Quotes of the Day:

"Don't be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don't be afraid – the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again."

– Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being's suffering. Nothing. Not career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we're going to survive with dignity."

– Audrey Hepburn.

"In the first place, very little thinking was ever done in English; it is not a language suited to logical thought. Instead, it's an emotive lingo, beautifully adapted to concealing fallacies. A rationalizing language, not a rational one."

– Robert A. Heinlein – Time Enough For Love

1. Going Soft on China Could Be a Hard Lesson

2. Adversary Entente Task Force, July 30, 2025

3.  Actions create consequences – a telling few days? are we seeing the beginning of actions with consequences? (China/Taiwan) by Dr. Cynthia Watson

4. Army secretary removes former CISA director from new role at West Point after far-right backlash

5. Inside Ukraine’s Effort to Fortify Hundreds of Miles of Defensive Lines

6. Trump threatens trade deal over Canada's Palestine stance

7. Trump's Tariffs Drive ASEAN Closer to China

8. How to Lose the Drone War – American Military Doctrine Is Stifling Innovation

9. The Big Mistake the West Is Making About Russia, China, and Iran

10. To Put Iran on Ice, the U.S. Must Freeze Out China

11. Top Generals Nominated for New Positions Must Now Meet With Trump

12. Hydrogen-powered naval warfare gets a boost

13. Senior officers need more data training, Army counterdrone exercise suggests

14. US government will ingest all federal data into AI models, WH tech director says

15. Who should coordinate Europe’s defense buildup?

16. The Indo-Pacific Chooses Options, Not Sides

17. WHAT IS THE ARMY OF 2040?

18. Chinese warships arrive in Russia’s far east for joint Pacific naval exercise

19. Narratives Under Fire: Information Warfare Lessons from India–Pakistan and Ukraine–Russia

20. How SASC, HASC want to spend reconciliation on Golden Dome, munitions

21. To drink or not to drink – the Party decides in China

22. Arab states call on Hamas to disarm and relinquish power in unprecedented move

23. GOP Eyes European Money to Replace U.S. Weapons Donated to Ukraine

24. Senate Approves Trump’s Pick for Top Counterterrorism Post

25. US Earth imaging satellite fleet is creating ‘low-cost orbital landmines’, China team says

26. Five words that today are gratingly misapplied or worn out

1. Going Soft on China Could Be a Hard Lesson

Excerpts:

Trump may think this deal-making will lead to greater stability in a vital relationship. He shouldn’t be so sure. Beijing is still going flat-out with its military buildup. It frequently shows off its growing ability to squeeze and coerce Taiwan; Chinese military assets regularly circle and menace islands under the Taiwanese government’s control.

These are “rehearsals,” not exercises, America’s top commander in the Indo-Pacific, Admiral Samuel Paparo, has argued. Perhaps Xi will find an opportunity to ignite a new crisis, and then push Trump to further weaken US support for Taiwan as the price of keeping Sino-American diplomacy on track. If so, the US could end up with the worst of all outcomes: Trump’s reward for retreating in the new cold war could be increased risk of a hot one.

Going Soft on China Could Be a Hard Lesson

The first time around, the president forged a bipartisan consensus to get tough on Beijing. Now he’s undermining it. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-07-30/going-soft-on-china-could-be-a-hard-lesson?sref=hhjZtX76

July 30, 2025 at 5:00 AM EDT

By Hal Brands

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Xi points the way forward. Photographer: Thomas Peter/Getty Images  

In his first term as president, Donald Trump made the new cold war consensus on China — the broad bipartisan agreement that Beijing is America’s most dangerous competitor and must be dealt with as such. He seems bent on breaking it in his second.

Trump is barreling toward a bad bargain with Beijing. He’s weakening the US position in the fight for global primacy. And he’s using his dominance of the Republican Party to mute opposition to this dangerous course.

China policy was perhaps the most historic achievement of Trump’s first term. For a quarter-century, US officials had argued that Beijing could be made a responsible stakeholder in the American-led order.

Trump and his aides overturned that shopworn assumption, recognizing that an increasingly autocratic, assertive China sought to “shape a world antithetical to US values and interests.” They enacted policies — chip curbs on Huawei, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and the revival of the Quad and investment in other US partnerships — that laid the foundation for President Joe Biden’s subsequent approach to Beijing.

Yet Trump himself was an ambivalent cold warrior, principally because of his transactional ethos and his desire to get along personally with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. So Trump oscillated, from 2017 to early 2020, between waging great-power competition and chasing a Sino-American bargain. Only with Covid, the presidency-killing pandemic for which Trump blamed Beijing, did the China hawks in his administration conclusively gain the upper hand.

Trump’s second term started promisingly, with the appointment of “super hawks” like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. It has been bad news ever since.

Trump overplayed his hand, in April, by imposing tariffs that spiraled into a de facto trade embargo. He then got walloped by punishing Chinese restrictions on the export of rare earth elements and fears of an economic apocalypse. Now, his administration is in retreat.

Gone are the super hawks: Trump removed Waltz, as well as a key National Security Council official overseeing the technology portfolio. Rubio has distinguished himself with his utter fealty to Trump.

An unconstrained president began rolling back new export controls and other curbs on the tech relationship. In mid-July, Trump approved the export of Nvidia’s high-powered H20 chips. That unilateral concession will boost China’s AI innovation, intelligence and military capabilities. It has already sent the signal that America’s export control architecture is up for negotiation.

Now Trump is reportedly weighing a further rollback of tech export controls — the crown jewels of America’s approach to maintaining economic and military advantage — apparently in hopes of securing some bigger economic bargain and a presidential visit to Beijing. This week, he made another concession to Xi by giving the cold shoulder to Taiwan’s president Lai Ching-te. And if Trump’s transactionalism is undermining the US-Taiwan relationship, that’s hardly the only damage he’s doing to America’s competitive position.

Higher tariffs on allies will undermine the free-world integration necessary to outcompete China. Attacking the US innovation ecosystem, by extorting universities and slashing research funding, will erode America’s long-term edge. Telling European allies to keep out of the Pacific dissipates the global leverage a worldwide alliance system might offer.

Gutting the US Agency for International Development, Radio Free Asia, the National Endowment for Democracy and other institutions handicaps America in the global development, governance, and information contests. Unlawfully giving TikTok repeated stays of execution makes a mockery of the notion that the US is combating malign Chinese influence at home.

The picture isn’t wholly bleak. Pushing Indo-Pacific allies to spend more on defense makes sense, even if the administration’s tactics are confusing and sometimes counterproductive: The damage has included a recent dustup with America’s most important Pacific ally, Japan. The Pentagon is striving to field drones and other capabilities that will matter in a Western Pacific fight.

Yet Trump is surrendering critical capability and leverage the US needs to succeed in global competition. He’s exploiting his hammerlock on the GOP to weaken the anti-China consensus, as well.

Congressional Republicans previously lambasted Biden for engagement with Xi and seeking to preserve some stability in the relationship, even as Biden made clear that America’s competitive measures were not up for negotiation. They authored fiery treatises on the need for strength, courage and moral clarity vis-à-vis Beijing.

More recently, most of these legislators have been mute as Trump repeatedly ignores the law Congress passed, with bipartisan majorities, regarding the sale of TikTok last year. And, with the admirable exception of Representative John Moolenaar, the chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, they aren’t saying much as Trump gives away vital tech export controls and chases a bigger bargain with Xi.

Trump may think this deal-making will lead to greater stability in a vital relationship. He shouldn’t be so sure. Beijing is still going flat-out with its military buildup. It frequently shows off its growing ability to squeeze and coerce Taiwan; Chinese military assets regularly circle and menace islands under the Taiwanese government’s control.

These are “rehearsals,” not exercises, America’s top commander in the Indo-Pacific, Admiral Samuel Paparo, has argued. Perhaps Xi will find an opportunity to ignite a new crisis, and then push Trump to further weaken US support for Taiwan as the price of keeping Sino-American diplomacy on track. If so, the US could end up with the worst of all outcomes: Trump’s reward for retreating in the new cold war could be increased risk of a hot one.

Elsewhere in Bloomberg Opinion:

• US Trade Deals Come With Defense Strings Attached: Karishma Vaswani
• How the US Became the Apex Predator on Trade: Daniel Moss
• Three Ways America’s World Order Could Collapse: Hal Brands

For more, subscribe to our newsletter.

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

2. Adversary Entente Task Force, July 30, 2025

A new service from the Institute for the Study of War. Time to focus on the CRInK.

Adversary Entente Task Force Update, July 30, 2025

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/adversary-entente-task-force-update-july-30-2025

Jul 30, 2025 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Authors: Grace Mappes, Kelly Campa, and Karolina Hird, with Nicholas Carl

Data cutoff: 10 am ET, July 29

Key takeaways:

• Russia launched another communications satellite into orbit for Iran as part of the countries’ growing space relationship. This Russian support likely represents the limit of military-adjacent assistance that the Kremlin is currently prepared to provide Iran with.
• The PRC has become primarily responsible for sustaining the Russian drone industry, as PRC parts have become irreplaceable components in Russian drone development, production, and operation. North Korea and Iran have continued to provide critical support to the Russian drone industry as well.
• Russia and North Korea have continued to increase their logistical and transit connections. This underscores the strategic partnership that Moscow and Pyongyang have been developing since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
• Belarus and other authoritarian states have indicated interest in acquiring PRC technologies related to social control and internal security. This highlights the role that the PRC plays as an exporter of techno-authoritarianism.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin likely seeks to exploit the US interest in economic cooperation with the PRC to portray himself as a peacemaker and secure concessions on the war in Ukraine.

Defense and Military-Technical Cooperation

Russia launched another communications satellite into orbit for Iran as part of the countries’ growing space relationship. The Iranian Space Agency announced that Russia launched the Nahid-2 satellite into orbit from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on July 25 and that Iran has received data from the satellite.[1] The Iranian Space Agency director said that Iran is using the satellite to establish broadband communications across the country and test its ability to transmit information on the Ku frequency band, which would enable Iran to transmit data faster and on a greater scale.[2] Iran could use this ostensibly civilian satellite for military communications and systems networking.[3] Russia has now launched five satellites into orbit for Iran since August 2022. Moscow and Tehran have additionally agreed to jointly produce Khayyam satellites, which Iran uses for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).[4] This Russian support to the Iranian space program likely represents the limit of defense-adjacent assistance that the Kremlin is currently prepared to provide. Russia has failed to provide meaningful political and military support to Iran in recent weeks despite Iranian requests and the extensive provision of lethal military equipment to support the Russian war against Ukraine.[5] The Russian ability to give Iran material support at any meaningful scale outside the space program is severely constrained since the Kremlin has committed virtually all its weapons and other military equipment to the war against Ukraine. Russia has likely offered Iran technical support to its space program to partially compensate Tehran.

Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Cooperation  

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become primarily responsible for sustaining the Russian drone industry. Reuters published an investigative report on July 23 detailing how PRC companies have made drone engines and covertly shipped them to Russian military manufacturers—namely the Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant, which is a subsidiary of the Russian state-owned Almaz Antey military industrial giant.[6] PRC companies have labeled the drone engines as “industrial refrigeration units” to hide their actual military purpose, according to Reuters. Russia has used those engines to scale up its production of Garpiya-A1 one-way attack drones, which are reportedly a Russian version of the Iranian Shahed-type drones made with PRC parts.

Ukrainian intelligence sources told Reuters that Russian forces have used around 500 Garpiya-type drones per month against Ukrainian civilian and military targets. The Russian Defense Ministry published footage on July 22 purporting to show Garpiya-type drones striking Ukrainian equipment near Horlivka, Sumy Oblast—the first known footage of the Garpiya-type drone in operation.[7] A Russian Telegram channel posted footage on July 25 reportedly showing a Garpiya-type drone strike on Khortytsya Island in Zaporizhzhia City.[8] Russia is developing the more advanced Garpiya-3 at a factory in the PRC and with the help of PRC technicians.[9]

PRC-origin parts have become an irreplaceable component of the broader Russian drone industry. Ukrainian officials have warned in recent months that the PRC has increasingly provided material support to scale up Russian drone production. The PRC has included technologies that allow Russia to integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning abilities into some drones and extend the range of fiber-optic drones.[10] ISW recently reported that Russian forces have fielded a new reconnaissance and decoy drone that resembles the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 one-way attack drone but is comprised entirely of PRC-origin parts.[11] The drone can carry a warhead of up to 15 kilograms.[12] Russian forces have used the drone to detect and overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses as part of larger strike packages. Almost half the components in these drones come from the PRC CUAV Technology Company, which is based in Guangdong Province and brands itself as specializing in “open-source unmanned systems technology.”[13] ISW has found that most PRC companies that send drone parts to Russia are based in Hong Kong and Guangdong Province, which is an electronics manufacturing hub.[14]

North Korea and Iran have continued to provide critical support to the Russian drone industry as well, helping Russia sustain its war against Ukraine. The Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) published a report on July 28 examining the state of the Russian DIB and the roles that the PRC, Iran, and North Korea play there.[15] The report classified PRC support to Russia as “indispensable,” noting that PRC-origin parts “dominate” Russian DIB imports. The report also found that North Korea has sent “hundreds of thousands of tons” of explosives and ammunition to Russia. North Korean ammunition shipments to Russia now account for nearly 40 percent of all Russian ammunition needs, according to Ukrainian military intelligence sources.[16] KSE noted that Iran has sent a smaller amount of ammunition to Russia via the Caspian Sea and that Iran has also provided Russia with the extensive drone capabilities that Russia uses daily.[17]

Economic and Financial Cooperation

Russia and North Korea have continued to increase their logistical and transit connections. The first direct commercial flight from Moscow to Pyongyang arrived on July 28.[18] The flight carried a delegation headed by Russian Natural Resources Minister Alexander Kozlov.[19] Russian state aviation regulator Rosaviatsia approved in early July 2025 Russian airline Nordwind to operate a direct Moscow-Pyongyang flight once a month.[20] North Korean External Economic Relations Minister Yun Jeong-ho described the launch of direct Russia-North Korean flights as evidence of deepening Russia-North Korea ties that will expand further.[21] Kozlov said that Russia and North Korea are expanding logistics links in all areas, including freight and passenger rail service and a road bridge across the international border along the Tumen River, and said that Russia is considering resuming commercial maritime routes with North Korea.[22]

Increased logistical interconnectivity underscores the strategic partnership that has developed between Russia and North Korea in recent years. Russia and North Korea have significantly increased bilateral cooperation since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. They signed a strategic partnership agreement, which includes a mutual defense clause, in June 2024.[23] Russian President Vladimir Putin has, in recent years, only increased his aggressive posturing toward Ukraine and the West while pursuing stronger cooperation with revisionist actors, such as North Korea. A Russian victory in Ukraine, including freezing the war along its current frontlines, would only highlight that the Kremlin could wage a full-scale illegal war, make provocative threats, and build ties with sanctioned actors with minimal resistance from the West. That lesson could embolden not only Russia but also North Korea—an outcome which could in turn fundamentally alter the security dynamics in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific.

Belarus and other authoritarian states have continued to indicate interest in acquiring PRC technologies related to social control and internal security. Belarusian Internal Affairs Minister Ivan Kubrakov met with PRC Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong in Beijing on July 22.[24] Kubrakov said that Belarus was interested in learning from PRC efforts against organized crime, “extremism and terrorism,” and drug trafficking, with a particular focus on PRC video surveillance and “analysis” units.[25] The PRC continues to widely export techno-authoritarian tools to willing states seeking to maintain repressive control over their populations. Iranian imports of equipment from PRC surveillance companies spiked during the Mahsa Amini protests in late 2022, for example.[26] US officials alleged that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its paramilitary Basij forces used PRC facial recognition and video technologies to surveil and suppress protesters during the 2022 mass demonstrations.[27] The PRC benefits economically from its exports of tools of repression under the guise of helping states "maintain political security,” which Wang gave as the reason for the PRC-Belarusian meeting.[28]

It is unclear precisely which tools or technologies Belarus seeks to import from the PRC. Belarus has not faced considerable social unrest since widespread electoral protests in early 2021, but still relies on a robust internal security apparatus to maintain social control. Belarus relied upon Russian intervention to crack down on the protests, including the unconfirmed deployment of plainclothes Russian security forces to Belarus.[29] Belarus may seek to offset some of its reliance on Russia as its primary security partner through its engagement with the PRC and has generally attempted to diversify its diplomatic contacts with other authoritarian states since 2022. Kubrakov also called for increased PRC-Belarusian personnel training, likely referring to law enforcement or security forces.[30]

Belarus and the PRC have intensified security, defense, and economic cooperation since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Lukashenko recently met with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping in Beijing in June 2025, during which Xi praised Belarus as a “true friend” of the PRC.[31] The two countries conducted combined military exercises for the first time in Belarus in 2024, shortly after Belarus joined the PRC and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).[32] Belarus has likely sought economic and logistical cooperation with the PRC in order to counterbalance its economic reliance on Russia. Increased PRC-Belarus cooperation on internal security issues is likely part of this wider Belarusian effort.

Belarus’s independent economic relationships with other members of the Adversary Entente ultimately benefit Russia and support Russia’s ability to continue fighting in Ukraine. Sino-Belarusian economic cooperation that reinforces the Belarusian economy bolsters Russia’s ability to leverage Belarus as a key sanctions evasion partner. Western sanctions do not target Belarus as strictly as Russia, and the Kremlin uses Belarus to procure sanctioned dual-use goods to support Russian operations in Ukraine.[33] Russia likely seeks to absorb the Belarusian defense industrial base and labor pool to further support Russian operations in Ukraine.[34]

Belarus has also broadened its relationship with Iran since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Iran-Belarus parliamentary friendship group—an official interparliamentary body that facilitates legislative diplomacy and bilateral ties between the two countries—met Belarusian Council of the Republic Speaker Natalia Kochanova in Minsk, Belarus, on July 24.[35] Belarusian parliamentary member Sergei Rachkov confirmed that Belarus seeks to develop the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) in reference to Iran and Belarus’s April 2025 agreement to expand bilateral trade along the INSTC.[36] The INSTC, when completed, will allow Russia and Iran to engage in direct overland trade and avoid sea-based routes vulnerable to international sanctions.[37] Belarus likely seeks to expand trade of Belarusian goods in international markets through its involvement in the INSTC and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which signed a free trade agreement with Iran and went into effect in May 2025.[38] Belarusian-Iranian economic cooperation may also offset Belarus’s economic reliance on Russia but strengthen its economy, which will allow the Kremlin to use Belarus as a more effective sanctions evasion partner.

Political and Diplomatic Cooperation  

Russian President Vladimir Putin likely seeks to exploit US interest in economic relations with the PRC to portray himself as a peacemaker to the United States and secure concessions on the war in Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on July 21 that it is “possible” that Putin and US President Donald Trump will meet in Beijing in September 2025 and that Putin is preparing to travel to Beijing, but that the Kremlin has not heard news that Trump will also travel to Beijing in September.[39] Peskov reiterated on July 28 that a meeting between Trump and Putin cannot be ruled out if Trump and Putin are in Beijing at the same time.[40] The Trump administration has signaled in recent days and weeks that it seeks to pursue a trade deal with the PRC in the near future. Russia appears to be seeking to capitalize on the shift in the United States' immediate focus away from a Russia-Ukraine peace deal and an Iranian nuclear deal.[41] Putin likely hopes to use the US-PRC relationship to renew his effort to portray himself to Trump as a peacemaker after his failure to do so for the Iranian nuclear program and the 12-day Israel-Iran war, and therefore aims to improve US-Russian bilateral relations without pursuing a meaningful diplomatic peace in Ukraine.[42]

[1] https://www.tasnimnews dot com/fa/news/1404/05/03/3360817 ; https://defapress dot ir/fa/news/765147; https://www irna dot ir/news/85896767/; https://www irna dot ir/news/85896767/; https://www irna dot ir/news/85896534/; https://www irna dot ir/news/85896762/

[2] https://www irna dot ir/news/85896762/

[3] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/The Russia-Iran Coalition Deepens 013025.pdf

[4] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/The Russia-Iran Coalition Deepens 013025.pdf

[5] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/adversary-entente-task-force-update-june-18-2025

[6] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/chinese-engines-shipped-cooling-units-power-russian-drones-used-ukraine-2025-07-23/

[7] https://t.me/The_Wrong_Side/24717; https://t.me/mod_russia/54887

[8] https://t.me/The_Wrong_Side/24792

[9] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-produces-new-kamikaze-drone-with-chinese-engine-say-european-intel-2024-09-13/; https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-has-secret-war-drones-project-china-intel-sources-say-2024-09-25/

[10] https://isw.pub/ForceGen061125

[11] https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-force-generation-and-technological-adaptations-update-july-25-2025

[12] https://war-sanctions.gur dot gov.ua/page-uav-4800

[13] https://www.cuav dot net/en/about-us-en/

[14] https://understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/The Strengthening China-Russia Nexus.pdf

[15] https://kse.ua/about-the-school/news/disassembling-russia-s-war-machine-new-kse-institute-report-exposes-chokepoints-in-russia-s-military-industrial-logistics/

[16] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-11/ukraine-spy-chief-says-40-of-russian-ammunition-is-north-korean?embedded-checkout=true

[17] https://kse.ua/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/KSEInstitute_RussianMIC_2.pdf

[18] https://tass dot ru/ekonomika/24643245

[19] https://tass dot ru/ekonomika/24643245

[20] https://tass.ru/ekonomika/24643245

[21] https://tass dot ru/ekonomika/24642433

[22] https://tass dot ru/ekonomika/24642391; https://tass dot ru/ekonomika/24623039

[23] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/north-korea-joins-russias-war-against-ukraine-operational-and-strategic-implications; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/adversary-entente-task-force-update-june-11-2025; https://isw.pub/UkrWar120524;

[24] https://belta dot by/society/view/kitaj-zainteresovan-v-izuchenii-belorusskogo-opyta-v-borbe-s-kiberprestupnostjju-i-obmene-informatsiej-727798-2025; https://en.people dot cn/n3/2025/0723/c90000-20343953.html

[25] https://belta dot by/society/view/kitaj-zainteresovan-v-izuchenii-belorusskogo-opyta-v-borbe-s-kiberprestupnostjju-i-obmene-informatsiej-727798-2025

[26] https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-weighs-sanctions-for-chinese-companies-over-iran-surveillance-buildup-11675503914

[27] https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-weighs-sanctions-for-chinese-companies-over-iran-surveillance-buildup-11675503914

[28] https://belta dot by/society/view/kitaj-zainteresovan-v-izuchenii-belorusskogo-opyta-v-borbe-s-kiberprestupnostjju-i-obmene-informatsiej-727798-2025

[29] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Russia%27s Quiet Conquest Belarus.pdf

[30] https://belta dot by/society/view/kitaj-zainteresovan-v-izuchenii-belorusskogo-opyta-v-borbe-s-kiberprestupnostjju-i-obmene-informatsiej-727798-2025

[31] https://www.fmprc.gov dot cn/eng./xw/zyxw/202506/t20250605_11641419.html; https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-xi-meets-with-lukashenko-all-weather-partner-belarus-2025-06-04/

[32] https://apnews.com/article/belarus-china-military-drill-poland-8558b0e413351caa89cfbb3c4441f016

[33] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Russia%27s Quiet Conquest Belarus.pdf

[34] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Russia%27s Quiet Conquest Belarus.pdf

[35] https://farsnews dot ir/MaryamKarami/1753354130539654281

[36] https://belta dot by/economics/view/rachkov-belarus-razvivaet-strategicheskoe-partnerstvo-s-iranom-728039-2025

[37] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/The Russia-Iran Coalition Deepens 013025.pdf

[38] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/russian-backed-union-free-trade-deal-with-iran-goes-into-effect-2025-05-15/

[39] https://tass dot ru/politika/24567883

[40] https://tass dot ru/politika/24645797

[41] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/us-democrats-republicans-plan-bills-pressure-china-trump-pushes-trade-2025-07-28/; https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/several-us-executives-visit-china-this-week-sources-2025-07-28/; https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-pauses-export-controls-bolster-china-trade-deal-ft-says-2025-07-28/; https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-says-us-is-close-reaching-trade-deal-with-china-2025-07-27/

[42] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/adversary-entente-task-force-update-july-9-2025

3.  Actions create consequences – a telling few days? are we seeing the beginning of actions with consequences? (China/Taiwan) by Dr. Cynthia Watson

Excertps:

The real lesson of the past several days is not merely one on the risk of relying on the United States as the island’s protector, although that is notable. But Lai’s facility as a politician suggests that Taiwan may be considerably determined to declare complete independence than many analysts realized.

The greatest irony is that, despite still measurable support in many quarters of the United States, the last several days have demonstrated the reality of Taiwan’s weakness. One of the questions I have always had is whether Taiwan, relying on de facto protectorate status by the United States, would be satisfied being a distinctly junior partner in the arrangement if the island were to declare independence. Put otherwise, would Taiwan not want independence from Washington as well since the two nations’ interests frequently but never entirely run in parallel rather than in coincidence? I am not convinced perpetual protection is what they seek.

The two decisions by the Trump White House also open our eyes to the president taking the steps he declared during the campaign to eschew forever conflicts, even if it means making a deal with the abhorrent Communists in Zhongnanhai.Despite many of his most determined supporters’ assumption that Trump would confront, then defeat Beijing, this week may signal his determination to prioritize cooperation over confrontation. The administration is only one-eighth complete, so we do not know where Trump sees this relationship going long term, but I suspect his actions on Taiwan engendered anxiety in firmly pro-Taiwan quarters as well.

Elections created consequences in Asia and the United States last year. Where this will all lead, the full extent of the consequences, remains a play in progress since the world seems more prone than ever these days to change in policy.

Actions create consequences

3

8

a telling few days?

are we seeing the beginning of actions with consequences?

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/a-telling-few-days?utm

Cynthia Watson

Jul 30, 2025

I am mindful of not becoming a “one-trick pony” in this column. Indeed, the list of actions creating consequences in our contemporary era is long, rich, and worthy of our consideration, but I must return to Taiwan today. It’s been a tough few days for the ruling leader, “William” Lai (Lai Ching-ti) and those seeking to reconfigure Taiwan, while doubts within and about U.S. behavior towards the PRC mount.

As I have mentioned many times, Taiwan is a remarkable place in several ways. A beautiful island with 24 million residents on the Tropic of Cancer, well west of Hawai’i, its economic and social transformation over the seventy-six years of de facto sovereignty is a tribute to the islanders’ grit, policy choices, and U.S. support. Even more noteworthy is the institutionalized democracy under which the government has been operating for almost five decades, an accomplishment following decades of harsh authoritarian rule. Many today see democracy with great admiration, if not envy.

Millions of Americans support Taiwan’s right to self-governance in the face of the CCP, non-democratic rulers only a hundred miles to the west, demanding that the islanders reunify with the mainland. If the Taiwan population continues to ignore that mandate, five General Secretaries of the CCP threaten to use force to achieve the eventuality. Americans don’t like to see underdogs bullied, particularly by a ruthless dictatorial government, so we have a curious arrangement that perhaps includes U.S. forces to ensure Beijing does not carry out its threat. We may have broken formal ties with Taipei on 1 January 1979, but we are entranced with their determination to avoid living under communism.

While the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 encapsulates strategic ambiguity rather than a guarantee of U.S. military intervention on the island’s behalf, most analysts have long expected that we would use our armed forces against Chinese forceable reunification efforts. President George W. Bush in 2001, then President Joe Biden multiple times, spoke passionately about defending Taiwan, but advisers to both reined back expectations of iron-clad commitments. U.S. military advisors work with Taiwan’s defense forces to strengthen the country as their vulnerability grows.

This week, however, the tenuous reality of Taiwan’s strengths and weaknesses became clear. I can only imagine this rebuttal of our relationship mortified Taiwan’s supporters in the United States, as it unnerved the islanders themselves, who are still absorbing the shock of an unequivocal message.

Democracies, particularly healthy ones like Taiwan’s, rely on public opinion through elections. The Guomindang, frequently known as the KMT, began ruling Taiwan in the late 1940s when the Party brought the remnants of the Republic of China to the island. The Guomindang president Chiang Ching-kuo loosened the Party’s stranglehold on governance in the mid-1980s to facilitate what became a vibrant multi-party political environment. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), an environmentalist/Taiwanese nationalist movement based in the southern portion of the island, won the presidency with a plurality in 2000, then managed to win four of the subsequent five presidential campaigns, including Lai’s victory a year and a half ago.

The Guomindang, however, has retained considerable strength, if not the most significant number of seats, in the Legislative Yuan (Congress equivalent). The DPP and several other smaller parties captured sufficient seats to demote the KMT in 2016 in conjunction with Tsai Ing-wen’s first victory as president. KMT preferences for better relations with the mainland, as a portion of their political platform, appeal to a significant portion of those who vote in LY elections.

KMT legislators regularly disparage budgets to increase the island’s military capacity, however. KMT opposition over the past quarter century to significant spending on a modern military retarded Taiwan’s hopes of keeping up with a modernizing People’s Liberation Army. It was only under Tsai Ing-wen between 2016 and 2024 that any serious steps at modernizing personnel policies and procuring appropriate weapons systems began to take hold. Still, Taiwan’s avowed adversary across the Strait had dramatically shifted the military “balance” across the Straight by that juncture.

Earlier this year, frustrated citizens who feared Legislative Yuan problems under the GMT leadership organized a recall election for more than two dozen KMT legislators in hopes of altering the balance of power in Taiwan. That election, focusing on the KMT’s enduring preference for better relations with Beijing, coincided with concerns about former KMT president—the sole KMT president since 2000—Ma Ying-jeou, who has made several personal trips to the mainland while criticizing the DPP’s unwillingness to ponder reunification in any form.

Despite anticipation of some success, voters chose on 26 July to recall none of the KMT members. A further vote later this year for another dozen now appears similarly unlikely to end the narrow KMT margin of control.

The recall was not technically a DPP-driven action, but the message to President Lai was clear. Lai, a politician whose inauguration speech upset Beijing in May 2024, is more aggressive in his stance against the mainland than was his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, a lawyer who deftly navigated pressures to implement some much-needed military reforms, but still had to operate under KMT fiscal controls.

Lai did not initially associate himself with the recall, but ten speeches to commemorate his first year in office took on a more combative tone when delivered. Perhaps the electorate did not agree with his thrust on the island’s autonomy. Maybe the voters are having second thoughts about KMT suggestions of better relations with the mainland. A third possible option is that as Taiwan’s demographics decline in sync with those across Northeast Asia, families are becoming ever more resistant to sending their oft-single children into combat if Beijing were to initiate action to force reunification. Perhaps the electorate simply prefers divided government, a not uncommon stance in democracies, to prevent too much military spending or some other policy question.

The reality, however, was that the complete collapse of the recall campaign shows a significant divide between those fearing the KMT’s pernicious effects and those seeking to put Taiwan on a different course.

Two foreign policy setbacks by the Trump administration only made irritation worse. For over twenty years, Taiwan’s leaders have made stops in the United States under the guise of comfort and safety in transit to their few allies in Latin America. The stopovers annoy Beijing, but both break up the long transit from the island while showing that Taiwan’s supporters welcome the island’s elected leaders. Additionally, these stops offer Taiwan’s presidents the opportunity to meet supporters in the United States, if not U.S. government officials, who traditionally do not visit the island with which we have no formal diplomatic relations. On a particularly noteworthy trip for President Tsai to Latin America, then Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy met with her (following the unique visit to Taiwan by his predecessor Nancy Pelosi, leading Beijing to initiate markedly more prominent military PLAN maneuvers around the island).

The Trump administration, according to press reports, refused Lai’s request for such a stopover next month. This rebuttal to a standing activity was noteworthy.

It occurred coincident with the U.S. administration’s cancellation of the Republic of China Defense Minister’s visit to Washington for Defense Consultative Talks, a decades-long event both to consider Taiwan’s military procurement from U.S. sources and better understand policy questions on both sides of the Pacific.

Both actions by the Trump administration stem from concerns that current tariff negotiations between the United States and the PRC are too fragile to tolerate Beijing’s fury at Washington violating the essence of our diplomatic protocols. Beijing’s position, since the United States shifted diplomatic relations to the PRC from the Republic of China in 1979, is that we either recognize Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China or we choose to have relations with Taiwan at the cost of our ties with the PRC. Since bilateral trade alone is worth multi-billions of dollars to U.S. businesses, the reality of our preference to maintain that relationship outweighs concerns about Beijing coercing the island of 24 million.

Beijing knows this is President Trump’s priority, so they acted on his desire for a tariff agreement by making noise about our peculiar (in international law) arrangement with Taiwan. The White House is currently deeply involved in negotiations with trading partners to satisfy the president’s vow to make tariffs revive the U.S. economy. His repeated concerns about predecessor administrations falling prey to Zhongnanhai’s better negotiating skills raise the stakes for a deal, meaning any obstacle that incites Beijing to pause talks is most welcome. Beijing has complained for forty-five years about Taipei’s unseemly steps towards any form of independence, so reiterating these irritations to the current administration amid the sensitive trade talks was a confluence of interests that leaves Taipei out of the decision-making.

One has to wonder whether Beijing seriously intends to negotiate at all since it may believe, based on Trump’s steps to rein in Taiwan, China holds the cards. Negotiations are underway this week so we should know before long but Xi Jinping must feel satisfied with his government’s position as the CCP leadership retrieat in Beidahe takes likely place this week (the entire event is a mystery but usually transpires in early August as temperatures are so unbearable inland).

Additionally, we all must recall that Candidate Trump campaigned vigorously, particularly in the run-up to 2024, to assure voters here that he would not prolong U.S. actions associated with “forever wars”, a possible description of conflict between Beijing and Taipei. What the president would do if confronted with the actual use of force against the island is another matter, as he does appear riled by leaders of other countries who ignore his dicta. Still, he sounds considerably less convinced that Taiwan deserves U.S. military support in the event of a conflict. As accurate as so many things in our world, it would come down to details, I suspect.

I am confident, however, that the events of the past few days made for a dreadful week for those on the island who took for granted unquestioned U.S. support long-term or a certainty that Taiwan is on a trajectory towards abandoning any hope of reconciliation with the mainland. It’s seductive to assume the trade negotiations are the sole reason for the cancellations, but the reason may be more than trade. President Trump has been lukewarm to Taipei’s level of fiscal commitment to its defense. He has also praised Xi Jinping’s strength as a leader for the better part of the past decade, raising questions about whether he envisions a different configuration of power in the western Pacific, despite U.S. supporters expecting him to take aggressive action to balance growing PRC assertiveness around the world.

In the final analysis, President Lai and his strongest supporters must feel frustrated, if not worried. Lai won the 2024 presidential election by earning a plurality, at just over 40% of votes, rather than an outright majority. Voters chose to redistribute power in the LY in 2024 by taking the DPP from the majority it had held for the prior eight years. One has to wonder whether popular support peaked for Taiwan taking positions so prone to incite armed response?

The real lesson of the past several days is not merely one on the risk of relying on the United States as the island’s protector, although that is notable. But Lai’s facility as a politician suggests that Taiwan may be considerably determined to declare complete independence than many analysts realized.

The greatest irony is that, despite still measurable support in many quarters of the United States, the last several days have demonstrated the reality of Taiwan’s weakness. One of the questions I have always had is whether Taiwan, relying on de facto protectorate status by the United States, would be satisfied being a distinctly junior partner in the arrangement if the island were to declare independence. Put otherwise, would Taiwan not want independence from Washington as well since the two nations’ interests frequently but never entirely run in parallel rather than in coincidence? I am not convinced perpetual protection is what they seek.

The two decisions by the Trump White House also open our eyes to the president taking the steps he declared during the campaign to eschew forever conflicts, even if it means making a deal with the abhorrent Communists in Zhongnanhai.Despite many of his most determined supporters’ assumption that Trump would confront, then defeat Beijing, this week may signal his determination to prioritize cooperation over confrontation. The administration is only one-eighth complete, so we do not know where Trump sees this relationship going long term, but I suspect his actions on Taiwan engendered anxiety in firmly pro-Taiwan quarters as well.

Elections created consequences in Asia and the United States last year. Where this will all lead, the full extent of the consequences, remains a play in progress since the world seems more prone than ever these days to change in policy.

I welcome your thoughts on Taiwan the mainland, the White House, or any other topic. I certainly do know have all of the answers but welcome readers’ analyses. I appreciate your time, knowing your voice will help expand our civil, measured discussion on one of the most intricate policy challenges of our age. Please chime in.

I appreciate the subscribers who offer me resources to expand my work. $55 annually is barely a dollar a day, or $8 monthly advance this work. I welcome all readers, however.

The Chesapeake is beastly today. I look forward to a cool down later this week as we welcome August but that seems ages away.

Be well and be safe. FIN

AFP, Reuters, “China calls him ‘the instigator of war’. Who is Taiwan’s next leader William Lai?”, SBSNews.com.au, 14 January 2024, retrieved at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/china-calls-him-the-instigator-of-war-who-is-taiwans-next-leader-william-lai/xdcpas8rs

Brian Hioe, “Lai’s Speeches About Recalls, Not Efforts to Shift Cross-Strait Relations”, NewBloomMagazine.com, 30 June 2025, retrieved at https://newbloommag.net/2025/06/30/lai-ten-speeches/

Keoni Everington, “Trump axed Taiwan defense minister’s trip to US over Chinese pressure”, TaiwanNews.com, 30 July 2025, retrieved at https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/6167389

Stephen McDonell, “Biden says US will defend Taiwan if China attacks”, BBC.com, 21 October 2021, retrieved at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59005300

Demetri Sevastopulo and Kathrin Hille, “Trump blocks Taiwan’s President Lai from New York Stopover”, FinancialTimes.com, 28 July 2025, retrieved at ft.com/content/21575bec-5cdd-47ee-9db2-3031c4ea7ca7

Courtney Donovan Smith, “Donovan’s Deep Dives: The real winner in the recalls”, TaipeiTimes.com, 29 July 2025, retrieved at https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2025/07/29/2003841082

4. Army secretary removes former CISA director from new role at West Point after far-right backlash

​Another professional "Loomered."

I guess Loomer is the shadow head of OPM.

Army secretary removes former CISA director from new role at West Point after far-right backlash

Far-right activists, including Laura Loomer, called out Jen Easterly online and criticized her time leading the cyber agency.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/30/jen-easterly-cisa-west-point-dan-driscoll-00484865

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll directed the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to terminate an agreement with Jen Easterly, the former director of CISA, to serve as a distinguished chair. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

By Maggie Miller

07/30/2025 04:36 PM EDT

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll on Wednesday directed the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to terminate an agreement with Jen Easterly, the former head of the nation’s cyber defense agency under the Biden administration, to serve as a distinguished chair.

The move came after far-right activists targeted Easterly online and criticized her time leading the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Easterly departed from the agency in January when President Donald Trump took office.

Driscoll posted a letter to X on Wednesday announcing the move to pull Easterly from her role as the Robert F. McDermott Distinguished Chair at West Point’s Department of Social Sciences. The memo also directed that West Point immediately pause the selection of staff at the school by any groups outside the government, and directed West Point to conduct a review of its hiring policies.

In a statement sent to POLITICO, the Army said that “ahead of the upcoming academic year, we are crafting a deliberate approach to ensure that our future officers are best prepared to meet the demands of the modern battlefield.”

A person familiar with the move, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said Wednesday that Driscoll is looking to assert more control over the hiring process at West Point, and that Easterly was recommended by a West Point alumni association group. The person also noted that the role only involved a handful of lectures on campus each year; the Chair is not a full-time teaching position and any costs incurred are not paid for by West Point or the Army.

The Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents Easterly in speaking engagements, did not respond to a request for comment. Easterly is a graduate of West Point and served in the Army for two decades before taking on a role on the National Security Council under the Obama administration, and later being confirmed by the Senate to lead CISA in 2021.

“At the time of graduation, I actually had little intention to stay in the Army past my five-year commitment, but I fell in love with being a soldier and a life of service to the nation,” Easterly wrote on LinkedIn last month as part of a post on the anniversary of her graduation from West Point.

The decision came hours after far-right activist Laura Loomer posted on X Tuesday night, tagging Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, that the hiring process at West Point was “horrendous.”

Loomer cited Easterly’s leadership of CISA at the time that the Department of Homeland Security, which CISA is under, decided to hire Nina Jankowicz as president of the Disinformation Governance Board, which was disbanded in 2022 after accusations of partisan bias from conservative media and Republicans.

Following Driscoll’s decision to remove Easterly on Wednesday, Loomer posted on X that “this is the way,” and that “all Biden holdovers must be removed from the Trump administration.”

Other far-right influencers were vocal on X following Loomer’s first post. These included Wade Miller, a senior adviser at the Center for Renewing America, a think tank founded by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought; and Sean Davis, CEO and co-founder of conservative publication The Federalist.

“Jen Easterly ran CISA and directed its multi-year, illegal censorship operation against conservative media, including me personally and @FDRLST, the news publication I run,” Davis posted on X.

CISA has been criticized by Republican lawmakers for its work on countering disinformation since the 2020 presidential election, when the agency pushed back against election-related disinformation on social media. The agency’s then-Director Chris Krebs was fired shortly after the 2020 presidential election, after CISA joined other election committees in putting out a statement claiming the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”

Trump targeted Krebs again earlier this year, signing an executive order stripping Krebs of his security clearance and directing the Justice Department to investigate his time in government.

Paul McLeary contributed to this report.

• Filed Under: 
• Cyber Security, 
• Jen Easterly

5. Inside Ukraine’s Effort to Fortify Hundreds of Miles of Defensive Lines

Inside Ukraine’s Effort to Fortify Hundreds of Miles of Defensive Lines

Kyiv must install hundreds of lines of defense fast enough to outpace Russia’s advance

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukraine-defense-construction-russia-war-d72f2d29

By Matthew Luxmoore

Follow

 and Nikita Nikolaienko | Photographs by Manu Brabo for WSJ

July 30, 2025 11:00 pm ET

Key Points

What's This?

• Ukraine is building extensive defenses, including trenches and obstacles, to halt Russia’s summer offensive in the east.
• The defensive construction effort faces challenges, including delays, attacks, corruption allegations and evolving battlefield tactics.
• Ukraine is adapting its fortifications to counter Russian tactics, such as drone warfare, while also using traditional defenses.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine—A line of antitank ditches and barbed wire cuts through the sunflower fields all the way to the horizon here in Ukraine’s battle-scarred east, fortifications the country bets it can lay fast and far enough to halt Russia’s summer offensive. But the defensive gamble is facing increasingly long odds.

Kyiv is in the midst of its most ambitious defensive construction effort to date, erecting obstacles and carving up the earth to thwart manned and unmanned assaults. While riflemen scan the sky for enemy robots, Ukraine’s own drone operators sit below them in an extensive network of subterranean dugouts.

“The army that digs deeper is the army that survives,” said Col. Oleh Rezunenko, a military engineer overseeing a nearly 200-mile section of the mammoth project.

Well into its second year, the wider front-line program has been beset by delays, attacks and arrests for alleged corruption. It now faces being overrun by the enemy it is trying to repel.

Rezunenko’s entrenchments, including miles of waist-high concrete pyramids, start from the Kharkiv region in the north and reach as far south as Zaporizhzhia. “Our main task is to dig as quickly and as deeply as we can.”

The challenge is to hold back a Russian army bolstered by thousands of fresh recruits whom Moscow is throwing into battle for only small or symbolic gains. Ukraine’s understaffed units are struggling to defend against the onslaught as Russia shifts tactics daily and slowly chews through territory.

Ukraine’s defensive fortifications are part of its most ambitious defensive construction effort to date.

Over the past 18 months, Moscow’s troops have pierced several weak spots on the Ukrainian line, and taken advantage of slacker defenses in the north to begin a new push involving some 50,000 soldiers.

Ukraine is now hoping that installing a triple row of fortifications will prevent similar breakthroughs in the east, where Russia is pushing to capture the key cities of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka. But gaps in the entrenchments have prompted some soldiers to warn that a patchy defensive belt could end up like the Maginot Line, the ambitious French fortifications that were bypassed by the Germans in World War II.

Erecting the new defenses is also proving to be like building an airplane while flying it.

Rezunenko’s regiment has come under relentless Russian drone attacks, which also target their pickups and excavators. They have lost industrial equipment to strikes over the past three months and several dozen soldiers have been injured, Rezunenko says. The Wall Street Journal accompanied the regiment on a recent excursion to inspect fortifications being built in the Donetsk region, a part of the front along which Russia is actively pressing its offensive.

The first line of defense is built by front-line troops, while teams like Rezunenko’s dig the next line back. Regional civilian administrations are responsible for the third entrenchment, ringing key cities and reinforcing the borders of some regions. Each layer is designed to stop Russian troops in their tracks. 

Ukrainian fortifications

1

Layer of low-visibility barbed wire and thin metal coils

Two wide entanglement lines, followed by barbed wire and anti-personnel mines

2

Antitank ditch

A ditch four meters in width and depth, abutting a tall earth berm

3

Terrain section with ‘dragon’s teeth’

A wide area of interconnected ‘dragon’s teeth’ cement obstacles

4

Second antitank ditch

These are filled with barbed wire and dug deep to entrap enemy soldiers and vehicles

5

Third antitank ditch

Combined with minefields of mixed-type Antitank mines

6

Second layer of barbed wire and thin metal coil

LAYOUT of DEFENSIVE LINES

Direction of enemy attack

▼

1

2

3

4

5

6

Source: Ukrainian military

Andrew Barnett/WSJ

The government says it allocated more than 46 billion hryvnia, equivalent to $1.1 billion, for defensive construction in 2024, close to 2% of Ukraine’s military spending for the year. Officials say this year’s amount is far greater but haven’t disclosed the figure.

“We’re using all the resources at our disposal,” said Ivan Fedorov, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, where Russian artillery and glide bombs have slammed into defensive construction sites. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

The speed of innovation on the battlefield means elements of the entrenchments could be obsolete by the time any Russians reach the second or third line of defense.

At the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, soldiers fought in long trench lines designed to protect company-size units from artillery. Today, small explosive drones are so ubiquitous and can penetrate such small gaps in defenses that protecting soldiers from them is the priority.

That means Ukraine’s trenches must now be built deeper underground, with dugouts for small groups of troops and command posts for drone pilots with antidrone nets and metal grids. Battlefield features in military textbooks—observation posts overlooking miles of spacious trenches—are becoming outdated.

“Fortifications remain important, but less so than over the past two years,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst who recently toured parts of Ukraine’s front line.

Rezunenko, a 55-year-old veteran of the Soviet and Ukrainian armed forces, says the 1,000 workers he oversees build smaller trench lines than in the past but more of them, and twice as fast. A dozen of them now take just three weeks to build a section of trench equipped with foxholes and sleeping quarters for a squad of soldiers.

Because Russia’s armored-vehicle stocks are running low, its troops are often dispatched in small groups on motorbikes and buggies. Rezunenko’s teams counter this with a dense layer of hard-to-see thin metal coils, designed to entangle advancing troops and vehicles and turn them into drone targets.

Col. Oleh Rezunenko, a military engineer overseeing a nearly 200-mile section of the project, climbs up a mound of earth.

Obstacles known as ‘dragon’s teeth’ serve as protection against tanks.

Still, Ukraine’s military command continues to value more traditional defenses, such as antitank ditches, because Russia deploys combined-arms warfare that draws on old and new battle techniques.

“We study what the enemy is doing, and we adapt the defenses we build,” said Serhiy Aborin, the chief of staff of Rezunenko’s unit, the 23rd Engineering-Positional Regiment of Ukraine’s Support Forces, on a tour of positions this month.

For every worker constructing defenses, Rezunenko has two others with rifles on watch for drones. “As soon as you relax,” said one worker who was toiling in 100-degree heat. “Expect instant comeuppance.”

Ukraine knows all about being bogged down by enemy defenses. Its troops and their Western-supplied arms got caught in Russia’s own multilayered trench lines and antitank ditches during Kyiv’s major counteroffensive in the summer of 2023. 

The setback spurred Ukraine’s current fortification effort. At the time, President Volodymyr Zelensky called for accelerated construction, and urged private companies and donors to get involved.

But it wasn’t sufficient to hold back Russian forces whose tanks and troops poured across a badly defended stretch of Ukraine’s northern border near Kharkiv the following spring. Ukraine’s antitank obstacles—often called “dragon’s teeth”—were overturned, littering the landscape, according to images posted online by local journalists. Soldiers criticized Ukraine’s military command for a lack of adequate preparation.

A Ukrainian soldier looks out for drones during an inspection of new fortifications.

Local authorities in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, were left to dig trenches while gas-station owners fortified refuel pumps with sandbags. The Russians never reached the city. Earlier this month, a court arrested Kharkiv’s former deputy mayor on allegations of embezzling government funds allocated for fortifications.

Now, the Russians are just 12 miles from Sumy, a regional capital in northern Ukraine, and soldiers there warn of a similar lack of proper defenses. One infantryman said that when Ukraine was in Russia’s Kursk region, across the border from Sumy, it should have used the time to prepare strong entrenchments at home.

“We had an opportunity to strengthen the northern part of the front,” but failed to do so, he said in a phone interview. 

On retreat from Kursk earlier this year, the soldier said his unit found outdated trenches with no overhead cover from Russian drones. Ukraine has since taken back three villages from the Russians and is establishing stronger defensive positions near Sumy.

Back in the east, Rezunenko’s regiment is around two-thirds of the way to completing its line, which will be mined should the Russians come close.

The colonel, whose two sons have been wounded in the fighting, says Ukraine should live by the Roman adage: If you want peace, prepare for war.

“Our regiment will continue building,” even after the conflict is over, he said. “I failed to protect my children from war. At least I’ll protect my grandkids.”

A Ukrainian civilian with his cows near the fortifications.

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

Appeared in the July 31, 2025, print edition as 'Kyiv’s Biggest Defensive Effort Might Fall Short'.

6. Trump threatens trade deal over Canada's Palestine stance

U.S. News July 31, 2025 / 5:01 AM

Trump threatens trade deal over Canada's Palestine stance

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/07/31/Trump-Canada-trade-deal/7881753950001/

By Darryl Coote

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. On Wednesday night, Trump threatened trade negotiations between their two countries after Carney said Canada would recognize a Palestinian state. File Photo by Francis Chung/UPI | License Photo

July 31 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump late Wednesday threatened the potential of a trade deal between the United States and Canada, after Ottawa said it would recognize a Palestinian state.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made the announcement earlier Wednesday, stating it would officially make the mostly symbolic move in September at the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump took to his Truth Social late Wednesday to deride the announcement.

"Wow!" he said in the statement. "That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them."

Related

• Witkoff to discuss 'humanitarian catastrophe' in Gaza with Israelis
• Dutch government expels top Israeli officials over Gaza, commits aid
• Global hunger body says 'worst case' famine scenario emerging in Gaza

Canada and the United States have been in an escalating trade war since Trump came into office in January, and repeatedly slapped tariffs on the United States closest ally and one of its most significant trading partners, with an additional 35% tariff set to go into effect Friday unless a deal is struck first.

Carney, whose Liberal Party won the federal election in late April while riding an anti-Trump sentiment, has since sought to lessen Ottawa's dependency on Washington, while referring to Trump's stance toward his northern neighbor as a "betrayal."

The two countries have been in trade negotiations since late June, after Carney shelved the Digital Services Tax, with expectations of having a deal finished by July 21.

During the press conference Wednesday when he announced the decision to recognize a Palestinian state, Carney said they were still working to reach a deal with the United States.

"Negotiations will continue until we do," he said, adding that his top trade officials will remain in Washington "in pursuit of that goal."

Trump has staunchly objected to a Palestinian state and has been an ally to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war against Hamas in Gaza.

The American president's warning came as his so-called Liberation Day tariffs were set to go into effect for countries that have yet to make a deal with the United States.

Britain, the European Union and South Korea are among some of the countries that were successful in carving out deals with the American president ahead of Friday.

Trump has already imposed a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports not subject to the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, as well as a 10% tariff on energy products, a 25% tariff on all cars and trucks built north of the border and a 50% tariff on aluminum and steel imports.

Canada has responded with a slew of retaliatory tariffs, while specific provinces have banned alcohol from the United States.

Several countries have come forward to recognize a Palestinian state as the war has dragged on and the death toll has continued to climb.

Spain, Norway and Ireland formally recognized Palestinian statehood in late May, with France announcing it would recognize a Palestinian state late last week. And Britain has recently said it will recognize a Palestinian state if a cease-fire doesn't come into effect soon.

The war began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.

Since then, Israel has devastated Gaza, killing some 60,000 people.

7. Trump's Tariffs Drive ASEAN Closer to China

Politics

Trump's Tariffs Drive ASEAN Closer to China

ASEAN refrains from retaliating

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/trump-tariffs-drive-asean-closer-china?utm

Jul 30, 2025

∙ Paid

By: B A Hamzah

Trump: like it or lump it

Driven by his obsession with MAGA strategy, US President Donald Trump seems determined to arrest America’s decline by weaponizing tariffs, with the ASEAN countries in the bullseye, expected to pay a significant price if they don’t align their interests with Washington’s. For example, the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations treaty organization stand to lose critical economic diversification as they become more integrated with China’s massive markets, although this is not a new phenomenon. The entire maritime states in Southeast Asia have been doing business-mainly barter trading of exotic products-for thousands of years before even the arrival of the Western powers in the region.

Trump seems to ignore this historical relationship, pushing them to close ranks with the US as it confronts a China that they do not regard as a threat. The dilemma persists: those who resist the US overtures may lose access to US military support, intelligence cooperation, and training facilities.

However, the action of switching political alliances which involve intricate considerations of national interests, economic and security concerns is a calculated move to minimize any such adverse impact. ASEAN’s leaders are not blind to the challenges. They have been on the lookout for alternative markets (like BRICS). Almost all member countries, including Singapore, the only economy that runs a trade deficit balance with the US, are strategizing on how to improve their respective trade balances with the US. However, it is not in their DNA, nor likely their best interest, to retaliate.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia has emerged as a key figure in attempting to steer ASEAN toward a unified response. As ASEAN Chair, to date, Malaysia has failed to bring about any result, partly because the tariffs target countries individually, which complicates any joint effort. While ASEAN can talk about unity all it wants, when it comes to action, every country is on its own. One by one, they have been falling in line to assume onerous tariff burdens. Collective effort is further undermined by policy fragmentation. Although the treaty organization has a larger population base than the EU, with 27 members and a Custom Union, its economies are less integrated. Intra-EU trade is almost three times larger than ASEAN’s. This factor alone gives the EU a stronger retaliatory voice.

The EU is likely to receive better treatment after agreeing to buy US weapons for Ukraine to fight Russia. The arm sales, worth billions of US dollars, will reduce the EU’s total deficit with the US. At the same time, the decision by NATO countries to hike defense expenditures to 5 percent annually means more business for America and further reduces the trade deficits over time.

Compared with the EU, which has temporarily suspended countermeasures against Trump’s tariffs in the hope of getting a better deal before August 1, ASEAN doesn’t have the same economic, political, military, and cultural clout to retaliate. While the EU’s strength lies in its internal market cohesiveness, ASEAN’s biggest challenge is from within, quietly fracturing along strategic lines between countries leaning toward China and those aligning with the US. Such strategic fault lines can dilute its collective ability to act as a group even AS the member states muster the political will to act swiftly. Notwithstanding the fragile structural problem within ASEAN, the leaders have resigned to the fact that the Trump administration is not likely to change its mind on ASEAN’s (except for the Philippines) preference for China.

As the member countries prioritize their economic survival over strategic alignment, as a group, they have refrained from retaliating, not because they agreed with Trump but because they fear his unpredictability could further damage the goodwill and civility they have established with the US before he became President.

But despite early appeasement by a few member states, the overall coercive trade policy may backfire as the ASEAN member states’ economies become more integrated with the Chinese market. This will defeat the purpose of Trump’s policy of using tariffs to undermine Beijing. Trump is playing with economic fire, bullying the Asean countries into abandoning relationships with neighboring China that span thousands of years for the US, despite the current ongoing squabble over ownership of the South China Sea. The strategic, security, and political disagreements far outweigh mere trade statistics — and blunt economic threats will only harden ASEAN's instinct to hedge rather than to bandwagon with Washington.

For ASEAN, true strategic strength lies not in choosing between the United States and China, but in maintaining a careful balance that preserves economic freedom, political autonomy, and regional stability. It is also a manifestation of sovereignty and pride. The rise of China and the decline of Pax Americana reflect a historical reality: “that all empires, no matter how powerful, eventually decline and fall”.

Driven by his obsession with MAGA strategy, Trump seems determined to attempt to arrest America’s decline by weaponizing tariffs. The ASEAN countries are expected to pay a significant price if they do not align their interests with Washington. For example, Asean countries can lose critical economic diversification as they become more integrated with China’s massive markets although this is not a new phenomenon. The entire maritime states in SEA have been doing business, mainly barter trading of exotic products, for thousands of years before even the arrival of the Western powers in the region.

President Trump seems to ignore this historical relationship as he pushes for them to close ranks with the US as it confronts a China that they do not regard as a threat. The dilemma persists: those who resist the US overtures may lose access to US military support, intelligence cooperation, and training facilities.

However, the action of switching political alliances, which involves intricate considerations of national interests, economic and security concerns, is a calculated move to minimize any such adverse impact. The Asean leaders are not blind to the challenges when they decide to switch political alliances between the rival powers.

China has long been trying to pull ASEAN closer through initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), RCEP trade agreement, and bilateral investments. Tariffs from the U.S. would make ASEAN countries more dependent on China that provides access to a growing alternative market, more investment, and at the same time, Southeast Asia's proximity to mainland China makes the region a preferred China Plus One destination.

Trump's tariffs on ASEAN have accelerated Southeast Asia’s pivot toward China and will weaken Washington’s position in the region without the latter firing a shot. Geopolitically, this means China’s influence in ASEAN will grow even faster, and US influence will shrink, wasting the efforts of the previous administration to shore up alliances in the region. Meanwhile, Beijing will present itself as the "responsible and steady partner” as it cements its primacy in Asia.

B A Hamzah is a former Director General of the Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA), a former Fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia, and a regular contributor to Asia Sentinel on ASEAN affairs. The views are his own. He can be reached at bahamzah8@hotmail.com

8. How to Lose the Drone War – American Military Doctrine Is Stifling Innovation

​Quite the allegations against the US military.

Excerpts:

The United States has largely missed this revolution in military technology. Although Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has promised to “unleash American drone dominance,” so far the United States’ drone arsenal remains dominated by the larger, more expensive systems it pioneered a decade ago. New drone programs such as the air force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) or the army’s Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance are still in prototype and far from cheap. The air force’s CCA is estimated at $15 million to $20 million per unit; the army’s much smaller drone will still cost between $70,000 and $170,000. Even if the military bought more drones than it currently plans to, it is unclear whether U.S. companies could produce anywhere near the approximately 200,000 drones that Ukraine has been using monthly.

To take advantage of the drone revolution, it will not be enough for the United States to focus on building capacity—more funding, more production, faster acquisition. The country’s civilian and defense leaders will have to more fundamentally question the ideas that have long shaped the U.S. military and its campaigns. The United States’ delay in adopting the new generation of drones is a product of strong convictions that it acquired over the past 60 years of fighting wars: that it could, and should, leverage remotely operated technology to win quick conflicts fought from a distance. The United States believed that it could rely on relatively expensive drone technology to save pilots’ lives, deliver real-time intelligence straight to decision-makers, and enable precision targeting.

​I like a focus on the basics, the fundamentals, blocking and tackling. But who wants to fight wars of attrition? And is keeping commanders "longer than their current tenure" even feasible?

Excerpts:

BACK TO BASICS

If the United States wants to fight and win wars of attrition—the kind of war in which Ukraine is now using drones to great effect—it will need more low-cost drones attached to combat units that can adapt quickly to counter-drone efforts. But it cannot simply copy the Ukrainian (or Israeli) drone strategies. Before rushing toward procurement, U.S. defense strategists need to articulate a new theory of victory, reviewing the beliefs and assumptions that undergirded the last 50 years of technological acquisitions.

For half a century, the United States built a military based on the belief that the American public would not sacrifice its blood but would be willing to spend its treasure. As the deficit balloons and the U.S. electorate shows an increased appetite to punish presidents for inflation and wasteful government programs, U.S. leaders can no longer simply assume they can throw money at expensive technologies to mitigate their own political risk. At the same time, the belief that dominated the 1980s and 1990s—that unmanned technology would create quicker wars fought from a greater distance—is being challenged. The use of drones in European and Middle Eastern theaters is enabling even closer-range conflict: mines, trench warfare, and civilian targeting. None of these have been at the core of U.S. strategy since Vietnam.

The Trump administration must carefully consider whether the U.S. military should adopt drone technology that enables these kinds of warfare in the context of a broader examination of the United States’ military strategy. Only then can it align the U.S. defense budget (and drone investments) toward clear strategic priorities. In the past, secretaries of defense have successfully navigated inter-service budget fights by transferring programs out of individual services or taking them over directly, firing services’ chiefs of staff, and lobbying Congress to allocate funds for specific programs. Not only does Congress need to make the military acquisition process faster and more efficient; it also needs to enable more bottom-up innovation, allowing combat commanders and smaller units to procure and manage their own drone programs. This will require significant legislative reform on the scale of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which made sweeping changes to the Department of Defense. Refreshing U.S. defense strategy may also require tenacious leadership within the armed services, including the appointment of commanders whose tenure is longer than the current norm.

The American military has been seduced by its operational and tactical successes but has fallen short of maintaining the strategic edge it needs to succeed in the conflicts of the twenty-first century. Without reevaluating the American way of war, no amount of new drones will be able to defend the United States against wars it doesn’t want to fight.

How to Lose the Drone War

Foreign Affairs · by More by Jacquelyn Schneider · July 31, 2025

American Military Doctrine Is Stifling Innovation

July 31, 2025

A drone flying during a U.S.-led military exercise, Xanthi, Greece, June 2025 Louisa Gouliamaki / Reuters

JACQUELYN SCHNEIDER is a Hargrove Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Director of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative, and an affiliate with Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

JULIA MACDONALD is Director of Research and Engagement at the Asia New Zealand Foundation and a Senior Fellow at the Victoria University of Wellington’s Centre for Strategic Studies.

• More by Julia Macdonald

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Only a decade ago, the United States was the world’s leading drone innovator, flying Predators and Reapers to target and kill terrorists in faraway countries. But as Israel, Russia, and Ukraine have recently demonstrated in dramatic campaigns, another drone revolution has begun. Where once drones were expensive and remote-controlled for targeted strikes and strategic surveillance, now they can be procured for as little as a few hundred dollars and perform a wide array of missions, from scouting the battlefield to delivering blood and medicine to injured troops on the frontlines.

Militaries all over the world are experimenting with this new generation of drones in every aspect of combat. Israel and Ukraine, for example, used first-person-view drones to attack inside enemy territory. Russia’s volleys of one-way attack drones, missiles, and guided bombs have targeted Ukrainian power and manufacturing facilities. On the frontlines in Ukraine, both Moscow and Kyiv are using small drones as well as loitering munitions to destroy troops, tanks, and support equipment while relying on the same unmanned aerial vehicles to resupply, triage casualties, and identify approaching enemies. These drones are no longer operated from afar but embedded into trenches or smuggled deep into an adversary’s territory.

The United States has largely missed this revolution in military technology. Although Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has promised to “unleash American drone dominance,” so far the United States’ drone arsenal remains dominated by the larger, more expensive systems it pioneered a decade ago. New drone programs such as the air force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) or the army’s Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance are still in prototype and far from cheap. The air force’s CCA is estimated at $15 million to $20 million per unit; the army’s much smaller drone will still cost between $70,000 and $170,000. Even if the military bought more drones than it currently plans to, it is unclear whether U.S. companies could produce anywhere near the approximately 200,000 drones that Ukraine has been using monthly.

To take advantage of the drone revolution, it will not be enough for the United States to focus on building capacity—more funding, more production, faster acquisition. The country’s civilian and defense leaders will have to more fundamentally question the ideas that have long shaped the U.S. military and its campaigns. The United States’ delay in adopting the new generation of drones is a product of strong convictions that it acquired over the past 60 years of fighting wars: that it could, and should, leverage remotely operated technology to win quick conflicts fought from a distance. The United States believed that it could rely on relatively expensive drone technology to save pilots’ lives, deliver real-time intelligence straight to decision-makers, and enable precision targeting.

Now, U.S. leaders are under pressure to adapt to a new way of war already emerging in European and Middle Eastern conflicts. Other countries’ use of drones is changing battlefield dynamics, meaning that the kind of low-casualty campaigns for which the U.S. drone force is built may well become less prevalent. Before rushing to invest in a fresh wave of technologies, however, U.S. defense planners will need to review fundamental beliefs and assumptions that guided their acquisitions over the last half century. They will have to reconsider the American public’s tolerance for casualties, reevaluate longstanding procurement processes, and wrestle with the different services’ tendency to push for bigger, pricier systems. First and foremost, U.S. leaders will need to articulate a new theory of victory that considers how drone technologies can help the United States achieve strategic success.

TECH SUPPORT

The modern U.S. military has long sought to develop technology to make wars more precise, more efficient, and less risky—both for American leaders and for the troops they send to war. As early as 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson told his secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, to find a technological solution for dangerous reconnaissance missions in what was becoming an unpopular war in Vietnam: “I don’t think there’s any way, Bob, that through your small planes or helicopters . . . you could spot these people and then radio back and let the planes come in and bomb the hell out of them?”

With the advent of the microprocessor in 1971, U.S. drone innovation took off and the first significant drone capability was integrated into American combat. Lightning Bug and, later, Buffalo Hunter drones flew over 4,000 sorties in Vietnam, performing what the military calls “dull, dangerous, and dirty” missions previously only accomplishable by human pilots. Drones served as bait for air-defense sites, photographed North Vietnamese surface-to-air missiles and prison camps, conducted reconnaissance in poor weather, and dropped propaganda leaflets.

Drones did not fundamentally shift the Vietnam War’s dynamics. But they caught the imagination of the U.S. military by demonstrating how unmanned technology could mitigate human risk. This potential became especially important after the military halted the active draft and transitioned to an all-volunteer force in 1973. Ending conscription deterred future presidents from deploying large numbers of troops and required the armed services to design new military strategies that relied on the force they believed they could recruit. Geopolitical shifts also drove a growing interest in new battlefield technologies: by the beginning of the 1980s, the United States faced a quantitatively superior Soviet military. The U.S. military needed to find ways to outmatch the Soviets in quality to make up for its adversary’s raw manpower advantage.

U.S. strategists had faith that drones could substitute for risky manned aerial missions.

U.S. leaders focused on enabling the military to fight with a smaller, better-trained force operating new precision-guided technologies. Frameworks such as the AirLand Battle doctrine, a strategy jointly adopted by the army and the air force that called for long-range strikes complemented by highly maneuverable ground-force operations, drew on new advances in microprocessing to see and target enemies from further away. Meanwhile, President Ronald Reagan’s massive increases to the U.S. defense budget allowed funding to flow into satellites, radars, and new “smart weapons” with better guidance systems—all technologies that would become the foundation of the U.S. drone arsenal.

Washington’s quest for drones became more urgent after the 1983 bombing of a marine barracks and the downing of navy pilots in Lebanon. The navy invested about $90 million into an Israeli-proven system and purchased 72 Pioneer unmanned aerial vehicles. U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, meanwhile, released a new military doctrine stating that troops should not be deployed except as a last resort. Strategists had faith that drones, such as the Pioneer, could substitute for risky manned aerial reconnaissance missions. In 1985, Kelly Burke, the air force’s research and development chief from 1979 to 1982, explained the logic to The Washington Post: “There may be such a thing as a cheap airplane, but there’s no such thing as a cheap American pilot.”

The release of the Weinberger doctrine coincided with the dawn of the information age. The United States had long wished to avoid extended wars of attrition, and rapid advances in digital technology finally seemed to make that goal possible. In the bowels of the Pentagon, a handful of strategists in the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) focused on how new systems such as drones might more fully revolutionize military strategy by detecting and targeting the enemy from a distance to win wars quickly and with little risk to U.S. troops. In a remarkably prescient report written in 1986, a group of ONA strategists envisioned a battle space pervaded by flying reconnaissance sensors and swarming “aerial mines,” in which artillery and manned aircraft could relied on unmanned sensors to automatically select targets.

RISK-FREE RETURNS

But these two goals—to mitigate human risk and to optimize battlefield effectiveness—never quite aligned. Since the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. drone strategy has been characterized by a tension between risk aversion and the desire for swift, decisive, technology-enabled victories. During the Gulf War, the United States attempted to balance minimizing risk and maximizing effectiveness by pursuing a hybrid strategy: the air force kicked off the war with a shock-and-awe campaign supported by precision bombs and long-range missiles while ground forces launched a decisive maneuver that devastated the Iraqi military. The war’s success suggested a new American way of war that featured quick, decisive, and low-casualty campaigns.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Congress and the Clinton administration slashed the Defense Department’s budget. Branches of the armed services fought to prioritize their favorite existing weapons programs, leading to investments in big manned platforms such as aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and tanks rather than unmanned platforms or smaller munitions. The defense industry consolidated, leaving the remaining firms with less budget and appetite to dedicate to research and development outside of the Defense Department’s stated requirements.

Despite these constraints, over the course of the 1990s, the Clinton administration managed to build an arsenal of stealth aircraft, long-range cruise missiles, and GPS-enabled bombs. These were the air-war years of low-risk, high-technology military interventions. Clinton’s Department of Defense saw great potential in drones, even if they were not high on any armed service’s priority list. Early in his tenure as deputy secretary of defense, John Deutch established a joint organization, the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office, to encourage the military to adopt drone technology. As the office concluded in 1994, “UAVs are a viable alternative as the services wrestle with the many challenges of downsizing.” The first Predator drones, invented by an energy company called General Atomics with no clear advocate within the armed services, flew over the former Yugoslavia in the summer of 1995.

That same summer, F-16 pilot Scott O’Grady was shot down over Bosnian Serb territory. This was an embarrassment for the U.S. military and influenced Air Force Chief of Staff Ronald Fogleman to put the Predator into wider use; he established the air force’s first drone unit in July 1995. Congress supported Fogleman’s efforts. The Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner, explained: “In my judgment, this country will never again permit the armed forces to be engaged in conflicts which inflict the level of casualties we have seen historically.” That meant, he concluded, an inevitable move toward unmanned technologies.

NARROW TARGET

Following the 9/11 attacks, Predator and Reaper drones became a dominant feature of U.S. military strategy. Over the course of two decades, the United States bought over 500 Predators and Reapers (at a cost of tens of billions of dollars) and used them to conduct thousands of drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and a host of other countries. Commanders sitting in operations centers were able to track targets in real time 24/7.

But the use of drones remained controversial. The systems weren’t cheap; nor were they very maneuverable or resilient. Troops on the ground weren’t fully satisfied. The drones suffered from interference in bad weather and data-transmission lags and were operated almost completely by the air force; troops complained that the air force pilots in charge of drone squadrons were not adequately trained for ground support missions. And many questioned the widespread use of drones to replace human fighters altogether. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States was supposedly fighting for locals’ hearts and minds, but this goal sometimes seemed at odds with bombing them from an impersonal, safe distance.

The only service that ever really invested in drones during the global “war on terror” was the air force. Although unmanned aircraft potentially threatened pilots’ historic role in the service, the air force’s desire to control aerial missions caused it to lead the way in adopting drone technology. Rather than being attached to ground-combat units, Predators and Reapers were operated by air force squadrons modeled on fighter units. Often, former fighter pilots piloted the drones and used aircraft tasking processes that mimicked those designed for manned aircraft. It was no surprise that the United States’ use of drones closely replicated core airpower missions such as strategic bombing and reconnaissance. The army accepted the air force’s monopoly on drones, investing only sparingly in smaller systems, while the navy—which remained focused on big platforms such as aircraft carriers that were core to its identity—showed little interest in the unmanned revolution.

Ultimately, the United States’ narrow focus on using advanced technology to limit harm to troops motivated its military to buy and deploy a certain type of drone: one that was controlled remotely, could look at targets for long periods, and could be deployed in dangerous airspaces. That procurement focus arose out of decades of decisions—about how the United States wanted to fight after the Vietnam War, about the lessons that should be drawn from the Gulf War, and about defense investments during a period of U.S. unilateralism. Two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq cemented those choices.

The war in Ukraine has challenged that force posture. As a result, the United States is now hastening to invest in a wider range of drones. It is awarding contracts to new defense firms and wargaming new drone missions. Defense Secretary Hegseth has recently directed units to buy and experiment with commercially available drones. But these decisions all shoot from the hip, reacting to the way drones are being used on foreign battlefields rather than arising from a strategic plan about the roles they should play in future U.S. wars.

BACK TO BASICS

If the United States wants to fight and win wars of attrition—the kind of war in which Ukraine is now using drones to great effect—it will need more low-cost drones attached to combat units that can adapt quickly to counter-drone efforts. But it cannot simply copy the Ukrainian (or Israeli) drone strategies. Before rushing toward procurement, U.S. defense strategists need to articulate a new theory of victory, reviewing the beliefs and assumptions that undergirded the last 50 years of technological acquisitions.

For half a century, the United States built a military based on the belief that the American public would not sacrifice its blood but would be willing to spend its treasure. As the deficit balloons and the U.S. electorate shows an increased appetite to punish presidents for inflation and wasteful government programs, U.S. leaders can no longer simply assume they can throw money at expensive technologies to mitigate their own political risk. At the same time, the belief that dominated the 1980s and 1990s—that unmanned technology would create quicker wars fought from a greater distance—is being challenged. The use of drones in European and Middle Eastern theaters is enabling even closer-range conflict: mines, trench warfare, and civilian targeting. None of these have been at the core of U.S. strategy since Vietnam.

The Trump administration must carefully consider whether the U.S. military should adopt drone technology that enables these kinds of warfare in the context of a broader examination of the United States’ military strategy. Only then can it align the U.S. defense budget (and drone investments) toward clear strategic priorities. In the past, secretaries of defense have successfully navigated inter-service budget fights by transferring programs out of individual services or taking them over directly, firing services’ chiefs of staff, and lobbying Congress to allocate funds for specific programs. Not only does Congress need to make the military acquisition process faster and more efficient; it also needs to enable more bottom-up innovation, allowing combat commanders and smaller units to procure and manage their own drone programs. This will require significant legislative reform on the scale of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which made sweeping changes to the Department of Defense. Refreshing U.S. defense strategy may also require tenacious leadership within the armed services, including the appointment of commanders whose tenure is longer than the current norm.

The American military has been seduced by its operational and tactical successes but has fallen short of maintaining the strategic edge it needs to succeed in the conflicts of the twenty-first century. Without reevaluating the American way of war, no amount of new drones will be able to defend the United States against wars it doesn’t want to fight.

​

Foreign Affairs · by More by Jacquelyn Schneider · July 31, 2025

9. The Big Mistake the West Is Making About Russia, China, and Iran

​The big mistake the headline editor is making is leaving north Korea out  of the CRInK. (however, the author includes it in her essay)

The Big Mistake the West Is Making About Russia, China, and Iran

nationalsecurityjournal.org · by Anna Borshchevskaya · July 30, 2025

The Treaty

Published

20 hours ago

J-20 Fighters from China. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Neither Russia nor China came to Iran’s rescue in June this year during the US-Israel-Iran crisis. Moscow and Beijing condemned the Israeli military campaign and targeted US airstrikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities, but did little to help Iran in any meaningful way.

Many commentators concluded that the crisis highlighted the limits of the so-called “axis of upheaval” between Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea. Some went further to suggest Russia’s and China’s policies are failing in the Middle East, and that this axis falls apart when it matters.

The Russia-Iran-China Axis Isn’t Dead

It is undeniably true that Tehran couldn’t count on its professed strategic partners in this crisis, especially when the United States demonstrated it was willing to use force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

But the consensus is wrong: the Russia-Iran-China axis hasn’t fallen apart. To the contrary, these countries appear to be willing to work together even more closely now than before the 12-day war to undermine US interests.

Axis of Space Collaboration

Russia and Iran continue to expand their cooperation outside the conventional military realm. Earlier this month, Moscow’s Soyuz rocket launched an Iranian communications satellite into orbit from Russia’s Far East.

This launch is not a one-off event. Three years ago, Russia launched Iran’s Khayyam satellite into orbit from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Moscow, for its part, has been quietly expanding space collaboration across the Middle East in previous years, and China has been doing the same. Moreover, Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea all cooperate in space.

Space collaboration entails the sharing of surveillance, communication, and navigation. Analysts increasingly see space as the future of military operations because it enables modern warfare across multiple domains. And at a time when the West is looking to establish norms of responsible state behavior in space, its top adversaries are signaling they will challenge these efforts.

Axis of Upheaval

The West should not write off military collaboration between its top adversaries. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea all remain focused on building advanced drones—at a rate faster than in the West, as some experts note. This July, Russia began its first commercial flights in decades between Moscow and Pyongyang, which will create more opportunities for Russia and Korea to collaborate and deepen ties. Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited North Korea earlier this July in another example of deepening ties that go beyond the military realm alone. Meanwhile, Chinese-made engines, covertly shipped via front companies to Russia, are helping Moscow produce Garpiya-A1 attack drones, circumventing Western sanctions designed to disrupt these supply chains.

The Kremlin has been dragging its feet in delivering warplanes to Tehran, especially the Su-35. But Iran is pivoting to China, another member of the “axis of upheaval,” for advanced weaponry such as J-20 stealth fighters and HQ-9B air defense systems as Tehran seeks to project power, re-establish deterrence, and restore its degraded air defenses.

Yes, Moscow’s failure to help Iran in June drew criticism within the Islamic Republic. But Tehran now seeks Moscow’s (and Beijing’s) diplomatic support on the nuclear issue. “We are in constant consultation with [Russia and China] to prevent activation of the snapback or to mitigate its consequences,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said recently. Prior to the 12-day war, Russia reportedly aimed to build eight more nuclear reactors in Iran. There are no signs at the time of this writing that Moscow and Tehran have abandoned these plans.

The “axis of upheaval” undoubtedly has its limits. But that is by design. Vladimir Putin’s approach to the Middle East for over two decades was predicated on flexibility to prioritize Russia’s own needs and avoid over-commitment to any one partner.

Moscow’s strategic partnership agreement with Tehran had no mutual defense clause, while China’s defense commitments to Tehran are even weaker. The fact of the matter is, Moscow and Beijing could afford to stay out of the US-Israel-Iran crisis. In its aftermath, Iran has no one else to turn to.

What Happens Next?

Analysts who expected Moscow to do more to help Iran looked at the nature of alliances and partnerships through the lens of liberal democracies, which tend to provide deeper commitments to their partners.

This expectation stems from precisely the values that underpin the liberal world order—the same values that the “axis of upheaval” aims to dismantle. If its members succeed, they will create a far more dangerous and unstable world.

This is a long game, and the liberal free world needs to focus on deterrence of these adversaries.

About the Author:

Anna Borshchevskaya is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of Putin’s War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America’s Absence.

In this article:

Written By Anna Borshchevskaya

Anna Borshchevskaya is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of Putin’s War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America’s Absence.

nationalsecurityjournal.org · by Anna Borshchevskaya · July 30, 2025

10. To Put Iran on Ice, the U.S. Must Freeze Out China

​Excerpts:

While Israeli and U.S. strikes devastated Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities, China, by revitalizing Iran’s air defenses and missile program, could deter strikes against future Iranian nuclear advances. U.S. officials must closely monitor developments and aggressively sanction Chinese firms helping arm Iran. Some of this work has started, but Washington must avoid the whack-a-mole game of sanctioning low-level players.

Mirroring its Russia energy sanctions, the United States needs a full-court-press against Beijing’s largesse to Tehran. Washington must apply and enforce sanctions on shipping companies, ports, tankers, and Chinese corporate leaders facilitating the China-Iran oil trade. History shows that rigorous enforcement works: the first Trump administration largely curtailed China-Iran oil trade and deprived Iran of some $200 billion, but sanctions enforcement subsequently lapsed. Oil exports to China are Iran’s greatest lifeline — and the United States must close the valves in every way possible.

Finally, American leaders should vow to target any new Chinese weapons systems that arrive in Iran. Moscow’s demurral to resupply Tehran after Israel eliminated Iran’s Russian-made S-300 air defenses last October shows the obvious: Iran’s backers do not want a bad return on investment.

The Iranian regime is barely treading water. China cannot be permitted to throw it a lifeline.

To Put Iran on Ice, the U.S. Must Freeze Out China

By Robert Harward & Yoni Tobin

July 30, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/07/30/to_put_iran_on_ice_the_us_must_freeze_out_china_1125863.html

Iran, known as the head of the octopus for its terrorism proliferation, may be getting a lifeline from the country known as the dragon—China. Beijing has reportedly offered Iran air defense assets and fighter jets—if true, a clear effort to deter future U.S. or Israeli action against Iran. Chinese denials carry little weight. The United States must prevent China from bailing Iran out, including by enforcing sanctions on Iran-China oil trade and threatening consequences if Beijing restores Iran’s air defenses.

The U.S. military’s successful operation against three Iranian nuclear sites displayed American willingness to boldly strike adversaries’ strategic assets, bolstering deterrence against the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis. Yet, truly advancing U.S. strategic aims requires weakening the growing ties between Washington’s enemies.

By resuscitating Iran’s debilitated air defenses, China could insulate Iran from future strikes and change the U.S. and Israeli cost calculus. Reportedly, China is considering supplying Iran its J-10C fighters, China’s version of the F-16, and potentially its HQ-9 air defenses — a similar system to the Russian S-300s that formed Iran’s air defense backbone before Israel eliminated them. The HQ-9 bears similarities to the U.S. Patriot system and helped Pakistan significantly in its May skirmish with India. 

Strategic cooperation of this sort is not hypothetical. Prior to the war, China helped Iran gear up to attack Israel, supplying Iran in February with ammonium perchlorate for missile propellant. Despite the combustible mix exploding inside Iran in April, killing dozens, Iran re-ordered ammonium perchlorate from China in June—enough to make propellant for 800 ballistic missiles.

Showcasing the close bilateral relationship, two days after the war’s end, Iran’s defense minister flew to China for a meeting of the Russian- and Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) bloc—of which Iran is a member. Iran’s foreign minister then traveled to China for an SCO meeting on July 15.

During the war, China continued filling the regime’s coffers, as Iran exported a record 1.8 million barrels of oil to China daily at the war’s peak. Tehran needs this trade far more than Beijing does—China imports just 14 percent of its oil from Iran, while Iran exports 90 percent of its oil to China—but by keeping Iran cash-liquid, China puts a thorn in the side of America and its partners. This illicit commerce reaps Iran some $70 billion annually, helping it skirt Western sanctions and fund its destabilizing aggression.

Beijing formally stopped selling arms to Iran two decades ago—but this is mere sleight of hand. The two nations formalized a strategic partnership in 2016 and a 25-year cooperation agreement in 2021 explicitly involving military ties. Chinese firms supply Iran with drone and missile engines. Several Chinese weapons companies operate in Iran, where one produces aluminum powder for Iran’s missile program.

Known unknowns about China’s recent help to Iran also abound. During the war, from June 14 to 19, five Chinese planes—ostensibly flying to Luxembourg—traveled through Turkmenistan towards Iran, then turned off their transponders. If the planes indeed landed in Iran, what they brought in or took out is anybody’s guess.

China also abets Iran’s terror proxies. China reportedly trained Hamas leadership on arms manufacturing, helping turn underground Gaza into a sprawling makeshift weapons factory. Houthi drones now utilize Chinese hydrogen fuel cells, tripling their range and making them harder to detect. In early July, Chinese naval officers shined lasers at German pilots in the European Union’s counter-Houthi task force. A Chinese satellite firm serves as the Houthis’ eyes in the skies. By facilitating the Houthis’ deadly strikes on innocent seafarers, China has blood on its hands.

While Israeli and U.S. strikes devastated Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities, China, by revitalizing Iran’s air defenses and missile program, could deter strikes against future Iranian nuclear advances. U.S. officials must closely monitor developments and aggressively sanction Chinese firms helping arm Iran. Some of this work has started, but Washington must avoid the whack-a-mole game of sanctioning low-level players.

Mirroring its Russia energy sanctions, the United States needs a full-court-press against Beijing’s largesse to Tehran. Washington must apply and enforce sanctions on shipping companies, ports, tankers, and Chinese corporate leaders facilitating the China-Iran oil trade. History shows that rigorous enforcement works: the first Trump administration largely curtailed China-Iran oil trade and deprived Iran of some $200 billion, but sanctions enforcement subsequently lapsed. Oil exports to China are Iran’s greatest lifeline — and the United States must close the valves in every way possible.

Finally, American leaders should vow to target any new Chinese weapons systems that arrive in Iran. Moscow’s demurral to resupply Tehran after Israel eliminated Iran’s Russian-made S-300 air defenses last October shows the obvious: Iran’s backers do not want a bad return on investment.

The Iranian regime is barely treading water. China cannot be permitted to throw it a lifeline.

Vice Admiral Robert Harward, USN (ret.) is the former Deputy Commander of United States Central Command and a 2022 Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) Generals & Admirals Program participant.

Yoni Tobin is a senior policy analyst at JINSA.

11. Top Generals Nominated for New Positions Must Now Meet With Trump

I thought it was customary for those nominated for 4 star positions (especially combatant commanders and service chiefs) to meet with POTUS.

Top Generals Nominated for New Positions Must Now Meet With Trump

The move is a departure from past practice and has raised worries that it could lead to the politicization of the military’s top ranks.

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Some Pentagon officials said the requirement that four-star nominees meet with President Trump, initiated at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s request, had slowed down the promotion process.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

By Greg Jaffe and Maggie Haberman

Reporting from Washington

July 29, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has begun requiring that nominees for four-star-general positions meet with President Trump before their nominations are finalized, in a departure from past practice, said three current and former U.S. officials.

The move, though within Mr. Trump’s remit as commander in chief, has raised worries about the possible politicization of the military’s top ranks by a president who has regularly flouted norms intended to insulate the military from partisan disputes.

The president has long had a fixation with the military. During his first term, Mr. Trump chose three military generals for top civilian roles in his administration; he repeatedly referred to the Pentagon’s military leaders as “my generals.”

Over the last four years, Mr. Trump has excoriated some former officers, such as the retired Gen. Mark A. Milley. After Mr. Trump chose General Milley to be his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he repeatedly accused him of disloyalty and later suggested that he had committed “treason” and that the punishment should be execution.

Last month, Mr. Trump delivered a highly partisan speech at Fort Bragg, N.C., ruthlessly attacking his political foes, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Trump’s broadsides drew both raucous laughter and boos from the uniformed military troops in attendance.

Sign up to get Maggie Haberman's articles emailed to you.  Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent reporting on President Trump. Get it sent to your inbox.

A White House spokeswoman dismissed concerns about partisanship as an element of the interviews.

“President Trump wants to ensure our military is the greatest and most lethal fighting force in history, which is why he meets with four-star-general nominees directly to ensure they are war fighters first — not bureaucrats,” said Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman.

Recent presidents have elected to meet with some officers being considered for sensitive positions, such as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the four-stars leading the military services or combatant commanders overseeing U.S. troops in war zones, former officials said. But the officials said it could be impractical and unnecessary for the president to meet with nominees for all four-star openings. There are currently about three dozen four-star generals and admirals in the U.S. military.

“While these officers are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, they are not political appointees,” said the retired Col. Heidi Urben, a professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. Mr. Trump’s decision to interview most or all of them creates the impression that “they’re political appointees selected on the basis of their personal loyalty and partisan alignment.”

But some former U.S. officials and scholars who study civil-military relations said the meetings with Mr. Trump could help the senior officers better understand his goals for the military.

“If the president is meeting with the four-stars to share his vision for Golden Dome or other initiatives, that’s one thing,” said Peter Feaver, a professor at Duke University who served in the White House under President George W. Bush. “If he’s meeting with them to share his critiques of the Biden administration and see how they react, that would be problematic.”

Mr. Feaver said that Mr. Bush’s defense secretaries — Donald H. Rumsfeld and Robert M. Gates — would most likely have bristled at White House requests for blanket interviews of four-star nominees.

“We had two exceedingly strong secretaries who jealously guarded their prerogatives,” he noted. “They were not going to overly share with the White House if they didn’t have to.” The Pentagon declined to comment on the new approach to four-star nominations.

A former Fox News host and Iraq war veteran, Mr. Hegseth came to the Pentagon job with little government experience and has suffered through some significant miscues in his first six months in office. His inner circle of advisers has been plagued by infighting. Several have resigned or been fired.

Mr. Hegseth is also still contending with a review by the Pentagon’s inspector general related to his disclosure on the Signal messaging app of the precise timing of U.S. fighter jets’ airstrikes against the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen in March.

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, disparaged that review as “a political witch hunt by Biden administration holdovers.” Mr. Hegseth provided a statement to the inspector general, he said, “which points out why this entire exercise is a sham, conducted in bad faith and with extreme bias.”

Despite his rocky spring, Mr. Hegseth remains in good standing with the president, according to two people with knowledge of Mr. Trump’s thinking, partly because of the B-2 bunker-buster operation against three nuclear sites in Iran.

Some Pentagon officials said the requirement that four-star nominees meet with Mr. Trump, initiated at Mr. Hegseth’s request, had slowed down the promotion process because it is often difficult to find time in the president’s busy schedule.

But the new policy also carries upsides for Mr. Hegseth. Because he has young children, Mr. Hegseth has less time to socialize with Mr. Trump at the White House or his clubs, an official said. The four-star meetings, which Mr. Hegseth attends, provide him valuable face time with the president.

If Mr. Trump becomes dissatisfied or angry with one of the nominees, the interviews could help insulate Mr. Hegseth from the blame.

“The president has a right to military leaders he trusts and has confidence in,” said Kori Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute who was a national security aide to Mr. Bush.

Ms. Schake noted that Mr. Trump was not the first president to probe senior military leaders for their political leanings, even as she sounded a cautionary note: “Politics is a poor way to select military leaders.”

Greg Jaffe covers the Pentagon and the U.S. military.

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.

See more on: U.S. Department of Defense, Donald Trump, U.S. Politics

12. Hydrogen-powered naval warfare gets a boost

​This seems promising to this land lubber.

Excerpts:

Military interest in hydrogen is less about price and more about flexibility. Hydrogen-generation systems developed under DIU’s Hydrogen at the Tactical Edge of Contested Logistics program, or HyTECH, allow forward-deployed forces to produce their own power without relying on fuel convoys. That logistical advantage is especially valuable in the Indo-Pacific, where U.S. forces would be dispersed across vast distances in the event of a conflict.

The Pratt Miller system draws on decades of research aimed at improving hydrogen safety, including the use of conformable storage tanks and small-diameter tubing.

Another advantage is stealth. Hydrogen fuel cells generate less heat and noise than diesel engines and have fewer moving parts.

“We’ve done multiple fuel cell variants, side-by-side comparisons, and thermal acoustic inventory testing,” Archambo said. “We took thermal acoustic data even at a [U.S. military] demonstration two weeks ago,” which showed significantly reduced signatures compared to diesel generators.

The work is also advancing solid-state hydrogen storage, which uses nanomaterials to trap hydrogen molecules, Archambo said. This method improves transport safety, a key Navy concern, but requires more material (and holds less hydrogen), which increases weight.

But there have been improvements and advances to overcome those limitations. Pratt Miller expects to begin testing solid-state hydrogen storage in vehicles later this year.

Hydrogen-powered naval warfare gets a boost

A self-contained power source with low thermal signature is gaining traction in the military.

By Patrick Tucker

Science & Technology Editor

July 30, 2025 01:04 AM ET

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

Nearly 180 years after the invention of the first hydrogen fuel cell, hydrogen power is making a comeback. The Defense Innovation Unit has awarded a contract to Pratt Miller to prototype a hydrogen-powered system for naval vessels. If successful, the Expeditionary Hydrogen On Ship & Shore project, or EHOSS, could help fulfill a long-standing Pentagon goal of eliminating petroleum-based propulsion from military operations.

In a statement viewed by Defense One, DIU described the objective as a tactical “micro hydrogen supply chain.” The concept relies on commercial components to build a hydrogen generation, storage, and dispensing system. It also could charge the batteries of onboard drones or other equipment and provide power for off-ship uses.

The contract involves U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Office, and research teams from both the Navy and Army.

Pratt Miller has worked with the Army since 2019 on deploying hydrogen systems in military trucks. In an interview with Defense One, Christopher Archambo, the company’s chief engineer for hydrogen fuel cell technology, said the Navy prototype will use a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer to compress hydrogen gas storage at 10,152 pounds per square inch, or 700 bar. The hydrogen is then stored in conformable tanks. That level of compression is suitable for large trucks or generators used to refuel hydrogen vehicles and equipment.

Pratt Miller’s Flexible Power Conversion Module allows EHOSS to use a power from a single source or the multiple power sources commonly used on the battlefield and aboard ships.

Hydrogen fuel cells are used to allow for extended operations and reduced signature power in UAVs, UUVs, ground vehicles, and power generators.

Welsh physicist Sir William Robert Grove invented the hydrogen fuel cell in 1839, which converts hydrogen’s chemical energy into electricity, heat, and water through an electrochemical reaction. Because hydrogen is lightweight, it quickly found applications in early aviation, especially among the makers of steerable balloons, or airships.

But too much enthusiasm too quickly proved to be hydrogen energy’s downfall—literally. In May 1937, the German airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and crashed, just seven years after the British R101 suffered a similar fate. These high-profile disasters, combined with improvements in internal combustion engines, halted momentum around hydrogen energy for decades.

Interest returned briefly in the early 2000s. In January 2003, just two months before the U.S. launched Operation Iraqi Freedom, President George W. Bush pledged $1.2 billion to support hydrogen fuel cell research for vehicles. That April, General Motors’ president of research and engineering predicted there would be a million hydrogen-powered cars on U.S. roads by 2010.

That milestone has not yet arrived, and public skepticism about hydrogen safety remains widespread. On the 2024 campaign trail, Donald Trump pledged to shut down hydrogen vehicle programs altogether, claiming they “blow up.”

Hydrogen's economic limitations are also a factor. Producing hydrogen requires electricity, so it is rarely cheaper than just drawing power from the U.S. electric grid. That’s one reason why hydrogen power failed to catch on in the United States for consumer automobiles. However, for the military, condensed hydrogen produced on-site is significantly cheaper than flying in fuel via tanker aircraft, especially over waters monitored by China. And hydrogen fuel systems have improved more quickly than combustion-based systems. With continued investment, hydrogen could become a practical alternative.

Military interest in hydrogen is less about price and more about flexibility. Hydrogen-generation systems developed under DIU’s Hydrogen at the Tactical Edge of Contested Logistics program, or HyTECH, allow forward-deployed forces to produce their own power without relying on fuel convoys. That logistical advantage is especially valuable in the Indo-Pacific, where U.S. forces would be dispersed across vast distances in the event of a conflict.

The Pratt Miller system draws on decades of research aimed at improving hydrogen safety, including the use of conformable storage tanks and small-diameter tubing.

Another advantage is stealth. Hydrogen fuel cells generate less heat and noise than diesel engines and have fewer moving parts.

“We’ve done multiple fuel cell variants, side-by-side comparisons, and thermal acoustic inventory testing,” Archambo said. “We took thermal acoustic data even at a [U.S. military] demonstration two weeks ago,” which showed significantly reduced signatures compared to diesel generators.

The work is also advancing solid-state hydrogen storage, which uses nanomaterials to trap hydrogen molecules, Archambo said. This method improves transport safety, a key Navy concern, but requires more material (and holds less hydrogen), which increases weight.

But there have been improvements and advances to overcome those limitations. Pratt Miller expects to begin testing solid-state hydrogen storage in vehicles later this year.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

13. Senior officers need more data training, Army counterdrone exercise suggests

Or perhaps we need younger​ "​s​enior officers" (note crude attempt at humor).

But this will work itself out in coming years as our younger data savvy troops rise in rank.

Excerpts:

But the preliminary findings from the exercise indicate that senior leaders—lieutenant colonels and above—need training to manage the troves of data collected and detected in a drone-heavy battlefield, he said.

“Once you start talking O-5 levels, in and above, there probably is a need for folks that understand how to manage data and how to manipulate software. Because, when I talked earlier about the culture of adaptation, it is going to require a skill set that maybe we don't have throughout our force in a very formal way. We owe that to the Army. We don't know what that looks like yet, but that's part of what we're finding out in this project, this exercise, and feeding back up,” Neal said.

In the meantime, Neal said the unit is tapping younger soldiers and “looking past the MOS”—job classification—to find “hidden talents” to make the needed changes.

The Army has been racing to improve its drone training, formations, and expertise in recent years as the technology reshaped battles in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Senior officers need more data training, Army counterdrone exercise suggests

Leaders of the five-month Project Flytrap discussed preliminary findings.

By Lauren C. Williams

Senior Editor

July 31, 2025 07:00 AM ET

Army

Drones

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

The Army’s counterdrone mega-exercise in Europe isn’t over, but at least one thing seems clear: senior officers need more data training.

For the past five months, Project Flytrap has assembled U.S. soldiers and counterparts from Australia, Poland, and the United Kingdom to learn and improve on how to use counter unmanned aerial systems. Acquisition officials and industry representatives also joined the event, whose fourth phase wraps up on July 31. There are plans to add two more phases in fiscal year 2026.

Soldiers adapted quickly during the exercises, said Col. Donald Neal, who leads the 2nd Cavalry Regiment.

“We have years in the Middle East—fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan—where we had to learn to adapt to be survivable and lethal. I don't think that's changed,” Neal told reporters Wednesday. “We are learning rapidly how to incorporate drones into our [tactics, techniques and procedures] and the ways that we fight.”

Flytrap’s first three phases focused on identifying and testing counterdrone systems, incorporating them into existing platforms, such as ground vehicles, and practicing at the squad and platoon level. The fourth and final phase added operations at the company and battalion

level, included cUAS squads, and incorporated continuous defensive and offensive operations.

But the preliminary findings from the exercise indicate that senior leaders—lieutenant colonels and above—need training to manage the troves of data collected and detected in a drone-heavy battlefield, he said.

“Once you start talking O-5 levels, in and above, there probably is a need for folks that understand how to manage data and how to manipulate software. Because, when I talked earlier about the culture of adaptation, it is going to require a skill set that maybe we don't have throughout our force in a very formal way. We owe that to the Army. We don't know what that looks like yet, but that's part of what we're finding out in this project, this exercise, and feeding back up,” Neal said.

In the meantime, Neal said the unit is tapping younger soldiers and “looking past the MOS”—job classification—to find “hidden talents” to make the needed changes.

The Army has been racing to improve its drone training, formations, and expertise in recent years as the technology reshaped battles in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Flytrap included about 40 organizations and 450 participants from industry. Participants used about 300 drones of at least 12 types to replicate real-world threats. The Army plans to introduce live fires to the exercise later this week.

“We made sure that those models represented each of the kind of capabilities that you'd expect to see on the modern battlefield. So, some had thermal optics for nighttime. We did have fiber-optic drones out here—so those are jam-resistant. We had larger drones, like group twos that are heavier…We had fixed wings,” said Col. Matthew Davis, V Corps chief technology officer and Flytrap’s director. “What we learned from using a diversified UAS threat is [that] it's all the more reason for layering. If we flew the fiber optic at these, for example, the RF-detect systems that we were using—well, they weren't going to detect them, so we had to rely on acoustics or an optical [sensor].”

The exercise revealed that certain tasks demand natural aptitude, said Command Sgt. Maj. Eric Bol, a senior enlisted leader of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment.

“Flying drones, we found, is definitely a skill set that some people have and some people don't,” which is first assessed using simulators, Bol said. “Some people just have an aptitude for it, and we found that super helpful in our training process.”

But when it comes to countering drones, he said, “I think everybody's picking it up at about the same rate. We've known, obviously, about this threat for some time now, and we've been trying to incorporate it into training for probably that entire period, and this is really the first time we've had technology that can assist that.”

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

14. US government will ingest all federal data into AI models, WH tech director says

​Is this not scary?

Big brother?

Something along the lines of "he who controls the data, controls everything."

Isn't there some irony here in that an administration whose political philosophy centers on not trusting the government is so willing to put all its trust in the government (or in the contractors that he government hires) to control the data that will control our lives?

US government will ingest all federal data into AI models, WH tech director says

That's one of the national-security reasons the U.S. needs to lead the world in AI, said OSTP's Michael Kratsios.

By Alexandra Kelley

Staff Correspondent, Nextgov/FCW

July 30, 2025 04:54 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Alexandra Kelley

The Trump administration’s sweeping artificial-intelligence policy aims to ensure that a U.S.-led technology stack is used at home and abroad, according to the Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios.

Speaking Wednesday morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Kratsios said the three executive orders on AI policy signed by President Donald Trump last week support the aims of leading in AI innovation, developing infrastructure, and supporting technology exports.

“We have to have the most dominant technological stack in the world, and that's critically important for our national economic security,” he said.

Kratsios said sensitive data could be stolen if the federal government uses AI systems created by other countries.

"The way that these…models operate on the government level is all the government data that the government has is going to be ingested into models to provide citizen services — whether it's the way you pay your taxes, whether it's through health-care records, whether it's small things that apply to get a permit through international park or a campsite. All of this stuff is going to be part of the AI fabric, and it would be a huge problem if the model that is fine-tuned to generate these AI solutions isn't from America," he said.

Kratsios said the administration is preparing to take action on semiconductor exports in the wake of Trump’s rescission of the Biden administration’s AI diffusion rule. He said new guidance will reiterate protections for large chip transactions, particularly to adversarial nations, and that traditional security restrictions on chip-license transactions will apply, such as limits on intelligence and military actors.

He said concerns about chip exports generally fall into two categories the physical diversion of semiconductor chips, both for edge devices and large-scale data centers; and prohibited actors’ ability to access, run, or train their AI models on U.S. data centers.

“The thing we have to remember: what are we most worried about?” Kratsios said. “Are we most worried about, sort of small-scale, sort of inference runs for some Chinese app? Probably not. What they're most worried about is large-scale runs that are for training sophisticated models.”

He said a “stringent and strong” regime of know-your-customer requirements imposed on data center operators along with monitoring for the scope of AI training runs will help identify bad actors.

“We generally believe…that the highest end of semiconductors need to continue to be export-controlled, not allowed into China, and that's important for our ability to maintain our leadership in this race,” he said.

Kratsios said that Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security can help support a clear export regime.

“You can have the best export controls in the books, but if you're not able to effectively enforce them because they're resource-constrained, that's a challenge,” he said, adding that this is something Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and BIS Secretary Jeffrey Kessler, along with Hill lawmakers, are working on. “We have to find ways to provide the tools that BIS needs to be the enforcement.”

Kratsios said the Trump administration is weighing the trade-offs of protecting U.S. security while ensuring American tech companies have access to the global market and get the world running on U.S. products.

“We have the best chips, we have the best clouds, we have the best models, we have the best applications,” he said. “Everyone in the world should be using our technology, and we should make it easy for the world to use it. We want everyone in the world developing AI.”

Commerce recently gave tech giant NVIDIA the greenlight to resume sales of its H20 chips to China, although the move has received some bipartisan pushback over concerns that Beijing will use the semiconductors to advance its military capabilities. A NVIDIA spokesperson previously told Nextgov/FCW that criticisms of the ban’s reversal “are misguided and inconsistent with the Administration's AI Action Plan.”

defenseone.com · by Alexandra Kelley

15. Who should coordinate Europe’s defense buildup?

​Some interesting insights here: e.g., "European leaders expect the US to withdraw forces."

Excerpts:

Such funding could come either from already earmarked DSCA resources or through additions to the European Deterrence Initiative—formerly the primary funding source for EUCOM’s posture adjustments—which has since been folded into the Defense Department’s base budget and is no longer tracked as a standalone line item.

The key, however, is flexibility: EUCOM must be empowered to decide how and where to spend those resources—say, to expand its coordination cell or target critical European capability gaps—without being slowed down by decision-making bottlenecks in Washington.

Would European governments accept EUCOM’s help? Yes. European leaders expect the U.S. to withdraw forces from the continent in the coming months but are uneasy because of the opaque nature of the U.S. decision-making process. They are calling for a clear and coordinated roadmap to guide the process, which EUCOM can offer.

Everyone—including the Europeans—agrees that Europe must step up and take on a greater share of its on defense. But before Europe can take the lead, it must address a critical organizational gap. Without effective coordination, building a military force that is both interoperable and credible will be next to impossible. In the short term, EUCOM can help perform that role, and in doing so, serve as the bridge to a future where Europe leads in its own continental defense.

Who should coordinate Europe’s defense buildup?

The best candidate, at least for the near term, has granular understanding of existing forces and informal links to suppliers.

By Sara Bjerg Moller

Associate Teaching Professor, Georgetown University

July 29, 2025

defenseone.com · by Sara Bjerg Moller

Europe is finally putting real money behind defense, but a deeper problem remains: who or what will coordinate this new security effort?

With the European Union’s recently announced ReArm Europe Plan—a multi-pillar framework aimed at boosting defense investment—the money is beginning to flow, and European capitals are starting to ramp up their defense budgets accordingly. Long-delayed plans to rebuild hollowed-out armed forces are moving forward. Public and private sectors are beginning to align to revive Europe’s defense industrial base.

So far, the debate over the future of the European security landscape has largely focused on military capabilities. In recent months, policymakers and analysts on both sides of the Atlantic have focused on identifying weapons and capabilities European countries should prioritize on their defense shopping lists. This is understandable in an era of burden-shifting, when the U.S. role as Europe’s primary security provider is likely to diminish.

But Europe’s defense challenge is as much organizational as it is operational. Reconstituting itself as a credible security actor after decades of strategic neglect requires more than funding and procurement. This is a question not simply of resources but of institutional design and coordination. The choices made now—not only about who leads and commands forces in future European security contingencies, but also about who facilitates and manages the coming wave of defense investment—will shape Europe’s ability to act decisively and coherently for decades to come.

While some analysts point to the European Union as a long-term answer, most European civilian and military policymakers are clear that they do not see it that way. To them, the EU remains primarily an economic and political union, not a vehicle for hard power. Even in a future where the U.S. plays a reduced role, they would prefer to work within and through NATO.

While the longer-term question of how to reconfigure NATO so that Europeans shoulder more of the organizational burden—staff planning, command structures, and operational leadership—will take years to resolve, the more immediate and pressing question is: who will coordinate the surge in defense spending about to get underway?

Such coordination is essential not only to avoid waste and duplication of effort but also ensure interoperability and alignment with the new NATO capability targets. Without it, Europe risks squandering a rare window of opportunity where political will and financial commitment have finally aligned.

So who should lead?

A leading candidate for this near-term coordination role is U.S. European Command, the U.S. combatant command responsible for the European area of operations.

The commander of EUCOM is dual-hatted as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, but the alliance’s military headquarters at SHAPE—Allied Command Operations—is unsuited for the coordination job. For one thing, it operates under the political authority of the North Atlantic Council and is designed to engage “up and out” with political decision-makers who determine the overall strategic direction of the Alliance. For another, ACO’s operational focus leaves little capacity for this new role.

EUCOM, on the other hand, is structurally better positioned to do it. Acting under its Title 10 (Chapter 16) authorities for security cooperation, the command can reach “down and in” to national capitals across the European continent, helping to build partner military and institutional capacity. Unlike NATO’s operational-and-tactical-level headquarters, whose visibility into the national forces of allies comes from the National Military Representatives or the episodic, deliberately choreographed Alliance-wide exercises—EUCOM maintains continuous, ground-level insight into Europe’s armed forces through programs like the State Partnership Program, which pairs U.S. National Guard units with European national militaries to improve readiness. It sees the full 360-degree picture, including the good, the bad, and the ugly of these national defense institutions, 365 days a year. This situational awareness and understanding of where the gaps lie as well as knowledge about who is planning to purchase what system, will be essential in the next phase of Europe’s security transformation.

Then there is the acquisition side. Like other combatant commands, EUCOM plays a key, if informal, role in the Foreign Military Sales process by providing information on systems and platforms and facilitating connections between countries and industry. As the West ramps up defense production and grapples with depleted stockpiles, this role will only grow in importance. An empowered EUCOM can help European countries align their purchases and ensure they are on track with NATO capability targets.

Finally, as the theater command with responsibility for all of Europe—including non-NATO members—EUCOM is uniquely positioned to take a holistic approach, unencumbered by institutional and membership divides between NATO and the EU. Its reach extends to countries that belong to neither organization, a strategic asset that recently demonstrated its value: When the Germany–Switzerland–Ukraine Patriot deal came together in July, responsibility for executing it fell to EUCOM.

The good news is that EUCOM is ready to perform this coordination role. The bad news is that it currently lacks the resources to do so effectively. Security cooperation funding is controlled by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, not by EUCOM itself. If the administration is serious about shifting the long-term burden to Europe, it must provide EUCOM with the short-term funding and authorities needed to help guide that transition.

Such funding could come either from already earmarked DSCA resources or through additions to the European Deterrence Initiative—formerly the primary funding source for EUCOM’s posture adjustments—which has since been folded into the Defense Department’s base budget and is no longer tracked as a standalone line item.

The key, however, is flexibility: EUCOM must be empowered to decide how and where to spend those resources—say, to expand its coordination cell or target critical European capability gaps—without being slowed down by decision-making bottlenecks in Washington.

Would European governments accept EUCOM’s help? Yes. European leaders expect the U.S. to withdraw forces from the continent in the coming months but are uneasy because of the opaque nature of the U.S. decision-making process. They are calling for a clear and coordinated roadmap to guide the process, which EUCOM can offer.

Everyone—including the Europeans—agrees that Europe must step up and take on a greater share of its on defense. But before Europe can take the lead, it must address a critical organizational gap. Without effective coordination, building a military force that is both interoperable and credible will be next to impossible. In the short term, EUCOM can help perform that role, and in doing so, serve as the bridge to a future where Europe leads in its own continental defense.

Sara Bjerg Moller is an Associate Teaching Professor in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program and an Adjunct Senior Fellow in the Defense Program at CNAS.

defenseone.com · by Sara Bjerg Moller

16. The Indo-Pacific Chooses Options, Not Sides

​Very useful analysis. I fear our China-only focus is driving this. The irony is that as national security practitioners we value providing options to our political leaders, as it appears some of our friends, partners, and allies are doing. Yet we are providing our leadership with only one "option" - China-only. Perhaps we should take a step back and examine what the members of our silk web of our alliances are doing. We might better "compete" with China and deter war by taking a broader approach rather than the very narrow China-only path we are on now. 

Excerpts:

The message to the United States and other great powers is clear: Indo-Pacific countries prefer flexible foreign policies that balance security, diplomacy, and regional agency. U.S. policymakers should therefore engage the region on its own terms, supporting plural arrangements rather than forcing exclusive blocs.

...

In response, key regional players are deliberately pursuing multi‑vectored security strategies that seek to avoid binary choices. This includes a form of hedging: actively cultivating diverse partnerships to reduce exposure to great-power coercion. India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia are all applying this approach, adjusting military force structure, external partnerships, and industrial policy to expand strategic options and dilute coercive leverage. Together their choices are reshaping regional ordering away from the U.S.-Chinese binary toward a layered system of overlapping coalitions, flexible institutions, and issue-specific, selectively shared rules.

...

To the United States and China, the message is clear: Bigger budgets and binary choice framing will not win the trust of middle and smaller powers. What is needed instead is a more flexible, responsive strategy that values diplomatic engagement, economic resilience, and regional leadership. The challenge for U.S. allies and partners is to embed pluralism into policy without sacrificing strategic coherence. In a region as diverse and dynamic as the Indo-Pacific, that may be the only sustainable way forward.

As recent headlines about the potential deadline of a U.S. review of the AUKUS pact show, even America’s closest partners are watching for signs of consistency. That review, routinely or not, has only reinforced concerns that long-term planning cannot hinge on singular, uneven relationships. What regional actors are building instead is a resilient, multi-anchored order — one negotiated rather than prescribed, layered rather than locked in.

The future of Indo-Pacific regional security will be shaped less by declarations and more by coalitions of practice. The challenge for the United States is not to direct that process, but to join it on more equal terms.

The Indo-Pacific Chooses Options, Not Sides - War on the Rocks

Vu Lam

July 31, 2025

warontherocks.com · July 31, 2025

The 2025 Shangri-La Dialogue marked a subtle but telling shift in Indo-Pacific geopolitics. While the annual security forum retained its usual stagecraft between the United States and China, this year’s exchanges revealed a deeper disconnect: The zero-sum logic driving great-power rivalry contrasts sharply with the pragmatic, interests-based approach favored by many middle powers and small states.

The old binaries of a U.S.-centered liberal order versus a Chinese-led alternative are giving way to a more dynamic regional system. What is emerging is an Indo-Pacific defined by strategic pluralism — overlapping coalitions, differentiated institutions, and shared but flexible rules, a political order that privileges agency over alignment. Rather than choosing sides, many states are shaping the region’s rules and frameworks in ways that reflect their own strategic priorities, domestic constraints, and evolving threat perceptions.

The message to the United States and other great powers is clear: Indo-Pacific countries prefer flexible foreign policies that balance security, diplomacy, and regional agency. U.S. policymakers should therefore engage the region on its own terms, supporting plural arrangements rather than forcing exclusive blocs.

A Third Option

One of the most notable pushbacks against binary choice thinking came from French President Emmanuel Macron. He used his keynote speech to reject portrayals of the Indo-Pacific as a zero-sum battleground — a framing increasingly driven by U.S. and Chinese strategic narratives. Macron’s call for strategic autonomy, often associated with Europe’s efforts to break free from U.S.-dominated security structures, found broader appeal as a guiding principle for Indo-Pacific states seeking maneuver room between great-power rivals. Macron’s message suggested that France sees the Indo-Pacific as the new center of geopolitical gravity and a space where strategic autonomy is a necessity.

Of course, France’s presence in the region is not new. It has framed itself as a resident Indo-Pacific power for years, with steady naval deployments from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, and by virtue of its overseas territories. Macron’s vision presents France and Europe as a “third way” for regional states wedged between the U.S.-Chinese geopolitical competition. France’s Indo-Pacific strategy emphasizes defense ties with India, Australia, and Japan, grounded in high-end arms cooperation, joint exercises, and strategic dialogues. While Australia’s cancellation of the submarine deal in 2021 was a setback in bilateral relations, France continues to pursue Indo-Pacific security commitments with the remaining three countries and with other regional partners, emphasizing interoperability.

What stood out at Shangri-La this year was Macron’s sharper rhetoric stressing the end of non-alignment and advocating for a “coalition of independents” to resist “spheres of coercion.” This subtle change — from offering an alternative to the great powers toward rallying likeminded actors into a collective posture — was reinforced by the timing of his remarks, delivered at the conclusion of his official visits to Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore. Macron’s framing of collective security without choosing sides may resonate more with Southeast Asian audiences than the increasingly hard-edged binary narratives emerging from successive U.S. administrations.

Macron’s intervention contrasted with Washington’s approach. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s call for America’s Indo-Pacific allies to raise defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, using NATO benchmarks, met with little enthusiasm. Though the need for both conventional and strategic deterrence against Chinese coercion is understood, the costs of alignment — economic, political, and strategic — are harder to ignore. Few Southeast Asian states will accept a securitized future dictated from outside, especially at the expense of domestic development or regional economic integration. Many regional watchers saw Hegseth’s call as security-heavy messaging overlooking the region’s broader priorities. Even Australia showed reluctance, with a March 2025 survey indicating only one-third of Australians supported increasing defense spending.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations chair in 2025, captured this tension clearly. While reaffirming the organization’s commitment to diplomacy and regional stability, he stressed that trade is a pillar of strategic security, not a soft-power luxury. Warning against “arbitrary trade restrictions,” Anwar highlighted how economic disruption, not military imbalance, is the primary security concern for many countries in the region. Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong echoed this view, stating that Southeast Asia rejects zero-sum thinking and favors multilateral cooperation, emphasizing the regional bloc’s agency to “shape its own destiny.” This consistent perspective underscores the gap between how regional states define security and how the great powers frame it.

That gap is especially evident in regional perceptions of China. Australia, despite deepening strategic ties with the United States, views China as a complex and evolving challenge, avoiding labels that would imply direct military confrontation. In the Philippines, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has adopted a more assertive stance in the South China Sea and expanded defense cooperation with Washington. Yet his long-term view is to preserve an independent foreign policy that balances security concerns with economic pragmatism.

Vietnam has recently upgraded relations with the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia to the highest diplomatic tier while simultaneously strengthening its economic ties with China. This dual-track strategy reflects Vietnam’s longstanding hedging posture, wary of both Beijing’s assertiveness and overdependence on any one partner.

Meanwhile, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand continue to prioritize economic resilience and strategic autonomy, emphasizing regional stability over bloc-based competition. Indonesia, in particular, has stepped up security cooperation by signing a Defense Cooperation Arrangement with Washington in 2023 and a treaty-level Defense Cooperation Agreement with Australia in 2024, while maintaining its strategic autonomy by diversifying its trade and defense partnerships across the Indo-Pacific.

Economics is the common thread. Most regional states have significant trade and investment links with China, making outright strategic decoupling neither desirable nor feasible. Yet this balancing act is far from settled. In the Philippines, China relations became a lightning rod before the May 2025 mid-term election, with rising nationalist sentiment pushing for a more confrontational stance amid concerns about jeopardizing economic ties. In Australia, public distrust of the United States has surged with Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, raising fears of being abandoned by its major ally.

News about American arm-twisting of Indonesia — trading tariff concessions for closer security cooperation — points to the cautious position of many middle and small states. Their real challenge lies in navigating not just geopolitical tensions, but domestic pressures that make hedging more politically dicey than it appears. A National University of Singapore study suggests that economic opportunities and proximity are driving many Southeast Asian countries towards China, and Trump’s volatile tariff agenda may accelerate that drift by compounding doubts about America’s reliability.

That does not mean regional governments have greater faith in China. Beijing often prefers bilateral negotiations over multilateral mechanisms — notably in the South China Sea, where it has delayed the finalization of a binding Code of Conduct with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for over two decades. It has also created parallel initiatives such as the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation framework and the Global Security Initiative, which critics view as attempts to fragment or sideline existing forums. This is part of a broader effort to reshape the regional — and even global — order on terms more favorable to China. Positioning itself as the center of an alternative network of influence, where relationships are often structured through bilateral channels and unequal partnerships, gives China greater control.

Yet this behavior is not uniquely Chinese. Trump, through his non-consecutive presidential terms, has sidelined a host of multilateral institutions by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Agreement, skipping several Association of Southeast Asian Nation summits, and advancing transactional, bilateral deals that unsettle America’s longstanding regional partners. Taken together, these patterns suggest a broader reality: Both great powers are increasingly engaging with the region on selective terms, guided more by strategic utility than shared commitment to regional priorities.

Strategic Pluralism in Practice

In response, key regional players are deliberately pursuing multi‑vectored security strategies that seek to avoid binary choices. This includes a form of hedging: actively cultivating diverse partnerships to reduce exposure to great-power coercion. India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia are all applying this approach, adjusting military force structure, external partnerships, and industrial policy to expand strategic options and dilute coercive leverage. Together their choices are reshaping regional ordering away from the U.S.-Chinese binary toward a layered system of overlapping coalitions, flexible institutions, and issue-specific, selectively shared rules.

India

India stays formally non-aligned yet builds practical coalitions without signing mutual defense pacts. Its 2025–26 military budget is just under 2 per cent of GDP (about US$78 billion), prioritizing locally made kit under Atmanirbhar Bharat and Production Linked Incentive schemes, including a multibillion-dollar push for domestic semiconductor fabrication. New Delhi deepens work with the United States on critical technologies such as drones and jet engines, while keeping legacy arms and energy ties with Russia and expanding deals with France, Israel, Vietnam, and Singapore. It also leans on minilateral formats like the Quad and the India-France-Australia trilateral, plus logistics agreements and maritime domain awareness sharing with Australia and France to widen operational reach. The aim is clear: Deter China and keep India’s choices open by avoiding dependence on any single partner.

India’s military posture is matched by an economic security agenda built on self-reliance and selective coalitions. India is boosting domestic manufacturing in defense, semiconductors, and electronics to cut reliance on China and diversify away from Russia. With Japan and Australia, it participates in the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative to reroute critical inputs away from chokepoints. Connectivity plans such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor are intended to bypass China-centric routes, even if timelines have slipped. India’s digital public infrastructure hardens cyber and financial systems at home and is promoted as a soft-power model to partners in Southeast Asia and Africa. The result is material autonomy: India can bargain harder because it is less exposed.

Japan

Japan remains a U.S. treaty ally but is investing heavily in its own capacity for a more active regional security role. Under its 2022 National Security Strategy revisions, Tokyo committed to doubling defense spending. With U.S. support, Tokyo is acquiring counterstrike capabilities, buying long-range strike assets, developing domestic stand-off capabilities, and upgrading missile defense. Simultaneously, Japan has widened security ties through the 2023 Reciprocal Access Agreement with Australia, the United Kingdom-Italy-Japan future fighter program, and deeper cooperation on cyber and emerging challenges with the European Union and NATO. Its Official Security Assistance and broader capacity-building in Southeast Asia provide patrol vessels, surveillance systems, and training, embedding Japanese standards and diversifying partnerships. This widens Japan’s influence without locking it into a single great-power script.

Japan pairs this defense build-up with an assertive economic statecraft program. The 2022 Economic Security Promotion Act gives the state tools to map and secure supply chains, protect critical infrastructure, and regulate outbound tech transfers. Billions of yen in subsidies support semiconductor resilience, including large packages for Taiwan Semiconductor’s facilities in Kumamoto. Japan also joins the United States and partners like India and the Netherlands in semiconductor diversification efforts, while its critical minerals strategy funds overseas investment and stockpiles with Australia and Vietnam. Through long-term development aid and security assistance, Tokyo ties infrastructure, maritime capacity and surveillance support in Southeast Asia to shared standards and transparency. ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute’s State of Southeast Asia surveys have consistently ranked Japan as the region’s most reliable partner, reinforcing that this blend of security assistance and economic statecraft is seen as dependable rather than overbearing.

South Korea

South Korea is gradually diversifying its security partnerships, while remaining deeply integrated into its alliance with Washington, especially through enhanced trilateral cooperation with the United States and Japan. Seoul’s 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy articulates an ambition to become a “global pivotal state” by strengthening ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, India, Australia, and Pacific Island countries, as well as European security partners. In 2025–26, Seoul will spend about 2.3 per cent of GDP on defense (around US$45 billion), investing in missile defense, counter-artillery systems, and space-based intelligence. Through the trilateral pact, South Korea now shares real-time North Korean missile data with the United States and Japan.

Seoul’s defense industry is booming: Tanks, howitzers, jets, and rocket systems are heading to Europe and Southeast Asia, turning industrial scale into diplomatic weight and revenue. Partnerships with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, India, and European partners, as well as growing cooperation with NATO in cyber, space, and advanced technologies, broaden its network. The core aim is to avoid single-channel dependency and shape rules in multiple arenas.

Economic security is just as central for Seoul. With trade making up over 80 per cent of GDP, diversification is a security imperative. Alongside expanding global trade and investment, South Korea is deepening critical minerals cooperation with allies and partners, including the United States, Australia, Canada, and Central and Southeast Asian countries. This effort is considered the most comprehensive critical mineral diplomacy to hedge against disruptions linked to China. Exporting defense systems and green technologies helps South Korea secure long-term maintenance and training relationships with partners. By embedding itself in multiple tech and industrial ecosystems, South Korea cushions against shocks from any single partner or market.

Australia

Australia is tightening interoperability through AUKUS: nuclear-powered attack submarines and a suite of advanced technologies from undersea drones to quantum systems. Its 2024–25 defense spending was above 2 percent of GDP (about US$56 billion) and the 2024 Defence Strategic Review shifted priorities toward long-range strike and force posture. At the same time, Canberra has stabilized political and trade channels with Beijing after China lifted most coercive barriers. Meanwhile, Australia has intensified engagement through the Quad, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, and the Pacific Islands Forum, using these platforms to stitch together security, economic, and diplomatic strands. The strategy is to maintain deterrence credibility while exercising greater agency across the neighborhood.

Australia’s defense integration is mirrored by a broad effort to harden and diversify its diplomatic and trade relations. This includes a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom, one with India, a Southeast Asia Economic Strategy, and a trade pact with the European Union in the works. Its Critical Minerals Strategy 2023–30 backs joint projects with Japan, Korea, India, and the United States to build resilient supply chains and reduce reliance on China.

Infrastructure and digital connectivity funding in the Pacific and Southeast Asia offers alternatives to Belt and Road finance. Tighter foreign investment screening and a 2023–2030 Cyber Security Strategy protect key assets at home. The effect is a wider spread of partners and instruments, even as trade with China resumes.

A Region Reorganizing

Together, these strategic choices — France’s advocacy for strategic autonomy, Southeast Asia’s economic pragmatism, China’s selective institutional engagement, growing nuance in partnerships, and the rise of flexible “minilateralism” — reflect more than a shift in regional power dynamics. They signal a deeper reorganization of the Indo-Pacific’s security and diplomatic architecture. To be sure, this is not a sudden pivot. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ founding commitment to neutrality and India’s non-alignment legacy both reflect longstanding resistance to bloc-based geopolitics.

What is different today is the intentionality. These practices are being made explicit, coordinated, and built into formal mechanisms. Multi-vectored foreign policies once operating quietly are now codified in strategies and initiatives: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ widening external partnerships, India’s trilateral dialogues, South Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, and Australia’s simultaneous deepening of ties with Washington and a stabilized relationship with Beijing. In short, pluralism is no longer an accident of circumstance. It is policymaking by design.

As the cases above show, a growing web of overlapping frameworks now underpins how Indo-Pacific states are expanding their options for defense and security cooperation. What ties these initiatives together is intent: Many countries want meaningful cooperation without, or beyond, the binding commitments or exclusive expectations that come with formal alliances. This is not a rejection of traditional alliances, but a conscious move toward flexibility. For many governments, participating in multiple forums serves as risk management — a way to preserve autonomy, avoid overdependence on any single partner, and respond more effectively to a fast-changing strategic environment. In today’s Indo-Pacific, hedging has become an organizing principle of regional statecraft.

Yet this flexibility comes with trade-offs. A decentralized order built on overlapping platforms and fluid alignments can create ambiguity. Without a dominant power to enforce norms or red lines, the risks of miscalculation, fragmentation, or policy paralysis grow. At the same time, such a structure allows for more inclusive, adaptive forms of cooperation. The post-Cold War world of prescribed security models is giving way to one of negotiated coexistence — shaped less by superpower prescriptions than by the preferences and agency of middle powers and cross-regional coalitions.

To the United States and China, the message is clear: Bigger budgets and binary choice framing will not win the trust of middle and smaller powers. What is needed instead is a more flexible, responsive strategy that values diplomatic engagement, economic resilience, and regional leadership. The challenge for U.S. allies and partners is to embed pluralism into policy without sacrificing strategic coherence. In a region as diverse and dynamic as the Indo-Pacific, that may be the only sustainable way forward.

As recent headlines about the potential deadline of a U.S. review of the AUKUS pact show, even America’s closest partners are watching for signs of consistency. That review, routinely or not, has only reinforced concerns that long-term planning cannot hinge on singular, uneven relationships. What regional actors are building instead is a resilient, multi-anchored order — one negotiated rather than prescribed, layered rather than locked in.

The future of Indo-Pacific regional security will be shaped less by declarations and more by coalitions of practice. The challenge for the United States is not to direct that process, but to join it on more equal terms.

Vu Lam, Ph.D., is a political scientist at the University of New South Wales, focusing on Southeast Asian affairs. He has worked across research, policy and government sectors, and writes regularly on regional integration and Indo-Pacific strategy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect those of his workplace and affiliated institutions.

Image: Petty Officer 1st Class John Belino via U.S. Indo-Pacific Command

warontherocks.com · July 31, 2025

17. WHAT IS THE ARMY OF 2040?

​A very important conclusion as we continue to chase the shiny things of technology (and I am all for applying advanced technology everywhere we can as long as it supports our efforts in the human domain which will always be enduring). The author shows us how to ask important questions.

Excerpt:

Conclusion:

The Force XXI effort sought to prepare the Army for a future defined by technological superiority. While a valuable effort, it underscored a critical truth: anticipating the future of warfare solely through technological projection is insufficient. As the Army develops its next operating concept, there will likely be plenty written about what the Army does (missions) and what the Army has (capabilities or kit). As the senior army leaders did at the beginning of a revolution in military affairs (RMA) in 1994 when they published Force XXI Operations, it would be useful to frame what the Army is by explicitly describing the characteristics of the Army they are planning to build. Realizing this vision demands intellectual rigor. We must resist the simplistic temptation to solve today’s problems with tomorrow’s technology—seeking a “better howitzer” instead of asking: “What is better than a howitzer?” or even “Do we still need tanks?” Clearly articulating these characteristics is not merely an academic exercise; it defines what the Army will be, creating shared understanding and effort for the coming decades. Ultimately, the challenges of the second quarter of the twenty-first century demand a refreshed vision—a revitalized approach akin to Force XXI, but one grounded in fundamental transformation rather than incremental improvements. The time for that reimagining is now.

WHAT IS THE ARMY OF 2040?

 Sam White  July 31, 2025

The Force XXI concept envisioned an adaptable and responsive Army defined by five core characteristics.

They got it right—thirty years ago the authors of TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5: Force XXI Operations: A Concept for the Evolution of Full-Dimension Operations for the Strategic Army of the Early Twenty-First Century visualized the operational environment of the first quarter of the century, at least the effect of technology. Even with the information age in its infancy, there was a premonition that something big was on the horizon. Technological innovations, they said, “are harbingers of change in warfare” and “will revolutionize—and indeed have begun to revolutionize—how nations, organizations and people interact.” The 1994 Force XXI concept defined the Army characteristics (attributes) that drove force and capability design through the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Leaning into the next quarter century, the Army should re-visualize the operational environment and craft a new set of army characteristics for 2040.

The Force XXI concept envisioned an adaptable and responsive Army defined by five core characteristics. It emphasized doctrinal flexibility and strategic mobility, ensuring the right forces were available when and where needed. Central to this vision were tailorability and modularity—deploying only necessary forces for optimal efficiency—alongside connectivity, prioritizing seamless joint, multinational, and interagency collaboration. Finally, Force XXI stressed versatility, requiring forces prepared for both conventional warfare and military operations other than war (MOOTW) (a term which has transitioned to irregular warfare today).

The Vision, the Reality, and the Delta

The Force XXI concept rightly identified key characteristics for a future Army—adaptability, responsiveness, and a focus on maneuver warfare—but its vision vastly underestimated the transformative power of the impending digital revolution.

Given that the authors of the Force XXI concept envisioned a thousand-fold advance in information technology over the ensuing two decades (and may have actually been off by a magnitude of a thousand), their five army characteristics seem remarkably absent of any consideration of information technology. While anticipating significant advances, the concept failed to fully integrate it into its core characteristics, focusing instead on adjustments to traditional army concepts.

Thirty years later, the Army finds itself in a strikingly similar situation. Emerging technologies once again redefine how we think about war. The Chief of Staff of the Army recently said that “the character of war is changing. It is changing rapidly because disruptive technology is fundamentally altering how humans interact.”

If the character of war is changing today, then the Army should carefully consider what the character of the 2040 Army will be. Legacy characteristics such as mobility and versatility have been useful over the past decades, but those characteristics focus on the physical domains, where any advantage is fleeting and asymmetric methods can counter. Integrating cognitive qualities such as awareness and knowledge into a description of the Army of 2040 will help the Army visualize itself over the coming decades.

Articulating the desired army characteristics will also help the Army guard against simply projecting a variant of the current force into the future and outfitting it with new equipment. This approach is not intellectually rigorous enough to fully explore how the Army of 2040 must operate—nor will it ensure the Army is prepared for the challenges of the future operational environment.

Though admittedly not an authoritative or exhaustive listing, the following six characteristics provide examples of broad thinking about the Army of 2040.

Continuously Learning—Continuously Aware

Building on lessons learned from the limited integration of information technology in Force XXI, the Army of 2040 must prioritize continuous learning and awareness. This concept is not just about gathering intelligence but about achieving domain awareness superiority across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. We are already seeing elements of this in conflicts like Ukraine, with drone reconnaissance feeding into battlefield management systems. However, the 2040 Army will move beyond data collection to synthesizing data into actionable knowledge in advance of need. This is what Chief Warrant Officer 4 Robert Ryder terms domain awareness superiority: “The future isn’t about seeing more; it’s about understanding what you see, predicting what’s coming, and acting before it happens.” This means anticipating enemy movements based on communication patterns, logistics, and even social media. This awareness must also be inward-looking, assessing our vulnerabilities and strengths—from supply chain issues to troop morale. The goal is a force that understands itself as deeply as it understands the enemy.

Predictive

Recognizing the need to move beyond reactive strategies—a challenge highlighted by the Force XXI experience—the Army of 2040 must prioritize prediction. The future battlefield will reward those who can anticipate, moving beyond the traditional observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loop to a “predict-act” vector. This notion requires integrating autonomous systems and continuous learning into decision-making. Think of AI-powered simulations that can model enemy behavior and predict the consequences of different courses of action. These simulations, embedded in weapons and command platforms, could allow commanders to proactively shape the environment and reduce adversary options, thereby minimizing the possible outcomes they have to deal with. For example, instead of reacting to a cyberattack, we could predict and preemptively defend it. This also requires advanced analytics at the tactical level, empowering small units to anticipate threats and adapt. The goal is to operate based on what will be, not just what is.

Unknowable (Hidden)

Addressing the vulnerability of predictable forces, a weakness exposed in recent conflicts and a shortfall of the Force XXI vision, the Army of 2040 must become “unknowable”—hidden from the adversary. Current conflicts demonstrate the vulnerability of predictable forces in open terrain. To counter this, the Army will embed deception capabilities at all echelons, utilizing advanced camouflage, electronic warfare, and disinformation that will actively complicate enemy targeting. This concept necessitates reducing our signature across all domains—physical, cyber, and electromagnetic—and constantly shifting operational patterns to avoid predictability and exploit the enemy’s reliance on established behaviors. Crucially, this extends to safeguarding personnel and family information and developing Army-sponsored programs to maintain their privacy and financial and information security. The current proliferation of servicemembers on private social media platforms and their mix of private and work-related posts will be more dangerous in 2040 and must be curtailed. Maintaining operational security will be paramount, demanding awareness and discipline throughout the force. Imagine units dynamically altering their electronic signature to mimic civilian traffic or deploying autonomous decoys—all contributing to an operational environment where the enemy struggles to gain a clear picture of the Army’s intent and actions.

We must create a credible posture that gives an adversary pause before initiating aggressive actions, forcing them to calculate the unacceptable costs and risks involved.

Compelling

Learning from the limitations of simply achieving battlefield dominance, the Army of 2040 must be compelling. The Army of 2040 must aim not only to defeat the enemy but also compel them to comply with our will. This notion requires understanding adversary vulnerabilities and shaping the environment for unacceptable outcomes. To paraphrase Clausewitz, war is about forcing the opponent to do what you want. Achieving this requires multi-domain overmatch at fracture points and leveraging capabilities across all domains—not simply demonstrating superiority but actively denying the adversary the ability to achieve their objectives. The Army will disrupt enemy infrastructure, cripple their networks, and demonstrate overwhelming force simultaneously. This combination could force negotiation on favorable terms. Deterrence will be essential, demonstrating the consequences of challenging U.S. interests and extending beyond simply threatening retaliation. We must create a credible posture that gives an adversary pause before initiating aggressive actions, forcing them to calculate the unacceptable costs and risks involved. Effective deterrence requires not only a visible and capable force, but also the demonstrated ability to rapidly and decisively respond to any provocation. Ultimately, the role of the Army is to compel—to shape the adversary’s decision-making process and ensure they act in accordance with our interests, even without resorting to large-scale conflict.

Adaptive

Recognizing the inherent unpredictability of future conflicts—a lesson reinforced by the evolving nature of warfare since Force XXI—the Army of 2040 must be adaptive. The operational environment of 2040 will be highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. This future requires continuous learning and self-healing systems, mitigating vulnerabilities in real time. It also demands multi-functional, cross-domain capable Soldiers and units able to operate seamlessly and adapt to changing missions. Maintaining a range of technology tiers will be vital—not simply having access to the most advanced systems, but also retaining proficiency with proven, reliable, and often lower-tech back-ups. This approach is not about clinging to obsolescence, but about recognizing that advanced technology can be vulnerable to countermeasures, jamming, or cyberattacks. A diverse toolkit allows us to degrade gracefully and maintain operational effectiveness even in contested environments. Furthermore, in certain scenarios—particularly those involving restrictive technology environments or sophisticated electronic warfare—an advantage can be gained by strategically “stepping back” in technology. Utilizing simpler, less detectable systems, or even reverting to analog methods, can circumvent advanced enemy sensors and maintain communication or operational capability. Think of units that can rapidly reconfigure, switch between offense and defense, and leverage both cutting-edge and legacy systems—a force that is not solely reliant on the latest advancements but can thrive in any technological landscape.

Decentralized

Acknowledging the vulnerability of centralized command structures in a contested environment, the Army of 2040 must be decentralized. Future adversaries will have systems capable of disrupting centralized command and control, necessitating forces capable of increased levels of distributed and independent action. Therefore, the Army of 2040 will be organized as highly dispersed organizations, capable of operating independently but designed to anticipate and converge effects and efforts to fracture adversaries. This concept would not abandon command and control (C2) but empower lower-level leaders to make decisions in degraded environments. Imagine small, autonomous units operating independently yet proactively coordinating their actions to achieve a synergistic impact—a network of capable teams able to adapt and overcome challenges without constant oversight. This network requires not only equipping soldiers to operate autonomously or semi-independently—creating an ‘autonomous soldier’—but also a continuous understanding and accounting for vulnerabilities and changes to C2 systems and processes. Critically, these units must be able to adapt to fractured command and control in degraded communications environments. Moreover, the Army must develop the ability to change C2 structures and task organization near-instantaneously, enabling rapid adaptation to evolving battlefield conditions and exploiting fleeting opportunities. 

Conclusion

The Force XXI effort sought to prepare the Army for a future defined by technological superiority. While a valuable effort, it underscored a critical truth: anticipating the future of warfare solely through technological projection is insufficient. As the Army develops its next operating concept, there will likely be plenty written about what the Army does (missions) and what the Army has (capabilities or kit). As the senior army leaders did at the beginning of a revolution in military affairs (RMA) in 1994 when they published Force XXI Operations, it would be useful to frame what the Army is by explicitly describing the characteristics of the Army they are planning to build. Realizing this vision demands intellectual rigor. We must resist the simplistic temptation to solve today’s problems with tomorrow’s technology—seeking a “better howitzer” instead of asking: “What is better than a howitzer?” or even “Do we still need tanks?” Clearly articulating these characteristics is not merely an academic exercise; it defines what the Army will be, creating shared understanding and effort for the coming decades. Ultimately, the challenges of the second quarter of the twenty-first century demand a refreshed vision—a revitalized approach akin to Force XXI, but one grounded in fundamental transformation rather than incremental improvements. The time for that reimagining is now.

Sam White is the Deputy Director of the Center for Strategic Leadership at the U.S. Army War College.

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

Photo Credit: Image generated by Gemini AI

18. Chinese warships arrive in Russia’s far east for joint Pacific naval exercise

​It cannot be just China-only. We have to consider the CRInK.

China’s military drills

ChinaMilitary

Chinese warships arrive in Russia’s far east for joint Pacific naval exercise

Destroyers Shaoxing, Urumqi arrive in Vladivostok for 5-day ‘Joint Sea 2025’ drill beginning on Friday

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3320195/china-announces-joint-naval-exercise-russia-pacific-august?utm

Liu Zhen

Published: 3:03am, 31 Jul 2025Updated: 5:14pm, 31 Jul 2025

Chinese warships have sailed into the main port of Russia’s Pacific Fleet ahead of a joint naval exercise this week in the Sea of Japan – also known as the East Sea, according to Russian media.

The guided-missile destroyers the Shaoxing and the Urumqi arrived at the eastern port city of Vladivostok for the five-day joint naval drill that starts on Friday, state news agency Sputnik reported on Thursday, quoting Russia’s Pacific Fleet.

The drills will also involve diesel-electric submarines and naval aircraft from both countries, according to Russia’s Tass news agency.

The “Joint Sea 2025” drill would be followed by the sixth joint maritime patrol in the Pacific, China’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.

The exercise will take place in the sea and airspace near Vladivostok, Russia’s far eastern port city. Some of the forces in the exercise will then take part in the subsequent joint patrol in designated ocean areas, according to ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang.

“This is an arrangement within the annual cooperation plan between the Chinese and Russian militaries. It is not targeted at any third party, nor is it related to the current international and regional situation,” Zhang said in Beijing.

He did not specify the dates of the drill or the size of the event.

The drill takes place as the US Air Force is hosting the “Resolute Force Pacific 2025” exercise in various locations including Hawaii, Guam and Japan, as well as international airspace.

The exercise began on July 10 and extends to August 8, and involves more than 400 aircraft and 12,000 personnel from the US and allies such as Japan and Australia.

The US Air Force has described it as their “biggest combat exercise in the region”.

“The US, clinging to its Cold War mentality, has been constantly flexing its muscles in the Asia-Pacific region and attempting to gang up under the guise of ‘military drills’, intimidate and pressure other countries, and undermine peace and stability in the region,” Zhang said.

Taiwan launches ‘urban resilience’ drills to test war readiness amid PLA pressure

As Beijing and Moscow have deepened their partnership in recent years, increased joint naval cooperation has become a key component of the strengthening of their military ties.

This will be the 11th exercise in the Joint Sea series, also known as “Maritime Cooperation”. It began in 2012 and has been held annually, except for 2018, 2020 and 2023.

Most of the previous exercises were held in the northwestern Pacific, but they have also been held in the Baltic and Mediterranean seas.

The series involves warships, aircraft, and support units from both sides, conducting operations including formation manoeuvres, search and rescue exercises, air defence drills, anti-submarine operations and live-fire shootings. Demonstrations of interoperability are also part of the exercise.

A similar “Northern Cooperation” exercise, led by the People’s Liberation Army Northern Theatre Command, began in 2023, when there was no Joint Sea exercise, but both events were held last year, with the Joint Sea exercise in July in the South China Sea and the Northern Cooperation drill held in September in the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk.

The two navies started joint patrols in the Pacific region in 2021, usually occurring before or after a joint exercise. Such patrols happened twice last year, in July and September, by ships of the PLA Southern Theatre Command and the Northern Theatre Command, respectively.

Liu Zhen

Liu Zhen joined the Post in 2015 as a reporter on the China desk. She previously worked with Reuters in Beijing.

19. Narratives Under Fire: Information Warfare Lessons from India–Pakistan and Ukraine–Russia

​Excerpts:

The 2025 India–Pakistan air skirmish and Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb illustrate divergent approaches to wartime information management. India–Pakistan’s reliance on secrecy and unverified claims fueled mistrust and disinformation, complicating de-escalation. Conversely, Ukraine’s transparent, evidence-based strategy, with rapid drone footage releases, shaped narratives, boosted morale, and secured NATO support.

Transparency proved more effective in building trust and achieving strategic goals. As information warfare becomes central to modern conflicts, states must prioritize credible communication to manage escalation and maintain alliances. The rise of AI, deepfakes, and drones amplifies these challenges, demanding adaptive strategies. How can militaries balance transparency with security in this era? Investing in open-source intelligence (OSINT) training and strategic communication infrastructure is critical to counter disinformation, enhance credibility, and navigate future hybrid conflicts effectively.

Essay| The Latest

Narratives Under Fire: Information Warfare Lessons from India–Pakistan and Ukraine–Russia

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/07/31/information-warfare-lessons/

by Tang Meng Kit

|

07.31.2025 at 06:00am

Introduction

How did a single drone video reshape global perceptions of a modern conflict? In 2025, Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb showcased the power of transparency, releasing real-time footage of strikes on Russian bomber bases, captivating audiences and exposing adversary weaknesses.

In contrast, the India–Pakistan air skirmish, sparked by a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir, fueled confusion through unverified claims and disinformation, with Pakistan’s exaggerated reports of downed Indian jets amplifying mistrust. These events offer contrasting case studies in managing wartime narratives, verifying claims, and engaging diverse audiences.

The 2025 India–Pakistan skirmish and Operation Spiderweb highlight the critical role of strategic communication in modern conflicts, where drones, social media, and open-source intelligence (OSINT) shape outcomes.

This analysis explores impacts on domestic publics, international allies, media, policymakers, military stakeholders, and adversaries, underscoring how technology, transparency, and disinformation influence conflict dynamics and global perceptions.

Background and Context

India–Pakistan Air Skirmish (2025)

The India-Pakistan air skirmish of 2025 escalated from tensions over Jammu and Kashmir. It was ignited by a terrorist attack on April 22, 2025, in Pahalgam, killing 26 civilians, mostly tourists. India launched retaliatory drone and missile strikes on May 6, targeting alleged terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. From May 6 to May 10, both nations exchanged airstrikes, hitting air bases and infrastructure, risking broader conflict.

On May 7, Pakistan claimed via X to have downed five Indian aircraft, including Rafales, fueling domestic support but lacking verified evidence. India has not officially confirmed losses, though reports suggest at least two aircraft were downed, fostering confusion among civilians.

Pakistan’s claim targeted the Rafale, a multi-role fighter jet manufactured by Dassault Aviation, equipped with advanced radar and missiles for air superiority. India’s 36 Rafale jets, acquired in 2016 for €7.8 billion, symbolize modernization, outmatching Pakistan’s F-16s and JF-35s and escalating nuclear tensions. Pakistan’s unverified claim, debunked by OSINT, aimed to undermine India but fueled confusion, underscoring the need for rapid, credible communication to counter disinformation.

The nuclear rivalry between the two nations heightened stakes, with rapid disinformation amplifying tensions. Drones and social media platforms like X and WhatsApp spread misinformation, including recycled images from a 2024 Indian jet crash falsely linked to the conflict, garnering significant attention. Scarce independent verification obscured the conflict’s scale, deepening public skepticism.

A U.S.-mediated ceasefire on May 10 paused hostilities, but the episode underscored the dangers of unverified narratives in a volatile region.

Operation Spiderweb (2025)

Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, launched on June 1, 2025, escalated its defense against Russian aggression, rooted in the 2014 conflict, using advanced drone technology. The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) executed coordinated strikes with 117 FPV drones targeting five Russian air bases: Belaya, Dyagilevo, Ivanovo, Severny, Olenya, and Ukrainka, spanning 7,000 kilometers across five time zones from Siberia to the Arctic.

These strikes disrupted Russia’s long-range bomber capabilities, including Tu-95s, exposing vulnerabilities. On June 4, the SBU released Telegram footage showcasing the attacks, captivating global audiences and contrasting with the India-Pakistan skirmish’s opacity. Russia downplayed the damage, claiming minimal impact in Murmansk and Irkutsk while asserting most attacks were repelled. Ukraine estimated 41 aircraft damaged in Operation Spiderweb on June 1, 2025. Independent reports, including NATO assessments, estimated around 40 aircraft affected, including 10 to 13 destroyed.

Leveraging cutting-edge drones, open-source intelligence, and platforms like Telegram and X, Ukraine achieved transparency, swiftly disseminating information to rally domestic support and shape international perceptions in a hybrid war where information rivals military might.

Comparative Analysis

The 2025 India–Pakistan air skirmish and Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb reveal stark contrasts in wartime information management, as summarized below:

AspectIndia–Pakistan (2025)Operation Spiderweb (2025)Nature of ClaimsUnverified, exaggerated (e.g., Pakistan’s jet claims)Detailed, evidence-based (e.g., SBU footage)VerificationMinimal; old crash images circulated on WhatsAppVideo, satellite imagery, OSINTStrategic CommunicationAmbiguous, prioritized operational securityTransparent, aimed at psychological impactPsychological ImpactMixed; confusion and mistrust domesticallySignificant; undermined Russian confidence

Table 1: Comparison of Information Management Strategies.

The India-Pakistan air skirmish of 2025 was marked by unverified claims, such as Pakistan’s May 7, 2025, X assertion of downing five Indian jets, including Rafales, later undermined by WhatsApp sharing a recycled 2024 crash image. India’s delayed response, roughly 48 hours, prioritized operational security but fueled domestic confusion and international skepticism, eroding trust and complicating de-escalation.

Conversely, Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, launched June 1, 2025, employed rapid, evidence-based communication. The SBU released Telegram footage post-June 1, showing drone strikes on Russian Tu-95 bombers, supported by satellite imagery and OSINT analysis. While Bellingcat’s specific corroboration is unverified, Ukraine’s transparency amplified credibility, undermined Russian confidence, and bolstered NATO support. This openness delivered a psychological blow, shaping global narratives and reinforcing domestic morale.

While India-Pakistan’s secrecy obscured losses, Ukraine’s transparency exposed vulnerabilities, highlighting the effectiveness of verified communication in modern warfare.

Strategic Communication and Information Management

India–Pakistan Air Skirmish (2025)

The India-Pakistan air skirmish of 2025 prioritized operational security over transparency, with divergent outcomes. India delayed acknowledging losses from drone and missile strikes. They maintained silence for roughly 48 hours after Pakistan’s May 7, 2025, claim of downing five Indian jets, including Rafales, without confirming specific losses.

This secrecy aimed to protect military operations but fueled conflicting narratives, leading to mixed domestic morale as citizens grappled with unverified reports. Pakistan amplified unverified claims via social media, with WhatsApp groups circulating a recycled 2024 crash image as evidence of victories. This was later debunked by OSINT analysts.

The lack of credible verification eroded trust, with international media reporting confusion that undermined both nations’ credibility. Policymakers faced pressure to clarify claims, while adversaries exploited ambiguity to escalate rhetoric, prolonging tensions until a ceasefire on May 10, 2025.

The media’s amplification of disinformation, such as the false jet-downing narrative, complicated de-escalation, highlighting the risks of opaque communication in hybrid conflicts.

Operation Spiderweb (2025)

Operation Spiderweb exemplified Ukraine’s strategic use of transparent, evidence-based communication to gain psychological and diplomatic advantages. On June 1, 2025, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) executed a large-scale drone attack targeting Russian air bases, with footage released on June 4, 2025, showcasing strikes on Russian Tu-95 bombers and other aircraft.

Coordinated with OSINT groups, the operation’s verification confirmed significant damage to Russian military assets, boosting Ukrainian morale and exposing adversary vulnerabilities. Major media outlets, including The Guardian, amplified Ukraine’s transparency, framing it as a formidable actor, which enhanced its credibility and spurred diplomatic discussions, such as a call between U.S. and Russian leaders on June 4, 2025.

The visible losses weakened Russian military morale, increasing internal pressure, while Ukraine leveraged the operation to strengthen its international position.

This approach, supported by drones and OSINT, contrasted with the ambiguity-driven mistrust in conflicts like India-Pakistan, demonstrating how transparency can achieve victories in modern warfare.

Implications and Lessons

Information Warfare

The 2025 India–Pakistan air skirmish and Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb underscore the pivotal role of information warfare in modern conflicts. India–Pakistan’s unverified claims, such as Pakistan’s exaggerated reports of downing Indian jets, eroded public trust and complicated de-escalation efforts. All the while conflicting narratives fueled domestic and international skepticism. In contrast, Operation Spiderweb’s evidence-based approach, with drone footage and OSINT verification, shaped global narratives and achieved psychological dominance over Russia, boosting Ukrainian credibility and morale.

Disinformation risks destabilizing alliances and escalating conflicts, while transparency strengthens strategic positioning. Militaries must prioritize credible communication to counter false narratives and maintain public support. This is exceptionally important, particularly in hybrid warfare, where information shapes outcomes as much as kinetic actions.

Operational Security vs. Transparency

Balancing transparency with operational security remains a critical challenge. Ukraine’s rapid release of drone footage revealed tactical capabilities, risking Russian countermeasures. Yet, it secured diplomatic gains and public support. Conversely, India’s 48-hour silence on losses prioritized security but fueled disinformation, as recycled crash images spread unchecked. Controlled transparency, such as releasing redacted footage or verified summaries, can maintain credibility without compromising sensitive details.

Militaries should train communicators to leverage OSINT for selective disclosures, countering disinformation while protecting operational integrity. For example, Ukraine’s coordination with Bellingcat ensured verified claims without exposing full capabilities. Integrating OSINT into communication doctrines can enhance trust and deter adversaries, offering a model for future conflicts where information is a strategic asset.

Policy and Strategy

Militaries must adapt by developing doctrines that integrate real-time OSINT and media strategies to enhance credibility. Tailoring communication to diverse audiences, domestic publics for morale, international allies for support, media for amplification, and adversaries for deterrence, is essential. Ukraine’s media engagement strengthened NATO backing, while Pakistan’s ambiguity alienated neutral observers, weakening its diplomatic stance. Policymakers should invest in training and infrastructure to support agile, credible communication, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives.

Future Trends

Emerging technologies will shape information warfare. AI-generated deepfakes could amplify disinformation, as seen in potential India–Pakistan scenarios, while advanced drones will enhance OSINT capabilities. As hybrid conflicts grow, global security demands investment in cyber and media capabilities to counter threats and maintain narrative control. This ensures resilience in an era of rapid information flows.

Conclusion

The 2025 India–Pakistan air skirmish and Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb illustrate divergent approaches to wartime information management. India–Pakistan’s reliance on secrecy and unverified claims fueled mistrust and disinformation, complicating de-escalation. Conversely, Ukraine’s transparent, evidence-based strategy, with rapid drone footage releases, shaped narratives, boosted morale, and secured NATO support.

Transparency proved more effective in building trust and achieving strategic goals. As information warfare becomes central to modern conflicts, states must prioritize credible communication to manage escalation and maintain alliances. The rise of AI, deepfakes, and drones amplifies these challenges, demanding adaptive strategies. How can militaries balance transparency with security in this era? Investing in open-source intelligence (OSINT) training and strategic communication infrastructure is critical to counter disinformation, enhance credibility, and navigate future hybrid conflicts effectively.

Tags: Comparative Analysis, India-Pakistan Conflict, information warfare, Operation Spider Web, OSINT, Russia-Ukraine War

About The Author

• 
  
• Tang Meng Kit
• Tang Meng Kit is a Singaporean freelance analyst and commentator who works as an aerospace engineer. He graduated from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU, Singapore in 2025.

20. How SASC, HASC want to spend reconciliation on Golden Dome, munitions

How SASC, HASC want to spend reconciliation on Golden Dome, munitions - Breaking Defense

The Pentagon has until Aug. 22 to provide its own implementation plan laying out whether it will follow the committees’ recommendations, according to a Congressional notice.

By Valerie Insinna, Theresa Hitchens, Michael Marrow and Ashley Roque on July 29, 2025 4:11 pm

breakingdefense.com · by Valerie Insinna · July 29, 2025

WASHINGTON — The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have sent the Pentagon guidance for how lawmakers want to see $150 billion in defense funding from the reconciliation bill spent, providing new details on which programs stand to benefit from the added money.

The Pentagon has until Aug. 22 to provide its own implementation plan laying out whether it will follow the committees’ recommendations, wrote HASC Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and SASC Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., in a July 22 letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“To inform the development of such plan, the committees are attaching guidance outlining the intended appropriations,” Rogers and Wicker wrote in the letter. “We value your partnership and look forward to working with you on modernizing our military, enhancing our defense industrial base and building a ready, capable and lethal fighting force that will deter America’s adversaries.”

While funding for many big ticket items—like two additional Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and a boost for F-15EX fighter procurement — was apparent in the reconciliation bill, which was signed into law on July 4, other funding lines were tied to broad categories, such as “counter-unmanned aerial systems programs,” rather than specific programs.

The committees’ funding guidance includes more granular spending information for those programs for the first time. The funding tables also reveal a list of key missile defense programs potentially slated to receive a funding increase as part of the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile shield program.

Over the past three months, Wicker has repeatedly asked defense officials, including Hegseth, to promise to spend the reconciliation money in accordance with congressional guidance. Hegseth and others have provided such a commitment.

Inside Defense was the first to report on the documents.

Golden Dome Details

The congressional plan provides a more granular look at what Missile Defense Agency (MDA) programs are getting funding infusions related to the Trump administration’s ambitious Golden Dome initiative.

For example, while the reconciliation bill text shows $2.2 billion under Section 20003 for “accelerated hypersonic defense systems,” the implementation plan notes that these funds are all slated for the Glide Phase Interceptor.

Likewise, the $800 million in the bill “for accelerated development and deployment of next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile defense systems” is to be injected into the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) program. Lawmakers further specified that $60 million of those funds be used for a test of the NGI’s ability to take out an incoming missile in its midcourse.

The document also includes specific instructions to the agency to slate the $65 million in the reconciliation package’s section on munitions (Section 20004) for “expansion of production capacity of Missile Defense Agency long-range anti-ballistic missile” towards ramping up the production capacity for the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA to 36 a year.

For each of these efforts, lawmakers also demand that MDA provide a plan for spending the allotted funds.

Air Force And Army

While the reconciliation bill itself already laid out funding boosts for high-profile Air Force programs like the B-21 Raider and LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM, which would receive cash infusions of $4.5 billion and $2.5 billion respectively, the spending plan does include more specific detail for spending targets.

For example, an additional $1.5 billion for low-cost cruise missiles would be divvied up by providing $745 million for the Family of Affordable Mass Missile palletized munition, $500 million for the Extended Range Attack Munition developed for Ukraine and $30 million to accelerate a small cruise missile for special forces, among other projects.

The spending plan also provides more insight into how lawmakers and the DoD intend to supercharge munitions production, a key focus of the reconciliation process amid stiff demand for ordnance.

The ship-killing LRASM, which would get a plus-up of $400 million, would be divided between $288 million for the Navy and $112 million for the Air Force, amounting to a total of 240 rounds in FY26, according to the spending plan. And in expanding production of the AMRAAM air-to-air missile, the spending plan says the weapon’s 120D variant “has a significant backlog only likely to grow” due to foreign demand and the fielding of Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone wingmen, which are expected to serve as AMRAAM trucks.

Meanwhile, lawmakers directed that reconciliation funds be used to reverse cuts on several development programs announced by the Army Transformation Initiative.

For example, the service had announced tentative plans to end development of a new engine for UH-60 Black Hawks and AH-64 Apaches by General Electric dubbed the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP). However, authorizers detail the expectation that $63 million will be used to keep the development program afloat.

In May, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus said that such an add might be enough to keep ITEP going short term.

“We know that the Army will benefit from reconciliation, but just how much is unknown,” the four-star general told reporters at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference in Nashville, Tenn.

“The future of ITEP is largely going to depend on where all these things land inside the ‘26 budget,” he later added.

The committees also want to see $92.5 million spent to allow the service to complete prototyping of its Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) program.

Breaking Defense first reported in early March that industry sources had been notified that Textron Systems’s Ripsaw 3 had won the RCV competition and the service was preparing to ink a deal with the victors. But around that same time, Army leaders identified RCV as one program to cut as part of the 8 percent budget drill to realign funding toward higher priorities, one service official told Breaking Defense in May.

As a result, the service is preparing to halt work on the program, though it is unclear just what impact the reconciliation dollars will have.

In other ground vehicle moves, lawmakers want the service to send an additional $250 million to buy 38 additional Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPVs) from BAE Systems. As part of the new ATI, the service was planning to simply keep the AMPV production line warm.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are also eyeing a one year acceleration to the Army’s Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) Increment 4 with an $85 million investment in long-lead items. In 2023, the service tapped two teams, one led by Lockheed Martin and one led by Raytheon and Northop Grumman, to work on competing PrSM Inc 4 designs for a weapon that can fly more than 1,000 km.

The bill is also intended to provide the service with $4.5 million to spend on Anduril’s Roadrunner-Munition which contains a high-explosive interceptor meant to destroy an array of aerial threats, from a smaller Iranian Shahed loitering munition — which have been terrorizing Ukraine — to aircraft up to “full-sized” aircraft.

breakingdefense.com · by Valerie Insinna · July 29, 2025

21. To drink or not to drink – the Party decides in China

Although this is focused on civilian government officials, if applied to the military will soldiers lose their fighting edge and warrior ethos if they ban drinking in the military? I say that only half in jest. As one of my Sergeants Major used to say, soldiers bond in three ways: shared combat, shared hardship in training, and shared beer drinking. Some have speculated that the​ US fighting edge began declining in the 1980s when the military embarked on a subtle anti drinking crusade as evidenced by the closing down or ​"reshaping​" of the officer, NCO, and enlisted cl​ub system.

To drink or not to drink – the Party decides in China - Asia Times

asiatimes.com · by Jeff Pao · July 31, 2025

China is seeking to transform its spirits sector by prohibiting civil servants from drinking at official events while at the same time encouraging the public to drink more during family gatherings.

The central government has instructed civil servants to refrain from consuming alcohol at official meetings since 2012. The original idea behind the official ban was to reduce public expenses and improve the public image of civil servants.

Under the rules, many officials altered their drinking habits by rescheduling their sessions from lunch to dinner or hosting personal parties after all official meetings had concluded. At the same time, businesspeople offered officials expensive spirits as gifts, creating corruption issues.

Although the central government has continued to tighten its “alcohol ban”, many civil servants habitually break the rules, with most of them managing to get away with it. Some others, however, have been arrested for drunk driving.

A recent incident in Inner Mongolia has triggered changes to the booze rules. On May 6, Wei Shuanshi, deputy director of the finance and economy committee of the People’s Congress of Inner Mongolia, a senior official at the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Inner Mongolia, and party secretary of Baotou Iron and Steel (Group) Co, accompanied a relative to go to the Baotou No.4 Hospital.

Wei had a gathering with former colleagues surnamed Wang, Guo, and He in the hospital. On May 7, they had dinner with three other medical staff members. Wei said he would pay the bill and bring him a bottle of old Maotai spirit. During the dinner, Wei, Wang, Guo and one more colleague, Jiang, finished the bottle. On average, each had 125 grams of the 53% ABV liquor.

After the meal, Wei asked a private firm executive to pay the bill, violating the Communist Party of China (CCP)’s anti-graft rule. Wang, Guo and Jiang went to a barbecue shop for a second round of drinking. At 6 am on May 8, Guo died at home due to alcohol poisoning. His family asked Wei to pay them compensation for his death, but they disagreed on the amount.

Guo’s family threatened to report the case to the CCP’s disciplinary committee. On May 15, Wei reported the case to the committee.

While the case initially appeared to be Guo’s fault for drinking excessively at his late-evening gathering, the disciplinary committee investigated Wei for being involved in other serious violations of Party discipline and suspected illegal activities. It also punished or warned all others involved in the incident, including two team leaders who did not attend the dinner.

On May 18, the State Council and the CCP Central Committee announced that civil servants are prohibited from drinking or smoking on any occasion related to their work. Officials now need approval to attend meal receptions and must avoid unnecessary private gatherings.

The new rules quickly put market pressure on key spirits makers in China. Kweichow Moutai fell 11.5% within a month after the announcement, while Wuliangye Yibin dropped 10.7%.

Ambiguous rules

On June 18, China Central Television published an online commentary titled “Forbidding meals that violate the discipline rules, but not all meals.” The commentary stated that some local governments had overinterpreted the new “alcohol ban,” harming the catering sector and its workers.

For example, a bank manager in Anhui was fined 3,000 yuan (approximately US$417) for having noodles with two clients; ordinary party members avoided meeting with friends; government departments screened every meal and reception; and a town in Gansu banned its civil servants from drinking, the commentary said.

“Everyday dining is the foundation of people’s livelihoods, the heart of humanity and the pulse of the economy,” writes Li Jialin, the author of the opinion piece. “The alcohol ban is supposed to be used precisely like a scalpel to curb corruption, but some local governments used it like a sledgehammer to break everything.”

“Local government officials seemed to be proactively implementing the alcohol ban, but they had a lazy governance mentality, misinterpreted the new rules, and disregarded people’s livelihoods,” Li wrote. “Now restaurants lose customers and their staff make less money. The decline spills over to the food supply chain.”

He says China’s catering industry saw revenue of more than 5.5 trillion yuan in 2024, supporting the livelihoods of over 30 million people. He says local governments must learn to distinguish between meals that violate the discipline rules and everyday meals; civil servants can drink a little in private meetings, as long as they can still perform their duties.

Some commentators in Guizhou, home of many baijiu makers, including Kweichow Moutai, said the CCTV commentary clearly defined the drinking rules for civil servants.

“In 1985, the Soviet Union’s strict alcohol ban resulted in a surge in bootleg liquor and social unrest,” a Guizhou-based writer says. “The Gorbachev government shut down distilleries and raised prices, which fueled a black market. The policy failed due to high implementation costs.”

“This case serves as a lesson: policy implementation must balance rigid constraints with social realities, avoiding counterproductive effects caused by excessive intervention,” she says. She adds that the public has gradually come to understand that the alcohol ban should be reasonably implemented, allowing civil servants to maintain their everyday social lives.

An analyst at the research unit of Guizhou Center Brewing Group says Beijing’s core message is that officials should avoid drinking high-end liquor in meetings. At the same time, local governments should facilitate the general public’s need to drink.

“The CCTV article encourages normal consumption of cheaper liquor, which refers to those that are tens of yuans per bottle,” he says. “Small spirits brands would benefit if their marketing campaigns highlight warm-heartedness among friends and family.”

​\On June 22, state media published a list of scenarios outlining when, where and how civil servants can drink. Civil servants are prohibited from attending eight types of banquets, including weddings, funerals and other similar events. They must remain vigilant when attending 12 formal or informal banquets that utilize public funds and government venues.

Young consumers

Despite an alcohol ban for civil servants, demand among younger generation drinkers can help keep Chinese baijiu makers buoyant, analysts say.

Industry analysis shows that men aged 35-55 remain the core consumer group of baijiu (over 52% ABV) in China, accounting for more than 65% of the spirits market. They are mainly senior corporate executives and government officials.

Consumers aged 20-35 account for only 19% of the baijiu market. They prefer fruit punch and pre-mixed alcoholic drinks (6% to 16% ABV). Female drinkers account for 41% in this age group.

A survey compiled by Wuliangye showed that only 19% of consumers aged 20-35 prefer baijiu, 52% fancy beer and 29% like foreign wine and fruit liquor.

Wuliangye announced that it will launch a spirits product with 29% ABV for young consumers in the second half of this year. Luzhou Laojiao, a Sichuan-based liquor maker, said it developed a baijiu with 28% ABV and will launch products with 6% and 16% ABV.

An industry report stated that China’s spirits production fell by 13.33% to 650,000 kiloliters in 2024 compared to the previous year. It was the first decline recorded since 2019.

However, the combined revenue of spirits makers grew 4.35% to 240 billion yuan ($34.3 billion), while their net profit rose 3.19% to 97 billion yuan. Although spirits makers no longer enjoy double-digit growth, they can maintain mild growth and buy time to explore new markets, the report said.

asiatimes.com · by Jeff Pao · July 31, 2025

22. Arab states call on Hamas to disarm and relinquish power in unprecedented move

​Are the times a changin?

Arab states call on Hamas to disarm and relinquish power in unprecedented move | CNN

CNN · by Nadeen Ebrahim · July 30, 2025

Palestinian Hamas militants gather at the site of the handing over of the bodies of four Israeli hostages in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza on February 20, 2025.

Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images

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Arab and Muslim states including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have for the first time issued a joint call for Hamas to disarm and relinquish power in the Gaza Strip as part of efforts to end the war in the territory.

The 22-member Arab League, the entire European Union and another 17 countries backed a declaration signed at a United Nations conference co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and France on Tuesday.

The meeting in New York aimed to address “the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine and the implementation of the Two-State Solution,” and the declaration lays out what steps the signatories think should be taken next.

“Governance, law enforcement and security across all Palestinian territory must lie solely with the Palestinian Authority, with appropriate international support,” the joint document read, adding that “in the context of ending the war in Gaza, Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State.”

The text also condemned the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, and proposed the deployment of “a temporary international stabilization mission” upon invitation by the PA and “under the aegis of the United Nations.”

“We welcomed the readiness expressed by some Member States to contribute in troops,” it said.

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Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a statement inside No. 10 Downing Street in London on July 29, 2025, the day the cabinet was recalled to discuss the situation in Gaza.

Toby Melville/Pool/Reuters

Britain to recognize Palestinian state unless Israel agrees to Gaza ceasefire

France, who co-chaired the conference, called the declaration “unprecedented.”

Speaking at the UN Tuesday, Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister, said that “on the part of Saudi Arabia and the Arab and Muslim countries who for the first time will condemn terrorism, the acts of terror on the 7th of October, a call for the disarmament of Hamas and expressed their hope to have a normalized relationship with Israel in due time.”

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum commended the declaration, saying: “We welcome this important progress and the Arab League’s recognition that Hamas must end its rule in Gaza. Kidnapping innocent men, women, and children is a blatant violation of international law and must be unequivocally condemned.”

Both mediators in ceasefire negotiations, Qatar and Egypt have maintained ties with Hamas and Israel throughout the war.

In March, a plan for Gaza formulated by Egypt excluded Hamas from governance of the enclave once the war ends, a draft of the plan obtained by CNN showed.

The plan was discussed by Arab leaders meeting in Cairo in an emergency summit, with Egypt’s president proposing a Palestinian committee to temporarily govern Gaza – taking over from Hamas and eventually handing power to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly pushed for a revival of the two-state solution.

France has said it will vote to recognize a Palestinian state in September, to Israel’s dismay. The United Kingdom also said it will recognize a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza. Both Israel and the United States condemned France and Britain’s statements.

Hamas has, however, shown no signs of relinquishing power in the enclave, yet officials within the militant group have in the past given contradictory statements about the movement’s role in a post-war Gaza.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vehemently opposes the two-state solution, arguing that it is incompatible with his country’s security.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Becky Anderson contributed reporting.

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CNN · by Nadeen Ebrahim · July 30, 2025

23. GOP Eyes European Money to Replace U.S. Weapons Donated to Ukraine

GOP Eyes European Money to Replace U.S. Weapons Donated to Ukraine

Bill from top Senate Republicans would create a fund at Treasury to accept money from allies

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/us-weapons-ukraine-europe-funds-be3096c2

By Lindsay Wise

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 and Robbie Gramer

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July 30, 2025 12:23 pm ET

A Ukrainian serviceman holds a Stinger antiaircraft missile. Photo: Anna Kudriavtseva/Reuters

Key Points

What's This?

• GOP Sens. Roger Wicker and Jim Risch are proposing the PEACE Act to allow allies to finance U.S. weapon donations to Ukraine.
• The PEACE Act would create a Treasury fund for allies’ contributions, replenishing U.S. stockpiles for Ukraine aid.
• Trump, frustrated with Russia, seeks European funds for Ukraine, threatening tariffs if no cease-fire is reached.

WASHINGTON—Two top Senate Republicans laid out a plan Wednesday to allow allies to finance donations of U.S. weapons and military equipment to Ukraine, following through on a proposal pushed by President Trump to raise billions of dollars a year for the war effort.

The Peace Act proposed by Sens. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) and Jim Risch (R., Idaho) provides the most detailed outline yet of how Trump could carry out his new plan to arm Kyiv with European funds after his efforts to bring about a swift end to the war in Ukraine ran aground. Wicker chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee and Risch chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, giving the legislation heft on Capitol Hill.

Their bill would create a fund at the U.S. Treasury to accept money from allies. The defense secretary could then use the fund to pay contractors to replenish U.S. stockpiles so the Pentagon can continue sending weapons packages to Ukraine without undermining America’s own military readiness, according to GOP aides familiar with the proposal. The aides said the hope is to create a funding stream of about $5 billion to $8 billion a year. Likely contributors include Germany and the United Kingdom, they said.

European allies already have been paying U.S. contractors to build new weapons for Ukraine, which can take years. That effort is expected to continue. But Wicker said in a statement that the Peace Act gives Trump and America’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies an additional option to expedite the delivery of military aid to Ukraine by drawing from existing U.S. stocks.

“This is the fastest way to arm Ukraine as well as to minimize the strategic and military threat posed by Russia to the U.S. and NATO,” Wicker said.

“Together, we will send a clear message to Putin that there are consequences for his refusal to negotiate in good faith,” Risch added in a statement.

Wicker has discussed the legislation with the White House, which has been largely receptive to the idea, aides said. The plan is to pass it later this year as part of the annual defense policy bill produced by Wicker’s committee.

The White House and Treasury didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Peace Act tries to address the president’s longstanding complaint that Europe should foot more of the bill for arming Ukraine and shoring up NATO’s military capabilities as it faces down a resurgent Russia. The president in recent weeks has soured on Russian President Vladimir Putin after Moscow rebuffed numerous U.S.-led cease-fire and peace talk efforts—all while striking a more positive outlook on NATO following a major alliance summit last month.

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In a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, President Trump announced he would impose 100% tariffs on Russia in 50 days if a peace deal isn’t reached. Photo: Evan Vucci/Associated Press

After initially giving Putin a 50-day deadline to reach a cease-fire, Trump on Monday moved that deadline up to 10 days in the latest sign of his frustrations. If Moscow doesn’t agree to a cease-fire by then, Trump said he would slap Russia and its top trading partners with punishing new tariffs and secondary sanctions.

Trump on Wednesday announced India will pay 25% tariffs beginning Aug. 1 for what he called unfair trade practices, in addition to an unspecified penalty, citing India’s dealings with Russia. 

India has “always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE—ALL THINGS NOT GOOD!” he wrote in a Truth Social post.

The U.S. has provided nearly $66 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022. But there is little to no appetite or momentum in the Republican-led Congress to authorize another foreign aid package.

Congress wouldn’t need to act in order for Trump to use presidential drawdown authority to supply foreign partners with U.S. weapons from the Pentagon’s inventories. It is seen as the optimal tool for providing Ukraine with immediate military aid—since it draws from existing U.S. stock rather than waiting for new production—but it comes with the risk of undermining U.S. military readiness. There is approximately $3.85 billion in previously authorized drawdown authority remaining.

Trump hasn’t yet used that drawdown authority to send new arms packages to Ukraine. But his administration has continued delivering previously approved weapons packages lined up under the former Biden administration—with a brief exception of a Pentagon pause in certain munitions earlier this month that caught parts of the Trump administration and Congress by surprise. The administration then resumed the shipments.

Write to Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com and Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com

24. Senate Approves Trump’s Pick for Top Counterterrorism Post

Senate Approves Trump’s Pick for Top Counterterrorism Post

Joe Kent, a former Army Green Beret, had attracted scrutiny over his associations with extremist groups and his promotion of conspiracy theories.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/us/politics/joe-kent-counterterrorism-center.html

Joe Kent will lead the National Counterterrorism Center.Credit...Jenny Kane/Associated Press

By Eric Schmitt

Reporting from Washington

Published July 30, 2025

Updated July 31, 2025, 7:40 a.m. ET

The Senate on Wednesday narrowly confirmed Joe Kent, President Trump’s contentious choice to be the nation’s top counterterrorism official, installing a pick who has embraced conspiracy theories and had links to extremist groups.

Mr. Kent, a former Army Green Beret and C.I.A. paramilitary officer, was approved as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center on a 52-to-44 party-line vote. His confirmation came despite his promotion of conspiracy theories, including that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Mr. Trump. He has said that the F.B.I. played a role in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and should be dismantled. He repeated the accusations at his confirmation hearing in April.

Mr. Kent has also attracted scrutiny over his associations to white supremacists and far-right extremist organizations. He later sought to distance himself from extremist groups as a congressional candidate, telling one news outlet ahead of Election Day in 2022 that he did not support them.

Earlier this year, Mr. Kent, serving as the acting chief of staff to the director of national intelligence, ordered a senior analyst to redo an assessment of the relationship between Venezuela’s government and a gang after intelligence findings undercut the White House’s justification for deporting migrants, according to officials.

Mr. Trump’s use of an 18th-century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to send Venezuelan migrants to a brutal prison in El Salvador without due process relied on a claim that U.S. intelligence agencies thought was wrong. But behind the scenes, Mr. Kent told a career official to rework the assessment, a direction that allies of the intelligence analyst said amounted to pressure to change the findings.

Democrats on Wednesday criticized Mr. Kent’s nomination to lead the counterterrorism center, which was created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, and analyzes and shares counterterrorism information to address threats to the United States.

“At a time when domestic violent extremism is one of the fastest-growing threats to the homeland, we are being asked to put someone in charge of counterterrorism who has aligned himself with political violence, promoted falsehoods that undermine our democracy and tried to twist intelligence to serve a political agenda,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said on the Senate floor.

Mr. Kent has a compelling personal story. He enlisted in the Army shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks. He served 11 combat deployments as a Green Beret, then retired and joined the C.I.A.

His wife, Shannon, a Navy cryptologist, was killed in 2019 along with three other Americans when a suicide bomber detonated his vest outside a restaurant in Manbij, in northern Syria.

In a post on social media after the Senate vote on Wednesday, Mr. Kent said, “NCTC will relentlessly pursue & defeat our nation’s enemies.”

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.

25. US Earth imaging satellite fleet is creating ‘low-cost orbital landmines’, China team says

​Part of China's three warfare? Or are they "mirror-imaging?" Aren't China's satellites more likely to have "uncontrolled re-entry" and collisions in space?

US Earth imaging satellite fleet is creating ‘low-cost orbital landmines’, China team says

Chinese Academy of Sciences software scientists say Planet Labs’ Dove constellation risks uncontrolled re-entry and potential collisions

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3320140/us-earth-imaging-satellite-fleet-creating-low-cost-orbital-landmines-china-team-says?utm

Ling Xinin Ohio

Published: 8:00pm, 30 Jul 2025

A team of Chinese researchers has criticised the world’s largest Earth-imaging satellite fleet, describing the shoebox-sized spacecraft as “low-cost orbital landmines” that threaten the safety of space operations.

Using a self-developed tracking platform, software scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences analysed the Dove constellation – which has launched hundreds of CubeSats since 2013 to provide daily, medium-resolution imagery of the Earth’s surface – according to the team’s article posted on Chinese social media on July 21.

The Chinese team said the thruster-less satellites operated by San Francisco-based Planet Labs, posed a growing threat to space safety.

They found that by early July more than 80 per cent of the 662 Dove satellites had deorbited, raising concerns about uncontrolled re-entry and potential collisions. They also noted that more than 100 Doves listed in public databases, including the US Space Force’s tracking website, were assigned “incorrect or fabricated” identification codes and lacked orbital data.

SpaceX Starship explodes during routine pre-launch ground test

“The Dove constellation has reshaped the commercial Earth observation industry with its low-cost, high-frequency observation model,” the researchers wrote. “However, it may be turning valuable low Earth orbits into a dangerous ‘minefield’.”

Launched in large batches and lacking on-board propulsion, Doves drift between 300km and 500km (186-310 miles) in altitude and cannot manoeuvre to avoid collisions. Their small size also made them hard to track, the researchers said, adding that many remained in orbit long after they had stopped functioning.

With low Earth orbit becoming crowded, the team called for regulators to take action. “It’s time to revisit the regulatory framework for these satellites and find a balance between innovation and responsibility,” they wrote.

It remains unclear if their article has been peer reviewed or formally published. Planet did not respond to the multiple email inquiries from the South China Morning Post.

Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer and space historian, said many early Dove satellites were deployed from the International Space Station (ISS), which contributed to a quirk in how they were tracked.

Satellites released from the ISS typically re-entered Earth’s atmosphere quickly and posed little risk to other spacecraft, McDowell said, because “in those days, there were very few satellites lower than the ISS”.

He said the US Space Force could not determine which launch vehicle delivered each satellite to the ISS, so it assigned all such objects the same international ID – “1998-067”, referring to the first ISS module launched in 1998.

“It’s true that the tracking website lists the launch date of all these objects as 1998, and that’s incorrect,” McDowell said. “But this is basically incompetence, not a conspiracy.”

According to McDowell’s website, Jonathan’s Space Report, the actual launch dates for the misidentified Dove satellites span 2014 to 2016.

Alleged satellite debris falls to earth in a village of northern China

As of 2025, his data shows that of the more than 600 Dove satellites Planet has launched, around 150 remain active, a further 150 are defunct but still in orbit, and about 250 have already re-entered the atmosphere and burned up.

Dove satellites operate in two primary orbital regimes: some were deployed from the ISS at around 420km in altitude, while others were launched directly into sun-synchronous orbits at around 475km.

To keep the constellation running, Planet launches new batches every three to six months, maintaining a fleet of about 200 functioning satellites at any given time.

months, maintaining a fleet of about 200 functioning satellites at any given time.

Ling Xin

Ling Xin is a science journalist based in Ohio. She mainly covers physics, astronomy and space. Her writing has appeared in Science, Scientific American, MIT Technology Review and other English and Chinese outlets. She was a visiting journalist at Science magazine in Washi

26. Five words that today are gratingly misapplied or worn out

​To end on a more lighthearted note from George Will (if you can feel the vibe). 

Opinion

George F. Will

Five words that today are gratingly misapplied or worn out

The massive vibe shift is one of the only big developments in American English. In fact, it’s iconic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/30/language-usage-vibe-massive/

July 30, 2025 at 7:00 a.m. EDTYesterday at 7:00 a.m. EDT

4 min

1,847

(Illustration by Washington Post staff; iStock)

I’m pickin’ up good vibrations/ She’s giving me excitations

— The Beach Boys, 1966

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“When we Americans are done with the English language,” wrote Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936), “it will look as if it had been run over by a musical comedy.” Let’s survey some recent damage.

The fifth-most misused word in what remains of the tattered language is “massive.” It is an adjective applied to anything big, even if the thing has no mass. There cannot be a massive increase in consumer confidence. Similarly, it would be wrong to say there is massive illiteracy in many uses of “massive.”

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The fourth-most shopworn word is “unique.” It is applied to any development that has happened since the person misusing “unique” was in high school. As in, “There is unique polarization in America today,” a judgment that cannot survive even a cursory reading about the 1850s. Often the misuse is compounded by tacking “very” onto it. Saying that something is “very unique” is saying that something merely unique is less so than something “very unique,” with uniqueness varying by degrees.

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The third-most gratingly misapplied word is “only,” but only in the phrase “one of the only.” As in, Mickey Mantle is one of the only switch hitters in the Hall of Fame. One of the only is a wordy way of avoiding “few.”

The second-most worn-out word in contemporary discourse is “iconic.” This adjective is, it seems, applicable to anything or anyone well known in a way different from the way anything or anyone else has become well-known. New Jersey urges tourists to come and enjoy its “iconic boardwalks.” Hulk Hogan, a professional wrestler, was, a story about his death said, iconic. Meaning he was somewhat famous and somewhat distinguishable from other professional wrestlers, every one of whom strains to be very unique.

Today’s most promiscuously used word is “vibe.” It probably is used so often by so many because trying to decipher its meaning is like trying to nail applesauce to smoke. Having no fixed meaning, “vibe” cannot be used incorrectly. So, it resembles the phrase “social justice,” which includes a noun and a modifier that does not intelligibly modify the noun.

From the American Enterprise Institute: “Zohran Mamdani Won the Vibe War.” Vibes at war? Supporters of the New York mayoral candidate like “the idea of mood.” City Journal on “Mamdani’s Vibes Campaign”: The candidate “didn’t just run a campaign; he curated an experience,” blending “culture and politics into a lifestyle brand” featuring “aspirational consumption,” whatever that is. Roll Call, which covers Capitol Hill: “Vibe Shift in House.” Some members of Congress were changing their votes.

The Wall Street Journal: “Luxury Brands Are Hit by a Vibe Shift.” Wealthy shoppers are skimping. Maybe. The Financial Times: “Unapologetic brands lean into the vibe shift.” No more “quiet luxury,” more “maximalism, conspicuous consumption, opulence.” The New York Times: “Can Walmart Drop Its Discount Vibe?” National Review on “The Land Where the Vibe Doesn’t Shift,” a.k.a. Ireland, which has mostly missed “the vibe shift” of a conservative backlash against progressive overreaching.

A Times obituary of a photographer: “Marcia Resnick, Who Captured 1970s New York Vibe, Dies at 74.” A Times columnist asks: “Should You Be Able to Copyright a Vibe?” (“Should stealing someone’s vibe be against the law?”) The Wall Street Journal: “‘Vibe Coding’ Arrives for Businesses.” This has something — the story is murky — to do with artificial intelligence.

Shakespeare used 28,827 different words without resorting to “vibe.” He could have written that Lear gave off a bad vibe while raging on the heath, and that Falstaff’s vibe was fun. But the Bard did as well as he could with the limited resources of the Elizabethan English he had.

Modernity means being constantly blindsided by progress. Most Americans sailed through grade school without the benefit of what some pupils can enjoy in third grade these days: classroom discussions about gender fluidity. Now Americans who want to be journalistically literate must master the taxonomy of the various vibes.

And pity the senior citizens who began receiving Social Security payments before realizing that all their lives they have been living surrounded by people emitting vibes, and in vibe-soaked situations. These seniors have been radiating their own vibes. They are like the startled character Jourdain in Molière’s play “The Bourgeois Gentleman” who exclaimed: “My God! I’ve been speaking prose for over forty years and didn’t even know it.” Talk about excitations.

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The comments focus on the misuse and overuse of certain words in the English language. Commonly mentioned words include "unique," "iconic," "literally," "awesome," and "vibe," with many commenters expressing frustration over their incorrect or exaggerated usage. Some comments... Show more

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By George F. Will

George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977. His latest book, "American Happiness and Discontents," was released in September 2021.follow on X@georgewill

De Oppresso Liber,

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Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

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