generals and scientists. It has largely spared Iran’s economic assets, although it has targeted domestic oil and gas production and distribution facilities. Critics have said that the intent of this Israeli operation is regime change, but it would be more correct to say that regime change might emerge as a collateral benefit of Israel’s offensive.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been comprehensively humbled. He once stalked the Middle East as the leader who helped defeat the United States in Iraq and surrounded Israel with lethal proxies. He had defied the international community and expanded Iran’s nuclear program, bringing the theocracy within reach of the bomb. His success abroad reinforced his authority at home. But the collapse of Iran’s “axis of resistance” in the Levant and Gaza and Israel’s current pummeling of the Islamic Republic inevitably raise the question of whether such a reversal can uproot the dictatorship. It could, but Israel will have to do a lot more to shatter the coercive powers of the theocracy’s police state—and do so without military actions that kill large numbers of civilians, especially women and children.

THE REGIME ON ITS KNEES

In its more than four decades in power, the Islamic Republic has faced its share of popular insurrections. Every decade, another social class defected from the revolutionary coalition. Students and liberals were the first to go shortly after the revolution in 1979. This was followed by elements of the middle class during the Green Movement of 2009 and finally, in the late 2010s, the working poor in whose name the movement was waged. The regime always beat back these uprisings. They never gained critical mass, as most people believed that the regime’s Revolutionary Guards, the Basij militia, the street thugs who abet the authorities, and the omnipresent intelligence ministry were too cruel and implacable to defeat. Once the security forces started killing and torturing enough protestors, the demonstrations, which did spiral into insurrections in 2017 and 2019, petered out. For Iranians themselves, it’s been a deeply frustrating recurring cycle, most recently experienced in the protests in 2022 that followed the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who had been detained by the religious morality police.

Now, after days of Israeli bombings, both the regime and the Iranian public appear traumatized. When things calm down, scores surely will be settled, perhaps even within the ruling elite as power brokers in the security, clerical, and political establishments get their knives out. Members of the Revolutionary Guards, for instance, may blame the civilian leadership for the country failing to develop the atomic weapon that would have deterred an Israeli attack. The 86-year-old supreme leader may have a very rough go of it with younger members of the Guards who appeared to want a more aggressive nuclear policy. They will be distressed that the vaunted atomic program that cost billions of dollars is now in ruins. (Its actual financial cost probably runs into hundreds of billions given the commercial opportunities Iran has lost as a result of sanctions placed on it by the West.)

Although Israel has killed a lot of very important people in the country, all the pathologies of the Islamic Republic are still intact. It remains a theocracy drowning in corruption. Core institutions, such as government ministries, are in an advanced state of decay and social inequality, especially in the wake of soaring inflation, has deepened. Some observers imagine that Israel’s attack will stimulate a nationalist fervor that would help insulate the regime. But the bonds between state and society are too severed for such an outcome. In past demonstrations, the Iranian people have blamed their regime and not outsiders for their predicament. Another major protest movement will undoubtedly arise. The question is what Israel and the United States will do to tilt the scales in the movement’s favor.

A VISIT TO THE GOON SQUAD

It will be tempting to offer the regime a lifeline should it agree to abandon its nuclear quest. “Realists” on the American left and right are acutely uncomfortable with the promotion of human rights and democracy overseas. They don’t see it as an effective American weapon.

The regime has always preferred to have the West focus on its nuclear ambitions, not on its internal troubles. Many Americans and Israelis have also not been hugely interested in supporting human rights for Muslims. But the Israelis now appear far more attuned to how this advocacy, even if applied only to Iranians, reinforces the chances that the Islamic Republic might crack. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has described the regime as “weak” and urged Iranians to rise against it, and Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, both appear willing to think more seriously about supporting Iranians from the ground up.

Trump has now called for the Islamic Republic’s “total surrender,” by which he means the regime abandoning its enrichment activities and nuclear weapons program. It is hard to see Iranian leaders acquiescing so easily; they might instead agree to a diplomatic process and make enough concessions, such as Iran accepting that it cannot enrich uranium beyond a certain level, to secure a much-needed respite. A better policy, however, would need to dispense with arms control as its sole aspiration.

The bonds between the state and Iranian society are severed.

Although there is not a great track record of success when it comes to implementing regime change from the air, Israel can do a lot more to get the sparks flying. The military campaign that has focused on disarming Iran needs to focus on the regime’s enforcers. The Revolutionary Guards’ leadership has been decimated but its many military bases remain intact and should be targeted. The regime’s first line of defense in times of internal crisis is its goon squad, the Basij, which is under the control of the Guards. The Basij have committed enormous crimes against the Iranian people. Its installations, including police facilities and military bases, should be on target lists. So, too, the intelligence ministry, with its many offices throughout the country. Such bombings won’t permanently destroy these forces; it will, however, inject a measure of doubt in the regime’s upper echelons about the availability and reliability of its foot soldiers and inquisitors.

Israel would also need to expand its campaign to cripple Iran’s economy. The Israeli Air Force would need to disable additional oil and gas infrastructure. The regime sustains its power partly through its patronage networks. Unable to meet its financial obligations to its core supporters, defections from its ranks would likely increase—perhaps markedly. It is important, however, that such strikes be surgical and limit civilian casualties as much as possible.

The most significant challenge of any regime change policy is to remain focused on the task after the fireworks are over. Once Iran is disarmed, Israel and the United States might be tempted to walk away and look elsewhere. It is precisely at that moment that they should instead increase pressure on the regime. The United States must maintain sanctions and check Iran’s pathways into global commerce. Mossad, which has demonstrated tremendous capacity to work inside Iran, should ramp up its covert operations, since the CIA historically has shown almost no appetite for this, at least since the 1970s.

END OF THE ROAD

Given how weak the Iranian government may be after the current Israeli assault concludes, it might not take much to keep the Islamic Republic politically unstable. And an intense American propaganda campaign through social media and other channels should continuously highlight the calamitous and corrupt rule of the mullahs. The Iranian elite stashes a lot of money abroad. At a minimum, the U.S. Treasury should track and expose those funds. And whatever and wherever opposition forces emerge inside Iran, the United States should aid them with financial backing and technological assistance to the extent possible, so long as these forces aren’t politically extreme.

Iran belongs to the Iranians. They are the only ones who can in the end determine the direction of their country. They have taken to the streets in 1906, 1922, and 1979 and they can be counted on to do so again. All the United States and Israel can do is weaken the regime and accentuate its vulnerabilities. The Islamic Republic has never faced a crisis like the one unleashed by this month’s attacks. It’s a great irony that Israel—disparaged relentlessly by the Iranian leadership as a savage, illegitimate colonial settler state aiming to humble Muslims everywhere—may, just possibly, have opened the door for a new future for the long-suffering Iranian people.

ERIC EDELMAN is a Counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Finland from 1998 to 2001, as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey from 2003 to 2005, and as U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 2005 to 2009.

REUEL MARC GERECHT is a Resident Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Earlier, he was an officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, where he worked on issues related to Iran.

RAY TAKEYH is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Eric Edelman · June 20, 2025

22. The Obsolete Divide: We Need a New Rank System for the Future Fight

I want to be a Colonel General. Can we establish that rank (apologies for the sarcasm).

Conclusion:

If the US military is to prevail in future conflict, it must embrace innovation not only in weapons systems and new warfighting domains, but in its human capital. Real reform demands more than tactical adjustments or new gear; it requires strategic imagination. We must be willing to engage in bold, uncomfortable thought experiments that challenge our sacred cows, those institutional assumptions we’ve stopped questioning not because they are what we need, but because of path dependency. This proposal is not the only path forward, but it illustrates the type of unconventional thinking and rigorous debate we need to embrace if we are serious about preparing for the challenges of the next fight, not the last one. Out-innovating our rivals in peacetime may spare us the harder lessons that war is always eager to teach. If we cling to our red trousers when it comes to our most valuable asset—our people—change will still eventually come, but at far greater cost.

The Obsolete Divide: We Need a New Rank System for the Future Fight - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Mike Cartier · June 20, 2025

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“Eliminate the red trousers? Never! The red trousers are France!”

When the French Army went to war against Imperial Germany in August 1914, it did so with a military absolutely convinced of the superiority of its military traditions on the modern battlefield, of which the traditional red trousers worn by its soldiers were the most literally and figuratively obvious. Despite evidence that more inconspicuous uniforms were necessary, any proposals to change something viewed as foundational to the French Army’s legacy and heritage were fiercely opposed, despite the obvious need for a change. It was only after hundreds of thousands of casualties at the Battle of the Marne—at least some of which were attributed to the ease with which Germans could spot French infantry—that the French Army finally retired its red trousers from the battlefield. The reluctance to abandon practices borne of tradition is a strong one across military establishments, which often resist change until the realities of war force it upon them. In an era of increasingly rapid military innovation and adaptation, and renewed rivalry between the great powers, members of the American defense community should ask: What is our pantalon rouge?

As then Air Force chief of staff (and subsequent chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) General Charles Q. Brown described in 2020, the US military faces an imperative to “accelerate, change, or lose” the coming fight. This clarion call underscored the need for the Department of Defense to embrace bold, transformative thinking in its approach to innovation. Our service chiefs have since initiated significant reforms to force employment concepts, organizational structure, and the incorporation of new technologies, reflecting a bold yet disciplined embrace of progress that seeks genuine improvement over change for its own sake. While each service reconsiders its doctrine, organization, and technological capabilities to better confront emerging threats, one orthodoxy remains sacrosanct: the joint force’s anachronistic officer-enlisted divide. If it wants to remain the world’s premier military force, the Department of Defense must expand the aperture of its innovative reforms to unlock the full leadership potential of the modern force, establishing a unified military hierarchy and rank system, instituting competitive, merit-based promotions across all ranks, and significantly broadening the direct accessions program to draw upon the unparalleled pool of talent in America’s civilian workforce.

The officer-enlisted divide that characterizes America’s rank system has historical roots in the most successful military forces of the eighteenth century: the British military under King George III, the French military of King Louis XVI, and the Prussian military of King Frederick II. Their dual-track, class-based rank systems were modeled after the societies from which they drew their manpower, with aristocrats and landed gentry commanding large numbers of conscripted peasants and urban laborers, employed in large formations on an open field of battle or the high seas. So distrusted was the general population from which the conscripted masses were drawn that Sir Arthur Wellesley blatantly expressed his sentiment in 1813: “We have in service the scum of the earth as common soldiers.” Officers were gentlemen for whom a commission was a marker of prestige, while conscripts were often impressed from the streets and were generally expected to flee at the first sign of battle if not under the harshest possible discipline enforced by members of a higher caste. Enlisted conscripts with a university education were virtually unheard of, and the primary requirement to succeed in the enlisted ranks was the ability to march in step and the mechanical memorization and drill required to load and fire a musket. While the lessons of eighteenth-century conflict can be extraordinarily informative at the strategic level, the tactical realities of twenty-first-century warfare bear little resemblance to the line formations and marching in step of Saratoga or Waterloo. And yet, the United States is still employing a rank system inherited from the monarchies of the premodern Europe.

To say that the demands of war on the military professional have changed since the era of musket and sail would be an understatement. Individual military personnel might control equipment worth well into the tens of millions of dollars, including advanced fighter aircraft, unmanned reconnaissance platforms, modern armored vehicles, and precision artillery systems. The most junior service members routinely understand and employ technical skills unfathomable in the eighteenth century, including electronic warfare, cyberwarfare, space systems operations, and intelligence analysis involving millions of data points. At no point in American history has the military fielded such a well-educated, technically adept junior force, nor faced a greater need for capable, high-caliber leadership. Fortunately, the United States has the education, skill, and experience it needs in droves. In sharp contrast with the era of the American Revolution, for example, Western societies are almost entirely literate and numerate, with nearly 38 percent of the American population over twenty-five possessing a bachelor’s degree, and nearly 15 percent holding a graduate degree. Moreover, the United States is unburdened by a formalized class system, granting it the ability to match citizens to positions in national service by merit alone.

The officer-enlisted divide is, in many ways, the elephant in the room. It contains numerous anachronisms that we as military professionals know are bizarre, but which we accept out of pure inertia. Enlisted experts with decades of leadership experience, many with higher education (31 percent of Air Force senior noncommissioned officers have a bachelor’s degree or higher), are deemed incapable of senior command. Thirty-year-old college-educated E-6s with ten years of military service report to twenty-one-year-old O-1s with no work experience, leading to the universally held and completely justifiable understanding that the noncommissioned officer is the one who really leads the team. Outside the medical and legal professions, civilians with much-needed skills and an interest in national service often find the military an unwelcoming prospect—despite their value, the military’s bottlenecked and restrictive officer accessions programs, rigid promotion structure, and poor optimization of talent act as effective deterrents. Completely contradicting the commonly held assertion that education, experience, and skill should be the determinant of promotions, because the promotion pool for each rank is so limited and selection rates so high, the primary factor which determines promotions between O-1 and O-4 (82 percent of the officer corps) is time in grade. Promotions from E-4 to E-5 involve intensive study, testing, and a competitive board process, which saw the Air Force select only approximately 23 percent of those who were eligible in 2023. Meanwhile, Air Force promotions from O-3 to O-4 in that same year saw selection rates of approximately 84 percent. Even more confounding is that promotions to O-2 and O-3 are entirely automatic, with no consideration of merit whatsoever. Time in grade has become the de facto standard for our officer corps not because it effectively measures talent, but because the current system artificially narrows the pool of eligible candidates available for selection. Rather than choosing the best leaders based on merit from a broad range of sources, we promote from rigid, siloed groups where time served matters more than performance or potential, advancing on along fixed rails at a set pace regardless of whether the system’s occupants are ready to lead.

The bottom line is that this system is performative, not functional, forcing us to confront a simple but vital question: If we were designing a rank structure from scratch, is this the system we would choose? In peacetime, the anachronisms of the current system may be dismissed as familiar quirks of legacy or heritage, but in a war against a great power adversary, they could cost lives and compromise missions. There are, of course, aspects of the current system that do add value. The clear chain of command. The concept of setting an established criteria for promotion to each rank (as inadequate as the current criteria might be for the junior officer ranks). The effect of a clear hierarchy on unit cohesion and discipline in combat. But to argue that the current system is the only possible design that can sustain those elements is to display a profound lack of the creative thinking we have amply demonstrated in so many other areas. What might one alternative look like?

First, the services should establish a unified military hierarchy and rank system, retiring the bifurcated officer-enlisted ladders and normalizing continuous vertical mobility across the joint force. Opening the flow of talent from the vast group of dedicated men and women in our enlisted force to more senior ranks will allow for a more selective promotion system and higher-quality leadership. Second, the direct accessions program should be expanded to all career fields and grades, drawing upon experienced talent from the civilian workforce to supplement the force we develop from within the ranks. Direct accessions would be guided by clear, merit-based criteria for the career field and rank for which they are applying, using professional military education and acculturation to ensure cultural fluency and credibility. Finally, accessions and promotions to all grades should be competitive and based exclusively on merit, to include valuable experience and job performance, education, and relevant skills. By increasing the pool of talent upon which each grade can draw upon, time in grade should be abolished as a de facto standard for promotion. Freed from the burden of serving as mass-accession pipelines for the officer corps (over 60 percent as of 2022), the service academies and reserve officer training corps programs would commission a smaller, deliberately developed mid-tier leadership cadre that would enter the middle leadership ranks alongside peers drawn from the enlisted force and the private sector. These reforms would eliminate outdated constraints that have artificially limited the careers of 80 percent of our force based solely on their entry point into national service. They would dismantle artificial barriers to accessing the full spectrum of available talent by allowing junior personnel and civilians who meet merit-based requirements to compete for positions across the ranks. In doing so, they would empower the Department of Defense to be far more selective in choosing the men and women to whom we entrust American lives.

Fortunately, this has been done before. The US Foreign Service utilizes a unified personnel system from FS-09 to the SFS (senior leadership) ranks. Promotions are based on merit, and the Lateral Entry Pilot Program allows midcareer professionals from the civilian workforce to enter at a grade commensurate with their value based on relevant experience, education, and skills. Similar systems are utilized by a broad range of security-focused organizations to manage their civilian workforces, including the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, as well as by virtually every successful private sector startup on the planet. With clearly established ranks and positions, this type of system preserves the chain of command, with those in a higher grade possessing more authority and responsibility than those below them. It recognizes that different roles and positions require varying blends of administrative and technical expertise, and that arbitrarily tasking leadership to officers and technical expertise to enlisted personnel doesn’t recognize the reality that all ranks require differing blends of these skills depending on the role they currently serve in. What officer doesn’t use knowledge and technical expertise? What command chief or first sergeant doesn’t lead? The legal authorities and responsibilities granted by commissions and derived from Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution and Title 10 of the US Code would still be granted at the appropriate ranks without the arbitrary divide of an eighteenth-century caste system. It would emphasize the critical need to expand access to quality higher education programs across the ranks, and the pivotal importance of professional military education in training and preparing personnel drawn from all sources for the demands of each grade. Such a system recognizes the crucial role and leadership our noncommissioned officers play by finally granting them access to authority commensurate with their experience, education, and skills. Finally, it gives our joint force what it needs to win the future fight: leadership drawn from the best of our military and civilian workforce, with promotion consistently earned through merit.

If the US military is to prevail in future conflict, it must embrace innovation not only in weapons systems and new warfighting domains, but in its human capital. Real reform demands more than tactical adjustments or new gear; it requires strategic imagination. We must be willing to engage in bold, uncomfortable thought experiments that challenge our sacred cows, those institutional assumptions we’ve stopped questioning not because they are what we need, but because of path dependency. This proposal is not the only path forward, but it illustrates the type of unconventional thinking and rigorous debate we need to embrace if we are serious about preparing for the challenges of the next fight, not the last one. Out-innovating our rivals in peacetime may spare us the harder lessons that war is always eager to teach. If we cling to our red trousers when it comes to our most valuable asset—our people—change will still eventually come, but at far greater cost.

Captain Mike Cartier is a chief of staff of the Air Force PhD fellow at the Naval Postgraduate School, where he researches military innovation and great power competition. Most recently, he led strategic and operational analysis teams at US Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa, enabling security assistance to Ukraine, NATO deterrence operations, and crisis response efforts across three combatant commands.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Naval Postgraduate School, Department of the Air Force, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Samantha Jetzer, US Navy

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Mike Cartier · June 20, 2025

23. Americans Are Thriving. Why Don’t We Feel Like It?

Conclusion:

We don’t need to make America great again. Instead, we must remember to be grateful for the many gifts bestowed on each of us who are fortunate enough to be the citizens of this great country.

Americans Are Thriving. Why Don’t We Feel Like It?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/opinion/grateful-thanks-america-envy.html

June 20, 2025

Credit...Nathaniel Russell

By Russell C. Ball III

Mr. Ball is a businessman and entrepreneur.

We live in the most materially prosperous era in human history. Over the past half-century, child mortality has fallen by two-thirds in the United States, medical advances have made lives longer and more comfortable, education rates have soared, and material comforts like air-conditioning, plumbing and internet access abound. Although our country faces many challenges, the progress of the past decades has ushered in conveniences and opportunities that previous generations could scarcely imagine.

Yet we are anxious, restless and often enraged. Why?

It’s not only about our circumstances. It is about how we perceive our lives. Although technology has elevated our standard of living, it has created a warped lens of comparison. Americans’ many anxieties — about the state of our democracy, among other pressing worries — are increasingly born out of envy. Rarely has envy been so easily provoked, profitably spread or deeply embedded in daily life. This collective envy runs the risk of cutting the threads that hold our democratic system and civil society together.

In his “Divine Comedy,” Dante Alighieri described envy not just as a personal sin but also as a societal toxin. In “Purgatorio” the envious are punished by having their eyes sewn shut — blinded to their own blessings, tormented by the success of others, which they can still hear about. That poem was written more than seven centuries ago. Today our punishment is the inverse: Our eyes are forced open, flooded with curated illusions of friends and strangers alike on social media. We scroll through images of other people’s vacations, seemingly perfect families, luxury homes and effortless success, and we start to feel that we’re falling behind, even if we are objectively thriving. There is a strong argument that social media can provide access to important information and a sense of community. However, the consequences of this technology and the slow drip of dopamine it administers present massive dangers to the well-being of our society.

Social media didn’t invent envy, but it industrialized it. It turned comparison into a business model. The average teenager spends almost five hours per day on platforms whose algorithms are finely tuned to monetize discontent. We have handed over the emotional development of an entire generation to corporations with an incentive to keep them scrolling and feeling less and less content.

Into this fragile emotional landscape stepped Donald Trump. His genius was not policy but narrative. He told millions of Americans what they already felt: You are losing. Someone else is winning. And it is not your fault. Others are to blame. He named villains — immigrants, China, coastal elites. He successfully rebranded envy as righteous anger. His political project was never about making America great again. It was about explaining why other people seemed to be doing better.

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Ironically, essentially no one is taking advantage of America. The United States built the postwar order and wrote the rules of the global game. Our government designed the trade agreements and a financial system that benefited Americans. That’s why the U.S. gross domestic product is almost 60 percent larger than that of its nearest rival, China. American companies have historically dominated in science, technology, aerospace and defense. They lead the way in banking and capital markets, media and entertainment, biotech and pharmaceuticals, professional services and higher education.

But politics is emotional. It thrives not on facts but on feelings. When you live in a world where everyone’s life — viewed through the screens in front of you — looks better than yours, feelings of resentment abound. And they are easy to manipulate.

There is a real problem that fuels much of this envy, of course. America’s widening wealth gap is a major threat to our prosperity. That wealth gap, though, is not the result of foreign exploitation, government inefficiency or generous entitlement programs. First and foremost, it is a consequence of asset inflation. Over the past two decades, those who held real estate and stocks watched their net worth explode. Those who didn’t didn’t. Trump-era policies — tax cuts, deregulation, capital gains preferences — further widened this chasm under the false promise of economic populism. As those tax cuts are extended and expanded, the wealth gap — and the envy it inspires — will grow.

Americans are angry not because America is failing but because our current system does not feel fair. We are measuring our lives against an algorithmically amplified social media elite. Today we are less grateful for what we have and more bitter about what we think we lack. Out of this bitterness we are exposed constantly to hostile and tribal political discourse in which any notion of the common good has been lost. Compromise is now framed as a failure. We are left feeling as if the fabric that once bound us together is being irreconcilably pulled apart.

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As in Dante’s vision of purgatory, our only path out begins with humility and an appreciation for the good fortune we do have. We must teach our children — and remind ourselves — that life’s meaning is not found in someone else’s social media posts. There will always be someone smarter, richer, more athletic or more attractive. Life is short and uncertain. Happiness and satisfaction are the most precious commodities. We cannot turn over the stewardship of our emotional well-being to companies that seek to make each of us feel inadequate in order to sell more advertising and boost profit margins.

We don’t need to make America great again. Instead, we must remember to be grateful for the many gifts bestowed on each of us who are fortunate enough to be the citizens of this great country.

More on gratitude

Opinion | Peter Coy

A Spirit of Gratitude Is Healthy for Society

Nov. 22, 2021

Opinion | Margaret Renkl

How to Give Thanks in a Screwed-Up World

Nov. 21, 2022

Opinion | Tish Harrison Warren

Five Ways to Exercise Your Thankfulness Muscles

Nov. 21, 2021

Russell C. Ball III is the chief executive of Wind River Holdings, a private investment company.

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24.  America Is on the Verge of Catastrophe in the Middle East

Excerpt:

And even if such a gamble pays off, setting Iran’s nuclear program back without spurring a rush to a nuclear weapon, it is a particularly bad bet when compared with the alternative: an agreement that imposes robust verification on Iran’s nuclear activities and puts enough time on the clock to detect and preempt a breakout. Under these conditions, exhausting every possibility to achieve such an agreement is the only responsible course. A two-week delay should offer Trump and senior members of his administration time to register this reality and do what is required to strike a deal that would end the conflict. If not, Trump will be leaving U.S. and regional security dependent on the outcome of a reckless gamble that could draw the United States further into the Middle East and create another foreign policy debacle that haunts Americans for decades.

America Is on the Verge of Catastrophe in the Middle East

Foreign Affairs · by More by Andrew P. Miller · June 21, 2025

U.S. Intervention in Iran Would Be a Terrible Gamble

Andrew P. Miller

June 21, 2025

The aftermath of an Israeli strike on Iran’s State TV broadcaster building, Tehran, June 2025 Majid Asgaripour / West Asia News Agency / Reuters

ANDREW P. MILLER is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs from December 2022 to June 2024.

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President Donald Trump announced on June 19 that he will decide in the next two weeks whether the United States will join Israel’s military campaign in Iran. If he decides in the affirmative, the United States will be entering a war in the Middle East with ambiguous objectives (including but not necessarily limited to countering nuclear proliferation), an incomplete strategy, and a high risk of entrapment.

This prospect has, understandably and rightly, evoked painful memories of the Iraq war for many Americans. As a president who claimed to oppose the Iraq war, Trump, along with his allies, has tried to frame possible U.S. military intervention in Iran in limited terms, with a focus on the single target of the underground Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, which Israel may not be capable of destroying on its own. This may be an accurate reflection of Trump’s intentions, but even that decision would carry major risks, including Iranian retaliation against U.S. military facilities in the Gulf or terrorist attacks against Americans abroad, which could prolong and deepen U.S. involvement in Iran. Even if a limited U.S. operation goes according to plan with no retaliation, a decision to intervene in the conflict would, rather than end Iran’s nuclear program, make a sustainable solution harder to achieve.

POLICY PATHOLOGIES

U.S. and Israeli statements on the war in Iran display two of the most prominent pathologies of American foreign policy over the last century. The first is a belief that airpower can be employed to achieve strategic, not just tactical, objectives. As Israel presents it, the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad are in the process of destroying Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and other critical sectors of its nuclear program. Fordow, which only the U.S. military can destroy from the air with 30,000-pound bunker busters, is portrayed as the final redoubt of the Iranian enrichment program: take out Fordow and its advanced centrifuges, and Iran’s nuclear program will be effectively neutered, eliminating a dangerous threat to international security.

Although U.S. officials express confidence that the GBU-57 bomb can break through the 260 to 360 feet of concrete protecting Fordow, this is an untested proposition. According to the U.S. military, the facility is so deeply buried that it will likely require dropping multiple GBU-57 bombs with exacting precision to breach the underground complex. It would be a mistake to bet against the U.S. Air Force, but it would be unwise to discount the possibility that the mission could fail—a contingency the Trump administration would have to be prepared for.

An unsuccessful attempt on Fordow would not just position Iran to reconstitute its nuclear program quickly. It would also raise the incentive for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon to deter future attempts against its program. Meanwhile, the alternative to airstrikes would be an attack that would involve deploying U.S. ground forces to attack Fordow, putting U.S. service members at greater physical risk and raising the probability Iran would retaliate directly against U.S. installations in the Middle East.

A U.S. decision to intervene would make a sustainable solution harder to achieve.

The second pathology is a misplaced confidence in the ease with which an adversarial regime can be toppled and an almost blind faith that a successor government will prove better than its predecessor. Israel has become increasingly forthright that its objective in Iran is to bring about the fall of the Islamic Republic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long advocated for regime change, said Israel is creating “the means to liberate the Persian people” and claimed that killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would “end the war.” Trump himself has occasionally hinted at broader ambition, claiming that the United States is not seeking to kill Khamenei but adding the ominous caveat “at least not for now.”

Although the leadership of the Islamic Republic is deeply unpopular among large swaths of the Iranian population, regime change would be far from an easy feat. Contrary to Netanyahu’s claims, the killing of the supreme leader is unlikely to precipitate the collapse of the Islamic Republic by itself. After 46 years, the institutions of the state are well entrenched, and the absence of an obvious successor to Khamenei does not mean one cannot be found. Advocates of a strike on Khamenei sometimes point to Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership last year. Yet even Hezbollah continues to function in Lebanon, and Iran is far more powerful.

Accordingly, toppling the Iranian regime militarily would likely require a large ground force. The Israel Defense Forces lack the expeditionary capability and the scale to play that role, which would mean U.S. forces would have to take it on. The American public rightly has no appetite for another Middle East misadventure; recent polling indicates that a majority of Americans oppose all military intervention in Iran.

ILLUSORY SUCCESS

Even in the event that the United States and Israel “succeeded” in their goals of destroying Fordow or even ousting the Islamic Republic, these would likely be ephemeral accomplishments or Pyrrhic victories. Destroyed equipment can be rebuilt. A tyrannical government can be replaced by an even more rapacious one. And even the most well-intentioned actions can produce the opposite of the intended result. Of the many lessons U.S. policymakers should have learned over the last 25 years, one of the most important is that military success translates imperfectly, if at all, into political success.

Destruction of the Fordow facility would inflict a serious blow to Iran’s nuclear ambitions by setting back its enrichment program. But even a successful operation would not deliver a coup de grâce to Iran’s nuclear activities, certainly not in the middle to long term. Some reporting has suggested that the Iranians may have expanded Fordow, allowing for the storage of nuclear technology in unidentified locations in the complex that could survive a U.S. or Israeli military mission untouched. If this is the case, an attack on Fordow would buy less time than anticipated.

Even in a best-case scenario in which all centrifuges and other nuclear-related equipment and infrastructure are destroyed, Iranian scientists would retain the knowledge to rebuild. Given that most of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile is expected to survive a war (since it is believed to be widely dispersed across the country and much harder to destroy than delicate centrifuges), Iran would not be starting its program from scratch. And Iranian leaders would have a strong incentive to take every precaution to avoid detection this time, a threat that would be exacerbated if Iran withdraws from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which authorizes oversight of nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In that case, if Israel or the United States were to discover ongoing Iranian activity, the only alternative to a negotiated solution would be more strikes. Although Trump has proved willing to suspend military operations that risked mission creep, such as recent strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, future presidents might find it more difficult. Far from Fordow being a one-off affair, it could presage continued warfare, a more costly form of Israel’s strategy of “mowing the grass” in Lebanon and Gaza.

The American public rightly has no appetite for another Middle East misadventure.

Nor would regime change be a reliable solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. If the Islamic Republic collapsed, it is as likely that the regime would be replaced by a government hostile to U.S. and Israeli interests as by one that is more aligned with them. During leadership vacuums, the most organized elements in a society often triumph. After decades of repression against the opposition and civil society, the Iranian military or security services are likely to emerge as the dominant actors.

Even a more pro-Western or democratic government would not necessarily adopt a fundamentally different posture on Iran’s declared right to nuclear enrichment; such a government might feel the same imperative as the current regime to develop a nuclear weapon. Another possibility is that Iran could descend into chaos, with competing factions located in different parts of the country. The presence of radioactive material in such an environment would be alarming, and chronic instability in a country Iran’s size that sits astride important trade routes would pose any number of security challenges.

Previous U.S. and Israeli occupations do not instill confidence that either country could facilitate a transition to a new regime that is both friendly and enduring. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is literally a case study in foreign policy catastrophes, while American interventions in Afghanistan, Libya, and Somalia were also failures. For Israel's part, over 50 years of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza have produced extraordinary tragedy for both Palestinians and Israelis. Israel’s installation of a pro-Israeli Lebanese president in the 1980s led to his assassination amid a brutal civil war that devastated Lebanese society. Twenty years of occupation of Southern Lebanon led to high Israeli and Lebanese casualties and created the conditions that abetted Hezbollah’s rise to power. There is no reason to think regime change in Iran would be any different than in past U.S. and Israeli experiences.

NOT ENOUGH TIME

Advocates of U.S. and Israeli military intervention argue that, even if it will not end Iran’s nuclear program, it buys time, extending Iran’s timeline for achieving breakout and building a weapon. (Israeli military sources say that attacks so far have delayed Iran a few months.) Time is of course valuable, but when it elapses, the United States and Israel will again confront a decision between negotiating and undertaking further military action. The relevant objective is not delay, but preventing Iran from going nuclear—and it is from this perspective that Israeli and potential U.S. military action should be evaluated.

If Israel and the United States refrain from pursuing regime change in Iran, it is conceivable that the leaders of the Islamic Republic would conclude that the risks to the regime of escalating its nuclear program or rushing to breakout are too great to take on. But it is also possible that the regime will draw the exact opposite conclusion: the only way to protect the regime from external enemies is developing a nuclear deterrent. It is presumably not lost on Iranian leaders that governments that give up their nuclear program (Libya, Iraq) are toppled, while those that do not (North Korea) survive.

And even if such a gamble pays off, setting Iran’s nuclear program back without spurring a rush to a nuclear weapon, it is a particularly bad bet when compared with the alternative: an agreement that imposes robust verification on Iran’s nuclear activities and puts enough time on the clock to detect and preempt a breakout. Under these conditions, exhausting every possibility to achieve such an agreement is the only responsible course. A two-week delay should offer Trump and senior members of his administration time to register this reality and do what is required to strike a deal that would end the conflict. If not, Trump will be leaving U.S. and regional security dependent on the outcome of a reckless gamble that could draw the United States further into the Middle East and create another foreign policy debacle that haunts Americans for decades.

ANDREW P. MILLER is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs from December 2022 to June 2024.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Andrew P. Miller · June 21, 2025

25. Lessons from the New Cold War: America Confronts the China Challenge

Access the web site here: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/135422

Download the PDF here: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/oa_edited_volume/book/135422/pdf

Additional Information

Lessons from the New Cold War: America Confronts the China Challenge

Book

edited by Hal Brands

2025

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/135422

Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press

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How the US-China rivalry is reshaping global power, democracy, and the international order.

A new cold war is unfolding—one that will define the future of the international order. In Lessons from the New Cold War, editor Hal Brands assembles an all-star cast of the most influential thinkers in foreign policy, defense strategy, technology, and economics to grapple with the defining geopolitical rivalry of our time: the competition between the United States and China.

Over the past decade, Washington has placed its contest with Beijing at the center of its national strategy, forging a rare consensus across the political spectrum. But as this global confrontation intensifies—across supply chains, the Taiwan Strait, and cyberspace—key questions remain. Where is America succeeding? Where is it falling short? And how can it prepare for what lies ahead? Through a sweeping analysis that spans cutting-edge technology, economic decoupling, and military strategy, this book explores the multilayered nature of the conflict. Contributors examine China's assertive economic statecraft and its ambitions for a new global order, the shifting nuclear balance and the intelligence war, the complex web of Indo-Pacific alliances, and the ideological struggle over democracy and authoritarianism. Covering vital topics like semiconductor supremacy, democracy's durability, India's strategic role, and the future of US leadership, this incisive collection offers an unflinching assessment of the New Cold War's stakes—and a roadmap for navigating its challenges. Essential reading for policymakers, scholars, and anyone concerned with the global balance of power, it is a vital guide to a rivalry that is reshaping the twenty-first century.