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Quotes of the Day:
“The defensive perimeter runs along the Aleutians to Japan and then goes to the Ryukyus. It includes the Philippines. It does not include Formosa or Korea.”
– Dean Acheson, Secretary of State, Speech at the National Press Club, January 12, 1950
“Korea has little strategic value.”
– General Omar Bradley – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, late 1949
“It would be a tragic mistake to commit American ground forces to the mainland of Asia.”
– General Douglas MacArthur, September 1948 (Statement to Congress)
“There is no basis for believing that the Communists would launch a full-scale invasion of South Korea.”
– Walter S. Robertson, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, 1949
“Korea is a frontier for freedom, but it must stand on its own feet.”
– John Foster Dulles, Special U.S. Envoy to Asia (Later Secretary of State), Early June 1950 (during visit to Korea)
“North Korea is unlikely to undertake large-scale offensive operations without clear Soviet or Chinese support, which appears unlikely in the near term.”
– The U.S. Army’s G-2 (Intelligence) Estimate, 1949–50,
1. Israel Confirms Cease-Fire With Iran, Says War Aims Achieved
2. Trump’s Iran Attack Spurs Concerns of Retaliation in the U.S.
3. NATO Aims to Boost Defenses Against Drones, Hacking and Sabotage
4. U.S. Tells Companies to Prepare for Iranian Cyberattacks
5. NATO allies, besides Spain, set to make 5 percent GDP spending pledge
6. US support for international engagement sees jump in Reagan Foundation poll
7. Commentary: Asian leaders sidelined at G7 summit amid global turmoil
8. FBI Warning—All Smartphone Users Must Delete These Messages
9. Tehran's Fatal Miscalculation? Thinking A North Korean-Style Pariah Could Stay Safe In The Middle East
10. North Korean Missile Debris Found in Kyiv After Deadly Russian Strike
11. A US Golden Dome would be a geopolitical game changer
12. What to expect in the upcoming NATO summit: Trump, spending, Ukraine, Iran
13. China Slams Taiwan’s Lai for Speech Mentioning Independence
14. Marching to Different Drums: The Army’s Birthday Parade as Seen from China
15. We Need a Marine Corps, Part III: A Corps Recentered
16. Transform, Campaign, Repeat: Winning in the Indo-Pacific
17. Preparedness and Parallels: Lessons in Crisis Preparedness from Sweden and Latin America
18. Special Operations News – Monday, June 23, 2025
19. A Nuclear Iran Would Pose an Existential Threat to the South Caucasus
20. Iran Claims Ukrainian Saboteurs Worked With Mossad to Attack Drone Plant
21. Russia’s Rogue Warriors: A Paramilitary Legacy
22. Dispensable Nation: America in a Post-American World
23. Southeast Asia Is Starting to Choose: Why the Region Is Leaning Toward China
24. Ceasefire or Not, Iran Looks for Ways to Reduce the Risk of a U.S. Reprisal
25. The Strait of Hormuz and the Indo-Pacific: Strategic Shockwaves
26. How Iran’s Collapse Could Trigger a Central Asian Refugee Crisis
27. Loyalty in Crisis: Civil-Military Tensions in the Second Trump Presidency
1. Israel Confirms Cease-Fire With Iran, Says War Aims Achieved
Israel Confirms Cease-Fire With Iran, Says War Aims Achieved
President Trump said a cease-fire was in effect soon after four people were killed in Israel in an Iranian missile attack
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-israel-us-latest-news
Last Updated:
June 24, 2025 at 3:53 AM ET
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Israel confirmed a cease-fire with Iran and said it had achieved its war aims, shortly after President Trump declared that an agreement to halt the fighting for the first time in a week and a half had gone into effect. Iran's foreign minister said earlier that his country would stop its attacks as long as Israel did.
Even after the cease-fire took hold, Israel said it had identified missiles being launched from Iran. Earlier Tuesday, Israel said four people were killed in an Iranian missile attack.
Trump announced the cease-fire on social media Monday evening, hours after Iran launched missiles at a U.S. base in Qatar in a telegraphed attack that caused no injuries or deaths. Trump said the early notice and lack of casualties left the door open for an end to the fighting.
Fighting had continued after midnight, with Iranian state media reporting Israeli attacks on Tehran and Israel’s military saying it had intercepted drones launched by Iran. Residents said the bombardment of the capital had been heavy.
Warnings of Iranian missile attacks sent Israelis scrambling in and out of shelters beginning around dawn Tuesday.
What else to know:
Qatar helped mediate the talks, people familiar with the matter said.
Iran launched its missile attack on the base in Qatar in response to the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend. After Monday’s retaliation, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran responds when attacked.
U.S. forces intercepted at least five one-way attack drones launched against their bases beside Baghdad airport and in western Iraq, a U.S. official said.
More than a week ago, Israel began a campaign of intelligence operations and airstrikes aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program and hobbling its leadership.
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Latest Updates
20 min ago
By
Dov Lieber
Israel's military said it identified missiles being launched from Iran toward Israel, hours after the two countries agreed to a cease-fire.
It said its defensive systems were operating to intercept the threat.
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1 hour ago
By
Anat Peled
Smoke trails from Israel's air-defense system were seen in the sky above Hadera, Israel. (Ariel Schalit/Associated Press)
Israel said it has accepted President Trump’s cease-fire deal, shortly after Trump announced in a social-media post that the agreement had gone into effect.
Israel said it had achieved its war aims in Iran by removing what it called a “dual existential threat” from the country’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. “In light of the achievement of the operation's goals, and in full coordination with President Trump, Israel agreed to the President's offer for a bilateral ceasefire,” an official statement from Israel said.
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2 hours ago
By
Feliz Solomon
President Trump said a cease-fire between Israel and Iran is now in effect. "PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!” he said in a social-media post at 1:08 a.m. ET, shortly after a wave of missiles fired by Iran killed at least four people in Israel.
Israel hasn't responded to Trump’s earlier announcement that a cease-fire agreement had been reached. Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran would stop fighting if Israel ended its attacks.
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Updated 2 hours ago
By
Abeer Ayyoub
and
Feliz Solomon
Rescue workers searched for survivors after an Iranian missile strike in Israel on Tuesday. (Leo Correa/AP)
Israeli emergency responders said four people were killed in southern Israel as Iran launched multiple missile barrages toward the country early Tuesday, shortly before President Trump’s announced cease-fire was to begin to take effect.
Emergency-services provider Magen David Adom briefly put the death toll at seven, and then revised the number down to four. The Israeli military shared photographs and video of the scene in the city of Beer Sheba, showing a badly damaged residential building and vehicles crushed under debris.
Trump's announcement on social media said the phased cease-fire would begin in six hours from his post just after 6 p.m. Eastern time, which would be at midnight Eastern time or 7:30 a.m. in Iran on Tuesday.
Israel hasn't responded to Trump’s announcement. Iran’s foreign minister said his country would stop fighting if Israel ended its bombardment by 4 a.m. Iran time, but also said there had yet to be an agreement on a cease-fire. It wasn’t clear if a cease-fire would begin at the time Trump laid out.
2. Trump’s Iran Attack Spurs Concerns of Retaliation in the U.S.
The US is in general a soft target. Are we ready?
Trump’s Iran Attack Spurs Concerns of Retaliation in the U.S.
Feds urge state and local officials to be vigilant in heightened-threat environment
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/iran-expired-visa-search-cyberattack-threats-2f920aef
By Sadie Gurman
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and Dustin Volz
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June 23, 2025 9:56 pm ET
The J. Edgar Hoover building, FBI headquarters, in Washington. Photo: Eric Kayne/Zuma Press
WASHINGTON—Federal law-enforcement officials are on high alert for domestic retaliation in response to the U.S. bombing in Iran, warning of potential Tehran-backed plots and cyberattacks.
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia were told Monday that they should shift resources toward Iran and domestic threats, after manpower in recent months had been focused on the Trump administration’s priority of immigration enforcement, a person familiar with the matter said.
FBI leadership in a weekend internal email instructed field offices to monitor intelligence and stay in close contact with the Defense Department and National Guard, as military facilities could be targets of retaliation.
In a Sunday conference call, officials from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security said they hadn’t yet seen the Iranian regime call for violence in the U.S. in response to the strike but urged their state and local counterparts to be alert, according to a person on the call. An FBI official told attendees the bureau was closely monitoring its intelligence network.
DHS issued a bulletin Sunday warning the public that the domestic threat level was higher because of the Iran conflict, which it said could spur hate crimes by violent extremists against perceived Jewish or pro-Israel targets, as well as Iranian state-backed cyberattacks.
“The risk of Iranian plotting has only increased. The FBI and Justice Department have to be extremely vigilant going forward to detect and disrupt these plots before they are carried out,” said Matt Olsen, head of the department’s national security division during the Biden administration.
Federal agents patrol the halls of immigration court in New York City. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The danger comes as the Trump administration has shifted domestic law-enforcement priorities to focus on combating illegal immigration, even directing counterterrorism teams to spend their time helping with arrests and deportations. Some current and former employees worried the diversion of resources to immigration enforcement would weaken the FBI’s ability to thwart more pressing threats.
The FBI declined to comment on its operational decisions. “We continuously assess and realign our resources to respond to the most pressing threats to our national security and to ensure the safety of the American people,” the bureau said.
In some locations, federal agents joined immigration officials in searching for Iranians who had overstayed their visas or were otherwise in the country illegally, people familiar with the matter said, a tactic that can also be used to gather intelligence on potential plots.
A Homeland Security spokeswoman said the agency “has been full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and violent extremists that illegally entered this country” but said such roundups of undocumented immigrants happen daily and weren’t specifically focused on Iranians.
In New York and Washington, D.C., police said they had ramped up their presence at religious institutions and cultural diplomatic sites.
“What takes place on the global stage often is found on our local streets here in New York. And so, we must be prepared whenever there’s an action,” Mayor Eric Adams said.
Federal officials have said Iran has been trying to carry out assassinations and other violence on U.S. soil for years in retaliation for the January 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Quds Force, the group responsible for Iran’s covert military operations abroad. President Trump ordered the strike, which occurred in Baghdad, during his first term.
An Iranian protester in Tehran holds a poster of Qassem Soleimani. Photo: Sobhan Farajvan/Zuma Press
The Justice Department brought criminal charges in some of the foiled plots, which included plans to kill at least two administration officials from Trump’s first term and at least two plots to assassinate Trump himself.
Separate from its assassination campaign, Iran has posed an active cyber threat against the U.S. government, businesses and infrastructure for well over a decade.
“Low-level cyber attacks against U.S. networks by pro-Iranian hacktivists are likely, and cyber actors affiliated with the Iranian government may conduct attacks against U.S. networks,” said Sunday’s DHS alert.
But like its failed assassination plots, there too Tehran’s ambitions have often exceeded its capabilities.
“Iran has had mixed results with disruptive cyberattacks and they frequently fabricate and exaggerate their effects in an effort to boost their psychological impact,” said John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google’s threat intelligence group. “We should be careful not to overestimate these incidents and inadvertently assist the actors.”
Hultquist noted individuals and organizations associated with Iran policy are frequently targeted with social engineering attempts, and that Tehran has leveraged cyber espionage against telecoms, airlines and hospitality firms, among others, to mine data to identify and track people of interest.
Tehran has previously targeted U.S. banks and the energy sector with cyber operations, and has sought to interfere in the last two presidential elections through online influence operations that were intended to undermine Trump.
One notable past success was a hack over a decade ago of a small dam in upstate New York, which resulted in a watershed federal indictment against Iranians. Authorities concluded the dam could have been remotely shut down by the hackers had it not been manually disconnected for routine maintenance.
Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com
3. NATO Aims to Boost Defenses Against Drones, Hacking and Sabotage
As they should.
NATO Aims to Boost Defenses Against Drones, Hacking and Sabotage
Allies intend to spend more on nonlethal measures to secure homelands and troop deployments
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/nato-defense-systems-drones-hacking-e8ca97f1
By Daniel Michaels
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June 23, 2025 5:18 pm ET
A patrol watches over the security perimeter ahead of this week’s NATO summit in The Hague. Photo: claudia greco/Reuters
Key Points
What's This?
- Ukraine and Israel’s attacks highlight the need to protect battlefield assets before conflict.
- NATO is giving priority to funding for readiness and resilience at its coming summit in The Hague.
- NATO recognizes the need to improve infrastructure and logistics to mobilize forces effectively.
Ukraine’s drone strike on parked Russian bombers and Israel’s destruction of Iranian air defenses sound a warning for NATO countries: Savvy adversaries can eliminate vital battlefield assets anywhere, before they enter a fight.
That makes the work of preparing for battle more important than ever. Addressing the challenge of protecting and mobilizing forces inside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s homeland is rising on the alliance’s must-do list.
“If World War III breaks out on the European continent, what’s the first shot?” said U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker recently. “Is it going to be Russian tanks invading Poland, or is it going to be a cyberattack on one of our allies or a challenge on some infrastructure?”
The question hangs over preparations for NATO’s annual summit in The Hague starting on Tuesday. Funding for readiness and resilience will be high on leaders’ agenda and a core element of hitting a spending target set by President Trump.
Trump said early this year that NATO allies should spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense, up from 2%. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who was already urging an increase to 3.5%, seized the moment to push for spending on long-overlooked areas such as mobility and resilience.
Rutte in March proposed topping up traditional NATO defense outlays, such as weapons and salaries, with a further 1.5% of GDP for the military-related spending. Leaders hope the proposal will be approved at the summit.
2,700 miles from the front line,
0 of 6 minutes, 1 secondVolume 0%
WSJ’s Ukraine Bureau Chief James Marson explains Ukraine’s clandestine drone attack, known as ‘Operation Spider’s Web,’ on Russia’s air force. Photo: Maxar Technologies
Most Europeans are endorsing Trump’s target because they want to avoid giving him a reason to disengage from NATO. And they have come to understand that readying military forces is never easy, even in peacetime. Forces being mobilized for battle are prime targets for attack. So is infrastructure, ranging from roads and ports to phone lines and power plants.
One thing no commander wants to run out of is options, a military adage holds—and adversaries have more ways than ever of foreclosing options. Planners must consider wild cards from old-style sabotage to innovations including cyberattacks and drone strikes.
“If China can shut off the power to our data centers, then maybe they don’t need to sink our aircraft carriers,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO.
Western military planners haven’t faced serious threats to logistics since World War II. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the risk of further conflict changes that. Now logisticians, who focus on mobilizing troops and sustaining battles, must refine their plans with an eye to homeland security and the risk that adversaries will do everything possible to stop defending forces from leaving bases and engaging in combat. Israeli special forces operating inside Iran targeted its mobile air-defense vehicles and other equipment at the start of Israel’s attack on June 13.
Military students in the Netherlands prepare for NATO’s annual summit, which opens on Tuesday. Photo: dingena mol/epa-efe/shutterstock
“It’s going to be a fight to get to the fight,” said retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, former head of U.S. Transportation Command, last year about a potential future conflict. “The homeland is no longer a sanctuary.”
Van Ovost warned of GPS interference to impede navigation cyberattacks as among her biggest fears.
Until recently, NATO’s 32 members focused on raising military spending to meet the needs of new battle plans that commanders have drafted since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Those plans, assembled by U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, will require members to spend about 3.5% of their national economic output on arms and defense, up from a target of 2% set in 2014.
Combatants and their weapons need lots of supporting mechanics, medics, equipment and other backup to operate. Military gear is heavy and cumbersome, requiring reinforced bridges and high overpasses to move across civilian transportation arteries.
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When more than 2,100 NATO troops deployed to Poland and the Baltic states in 2015, after Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, equipment loaded on road and rail convoys lost antennas and had other small accidents because former Warsaw Pact infrastructure was built to different standards from NATO’s, said retired Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Davis, who served as the alliance’s top official handling defense investment.
Allocating funding for nonlethal areas including infrastructure and resilience “will help incentivize focused investment on things that make a difference for European defense,” Davis said.
When the Netherlands started ramping up defense investment in recent years, its priority was logistics and medical facilities—areas badly depleted by years of cuts, said Dutch Chief of Defense Gen. Onno Eichelsheim.
“You have to build resilience in your roads, railroads and waterways,” increasing transportation options, he said. “It is costly and it is a lot of work.”
Adding to complexity: Homeland security isn’t in military hands during peacetime, and law-enforcement agencies rarely coordinate with armed forces. Sabotage and cyberattacks on private-sector assets have only recently come to be seen as national-security threats.
Soldiers from NATO member Romania participate in a training exercise in Suraia, Romania. Photo: daniel mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images
A tank takes part in NATO drills involving Hungary, Spain and the U.S. near Hajmáskér, Hungary. Photo: bernadett szabo/Reuters
U.S. authorities have accused China of planting malware in systems running port cranes that would be vital in a military mobilization. The Pentagon has forbidden use of foreign ports employing a Chinese cargo-data network, Logink, which they fear could be repurposed for espionage or to disrupt military logistics.
In Europe, authorities have faced what they suspect are Russian efforts to scope out and attack current military support to Ukraine and future NATO mobilization networks.
A Russian “threat actor” known as Fancy Bear targets Europe’s transportation sector, including air-traffic-control systems and maritime organizations, largely linked to support for Ukraine, according to Norma Cyber, a nonprofit organization that Norwegian shippers established to support members’ cyber resilience.
Write to Daniel Michaels at Dan.Michaels@wsj.com
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Appeared in the June 24, 2025, print edition as 'NATO Prepares for New Kinds of Threats'.
4. U.S. Tells Companies to Prepare for Iranian Cyberattacks
U.S. Tells Companies to Prepare for Iranian Cyberattacks
Regulators and government agencies issue warnings to check defenses
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tells-companies-to-prepare-for-iranian-cyberattacks-23a5c1dd
By James Rundle, Angus Loten and Kim S. Nash
June 23, 2025 6:13 pm ET|WSJ Pro
Iran-linked hackers broke into systems at a water plant in Aliquippa, Pa., in 2023, defacing the screens of some equipment with anti-Israeli propaganda, according to U.S. officials. Photo: Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa/Associated Press
The U.S. government and state regulators warned companies to watch for cyberattacks linked to the conflict with Iran, urging them to bolster their defenses.
The Department of Homeland Security has warned companies to brace for “likely” low-level attacks from hackers linked to Iran, as well as from the country’s government itself.
“Both hacktivists and Iranian government-affiliated actors routinely target poorly secured U.S. networks and internet-connected devices for disruptive cyberattacks,” said an alert Sunday, issued through the National Terrorism Advisory System.
State-sponsored and rogue cyberattacks are possible, said Dave Gerry, chief executive of San Francisco-based cybersecurity company Bugcrowd. “There’s a very active pro-Iranian hacktivist community working in concert with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as groups and collectives sympathetic to Iran that may join the conflict at their own direction,” he said.
Iran’s cyber offensives are often geared more toward disinformation and psychological operations, and don’t display the advanced tradecraft of China or Russia, said Brandon Wales, former executive director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. However, the regime has deployed malware before, such as ransomware or wipers, which delete data from infected systems.
“They’re getting better, and they’ve demonstrated the ability to exploit vulnerabilities very quickly once they are identified. But their tactics tend to be more easily stopped by competent security programs,” said Wales, vice president of cybersecurity strategy at SentinelOne.
Sanaz Yashar, the CEO of cybersecurity company Zafran, and a former Israeli military intelligence officer, said Iran has three primary uses for cyberattacks. The first is tactical reconnaissance, such as target selection for missile strikes and intelligence gathering.
The second is performative attacks, in which the regime wants to strike an enemy visibly, Yashar said. The third is the use of cyber to attack where traditional military capabilities can’t reach.
“There isn’t a B-2 bomber in cyber, but it’s impactful,” she said.
Recent Iranian cyber activity includes attempts to interfere with the 2024 U.S. presidential election through disinformation and by directly hacking officials associated with President Trump’s campaign, according to the U.S. government.
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Iran-linked hacktivists spooked cybersecurity experts in 2023 when they broke into systems at a water plant in Aliquippa, Pa., defacing the screens of some equipment with anti-Israeli propaganda, according to the U.S. government. Iranian hackers also breached systems at a dam located within 20 miles of New York City in 2013, sparking fears in the White House that the regime’s cyberwarfare capabilities had grown more sophisticated, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials familiar with the incident.
Even without launching malware, Iran could cause economic damage in the U.S. and elsewhere with AI-enabled disinformation, said Matt Stamper, CEO of Executive Advisors Group, which consults on information security.
“You could see a scenario where you flood disinformation out on X and Truth Social calling into play the safety of water systems or claiming hacks in energy systems,” he said. “Eviscerate trust and that’s a success for an adversary.”
On Monday, the New York State Department of Financial Services issued a bulletin to every company it regulates, warning them to test their data backups and review their incident-response plans and cybersecurity defenses, citing “an increased threat of cybersecurity attacks, in light of ongoing global conflict.”
For corporate security leaders, “this moment reinforces the urgency of visibility, knowing what code is running where, what it’s connected to, and whether it’s vulnerable or end-of-life,” said Tom Pace, CEO at NetRise, a software supply-chain security firm.
Cybersecurity experts note that many groups exploit the same weaknesses to breach systems, and companies can defend themselves by taking basic precautions. These include using multifactor authentication, patching software to close known security flaws, and disabling or changing default passwords.
“Open vulnerabilities are going to be the low-hanging fruit,” said David Norlin, chief technology officer at Lumifi Cybersecurity.
Write to James Rundle at james.rundle@wsj.com, Angus Loten at Angus.Loten@wsj.com and Kim S. Nash at kim.nash@wsj.com
5. NATO allies, besides Spain, set to make 5 percent GDP spending pledge
NATO allies, besides Spain, set to make 5 percent GDP spending pledge - Breaking Defense
“This is a quantum leap that is ambitious, historic and fundamental to securing our future," said Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General.
breakingdefense.com · by Tim Martin, Michael Marrow · June 23, 2025
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte addresses media at a pre-NATO summit press conference in The Hague (NATO)
BELFAST and THE HAGUE — NATO allies, with the exception of Spain, will formally agree on a new 5 percent GDP defense spending target at the alliance’s two day annual summit, kicking off in the Netherlands tomorrow.
“The defense investment plan that allies will agree in the Hague, introduces a new baseline, 5% of GDP to be invested in defense,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said during a press conference today. “This is a quantum leap that is ambitious, historic and fundamental to securing our future.”
He said that the spending pledge — split between spending of 3.5 percent GDP on “core” defense items and an additional 1.5 percent on security investments including infrastructure — will be rolled out alongside a “concerted effort to ramp up [the] defense industry across NATO.”
The spending plan has been in the works for weeks after President Donald Trump put pressure on European nations and Canada to do more for their own security and commit to the 5 percent mark. Trump suggested last week, however, that the US will not have to do the same. “I don’t think we should, but I think they should,” he said of other allies.
On Sunday, Spain was given an exemption by NATO to avoid having to meet the higher spending goal.
“We fully respect the legitimate desire of other countries to increase their defence investment, but we are not going to do it,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, adding that spending 2.1 percent GDP would be enough for the country to meet its NATO obligations, according to France 24.
Spain has traditionally been one of the alliance’s lowest spenders, and Rutte appeared to directly question Sanchez’s thinking on whether it will be able to deliver on its NATO commitments.
“The fact is that Spain thinks they can achieve those [new capability] targets on a percentage of 2.1 percent. … NATO is absolutely convinced Spain will have to spend 3.5 percent together” with other spending on security investments, he said. “So each country will now regularly report on what they are doing in terms of spending and reaching the targets, so we will see.”
Rutte also said that the overall 5 percent spending plan will be reviewed in 2029, and called for deeper weapons stockpiles to deter “aggression from any threat.”
At the moment, “there is not nearly enough supply to meet our increased demand on either side of the Atlantic,” he added. “For this, we need to work closely with industry, the major players that are the foundation of our defense industrial base, as well as the newer players that will help as we innovate and ensure our technological edge going forward.”
During a defense industry forum at the summit on Tuesday, the alliance will agree on “new orders and concrete cooperation to expand our defence industrial base,” shared Rutte.
The summit has taken over the somewhat quiet streets of The Hague, known for being the home of the International Criminal Court. The Dutch government has blocked off several city streets surrounding the summit held at the World Forum, reflecting tight security amid rising international tensions.
Among other key events at the landmark event is the expected attendance of both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US President Donald Trump, along with additional appearances by Rutte and other NATO member heads of state. Trump is scheduled to meet with Rutte and Indo-Pacific partners on Wednesday and deliver brief remarks, which is shaping up to be one of the most closely watched events at the summit.
breakingdefense.com · by Tim Martin, Michael Marrow · June 23, 2025
6. US support for international engagement sees jump in Reagan Foundation poll
Some interesting data. I wonder how the next survey will be given the Iran operation.
Excerpt:
“The preference for American global leadership over a more isolationist approach is on the rise, up from 40 [percent] in 2022 to 64 [percent]” this year, the 2025 Reagan Institute Summer Survey showed, according to the institute. “Americans are not retreating from the world; they are rallying around a foreign policy grounded in peace through strength.”
US support for international engagement sees jump in Reagan Foundation poll - Breaking Defense
The 2025 Reagan Institute Summer Survey showed general support for NATO, surprising numbers when it comes to Ukraine and some unease about acquiring Greenland.
breakingdefense.com · by Lee Ferran · June 23, 2025
Pete Hegseth, US secretary of defense, left, and Mark Rutte, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), at a NATO defense ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday, June 5, 2025. (Simon Wohlfahrt/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump campaigned on an America First platform that critics viewed as too isolationist, a new poll suggests Americans of all political stripes, including MAGA adherents, seek more US leadership on the international stage, not less.
“The preference for American global leadership over a more isolationist approach is on the rise, up from 40 [percent] in 2022 to 64 [percent]” this year, the 2025 Reagan Institute Summer Survey showed, according to the institute. “Americans are not retreating from the world; they are rallying around a foreign policy grounded in peace through strength.”
The survey, which queried more than 1,200 people, showed that the upward swing in support for more US international engagement was mainly due to a shift among Republicans, which the Reagan Institute said was “up from 59 [percent] of Republicans and 61 [percent] of MAGA Republicans who supported greater engagement in November 2024.” Still, 57 percent of respondents said the US is “better served by withdrawing from international events and focusing on problems at home.”
Among specific geopolitical issues rated by the poll — which was conducted before the US launched strikes against Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend — it found an overwhelming bipartisan majority agreed that preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon was in the interests of US security and prosperity, but only about a quarter of respondents said the US should do more to support Israel. Some 67 percent of Republicans backed the US sending weapons to Israel, while only 37 percent of Democrats did so.
Ahead of the NATO summit later this week, the poll also found that despite the Trump administration’s at-time dim view of the alliance, respondents support generally held at 62 percent, and support was “even higher” — at 71 percent — for the US keeping its Article V mutual defense pledge that states that an attack on one member is viewed as an attack against all members.
The numbers are a bit dimmer for support for Ukraine. The poll found that 58 percent of Americans want Ukraine to win the war, including 80 percent of Democrats, but that figure slipped to 47 percent of Republican respondents. Twelve percent of Republicans polled backed Russia explicitly, up from 8 percent last year, but more than a quarter said they hoped “neither country wins.” (A summary of last year’s poll didn’t say the percentage who believed neither country should win, but at the time 75 percent of those polled said Ukraine should win.)
When it comes to potential US territorial expansion, there was a partisan divide: 81 percent of Republicans supported the “acquisition” of the Panama Canal, compared to 35 percent of Democrats, and numbers were a bit lower for each group when it came to taking control of Greenland.
7. Commentary: Asian leaders sidelined at G7 summit amid global turmoil
Excerpts:
When the G7 began, its members accounted for 75 per cent of global GDP – they now account for 45 per cent. When it began, the United States accepted the initiative of French President Giscard d’Estaing to address turmoil in the global economy.
With the global economy again in turmoil – largely at the instance of US President Trump – the challenge is both to gain cooperation with the United States and to work cooperatively around the United States when required. On the evidence of this year’s summit, it is not clear that the G7 provides the framework to do both simultaneously.
This summit may be seen more as a snapshot of the turbulent times than as a landmark, let alone a turning point, in world affairs.
Commentary: Asian leaders sidelined at G7 summit amid global turmoil
The G7 summit in Canada ended without a joint statement, emblematic of deepening fragmentation and uncertainty, says a political science professor.
Jeremy Paltiel
24 Jun 2025 06:00AM
(Updated: 24 Jun 2025 09:34AM)
channelnewsasia.com · by Jeremy Paltiel
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OTTAWA, Canada: The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, opened amid multidimensional crises. The summit epitomised the fragmentation and uncertainty that have come to characterise our age.
Host, Canada, along with most of the other G7 members and Asian invitees, were looking to forge a baseline consensus on stabilising trade and the global order, while accommodating US concerns for a more robust and self-reliant defence and security posture.
But events intervened. In the early hours of Jun 13, just prior to the summit’s opening, Israel began its anticipated and feared assault on Iran’s nuclear and security infrastructure. US President Donald Trump abruptly left the summit in the evening after its first day.
The anticipated one-on-one meetings with many of the participants (including those between Indian Prime Minister Modi and Australian Prime Minister Albanese and President Trump) never took place. Trump appeared pleased that the agenda was set around his tariff threats, viewing the other participants as mere supplicants.
Unable to meet up with Trump, Modi was deprived of an opportunity to represent the Global South in navigating shifts in global power dynamics. His participation was instead more important for restoring bilateral ties with Canada, which had been badly strained since the state-sponsored assassination of Khalistan separatists on Canadian soil.
In the end, there was very little opportunity to forge a common consensus, especially as the host and other participants were wary of confronting – and fearful of provoking – the US president.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
Perhaps the single outcome referencing Asia, though indirectly, was Trump’s meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The two leaders jointly unveiled the trade deal they had outlined earlier in Washington, but in addition, Trump pledged to safeguard AUKUS, despite the announcement of the Pentagon’s review of the deal.
The deal with the United Kingdom represents an outlying concession to Trump’s demands for tariffs. Not only did the United Kingdom concede a 10 per cent tariff, but it also agreed to swallow the 25 per cent tariff on steel and aluminium pending improvements in some vaguely defined future.
The United Kingdom agreed to cooperate in a game of prisoner’s dilemma, exposing all the other “prisoners” to a protectionist tariff baseline that other countries may be compelled to meet.
There was no time or room to reach a broader consensus on security to address the challenges posed by China and Russia. Issues like securing supply chains and critical mineral stockpiles were afforded little time in the discussion.
Newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae-myung never had the chance to meet Trump, while Japan made no progress in securing an economic security arrangement with the United States. Nikkei concluded that the Japanese Prime Minister had come away “empty-handed”. Trump, for his part, lamented the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, blaming former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.
The opportunity to showcase the joint efforts of US allies to meet the security challenge – and in doing so, reinforce the framework of the global economy – slipped away, much like Trump himself. The summit ended without a comprehensive joint statement. Instead, the Canadian host had to make do with a Chair’s Statement.
The summit ended with six joint statements. The one on critical minerals failed to move much beyond the framework agreed to in 2023, despite the urgency of China’s recent retaliatory imposition of export controls.
Worthy but barely actionable initiatives on quantum computing and artificial intelligence served to dress up the relevance of the meeting, alongside a statement on combating wildfires – a topic particularly relevant to Canada and the province in which the summit was held.
A SNAPSHOT OF TURBULENT TIMES
The outcome of the summit in many ways belied the closing remarks by the host, Canadian Prime Minister Carney. Carney referenced the origins of the G7 fifty years ago at Rambouillet amid war in the Middle East, economic turmoil surrounding the end of Bretton Woods and stagflation resulting from the oil price shock of the Arab embargo.
He called for a new era of cooperation to overcome the current economic challenges and claimed this new era had been initiated. But overall, the summit ended without rising to the challenge.
There was little evidence that progress had been made in forging the “resilience” that Carney called for to combat such challenges as climate change. The “wildfire charter” joint statement – endorsed by Australia, India, the Republic of Korea and South Africa – fails to mention climate change.
This, as much as the failure to agree on a joint statement with respect to Ukraine and a statement on the Middle East that failed to call for an end to the fighting, points to the limited cooperation among putatively “like-minded” allies of the United States. The conclusion by one Canadian editorialist was that a G6 without the United States may have done more to advance international cooperation.
When the G7 began, its members accounted for 75 per cent of global GDP – they now account for 45 per cent. When it began, the United States accepted the initiative of French President Giscard d’Estaing to address turmoil in the global economy.
With the global economy again in turmoil – largely at the instance of US President Trump – the challenge is both to gain cooperation with the United States and to work cooperatively around the United States when required. On the evidence of this year’s summit, it is not clear that the G7 provides the framework to do both simultaneously.
This summit may be seen more as a snapshot of the turbulent times than as a landmark, let alone a turning point, in world affairs.
Jeremy Paltiel is Professor at Department of Political Science, Carleton University. This commentary first appeared on East Asia Forum.
channelnewsasia.com · by Jeremy Paltiel
8. FBI Warning—All Smartphone Users Must Delete These Messages
I have seen these a few times over the past few months.
FBI Warning—All Smartphone Users Must Delete These Messages
Forbes · by Zak Doffman · June 23, 2025
The threat is worse than the headlines suggest.
NurPhoto via Getty Images
Republished on June 23 with the latest warnings for smartphone users and further information on the attackers behind this campaign.
A raft of news stories over the last week (1,2,3) report on the FBI warning 150 million Apple users to delete texts on their iPhones. Unfortunately the reality is even worse than those headlines suggest. Here’s what you need to know and what you should do.
Right now, your cell phone is vulnerable to an ongoing attack that will come to you by way of text messages warning of dire consequences if you don’t respond right away. Text messages that include links to pay outstanding bills or fines.
ForbesIf You Get This Message From Apple Or Google, It’s An AttackBy Zak Doffman
All of this is made up, of course, but you pay nonetheless because you’re worried — that’s the idea. These messages include unpaid tolls and newer DMV traffic offenses, but will soon widen the net to mimic texts from your bank or credit card company.
It’s against this backdrop that we have seen headlines urging America’s iPhone users to delete the latest raft of DMV texts as soon as they’re received. But that warning applies equally to iPhone and Android users — in this instance, iPhones aren’t special.
MORE FOR YOU
The malicious texts are sent courtesy of organized Chinese criminal gangs that operate beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. They harness countless phone numbers from multiple countries and domains from multiple providers.
Check Point warns “attribution is tentative but compelling. The use of Chinese SOA contacts, Chinese DNS providers, Chinese-language comments in source code, and uniform hosting behavior all point toward a threat actor operating out of China. The infrastructure aligns with known patterns of low-cost, high-volume phishing-as-a-service operations often advertised on Chinese-language cyber crime forums.”
Despite network filtering and iOS and Android spam detection, the tidal wave of texts seemingly can’t be stopped. Google has confirmed new AI-powered scam detection on its phones, and we await to see if this filters the threat or can be worked around.
The FBI’s warning to delete all these so-called smishing texts came in an advisory last year, issued in the wake of the original unpaid toll scam that has now swept across America from state to state. Any such texts, it said, should be deleted from phones.
There is no threat from texts left unopened or ignored on your phone. But knowing it’s from a cybercriminal’s number and contains a malicious link, the strong advice from the FBI and other agencies is to remove it from your phone.
But that applies to all smartphone users. There are some iPhone specifics — the OCGs prefer iMessage to SMS, albeit they like RCS as well, and the texts often include instructions to “Please reply with ‘Y’” to get around iPhone’s link blocking from unknown senders. But the the attack targets all users indiscriminately.
As I reported a week ago, the FBI has confirmed it is now investigating the latest plague of DMV-themed texts, which is unsurprising. The volume of those texts in particular surged almost 800% in the first week of June alone, and has not slowed down since.
A single bad actor armed with numbers and domains can send as many as “60,000,000 texts a per month, or 720,000,000 per year,” if that helps explain why there’s almost no one in America who hasn’t yet received these texts or knows someone who has.
We have just seen Florida warn that “a fresh wave of text message scams targeting motorists is surging,” with “the FBI reporting a significant increase in these attacks, [which are] now more refined and convincing than in the past.”
Whether it’s an iPhone or an Android phone in your pocket, don’t leave these texts undeleted and never ever click on any of these links.
Over the weekend, there have been new DMV text warnings come from Georgia, Virgina and Iowa, “As expected,” says Iowa’s DOT, “the scammers are up to their old tricks again. And finding new people to target each time. If you get a DMV ticket payment text, it’s a scam. Even if you have a recent ticket, Iowa DOT will never contact you by text for fee collection or ask you for financial info.”
According to Check Point, the DMV scam campaigns “leverage widespread SMS phishing and deceptive web infrastructure” and utilize “infrastructure, consistent domain naming conventions, reused frontend assets, and strong indicators pointing to a China-based threat actor. The widespread impact and impersonation of trusted state agencies underscore the urgency of awareness and proactive defense.”
The security researchers claim the campaign is “highly structured,” which is unsurprising given how similar all the example texts have been. “While this attack appears to be vast, spreading over many IP addresses, with thousands of newly registered phishing domains, a significant portion of the domains were hosted on a known malicious IP address: 49.51.75[.]162.”
With that in place, “HTML files linked to this IP mapped each file to a different state: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, California, New Jersey, New York, and Florida. The cloned DMV pages used predictable TLDs such as [.cfd] and [.win], chosen for their low cost and ease of registration.”
ForbesMicrosoft’s Free Upgrade Deadline For 400 Million Windows UsersBy Zak Doffman
The industrialized scripting behind such attacks can be expanded to a wide range of lures. And it can be more targeted than we’ve seen with the DMV texts. Impersonating a DMV is bad enough, but the FBI also warns that cybercriminals are impersonating its own agents, demanding payment for fines or missed court appearances to avoid arrest.
Over the weekend, a new FBI warning as attackers again message or call foreign students in the U.S., demanding a fee to continue uninterrupted. Yet again, scammers are impersonating law enforcement agencies in this atack, which has become a widespread theme across state and local as well as federal law enforcement.
The bureau’s advice in the latest attacks in Washington State could apply to all these attacks: “Scammers always prey on people’s fears. They’re always opportunistic." And that opportunism pays off. ”They try to ratchet up that sense of urgency so that you don’t think about what you’re doing and then they just send the money."
Forbes · by Zak Doffman · June 23, 2025
9. Tehran's Fatal Miscalculation? Thinking A North Korean-Style Pariah Could Stay Safe In The Middle East
There can be only one. (north Korea that is).
Tehran's Fatal Miscalculation? Thinking A North Korean-Style Pariah Could Stay Safe In The Middle East
Iran’s revolutionary regime imagined it could assure its survival by becoming an armed bunker like North Korea, ready to shoot if threatened. They seemed to forget that, for its location and resources, Iran is too important for the world to tolerate a “crazy” regime threatening vital oil routes.
by Homayoun Naderifar
June 22, 2025
worldcrunch.com · by Cecilia LAURENT MONPETIT · June 22, 2025
-Analysis-
The leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran have long held on to a strategic vision that followed the path taken by the communist Kim regime in North Korea: ensuring survival of the regime through military threats, nuclear program expansion, domestic repression and geopolitical blackmail of world powers.
The comparison was not only superficial and mistaken, but involved a dangerous miscalculation for the Islamic regime’s own survival. And the U.S. decision early Sunday to enter directly into Israel’s war against Iran — unleashing major bombing raids on multiple Iranian nuclear sites — is the ultimate sign of that miscalculation.
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North Korea instead is an isolated, poor and fundamentally non-strategic country in terms of energy markets, global trade and geopolitical influence. Iran is a country with much more at stake. It shares borders with seven Asian countries and controls access to the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy arteries. Broadly speaking, it possesses a crucial location at the crossroads of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.
This strategic position makes Iran’s presence in regional and international developments inevitable, but also burdens its governments with greater responsibilities. The world cannot simply ignore or isolate Iran as it has tried to do with North Korea, as the consequences for the region and the world are much more profound.
Proxy play
Then there’s the question of behavior. Despite its nuclear and missile threats, and the loud rhetoric that goes with it, North Korea does not interfere much in the internal affairs of other countries. Instead, the Iranian regime has been involved for years in backing proxy groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq and Syria, and even sought to exert influence in Africa and South America.
Such activities have earned the Tehran authorities a reputation of a constant factor of instability and a transnational threat, transforming the regime’s problematic nature from mere domestic crisis to international threat. Arab countries, Israel, the United States, Europe and even some Asian countries view the Islamic Republic not simply as a closed dictatorship, but as a “transnational destabilizing actor.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is seen at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport, North Korea, on June 19, 2024. Photo: Gavriil Grigorov/TASS via ZUMA
Domestic differences
Unlike North Korean society, Iran’s is a youthful and educated society with a relative level of access to cyberspace and a history of protest movements. From the Green Movement of 2009 to the nationwide protests of November 2019 and the Mahsa Movement of 2022, Iran has managed to develop into a vibrant society with the potential for transformation from within. In contrast, North Korean society is under complete military control, lives in absolute poverty and lacks the capacity for widespread internal resistance.
The way to save Iran is not to imitate Pyongyang, but to return to reason, legality and convergence with the world.
The Islamic Republic’s leaders imagined and still imagine they can continue to exist with nuclear weapons, internal repression and “blackmail” diplomacy, like the Kim Jong-un regime. But it was a seriously naive calculation. Iran is not North Korea, and the world is not ready to treat a destabilizing, ideological and terror-sponsoring power with the same appeasement approach, in such an important region as the Middle East.
WORLDCRUNCH EXTRA!
Elsewhere in the press • As Iran’s regime faces an existential threat from the unprecedented Israeli assault, The Financial Times also questions the strategic choices the regime in Tehran has made over the past two decades.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has employed what’s come to be known as the “no war, no peace” strategy—using proxies and covert actions to deter adversaries without engaging in open conflict.
However, regional dynamics shifted after the October 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel, exposing Iran’s vulnerabilities and miscalculations. Israel swiftly and decisively countered by decimating Tehran’s “proxy” militias, not only Hamas in Gaza, but also Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel is now directly targeting Iranian military infrastructure, destroying key missile launchers and compromising command and control capabilities with advanced U.S.-supplied equipment.
The explosive escalation underscored Iran’s strategic gamble, now forcing it into an unwinnable confrontation that threatens its survival. With U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to enter the war, Tehran’s precarious position highlights the high stakes and unstable power balance in an already volatile Middle East. — Cecilia Laurent Monpetit (read more about the Worldcrunch method here)
Finally, we have seen how continuing this path and the clerical regime’s miscalculation have not only further isolated Iran and worsened the economic and security pressures of recent years, but ultimately provoked a war that is now inflicting an immense cost on Iran and Iranians.
The way to save Iran is not to imitate Pyongyang, but to return to reason, legality and a constructive understanding and convergence with the world. That can happen with a fundamental change in the structure of governance, and a change of regime.
worldcrunch.com · by Cecilia LAURENT MONPETIT · June 22, 2025
10. North Korean Missile Debris Found in Kyiv After Deadly Russian Strike
north Korea is a key contributor to the arsenal of the CRInK.
North Korean Missile Debris Found in Kyiv After Deadly Russian Strike
Emergency crews found parts of a North Korean missile after a mass strike on Kyiv overnight June 22–23 that killed at least 7 and injured some two dozen, officials said.
by Jeremy Dirac, Devin Woodall | June 23, 2025, 4:27 pm
kyivpost.com · by Jeremy Dirac, Devin Woodall · June 23, 2025
Emergency crews found parts of a North Korean missile after a mass strike on Kyiv overnight June 22–23 that killed at least 7 and injured some two dozen, officials said.
by Jeremy Dirac, Devin Woodall | June 23, 2025, 4:27 pm
Photo:Devin Woodall
Emergency workers sifting through the debris of a deadly overnight missile and drone attack confirmed that fragments of a North Korean missile were recovered from the wreckage in Kyiv on Monday.
“It was a Korean missile, they just found some parts,” said a firefighter at the scene around 3 pm local time, speaking on condition of anonymity as recovery operations continued.
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The attack overnight Sunday-Monday targeted multiple regions of Ukraine with a combination of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and kamikaze drones, according to Ukrainian military officials.
Kyiv was among the hardest hit, with at least seven people killed and more than two dozen injured. Authorities warned that the casualty count could rise as rescue teams continued to search through rubble in Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district where a residential building was struck about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the US embassy.
The presence of North Korean missile components marks the latest confirmation of the ongoing military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.
Ukrainian air defense systems intercepted many incoming threats, but some ballistic missiles got through in urban areas, causing widespread destruction to residential neighborhoods and critical infrastructure.
On June 11, Russia reportedly used North Korean ballistic missiles in another overnight onslaught that killed three people in Kharkiv, having also reportedly been used in a June 9 attack.
Other Topics of Interest
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered strikes on Tehran after Israel reported incoming Iranian missiles despite a US-brokered ceasefire, which Iran denies violating.
In April, a North Korean KN-23 (Hwasong-11A) ballistic missile also reportedly struck a residential block in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district.
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Jeremy Dirac
Jeremy Dirac is the Deputy Managing News Editor for Kyiv Post. He’s been working in journalism for many years and has been focused on Ukrainian issues. Before joining Kyiv Post, he served as the Ukraine Desk Editor for WhoWhatWhy.org and as the Online News Editor for UATV Channel. He graduated from UMass Amherst in 2005 and learned the ropes as a cub reporter for The Recorder newspaper in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Devin Woodall
Devin Woodall is a photojournalist and documentarian with a focus on civilian life, wartime society, and the ins and outs of adaptation amid the Ukrainian war. Originally from a working-class background, he’s held all manner of jobs from factory floor laborer to commander of a chaotic full-service kitchen. He currently writes, photographs, and reports on life and the human experience in critical frontline areas.
kyivpost.com · by Jeremy Dirac, Devin Woodall · June 23, 2025
11. A US Golden Dome would be a geopolitical game changer
We need it and we need it now.
A US Golden Dome would be a geopolitical game changer
by Mark R. Whittington, opinion contributor - 06/22/25 10:00 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/5361221-trump-golden-dome-missile-defense/
In May, President Trump announced plans for a Golden Dome missile defense system, a multi-layered system designed to ward off ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles launched against North America.
It is estimated to cost $175 billion and will take three years to deploy, according to Trump. The cost and schedule, as with all such projects, is subject to change.
The name Golden Dome is inspired by the Israeli Iron Dome, part of the Jewish state’s anti-missile defense system that has blunted, though not entirely stopped, attacks from its various enemies, most recently Iran. But the idea of a space-based missile defense system has its roots in the Strategic Defense Initiative, proposed over 40 years ago by then-President Ronald Reagan.
Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative was controversial. Some opponents derided it by calling it “Star Wars.” The project never evolved beyond a technological development program for two reasons. First, the technology to launch and coordinate satellites that could track and destroy incoming nuclear-tipped missiles did not exist and was too hard to develop in the 1980s. Second, the Cold War ended, and so did the immediate threat of global thermonuclear war. The need for the Strategic Defense Initiative simply evaporated.
Fast forward more than 30 years. Although some ground-based and sea-based missile defense systems have been deployed to ward off attacks by rogue states such as North Korea, defense against attacks by near-peer nations such as Russia and China is woefully inadequate.
This has complicated efforts to restrain Russia’s efforts to annex Ukraine and China’s wish to invade Taiwan. Both conflicts have the potential to spiral out of control into a nuclear exchange, impeding American foreign policy choices.
Golden Dome, like the proposed Strategic Defense Initiative and the Israeli missile defense system, will be a multi-layered system that will cover boost phase, mid-range and then terminal phase. The idea is that it will stop a nuclear strike by shooting down missiles in each phase so that nothing reaches its intended target.
Will the Golden Dome work? Some have raised doubts. The American Physical Society has released a study listing what it feels are the problems facing a space-based missile defense system. Many of the objections are the same that were raised during the Strategic Defense Initiative era — the problem with decoys, for example. The study falls short of concluding that missile defense is impossible.
On the other hand, technology related to missile defense has greatly advanced since the 1980s. Launching payloads into space, thanks to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is far cheaper and more reliable now than when the space shuttle was state of the art.
Artificial intelligence, battlespace awareness, communications and even beam weapons (i.e., lasers) are at levels that would have seemed like science fiction during the Strategic Defense Initiative era.
Evidence that the Golden Dome will be a game changer is that the Chinese don’t like it.
Fox News quotes Chinese Foreign Minister Mao Ning as saying, “The project will heighten the risk of turning space into a war zone and creating a space arms race, and shake the international security and arms control system. We urge the U.S. to give up developing and deploying global anti-missile system.”
The Chinese are suggesting, perhaps inadvertently, that they are afraid of the Golden Dome. Any attempt to overcome it would complicate its grand strategy of supplanting the U.S. as the supreme superpower on the planet.
The flaw in the analysis that purports to attack the idea of missile defense is economic. One can talk about decoys, stealth technology and maneuverable launch vehicles as ways to penetrate a missile defense system like Golden Dome. But developing and deploying such technologies costs money.
Russia, the other near-peer nuclear power, is already stretched to the limit because of Putin’s adventure in Ukraine. China, because of its fragile, export-based economy, the cost of its military buildup and declining population, also faces economic limitations.
The U.S., on the other hand, has potential for enough economic growth to not only engage in an arms race in space but to prevail.
Israel’s missile defense system has allowed between 5 percent and 10 percent of Iranian missiles to get through. Israel has absorbed the damage from high-explosive-tipped missiles. In a nuclear exchange, Golden Dome must stop 100 percent of an attack. Nevertheless, Israel’s recent experience is a strong argument for the Golden Dome.
The fulfillment of Reagan’s dream of a world in which nuclear weapons have become “impotent and obsolete” will be a formidable task.
Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
12. What to expect in the upcoming NATO summit: Trump, spending, Ukraine, Iran
I expect POTUS will be taking a tough line on all issues.
Excerpts:
In a statement released one week ahead of the summit, NATO said the "Heads of State and Government are expected to agree [to] a new defense investment plan" after months of speculation the alliance could increase its spending commitments from 2% of a nation’s GDP to 5%.
The notion was first pushed by Trump after he won the election, and despite the sticker shock of what that could mean for not only the eight nations not yet hitting the 2% commitment, but also the U.S. which currently spends 3.38%, many European leaders got on board.
Fox News Digital has not been able to confirm if NATO will increase its commitment to 5%, and some sources with knowledge of the discussions have suggested that figure could be closer to 3.5% over a period of up to 10 years. On Friday, it was announced that Spain was given an opt-out of paying 5%, instead, it will pay 2.1%, according to a report in the Associated Press.
"The real focus will be the new defense spending target," Peter Rough, senior fellow and director for the Center on Europe and Eurasia with the Hudson Institute, told Fox News Digital. "5% of gross domestic product as a top-line number – however, only 3.5% must be devoted to hard defense.
What to expect in the upcoming NATO summit: Trump, spending, Ukraine, Iran
President Trump is expected to arrive in the Netherlands on Tuesday amid growing concerns over Iran
By Caitlin McFall Fox News
Published June 23, 2025 6:00am EDT
foxnews.com · by Caitlin McFall Fox News
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Operation Midnight Hammer: How the US used deception to attack Iran
Fox News correspondent Lucas Tomlinson shows how the United States used the element of surprise to strike Iran on 'Special Report.'
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The NATO summit will be held at The Hague in the Netherlands from June 24-25 and a range of defensive issues are expected to be addressed, including expanding national spending commitments, aid to Ukraine, emerging threats from Iran and relations with the U.S. under President Donald Trump.
This will be the president’s first transatlantic summit since returning to the White House in January, and all eyes are on Trump, who has not shied away from explosive moments with U.S. allies, including at previous NATO summits.
Following Saturday's attack by the U.S. against Iran's nuclear facilities, the Islamic Republic of Iran is expected to become one of the leading issues.
Here’s what’s on the agenda:
PUTIN RAISES THE STAKES ON ‘GHOST FLEET’ SECURITY, AS NATO LAUNCHES WAR GAMES IN THE BALTIC SEA
President Donald Trump speaks to the press following a White House meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, March 13, 2025. (Pool via AP)
In a statement released one week ahead of the summit, NATO said the "Heads of State and Government are expected to agree [to] a new defense investment plan" after months of speculation the alliance could increase its spending commitments from 2% of a nation’s GDP to 5%.
The notion was first pushed by Trump after he won the election, and despite the sticker shock of what that could mean for not only the eight nations not yet hitting the 2% commitment, but also the U.S. which currently spends 3.38%, many European leaders got on board.
Fox News Digital has not been able to confirm if NATO will increase its commitment to 5%, and some sources with knowledge of the discussions have suggested that figure could be closer to 3.5% over a period of up to 10 years. On Friday, it was announced that Spain was given an opt-out of paying 5%, instead, it will pay 2.1%, according to a report in the Associated Press.
"The real focus will be the new defense spending target," Peter Rough, senior fellow and director for the Center on Europe and Eurasia with the Hudson Institute, told Fox News Digital. "5% of gross domestic product as a top-line number – however, only 3.5% must be devoted to hard defense.
HEGSETH, MILITARY BRASS DESCRIBE ‘INCREDIBLE AND OVERWHELMING SUCCESS’ OF US STRIKES ON IRA
Ukrainian marines train in urban warfare techniques in bilateral military exercises between the United States and Ukraine, and include troops from a variety of NATO and non-NATO countries on Sept. 16, 2014, near Yavorov, Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed Kyiv's interest in joining NATO has been a leading reason for his invasion. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
"And 1.5% can count toward adjacent categories, like cybersecurity or infrastructure for military mobility," he explained ahead of his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding the NATO summit.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has been an ardent supporter of increasing defense spending, particularly as Europe continues to face its greatest threat since World War II.
Earlier this month, ahead of a NATO ministerial meeting that served as a walk-up to the NATO summit, Rutte said leaders "will strengthen our deterrence and defense by agreeing ambitious new capability targets."
He has detailed missile defense, long-range strike capabilities and deterrence as chief priorities, which comes not only as Russia continues its aggressive war in Ukraine, but as threats levied by a nuclearly ambitious Iran also escalate.
UKRAINE-RUSSIA PEACE TALKS YIELD NO CEASEFIRE, ZELENSKYY WARNS PUTIN SHOULD NOT BE 'REWARDED'
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy holds a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 13, 2025. (Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The issue of defending Ukraine is once again expected to be a top agenda item and has been a driving force in motivating the NATO alliance to drastically increase spending, which nations under the alliance first did following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
However, given Trump’s consistent push for increased NATO defensive spending, his threats to withdraw troops from Europe and his insistence that Kyiv not be allowed to join the 32-member alliance, Ukraine’s defense may not play as big of a front-and-center role this year.
"There won’t be nearly as much focus on Ukraine as during the past few summits," argued Rough. "The White House is laser-focused on the defense investment pledge, and none of the other allies want to rock the boat."
While nations like France, the UK and Germany have taken more direct leadership positions and ardently pledged their continued support for Ukraine, they have also toed the line when it comes to managing transatlantic relationships with Washington under Trump.
"I’d expect a short, concise summit declaration with some mention of Ukraine but none of the ornate language that characterized past communiqués," Rough added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to attend portions of the summit’s activities, like the opening dinner, though he is not yet confirmed to attend any official NATO meetings.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, bottom center, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, bottom second right, and other world leaders attend a defensive summit at Lancaster House in London on Sunday, March 2, 2025. (Neil Hall/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images )
Reporting suggested Trump could take issue with having Zelenskyy at a NATO event amid seemingly stalled ceasefire negotiations with Russia – which have begun to take a backseat amid the strife between Israel and Iran.
Trump has not held back at previous NATO summits when it came to the conflict over Russia, including in 2018 when he openly clashed with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel when he accused Berlin of being "totally controlled by Russia" and claimed it was a "bad thing for NATO."
NEW REPORT WARNS NATO'S DATA VULNERABILITIES COULD COST LIVES WITHOUT US FIX
With the U.S. launching Operation Midnight Hammer against three of Iran's nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan on Saturday, Iran is set to be one of the main topics for discussions by the NATO members as tensions with the regime in Tehran rise.
Map of Iran nuclear facilities attacked by the US (Fox News)
Additionally, Russia continues to pose the greatest threat to Europe, not only as its war ambitions continue in Ukraine, but as intelligence agencies increasingly warn that "Russia’s postwar focus will be on NATO."
Rough, in his testimony to the Senate, pointed to findings by Germany’s Federal Intelligence Agency that said earlier this month that "We see that NATO’s collective defense promise is to be tested…We are very sure, and we have intelligence evidence to back this up, that Ukraine is only one step on Russia’s path towards the West."
Danish intelligence issued similar warnings earlier this year and said that should it find the right opportunity, Russia could launch hostile operations against a neighboring nation within six months of regrouping after a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Rutte highlighted the severity of the direct threat Russia poses and said earlier this month during a trip to the UK that if nations do not take seriously the need to invest in the 5% defense spending push, then "you better learn to speak Russian."
The alliances Moscow has cemented during its war in Ukraine have also brought to the forefront a very real threat to the West as China, North Korea and Iran have all played a major role in fueling Russia’s war machine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, left, meet for a welcome ceremony in the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Wednesday, June 19. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
FOR PUTIN, 'US IS THE MAIN ENEMY,' ESTONIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS
China, while it claims neutrality in the war, has staunchly supplied Russia with electronic components critical to modern warfare. Iran has supplied drones and technical know-how, while North Korea has not only provided munitions and military equipment, but boots on the ground for the war.
While China and Russia have repeatedly committed their partnership as united against the West, North Korea has become increasingly emboldened and been provided technical know-how for missile development in exchange for its support, which poses a significant threat to not only partners in the East, but Western interests.
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Rough warned that "Russian President Vladimir Putin remains implacably opposed to the U.S.-European partnership, which he seeks to undermine at every opportunity."
Additionally, Rough, citing U.S. military officials in Europe, said it would be a mistake to remove U.S. troops from Europe amid these increasingly united threats against the West.
Troop agreements, collective defense and U.S. involvement in deterring Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are all expected to be a major point of discussion.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Caitlin McFall is a Reporter at Fox News Digital covering Politics, U.S. and World news.
foxnews.com · by Caitlin McFall Fox News
13. China Slams Taiwan’s Lai for Speech Mentioning Independence
Don't be distracted with Iran. We still have to pivot to Asia.
China Slams Taiwan’s Lai for Speech Mentioning Independence
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-24/china-slams-taiwan-s-lai-for-speech-mentioning-independence?sref=hhjZtX76
Lai Ching-tePhotographer: Daniel Ceng/Anadolu/Getty Images
By Yian Lee
June 24, 2025 at 12:35 PM GMT+8
Takeaways
by Bloomberg AI
Hide
- China condemned Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's speech, calling it a "provocation" and accusing him of "wantonly spreading separatist remarks about 'Taiwan independence'".
- Lai's speech aimed to rally Taiwan's 23 million people to stand up to China, with him stating that "no matter which name we call ourselves, we are an independent country".
- The exchange highlights the deepening cross-strait divide, with China refusing to deal with Lai since he took office in May last year due to his refusal to acknowledge Taiwan as part of China.
China harshly condemned Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te for a speech aimed at rallying the democracy’s 23 million people to stand up to its larger neighbor — a back-and-forth that illustrates a deepening cross-strait divide.
Lai was “wantonly spreading separatist remarks about ‘Taiwan independence,’” the People’s Daily said in a commentary on Tuesday, adding the address “was a provocation that was strong and harmful.” The article also called Lai a litany of names such as “warmaker,” while also saying his remarks displayed “madness.”
The commentary in the flagship newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party follows Lai saying in a speech on Sunday that he hoped that the people of Taiwan “can unite to jointly protect national sovereignty.” He added that “no matter which name we call ourselves, we are an independent country.”
The exchange offers a reminder that Taiwanese independence is a red line for China. Beijing has refused to deal with Lai since he took office in May last year because he doesn’t acknowledge its view that Taiwan is part of China. For that reason, it has ramped up military pressure on his government, as evidenced by the People’s Liberation Army sending dozens of warplanes across a key dividing line in the Taiwan Strait last week.
Lai has made countering China’s pressure and preparing Taiwan for a potential conflict a priority for his government. His speech on Sunday was the first of 10 he plans over the next few months on topics such as national defense and cross-strait issues that he says are intended to bring Taiwan together.
Read More: Taiwan’s Lai Toughens China Stance, Stoking Debate on Democracy
Lai’s future addresses are likely to draw similarly strong rebuttals from China, possibly escalating tensions and complicating foreign policy for the US. Washington is Taipei’s most important military backer and it is keen to avoid an unnecessary fight with Beijing.
Lai and his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, have made similar remarks about independence in the past. Lai said it during his inauguration speech in May last year, leading to harsh criticism from China. Tsai used the phrase in a 2020 interview with the BBC.
China’s fear is that Lai will go beyond those words and formalize independence with steps such as writing it into the constitution. Lai has pledged in the past to stick to the status quo in cross-strait ties, and officials in Taipei have downplayed the chances of a conflict with China anytime soon.
The addresses also come as Lai and Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party try to recall and replace opposition lawmakers. The strategy is intended to give the DPP a majority in the legislature, a change that would allow it to step up military spending via a special budget.
The opposition Kuomintang prefers closer ties to China and criticized Lai’s speech, saying it was aimed at supporting the recall effort. It said Lai should focus on issues people care about, such as trade negotiations with the US, property prices and crime.
— With assistance from Jing Li and Josh Xiao
14. Marching to Different Drums: The Army’s Birthday Parade as Seen from China
Some very useful analysis of Chinese press reports.
Conclusion:
To a Western strategist, China’s precision may seem oppressive. To a Chinese observer, American improvisation may look disordered. Both judgments reflect cultural bias. But in an age of accelerating complexity, the edge belongs not to the rigid or the chaotic — but to those who can navigate both. The future belongs to military cultures that know when to march in step — and when to dance in the storm.
Or the old adages apply:
No combat ready unit ever passed an inspection (or looks good in a parade).
No inspection or parade ready unit ever passed combat.
Marching to Different Drums: The Army’s Birthday Parade as Seen from China – War on the Rocks
J. William DeMarco
warontherocks.com · June 24, 2025
On June 14, 2025, the U.S. Army marked its 250th anniversary with a public parade in Washington. While billed as the Army’s celebration, the parade was unconventional in American terms. It featured corporate sponsors and was closely identified with President Donald Trump, falling on his birthday. Critics — ranging from veterans’ groups to some members of Congress — viewed it as politically charged, drawing uncomfortably close to spectacles more akin to what we would see in authoritarian countries.
Supporters, however, praised it as a tribute to the armed forces and a patriotic show of strength. Before the parade, Kori Schake — no stranger to criticizing the president — argued that while critics raised concerns about politicization, the parade might have also served to bridge the civilian-military divide and reinforce public appreciation for a shrinking volunteer force. And on the day itself, she was pleased to see “our Army engaging so comfortably with the public on the [National] Mall: showing off training events, letting kids sit in helicopters. This isn’t an army of occupation, it’s our soldiers trying to connect to broader society.”
But it is worth looking beyond our shores to see how America’s main rival — China — interpreted this event. The stark differences between America’s informal, commercialized parade and China’s tightly disciplined and painstakingly orchestrated military spectacles illustrate fundamentally divergent visions of military power. These differences highlight cultural divides that can influence strategic assessments of capability and cohesion. And, indeed, for Chinese analysts, the event revealed as much about American cultural identity as it did about military power.
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The South China Morning Post quickly published a feature titled “Nothing new: US Army parade holds no surprises for Chinese military minds,” which collected observations from Chinese analysts and military enthusiasts who watched the event online. Their comments focused less on the technology and more on the ritual’s form: the loose formations of American troops, the surprising presence of corporate sponsorships, the general absence of political messaging, and the visible differences in soldier height and posture. One anonymous commentator noted, “This would never happen in a [People’s Liberation Army] parade.” Another remarked that the lack of uniformity betrayed a certain laxity in discipline. While these responses might strike Western readers as superficial, they reflect divergent foundational assumptions about how military power is best communicated.
Although The South China Morning Post is based in Hong Kong and operates with more editorial latitude than most Chinese media outlets (although less so since Beijing brought Hong Kong to heel), its reporting often reflects a calibrated balance between international and the mainland’s political climate. To deepen the cultural analysis, this piece also draws from mainland Chinese sources like Tencent News and the Kunlun Policy Forum, which offered sharper, more ideologically aligned interpretations. Engaging with these sources in their original Chinese allows a closer view of how official or popular voices within the People’s Republic of China interpret American military symbolism — not merely as observers of a foreign ritual, but as strategic audiences invested in narrative competition.
Military parades are performances, but what they perform — and for whom — differs drastically. In China, the audience is primarily domestic. The message is one of ideological unity, political order, and the seamless integration of the People’s Liberation Army with the Chinese Communist Party. In the United States, the audience is both civil and international. The message is one of public engagement, institutional continuity, and democratic legitimacy. Where China fuses soldier and state, America maintains the distinction. Where China signals unity through control, America signals legitimacy through participation.
In Chinese political culture, military parades are acts of statecraft — coordinated spectacles that affirm the Chinese Communist Party’s authority and the military’s unity. When China marked the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic in 2019, the event featured meticulously arranged troop formations, identical uniforms and posture, and aircraft flying in exact synchronized patterns. Every element conveyed harmony, hierarchy, and national discipline. In contrast, the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary parade featured cheering civilians, robot dogs marching beside soldiers, and sponsor banners from companies like Lockheed Martin, USAA, and T-Mobile. To Chinese observers, this mixture of festivity, commercial presence, and relaxed protocol creates symbolic ambiguity. In the American context, however, it reflects transparency, pluralism, and civil-military coexistence.
Chinese state-affiliated commentators dismissed the parade as a “an armed float parade — mocking its lack of discipline, low energy, and theatrical excess. One quipped that “even Chinese university students march better,” reinforcing a broader narrative that contrasted People’s Liberation Army precision with perceived American disorder. Another viewer remarked, “It is really more like a birthday celebration … I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw sponsors being displayed on the big screen. This is impossible in Chinese parades.” What Americans might perceive as a festive, pluralistic public celebration — robot dogs flanked by brand logos, tactical vehicles rolling past cheering civilians — struck many Chinese observers as incoherent, unserious, and symptomatic of decline.
This contrast extends beyond ceremony and into systems of acquisition and force development. While the United States is culturally comfortable with informal displays and decentralized expression, it adheres to highly structured, centralized approaches to procurement and modernization. It favors multi-decade development programs, technologically ambitious platforms, and institutional gatekeeping — embodied by systems like the F-35 or Next Generation Air Dominance fighter. These programs promise revolutionary capabilities but often arrive over budget, behind schedule, and vulnerable to rapid obsolescence. Symbolic looseness coexists with organizational rigidity — revealing the paradoxes embedded in the American military system.
This cultural emphasis on symbolic coherence is not incidental. As Andrew Scobell argues, China’s strategic posture is shaped by a deeply internalized defensive narrative — one that paradoxically produces aggressive signaling. Because Chinese military tradition sees national survival as dependent on political unity and ideological strength, foreign displays of looseness, pluralism, or commercialism can be interpreted not merely as strange, but as strategically unserious. From this lens, the U.S. Army’s relaxed pageantry is not just foreign — it’s potentially incoherent, even dangerous.
This symbolic divergence is not without strategic risk. In an age of global media and cross-cultural signaling, misreading the other’s cues can lead to dangerous miscalculations. A Chinese observer might interpret American military looseness as indicative of disorganization or decline, underestimating the combat-tested cohesion of decentralized U.S. forces. Conversely, American analysts may see the People’s Liberation Army ritual perfection and assume battlefield competence that has yet to be operationally proven. Strategic mirror-imaging, if left unchecked, can distort assessments of resolve, readiness, or intent — especially in tense environments like the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea.
To be fair, the South China Morning Post article includes a more tempered voice. Meanwhile, coverage in mainland Chinese media offered increasingly stark perspectives on the parade and what it symbolized.
One article from Tencent News described the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary parade as chaotic, overly commercialized, and lacking in martial seriousness. According to the article, what was meant to be a celebration of strength felt more like a military-themed amusement park, complete with loosely organized formations and conspicuous brand sponsorships. The thick bulletproof glass shielding President Trump during the event, it noted, served as an unintentional symbol of America’s internal divisions and security anxieties.
A second Tencent News article offered a sarcastic play-by-play of the parade’s visuals and structure. It emphasized how period reenactments were interrupted by brand advertisements — for example, a Phorm energy drink spot following the World War I segment — and compared the overall atmosphere to a “rural variety show.” Robot dogs and drones, which were meant to symbolize future force, were mocked for being manually controlled and appearing underwhelming. The tone was humorous but laced with implicit critique about spectacle overshadowing substance.
A more ideologically charged analysis appeared in the Kunlun Policy Forum, framing the entire parade as a symbol of American decline. Referencing the simultaneous nationwide protests and political violence — including the assassination of two Minnesota legislators — the piece labeled the parade as a “twilight of empire” moment. What was intended to honor the Army’s legacy instead appeared to many Chinese observers as a nostalgic yet incoherent pageant, unable to mask deeper fractures within U.S. political society. One Chinese observer cautioned against conflating ceremonial presentation with combat readiness, noting that the U.S. military has been tested in nearly every major conflict of the last century and remains unmatched in joint operational experience. Still, the article as a whole reflects a broader strategic communication goal: to position the People’s Liberation Army as disciplined and modern, and to cast doubt on the U.S. military’s seriousness and cohesion.
Further illustrating the strategic intent behind such Chinese displays, journalist Evan Osnos observed that China’s 2015 military parade — broadcast live across the country — was more than ceremonial pageantry. At a time of Chinese domestic economic uncertainty, the parade was meticulously orchestrated to reinforce national confidence while showcasing advanced capabilities such as the DF-21D “carrier killer” missile. Osnos noted that the event served dual purposes: to reassure domestic audiences of the regime’s strength and to project outward a clear message of technological sophistication and military readiness — signaling that China’s modernization had reached a new stage of operational credibility.
This performative power is not accidental — it aligns closely with the People’s Liberation Army’s broader strategic messaging doctrine. As RAND analyst Timothy R. Heath has observed, People’s Liberation Army parades are not merely national celebrations but deliberate tools of deterrence and political legitimacy. They are designed to project an image of a disciplined, technologically advanced force that is both loyal to the Chinese Communist Party and ready for regional contingencies. These displays are as much about reinforcing regime credibility at home as they are about signaling readiness and resolve abroad. In this light, the aesthetics of the parade become inseparable from China’s theory of deterrence itself — visual choreography as strategic posture.
These aesthetic strategies also shape international perceptions. For allies and observers in Southeast Asia, Africa, or Latin America, the differences between American and Chinese parades are not merely decorative. They signal what kind of power each nation wishes to be. China’s parades project precision, confidence, and political coherence. America’s parade, with its sponsorships and spontaneity, projects transparency, messiness, and pluralism. Both approaches carry symbolic weight. Some audiences may find reassurance in China’s order. Others may find authenticity in America’s open contradictions.
The divergence also speaks volumes about civil-military relations. In China, the People’s Liberation Army is a tool of the Communist Party. It serves a political, not merely national, function. In the United States, the military is a public institution, explicitly subordinated to civilian leadership and seen as a servant of the people. That distinction appears vividly in the parade: In China, the parade affirms the Party’s grip; in America, it affirms the people’s participation. What looks like chaos in one context may be a signal of democratic health in the other.
What this moment ultimately reveals is that military capability is not just material. It is also symbolic. It resides not only in hardware, but in narratives. China’s strength lies in its capacity for industrial mobilization, ideological clarity, and agile modernization. America’s lies in its innovation ecosystem, combat-tested leadership culture, and flexible command structures. Each has vulnerabilities. China may overinvest in aesthetic unity and underinvest in operational improvisation. The United States may underinvest in symbolic projection and overinvest in exquisite systems that lack scalability. But the long game is not about which nation puts on a better parade. It is about whose military culture adapts faster, learns more deeply, and balances chaos with control.
In China, the military and the state are fused — the People’s Liberation Army is loyal to the Communist Party, and its parades serve as ideological performances. In the United States, the military is subordinated to elected civilian leadership — its public image shaped by pluralism and spectacle. Yet even here, boundaries blur. The 2025 parade, entwined with presidential politics and corporate branding, unsettled traditional expectations.
To a Western strategist, China’s precision may seem oppressive. To a Chinese observer, American improvisation may look disordered. Both judgments reflect cultural bias. But in an age of accelerating complexity, the edge belongs not to the rigid or the chaotic — but to those who can navigate both. The future belongs to military cultures that know when to march in step — and when to dance in the storm.
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William “Bill” DeMarco, D.Prof is the director of innovation and analysis at Air University where he is also an assistant professor. He is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel with five command tours spanning mobility, refueling, and joint operations. A former Hoover fellow at Stanford University and research fellow at Cambridge University, he focuses on operational design, intrapreneurship, and leadership innovation in complex military systems. The views in this article are those of the author and not those of Air University, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.
Image: U.S. Army
warontherocks.com · June 24, 2025
15. We Need a Marine Corps, Part III: A Corps Recentered
Excerpts:
All force designs have desired outcomes. In my view, recentering should produce a Marine Corps Americans both need and want. A recentered force delivers on its promise to support the joint force in a prospective war with China within the nine-dash line; makes itself better available for global crisis response; is recommitted to full spectrum operational readiness; and aggressively forces itself into areas and missions intentionally designed to throw adversaries off balance, deny their advantages, and position Marines to win in ground combat. Marines do not seek to replicate either special operations forces or the Army. Marines execute critical mid-scale, irregular warfare missions that no small team of operators could ever hope to accomplish. And Marines defeat small- to mid-sized adversary ground forces alone, or team up with the Army to defeat them en masse.
I fully acknowledge that all recommendations from outsiders are inevitably going to be somewhat or significantly ill-informed or practicably unachievable. Everything I have written in this article series is necessarily imperfect. But we are five years into Force Design. It is time to move on from ugly attacks and defensive groupthink to focus on practical solutions to what look like potentially existential problems for the Marine Corps. I look forward to the professional discussions to follow. I am particularly interested in the responses to the Marine Corps Association’s Rapid Response Essay Contest, which offers an opportunity for authors to propose their design for the Marine expeditionary unit of the (near) future.
We Need a Marine Corps, Part III: A Corps Recentered – War on the Rocks
Ben Connable
warontherocks.com · June 24, 2025
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of three articles on the U.S. Marine Corps. The first article was published on June 16, 2025, and the second article was published on June 19, 2025.
Commandant Eric Smith clearly articulated his vision for the future of the Marine Corps: While retaining focus on the China threat, the service will recenter on global crisis response. This means getting more marines — and more of their combat gear — on ship and deployed around the world. Smith believes marines should be America’s premier 9-1-1 force, just like they were before the “Global War on Terror.” But as I pointed out in the first two parts of this series, he faces some daunting challenges. Recentering the Marine Corps on crisis response will require more than just “re-bluing,” or getting marines back on globally deployed Navy ships.
Recentering on crisis response demands on-hand combat power to respond to at least any mid-range crisis, including land war. It means rethinking the Force Design approach to ground combat power and finding creative workarounds to the lack of available amphibious shipping. It requires some rebranding of the stand-in force and of the Marine Corps more broadly. Much of this recommended recentering is more about changing missions and altering perceptions than about buying gear.
Recentering also opens up some great opportunities. Marines can take charge of mostly abandoned mid-range irregular warfare missions like counterinsurgency and partnered, combat unit to combat unit foreign internal defense operations. And recentering allows the Marine Corps to take on out of area, high risk competition missions against China, Russia, and other adversaries — these missions fit almost perfectly within the Marine Corps’ existing capability set.
All change has a cost. In early 2024, then-Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl was asked how the Marine Corps would balance Force Design and crisis response. He replied, “Whenever anybody uses the term ‘balance’ I automatically start thinking about money.” Maintaining this fiscally responsible mindset is essential to the success of any proposed service-wide change: The cheaper the change, the more feasible it will be. My proposed changes are designed to be no- or low-cost, or at least relatively low cost compared to large programs in other services.
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Rebalancing to Crisis Response
Gen. Smith argues that the Marine Corps has let its afloat crisis response capability “atrophy.” I and many other marines would agree. The Marine Corps probably hit its stride on crisis response from the mid-1970s through the 1990s. In 1986 the Marine Corps started describing itself as “America’s 911 force,” or emergency on-call force in readiness. It provided crisis response primarily from its omnipresent rotations of Marine expeditionary units, each of which could put ashore a Marine combined arms task force centered on an infantry battalion of nearly 1,000 marines to fight for at least 15 days without reinforcement.
I described these units in the first part of this series. Working from ships, marines conducted most of the nation’s noncombatant evacuation and humanitarian crisis response missions through the 2000s. And they assaulted enemy objectives from the sea in the 1991 Gulf War, bombed targets in Kosovo in 1999, seized ground in Afghanistan in 2001, interdicted pirates off the African coast from 2007-2008, and executed counterinsurgency missions in Iraq throughout the 2000s. Even when operating from single Navy ships, the Marine expeditionary units presented a constant, looming threat that contributed to global competition and deterrence.
By the mid-2000s special operations forces had eaten into the Marines’ crisis response mission. With the Marine Corps’ infantry tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq, amphibious ship availability waning, and efforts to deploy Marines from forward land bases sputtering, Special Operations Command and then the Army picked up the slack. Army leaders have said “yes” to every emerging crisis response mission in the past decade, including in Sudan and Afghanistan. Together, special operations and the Army are now the crisis response forces of choice for national leaders.
But neither Special Operations Command nor the Army have the proven, ready, no land base required, combined arms crisis response capability extant in a Marine expeditionary unit. As long as they can be made physically present (more on this below), marines are still the best option for arguably most global crisis response missions.
At least for now, Marine capacity to fulfill these missions is hobbled by lack of available amphibious shipping to get task force assets where they need to be. I address amphibious shipping below. The Marine Corps’ strategic communications team has already done exactly what was needed to shift the narrative towards crisis response. For example, they moved the done-deal Force Design to a sub-tab on the service’s home page and put crisis response and combat readiness narratives front and center. This 9-1-1, “we do windows” mindset should be amplified at every opportunity.
Re-embracing Irregular Warfare
Following the difficult counterinsurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the American public and probably most political and military leaders lost interest in irregular warfare. But irregular warfare — including counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, stabilization, and foreign internal defense — is a constant and unavoidable necessity if the United States plans to retain its network of global partnerships, its freedom of movement, and its global economic interests. Even now, Americans are supporting low-profile counter-insurgency and counter-terror wars in Syria, Iraq, parts of Africa, the Philippines, and elsewhere.
Irregular warfare is ill-defined and therefore hard to prepare for or to champion. A little-read but important annex to the 2018 National Defense Strategy described irregular warfare as a combination of capabilities and mindset that is particularly well suited to global great power competition. An irregular mindset is a trained and practiced inclination to apply all soft and hard aspects of military power in discrete combinations to deter, shape, and if necessary to defeat adversaries in any context.
Two groups in the American armed forces have this culturally embedded mindset and the capabilities: special operators and the Marines. Together, they have made an excellent irregular warfare team. However, the Marine Corps can operate at a scale of mass above special operations forces and can bring its own self-contained fires and logistics to bear. In contrast, special operations units sometimes (though less frequently now) rely on other forces for support. Marines have a long history of effective irregular warfare operations and are well practiced at integrating with, supporting, or being supported by special operations teams.
I recommend the Marine Corps make a strong bid to be the U.S. military’s mid-scale irregular warfare service of choice. It can do so by explicitly changing the way it describes its capabilities and by matching the new descriptions with some low-cost but substantive investments. Narrative can be shifted within service doctrine and orders, within joint force plans, and with targeted congressional engagement. Marines can still work closely with special operations teams while also taking the low-cost, minimally sustainable lead on standing joint capabilities requirements like counter-insurgency. It will not take much effort to stand back up and sustain a few relevant training and education programs. And if Marine leaders can dig back into the Irregular Warfare Annex, they will find that the Secretary of Defense empowers them to resource, train for, and reimagine irregular warfare in great power competition. This is open running ground.
Reimagining Competition “Out of Area”
Presently, the Marine Corps has focused its capabilities on the China pacing threat around an area generally circumscribed by the nine-dash line, an imaginary delineation of control implied by the Chinese Communist Party. With Task Force 61/2, some efforts have been made to extrapolate the stand-in force capability to other theaters. However, China remains the pacing threat for the Marine Corps and the nine-dash Line remains the focus of attention for the Department of Defense.
But China is also a global power with extensive global economic interests and dependencies. It has purchased, leased, or otherwise imposed itself along the coastline from the western reaches of North Africa through an arc into Southeast Asia. Thus far, these investments and interests have gone mostly unchallenged. China has not had to deploy significant military forces to sustain its Belt and Road program, nor has it had to fight a deployed war. And it has relatively limited capacity to do either.
China is strong along its coastline but gets weaker and weaker the further its forces operate from its homeland sensors, maritime, air, and missile forces. In fact, none of America’s adversaries have a meaningful global power projection capability. So this out of area dynamic also applies to Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other adversaries. Competing with adversaries out of area is an excellent way to apply the great power competition aspects of irregular warfare, to stretch adversaries and, if necessary, to defeat them where they are at their weakest.
Therefore, while the Marine Corps must respond to the joint force requirements within the nine-dash line, they should also make a strong bid for the out of area competition mission. Littoral regiments and Marine support units on Okinawa have the core demand covered in the East and South China Seas. That leaves well over 100,000 other marines available for competition against the same pacing threat out of area.
Out of area competition directly overlaps with forward deployed crisis response and other specific irregular missions like mid-scale foreign internal defense. While risks, authorities, permissions, and directives for these kinds of missions will have to be managed by the White House, combatant commands, and embassies, a special operations capable Marine expeditionary unit or littoral regiment is perfectly aligned to engage in aggressive partnered exercises, freedom of movement operations, demonstrations of force, and other competitive actions targeted at China at a scale that special operations units could not achieve. It is this combination of forward presence, greater risk acceptance, scale, and ready combined arms capability that may help change Chinese (and Russian, etc.) calculus for global power projection and economic control.
Rebuilding Combined Arms Fire Support
I argued in my new book and the second installment in this series that the Force Design reduction in cannon artillery and air-delivered fires had reduced Marine Corps combat power even by the service’s own definition. As long as the Marine Corps fields a potent, combined arms, ground combat fighting capability it will need low-cost, repeatable firepower with the kind of deep magazines that at present only mortars, artillery, and air-delivered munitions can provide. This gap needs to be filled so Marines can maximize their chances to survive and win in ground combat.
Maybe when a full inventory of advanced missiles and strike drones is fielded this fires calculus will change. I do not believe it will, but at least for now the requirement for organic fires stands. This could take the form of more legacy 155mm howitzers and F-35 fighter-bombers. Better yet, the Marine Corps could further cut the outrageously expensive F-35 program, transition its standing air-to-air combat mission to the Navy, and buy quantities of cheaper, lighter, and easier-to-acquire 120mm mortars and a propeller-driven “missile sled” aircraft like the Harvest HAWK or a smaller attack aircraft — yes, even straight-line flying light propeller planes can operate on the modern battlefield. Either way, non-long-range rocket, non-drone fires need to be brought close to pre-Force Design levels to be meaningful, particularly in the dangerous gap period between the divestiture of artillery and the maturation of advanced fires.
Reconsidering Mobile Protected Firepower
Similarly, the Marine Corps needs to revisit its decision to jettison its heavier mobile protected firepower capability. It is safe to assume the big, heavy, and increasingly dated M1 Abrams tank is not coming back. However, as I argued in the second article of this series, the Amphibious Combat Vehicle that now provides firepower to marines fighting ashore is inadequate for ground combat against even a competing middleweight force. Given that the Marine Corps is still a warfighting organization and that heavy, direct firepower still provides significant advantage in war, the Marines need a better organic option.
Some have examined the idea that if marines deploy to a major war they can receive tank support from Army units, just like they did in Fallujah in 2004. However, this reliance on the Army exposes the Marine Corps to two vulnerabilities: It removes tanks from routine ground combat training, making it less likely that marines will fight effectively with tanks even if the Army provides them. And there is no guarantee the Army will be there when needed. A Marine task force is designed to be a self-contained fighting force. It needs to have its own reliable, organic mobile protected firepower or it risks losing battles.
I recommend establishing an experimental mobile protected firepower battalion. This would be a dedicated, perhaps mixed active-reserve, unit that would test, train with, provide training on, and as needed fight with some mix of new vehicles that would supplement the Amphibious Combat Vehicle with heavier fires and survivability. Plenty of options exist including the Swedish CV90120. One could imagine an urban combat engineering vehicle designed specifically to smash its way through walls and buildings, or in more open terrain to flatten bunkers with large caliber explosive rounds. Experiment-driven investments in new or even second-hand vehicles could be made thoughtfully and at reasonable cost.
Reinforcing the Need for Amphibious Lift
In the original Force Design 2030 plan, then-Commandant David Berger identified the need for a fleet of amphibious vessels that would be smaller than the larger Navy amphibious ships, more stealthy, easier to sustain, and ideally far more numerous. These vessels, now called Medium Landing Ships, were intended to move the stand-in force into position and to sustain it in combat. A smaller-vessel acquisition approach would also directly reinforce crisis response flexibility, increase reliable forward presence, and open up a range of new deployment and employment options for Marines operating in places like the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, Baltic Sea, and in other littoral spaces.
Marine leaders rightly argue that the smaller landing ship alone would not allow Marines to sustain a combined arms task force afloat. There will be a continuing need for large-deck amphibious ships into the foreseeable future. The first step here is for Marine leaders to fully jettison the going-in Force Design implication that the so-called mature precision strike regime rendered large-deck amphibs all but unsurvivable in modern warfare. It certainly has made naval operations around the nine-dash line far more dangerous. But as I argued in “A Corps Confounded,” Marines cannot simultaneously argue that amphibious vessels are all but irrelevant and that the Navy needs to maintain a ready fleet of at least 31 irrelevant ships. Amphibious vessels are less survivable near China but still functional and relevant around the rest of the world — out of area — if operated intelligently. New Marine crisis response narratives have this right. The last vestiges of the more extreme Force Design language need to be cut.
Marines need but do not have a constantly present amphibious fleet. This gap is central to the exigent threat to the Marine Corps. At least through early 2025, the Navy has not provided adequate shipping to put Marines where they need to be. So Marine leaders need to increase efforts to adapt. They need to consider more frequently deploying aboard allied amphibious vessels like the French Mistral-class ships. Commercial ship options should be considered. Marines might even team with the Army’s robust, joint-support amphibious fleet at Fort Eustis, Virginia.
In the long term, however, the Marines need full Navy commitment. Some progress towards rebuilding already been made, but it may be inadequate given pending ship retirements. By focusing on out of area great power competition and other irregular warfare activities, the Marine Corps directly increases the working need for active afloat units outside the Indo-Pacific theater. They can use these missions to further influence reluctant Navy leaders to get the amphibious fleet back online, with a mix of medium- and large-deck ships. This can all be fed into a national-level effort to reinvigorate the American shipbuilding industry: Medium Landing Ships and large-deck amphibious ships have a lower barrier to manufacturing entry and per-unit cost than comparable surface combatants.
Rebranding the Stand-in Force
In the previous article in this series I wrote that I found the term “stand-in force” uninspiring and uncharacteristically passive. I understand my opinion is worth one symbolic vote. So, I’m using that vote here to argue the Marine Corps should help reinvigorate popular support by overtly embracing the middleweight force offensive and defensive combat missions. A more characteristically aggressive approach can also help better situate the Marine Corps as a force of choice at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and across other global commands. Marine leaders should rename the stand-in force concept and recenter it on its most aggressive, most compelling subordinate mission set: seizing and defending advanced bases.
On its face, the Marine littoral regiment, which is the primary formation specifically designed to serve as the core component of stand-in forces, looks to some like it has a passive mission. It stealthily deploys small teams capable of launching missiles, drones, and loitering munitions against enemy ships and aircraft — emphasizing reconnaissance and counter-reconnaisance, precise targeting, and disrupting adversary operations to support broader military objectives. One could easily imagine just about any special operations team from any service doing similar work. What a small special operations team cannot do is violently force its way ashore against even a modestly sized conventional defending force. Nor does it have the organic defensive fires to defend any ground it seizes from a similarly capable attacking force. Marines have the organic capability to do both.
These missions (e.g., conducting offensive and defensive operations, seizing key maritime terrain, etc. ) are buried in a tentative supporting manual for the littoral regiment. They are compelling and, at least in my view, more realistic than pseudo-stealthy platoon-level operations. They open up the possibility of taking terrain away from the Chinese, or the Russians, or another adversary, and holding it for follow-on operations. These more aggressive, violent, combat-focused missions justify the need for a combined arms Marine unit centered on infantry, even for the stand-in-force concept.
The good news? Marine littoral regiment units are already practicing these operations.
I recommend retiring the term “stand-in force” and adopting a term more benefitting the aggressive culture of the Marine Corps — perhaps something like an expeditionary assault force. Whatever term is chosen, it needs to clearly convey the Marine Corps ability to project amphibious combined arms combat power into the enemy’s area of control, and to violently take and hold the enemy’s terrain. All other existing Marine littoral regiment missions would remain unchanged.
A Corps Recentered
All force designs have desired outcomes. In my view, recentering should produce a Marine Corps Americans both need and want. A recentered force delivers on its promise to support the joint force in a prospective war with China within the nine-dash line; makes itself better available for global crisis response; is recommitted to full spectrum operational readiness; and aggressively forces itself into areas and missions intentionally designed to throw adversaries off balance, deny their advantages, and position Marines to win in ground combat. Marines do not seek to replicate either special operations forces or the Army. Marines execute critical mid-scale, irregular warfare missions that no small team of operators could ever hope to accomplish. And Marines defeat small- to mid-sized adversary ground forces alone, or team up with the Army to defeat them en masse.
I fully acknowledge that all recommendations from outsiders are inevitably going to be somewhat or significantly ill-informed or practicably unachievable. Everything I have written in this article series is necessarily imperfect. But we are five years into Force Design. It is time to move on from ugly attacks and defensive groupthink to focus on practical solutions to what look like potentially existential problems for the Marine Corps. I look forward to the professional discussions to follow. I am particularly interested in the responses to the Marine Corps Association’s Rapid Response Essay Contest, which offers an opportunity for authors to propose their design for the Marine expeditionary unit of the (near) future.
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Ben Connable, PhD, is a retired Marine officer, executive director of the nonprofit Battle Research Group, adjunct professor at Georgetown University, adjunct principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, and the author of Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War.
Image: U.S. Marine Corps
warontherocks.com · June 24, 2025
16. Transform, Campaign, Repeat: Winning in the Indo-Pacific
Conclusion:
The US Army will forfeit its right to critique the next fight in the Indo-Pacific region if it is not adequately preparing and deploying lethal, combat-credible formations and capabilities today. It cannot only provide color commentary on the next fight from the wrong side of a seven-thousand-mile wet gap crossing, talking about what could have and should have been. And it cannot deploy untested capabilities at the time of need and find its soldiers digging foxholes on the island of irrelevancy. The Army is on the precipice of a major shift, where ceding key terrain is not an option. At echelon, senior leaders must drive the necessary transformation efforts to maintain the service’s legacy as the most ready and lethal army on the planet.
Transform, Campaign, Repeat: Winning in the Indo-Pacific - Modern War Institute
Ben Blane and Christopher Lee | 06.24.25
mwi.westpoint.edu · by Ben Blane · June 24, 2025
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Throughout its history, the US Army has continuously adapted itself to the environment—not out of ambition, but out of necessity, as the response to evolving global threats has always demanded new doctrine and technologies. From the dawn of the nation to the multidomain front lines of the twenty-first century, the Army has never enjoyed the luxury of standing still. The service’s relevance to the national defense strategy and the security of allies and partners depends on its ability to keep pace with an increasingly complex global threat environment. On the surface, transformation and campaigning ahead of conflict appear to be opposite—and perhaps even competing—initiatives for the US Army. Upon closer inspection of designated units in contact, however, the Army’s busy campaigning efforts across the Indo-Pacific region are accelerating rather than hindering transformation.
In response to the global environment, rather than promising delivery of a new Army or advanced capabilities as a one-time overhaul, the US Army’s most senior uniformed and civilian leaders issued a new transformation initiative that views modernization as an ongoing and iterative process, one that recognizes rapid developments in the environment. Amid the implementation of this change, senior leaders have also acknowledged that the Army is already “really busy,” with many across the force concerned that their units’ operational tempo will likely be the biggest derailer of modernization. Nevertheless, the scale of transformation expressed in this initiative cannot be accomplished in a lab or in a moment of operational pause. Additionally, as the US Army optimizes its force structure, top-heavy formations must right-size their organizations to enable, not encumber, the small units that will drive this transformation.
US Army Pacific is an example of a command leaning forward into this multidomain transformation imperative, applying new organizations, technologies, and concepts even as Army units and activities are dispersed across thousands of miles of the Indo-Pacific region. While the transformation in contact period of modernization describes the timeframe between now and 2027, units designated as part of “transformation in contact 2.0” in the Indo-Pacific are in contact with more than just a closing time window. Through campaigning, the key to this transformation is their persistent contact with an adversary, with the environment, and with partners.
Setting the Theater: Preconflict Maneuver in the Indo-Pacific
Over the past decade, nations in the Indo-Pacific region witnessed an increasingly audacious China expanding joint military activities around Taiwan and aggressively pursuing military modernization. Beijing is moving closer to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s capabilities development milestones for a military that can support China’s unification of Taiwan by 2027. Collectively, these efforts normalize China’s presence in the Indo-Pacific region, further shaping perceptions of inevitability, and set conditions for reunification on Xi’s terms. Uncontested, one can assess that China will achieve this goal below the threshold of armed conflict and in line with China’s strategic aim of winning without fighting, which will come at a great cost to the Indo-Pacific region and United States’ national interests.
While experiments and tests conducted in the continental United States may be necessary to support more distant transformation windows, they do little to reestablish deterrence in the region. The distances associated with the Indo-Pacific region make rapid response by units out of contact exceptionally challenging, with the throughput of our power projection stations underprepared to rapidly deploy forces at the scale required of this theater. China pays most attention to those capabilities with the immediate ability to impose costs and produce more rapid kill chains than those of its adversaries, thus presenting a credible impact on Beijing’s own objectives in the region.
It follows that the US Army is introducing more long-range missiles and unmanned drones into formations, some of which are already operating in the Indo-Pacific region today. Decisive application of land power onto key terrain during campaigning provides commanders options in crisis and a consistent reminder of this credible deterrence to the adversary. Put simply, combat-credible capabilities are in positions relevant to the fight and must persist in Xi’s mind, not in a distant training environment.
Deterrence through Dilemma: Shaping in Plain Sight
While campaigning supports the positioning of new technologies, transformation during campaigning is not just about delivering new stuff into priority theaters. Effective transformation efforts in the Indo-Pacific region must demonstrate a comprehensive undertaking across multiple fronts while shaping the operational environment.
If the value of land forces is that they can operate geographically dispersed, they must be able to move and function in the environment. At the small-unit level, units identify what works and what does not work, allowing them to iteratively improve and learn faster than they would in any other environment. Should the Army choose to ignore the lessons from those persistently (rather than episodically) campaigning in theater, the service will continue a costly path of delivering capabilities that are logistically burdensome and unable to contribute to the future fight.
Equally important as geographic dispersion is that these units are also technologically linked. Units in contact must build interior lines that link them all through a single unified network, which is appropriately the number one priority in transformation. This is why, as the network is the foundation for all warfighting capabilities, units in the Indo-Pacific region are building and continuously operating on a persistent, always-on network.
All forward network-focused experimentation efforts must advance the development of the Army’s ability to support a protracted fight while informing the wider Army modernization enterprise. Several US Army command post exercises focus on optimization of force structure, but only those experiments that involve command and control of live formations in theater with adequate dispersion will appropriately inform and drive these decisions. While previous iterations of Project Convergence dipped its toe into the Indo-Pacific region, recent efforts are going all in with forward experimentation and leave-behind capability for real-world operational use. The US Army, along with other military branches, continues to emphasize the importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning to enable decision-making. It is relatively simple for cyber and operational data teams to develop algorithms in home stations, but placement on key terrain with connection to the right sensors, shooters, and command nodes along with access to the right data sets is necessary to defend networks and enhance joint kill webs.
Only when executing in theater while continuously building the network—which the US Army will use to train, rehearse, experiment, and (if necessary) fight—can the US Army transform at the scale and speed relative to the nation’s pacing threat. Furthermore, the introduction of new tactics and technologies in the backyard of the pacing threat forces China to continually rethink its strategic calculus.
Regional Recalibration: Partners in Contact
In the Indo-Pacific region, transformation efforts are not limited to the US Army. Other US military branches—though longstanding players in the region—are far from defenders of the status quo. In the summer of 2025, the US Air Force will deploy nearly three hundred aircraft spread across twenty-five locations during Resolute Force Pacific, which will stress the service’s Agile Combat Employment concept using new technologies and theater-level experimentation efforts. Lead-up exercises to this event have also integrated US Navy surface vessels and US Army land-based fires. The Navy-led exercise Valiant Shield 24, once limited to a series of unilateral joint rehearsals spread across the Second Island Chain (Guam, Marianas islands, and Palau), for the first time ever expanded to include partner nations with execution throughout the First Island Chain (Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines) testing Distributed Maritime Operations in contested locations. This exercise is unlikely to ever return to a unilateral event contained to the Second Island Chain. The US Marine Corps, undergoing its own force design transformation efforts, is also employing prototype systems in the Indo-Pacific region within major joint exercises. If key players in the US Army elect not to participate, they will miss out on the limited number of joint rehearsals left before the transformation in contact window closes.
Over a dozen partnered nations in theater are also recalibrating their defensive postures, restructuring their forces, and forging new alliances in response to the rising challenges posed by an increasingly aggressive China. Campaigning puts the United States alongside allies and partners. Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, and the Philippines have all shifted focus onto the most prescient threat in the Indo-Pacific region and have begun their own transformation efforts to support multidomain operations. Learning from one another helps advance our own tactics and technologies while further contributing to the build of enduring interior lines. If the US Army is not signaling commitment by operating side by side with partners, we forfeit the competitive advantage necessary to operate and win in this theater.
Transforming the Army Now for the Future
To ensure the continued lethality of the US Army, it must transform, not just change, where the transformation effects are iterative, yet not incremental. The resulting transformation must be profound, organization-wide, and disruptive. The transformation must fundamentally reorient the organization (in strategy, structure, and processes) so drastically that it can never return to its previous state. The US Army’s transformation largely stagnated during the post-9/11 wars and global counterterrorism focus. The redoubled emphasis on transformation, combined with a shift in focus to China as the pacing threat means that formations in the Indo-Pacific region, like the Army corps and division, function very differently than they did a decade ago. But that is not enough. The corps and division in 2027 should look and operate differently than they do in 2025. More important than the doctrine and technology that develops in that time are the organizations and the application of that doctrine and technology in theater.
US Army senior leaders must maximize time during campaigning to exercise multidomain combat operations at scale. They should prioritize and pay attention to experiments in the Indo-Pacific region, which, due to the complexity associated with distances and extreme environmental conditions, will inform all other efforts. Small units must maximize this experimentation in the environment to validate and invalidate concepts, identify what works, and divest what does not work, which includes a focus on only the training necessary to fight and win. Every exercise is an opportunity to identify facilities and storage locations for prepositioned stocks and leave-behind equipment. During the acquisition process, as Army units attempt to get lighter and leaner, these units must contemplate what they can actually transport around the battlefield with consideration for universal mobility standards (e.g., the twenty-foot equivalent unit). Industry and bureaucracies take a long time to change, but the nature of war can change instantly. While US Army leaders are adjusting acquisition processes, units must not accept the status quo. Transformation in contact cannot simply be a buzzword; it must define a bias towards action.
The US Army will forfeit its right to critique the next fight in the Indo-Pacific region if it is not adequately preparing and deploying lethal, combat-credible formations and capabilities today. It cannot only provide color commentary on the next fight from the wrong side of a seven-thousand-mile wet gap crossing, talking about what could have and should have been. And it cannot deploy untested capabilities at the time of need and find its soldiers digging foxholes on the island of irrelevancy. The Army is on the precipice of a major shift, where ceding key terrain is not an option. At echelon, senior leaders must drive the necessary transformation efforts to maintain the service’s legacy as the most ready and lethal army on the planet.
Lieutenant Colonel Ben Blane’s most recent position was as the commander for the Army’s first long-range fires battalion as part of the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. He holds an undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy and graduate degrees from Columbia University and John Jay College. He has multiple deployments and experience throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Lee is an Indo-Pacific foreign area officer for HQDA G-3/5/7. He holds an undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy and graduate degrees from Columbia University and UCLA.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Brandon Rickert, US Army
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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Ben Blane · June 24, 2025
17. Preparedness and Parallels: Lessons in Crisis Preparedness from Sweden and Latin America
Excerpts:
Sweden’s handbook is a valuable tool for disseminating essential crisis response information in an increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape, exemplified by Russia’s war in Ukraine. But it also reveals limitations in translating knowledge to practical citizen readiness when compared to Latin American cases. This disparity underscores the critical need for countries to reevaluate their civil defense strategies, moving beyond theoretical frameworks to implement actionable, community-based preparedness plans while including irregular warfare-focused education and practice.
Future research could benefit from exploring community-based approaches and their applicability in the European context. The long-term impact of sustained educational initiatives on crisis response warrants further examination. Additionally, analyzing how war related-crisis response is integrated in countries with low levels of threat in this specific area would be a valuable contribution.
Governments must prioritize and invest in comprehensive, practical, and community-centric preparedness programs. These programs should move beyond mere guides, instead including practical actions at the ground level. Fostering a culture of readiness through continuous education, drills, and robust community engagement can significantly mitigate the impact of future crises, whether natural or man-made.
Preparedness and Parallels: Lessons in Crisis Preparedness from Sweden and Latin America
irregularwarfare.org · by Jorge Delgado Golusda · June 24, 2025
Europe’s current geopolitical instability amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 has awakened fears of a larger war. The region’s growing complacency following decades of stability was largely a product of strong alliances, economic power, and NATO’s protective presence. But this period of calm has revealed low levels of crisis response preparedness and military readiness. The conflict in Ukraine now compels European nations to reevaluate preparedness for kinetic conflicts while strengthening government-to-citizen information sharing critical for coordinated crisis response. In today’s security environment where irregular warfare tactics increasingly target civilian populations, national preparedness must extend beyond traditional military readiness to include a society’s resilience against hybrid operations.
Take the case of Sweden. The handbook “In Case of Crisis or War.” is at the heart of their renewed focus. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency designed this document to help equip citizens with essential knowledge and practical skills for navigating emergencies. Delving into this publication, one can see strategies for fostering national preparedness. Examining this handbook can also illuminate the broader global landscape of crisis communication, drawing parallels with similar initiatives in other countries and regions. Latin America, a region with relative stability, has lacked major conflicts since the Cenepa War in 1995. But natural disasters are a persistent threat. Non-traditional security challenges also test social resilience and require that populations are prepared to take action in a whole-of-society response. Such a response determines whether a state rises or fails to meet the test. A comparison of Sweden’s approach reveals both universal principles and culturally-specific nuances that shape national preparedness in an increasingly uncertain world.
A first step, not a final solution
The Swedish handbook is unique as an informative tool. The handbook provides vision and guidance for crisis response, covering a wide range of potential emergencies. This aligns with the Swedish Government’s bill, Total Defense 2021-2025, which identified civil defense as a core component of citizen readiness. The bill acknowledged that Sweden was unprepared to face certain crises, proposing areas to strengthen the civil defense system. This easily accessible guidance aimed to increase individual citizen readiness and self-sufficiency.
The handbook highlights a few of these areas effectively, including an official “emergency warning and information system,” designated places “to take cover in a shelter or other protective place,” and the level of protection each provides. It also uniquely focuses on how “foreign powers and others outside Sweden use disinformation, misinformation and propaganda.” This gives readers useful information for numerous social challenges during emergencies, broadening the scope of information available to civilians beyond how the government would react to a conventional scenario. The scope expands to consider emerging threats that could fall under the umbrella of irregular warfare. Given its scope, the handbook is best understood as a first response to prevailing need. This is a publication for mass dissemination following a long stretch with none.
The capacity of authorities and preparation of populations in times of peace can be a measure of a country’s crisis response efficiency. The handbook’s examples of voluntary participation in civil defense organizations, blood donation, and CPR courses can be promoted to foster awareness and habitual engagement. Ideally, this continuous process would start in primary education and continue into adulthood. While instilling these practices in adults later is challenging, integrating preparedness into early education and civic routine at the municipality level is critical because they are usually the first entities to actively respond in the field.
However, despite its strengths, the handbook reveals some weaknesses at the granular level. It does not achieve the essential objective of capturing the attention of citizens in basic elements of survival in a crisis. The authors intended the handbook’s broad dissemination to a general population. This generality sacrifices focus on practical application. To overcome this, authorities should assume a national standard of preparedness for civilians. This can account for various factors, including the heterogeneous population and differences in access to resources tied up with complex geography. Geography is a critical factor in the Scandinavian countries. These manuals should aim to give practical and narrow examples of what a person could do in response to a crisis.
The handbook provides a key example. It notes that “in the event of serious accidents, crisis, threats of war, or war, warnings may be issued in various ways” at the country level. Although the handbook adequately explains the use, meaning, and types of alarms, practical implementation with the civilian population is missing. In other words, this section only addresses what should be done. This limitation also applies to evacuations. While the handbook explains the need to evacuate to safe locations, how to effectively evacuate is missing. Such efforts of this magnitude must be routinely planned, tested, and rehearsed with the population. Preparation can reduce the crisis’s impact. If unpracticed, the risk of failing to reach desired effects increases.
The Handbook and Groundwork: Application in Latin America
While Sweden invests in emergency guides, the question remains: how does this translate to genuine citizen readiness, especially when compared with emergency responses in other regions of the world like Latin America? Is a well-crafted handbook enough for all scenarios? This comparison raises critical questions about the effectiveness of preparedness strategies in different contexts. This is particularly relevant when comparing developed countries such as Sweden with lesser ones. Latin America is sometimes considered absent of regional inter-state conflict except in domestic armed conflicts like in Colombia’s. But Latin America routinely experiences destructive natural disasters, forcing governments to adopt strategies to mitigate the harm these events cause.
To test the handbook in Latin America, approaches can be compared among coastal Andean countries including Ecuador, Peru and Chile. These countries perennially face the challenges natural disasters pose due to their geographical location. They are prone to earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and more. This situation offers real-world scenarios to evaluate citizen preparedness and government emergency systems. Each of these countries share common elements in their approach to emergency response.
First, specialized agencies like SENAPRED in Chile, CENEPRED in Peru, and SNGRE in Ecuador do state-level planning together with interagency coordination and emergency response. These agencies developed risk studies for specific territorial planning through their experience over time. They have learned that understanding geographic diversity, quality of construction, and population characteristics in each area requires unique responses.
Second, each country promotes national preparedness through education, starting at primary school and continuing on afterward. This raises awareness of risks and emergency mitigation measures. Additionally, early warning systems operate through a variety of audiovisual sources such as television, radio, and cell phones, all coupled with an alarm system that government institutions manage in assigned coverage areas. The continuous drills at the municipal level involve all citizens and are an important part of risk mitigation. In the case of coastal cities, local populations practice identifying assigned routes and assembly areas on higher ground, increasing readiness and implementing new technologies through these exercises.
Finally, Latin American countries integrate specialists, their armed forces, NGOs and other stakeholders to implement robust response systems. This ensures broad humanitarian assistance capabilities enabling rapid infrastructure reconstruction and effective service delivery during emergencies.
Latin American countries rely heavily on citizen preparedness given resource constraints. This approach emphasizes strong infrastructure, public education, civic engagement, and long-term investment strategies ensuring government continuity regardless of shifting political agendas. Governments rely on a community-driven, bottom-up approach to responses, underscoring the necessity of continuous drills and sustained public education to mitigate civilian harm.
Hurricane Helene provides an opportunity to compare how these systems work. Hurricane Helene struck the southeastern United States in 2024, killing at least 250 people and extensively damaging infrastructure. In 2014, an 8.4 magnitude earthquake struck Chile. The epicenter was 175 miles north of Chile’s capital, Santiago. The aftermath? Just 11 people died, while infrastructure had minor damage. Multiple factors influence disaster outcomes. Things like population density, building codes, and geographic conditions contribute. Chile’s decades-long investment in earthquake preparedness, regular drills, and public education likely played a significant role in this stark difference in casualties.
Bridging the gap
Commonalities arise when comparing the responses between some Latin America states and Sweden. Both responses mitigate civilian harm with similar planning, preparedness, and execution, though Sweden’s range of challenges is broader and Latin America focuses more narrowly on disaster response.
Both models for disaster mitigation focus on proactive planning that fosters awareness. But Sweden’s handbook prioritizes individual self-preparation over Latin America’s collective system of support. Regardless, the examples of Sweden and Latin America show that long-term planning can help reduce costs for emergency preparedness. This planning can also produce a population better trained for disaster response and survival regardless of their participation in government or civil defense.
The Swedish and Latin American examples also reduce reliance on basic services in crisis, if implemented effectively across the population. However, the handbook has its shortcomings. It suggests that the population can contribute to collective preparedness if they can manage on their own “for at least one week.” Events in Ukraine demonstrate that the uncertainty of future scenarios frustrates one’s ability to know when the civilian population will have access to services provided by the state. The magnitude of a given natural disaster and its geographic dispersion can strain basic services even more, potentially leaving isolated populations on their own for survival for weeks or longer.
On the other hand, Latin American countries can glean valuable lessons of war-related crisis preparedness from the handbook. The absence of conflicts in Latin America may indicate a lack of adequate education and preparation for civilian populations in threats unique to armed conflicts. Relative stability may also dampen proactiveness among Latin American governments. Peace and regional stability can be easily taken for granted. The handbook emphasizes preparing the civilian population for the potential consequences of war. It addresses issues related to irregular warfare as a way to mitigate the effects caused by confusion, fear, and disinformation among Sweden’s citizens while promoting social resilience through a “whole-of-society” defense.
In this sense, the handbook is a useful document, but it is also limited by its fundamentally reactive approach. Governments must understand that crisis response, regardless of type, is a permanent endeavor requiring regular rehearsal. The current focus on Sweden’s civil defense targets a particular group whose mission is to support the work of the Swedish government and its armed forces. This sidelines education and field work with the entire citizenry. Including the latter could reduce the inevitable chaos in such cases. The handbook does promote better coordination of government work, improved allocation of resources, and more realistic future planning for more comprehensive scenarios with context-specific strategies.
A path forward
Sweden’s handbook is a valuable tool for disseminating essential crisis response information in an increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape, exemplified by Russia’s war in Ukraine. But it also reveals limitations in translating knowledge to practical citizen readiness when compared to Latin American cases. This disparity underscores the critical need for countries to reevaluate their civil defense strategies, moving beyond theoretical frameworks to implement actionable, community-based preparedness plans while including irregular warfare-focused education and practice.
Future research could benefit from exploring community-based approaches and their applicability in the European context. The long-term impact of sustained educational initiatives on crisis response warrants further examination. Additionally, analyzing how war related-crisis response is integrated in countries with low levels of threat in this specific area would be a valuable contribution.
Governments must prioritize and invest in comprehensive, practical, and community-centric preparedness programs. These programs should move beyond mere guides, instead including practical actions at the ground level. Fostering a culture of readiness through continuous education, drills, and robust community engagement can significantly mitigate the impact of future crises, whether natural or man-made.
Jorge Delgado Golusda is a Major in the Chilean Army with 20 years of service. His assignments have taken him to lead soldiers in disaster relief and emergency response missions in Chile and two peacekeeping deployments with the United Nations in the Middle East and the European Union Forces in Bosnia & Herzegovina. He has an extensive career in education that spans over 12 years as a professor and in academic management roles in the Chilean Armed Forces educational institutions. He holds a Bachelor’s in Military Science from the Chilean Military Academy, a Bachelor’s in Social Science from Diego Portales University, and a Master of International Development Policy from Duke University. Jorge is currently serving as Head of Academics of the Non-Commisioned Officer Academy of the Chilean Army and is the Director of IWI’s Fellows Program.
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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Image: Front Cover of the handbook “In Case of Crisis or War.”
irregularwarfare.org · by Jorge Delgado Golusda · June 24, 2025
18. Special Operations News – Monday, June 23, 2025
Special Operations News – Monday, June 23, 2025
https://sof.news/update/20250623/
June 23, 2025 SOF News Update 0
Curated news, analysis, and commentary about special operations, national security, and conflicts around the world.
Photo / Image: The graphic prepared by the Joint Staff above was presented during a Department of Defense briefing on Operation Midnight Hammer, the attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, that took place early on Sunday morning, June 22, 2025. Click here for a larger view of the above image.
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SOF News
New SEL for USSOCOM. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Andrew J. Krogman, currently assigned as the Command Senior Enlisted Leader for Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has been selected to replace Army Command Sgt. Maj. Shane Shorter, as the command senior enlisted leader, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.
Operation Eagle Claw. A plan to free American hostages in Iran ended in disaster on April 24, 1980. The tragedy led to an overhaul of U.S. special operations. “Operation Eagle Claw and the genesis of Joint Special Ops”, by Kyle Gunn, Task & Purpose, June 17, 2025.
Iran, SOF, and Nuclear Materials. Ground operations in Iran could be needed to secure dangerous nuclear materials and verify the program’s destruction, especially if the regime falls. Read more in “Loose Nukes in Iran is a Scenario U.S. Special Operators Have Been Training For”, The War Zone, June 18, 2025.
International SOF
Israel’s Eyes. The Combat Intelligence Collection Corps (CICC) of the Israel Defense Forces is a specialized ground forces corps tasked with frontline intelligence and surveillance. Their general mission is to prevent hostile activity and defend Israel’s borders by gathering real-time combat intelligence. “Combat Intelligence Collection Corps: Eyes of Israel’s Army”, Grey Dynamics, June 12, 2025.
Russia’s Africa Corps. The Wagner Group is being replaced over time by the Africa Corps. This new organization is under the direct control of the Russian Defense Ministry. This reduces the possibility of the Africa Corps of acting against Russia’s interests; but it also puts Russia on the hook for its activities in Africa. “The Wagner Group is Leaving Mali. But Russian Mercenaries Aren’t Going Anywhere”, RAND Corporation, June 12, 2025.
Norway’s Security Service. Norway’s Police Security Service (PST) was established in 1937, the intelligence agency is responsible for counterterrorism, counterespionage, investigating organized crime, and tracking political extremism. “PST: The Norwegian MI5”, by Daniel Blanco Paz, Grey Dynamics, June 18, 2025.
Mali’s SOF Command. An African country experiencing a decade of insurgent activity has created a Special Operations Command (COS). It will have a special operations battalion, a counterterrorism force, an airborne intervention unit, and a reconnaissance group. “Mali: The creation of the COS, a new era in the struggle for security and peace”, Sahel Liberty News, June 19, 2025.
Finnish SUPO. The Suojelupoliisi (SUPO), Finland’s Security and Intelligence Service, is the country’s primary national intelligence agency. With around 584 employees, it is tasked with protecting Finland and its citizens from terrorism, espionage, and other hybrid threats. “Suojelupoliisi (SUPO): Finnish Security and Intelligence Service”, Grey Dynamics, June 9, 2025.
SOF History
On June 24, 1957, the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) was activated. On of its first missions was the deployment of training teams to South Vietnam. https://www.specialforceshistory.info/groups/1sfga.html
On July 25, 1957, the Australian 1st Special Air Service Company was established at Campbell Barracks in Perth. On September 4, 1964, it was reestablished as the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) when the company became a regiment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Air_Service_Regiment
27 June 27 – PTSD Awareness Day.
Israel – Iran Conflict
Operation Midnight Hammer. The attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities this past weekend was conducted by hundreds of U.S. Air Force fighters, tankers, and bombers. Naval forces also participated. Israeli aircraft attacked numerous air defense sites in Iran the preceding 48 hours.
B-2 “Spirt” Bombers and Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. Several B-2 “Spirit” bombers along with refueling tankers left the U.S. and began crossing the Pacific Ocean preceding the attack to stage in Guam. Much of the media followed their progress, but it was a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders in Washington. However, the attack was conducted by B-2s leaving via the east coast and flying over the Atlantic to the target area. Six B2s hit one target (Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, The Hill, 19 June 2025) while a single B2 hit a second target. This was the first operation use of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator “bunker buster” bomb.
Cruise Missiles. Naval Tomahawk cruise missiles launched by submarine attacked the second and third targets – with 30 missiles launched by submarines. The sub was operating in CENTCOM’s area of responsibility. The missiles along with the MOPs totaled approximately 75 precision-guided weapons used in the attack.
Israel’s Campaign Aims. The objective of Israel’s campaign is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to alter Iran’s behavior in the Middle East. Zohar Palti, a former head of the Mossad intelligence directorate, and others provide their views on the current conflict. With the recent U.S. attack on three nuclear sites in Iran, the hope is that Iran will now come to the negotiation table to resolve the issue of Iran producing a nuclear weapon. “From Diplomacy to Military Force: The Future of Iran’s Nuclear Program”, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy”, June 17, 2025.
Commandos and Drones. The Israeli Operation Rising Lion was an example of how commandos can infiltrate cheap drones into a conflict area, knock out radar and air defense systems, and then allow airpower to come it and hit high-payoff and time sensitive targets. “Ungentlemanly Robots: Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and the New Way of War”, Commentary, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), June 13, 2025.
Ukraine Conflict
Not noticed in the media that last few days due to all eyes on the Middle East is the relentless attack on Ukrainian civilian targets by Russian drones. The numbers of drones attacking each day and night has increased due to the drone manufacturing capability of the Russians. While the Russians are having success in attacking civilian targets in Ukrainian cities their progress on the ground is very slow resulting in numerous casualties each day. However, the Russians have been able to increase their combat power at the front over time, and they continue to grind away at the Ukrainian defenses.
An Analysis of Operation Spider’s Web – with Some History. Ben Connable provides a history lesson that reveals that the use of drones is not a new concept, and that unconventional or irregular warfare has been around for a while. The recent Ukrainian operation where commandos infiltrated deep into Russia to destroy as many as 40 Russian aircraft has been cited by many analysts as a revolutionary tactic. But Connable cautions us on this idea. Read his thoughts in “Putting Operation Spider’s Web in Context”, Irregular Warfare Initiative, June 20, 2025.
References:
Sudan Conflict
UAE Drones in Sudan? The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been targeting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the Port Sudan area with drone strikes since early May. Power stations, ammunition depots, oil infrastructure are targeted. Some reports say that MALE-class drones are being provided by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These drones are referred to as medium altitude long endurance (30 hours 30,000 feet). The UAE has several variants of drones to include the MQ-9 provided by the United States. The Chinese Wing Loog-II has been used in Africa by UAE as well.
Commentary
IW on the Sea Floor. Andrew Rolander is an Irregular Warfare and Strategic Competition analyst supporting the US Department of Defense. He has penned an essay that stresses the importance of the vast array of undersea communications networks and the strategic vulnerability that they present. Over 95% of international data transverse through these submerged pathways. “Irregular Warfare on the Sea Floor and the Case for Naitonal Resilience”, Small Wars Journal, May 30, 2025.
Cheap Drones and U.S. Defense. Jack Barry, a former special operations Blackhawk pilot, explains why the United States must harden its energy infrastructure and protect valuable military targets from inexpensive drones that could be employed in the U.S. homeland. “Cheap Drones Are America’s Open Door to Disaster”, Special Operations Association of America, June 19, 2025.
US Vet Aid Groups in Conflict Zones? Crossing the Line? Retired military officers are now delivering humanitarian aid using private contracting firms. These firms are delivering aid to some of the world’s crisis areas that are also zones of conflict. The international aid community is speaking out – saying it is a dangerous path to follow. But the American contractors – some currently working is Gaza and South Sudan – say that they are putting their security, logistics, and intelligence skills to work in relief operations. Read more in “Firms led by US military veterans deliver aid in Africa and Gaza, alarming humanitarian groups”, AP News, June 18, 2025. See also “Fogbow operations in South Sudan and beyond raise red flags for faltering aid system”, The New Humanitarian, June 16, 2025.
Gray Zone. Some security analysts believe we are now in a “hybrid Cold War” – a persistent state of competition that blends conventional capabilities with irregular tactics, cyber, and information warfare. Read more in “Quantifying the Gray Zone: A Framework for Measuring Hybrid Warfare Power Balances”, Small Wars Journal, June 17, 2025.
National Security
Greenland and NORTHCOM. The Danish territory known as Greenland has been in the news over the past few months. The Pentagon is redrawing the alignment of where Greenland is placed under combatant commands. It is being moved from EUCOM to NORTHCOM. “Pentagon shifts Greenland to US Northern Command in shakeup”, Defense News, June 17, 2025.
“African Initiative”. Russian intelligence assets are associated with a clandestine pro-Russian online operation that seeks to expand Moscow’s influence in Africa. The campaign is using grassroot activists and social media. The information operations (IO) campaign is being conducted through the “African Initiative”. This organization publishes in five languages, including French and English. “Russia targeted French speakers in Africa with AI-generated posts”, Le Monde, June 13, 2025.
“Golden Dome”. Israel’s “Iron Dome” is getting a lot of press over the past month. So is a proposed next-generation missile defense shield that the Trump administration is proposing. The shield would defend against nuclear and conventional attacks. There are some potential strategic stability considerations, feasibility questions, and budgeting concerns. Read more in “Golden Dome: Potential Strategic Stability Considerations for Congress”, Congressional Research Service (CRS), 20 June 2025.
Old Salt Coffee is a corporate sponsor of SOF News. The company offers a wide range of coffee flavors to include Green Eyes Coffee, a tribute to those Navy special operations personnel who operate in the night.
Afghanistan
Abandoning Our Allies. Thousands of Afghans who risked their lives helping the United States in Afghanistan over the past two decades are now at risk. With the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021 Afghans who served as interpreters and in other positions supporting the U.S. fled to the United States. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security ended the Temporary Protected Status for some 10,000 Afghans who made their way to the U.S. after being flown on U.S. military planes from Kabul to U.S. military destinations in the Middle East and Europe. The Afghans were processed at those ‘Lily Pads’ and later on U.S. military bases in the U.S. Many U.S. veterans of the Afghan war are deeply disappointed in the determination of the DHS. Read more in “Abandoning our Afghan allies is a moral and strategic mistake”, by Luke Coffey, The Hill, June 18, 2025.
Afghanistan War Commission Public Hearing. The AWC’s next public hearing will be held on Monday, June 23, 2025, in the U.S. Senate building. The focus of the AWC’s third hearing will be key decisions surrounding the 2009-2012 surge in U.S. military and civilian personnel deployed to Afghanistan by President Barack Obama. Expert witnesses who served in senior military, intelligence, diplomatic, and policy roles during the administration of President Obama, as well as Afghan officials who served during the administration of President Hamid Karzai, will testify. The hearing is open to the public and will be broadcast live. (link to info and YouTube broadcast)
Africa
Russian Military Equipment for Africa. Cargo ships leaving the Baltic Sea are making a month-long journey to seaports along Africa’s western shore. Once there, loads of military equipment are off-loaded onto trucks and transported to countries where Russia’s Africa Corps has a presence. In locations where the Russian mercenary Wagner Group still exists, there is transition from Wagner Group to the Russian Africa Corps. The shipped military equipment includes radio jamming, armored vehicles, and other military supplies. “Russia skirts Western sanctions to ramp up its military footprint in Africa”, AP News, June 10, 2025.
Africa Corps Replaces Wagner Group. After several years of assisting the government of Mali in the fight against Jihadist the Russian mercenary group is departing the country. The Russian presence is not going away. The Russian state-controlled paramilitary group called “Africa Corps” is replacing the Wagner Group fighters. As the western presence in Mali has diminished, Russia has stepped into the void. “Wagner Group leaving Mali after heavy losses but Russia’s Africa Corps to remain”, AP News, June 6, 2025.
Al-Shabaab Offensive in Somalia. A strategic village, El Hareri (Google Maps), in central Somalia has been seized by the jihadist group. The insurgents have stepped up operations in Somalia prompting concern that the President is more concerned with politics than fighting Al-Shabaab. “Al-Shabaab Seizes Strategic Area Amid Fierce Clashes in Central Somalia”, Garowe Online, June 12, 2025.
Books, Podcasts, Videos, and Movies
Book: The Hand Behind Unmanned: Origins of the US Autonomous Arsenal. A new book published by Oxford University Press (2025) investigates the dominance of today’s unmanned weapons. Wars in the Middle East and Ukraine show the ‘unmanned revolution’ in stark relief. Read more about what the book is all about in “Subverted By Drones”, Hoover Institute, June 20, 2025.
https://www.hoover.org/research/subverted-drones
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October 13-16, 2025
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19. A Nuclear Iran Would Pose an Existential Threat to the South Caucasus
A Nuclear Iran Would Pose an Existential Threat to the South Caucasus
by Rufat Ahmadzada
|
06.24.2025 at 06:00am
Iran’s nuclear program remains a focus of international politics with the announcement of the fifth round of talks between the US and Iran on limiting the nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions. Since that announcement, current events have intervened and cashiered those tasks. In its attempt to forge a nuclear deal with Iran, the Trump administration has outlined the US position, which requires Tehran to terminate its enrichment program fully. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has criticized the demand that Iran stop enriching uranium on Iranian soil, while also expressing his doubts about the success of the talks. US Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff argued that Iran should not be allowed to possess enrichment capabilities and declared such capabilities a red line. Iran’s official position, however, rejects the US demand and sticks to the traditional Iranian narrative that Tehran will continue the enrichment process with or without a deal.
The negotiations and divergent positions of both sides indicate that the outcome of the talks is unclear, and Iran’s nuclear program will continue to be a pivotal topic in international relations at least for the foreseeable future. Now that Iran has gained the tools and necessary knowledge of enrichment technology and is approaching the weaponization stage, it is unrealistic to think that Iran will completely terminate its enrichment capabilities without the pressure of a war or regime change. Structural realist Kenneth Waltz claims that if Iran becomes a nuclear power, it would bring a nuclear balance and stability vis-à-vis Israel in the Middle East. However, it is worth critically reviewing this argument in the context of the South Caucasus region, particularly Azerbaijan, as this challenges Waltz’s notions.
Analyzing Waltz’s Framework Through an Offensive Realist Lens
In his 2012 article “Why Iran Should Get The Bomb,” Waltz argues that trying to dissuade a country from seeking a nuclear weapon via sanctions and isolation does not yield a positive result, as the case of North Korea illustrates. Waltz formulates three end scenarios regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The first scenario is that Tehran might be compelled to end its nuclear program in the face of heightened international sanctions and diplomacy. The second outcome scenario is that Iran develops a breakthrough capability but stops short of testing a nuclear weapon. The third would see Iran conducting a nuclear blast test.
It’s worth mentioning the first outcome regarding the Iranian nuclear program outlined by Waltz – in particular that international sanctions and increased diplomatic pressure have failed to achieve a meaningful result – as even with the past nuclear deal, the JCPOA has not been able to fully stop Iran’s enrichment capabilities in exchange for sanctions relief. The second possible prediction that Iran will acquire the capability but not test a nuclear weapon can be applied to the current situation, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Iran as on the “threshold of a nuclear weapon.” Waltz’s central argument is based on the assumption that Israel’s nuclear edge in the Middle East creates an imbalance, and that Iran’s intention is to provide a nuclear balance, thereby creating deterrence between Israel and Iran. However, considering Iran’s regional policies over the last decades, as well as its foreign policy instruments such as using surrogates and proxy forces to destabilize its neighbors and the entire region, one can argue that the notion of Iran’s possession of nuclear capabilities would create “stability” through a nuclear balance does not stand scrutiny.
Waltz also falls short in his argument that if Iran wants to acquire nuclear weapons, it is in order to improve its own security, not to improve its offensive capabilities. The ideological nature of the Iranian regime, alongside its expansionist foreign and security policies, challenges the Waltzian notion. Iran’s increasing ballistic missile capabilities and drone production (which are being used by Russia in Ukraine), coupled with the arming of its proxies such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas (which attacked Israel on 7 October 2023), is an indication that the Iranian nuclear program will facilitate Iran’s offensive nuclear capabilities.
Waltz also overlooks the domestic dimension and variables, meaning the imperialist tendencies within Iran, as well as variables in perception, such as the worldviews of the key decision-maker Supreme Leader Khamanei, and IRGC leaders. Moreover, Waltz’s argument that Iran is striving to ensure its own security if it wants to possess nuclear weapons is questionable in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, which has shown repeatedly that having a nuclear deterrent does not shield a country from attack and loss of territory via conventional means.
While structural realists view the international system as anarchic and see states as striving at a minimum to ensure their survival, the offensive realist perspective explains state behavior more accurately than defensive realism. In fact, the anarchic nature of the international system directs states to maximize security, and to do so, they have to maximize relative power. Regardless of specific threats, states will try to expand their power. As security is not guaranteed under the anarchic international system, states maximize power to ensure their security. States tend to maximize their power and influence in the absence of a specific military threat, as they do not know when a potential threat will arise.
As Mearsheimer argues, states maximize their relative power over other states because having a greater military advantage over other states ensures their security. The notion that Iran possessing nuclear weapons is about ensuring Iranian security and creating a nuclear balance fails to address the offensive nature of Iranian foreign and security policies in the region as well as its expansionist approaches. An offensive realist perspective explains Iran’s nuclear program strategy accordingly, as Iran’s track record and foreign policy instruments show it takes a hegemonic approach in the region to maximize its influence over neighboring countries and increase its relative power, thereby solidifying its position as a powerhouse. Waltz viewed Iran’s nuclear strategy vis-à-vis Israel in the Middle East, but a nuclear-armed Iran would have a very different geopolitical role in a region like the South Caucasus, sandwiched between two rogue, imperialist regimes – Russia and Iran – both with a historical, colonial appetite for the states squeezed between them. Considering Russia and Iran are strategic allies and share common geopolitical views of the West and of curtailing the foreign policies and agencies of the regional states in the South Caucasus, particularly Azerbaijan, a nuclear armed Iran will not create a balance but push the regional actors towards Russia against their will, considering that NATO membership following the events in Georgia and Ukraine is unlikely. According to Robert Gilpin, “as the power of a state increases, it seeks to extend its territorial control, its political influence, and/or its domination of the international economy”. Thus, a nuclear-armed Iran would engage in solidifying and maximizing its geopolitical goals and interests in its neighboring countries, creating more instability.
Iran’s Nuclear Program and Security Risks to Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus
The lessons of Russia’s imperialist war of aggression against Ukraine and Russian official narratives, such as the rejection of Ukrainian identity and statehood, are proof that Iran’s nuclear program and potential weaponization of it pose an existential security risk to Azerbaijan as an independent country and the South Caucasus region in general. Iranian imperialist inclinations and ambitions, coupled with a historical and political grudge towards Azerbaijani identity and statehood, as well as Azerbaijan’s location as the only country in the world sharing both land and sea borders with Russia and Iran, would put the country’s security at risk. In addition, Azerbaijan’s close ally, Turkey, which does not possess a military nuclear capability, will not be a counterweight in the geopolitical environment in which Azerbaijan might find itself, surrounded by two nuclear-armed imperialist states. Iran prefers a weak Azerbaijan on its northern border. Using Armenia and its irredentist policies against Baku, nuclear Iran might further embolden Armenian revanchist circles and destabilize the region. Iran may increase its attempts to destabilize Azerbaijan via proxy groups such as the Huseyniyyun brigade, as Tehran wishes to curtail and reduce Azerbaijan’s independent foreign policy by any means. In the event of a nuclear deal, even Iran will be able to use the lifting of sanctions to increase its political and economic role in Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus region, including via soft power and proxies. Thus, Iran reaching a nuclear agreement with the United States or acquiring a weapon both pose potential risks.
The Iran-Russia 20-year strategic pact, which was signed recently, also points to the fact that both Moscow and Tehran will further cooperate and stand against a Western role in the region. The increasing Iranian-Russian military cooperation in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine is also a point of concern, taking into account that both countries are heavily sanctioned internationally, and sanctions do not pose an obstacle to the growing trade and military ties between the two. Azerbaijan’s geopolitical and geostrategic position as a link between the West and Central Asia bypassing both Russia and Iran, creates irritants in Moscow and Tehran. Iran’s staunch opposition to Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization is evident in its stance against the Zangezur corridor, as Tehran does not want to lose leverage in the South Caucasus as Armenia’s close ally. The facilitation of the transfer of Indian weapons to Armenia and the transfer of Russian weapons to Armenia via Iranian soil, amidst reports that Iran sold more than half a billion dollars worth of weapons to Yerevan, also illustrates the fact that the Iranian regime continues to be a source of destabilization in the region. In short, a nuclear Iran allied with Russia cannot establish a nuclear balance in the South Caucasus region; rather it will increase security risks and pose an existential threat to independence, mainly of Azerbaijan and Georgia.
By analyzing Kenneth Waltz’s argument that a nuclear balance would represent stability in the case of Iran, this article considers Iran’s nuclear program in the context of the South Caucasus region, viewing Iran’s state behavior in foreign affairs through an offensive realist lens. Contrary to Waltz’s claim that a nuclear Iran would create stability and balance vis-à-vis Israel in the Middle East, this paper argues that it will not do so in the case of the South Caucasus, as both Russia and Iran share common foreign policy goals and are allies with deep seated imperialist ambitions towards countries like Azerbaijan. As Russia’s war against Ukraine shows, direct imperialist activities by a nuclear Iran cannot be excluded in the future, taking into account the strong expansionist, revanchist, and imperialist sentiments inside the country and the perceptions of its leaders. Overall, a nuclear Iran will increase instability in its neighborhood.
Tags: Conflict Realism, Influence, Iran, Iran nuclear weapons, South Caucasus
About The Author
- Rufat Ahmadzada
- Rufat Ahmadzada is a Ph.D researcher at the University of Exeter and a graduate of City St George’s, University of London. His research area covers Azerbaijan, Iran, and the South Caucasus region.
20. Iran Claims Ukrainian Saboteurs Worked With Mossad to Attack Drone Plant
Iran Claims Ukrainian Saboteurs Worked With Mossad to Attack Drone Plant
Russian media reports that Tehran has sentenced three Ukrainian nationals to death after they were captured planning an attack on a drone plant in Isfahan.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/55051
by Kyiv Post | June 24, 2025, 8:24 am
kyivpost.com · by Kyiv Post · June 24, 2025
Russian media reports that Tehran has sentenced three Ukrainian nationals to death after they were captured planning an attack on a drone plant in Isfahan.
by Kyiv Post | June 24, 2025, 8:24 am
The IRGC-ASF / HESA Shahed Aviation Industry facility located near Isfahan, Iran. Photo: google earth
The Russian military issues website “Top War,” citing the Tasnim News Agency reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intercepted and arrested three Ukrainian nationals who were planning an attack on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufacturing plant in Isfahan, Iran.
The plant was named as the Shahed Aviation Industry facility controlled by the IRGC Aerospace Force (IRGC-ASF) and the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries Corporation (HESA). HESA designs and manufactures a range of drones including the Shahed 136, its Russian variant the Geran-2, the jet-powered Shahed-238 and the Arash series of long-range UAVs. The factory is situated in the Badr Air Base area near the central Iranian city of Isfahan.
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The IRGC statement said the three had been working together with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. It claims that the Ukrainians were intelligence officers from Kyiv’s main intelligence directorate (HUR). They were allegedly in possession of communications equipment, detailed diagrams of Isfahan facility and explosives.
According to the IRGC spokesman quoted by Tasnim June 22: “They [the Ukrainians] were planning to carry out a terrorist attack with explosives targeting our strategic drone production capabilities.”
The report claimed the group had been under surveillance by Iran’s VAJA Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) agency for several weeks before they were captured in an unidentified “safe house” somewhere south of Tehran.
Other Topics of Interest
Russia launched 97 killer combat drones at Ukrainian civilians overnight. Dozens were shot down, but deadly strikes hit Kharkiv and Sumy, killing at least three people, including a child.
Tasnim also said that the three men appeared before the Iranian Supreme Court and sentenced to death by hanging, with the execution expected to be carried out within two weeks. Details regarding the dates of the arrest and sentencing were not specified and no official date for the executions has been announced.
The IRGC-ASF / HESA Shahed Aviation Industry facility after the Israeli air force strike on June 15. Photo by: X / Clash Report
It has been suggested that the operation was linked to the recent air attacks by Israel. The milblogger Clash Report said that the Israeli air force had destroyed the factory as part of its aerial campaign against Iran on June 15, along with several other defense related facilities including Iran’s main radar systems manufacturer Shiraz Electronics Industries.
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21. Russia’s Rogue Warriors: A Paramilitary Legacy
Excerpts:
These are the two parallel and at times interrelated processes in post-Soviet Russia that have contributed to the rise of formidable Russian irregular forces. The disintegration and subsequent privatization of the once mighty Soviet military, and the rise of extremist nationalist ideological groups. One significant difference between the predecessors of the 1990s and current irregular Russian actors is that the latter are now able to forge temporary alliances with the Russian state and even help direct official Russian policy abroad.
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has had a very troublesome relationship with these radical paramilitary groups that operate outside his formal control. Many of the radical ultra-nationalists view Putin with disgust and dismiss the Russian Federation as an artificial artifact of the despised Soviet legacy, as opposed to the glorious Russian Empire of the Czars. Putin has had to officially suppress or abolish such groups when they posed a threat, but also sought to co-opt them to serve Russian geopolitical interests.
Returning to Woolsey’s metaphor of the snakes and dragons, the Russian dragon has arisen (even if smaller in stature than its Soviet predecessor), but it can also loosely coordinate with the smaller Russian snakes as well in a delicate Faustian bargain of temporary convenience. This has been witnessed in Ukraine, Syria, and more recently Africa as well. This delicate Faustian dance can prove costly in the long run, as snakes can still have a poisonous bite even if not lethal. The Wagner snake took that course of action in July of 2023, and it remains to be seen how the other paramilitary groups might fare.
Although we should not be complacent about the threat, it should not be confined to Russia. Much like its Western counterparts, Wagner and other paramilitary groups also operated in an often complex dynamic of being both parallel and opposed to such state structures at the same time. It is a truly transnational and global phenomenon.
Russia’s Rogue Warriors: A Paramilitary Legacy
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/06/24/russias-rogue-warriors-a-paramilitary-legacy/
by Stephen T. Satkiewicz
|
06.24.2025 at 06:00am
Introduction
The attention of the world was gripped by a rather puzzling and dramatic event occurring within an already tumultuous on-going conflict in Ukraine when the prominent Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group and its leader enigmatic leader Yevgeny Prigozhin embarked on a major mutiny on June 23, 2023 that sparked international fears of a possible civil war in Russia. It is best to situate it within a larger context that sometimes gets neglected by scholars and analysts.
One element of the current situation of the war in Ukraine that is often overlooked is the activities of other lesser-known paramilitary and irregular forces by the Russians. Furthermore, there is a more long-term historical legacy of the so-called “wild 90s” that Russia experienced in the immediate post-Soviet period. In this period, a paramilitary culture of varying kinds thrived and helped lay the foundations for these irregular forces of the Russian war effort. This occurred as a result of two closely related processes: the disintegration of the official militarism of the Soviet state along with the rise of radical ultranationalism as an ideological alternative to Communist ideology. What is certain from a historical vantage point is that such groups do not arise out of nowhere, but rather do so when there is a vacuum of necessary military force.
Before the dust had settled on the Wagner Group mutiny, scholars and analysts were seeking to find suitable historical parallels to the recent events in Russia. The actions of the Wagner Group have also raised the issue of the reliability of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) and other irregular paramilitary forces around the world. The dangers of PMCs going rogue on their host states have long been a matter of debate among analysts and scholars. Even Niccolò Machiavelli in his Art of War (1520) warned against the use of mercenaries due to the uncertainty of their loyalty, declaring “War makes thieves, and peace hangs them.”
Paramilitarism Defined
The theoretical questions over the exact nature of paramilitarism should be outlined to assist in better understanding the nature of the phenomenon under investigation in this study. Max Weber (1864-1920) famously argued in “Politics as a Vocation“ that the state is the power that “lays claim to the monopoly use of legitimate physical violence within a particular territory … ” This includes both the professional military as well as police and other security forces employed by the state. Thus, paramilitary forces are often defined as those that operated outside this monopoly, most often against the interests of the state.
However, the post-Cold War era has challenged this simplistic binary of military versus paramilitary, regular and irregular forces. Numerous case studies exist that seem to demonstrate the cooperation between regular and irregular forces for common purposes, even leading to debates among scholars regarding whether these represent fundamentally different forms of conflict commonly called “New Wars” or “Hybrid Warfare”. Whilst Max Weber’s conceptual ideal made sense for the modern period (roughly defined as post-1789 era of European history), it is increasingly ill-suited for a world defined by a neo-medieval nature consisting of a fragmented geopolitical landscape, where the monopoly on violence is shared among a complex, interlocking array of state and non-state actors.
Uğur Ümit Üngör argues that paramilitarism is often the “outsourcing” of violence by the state. He also marks it as an “umbrella concept that covers a broad continuum, distinguished by levels of state involvement. At the left end of this spectrum, there are spontaneous, bottom-up initiatives such as local vigilantes, lynch mobs, and self-defense groups, and on the other end of the continuum stand the much more organized, top-down, professional paramilitary units of the state.” This seems to be the case for post-Soviet Russia, where the existence of state and non-state forces fighting in parallel to each other. A possible alternative argument to Max Weber is that the state maintains a primary claim, but not necessarily an exclusively monopolistic one. This conception would make far more sense in contexts where paramilitary forces exist in parallel to and sometimes connected to the state-funded militaries.
In spite of Max Weber’s conceptual ideal, the emergence of paramilitary cultures that stand outside official government control has been a recurring feature of modern societies over the past century or so. Ironically, one major historical case occurred within Max Weber’s own lifetime in his native Germany after the First World War (1914-1918). The German Reichswehr, the official military of the Weimar Republic, was restricted by the Treaty of Versailles to only 100,000 men. Given the postwar chaos engulfing the country, the Reichswehr faced mounting difficulties in maintaining order against revolutionary uprisings across the country. In this vacuum arose paramilitary units called Freikorps, made up of ex-soldiers with far-right sympathies, who fought alongside the official army to crush these uprisings. Eventually, the Freikorps participated in the 1920 Kapp Putsch, a failed coup d’etat attempt, and later on the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 led by Adolf Hitler that also attempted to overthrow the official German government. Although the most famous example, the Freikorps, was not the only example of paramilitary cultures to emerge in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
What is important to note in these cases is that the line between official militarism and paramilitarism can be far more blurred than is often imagined. Paramilitary cultures are often offshoots of official militarism and patriotic messaging. This was the case with the Freikorps of Germany, coming off from the long Prussian and German traditions of glorifying the military. In parallel to Prussia, Russia long had its own tradition of glorifying military values in its society, and as in Germany, helped forge the foundations for the emergence of its own paramilitary culture.
The Deep Origins of Russian Paramilitarism: Tsarist and Soviet Militarism
The roots of Russia’s paramilitary culture even precede the existence of the Soviet Union. Russia consistently has had a long history of social militarization of various ideological strains. The Czarist regime throughout the 19th century relied heavily upon military force as its foundational power base, which proved useful in quelling internal dissent, such as the Decembrist Revolt of 1823, as one example.
The victory of the Communists in the Russian Civil War (1917-1921) only further strengthened this foundation. The English historian Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) made a bold argument that the nature of the Soviet regime was built on the legacy of the “military police state” of the Czarist regime and an “unnatural union with the Western revolutionary tradition”. Throughout its existence, Soviet society was heavily militarized based on the premise that it was a socialist fortress being besieged by a hostile capitalist world. The invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II and the high cost of lives further cemented the high social prestige of the Soviet military. Pre-military training for teens was a common element in the Communist Komsomol youth movement for the explicit purpose that “[t]he young generation of the Soviet Union must prepare themselves to defend their fatherland against any dangers and attacks on it by enemies.”
Disintegration of Soviet Militarism
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian military establishment fell into a state of degradation. After previously having the largest military force in the world, suddenly, large numbers of veterans of the Soviet military were forced out of their careers. As a result, in this vacuum, the rise of the post-Soviet paramilitary culture was witnessed that still affects Russia to this day.
Then CIA Director R. James Woolsey famously described the post-Cold War era as one characterized by “we have slain the dragon, but we live now in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.” The usual narrative presented is that the Soviet dragon was slain, but often forgotten is that many of the snakes were direct offspring of that same slain dragon. One prominent feature of this paramilitary culture was the rise of a private security industry within Russia that was populated by former veterans of the Soviet and Russian military. A parallel process witnessed the flourishing of Russian organized crime on the international stage, which also maintained links with ex-military and former personnel from the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, or Committee for State Security (KGB).
It should be noted, of course, that there are significant differences between Private Military Companies (PMCs), Private Security Companies, and mercenaries. The first two entities generally operate within at least a semi-legal framework, whilst mercenaries operate completely outside the bounds of legitimate legal armed forces. It is also clear from the Russian Constitution and Criminal Code actually forbids mercenaries. Contrary to the common ‘Renegade Russian ‘ trope found in American pop culture of the 1990s, Russian private companies like Wagner actually arose as a response to the lucrative business model set by American Private Military Companies (PMCs) such as Blackwater and others in Iraq and elsewhere. As John Lechner notes, “Wagner’s rise was the symptom, not the cause” of the overall context of the rise of private military forces that operated outside the formal structures of state-controlled military forces.
Rise of Radical Nationalist Paramilitary Groups
At the same time, around the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was undergoing a strong ideological shift away from Marxist-Leninist Communism to varying forms of Russian nationalism. The spectrum of this nationalism ranged from the liberal nationalism of Boris Yeltsin to the hardline far-right that included Monarchists who sought a restoration of the Czar, to even Neo-Nazis. Among the more hardline far-right nationalists, a militant ethos that promoted the formation of political paramilitary groups was commonplace.
Among the first of these far-right paramilitary groups was Pamyat, formed in 1986 by Dmitri Vasilyev, with the intended agenda of a restoration of the Czar. In 1990, Alexander Barkashov founded the Russian National Unity (RNE) to pursue a more overt Neo-Nazi direction as opposed to Pamyat’s Neo-Monarchist one. Russian National Unity conducted its own paramilitary training activities, which it used during its participation in the 1993 Constitutional Crisis. The rise of far-right paramilitary culture in Russia has long been an issue of concern for analysts. One of the most prominent far-right forces today is the Russian Imperial Legion, the paramilitary wing of the Russian Imperial Movement. Stanislav Vorobyev founded the Legion in 2002, and one of its main activities is running the paramilitary training course “Partizan” out of St. Petersburg. This paramilitary training has been sought by far-right extremists from around the world, which was a key reason it was designated a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department in April 2020. Not just content with paramilitary training, members have been known to have actually engaged in direct combat operations in Ukraine alongside other far-right paramilitary groups both in 2014 and currently.
The Impact on Russia and Our World
These are the two parallel and at times interrelated processes in post-Soviet Russia that have contributed to the rise of formidable Russian irregular forces. The disintegration and subsequent privatization of the once mighty Soviet military, and the rise of extremist nationalist ideological groups. One significant difference between the predecessors of the 1990s and current irregular Russian actors is that the latter are now able to forge temporary alliances with the Russian state and even help direct official Russian policy abroad.
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has had a very troublesome relationship with these radical paramilitary groups that operate outside his formal control. Many of the radical ultra-nationalists view Putin with disgust and dismiss the Russian Federation as an artificial artifact of the despised Soviet legacy, as opposed to the glorious Russian Empire of the Czars. Putin has had to officially suppress or abolish such groups when they posed a threat, but also sought to co-opt them to serve Russian geopolitical interests.
Returning to Woolsey’s metaphor of the snakes and dragons, the Russian dragon has arisen (even if smaller in stature than its Soviet predecessor), but it can also loosely coordinate with the smaller Russian snakes as well in a delicate Faustian bargain of temporary convenience. This has been witnessed in Ukraine, Syria, and more recently Africa as well. This delicate Faustian dance can prove costly in the long run, as snakes can still have a poisonous bite even if not lethal. The Wagner snake took that course of action in July of 2023, and it remains to be seen how the other paramilitary groups might fare.
Although we should not be complacent about the threat, it should not be confined to Russia. Much like its Western counterparts, Wagner and other paramilitary groups also operated in an often complex dynamic of being both parallel and opposed to such state structures at the same time. It is a truly transnational and global phenomenon.
Tags: global security, Paramilitarism, Russian Nationalism, Ukraine war, Wagner Group
About The Author
- Stephen T. Satkiewicz
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Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Russian history, military history, war studies, and international relations. He is also a host of the New Books Network podcast.
22. Dispensable Nation: America in a Post-American World
Or did everything change with Midnight Hammer?
Excerpts:
Trump and his team are destroying everything that makes the United States an attractive partner because they fail to imagine just how bad an order antagonistic to American interests would be. The United States’ indispensability was not inevitable. In the post–Cold War world, the country became indispensable by taking responsibility for the security and prosperity of countries that agreed to play by rules that Washington established and enforced. If the United States itself abandons those rules and the system they created, it will become wholly expendable.
The self-destruction of American power in the Trump years is likely to puzzle future historians. During the post–Cold War era, the United States achieved unprecedented dominance, and maintaining it was relatively easy and inexpensive. All of Trump’s predecessors in that period made errors, some of which significantly reduced U.S. influence, aided the country’s adversaries, and limited Washington’s ability to induce cooperation or compliance on the part of other countries. But none of those predecessors intended such outcomes. Trump, on the other hand, wants a world in which the United States, although still rich and powerful, no longer actively shapes the global order to its advantage. He would prefer to lead a country that is feared rather than loved. But his approach is unlikely to foster either emotion. If it stays on the path Trump has started down, the United States risks becoming too brutal to love but too irrelevant to fear.
In the years to come, the alliances it took decades to foster will begin to wither, and U.S. rivals will waste no time in leaping to exploit the resulting vacuum. Some of Washington’s partners may wait for a while, hoping that their American friends will come to their senses and try to reestablish something akin to the traditional U.S. leadership role. But there is no going all the way back; their faith and trust have been irreparably damaged. And they won’t wait long, even for an American return to form that would amount to less than a full restoration. Soon, they will move on—and so will the rest of the world.
Dispensable Nation
Foreign Affairs · by More by Kori Schake · June 24, 2025
America in a Post-American World
Kori Schake
July/August 2025 Published on June 24, 2025
Rob Dobi
KORI SCHAKE is a Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Safe Passage: The Transition From British to American Hegemony. She served on the National Security Council and in the U.S. State Department during the George W. Bush administration.
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President Donald Trump’s rise to power and enduring political appeal have been fueled in part by his depiction of the United States as a failure: exhausted, weak, and ruined. In a characteristic act of self-contradiction, however, his foreign policy is based on a significant overestimation of American power. Trump and his advisers seem to believe that, despite the country’s allegedly parlous condition, unilateral action on Washington’s part can still force others to capitulate and submit to American terms.
But since the end of World War II, American power has been rooted mostly in cooperation, not coercion. The Trump team ignores that history, takes for granted all the benefits that a cooperative approach has yielded, and cannot envision a future in which other countries opt out of the existing U.S.-led international order or construct a new one that would be antagonistic to American interests. Yet those are precisely the outcomes the Trump administration is hastening.
The political scientist Michael Beckley has argued in Foreign Affairs that the United States is becoming “a rogue superpower, neither internationalist nor isolationist but aggressive, powerful, and increasingly out for itself.” That portrait is accurate but incomplete, since it does not fully capture the extent to which American dominance can be undercut or constricted by others. In the Trump era, many have speculated about whether or to what degree the United States will withdraw from its leading role in the world. But a more pressing question might be, what if the rest of the world beats Washington to the punch, withdrawing from the cooperative U.S.-led order that has been the bedrock of American power?
Some may counter that even if U.S. allies and neutral countries don’t like the way Trump exercises American power, they have little choice but to go along with it now and will accommodate themselves to it in the longer term, placating the United States as much as possible and hedging only when absolutely necessary. After all, they might come to loathe and distrust the United States, but not as much as they already loathe and distrust China, Russia, and other American rivals. In this view, the United States that Trump wants to create would be the worst possible hegemon—except for all the other possible candidates. Besides, even if other countries wanted to opt out of the U.S.-led order or work around Washington, they don’t have the ability to do so, individually or collectively. They might yearn for the days when a more internationalist, open, cooperative United States shaped the world order. But they’ll learn to live with a more nationalist, closed, and demanding United States.
That view results from a failure of imagination—a common source of strategic failure, since statecraft requires one to anticipate how other actors in the international system will react and what forces they might set in motion. Lacking the ability to do that, the Trump team has instead taken an approach predicated on a pair of faulty assumptions: that other countries, international organizations, businesses, and civil society organizations have no alternative to capitulation in the face of U.S. demands and that even if alternatives emerged, the United States could remain predominant without its allies. This is solipsism masquerading as strategy. Instead of producing a less constraining order in which American power will flourish, it will instead yield a more hostile order in which American power will fade.
DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE GOT TILL IT’S GONE
Despite Trump’s disparagement, the United States is incredibly strong and dynamic. No other advanced country relies so much on its domestic market and so little on trade. Around half of global trade and almost 90 percent of global foreign exchange transactions are conducted in U.S. dollars, an extraordinary repository of value that affords Washington the luxury of deficit spending that would be outrageous anywhere else. Unlike almost every other developed country, the United States has a growing prime-age workforce. The country boasts abundant natural resources, has friendly neighbors, draws the world’s most talented people to its universities and companies, fosters social and economic mobility that reduce ethnic and religious animosities, and is governed by a political system that is well adapted to a diverse society.
But Trump and his team are burning through those advantages at an alarming rate. Since he took office in January, elements of the country’s constitutional democracy have been undercut—or, worse yet, weaponized to serve partisan ends or indulge Trump’s personal vendettas. The White House has aggressively expanded the executive branch’s power by trampling on Congress’s authority, refusing to comply with court orders, and calling into question the independence of vital institutions such as the Federal Reserve. Trump has targeted elite American universities, starving them of the federal funding they use to create innovative technologies and medical advances. He has allowed Elon Musk, a billionaire tech titan who donated massive sums to his campaign, to run roughshod over the federal bureaucracy, forcing out many of the talented career civil servants who make the federal government work and carry out U.S. foreign policy.
Meanwhile, Trump’s erratic trade war, which targets rivals and allies alike, has whipsawed markets, spooked investors, and convinced Washington’s partners that they can no longer trust the United States. Trump has threatened the sovereignty of allies and publicly berated their leaders, all while lavishing praise on the dictators and thugs who threaten them. The administration’s radical and peremptory elimination of U.S. foreign assistance removed a lever of American influence and telegraphed a level of indifference that will not go unnoticed. As the country’s friends have looked on in horror and its rivals have watched with glee, the United States has gone from indispensable to insufferable.
Trump at the White House, Washington, D.C., June 2025 Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
The American experience of dominance in the international order is historically anomalous because it has occasioned so little hedging on the part of others. Typically, a rising power creates incentives for other countries to counterbalance its influence: in the fifth century BC, the rise of Athens caused neighboring states to seek protection from Sparta; in the Great Northern War of the early eighteenth century, the ambitions of King Charles XII of Sweden provoked an anti-Swedish coalition; a century or so later, France’s growing power fostered the coalition that eventually defeated Napoleon. But the international order that the United States and its allies created out of the ashes of World War II prevented that seeming inevitability. Its agreed-on rules and consensual participation maximized the influence of small countries and midsize powers that enjoyed the safety provided by American power. The United States voluntarily restrained itself to encourage cooperation. As a result, the American order was remarkably cost-effective, because the rules so seldom had to be enforced. No dominant power has ever had so much assistance from others in maintaining its dominance.
That order is now collapsing. Trump has a deep-seated ideological conviction that allies are a burden. His tactic in negotiations is to use U.S. leverage to wring concessions from all counterparties at all times. But this approach fails to account for how cooperation can act as a force multiplier. Take the case of Iran. The United States has maintained draconian sanctions on the Islamic Republic since 1979. American pressure alone, however, was not enough to get Tehran to come to the negotiating table over its nuclear program. Doing so required China, Russia, and Washington’s European allies to sign on to a sanctions regime.
The war in Ukraine offers another example. To bring an end to the war, the Trump administration may want to relax sanctions on Russia or force Ukraine to capitulate to Moscow’s aggression. But it would take European acquiescence for the Russian economy to recover, and European countries could continue to support Ukraine even without American assistance. Instead of securing the cooperation of European allies in the negotiations, however, Trump has frozen them out. Similarly, the United States wants to restrict China from acquiring certain kinds of advanced technology, such as tools and components critical to manufacturing semiconductors. But without the compliance of countries that manufacture such things, including Japan and the Netherlands, U.S. restrictions won’t work. Threats to exclude countries from the U.S. market or to strip their ability to use the U.S. dollar for transactions won’t be effective if Washington is going to restrict market access no matter what, or if the dollar loses its centrality to the global economy.
Trump’s approach is solipsism masquerading as strategy.
The Trump administration has hardly been alone in abetting the corrosion of an international order advantageous to the United States. Washington has been weaponizing economic interdependence for decades, and in response to a widespread belief among American voters that free trade harmed U.S. manufacturing and hollowed out the American economy, the last three presidential administrations have all been hostile to providing market access, even to preferred trading partners whose inputs are essential to U.S. production.
For many years, U.S. allies—particularly those in Asia, which fear China’s growing power—have pleaded with Washington to pursue an economic strategy that would allow them to reduce their reliance on China. During President Barack Obama’s second term, his administration negotiated the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which offered a collaborative way forward. The deal would have linked 12 economies, taken advantage of Asia’s economic dynamism, and used the promise of access to American markets to compel higher environmental and labor standards that would, in turn, make U.S. production more competitive. But the Obama administration let the deal languish instead of pushing for congressional ratification. Both major-party presidential candidates disavowed it in 2016, Trump withdrew from the negotiations in 2017, and Joe Biden chose not to join the pact after he became president in 2021.
When it comes to burning bridges, however, nothing matches the speed and destructiveness of Trump’s policies in the past few months. According to a recent survey conducted by the opinion-research firm Cluster 17 and the journal Le Grand Continent, 51 percent of Europeans “consider Trump to be an enemy of Europe.” And this sentiment is strongest in countries that had previously been most supportive of the United States, such as Denmark and Germany. “Americans—at least this part of the Americans, this administration—are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe,” said Friedrich Merz, now Germany’s chancellor, after his center-right party prevailed in elections in February. As a result, he said, “my absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the United States.” His words captured what would have been a fringe belief a decade ago but has become conventional wisdom in Europe today.
AMERICA ALONE
In recent years, U.S. adversaries including China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have stepped up their cooperation in the face of Washington’s efforts to isolate them, helping one another skirt sanctions, arm their militaries, and carry out various acts of aggression. This hardly comes as a surprise, and American policymakers have plenty of experience in dealing with such machinations. What they lack, however, is any experience of a world in which traditional American allies and more neutral countries also start working together—but against the United States.
The first signs of this process might look like little more than symbolic protests, as countries and institutions seek ways to strip Washington of its traditional convening power. Heads of state might avoid Oval Office meetings, foreign officials might be unavailable for phone calls to coordinate policy with their American counterparts, and the heads of international organizations might not schedule the kinds of summits that grant U.S. officials stature and allow them to set the agenda and meet with many world leaders at once. Fearing that Washington plans to withdraw U.S. troops stationed in Europe, the NATO secretary-general might cancel the alliance’s annual summit to avoid giving the American president a platform to announce the move; the UN secretary-general could choose not to accommodate U.S. scheduling requests for Security Council meetings or decline to give U.S. representatives the floor for arguments. Although such acts might seem trivial, they would erode Washington’s ability to make sure that its policy proposals form the basis of international debate and action.
A global retreat from Washington would quickly begin to have far more palpable effects by taking a toll on the American economy. Countries might choose not to invest in U.S. Treasuries or might buy them only at higher interest rates, imposing higher costs on Washington for servicing the national debt. The United States can sustain the eye-popping profligacy of its national debt only because investors consider the U.S. dollar to be a safe haven. But Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are destroying that hard-earned privilege with tariffs and a budget that will push debt levels to unprecedented heights. (It should have come as no surprise when, in May, Moody’s downgraded the United States’ credit rating.) Over time, the United States might suffer an exodus of investors, who cherish not only the growth they have come to expect from U.S. markets but also the stability, rule of law, and regulatory independence that undergird the American economy. Meanwhile, foreign governments might begin to use subsidies and regulations to create supply chains that avoid American-made components.
If Washington continues to erect significant barriers to foreign goods, its trading partners will seek out other markets, increasing their integration with one another at the expense of American companies. In March, Japan and South Korea, the two Asian U.S. allies most dependent on the United States, held a trade summit with China, after which the three countries jointly announced a plan to pursue a new trilateral free trade agreement and pledged to work together to develop “a predictable trade and investment environment” in the region. Washington needs Tokyo and Seoul on its side to create economies of scale and circumvent Chinese supply chains. Japan and South Korea are the two anchors of Asian economic dynamism; without them, American efforts to marginalize China cannot succeed.
Trump’s disdain for multilateralism is also imperiling the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. For decades, they have helped shape the global economy to Washington’s advantage. But the Trump administration has accused them of “falling short” and has demanded they align their agendas with the president’s, creating concern that Washington might withdraw from them—or starve them, as it has the World Trade Organization.
WATCH YOUR BACK
U.S. national security would also suffer if countries started to decouple from Washington. Consider intelligence sharing, another area in which Washington can expect less cooperation. That practice requires U.S. partners to trust that any information they share with Washington won’t be used to disadvantage them and that the sources and methods for acquiring that intelligence will remain secret. In Trump’s first term, U.S. allies quickly learned that the president was cavalier about classified information. In May 2017, The New York Times reported, Trump casually discussed classified information about a terrorist plot, which Israel had provided to the United States, with Russian officials visiting the White House. The cause for concern has only grown in his second term. In March, a number of Trump’s cabinet officials used Signal, an unclassified commercial mobile app, to share and discuss classified details about an imminent U.S. strike on Houthi militants in Yemen. Such laxity might cause other countries to become more cautious about what they share with Washington, as well as how and when they share it.
Trump’s approach to managing the U.S. military could also contribute to a flight from American leadership. Some of the military’s most highly trained units are now being diverted from high-intensity combat preparations at the army’s National Training Center in order to assist with immigration enforcement at the border with Mexico. In pursuit of such presidential priorities, the country’s armed forces will lose operational proficiency, making them a less valuable partner and a less available one, as well. Allies may choose to avoid acquiring U.S.-made weaponry for fear that Washington or an American company might deny them permission to use it in a crisis—just as Musk denied Ukraine the ability to use his Starlink communications network to carry out an attack on Russian forces in Crimea in 2022. That avoidance, in turn, may pose problems for interoperability. Getting militaries to work intimately together is difficult enough when they’re using compatible equipment; increasing the degree of difficulty will chip away at one of the central advantages Washington and its allies enjoy over potential adversaries.
A banner depicting the Russian pro-war symbol “Z,” Moscow, March 2025 Yulia Morozova / Reuters
The U.S. military’s ability to project power across the globe relies on partners and allies. The Pentagon cannot provide a surge of forces to the Middle East without using ports in Belgium and Germany, or dispatch forces across the Pacific (much less sustain combat operations against China) without using bases in Japan and the Philippines. The United States cannot carry out airstrikes on terrorists in Afghanistan without permission to transit Pakistani airspace, and many more American service members would have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had the U.S. military not maintained access to its Ramstein Air Base and Landstuhl hospital in Germany. Washington would not be able to carry out war plans with the requisite speed without preferential passage through the Panama and Suez Canals. American military power isn’t autarkic; it’s dependent on others. But growing antipathy to U.S. policies will alienate publics in other countries and make it more difficult for their governments to provide support to American military operations, much less participate in them. Imagine if terrorists carried out a massive attack on the United States and allies didn’t rush to help, as they did after the 9/11 attacks, in part by supporting U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The United States’ dense web of alliances and partnerships also enables the “extended deterrence” that protects Washington’s friends from their enemies. But Trump has already weakened that pillar of the post–Cold War order. In 2019, for example, after Iranian proxies attacked major oil processing facilities in Saudi Arabia, American allies took note that Trump chose not to retaliate.
The Trump administration seems to believe that if Washington forces its allies to stand on their own, they will make choices that would benefit the United States. That is unlikely to be true. Although most American allies have militaries superior to those of their potential adversaries, they generally lack the confidence to use them. Washington’s European allies could unquestionably defeat the Russian military in a conventional, nonnuclear war. Finland alone could probably defeat Russia in such a fight if backed by security guarantees from at least one of its nuclear-armed allies, France or the United Kingdom.
Trump has hardly been alone in abetting the corrosion of the U.S.-led order.
But U.S. allies in Europe have too little confidence in their own strength. And if the United States walks away from them, they are likely to make compromises with aggressors that would harm their interests and Washington’s, as well. That is what France and Germany did after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, and the Obama administration barely reacted. The European powers pressured Ukraine into accepting the so-called Minsk agreements, which formalized a buffer zone of Russian occupation on Ukrainian territory. But that didn’t stop the fighting: Russia reinforced its positions, violated the accords, and invaded again in 2022.
In the years to come, a Russian encroachment onto the territory of a Baltic member of NATO, coupled with threats to use nuclear weapons if NATO resisted, could fracture the West. The Trump administration might be unwilling to trade New York for Tallinn—and France, Germany, and the United Kingdom might fold, too. A Europe consumed with such insecurity wouldn’t be particularly keen to help Washington deal with Chinese military and commercial aggression or to help constrain the Iranian nuclear program.
Trump routinely calls into question the reliability of U.S. security guarantees by demonstrating his indifference to the security of treaty allies that do not spend what he considers to be the proper amount on defense. And the shameful way that he equates Russia’s aggression against Ukraine with that country’s heroic defense of its sovereignty has eroded the sense of basic American morality—imperfect and inconsistent though it might be—that attracts cooperation from like-minded countries. If U.S. policies are overtly amoral and thus indistinguishable from those of China and Russia, other countries might opt to side with those powers, betting that at least their behavior will be more predictable.
A BAD BET
The Trump administration may be relying on the antipathy that U.S. allies feel toward the ideologies that guide American rivals such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. In this view, even if U.S. partners don’t like certain things Washington does, they’re ultimately going to stick with the United States out of a sense of democratic solidarity. But U.S. allies easily overcame whatever ideological objections they may have had and continued trading with Russia after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine, and with China despite its repression of Uyghurs and its crackdown in Hong Kong in recent years. Besides, the Trump administration itself hardly considers ideological differences to be an obstacle to cooperation. A mismatch between American and Russian values has not prevented Trump from taking Moscow’s side in the Ukraine war. Under his administration, Washington won’t be “giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs,” Trump assured a gathering of investors and Saudi leaders in May. If Washington doesn’t act as if ideology matters, it shouldn’t expect that others will.
Trump and his team may also believe that the convergence of Chinese, Iranian, North Korean, and Russian power is of such magnitude that European resistance would prove futile without American heft. Better, in this view, to revive the nineteenth-century practice of the great powers dividing up the world. Doing so, however, would concede Europe to Russia and Asia to China, which would constitute a colossal loss. Moreover, there is no reason to assume that such concessions would slake Chinese and Russian ambitions: consider, for example, what Beijing’s massive investments in Latin America and attempts to corrupt the Canadian political system suggest about Chinese intentions.
Another potential explanation for the Trump administration’s approach is that it sees most forms of alliance management as at best a distraction from and generally an impediment to winning the contest with China. Trump administration officials would hate the comparison, but that position is a continuation of the Biden administration’s argument that the most important thing for the United States is to strengthen itself at home: to have the best economy, the most innovative technology, and the strongest military.
According to this logic, winning in those dimensions will draw global support because people like to be on the side of a winner. But that won’t be the case if others don’t have access to the American market or if they consider American technology dangerous to them or believe the U.S. military offers them no genuine protection. The United States should, of course, strengthen itself. But when it does so without benefiting others, they will try to shield themselves and limit their exposure to American power.
And if Trump is truly aiming to make the country stronger abroad by making it stronger at home, he is doing so in a curious way. The administration’s ill-conceived tariffs are increasing market volatility and making business planning practically impossible. Republican legislation advocated by Trump is likely to explode the deficit and increase inflation. The association of U.S. technology titans with the administration’s assault on government agencies and the rule of law is damaging their brands and imperiling their market values and adoption rates. And according to the defense analyst Todd Harrison, the budget proposal Trump has championed would result in a $31.5 billion reduction in defense spending in 2026 compared with what the Biden administration had projected for that year, which was itself inadequate to the security challenges the country faces. This is an agenda for weakness, not strength.
NEITHER FEARED NOR LOVED
Trump and his team are destroying everything that makes the United States an attractive partner because they fail to imagine just how bad an order antagonistic to American interests would be. The United States’ indispensability was not inevitable. In the post–Cold War world, the country became indispensable by taking responsibility for the security and prosperity of countries that agreed to play by rules that Washington established and enforced. If the United States itself abandons those rules and the system they created, it will become wholly expendable.
The self-destruction of American power in the Trump years is likely to puzzle future historians. During the post–Cold War era, the United States achieved unprecedented dominance, and maintaining it was relatively easy and inexpensive. All of Trump’s predecessors in that period made errors, some of which significantly reduced U.S. influence, aided the country’s adversaries, and limited Washington’s ability to induce cooperation or compliance on the part of other countries. But none of those predecessors intended such outcomes. Trump, on the other hand, wants a world in which the United States, although still rich and powerful, no longer actively shapes the global order to its advantage. He would prefer to lead a country that is feared rather than loved. But his approach is unlikely to foster either emotion. If it stays on the path Trump has started down, the United States risks becoming too brutal to love but too irrelevant to fear.
In the years to come, the alliances it took decades to foster will begin to wither, and U.S. rivals will waste no time in leaping to exploit the resulting vacuum. Some of Washington’s partners may wait for a while, hoping that their American friends will come to their senses and try to reestablish something akin to the traditional U.S. leadership role. But there is no going all the way back; their faith and trust have been irreparably damaged. And they won’t wait long, even for an American return to form that would amount to less than a full restoration. Soon, they will move on—and so will the rest of the world.
KORI SCHAKE is a Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Safe Passage: The Transition From British to American Hegemony. She served on the National Security Council and in the U.S. State Department during the George W. Bush administration.
Foreign Affairs · by More by Kori Schake · June 24, 2025
23. Southeast Asia Is Starting to Choose: Why the Region Is Leaning Toward China
Excerpts:
Even as China rises and the United States retreats, Southeast Asians are not willing to give up on Washington. Poll after poll shows that Southeast Asia sees China as the most influential economic and strategic power in the region, outpacing the United States by significant margins. But Southeast Asians also harbor considerable reservations about how China might deploy that power. When asked whom they trust, elites from various sectors of society rank Japan first, the United States second, the European Union third, and China a distant fourth, according to the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute’s 2024 poll. Put another way, even though China will remain a persistent and formidable challenger to the United States, and even though much of Southeast Asia seems to be gravitating toward China, Beijing still has a lot of work to do to allay concerns and win the trust of regional states.
The second Trump administration may make Beijing’s task easier if the punishing “Liberation Day” tariffs that it imposed on April 2 on key ASEAN states, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, are not lowered significantly; if key U.S. officials fail to show up for the annual ASEAN meetings; and if it acts on its threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on countries that have joined (Indonesia) or are moving to join (Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam) BRICS, a coalition of non-Western powers that includes China and Russia. If it doesn’t change its ways, the Trump administration will freely cede the trust and goodwill that its predecessors have built up in Southeast Asia over the past half century.
Southeast Asia Is Starting to Choose
Foreign Affairs · by More by Yuen Foong Khong · June 24, 2025
Why the Region Is Leaning Toward China
July/August 2025 Published on June 24, 2025
Deena So’Oteh
YUEN FOONG KHONG is Li Ka Shing Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalization at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
JOSEPH CHINYONG LIOW is Tan Kah Kee Chair of Comparative and International Politics and Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
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More than most regions in the world, Southeast Asia has found itself in the middle of the intensifying U.S.-Chinese rivalry. Most major countries in other parts of Asia are already spoken for: Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are all solidly in the U.S. camp; India seems to be aligning with the United States, Pakistan with China; and the countries of Central Asia are forging ever closer ties to Beijing. But much of Southeast Asia, a region of nearly 700 million people, remains up for grabs. The superpower that succeeds in persuading key Southeast Asian countries—such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—to hew closely to its line stands a better chance of realizing its objectives in Asia.
For decades, however, Southeast Asia’s leaders have disavowed the notion that they have to choose. Even as Beijing and Washington have made their rivalry the dominant fact of global geopolitics, officials in the region repeat the mantra that they can be friends to all. Of course, they are not oblivious to the changing geopolitical reality. As Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong put it in 2018, “I think it is very desirable for us not to have to take sides, but the circumstances may come where ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] may have to choose one or the other. I hope it does not happen soon.”
Lee’s assessment of this predicament is representative of the views of not only most Southeast Asian countries but also much of the world. It reflects a profound consternation about the imperatives of the overarching superpower competition. A country such as Singapore, after all, has thrived in the era of globalization, styling itself as an entrepôt with its doors open to the world. Vietnam, an ostensibly communist dictatorship, has made itself into an important hub of global manufacturing that is plugged in to both Chinese and Western supply chains. The vast archipelago nations of Indonesia and the Philippines, once racked by internal conflicts, have seen their GDPs grow significantly since 2000. When Southeast Asian officials push back on the idea that they have to pick sides, they are in effect expressing their preference for the global order that prevailed after the end of the Cold War, one characterized by thickening economic connections and diminishing geopolitical contestation.
In the wake of the 2008–9 financial crisis, that order began to evaporate. Southeast Asia now finds itself in the midst of great-power competition. China and the United States are increasingly at loggerheads in Asia. And Southeast Asian countries, whether they like it or not, are no longer immune to the pressures that accompany great-power competition. By analyzing the positions of ten Southeast Asian countries on a welter of issues relating to China and the United States, one thing becomes evident: over the past 30 years, many of these countries have gradually but discernibly shifted away from the United States and toward China. Some shifts are more drastic and significant than others. A few countries have indeed managed to “hedge,” to straddle the rift between two superpowers. The overall direction of travel, however, is clear. Southeast Asian countries may insist that they are staying above the fray, but their policies reveal otherwise. The region is drifting toward China, a fact that bodes ill for American ambitions in Asia.
POWER PLAY
According to the Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index, which measures the relative strength of countries in terms of a number of variables, including economic and military capability and diplomatic and cultural influence, China’s comprehensive power had approached 90 percent of that of the United States by the late 2010s. This was a result of China’s spectacular growth since the 1980s and of the way that Beijing turned its economic achievements into diplomatic, military, and even cultural prowess. China’s rise prompted American scholars in the 1990s to debate whether the United States should contain or engage the surging Asian giant; the engagers won, hands down. Although the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations had some tense moments with China, they did not view the country as an adversary. The wars in the Middle East after the September 11 attacks distracted Washington, and it was not until the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” that the United States recognized the potential challenge posed by China to American hegemony across the continent. Even then, Obama and his national security team did not identify China as a peer competitor or as a national security threat, in large part because they assumed, as their predecessors did, that China’s integration into the U.S.-led economic order would make China more politically liberal in due course.
That changed with the election of Donald Trump. The first Trump administration dispensed with any notion that China would placidly join the liberal international order or that it would embrace liberal political reforms. This stance, further fueled by Trump’s insistence that he would not allow China to be “bigger” than the United States, transformed U.S. policy. Washington now believed that an increasingly powerful, authoritarian China posed a strategic threat to the United States. The 2017 National Security Strategy, 2018 National Defense Strategy, and other China-related policy declarations of that era—including speeches by Vice President Mike Pence at the Hudson Institute in 2018 and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in 2020—all cast China as the United States’ most potent and dangerous geopolitical rival. That assessment survived Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020 and the arrival of President Joe Biden to the White House. The Biden administration used more measured language, but the essence of its policy remained the same: China was “the most consequential geopolitical challenge” to the United States, Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy declared, and “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.” The Biden administration, however, did the Trump administration one better by deftly corralling U.S. allies to help constrain China, as part of an “extreme competition” across all the relevant dimensions of power.
Southeast Asian governments may not recognize that they are, in fact, taking sides.
The U.S.-Chinese competition is likely to become more intense, complex, and dangerous than the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during the Cold War. Unlike the Soviet Union, which was an economic laggard compared with the Cold War–era United States, China is a much more formidable peer competitor. And there are many potential flash points in Asia, including in the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea. As this rivalry becomes more intense, each superpower will want to get as many countries on its side as it can.
Southeast Asia, a region that receives erratic attention from Western capitals despite its enormous population and growing economic clout, will be a major arena in this contest. For some countries in the region—especially those, such as the Philippines, that have alliance treaties or strong security ties with the United States—the lines are clearly drawn. They would like to maintain close ties with Washington in the belief that the projection of U.S. military power in the region is conducive to peace and stability. Southeast Asian countries that sided with the United States during the Cold War, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, generally prospered because of access to investments and markets; those that sided with the Soviet Union or China—Vietnam, for example—experienced much more lethargic growth. During the Cold War, it was obvious that the Soviets were no match for the West in economic terms. Today, however, many Southeast Asians believe that China can give the United States more than a run for its money.
It is not surprising that many countries that have not already chosen between Beijing and Washington would prefer not to choose at all; they want to have their cake and eat it, too. The conventional (if simplistic) view is that Southeast Asian countries look to the United States for security and to China for trade, investment, and economic growth. But both China and the United States are growing frustrated with this hedging. Beijing wants to wield more than just economic influence in the region. Washington under the second Trump administration wants to strengthen economic and commercial ties with Southeast Asia, in part to extract compensation for the security umbrella it has built in Asia.
Some of the most significant diplomatic alignments in Southeast Asia are yet to be determined. ASEAN, a consortium of the region’s ten countries, has no overarching position on the two superpowers, owing to the varied national interests of its member states. In fact, differences over relations with China and the United States have tested ASEAN’s solidarity in the past and will do so again in the future. To get a better sense of where the region is heading, it is more helpful to look at the alignments of individual ASEAN countries based on their policy choices.
CONTINENTAL DRIFT
To understand the alignments of ASEAN countries, we examined five domains of interaction between these states and China and the United States: “political-diplomatic” and “military-security” engagement, economic ties, cultural-political affinity (or soft power), and signaling (the public messaging of states). We tracked four indicators in each domain, totaling 20 measures of alignment overall. For example, on the political-diplomatic front, we assembled data on UN voting alignment, the strength of bilateral cooperation, the number of high-level official visits, and membership in multilateral groupings. On the economic front, we examined imports, exports, business associations, and levels of foreign debt. Combining these measures allows us to arrive at a single score for each country. A score of zero indicates full alignment with China; a score of 100 indicates full alignment with the United States. By this metric, we consider the countries that fall within the range of 45 to 55 to be successful hedgers straddling the divide between the two superpowers.
The index, which we have called “The Anatomy of Choice Alignment Index,” offers two major findings. First, when Southeast Asian countries say they don’t want to choose between China and the United States, it doesn’t mean that all of them are on the fence. Averaging out their alignment positions over the past 30 years, we found that four countries—Indonesia (49), Malaysia (47), Singapore (48), and Thailand (45)—can be thought of as successful hedgers, doing their best to straddle the divide. Other ASEAN countries are more closely aligned with a superpower. The Philippines (60) is clearly aligned with the United States, whereas Myanmar (24), Laos (29), Cambodia (38), Vietnam (43), and Brunei (44) are all aligned with China.
Second, by disaggregating the 30-year period into two 15-year timespans, a more dynamic picture emerges of how alignments have changed—one that favors Beijing. Indonesia’s alignment score for the first period (1995–2009), for example, was 56, but in the second period (2010–24) it was 43, a change of 13 points in China’s favor. The country moved from being marginally in the United States’ camp to being marginally in China’s camp. Until 2009, Thailand was a determined hedger (49), but it has since leaned China’s way (41). The Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, has also moved a bit closer to China even as it remains in the United States’ camp; it scores 62 in the first period and 58 in the second. Malaysia (from 49 to 46) and Singapore (from 50 to 45) have also moved marginally in China’s direction, although both remain within the band of hedgers. Cambodia (from 42 to 34), Laos (from 33 to 25), and Myanmar (from 24 to 23) continue their drift toward their northern neighbor, aligning solidly with China. The only country that has moved somewhat away from China and toward the United States in the past 30 years is Vietnam, although not by much (from 41 to 45). Our measurements in the more recent period suggest that Vietnam is about to join the likes of Malaysia and Singapore in straddling the superpower divide.
PUSH AND PULL
Southeast Asia’s drift toward China is due not to any single force but a mix of factors, including the domestic political needs of Southeast Asian governments, perceptions of economic opportunities and U.S. staying power, and geography. Domestic politics can play a decisive role. Cambodia provides an illustrative case. The 1997 coup that eventually brought the country’s leader, Hun Sen, to power set in motion a serious decline in U.S.-Cambodian relations and an improvement in Chinese-Cambodian relations. The United States suspended aid and instituted an arms embargo on Cambodia after the coup, which it condemned for undermining democracy. In the 2010s, the United States also denounced Cambodia’s poor record on human rights and corruption. Because of this naming and shaming, the Hun Sen regime came to see Washington as a threat to its security. It is not surprising that Cambodia chose to align more strongly with China, from which it derives myriad forms of support and has received little criticism. Beijing provides Phnom Penh with significant foreign investment, political support, and military assistance; it also does not seek to undermine the legitimacy of the regime.
Many governments in the region draw legitimacy from their ability to deliver strong economic performance. This, too, has aided China, which has become the largest trading partner for ASEAN. Nondemocratic regimes in ASEAN believe that China will best support their economic needs and their desire to secure political legitimacy. When it comes to foreign direct investment, China lags behind the United States in the region, but it is catching up fast in several countries through its Belt and Road Initiative, which has financed major infrastructure projects all over the world.
Such investment has forced many countries to revise their traditional ways of seeing the world. The Indonesian military, for instance, was suspicious of China and sympathetic to the United States during the Cold War, a dynamic most gruesomely illustrated by the mass killings of ethnic Chinese people and alleged communist sympathizers in the 1960s. But in recent decades, new political elites and business groups have succeeded in pushing a pro-growth agenda. They see China as a source of economic opportunity, not as a source of ideological threat. And they have steered Indonesia in China’s direction by welcoming Chinese investments, conducting high-level visits—in 2024, newly elected President Prabowo Subianto’s first foreign visit was to China, and in May 2025, Chinese Premier Li Qiang made a reciprocal visit to Indonesia—participating in military exercises with China, and avoiding the common practice of targeting ethnic Chinese Indonesians as scapegoats for Indonesia’s economic ills.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, April 2025 Iori Sagisawa / Reuters
Trump’s return to the White House has stoked further anxiety about U.S. military and economic commitments to Southeast Asia. The second Trump administration seems intent on shifting responsibility for Europe’s security to European governments. The administration’s strategy regarding China and Asia more broadly remains unclear. On the security front, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s March visit to the Philippines and Japan suggests that the United States remains keen to consolidate its Asian alliances, starting with two of its most steadfast allies in the region. As the Philippines spars with China over disputed maritime territories, Hegseth claimed that the U.S. commitment to the Philippines is “ironclad.” But Thailand, another formal U.S. treaty ally, was not on Hegseth’s itinerary. A wiser approach, based on an understanding of Thailand’s drift in China’s direction and the United States’ interest in arresting that slide, would also have taken Hegseth to Bangkok.
Other strategic partners of the United States will also be keeping a close eye on the U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia; they will have to recalibrate their security reliance on and cooperation with the United States if they conclude that Washington is likely to retreat from the region. In 2017, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein voiced concerns about hints from the first Trump administration that it could reduce U.S. overseas commitments. He hoped that the United States would reconsider scaling back its engagement in the Asia-Pacific. If not, he continued, ASEAN had to be prepared for heavier security responsibilities. More recently, in April 2025, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong argued that the “new normal” will be one in which “America is stepping back from its traditional role as the guarantor of order and the world’s policeman.” No other country, however, is ready to fill the gap. “As a result, the world is becoming more fragmented and disorderly.” Trump’s belief that the projection of U.S. military power serves the protected more than it serves the United States has alarmed some in Southeast Asia. In February, Ng Eng Hen, then Singapore’s defense minister, noted that the image of Washington in the region had changed from “liberator to great disruptor to a landlord seeking rent.” As one senior Southeast Asian diplomat based in Washington said half-jokingly to one of us after the debacle of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s February visit to the White House: “Ukraine has critical minerals to offer. What do we have?”
On the economic front, Trump slapped high “reciprocal” tariffs on Southeast Asian countries in early April. Although they have been paused and their future is uncertain, that threat now looms over the region’s economies. Southeast Asian countries fear not just the serious loss of access to U.S. investment and the American market but also the United States’ abdication of its economic leadership—the ceding of its historical role in shaping the economic architecture of the region to others. If it becomes clear that the United States is disengaging economically and militarily from the region, its ten countries will increasingly have to rely on one another and engage with Australia, Japan, and South Korea more seriously. But that imperative will be counterbalanced, and perhaps even overwhelmed, by the temptation to gravitate toward China.
At a fundamental level, geography shapes the decisions many of these countries have to make. Those that share a border with China, such as Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, will feel the natural gravitational pull of Beijing. To be sure, that may be tempered by historical suspicions or animosity, as in the case of Vietnam, which fended off a Chinese invasion in 1979. But proximity can force compromises. In Myanmar, the military junta that took power after the 2021 coup has become reliant on China for diplomatic support and trade, even though it is aware of Beijing’s support for ethnic armed insurgent groups operating in border regions. Laos has become almost entirely reliant on Chinese funds for the building of hydroelectric dams along the Mekong River within its borders; infrastructure loans from China now account for half of the foreign debt that the landlocked country has incurred. Geography also helps explain why Vietnam has only cautiously inched toward the United States. Despite Washington’s avowed interest in elevating relations with Hanoi to the “comprehensive strategic partnership” level, Vietnam resisted until 2023, which is 15 years after it had established such a relationship with China. The United States remains far away, no matter its wide network of military bases. And its remove may make it less likely to commit resources and personnel to ensuring peace and stability in the South China Sea, one of the major regional flash points, if push ever comes to shove.
CEDING THE FIELD
Even though Southeast Asia is clearly leaning toward China, alignment patterns are not set in stone. Countries can change their orientation rather quickly. For example, under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from 2001 to 2010, the Philippines leaned toward China. Her successor, Benigno Aquino III, who ruled from 2010 to 2016, pulled the country back toward the United States. Rodrigo Duterte, who followed Aquino, swung toward China; his successor, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., has swung back toward the United States.
Among Southeast Asian states with Muslim-majority populations, including Indonesia and Malaysia, anger over Washington’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza has led governments to distance themselves from the United States and to cast doubt on American invocations of the so-called rules-based international order. A 2024 ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute survey found that half of the nearly 2,000 experts it polled across ten Southeast Asian countries—people drawn from academia, think tanks, the private sector, civil society, media, government, and regional and international organizations—agreed that ASEAN should choose China over the United States; just a year earlier, 61 percent of those polled had favored the United States over China.
Indonesia may be sleepwalking into closer alignment with China.
Many Southeast Asian governments may not recognize that they are, in fact, taking sides. Because they maintain ties with both superpowers, they assume that their foreign policy is finely calibrated and balanced. They pick à la carte from American and Chinese offerings. They can sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, its Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, the free-trade deal known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and Beijing’s Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative. At the same time, they would have been able to participate in the U.S.-led (but now abandoned) Trans-Pacific Partnership or join the more recent Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity and other U.S. schemes designed to counter the Belt and Road Initiative. They also welcome American private-sector investments with open arms. U.S. foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia surpasses American investments in China, Japan, and South Korea combined. Through such choices, a country may reach a tipping point and end up more in one camp than the other without realizing that it has crossed a line. Indonesia, for example, may be sleepwalking into closer alignment with China—not as a result of conscious, coherent, and grand strategic choice but because the accumulation of its choices (such as its joining of various Chinese multilateral initiatives) in different sectors may over time tilt it decisively toward Beijing.
Even as China rises and the United States retreats, Southeast Asians are not willing to give up on Washington. Poll after poll shows that Southeast Asia sees China as the most influential economic and strategic power in the region, outpacing the United States by significant margins. But Southeast Asians also harbor considerable reservations about how China might deploy that power. When asked whom they trust, elites from various sectors of society rank Japan first, the United States second, the European Union third, and China a distant fourth, according to the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute’s 2024 poll. Put another way, even though China will remain a persistent and formidable challenger to the United States, and even though much of Southeast Asia seems to be gravitating toward China, Beijing still has a lot of work to do to allay concerns and win the trust of regional states.
The second Trump administration may make Beijing’s task easier if the punishing “Liberation Day” tariffs that it imposed on April 2 on key ASEAN states, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, are not lowered significantly; if key U.S. officials fail to show up for the annual ASEAN meetings; and if it acts on its threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on countries that have joined (Indonesia) or are moving to join (Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam) BRICS, a coalition of non-Western powers that includes China and Russia. If it doesn’t change its ways, the Trump administration will freely cede the trust and goodwill that its predecessors have built up in Southeast Asia over the past half century.
YUEN FOONG KHONG is Li Ka Shing Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalization at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
JOSEPH CHINYONG LIOW is Tan Kah Kee Chair of Comparative and International Politics and Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Foreign Affairs · by More by Yuen Foong Khong · June 24, 2025
24. Ceasefire or Not, Iran Looks for Ways to Reduce the Risk of a U.S. Reprisal
Ceasefire or Not, Iran Looks for Ways to Reduce the Risk of a U.S. Reprisal
Before its missile launch at the Al Udeid military base, Iran gave Qatar a heads-up, which it relayed to the U.S.
By Jay Solomon
06.24.25 — U.S. Politics
https://www.thefp.com/p/ceasefire-israel-iran-qatar-strikes-trump
People film projectiles flying over Doha, Qatar, on June 23, 2025, during an Iranian attack on the largest U.S. military base in the region. (AFP via Getty Images)
0:00
It looked at first as though the Middle East war was about to kick into a new gear. On Monday, fewer than 36 hours after the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities, Iran shot about 14 ballistic missiles at the Al Udeid military base north of Doha, Qatar—an American base that houses between 8,000 and 10,000 U.S. military personnel.
By 1 p.m. on Monday, Qatari spokesman Dr. Majed Al Ansari had taken to X to threaten a military response “in a manner equivalent with the nature and scale of this brazen aggression” by Iran. This exchange rapidly stoked fears that the Trump administration’s Saturday air strikes risked setting off a much broader regional war. Influential anti-interventionists, such as talk show host Tucker Carlson, offered prayers for the U.S. on his podcast.
But at 6:02 p.m., President Trump announced on Truth Social, his social media platform, that “a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE” had been agreed upon by Israel and Iran. It was set to begin, Trump said, in six hours, and would end what he called “THE 12 DAY WAR.”
At the time of this writing, neither Israel nor Iran had confirmed the deal. And shortly after Trump’s announcement, CNN followed up with a report that the Iranians had not received any ceasefire proposal and that, according to a senior Iranian official, Iran “is on the verge of intensifying its retaliatory strikes, with no ear to listen to the lies of its enemies.”
Read
Did Iran Just Sneak Out Critical Nuclear Material from Fordow?
Trump administration officials, who spoke to The Free Press after the announcement, assumed the ceasefire was real, but still questioned whether the Iranians would abide by it. “That’s a terrible decision for them,” one told me. “Let’s see.”
Whether there is a ceasefire or not, it was clear even before Trump’s congratulatory statement that the Islamic regime is not, in fact, looking to increase hostilities. That Iranian missile barrage on the U.S. military base had essentially been choreographed. American and Arab officials told The Free Press that Tehran quietly gave its Monday attack plans to Qatari defense officials, who then notified the Pentagon. This all was part of an Iranian effort to minimize any American or Qatari casualties at Al Udeid and thus lessen the potential for a U.S. reprisal.
“It was basically a kabuki dance,” a second U.S. official told me of the Iranian preparations and strike.
And Trump made it clear that he appreciated the Iranian gesture.
“I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,” he wrote on his Truth Social account. “Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region.”
Trump administration officials raised hopes that Iran, despite its bellicose rhetoric, may be willing to return to the negotiating table and seriously discuss the permanent end of its nuclear program.
U.S. and Israeli officials said Monday that the potential for serious Iranian attacks remained. Regime officials and politicians have threatened since Saturday to strike U.S. bases in Iraq, Syria, and Bahrain, either directly or via proxies. And Tehran has warned that it could mine the oil-shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, meanwhile, is preparing for potential Iranian-backed terrorist attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets globally.
Still, American and Israeli officials told The Free Press that they have significantly degraded Iran’s military capabilities over the past two weeks, as well as the country’s military chain of command. Repeated Israeli strikes, going back to October, have also taken out much of Iran’s air defenses, making the country largely exposed to further U.S. or Israeli attacks.
In such a weakened position, Trump administration officials raised hopes that Iran, despite its bellicose rhetoric, may be willing to return to the negotiating table and seriously discuss the permanent end of its nuclear program. If there is, in fact, a ceasefire, that would seem the logical next step.
“I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done,” Trump wrote. “Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE.”
The remnants of an Iranian missile intercepted over Qatar can be seen on June 23, 2025. (AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images)
What still remains uncertain after the possible ceasefire agreement is the future of Iran’s nuclear program. U.S. officials believe they have destroyed Tehran’s ability to enrich uranium. But neither American or Israeli intelligence seem certain on the fate of 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that was stored at Isfahan.
Iranian officials in recent weeks, in anticipation of Israeli and American military action, said they were prepared to move fissile material and nuclear equipment out of these facilities. And satellite images captured by private companies last week showed cargo trucks moving into and out of the tunnels at Fordow. Similar activity was reported at Isfahan.
Former United Nations nuclear inspectors told The Free Press on Monday that there’s a real possibility that Tehran has also made good on its pledges to develop additional secret enrichment sites in the country. This could provide Tehran the ability to use smaller facilities to covertly enrich uranium into weapons-grade fuel.
Read
Niall Ferguson: What Comes After Trump’s ‘Surgical Strikes’?
Trump administration officials on Monday acknowledged uranium stockpiles might still exist inside Iran, but tried to downplay the regime’s ability to weaponize them going forward. “Our goal was to bury the uranium, and I do think the uranium is buried,” Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News. “Our goal was to eliminate the enrichment and eliminate their ability to convert that enriched uranium into a nuclear weapon.”
There was also a concern among some Trump administration officials, after the ceasefire was announced, that the U.S. may be letting the Islamic Republic off the hook. The Israeli strikes had decimated Iran’s military leadership, and the country’s theocratic leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been living in a bunker. The Israel Defense Forces also had been attacking the government’s key bureaucratic power centers, such as the state broadcasting headquarters, the offices of its internal security forces, and the headquarters of Tehran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Ending the war now, some U.S. officials told me, could provide the Islamic Republic with the time and space to reconstitute its military command and resources and to continue threatening U.S. and allied governments in the Middle East down the road. It also might end a rare opportunity to more deeply weaken Khamenei’s regime, if not topple it.
“It’s unsatisfactory,” a U.S. official told me late Monday. “It seems Trump is eager to get a deal and peace. . . . Not sure what it means for the regime.”
25. The Strait of Hormuz and the Indo-Pacific: Strategic Shockwaves
Everything is connected and interrelated. You can pivot all you want but you can never disengage.
The Strait of Hormuz and the Indo-Pacific: Strategic Shockwaves
The potential closure of the strait raises a difficult question for Indo-Pacific policymakers: how can states shield themselves from strategic chokepoint shocks?
https://thediplomat.com/2025/06/the-strait-of-hormuz-and-the-indo-pacific-strategic-shockwaves/
By Lauren Dagan Amos
June 24, 2025
Credit: Depositphotos
The Strait of Hormuz is widely regarded as one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints due to its central role in the transportation of oil and natural gas. Situated between Iran and the Musandam Peninsula – controlled by Oman and the UAE – it serves as the sole sea passage from the oil-rich Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and the wider Indo-Pacific. Any disruption in this narrow 21-mile corridor can generate cascading effects, not only in the Middle East but across the entire Indo-Pacific region.
In June 2025, after the United States launched precision strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, Iran’s parliament responded by passing a resolution calling for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. While the decision awaits final approval by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, the threat alone has already sent shockwaves through global energy markets – especially among Indo-Pacific economies heavily dependent on oil flows from the Gulf. The episode has reignited fears of supply chain disruption, price volatility, and regional escalation, underscoring the strait’s enduring role as a strategic pressure point.
The Strait of Hormuz facilitates the passage of nearly 20 percent of the world’s daily oil consumption. A sustained closure would not only send oil prices skyrocketing but would also destabilize global markets, slow industrial production in Asia, and challenge military and diplomatic responses in real time.
For Indo-Pacific states – especially India, China, Japan, and South Korea – the implications are immediate and profound. All four are heavily reliant on Gulf energy imports, with Japan and South Korea importing more than 70 percent of their crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz. India’s dependency is similarly high, while China remains one of the world’s largest indirect beneficiaries of Gulf oil via its manufacturing-driven supply chains.
Iran’s threats have triggered robust international responses. The United States has adopted a forward-leaning deterrence posture. Washington warned Tehran that any move to close the strait would be an act of “economic suicide,” and urged China to use its influence to restrain Iran – highlighting Beijing’s own energy vulnerability.
Meanwhile, U.S. and allied military deployments in the Gulf signal both resolve and the risk of escalation. Commercial actors are already adjusting: shipping insurers have raised premiums, supply chain managers are reviewing risk models, and warnings have been issued over potential use of drones, anti-ship missiles, or sea mines targeting civilian vessels.
Beyond state-level confrontation, the Strait of Hormuz is increasingly exposed to hybrid threats, including terrorism and maritime piracy. Terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida and its affiliates, have a documented history of targeting strategic maritime infrastructure, as seen in attacks like the bombing of the USS Cole and the French tanker Limburg. The goal is clear: to bleed major economies – especially the United States – by targeting vital energy arteries.
This vulnerability is compounded by the strait’s narrowness and geography. Oil tankers transiting Hormuz are large, slow-moving, and minimally defended – rendering them prime targets. A successful asymmetric attack or coordinated sabotage effort in the strait could result not only in substantial loss of life and environmental catastrophe, but also in global energy paralysis. Even a temporary disruption of a few days would spike shipping costs, destabilize insurance markets, and trigger a severe energy shock, especially in the energy-dependent Indo-Pacific economies.
Given that nearly half of the world’s seaborne oil (around 43 million barrels per day) transits through chokepoints like Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Suez Canal, multipronged disruption is no longer far-fetched.
This unfolding scenario reveals the structural fragility of maritime chokepoints in an era marked by hybrid threats and economic weaponization. It also raises difficult questions for Indo-Pacific policymakers: How can states shield themselves from strategic chokepoint shocks? What kinds of alliances, corridors, and redundancies are most effective?
In this context, regional integration frameworks such as the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) and I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE, U.S.) are no longer abstract diplomatic visions – they are strategic imperatives.
These initiatives aim to diversify energy and logistics routes, reducing dependence on single chokepoints such as Hormuz. They are also emblematic of a broader shift toward multimodal connectivity, combining land, sea, and digital infrastructure to build geopolitical resilience.
One actor stands out in this architecture: Israel. Often perceived as peripheral to Indo-Pacific debates, Israel has quietly become a critical bridge between India and the Gulf. As Sameena Hameed demonstrated, Israel’s logistical assets, port infrastructure, and high-tech sector position it as India’s strategic pivot within IMEC. Overland corridors running through Israel may offer vital alternatives in times of maritime insecurity.
For Japan and South Korea, the current crisis serves as a wake-up call. Deeper cooperation with Israel – both bilaterally and through frameworks like I2U2 – can enhance energy security, technological exchange, and regional coordination in the face of mounting threats.
The current crisis thus requires a two-tiered response: tactical resilience and strategic resilience.
Tactical resilience would involve enhanced maritime security cooperation between industrialized nations, joint naval patrols, investment in maritime domain awareness, and adoption of defense technologies (e.g., anti-drone systems and “secure-ship” electrified barriers). Countries in proximity to the strait, such as Oman and the UAE, could be supported to build local capacity through multilateral initiatives.
Strategic resilience looks to the long term by diversifying energy sources, accelerating green transitions, and building alternative transport corridors that bypass vulnerable maritime chokepoints. Here, proposals such as a land-based oil pipeline from Saudi Arabia to Israel’s Haifa port via Jordan gain new urgency. These would complement IMEC and reduce dependency on contested waterways.
For Indo-Pacific states, the lessons are acute. Without credible redundancy in energy transport and proactive engagement in Middle East–Indo-Pacific integration (such as I2U2), they remain exposed to every fluctuation in Gulf stability.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis serves as a potent reminder that energy security is inseparable from supply chain security and geopolitical foresight. For Indo-Pacific powers, the lesson is clear: the time to invest in alternative routes and resilient partnerships is now.
Israel’s growing integration into India’s connectivity strategy – via IMEC and I2U2 – offers more than a workaround. It is a strategic inflection point for like-minded democracies to reshape the future of energy flows, economic corridors, and regional stability from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific.
Authors
Guest Author
Lauren Dagan Amos
Dr. Lauren Dagan Amos is an expert on Indian foreign and security policy, with a focus on India's strategic role in the Indo-Pacific. She is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and the Dedicated Programs Division at Bar-Ilan University. Dr. Dagan Amos holds a PhD and MA in Political Science from Bar-Ilan University and is a member of the Deborah Forum, which promotes the integration of women in national security affairs.
26. How Iran’s Collapse Could Trigger a Central Asian Refugee Crisis
How Iran’s Collapse Could Trigger a Central Asian Refugee Crisis
Central Asia may not be centered in current headlines, but it could soon find itself on the front lines of the next refugee crisis.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/06/how-irans-collapse-could-trigger-a-central-asian-refugee-crisis/
By Arman Amini
June 24, 2025
, and cross-border movement. Much of its economy is concentrated in state-controlled gas exports, leaving it highly undiversified and fragile. The country lacks meaningful refugee infrastructure, maintains limited cooperation with international humanitarian organizations, and has historically kept its borders tightly sealed. If a refugee crisis unfolds, Turkmenistan is unlikely to serve as a viable corridor or host country.
Tajikistan, which shares a mountainous border with Afghanistan, is the only Persian-speaking country in Central Asia. It maintains deep cultural and linguistic ties with Iran. In the event of upheaval, many Iranians may see Tajikistan as a more accessible destination, and the country’s relative affordability may also make it attractive to displaced working and middle-class Iranians.
Tajikistan’s ability to receive refugees is highly limited. It receives the equivalent of half its GDP in remittances sent back by migrant laborers, Meanwhile, public services are overstretched, and healthcare infrastructure is fragile. When the Taliban regained power in 2021, Tajikistan kept its borders largely closed to Afghan refugees. While officials expressed humanitarian concerns, they cited the country’s limited capacity and risks to internal stability, and the experience remains fresh in the minds of the public and policymakers.
Uzbekistan presents a parallel case. Although Uzbek is the official language, Tajik Persian is still spoken in cities like Bukhara and Samarkand, where Iranian cultural influence has endured for centuries. Iranian refugees may feel drawn to these cities due to cultural familiarity. However, the Uzbek government has taken a strict approach to cross-border migration. During the 2021 Afghan crisis, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev stated that “Afghanistan should not be left alone with its problems,” but emphasized that Uzbekistan would not absorb large numbers of refugees, citing national security.
These policies reflect more than logistical constraints. In both countries, public anxieties about extremism, surveillance, and economic pressure have shaped refugee responses in the past. A large wave of Iranians fleeing conflict or state collapse could trigger similar reactions, and governments may face domestic backlash for providing even limited support.
If Iran’s western neighbors close their doors, and access to the Gulf is constrained, the Afghanistan-Tajikistan corridor could face congestion. Informal crossings, smuggling networks, and spontaneous encampments could emerge quickly, placing immense pressure on already vulnerable communities. Host governments may respond by tightening borders, deploying security forces, or restricting humanitarian access, and resentment may build among local populations and within fragile state systems.
Outside powers could also move in. Russia and China have invested heavily in Central Asian security and infrastructure and might help in exchange for deeper influence, and Gulf states might seek to mediate or fund refugee management in ways that serve their regional agendas. The response to a refugee crisis may become yet another arena for geopolitical competition in the region.
International agencies like the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees have warned that Central Asia cannot sustain another large-scale displacement without major support. With donor governments focused on crises in Gaza, the Red Sea, and Eastern Europe, Central Asia remains a blind spot in global contingency planning.
Some practical steps can be taken immediately. Quiet coordination between Central Asian governments, multilateral institutions, and local civil society groups could help clarify capacity, identify risks, and build early frameworks for managing population flows. The goal would not be to predict catastrophe, but to prevent paralysis if the situation escalates.
Iran’s collapse, or a deeper unraveling triggered by ongoing strikes and internal unrest, may still seem distant. But if it happens, the consequences will be swift and will extend beyond Iran’s borders. Central Asia may not be centered in current headlines, but it could soon find itself on the front lines of the next refugee crisis. Beyond the headlines, families will cross borders in search of safety, and leaders across Central Asia will face difficult choices about who they let in and who they leave behind.
Authors
Guest Author
Arman Amini
Arman Amini is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member and a former management consultant.
27. Loyalty in Crisis: Civil-Military Tensions in the Second Trump Presidency
Excerpts:
Civil-military relations depend on mutual respect and clearly defined roles: the military obeys civilian leadership; that leadership, in turn, is constrained by law and the Constitution. But what happens when the second half of that equation breaks down?
The removal of key legal and national security officials, coupled with aggressive assertions of executive authority, suggests the United States is entering a period of heightened constitutional crisis. The military cannot remain insulated from these developments. Recent troubling events in California strongly suggest that we have crossed into uncertain territory. If President Trump continues to act outside constitutional limits, senior military officers will be forced to grapple with an agonizing question: What loyalty is owed to a president who fails to honor his oath of office? This question may soon demand an answer—not in the abstract, but in real time.
That response should commence by affirming this core principle: loyalty to the Constitution comes before loyalty to any individual. If that principle fails, the foundation of American civil-military relations—and of the republic itself—will be at risk.
Loyalty in Crisis: Civil-Military Tensions in the Second Trump Presidency
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/06/24/loyalty-in-crisis-civil-military-tensions-in-the-second-trump-presidency/
by Lt. Col. (Ret.) Robert Bruce Adolph, by Lt. Col. (Ret.) Benjamin Ray Lawton
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06.24.2025 at 06:00am
Abstract
This article examines the growing tensions between constitutional loyalty and presidential authority in the second administration of Donald J. Trump, particularly as they relate to the U.S. military. Drawing from our military experience and comparative political observation, the authors raise urgent questions about the boundaries of lawful obedience and institutional loyalty in an era marked by executive disregard for legal norms. With military judge advocates general dismissed, intelligence leaders purged, the deployment of the California National Guard, the activation of the U.S. Marines, and constitutional violations mounting, this piece argues that senior military leaders must confront a central dilemma: what loyalty is owed to a president who fails to honor his oath of office?
Introduction
Throughout our military careers, we were proud to serve under the authority of civilian leadership. That leadership, however, was always understood to be subordinate to the Constitution, not above it. Our oaths made that distinction clear to us. Today, we are gravely concerned. The return of former President Donald J. Trump to office, following his conviction on 34 felony counts, has introduced an era of extraordinary constitutional uncertainty. The implications for the military, and particularly for senior leaders, are profound.
The Oath: Not to a Man, but to the Constitution
American military personnel swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” This oath intentionally avoids reference to any individual, including the president. Civil-military theorists such as Samuel Huntington and Peter D. Feaver have long emphasized the necessity of constitutional loyalty in preserving democratic civil-military balance. However, under the second Trump administration, personal loyalty has increasingly replaced institutional accountability as the perceived measure of allegiance to democratic norms. Several recent events suggest this shift toward loyalty to the individual rather than to the constitutional system:
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The dismissal of Department of Justice lawyers investigating the president’s role in the January 6th insurrection.
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The removal of judge advocates general (JAGs) from the military branches without public justification.
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The termination of the National Security Agency (NSA) director and deputy, reportedly for political disloyalty.
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The activation of the California National Guard absent a request by Governor Newsom.
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The deployment of U.S. Marines in support of the California National Guard.
We asked ourselves: where do these decisions leave the military? These actions reflect a pattern in which legal and institutional checks are systematically eroded in favor of personal loyalty to the commander-in-chief. Such behavior is inconsistent with the principles upon which the military oath is based and sends a chilling message: adherence to constitutional norms may be grounds for dismissal.
The Legal and Ethical Boundaries of Obedience
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) provides that service members are not obligated to obey unlawful or immoral orders. Articles 90 and 92 provide the legal foundation for this principle. Additionally, legal training and longstanding military doctrine within the services are clear on this point: officers must disobey orders that are clearly illegal or immoral. Yet these terms, “unlawful” and “immoral,” are increasingly difficult to define amid shifting political winds and weakening institutional guardrails.
Suppose the president were to order a military action to “reclaim” Panama, or to annex Greenland, or to openly align with the Russian Federation over our North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, or to more actively support Israel in its current wars against Hamas and Iran. Legally, these actions might fall within the president’s Article II powers. “While they may not technically violate the law, their actions might still be ethically questionable or strategically destabilizing.” “Courts are not empowered to second-guess policy decisions made by the political branches,” one legal analysis notes. So, who draws the line? What happens when following an order is technically legal, but morally indefensible or outright stupid?
We’ve heard this dangerous refrain before, I was only following orders. The world rejected that excuse after World War II, when Nazi officials invoked it at Nuremberg. Yet in the fog of a real-time crisis, where legal ambiguity clouds moral clarity, that same excuse could find new life.
In such a scenario, what should commanders do? Follow legal advice and comply? Resign? Refuse and face courts martial? This dilemma is not hypothetical. There is no doubt, this issue is being discussed by civil-military scholars, in the media, through 2024, and even more so today in the halls of the Pentagon.
Comparative Lessons and the Corruption Cascade
Our professional experience in multiple countries, including several where democratic institutions have eroded, provides relevant comparative insight. Corruption often began with central executives disregarding legal constraints in nations such as Turkey, Venezuela, and Hungary. Independent judicial institutions were the first to be dismantled, followed by purges of government agencies and silencing of media entities perceived as insufficiently loyal. The leaders of the armed forces, often reluctant at first, eventually aligned with the regime or were replaced. The early stages of that same pattern of corruption appear to be taking root in the United States.
The Forgotten Chapter: Loyalty in Senior Leadership
Years ago, while Robert Adolph was serving at the U.S. Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, he was asked by the U.S. Army War College to review its draft leadership manual for senior officers. His primary critique was the omission of a chapter on loyalty. Specifically, he argued for a discussion on loyalty and the need for military leaders to be prepared for scenarios in which the commander-in-chief is in violation of his/her own oath to support and defend the Constitution. What happens when a colonel or general is ordered to execute an operation that may be legal, but deeply immoral, or strategically catastrophic? The consequences of avoiding that discussion are becoming clear.
Conclusion: The Coming Test
Civil-military relations depend on mutual respect and clearly defined roles: the military obeys civilian leadership; that leadership, in turn, is constrained by law and the Constitution. But what happens when the second half of that equation breaks down?
The removal of key legal and national security officials, coupled with aggressive assertions of executive authority, suggests the United States is entering a period of heightened constitutional crisis. The military cannot remain insulated from these developments. Recent troubling events in California strongly suggest that we have crossed into uncertain territory. If President Trump continues to act outside constitutional limits, senior military officers will be forced to grapple with an agonizing question: What loyalty is owed to a president who fails to honor his oath of office? This question may soon demand an answer—not in the abstract, but in real time.
That response should commence by affirming this core principle: loyalty to the Constitution comes before loyalty to any individual. If that principle fails, the foundation of American civil-military relations—and of the republic itself—will be at risk.
(With special thanks to Professor Elena Coda)
Tags: civil-military relations, Donald Trump, Loyalty, Military Obedience, National Guard
About The Authors
- Lt. Col. (Ret.) Robert Bruce Adolph
- Robert Bruce Adolph, a retired US Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel and United Nations Chief Security Advisor, is a former university lecturer on American History and Government. He is the author of the well-reviewed book “Surviving the United Nations: A true story of violence, corruption, betrayal, and redemption,” recently released in a second edition. His commentaries and articles have appeared in over fifty newspapers, magazines, and professional journals. He has lived and worked in seventeen different countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
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- Lt. Col. (Ret.) Benjamin Ray Lawton
- Benjamin Ray Lawton, PhD, a retired US Army Reserve Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel, is Professor Emeritus in the School of Languages and Cultures at Purdue University and an award-winning teacher, writer, lecturer, and translator. He is currently working on a revision of his co-edited book “Re-visioning Terrorism: A Humanistic Perspective” and the translation of Giuseppe Giacosa’s Impressioni d’America, 1908. Lawton served as an Inspector General during the First Gulf War.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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