Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference."

– Marcus Aurelius

"Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some are not."

– Epictetus

"It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias,"

– Simone de Beauvoir

1. Army Special Operations Warns Retired Members of Terror Threat

2. Taiwan extends drills to show China — and Trump — it’s ready to fight

3. U.S. Reshuffles Arms Deliveries to Free Up More Patriots for Ukraine

4. State Dept. layoffs led by team of outsiders willing to ‘break stuff’

5. assumptions on war between the U.S. and PRC – two publications this week spur thought by Dr. Cynthia Watson

6. Brothers in Arms: Macron, Merz and Starmer Plan for a Post-U.S. Future

7. The U.S. Can No Longer Stave Off Competition From China

8. How Ukraine’s allies helped Zelensky recover his standing with Trump

9. US investigates university over Chinese scientists

10. Trump administration tells embassies to rein in criticism of foreign elections

11. China-linked scam centers target U.S., congressional commission warns

12. China reacts as Russia floats new geopolitical power bloc with India

13. China Gets More Airtime Around the World as Voice of America Signs Off

14. Disinformation warriors are ‘grooming’ chatbots

15. Beijing’s Political Warfare in Canada: Tracking the Footprints of the United Front Work Department

16. The Philippines Is a Petri Dish for Chinese Disinformation

17. A program at Fort Bragg’s Intrepid Spirit Center uses latest research to treat soldiers with traumatic brain injuries

18. Precision Paradox and Myths of Precision Strike in Modern Armed Conflict

1. Army Special Operations Warns Retired Members of Terror Threat

For those who may have missed this. Be vigilant.

Army Special Operations Warns Retired Members of Terror Threat

The alert, issued to retired service members who served in Iraq or Syria and live in Florida, did not specify what kind of threat or which terrorist group was involved.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/us/politics/army-special-operations-terror-threat.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XU8.ePxQ._f0y87HeXZzX&smid=url-share

Listen to this article · 1:59 min Learn more

Share full article
13

The military’s overall Special Operations Command has its headquarters in Tampa, Fla. Credit...Paul J. Richards/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Eric Schmitt and Julian E. Barnes

July 17, 2025

The U.S. Army Special Operations Command issued a warning on Thursday to some retired senior military personnel who served in Iraq or Syria that they were the target of a possible terrorist threat.

The alert, circulated to those now living in Florida, neither specified what kind of threat or which terrorist group was involved, nor which country or entity provided the information. But officials deemed it credible enough to issue the warning, according to Col. Allie Scott, a spokeswoman for the command.

Such warnings, called “duty to warn notifications,” are not uncommon and are issued when military authorities receive pertinent information related to threats against service members, said Colonel Scott, who declined to provide details.

U.S. Army Special Operations forces have conducted strikes against Al Qaeda and Islamic State insurgents for years in Iraq and Syria. Military officials have often declined to identify commandos involved in such operations, fearing that service members or their families could be targeted for retaliation, including in the United States.

The military’s overall Special Operations Command has its headquarters in Tampa, Fla. Many special operations forces, as well as other military personnel, now live in retirement in the state.

The alert, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, said the threat did not target active-duty special operations personnel, but cautioned them “to remain alert to their surroundings, both on and off post, and to report any suspicious activity to appropriate authorities.”

The warning, signed by the command’s provost marshal, Col. Mark A. Katz, encouraged active-duty service members to alert any retired special forces who live in Florida, and to warn them “to remain vigilant.”

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.

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

2. Taiwan extends drills to show China — and Trump — it’s ready to fight

Is Taiwan showing the US (and China) that it is willing to defend itself more than the US is willing to defend it? For a long time some of us have thought it seems as if the US has wanted to defend Taiwan more than Taiwan itself.

Does this allay those views?

Taiwan extends drills to show China — and Trump — it’s ready to fight

This year’s military exercises, unprecedented in length and scale, are designed to prepare people for the prospect of Chinese troops storming Taiwan’s shores.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/07/18/taiwan-readies-for-chinese-invasion/

Yesterday at 5:00 a.m. EDT

Taiwan's Patriot air defense system is deployed at a park during the annual Han Kuang drills in Taipei on July 11. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

By Christian Shepherd and Rudy Lu

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Residents practiced fleeing their apartment buildings and flocking to underground parking garages on Thursday afternoon, as air raid sirens blared across Taiwan’s capital region, home to 7 million people. In the city’s main stadium — which usually hosts pop concerts and basketball games — army reservists in red bibs simulated distributing rice, cooking oil and other emergency rations. Classrooms at an elementary school became mock operating theaters and first aid stations.

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

Across this city, everyone from office workers and retirees to firefighters and doctors practiced what to do if one day China were to invade, holding “whole of society” drills that were unprecedented in scale and complexity, according to Taiwanese officials and analysts.

“In the past, it was more about evacuation,” said Lee Juwen, a local government employee in Songshan District, as she took shelter from a mock missile attack. “This year is especially about what is really needed if a war breaks out. When something happens, we will know immediately what to do.”

1:24

The Post's China correspondent, Christian Shepherd, reported from Taipei as Taiwan practiced defenses against a possible invasion by China. (Video: Zoeann Murphy, Christian Shepherd/The Washington Post)

Taiwan has been preparing for a Chinese assault for decades. The Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, but it claims the self-governing island democracy as part of its territory and regularly threatens to use force to bring it under control.

But this year’s Han Kuang military exercises have lasted 10 days — double last year’s length — and called up 22,000 reservists, up from only 14,500 last year.

Follow Trump’s second term

They were also more realistic, going beyond scripted role-playing to include drills on what might happen before — and after — Chinese troops storm Taiwan’s shores. And they encouraged more public participation, with civil defense and emergency response measures combined into “urban resilience” drills held across the island this week.

Taiwanese navy sailors load sea mines during a drill inside a naval base as part of the annual Han Kuang military exercises in Kaohsiung city, Taiwan, on Monday. (Ritchie B Tongo/EPA/Shutterstock)

Taiwanese military personnel participate in the annual Han Kuang military exercises in Hsinchu County, Taiwan, on July 10. (Ritchie B Tongo/EPA/Shutterstock)

The emphasis on preparing everyone for Chinese attack is one of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s signature policies and a key part of his effort to address concerns in Washington that slow-going defense reforms are leaving the island vulnerable to Chinese aggression.

“This is President Lai’s most significant undertaking to date,” said Mark Montgomery, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank in Washington.

The idea is to strengthen institutions and train civilians to resist Chinese campaigns that might try to compel Taiwan to surrender without a fight. China could cut off the island’s access to liquid natural gas, sever an undersea communications cable or launch cyberattacks.

“This is the most likely scenario, and it’s the one where [Chinese leader Xi Jinping] could possibly win Taiwan without firing a weapon,” Montgomery said. “It is something that Taiwan has to work on diligently … so that the public never loses faith in the government.”

Lai also needs to convince the United States that he is making progress. Although President Donald Trump has been preoccupied with conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, many in his administration consider deterring China from taking Taiwan to be the top priority for the U.S. military.

In an internal Pentagon memo in March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicated that denying a Chinese takeover of Taiwan was more important for the U.S. military than preparing for a potential war with Russia. The Chinese military threat to Taiwan is real and “could be imminent,” Hegseth warned publicly in May.

But officials have also urged Taipei to do more to meet the Chinese threat. Elbridge A. Colby, undersecretary of defense for policy, said at his confirmation hearing in March that Taiwan’s defense budget should be 10 percent of its gross domestic product — four times current spending — and warned that it was not fair to ask Americans “to suffer if our allies are not pulling their weight.”

The U.S. maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” over when it might intervene to defend Taiwan from Chinese attack. But current and former U.S. service members have in recent years worked increasingly closely with Taipei on defense reforms and training with U.S.-made weapons.

“When exercises were designed in the past, they got to the People’s Liberation Army landing on the beach, then the drills were over,” said Yang Tai-yuan, a retired colonel in the Taiwanese military now at the Research Project on China’s Defense Affairs, a Taipei think tank.

Reservists participate in pre-combat training during the 41st annual Han Kuang military drill in Taoyuan, Taiwan, on July 11. (Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)

Urban warfare and preparation for a drawn-out conflict were recently added, in no small part thanks to advice from the American military trainers, Yang said.

Washington had long been concerned that Taiwan’s Han Kuang drills were not realistic enough and didn’t sufficiently test the military, said Lauren Dickey, a former senior adviser for Taiwan policy in the U.S. Department of Defense, now affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

“The fact that they are accounting for other elements of what conflict could look like, that’s a net positive and a huge sign of progress,” said Dickey.

China’s escalating pressure campaign has intensified American concerns about Taiwan’s lagging defense reforms. Under President Joe Biden, tensions over Taiwan repeatedly thwarted efforts to stabilize U.S.-China ties after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sharpened fears that Taiwan could be next. Soon after, CIA Director William J. Burns warned that Xi had instructed his military to be capable of seizing Taiwan by 2027.

While U.S. officials have since downplayed the possibility of imminent attack, they continue to warn that Taiwan must be prepared for the worst.

The Lai administration has tried to show it is taking those warnings seriously. Its Defense Ministry described this month’s drills as designed with a potential 2027 Chinese invasion in mind.

The simulation began with Chinese “gray zone” operations — acts of sabotage or aggression that stop short of outright conflict — that Beijing could use to sow panic ahead of a full-scale invasion. These included cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns, and an exercise based on Chinese Coast Guard ships entering Taiwan’s restricted waters.

People and staffers take shelter inside an underground warehouse during a drill simulating a response to Chinese missile attacks at a PX Mart in Taipei, Taiwan, on July 10. The drill aims to integrate private sectors such as convenience stories into a broader civil defense system of Taiwan. (Daniel Ceng/EPA/Shutterstock)

A simulated rescue operation, part of urban resilience air raid drills to boost civilian preparedness for wartime scenarios, in Taipei, Taiwan, on Thursday. (Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)

Later, the focus shifted to urban warfare. In nighttime drills, soldiers rushed rocket launchers through the subway system. Military police blockaded one of the main bridges into Taipei using buses and barbed wire barricades. Police and fire fighters practiced getting people to shelter, halting traffic and distributing emergency supplies.

The idea was to teach “every city and local government what to do when faced with war,” said Shen Ming-Shih, an analyst at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taiwanese think tank.

Taiwan also practiced repelling an amphibious invasion using newly arrived American weaponry, including the truck-based High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) missiles defense system that has been a cornerstone of Ukraine’s defenses. Lai watched on Thursday as four U.S.-made Abrams tanks — delivered late last year after months of delays — practiced hitting targets shaped like Chinese tanks.

Seeing weapons from Taiwan’s main security backer in action “is also helpful for raising the will to resist across the whole of society,” Shen said.

Lai has repeatedly warned that Taiwan needs to contend not just with a Chinese attack, but with a “defeatist attitude” when faced with Chinese propaganda intended to convince Taiwanese that resistance is futile.

Faced with daily threats and coercion, “there is no other choice but to be prepared,” Lai said in a speech Thursday. “We must actively and comprehensively promote whole-of-society defense resilience, so that everyone understands that national defense is everyone’s responsibility.”

Beijing has responded angrily to Lai’s defense reforms and his forceful rejection of China’s territorial claims. The Chinese military has repeatedly launched large-scale military drills around Taiwan since he took office and blamed Lai personally for “poisoning” the minds of Taiwanese people.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office dismissed this month’s drills as “military theatrics” and accused Lai of “forcibly tying Taiwan residents to the chariot of separatism.”

But even Chinese analysts acknowledged that this year’s Han Kuang drills showed Lai has a clear understanding of what is required to resist forced unification. Taiwan is readying for a “last-ditch fight” that would keep China engaged for long enough that “external forces” — the U.S. and its allies — could come to their aid, Zhang Junshe, a Chinese military commentator, told state-run newspaper the Global Times.

“A big problem is that Taiwanese society is already numb to this Chinese military harassment,” said Chen Shih-min, an associate professor of political science at National Taiwan University.

“Before people would often say, if China attacks Taiwan, it can take control in three days — or in a week or a month,” Chen said. “The whole world and all Taiwanese people must clearly understand that as soon as China attacks or invades, this government will without a doubt fight to the last.”

12 Comments

By Christian Shepherd

Christian Shepherd is China correspondent for The Washington Post. He previously covered the country for the Financial Times and Reuters from Beijing.follow on X@cdcshepherd

By Rudy Lu

Rudy Lu is a reporter/researcher in The Washington Post's China bureau. She covers news about China and Taiwan with special focuses on social, cultural and religious affairs.

3. U.S. Reshuffles Arms Deliveries to Free Up More Patriots for Ukraine

Excerpts:

More deals between the U.S. and its allies to free up additional weapons are likely to be worked out over the next week. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will meet virtually with other NATO defense chiefs on Monday to discuss aid for Kyiv.

A separate meeting Wednesday involving countries that own Patriots will be chaired by Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and chief of European Command.

“The timelines for new production are years and years, but Ukraine needs these capabilities now,” said Alina Polyakova, head of the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank.

The Swiss government said that the U.S. “has decided to reprioritize the delivery of Patriot ground-based air defense systems” as part of a U.S. effort to increase support for Ukraine. Switzerland has purchased five Patriot systems that were due to be delivered between 2026 and 2028. The timeline for those deliveries is now unclear.

Ukraine currently has only a handful of Patriot systems, donated by the U.S. and other countries, and has been seeking more to fend off escalating Russian attacks. Each Patriot, which are built by RTX, previously Raytheon, consists of multiple launchers, a radar, a command and control element and interceptor missiles.

U.S. Reshuffles Arms Deliveries to Free Up More Patriots for Ukraine

Germany to receive next American air-defense systems after Trump says allies will pay for additional Ukraine weapons

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-ukraine-weapons-shipment-priority-be11f155

By Lara Seligman

, Robbie Gramer

and Alexander Ward

July 18, 2025 3:55 pm ET

Ukrainian soldiers were being trained in the use of Patriot air-defense systems in Germany last year. Photo: jens buttner/Reuters

Key Points

What's This?

The U.S. will prioritize Germany for Patriot air-defense systems, enabling Berlin to send two of its own to Ukraine.
The Trump administration will reshuffle planned deliveries, prioritizing allies who send Patriots from their arsenals to Ukraine.
The U.S. will sell weapons to NATO members who will then provide them to Ukraine, with several countries already committed.

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration has moved Germany ahead of Switzerland for the next Patriot air-defense systems off the production line, paving the way for Berlin to send two Patriots it already has to Ukraine, according to three U.S. officials.

The U.S. promise to quickly replace Germany’s Patriots is the first instance of the Pentagon facilitating weapons deliveries for Ukraine since President Trump announced earlier this month that he favored sending more arms.

But the move also underscored the difficulty in providing Patriots and other weapons to Kyiv, as defense production lines in the West struggle to keep up with Ukraine’s appeals for help defending its cities and front line forces against increasing Russian missile and drone attacks.

The effort to speed Patriots to Ukraine by backfilling Germany with systems from the American production line is consistent with Trump’s vow to have NATO allies pay the U.S. as part of providing additional weapons for Ukraine.

The initial deal is similar to a move made in 2024 by the Biden administration, which moved Ukraine to the front of the line to receive air defense interceptors directly from the U.S.

As additional countries sign on to send Patriots from their arsenals to Ukraine, the Trump administration will further reshuffle planned future deliveries, giving priority to those allies, a senior U.S. official said.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky stood by a Patriot system during a visit to a military training area in Germany last year. Photo: Jens Buettner/DPA/Associated Press

More deals between the U.S. and its allies to free up additional weapons are likely to be worked out over the next week. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will meet virtually with other NATO defense chiefs on Monday to discuss aid for Kyiv.

A separate meeting Wednesday involving countries that own Patriots will be chaired by Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and chief of European Command.

“The timelines for new production are years and years, but Ukraine needs these capabilities now,” said Alina Polyakova, head of the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank.

The Swiss government said that the U.S. “has decided to reprioritize the delivery of Patriot ground-based air defense systems” as part of a U.S. effort to increase support for Ukraine. Switzerland has purchased five Patriot systems that were due to be delivered between 2026 and 2028. The timeline for those deliveries is now unclear.

Ukraine currently has only a handful of Patriot systems, donated by the U.S. and other countries, and has been seeking more to fend off escalating Russian attacks. Each Patriot, which are built by RTX, previously Raytheon, consists of multiple launchers, a radar, a command and control element and interceptor missiles.

The Trump administration is seeking to negotiate individual deals with North Atlantic Treaty Organization members to buy arms for Ukraine, according to a senior U.S. official. The Defense Department will oversee that effort.

Those deals will go beyond Patriots and will include offensive and defensive weapons that the NATO countries will provide Kyiv and then repurchase from the U.S.

Germany, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Britain, Canada and Finland have already committed to supporting the initiative, a NATO official said. Other European countries could join in aiding Kyiv once the details of the plan are hashed out, according to several senior European officials.

As Trump promises more weapons and threatens economic pressure on Moscow, WSJ’s Ukraine Bureau Chief James Marson explains what is at stake for Kyiv in the face of increasing Russian attacks. Illustration: Louisa Naks

A critical issue is how long it will take for additional weapons to arrive in Ukraine, according to U.S. and European officials involved in logistics and military supply chains. Trump gave Russia a deadline of 50 days to negotiate a deal or face “very significant” tariffs and sanctions, including on its trading partners.

Russia is likely to surge its war efforts before the U.S. deadline expires, analysts said.

“Fifty days is too long to give Russia. They have shown no inclination to even negotiate in good faith,” said Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and CIA officer. “They will do everything they can to advance in Ukraine over the next 50 days.”

Hegseth welcomed German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to the Pentagon on Monday, in part to discuss the Patriot deal. Trump has portrayed it as a done deal. “They are coming in from Germany,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Ukraine would also receive long-range missiles “very shortly” in the wake of the new Trump initiative, though he declined to give specifics.

“The guidance that I’ve been given has been to move out as quickly as possible. So we’re doing that,” Grynkewich said Wednesday in Germany, adding that he is looking at additional weapons that may be sent to meet Ukraine’s needs.

The idea that the U.S. will now sell, rather than continue to donate, weapons for Ukraine has been key to Trump’s backing for additional arms for Ukraine.

“We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons and they are going to be paying for them. We, the United States, won’t be having any payment made,” Trump said on Monday during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office.

But European capitals are waiting for clarification from Washington on the types of ammunition and weapons that will be delivered to Ukraine, the timetable for deliveries, and whether the U.S. or other countries will impose restrictions on what targets Western-made munitions could be used against in Russia.

Moscow warned Thursday that countries that supply Ukraine with weapons were subject to attack.

“Moscow considers itself entitled to attack the military facilities of countries that allow Kyiv to strike deep into Russia with their weapons,” said Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “In the event of further escalation of the conflict, we will respond decisively and with equivalent force.”

Write to Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com, Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com

4. State Dept. layoffs led by team of outsiders willing to ‘break stuff’

"That which does not kill me makes me stronger."

– Nietschze

The question is how much damage has been done? Or can State emerge from this stronger than before? There are opportunities in chaos. Can Secretary Rubio and the remaining State leadership capitalize from the chaos?

State Dept. layoffs led by team of outsiders willing to ‘break stuff’

Interviews with more than 60 people detail a frenetic, arbitrary process underpinning the Trump administration’s far-reaching overhaul.

July 19, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EDTToday at 5:00 a.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/07/19/state-department-layoffs-jeremy-lewin/

State Department employees are greeted by supporters cheering as they leave their office on July 11, the day of mass layoffs at the agency. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

By Adam Taylor, Hannah Natanson and John Hudson

The Trump administration’s dramatic reorganization of the State Department, including this month’s firing of more than 1,300 workers, was engineered primarily by a handful of political appointees lacking extensive diplomatic experience and chosen for their “fidelity” to the president and willingness to “break stuff” on his behalf, according to people with knowledge of the process.

Proponents of the initiative have declared its execution a historic success, overcoming years of resistance from a career workforce averse to major change. Critics say it was done arbitrarily, in furtherance of Trump’s polarizing brand of conservatism and will damage the United States’ standing in the world by shedding invaluable expertise across the department.

Central to the effort was Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old former agent of Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service who earlier this year oversaw its rapid, messy dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — one of the administration’s first and most drastic acts to impose President Donald Trump’s “America’s First” agenda on the government’s foreign policy institutions.

Skip to end of carouselTrump presidency

Follow live updates on the Trump administration. We’re tracking Trump’s progress on campaign promises and legal challenges to his executive orders and actions.

End of carousel

Lewin and his teammates at the State Department have faced withering blowback from Democrats and outraged employees, with current and former officials alleging that the agency’s cuts probably violated federal employment protections and is almost certain to be challenged in court. Already, Trump officials have had to backtrack on dozens of job eliminations, acknowledging to those employees that the layoff notices they received were sent in error.

Follow Trump’s second term

In a statement, Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (New York), the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, accused the Trump administration of acting outside the law and called the plan’s architects “a small cabal of unqualified MAGA extremists.”

“This wasn’t a serious review of national security needs,” Meeks said, “it was a political stunt. … The result? The most damaging brain drain in the State Department’s modern history.”

This account of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the State Department is based on interviews with more than 60 current and former employees, some with direct knowledge of the months-long coordination preceding last week’s mass-layoff announcement. They described a haphazard process that broke administration officials’ repeated promises to leave certain offices and positions untouched and left an unspecified number of fired Foreign Service officers stranded overseas. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear of reprisal.

The State Department employs more than 70,000 people worldwide, though there are only about 100 political appointees who lead the agency. Last week’s layoffs targeted the 18,000 or so employees who work domestically, cutting U.S.-based positions that worked in areas including women’s issues, nuclear diplomacy, China policy and processing passport applications, as part of a broader plan to downsize U.S.-based positions by 15 percent including attrition and voluntary departures.

Lewin, now serving in the newly created position of acting under secretary for foreign assistance, humanitarian affairs and religious freedom, expressed sympathy for those affected by the layoffs, telling The Washington Post in a recent interview that his team worked diligently to avoid more significant chaos. He called the RIFs — government speak for reductions in force — “blunt instruments” but emphatically defended his team’s efforts “to make this as humane, dignified and organized as lawfully as possible.”

“Unfortunately, mistakes happen when you’re doing anything in large numbers,” Lewin said, acknowledging missteps the department has been forced to address.

A senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Trump administration, also disputed the current and former State Department employees’ characterization of the process, saying that while the planning for the reorganization began with a small team, the final blueprint for eliminating so many jobs ultimately was prepared with considerable input from “experienced career staff” and in consultation with the White House.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio listens as President Donald Trump meets with NATO’s secretary general at the White House on Monday. (Kent Nishimura/For The Washington Post)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has maintained the agency was “bloated” and infected, in some corners, by “radical political ideology,” necessitating the shake-up. Other administrations — Democratic and Republican — have made similar diagnoses. But past efforts at reform, including a plan to “modernize” the agency under President Joe Biden, faced pushback from its entrenched bureaucracy and complicated rules that offered Foreign Service officers considerable job protections.

Yet even among supporters of reform, there are widespread concerns that little real calculus went into deciding where and how to cut — and that it will have a lasting negative impact on morale among the more than 15,000 U.S.-based employees who remain, working as the backbone to America’s diplomatic corps around the world. The White House also has sought to slash the State Department budget by roughly half, raising fears both internally and among the department’s defenders on Capitol Hill that Trump will attempt to make further staffing cuts in the future.

“The reorganization was desperately needed, and when you do a reorganization of a bloated bureaucracy, you have to reduce the numbers,” said Tibor Nagy, a veteran diplomat and two-time ambassador who served as undersecretary for management until early April. “But are they doing it the right way? I highly question that.”

Rubio’s brain trust

Before this year, Lewin was virtually unknown in Washington.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 2022, he worked for constitutional legal scholar Laurence Tribe, a prominent critic of Trump, and with the elite law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. The firm, known for its progressive office culture, also has represented Musk and his businesses. According to his State Department biography, Lewin previously worked as an investment banker, too.

He joined the Trump administration as a member of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which moved aggressively to root out perceived inefficiencies in the government by slashing jobs and ending services contracts across virtually all agencies. DOGE surprised many by targeting USAID, with Musk describing Washington’s principal foreign assistance arm as a “criminal organization.”

Musk has since left the administration and now is at odds with Trump, leaving DOGE with waning influence. Lewin, too, has moved on. He became the chief operating officer of USAID in late March, helping to oversee its collapse. And after a more high-profile political appointee, Pete Marocco, was forced from his position following clashes with Rubio’s inner circle, Lewin was promoted to acting director of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance.

Lewin was again promoted July 11, the day of the layoffs, to become under secretary, the agency’s third-highest rank. He appears to be among the youngest people to hold that rank in the State Department’s history, if not the youngest.

Critics of Rubio’s management of the State Department, including Democrats and former diplomats, say the rapid ascension of Lewin and others lacking much government experience shows how the agency’s leadership has downgraded institutional expertise to instead promote political appointees who often are young, White and male.

Lewin’s growing profile in the Trump administration led multiple media outlets to dig into his past, reporting that surfaced unflattering allegations by former classmates at Dartmouth and a private high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Those reports further hurt his reputation among career staff at the State Department, current and former officials said.

At one meeting this spring, Lewin was asked why it made sense to fire so many in the Foreign Service when the department is slated to welcome a new class of diplomats in September, said one official briefed on the deliberations. Lewin responded by saying he wanted to bring in new blood, the official said.

The exchange, this person said, left the impression that Lewin believed the next cadre of Foreign Service Officers, essentially blank slates, could be molded into Trump and MAGA loyalists.

The senior State Department official disputed this, stating that there would be no “loyalty tests.” The agency has, however, added new language to its hiring documents indicating that “fidelity” to the executive branch will be a key metric for tenure and promotion decisions.

Lewin was a key part of a reorganization team put together by Mike Needham, a former aide to Rubio in the Senate who now serves as the secretary’s counselor. Needham, who spent years coaxing Republican lawmakers to the right as the head of Heritage Action for America before joining Rubio’s office, is also a newcomer to the State Department. He spent six years as chief of staff for Rubio while the Florida lawmaker sat on panels overseeing the department and intelligence community.

Some of other members of the reorganization team did have diplomatic experience, though generally it was limited.

Lew Olowski, had been an entry-level Foreign Service officer before receiving special dispensation by the Trump administration to vault through the ranks at the Bureau of Global Talent Management, or GTM, to effectively become head of State’s human resources department, said four current and former officials. The most senior ranking leader at GTM resigned in response because he was unwilling to serve under someone he deemed so inexperienced and unqualified, three officials said.

Despite his brief diplomatic résumé, Olowski had been a part of the Ben Franklin Fellowship, a nonpartisan assembly of former and current State Department employees. The group, which primarily serves conservatives who don’t feel represented among the other groups for State staffers, now acts as a MAGA incubator, according to more than a dozen current and former officials.

Among the fellowship’s prominent members is Chris Landau, Rubio’s deputy secretary, an ambassador to Mexico in Trump’s first term who has strong ties to the conservative legal world.

Upon his swearing into office, Olowski drew skepticism from career staff with a speech that relied heavily on Christian rhetoric and made several references to rap lyrics. When the RIF notices went out last week, Olowski was the only signatory and received much of the ire from career officials when mistakes were uncovered.

Foreign Service officer Andrew Veprek also worked on the layoffs, according to several people with knowledge of the process. Veprek is an acquaintance of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff known for his hard-line views on immigration, and is the administration’s nominee to become assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), an office that traditionally deals with issues like refugee resettlement.

Veprek told congressional staff in April that the group of people working on the layoffs was intentionally kept below 10 so the process could move quickly. One person who attended that meeting said they left with the impression the group was chosen for its “willingness to break stuff on behalf of the Trump administration.”

The senior State Department official said that Veprek was referring to an initial working group that launched early preparations for the reorganization and that later plans were developed by under secretaries with teams of career staff.

The official defended the work of the political appointees who focused on the reorganization, noting that many had put in grueling hours while devising the plan. “We are proud of our staff members and our leadership,” the official said.

How the layoffs unfolded

A draft of prospective cuts totaled more than 2,000 Civil Service officers and 700 Foreign Service officers, according to four current and former State officials familiar with the matter.

Preliminary layoff plans were delayed when a federal judge in California blocked them, prompting State Department leadership to wait for a Supreme Court decision that would eventually allow federal layoffs. The Supreme Court sided with the administration July 8.

Concurrently, staff at the Bureau of Global Talent Management urged officials to trim the list of layoffs and pushed for Foreign Service officers working in offices targeted for closure or reduction to receive their next posting assignments, in theory shielding them from the RIFs, officials said. Dozens secured new jobs via this strategy.

Eventually, political leaders instructed staff to stop approving onward assignments for domestic staff, according to two State officials and documents reviewed by The Post. Foreign Service officers who managed to secure new jobs but hadn’t started them yet suddenly found themselves in the crosshairs.

In the weeks before the mass firing — in a move led by Lewin, several officials said — the State Department rewrote its layoffs procedures for Civil Service and Foreign Service employees. The changes left far more people vulnerable.

The morning of July 11, fired employees across the globe began receiving emails signed by Olowski. Those dismissed included experienced, multilingual staffers with decades of service, those in postings overseas and military veterans.

Trump's second presidency

Trump signs crypto bill into law as uproar over Epstein files continues

July 18, 2025

Democrat from Trump country auditions for 2028 with plan to win culture war...

July 18, 2025

Hegseth removes first female superintendent in shake-up at Naval Academy

July 18, 2025

America, meet the Trump-Mamdani voter

July 18, 2025

Activists try to preserve IRS’s Direct File now that Trump has ended it

July 18, 2025

How Ukraine’s allies helped Zelensky recover his standing with Trump

July 18, 2025

Inside the powerful task force spearheading Trump’s assault on colleges, DE...

July 18, 2025

Taiwan extends drills to show China — and Trump — it’s ready to fight

July 18, 2025

Trump tells Justice Dept. to seek release of Epstein grand jury testimony

July 17, 2025

House passes $9 billion in spending cuts after fight over Epstein files

July 18, 2025

Senate approves Trump’s bill to cut spending, sending it to the House

July 17, 2025

Here legally since 1999, thousands of immigrants have 60 days to leave

July 17, 2025

Trump faces questions on Powell, Epstein as Congress works on bill to claw ...

July 16, 2025

Trump floats firing Fed chair with GOP lawmakers, then backs off

July 16, 2025

Ultimately, the State Department chose to target employees for dismissal based on one key criteria: where they worked on May 29. If they were listed as staffing an office targeted for closure or cutbacks, they were gone. GTM staffers had tried to convince the political leadership to push the date forward but were told no, according to a State official briefed on the deliberations. That meant that some people who had been offered new jobs and in some cases accepted them were fired based on their previous position.

One woman was fired while on maternity leave, she said. Another staffer was dumped after taking a job in Washington to recover from post-traumatic stress incurred by surviving a terrorist bombing in his last posting in the Middle East, he said. One man lost his job weeks after his wife, a federal contractor at the Department of Veterans Affairs, was fired due to cuts there. Another woman who was dismissed, having served for two decades overseas, is a single mother of two children under the age of 4.

The messages came in batches over the course of the morning because the government’s email system prevented officials from sending one mass delivery, staffers said.

“No one was afforded the respect of a face-to-face notification,” said one employee. “No goodbye party or retirement party. No handover of information to continue work integral to our national security. No message from department leadership that the notifications had all been submitted, so we were all left in a tortured limbo for hours.”

Rubio, who was returning from travel to Asia that day, did not directly address those losing their jobs. The day before, he said that he was proud that his State Department conducted its reorganization in “the most deliberate way of anyone that’s done one.”

Rubio praised the “deliberate” way the State Department layoffs were conducted, but errors identified the following week resulted in layoff notices being rescinded. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

Lewin told The Post he strongly disagreed with criticisms of the layoffs, calling the mass firing “the most complicated and orderly RIF in history.”

Days later, though, errors were still being identified. On Tuesday, for instance, some State employees checked their emails to find messages informing them a mistake had been made. “Please disregard that notification,” it said.

The un-firing emails were sent to staff at the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and the Bureau of African Affairs, according to three State officials familiar with the matter. The State Department later acknowledged there were two such “administrative errors” and that there had been other “discrepancies” in up to 3 percent of all RIF notices.

The message sent Tuesday was signed by Olowski. It closed by apologizing for “the inconvenience” and thanking rehired employees for “your service and dedication.”

One State official said the fallout was inevitable given the composition of the team that planned the firings.

“That’s what happens,” the official said, “when you put the equivalent of a lieutenant in a job normally held by a three- or four-star general.”

What readers are saying

The comments overwhelmingly criticize the Trump administration's approach to reorganizing the State Department, describing it as reckless, destructive, and lacking strategic planning. Many commenters express concern over the mass layoffs led by political appointees, viewing them... Show more

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

All comments 399

By Adam Taylor

Adam Taylor writes about national security and foreign policy for The Washington Post.follow on X@mradamtaylor

By Hannah Natanson

Hannah Natanson is a Washington Post reporter covering Trump's reshaping of the government and its effects. Reach her securely on Signal at 202-580-5477.follow on Xhannah_natanson

By John Hudson

John Hudson is a reporter at The Washington Post covering the State Department and national security. He was part of the team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He has reported from dozens of countries, including Ukraine, China, Afghanistan, India and Belarus.follow on X@John_Hudson

5. assumptions on war between the U.S. and PRC – two publications this week spur thought by Dr. Cynthia Watson

As I have learned from my strategy professors and mentors such as Dr. Watson, assumptions are critical to "doing" strategy.

Excerpts:

More relevant, Fravel’s article might lead one to muse on the backdrop that Beijing considers face if it elects to send its forces into a potential conflict without being fully prepared. Does the PRC now see its position in the western Pacific as so dominant as to minimize the relevance of full readiness? Is Beijing so worried that time is running out on its ability to lure Taiwan back under its control that coercion of any type, even if not easy or necessarily successful, is merited? Is Xi, with no military experience, so confident in his decision-making that he eschews the need for input from his PLA senior officers? Has the CCP leader already decided that Taiwan’s behavior will ultimately become so threatening (nearing, if not declaring, a formal course of independence perhaps) that he will go to war with the military he has, regardless of having senior positions filled (reminiscent of Donald Rumsfeld’s “you go to war with the military you have”)? Does Xi have no intention to use the military but wants to intimidate Taiwan into submission while deterring the United States and anyone else in Asia from intervening on the island’s behalf? These thoughts represent a brief introduction to possible assumptions that may be operational for the CCP leadership.

...

Sadler assumes that the only deterrent to China launching a war is an overpowering presence and capability on the part of the U.S. Navy, requiring a dramatic increase in its size in theater. That means he discounts allies such as the capable Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces, the Royal Australian Navy, or the Republic of Korea maritime capacity but, as I noted in a column last week, if Taiwan is the cause of the conflict, no one has signed up to defend the democratic islanders (not even the United States). Captain Sadler ignores the financial constraints burdening our system, implying we should ignore other possible spending choices in favor of somehow addressing the ship shortfall in record time (an unrealistic expectation if I ever heard one). Sadler also appears to disregard any diplomatic efforts to prevent conflict, but this may be in line with Beijing’s persistent threats to prevent Taiwan’s independence, implying that nothing would stop their use of force if the PRC felt compelled to coerce Taiwan into compliance.

Both Fravel and Sadler draw attention to the concerns of war between the United States and the People’s Republic, yet war is far from a given. Instead, what is striking is the tendency among many observers to default to a war scenario between the United States and China. Military planners, of course, must prepare for the worst-case scenario, as failure to do so can have catastrophic consequences.

...

The value Fravel’s and Sadler’s pieces provide as we close this week is a reminder that we see many unknowns across both capitals about a risky conflict. This discussion might instill greater caution for decision-makers, but I worry that too much mirror-imaging of worst-case assumptions makes increases risks far more than we seem to realize.

That could be as risky as anything else.

assumptions on war between the U.S. and PRC

two publications this week spur thought

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/assumptions-on-war-between-the-us?utm

Cynthia Watson

Jul 18, 2025

Dr. Taylor Fravel of MIT published a noteworthy piece in Foreign Affairs this week entitled “Is China’s Military Ready for War?” because it reminds us that the decisions to use force may surpass concerns about readiness. Put otherwise, Xi Jinping could decide to use the People’s Liberation Army regardless of its ability to assure victory in a conflict.

The gist of Fravel’s argument is a reminder that China’s use of its military during the CCP era has occurred more than once. The most important line is “it is useful to remember that Beijing has rarely waited for the right conditions before ordering the PLA into battle”. In other words, rather than focusing on the parlor game of who is under investigation versus who is now in a new position, we would be better off recognizing that Xi may feel the need or desire to employ the military instrument, regardless of whether he trusts his senior military personnel.

The PLA, after all, is an arm of the Communist Party rather than an autonomous body within the Chinese state apparatus. As I have mentioned many times over the past two and a half years, CCP General Secretaries scold the 2 million active-duty military members, stating that their role is to serve the Party rather than as a force with independent status; this occurs seemingly weekly, which raises doubts about whether the oft-repeated message is getting through.

These exhortations may imply anxiety about who controls the guns of the CCP. Still, surely Xi’s willingness to “bring down” some of the most prominent senior PLA officers is an ongoing reminder that CCP rules, regulations, and discipline loom at all times. The chagrin of removing those whom Xi himself promoted is less important than the reality that he will seemingly bring them up on disciplinary charges when it suits him. However, this is merely my speculation, as we know precious little about the internal decision-making of this system. Nevertheless, he repeatedly emphasizes that the Party is above the PLA in priority.

More relevant, Fravel’s article might lead one to muse on the backdrop that Beijing considers face if it elects to send its forces into a potential conflict without being fully prepared. Does the PRC now see its position in the western Pacific as so dominant as to minimize the relevance of full readiness? Is Beijing so worried that time is running out on its ability to lure Taiwan back under its control that coercion of any type, even if not easy or necessarily successful, is merited? Is Xi, with no military experience, so confident in his decision-making that he eschews the need for input from his PLA senior officers? Has the CCP leader already decided that Taiwan’s behavior will ultimately become so threatening (nearing, if not declaring, a formal course of independence perhaps) that he will go to war with the military he has, regardless of having senior positions filled (reminiscent of Donald Rumsfeld’s “you go to war with the military you have”)? Does Xi have no intention to use the military but wants to intimidate Taiwan into submission while deterring the United States and anyone else in Asia from intervening on the island’s behalf? These thoughts represent a brief introduction to possible assumptions that may be operational for the CCP leadership.

Fravel’s article coincides with a letter-to-the-editor published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday by Captain Brent Sadler, a retired U.S. naval officer, entitled “Staying the Course Means a War with China”. Author of the 2023 U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century which argued for a substantial increase in our number of ships, Sadler argued in the Journal that the U.S. failure to build a modern fleet commensurate with the PLAN is tantamount to surrendering deterrence against Chinese activities, echoing some of the rationale ascribed so often to Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby when he criticizes attention to portions of the world such as the Middle East or Ukraine rather than directly relevant to China.

Sadler is correct that U.S. shipbuilding has not kept pace with the PLAN over the past twenty years, as the latter has grown to a fleet of nearly 400 platforms, while our inventory has steadily declined. As the Congressional Research Service’s apolitical specialist on shipbuilding, Ron O’Rourke testified this past March, the causes for the poor health of U.S. efforts go well beyond lack of political intention; the costs, the technical delays, the unrealistic expectations established when a ship receives Congressional funding, and a host of other problems thwart the solution Sadler advocates. But the U.S. Navy inventory remains roughly 100 ships fewer than the PLAN as of this year.

Sadler assumes that the only deterrent to China launching a war is an overpowering presence and capability on the part of the U.S. Navy, requiring a dramatic increase in its size in theater. That means he discounts allies such as the capable Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces, the Royal Australian Navy, or the Republic of Korea maritime capacity but, as I noted in a column last week, if Taiwan is the cause of the conflict, no one has signed up to defend the democratic islanders (not even the United States). Captain Sadler ignores the financial constraints burdening our system, implying we should ignore other possible spending choices in favor of somehow addressing the ship shortfall in record time (an unrealistic expectation if I ever heard one). Sadler also appears to disregard any diplomatic efforts to prevent conflict, but this may be in line with Beijing’s persistent threats to prevent Taiwan’s independence, implying that nothing would stop their use of force if the PRC felt compelled to coerce Taiwan into compliance.

Both Fravel and Sadler draw attention to the concerns of war between the United States and the People’s Republic, yet war is far from a given. Instead, what is striking is the tendency among many observers to default to a war scenario between the United States and China. Military planners, of course, must prepare for the worst-case scenario, as failure to do so can have catastrophic consequences.

Both Sadler and Fravel flag various aspects of the road to war for good reason, but war between our two states is not pre-ordained. China and the United States can each alter course, leading to war at any point. However, doing so would risk the leaders in either, if not both, capitals appearing to show a political weakness that their publics might not well receive. Nationalism is a powerful force driving a government to take actions that may not align with the interests of its population. Plus, these are two nuclear-armed nations who deeply distrust one another, raising the stakes of any conflict to much higher levels than a war between Rwanda and Uganda, for example.

Ultimately, war would occur if the leaders of the two nations deemed it in their interests to pursue that path. One would assume that Washington, as a somewhat more participatory political system, responds to citizens’s preferences for or against military actions than is the Beijing because the CCP, with a membership of 100 million out of a population of 1.3 billion, is the only body that matters; even the CCP boils down to a far smaller cadre of real decision-makers, despite rhetoric to the contrary.

Modern superpowers, however, are curious creatures that rely on a decision-making class, whether because many citizens are uninterested in or excluded from the process. The truth is that we don’t know the circumstances under which a war would begin, nor do we know for sure who or what would become the determinative factors, despite our assumptions to the contrary.

I never want to see the United States sacrifice its most precious treasure, our young women and men in uniform, if we can avoid using armed force. I accept that an all-volunteer force understands, in theory, the dangers of bloody conflict when individuals take the oath to serve. However, I wonder if a war between two superpowers could achieve an unconditional victory, as many on both sides of the Pacific seem to assume. A conflict between China and the United States, regardless of its cause, seems unlikely to result in a surrender as occurred on the USS Missouri in September 1945. I appreciate that wars never assure certain victory but all the more reason not to enter them without rigorous appraisal of assumptions, risks, and the importance of the purported endstate.

The value Fravel’s and Sadler’s pieces provide as we close this week is a reminder that we see many unknowns across both capitals about a risky conflict. This discussion might instill greater caution for decision-makers, but I worry that too much mirror-imaging of worst-case assumptions makes increases risks far more than we seem to realize.

That could be as risky as anything else.

I welcome your thoughts on today’s column, on China, on war between the U.S. and the PRC, or any aspect of this subject. I readily acknowledge that I have many questions, so I would appreciate hearing yours. It would be beneficial to hear non-American voices, as we often make assumptions about the rest of the world without validating them.

I thank the subscribers whose support helps me with each and every column, whether at $55 per annum or $8 monthly. I welcome readers every day on any and all topics. I appreciate suggestions for topics as well.

Be well and be safe. FIN

M. Taylor Fravel, “Is China’s Military Ready for War?”, Foreign Affairs, 18 July 2025, retrieved at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-military-ready-war

Ronald O’Rourke, “The State of U.S. Shipbuilding”, testimony before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, House.gov, 11 March 2025, retrieved at https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/03.11.25_spf_state_of_shipbuilding_orourke_statement.pdf

Brent Sadler, “Staying the Course Means a War with China”, WSJ.com, 17 July 2025, retrieved at https://ereader.wsj.net/

—-, U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century. Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2023.

6. Brothers in Arms: Macron, Merz and Starmer Plan for a Post-U.S. Future

Is a "post-US future" a fait accompli? What does a "post-US future" look like? How will US interests change in a "post-US future?" Do we want to live in a "post-US future?"

Brothers in Arms: Macron, Merz and Starmer Plan for a Post-U.S. Future

The leaders of France, Germany and Britain are building parallel diplomatic institutions to defend Europe as President Trump retreats from the continent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/world/europe/macron-starmer-merz-trump-eu.html

From left: President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain and Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany at a summit in Tirana, Albania, in May.Credit...Pool photo by Leon Neal

By Michael D. Shear and Jim Tankersley

Michael Shear reported from London, and Jim Tankersley from Berlin.

July 18, 2025

The leaders of Britain, France and Germany are burying lingering grievances. They are creating new defense partnerships. And, together, they are keeping a wary eye on their longtime ally, the United States.

In the six months that President Trump has rattled the decades-old trans-Atlantic alliance, his counterparts in Europe’s most powerful countries are building parallel diplomatic and defense institutions for a future without the United States as the primary guarantor of economic and military security.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain and Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany signed a wide-ranging treaty for mutual defense, economic cooperation and other partnerships. Last week, Mr. Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron of France agreed to coordinate their nuclear arsenals. In May, the three men traveled together by train to Ukraine for a demonstration of solidarity. Next week, Mr. Macron will visit Mr. Merz in Berlin.

The three men are also leaders of a “coalition of the willing” aimed at supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia as American support wanes, an effort that will soon get a formal headquarters in Paris. Planning for a possible Europe-led peacekeeping force in Ukraine has been underway for months. On Friday, the European Union announced an 18th package of sanctions against Russia.

The “triangle alliance,” as Britain, France and Germany are sometimes now called, are already partners through NATO and the Group of 7 — forums that include the United States. Officials for the three European countries are careful to say that the institutions they are building are meant to supplement those alliances not replace them.

But NATO is a sprawling defense bureaucracy that represents 32 countries, some of whom disagree with each other. Officials in Berlin, London and Paris are eager for a smaller, more nimble group to respond to what Mr. Merz on Thursday said was a shift in the relationship between Europe and the United States.

Analysts say those efforts are creating a kind of “break glass in case of emergency” system of planning, discussion and action, independent of the United States and ready to react to an increasingly aggressive Russia.

Want to stay updated on what’s happening in France, Germany and the United Kingdom? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

The fail-safe may never be used. But if Mr. Trump continues to back away from American commitments on the continent, having that option might become necessary.

“Now you have a format where you have already an established meeting practice and the forum to meet,” said Minna Alander, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis based in Stockholm. “This is literally all the kids coming together and trying to figure out what to do about the drunk dad.”

Image

Mr. Macron met with President Trump in Washington in February.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

During a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Starmer announced the “Kensington Treaty” with Germany, calling it the first bilateral pact between the two nations, while Mr. Merz hinted at the motivation for the agreement.

“The European security architecture and the trans-Atlantic ties are undergoing a far-reaching transformation like we’ve not seen for a very long time,” the German chancellor said. “And it is under these new conditions that it is our aim to secure the freedom, the security and the prosperity of the people of both our countries.”

Mr. Starmer’s pacts with Germany and France are partly about rebuilding diplomatic and economic bridges that were burned by Brexit, the British decision to quit the European Union.

They are also an outgrowth of the diplomatic shock delivered in February by Vice President JD Vance, when he accused Europe of deviating from democratic and free-speech values, and of Mr. Trump’s repeated musings about abandoning NATO’s Article 5 pledge to come to the defense of any member that is attacked.

“They’re not acting opposed to the U.S. or completely separate from the U.S., but they’re having to make their own decisions and take responsibility for their own decisions,” said Lawrence Freedman, an emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London.

“Basically, the three movers and shakers on the defense side can talk to each other and make sure that their thoughts and plans are aligned,” Mr. Freedman added.

After finishing first in Germany’s parliamentary election in February, Mr. Merz has spent his first months in office prioritizing foreign policy, hoping to reassert German leadership on the global stage.

Flush with new authority to borrow money, particularly for the military, he has vowed to bring German spending on defense and related infrastructure to 5 percent of gross domestic product in the coming years.

For Germany, which fought Britain, France and the United States in World War II and spent most of the ensuing decades content to maintain a relatively small military, the decision to rearm is striking. It has helped push other European leaders, including Mr. Macron, to also promise higher defense spending.

Image

A German military exercise near Osterholz-Scharmbeck, Germany, last month. Mr. Merz has spent his first months in office prioritizing foreign policy, hoping to reassert German leadership on the global stage.Credit...Focke Strangmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Merz, Mr. Starmer and Mr. Macron have each sought to build close relationships with Mr. Trump, in part by trumpeting their efforts to make Europe more responsible for its own defense, a longtime goal of the American president. At the same time, they have pushed Mr. Trump to keep Washington active in European security, especially by supporting Ukraine.

Mr. Merz has urged Mr. Trump to back tough new sanctions meant to cripple Russia’s economy and choke the revenues that fuel its war efforts, and the German leader led an initiative to supply more American weapons to Ukraine, bought with European money.

Still, Mr. Merz has expressed concerns over what he and officials across Europe see as American threats to pull back troops and weapons from the continent. Those threats, including from Mr. Trump’s defense secretary, have rattled the security calculation that has underpinned Europe since the end of World War II: the promise that America would lead the way in defending its European allies against attack.

Privately, German officials say spending more on the military and working more closely with European partners is the right strategy for the current moment, no matter what Mr. Trump and his administration might do next.

Britain, France and Germany “see themselves increasingly as pillars of European security, at a time of less America — or even no America in Europe,” said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank with offices across Western Europe and in Washington.

The alliances they are building, Mr. Leonard added, are “not institutions like NATO. But they are thinking about institutionalizing the relationship.”

Steven E. Sokol, president of the nonprofit American Council on Germany, said he welcomed the increased cooperation but expressed worry that it might end up hurting Washington.

“As we upset the apple cart and push some of our allies away, they will find other partnerships,” he said of Trump administration policy. “I wonder if, down the line, that’s in the best interest of the United States.”

Image

Mr. Merz and Mr. Starmer signing a bilateral cooperation treaty in London on Thursday.Credit...Pool photo by Frank Augstein

Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting from Brussels.

Michael D. Shear is a senior Times correspondent covering British politics and culture, and diplomacy around the world.

Jim Tankersley is the Berlin bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

7. The U.S. Can No Longer Stave Off Competition From China

Excerpts:

Some early ramifications of Trump’s actions are already clear, beginning in Europe. In recent weeks, Britain and France have announced that they will coordinate their nuclear weapons arsenals in the event of a foreign attack, while Britain and Germany have seriously upgraded their defense ties. None of these countries’ leaders mentioned U.S. capriciousness and unilateralism as a reason for these moves, but it is hard to imagine that they did not have Washington’s behavior in mind.

In fact, the Trump administration anticipated these kinds of shifts months ago, when it suggested that it would see any moves by Canada and the European Union to draw closer together politically and economically as hostile to the United States.

Yet anticipating these relationships has not prevented Washington from taking further measures that risk dramatically alienating friends and tarnishing its long-standing appeal to others as a champion of supposedly universal values. Unilaterally raising tariffs to levels not seen since the early 20th century may be just the first step onto a slippery slope.

So far, Japan and South Korea, which are key to U.S. power in East Asia, have been slower than Europe in finding ways to hedge against the erratic and imperial style on display in Washington. But if Trump continues in this direction, then China’s policies and behavior will gradually become less of a source of concern than those of the United States. As this happens, at some point down the road, Washington will have achieved for China what China could not achieve for itself through trade supremacy alone.

The U.S. Can No Longer Stave Off Competition From China

Beijing dominates global trade. But it couldn’t turn that into a geopolitical advantage—until Trump 2.0.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/18/trump-trade-letters-tariffs-us-china-competition/

Howard French

Howard W. French

By Howard W. French, a columnist at Foreign Policy.

Foreign Policy · by Howard W. French

United States
China
North America
Howard W. French

July 18, 2025, 3:18 PM

Over the past two decades, a distinctive kind of color-coded map has become a staple of economic journalism. These maps were designed to show the leading commercial partner of countries around the world. Gradually at first, and then in an onrush of change, they filled up with a new color—usually red—as China surpassed the United States as the top bilateral trader with almost every nation on Earth.

As China became the globe’s dominant trade superpower, largely on the strength of its manufacturing prowess, leaders in the West and Asia wondered how much—and how quickly—Beijing would be able to convert its recent commercial strength into geopolitical advantage. That process has been much slower and more limited than many expected. It turns out that patterns established decades ago, when colonial rule was still widespread, are hard to displace.

The United States was never a major colonial power in the European mode, but it was an unrivaled economic behemoth for most of the post-World War II era. It was also an English-speaking nation in a world heavily shaped by Britain—one that became the international community’s leading rule-maker and enforcer. And it developed a language of virtue and values that seems to have registered with people around the world more than the reality that it often failed to live up to its own ideals.

These attributes helped Washington stave off competition from Beijing even after China began racking up ever larger trade surpluses. Now, however, the United States has allowed these advantages to erode—and worse, even tossed them away.

In the past few weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration have busied themselves in a frenzy of devaluing these traditional sources of strength. They have signaled that the United States now champions a world where might makes right and the strong can nakedly impose their will on the weak.

The Trump administration has made this clear to longtime foes, such as Iran, which the United States jointly attacked with Israel shortly after suggesting that it would give diplomacy a chance to address Tehran’s nuclear program. More strikingly, though, Washington has applied its rough, my-way-or-the-highway approach to friendly nations, including outright allies. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the area of trade.

In the early months of his second term, Trump boasted that he would be able to quickly reach new trade agreements with a large number of countries, encapsulated in the slogan “90 deals in 90 days.” Very few of these have come to pass. His administration has announced agreements with just four countries—Britain, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam—and these have been either bare-bones frameworks or deals with few public details.

After few countries came running to Washington to secure quick deals, Trump switched to an even cruder approach. Last week, he sent letters to the leaders of a more than two dozen countries, unilaterally announcing new terms for maintaining commercial relations with the United States.

The language from one letter to the next was strikingly consistent. These missives set exorbitant new tariff rates, highlighted the supposed privilege that countries enjoyed simply for being able to sell their goods to Americans, and claimed that the United States had long been taken advantage of. Each bore Trump’s oversized, even megalomaniacal, signature at the bottom.

But the correspondence addressed to South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung particularly caught my eye: “If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added to the 25% that we charge,” Trump wrote.

What was most peculiar to me was not Trump’s vulgar and imposing tone or the lack of refinement in official correspondence from a U.S. president. Neither of these is altogether new. Rather, it was how disconnected the letter was from the realities of the U.S.-South Korea trade relationship. Seoul already has a free trade agreement with Washington and imposes almost zero tariffs on U.S. goods.

This kind of casual arbitrariness matters for the United States’ future in a world where China dominates international commercial exchanges. If Trump can so thoughtlessly bully treaty allies such as South Korea and Japan—or other countries with traditionally close ties or even a degree of dependence on Washington for their security—then it is time to establish a new countdown: How long will it be before they discount their ties with the United States and build new economic partnerships and security networks instead?

The answer is uncertain, but none of this bodes well for the United States’ long-term position in the world. Eventually, U.S. allies will change course as a matter of their own prosperity and self-preservation. And if even long-standing allies can begin to fundamentally recalculate the advantages of working with Washington, will countries that are less deeply connected to the United States be far behind?

Some early ramifications of Trump’s actions are already clear, beginning in Europe. In recent weeks, Britain and France have announced that they will coordinate their nuclear weapons arsenals in the event of a foreign attack, while Britain and Germany have seriously upgraded their defense ties. None of these countries’ leaders mentioned U.S. capriciousness and unilateralism as a reason for these moves, but it is hard to imagine that they did not have Washington’s behavior in mind.

In fact, the Trump administration anticipated these kinds of shifts months ago, when it suggested that it would see any moves by Canada and the European Union to draw closer together politically and economically as hostile to the United States.

Yet anticipating these relationships has not prevented Washington from taking further measures that risk dramatically alienating friends and tarnishing its long-standing appeal to others as a champion of supposedly universal values. Unilaterally raising tariffs to levels not seen since the early 20th century may be just the first step onto a slippery slope.

So far, Japan and South Korea, which are key to U.S. power in East Asia, have been slower than Europe in finding ways to hedge against the erratic and imperial style on display in Washington. But if Trump continues in this direction, then China’s policies and behavior will gradually become less of a source of concern than those of the United States. As this happens, at some point down the road, Washington will have achieved for China what China could not achieve for itself through trade supremacy alone.

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage of the Trump transition. Follow along here.

Foreign Policy · by Howard W. French

8. How Ukraine’s allies helped Zelensky recover his standing with Trump

Excerpts:

In his July 4 call with Zelensky, Trump said that Ukraine would not change the course of the war by playing defense and needed to go on the offensive, the Ukrainian official said. When Trump asked if Ukraine could bomb Moscow or St. Petersburg, the official said, Zelensky replied, “If we have the right weapons, we can.”

The Financial Times first reported elements of the call.

Asked about the call earlier this week, Trump said, “No, he shouldn’t target Moscow.” He added that he wouldn’t supply longer-range weaponry to Ukraine that would enable it to hit the Russian capital.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump had asked Zelensky about Ukraine’s ability to hit Russian territory but said the question had been taken out of context. Trump was simply seeking information, not advocating that Zelensky do it, she said.

Now Trump has set a 50-day clock for Russia to reach a peace deal before imposing 100 percent tariffs on Russian imports and secondary sanctions against buyers of Russian energy.

New U.S. weaponry could reach Ukraine much faster than that, a second Ukrainian official said. Longer-range ATACMS missiles and other weapons “could change the trajectory at least for the next six months, or maybe more,” the official said. “If it is concentrated support for 50 days, that would be great.”

Still, Trump has zigzagged so often that some officials were reluctant to describe it as a change of heart.

“He seems to be realizing that he can’t trust Putin,” the second European official said. “So things are positive, until they change again.”

How Ukraine’s allies helped Zelensky recover his standing with Trump

This week marked a major turnaround for Ukraine, culminating a five-month campaign by its allies.

July 18, 2025 at 6:22 a.m. EDTYesterday at 6:22 a.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/18/trump-zelensky-ukraine-weapons-putin/

President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in February. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

By Michael Birnbaum, Siobhán O'Grady, Ellen Francis and Catherine Belton

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky got off the phone with President Donald Trump on Independence Day, his top aide could scarcely contain his relief.

“‘Wow, that was the best call with him we ever had,’” his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said after Zelensky hung up the call — and Zelensky agreed, according to a Ukrainian official who, like other officials interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive internal discussions.

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

The call felt so positive from Ukraine’s perspective that it caught Zelensky’s staff by surprise, the official said. “The spirit was uplifted, but it is too early to celebrate,” the official said. “We have to wait for actions.”

The Ukrainians know better than most how much fortunes can shift with Trump’s mercurial moods.

In February, Zelensky and Trump engaged in an Oval Office shouting match that ended with the Ukrainian president’s ejection from the White House.

The July 4 call marked a remarkable turnabout, leading to Trump’s decision this week to offer about $10 billion worth of weaponry for Europe to purchase on Ukraine’s behalf.

Follow Trump’s second term

That shift culminated months of work by European leaders, Republicans on Capitol Hill and others sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause who gave Zelensky strategic advice about how to get Trump back on his side, including how to use the language of transaction and flattery that Trump appears to respond to.

“A lot of Ukraine’s allies have been in contact with Zelensky about this, but also among each other,” a European official said. “They’re talking about how you talk to Trump.”

Trump meets with Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general, at the White House on Monday, when Trump announced a deal to send U.S. weapons to Ukraine. (Kent Nishimura/For The Washington Post)

Zelensky also benefited from Trump’s growing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That frustration boiled over the day before Trump and Zelensky spoke. A July 3 phone call between the U.S. and Russian leaders was followed by the most intense Russian drone assaults on Ukraine of the war.

Trump, in response, has publicly accused Putin of offering him “bulls---” during their conversations.

“I speak to [Putin] a lot,” Trump said earlier this week as he announced the new weapons sales for Ukraine. “I always hang up and say, ‘Well, that was a nice phone call.’ And then missiles launched into Kyiv or some other city. After that happens three or four times, you say the talk doesn’t mean anything.”

The turnaround in the Trump-Zelensky relationship keeps open the flow of U.S. arms for Ukraine at a crucial moment for Kyiv, with Russia pressing what it believes is a battlefield advantage.

For Zelensky, it has proved to be yet another close escape for a wartime leader who has had many of them since Russia invaded his country in February 2022. Back then, he drew global praise for holding resolute in Kyiv and galvanizing a fierce defense that U.S. intelligence agencies and others felt was unlikely. Now, under very different circumstances, he may have achieved another unexpected win.

Trump’s allies say that he hasn’t abandoned his primary goal: ending the war as quickly as possible.

“I’m on nobody’s side. You know the side I’m on? Humanity’s side. I want to stop the killing of thousands of people a week,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

But the Trump allies acknowledge the president’s mounting frustration with Putin and growing receptivity to the weapons-sales plan hatched among European leaders and Zelensky. The plan allows Trump to keep an arm’s length from support for Ukraine, while still preserving Ukraine’s strength enough to pressure Moscow toward a peace deal.

Zelensky said this week that he felt Trump was starting to see Putin in a less idealistic light.

“President Trump realizes that Putin is lying to him, and it is important that President Trump sees this for himself, not what he hears from someone else, but what he sees with his own eyes,” the Ukrainian leader told Newsmax — one of Trump’s favored media outlets.

“We have supported all the U.S. initiatives on the ceasefire. I supported all of President Trump’s initiatives, and he saw the reality. Putin just says one thing and then bombs.”

A man passes a wrecked car in Kyiv on July 4, following the most intense Russian drone assaults on Ukraine of the war. (Oleksii Filippov/AFP/Getty Images)

The patched relationship between Zelensky and Trump was not foreordained.

Policymakers and strategists from the United States and several European countries said that a coordinated effort to help rehabilitate Zelensky’s relationship with the president sparked into motion even before the Ukrainian leader departed Washington on that end-of-February evening, after White House staff dined on the lunch that was supposed to be shared with the Ukrainians.

European leaders helped draft language for Zelensky to use to apologize to Trump. They brainstormed a ceasefire proposal acceptable to Ukrainians that Russia ultimately rejected. And European leaders who have cellphone relationships with Trump — he sometimes rings out of the blue — used their moments on the line with him to underscore that Putin threatened U.S. interests.

French President Emmanuel Macron has been especially helpful, two European diplomats said, using his long-standing — albeit sometimes bumpy — relationship with Trump to hammer at the idea that supporting Ukraine will help deliver wins for the White House.

The two leaders speak almost every other day, the diplomats said, calling each other directly for impromptu talks about the challenges of the moment.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has also focused on building warm ties, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz helped in recent weeks after he struck up a good relationship with Trump following their first Oval Office meeting in early June. Finnish President Alexander Stubb — whose golf game is excellent — also possesses the presidential digits. NATO chief Mark Rutte, who sat in the Oval Office with the president as he announced the new weapon-sales plan, has been on a Trump charm offensive.

After the February debacle, Zelensky calmed tensions in subsequent face-to-face interactions with Trump. At the urging of Macron and Starmer, Zelensky and Trump spoke privately, without aides, at the Vatican in April when both men were there for Pope Francis’s funeral. That conversation helped reset the relationship, diplomats said.

They met again in late June at a NATO summit in the Netherlands, where Zelensky brought a wish list of weapons alongside a proposal: The United States could keep weapons flowing if the Europeans helped Kyiv pay, three European officials said.

The NATO meeting seemed to go a long way toward patching the relationship, the officials said.

One official described the meeting in The Hague as “instrumental.” Another noted that Zelensky arrived in a suit-like jacket and shirt, after having been chastised for showing up at the White House in his more favored military-style fatigues. (Zelensky has said he’ll wear a suit once the war is over.)

Zelensky meets with Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in The Hague on June 25. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/AFP/Getty Images)

In their own conversations with Trump, European leaders sought to flip the script and assert that Putin was obstructing the president’s ambitions to end the war. And last month, NATO officials made a concerted effort to deliver Trump a diplomatic win by promising a giant increase in European military outlays and tailoring the NATO summit to his attention span and his desire to declare successes.

A European diplomat said it was made clear to Zelensky that the NATO summit would focus on defense spending and putting on a “Trump show,” and could be less focused on Ukraine than in years past. Creating a meeting that appealed to Trump would benefit Kyiv, even if there were fewer fresh promises for Ukraine in the NATO leaders’ declaration, diplomats told Zelensky.

The bet paid off. Both Trump and Zelensky left their meeting in The Hague feeling it was “very friendly,” the European official said.

Trump’s softened tone could be seen in an exchange between the president and a Ukrainian reporter for the BBC during a news conference at the NATO meeting. The reporter asked Trump whether he would sell Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine. The president expressed sympathy to the reporter about the fact that she was living in Poland with her children while her husband fought on Ukraine’s front lines.

Zelensky and the European leaders’ efforts “built up to this moment,” the European official said. “It might have changed the trajectory. … There has been very careful work to help with this relationship,” he said.

In conversations with European leaders, Trump expressed frustration after speaking with Putin, who he said seemed intent on seizing more Ukrainian territory, a second official said.

In his July 4 call with Zelensky, Trump said that Ukraine would not change the course of the war by playing defense and needed to go on the offensive, the Ukrainian official said. When Trump asked if Ukraine could bomb Moscow or St. Petersburg, the official said, Zelensky replied, “If we have the right weapons, we can.”

The Financial Times first reported elements of the call.

Asked about the call earlier this week, Trump said, “No, he shouldn’t target Moscow.” He added that he wouldn’t supply longer-range weaponry to Ukraine that would enable it to hit the Russian capital.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump had asked Zelensky about Ukraine’s ability to hit Russian territory but said the question had been taken out of context. Trump was simply seeking information, not advocating that Zelensky do it, she said.

Now Trump has set a 50-day clock for Russia to reach a peace deal before imposing 100 percent tariffs on Russian imports and secondary sanctions against buyers of Russian energy.

New U.S. weaponry could reach Ukraine much faster than that, a second Ukrainian official said. Longer-range ATACMS missiles and other weapons “could change the trajectory at least for the next six months, or maybe more,” the official said. “If it is concentrated support for 50 days, that would be great.”

Still, Trump has zigzagged so often that some officials were reluctant to describe it as a change of heart.

“He seems to be realizing that he can’t trust Putin,” the second European official said. “So things are positive, until they change again.”

O’Grady reported from Kyiv, Francis reported from Brussels, and Belton reported from London. Emily Davies in Washington and David L. Stern and Lizzie Johnson in Kyiv contributed to this report.

Skip to end of carouselTrump presidency

Follow live updates on the Trump administration. We’re tracking Trump’s progress on campaign promises and legal challenges to his executive orders and actions.

End of carousel

What readers are saying

The comments largely criticize Donald Trump's behavior and approach towards Ukrainian President Zelensky, with many expressing disdain for Trump's handling of international relations, particularly with Russia and Ukraine. Commenters suggest that European leaders and Republicans... Show more

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

All comments 314

Trump administration

HAND CURATED

View 3 more stories

By Michael Birnbaum, Siobhán O'Grady, Ellen Francis and Catherine Belton

9. US investigates university over Chinese scientists

Home World News

Thu, Jul 17, 2025 page5

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2025/07/17/2003840442

US investigates university over Chinese scientists

Reuters and AP, WASHINGTON
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US.
As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to the university.
It said the pair of “highly disturbing criminal charges” announced last month raised concerns about Michigan’s vulnerability to national security threats from China.

People walk on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on April 3.

Photo: AFP
“Despite the University of Michigan’s history of downplaying its vulnerabilities to malign foreign influence, recent reports reveal that UM’s research laboratories remain vulnerable to sabotage,” US Department of Education Chief Investigative Counsel Paul Moore said.
The University of Michigan said it would cooperate fully with federal investigators and it takes its responsibility to comply with the law seriously, it said in a statement.
US federal prosecutors last month accused two Chinese nationals of smuggling into the US a dangerous biological pathogen that they said had the potential to be used as an agricultural “terrorism weapon.”
Liu Zunyong, 34, a Chinese researcher, is alleged to have brought the pathogen into the US while visiting his girlfriend, Jian Yunqing, 33, in July last year, an FBI complaint said.
The complaint said Liu admitted to smuggling in a fungus so he could conduct research on it at a University of Michigan laboratory where his girlfriend worked. However, experts have raised doubt about the FBI’s claim that the crop fungus smuggled was a threat.
In its statement, the education department said the university had received US$375 million in foreign funding since 2020 and was late in reporting US$86 million of that amount. US law requires universities to report donations from foreign sources exceeding US$250,000 in a year.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has made it a priority to increase transparency around foreign gifts and contracts to US universities, especially those tied to China. It joins efforts from Republicans in the US Congress who have urged universities to cut research ties with China, saying Beijing exploits the relationships to steal technology.
Michigan ended a partnership with a university in Shanghai in January amid pressure from House Republicans who called it a security risk.

10. Trump administration tells embassies to rein in criticism of foreign elections

Trump administration tells embassies to rein in criticism of foreign elections

The State Department is pulling back from commenting on or criticizing elections overseas unless there's a clear and compelling U.S. foreign policy interest in doing so

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-administration-tells-embassies-rein-criticism-foreign-elections-123850086#:~:text

ByMATTHEW LEE AP diplomatic writer

July 17, 2025, 7:02 PM

National headlines from ABC NewsCatch up on the developing stories making headlines.

WASHINGTON -- The State Department is pulling back from commenting on or criticizing elections overseas unless there is a clear and compelling U.S. foreign policy interest in doing so.

In new guidance issued Thursday to all U.S. embassies and consulates abroad, the department said that those outposts should refrain from issuing statements that invoke any particular ideology and that what they may say must be in line with President Donald Trump’s stated position that the U.S. will respect the sovereignty of all foreign nations.

“Consistent with the administration’s emphasis on national sovereignty, the department will comment publicly on elections only when there is a clear and compelling U.S. foreign policy interest to do so,” according to the cable, a copy of which was shared with The Associated Press.

The department has for decades issued statements highly critical of or questioning the legitimacy of certain elections, notably in authoritarian countries. That is changing as the Trump administration has emphasized an “America First” foreign policy approach centered on U.S. interests.

“When it is appropriate to comment on a foreign election, our message should be brief, focused on congratulating the winning candidate, and, when appropriate, noting shared foreign policy interests,” the cable said.

The document, which was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, said “messages should avoid opining on the fairness or integrity of an electoral process, its legitimacy or the democratic values of the country in question.”

In the past, U.S. commentary questioning or criticizing elections aboard often has come in support of findings from various election monitoring groups, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or U.S.-based institutions such as the Carter Center, the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute.

The department cable said that amplifying the findings of outside groups or denouncing electoral irregularities can only be done with permission from senior officials in Washington.

___

Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed to this report.

11. China-linked scam centers target U.S., congressional commission warns

Excerpts:

The commission said Beijing has little incentive to crack down on operations targeting U.S. users, noting that criminal networks have pivoted toward Americans. The scams not only drain financial resources but also have had more tragic consequences, including reported suicides tied to victims’ losses, the report said.

These scam operations, historically run by Chinese criminal organizations, initially targeted Chinese nationals through “pig butchering” schemes — a term describing romance scams in which fraudsters build trust over social media or messaging apps before persuading victims to send money. Buoyed by new tools including artificial intelligence and social media, as well as better connectivity in regions where they operate, scam operators have sought more Western victims.

That pivot has also fueled a growing network of money laundering on U.S. soil. Federal indictments show how hundreds of millions of dollars swindled from Americans have been funneled through sophisticated webs of bank accounts, shell companies and cryptocurrency exchanges — ultimately routing stolen funds back to criminal syndicates in Asia.

In February, federal prosecutors in California charged two Chinese nationals and a U.S. accomplice with laundering more than $13 million in proceeds from pig-butchering scams through U.S.-based shell companies. Last month, the Justice Department announced a record $225 million cryptocurrency seizure tied to a sophisticated money-laundering scheme that lured U.S. victims into sending funds through fraudulent investment platforms.

“The Chinese are also clearly extending their money-laundering operations into the United States, so this digital money laundering is being assisted by Chinese criminal elements within our borders,” Schriver said.

China-linked scam centers target U.S., congressional commission warns

Industrial-scale scam centers are bilking Americans out of more than $5 billion each year and giving Beijing a pretext to expand its influence across Asia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/07/18/china-scam-pig-butchering-congress/

July 18, 2025 at 10:41 a.m. EDTYesterday at 10:41 a.m. EDT

Police escort Chinese nationals suspected of telecom fraud in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 2017. (Samrang Pring/Reuters)

By Cate Cadell

A bipartisan commission that advises Congress on China warned Friday that “fragmented and under-resourced” U.S. efforts to counter a multibillion-dollar scam industry, backed by Chinese criminal organizations, could see it increasingly aimed at Americans and escalate rapidly with new technologies.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) said in a report released Friday that U.S. losses from China-linked fraud probably far exceeded $5 billion in 2024 — up more than 40 percent from the previous year — with Americans emerging as the top targets for Chinese criminal organizations since the covid pandemic.

The scams — often linked to transnational crime syndicates involved in drug and money-laundering operations — target Americans through text messages, social media, dating apps and job sites. Beijing meanwhile is using its own crackdown on the scam centers to expand its law enforcement presence in Southeast Asia, which could bolster China’s leverage over regional governments and facilitate intelligence operations, the report said.

“These things are industrial-scale fraud factories that are using some of the most modern technology available, and their use of that technology is allowing them to scale these things very quickly. … I don’t even think American law enforcement has figured out how to get their heads around this yet,” said Mike Kuiken, a USCC commissioner.

Following World news

Following

The commission raised concerns that Chinese criminal organizations are giving Beijing unfettered access to U.S. personal data. It pointed to recent wide-scale raids by Chinese authorities on scam centers in countries including Laos and Myanmar, where they seized computers and phones that, according to the report, probably grant Beijing access to data harvested from American targets.

“They’re collecting computers, communication devices, and they’re collecting a lot of data on Americans, which should concern us as well,” said Randall Schriver, vice chair of the commission and the former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs in the first Trump administration.

The report also highlighted cases where scam operators and criminal syndicates have built “mutually beneficial” relationships with the Chinese government and its Belt and Road infrastructure program, creating special economic zones where scam centers targeting Americans have flourished. It pointed to the ongoing expansion of a criminal network led by U.S.-designated triad boss Wan Kuok Koi, which a Washington Post investigation last month showed has ties to the Chinese Communist Party and is under investigation by Southeast Asian authorities for operating scam centers.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not comment on specifics raised in Friday’s report. “The Chinese government stands firm in combating crimes of telecom and online fraud, fighting cross-border illegal and criminal activities and protecting the lawful rights and interests of Chinese citizens,” said Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu.

The USCC report comes amid a sweeping State Department reorganization that began last week and has seen about 1,300 employees dismissed, including key personnel overseeing the coordination of counter-scam operations in Southeast Asia.

Gone as part of the shake-up is the Office of Multilateral Affairs within the East Asian and Pacific Bureau, which coordinated with countries on U.S. policy countering scam centers targeting Americans, according to two former department officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals.

The State Department has said that “mission-critical functions and personnel” will be reintegrated within the department. Commissioners behind Friday’s report said they hoped those scam-fighting staffers would remain in place.

“If the State Department is about making America safer, more secure, more prosperous, this needs to be on the agenda,” Schriver said.

The Trump administration has gutted the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), which laid off nearly all of its U.S.-based staff in March. The organization had played a key role in monitoring the scale of the threat posed by Chinese-backed criminal networks operating scam centers across Southeast Asia.

In its recommendations to Congress, the USCC report said that cementing cooperation with Southeast Asian allies is critical to avoid “further entrenching Beijing’s presence and influence” in the region.

“There’s a law enforcement piece, and there is a diplomacy piece,” said Kuiken, who added that scam centers should rank higher on the U.S. agenda in future engagements with Beijing, alongside ongoing efforts to crack down on the global fentanyl trade. “It is a complex challenge involving multiple elements of our government, but it’s a very serious problem,” he said.

Research by USIP found that Chinese criminal organizations are expanding their global reach, using international money-laundering networks — including operations inside the United States — to facilitate large-scale scams and mass human trafficking. These networks are used to staff scam centers, which have proliferated into the hundreds, particularly in a lawless region known as the Golden Triangle, where China’s border meets Myanmar and Laos near Thailand.

Key U.S. allies like Thailand are facing growing pressure from Beijing to grant senior Chinese police officials access to the scam compounds, according to the USIP report.

“The Chinese government has worked closely with mainland Southeast Asian governments to combat transnational criminal activities in those areas, arguably providing a pretext for China to gradually assert more political influence over the region,” it said.

In a large operation this year, Thai authorities — acting at Beijing’s urging — cut electricity to scam centers along the Myanmar border after a Chinese actor was kidnapped and held for several days in one such center. The USCC warned Congress that the crackdowns target groups scamming Chinese citizens, an action the USCC says is incentivizing them to shift their focus to Americans.

“If the United States does not strengthen its relationships with Southeast Asian countries and help them build the capacity to tackle scam centers, these countries will likely grow more reliant on China to address transnational crime, further entrenching Beijing’s presence,” said the report.

The commission said Beijing has little incentive to crack down on operations targeting U.S. users, noting that criminal networks have pivoted toward Americans. The scams not only drain financial resources but also have had more tragic consequences, including reported suicides tied to victims’ losses, the report said.

These scam operations, historically run by Chinese criminal organizations, initially targeted Chinese nationals through “pig butchering” schemes — a term describing romance scams in which fraudsters build trust over social media or messaging apps before persuading victims to send money. Buoyed by new tools including artificial intelligence and social media, as well as better connectivity in regions where they operate, scam operators have sought more Western victims.

That pivot has also fueled a growing network of money laundering on U.S. soil. Federal indictments show how hundreds of millions of dollars swindled from Americans have been funneled through sophisticated webs of bank accounts, shell companies and cryptocurrency exchanges — ultimately routing stolen funds back to criminal syndicates in Asia.

In February, federal prosecutors in California charged two Chinese nationals and a U.S. accomplice with laundering more than $13 million in proceeds from pig-butchering scams through U.S.-based shell companies. Last month, the Justice Department announced a record $225 million cryptocurrency seizure tied to a sophisticated money-laundering scheme that lured U.S. victims into sending funds through fraudulent investment platforms.

“The Chinese are also clearly extending their money-laundering operations into the United States, so this digital money laundering is being assisted by Chinese criminal elements within our borders,” Schriver said.

Hannah Natanson contributed to this report.

9 Comments

By Cate Cadell

Cate Cadell is a Washington Post national security reporter covering the U.S.-China relationship. She previously reported for Reuters News, where she was a politics correspondent based in Beijing.follow on X@catecadell

12. China reacts as Russia floats new geopolitical power bloc with India

Russia, India, China? (RIC?)

China, Russia, India? (CRI?)

India, Russia, China? (IRC?)

Russia, China, India? (RCI?)

I guess RIC is the best acronym.

China reacts as Russia floats new geopolitical power bloc with India

Newsweek · by Robert Birsel · July 17, 2025

China has welcomed a Russian proposal for the restoration of a three-member bloc with India, saying cooperation would be in their interests and would contribute to peace and security, raising the prospect of a revitalized alliance that could challenge U.S. influence.

The three largest countries on the Eurasian land mass first floated the idea of a trilateral cooperation bloc in the 1990s, and they later held several ministerial meetings. But the initiative has stalled in recent years because of tensions between China and India over sections of their border.

Why It Matters

A revival of the Russia, India, China, or RIC, bloc could pose a challenge to the U.S. if it resulted in more coordinated action by the three nuclear-armed countries on diplomatic, economic and security issues.

The proposal for greater three-way cooperation comes as the administration of President Donald Trump is promoting his "America First" agenda, including the imposition of sweeping tariffs, which has raised questions in some countries about their standing with the U.S.

China has criticized U.S. tariff policy as "bullying." U.S. officials have defended the tariffs saying unfair trade arrangements have to be adjusted. India and the U.S. are negotiating a trade deal while the United States has imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, at a BRICS summit, on October 23, 2024, in Kazan, Russia. Russia hopes to revive a three-way bloc... Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, at a BRICS summit, on October 23, 2024, in Kazan, Russia. Russia hopes to revive a three-way bloc with India and China. Contributor/Getty Images

What To Know

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, responding to a question about Russian negotiations to restore the RIC bloc, said more cooperation between the neighbors would be beneficial for all of them.

"Cooperation among China, Russia, and India not only aligns with the respective interests of the three countries, but also contributes to regional and global peace, security, stability, and progress," the spokesperson, Lin Jian, told a regular briefing in Beijing.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said earlier he was negotiating with both China and India on a revival of the bloc.

"This topic appears in our negotiations with both of them. We are interested in making this format work, because these three countries are important partners…The absence of this format, in my opinion, looks inappropriate," Rudenko told Russia's Izvestia media outlet.

India's foreign ministry spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Russian proposal.

Relations between India and China, the world's two most populous countries, deteriorated sharply in 2020 after a flare-up in tension along disputed stretches of their border in the Himalayas raised fears of war.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met for the first time in several years at a summit of the BRICS grouping last October and agreed to work to resolve conflicts and improve ties.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in China on Monday and called for the efforts towards better ties to be sustained.

What People Are Saying

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said: "We expect that the countries will agree to resume work within the framework of the RIC."

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, speaking to his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing on Monday, said: "The India-China relationship has been gradually moving in a positive direction. Our responsibility has been to maintain that momentum."

What Happens Next

The success of the three-way bloc is likely to hinge on India and China resolving their decades-old disputes over remote, high-altitude stretches of their border.

Newsweek · by Robert Birsel · July 17, 2025

13. China Gets More Airtime Around the World as Voice of America Signs Off

This is one of the biggest strategic and national security mistakes the US has made during this administration.

All those who are concerned with strategic competition with China (and the broader CRInK for that matter) should be supportive of VOA (and RFA/RFE/RL).

Instead it is a victim of a culture war (cancel culture) in America and is causing the US to cede influence in the information domain.

China Gets More Airtime Around the World as Voice of America Signs Off

Chinese state media has expanded its reach from Indonesia to Nigeria after Trump’s March order to dismantle U.S. government-funded outlets

The Voice of America’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Photo: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg News

By Aruna Viswanatha

, Alexandra Wexler

and Clarence Leong

July 13, 2025 11:38 am ET

Key Points

What's This?

Trump’s administration dismantled much of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, leading to a reduction in Voice of America broadcasts.
China has expanded its media operations globally, filling the void left by the U.S. in countries like Thailand, Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Critics say VOA was anti-American, while others argue its absence allows China to dominate global broadcasts, affecting public opinion.

For years, one of Indonesia’s most popular news channels hosted a weekly segment for the country’s Chinese diaspora that often featured reports in Mandarin from both the U.S.-government backed Voice of America and China’s state-run television.

Now, since the Trump administration moved to dismantle most of the U.S. Agency for Global Media in March, only the reports from Chinese state media show up.

In his second term, Donald Trump has blown up decades of U.S. foreign-policy efforts, eliminating billions of dollars of foreign aid and influence programs, saying the money was being misused and would be better spent elsewhere. Trump’s March executive order called for the $900 million media agency, which not only funds VOA but also other media outlets, including Radio Free Asia, to do only the things it was legally required to do.

The official overseeing its retrenchment, Kari Lake, accused the agency at a hearing last month of being incompetent, politically biased and itself a national-security threat. Most of the staff has been either fired or put on administrative leave and has filed lawsuits alleging the shutdown of programming was illegal.

In its wake, China’s perspective on global events has begun to dominate broadcasts around the world. In Thailand, for example, VOA’s regular appearances on the state-owned MCOT broadcaster went to a Chinese media outlet.

A tale of two Thai broadcasts: VOA in February, Chinese state media in May

Tap to unmute

A February segment on Thai state-owned broadcaster MCOT that included reporting from Voice of America.

Tap to unmute

A May segment from the same network that featured a Chinese state report.

In Africa, another Beijing-backed network, CGTN, announced in March that it would expand its operations on the continent, following others that have already increased their reach there. China Radio International, for example, mainly broadcasts in English but has expanded its coverage with some of Nigeria’s widely spoken languages, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, to try to reach local audiences.

The departure of Voice of America from Nigeria “created a perceptible void, especially in terms of trusted, independent international news content,” Nigeria’s information minister, Mohammed Idris, said in a written response to questions. While VOA’s coverage emphasized free speech, human rights and open democratic discourse, Chinese media is focused on development success stories, economic cooperation and social stability, he said.

In Ethiopia, Chinese and Ethiopian state media, as well as officials and diplomats from both countries, met in May to promote cooperation between the two countries and launched “China Hour,” a selection of Chinese TV shows, documentaries and cartoons to be broadcast on Ethiopian state television.

“It was an opportunity and [China] had to latch on to it,” said Emeka Umejei, a senior research associate in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg.

U.S. priorities compared with China’s in two Nigerian broadcasts

Tap to unmute

A January report from Voice of America's Hausa language service in Nigeria.

Tap to unmute

A May report from Chinese state television in Nigeria.

Congress set up Voice of America to provide accurate and objective reporting around the world, including about U.S. policies, and gave it independence from political oversight to enhance its credibility. Conservatives have long complained that this reduced its value as a foreign-policy tool and led to anti-American sentiment in its broadcasts.

In a statement, Lake said, “The Chinese Communist Party is deeply unhappy that President Trump is determined to improve how the U.S. does its international broadcasting,” adding that she believed Voice of America was putting out thousands of hours of outdated content that was “often anti-American and doesn’t align with America’s foreign policy.”

After the March cuts, the former chief editor of Chinese government-backed Global Times, Hu Xijin, described the paralysis of VOA as gratifying. “The Chinese people are happy to see the U.S. anti-China ideological fortress breached from within,” he said on social media.

China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman said that she wouldn’t comment on U.S. domestic policies but that the media outlets’ “blemished track record on China coverage is hardly a secret.”

In some cases, the U.S. pullback has meant cutting off hard-won broadcast abilities that had taken years to establish into some of the most closed societies, including North Korea and Iran, that allowed listeners to hear a U.S. perspective.

Kari Lake, the official overseeing the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s retrenchment, accused it at a hearing last month of being incompetent, politically biased and itself a national-security threat. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In North Korea, the U.S. was broadcasting on television through a South Korean government signal. On the final broadcast on March 15, an anchor moderated a segment that included a panelist from the conservative Heritage Foundation to talk about the U.S.-South Korea relationship and threats posed by China.

It also shut down 10 hours of nightly radio programming that were being broadcast into much of North Korea through a signal hosted by Christian broadcaster Far East Broadcasting Company, or FEBC in South Korea.

The network has told officials it has gotten outreach from other broadcasters interested in the hours, but was holding on to them in hopes that the U.S. would return, according to people familiar with the message.

While it is illegal in North Korea to listen to outside stations, a 2023 U.S. survey of North Korean defectors, refugees and travelers found that some of them had regularly listened to Voice of America and Radio Free Asia programming.

In China, too, Voice of America had an audience, said Robert Daly, who until April was the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center. On a recent trip to China, Daly said he was surprised by how many think-tank leaders, university students and professors mentioned they had watched a discussion he had conducted in Mandarin on a Voice of America program with Miles Yu, a China policy adviser to Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Tap to unmute

A March report from Thai state-owned broadcaster MCOT about the cuts to Voice of America.

By halting VOA broadcasts, Daly said, “we’re giving up on having an impact on public opinion in China.”

Independent reviews in 2023 and 2024 of Voice of America’s Russian, Chinese and Persian services identified some journalistic shortfalls, according to copies of the reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Chinese service, for example, had inappropriately used a staged video and could use more context in stories, that report said.

But all three reports concluded that the services were generally fair and accurate. The Persian service provided almost equal time, for example, to then-President Joe Biden’s efforts to revive a nuclear deal with Iran and to Republican criticism of it, that report said.

Voice of America was created by the U.S. government in 1942 to push back on Nazi messaging during World War II, broadcasting its first message in German: “The news may be good or bad; we shall tell you the truth.” Its role expanded during the Cold War, when it worked to counter the spread of Communism. Until recently, VOA was transmitting news and information in more than 100 countries in 49 languages.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian claimed that Washington has sent two messages to Tehran regarding the war in Gaza. According to him, the U.S. conveyed that it does not wish to see the conflict escalate and urged the Islamic Republic to exercise restraint. U.S. officials, however, say their messages to Tehran included warnings about Iran’s support for Hamas and other militant groups in the region

— A sample of a 2023 AM broadcast of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, as heard just south of Tehran.

In April, a federal judge ordered Voice of America to restore some of its programming to fulfill its mandate to “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news,” and the service reinstated some Persian news programming in the aftermath of the Israeli airstrikes on Iran. Trump’s budget for next year proposes eliminating the agency entirely and provides funds only for its shutdown.

Congressional Republicans have supported trimming funding for the agency, but some said they are working to create a smaller outfit that can maintain the U.S. role in spreading accurate information abroad.

“It is absolutely true that it has become bloated,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R., Fla.), who leads the House Appropriations panel on national security and the State Department that funds the agency. Still, he said, “it can be very, very useful and a very, very important tool of our national interest.”

Write to Aruna Viswanatha at aruna.viswanatha@wsj.com, Alexandra Wexler at alexandra.wexler@wsj.com and Clarence Leong at clarence.leong@wsj.com

14. Disinformation warriors are ‘grooming’ chatbots

Could this lead to the 'death" (or at least discrediting ) of AI?

Disinformation warriors are ‘grooming’ chatbots

Russian hackers are exploring ways to inject propaganda into the training data of generative AI models

John ThornhillAdd to myFT

https://www.ft.com/content/27125679-ddee-4949-9e03-33c44dcdbca0

Financial Times · by John Thornhill · July 17, 2025

Is the EU a good thing? Rows have raged over that question for many years so I turned to the newly launched ChatEurope for a fresh take.

This artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, which promises to provide users with trusted information about Europe in seven languages in real time, had a definitive, though somewhat one-sided, answer. The EU had brought significant benefits to member states and citizens, it replied, particularly in economic integration and consumer rights. It had also regulated technology, enforced fair competition and enhanced cyber security.

No mention there of any thornier issues, such as national sovereignty or democratic accountability, that have so roiled the Eurosceptics. But they would doubtless jump on the accompanying disclaimer: “As AI-generated answers may be inaccurate, please make your own verification and assessment by reading the full articles listed in the answers.”

Most of those articles were from Agence France-Presse, one of 15 companies behind the consortium that includes Deutsche Welle, El País and Romania’s RFI and is backed by the EU commission. The eurobot’s underlying technology is run by the French AI company Mistral. Its goal is to deliver answers “free from algorithmic manipulation or political interference” in the age of AI-generated content.

The eurobot’s launch highlights how generative AI chatbots are increasingly becoming the welcome mat to the infosphere thanks to the explosive growth in their usage. Similarweb found that OpenAI’s ChatGPT referred users to news websites 25mn times between January and May this year, compared with 1mn the previous year.

However, Similarweb also noted that the proportion of “zero-click” news searches had increased to almost 69 per cent since Google launched its AI Overviews in May 2024. AI-generated summaries at the top of search results mean fewer readers click through to the source links below. That has sapped organic traffic to news sites, falling from a peak of 2.3bn to 1.7bn and causing conniptions among many publishers.

How accurate these AI summaries are is questionable. In December, the BBC protested to the US tech giant Apple about a false headline in an iPhone notification automatically generated by Apple Intelligence. The AI-powered summary suggested that the BBC was reporting that a high-profile murder suspect in the US had shot himself, which was untrue.

Moreover, there is increasing evidence that malign individuals, organisations and states are attempting to “groom” generative AI models. A report last month from the UK think-tank Royal United Services Institute found that Russian hackers were actively exploring ways of injecting propaganda or biased material into the training data of generative AI models to skew their output. “This tactic represents a shift from targeting audiences directly to subtly shaping the tools these audiences use,” the report concluded.

How this can be done has been highlighted by the American Sunlight Project, which estimated that Russia’s Pravda network has been pumping out 3mn propaganda articles a year, amplified on X, Telegram and Bluesky. Later research showed that OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o model cited Pravda content in response to five out of seven prompts on contested subjects. Better forms of fact-checking and reasoning will be needed to root out that problem.

“In the meantime, systems of naive mimicry and regurgitation, such as the AIs we have now, are soiling their own futures (and training databases) every time they unthinkingly repeat propaganda,” wrote the researchers Sophia Freuden, Nina Jankowicz and Gary Marcus.

Vidhya Ramalingam, co-founder and chief executive of the tech start-up Moonshot, argues that it will be hard to eradicate the problem at source because of the ever-shifting nature of the technology. She suggests the only imperfect solution is to teach people to spot manipulative content and techniques themselves. “We need to get ahead of it through public education,” she tells me. To that end, Moonshot has helped run “prebunking” public awareness campaigns with Google to more than 120mn people in Europe.

Just as we have all painfully grown wary of the dark sides of the internet, social media and messaging apps, so we will now have to develop a duly critical take on chatbot output, too. It will be up to our own internal sense checker to buzz when spotting partial content on the EU or Russian disinformation. As the eurobot advises: please make your own verification.

john.thornhill@ft.com

Financial Times · by John Thornhill · July 17, 2025

15. Beijing’s Political Warfare in Canada: Tracking the Footprints of the United Front Work Department

If it is happening in Canada you can be sure it is happening in the US (and Japan, and South Korea, and the Philippines, and Australia, and throughout Europe and around the world).

Everyone should be tracking the footprints of the UFWD.

At least Canada is not afraid to call it what it is: political warfare.

Beijing’s Political Warfare in Canada: Tracking the Footprints of the United Front Work Department

https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corporate/publications/hybrid-methods-in-the-grey-zone/beijings-political-warfare-canada-tracking-footprints-united-front-work-department.html

Document navigation

Canada has long been a target of China’s United Front influence campaign. Important ethnic Chinese organisations have been effectively taken over by Beijing, as have most Chinese language media. Chinese embassies and consulates monitor the Chinese ethnic community and coordinate United Front activities.

In the winter of 1998 the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) published an externally-commissioned report entitled Beijing’s United Front Strategy in Hong Kong, and it was a provocative document in the context of the time. This was just a few months after the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty after 156 years of British rule. There was still a lot of euphoria in the air, joy at the end of colonial rule, and delight at the return to the embrace of the motherland. As we know now, the hangover and grim dawn of reality were just around the corner. But in those brief months of bright optimism, the paper set out in detail how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had used its main agency of political warfare, the United Front Work Department (UFWD), to seduce Hongkongers into believing the handover was going to be the beginning of a bright new age for the territory. The message was that Beijing would allow Hong Kong to rule itself with “a high degree of autonomy” and to purposefully progress to full democracy in the territory.

Behind these commitments, the United Front waged a more detailed charm offensive. Dozens of local groups, organisations, and individuals in Hong Kong, ranging from business tycoons to Triad criminal gangs, were neutralised by money or flattering privileged access to PRC institutions.

Near the top of the commissioned report was the following statement: “The significance of United Front work cannot be overstated. To assess the ramifications of United Front work, it is necessary to understand its nature, the institutions supporting its ventures, its targets, and finally, its expected outcomes. In this context, Canada cannot claim disassociation from the phenomenon, if only because of the sheer size of its Chinese community”. The report ended by speculating that after having re-acquired Hong Kong, the CCP would turn its attention to Taiwan. “As the divide and rule tactics that characterise United Front work will form the basis of this campaign, Canada must exercise vigilance to ensure that the rights and freedoms of Chinese-Canadians are not threatened,” it said.

The predictions in this analysis have come to pass, but sadly and unforgivably, Canada and Canadian institutions have largely failed to take to heart the warning at the end of the report. We face a situation today where United Front groups have managed to get themselves and their agents of influence deeply entrenched in Canadian society. They are not only a daily danger to the rights and freedoms of Canadians of ethnic Chinese heritage and others over whom China claims a governing/political stake, such as Tibetan and Uyghur Canadians, but they are also increasingly a distorting presence in Canadian public life as a whole. That is clearly shown in elements of the debate around the extradition of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies.

The United Front was founded by the CCP in the 1930s as a channel for securing and maintaining relationships with non-communist groups. To that end, it always downplayed the revolutionary and authoritarian elements of the CCP’s character. Instead it portrayed the party as a benign organisation of reformers. That approach to United Front work has continued. The Front fell into disuse during the rule of Mao Zedong, but was revived when Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978. At first the new United Front was used as an agency to attract investment and technology from the Chinese diaspora and susceptible Western business leaders for Deng’s program of economic reform and opening-up.

There was a significant change in the direction of United Front work around the year 2000. At that time the emphasis shifted from encouraging members of the Chinese diaspora to get involved with the revival of China, to being able to influence and control those people in their home countries. One of the first visible pieces of evidence of that change in Canada was successful moves by UFWD agents to take effective editorial control of almost all Chinese language media in the country. Similar moves were made in Australia and the US. This is in line with established CCP strategy, which gives propaganda a high priority in political warfare. The editorial takeovers were achieved either by direct investment in Canadian Chinese language media by pro-CCP companies or by letting media proprietors who also had investments in China know that the survival of those assets depended on their outlets giving a favourable view of the Beijing administration.

Another significant change came after Xi Jinping became CCP General-Secretary and President of the PRC in 2012 and 2013. Xi has massively increased both the responsibilities and the resources of the UFWD. The objective, as always, is to use a variety of methods to influence diaspora communities, foreign governments, and other elements in society such as the business and academic sectors to support Beijing’s policies and purposes.

The premier overt United Front organisation is the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This is ostensibly a legislative advisory body that meets annually to bring the interests of non-communist citizens of the PRC to Beijing’s attention. However, the CPPCC’s value as an outside voice is a fabrication. Two-thirds of its 2,158 delegates are CCP members who can and do overrule unwelcome suggestions. For the rest, members include delegates from Potempkin independent non-communist political parties, state-controlled religious organisations, representatives of ethnic minorities, and members of the Chinese diaspora sitting as delegates of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. The Communist Party has always held out appointment to the CPPCC as the most prestigious honour it can bestow on members of the diaspora. Canadians of Chinese heritage or PRC citizens with permanent resident status in Canada usually figure among the overseas delegates. In recent years the emphasis has been on appointing people in Canada associated with universities, including one instance the principal policy adviser to the president of one of Canada’s major universities.

In addition to United Front international organisations’ branches in Canada, there are a number of home-grown groups the Front has either suborned or whose influence it has promoted. The two most important of these organisations are the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver, and the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organisations. The Vancouver Benevolent Association was founded in 1896, and for much of its history has been regarded locally as the true government of the city’s Chinatown. However, in recent years it has fallen under the influence of the United Front and become an umbrella organisation for most of the Chinese-Canadian groups in British Columbia. This was demonstrated most clearly in June 2019 when full page advertisements appeared in two Chinese language newspapers, Sing Tao and Ming Pao. The statements decried the pro-reform demonstrators in Hong Kong, accusing them of being rioters causing chaos and of being separatists trying to break up China. The statement was followed by the names of 200 Chinese-Canadian organisations, most of which are identifiable as United Front operations. In the Toronto editions of the two newspapers carrying similar statements, The Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organisations was the lead voice. This also criticised the pro-democracy demonstrators, and vigorously supported the Hong Kong police and Beijing’s selected Hong Kong administration.

The Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organisations (CTCCO) also figured large in a rally held at Markham in August 2019, also vilifying the Hong Kong demonstrators. Former Ontario provincial cabinet minister Michael Chan spoke at the rally, held in his old constituency, and other speakers included several former executive members of the CTCCO and Chinese Canadians for China’s Reunification.

Ten years ago the CTCCO lobbied strongly and successfully for the Toronto District School Board to contract with Beijing for the PRC government to finance and manage Confucius Institute classes in Toronto schools. The purpose of the institutes, paid for and staffed by Beijing, is ostensibly to promote knowledge of Chinese language and culture. But the Toronto agreement was cancelled in 2014 when parents rallied to object when it was shown that institute came under the authority of the United Front. New Brunswick, which had Confucius classrooms established in schools across the province, last year moved to end the agreement because of concerns about their true purpose. CSIS has warned colleges and universities in particular that a prime purpose of the institutes is to act as espionage outposts for the nearest Chinese consulate or embassy. As a result, several Canadian colleges and universities have cancelled their agreements for Confucius Institutes, but, at the time of writing there are still 13 agreements in force.

Slightly outside this circle of CCP-controlled organisations in Canada, but still a United Front operation is the Chinese Student and Scholars Association (CSSA). There are currently about 120,000 students from China studying in Canada and the CSSA maintains branches in all the colleges and universities to which they are attached. The superficial purpose of the associations, all of which are closely linked to the nearest Chinese consulate or embassy, is to provide back-up and support for the young people far from home and family.

Behind that, however, are other purposes. One is to keep a close watch on the activities of the students while they are in Canada to ensure they do not get involved in political or religious pursuits the CCP considers traitorous. There are examples of students being given long prison sentences when they return home for activities while at foreign universities. To keep watch on dissidents, spies are planted among the students to report back to Chinese diplomats.

Another purpose of the CSSA is to be able to marshal cohorts of students to mount pro-Beijing demonstrations when needed. This has happened to welcome visiting Beijing senior officials, but also to oppose visits to Canada by people the CCP considers enemies, such as the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama. A victory for the United Front and the CSSA is that on at least two occasions recently students have rallied in opposition to situations at their universities without having to be marshalled by the United Front. One was at McMaster University early in 2019 when Chinese students started an on-line protest against plans for an exiled Uyghur to talk about the detention and “re-education” of around one million Uyghurs by Chinese officials in the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region. Soon afterwards, in March 2019, there was a similar incident at the Scarborough campus of the University of Toronto. Chinese students mounted an online campaign calling for the overturning of the election to the presidency of the students’ union of an ethnic Tibetan Canadian, Chemi Lhamo.

In both instances the CSSA members contacted the Chinese consulate in Toronto for help and support after they had launched their own protests. At McMaster University, the Students Union in September 2019 stripped the CSSA of its official status and privileges because of its links to the PRC government and the United Front.

For Canada, like other middle powers such as Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan, which are also vulnerable to the political warfare campaigns launched against them by the United Front, there is one central and very difficult question. How does a democracy that believes in freedom of speech and freedom of association respond to a belligerent organisation like the United Front without abandoning or undermining its own core values? One of the greatest strengths of democracies is transparency and that is the weapon that should be deployed first with energy and persistence. Legislative options should also be explored, such as the Australian and Taiwanese examples of laws outlawing political infiltration by foreign governments, and restrictions on retired officials working for foreign companies and government-linked institutions.

16. The Philippines Is a Petri Dish for Chinese Disinformation

We should be studying and learning from what CHina is doing to our ally And assisting it.

Excerpt:

“The Philippines is patient zero when it comes to the infodemic,” Santos said. “We’re very susceptible to a lot of fake news.”

The Philippines Is a Petri Dish for Chinese Disinformation

Inauthentic accounts linked to China are seizing on local political feuds.

By Nick Aspinwall, a journalist based in New York.

Foreign Policy · by Nick Aspinwall

Elections

July 14, 2025, 1:21 PM

When former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested under an International Criminal Court warrant in March, an army of online defenders sprang into action.

The Philippine midterm elections for local and congressional representatives were just two months away, and a group of pro-Duterte Senate candidates was challenging a slate loyal to Duterte’s ally-turned-rival, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

When former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested under an International Criminal Court warrant in March, an army of online defenders sprang into action.

But according to expert analysts, many of Duterte’s online defenders weren’t real. There were some genuine pro-Duterte influencers, with real people manning the accounts, but they were bolstered by a vast network of inauthentic accounts, all of which pummeled the Philippine elections with a deluge of disinformation, generative artificial intelligence, and deepfakes.

The noise came from all directions. Marcos himself rode an army of online influencers to victory in 2022, spreading false narratives and distorting his family’s dark political history. Many pro-government accounts have attacked progressive candidates by “red-tagging” them, labeling them without evidence as members of the communist New People’s Army, an armed rebel group.

Pro-Duterte influencers are increasingly in sync with online accounts that parrot narratives friendly to the Chinese government, raising concerns of foreign influence.

Just how much this matters on the ground is uncertain. In the end, pro-Duterte candidates had a strong showing in the May elections, winning five of the Senate’s 12 open seats, although Duterte allies also lost seats in local elections. But it’s a sign of how closely Duterte’s cause and Beijing’s interests are being tied together.

There has been an observable rise in Chinese-aligned accounts whose behavior mirrors patterns associated with foreign influence, said Janina Santos, a Philippines-based analyst for Doublethink Lab, a Taiwan-based think tank that researches Chinese influence operations.

Ahead of the election, Doublethink and its India-based partner ThinkFi found a network of accounts on X posting “pro-Duterte, anti-Marcos stuff but also amplifying some pro-China stuff,” Santos said. These accounts were boosting content from a network of seeder accounts that would post content from pro-China influencers, propaganda sites, and state media, she said.

“We noticed that the inauthentic accounts are also promoting pro-PRC narratives,” Santos said, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China. “We’re not going to say the PRC has a direct hand in it. But there are indications of what we call ‘foreignness’ in the observables that we’ve been monitoring.”

Santos drew distinctions between such inauthentic accounts and those helmed by real people, many of whom echo pro-China narratives as a byproduct of amplifying their support of Duterte. But the presence of inauthentic accounts has exploded, especially on X, with the tech analysis firm Cyabra telling Reuters in April that around a third of all pro-Duterte accounts on that platform were fake.

These patterns are similar to what has been observed in Taiwan, which has spent years as a target of Chinese disinformation campaigns. The Philippines has served as a sort of trial balloon. When Duterte and Marcos began publicly feuding last year, it created a fertile environment for influencers aligned with each faction, especially as Marcos began drawing the country away from China.

Marcos has sharply opposed Beijing’s claims in the contested South China Sea, and the China Coast Guard has confronted Philippine vessels in a series of maritime confrontations. The Duterte administration, by contrast, was friendly to China, declining to challenge its maritime claims and pursuing joint energy exploration in the South China Sea.

In April, a Philippine National Security Council official said there were indications that Chinese state-sponsored information operations were attempting to prop up candidates China wanted to win while attacking those it wanted to lose.

The Senate is currently probing Chinese espionage activities, which can take many forms, such as influencing local and provincial politics. But it can be hard to quantify the extent of Chinese influence, especially when inauthentic accounts wade into already charged domestic issues, such as Duterte’s arrest.

Maria Elize Mendoza, an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman who has researched disinformation campaigns, said she does not think pro-Duterte influencers were the main factor in the victories of pro-Duterte candidates. She noted that reelected candidates such as Christopher “Bong” Go and Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, both staunch Duterte allies during his presidency, have broadened their support bases.

Pro-Duterte influencers were likely responsible for Marcos’s approval ratings dipping after Duterte’s arrest, Mendoza said, by casting doubt on the legality of his arrest and “blaming the Marcos administration for allowing the ‘kidnapping’ of Duterte.”

“The emotionally charged content framing Rodrigo as a frail, old man who’s ‘alone’ in a foreign prison also gained significant traction,” she said.

There has also been a consistent presence of deepfakes and AI-generated content targeting Marcos, she said. Last year, an audio clip went viral in which Marcos appeared to authorize a military attack against China. Later, a video showed an individual resembling Marcos sniffing a powdered substance, helping to amplify baseless claims that Marcos uses drugs made by Duterte and his supporters. The government flagged both clips as deepfakes.

But deepfake content has also been used by pro-government accounts to attack progressive candidates and activists, said Ian Angelo Aragoza, an education officer for the Computer Professionals’ Union who has researched online influence operations in the Philippines.

The rise of generative AI and ease of creating deepfakes allowed such accounts to scale up and produce such campaigns “at a faster rate, with better quality and with a larger reach,” Aragoza said. Some Facebook pages, which are still live, regularly use altered images to label progressive figures, such as politicians representing the leftist Makabayan bloc, as communist rebels.

While Marcos pledged to end the red-tagging of progressive politicians and activists at the outset of his administration, the practice remains commonplace and is often perpetrated by members of the government’s anti-communist task force. Rights groups have repeatedly warned that victims of red-tagging are susceptible to kidnapping or extrajudicial killing.

The Philippine government has partnered in the past with social media giants such as Meta and TikTok, Aragoza noted. “It should maximize its partnerships with them to be able to prevent incidents of red-tagging to happen at all and quickly be able to suppress these posts if any do show up,” he said.

Santos said the China-aligned pro-Duterte accounts she witnessed did not generally engage in deepfakes but did manipulate photos and use generative AI. For instance, when AI images resembling Studio Ghibli characters began trending in late March, pro-Duterte accounts began spreading “Ghiblified” images of Duterte being taken to The Hague, she said. Later, an AI image purporting to show a statue of Duterte in the Netherlands spread among his supporters.

Many of these accounts have been around since Duterte first became president in 2016, aided in large part by a Cambridge Analytica operation to harvest the data of Facebook users and spread propaganda favorable to Duterte—an operation it infamously repeated in that year’s U.S. presidential election. A whistleblower from the company later called the Philippines a “petri dish” for disinformation campaigns. Now, China may see the country in the same way.

“The Philippines is patient zero when it comes to the infodemic,” Santos said. “We’re very susceptible to a lot of fake news.”

Foreign Policy · by Nick Aspinwall

17. A program at Fort Bragg’s Intrepid Spirit Center uses latest research to treat soldiers with traumatic brain injuries

Excerpts:

Kapatos has used those reports to develop new treatments for cohort after cohort of soldiers in the Return to Forces program. The program is reserved for soldiers under the Special Operations Command and treats up to 48 per year, broken into eight cohorts of six soldiers.

For four to six weeks, depending on the program’s requirements at the time, the soldiers’ only job is treatment. All day, every day, physicians from a range of specialties help soldiers identify their symptoms and test different treatments to alleviate them. A yoga therapist helps with mindfulness and stretching, a sleep therapist identifies sleep issues, and a mental health professional teaches soldiers coping mechanisms.

“It’s a shotgun blast method,” Starr explained, who went through the Return to Forces program in 2023. “I’m gonna hit you with all kinds of stuff and we’re gonna see what sticks.”

Since the program is time limited, Kapatos said the key to its success is quickly determining which treatments are alleviating a soldier’s symptoms. He said the Return to Forces program team meticulously tracks the effectiveness of each treatment to determine which to keep.

Out of all the treatments Starr tried, he said he didn’t expect art therapy to be one of the most effective.

“I still can’t draw stick figures straight,” Starr said. “But it was a vehicle of expression. It was being able to actually sit down with somebody and ask yourself hard questions, and then take a deep dive into the crazy puzzle factory and see what comes out the other side.”

A program at Fort Bragg’s Intrepid Spirit Center uses latest research to treat soldiers with traumatic brain injuries

As the Army studies the causes and treatment of traumatic brain injuries, the Return to Forces program is already employing new holistic therapies to help Special Forces soldiers recover from TBIs

by Morgan Casey

July 17, 2025

cityviewnc.com · by Morgan Casey · July 17, 2025

For years, Master Sgt. Eric Starr’s headaches would hit like clockwork. Every day at around 1 p.m., the pain would start at the back of his head. By the end of the day, he said his head felt like it was in a vice. The rest of him didn’t feel much better.

“My body always felt like I went 10 rounds with Mike Tyson,” said Starr, a Special Forces soldier working at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School on Fort Bragg.

Starr said his mood would also swing drastically, and that he was often irritable. A small trigger would turn jokes into yelling.

For physicians from Fort Bragg’s Intrepid Spirit Center, the installation’s brain health clinic, Starr’s symptoms pointed to one likely cause: a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

A singular incident didn’t cause Starr’s traumatic brain injury. Instead, his TBI likely stemmed from the accumulated trauma from shooting round after round of artillery fire over his 14 deployments and the training needed to prepare for them.

Research increasingly links blast overpressure, the shock waves produced by firing large artillery weapons like the howitzer, with damage to service members’ brain health. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs described the shock waves as causing “invisible injuries” to the brain in a 2022 press release. A recent Army study shared with Military.com showed that “simply standing near mortars can significantly disrupt the autonomic nervous system,” which is responsible for automatic body functions like breathing and heart rate.

“Turns out you get your bell rung a lot more at home station than you do overseas half the time,” Starr said.

While the Army has studied the effects of blast overpressure for over two decades, the service branch is increasing its efforts to understand its impact on soldiers. In June, the Army launched a new study into how soldiers react to different overblast pressure exposures. It is also starting a Warfighter Brain Health Task Force later this summer to examine how soldiers’ jobs impact their brain health.

Sign up for CityView's Daily Newsletter

Join 39,000+ of your friends and neighbors who start their day smart with our daily newsletter.

“People are the Army’s greatest asset, and the Army prioritizes soldier health and well-being, particularly brain health,” an Army spokesperson told CityView. “This includes prevention, post-injury care, and restoration, aiming to minimize any long-term negative outcomes.”

While waiting for the Army’s research, physicians at Fort Bragg’s Intrepid Spirit Center’s Return to Forces program use current best practices to treat soldiers like Starr who already have traumatic brain injuries. From art therapy to pain management to sleep rehab, the center’s multidisciplinary team addresses the symptoms of TBIs to help soldiers return to work.

“Without sounding cliché, it absolutely saved my life,” Starr said.

Returning to the force

Every month, Return to Forces Program Director Lt. Cmdr. Philip Kapatos and other physicians at the Intrepid Spirit Center read over a list of new research on traumatic brain injuries and brain health to find the latest breakthroughs in prevention and treatment.

“It’s an exciting time to be a clinician,” Kapatos said. “Seeing how much we’ve learned over the last 10 years, and the direction that prevention and treatment are progressing to, it’s exciting to see.”

Jeremy Smith, occupational therapist, explains how the comprehensive driving evaluation works at the Intrepid Spirit open house on March 7, 2025. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.

Kapatos has used those reports to develop new treatments for cohort after cohort of soldiers in the Return to Forces program. The program is reserved for soldiers under the Special Operations Command and treats up to 48 per year, broken into eight cohorts of six soldiers.

For four to six weeks, depending on the program’s requirements at the time, the soldiers’ only job is treatment. All day, every day, physicians from a range of specialties help soldiers identify their symptoms and test different treatments to alleviate them. A yoga therapist helps with mindfulness and stretching, a sleep therapist identifies sleep issues, and a mental health professional teaches soldiers coping mechanisms.

“It’s a shotgun blast method,” Starr explained, who went through the Return to Forces program in 2023. “I’m gonna hit you with all kinds of stuff and we’re gonna see what sticks.”

Since the program is time limited, Kapatos said the key to its success is quickly determining which treatments are alleviating a soldier’s symptoms. He said the Return to Forces program team meticulously tracks the effectiveness of each treatment to determine which to keep.

Out of all the treatments Starr tried, he said he didn’t expect art therapy to be one of the most effective.

“I still can’t draw stick figures straight,” Starr said. “But it was a vehicle of expression. It was being able to actually sit down with somebody and ask yourself hard questions, and then take a deep dive into the crazy puzzle factory and see what comes out the other side.”

Ancillary Services Chief and Physical Therapist, Lieutenant Commander Courtney Jones, takes Womack Army Medical Center Commander Col. Stephanie Mont through a posturography test which is useful to detect equilibrium and vestibular issues after concussion and helps the therapist and patient to set goals to return to duty during the Intrepid Spirit Center open house on March 7, 2025. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.

Holistic care is a large part of the Return to Forces program since many symptoms of traumatic brain injuries can’t be parsed out from other cognitive issues, Kapatos said. Last year, the Army started giving cognitive baseline assessments to soldiers in basic training and cadets before they commission to help physicians determine what’s being impacted should a soldier’s brain be injured.

A soldier’s treatment doesn’t end once they complete the Return to Forces program — it sets them up for a long healing journey.

“What it does is help give you tools to continue that therapy and that management after the fact,” Starr said.

Increased awareness and advocacy surrounding brain health

Starr has seen soldiers and their leaders take concussions, traumatic brain injuries and the impact of blast overpressure more seriously over his more than two decades in the Army. He said it’s much more common for soldiers to step away and get treated.

“It’s actually applauded if you do it,” Starr said, adding that several members from his unit sought out the services at the Intrepid Spirit Center after he explained their benefits.

The Intrepid Spirit staff helps soldiers identify symptoms of overblast pressure, since they are so vast, Kapastos said. He said staff explain to units that, while some symptoms go away with a good night’s sleep, those that persist require treatment.

“The earlier the identification, the earlier the treatment and the better the treatment and the more targeted the treatment,” Kapatos said.

Studies into injury mechanisms like overblast pressure will improve prevention and medical care for soldiers, the Army spokesperson said.

“Research on blast overpressure continues to be a priority for the Army,” the spokesperson said. “As blast overpressure research progresses, findings will refine and improve treatment strategies.”

While Starr is thankful for the increased prioritization of soldiers’ brain health, he understands that the Army is a dangerous job.

“We’re training smarter, but, at the end of the day, it’s an inherently risky job,” Starr said. “There’s no way you’re going to ever 100% remove risk.”

CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville.

Are you signed up for CityView's daily newsletter?

Every day, CityView rounds up:

The news you need

Stories from Fayetteville and Cumberland County

Delivered directly to your inbox

cityviewnc.com · by Morgan Casey · July 17, 2025

18. Precision Paradox and Myths of Precision Strike in Modern Armed Conflict

Precision Paradox and Myths of Precision Strike in Modern Armed Conflict

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/07/17/precision-paradox-and-myths-of-precision-strike-in-modern-armed-conflict/

by SWJ Staff

07.17.2025 at 10:52pm

Precision Paradox and Myths of Precision Strike in Modern Armed Conflict is by Dr. Amos C. Fox, Managing Editor of Small Wars Journal, and is featured in the Royal United Services (RUSI) Journal. VOLUME 169 ISSUE 1/2

The RUSI Journal is a leading journal on defence and security. First published in 1857, it brings together scholars, decision-makers and practitioners in a unique forum that combines academic rigour with policy relevance.

Abstract:

Precision strike has assumed an outsized role in modern warfare. In the First Drone Age, drone-based precision strike promises to deliver accurate, first-time hits. Some assert that drone-based precision strike and precision strike-based strategies appear to offer a more civilised and antiseptic method of waging war. Amos C Fox argues that the Precision Paradox is a cautionary heuristic to illustrate the potential shortcomings of precision strategies, thereby allowing decision-makers to incorporate a modicum of realism into their thinking. The Precision Paradox also helps to illustrate the need to return to military thought rooted in realism and reason, instead of military thought based on linear, best-case scenario suppositions.

Tags: Amos Fox, Conflict Realism, drone warfare, drones, precision, precision strike, Realism, weaponized drones

About The Author

SWJ Staff
SWJ Staff searches the internet daily for articles and posts that we think are of great interests to our readers.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website