Quotes of the Day:

"There is no gate, no lock, no both that can set upon the freedom of my mind."

– Virginia Woolf

“It is not written in the stars that I will always understand what is going on –– a truism that I often find damnably annoying.”

– Robert A. Heinlein – Friday

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm."

~Aldous Huxley.

1. Secretary of Defense Navy Flag Officer Announcement for June 3, 2025 (USSOCOM)

2. Trump nominates former congressional candidate, Green Beret to oversee special operations forces

3. New federal employees must now write essays praising Trump's policies

4. memory on 4 June - a few thoughts from Dr. Cynthia Watson on Tiananmen

5. Trump Taps JSOC Commander, Navy SEAL to Lead SOCOM

6. In Charting Trump’s National Security Policy, Look to Nixon for Inspiration

7. 2 Chinese researchers charged with smuggling biological pathogen to study at University of Michigan lab

8. Ukraine’s Drone Strike Is a Warning—for the U.S.

9. Inside the Ukrainian Drone Operation That Devastated Russia’s Bomber Fleet

10. Trump taps Korean American official for top Pentagon Asia post

11. US ally sends strong warning to China

12. Iran’s Supreme Leader Rejects U.S. Nuclear Deal Offer

13. The Sun Is Swatting Starlink Satellites Like Flies

14. Tariff Threat Is Real, but Globalization ‘Too Big to Fail,’ DHL Executive Says

15. Book Review | Corps Competency? By Michael F. Morris

16. It’s Time to Restructure The US Military’s Command Plan

17. At the Dawn of Special Operations - Lucien Stervinou

18. Giants and the Myth of America’s New Defense Consolidation

19. Does China’s Growing Security Outreach Matter? Tracing Implications for Irregular Warfare and U.S. Security Cooperation

20. Putin’s Pressure Point

21. Israel’s Dangerous Escalation in Gaza

22. Golden Dome to Counter Ukraine-Inspired Attacks, USAF Boss Says

23. PLA escalates ‘gray zone’ tactics near island chain

24. After contractor cuts, Voice of America staffers brace for further layoffs

1. Secretary of Defense Navy Flag Officer Announcement for June 3, 2025 (USSOCOM)

I do not know him but from all the reports I see on social media from those who do, he has a great reputation.

I am reminded of another USSOCOM commander who was promoted from JSOC. I asked him about his transition to Tampa and how to compare the two commands. He said frankly that he receives much fewer calls every day from the White House as the USSOCOM commander than the JSOC commander.

Release

Immediate Release

Secretary of Defense Navy Flag Officer Announcement for June 3, 2025

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4204592/secretary-of-defense-navy-flag-officer-announcement-for-june-3-2025/

June 3, 2025 |   

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced today that the president has made the following nomination:

Navy Vice Adm. Frank M. Bradley for appointment to the grade of admiral, with assignment as commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. Bradley is currently serving as commander, Joint Special Operations Command/commander, Joint Special Operations Command Forward, U.S. Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

2. Trump nominates former congressional candidate, Green Beret to oversee special operations forces

His full bio is here: https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2025/04/22/536d095b/mr-anderson-bio-april-2025-1.pdf

I feel pretty effing old these days. :-) 

He is very well qualified tactically. He seems to be a "go-to" guy for the Trump administration so I assume he will have an excellent relationship there.

Trump nominates former congressional candidate, Green Beret to oversee special operations forces

The nomination for ASD SO/LIC was referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee for consideration.

By

Jon Harper

June 3, 2025

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · June 3, 2025

President Donald Trump has nominated Derrick Anderson to serve as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, according to a notice posted on Congress.gov.

The nomination was submitted Monday and referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee for consideration.

The official who holds the ASD SO/LIC job “oversees and advocates for Special Operations and Irregular Warfare throughout the Department of Defense to ensure these capabilities are resourced, ready, and properly employed in accordance with the National Defense Strategy,” according to a Defense Department description of the position.

They’re responsible for exercising “authority, direction, and control of all special operations peculiar issues relating to the organization, training, and equipping of special operations forces,” as well as advising the undersecretary of defense for policy on special ops and irregular warfare policy issues.

Anderson has most recently been serving as acting assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, a job that he was appointed to in April. Previously, he was director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council during the early months of Trump’s second term.

He also has an extensive military background in the Army and special operations community, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, among other locations. He served as a Green Beret from 2010 to 2016, including as Special Forces company executive officer and Operational Detachment Alpha commander. Prior to that, he was an infantry platoon leader. He’s currently a lieutenant colonel in the District of Columbia Army National Guard, according to his official Army bio.

Anderson unsuccessfully ran for Congress as the Republican nominee in Virginia’s 7th District during the 2024 election cycle. Trump endorsed Anderson in that race.

Trump previously tapped Air Force veteran Michael Jensen for the ASD SO/LIC job but his nomination was withdrawn last month without explanation.

Christopher Maier was the last person to be Senate-confirmed as ASD SO/LIC. He served in that role during the Biden administration.

Written by Jon Harper

Jon Harper is Managing Editor of DefenseScoop, the Scoop News Group’s online publication focused on the Pentagon and its pursuit of new capabilities. He leads an award-winning team of journalists in providing breaking news and in-depth analysis on military technology and the ways in which it is shaping how the Defense Department operates and modernizes. You can also follow him on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) @Jon_Harper_

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · June 3, 2025

3. New federal employees must now write essays praising Trump's policies

See the four essay questions in the article below. Give some thought to how you would write your essay.

Of course this is going to be panned and get a lot of push back.

But in the spirit of government transparency I think these essays should be made public so the American people can know who is conducting their business and how and why. I would like to read the essay of every Administration political appointee as well as civil service hire at the grade of GS-15 and SES. Each person's essay could be included with their official bio on the government/military organization's public web site.

New federal employees must now write essays praising Trump's policies

Newsweek · by Kate Plummer · June 3, 2025

Those seeking a job in the federal government will now have to write an essay in support of President Donald Trump's executive orders, according to a memo from the Office of Personnel Management.

Vince Haley, the White House's head of domestic policy, wrote in the May 29 memorandum that all civil service applicants must answer a series of essays as part of the job recruitment process, including one about how they would "help advance" Trump's policy priorities.

Newsweek has contacted the Office of Personnel Management for comment via email outside normal working hours.

Why It Matters

Since assuming office in January, Trump has overseen a shake-up of the federal workforce, implementing hiring freezes and mass layoffs to downsize the government in the name of efficiency. The president's actions have sparked criticism and legal challenges.

With the federal hiring freeze scheduled to end on July 15, the government has begun to consider how it will recruit workers moving forward.

President Donald Trump walking on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 30. President Donald Trump walking on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 30. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

What To Know

According to the memo, the feral government's strategy to hire people to the civil service, dubbed the "Merit Hiring Plan," will require certain applicants to write four 200-word essays about their work ethic, skills and experience, commitment to the Constitution, and plans to "advance the President's Executive Orders and policy priorities."

The essay questions are as follows:

1. How has your commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States inspired you to pursue this role within the Federal government? Provide a concrete example from professional, academic, or personal experience.

2. In this role, how would you use your skills and experience to improve government efficiency and effectiveness? Provide specific examples where you improved processes, reduced costs, or improved outcomes.

3. How would you help advance the President's Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.

4. How has a strong work ethic contributed to your professional, academic or personal achievements? Provide one or two specific examples, and explain how those qualities would enable you to serve effectively in this position.

The plan, as outlined in the memo, would also decrease hiring time for new candidates to under 80 days; implement a skills-based hiring approach that would reduce the need for "unnecessary degree requirements"; and end the use of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in hiring and recruitment, which the memo described as "racial discrimination."

What People Are Saying

Scott Lucas, a professor in international politics at University College Dublin, told Newsweek that Project 2025 "set this out" with government cuts and other Trump initiatives, so the news was not surprising. "This is an authoritarian regime," he said.

Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University, wrote in a Substack post: "A merit-based civil service that took generations to build is being dismantled via memo."

Max Stier, the president of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, told Axios: "They're emptying the shelves of the existing nonpartisan expert civil servants, and they're restocking with the loyalists."

Paul Light, a professor emeritus of public service at New York University, told Politico: "I think it's foolish. It's hard enough to get talent these days."

The Office of Personnel Management said in the memorandum: "The American people deserve a federal workforce dedicated to American values and efficient service."

What Happens Next

More cuts to the federal government are planned. The White House has said that when the hiring freeze ends, it will allow agencies to hire no more than one employee for every four employees that have left the federal service.

About the writer

Kate Plummer is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. politics and national affairs, and she is particularly interested in the impact of social policy decisions on people as well as the finances of political campaigns, corruption, foreign policy, democratic processes and more. Prior to joining Newsweek, she covered U.K. politics extensively. Kate joined Newsweek in 2023 from The Independent and has also been published in multiple publications including The Times and the Daily Mail. She has a B.A. in History from the University of Oxford and an M.A. in Magazine Journalism from City, University of London.

Languages: English.

You can get in touch with Kate by emailing k.plummer@newsweek.com, or by following her on X at @kateeplummer.

4. memory on 4 June - a few thoughts from Dr. Cynthia Watson on Tiananmen

Remember Tank Man today, June 3-4, 1989

I remember hearing the report about Tiananmen Square via HF radio on a field training exercise when our communications sergeant would tune the radio to get the news in the evening. As a 1st SFG guy I thought, are we going to see resistance in China with unconventional warfare support? What could any of us (e.g., the US and the free world) have done differently in 1989? 

Excepts:

Thirty-six years later, another CCP generation of authoritarians determined to rewrite history remains in power, more effectively lying about both its legitimacy and behavior than in 1989. The Party continues to monopolize technology and the nation's narratives, shaping things to focus on victimization. Xi has done so much to undermine the instruments of society to prevent questions about the Party’s illegitimacy.

Vastly under-appreciated in the modern world is the indisputable centrality of accountability in governance. The CCP deplorably deletes any tales challenging its whitewashed version of 1989 to avoid reckoning for its many horrible actions over the decades, but Zhongnanhai is hardly the only government doing so. Histories, good and bad, are vital to any nation because they provide the enduring sinews of a society. Of course, it's seductive to prefer only the "good" memories (or interpretations).

Modern technology, however, is a double-edged sword. Exploited by many authoritarians to cover up their actions, durability also provides a mechanism by which the oppressed can capture evidence for future generations. As we know, it turns out digits endure, whether Xi Jinping, Deng Xiaoping, or any leader elsewhere tries to ignore the truth. It may be harder to find, but that does not mean it no longer exists. Authoritarians ultimately cannot control every single memory, nor is their narrative always in focus.

memory on 4 June

a few thoughts

Cynthia Watson

Jun 4

 https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/memory-on-4-june?publication_id=1175808&post_id=165171264&isFreemail=false&r=7i07&triedRedirect=true 

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/memory-on-4-june

Authoritarian regimes regularly and deliberately attempt to rewrite history--particularly their penchant for violence rather than the ballot box--to ensure their side of a story provides a victimization narrative: someone, invariably evil, did something justifying the use of inappropriate and illegitimate force to subjugate that action. It's as old as any human behavior, though increasingly perfected in the modern era as technology and societal fears increase the authoritarians' intimidation.

The heinous crime the massacre meriting such a response, of course, was weeks of student protests against a heartless regime deaf to demands it acknowledge the death of Hu Yaobang, who had shown shreds of humanity during his decades as a senior party official. The students, in their brave and sustained protests, set up an encampment, which they sustained for several weeks, humiliating the regime when the international press corps came to cover Soviet leader Mikael Gorbachev's visit that spring.

Many outsiders did not recognize that the Party's fears for its survival were profound because we had focused on China mainly through a different lens for a generation. Nixon took tea with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai in 1972 not because he fancied them as potential small "d" democrats but because he sought their support against the Soviets. The subsequent generation came to believe that Zhongnanhai was altering its fundamental nature to align with our global orientation, partially because the CCP was "hiding and abiding.” Others saw it as a post-Maoist society with potential to embrace more western norms such as individual rights of various sorts, to include religious freedoms. As outsiders became more comfortable with the individuals they encountered in this modernizing society, they ignored the growing Party angst about threats to its durability in power. The economic ties we see under stress today were far weaker thirty-six years ago, although outsiders have sought trade ties for centuries.

I doubt the Communist Party knows for sure how many people died on that bloody Saturday night into Sunday morning near the icon of modern Chinese power, the Forbidden City. Communist regimes are notoriously stove-piped, China being no exception, to prevent the accumulation of knowledge that truth empowers. The Party knew, however, that the PLA killed many but the CCP felt compelled to show strength against any challengers to their power.

Authoritarians tweak the truth for their purposes. In 1996, a PLA speaker at the National Defense University denied anyone died in Tian'anmen Square in 1989. He obliquely meant the deaths occurred on the streets surrounding the Square as if that distinction mattered. Since the West tends to use the shorthand of "Tian'anmen," this distortion provides comfort to a regime wracked by anxieties because of its lack of public legitimacy. Military attachés who walked the vicinity the next morning reckoned at least three thousand perished in the massacre of 3-4 June, although efforts were already underway to clean up the evidence of their actions as the attachés reconnoitered the scene.

Within hours, one of the most iconic photographs of the final years of the twentieth century became "Tank Man," a lone figure standing in front of a queue of PLA tanks near the Square. The individual actually climbed onto the first tank to talk with the soldier inside. I don't think anyone ever identified him, much less has much hope his bravery evaded government punishment. His courage, however, was a testament to the truth that endures, regardless of the authoritarians' lies or distortions.

In the end, the struggle was always between authoritarians determined to hold power by whatever means and a younger generation demanding reforms, tired of corruption, lies, inflexibility, and disrespect for those it professed to represent. Party survival would always take precedence over everything else, even if it cost thousands of lives. Besides, the Party endeavors to erase the massacre to prevent any insidious doubts about legitimacy or accountability for so many actions over almost seventy-six years in power.

Tian'anmen is not a topic of public conversation in the People's Republic. There is no national holiday on 4 June, nor is it discussed in schools. The CCP tightly controls access to Tian'anmen, the Forbidden City, or other high-visibility locations in the PRC to prevent any embarrassment over these few days. It's always so perversely amusing how sensitive authoritarians are to anyone pointing out the regime's vulnerabilities to truth as protests would create.

Yet curiosity lives among the repressed despite the authoritarians’ superficial confidence engendered by harshness. We at the College had a memorable conversation with a Chinese scholar in the early 2000s. It was notable first that she was alone, rather than in the usual gaggle, to ensure a CCP minder would represent the Party to us while monitoring our behavior abroad. She then surprised us as a scholar at a second-tier university outside the capital. This woman hesitantly concluded our session by asking whether something had occurred at Tian’anmen as she had heard something but could not find any information. The three of us, who had spent forty-five minutes answering questions about some esoteric topic, looked at one another before answering her in a straightforward manner about the massacre. The scholar shook her head as if to wipe away cobwebs, then asked what our evidence was. One of my colleagues provided her with a VHS tape of a "Nightline" program on the weeks-long protests and the CCP's response. I doubt it is well-circulated in the PRC, but we sent it home with her.

I also heard some surprising comments on a bus during my final trips to the mainland before the pandemic. Both a young woman and a middle-aged man serving as English-speaking guides acknowledged 1989 as a devastating year for their nation because the Party was so unwilling to admit that dissent existed. These were brave, if brief, comments in a society where doubting the leaders' rhetoric can lead to decades of imprisonment. Their courage and honesty are truly admirable. As Xi Jinping has tightened the screws on both the CCP's power and narrative, I wonder if such admissions could even occur today.

I was at a Skokie Baskin-Robbins that Friday in 1989 as the press reports became more frantic. We had seen it coming, but no one wanted to believe a government would turn its tanks against the nation's future leaders. I recall staring, almost in a daze, at a small television in the cramped shop as poor-quality satellite images revealed the events unfolding in Tiananmen Square on June 3-4, 1989. The following week, I joined thousands protesting in central Chicago, standing in solidarity with those who were unable to speak for themselves safely in China, yet knowing we would make little difference in their lives.

Thirty-six years later, another CCP generation of authoritarians determined to rewrite history remains in power, more effectively lying about both its legitimacy and behavior than in 1989. The Party continues to monopolize technology and the nation's narratives, shaping things to focus on victimization. Xi has done so much to undermine the instruments of society to prevent questions about the Party’s illegitimacy.

Vastly under-appreciated in the modern world is the indisputable centrality of accountability in governance. The CCP deplorably deletes any tales challenging its whitewashed version of 1989 to avoid reckoning for its many horrible actions over the decades, but Zhongnanhai is hardly the only government doing so. Histories, good and bad, are vital to any nation because they provide the enduring sinews of a society. Of course, it's seductive to prefer only the "good" memories (or interpretations).

Modern technology, however, is a double-edged sword. Exploited by many authoritarians to cover up their actions, durability also provides a mechanism by which the oppressed can capture evidence for future generations. As we know, it turns out digits endure, whether Xi Jinping, Deng Xiaoping, or any leader elsewhere tries to ignore the truth. It may be harder to find, but that does not mean it no longer exists. Authoritarians ultimately cannot control every single memory, nor is their narrative always in focus.

I welcome your thoughts on 4 June 1989, authoritarians controlling memories, or any other topic. I genuinely seek to expand measured, civil conversation about the challenges that result from the actions we take as people. Please chime in as I do not have a monopoly on memories or solutions.

I appreciate your time. I especially appreciate those who support this column as paid subscribers who make a difference every single day in my work. $55 for an annual subscription or $8 monthly helps me access a far broader range of materials while earning my deep thanks.

Helen Davidson, “World won’t forget Tiananmen Square, US and Taiwan say on 36th anniversary of massacre”, TheGuardian.com, 4 June 2025, retrieved at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/04/world-wont-forget-tiananmen-square-us-and-taiwan-say-on-36th-anniversary-of-massacre

Louisa Lim, The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisted. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

“TheTankman: The Memory of Tian’anmen 1989”, pbs.org, 11 April 2006, retrieved at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/cron/

5. Trump Taps JSOC Commander, Navy SEAL to Lead SOCOM

Again, I feel effing old. 1991 USNA grad.

Interesting to see the JSOC commander in the Philippines in the photo below.

Trump Taps JSOC Commander, Navy SEAL to Lead SOCOM - USNI News

news.usni.org · by Mallory Shelbourne · June 3, 2025

Col Isagani Criste, commander of the Philippine army’s First Scout Ranger Regiment, welcomes Vice Adm. Frank Bradley, Joint Special Operations Command commanding officer, to the Philippines during a key leader engagement, July 9, 2023. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Photo.

President Donald Trump has nominated Vice Adm. Frank Bradley to lead U.S. Special Operations Command, according to a Defense Department announcement.

Bradley, who has led Joint Special Operations Command since August 2022, will be promoted to admiral. If confirmed, Bradley would take over the combatant command from Army Gen. Bryan Fenton, who has led SOCOM since August 2022.

“He has commanded at all levels of special operations, including Special Operations Command Central, leading joint special operations throughout the Middle East and South Asia,” reads Bradley’s service biography. “He commanded Naval Special Warfare Development Group, has multiple tours in command of joint task forces, and was among the first to deploy to Afghanistan following the attacks of September 11, 2001.”

He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1991 and from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training in 1992, according to his bio.

Bradley will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his nomination hearing.

Related

news.usni.org · by Mallory Shelbourne · June 3, 2025

6. In Charting Trump’s National Security Policy, Look to Nixon for Inspiration

There is a lot that can rhyme with Nixon's Guam doctrine in the Asia/Indo-Pacific region.

I would also look to President Reagan and specifically his NSDD 32. Everyone in the Trump administration should study Nixon and Reagan's foreign policy. NSDD is really worth a read. it was a TS strategy with only 36 copies original produced which of course has now been for the most part declassified and is available form the Reagan Library at this link: https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/public/archives/reference/scanned-nsdds/nsdd32.pdf

Excerpts:

Trump, like Nixon before him, confronts a world in disorder and the risks from policy missteps are great. Nixon’s principles—focused interests, equilibrium, and legitimacy—provide a useful analytical framework with which to examine foreign policy challenges. The Nixon Doctrine, which reaffirms treaty obligations but requires threatened partners to provide the primary manpower for their defense, is a credible approach with which to balance isolationist tendencies at home with the continuing need to confront threats abroad. Nixon’s use of a maximum pressure strategy during negotiations, while working towards reciprocal and principled concessions, is still necessary today. Like Nixon, President Trump must rely on a rigorous approach to produce detailed policy guidance, mobilize necessary action and resources, and confront adversaries that possess a range of developing capabilities—including nuclear, biological, cyber, space, electromagnetic, and conventional. President Trump and his officials should think of Nixon as they organize the NSC, plan America’s strategy, and deter and defeat threats.

In Charting Trump’s National Security Policy, Look to Nixon for Inspiration

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/06/04/trumps-national-security-policy/

by George Franco

|

06.04.2025 at 06:00am

Introduction

As President Donald Trump develops his foreign policy during his first year back in office, he and his national security team should reflect on Richard Nixon’s presidency. Trump, like Nixon before him, confronts a world in disorder following a difficult political comeback. Trump must end a long-running and bloody war—in Ukraine, like Nixon did in Vietnam—and avoid a great-power armed conflict by strengthening deterrence and the balance of power. Like his forerunner, Trump must reconcile isolationist tendencies at home with the need to confront threats abroad. He must cope with existential dangers, like nuclear weapons but soon also AI and biohazards, outline a crisis management approach and a framework on the use of force, and rehabilitate planning in the National Security Council to confront and adapt to a diverse range of threats. With wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza, and tensions mounting in Taiwan and elsewhere, the Trump Administration needs to get its policy approach right.

The Nixon presidency offers a model for the conduct of disciplined statecraft. The former president’s policies reflected the political realities of his time, which have strong parallels with today. Nixon sought to balance the inward-looking sentiment of the U.S. electorate at the time with the need to carry through with America’s foreign commitments. His diplomacy could exert pressure on recalcitrant adversaries, when necessary, while working towards reciprocal and principled accords. Dr. Henry Kissinger, initially Nixon’s Assistant for National Security Affairs and later concurrently Secretary of State, explained that Nixon confronted each international crisis by outlining the national interest and developing an inspired vision of the desired environment. He created incentives for restraint through bilateral agreement rather than unilateral concessions, always getting something in return. Nixon focused on three principles: the centrality of the national interest, the maintenance of the global equilibrium, and the conduct of sustained discussions among major countries to construct a framework of legitimacy within which the balance of power can be defined and observed. Nixon’s deliberate and structured approach to policy provided a rigor that has been lacking in U.S. international affairs in recent years. President Trump needs a similar methodology to examine contemporary security challenges effectively, build support for his vision, and achieve U.S. national security objectives.

Nixon was a consummate realist and assumed the presidency in 1969 after an improbable return to office. He had served as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president for two terms and lost a run for the White House to John Kennedy following the controversial 1960 elections. The setback was compounded when Nixon later fell short in an election to be governor of California in 1962. But like Trump, in an extraordinary display of resilience, Nixon again campaigned for the presidency in 1968 and won a decisive victory.

Nixon came into the presidency as the American ground war in Vietnam was entering its fourth year and about ten months after the Tet Offensive played out on American televisions. Public sentiment, already opposed to the war by 1967, weighed on U.S. policy deliberations. In response, Nixon outlined his famous Nixon Doctrine: reaffirming U.S. treaty commitments; pledging a “shield” if a nuclear power threatened the freedom of a U.S. ally that was vital to American security; and in the cases of other forms of aggression, committing the United States to furnishing military and economic assistance, but looking to “the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense.”

Negotiating with Adversaries

Nixon’s diplomacy could pressure intransigent adversaries, while striving for fair and legitimate agreements. He initiated tough diplomatic negotiations with the North Vietnamese to end the Second Indochina War with honor, while under mounting pressure from anti-war protesters and the congressional opposition at home. Nixon intensified the air campaign against the North, while General Creighton Abrams completed the successful Vietnamization of the war effort. These actions, combined with the U.S. opening to China, enabled Kissinger to hammer out the precarious 1973 Paris Peace Accords. While South Vietnam did fall in 1975, the U.S. congress does not escape a measure of responsibility, after it slashed the military and economic assistance to Saigon envisioned under the Nixon Doctrine.

Trump, like Nixon, faces difficult negotiations to end a tragic and costly war without surrendering U.S. interests. The intensified fighting in Ukraine is now in its fourth year. Many Americans are weary of foreign interventions in the aftermath of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and some question the large commitment of funds and material resources to support Kyiv. Trump has expressed his regret for the great loss of human life in Ukraine and must respond to public sentiment, while not selling-out U.S. allies and partners. He is determined not to repeat anything like the disastrous 2021 Afghanistan collapse, which emboldened America’s adversaries. Trump may have to intensify military, economic, and diplomatic pressure—like Nixon—and work with partners to incentivize the Kremlin during negotiations. Trump could prove more aggressive than Biden in shutting-down the delivery of Iranian weapons to Moscow and more persuasive in getting India onboard with international oil sanctions against Russia.

Nixon observed that the criticism of half-measures was often no less severe than for concerted actions, while the prospects of success were better for the latter. He favored a full throttled effort from the outset once a decision is made, such as when he extended support to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. This approach contrasts with the incremental U.S. military assistance to Kyiv and sanctions on Russia following the 2022 escalation of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

At the time of this writing, Trump has spoken with presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy about negotiating an end to the Ukraine War. Key administration officials have also had high level meetings. The trajectory until recently offered Putin a lose-lose proposition; either Russia gives up the territories it occupies in eastern Ukraine and ends its aggression or Moscow’s economic and diplomatic isolation become enduring. The emergence of a powerfully armed Ukraine fully integrated with the West—if not within NATO, as part of the European Union—seemed like a foregone conclusion. Michael Waltz, until recently the U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, stated the goal of securing a permanent end to the Ukraine War. But after Russia’s extraordinary losses and recent advances, is Putin willing to make any concessions? With the territorial lines being the most visible measure of success, Putin may believe that any return of Ukrainian lands, after such enormous cost, could prompt challenges to his power.

An enduring agreement must be seen as legitimate by both sides and would likely require some return of Ukrainian territories. The compromise to Moscow might include home rule and local security arrangements, for example, in those areas vacated by Russian forces. The return of Ukrainian land can open the door to sanctions relief for Russia and possibly to future talks between Washington and Moscow on other important issues—such as limiting strategic arms and the militarization of space. Despite the desire for a definitive solution and given Putin’s reluctance to cede control of territory, the parties could find themselves in a two-stage negotiation, beginning first with a pause in hostilities (like in Gaza). In this case, the West cannot give away all the inducements only to obtain a cease fire; something must be left for the final settlement.

Nixon would advise on getting something in return for each concession, in exchange for Ukraine forgoing NATO membership, for example, and he would urge U.S. leaders today to understand what areas are nonnegotiable. During the discussions with Hanoi’s representatives to end the Vietnam War, the communist called for the removal of President Nguyen Van Thieu and other government officials in Saigon. Nixon and Kissinger rejected this demand and did not allow Hanoi to win in the negotiation what it could not accomplish on the battlefield. An interim cease fire agreement today may have to accept Russian forces in eastern Ukraine but should not legitimize their presence long-term. Doing otherwise would establish a dangerous precedent. A path must be left open for Russia’s future return into the community of nations following some measure of restitution—possibly in a post-Putin era. Nor should Moscow have any say on who governs in Kyiv or on the disposition of Ukrainian and NATO forces, which leaders will need to optimize continually to deter Russian aggression for the foreseeable future.

Strengthening Deterrence and the Balance of Power

Nixon’s three principles—outlined above and focused on interests, equilibrium, and legitimacy—guided his actions during his presidency and provide a useful framework for today’s national security challenges. Nixon’s 1972 visit to China was one of his signature achievements. Planned carefully during secret negotiations, the summit culminated in the signing of the Shanghai Communiqué. The document initiated the process that would later normalize relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China in 1979—at the cost of ending Washington’s recognition of the Republic of China in Taiwan. Nixon’s reproachment with China exploited the preexisting split between Beijing and Moscow and reset the superpower equilibrium. The present international landscape is different, as China has become the leading authoritarian power and an aspiring global hegemon.

After an extraordinary rise to possess the world’s second economy, China today is experiencing a shrinking population and workforce, hyper-inflated property values, and an overleveraged lending sector. Beijing is increasingly bellicose on the world stage, particularly towards Taiwan and the Philippines, the latter a key U.S. regional ally. Combined naval maneuvers between China and Russia near the Japanese home islands have caused distress in Tokyo, and a recent live fire drill in the waters between Australia and New Zealand forced the rerouting of civilian airliners. Beijing engages in ever more dangerous behavior, seeking advantage across a range of security, economic, and technology areas, while increasingly exercising covert influence within the United States and other countries. China seeks to shape global opinion and public policy in ways that distract, divide, and weaken its adversaries and benefit Beijing. However, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s threatening pronouncements and aggressive wargames have focused the mind of policymakers across Eurasia, with many countries becoming increasingly aware of their security challenges and looking to the United States for leadership and support.

If the first Trump term alerted the world to the China threat, his second presidency should intensify action, pushing back on Beijing’s mercantilism and indentured relations with other countries, theft of intellectual property and efforts to dominate critical technologies, patronage and corruption of academics and elites, algorithmic surveillance and control, and military bullying. The perilous strategic environment requires dispassionate judgement and shrewd far-sightedness to outline and achieve U.S. policy objectives.

America’s economic and security interests across the Asia-Pacific zone are extensive. The region accounts for a leading share of the world’s GDP growth and is home to an innovative technology sector with interdependencies with the West. The waterways through the Western Pacific are some of the busiest in the world and are key to U.S. trade. Many regional countries have representative governments and are naturally inclined towards the United States, but this alignment could change if Washington loses its nerve in keeping China’s more aggressive impulses in check—regarding a forceable annexation of Taiwan, for example. Were the United States to vacillate in its role of security guarantor, some vulnerable countries would seek accommodation with Beijing. While many Americans decry the U.S. supply-chain dependency on China, the U.S. position worsens considerably if Beijing develops the regional sphere of influence and control it clearly wants. Control over supply chains provides China with the means to coerce other countries, like when Beijing tried to restrict U.S. access to rare earth minerals as part of the dispute on trade tariffs. The PRC’s investments in its blue water navy, overseas basing, and strategic nuclear weapons program, for example, lay bare global ambitions and suggest Beijing will not remain appeased, even if granted generous concessions in the Pacific.

China’s unprecedented military buildup, combined with the “no limits” partnership between Xi and Putin, are straining the global power equilibrium. Nixon would urge corrective action to reaffirm the balance of power, bolstering America’s ability to deter, and if necessary, defeat aggression. Congressman Mike Gallagher, former chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, has called for strengthening the U.S. Navy and boosting U.S. munition production capacity and stockpiles, with emphasis on anti-aircraft, anti-ship, and land-attack precision strike systems. Missile defense, space control, and modernization of the U.S. nuclear triad are also essential, including the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, B21 stealth bomber, and Columbia class ballistic missile submarine. With China as the pacing challenge, the Trump Administration should prioritize those systems most helpful in blocking Chinese aggression in the First Island Chain and beyond, including Virginia class attack submarines, Hammerhead sea-mines, and bombers with long-range antiship missiles, which can disrupt and destroy naval formations and are not reliant on overseas basing. Carefully scripted military exercises can enhance deterrence by demonstrating the capability of these stealthy systems. For example, the United States could perhaps assemble decommissioned and condemned ships in a remote part of the ocean and obliterate them in an instance, allowing an adversary’s satellites to observe the destruction of the target fleet, while not detecting the approach of the strike force. The Replicator Program, which envisions large scale deployment of autonomous systems, must demonstrate resilience to electromagnetic attack now and in a future with powerful artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computers. Prudence would suggest DoD continue to hedge its bets by developing complementary manned and unmanned systems.

Consideration of the power equilibrium must now also include homeland defense. Adversaries like Russia and China will use space, cyber, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons, AI, and biotech to develop novel attack methods, and each requires detailed policy, developed in consultations with the private sector, academic institutions, and multinational organizations. In many instances, the U.S. government may not have the latest technical insights and should engage outside experts to develop effective threat deterrence, detection, and mitigation capabilities. The Trump Administration should consider 21st century approaches to civil defense, infrastructure security, continuity of government, and social resiliency in the face of these new and potentially catastrophic threats.

China’s malign influence within the United States and across academia, the business sector, the political sphere, and in many other areas, requires a holistic response. For many years, U.S. special operations forces have encouraged America’s allies and international partners to adopt a comprehensive defense, involving all levels of government and the civilian population, to counter foreign malign influence and subversion. The time has come for the United States to practice what it preaches and adopt a similar methodology, mobilizing public and private sector vigilance, and making foreign malign influence less effective, while imposing costs on sponsors and enablers. It is possible that societies with adversarial politics, market economics, and open access to information have vulnerability to adversary malign influence, but they are also more prosperous and adaptive in the long run than those without these characteristics. The challenge for democracies is to preserve their fundamental character, while combating corruption, information manipulation, subversion, and other destabilizing activities.

After bracing America’s resolve and strength, Nixon would advise President Trump to engage China on grounds seen as legitimate by both sides. The United States and China have the capacity to bring ruin and devastation to each other. New and developing hazards, like the recent COVID pandemic demonstrated, can have global implications. Agreed norms and protocols should guide CRISPR-gene-editing research and AI development that, like nuclear weapons, can present an existential danger to human civilization in the future. Washington and Beijing could address these and other issues in a Second Shanghai Communique.\

Developing National Security Policy

Nixon applied a deliberate and structured approach to long-term policy, ensuring rigorous and careful deliberation, which is much needed today. As president, he reinstated the tiered system of interagency review for developing long-term guidance that was part of Eisenhower’s National Security Council (NSC) system, but which President Kennedy had abandoned in favor of an ad hoc approach. While the recent Biden Administration also employed a layered NSC process, convening principals and deputies committee meetings and interagency working groups, the historical record will show the Biden NSC struggled to develop and implement durable strategy—outlining a theory of success to address challenges and applying means to policy ends. There was a lack of problem-solving guidance to departments and agencies, beyond the broad 2022 National Security Strategy and notwithstanding a flood of new policy documents in the waning days of the Biden presidency. A scantness of strategic vision and direction constrained U.S. efforts to address challenges from Russia’s war in Ukraine to Iran’s nuclear program and destabilizing activities. The Trump team must not repeat the same mistake and should instead develop and issue explicit instructions, after careful consideration, in support of clearly defined and achievable national security objectives. A failure to do so could result in poorly conceived and uncoordinated efforts across the executive branch, while adversaries make geostrategic gains at the expense of the United States and its allies and partners.

At the height of the Cold War, the Nixon Doctrine made prominent mention of nuclear deterrence. Today, Team Trump faces many developing and existential challenges: potential AI-enabled cyber-attacks and disruption of undersea cables that could trigger a global financial meltdown; bioengineered pathogens more lethal than COVID; EMP weapons capable of causing protracted blackouts; and nuclear weapons in orbit that could return humanity to a pre-Sputnik state, without operational satellites. These and other threats deserve consideration in a Trump Doctrine and policy documents.

U.S. force modernization has temporarily left the United States with too few planes and ships, while struggling to bring new systems online. The Afghanistan pullout humiliation and the promotion of questionable diversity policies in the ranks tarnished temporarily the warfighting ethos of the U.S. armed forces. Meanwhile China’s military buildup continues unabated. Xi has ordered his generals to be ready to invade Taiwan in 2027. His fear now is that China may have peaked too soon, creating urgency in Beijing to resolve the Taiwan matter. In 2022, Russia drew false comfort from the large number of its tanks and aircraft, and in 2023, Iran was too confident in its many missiles and drones prior to the Gaza war. Trump needs to make sure Xi does not make a similar misjudgment.

Conclusion

Trump, like Nixon before him, confronts a world in disorder and the risks from policy missteps are great. Nixon’s principles—focused interests, equilibrium, and legitimacy—provide a useful analytical framework with which to examine foreign policy challenges. The Nixon Doctrine, which reaffirms treaty obligations but requires threatened partners to provide the primary manpower for their defense, is a credible approach with which to balance isolationist tendencies at home with the continuing need to confront threats abroad. Nixon’s use of a maximum pressure strategy during negotiations, while working towards reciprocal and principled concessions, is still necessary today. Like Nixon, President Trump must rely on a rigorous approach to produce detailed policy guidance, mobilize necessary action and resources, and confront adversaries that possess a range of developing capabilities—including nuclear, biological, cyber, space, electromagnetic, and conventional. President Trump and his officials should think of Nixon as they organize the NSC, plan America’s strategy, and deter and defeat threats.

Tags: balance of power, China, defense policy, national security, Russia, Statecraft, Taiwan

About The Author

• 
  
• George Franco
• George Franco is a national security consultant in Washington D.C. and a retired U.S. Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel. While on active duty, he served as Strategist to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as Assistant for Counterterrorism Programs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The views expressed are entirely his own.

7. 2 Chinese researchers charged with smuggling biological pathogen to study at University of Michigan lab

2 Chinese researchers charged with smuggling biological pathogen to study at University of Michigan lab | CNN

CNN · by Taylor Romine · June 4, 2025

Authorities seized toxic plant pathogens that a Chinese scientist smuggled in his bag when he tried to enter the US last year.

United States District Court For The Eastern District Of Michigan/AP

See all topics

Email

Link Copied!

Two Chinese researchers were charged with smuggling a biological pathogen that they planned to study at a University of Michigan lab, a complaint filed Tuesday says.

The charges come as the Trump administration is cracking down on Chinese students studying in the United States and citing alleged connections to the Chinese Communist Party in its ongoing fight with academic institutions.

Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, were charged with conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States, smuggling goods into the United States, false statements and visa fraud for bringing in the fungus Fusarium graminearum from China, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Fusarium graminearum is described as “a potential agroterrorism weapon” that can cause disease in certain plants like corn, rice and barley, and is “responsible for billions of dollars in economic loss worldwide each year,” an FBI affidavit in support of the complaint says.

The charges come as the Trump administration is looking to revoke visas for Chinese students, especially those with alleged “connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week. The State Department has zeroed in on any potential wrongdoing from academics across the country in the last several months, including a Harvard researcher accused of smuggling frog embryo remains.

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that the case is “a sobering reminder that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is working around the clock to deploy operatives and researchers to infiltrate American institutions and target our food supply, which would have grave consequences.” The affidavit doesn’t specify what Jian and Liu’s intentions were in studying the fungus.

In its ongoing battle with Harvard University to cut billions of dollars in federal funding and international students out of the institution – moves that have prompted two ongoing lawsuits from the school – the administration has alleged that joint research with Chinese academics on optics and aerospace amounted to “coordinating with Chinese Communist Party officials on training that undermined American national security.”

The Department of Homeland Security also cites an inquiry from three Republican congressional committee chairs saying that a series of health conferences hosted by Harvard included participation by members of a sanctioned Chinese paramilitary group accused of complicity in a genocide against China’s minority Uyghur population.

CNN reached out to the federal community defender of the Eastern District of Michigan, who represents Jian, for comment. Jian, who was arrested by the FBI, remains in custody. Liu is not currently in the US, said Gina Balaya, public information officer for the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Liu, who is a researcher at Zhejiang University in China, tried to bring in multiple samples of the fungus during a trip with a tourist visa in July 2024 and hadn’t applied for a permit to bring it in, the affidavit says.

Jian, his girlfriend, is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Molecular Plant-Microbe Interaction Laboratory at the University of Michigan, and previously worked at a university in Texas since August 2022, the affidavit says. Authorities found evidence that during her time at the two universities, the Chinese government funded her research on Fusarium graminearum at Zhejiang University, the affidavit says.

Files found on Jian’s phone included a signed “annual self-assessment form” from the university, which described her research accomplishments from the previous year as well as an oath to follow the principles of the CCP, the affidavit says. Radio Free Asia previously reported on the practice, saying “tens of thousands” of Chinese students using government-backed scholarships were required to sign the document.

When Liu was questioned at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in July 2024, he initially claimed he didn’t know what the materials containing the fungus were, but eventually admitted he intentionally hid the samples and planned to clone different strains at the University of Michigan lab where Jian worked, the affidavit says.

Several devices seized from Liu, the affidavit says, showed messages where he coordinated with Jian to smuggle biological samples and other materials for the July 2024 trip as well as for a trip two years earlier.

The University of Michigan officials said in a statement Tuesday they “strongly condemn any actions that seek to cause harm, threaten national security or undermine the university’s critical public mission,” and noted they received no funding from the Chinese government in relation to those charged.

Jian appeared in court Tuesday but didn’t enter a plea, Balaya said. She is scheduled to be in court for a detention hearing Thursday.

CNN’s Andy Rose contributed to this report.

See all topics

Email

Link Copied!

CNN · by Taylor Romine · June 4, 2025

8. Ukraine’s Drone Strike Is a Warning—for the U.S.

Okay NORTHCOM. What do you do about drone defense? What is the military role in this type of himalayan defense? And of course it is not the only government agency with responsibilities. How will we prevent those 18 wheel trucks with drivers who have been duped from coming across the borders with Mexico and Canada carrying drones as cargo? We will shut down trade and thus the economy as we open and inspect the cargo of every truck crossing the border (and perhaps every shipping container arriving at every port through the US). What a great method of Unrestricted Warfare. Shut down the US economy by making us fear every cargo container entering the US by truck or ship.

Ukraine’s Drone Strike Is a Warning—for the U.S.

The American homeland is also vulnerable to drone and missile attacks.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/ukraine-drone-strike-russia-u-s-homeland-defense-8e2244b2?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

By The Editorial Board

Follow

June 3, 2025 5:36 pm ET

Ukrainian servicement prepare a Darts strike drone for flight. Photo: rfe/rl/serhii nuzhnenko/Reuters

By now Americans know about Ukraine’s remarkable drone strike on Sunday that damaged as many as 40 aircraft deep inside Russia as strategic bombers sat like ducks in a row on military bases. One urgent lesson beyond that conflict is that the U.S. homeland is far more vulnerable than most Americans realize.

The details about Ukraine’s daring operation are few, but Kyiv managed to sneak cheap drones across the border and use them to destroy costly Russian military assets. The bang for Ukraine’s buck was considerable. You don’t have to be a fan of thrillers to imagine a similar scenario in the United States.

“Could those have been B-2s at the hands of Iranian drones flying out of containers, let alone Chinese?” military analyst Fred Kagan asked this week. The U.S. strategic bomber fleet is small (about one-third the size it was in the Cold War) and concentrated at a handful of bases. See the aerial photo flying across social media of B-52 bombers lined up at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The story is similar for fighters and capital assets like aircraft carriers.

One lesson is that President Trump’s planned Golden Dome missile-defense shield isn’t the boondoggle it’s portrayed to be in the press. The headlines are preoccupied with space-based interceptors. But the U.S. is exposed to many threats besides ballistic missiles—from drones and spy blimps to cruise missiles launched off submarines.

The bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission warned in 2023 that the U.S. needs better integrated air and missile defenses against “coercive attacks” from Russia and China, and such an attack could come from conventional weapons. In a crisis over the Taiwan Strait, Xi Jinping might threaten the Commander in Chief: Stay out of the Western Pacific or you never know what might happen to your pricey F-22s in Alaska.

That’s one reason the U.S. needs a layered missile shield that exploits new technology and existing systems like the Patriot. Israel’s recent success shooting down drones with lasers shows that innovative and affluent societies can meet new threats. President Trump deserves credit for elevating missile defense as a presidential priority.

But the U.S. has lost some basic muscle memory since the Cold War on living in a dangerous world. A prescient report this year from Thomas Shugart and Timothy Walton at the Hudson Institute warned about highly vulnerable U.S. airfields, especially in the Western Pacific.

For the new B-21 bomber, the Air Force is looking at shelters “akin to sunshades,” Messrs. Shugart and Walton write, that could leave the aircraft “exposed to threats, including lethal” unmanned aerial vehicles. “Not building approximately $30 million” hardened aircraft shelters “for over-$600 million B-21 bombers is an unwise decision that could endanger the US’s ability to strike globally,” they write.

Such shelters always end up being a low budget priority compared with airplanes and missiles, and the message here is that defense spending can’t stay at 3% of the economy and provide the security Americans expect. The bill moving through Congress puts up $25 billion for Golden Dome. But a national air defense won’t be built by a one-time cash infusion, and the Administration is ducking a sustained defense buildup to mollify its fiscal hawks.

Americans are accustomed to wars fought far from home by a force of volunteers, but everyone in the U.S. will be on the front lines of the next conflict. Political leaders could be doing much more to educate the country about this vulnerability, rather than boasting that the U.S. military is the best it has ever been. It isn’t.

Ukraine did the U.S. a favor by destroying bombers of a U.S. adversary—and sending America a wake up call about its own complacency.

who recently testified on military posture

55 seconds of 4 minutes, 33 secondsVolume 0%

00:5604:33

Will an increase in defense spending enable the U.S. to close the gap in the drone market? According to North Carolina Rep. Pat Harrigan, 'China's drone output in 2024 was $29.4 billion, at least four times the amount of money that the United States is spending, with far lower, by an order of magnitude, unit costs.'

Appeared in the June 4, 2025, print edition as 'Ukraine’s Drone Strike Is a Warning'.

9. Inside the Ukrainian Drone Operation That Devastated Russia’s Bomber Fleet

Please go to the link to view the interactive web site with videos and images.

https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-russia-drone-attack-bombers-cc77e534?st=6Em9Ku&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Inside the Ukrainian Drone Operation That Devastated Russia’s Bomber Fleet

WSJ analysis reveals how Ukraine used homegrown tech and old-school spycraft in the attack

By James Marson

Follow, Jane Lytvynenko, Brenna T. Smith

Follow and Serhii Bosak

June 3, 2025 10:57 pm ET

KYIV, Ukraine—Ukraine’s spectacular drone attack on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet on Sunday began with a daunting request from Ukraine’s president to his spy chief in late fall 2023.

The Russian Air Force was pummeling Ukraine’s power stations and cities with missiles, overwhelming meager air defenses, and Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to know: How can we fight back?

Lt. Gen. Vasyl Maliuk, a 42-year-old career security officer with broad shoulders and a stern mien, has earned a reputation for innovative operations with explosive naval and aerial drones that forced Russia to withdraw much of its Black Sea Fleet from its base in occupied Crimea and damaged dozens of oil plants and military-production facilities deep inside Russia.

But the task was formidable. The strategic bombers that launched many of Russia’s most powerful missiles operate from beyond the range of Ukraine’s air-defense systems, and were based at airfields across the country as much as 3,000 miles from Ukraine. Ukraine’s SBU security service, which Maliuk heads, has deployed long-range aerial drones effectively, but they are vulnerable to Russian air defenses, including missile interceptors and jammers.

What Maliuk and his team came up with shocked the world Sunday with its audacity. The agency smuggled Ukrainian drone parts into Russia and assembled them at a secret location. SBU operatives inside Russia used unwitting truck drivers to deliver a modern version of the Trojan horse by concealing the drones in the roofs of wooden containers. On Sunday, the roofs—activated remotely—slid open on trucks close to the Russian air bases, releasing dozens of drones and adding a dash of Transformers to old-school spycraft.

More than 100 quadcopters—small drones with four rotors—emerged and zipped toward their targets, some descending through smoke billowing from already-damaged aircraft.

Video released by Ukraine’s security service SBU shows drones as they plummet into aircraft many times their size, damaging warplanes critical to Russia’s bombing campaign.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of official Ukrainian statements along with satellite images, accounts by people familiar with the operation, and photographs and videos posted on social media, shows how a meticulously planned operation that combined homegrown technology with the classic art of deception unfolded.

Ukraine said that it damaged 41 warplanes valued at $7 billion at four bases using drones that cost about $2,000 each. Publicly available videos and satellite imagery viewed by the Journal showed 12 damaged planes across two air bases.

Russian air bases targeted by Ukraine

North Sea

Arctic Ocean

Olenya

Sea of Okhotsk

Kyiv

Moscow

Ivanovo

UKR.

Black

Sea

Dyagilevo

Russian forces

Caspian

Sea

Belaya

Sources: Institute for the Study of War and American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project (Russian forces); Ukrainian security officials (reported strikes)

Emma Brown/WSJ

“The numbers the Ukrainians have been providing aren’t backed up yet by hard evidence,” said Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a Monterey, Calif.-based think tank that studies weapons of mass destruction. Lair identified the damaged planes through satellite imagery and social media.

Still, he said, “it’s clear that this has dealt a very heavy blow to the Russian strategic bomber force, even if we aren’t seeing the numbers that the Ukrainians have claimed.”

Of the four air bases that the SBU said it targeted, satellite imagery indicates that three sustained damage, and only two show visible signs of damaged aircraft—the Belaya and Olenya air bases.

Belaya airbase on June 2

1

Destroyed probable Tu-22M3

Destroyed probable Tu-22M3

Destroyed probable Tu-22M3

1

2

2

Possibly damaged Tu-95

Destroyed Tu-95

Destroyed Tu-95

Destroyed Tu-95

Umbra Space (synthetic-aperture radar satellite images as of June 2); Chris Biggers, consultant and geospatial analyst (SAR analysis); Google Earth (airbase satellite image as of April 23)

Satellite imagery from Monday shows that a third air base, Dyagilevo, sustained only a patch of burned grass, according to Lair.

Dyagilevo airbase on June 2

Damage

Source: Planet Labs (satellite image)

Much of the damaged equipment is irreplaceable or hard to rebuild. A Ukrainian law-enforcement official said at least one of the targets damaged was a rare A-50 plane, which provides airborne early warning of potential threats and targets as well as command and control of the battlefield. Available satellite imagery doesn’t show any damaged A-50s.

Most of the planes hit were Tupolev Tu-95 bombers, a Soviet-era aircraft still crucial to Russia’s long-range missile campaigns. While the extent of the damage to Tu-95s remains unclear, in light of the aircraft’s age and scarcity of parts, even relatively minor damage could derail Russia’s air missions for months, Lair said.

Olenya airbase

May 29

June 3

An-12 debris

Debris from

3 Tu-95s

3 Tu-95s

An-12

Sources: Planet Labs (satellite images via Center for Nonproliferation Studies); Sam Lair, research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (aircraft analysis)

Jemal R. Brinson/WSJ

Maliuk and his agency have plenty of experience striking prime targets, from the use of a truck bomb to damage the Kerch Bridge between mainland Russia and occupied Crimea to assassinations on Russian territory, including the killing of a Russian general with an exploding scooter as well as a bomb hidden in a statuette to kill a prominent war blogger.

Deep strikes and nimble operations against Russian military targets have been critical to Ukraine’s efforts to fend off its much larger neighbor’s invasion. VIDEO: SBU/Reuters

Zelensky said that Ukrainian intelligence operatives in Russia had set up a base right under the noses of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB. Russian law enforcement searched a concrete warehouse Sunday in Chelyabinsk, an industrial city in the Ural Mountains about 900 miles east of Moscow and a few miles from the local FSB headquarters, according to Russian media. 

Russian state media named a Ukrainian DJ who had been living in Russia and recently relocated to the city last year as one of the people responsible for logistics behind the drone attack, purchasing the trucks that would carry the drones and coordinating the drivers. He didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

Some of the materials the SBU used in the operation had to be smuggled across tightly controlled borders, including the parts that would eventually be assembled into the attack drones.  

An undated photo released by the SBU shows Ukrainian military drones. Photo: SBU/AFP/Getty Images

A Ukrainian law-enforcement official said the drones used were quadcopters called Osa, produced by the Ukrainian company First Contact. The craft, about the length of a man’s arm, are made in Ukraine, can carry a payload just over 7 pounds and travel at a maximum speed of just over 90 miles an hour, according to the manufacturer’s website.

Valeriy Borovyk, the founder of First Contact, declined to comment on whether the drones were used in the operation, but said they are manufactured for complex special operations.

Osa, Ukrainian for “wasp,” has several alternatives for how it can be controlled. One of them is the ability to connect to cellular networks, which Russia shuts down when it expects an incoming strike but which remain operational when there is an element of surprise, as there was with Sunday’s operation.

Borovyk said it was the SBU’s meticulous preparation ahead of the strike that would have allowed for drone operators to do their job effectively. He said the strike portion of the operation was the cherry on top. 

“But this cake, they prepared it, cooked it, put it in a box, decorated it—to continue the metaphor—and all of this was done with great care and detail,” Borovyk said. 

The truck drivers said to Russian authorities that they weren’t told about the contents of the containers and were instructed to stop at gas stations or roadside rest stops near the airports, according to Russian media.

Once parked at their designated locations, the roofs of the containers housing the quadcopters were opened remotely, the SBU said, and the drones flew out with a high-pitched buzz.

A photo shows Maliuk as he surveyed diagrams of planes where the most vulnerable spots are marked with red crosses. Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the crosses mark where internal fuel tanks are located on each type of plane, which would have caused a major fire when ignited by the small payload from the drones.

Celebrating the attack, Zelensky lauded the SBU—and personally thanked Maliuk—for the operation, which he said showed Ukraine is still in the fight.

“Russia’s whole narrative, which they spread everywhere, in Europe, in Britain, in America, that they’re safe, they’re winning the war—this narrative is not working,” Zelensky told reporters Monday. “They’re not safe.”

Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com and Brenna T. Smith at brenna.smith@wsj.com

10. Trump taps Korean American official for top Pentagon Asia post

Trump taps Korean American official for top Pentagon Asia post

John Noh, who served on the House China panel, is nominated to steer Indo-Pacific security affairs

https://www.chosun.com/english/people-en/2025/06/04/CSB6RD4MPRALRORKI7QKTGLDXI/

By Kim Eun-joong (Washington),

Park Su-hyeon

Published 2025.06.04. 15:56

Updated 2025.06.04. 17:44

John Noh, nominee for assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs./U.S. Department of Defense

John Noh, a veteran Army officer and former prosecutor, would take over one of the Pentagon’s most sensitive Asia policy roles.

U.S. President Donald Trump has nominated John Noh, a Korean American defense official, to serve as assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs — a pivotal post overseeing U.S. military strategy and alliances across East and Southeast Asia, including South Korea, Japan, China and North Korea.

The move formalizes Noh’s role five months after he stepped in as acting deputy following the departure of Ely Ratner, a Biden-era appointee who left when the Trump administration took office in January.

If confirmed by the Senate, Noh would take charge of one of the Pentagon’s most strategically significant portfolios, at a time when tensions with China remain high and U.S. partners in the region are seeking clarity on Washington’s long-term posture.

Noh brings a diverse background to the role. A former U.S. Army officer who served in Afghanistan, he later worked as a federal prosecutor in Houston from 2019 to 2021. He holds degrees from Brown University and Stanford Law School.

Before joining the Defense Department as deputy assistant secretary for East Asia, Noh served as legal counsel to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party — a key panel shaping congressional oversight of U.S.-China policy.

11. US ally sends strong warning to China

SECDEF Teodoro gives a master class on how to respond to Chinese questions (disguised as propaganda).

Watch him in action in this 6 minute video: https://youtu.be/6T6b3xIkta4

US ally sends strong warning to China

Newsweek · by Micah McCartney — reporting from Shangri-La Dialogue, Singapore · June 3, 2025

China's efforts to expand its sphere of influence in its own region and beyond are part of its "political DNA" and a growing number of countries are coalescing against it, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro told Newsweek in an interview.

Following a tense exchange with Chinese officials at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia's premier defense summit, Teodoro called Beijing "the cause of instability".

Newsweek contacted the Chinese Foreign Ministry by email with a request for comment.

Why It Matters

Teodoro's comments reflect the toughening stance by the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. over China's claims in its exclusive economic zone.

China claims up to 90 percent of the South China Sea as its territory, citing what it calls historical rights within its self-declared nine-dash line—a boundary that overlaps with the maritime claims of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and self-ruling Taiwan.

Footage released by the Philippines has shown the Chinese coast guard using ramming maneuvers and water cannon attacks that Manila said left Philippine servicemen injured.

A Hague-based arbitral tribunal dismissed China's dashed-line claims in a 2016 decision Beijing rejected as invalid.

Gilberto Teodoro Jr, Secretary of National Defense of the Philippines, delivers his speech during the 22nd Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore, Sunday, June 1, 2025. Gilberto Teodoro Jr, Secretary of National Defense of the Philippines, delivers his speech during the 22nd Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore, Sunday, June 1, 2025. Anupam Nath/Associated Press

What To Know

Beijing's agenda is rooted in its leadership structure, Teodoro told Newsweek on Sunday. "That is to extend the sphere of influence of dynastic politics of whatever nature, and it is within their DNA to be that—their political DNA."

"The impression of other countries is that of weariness, caution, and not comfort. Even those who engage with them fully do not fully trust China."

Still, China remains a major trade partner for some 150 countries, according to Beijing's customs administration—and for most of Southeast Asia—a fact Teodoro acknowledged has likely muted some nations' responses.

"But this has got to stop somewhere. And the countries that are standing up are coalescing against China," he said. "And if they [China] do not notice this [...] and spin the narrative as it being to contain their rightful place, then they're just fooling themselves."

He expects "more of the same" from Beijing. The Philippines is therefore working to form an international coalition to increase deterrence, he added, likening this to erecting "a strong fence."

China's actions in the South China Sea have also been met with strong protests from Washington and several Asian-Pacific and European nations.

Adding to tensions are alleged espionage operations near military installations, mass cyberattack campaigns, and unsafe military encounters reported by U.S. allies in international waters.

Deterrence of China would take two forms, Teodoro said: "building up capability resilience" and fostering "international resonance that will condemn their activities."

During his remarks in a Shangri-La panel on Sunday, Teodoro was challenged by two senior Chinese colonels, who asked whether the Philippines would engage with China on friendly terms or choose to play the part of a U.S. proxy.

Teodoro thanked the officials for "propaganda spiels disguised as questions," a barb that drew applause from attendees. He said the "deficit of trust" in China remains the largest obstacle to a solution in the South China Sea, adding that a nation that "represses its own people" is not to be trusted.

What's Next

A breakthrough in the South China Sea dispute remains unlikely, with both China and the Philippines firmly entrenched. The fact that the Philippines is a U.S. treaty ally makes it a potential flashpoint for global conflict at a time of tension between Washington and Beijing on numerous fronts.

An F-16 jet flies over during a counter landing live fire exercise at a beach as part of U.S.-Philippines joint military exercises on May 03, 2025 in Aparri, Cagayan province, Philippines An F-16 jet flies over during a counter landing live fire exercise at a beach as part of U.S.-Philippines joint military exercises on May 03, 2025 in Aparri, Cagayan province, Philippines Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

About the writer

Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian security issues, and cross-strait ties between China and Taiwan. You can get in touch with Micah by emailing m.mccartney@newsweek.com.

12. Iran’s Supreme Leader Rejects U.S. Nuclear Deal Offer

Iran’s Supreme Leader Rejects U.S. Nuclear Deal Offer

An initial U.S. proposal to Tehran allows only limited, temporary enrichment in Iran

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/irans-supreme-leader-rejects-u-s-nuclear-deal-offer-8de2e223

By Benoit Faucon

Follow, Laurence Norman

Follow and Alexander Ward

Follow

June 4, 2025 7:33 am ET

Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader at an event marking the anniversary of the death of his predecessor in Tehran on Wednesday. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/Associated Press

Key Points

What's This?

• Iran’s Supreme Leader rejected a US proposal for temporary uranium enrichment, escalating nuclear program tensions.
• The US proposal involved limited uranium enrichment before a phase-out, with regional consortium-managed facilities.
• Iran faces potential UN Security Council action amid IAEA concerns.

Iran’s supreme leader effectively rejected a U.S. proposal that allows temporary uranium enrichment in the country before ending it completely, forcing the White House to reconsider its approach as tensions mount over Iran’s nuclear program.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking Wednesday on the anniversary of the death of his predecessor, said the recent U.S. offer to Iran to resolve the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program breached Tehran’s principles of independence.

“To the American side and others we say: Why are you interfering and trying to say whether Iran should have uranium enrichment or not? That’s none of your business,” Khamenei said on X. 

Iran and the U.S. have held five rounds of nuclear talks so far, but the two sides have clashed over Washington’s insistence that Tehran give up enrichment. Western officials believe Iran wants to enrich to retain the option of producing a nuclear weapon. Iran says its nuclear work is peaceful. 

Last week, President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff submitted what U.S. officials called a term sheet to Tehran, which one U.S. official said allows Iran to enrich a limited amount of uranium for a period of time before phasing it out.

Iran is in the process of responding formally to the U.S. offer, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday. Khamenei is the country’s decision maker on security matters and his comments on Wednesday are the clearest indication of Iran’s likely formal response. 

The U.S. official said this week Washington expected Tehran to reject the initial U.S. offer and the U.S. will have to consider its next steps. Negotiations could continue this weekend, officials say. 

Under the proposal, the U.S. would help foster the creation of enrichment facilities managed by a consortium of regional countries, according to the U.S. official and a person briefed by Iran’s negotiating team.

Meanwhile, Iran would be able to enrich small amounts of uranium at an overground site. But Iran would have to stop all enrichment in the country once the consortium is up and running.

Iran would have to render its current underground enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow inoperable up front under the proposal, the U.S. official said. That would shutter the vast bulk of Iran’s centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium. 

Some Iranian officials have expressed openness to a consortium but have said any enrichment must continue in Iran and under its control. Iranian officials have long insisted Tehran’s enrichment program isn’t up for negotiations. 

Trump said this week a new nuclear deal would preclude an enrichment program. That may not rule out an interim arrangement allowing some domestic enrichment by Iran. 

Iranian officials have complained that Witkoff has refused to commit to specific sanctions relief, say Arab and Iranian officials. 

Oman, which is mediating between Iran and the U.S., has also suggested Iran halt some enrichment on a temporary basis in exchange for sanctions relief. 

Trump has said he prefers to see a nuclear deal with Iran but warned he could take military action if there is no deal. Israel has also threatened action against Iran’s nuclear program if Tehran moves toward building a nuclear weapon. 

Iran has amassed a highly enriched uranium stockpile, according to the United Nations atomic agency in Vienna. It is producing roughly one bomb’s worth of highly enriched uranium monthly, based on the U.N.’s most recent assessment.

While the talks continue, Western powers are on a collision course with Tehran at the U.N. atomic agency, which could put further pressure on the negotiations. 

Last weekend, the International Atomic Energy Agency circulated a long-awaited report on Iran’s stalling over a six-year-old probe into undeclared nuclear material found in Iran. 

European diplomats in Vienna say they plan to push ahead with a resolution at the IAEA board of governors meeting next week declaring Iran in noncompliance with its basic nuclear safeguards obligations, a step that could push the issue to the attention of the U.N. Security Council for a response. The U.S. is expected to back the move, a senior diplomat said Wednesday.

Britain, France and Germany have said this could be the next step in their threat to reimpose all the international sanctions lifted on Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal. 

Iran has warned that if snapback proceeds, it would withdraw from the international treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons and kick out international inspectors. 

Over the past four years, Iran has faced a series of rebukes at the Vienna agency over its lack of cooperation with the IAEA. Each time, it has reacted by gearing up its nuclear program or further downgrading oversight of its work.

Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com, Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com

13. The Sun Is Swatting Starlink Satellites Like Flies

All my 18E SF communications sergeants were right. There are sun spots and sun storms. That is why we could not make comms.  

The Sun Is Swatting Starlink Satellites Like Flies

BY RYAN ERIK KING JUNE 3, 2025 11:25 AM EST

https://www.jalopnik.com/1875778/sun-is-swatting-starlink-satellites/

Kirby Lee/Getty Images

Astronomers have previously warned that SpaceX is blinding humanity's view of space by flooding orbit with thousands of satellites, and now space is seemingly pushing back. NASA scientists found that geomagnetic storms are shortening the lifespan of Starlink satellites. The death throes of these satellites are being shortened from 15 days down to just five days.

During the waning days of a Starlink satellite's life, its orbit will decay beneath 285 miles in altitude, close enough to the planet that the atmosphere will slow its speed and plunge it towards its fiery demise. The solar maximum is accelerating the end-stage process, according to the New Scientist. The once-every-11-year peak in eruptions on the Sun's surface creates geomagnetic storms that heat the atmosphere and increase atmospheric drag.

This wouldn't be an issue if it were just a few dozen metallic lumps looping around our blue marble. However, there are approximately 7,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, with SpaceX aspiring to operate a 42,000-satellite constellation. It's far from sustainable to have that many man-made objects burning up in the atmosphere. At scale, there will be satellites burning up every day. If that process is three times faster, it could have devastating consequences.

Starlink is burning a hole in the ozone layer to rake in billions

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

To start, Starlink satellites are designed to die. SpaceX launches them into orbit to spend roughly five years transmitting data before their orbit decays. Elon Musk's private space company has to constantly replenish its Starlink constellation to provide consistent communications coverage. Academic researchers have previously levied concerns that the sheer volume of re-entries could deplete the ozone layer by releasing 1,000 tons of aluminum oxide into the atmosphere every year.

Despite the concerns, SpaceX has zero reason to slow the exponential growth of its Starlink constellation. Starlink is expected to generate over $12 billion this year, Ars Technica reports. This is a massive increase compared to an estimated $8 billion figure for 2024. How did this happen? Elon Musk bankrolled Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, and Musk's business ventures started to rake in even more federal dollars. In February, Starlink snatched a $2.4 billion contract with the Federal Aviation Administration from Verizon. Starlink is gradually ingraining itself as a communications backbone for various industries, but it'll never be big enough to plug a new hole in the ozone layer.

Read More: https://www.jalopnik.com/1875778/sun-is-swatting-starlink-satellites/

14. Tariff Threat Is Real, but Globalization ‘Too Big to Fail,’ DHL Executive Says

DHL is smart.

But there is no going back on globalization. It is real and it is what made the US trong, powerful, adn rich. You cannot turn back the clock on it. And one of the most naive (and dangerous) strategic beliefs is that the US can walk away from globalization. But it was a shrewd political move to blame problems on the bogeyman of globalization.

Tariff Threat Is Real, but Globalization ‘Too Big to Fail,’ DHL Executive Says

DHL is expanding its footprint in countries that could benefit from tariff-redirected demand

https://www.wsj.com/business/tariff-threat-is-real-but-globalization-too-big-to-fail-dhl-executive-says-0a7afeec

By Kimberley Kao

Follow and Fabiana Negrin Ochoa

Follow

June 4, 2025 6:57 am ET

DHL has seen growing interest in its logistics services. Photo: annegret hilse/Reuters

Key Points

What's This?

• DHL executive says tariffs create uncertainty but don’t halt trade, as companies adapt and goods still move.
• A DHL report and PGIM research indicate no retreat in global flows, with most of the global economy remaining on a ‘fast track’.
• DHL identifies 20 markets benefiting from investment and reshoring, expanding its footprint in Asia to meet tariff-redirected demand.

Tariffs and geopolitical tensions are rewiring supply chains. That could disrupt global trade flows, but it won’t stop them, says a top executive at logistics giant DHL Express.

“The tariff situation has created additional uncertainties and complexities…But companies continue to trade, and goods continue to move from one point to another,” Ken Lee, Chief Executive of Asia Pacific at DHL Express.

The rollout of President Trump’s tariffs on trading partners has been marked by abrupt pivots and confusion, leaving businesses wary of committing to spending and economies facing slower growth. The prospect of counter tariffs and trade wars has sparked talk of “deglobalization,” in which countries increasingly disconnect from each other as protectionist policies take root.

While acknowledging that the situation is unpredictable, Lee is confident that trade will find its way. Past periods of disruptions haven’t led to a sustained decline in trade volumes, said Lee, who started his role at DHL before the Covid-19 pandemic.

A recent DHL report tracking globalization trends showed no signs of a retreat in global flows so far this year, though uncertainty remains high.

Research from PGIM, Prudential Financial’s global investment management business, found that around 75% of the global economy remains on the “fast track” of globalization.

While geopolitical tensions and trade restrictions may appear to signal that “the globalization pendulum has swung hard in the opposite direction…the reality is far more nuanced,” said Shehriyar Antia, head of thematic research at PGIM. Roughly 80% of global trade happens beyond U.S. borders, and companies in most industries will still seek out the benefits of free trade and competitive advantage, he wrote in a report.

U.S.-China trade accounts for a relatively small portion of the world’s international flows, so fraying bilateral relations still leave considerable room for trade to grow, said DHL’s Lee.

Tensions between the two superpowers have hurt business confidence, but while some businesses are waiting for more certainty, others are taking the chance to restock, and the company has seen growing interest in its logistics services, he added.

Tariffs are just one factor in corporate calculations, he said, noting that countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia continue to attract foreign direct investment. Official data show a 34.7% increase in FDI in Vietnam in the first quarter, and a 12.7% rise for Indonesia.

DHL has identified 20 markets that it sees benefiting from increasing domestic or foreign investment, or reshoring or nearshoring strategies. Seven are in Asia, and the company is already broadening its footprint in those countries to capture tariff-redirected demand.

The company remains confident in high-growth markets such as India, and is upbeat on the prospects for global trade.

“The U.S. does not trade enough to reverse globalization on its own, not without a steep cost,” Lee said. “Globalization is too big to fail.”

Write to Kimberley Kao at kimberley.kao@wsj.com and Fabiana Negrin Ochoa at fabiana.negrinochoa@wsj.com

15. Book Review | Corps Competency? By Michael F. Morris

Book Reviews| The Latest

Book Review | Corps Competency? By Michael F. Morris

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/06/04/iii-maf-vietnam-war-case-study/

by Mark Thomas

|

06.04.2025 at 06:00am

Corps Competency?: III Marine Amphibious Force Headquarters in Vietnam. By Michael Morris. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2024. ISBN 978-0700636938. Maps. Photographs. Glossary. Notes. Sources Cited. Index. Pp. vii, 348. $54.99.

Dr. Michael Morris, a retired Marine Colonel, provides an instructive lesson on corps-level failures in his book, Corps Competency?: III Marine Amphibious Force Headquarters in Vietnam. Dr. Morris provides an invaluable case study on a little-understood echelon in a little-understood war. Corps Competency is impressively researched, succinct, and logically organized. Although written primarily for a Marine audience, this book is a must-read for all current practitioners interacting with any corps-sized echelon.

The Corps in Future Combat

To win on the future battlefield, the U.S Army is revitalizing its corps level headquarters. Napoleon developed the corps headquarters to serve as a flexible, self-sufficient level of command to orchestrate multiple divisions. Today’s Army states the corps is the most flexible echelon of command capable of controlling forces at the operational and tactical levels of war. During the US Global War on Terror, corps headquarters focused on broader counterinsurgency (COIN) tasks such as supporting governance and reconstruction. These roles were proper for the fighting insurgencies and Afghanistan and Iraq, but they are very different than the large scale combat operations (LSCO) as seen in Ukraine today. Institutional knowledge in COIN does not translate to LSCO and visa versa. To further complicate matters, corps in future fights will likely need to execute both types of fights simultaneously. Today’s Russian Army provides a contemporary warning to this challenge.

The Russian Army mistakenly thought momentary tactical success against an irregular enemy in Syria demonstrated their capability to win against their near-peer Ukrainian adversaries. Fighting anti-Assad rebels in the desert did not require a Russian corps level headquarters to synchronize maneuver and effects in a contested, hybrid modern battlefield. Assad’s recent downfall illuminate Russian military failures in consolidating tactical gains into strategic outcomes. In Ukraine, examples of Russian senior command and control failures abound, but one of the most illustrative is the failed 2022 Siverskyi Donets River Crossing where an entire battalion tactical group was destroyed.

To avoid the mistakes of Russian adversaries in Ukraine, US corps headquarters must continuously improve its ability to actively direct combat operations and leverage tactical victories into strategic ones. A key part of this development on the corps in combat must include accessible historical studies. Since the future battlefield is more likely to include both conventional and irregular threats, The Vietnam War still offers painful lessons in hybrid warfare.

Out of its Depth: The Senior Marine HQ in Vietnam

In Corps Competency?, Dr. Morris briefly retraces the history of III MAF’s history in Vietnam from when it arrived in 1965 to guard the Da Nang Airfield through its rise to control all military operations in the northern I Corps region of South Vietnam to its eventual withdrawal in 1971.

Dr. Morris’s primary argument is that the III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF) was not properly prepared to fight a sustained, hybrid war in South Vietnam. As a result, III MAF failed to leverage tactical success into strategic success. Functioning as a corps-level command, III MAF was the senior land headquarters in the I Corps region, located along the demilitarized zone of South Vietnam. III MAF’s mission was a radical departure from the swift, amphibious operations it had been trained and organized for. Dr. Morris analyzes the MAF’s response to this new mission through its war fighting functions: command and control, intelligence, operations, logistics, and plans. In each of these categories, Dr. Morris combines well researched data with telling anecdotes to highlight how MAF commanders and staff executed the war they wanted to fight rather than the one they faced. Out of their littoral comfort zone, III MAF faced sustained conflict against the conventional North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Vietcong guerrilla forces.

In this operating environment the MAF had three primary lines of effort: training the friendly Army of the Republic of Vietnamese (ARVN), defeating regular North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces, and pacification or COIN of the countryside. Dr. Morris argues that the MAF mistakenly overemphasized the COIN line of effort at the extreme detriment of the other two. By minimizing the ARVN forces and failing to deny NVA access into south Vietnam, Dr. Morris argues that III MAF set conditions for which ultimately defeated the fledgling Republic of Vietnam. Unchecked to enter South Vietnam, the NVA developed organic resupply chains that didn’t solely rely on the local populace, circumventing III MAF’s COIN efforts. These logistical tentacles enabled the climactic 1975 Spring Offensive, a massive simultaneous attack by the NVA which defeated an ARVN force inadequately trained and unsupported by the Americans.

Competing Theories of Victory

Consistent with the Marine history in small wars, the III MAF theory of victory was to prioritize counterinsurgency. By winning the populace, the Marines hoped to deprive the NVA from their base of support. The Marines developed the Combined Action Platoons, where squads of Marines partnered with local Vietnamese militia to secure friendly villages. Dr. Morris argues that while III MAF was able to increase its control over more of the population, its counterinsurgency failed to destroy the Vietcong shadow government and did not offer an alternative political strategy to address local concerns. It is hard not to see reflections of Afghanistan in this approach where massive US-funded infrastructure did little to sway to support the central government because their more immediate needs were unmet. Although III MAF prioritized the COIN mission, they simultaneously needed to defeat the regular NVA threat.

Dr. Morris argues that III MAF failed to defeat the NVA in I Corps because they, as well as the rest of Military Advisory Command-Vietnam (MACV), relied on a punishment strategy instead of a denial strategy. The punishment strategy called for a mobile defense to conduct search and destroy operations towards achieving the elusive cross-over point when the NVA would not be willing to replace their casualties. These search and destroy operations forced US-led forces into tactical offense as soldiers and marines crossed the deadly final 50 meters to engage entrenched NVA and Vietcong forces. Attrition cut both ways. Ultimately, the US lacked the political will of North Vietnam to replace casualties. Although, III MAF’s higher headquarters proscribed the doomed war of attrition, Dr. Morris does not let the Marine command off the hook. He rightly argues that a senior headquarters has a duty to offer dissenting voices and an alternative theory of victory.

While providing a war fighting function analysis of III MAF in Vietnam, Dr. Morris paints a damning picture of a corps level headquarters unprepared for its operating environment and unable to adequately adapt. Unsatisfied with simply picking holes in how III MAF fought, Dr. Morris also explores paths not taken.

Dr. Morris argues that III MAF’s best opportunity to win in I Corps was to adopt a denial strategy by building the McNamara line in their sector. The McNamara line was a defensive system of obstacles, early warning sensors, and fortifications supported by mobile reserves to prevent Northern communist incursions. There is still debate regarding whether the McNamara Line would have proven effective. However, the logic of forcing the enemy into the tactical offense while cutting off their line of communications is consistent with the classic lessons on warfare espoused by Carl von Clausewitz and Antoine Jomini.

An Overzealous Critic?

In the finest tradition of the Marine leaders, Dr. Morris is not shy in his criticism of his beloved Corps. Morris acknowledges that there is plenty of blame to go around for the loss of Vietnam, but this does not excuse III MAF for their mistakes. For example, when addressing the punishment strategy, he acidly writes, “Like a loyal lemming, III MAF followed MACV over the conceptual cliff of an attrition strategy based on search and destroy tactics.” Dr. Morris does recognize Marine successes, such as the Combined Action Platoons, but his zeal for criticism may not give the MAF enough credit. By Dr. Morris’s own admission, III MAF did successfully turn the counterinsurgency tide following the 1968 Tet Offensive before being ordered to withdraw. Dr. Morris does not consider whether the MAF counterinsurgency approach would’ve worked if not prematurely stopped by political mandate. However, whether Dr. Morris is always fair to the MAF is beside the point. His goal is to provide an objective evaluation of III MAF to inform contemporary practitioners.

Dr. Morris’s analysis is not without its own faults. He does not systematically compare III MAF with its adjacent Army corps headquarters to support his argument about the MAF’s ineffectiveness. An equal treatment of all the MACV corps headquarters would likely reveal that none were especially effective in Vietnam. While focused on the MAF, the war fighting function chapters would benefit from more visual aids. The command-and-control section could utilize a command and control diagram to better depict the sprawling organization the III MAF found itself in charge of. Additionally, the operations section should include a more detailed map of the northern I Corps area with unit boundaries and key terrain. With these blemishes, Corps Competency? is still incredibly well researched and well argued.

Conclusion

Morris provides an indispensable case study of a corps-level headquarters fighting a sustained hybrid war for modern practitioners. To win on the future battlefield, Marine and Army corps must achieve what III MAF could not. They must properly balance countering irregular and conventional threats with a cohesive operational approach. As the Russians are learning in Syria and Ukraine, this is no easy task. Preparing for hybrid war at a large scale requires education rooted in history. Books like Corps Competency? offer important lessons in hybrid warfare, but only if they are read and acted upon.

Tags: Book review, Command and Control, US Marine Corps, Vietnam War

About The Author

• 
  
• Mark Thomas
• Major Mark Thomas is a special forces officer with multiple combat deployments to the Middle East, currently assigned as a planner at I Corps, Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He is a graduate of the USMC School of Advanced Warfighting and has been published in the Marine Corps Gazette and Joint Special Operations University Press.

16. It’s Time to Restructure The US Military’s Command Plan

Bob was ahead of the curve. They just announced Greenland under NORTHCOM.

But this is a radical proposal because the JCS is not an operational or warfighting HQ (or even a spacetime competition HQ).

Excerpt:

1) Make the Joint Staff the supported (i.e., lead) command for global operations during a war with China. Currently, the UCP identifies INDOPACOM as the lead command for planning a conflict with China. The Department of Defense should consider updating the UCP so that INDOPACOM remains the lead command in the Western Pacific while the Joint Staff coordinates the planning and execution of global operations against Chinese targets outside the Pacific theater.

It’s Time to Restructure The US Military’s Command Plan

The National Interest · by Robert Peters

Topic: Security

Region: Americas

June 3, 2025

Share

To effectively prepare for great power threats, the Pentagon must streamline and consolidate its regional command system.

The current structure of the Unified Command Plan (UCP)—the document that outlines the roles and responsibilities of America’s combatant commands, such as European Command (EUCOM), Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and Strategic Command (STRATCOM)—is outdated for today’s challenges.

The UCP, updated periodically, assigns combatant commands authority over various parts of the world and key missions, including nuclear deterrence, homeland defense, and logistics. Today, the UCP is overdue for a major update, as it no longer lends itself to a grand strategy aimed at deterring Chinese aggression.

Because the UCP’s existing focus on strict geographic boundaries, wherein EUCOM focuses on Russia and Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) focuses on China, existing planning and command of military forces is siloed by combatant command. This siloed command structure prevents the integrated, global planning required for the US military in the event of a war with China.

In addition, the current structure is inefficient, with too many command headquarters and staffers. Each combatant command is led by four-star military officers and staffed by a host of generals, admirals, and civilian senior executives—to say nothing of the scores of mid-grade officers who support the generals. It is worth examining whether a merger of several regional commands could lead to more efficient planning and operations and better prepare the Department of Defense for the deteriorating global security environment.

The following changes to the UCP would fix these deficiencies:

1) Make the Joint Staff the supported (i.e., lead) command for global operations during a war with China. Currently, the UCP identifies INDOPACOM as the lead command for planning a conflict with China. The Department of Defense should consider updating the UCP so that INDOPACOM remains the lead command in the Western Pacific while the Joint Staff coordinates the planning and execution of global operations against Chinese targets outside the Pacific theater.

In many ways, having the Joint Staff oversee a global war would echo the command relationships of both World War II and the Cold War. In World War II, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the larger US-UK Combined Chiefs of Staff oversaw global operations against the Axis and coordinated military actions in the Pacific, North Africa, Europe, and South Asia. In the Cold War, the Joint Staff issued the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan, which “outlined the distribution, use, and support for existing forces should war erupt” with the Soviet Union.

It was only in the mid-1980s, in the twilight hours of the Cold War, that the Defense Department recognized that war with the Soviet Union was less likely than a regional conflict erupting in a region overseen by a unified command and the current era of bureaucratically powerful combatant commands arose.

With the potential return of a global war, it is time to reconsider the Joint Staff’s historical role of coordinating the planning and execution of global operations during a conflict. The focus of specific Combatant Command contingency operations during a conflict with China would be to prevent disruption to US and allied force projection and sustainment, as well as the potential disruption of critical resources that China requires to initiate, escalate, or sustain aggression.

2) Direct all geographic combatant commands to plan for a China contingency. Geographic combatant commands would be required to submit plans for action against China to the Joint Staff within their respective regions.

Any conflict with China would have global implications—and may well unfold across the globe, with combat operations potentially taking place in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. INDOPACOM’s ability to plan, coordinate, and oversee such operations while focused on the central front of a war with China in the western Pacific would likely be limited.

Conducting operations outside of INDOPACOM would be especially relevant in a protracted conflict in which Chinese reliance on energy imports became a major vulnerability. The relevance of global planning outside INDOPACOM will also continue to grow in importance as China expands its global military footprints and looks to build bases abroad.

3) Include the Golden Dome missile defense mission in the UCP. The UCP should designate the US Space Command as the agent for fielding and operating the Golden Dome system, as well as the supported command for global missile defense operations. It would be supported by the existing Missile Defense Agency—a three-star Combat Support Agency—which would focus on research and development for the overarching systems. This would align with President Trump’s May 20 announcement that General Michael Guetlein of Space Force will be the Golden Dome executive agent.

4) Merge Africa Command with European Command. Africa, compared with the North American homeland, the Indo-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America, presents distinct and specific challenges when it comes to American interests. That said, those interests do not justify having a full combatant command led by a four-star general and the commensurate staff elements. Instead, the European Command should absorb Africa Command and form a new “Atlantic Command” that incorporates the borders of the two former commands.

In either case, European security and deterring Russian aggression should remain the priority duty. Under the new arrangement, a Joint Interagency Task Force-Africa should be established to address relevant terrorism challenges or threats posed by Russia or China that may arise in Africa.

5) Shift Greenland from European Command to Northern Command. Given the importance of Greenland to North American defense—particularly defense against missile attacks generated in Eurasia—it makes particular sense to move Greenland fully into the Northern Command area of operation.

The author does not make these recommendations lightly—but the UCP must keep pace with the challenges that threaten American interests and the American people. The president and the secretary of defense have the power to issue new UCPs at their will. They should exercise that power now.

About the Author: Robert Peters

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

Image: Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com.

17. At the Dawn of Special Operations - Lucien Stervinou

Another great American.

Always good to read, remember, and learn from our history.

This minor excerpt makes me think about USAID.

Excerpt:

Widowed in 1978, Stervinou was re-married in 1981 to a U.S. Foreign Service Officer with USAID—Theodora (Teddy) Wood—who he met in Annandale, Virginia. The two spent years stationed in west Africa, working at USAID’s Regional Office in Abidjan where he promoted private sector development in central and west Africa at the height of the cold war. 

USAID has done incredible work over the years and I hate to see it denigrated as has happened in recent months. So many great Americans have worked for USAID and it has done so much. Sure some projects have lost their on some occasions but when I think about John Paul Vann in Vietnam or what USAID did in the Philippines to bring peace after the MNLF agreement in the 1990s, I know they have done so much more good than is told in the negative press reports by pundits who have never experienced their goodness.

At the Dawn of Special Operations - Lucien Stervinou

sof.news

The Incredible Military Career of Lucien Stervinou

By Jeff Goodson.

There’s a forested canyon above the town of Quimper in northwest France called les Gorge du Stangala. Drained by the Odet river, it’s known locally for its wild beauty and tranquility. In World War II, while training with the British Special Air Service in Scotland, the name was adopted as the nom de guerre of a French resistance fighter and special operations warrior named Lucien Stervinou. 

Over the course of six years, from 1940-1946, Stervinou fought behind enemy lines in Europe and Indochina. He earned both the Croix de Guerre and France’s highest military award, the Legion d’Honneur. His story is the story of western special operations at the dawn of the modern age of irregular warfare.      

Escaping the Nazis

Lucien Corentin Stervinou was born in Langalet, France (Brittany) in 1923. He was barely 17 when he first set out to escape the Nazis. As a German Panzer division moved toward the French port of Brest, he and his grandmother heard a radio appeal from Brigadier General Charles De Gaulle in London: “Frenchmen, we have lost a battle; we have not lost the war. From wherever you are, come join me and continue the fight.” It was June 18, 1940, just four days before Marshall Petain signed the Armistice with Germany.

Young Stervinou hopped on his bicycle, peddled the two miles to Chateauneuf du Faou, and met up with three of his soccer buddies. The four of them drove south to the port of Concarneau, and talked the captain of a Norwegian fishing boat into taking them aboard along with a group of French troops that he was surreptitiously evacuating to England. The seas became extremely rough, and half-way across the English Channel the captain turned about and returned to La Rochelle. 

A few hours before the Nazis arrived, Stervinou jumped a military train for Bordeaux. He then went to Marseilles, Lyon and Vichy, before working his way to Quimper where he settled in with a resistance group that a young priest introduced him to. 

When the Quimper group was later discovered, Stervinou fled to Paris and hid out in the apartment of famous resistance fighter Yves Allain. Allain, who was later murdered in Morocco, ran the Bourgogne escape route through which some 250 allied airmen escaped Nazi capture by crossing the Pyrenees into Spain. In June 1942 Stervinou followed that route with Allain, two British pilots and a small group of civilians, crossing the Pyrenees near Pau at night with a Basque guide. 

After splitting up in Spain, Stervinou was captured by Spanish border guards and jailed in Jaca, Huesca and Saragossa. A few weeks later, he was ransomed to the British Consul, who organized his travel through Madrid and Gibralter to a British air base near Swindon, England. He arrived July 28, 1942, just over two years after his first attempt to escape the Nazis. 

Supporting the French Resistance

Stervinou’s first stop was “Patriotic School” near Wimbledon, where all foreigners entering England were held and interrogated at length. He was then released to the Free French Forces, who he worked with for the rest of the war. 

After five months of basic training at Camp Rake Manor in Surrey, Stervinou was recruited by France’s Central Bureau of Intelligence and Operations (BCRA). Similar to the OSS, but smaller, BCRA was the precursor of France’s External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service (SDECE)—today known as the Directorate General for External Security (DGSE). 

Stervinou trained at the British Army Commando Training Center, the BCRA training Center, and the Parachute Center at Ringway. While training with the British Special Air Service (SAS) near Iveranay, Scotland, he took the nom de guerre Stangala. From then through the first half of 1944, he worked communications between London and various French resistance groups. 

D-Day and Return to Paris

In late May 1944, three “sticks” of ten men each were flown to an unnamed base in the south of England where they were separated from other units. Just before D-Day, on June 4, 1944, Stervinou’s stick was parachuted into an area prepared by a local resistance group west of Vire in Normandy. They brought arms and equipment, and trained the resistance fighters who met them in the use of heavy armaments, communications and fighting tactics. Other sticks parachuted that night into Brittany to destroy railroads and bridges. 

For two months after D-Day, while operating behind enemy lines, Stervinou’s stick avoided German soldiers and the French milice who fought with them. Finally, in August they were ordered to Paris to regroup and help maintain security in the center of the city. On August 26, 1944, while providing protection from a rooftop, he watched General Charles De Gaulle march in triumph down the Champs Elysee. It was the end of Stervinou’s military service in the European theater.

Indochina and Force 136

With dissolution of the French resistance groups, focus shifted to the Pacific theater where the objective was establishing a French military presence and returning Indochina to the colonial field. Stervinou left Paris in January 1945 for Cairo. He then took a “flying boat” to Karachi, Bombay and Calcutta, where he again was trained by the British. This time it was Force 136, at their commando training center for the South Pacific Theater, where he trained for six months in parachuting, radio communications and jungle warfare.   

Lucien Stervinou’s Pass for HQ Group “A”, issued while training with

Force 136 in Calcutta in 1945. The pass uses his nom de guerre, “Stangala”,

the name of a forested canyon near Quimper, France.

Today, few Americans have heard of Force 136. The British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was established in 1940 at the same time that the British Commandos were formed at the request of Winston Churchill. The SOE carried out sabotage and subversive operations in Europe, and its success led to a knockoff called “The Oriental Mission” in Burma. Codenamed Force 136, branches were soon established in Burma, Siam, Malaya and Indochina where they supported resistance movements in enemy-occupied territory and conducted sabotage operations. Rolled up in 1946, Force 136 was one of the first modern organizations to systematically operationalize what today we call unconventional warfare.   

At the end of training, Stervinou’s group was reviewed by Lord Mountbatten, Viceroy of India, after which he took a DC-3 “over the hump” from Bajshahi Airbase to Kunming, China. Others were dropped in Laos, where they ultimately met severe losses and had only limited success.

“The Kunming commando groups were deployed on the Sino-Indochinese frontier in preparation for the Chinese invasion of Indochina in 1945. I parachuted into Pakhoi, a Chinese port in Kuang-tong Province. I was an intelligence officer with the French Navy, patrolling the Along Bay in northern Vietnam.”

The Weichow Raid

Stervinou’s unit operated closely with elements of the OSS, and he was part of a joint OSS/French commando attack on July 22, 1945 that knocked out an advance Japanese airbase on the island of Ouai-Tchao (Weichow).

“A joint Franco/American commando unit landed on the island at 2 AM, and the air base defense was quickly overpowered. Using the newly acquired TNT explosive, the tower and the landing lanes were rendered unusable. Now my earlier explosive training made sense.”

The mission was important, and both Kunming and General Chenault, Commander of the 14th Air Force, were notified of its success. 

The Japanese Surrender of Vietnam

After the Weichow raid, Stervinou’s PT boat Crayssac returned to operating among the islands of Along Bay.  

“Our nomadic life continued, stopping, controlling and often seizing equipment and foodstuff destined to the Japanese army by commercial junks. We created additional bases on the islands of Gow-To, Table and Singe. 

A few short weeks later, the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6th) and Nagasaki (August 9th). The bombing had the desired effect, and Hirohito announced the Japanese surrender on August 15th. 

The next day, the five men of the Crayssac were ordered to Haiphong Bay to receive the surrender of the 60,000 Japanese soldiers then in Vietnam. They arrived at 4 PM. 

“The Japanese authorities seemed astounded by our arrival. On the 16th, Japanese Colonel Kamya arrived during the night to inform us that General Tsushihashi, Japanese commander of north Indochina, had not received the order to surrender from Tokyo and for us to remain on board ship. He received his order the following morning.” 

For several days after surrendering, the Japanese supplied the Crayssac crew with food and water. They then provided them an escort to Hanoi, where they arrived August 23rd and joined a handful of French administrators under Major Jean Sainteny and a small group of OSS personnel. 

Eleven Men

Years later, Stervinou wrote that:

‘The political scene was chaotic…On August 23rd, we found ourselves, eleven men, in the former Governor General’s palace with responsibility for overseeing the security of 30,000 French civilians. It could only be done by negotiations with the new government of the Viet-Minh, the Japanese army responsible for maintaining security, and later the Chinese army. We had responsibilities beyond our ranks and experience.

‘Twice, I accompanied my commanding officer to meet Ho Chi Minh. I also met, and for a time worked in liaison with another Vietnamese leader on security matters, Vo Nguyen Giap. At the time, the French did not know whether these two men were nationalist leaders or communist ideologues. Later, Giap was the mastermind of the final and decisive battle that ended France’s colonial domination of Viet-Nam, Dien Bien Phu.    

‘It wasn’t obvious to us then, but we had in front of us the beginning of the crumbling colonial era.’ 

Kidnapped, the Last Firefight and Demobilization

Months later, while investigating the conditions of French ex-POWs in the area, Stervinou was kidnapped in Vinh and spirited away for purposes unknown. He was only released when an American Air Ground Air Service major threated local authorities with a U.S. paratrooper attack. 

Back in Hanoi, Stervinou contracted amoebic dysentery and was evacuated to Saigon. After five weeks recovering in the hospital, he was sent back to Along Bay on a destroyer to again serve as intelligence officer. His final kinetic engagement was on March 6, 1946, in a sustained firefight with Chinese forces in the port of Haiphong. 

Shortly after, Stervinou fell to a recurring attack of dysentery and was evacuated to Saigon. After three more weeks in the hospital, he returned to France on a transport ship where he was demobilized and, on September 17, 1946, finally discharged. For him, the wars were over.

Croix de Guerre

Eight months after Stervinou mustered out of service, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre des Theatres d’Operations Exterieures with Silver Star, citation at the Ordre de la Division, for his engagements at Along Bay, his participation in the Weichow raid, and his role in accepting the Japanese surrender in Vietnam. He was individually cited for his “energy, courage and sang froid.”

Stervinou’s Citation for the Croix de Guerre, citing his energy,

courage and sang froid at Along bay, in the Weichow raid,

and in accepting the Japanese surrender in Vietnam.

After the War

The next year, Stervinou came to the United States. He earned a degree from the University of Houston, became a U.S. citizen in 1953, and for years directed Berlitz language institutes in the U.S. and Europe. 

Widowed in 1978, Stervinou was re-married in 1981 to a U.S. Foreign Service Officer with USAID—Theodora (Teddy) Wood—who he met in Annandale, Virginia. The two spent years stationed in west Africa, working at USAID’s Regional Office in Abidjan where he promoted private sector development in central and west Africa at the height of the cold war. 

After retiring in 1992, Stervinou continued working with French veterans organizations. In 2006, he was awarded France’ highest order of merit for military and civilian service, the Legion d’Honneur, at the level of Chevalier. In addition to the Legion d’Honneur and Croix de Guerre, over his military career he received the Croix de Combattant Volontaire, Medaille des Evades, Medaille de la Reconnaissance de la Nation, and Medaille d’Outre-Mere.

Stervinou (on right) during a ceremony when he was decorated with

the Legion d”Honneur for his military service by Ambassador

Levitte at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., June 18, 2006.

In December 2017, in perfect health, Stervinou was walking one of the large Bouvier dogs that he and his wife Teddy were famous for. He slipped on an icy sidewalk in Washington, D.C., struck his head, and died of complications six months later at the age of 95. It was June 16, 2018—78 years, almost to the day—since he had heard de Gaulle exhort his countrymen to join the fight as Nazi Panzers rolled into Brest.   

Epilogue

The military history of Lucien Corentin Stervinou is the history of special operations at the dawn of the modern age of irregular warfare. From 1940-1946, he was operationally engaged with every major American, British and French special operations force, from the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, precursor of today’s CIA; to the British Special Air Service, Special Operations Executive and Force 136; to France’s Central Bureau of Intelligence and Operations. 

Stervinou’s extraordinary military career stands as a historical benchmark by which every special operations warrior who has followed can justly measure their own. 

   **********

The biographical material in this tribute is drawn mostly from Lucien Stervinou’s surviving writings and lecture notes, provided courtesy of Theodora Wood-Stervinou to whom special thanks are due. Without her assistance, the military history of this extraordinary special forces combatant could not have been written.  

Jeff Goodson is a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer. From 1983-2012, he worked on the ground in 49 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. He served 31 months in Afghanistan, including as USAID Chief of Staff (2006-2006) and Director of Development at ISAF HQ under General David Petraeus and General John Allen (2010-2012). Goodson worked with Lucien Stervinou at USAID’s Regional Office in Abidjan in the mid-1980s.

sof.news

18. Giants and the Myth of America’s New Defense Consolidation

Another view from Anduril.

Excerpts:

It is time to turn the page on the defense industry consolidation of the last 30 years that has reduced competition and resulted in higher costs, less innovation, poorer performance, and more vulnerable supply chains. America needs a more diverse and competitive defense market that delivers improved cost, schedule, and performance. That requires the Defense Department to create new programs of adequate scale and volume — backed by sufficient, timely, and predictable funding — to provide new entrants and nonincumbents with opportunities to compete and win. And it means creating a culture of continuous competition that is embodied in acquisition policy. There should be no permanent winners or losers — only permanent competitors always looking to the next competition around the corner and constantly investing, innovating, and improving.

That is the defense industrial base in which defense technology companies and small businesses alike want to compete. That is the defense industrial base they can build together. Many, if not most, defense technology companies are small businesses. And those defense tech firms that are fortunate enough to achieve the requisite scale to compete with traditional defense primes will continue to rely on the invaluable contributions of their small business partners. Some may want to pit defense technology firms and small businesses against each other. But that is a losing game because, in the final analysis, defense technology companies and small businesses want the same thing: a chance to be ambitious, go fast, and demonstrate what they can do for America.

Giants and the Myth of America’s New Defense Consolidation – War on the Rocks

Dustin Walker

warontherocks.com · June 4, 2025

America’s defense industrial base is in the throes of major change. For the first time in 40 years, major power war is a real possibility. Conflicts in Ukraine and Israel are providing a harrowing glimpse of what that war might look like. Technology is evolving at a dizzying pace. Instead of peacetime efficiency, governments are prioritizing wartime surge capacity. The “China shock” and COVID-19 have destabilized global supply chains.

Amid these daunting realities, a new generation of defense technology companies has emerged. Anduril Industries — which was founded in 2017 and which I joined in 2020 — is one of them. Of course, defense technology companies aim to make money. But these companies also aim to disrupt and transform American defense by changing culture, attracting new and better talent, harnessing commercial technologies, championing software, bolstering competition, reforming acquisition practices, and more. Only time will tell if they are successful. But perhaps not as much time as one might think. As more defense technology companies scale to compete with traditional defense primes, the contours of a new defense industrial base are emerging.

Changes to this scope, speed, and scale naturally lead to questions, anxieties, and fears. To wit, these pages recently carried a warning about an impending “new era of defense giants.” According to this view, defense technology companies are engaging in corporate acquisitions that mirror the defense industry consolidation carried out by the traditional defense primes after the end of the Cold War. This new consolidation is hurting small businesses and making America’s defense industrial base less diverse, resilient, and innovative.

Giants are commonplace in myths. A larger-than-life story requires a larger-than-life villain. And such is the case in the myth of America’s new defense consolidation. The truth is that the three decades of defense industry consolidation precipitated by the so-called “Last Supper” is over. And good riddance. America and its allies need a more diverse, more innovative, and more competitive defense industrial base that can deliver much greater production capacity. Defense technology companies are using every tool at their disposal, including acquisitions, to realize this vision, and they’re doing so with small businesses as vital partners.

Building a new defense industrial base requires an accurate understanding of what motivates mergers and acquisitions in defense, how defense technology companies are using acquisitions, and how recent acquisitions differ from the post-Cold War consolidation of traditional defense primes.

BECOME A MEMBER

A Merger of Acquisitions and Consolidations

Concern about recent defense acquisitions often stems from the flawed assumption that acquisitions are in themselves evidence of defense industry consolidation.

In some cases, mergers and acquisitions can indicate a trend toward consolidation or a desire to increase market share in times of sectoral decline. Some defense primes are using acquisitions to shore up vulnerable supply chains. Acquisitions can also represent an attempt to capture growth amid uncertainty, a strategy often utilized by defense companies when government funding and contracts are inconsistent.

But in a much broader sense, the abundance of capital and agile capital markets, which facilitate active mergers and acquisitions, have been — and remain — key drivers of America’s technological advantage and dynamic innovation base. In this light, recent defense acquisitions are properly seen as an indicator of a growing, more dynamic, more innovative, more productive defense sector.

After decades of decline, global security risks have pushed the defense sector into a period of projected long-term growth in the United States and globally. That is driving an unprecedented infusion of private capital into defense, including more than $130 billion in venture capital investment in just the last four years. The availability of capital has helped patriotic entrepreneurs to create hundreds of new defense startups.

Private capital has also helped these new companies scale, including by funding acquisitions. Acquisitions help defense companies keep pace with technological change, fuel innovation, improve their products, and strengthen their competitive advantage. That is not unusual. It means defense is becoming more like other sectors with high innovation and growth — such as technology, energy, and financial services — which often feature significant mergers and acquisitions activity. The technology sector, in particular, shows that acquisitions can and often do go hand in hand with high rates of new business starts.

Acquisitions help attract even more new entrants to defense, including small businesses, by sending a market signal that a profitable exit is possible. This is a virtuous cycle of growth that should be embraced.

Acquisitions are also a key component of achieving economies of scale to counteract the dangerously insufficient production capacity of the defense industrial base. The Department of Defense does not just need more companies that innovate. It needs more companies that build at scale. Acquisitions that help more defense technology companies achieve that scale are evidence of the market effectively mobilizing private capital in response to government demand.

For example, when Anduril bought Blue Force Technologies, the defense industrial base did not lose an aircraft manufacturer. Rather, it gained a company with the right combination of talent, technology, and resources to give traditional industry a run for its money in autonomous aircraft. In the end, Anduril achieved a milestone victory with its downselection for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, beating out Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing. This win also belongs to the more than 40 small businesses that are now helping to build the YFQ-44A — the result of that program — for the U.S. Air Force. That is not industry consolidation. It is the kind of industry expansion that America’s defense industrial base needs right now.

Building the Defense Industrial Base America Needs

Mergers and acquisitions were common in defense after the Cold War, and they are common today. But these two periods of mergers and acquisitions are fundamentally different in their context, motivation, and objectives. Most importantly, they are producing different results.

The mergers and acquisitions of the post-Cold War era were explicitly aimed at achieving consolidation because the government believed fewer larger firms would be “more efficient at stretching limited budget[s]” that were only possible due to a rare and sudden reduction in the conventional military threat to America and its allies.

The “Last Supper” consolidation was a rational corporate response to reduced government demand. But it also produced a defense industrial base ill-suited to today’s challenges, hampered by risk aversion, diminished capacity, cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance issues. These consequences are felt today in Washington, Kyiv, and Taipei — and, worse, in Beijing and Moscow. Put simply, the arsenal of democracy is not delivering capability at sufficient speed and scale.

That is why today’s mergers and acquisitions in defense technology aim to create more firms of sufficient size that are capable of fast innovation and large-scale production funded by increased defense budgets necessitated by more severe and complex military threats to America and its allies.

In the 30 years after the Cold War, the United States created no new defense companies worth more than $1 billion. Then, SpaceX reached that milestone in 2010. Palantir and Anduril followed. Today, there are more than a dozen defense “unicorns.” Partly assisted by acquisitions, these companies are achieving technological maturity and economies of scale that create a more competitive defense market. As a result, the Pentagon has more vendors to choose from for its major weapons programs. That means it has more leverage to incentivize better cost, schedule, and performance for warfighters and taxpayers.

Meet the New Acquisitions, Same as the Old Acquisitions…

Yet for some, there is little difference between the “Last Supper” and the “First Breakfast.” This view was expressed most evocatively in these pages recently: “[T]oday’s defense technology companies, while positioning themselves as disruptors, are following the same consolidation playbook that created the primes they claim to challenge.” This playbook allegedly aims to dominate entire market segments, replicate military doctrine and requirements, and leave small business without a seat at the table.

Defense technology companies are certainly using acquisitions to enter new market segments. But not even the largest defense technology companies are anywhere close to capturing a market segment — and certainly not as the result of acquisitions. In fact, the market segments in which defense technology companies are most active — artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, space, software, and others — are some of the most diverse and competitive in the entire defense sector.

Indeed, the idea that defense technology companies are seeking — let alone achieving — dominance in certain market sectors belies the fact that all defense technology companies combined account for less than 1 percent of defense contract awards. The top five primes claimed more than 33 percent of contract award obligations in fiscal year 2023. Meanwhile, small businesses claim more than 25 percent of prime contract awards, a figure that has been steadily rising for the last two decades.

Moreover, none of the recent acquisitions by Anduril or other defense technology companies approach the scale of their “Last Supper” predecessors. The merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta united what were then the second- and third-largest American defense contractors. Even after its recent acquisitions referenced in these pages, Anduril’s current estimated valuation is just one-quarter of Lockheed Martin’s market capitalization. Moreover, the three acquisitions specifically mentioned — Dive Technologies (28 employees), Copious Imaging (42 employees), and Blue Force Technologies (81 employees) — brought a total of 151 employees into the company. Adding that number of personnel every quarter of every year henceforth, it would take Anduril nearly 200 years to match Lockheed Martin’s current employment rolls. A new defense giant, indeed.

Another supposed similarity of recent acquisitions and those of the post-Cold War period is that military requirements — not just budgets — are driving industry consolidation. In the past, horizontal market segmentation defined by platforms mirrored the prevailing doctrinal distinction between domains of warfare. Today, the concern is that defense companies are consolidating to mirror the integration demanded by concepts like joint all-domain command and control. As consolidation continues, the risk of vendor lock increases as fewer companies are capable of meeting increasingly sophisticated military requirements.

But this argument seems to contradict the main thrust of defense acquisition policy over the last decade. Rather than fully integrated capabilities, the Pentagon has been emphasizing a modular open systems architecture approach, which aims to allow “plug and play” with hardware and software systems from different vendors. A good example of this is the Air Force’s extensive use of government reference architectures that enable the Air Force to maintain a larger stable of potential vendors through standard interfaces and continuous competition. Indeed, avoiding vendor lock seems to be top of mind for Pentagon officials, even for new concepts like joint all-domain command and control. When then Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed a strategy for this concept back in 2021, defense officials stated explicitly that the secretary’s direction was that “the best solutions will be implemented as long as there is no vendor lock or proprietary limitation” and that joint all-domain command and control should be “open source.”

Finally, there is a view that today, as in the aftermath of the Cold War, the Defense Department’s focus on new defense giants produced by consolidation comes at the expense of small businesses, leaving them without a seat at the table. It is undoubtedly concerning that small business participation in the defense industrial base continues its decades-long decline. But the question is: What accounts for small business refraining from doing business with the Pentagon?

It is no mystery. Small businesses have answered this question in multiple surveys over the years: complex and protracted procurement processes, unstable and unpredictable defense funding, lack of support from defense customers, risk to intellectual property, burdensome compliance requirements, and more. There may be a survey out there in which small businesses say they are deterred by the prospect of lucrative acquisition offers they are free to accept or decline. I just have not seen it yet.

Yet, this is precisely what has been alleged in these pages: The Pentagon’s immutable thirst for consolidation and the acquisitive nature of defense technology companies are eliminating space for small business in defense. Never mind that small business participation in the defense industrial base was declining long before the emergence of defense technology companies. Never mind that small business prime contract awards dwarf that of venture capital-backed companies. And never mind that between 2010 and 2023, the decline in small business vendors for the Defense Department and that for the federal government as a whole were identical: 48 percent. At the very least, this suggests that barriers to small business in federal contracting are not unique to the Defense Department or the defense sector.

A Joint Force: Defense Tech and Small Business

It is time to turn the page on the defense industry consolidation of the last 30 years that has reduced competition and resulted in higher costs, less innovation, poorer performance, and more vulnerable supply chains. America needs a more diverse and competitive defense market that delivers improved cost, schedule, and performance. That requires the Defense Department to create new programs of adequate scale and volume — backed by sufficient, timely, and predictable funding — to provide new entrants and nonincumbents with opportunities to compete and win. And it means creating a culture of continuous competition that is embodied in acquisition policy. There should be no permanent winners or losers — only permanent competitors always looking to the next competition around the corner and constantly investing, innovating, and improving.

That is the defense industrial base in which defense technology companies and small businesses alike want to compete. That is the defense industrial base they can build together. Many, if not most, defense technology companies are small businesses. And those defense tech firms that are fortunate enough to achieve the requisite scale to compete with traditional defense primes will continue to rely on the invaluable contributions of their small business partners. Some may want to pit defense technology firms and small businesses against each other. But that is a losing game because, in the final analysis, defense technology companies and small businesses want the same thing: a chance to be ambitious, go fast, and demonstrate what they can do for America.

BECOME A MEMBER

Dustin Walker is senior director for policy at Anduril Industries and a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Master Sgt. Gustavo Castillo via Wikimedia Commons

warontherocks.com · June 4, 2025

19. Does China’s Growing Security Outreach Matter? Tracing Implications for Irregular Warfare and U.S. Security Cooperation

If I were king for a day I would ensure we have sufficient focus on competing with China in this area - i.e., disrupting their security outreach and relationships by exposing their strategies and inherent weaknesses (and then outcompeting them)

We need to understand Chinese strategy and understand that we are in a competition for influence through security assistance? Are our processes and programs sufficient? Do we have theater campaign plans with specific objectives to counter Chinese security cooperation?

Excerpts:

Tracking and studying the effects of different types of overlapping security cooperation and assistance will be important for understanding the risk of conflict in different places around the globe, including those that are strategically important to the United States. A growing number of states are pursuing cooperation with both the United States and China, and paying close attention to how each great power can help them manage domestic security challenges and external threats. The emerging dynamics of security hybridization cannot be ignored. Navigating these complexities should also inform how the United States plans for, resources, trains, and equips its security force assistance brigades, individual military advisors, foreign area officers, special operations forces, and others involved in security cooperation and security assistance.

Does China’s Growing Security Outreach Matter? Tracing Implications for Irregular Warfare and U.S. Security Cooperation

irregularwarfare.org · by Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Isaac B. Kardon · June 4, 2025

Editor’s Note: This article highlights key findings from a recent piece the authors published in MIT’s International Security Journal, titled “Security without Exclusivity: Hybrid Alignment in the Indo-Pacific”. The authors examine how states increasingly engage with both the United States and China for different forms of security cooperation—what they term “security hybridization.” This evolving trend has critical implications for irregular warfare and U.S. security force assistance efforts. The authors will further explore these ideas in an upcoming episode of the Irregular Warfare Initiative podcast later this month.

Conventional wisdom has long viewed Asia, and to some extent the world, as functionally divided between the United States as the major security provider and China as the no-strings-attached economic partner. Recently, however, China has emerged as a global security provider to an increasing number of foreign governments. These states have evolving security relationships with both Washington and Beijing: many now seek security cooperation with both powers at once, but the type of assistance they obtain from each is different.

We term this emerging dynamic “security hybridization” and explore its effects in a recent article published in the journal International Security. Increased security hybridization has important implications for policymakers, strategists, and practitioners, especially those focused on irregular warfare and security force assistance.

Beijing and Washington each provide security assistance that aligns with how they understand and address their own national security objectives. Generally, the United States prioritizes military power in pursuit of regional security. In contrast, China relies on law enforcement and internal security agencies to uphold internal regime security. U.S. partnerships often focus on deterring and combating external threats, while China’s security relationships center on managing internal instability and controlling domestic challenges to a country’s political order and leadership. While this is a phenomenon in grayscale rather than in black and white — the PLA conducts traditional military diplomacy and cooperation and the United States offers foreign internal defense and law enforcement capacity-building assistance — the distinction remains, and can meaningfully highlight differences in relationship emphasis and resource allocation.

A growing number of countries simultaneously pursue defense cooperation with the U.S. and internal security cooperation with China. They selectively enlist two different security partners to address different needs. Neither China nor the U.S. demands exclusivity across the spectrum of internal to external security cooperation, so partners are not forced to choose—at least not yet.

A Case of Security Hybridization: Vietnam

Vietnam is a prominent example of security hybridization. As we document in ourInternational Security article, the United States has worked assiduously over consecutive administrations to expand its defense relationship with Vietnam. The United States has sought to work with the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense and the Vietnamese Coast Guard, in particular, to counter Chinese activities in the South China Sea.

At the same time, however, Vietnam’s internal security apparatus—led until recently by Tô Lâm, who has since become Vietnam’s leader and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam—has actively increased cooperation with China as well. In contrast to American assistance, Beijing’s security cooperation with Hanoi focuses on combating the threat of so-called “color revolutions” and protecting regime security to “keep the red flag of socialism flying.”

China’s internal security outreach to and interaction with Vietnam, often conducted at the ministerial level, far surpasses Washington’s interaction with Hanoi in both seniority and frequency. During Xi Jinping’s most recent state visit to Vietnam in April 2025 (his fourth since 2013), Tô Lâm reiterated Hanoi’s interests in strengthening defense and security ties with Beijing despite ongoing tensions in the South China Sea; security cooperation was also one of the focal areas of Xi’s previous state visit, in December 2023. Beyond Vietnam, we observe similar interactions in corners of the world from Hungary to the Pacific Islands to the Persian Gulf.

Why Policymakers Should Care: Five Key Reasons

Why should policymakers, strategists, and practitioners working on irregular warfare and security force assistance care about these dynamics? We identify at least five reasons.

First, it is important to understand the landscape of asymmetric security competition in which the United States and China are now engaged, which involves not only military diplomacy through the People’s Liberation Army and Central Military Commission’s Office of International Military Cooperation, but non-military security actors such as the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security, Central Political-Legal Commission, and People’s Armed Police. China’s provision of internal security assistance augments its presence, partnerships, and influence across the Indo-Pacific and beyond. This assistance provides something many leaders care deeply about: tools to secure their own political survival and their hold on power. Overlooking China’s non-military security outreach in places like Vietnam could lead Washington to significantly overestimate its alignment with Hanoi and its leverage in the bilateral relationship.

Second, China is pursuing a global footprint that reflects its own conceptions of security. Observers and strategists would be mistaken to expect China to create relationships or a presence abroad that mirror that of the United States. Instead, efforts like Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative envision the kind of footprint that presents an asymmetric security challenge to the United States. That challenge extends beyond the military balance to encompass other forms of security presence, assistance, architecture, and influence. The United States must be prepared to compete not only in regional defense and security—where it has traditionally exercised its strongest advantage—but also across this broader range of domains.

Third, China’s conception of security affects how Beijing defines and seeks to counter the threat posed by the United States. As both a democracy and the hegemonic security provider, the United States not only projects global military power, but also has historically influenced the normative contours of the rules-based international order. A high degree of linkage with powerful democracies like the U.S. tends to promote democratization – meaning that greater U.S. involvement with security recipients can generate pressure for expanded political freedom and liberalization of governing institutions. China’s rhetoric, however, portrays these activities as promoting “color revolutions” by foreign-backed “black hands” who seek to subvert and destabilize authoritarian rule, and Beijing offers assistance to counter those risks. (We are aware that the history of American security assistance and its effect on democracy is a complicated one, but understanding how China views this association is crucial, as it highlights a risk that may loom larger in the minds of Chinese leaders than is often recognized in the West.)

Linkage may be seen, particularly by America’s non-democratic security partners, as amplifying internal security risks – which could in turn generate increased demand for the kind of internal/regime security assistance that China provides. Regimes that fear political instability in a global environment shaped by U.S. hegemony may find in China a newly powerful partner who shares their threat perceptions, and can provide complementary and counterbalancing security goods that shore up authoritarian rule. This dynamic can create threat perception feedback loops that intensify and accelerate security hybridization once it begins.

Fourth, however—and equally important to note—there are weak states without autocratic ambitions that may also find China’s domestic and non-traditional security assistance appealing. While these leaders may not aim to undermine democracy, they may also not see any alternative method, other than China’s offerings, to strengthen the state’s monopoly on violence within its territory to achieve greater public safety for citizens – a legitimate goal for democratically-elected leaders. But this group of countries may nonetheless be at risk of democratic erosion if proper institutional safeguards are not erected against risks such as insufficient oversight of surveillance programs or the transmission of policing norms at odds with democracy and civil liberties.

It will be important for policymakers in Washington to identify which countries pursue security assistance from China because their leaders seek to erode democratic constraints, versus those that seek China’s assistance for more legitimate reasons. In the latter category, opposing China’s security engagement without offering a comparable substitute is likely to be counterproductive, and American foreign policy will need to weigh the benefits of Chinese assistance to recipients that can be accomplished with appropriate safeguards versus the risks of enhanced Chinese influence in those places and the corresponding impact of that on American interests. Either way, the two categories require different solutions.

Fifth, the United States’ inability to demand exclusivity from its security partners implies important lessons for security cooperation and security force assistance. This is not the Cold War, in which Washington and Moscow each provided both internal and external security to client states on their respective sides of the Cold War divide. Today, China and the U.S. are each weaker at offering the kind of security assistance that the other excels at, making exclusivity difficult and allowing countries to pursue “non-monogamous” security relationships with both Washington and Beijing.

As a result, the United States military and others involved in security force assistance may find themselves providing funding, training, and support to a country’s military, while China simultaneously provides support, equipment, and training to its domestic security services. This dynamic presents potential counterintelligence and operational security risks exacerbated by such parallel presence. It could also create a kind of counterbalancing among security forces that, in autocracies or other weakly institutionalized political systems, can heighten internal instability and increase coup risk. Finally, increasing security force overlap could amplify localized competition between China and the United States, and increase the risk of conflict or heightened tensions and prolonged irregular competition.

Navigating the Complexities of Hybrid Security Relationships

Tracking and studying the effects of different types of overlapping security cooperation and assistance will be important for understanding the risk of conflict in different places around the globe, including those that are strategically important to the United States. A growing number of states are pursuing cooperation with both the United States and China, and paying close attention to how each great power can help them manage domestic security challenges and external threats. The emerging dynamics of security hybridization cannot be ignored. Navigating these complexities should also inform how the United States plans for, resources, trains, and equips its security force assistance brigades, individual military advisors, foreign area officers, special operations forces, and others involved in security cooperation and security assistance.

Professor Sheena Chestnut Greitens is currently a visiting associate professor at the U.S. Army War College. She’s also an associate professor and director of the Asia Policy Program at the University of Texas at Austin, editor of the Texas National Security Review, and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Isaac B. Kardon, Ph.D., is a senior fellow for China studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is concurrently adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and was formerly assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College (NWC), where he served as a research faculty member in the China Maritime Studies Institute.

Image Credit: OpenAI. “AI-Generated Illustration of U.S.-China Tug-of-War for Global Security Influence.” Created with ChatGPT, 2025. https://chat.openai.com/

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

Related Posts

• 
  
• Slow Burn: How US Security Cooperation Shapes Operational Environments
• Benjamin Jebb and Barbara Elias Episode 66 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores how America’s security cooperation programs can help shape regional security environments by training foreign militaries. Our guests begin by…
• 
  
• What makes warfare irregular? Pineland Underground speaks with Mr/LTC Doug Livermore on Irregular Warfare
• Did you know the entire Joint Force engages in Irregular Warfare? Often defined differently depending on the individual or organization you speak to. The Pineland Underground podcast has Doug Livermore…
• 
  
• Paramilitaries Abroad: China’s Use of Nontraditional Security Forces
• Episode 107 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast examines how China uses its paramilitary and internal security forces to project power abroad and build global influence. Our guests begin by dissecting…

irregularwarfare.org · by Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Isaac B. Kardon · June 4, 2025

20. Putin’s Pressure Point

Conclusion:

The moment is ripe. Congress is losing patience. Europe is growing frustrated. And the global oil market is better positioned to absorb disruptions than it has been in years. The stars are aligning for Trump to get the cards he needs to change Putin’s calculus. The question is whether he’s ready to play them.

Putin’s Pressure Point

Foreign Affairs · by More by Edward Fishman · June 4, 2025

Congress Should Wield Oil Sanctions to Force Russia to Negotiate

Edward Fishman

June 4, 2025

A view of Gazprom Neft’s oil refinery in Omsk, Russia, November 2022 Alexey Malgavko / Reuters

EDWARD FISHMAN is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and the author of Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. He served as Russia and Europe Sanctions Lead and as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State during the Obama administration.

Print Subscribe to unlock this feature or Sign in.

Save Sign in and save to read later

A new U.S. president enters office vowing to reach out a hand to a bitter enemy. He pledges to resolve a long-burning crisis through diplomacy, despite widespread skepticism that it’s possible. When his early efforts stall, Congress—including members of the president’s own party—loses patience and advances sweeping sanctions to break the impasse. European allies also grow frustrated and impose new penalties.

This is the story of the opening months of Donald Trump’s second term on Russia. After refusing to accept a cease-fire and intensifying attacks on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has shown that he’s not interested in peace. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, has secured over 80 votes for a bill to impose “bone-crushing sanctions” on Russia—enough for a veto-proof majority. The EU is preparing new sanctions, too.

But it’s also the story of the opening year of Barack Obama’s presidency on Iran. During George W. Bush’s second term, the United States steadily escalated sanctions on Iran. When Obama entered office, he pivoted to diplomacy, proposing an arrangement in which Tehran would part with its stockpile of enriched uranium in exchange for nuclear fuel. In late 2009, however, Iran rejected the proposal. Congress responded with wave after wave of sanctions, culminating in measures that devastated Iran’s oil revenues. European countries also stepped up and imposed an oil embargo. The combined pressure drove Iran’s economy into freefall, creating the conditions that ultimately brought Iran to the negotiating table.

With Trump’s Russia policy at a dead end, his administration would do well to learn from Obama’s Iran experience. A particularly important lesson is that congressional initiative—while almost always unwelcome by the executive branch—can be an essential ingredient to a successful economic pressure strategy. If Trump is serious about ending the war in Ukraine, his administration should work with Graham and other hawks on Capitol Hill rather than oppose them.

Another takeaway is that oil sanctions can work, even against major exporters. As the Trump administration explores options to ramp up pressure on Russian oil, it should study what succeeded against Iran.

A final lesson is that Europe has more agency than it often realizes. Although the EU has typically followed Washington’s lead on sanctions, the reverse can also be true: decisive European action can spur the United States to follow. As Trump repeatedly threatens sanctions and then retreats, Europe’s best move now is to act first—and trust that the United States won’t be far behind.

GOOD COP, BAD COP

Upon becoming president in 2009, Obama inherited an Iran sanctions regime that, in some respects, resembles the sanctions Russia faces today. The Bush administration had imposed penalties on Iran’s largest banks and worked to sever its access to the global financial system and to sensitive nuclear technologies. But it had stopped short of wielding secondary sanctions—penalties targeting Iran’s trading partners—or aggressively curbing Iran’s oil sales.

The result was underwhelming. Although Iran was increasingly isolated financially and its economy was sluggish, it never tipped into recession. The sanctions were falling short.

It was in this context that Obama made his first diplomatic overture. In fall 2009, his administration proposed a deal: Iran would ship most of its enriched uranium to Russia in exchange for enough nuclear fuel to power the Tehran Research Reactor—which produced medical isotopes—for more than a decade. Although Iranian negotiators initially accepted the deal, they soon reversed course, and it collapsed within weeks.

Long skeptical of Obama’s Iran diplomacy, Congress took matters into its own hands. In the summer of 2010, it passed the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act, which required the Treasury Department to impose secondary sanctions on foreign financial institutions that dealt with Iranian banks. Obama signed the bill, and it worked: even risk-tolerant banks in Dubai and Istanbul backed away from Iran, completing the country’s financial isolation.

Oil sanctions can work, even against major exporters.

The next year, Congress took aim at Iran’s last remaining link to the world economy: oil exports. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, of New Jersey, and Republican Senator Mark Kirk, of Illinois, proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act mandating secondary sanctions on any foreign bank that processed payments with the Central Bank of Iran, the repository for all the country’s oil revenues. At the time, Iran exported roughly 2.5 million barrels of oil per day to more than 20 countries. When Obama administration officials studied Congress’s plans, they went into a panic. Their projections found that the sanctions could spike oil prices above $200 per barrel and cause a “nuclear winter recession,” as a senior Treasury official recalled. The Obama administration vehemently opposed the amendment, arguing that it risked splintering the transatlantic alliance, as multiple European countries still bought oil from Iran.

But then, in late 2011, Iranian militiamen stormed the British Embassy in Tehran, briefly holding staff members hostage. In response, the EU prepared its own oil embargo against Iran—deflating Obama’s main argument against Congress’s plans. Menendez and Kirk pushed the amendment forward. Days before a vote, Obama officials reached a compromise with the senators: countries that significantly reduced their oil purchases from Iran every six months would receive a sanctions waiver. They would be allowed to continue importing Iranian oil without facing secondary sanctions—but only if they wound down their purchases over time. Even with this revision, Obama urged the Democratic-controlled Senate to reject the amendment, still uneasy about the ramifications for oil prices. But it passed 100–0 and Obama reluctantly signed it.

To the administration’s surprise, the sanctions worked. Over the next 18 months, Iran’s oil sales plummeted by 60 percent, to around one million barrels per day. U.S. shale producers boosted production in turn, keeping the oil market balanced and staving off the price spike that Obama had feared.

Congress wasn’t finished. Next, lawmakers pushed legislation to try to drive Iran’s oil sales to zero. Again, Obama officials were wary. By then, only six countries were buying oil from Iran, and just one, China, was buying a sizable quantity. Strong-arming China to quit Iranian oil entirely was unlikely to work, and if Beijing called Washington’s bluff, the credibility of American sanctions could be permanently damaged.

Although Russia’s economy has struggled under sanctions, oil revenues have kept it afloat.

Obama officials reached another compromise with Congress: foreign banks could keep processing payments for Iranian oil, but the funds had to remain in the buyer’s country, usable only for non-sanctioned trade. If a Chinese refinery bought Iranian oil, it would deposit the funds in a Central Bank of Iran account based in China. Tehran could use that money to buy goods from China or medicine and food globally—but it could not bring it home. Tehran could not, therefore, use the money to fund its nuclear program or bankroll its terrorist proxies. In essence, the scheme would compel the creation of escrow accounts, locking Iran’s oil money overseas.

The strategy worked even better than the Menendez-Kirk amendment. It allowed Iran to continue selling some oil, yet tens of billions of its petrodollars accumulated abroad. Deprived of hard currency, Iran’s economy spiraled. That pressure helped Hassan Rouhani win election as Iran’s president in 2013 and led to the negotiations that froze Iran’s nuclear program and culminated in the 2015 nuclear deal. In those negotiations, the ability to repatriate Iran’s escrowed oil funds was Washington’s most valuable bargaining chip.

Throughout this entire period, Congress was a thorn in Obama’s side. Yet Obama administration officials sometimes grudgingly acknowledged the upside of pressure from Capitol Hill. In 2015, while warning Congress not to “play the spoiler” in negotiations with Iran, National Security Adviser Susan Rice conceded that Congress had played a “hugely important role in helping to build our sanctions on Iran.” Later that year, in announcing that negotiations with Iran had produced an agreement, Obama himself thanked Congress for its role in crafting the sanctions. Congress had played the bad cop, forcing the Obama administration to go beyond its comfort zone and giving the threat of secondary sanctions serious credibility. Meanwhile, Obama had played the good cop, using congressional pressure to enable diplomacy.

A FAILED BALANCING ACT

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, U.S. sanctions policy has attempted to strike a delicate balance: maximizing pressure on Russia without disrupting the world oil market. This has been difficult, as Russia accounts for just over ten percent of global oil production, while hydrocarbon revenues contribute roughly a third of Russia’s federal budget. Russia plays a major role in the world oil market, and oil plays an essential role in funding the Russian government—including Putin’s war machine.

Initially, the United States attempted to balance these competing objectives by focusing sanctions on Russia’s banking and defense industries, leaving energy relatively untouched. On the very first day of the invasion, Joe Biden affirmed publicly that the sanctions were “specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue”—and his administration maintained a broad sanctions exemption for all energy-related transactions with Russia. In an economy already struggling with inflation, the prospect of skyrocketing gasoline prices was too frightening to hazard.

Over the next three years, Biden tiptoed toward oil sanctions but remained wary of anything that risked decreasing Russian supply. In December 2022, the United States and its G-7 partners imposed a price cap that aimed to reduce the revenue that Russia earned on each barrel of oil that it sold. Specifically, the policy barred Western tankers from carrying Russian oil—and Western firms from insuring such shipments—if the oil was priced above $60 per barrel. But the price cap was not backed by the threat of secondary sanctions, which had been so critical to the measures against Iran. When they bought Russian oil, Emirati traders and Chinese refineries faced no threat of U.S. penalties—even if they bought the oil at a price exceeding the cap. Russia exploited the built-in weaknesses of the policy, reducing its reliance on Western maritime insurance and amassing a large shadow fleet of oil tankers.

In his final weeks in office, Biden finally began dialing up the pressure on Russian oil, sanctioning Russia’s third- and fourth-largest oil producers, but it was too little, too late. As of today, despite frequent claims that Russia is the most sanctioned country on earth, it’s nowhere close: its top two energy companies, Rosneft and Gazprom, are not even subject to primary sanctions, to say nothing of Iran-style secondary sanctions.

Although Russia’s economy has struggled under sanctions, oil revenues have kept it afloat. It turned out there are hard limits to how much pressure Washington could apply to Moscow without targeting its most lucrative export.

DÉJÀ VU

Since returning to office, Trump has imposed no new sanctions on Russia. He has focused instead on diplomacy, pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate and insisting that Putin wants a deal. According to multiple media reports, Trump has pledged to keep Ukraine out of NATO and to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But he has made no progress with Putin.

Although congressional Republicans have remained deferential to Trump, their patience appears to be wearing thin. In the Senate, Graham has introduced legislation requiring the Trump administration to regularly assess whether Russia is refusing to negotiate a peace deal. (Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, co-authored the bill.) If the administration determines that Russia is stonewalling, a wave of new penalties would automatically take effect—most notably, secondary tariffs of 500 percent on any country that imports Russian oil, gas, petroleum products, or uranium. In effect, the bill would impose embargo-level tariffs on a wide array of countries unless they halt Russian energy imports entirely, including China and India (Russia’s top oil customers), Turkey and Brazil (major buyers of Russian diesel), and the EU and Japan (significant consumers of Russian liquefied natural gas).

That threat is not credible. The world has already watched Trump struggle to sustain 145 percent tariffs on China for more than a few weeks, and most countries would probably call Washington’s bluff on a tariff threat several times higher. Besides, Russian energy exports cannot drop to zero overnight without triggering severe market dislocation. As a result, if the bill were enacted as written, Trump would most likely invoke a national security waiver and decline to enforce it.

But rather than oppose the bill, Trump should treat it as an opportunity to revive the good cop, bad cop dynamic with Congress that helped Obama secure the Iran nuclear deal. His administration should strike a compromise with Graham to replace the extreme tariff proposal with a more targeted oil sanctions regime, modeled on what worked against Iran. Under such a system, buyers of Russian oil would face secondary sanctions unless they meet two conditions: that their countries reduce total purchases every six months, and that payments are made into escrow accounts that Russia can use only for humanitarian imports.

Instead of waiting for Trump, Brussels should advance new penalties on Russia’s energy sector.

There is good reason to believe this approach could work. With global oil supplies outpacing demand, there’s room to cut Russian exports without disrupting markets. Removing all of Russia’s crude exports from the market, totaling some five million barrels per day, is unrealistic, but a 20 to 40 percent reduction over the next year is achievable—and could even open the door for U.S. shale producers to gain market share, advancing Trump’s goal of American energy dominance.

Moreover, Chinese, Indian, and Turkish banks would likely comply with the escrow account arrangement. All of them have been cautious about U.S. secondary sanctions, and this system might even benefit them by boosting exports to Russia. If Indian banks can release Russian oil funds only to finance bilateral trade, for example, India’s sales of pharmaceuticals and agricultural products to Russia would likely increase—giving the country a reason to comply beyond the threat of punishment. And if the system succeeded, it would quickly give the Trump administration a massive pile of escrowed Russian oil funds to incentivize Putin to take concrete steps toward peace, such as accepting an unconditional cease-fire.

Just as the EU oil embargo on Iran helped spur action in Washington a decade and a half ago, major new EU sanctions on Russia could do the same today. Instead of waiting around for Trump, Brussels should advance new penalties on Russia’s energy sector. Even unilateral EU measures would tighten the screws on Moscow—and could prompt Washington to follow suit.

Most important, the EU should seize the more than $200 billion in Russian sovereign assets that are already frozen in Europe and channel them into support for Ukraine. Combined with hard-hitting oil sanctions, such a move would force Putin to reconsider his long-standing belief that time is on his side—that Western resolve will crack if he just waits long enough.

AMERICA NEEDS MORE CARDS

Over the past four months, Trump has threatened to levy sanctions against Russia on at least half a dozen occasions. Each time, Putin has called his bluff and Trump has flinched. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently acknowledged, “the president’s belief is … right now, [if] you start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking.”

Trump’s handling of Russia diverges sharply from his approach to every other country. He hasn’t hesitated to impose massive tariffs on China while pursuing a trade deal or to levy new sanctions on Iran amid nuclear negotiations. In most cases, he sees coercion as compatible with diplomacy. With Russia, he seems to believe that the two are mutually exclusive.

It’s time for Trump to rethink that strategy. As Obama learned in his push for a nuclear deal with Iran, diplomatic breakthroughs with hard-line adversaries require leverage. And the most effective way to gain that leverage—while maintaining negotiating credibility—is to coordinate with Congress.

Of course, it will be even harder for Trump to coax Putin into a just peace in Ukraine than it was for Obama to strike a nuclear deal with Iran. Putin has transformed Russia’s economy into a war machine and covets a decisive military victory more than sanctions relief. But that only underscores the need for more pressure. Without it, diplomacy is wishful thinking.

The moment is ripe. Congress is losing patience. Europe is growing frustrated. And the global oil market is better positioned to absorb disruptions than it has been in years. The stars are aligning for Trump to get the cards he needs to change Putin’s calculus. The question is whether he’s ready to play them.

EDWARD FISHMAN is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and the author of Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. He served as Russia and Europe Sanctions Lead and as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State during the Obama administration.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Edward Fishman · June 4, 2025

21. Israel’s Dangerous Escalation in Gaza

Excerpts:

Vaguely defined at the outset, the war’s initial goals left considerable room for interpretation. And indeed, the longer the campaign has progressed, the clearer it is that two contradictory purposes are in play. One is security-pragmatic; the other ideological-messianic. Against a regenerating Hamas, the demand for “total victory” and the removal of the Gaza threat “to the end” is a recipe for forever war. Even if its larger goals have not been officially adopted by the government, the “total victory” school appears to be gaining the upper hand. But a reckoning may be on the way.

In its opening weeks, the all-out Gideon’s Chariots operation has already met with difficulty in securing reservist turnout. But establishing and maintaining military control of Gaza, as is now called for, will require a far more significant investment of forces and resources—at a scale that will affect Israel’s national priorities and the state of society, the economy, and the military for decades to come. Having pursued its campaign for months without significant opposition from allies, the government may have mistakenly assumed that it could sharply escalate the war unhindered. But as the scope of destruction and civilian suffering has grown, so have the voices of condemnation in the Middle East and around the world, leading to growing signs of political and economic pressure, including from friendly parties, above all the United States.

Israel finds itself in a political, social, and moral crisis unlike any it has confronted since its founding. It now looks as if the end of the war will come only when the government hits the hard cliffs of reality, whether through the soaring costs in blood and treasure, acute constraints in resources, or overwhelming international pressure, with U.S. President Donald Trump being the most plausible war-stopper at present if he decides to take that course. Or suppose that a political crisis exposes the gap between government policy and the will of the majority of the Israeli public. Until such an event happens, however, the most likely future is an ever-expanding war with mounting costs to Israelis and Palestinians and diminishing returns for Israel’s security.

Israel’s Dangerous Escalation in Gaza

Foreign Affairs · by More by Assaf Orion · June 3, 2025

How Politics and Ideology Are Sidelining National Security and Creating a Forever War

Assaf Orion

June 3, 2025

Israeli military vehicles heading toward Gaza, as seen from Israel, May 2025 Amir Cohen / Reuters

ASSAF ORION is Liz and Mony Rueven International Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel. He was head of strategy for the Israel Defense Forces from 2010 to 2015.

Print Subscribe to unlock this feature or Sign in.

Save Sign in and save to read later

Over the past few weeks, Israel’s 20-month-old military campaign in the Gaza Strip has reached another crux point. On March 18, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) restarted the offensive, with ambitious new goals, which included targeting Hamas’s remaining civil bureaucracy as well as its fighters, and ratcheting up pressure on the organization by halting the entrance of humanitarian aid—which Hamas has weaponized to control the Gazan population and rebuild its military. Then, on May 4, the Israeli cabinet approved a more far-reaching plan, called Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which envisions not only the total defeat of Hamas but also seizing and holding the entire strip in what could amount to indefinite military control.

Although this recent operation has only begun, it has already highlighted the dangers of the war’s relentless expansion. Of the 255 hostages seized by Hamas on October 7, 2023, 58 still remain, of whom 20 are believed to be still alive. Yet as of early June, despite a concerted U.S. push for another cease-fire deal, it remains doubtful whether negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages, let alone an end to the war, would bear fruit. Meanwhile, the offensive has put Israel under extraordinary political, social, economic, and moral pressure. At home, the State of Israel faces looming challenges in manpower and resources; internationally, it confronts mounting criticism and condemnation, including from close allies.

From a strategic vantage point, the larger problem for Israel is the growing tension between its core security goals for the war and the government’s evolving designs for achieving them. At the heart of its stated war aims are the removal of the Hamas threat and the release of the hostages. But the protracted military campaign has been increasingly shaped by the ideological goals of the radical right parties in the cabinet, which include a permanent Israeli occupation, the rebuilding of Jewish settlements, and the establishment of full Israeli sovereignty in Gaza.

As the campaign drags on, these unofficial goals have increasingly influenced the government’s strategy. Decisions in war always reflect the sum of all pressures on wartime leaders, and it is now apparent that decision-making about the Gaza campaign is being shaped not only by military and strategic considerations but also by ideology, political rewards, and calculations about personal political survival. As it expands far beyond its original scope, the longest war in Israeli history might end up doing more to undermine Israel’s national security than to rebuild it.

SECURITY BY DEFENSE OR BY CONQUEST?

Almost since the outset of the campaign in Gaza, there has been a tension between Israel’s core strategic goals and the maximalist ambitions of its political right wing. At a fundamental level, the strategic aims were to remove the terror threat to Israel from Gaza for the long term by destroying Hamas’s military capabilities and creating buffer zones in and around the territory, and to create the conditions needed to achieve the return of all the hostages. Thus, Israel’s defense establishment formulated a war concept that distinguished between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza and strived to cause significant damage to Hamas, even if not to destroy every last Hamas fighter. When the campaign was completed, the thinking went, Hamas’s terrorist army would have been defeated and its military infrastructure dismantled. At that point, Israeli forces could mostly remain outside Gaza and thwart any additional threats through ongoing counterterrorism operations, following in part Israel’s existing security concept for the West Bank.

To accomplish these goals, Israel’s military command planned a campaign in stages. First, after heavy airstrikes, the IDF would launch a massive land maneuver targeting enemy forces in specific areas, dismantling the Hamas brigades and battalions in them, and moving on to the next ones. Israeli forces would conduct repeated raids in any areas where the enemy might be resurgent, and create buffer zones between Israel’s border communities and potential new threats from Gaza. To sustain the campaign’s military achievements for the long term and prevent secured areas from falling into Hamas’s hands, anarchy or insurgency, the plan assumed that an alternative governance structure to Hamas would emerge in areas where the organization was defeated.

Yet all along, the defense establishment plan competed with a different vision promoted by radical right-wing parties that hold sway in the government. In their view, Gaza is part of the Land of Israel to which the country has a natural right, and both the territory’s terrorist organizations and its civilian population are part of the threat that has to be removed—even at the cost of sacrificing the remaining hostages. Those rightist parties also vehemently oppose the release of high-value Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails as part of any hostage deals, given that many such former captives have returned to lethal terrorism since their release—including Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who masterminded the October 7 operation. The lives of the hostages, they claim, must be weighed against those of future victims of the terrorists who would be set free in order to get them back.

Faced with these two diverging visions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu avoided committing to a specific end game. In a December 2023 commentary for The Wall Street Journal, for example, he described an end state in which Hamas was destroyed, Gaza was demilitarized, and Palestinian society was deradicalized. But at the time, the Israeli government was also considering the expulsion of terrorists from Gaza and trying to persuade Egypt and other countries to take in voluntary emigrants from Gaza. Although Netanyahu said that this resettlement proposal was unrealistic and publicly ruled out an Israeli military administration of Gaza, he left these options open and avoided making any decision on alternative Palestinian governance for the territory.

THE HOSTAGE DILEMMA

In its first phase, Israel’s campaign in Gaza reinforced a gradual mission creep from the war’s original aims. After the launch of its massive ground campaign on October 27, 2023, the IDF proceeded as planned, attacking one area at a time so it could concentrate its efforts, reduce losses, and allow the civilian population to evacuate out of harm’s way.

As the war ground on, however, the campaign met several challenges on the enemy side. Hamas strategically used its well-prepared dense urban battlefield, including the hundreds of miles of tunnels it had built under the territory. It also systematically used Gazan civilians as human shields and turned hospitals, schools, and UN sites into military safe houses. For logistical purposes, it weaponized humanitarian aid to maintain its grip on the population and to finance its military effort and resurgence, refilling its dwindling ranks with new recruits. Tactically, it opted for guerrilla warfare rather than pitched battles, avoiding Israeli forces when they advanced through certain areas and returning as soon as they left.

On the Israeli side, there was also the problem of preparing the way for an alternative governance structure for Gaza—“neither Hamas nor the IDF,” as Yoav Gallant, then the defense minister, put it. But Netanyahu carefully avoided approving any such plans. He also rejected the notion of rule by the Palestinian Authority, thereby excluding Arab countries that had made their participation in Gaza’s reconstruction conditional on the PA’s endorsement. In the absence of alternative local governance emerging in areas where Hamas had been decimated or pushed out, its fighters gradually regrouped and regained control, continuing to treat civilians as shields and to police the entry of outside aid. Such has been the case in Jabaliya and Shajaiye in the northern part of the strip, and in Khan Younis in the south, all areas where the IDF had undertaken major operations and then moved on.

Demonstrators demanding the release of Israeli hostages, Tel Aviv, May 2025 Nir Elias / Reuters

At the same time, it quickly became clear that there was an inherent tension between destroying Hamas and getting the hostages back. Operationally, throughout the war, Israeli special operations have successfully brought about the return of just eight hostages. The large majority of hostage returns have come as part of cease-fire agreements in November 2023 and January 2025, in exchange for releasing Palestinian prisoners and permitting a surge in humanitarian aid to the strip. On the other hand, dozens of Israeli hostages have been killed since the Israeli offensive began, some of them executed just as the IDF neared their locations. Thus, military operations intended to rescue hostages or pressure Hamas to agree to release them on Israel’s terms could actually hasten the death of the remaining hostages.

Strategically, Hamas has sought all along to use the hostages as a bargaining chip to constrain Israel and force it to end the war—and thereby guarantee Hamas’s own survival. The goal was to impose a choice on Israel: getting its hostages back or destroying Hamas. And indeed, the more Hamas insists that hostages will all be released only if Israel guarantees that it will stop the war, the more Israel shows its resolve to continue it, and the harder it is to reach an agreement. How to manage this tension has become an issue of deep controversy in Israel, dividing the public along the country’s political fault lines. Families and activists calling for the Israeli captives’ release are accused by some of supporting the enemy.

For his own reasons, Netanyahu has chosen to present the hostage dilemma as a zero-sum game. “Returning them is not the first goal of the war,” he has said publicly; the main objective, as he puts it, is “victory over Hamas and Israel’s enemies.” But by setting up this contrast, the government has in fact endorsed the false choice Hamas has dictated between the release of the hostages and its own defeat. This choice inevitably prolongs the war, polarizes Israel, and consolidates the right-wing coalition while endangering the remaining hostages’ lives.

In fact, these two goals are not mutually exclusive. Temporally, the struggle against Hamas until its final defeat may continue for years or decades, but the hostages face a clear and immediate threat of death. By their nature, cease-fires are reversible and flexible, but dead hostages cannot be brought back to life. Conversely, freed terrorists can be rearrested or even killed, as some have already discovered. Resolving the tension between the hostage question and the war, then, requires securing the release of the hostages first and eradicating Hamas later. This is not a zero-sum game if Israel phases its objectives. By choosing instead to expand military operations and seek more maximalist goals, the Israeli government raises the pressure on Hamas but also risks losing the remaining hostages long before the threat from Gaza is removed.

CHARIOTS IN THE MIRE

Israel’s second campaign in Gaza, which began in March and has since been elaborated in Operation Gideon’s Chariots, aims to defeat and subdue Hamas “to the end.” This plan also aims to increase the pressure on Hamas to free all the hostages. Yet while the IDF chief has repeatedly stressed that the operation’s priorities are the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas, Netanyahu has stated the opposite. And according to the order of priorities outlined for the Israeli news media, the military objectives are to defeat Hamas, take operational control of Gaza, disarm the territory, strike all remaining targets within the Hamas regime, Hamas regime targets, concentrate and move the Gazan population—and, last of all, bring home the hostages.

The new campaign seeks to separate Hamas from the population as well as from access to humanitarian aid, denying its fighters the ability to operate from densely populated areas or to control major areas of Gaza. To accomplish that, the plan calls for evacuating the entire population from targeted combat zones, such as the northern strip, to designated areas, mainly in the south. Only in these areas will humanitarian aid be provided—by an American company under direct Israeli security arrangements—to avoid previous distribution arrangements that were exploited by Hamas. Under this plan, the combat zones will be cleared of all terrorists, with any “threatening structures” flattened and tunnels destroyed. The IDF will remain in place in these areas as well as the security zone, including on the Egyptian border, for an indefinite time. The operation also openly encourages the voluntary emigration of Gazans from the Gaza Strip.

Gideon’s Chariots was officially launched on May 16 with increased airstrikes, warnings to Gazans to evacuate southward, and the beginning of ground attacks. Netanyahu announced that “a decision was made to go all the way, we will occupy Gaza and our security control there will be forever.” Deploying all of its regular and a few reserve combat brigades to Gaza under five division commands, the IDF controlled about 40 percent of the strip by late May, a figure it plans to raise to 70 percent within two months. The operation is proceeding slowly: Israeli media have described it as a raze and demolish campaign in which the army flattens the remaining buildings in combat areas and the tunnels beneath them. The plans for the rest of Gaza and for what a total victory over Hamas will look like remain unclear.

A long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza would be the definition of a military nightmare.

For Israel’s far-right, the new offensive is a chance to advance larger ideological goals. According to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the campaign will “destroy what is left of the Gaza Strip.” As he put it, “The residents of Gaza will reach the southern Gaza Strip and from there, God willing,’’ travel “to third countries as part of President Trump’s plan.” Smotrich said in late May: “We’re not afraid of victory, conquest, and occupation.”

For now, the new campaign allows the possibility of different outcomes. It can inflict additional damage on what remains of Hamas and seek its surrender without committing Israel to military rule in Gaza. Or it can lay the ground for direct Israeli occupation, possibly opening the path for settlement and annexation. Avoiding decisions about the day after while blocking other alternatives to Hamas rule from emerging, Netanyahu continues to maintain latitude between these two choices but is inching down the slippery slope toward military rule, with or without the resettlement of Palestinians. The strategic, diplomatic, political, societal, and moral costs of such an outcome would be profound. It also would entail extraordinary military and economic costs.

A long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza—with a population of more than two million in an urban hellscape, enduring an ongoing humanitarian disaster amid a diehard insurgency—would be the definition of a military nightmare. The IDF, which already faces shortfalls of more than 10,000 soldiers as a result of casualties and the length of the war, will find itself pinned down in a bloody quagmire for years to come. The cost of maintaining those forces would be in the billions of dollars. In such an environment, a large occupying army would set the stage for an insurgency whose fighters lived among the dense population like fish in the sea. And in the case that Israel withdrew without laying the groundwork for alternative governance, either Hamas would return or chaos would reign, with local warlords battling for control amid extreme human suffering.

ULTERIOR MOTIVES

As recent developments show, Israeli decision-making in this war has been driven not only by competing strategic visions but also, and sometimes mainly, by political considerations. From the outset, the extreme right-wing members of the Israeli cabinet have supported the total destruction of Hamas and the prolongation of the war and opposed all cease-fires, even at the expense of hostages’ lives. Netanyahu’s decisions on hostage negotiations and the conduct of the war have been made in the shadow of continual threats by Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, to resign if the war stops; were they to step down, the government might fall and Netanyahu could lose power. Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff who served in the war cabinet formed after October 7, said he observed that the government was often influenced by extraneous considerations in its decision-making, both personally and on the political level, in the service of the survival of the coalition and the government.

By continuously expanding the war amid rising costs and the absence of a clear end goal, the government has completely contradicted Israel’s core security concept. The country’s founding fathers emphasized the importance of short, intense wars that could limit casualties and costs while maintaining foreign legitimacy and internal cohesion. Netanyahu himself had previously avoided drawn-out wars in favor of short operations with limited costs. But this time, it is a different Netanyahu.

The prime minister’s prolongation of the Gaza campaign and steady avoidance of final deals and day-after plans cannot be explained simply by his familiar penchant for procrastination and last-minute decisions. For months, he skirted major decisions in the war in Gaza. More important, he delayed the decision to go on the offensive in Lebanon, leaving Israeli forces on the northern border to spend 11 exhausting months on the defensive. In the end, he made the decision to attack Hezbollah only when faced with a “use or lose” dilemma: in September 2024, when an Israeli “Trojan horse” operation to equip Hezbollah members with explosive paging devices risked being discovered. He was finally forced to greenlight the sabotage campaign, which quickly led to Hezbollah's defeat.

Meanwhile, in the negotiations over the hostages in Gaza, Netanyahu has insisted on partial deals, refusing to accept any agreement that would release all of them and end the war. Some have suggested that he has limited his decision-making to the immediate tactical level because he lacks a larger strategy. But it is possible that it is simply a strategy focused on another level. Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly claimed that certain things cannot be done “in the middle of war”: holding public protests against the government, establishing a national commission of inquiry into the October 7 disaster, or even holding elections. At the same time, the war has become a “reason” for seeking to urgently remove officials who uphold the rule of law, such as Israel’s attorney general or the head of the Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency, and replace them with obedient loyalists. Such efforts became especially urgent when an investigation began into “Qatargate,” or the suspected intervention of a foreign power in the prime minister’s office itself—ironically, in the middle of war.

No matter the intensity of the fighting, the formal state of war and the Gaza campaign have given the Netanyahu government emergency powers and considerable freedom of action. Again and again, the government has cited the state of war and its need to lead it as reasons for postponing hearings in a criminal trial of Netanyahu for corruption—a prosecution that is his ultimate existential concern. As the war enters another stage, the relative influence of domestic politics—the survival of the government coalition and Netanyahu himself—on decisions seems especially high. The situation raises questions about whether the government is pursuing what is good for Israel and its people or simply prioritizing the survival of the government and its leader.

THE PRICE OF PERPETUAL WAR

Vaguely defined at the outset, the war’s initial goals left considerable room for interpretation. And indeed, the longer the campaign has progressed, the clearer it is that two contradictory purposes are in play. One is security-pragmatic; the other ideological-messianic. Against a regenerating Hamas, the demand for “total victory” and the removal of the Gaza threat “to the end” is a recipe for forever war. Even if its larger goals have not been officially adopted by the government, the “total victory” school appears to be gaining the upper hand. But a reckoning may be on the way.

In its opening weeks, the all-out Gideon’s Chariots operation has already met with difficulty in securing reservist turnout. But establishing and maintaining military control of Gaza, as is now called for, will require a far more significant investment of forces and resources—at a scale that will affect Israel’s national priorities and the state of society, the economy, and the military for decades to come. Having pursued its campaign for months without significant opposition from allies, the government may have mistakenly assumed that it could sharply escalate the war unhindered. But as the scope of destruction and civilian suffering has grown, so have the voices of condemnation in the Middle East and around the world, leading to growing signs of political and economic pressure, including from friendly parties, above all the United States.

Israel finds itself in a political, social, and moral crisis unlike any it has confronted since its founding. It now looks as if the end of the war will come only when the government hits the hard cliffs of reality, whether through the soaring costs in blood and treasure, acute constraints in resources, or overwhelming international pressure, with U.S. President Donald Trump being the most plausible war-stopper at present if he decides to take that course. Or suppose that a political crisis exposes the gap between government policy and the will of the majority of the Israeli public. Until such an event happens, however, the most likely future is an ever-expanding war with mounting costs to Israelis and Palestinians and diminishing returns for Israel’s security.

ASSAF ORION is Liz and Mony Rueven International Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel. He was head of strategy for the Israel Defense Forces from 2010 to 2015.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Assaf Orion · June 3, 2025

22. Golden Dome to Counter Ukraine-Inspired Attacks, USAF Boss Says

Golden Dome to Counter Ukraine-Inspired Attacks, USAF Boss Says

airandspaceforces.com · by Unshin Harpley · June 4, 2025

June 3, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Share Article

The top Air Force officer says President Donald Trump’s ambitious “Golden Dome” homeland defense initiative could ultimately counter the kind of strike Ukraine carried out earlier this week, using drones to hit multiple Russian aircraft deep inside the country.

“I think the fascinating thing will be, to what extent, in the future . . . the Golden Dome will integrate not only [systems to counter] the larger ballistic, cruise, hypersonic missiles, but also some of these closer-in, more effective ones,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said at a June 3 Center for a New American Security event.

However, he said he believes the initial phase of Golden Dome development will not include closer-range defensive measures.

Kyiv launched a surprise attack using more than 100 drones, striking “34% of [Russia’s] strategic cruise missile carriers,” according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Russia confirmed attacks in five regions including on multiple military bases.

“We’ll see how the conversation gets stirred up again based on the strike, but it shows us that seemingly impenetrable locations need to pay more attention to that,” Allvin added.

The Golden Dome project, which could cost $542 billion over the next two decades, is led by Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein and is expected to rely heavily on satellites and other space-based technologies to detect and intercept incoming threats from drones to hypersonic missiles. Trump has set a goal to complete the project within three years, touting it as a way to “forever end the missile threat to the American homeland.”

But given the complexity of developing and fielding such technology, analysts view the tight timeline as ambitious. Guetlein has likened the mission’s scale to the “magnitude of the Manhattan Project,” warning that it will require a heavy lift from the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and various industries.

Allvin said Guetlein faces a daunting challenge and will require significant support. The Air Force is expected to play a key role, as the system relies on airborne defenses and close coordination with the Army and other services to ensure effective coverage, particularly in strategic regions like the Indo-Pacific.

The region’s defense posture is now in the spotlight as China looms as a threat that “could be imminent,” according to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. While the impact of Ukrainian forces using small drones to strike Russia’s military bases and damage long-range bombers may not be a “wake-up moment,” it is certainly an “eyebrow-raising” one, Allvin said.

The Air Force is taking steps to make its critical assets in the Pacific more resilient in case of attack, like reinforcing aircraft shelters. As part of this effort, a seven-year project is underway at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam to upgrade the runway, hangars, and maintenance facilities to support both permanent and rotational forces, including allies’ fighter aircraft.

“It’s something that we haven’t necessarily been ignoring, but it’s been a matter of resource prioritization,” Allvin said. “We could really make it very defensive, but if all we’re doing is playing defense, and we can’t shoot back, then that’s not a good use of our money.”

As Washington starts to draw lessons on preventing a similar drone attack on American military assets, Allvin also suggested the Air Force should consider adding simpler aircraft that can make big impacts.

But he cautioned against the rising enthusiasm for inexpensive unmanned aircraft. Many believe the Air Force should invest in “a bunch of cheap, long-range, and kinetically powerful” drones, he said, but that’s a fantasy. Those three qualities don’t exist together, he argued.

Instead, Allvin stressed the need for a balanced force mix—using myriad cheaper aircraft to sow initial confusion before advanced platforms launch more critical attacks. A smart mix lets commanders apply “the right weapon for the right target,” and avoid having to “expend all your high-end kit” on every mission, he said.

Air

Russia-Ukraine

airandspaceforces.com · by Unshin Harpley · June 4, 2025

23. PLA escalates ‘gray zone’ tactics near island chain

Note the graphic at the link. All three island chains are depicted. Next is the West Coast of the US. It will be denoted as the western hemispere continents chain. Graphics such as this actually contribute to the gray zone.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2025/06/04/2003838019

• Home Taiwan News

Wed, Jun 04, 2025 page2

PLA escalates ‘gray zone’ tactics near island chain

SOVEREIGNTY PRESSURE: Beijing’s hybrid incursions, military drills and legal warfare aim to blur sovereignty and reshape East Asia’s security order, an official said

• By Chen Yun and Esme Yeh / Staff reporter, with staff writer
• 
  
•  
•  
• China’s unusually large naval operations around the first island chain are not only intended to demonstrate military power and assert regional control, but also to blur sovereignty boundaries through the normalization of “gray zone” warfare aimed at occupation, a national security official said on Monday.
• Since last month, China has been exerting maximum pressure across the region by deploying 50 to 70 naval or government vessels daily across the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, the official said on condition of anonymity.
• These operations have been accompanied by provocative air maneuvers involving hundreds of warplanes sent to harass neighboring countries, they added.
• 
  

Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning carries out a dual aircraft carrier formation exercise with the Shandong aircraft carrier, not pictured, for the first time in the South China Sea in October last year.

• Photo: AP
• Chinese helicopters have breached airspace over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, and the air defense identification zone around South Korea’s Ieodo Island, while Chinese vessels have entered the territorial waters of multiple nations, the official said.
• “Gray zone” intrusions continued, while regular combat readiness patrols and military drills were conducted from May 1 to Tuesday last week, they said.
• On May 11, Beijing released a white paper titled China’s National Security in the New Era, which emphasized state power, “national unification” and territorial integrity as core national interests, the official said.
• 
  
• Following the announcement, a series of coordinated military maneuvers involving Chinese warplanes, anti-submarine aircraft and uncrewed aerial vehicles were launched to pressure Taiwan, particularly on May 11, May 18 and Friday last week, the official added.
• On May 16, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command crossed the Miyako Strait to conduct long-distance air and naval drills, they said.
• On May 20, the PLA’s 73rd Group Army carried out an amphibious landing exercise in waters southeast of China’s Fujian Province, they said.
• Meanwhile, the aircraft carrier Liaoning led a naval formation through the Miyako Strait into the East China Sea on May 25 and Monday last week, during which the PLA Air Force conducted its first carrier-based takeoff and landing operations in that sea, they added.
• Separately, another aircraft carrier, the Fujian, completed its eighth sea trial earlier last month, they said.
• The 73rd Group Army of the PLA Army Ground Force conducted an amphibious landing exercise in waters southeast of China’s Fujian Province on May 20, the official said.
• In addition to its expanded military drills, China has also ramped up “gray zone” incursions over the past month, the said.
• While China Coast Guard vessels have continued to intrude into territorial waters surrounding Taiwan proper and its outlying islands, more than 40 unauthorized fishing vessels on May 19 entered waters southwest of Penghu County, despite China’s fishing moratorium being in effect, they added.
• These incursions were not only disruptive to Taiwan’s maritime security, but are also suspected to be part of a broader “gray zone” strategy — using civilian fishers to obscure the presence of China Coast Guard vessels and justify their law enforcement operations, they said.
• Similar tactics might have been behind incidents on May 15, 16, 20 and 23, when Chinese illegally entered Taiwan by rubber boat or swimming, with the likely goal of probing Taiwan’s coastal defense capacity, they added.
• Given that crossing the Taiwan Strait by rubber boat or swimming is not reasonably feasible, they were likely transported by a larger vessel to a location closer to Taiwan before making the final leg of the journey, the official said.
• Through the combined use of coast guard vessels, illegal fishing boats and clandestine operations, China appears to be conducting hybrid harassment tactics to reshape the regional security situation, they said.
• China also seems intent on demonstrating its absolute control over the entire first island chain and showcasing its capabilities for anti-access and area denial operations, they added.
• However, the ultimate goal might be to undermine international norms by intensifying “legal warfare” against neighboring countries — normalizing military drills across East Asia to erode established rules, the source said.
• By manufacturing the appearance of “long-standing” law enforcement activity in the region, China could be attempting to blur international recognition of sovereign boundaries in favor of its disputed territorial claims, they added.
• 24.
• 
  

24. After contractor cuts, Voice of America staffers brace for further layoffs

This is so depressing to see us make such a huge strategic and national security mistake.

The CRInk is relaly enjoying seeing us do this.

After contractor cuts, Voice of America staffers brace for further layoffs

Kari Lake informed Congress on June 3 that she plans to cut most of the 800 remaining staffers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2025/05/28/voice-of-america-layoffs/

Updated yesterday at 8:08 p.m. EDT

5 min

50

The Trump administration is expected to make further cuts aimed at dismantling Voice of America. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

By Scott Nover and Sarah Ellison

Voice of America employees have been bracing for further reductions in their workforce, not long after the Trump administration announced plans to terminate more than 500 contractors, according to several staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about it.

Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.

On June 3, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, sent Congress its proposed plan for a reduction in force, which would eliminate most of the 800 remaining staffers at the government-funded news organization. These employees work full time and are more difficult to fire than the contractors, whose last day was May 30.

The firing plan was detailed in a letter from USAGM senior adviser Kari Lake to House Committee on Foreign Affairs chairman Brian Mast (R-Florida), obtained by The Washington Post and verified by two people privy to its contents. Lake wrote that she anticipates staffing to be “above” the statutory minimum numbers. The word “above” is bolded in the letter.

An attached document details the approximately 80 positions — out of roughly 1,300 full-time and contractor positions at the time of President Donald Trump’s March executive order — that will remain after a reduction in force. That includes all 33 people working out of Florida for Cuba-focused programming, plus 11 at Voice of America and two each for the Farsi, China and Afghanistan services, as well as a CEO. An additional 13 or so people would work through the “senior executive service.” Another 15 people would comprise “back office support” — including human resources, contracting, finance, legal, technology and security — and two more in engineering and transmission, bringing the total to an estimated 81.

Follow Trump’s second term

Follow

Senior VOA officials have said that they were certain that further cuts were on the way but that the timing remained uncertain.

Most VOA staffers have been on paid administrative leave since Trump issued an executive order on March 14 aimed at dismantling the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and which funds nonprofit media networks such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.

Skip to end of carouselThe Style section

Style is The Washington Post’s place for news from the front lines of culture — arts, media, politics, trends and fashion. For more Style stories, click here. To subscribe to the Style Memo newsletter, click here.

End of carousel

The layoffs at VOA are part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to reduce the size and scope of the U.S. government. Numerous agencies have rolled out widespread reductions in force, some of which have been challenged in federal court.

In May, a federal judge ordered the Education Department to reinstate nearly 1,400 fired workers. “A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all,” U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun in Massachusetts wrote in an order granting a preliminary injunction.

Further, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in Northern California granted a preliminary injunction on May 22 extending a sweeping freeze on mass layoffs and reorganizations at 22 federal agencies, though USAGM isn’t currently included.

VOA is already suing the Trump administration over the March executive order, saying that the president does not have authority to unilaterally dismantle the news organization, which was created by Congress. After U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issued an injunction on April 22, which would have sent VOA staffers back to work, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which included two Trump appointees, stayed most of the injunction on May 3, keeping staffers on leave.

Lake has promised to keep VOA at a “statutory minimum” level of staffing and has brought back about 30 out of 1,300 staffers to do so. Lake has been detailed to the State Department to oversee the dismantling of USAGM, which oversees VOA. Lake did not respond to a request for comment, but she previously told The Post that more cuts were coming to USAGM.

“In accordance with President Trump’s executive order dated March 14, we are in the process of rightsizing the agency and reducing the federal bureaucracy to meet administration priorities,” she wrote in an email on May 15. “We will continue to scale back the bloat at USAGM and make an archaic dinosaur into something worthy of being funded by hardworking Americans. Buckle up. There’s more to come.”

Jessica Jerreat, VOA’s press freedom editor and a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the news — and how it was conveyed to staff — was disappointing. “It’s frustrating seeing the dismantling of an 83-year-old broadcaster in this way,” she told The Post. “The uncertainty and way details are communicated make the situation worse. Plus we have our vulnerable colleagues who are already terminated and risk losing visa status by end of June.” J-1 visa holders have 30 days after termination to leave the United States, sparking fears that they may return to home countries hostile to critical journalists.

David Kligerman, who retired in November as general counsel and chief legal officer at USAGM, said the expected reduction in force would constitute “a violation of the Impoundment Control Act and an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’s power of the purse.”

He added: “To the extent that VOA prevails on at least some aspect of that claim, as many believe they will, it is hard to see how such a reduction in force — which would completely remove any and all of the staff who could carry out VOA’s mission — is ultimately lawful.”

What readers are saying

The comments reflect a mix of nostalgia and criticism regarding the potential impact of layoffs at Voice of America (VOA). Some commenters emphasize VOA's historical importance in providing unvarnished information and combating misinformation about the U.S. abroad, while others... Show more

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

All comments 50

More Style stories on the media

HAND CURATED

• Trump asks Congress to defund PBS and NPR
• June 3, 2025
• 
  
• Tom Llamas is taking over for Lester Holt. Will viewers keep watching?
• June 2, 2025
• 
  
• PBS sues Trump over executive order targeting federal funding, following NPR
• May 30, 2025
• 
  

View 3 more stories

View 3 more stories

By Scott Nover

Scott Nover is a media reporter for The Washington Post.follow on X@ScottNover

By Sarah Ellison

Sarah Ellison is a national enterprise reporter for The Washington Post. Previously, she wrote for Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, where she started as a news assistant in Paris.follow on X@sarahellison

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