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Quotes of the Day:
“Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King and there ought to be no other.”
– Thomas Paine
“The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.”
– Aldous Huxley
"Whatever can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
– Christopher Hitchens
1. Independence Day: Reconnect, Restore Confidence, and Strengthen Our Republic By H.R. McMaster
2. Hamas Accepts Gaza Cease-Fire Proposal With American Assurances Over Talks to End War
3. The Warning Signs for Russia’s Economy Are Flashing Red
4. Iran regime escalates repression toward 'North Korea-style model of isolation and control'
5. Xi Has Spent Decades Preparing for a Cold War With the U.S.
6. Inside the CIA's Secret Afghan Army
7. This Supreme Court Term Proves the System Still Works
8. The Yellow Sea Is the New Flashpoint for China’s Regional Power Play
9. Drop, Improvise, Win: The OSS in China
10. China’s Military Diplomacy in the New Era
11. ‘Birds of a Feather’ Shaped East Asia’s Development ‘Miracles’
12. Why China Isn’t Lecturing Trump About His Costly Bill
13. China Has Paid a High Price for Its Dominance in Rare Earths
14. China’s Rare Earth Origin Story, Explained
15. The Algebra of Irregular Warfare: A Planning Methodology for Transregional Operations
16. America’s Navy Is Falling Behind. This Plan Could Fix It
17. The Right Division for the Fight: Force Design and Force Structure Lessons from the Cold War
18. Compass Points - Conflict of Visions? Which way for the Marine Corps?
19. Marines Axe Adoption Of Ground-Launched Tomahawk Cruise Missile
20. The Influence of Ukraine’s Drone War on the Middle East
21. Taiwan Is on the Cusp of an Energy Revolution
22. Ukraine: Masters of the digital battlefield
23. How to Prevent a Fiasco in the Far East
24. Taiwan tests civil-military response in ambitious drill
1. Independence Day: Reconnect, Restore Confidence, and Strengthen Our Republic By H.R. McMaster
Excerpts:
Pride in our nation should not derive from a contrived happy view of history, but rather from a recognition that our experiment in freedom and democracy always was and remains a work in progress. That struggle included the emancipation of four million of our fellow Americans after the most destructive war in our history. It also included setbacks, including the failure of Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and separate but equal. In the 1960s, the civil rights movement dismantled the legal basis for Jim Crow segregation, but cultural, economic, educational, and other forms of disenfranchisement continued. On Independence Day, Americans should be grateful to live in a nation in which sovereignty lies with the people and founded on the principle put forward in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” while also recognizing that our nation is and always has been a work in progress.
Backyard barbecues on Independence Day provide an opportunity to end our social isolation, bridge our divides, and restore confidence in our ability to improve our nation at home and advance our interests abroad. On America’s 249th birthday, let us resolve to cherish our freedoms and realize the motto that appears on the Great Seal of the Republic: e pluribus unum – out of many, one. As the patriot and civil rights activist Rosa Parks observed, “We will fail when we fail to try.”
Independence Day: Reconnect, Restore Confidence, and Strengthen Our Republic
COMMENTARY
By H.R. McMaster
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/07/04/independence_day_reconnect_restore_confidence_and_strengthen_our_republic_152993.html
Over the past two decades, traumas at home and crises abroad have shaken many citizens’ confidence in America’s democratic institutions and the nation’s ability to achieve positive outcomes at home and abroad. The celebration of Independence Day is an opportunity to reinforce our common identity as Americans, recognize that U.S. engagement abroad advances security at home, and restore faith in our ability to work together to build a better future.
Americans are better connected to one another than ever electronically, but are distant from one another socially, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. Social isolation invites vitriol and sometimes inspires violence that divides us further from one another. In his book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” Robert Putnam highlighted this danger, observing that “People divorced from community, occupation, and association are first and foremost among the supporters of extremism.” Putnam published that book in 2000, before social media algorithms designed to get more advertising dollars through more clicks enticed users with polarized and rigid worldviews. In his recent Atlantic Monthly essay, “The Anti-Social Century,” Derek Thompson explained how the combination of digital connection and self-imposed solitude has reduced exposure to differing viewpoints and made society and democracy “weaker, meaner, and more delusional.”
The trend toward individual solitude aligns with calls for U.S. disengagement or retrenchment from the world. Nativists or self-described realists argue that America has problems of its own and should abandon what they call “liberal hegemony” to prioritize domestic policy. They have joined with unlikely fellow travelers from the postmodernist New Left who ascribe the ills of the world almost exclusively to the legacy of colonialism and, since the end of the colonial era, U.S.-led “capitalist imperialism.” Both groups engage in what we might call strategic narcissism because they define the world only in relation to the United States and fail to acknowledge that other actors, including Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea, have ambitions and aspirations that extend far beyond reactions to U.S. policy. It is true that the United States cannot solve the world’s problems, but problems that originate abroad – from pandemics to jihadist terrorism to nuclear weapons in the hands of a messianic theocracy – can only be dealt with at an exorbitant price once they reach our shores.
In addition to social isolation and calls for retrenchment, we might also recognize a third source of our self-doubt: the neo-Marxist tendency to organize the world into hapless victims and privileged oppressors. Once confined mainly to academia, this way of understanding the world has infected the broader culture, polarized communities, upended student life on college campuses, and amplified calls for American retrenchment. The combination of the valorization of victimhood, a tendency to view people as fragile creatures who must be protected from all threats, including language, and the habitual insertion of the adjectives institutional or structural in front of every problem robs people of agency and leaves them with a toxic combination of anger and resignation. Postmodernist theories also encourage self-loathing in a way that erodes pride in nation. That is dangerous because, as the philosopher Richard Rorty observed, it cedes the initiative to those who undermine security and freedom and prevents us from imagining ways to restore peace, advance liberty, improve security, and promote prosperity.
The first step to restoring faith in one another and in our republic is to come together for meaningful, respectful discussions around questions like, “isn’t it possible to recognize the limits of American power and unintended consequences of intervention while also acknowledging that U.S. withdrawal can encourage enemies, result in costly wars, and increase human suffering?” Those who argue in the affirmative might cite how forward-positioned U.S. troops in South Korea prevented war until they withdrew just prior to North Korea’s invasion in June 1950. And they might also point to the hellscape and terrorist haven to which Afghanistan has returned to point out what the U.S. military and coalition partners in support of Afghan forces had prevented there.
As we reconnect with one another, we might also talk about reforming civic education and how we teach our history to America’s youth. The abuse and manipulation of history undermines our ability to work together and improve our nation because it is divisive and saps our pride. As the late philosopher Richard Rorty observed, “National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals, a necessary condition for self-improvement.” Project 1619, first published by the New York Times Magazine in 2019, falsely portrayed the American Revolution as an effort to preserve slavery rather than a righteous struggle to found our nation on principles that ultimately rendered that criminal institution unsustainable. The manipulation of the past has implications for the present because it portrays racism as endemic or systemic and robs people of agency. Soon after its publication, the 1619 Project reached 4,500 classrooms in all 50 states, from kindergarten to college. Those skeptical about the dangers of manipulating history might remember that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many schools in the South supported the obstruction of equal rights for black Americans as they propagated the Myth of the Lost Cause and portrayed slavery as benign instead of cruel and the Civil War as a noble effort to preserve states’ rights rather than slavery.
Pride in our nation should not derive from a contrived happy view of history, but rather from a recognition that our experiment in freedom and democracy always was and remains a work in progress. That struggle included the emancipation of four million of our fellow Americans after the most destructive war in our history. It also included setbacks, including the failure of Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and separate but equal. In the 1960s, the civil rights movement dismantled the legal basis for Jim Crow segregation, but cultural, economic, educational, and other forms of disenfranchisement continued. On Independence Day, Americans should be grateful to live in a nation in which sovereignty lies with the people and founded on the principle put forward in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” while also recognizing that our nation is and always has been a work in progress.
Backyard barbecues on Independence Day provide an opportunity to end our social isolation, bridge our divides, and restore confidence in our ability to improve our nation at home and advance our interests abroad. On America’s 249th birthday, let us resolve to cherish our freedoms and realize the motto that appears on the Great Seal of the Republic: e pluribus unum – out of many, one. As the patriot and civil rights activist Rosa Parks observed, “We will fail when we fail to try.”
H.R. McMaster is a retired Army lieutenant general who served as Donald Trump's national security adviser from 2017 to 2108.
2. Hamas Accepts Gaza Cease-Fire Proposal With American Assurances Over Talks to End War
Excerpts:
While the two sides need to work through a number of details before any deal is signed, their agreement to the basic terms represents the best hope for pausing more than three months of heavy Israeli military action and a deep cutback of humanitarian supplies including food.
Negotiations between Israel and Hamas have been stuck for months over Hamas’s demand that any deal ultimately lead to an end to the war, something to which Israel has refused to commit.
Attention has shifted back to that conflict after Israel’s lopsided battering of Iran’s nuclear program and military leadership ended with a cease-fire brokered by President Trump.
Hamas Accepts Gaza Cease-Fire Proposal With American Assurances Over Talks to End War
The militant group says it’s ready to immediately enter negotiations on the mechanism for implementing the deal
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/new-gaza-cease-fire-deal-would-come-with-u-s-assurances-on-talks-to-end-war-834d2f16
By Summer Said
Follow and Anat Peled
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Updated July 5, 2025 2:40 am ET
Bodies of Palestinians who died while waiting for humanitarian aid arrived at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Thursday following airstrikes. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/Zuma Press
Key Points
What's This?
- Hamas accepted the framework of a 60-day cease-fire proposal involving hostage release and U.S.-backed negotiations for a permanent end to the war.
- The proposal, mediated by the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar, includes exchanging 10 living hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
- The deal stipulates Trump will announce it, and comes amid pressure on Hamas and diplomatic pressure on Israel to end Gaza fighting.
Hamas accepted the framework of a proposed new 60-day cease-fire and hostage-release deal in Gaza that, if concluded, would immediately trigger U.S.-backed negotiations between the militants and Israel aimed at a permanent end to the war, Arab officials involved in the talks said.
The terms of the new proposal, put together by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff along with mediators from Egypt and Qatar, also call for, among other things, the exchange of 10 living hostages for a larger number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, the officials said.
Hamas late on Friday said it has submitted its response to the mediators and is “fully ready and serious to immediately enter a round of negotiations on the mechanism for implementing this framework.”
While the two sides need to work through a number of details before any deal is signed, their agreement to the basic terms represents the best hope for pausing more than three months of heavy Israeli military action and a deep cutback of humanitarian supplies including food.
Negotiations between Israel and Hamas have been stuck for months over Hamas’s demand that any deal ultimately lead to an end to the war, something to which Israel has refused to commit.
Attention has shifted back to that conflict after Israel’s lopsided battering of Iran’s nuclear program and military leadership ended with a cease-fire brokered by President Trump.
President Trump says Israel agreed to the necessary conditions for a 60-day Gaza cease-fire. WSJ Middle East bureau chief Shayndi Raice on what comes next. Photo: WSJ; Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Trump pushed for a cease-fire in Gaza last week and said earlier this week that Israel had agreed to the necessary conditions for a deal. “I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this deal because it will not get better—it will only get worse,” Trump said.
Speaking to reporters late Friday, Trump said he hadn’t been briefed on the current state of negotiations but was “very optimistic” that there could be a Gaza deal next week. “It changes from day to day,” the president said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump in Washington on Monday.
The progress comes as Hamas faces growing pressure in Gaza from ordinary Palestinians who have had enough of the hunger and ever-present threat of airstrikes from Israeli forces. Hamas sparked the war by leading Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. Around 1,200 people were killed and about 250 kidnapped.
Palestinians gathering to receive aid in Gaza City on Thursday. Photo: Haitham Imad/EPA/Shutterstock
The militant group now finds itself increasingly isolated, with its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and patron Iran battered by Israeli attacks. Most of Hamas’s military leaders in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces. The group is now on its third leader in eight months.
Aside from the assurances around talks to end the war, the proposal under consideration is similar to ones that have been on the table for months, according to a copy seen by The Wall Street Journal and said to be authentic by a person familiar with the proposal.
It calls for Hamas to release 10 of the around 20 hostages Israel believes are still alive, along with the bodies of some of the roughly 30 deceased hostages. Hamas would release eight living hostages on the first day of the deal and two on Day 50, the proposal says.
In return, Israel would release a large number of Palestinians it is holding and commit to a 60-day cease-fire. During this period, Israeli forces would gradually withdraw from agreed upon areas in the enclave.
Signs of support for the release of hostages held by Hamas included yellow flags and a banner on a beach in Tel Aviv on Friday. Photo: Oded Balilty/Associated Press
The fresh push for a Gaza deal comes after several previous efforts failed. Israel and Hamas most recently paused their fighting for two months beginning in January, but Israel never entered talks to end the war and went back to fighting after the negotiations stalled.
“The guarantors and mediators—the United States, Egypt, and Qatar—will ensure that the ceasefire will continue for a period of 60 days and will ensure that serious discussions will be held on the necessary arrangements for a permanent ceasefire,” the latest proposal says.
A spokesman for Witkoff declined to comment. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The proposal also stipulates that President Trump will officially announce a deal, according to the version reviewed by the Journal.
Israeli military spokesman Effie Defrin said Thursday the military would soon complete the current phase of its operation in Gaza. Hamas is in a weakened position in Gaza after the elimination of much of its leadership, Defrin said.
Analysts say Israel’s fast victory in its campaign against Iran’s nuclear program has given Netanyahu political room to cut a deal. Israel is also facing diplomatic pressure from allies to end the fighting in Gaza and ease the humanitarian crisis there.
Photo: AFP/Getty Images
At top, Palestinians wounded in gunfire waited for treatment at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Thursday; above, Gazans inspect the site of an airstrike in Gaza City. Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
Under the proposal, larger quantities of humanitarian aid are to enter the Gaza Strip, although it was still unclear how it would be distributed.
In Israel, families of the hostages have been taking to the streets for months, calling for an end to the war and a deal to bring home their relatives. On the 10th day of the cease-fire, Hamas will exchange medical reports on the unreleased hostages for information on Gazans arrested by Israel since Oct. 7, 2023.
The two sides now need to finalize next steps, including Israel submitting the list of names of hostages it wants released, an agreement on the identity and number of Palestinian prisoners to be freed in exchange, and the amount of aid that will enter Gaza.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com
Appeared in the July 5, 2025, print edition as 'Hamas Accepts Plan To Get a Cease-Fire, Hoping to End War'.
3. The Warning Signs for Russia’s Economy Are Flashing Red
Please go to the link to view the graphics/charts.
Excerpts:
Russian officials are now openly warning of the risks of a recession, and companies from tractor producers to furniture makers are reducing output. The central bank said Thursday that it would debate cutting its benchmark interest rate later this month after lowering it in June.
The sputtering of Russia’s economic engine is unlikely to alter President Vladimir Putin’s war objectives, as his strategic focus on neutering Ukraine overrides concerns for the broader health of the economy, analysts say. But the slowdown exposes the limits of his war economy and indicates that sanctions, while not dealing a knockout blow, are increasingly taking a toll. If sanctions tighten further or oil prices dip, Russia’s economy could start to totter.
In that, the downturn undermines Putin’s bet that Russia can outlast Ukraine and the West, showing that Moscow would struggle to finance the war indefinitely.
“The growth model based on military spending alone is broken,” said Janis Kluge, a Russia economics expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “Capacities in the civilian part have to shrink, freeing up workers so that the war machine can continue to grow. That’s not sustainable.”
The Warning Signs for Russia’s Economy Are Flashing Red
A slowdown exposes the limits of the country’s wartime economy and suggests sanctions may finally be taking a toll
https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/the-warning-signs-for-russias-economy-are-flashing-red-ff1658bd?st=LwoYDN&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
By Georgi Kantchev
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July 4, 2025 11:00 pm ET
Russian energy companies such as St. Petersburg-based Gazprom have had to contend with falling oil-and-gas revenues. Photo: Anatoly Maltsev/EPA/Shutterstock
Key Points
What's This?
- Russia’s economy, boosted by the Ukraine war, is slowing down with declining manufacturing and a strained budget.
- Despite Putin’s claims, officials warn of recession risks, exposing limits of the war economy and the impact of sanctions.
- High military spending fueled inflation, leading to interest rate hikes.
Russia’s sanctions-defying economy, propelled higher by the Ukraine war, is suddenly coming back down to earth.
Fueled by massive military spending and steady oil exports, Russia recorded some of the highest growth rates among major economies over the past two years. But in recent weeks economic indicators have been flashing red: Manufacturing activity is declining, consumers are tightening their belts, inflation remains high and the budget is strained.
Russian officials are now openly warning of the risks of a recession, and companies from tractor producers to furniture makers are reducing output. The central bank said Thursday that it would debate cutting its benchmark interest rate later this month after lowering it in June.
The sputtering of Russia’s economic engine is unlikely to alter President Vladimir Putin’s war objectives, as his strategic focus on neutering Ukraine overrides concerns for the broader health of the economy, analysts say. But the slowdown exposes the limits of his war economy and indicates that sanctions, while not dealing a knockout blow, are increasingly taking a toll. If sanctions tighten further or oil prices dip, Russia’s economy could start to totter.
In that, the downturn undermines Putin’s bet that Russia can outlast Ukraine and the West, showing that Moscow would struggle to finance the war indefinitely.
“The growth model based on military spending alone is broken,” said Janis Kluge, a Russia economics expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “Capacities in the civilian part have to shrink, freeing up workers so that the war machine can continue to grow. That’s not sustainable.”
Russian Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov warned last month that Russia was teetering on the “verge of a recession.” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov called the situation a “perfect storm.”
Putin, for his part, dismissed suggestions that the war is stifling the economy. In an echo of Mark Twain, he said that the reports of its death “are greatly exaggerated.” But the Kremlin leader also warned that a recession or stagflation “should not be allowed under any circumstances.”
The war, which has scarred Ukrainian cities such as Kurakhove, may no longer be able to sustain Russia’s economy. Photo: Dmitry Yagodkin/TASS/Zuma Press
After a brief recession in 2022, military spending—the highest since Soviet times, at over 6% of gross domestic product this year—propped up Russia’s economy and dulled the impact of Western sanctions. That compares with around 3% of GDP in the U.S. and around 2% in Germany last year.
Spending on the military and security makes up about 40% of Russia’s total government spending this year. Russia’s ability to reroute oil exports to China, combined with Beijing’s support in supplying electronics and machinery, delivered an additional economic boost.
That made Russia an economic paradox: The most sanctioned major economy in the world was growing faster than the U.S. and most other advanced economies.
But the sugar rush from the military spending created runaway inflation, pushing the central bank to raise interest rates to a record 21% to try to tame it. Higher rates increase borrowing costs for businesses, reducing investment and expansion plans and squeezing profits.
The comedown has already started.
In the first quarter, Russian GDP grew by 1.4% compared with a year earlier, official data shows, down from 4.5% in the fourth quarter of 2024. Russia’s manufacturing sector contracted at its sharpest rate in more than three years in June, according to S&P Global’s purchasing managers’ index. Sales of new cars in Russia dropped nearly 30% in June year-over-year, according to the Association of European Businesses.
Businesses across the country are feeling the brunt.
Rostselmash, Russia’s largest producer of agricultural machinery such as tractors and combine harvesters, said in May that it would cut production and investment and pull forward its mandatory annual leave for its 15,000 employees due to lack of demand.
In Siberia, electricity grid operator Rosseti Sibir has said it was on the verge of bankruptcy due to its high debt load. The company had to halt investments, and it proposed tariff hikes for industrial users in several Siberian regions.
Some analysts say the banking system is also increasingly unstable.
The risks grew from a government decision after the invasion to control war-related lending at major Russian banks, according to a recent report by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. The state could direct banks to offer preferential loans—on state-determined terms—to Russian businesses involved in the war effort. With high interest rates having risen since then, companies that can’t meet their obligations could potentially force the government to absorb the losses.
Other analysts say that the Russian banking system remains stable and well capitalized, CSIS noted. Still, in May the Moscow-based Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting wrote in a report that the risk of a protracted systemic banking crisis in 2026 was “moderate” and growing.
The economic woes increase pressure on the Kremlin by shortening the financial runway it has to fund its fight in Ukraine. The government has been running a budget deficit throughout the war and projects it will continue for at least two more years.
That provides an opening for the West if it manages to agree on powerful new sanctions on Moscow.
Oil prices—which have been generally lower this year despite the turmoil in the Middle East—present another risk for Russia, which relies on energy sales for around a third of its budget revenues. The price of Russian crude has been consistently below the level assumed in this year’s budget. Russia’s oil-and-gas revenue in June fell to its lowest level since January 2023, Finance Ministry data showed on Thursday.
“Falling oil prices and tightening of the sanctions regime would be more keenly felt in the current situation,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official who is now a fellow at the Berlin-based Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “The risks are high.”
Write to Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com
Appeared in the July 5, 2025, print edition as 'Warning Signs for Russia’s Economy Are Flashing Red'.
4. Iran regime escalates repression toward 'North Korea-style model of isolation and control'
Perhaps another of north Korea's exports: the most draconian suppression mechanism?
Iran regime escalates repression toward 'North Korea-style model of isolation and control'
The regime has always been totalitarian, but the level of suppression now is unprecedented. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before,' expert warns
By Efrat Lachter Fox News
Published July 4, 2025 9:25am EDT
foxnews.com · by Efrat Lachter Fox News
Video
Exiled crown prince of Iran says he hopes conflict 'doesn't get to this point'
Exiled crown prince of Iran HRH Reza Pahlavi advocates for a new future for Iran and weighs in on the possibility of the United States becoming actively involved in the Israel-Iran conflict on 'The Story.'
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In the wake of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, the regime appears to be turning inward — escalating repression with chilling speed.
According to Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, the Islamic Republic is accelerating toward what he said is a "North Korea-style model of isolation and control."
"We’re witnessing a kind of domestic isolation that will have major consequences for the Iranian people," Aarabi told Fox News Digital. "The regime has always been totalitarian, but the level of suppression now is unprecedented. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before."
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, supervises artillery firing drills in North Korea on Thursday, March 7, 2024. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)
SAUDI DEFENSE MINISTER SECRETLY MEETS WITH TRUMP TO DISCUSS IRAN DE-ESCALATION, ISRAEL: SOURCES
A source inside Iran confirmed to Fox News Digital that "the repression has become terrifying."
Aarabi, who maintains direct lines of contact in Iran, described a country under siege by its own rulers. In Tehran, he described how citizens are stopped at random, their phones confiscated and searched. "If you have content deemed pro-Israel or mocking the regime, you disappear," he said. "People are now leaving their phones at home or deleting everything before they step outside."
This new wave of paranoia and fear, he explained, mirrors tactics seen in North Korea — where citizens vanish without explanation and information is tightly controlled. During the recent conflict, Iran’s leadership imposed a total internet blackout to isolate the population, blocking Israeli evacuation alerts, and pushed propaganda that framed Israel as targeting civilians indiscriminately.
"It was a perverse objective," Aarabi said, adding, "They deliberately cut communications to instill fear and manipulate public perception. For four days, not a single message went through. Even Israeli evacuation alerts didn’t reach their targets."
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stands as the army, air force and air defense salute at the start of their meeting in Tehran, Iran, on Feb. 8, 2018. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader's Official Website via AP)
The regime’s aim, he said, was twofold: to keep people off the streets and erode the surprising bond that had formed between Iranians and Israelis. "At the start of the war, many Iranians welcomed the strikes," Aarabi noted. "They knew Israel was targeting the IRGC — the very forces responsible for suppressing and killing their own people. But once the internet was cut and fear set in, some began to question what was happening."
Dr. Afshon Ostovar, a leading Iran scholar and author of "Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards," said domestic repression remains the regime’s most reliable strategy for survival.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR IRAN'S TERROR ARMY, THE IRGC, AFTER DEVASTATING MILITARY SETBACKS?
"Repressing the people at home is easy. That’s something they can do. So it’s not unlikely that Iran could become more insular, more autocratic, more repressive — and more similar to, let’s say, a North Korea — than what it is today. That might be the only way they see to preserve the regime: by really tightening the screws on the Iranian people, to ensure that the Iranian population doesn’t try to rise up and topple the regime," he told Fox News Digital.
CCTV cameras are seen in a street in Tehran, Iran, April 9, 2023. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS)
Inside the regime’s power structure, the fallout from the war is just as severe. Aarabi said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is facing an internal crisis of trust and an imminent purge. "These operations couldn’t have taken place without infiltration at the highest levels," he said. "There’s immense pressure now to clean house."
The next generation of IRGC officers — those who joined after 2000 — are younger, more radical and deeply indoctrinated. Over half of their training is now ideological. Aarabi said that these newer factions have begun turning on senior commanders, accusing them of being too soft on Israel or even collaborating with Mossad.
"In a twist of irony, Khamenei created these extreme ideological ranks to consolidate power — and now they’re more radical than he is," Aarabi said. "He’s struggling to control them."
A police motorcycle burns during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic Republic's "morality police," in Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 19, 2022. (WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS)
A purge is likely, along with the rise of younger, less experienced commanders with far higher risk tolerance — a shift that could make the IRGC more volatile both domestically and internationally. With Iran’s conventional military doctrine in ruins, terrorism may become its primary lever of influence.
"The regime's three pillars — militias, ballistic missiles, and its nuclear program — have all been decapitated or severely degraded," Aarabi said. "That leaves only asymmetric warfare: soft-target terrorism with plausible deniability."
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (AFP via Getty Images)
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Despite the regime’s brutal turn inward, Aarabi insists this is a sign of weakness, not strength. "If the Islamic Republic were confident, it wouldn’t need to crush its people this way," he said. "It’s acting out of fear. But until the regime’s suppressive apparatus is dismantled, the streets will remain silent — and regime change remains unlikely."
Efrat Lachter is an investigative reporter and war correspondent. Her work has taken her to 40 countries, including Ukraine, Russia, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and Afghanistan. She is a recipient of the 2024 Knight-Wallace Fellowship for Journalism. Lachter can be followed on X @efratlachter.
foxnews.com · by Efrat Lachter Fox News
5. Xi Has Spent Decades Preparing for a Cold War With the U.S.
Excerpts:
Xi is entering trade negotiations with a grand strategy he has prepared for years—one that, according to policy advisers in Beijing, is inspired by his understanding of what the Soviet Union got wrong during the first Cold War.
Well aware of the U.S.’s continued economic and military superiority, the advisers say, Xi is seeking to avoid direct confrontation, while holding China’s ground in a protracted, all-encompassing competition.
Xi aims to achieve what Mao Zedong used to call a “strategic stalemate”—an enduring equilibrium where American pressure becomes manageable and China buys time to catch up to the U.S.
“For China, ‘strategic stalemate’ is the most realistic and preferred outcome in the foreseeable future,” said Minxin Pei, a Claremont McKenna College professor and editor of the quarterly journal China Leadership Monitor. “Strategic patience, conservation of resources and tactical flexibility will all be critical in achieving this stalemate.”
In some ways, Beijing is pursuing a sort of guerrilla warfare, sparked by Henry Kissinger’s analysis of the nature of asymmetric conflicts: “The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.”
Xi Has Spent Decades Preparing for a Cold War With the U.S.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s strategy draws on his understanding of Soviet failures
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-xi-us-cold-war-trade-strategy-81d0eda1?st=B1j63r&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
By Lingling Wei
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July 4, 2025 10:00 pm ET
Chinese leader Xi Jinping often talks about the fall of the Soviet Union as a lesson for China. Photo: Evgenia Novozhenina/Press Pool
Key Points
What's This?
- Xi Jinping is using Cold War strategies, learning from Soviet errors, to navigate the U.S.-China rivalry and avoid direct confrontation.
- China aims for a “strategic stalemate” with the U.S., focusing on economic self-sufficiency, global “multialignment” and military growth.
- Xi seeks to tire the U.S. out, leveraging global perceptions and internal policies to gain an advantage.
In the U.S.-China conflict, President Trump is waging an economic assault. But Chinese leader Xi Jinping is fighting a Cold War.
Xi is entering trade negotiations with a grand strategy he has prepared for years—one that, according to policy advisers in Beijing, is inspired by his understanding of what the Soviet Union got wrong during the first Cold War.
Well aware of the U.S.’s continued economic and military superiority, the advisers say, Xi is seeking to avoid direct confrontation, while holding China’s ground in a protracted, all-encompassing competition.
Xi aims to achieve what Mao Zedong used to call a “strategic stalemate”—an enduring equilibrium where American pressure becomes manageable and China buys time to catch up to the U.S.
“For China, ‘strategic stalemate’ is the most realistic and preferred outcome in the foreseeable future,” said Minxin Pei, a Claremont McKenna College professor and editor of the quarterly journal China Leadership Monitor. “Strategic patience, conservation of resources and tactical flexibility will all be critical in achieving this stalemate.”
In some ways, Beijing is pursuing a sort of guerrilla warfare, sparked by Henry Kissinger’s analysis of the nature of asymmetric conflicts: “The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.”
Chinese goods for export at a logistics hub in Zhejiang province, China. Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Chinese jet fighters on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean. Photo: People’s Liberation Army/AFP/Getty Images
One key pillar of the lessons Xi has drawn from the Soviet collapse is economic: The Soviets put all their economic bets on heavy industry, focused on energy and weaponry. Beijing by contrast is trying to produce everything, fortifying the Chinese economy against trade and technological restrictions from the U.S. while still leveraging world markets’ appetites for its goods.
Another pillar is geopolitical, where the goal is to avoid Soviet-style isolation. This involves weakening U.S. alliances while promoting what Beijing calls “multialignment,” where countries engage with multiple global powers rather than choosing a single side.
Also key to the strategy is to continue China’s military buildup but without a costly arms race with the U.S. The country’s official defense budget has grown at a stable rate of about 7.2% over the past three years. While that exceeds China’s overall economic growth, it is below 1.5% of its gross domestic product.
And crucially, the main pillar involves further strengthening Communist Party control over all aspects of society.
Xi often talks about the Soviet fall as a lesson for China. “Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union fall to pieces?” Xi said in a closed-door speech to senior party officials in January 2013, shortly after he took the reins of the party. “An important reason is that in the ideological domain, competition is fierce.” Translation: The party must allow no challenges to its authority.
Turning point
China has a long history of studying the Soviets. In 1953, the year Xi was born, Mao launched a campaign to promote the Soviet model for China’s political, economic and military systems. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, a party revolutionary who fought alongside Mao, went to Moscow in the late 1950s, when China had almost no industry, to visit industrial sites and learn about their operations and technology.
That profoundly shaped Xi’s youth, leading to a deep-rooted admiration for Soviet values, history and culture. His “Russia complex,” as some party insiders called it, was so deep that nearly three decades of a Soviet-China split didn’t shake it.
But by the time Xi was a rising political star in the late 2000s, the Soviet Union had collapsed and his view had shifted. As head of the Central Party School, an elite party academy, he used the Soviet unraveling as a cautionary tale, highlighting ideological decay and a loss of political control as the key reasons for the collapse.
After taking power in 2012, Xi commissioned a documentary about the end of the Soviet Union that portrayed Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, as a villain who abandoned the party.
But even then, Beijing’s study of the Cold War focused on how China could avoid a similar demise; Xi didn’t yet see China as a contender in a superpower clash with the U.S.
China’s Mao Zedong reviewed an honor guard during a visit to Moscow in 1957. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The turning point was Trump’s first-term trade war with China in 2018 and 2019. His “Make America Great Again” motto demonstrated to Xi the U.S.’s resolve to maintain its supremacy. Often caught off guard by Trump’s pressure tactics, the Xi leadership started a reassessment of the Cold War, according to the Chinese advisers. The new focus: how to fight and ultimately win a Cold War against the U.S.
In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic all but severed bilateral relations, Xi trotted out the first major piece of his new Cold War strategy: Under the vague label of “dual circulation”—produce domestically what China needed and send goods overseas—he kick-started an all-out effort to better insulate China from outside shocks, in particular from the U.S.
When former President Joe Biden continued with Trump’s tough-on-China policies, Xi’s determination to fight a protracted conflict with the U.S. became even more urgent.
That’s when Beijing more forcefully made clear it wanted to be treated as an equal of the U.S. and also, crucially, when it further cozied up to Russia. In early 2022, right before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Beijing and Moscow declared their friendship had “no limits.”
Yet, Xi was careful to not copy the Soviet playbook of fostering a largely isolated Eastern bloc. While he realized China might need to disentangle from the U.S., he was making sure the country wasn’t closed off from the rest of the world, keeping it integrated in the global economy, particularly with lower-income countries.
To counter accusations China has been buying influence by trapping countries such as Sri Lanka and Zambia with predatory lending, Xi and his team has overhauled the trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure program to make its lending more sustainable for recipients of Chinese financing.
“China’s economic and diplomatic policies are all oriented toward positioning themselves for a long-term struggle against the U.S.,” said Evan Medeiros, a former senior national-security official in the Obama administration and now a professor at Georgetown University.
Buying time
Xi’s counsel to the party apparatus, the Chinese advisers say, is one of patience, convinced that the global balance of power will inevitably tilt in China’s favor.
The steady calm is intended to contrast with what Xi sees as U.S. chaos and the Trump administration’s ever-shifting posture toward China. In just a few months, the White House has gone from applying maximum tariff pressure on China and trying to isolate the world’s second-largest economy to now seeking a broad deal with concessions on both sides.
It is an environment Beijing uses to its advantage, setting the terms for future competition.
The Trump administration has dismantled the U.S.’s foreign-assistance agency, giving Beijing a chance to try to swoop in at a time of heightened geopolitical competition. And while the U.S. has targeted Chinese student visas and is slashing operations such as Voice of America, the Chinese government is offering all-expenses-paid trips to American social-media influencers they hope will help promote a “cooler China.”
Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin following talks at the Kremlin in May. Photo: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
American content creator IShowSpeed, who has more than 120 million social-media followers, handed Beijing a soft-power win when he visited China for 10 days in April. His widely viewed videos, which showed him marveling at the country’s high-speed trains and ubiquitous electric cars, became a global sensation.
In addition to trade talks, Beijing wants to restore the kind of recurring “dialogue” Washington sees as a waste of time. To Xi, it’s a ploy to buy time.
“They have every intention of playing hardball and dragging it out,” said Pei of Claremont McKenna College.
Whether China can prevail in its strategy is far from certain.
Xi’s policies to further China’s great-power competition threaten to exacerbate its economic struggles. The party’s command-and-control is stifling private-sector activities, and the policy aimed at producing everything, notably, is leading to a deepening cycle of deflation.
To Xi, however, all that may be tolerable side effects of the longer-term goal of tiring the U.S. out.
“Xi’s goal is to achieve technological pre-eminence and play an even more influential role in this long-term competition,” said Robert Hormats, Kissinger’s senior economic adviser in the 1970s.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
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Write to Lingling Wei at Lingling.Wei@wsj.com
6. Inside the CIA's Secret Afghan Army
Inside the CIA's Secret Afghan Army
The Zero Units served alongside Americans, helping them fight, then evacuate. Now, they face uncertainty as they begin their new lives in the United States
By Kevin Maurer
July 4, 2025
Rolling Stone · by Kevin Maurer · July 4, 2025
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/zero-units-cia-secret-afghan-army-1235375427/
I t was nearly midnight in February 2021 when Nasir Andar’s team of soldiers pinpointed the location of the suicide bomber’s house behind a police station in Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan. They crept up to the gate and called up the rest of the assault force, who would then surround the target and capture him.
Andar ordered an Afghan soldier to climb a ladder and call the target out to surrender. The house was in an urban area, and a firefight or suicide bomb would cause civilian casualties. As the soldier made his way up, Andar noticed a newer soldier on his team standing in front of the gate.
That’s not a place you want to be right before an assault.
Andar, who is short but stout with shaggy black hair, jogged over to the soldier and told him to get to the side near the wall just in case the terrorists opened fire through the gate. The two of them took a few steps toward cover. Suddenly, the soldier who’d reached the top of the ladder yelled, “Someone’s coming out. They’re going to open the gate!”
Andar looked up just as the man heading to the gate detonated an explosion. The explosion flung Andar into the air, and he landed in a heap. Stunned by the blast, Andar knew he was alive because of all the screaming and gunfire. But he couldn’t feel his legs.
He patted his thighs and shins to confirm both legs were still attached and wiped his eyes. Blood poured from shrapnel wounds in both shoulders and his face. He flexed his left hand but couldn’t move his right one. All around him Zero Unit soldiers with their CIA advisers exchanged fire with the terrorists. Andar was stuck in the crossfire. Pushing his rifle ahead of him, he crawled toward cover. He made it about 60 feet into a clearing before collapsing.
“This is the last moment,” he remembers thinking before passing out. “I’m not going to make it.”
Andar, who grew up in Ghazni province, had been working with the American military for around 15 years, since he was 18 years old. His team was part of a secret Afghan paramilitary unit led by the CIA called Zero Units because of their numeric designation (01, 02, etc.).
There was no other Afghan unit on the battlefield with the same training or equipment as the Zero Units. Trained by American special-operations soldiers, they acted as the CIA’s secret army, carrying out some of the most dangerous missions of the war targeting Al Qaeda and ISIS leaders plotting to attack the U.S., according to CIA officials who served with the units. Often, members of Joint Special Operations Command, including SEAL Team Six, would be part of the mission to call in airstrikes, but the bulk of the fighting was done by Afghan soldiers led by CIA Ground Branch officers.
Andar was a member of the secretive Afghan group called Zero Units. Courtesy of Nasir Andar
Andar rose in the ranks, becoming a commander and eventually moving to the CIA Zero Unit compound in Jalalabad, where he did intelligence work. That’s how he wound up wounded by a suicide bomber that day. Soon, other wounded soldiers collapsed nearby, including a unit medic. Andar tried to help his teammates but passed out because of the pain, only to wake up with a CIA adviser standing over him shouting, “You’re going to be fine. You’re going to make it.”
Andar wasn’t convinced. He thought about his new family. How his son would grow up without his father, his wife a widow. He faded in and out of consciousness, waking again when medics started chest compressions. The third time he came to, tourniquets were on all four limbs. He was so cold. Andar learned later he was declared dead after he stopped breathing, only to be saved when a medic noticed his tongue was twisted and opened the airway. Andar’s last memory was the helicopter ride to the hospital at the base outside of Jalalabad.
Today, standing in his apartment in San Antonio, it is impossible not to notice Andar’s service etched into his flesh. His right arm and torso bear jagged scars shaped like crescent moons caused by a burst from an AK-47 rifle. His stomach and chest are a patchwork of pink and white shrapnel scars from the suicide bomber. His arms and legs tell the same brutal tale. Amid the scars, there are tattoos that mark a crude, faded reminder of his past. On his shoulder is the Afghan national flag, the symbol of a country he fought and nearly died for. His left arm is marked with a shield with crossed swords and wings — the Afghan National Strike Unit crest.
“We paid the highest cost,” he tells me. “Every family lost someone. One, two, three, maybe five brothers from each family. I lost two family members. I’m not even the same person anymore. But I have to act like I’m whole. Like I’m strong.”
I COVERED THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN for 17 years, and the Zero Units were cloaked in legend. I first encountered them in 2005 at a small U.S. Special Forces base tucked into the Hindu Kush near Asadabad. I stood outside the operations center talking to some of the Green Berets when I saw a group of Afghan soldiers wearing night-vision goggles line up vehicles for a raid. The night vision piqued my interest because you didn’t see it on Afghan troops at that time. I asked one of the Special Forces soldiers who the Afghan soldiers were. He shook his head. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with a reporter.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
A few years later, I spotted the Zero Unit soldiers again, at Camp Chapman, near Khost on the Pakistan border. Again, I was told by a special-operations soldier not to ask questions about them. By then, I’d heard about this secret Afghan army. The only news about their operations came in the aftermath of the killing of a terrorist leader or in accusations of war crimes. Even now, U.S. officials cannot officially acknowledge the connection between the intelligence agency and the Zero Units.
“We paid the highest cost,” says Andar. “I’m not even the same person anymore.”
But for the Afghans fighting with Americans, Zero Unit slots were coveted because of better pay, better training, and the chance to work alongside elite U.S. operators. In later years, there were also opportunities to immigrate and resettle in the U.S. after at least one year of service and a U.S. government recommendation. In the final days of the war in 2021, roughly 81,000 Afghan immigrants — including almost 10,000 members of the Zero Units, along with many of their families — were evacuated by the CIA and resettled across the U.S., according to reports. Many were promised Special Immigrant Visas for their service — visas meant for Afghan and Iraqi nationals who worked directly for the U.S. government. There are close to 4,500 living in the U.S. who are still waiting to secure legal status because of paperwork delays from the federal government.
While the war in Afghanistan has been forgotten by most Americans, Andar’s story offers a rare glimpse through the eyes of an Afghan who believed in the promises made by Americans to bring freedom and opportunity to his country. Unlike his American counterparts who fought the war in three-month to one-year deployments, Andar was in harm’s way every day for the 15 or so years he volunteered to fight the Taliban. Now 37 years old, he has a new country and mission, to help his fellow veterans acclimate to a foreign land as he mourns the loss of his homeland.
No one just joined the Zero Units. Soldiers had to be recommended by a close family member or friend who vouched for their loyalty. Andar initially served in 2007 with Special Forces before joining the Zero Units in 2012 after his brother referred him. Unlike other Afghan units infiltrated by the Taliban, Zero Units never suffered an insider attack — when Afghan soldiers who were radicalized turned against U.S. advisers — which former CIA officers say was the by-product of a strict vetting program.
Zero Units were like a scalpel pursuing terrorist targets at the highest level. They mainly operated at night. Their war was a series of high-stakes raids against targets making car and suicide bombs, and terrorist leaders with bodyguards. When the Zero Units went out, they had a better chance than their counterparts to get into a fight, which left them wounded or killed.
“We were fighting for freedom,” Andar tells me. “We were fighting for our land. For our flag. For our dignity. We were fighting for our rights and for humanity. We didn’t want our soil to be used to hurt anyone else. We wanted Afghanistan to stand on the same level as other countries — to be respected, to be trusted. We wanted Afghans to walk through the world with the same kind of pride and recognition as everyone else.”
After leaving his home in Afghanistan at the end of the war, Nasir Andar settled in San Antonio, Texas. Christopher Lee for Rolling Stone
DESPITE HIGH PRAISE FROM BOTH U.S. special operators and CIA case officers, the Zero Units’ operations were surrounded by significant controversy. Media reports and human rights groups documented the units’ tactics, particularly in the Khost and Nangarhar provinces, including allegations of war crimes.
In 2018, The New York Times published a report focused on the devastating impact of these forces on civilian populations. While the Zero Units fought militant groups such as the Haqqani network and ISIS, their tactics raised serious concerns about human rights abuses. Civilians reported brutal raids, torture, killings, and property destruction. Many of the abuses, such as night raids and executions, were attributed to the looser rules of engagement and operational secrecy that characterized the missions.
Human Rights Watch documented several abuses between 2017 and 2019, including targeted raids that killed civilians, such as the shooting of innocent family members during nighttime operations. In a 2020 story, The Intercept called the Zero Units — 01 in particular — “death squads.” The unit’s raids resulted in the deaths of at least 51 civilians, including women and children, according to the report.
In 2022, ProPublica published a story that the Zero Units’ operations led to hundreds of Afghan civilian deaths. The raids were frequently carried out in remote villages where many innocent civilians were caught in the crossfire. Critics argue that the Zero Units’ operations, far from helping to neutralize terrorist threats, often made enemies out of ordinary Afghan families. Moreover, critics say the Afghan government either lacked capacity or political will to investigate, and that the U.S. military largely ignored the issue because the Zero Units worked for the CIA.
A spokesperson for the CIA tells Rolling Stone in a statement, “With regard to allegations of human rights abuses made against foreign partners, the US takes these claims very seriously and works to strengthen accountability and adherence to human rights standards. We are aware of a persistent false narrative regarding their alleged activities.”
When I asked about allegations of war crimes or rogue operations, three former CIA officers and Andar all insist the Zero Units never operated outside of CIA oversight, and the units went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. They say there were no rogue operations.
“We’re with them everywhere they go,” says a former U.S. intelligence officer, who requested anonymity to discuss the still-classified units.
Andar says he and his unit mates were shoulder to shoulder with Americans on every mission. There were no unilateral missions with just Zero Unit personnel. “We were taking every order from them,” Andar says. “We did not shoot a single round without their permission.”
When Andar talks about the war, he talks about a fight for the soul of his country. He had opportunities to leave Afghanistan. He received his approval to seek a visa in 2016 but never applied. He wanted to stay and fight, and would have continued if his government hadn’t fallen in August 2021.
“We were fighting for freedom,” Andar says. “We were fighting for our land. For our dignity.”
ANDAR WAS IN THE LEAD TRUCK heading into Kabul on Aug. 16, 2021, despite still nursing his injuries — including braces on his legs and shrapnel in his chest — from the suicide bomber. It was a few days after his country was overrun by the Taliban. Behind him were hundreds of Zero Unit soldiers coming from Eagle Base, a former brick factory turned CIA interrogation facility and Zero Unit base located almost three miles from Kabul. The Zero Units’ final mission was to safeguard U.S. and coalition personnel, including at Kabul airport, in the final days of the 20-year U.S. presence.
The Zero Unit convoy entered through a gate on the north side of the airport. A Turkish recon vehicle had been set ablaze in the middle of the road. Andar spotted some Marines nearby and called out to them that he was friendly. The convoy continued advancing. As it approached the runway, there were thousands of people trying to make it to the departing aircraft.
In the months leading up to the collapse, Andar says, the Zero Units were promised a lot of things. For one, they were told each soldier would get a bonus, which he didn’t care much about. They were also promised weapons and ammunition to continue to fight after their U.S. counterparts left. The last promise was if the Taliban took over, the Zero Units would take to the mountains and keep fighting. But when the Afghan government collapsed after the Taliban entered Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, a CIA adviser told Andar he was sorry, but there was nothing he could do. Andar still won’t accept defeat today, even exiled to Texas, arguing that the Taliban didn’t hold one province in Afghanistan before the fall of Kabul.
“The soldiers never, ever got defeated,” Andar tells me last fall at his San Antonio home. “Never.”
Over the next few days at the airport, Andar and his men worked alongside Marines and State Department officials to process civilians and evacuate as many as they could. The Zero Unit soldiers were instrumental in screening evacuees because the Marines didn’t speak the language or know the culture. They also ran missions into Kabul to pick up stranded Americans. Andar remembers the feeling of dread and desperation. He warned the Marines about the risk of suicide bombers and wasn’t surprised when on Aug. 26, 2021, one killed 13 U.S. military service members and about 170 Afghans waiting to evacuate.
Andar thought after securing the airport, all the Zero Units would push out and retake Kabul. But as time passed, he heard rumors he and his men would evacuate. The CIA advisers ordered him to contact his wife and one-year-old son, who were in Kabul. He called them, and they made it to the gate in time to board a C-17 to Bahrain. From there, they went to Germany before landing in the U.S.
Andar shows one of the wounds he sustained from the war — a hit from shrapnel on his arm. Eric A.Chang
“It wasn’t until the last minute that I realized we were evacuating, and not staying to fight,” he tells me.
Andar and the other Zero Unit soldiers arrived in America with only their clothes and whatever they could carry on the plane. A few weeks later, Geeta Bakshi, a former CIA counterterrorism operations officer who founded and leads FAMIL, a nonprofit dedicated to resettling Zero Unit veterans, and some of the former CIA advisers went to Quantico, a Marine base outside of Washington, D.C., to meet with Zero Unit veterans. The meeting was brief, and the veterans said little. Everyone was still in shock. After the meeting, Bakshi was stopped by Andar, who’d attended the meeting.
“Blackbird,” he said — her nickname while in Afghanistan. “I helped support one of your ops.”
They stepped out of the tent, and Andar confessed many of the soldiers were coming to him for help. They exchanged numbers. A few weeks later, Bakshi’s phone rang. It was Andar. Three families were in a suburban Maryland hotel with no food. The children were going hungry. Bakshi went to the supermarket and delivered a few days’ worth of groceries.
After that, Bakshi and Andar started talking regularly as they solved problems for the veterans. They tackled everything from providing food to hungry families to helping with green-card applications to facilitating prosthetics for amputees. Bakshi founded the nonprofit FAMIL to pay the Zero Unit veterans back for protecting her in Afghanistan.
“I remember thinking, resettlement agencies are not going to be able to deal with these soldiers and all of the things they’ve been through,” Bakshi says. “They’re not going to be able to relate to their experiences. They need people who understand what they’ve been through and what they’ve done to contribute, who can be there to be a lifeline for them.”
Most nights, Andar spends hours in a San Antonio hookah cafe talking to Zero Unit soldiers from across the country on his phone as he helps them finish applications, find jobs, and get benefits. Promises made by the CIA.
“It’s not about the war anymore,” he says. “It’s about what we promised those guys we’d do. We said we’d take care of them. And now we’re the ones waiting for someone to keep their promise.”
Andar with Geeta Bakshi, a former CIA officer who founded FAMIL for resettling Zero Unit vets. Courtesy of Nasir Andar
Living in the U.S. isn’t always smooth for the Afghan refugees. Abdul Rahman Waziri, who served with Special Forces, was recently killed in the parking lot of his west Houston apartment complex after a neighbor allegedly shot him multiple times over a parking spot, according to Houston police. Many of the Zero Unit veterans are viewed with suspicion, especially when dressed in the long shirt and baggy pants of Central Asia or speaking in Pashto, Andar’s native language.
A few months after he arrived in San Antonio with his wife and two children, Andar stopped at a Walmart to get baby formula for his newborn son. It was December 2023, and he’d been in the U.S. for almost two years, when a woman approached him.
“Are you a terrorist?” she asked. Andar didn’t know what to say. “No,” he said. “Why would I be a terrorist?”
“You just look like one,” she said.
When Andar, who wore a T-shirt, jeans, flip-flops, and a camouflage Punisher hat that day, told her he was a soldier, she begrudgingly thanked him for his service.
Last June for Eid, I meet Bakshi and Andar at his San Antonio apartment complex. A few children come outside. The girls wear colorful red and green dresses. I follow Andar into a second-floor apartment for a feast of rice, roasted goat, and fresh fruit.
Over the next few days, I get a glimpse of Andar’s San Antonio. A place we dub “San Antanistan” by the end of the trip because, in Andar’s bubble, Texas falls away. The Afghan community is tight-knit, with the Zero Unit veterans sticking together. Between trips to a halal market, where Andar and the others gather sometimes to eat sweets, and a grocery store owned by an Egyptian who stocks Middle Eastern foods and goods, it is rare to hear a word of English.
Near the end of the Eid celebration, Andar joins the larger Afghan community at O.P. Schnabel Park at sundown to sing and dance. While the boys play cricket, the men gather in a circle waiting for the music. When the first song starts, a hush falls over the men. Slowly, one after another starts to sing the Afghan national anthem.
“This land is Afghanistan; it is the pride of every Afghan; the land of peace; the land of sword, each of its sons is brave.…” The lyrics — written in 2006 when the Taliban were on the run — sound like a ballad now.
“We’ve been through hell and back together,” says Bakshi, who helps resettle vets.
THE RIDE DOWN THE PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY takes about two hours. Some of the most iconic scenery in the United States fades as we enter El Cajon, California, which looks like a town in a Grand Theft Auto video game. A menace hangs in the air. A series of dusty strip malls and fast-food joints line the road. When we stop at a McDonald’s on that Thursday in April 2024, a man is getting high in the men’s room.
We arrive at a ramshackle, ranch-style house tucked in the back of a cul-de-sac in a dusty neighborhood. A tall fence opens into a small courtyard covered in ornate rugs and couches. Andar sits on a couch with a leg propped up scrolling through his phone. Bakshi sits next to him. Bakshi and Andar act like family — they bicker and tease each other. While we wait for the other guests, Bakshi jokingly tells Andar to stop talking because his story about a previous operation is boring. This familiarity comes from working weeks and months through crises — soldiers who died by suicide or immigration nightmares.
“We’ve been through hell and back together,” Bakshi says.
As more Zero Unit veterans roll in for dinner, Andar makes introductions, usually in the form of a humorous story. The men talk and laugh. They like to joke about how ugly someone’s wife was because, until the evacuation, none of the soldiers ever saw their unit mates’ spouses. Men and women in Afghanistan traditionally don’t socialize together. One topic of agreement is the desire to go back to Afghanistan and finish the job. The mission that the United States government laid out — destroy Al Qaeda — is unfinished. And Andar would like nothing more than to accomplish it.
Liberating his country is still his only goal.
“We lost everything,” he tells me. “We lost our country. We lost our flag. We lost our family, we lost our brothers, and we lost our dignity.”
Until that’s restored, the war isn’t over.
When a pile of sandals has grown to a mound, a large plastic tablecloth is spread on the floor and covered with Afghan dishes. Lamb with rice. Fried chicken legs. Bakshi and the men huddle around the spread. Some men have prosthetic legs, and at least one has an eye patch. The talking and laughing fades as they eat. So do the frustrations about delayed visas. For a few hours, everyone is home with the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains standing in for the Hindu Kush.
As I leave, it only takes a few steps outside the gate to break the illusion. Kind of like the magic of Disneyland when the happiest place in the world ends and the real world returns with a traffic jam on the way out. But that faint echo of their life and culture is all they have left of home.
Rolling Stone · by Kevin Maurer · July 4, 2025
7. This Supreme Court Term Proves the System Still Works
Excertps:
Bottom line: For now, everyone should take satisfaction in knowing that the American system of legal checks and balances is working.
You may hate the results in many cases, but the rule of law is alive and well.
This Supreme Court Term Proves the System Still Works
The president got some big wins from the Court. But its decisions this term showed that this is not a Supreme Court willing to surrender to Trump.
By Jed Rubenfeld
07.01.25 — U.S. Politics
https://www.thefp.com/p/this-supreme-court-term-proves-the
(photos via Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States; Getty Images)
0:00
The Supreme Court closed out its 2024-2025 term with a series of much-heralded victories for the right. In CASA, Inc., the Court ruled that district courts could no longer use nationwide injunctions to block major initiatives launched by President Donald Trump. In Skrmetti, the Court upheld a state ban on sex-change procedures for minors. A half-dozen 6-3 decisions showed the Court’s conservative majority dominant and united.
All of this has provoked predictable hair-tearing among progressives. The Court has “unleashed chaos,” says my old friend, Maryland Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin. The Court is “rewarding lawlessness,” MSNBC quoted Justice Sonia Sotomayor as saying. Kate Shaw, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the CASA decision “demonstrates a new degree of imperiousness, seeming to co-sign the Trump administration’s contempt for the lower courts.”
In reality, the Court’s 2025 term was not a barn burner. There wasn’t a single case that came close to the magnitude of Dobbs, which ended the constitutional right to abortion, or SFFA, which banned affirmative action at colleges and universities. The term was more molehill than mountain.
Nevertheless, the 2025 term established two things. First, the right is winning the culture wars at the Supreme Court. Second, despite the administration’s big wins, the Court is not surrendering to the president. The first development is a body blow to the left, but the second is and should be seen as much more important. Take heart, all—the system is working.
Consider the nationwide injunctions case. As I’ve written previously in these pages, CASA was not really a hyperpartisan decision. Administrations and judges on both sides of the aisle have been objecting for years to the idea that a single district court in, say, Hawaii can make policy for the whole nation. What was most crucial in CASA was something critics never focus on: the fact that the administration asked the Supreme Court to do something about this problem.
And why did the administration make that ask? Because it was complying with judicial orders—even lower court orders—that it disagreed with. Sure, Trump has frequently sought to find work-arounds in the face of court losses, but that’s hardly defiance. The Biden administration did the same thing when, for instance, after the Supreme Court struck down a major student loan forgiveness program, it devised a second approach. Biden even boasted about it, saying, “The Supreme Court tried to block me from relieving student debt. But they didn’t stop me.”
Some say that President Trump’s lawyers deliberately flouted judicial orders in a couple of cases. Chief Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia certainly thought so when, in mid-March, the administration sent nearly 300 illegal immigrants to El Salvador, even though Boasberg had tried to block the flights with a temporary restraining order. Similarly, District Court Judge Paula Xinis expressed mounting frustration over the administration’s narrow interpretation of the word “facilitate” when the Supreme Court ruled that it should facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the deportee sent to a Salvadoran prison despite an outstanding immigration court order barring his return to El Salvador.
But in every case, the administration was in virtually complete or actually complete compliance. That’s why administration lawyers keep running to the Supreme Court to get lower court orders put on hold or overturned. If the administration weren’t complying with judicial orders, they wouldn’t care about nationwide injunctions. It’s as simple as that.
This fact cannot be stressed enough. Executive obedience to the judiciary is the thin red line that separates a constitutional rule-of-law republic from an autocracy. And it is, in a profound sense, voluntary. No other branch has the power to force the president into such obedience. Plenty of MAGA devotees have urged the president to defy judicial orders. But Trump complied throughout his first administration, and the same is true in his second. Everyone who claims to be terrified about Trump’s alleged dictatorial tendencies should bear this in mind.
What’s more, it is simply not true that Trump has been willing to comply with the judiciary because the Supreme Court has “surrendered” to his “lawlessness.” Consider Trump v. J.G.G., which was decided in April. In an effort to insulate Trump’s deportations from judicial review, administration lawyers had invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which empowers a president to deport citizens of an enemy nation under processes that he chooses. The administration may have thought that this precluded judicial review altogether, but the Court threw a wrench in the president’s plans, holding unanimously that each deportee was entitled to notice and a court hearing before removal.
To put it another way, they were owed due process. Along with executive obedience to the judiciary, due process is the other foundational bulwark of the rule of law. Without the constitutional guarantee of due process, the administration could in principle disappear people at will. Black cars could pull up next to you on the street; agents could throw a hood over your head, and you could find yourself imprisoned in a black site, incommunicado, without rights, without a lawyer, without your family even knowing where you are. It’s conceivable that some administration lawyers thought they had the power to do just that. But in J.G.G., a unanimous Court stood rock-solid for due process.
On the other hand, the Court in several cases sided strongly with conservatives on culture war issues. In addition to allowing states to ban medical gender transition procedures for minors, the Court let the administration provisionally enforce its ban on trans people serving in the military. And it held that parents have a constitutional right to opt out their kids from pro-LGBT content in public schools.
Moreover, the Court continued its takedown of favorable treatment of minorities, holding that individuals from majority groups—e.g., whites—have the same employment discrimination rights as minorities and cannot be subjected to different evidentiary standards. And the Court dealt environmentalists a couple of losses as well, curbing the authority of the EPA and narrowing the scope of environmental impact studies for major infrastructure projects.
The Court’s decisions in its emergency docket—matters for which immediate action is sought—tended to favor the administration. For example, the Court allowed the administration to deport illegal immigrants to third countries; to revoke the temporary protected status of some migrants; to fire probationary employees; to fire important government officials who had been protected from firing under preexisting law; and to grant DOGE access to agency operations and data.
But these decisions came within a larger judicial context in which a number of cases have not gone the president’s way. Trump’s targeting of law firms he perceives as being hostile toward him has been blocked, as were some of his aggressive actions against Harvard University, his attempt to dismantle several agencies, his freezing of many government grants, and the attempted deportation of anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil. Yes, these rulings were made by lower courts, but the Supreme Court has played a part as well. For example, in CASA, the majority left intact three lower courts’ holdings that Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship was unconstitutional. Even with respect to nationwide injunctions, the Court left open important procedural mechanisms that will make it possible for plaintiffs to obtain the equivalent of such injunctions against administration policies.
The left had a few other victories: Over the dissent of Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the Court upheld the regulation of so-called ghost guns that lack serial numbers and thus can’t be traced. And over the dissent of the same two justices (as well as a partial dissent by Justice Amy Coney Barrett), it granted a new trial to a death row inmate.
In short, this is not a dogmatic pro-Trump Court. I’ll make a prediction right now: If and when the Court finally decides on the merits of Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal (and in some cases legal) aliens, a majority will strike it down. This is a Court that has ruled in favor of Trump many times, but has stood up to the administration on foundational constitutional issues. It’s a Court that has reduced judicial authority vis-à-vis the executive (as in the nationwide injunctions case) but also reduced executive authority vis-à-vis the judiciary (as when the Justices instructed lower courts to review Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act). While in six decisions this term, all the conservatives took one side, and all the liberals the other, that’s actually a smaller number of ideologically split decisions than in three of the last five years. And while it’s definitely a conservative Court, the appellate court from which the Supreme Court took the most appeals—12—was the famously conservative Fifth Circuit. The Court overturned the Fifth Circuit in 10 of those cases.
Bottom line: For now, everyone should take satisfaction in knowing that the American system of legal checks and balances is working.
You may hate the results in many cases, but the rule of law is alive and well.
8. The Yellow Sea Is the New Flashpoint for China’s Regional Power Play
Or the West Sea to Korea.
China's Unrestricted Warfare and its Three Warfares (psychological warfare, legal warfare or "lawfare," and media or public opinion warfare).
South Korea must be vigilant in defense of its interests and territory.
Excerpts:
The Yellow Sea is emerging as the newest flashpoint in a broader campaign by Beijing as it asserts its intention to prevent its neighbors, as well as the U.S., from challenging its influence over the region.
The provocations also come as China claims all of the South China Sea, a vital waterway for global trade. Chinese jet fighters have increased sorties near Taiwan and last month they tailed Japanese air patrols during exercises. Beijing also launched live-fire drills off the coast of Australia earlier this year.
But friction in the Yellow Sea is especially alarming because of its strategic importance in any future U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. Beijing would likely need free access to the waterway to deploy its naval and missile firepower during any attempt to seize control of the island.
The largest overseas U.S. military base, home to 28,500 service personnel, sits 10 miles inland from the Yellow Sea in South Korea. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops are also stationed around 500 miles away in Japan.
The Yellow Sea Is the New Flashpoint for China’s Regional Power Play
Installation of buoys, a warship exercise and no-sail zones rattle South Korea and illustrate China’s growing force
https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/the-yellow-sea-is-the-new-flashpoint-for-chinas-regional-power-play-5af7e8b5?st=9Xzx3e&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
By Dasl Yoon
Follow and Joyu Wang
Follow
July 3, 2025 11:00 pm ET
Members of the Korean Veterans Association protest near the Chinese Embassy in Seoul. Photo: Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/Zuma Press
Key Points
What's This?
- China is increasing provocations in the Yellow Sea, including incursions and the placement of structures.
- The Yellow Sea is a potential flashpoint due to its strategic importance in a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan.
- China’s actions are pressuring U.S. allies and limiting U.S. maneuverability in the region, experts say.
SEOUL—One day in February, a South Korean research vessel approached a set of unusual structures planted by China in the middle of the Yellow Sea, the narrow body of water that separates the two countries.
Two large Chinese Coast Guard ships and three Chinese boats quickly blocked the South Korean ship’s path. The passengers on the small Chinese boats wielded knives to force the Koreans back.
After two hours, the South Korean ship turned back, unable to learn more about the mysterious installation that sat about 230 miles from the country’s coast: a yellow aquaculture cage placed next to a refurbished multistory oil rig, complete with lifeboats and a helipad.
It was the latest of a series of Chinese provocations in the Yellow Sea, including incursions into South Korean territorial waters and airspace, and the placing of 13 buoys that some experts say could be used to gather intelligence.
Disputed maritime areas in the Yellow Sea
N.Korea
China’s claimed
economic boundary
Japan
Beijing
S.Korea
Yellow
Sea
Provisional Measures Zone (PMZ)
South Korea’s claimed
economic boundary
China
Shanghai
East China
Sea
Chinese buoys
discovered since 2018
Taiwan
100 miles
Phillippine Sea
100 km
Sources: South Korea's navy / Eom Tae-young office (buoy locations); Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project (economic zones)
Andrew Barnett/WSJ
The Yellow Sea is emerging as the newest flashpoint in a broader campaign by Beijing as it asserts its intention to prevent its neighbors, as well as the U.S., from challenging its influence over the region.
The provocations also come as China claims all of the South China Sea, a vital waterway for global trade. Chinese jet fighters have increased sorties near Taiwan and last month they tailed Japanese air patrols during exercises. Beijing also launched live-fire drills off the coast of Australia earlier this year.
But friction in the Yellow Sea is especially alarming because of its strategic importance in any future U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. Beijing would likely need free access to the waterway to deploy its naval and missile firepower during any attempt to seize control of the island.
The largest overseas U.S. military base, home to 28,500 service personnel, sits 10 miles inland from the Yellow Sea in South Korea. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops are also stationed around 500 miles away in Japan.
The Trump administration has signaled that U.S. troops from both countries could be deployed in a clash with China over Taiwan. A stepped-up Chinese presence in the Yellow Sea could limit the ability of the U.S. to maneuver in such a conflict.
A large portion of Beijing’s naval capabilities, as well as key missile launch sites, sit on China’s side of the Yellow Sea, making them vulnerable to attack from U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Chinese aircraft carrier Fujian. Photo: Pu Haiyang/Xinhua/AP
Over the last couple of years, China has steadily escalated pressure on Asian countries with close ties to the U.S. Incursions into South Korean waters by Chinese warships have tripled since 2017, South Korea’s military says, while aircraft intrusions have surged.
In March, Beijing issued a directive calling for more assertive behavior in South Korea’s territorial waters, according to a senior Taiwan security official, citing local intelligence. Beijing is also seeking to build more maritime structures there, the official said.
“China is putting pressure on yet another U.S. ally, hoping to weigh down the allied ability to push back,” said Brian Hart, deputy director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
A buoy in the Yellow Sea that China says is for meteorological observation. Photo: South Korean Navy
The Yellow Sea is so narrow that China and South Korea’s exclusive economic zones overlap. More than 20 years ago, Beijing and Seoul created the so-called Provisional Measures Zone, which created rules for policing illegal fishing and conducting marine-conservation activities.
Fast forward two decades and the PMZ is the site for near-daily provocations by China, according to the South Korean military. It says Chinese warships intruded in South Korea’s territorial waters some 330 times in 2024, tripling from 2017, according to the military. Recent South Korean data shows 130 Chinese aircraft entered its airspace in 2023, more than double the number from the previous year. Many of the Chinese flights were over the Yellow Sea, prompting South Korea to scramble its jets in response.
In May, Beijing jolted Seoul by declaring a no-sail zone in the PMZ. It then carried out unprecedented drills in the Yellow Sea with the Fujian, the country’s most advanced aircraft carrier. In response, South Korea deployed its navy to observe and gather intelligence on the exercises.
The cluster of Chinese structures dotting the sea has rattled officials in Seoul. The fishing cage and the oil rig at the center of February’s incident are located on the western side of the shared PMZ, close to Chinese land. Beijing has repeatedly said they are for maritime research.
The Chinese multistory oil rig in the Yellow Sea, complete with lifeboats and a helipad. Photo: CSIS/Beyond Parallel/Maxar 2025
Analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found the rig could have military as well as scientific uses. “Concerns that the platforms may be dual-use for purposes of advancing China’s creeping jurisdictional presence aren’t unfounded,” it said.
As for the buoys, which China asserts are for meteorological observation, South Korean lawmaker Yu Yong-weon has suggested that they are clustered close together in order for China to control the area rather than collect scientific data.
China has a history of building maritime structures that are used to assert its territorial claims. It has turned reefs in the South China Sea into artificial islands, equipping them with radar systems and air strips.
“China always has a dual purpose for everything,” said Derek Grossman, a former Pentagon official who worked on Indo-Pacific security issues.
Chinese and South Korean officials met Tuesday for bilateral talks. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, in a brief reference, said the two sides had discussed the situation in the Yellow Sea. China made no mention of the sea and said it exchanged views with South Korea on issues of common concern.
Write to Dasl Yoon at dasl.yoon@wsj.com and Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com
9. Drop, Improvise, Win: The OSS in China
Excerpts:
Operation Cardinal was not special because it was dramatic. It was special because it demanded the full range of what makes special operations forces unique: initiative in the absence of guidance, cultural and linguistic adaptability, improvisation under pressure, and the ability to assemble and lead a nonstandard team in a politically-sensitive environment. While many readiness exercises test the raid or infiltration techniques, few assess a detachment’s ability to integrate non-standard specialties or adapt to humanitarian imperatives under time pressure. This kind of training starts at the detachment, but it succeeds only if company and battalion leaders build it in.
Modern special operations units can honor their legacy not only by studying missions like Cardinal but by training for them. A Cardinal-inspired snap exercise could challenge a detachment to plan and execute a humanitarian or rescue mission with just 48 hours of warning, followed by an unplanned secondary task that exercises rarely used skills like horizontal construction for the 18C, veterinary or dental care for the 18D. Add two last-minute augmentees—perhaps a foreign partner or interagency specialist—and test the team’s ability to integrate, adapt, and succeed.
This does not require more training; it requires smarter training. The 1st Special Forces Group ran quarterly snap exercises with unknown infiltration methods and non-standard tasks—testing flexibility, improvisation, and integration under pressure. Events like those could easily add Cardinal-like objectives. The combat training centers offer another opportunity. Large, complex, and well-resourced, these opportunities are ideally suited for scenarios like Cardinal, where the challenge is not the raid but what happens after. These exercises also offer higher headquarters, such as 1st Special Forces Command, a way to evaluate readiness for the ambiguous, irregular missions that do not fall neatly within doctrinal lines but often land on our shoulders.
We cannot predict the next Cardinal, but we can build the teams that will succeed when it arrives.
News | June 20, 2025
Drop, Improvise, Win: The OSS in China
https://www.swcs.mil/Special-Warfare-Journal/Article/4222259/drop-improvise-win-the-oss-in-china/
By Lt. Col. Zachary Griffiths Special Warfare Journal
FORT BRAGG, North Carolina –
At 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 16, 1945, six men flew into the unknown. By sundown, they’d been beaten, stripped, and installed in the nicest hotel in Mukden. None of them knew this was in front of them just seven days earlier.
The end of World War II surprised the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). On Aug. 11, 1945, two days after the nuclear attack on Nagasaki, the OSS received the mission to dispatch Mercy Mission teams into China.01 The Japanese had badly treated American prisoners of war, and there were concerns that Japanese officers might execute prisoners rather than return them to American control. As an additional concern, the Soviet Union had invaded Manchuria in northern China on August 9 and were racing towards camps holding American prisoners.
The OSS had a clear task: Get there first.
Though the war’s end surprised the OSS, they were ready. Commander of OSS forces in China, Col. Richard Heppner, reported August 10 that “although we have been caught with our pants down, we will do our best to pull them up in time.”02 The OSS transitioned quickly. The same day, Heppner sent another cable reporting that his commandos were “ready to leave tomorrow.”03
Cardinal dropped in alongside seven other Mercy Mission teams across China on August 16 — just seven days after Fat Man fell on Nagasaki. Their mission was to prevent further harm to allied prisoners by the Japanese or the rapidly approaching Soviets.04 These teams also had secondary intelligence gathering objectives in otherwise inaccessible locations.05 The Mercy Missions were a veritable “who’s who” of future special operations leaders. Colonel Aaron Bank led the Raven mission into Laos while Capt. John Singlaub joined the Magpie mission into Beijing.06 All of the Mercy Missions put OSS operatives in challenging situations where they found both success and failure.
Small teams operating in politically sensitive, semi-permissive environments are core to what Army special operations does, particularly in the Indo-Pacific,yet operations like Cardinal remain underexplored. A review of eight Special Warfare and Veritas articles found only two mentions of OSS operations in China, and only one included the Mercy Missions.07
Cardinal is worth closer study not because it was cleanly executed, but because it succeeded amid limited intelligence, minimal guidance, and political ambiguity—the same environments our teams must prepare for today.
Cardinal, The Story
The six men of Operation Cardinal had no time to rehearse and no idea what they would find. Dropping into Japanese-occupied Manchuria just a day after the emperor’s surrender, they carried a mandate to get there first—before the Soviets, before the chaos, and before anyone else could harm or hide the prisoners.
Little is recorded about the planning for Cardinal. However, the team’s diverse membership and varied airdropped supplies show an understanding of the challenges ahead. Cardinal initially had six members. Major James T. Hennessy led the operation. Major Robert F. Lamar, a physician, joined to provide immediate medical care for the prisoners. On the enlisted side, Staff Sgt. Hal Leith served as the Russian language interpreter, Sgt. Edward A. Starz served as the radio operator, and Sgt. Fumio Kido served as the Japanese interpreter. As a second-generation American born to Japanese parents in Hawaii, he spoke fluent Japanese. The team also included Maj. Cheng Shih-wu, a Nationalist Chinese officer and the team’s Chinese interpreter.08
The team departed from Hsian at 4:30 a.m. on August 16, flying 800 miles to Mukden aboard a B-24 Liberator. The aircraft, designed for bombing runs, was not ideal for parachute insertion. Still, the team exited one by one through the bomb bay, landing in broad daylight outside the industrial city of Mukden.09
Hundreds of local Chinese surrounded the drop zone as Cardinal landed. As Starz and Cheng gathered the equipment, the rest of the party started walking to the Hoten camp, located north of the drop zone. Two Japanese platoons ambushed the Americans walking north. Unaware the war had ended, the Japanese forced the team to disarm and disrobe. They then beat the prisoners. Kido faced special violence as a Japanese-American. Fortunately, a Japanese officer arrived on horseback soon after, ending the violence. He then took them to meet with the Kempati, Japanese secret police, in downtown Mukden. The Kempati agreed to escort them to the Hoten Camp the next day, installing them in the nicest hotel in Mukden in the meantime.
The next day, on August 17, Cardinal liberated the Hoten camp. With a Japanese escort, Cardinal traveled to the camp, met with the senior American, and then announced the camp’s liberation. They rescued 1,321 Americans, 239 British, and some Australian, Dutch, and Canadian prisoners.10 Cardinal also learned of an additional camp, holding senior allied prisoners, about 150 miles northeast. Despite this major success, higher OSS command did not learn of the liberation until the 18th when Cardinal finally established a radio connection.
Conditions immediately improved for the Hoten prisoners. One prisoner, Capt. Lloyd Allen, commented “Food got easier right away” after liberation and that prisoners needing advanced medical aid left within the first week.11
As the rest of the Cardinal team stabilized conditions at Hoten, Leith and Lamar departed by train on August 18 to rescue the high-ranking prisoners. Japanese escorts provided a first-class rail car, and the pair arrived early the next morning. There, they liberated prominent prisoners including Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, Maj. Gen. Edward King, British Gen. Arthur Percival, and Dutch Governor-Gen. Alidius Starkenborgh.12 Though the prisoners were ready to depart, poor phone lines and missed calls delayed coordination with Mukden.
Soviet forces arrived on August 25, complicating the return. The Soviets denied them the train. So, they found a bus. Then a rail line without water for the steam engine. Leith and Lamar didn’t improvise once, they improvised the entire way back.13 The group finally reached Mukden in the early hours of August 27.
Cardinal worked to evacuate prisoners as quickly as possible but were forced to triage evacuees due to insufficient airlift. The bulk went by train to Port Arthur (now Dalian), where the Navy moved them on to Okinawa for flights home. Very sick prisoners flew to Manila while less-sick patients flew back to the United States for care. Notable prisoners, like Lt. Gen. Wainwright, flew to take part in the Japanese surrender ceremony on the battleship Missouri while other high-ranking officers were flown out for debriefing.14
Just as the worst seemed behind them, another problem surfaced: teeth. After years of poor nutrition, many prisoners could not chew the fresh vegetables or canned food now available. Fortunately, the camp included two allied dentists. The OSS team seized dental chairs, tools, and supplies from Japanese army hospitals, enabling immediate treatment.15
With the prisoners safe, Cardinal became something else entirely: America’s first eyes in a region the Soviets claimed. This OSS intelligence base in Manchuria continued despite strong Soviet reaction to continued American presence. Multiple sources report that Soviet troops robbed Americans of their watches, rings, and money while also damaging American aircraft without any accountability.16 Despite the pressure, the OSS were the only American intelligence assets in Manchuria, reporting on things like the secret arrival of the Chinese Communist forces and other significant political developments.17 Under considerable pressure, the Americans took refuge in the French consulate until both the French and Americans were forced out by the Soviets on October 5.
Cardinal’s mission didn’t end with liberation —_It evolved under pressure. From humanitarian relief to intelligence gathering, the team adapted as conditions shifted and higher command remained distant. Their ability to operate with initiative, cultural fluency, and tactical restraint in a politically sensitive environment exemplifies the kind of readiness special operations forces (SOF) must continue to cultivate.
Some lessons
Cardinal did not follow a doctrinal script, and the team did not look like a standard detachment. They had no comms for nearly two days, operated with a patched-together team, and solved unanticipated problems—like dental care. Still, they got it done.
Cardinal was the kind of mission that doctrine does not quite know what to do with, but that special operations get anyway. It was not direct action, unconventional warfare, or foreign internal defense. Army doctrine would categorize it as a “collateral task”—a catch-all for missions that fall outside the principal tasks. As Field Manual 3-18 puts it, “Special Forces can perform other tasks of a collateral nature, such as counterdrug operations and noncombatant evacuation operations.”18 These are the irregular, politically-sensitive assignments that come by default. Cardinal shows why we need to train for them.
The Cardinal case also highlights the essence of mission command. The team went in knowing they would have no contact for a while. Then, when they did not check in for two days, no one came looking—They were trusted to figure it out. Today, that kind of communications blackout is rare. But, the principle holds: Train teams to think, not wait.
Likewise, Cardinal’s six-person team is a study in creative task organization. They did not have the right people, they had the available ones: two majors, a doctor, a radioman, two linguists, and a foreign officer. And yet, they built a team, adapted on the fly, and made it work. Special operations forces will continue to face missions that do not match their manning documents or rehearsal cycles. Attachments will arrive late. Some will bring SOF experience; many will not. The teams that succeed will be those that integrate fast, build trust quickly, and move forward.
Finally, we should not overlook “the teeth.” Years of malnutrition had left prisoners unable to chew their first real meals—and solving that meant recognizing the problem, finding camp dentists, raiding Japanese depots, and setting up a field dental clinic. The lesson is not about dentistry. It is about judgment. Cardinal’s team identified an unanticipated need and solved it with whatever resources they could find. That is what detachments do. And, sometimes, the mission turns not on what we rehearse most, but on the skills we rarely touch: delivering calves, pulling teeth, building bridges, or fixing radios. We must train like those moments matter.
The value of Cardinal lies in what it demands from us today: Preparation for doctrinal edge cases, reinforcement of mission command, confidence in creative task organization, and fluency in the rarely used skills that may prove decisive. As special operations forces face uncertain contingencies in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, leaders and trainers must prepare teams not just for the missions we plan but for the ones we never saw coming.
Fit Cardinal Into Your Training
Operation Cardinal was not special because it was dramatic. It was special because it demanded the full range of what makes special operations forces unique: initiative in the absence of guidance, cultural and linguistic adaptability, improvisation under pressure, and the ability to assemble and lead a nonstandard team in a politically-sensitive environment. While many readiness exercises test the raid or infiltration techniques, few assess a detachment’s ability to integrate non-standard specialties or adapt to humanitarian imperatives under time pressure. This kind of training starts at the detachment, but it succeeds only if company and battalion leaders build it in.
Modern special operations units can honor their legacy not only by studying missions like Cardinal but by training for them. A Cardinal-inspired snap exercise could challenge a detachment to plan and execute a humanitarian or rescue mission with just 48 hours of warning, followed by an unplanned secondary task that exercises rarely used skills like horizontal construction for the 18C, veterinary or dental care for the 18D. Add two last-minute augmentees—perhaps a foreign partner or interagency specialist—and test the team’s ability to integrate, adapt, and succeed.
This does not require more training; it requires smarter training. The 1st Special Forces Group ran quarterly snap exercises with unknown infiltration methods and non-standard tasks—testing flexibility, improvisation, and integration under pressure. Events like those could easily add Cardinal-like objectives. The combat training centers offer another opportunity. Large, complex, and well-resourced, these opportunities are ideally suited for scenarios like Cardinal, where the challenge is not the raid but what happens after. These exercises also offer higher headquarters, such as 1st Special Forces Command, a way to evaluate readiness for the ambiguous, irregular missions that do not fall neatly within doctrinal lines but often land on our shoulders.
We cannot predict the next Cardinal, but we can build the teams that will succeed when it arrives.
Author note: Lt. Col. Zachary Griffiths will soon command 4th Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne). He is a former White House Fellow.
References
01 Roger Hilsman, American Guerrilla: My War Behind Japanese Lines (Washington, D.C: Brasseys, 1990), 230.
02 Maochun Yu, OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 231.yu
03 Yu, 232.
04 Troy J. Sacquety, “The Office of Strategic Services (OSS): A Primer on the Special Operations Branches and Detachments of the OSS,” Veritas 3, no. 4 (2007): 50.
05 History Project, Strategic Services Unit, Office of the Assistant Secretary of War, War Department, The Overseas Targets: War Report of the Office of Strategic Services, 1976th ed., vol. 2 (New York: Walker and Company, 1976), 457.
06 Yu, OSS in China, 232.
07 Only Troy J. Sacquety, “The Office of Strategic Services (OSS): A Primer on the Special Operations Branches and Detachments of the OSS,” Veritas 3, no. 4 (2007), https://arsof-history.org/articles/v3n4_oss_primer_page_1.html mentions the Mercy Missions though C. H. Briscoe, “Major Herbert R. Brucker, SF Pioneer, Part I,” Veritas 2, no. 2 (2006), https://arsof-history.org/articles/v2n2_brucker_pt1_page_1.html also mentions Detachment 202’s role in China. The other history related articles on the OSS largely focused on the OSS in Europe, Detachment 101’s role in Burma, or the resistance led by Brig. Gen Russell Volckmann in the Philippines. See C. H. Briscoe, “Kachin Rangers: Allied Guerrillas in World War II Burma,” Special Warfare 14, no. 4 (2002): 35–43; Joseph R. Fischer, “Cut from a Different Cloth: The Origins of U.S. Army Special Forces,” Special Warfare 8, no. 2 (1995): 28–39; Troy J. Sacquety, “Strategic Services Unit (SSU) History in the ‘Raw,’” Veritas 5, no. 3 (2009), https://arsof-history.org/articles/v5n3_history_raw_page_1.html; Ian Sutherland, “The OSS (Office of Strategic Services) Operational Groups: Origin of Army Special Forces,” Special Warfare 15, no. 2 (2002): 2–13; James R. Ward, “Activities of Detachment 101 of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services),” Special Warfare 6, no. 4 (1993): 14–21; Eugene G. Piasecki, “The History of Special Warfare,” Special Warfare 28, no. 2 (2015): 8–13.
08 Hal Leith, POWs of Japanese Rescued! (Victoria, Canada: Trafford, 2003), 11.
09 Leith, 11.
10 Yu, OSS in China, 242.
11 “News Release” (Office of Strategic Services, September 13, 1945), 2, WARREN A. BOECKLEN PAPERS; BOX 2, FOLDER 10, OSS PRESS RELEASES [PART 1 OF 2], SEPTEMBER 1945, US Army Heritage and Education Center.
12 Leith, POWs of Japanese Rescued!, 28; Zachary E Griffiths and Rick Landgraf, “A Prisoner of War’s Old Fashioned,” War on the Rocks, January 31, 2025, https://warontherocks.com/2025/01/a-prisoner-of-wars-old-fashioned/.
13 Leith, POWs of Japanese Rescued!, 44–49.
14 Hilsman, American Guerrilla, 244.
15 Hilsman, 242.
16 Yu, OSS in China, 244; Leith, POWs of Japanese Rescued!, 57.
17 Yu, OSS in China, 244.
18 Department of the Army, Special Forces Operations, Field Manual 3–18 (Washington, D.C., 2014), 58, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_c/pdf/web/fm3_18.pdf.
10. China’s Military Diplomacy in the New Era
Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery?
Aren't senior level visits, port calls, and joint (combined) exercises something we are familiar with?
Please go to the link to view the graphics/charts.
China’s Military Diplomacy in the New Era
Military diplomacy – including senior-level visits, port calls, and joint exercises – has become a vital tool of Chinese statecraft.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/07/chinas-military-diplomacy-in-the-new-era/
By Phillip C. Saunders and Melodie Ha
July 05, 2025
Credit: Depositphotos
As the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has modernized into a more capable global force, it has significantly expanded its international military engagement in support of China’s foreign policy objectives. Drawing on a new National Defense University monograph and updated database, this analysis examines trends in PLA military diplomacy from 2002 to 2024, focusing on three key activities: senior-level visits, naval port calls, and joint exercises.
The PLA has historically been inward-facing. Even after China’s post-1978 opening, PLA foreign engagements remained limited, highly scripted, and more symbolic than substantive – shaped by an organizational culture of secrecy. Today, however, military diplomacy has become a vital tool of Chinese statecraft. It serves both strategic and operational aims: shaping the international environment in Beijing’s favor, laying groundwork for future overseas access, and enabling intelligence gathering and operational learning from foreign militaries.
Figure 1 shows PLA military diplomatic interactions from 2002-2024. PLA military engagement grew steadily from 2002 to 2008, then plateaued from 2009 to 2019 before dropping sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the PLA conducted only 26 percent of the military-diplomatic activities it had in 2019. Activity has rebounded, but has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
A notable shift occurred around 2009 with the rise of port calls and joint exercises, even as senior-level visits remained the most frequent form of engagement. Interactions peaked in 2010 and 2015 but declined afterward – likely due to Xi Jinping’s sweeping 2016 military reforms, which prioritized internal modernization over outward engagement.
Geographically, Figure 2 shows that China’s military diplomacy remains concentrated in Asia, reflecting the PLA’s regional priorities. Approximately 40 percent of all engagements between 2002 and 2024 targeted Asia. Southeast Asia alone represented nearly half of those (20 percent of the global total), followed by South Asia (10 percent of the global total), driven primarily by China’s close ties with Pakistan. Southeast Asia has become an especially active arena amid intensifying China-U.S. strategic competition.
Notably, even countries with maritime disputes or strategic frictions with Beijing – including Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea – have participated in exercises with the PLA. However, military engagement does not necessarily reflect strategic alignment; many of these countries maintain more substantive defense ties with the United States.
Figure 3 shows the PLA’s growing presence in multilateral forums, marking a departure from its long-standing preference for bilateral engagements. Initially wary of multilateral settings due to concerns over narrative control, China now regularly participates in and hosts these events. The PLA engages in six recurring multilateral defense dialogues, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meetings, the Shangri-La Dialogue, and ASEAN-related forums, reflecting Beijing’s growing confidence and desire to shape regional security discussions on its own terms. Multilateral forums enable China to project influence more efficiently, amplify its strategic narratives, and legitimize its role in regional security architectures.
Figure 4 shows trends in senior-level visits, which remain the most common form of PLA military diplomacy. As China has gained international stature, foreign militaries have increasingly accepted asymmetrical protocols – sending high-level delegations to China without demanding reciprocal visits. Between 2003 and 2009, outbound and inbound visits were balanced. After 2009, however, the PLA began hosting significantly more visits than it made, indicating growing willingness of other militaries to engage on China’s terms.
In recent years, the PLA has also adopted U.S.-style “2+2” meetings – combining defense and foreign affairs officials – with partners like South Korea, Indonesia, and Malaysia to strengthen alignment across security and diplomatic channels.
The second key domain of PLA military diplomacy is naval port calls. Although fewer in number, these visits visibly demonstrate the PLA Navy’s expanding reach. Regular port calls began in late 2008 and peaked at 50 visits in 2017. The establishment of China’s overseas military base in Djibouti that same year reduced reliance on replenishment visits in foreign ports. Port calls declined during the COVID-19 pandemic but had partially recovered to 35 visits by 2024 – still below the pre-pandemic peak.
Military exercises constitute the third pillar of PLA diplomacy, offering valuable operational experience and opportunities to learn from foreign militaries. Most exercises are bilateral (83 percent in 2024), though multilateral participation has grown since 2014. High-profile multilateral exercises include SCO Peace Mission drills, Pakistan’s Aman naval exercises, and, until its 2018 disinvitation, the U.S.-led RIMPAC. These exercises often focus on nontraditional security issues, helping China project an image of cooperation and responsibility on the global stage. Over half – 53 percent – of PLA exercises have been conducted with Asian partners.
A significant and growing share of exercises focus on military operations other than war (MOOTW), including humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, peacekeeping, and noncombatant evacuations. MOOTW made up 41 percent of all PLA exercises over the period, and if anti-piracy and counterterrorism are included, nearly 75 percent of exercises fall under the nontraditional security category.
The NDU database demonstrates that PLA military engagement is highly sensitive to diplomatic context. For instance, Singapore suspended exercises with the PLA from 2011 to 2013 due to tensions over the South China Sea. Engagement with South Korea declined following Seoul’s 2016 decision to deploy the U.S. THAAD missile defense system. Australia exemplifies this dynamic: bilateral exercises grew steadily from 2012 to 2019 as Canberra sought to balance ties with the United States and economic links with China, but halted in 2020 amid tensions over COVID-19 origins and the launch of AUKUS. Although ties tentatively resumed in 2024–25, a provocative Chinese live-fire exercise off Australia’s coast quickly undermined progress.
China’s closest military exercise partner is Russia, which accounts for 27 percent of the PLA’s combat and combat-support drills. Their cooperation has deepened since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, with 63 percent of joint activities occurring in the past 11 years. Exercises like Vostok 2018 and Joint Sea are used to enhance interoperability and signal strategic alignment. Russia is also reportedly training Chinese military personnel on lessons learned from its war against Ukraine. Nonetheless, the relationship remains one of pragmatic convergence and a partnership of convenience rather than a formal alliance.
As PLA capabilities expand, China increasingly leverages military diplomacy to support its strategic objectives – shaping regional security dynamics, signaling political intentions, and building relationships for long-term operational benefits. Yet the practical returns remain limited due to rigid political control, emphasis on form over substance, lack of focus on building partner capacity, and reluctance to build real interoperability.
Given this reality, U.S. conversations with allies and partners about their engagements with the PLA should focus narrowly on managing risks: preventing transfers of sensitive technologies, limiting PLA opportunities to learn military tactics, techniques, and procedures, and reinforcing the United States’ comparative advantage in building partner capacity. The goal should not be to halt Chinese military diplomacy outright, but to mitigate the potential threats it poses.
Thanks to CSCMA Research Intern Raina Nelson for assistance in preparing this article.
Authors
Guest Author
Phillip C. Saunders
Phillip C. Saunders is director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs (CSCMA) at National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies. The views expressed are the authors’ own, not those of the U.S. government, the Department of Defense, or National Defense University.
Guest Author
Melodie Ha
Melodie Ha is an independent analyst and former research assistant at CSCMA. The views expressed are the authors’ own, not those of the U.S. government, the Department of Defense, or National Defense University.
11. ‘Birds of a Feather’ Shaped East Asia’s Development ‘Miracles’
Excerpts:
It is striking that this pattern of studying law (or in practice, public management) at the elite domestic university was not replicated across the developmental states that followed, especially because research suggests that they purposefully adopted other aspects of the Japanese model.
Understanding the human side of policy is crucial for countries looking to replicate East Asia’s success. It is not just about having the right institutions or policies on paper. It is also about ensuring the cohesion of the people in charge: their training, experiences, and networks.
Countries hoping to develop strong innovation strategies, for example, might focus not just on building pilot agencies or adopting “the right” policies, but on facilitating shared training for cohorts of future leaders with shared missions. That could mean investing in education at home, creating exchange programs, or fostering ties between government, academia, and business in intentional ways. In practical terms, this could look like the Singaporean government’s “public service commission” scholarship program, which helps the country recruit and retain outstanding talent with similar experiences studying overseas.
In short, East Asia’s success was not just about what policies were chosen, the architecture of the developmental state, geopolitics. The effectiveness of the region’s developmental states also rested on a high degree of similarity (“homophily”) in the elite officials who led the national innovation effort, giving them shared objectives across many generations such that they internalized national development objectives as their own personal objectives. The reason so few countries have escaped the middle income trap may partly be that this lesson has, until now, not been one of the standard “East Asian miracle” lessons.
‘Birds of a Feather’ Shaped East Asia’s Development ‘Miracles’
How shared backgrounds among policy elites powered the economic rise of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/07/birds-of-a-feather-shaped-east-asias-development-miracles/
By Robyn Klingler-Vidra, Adam Chalmers, and Robert Wade
July 05, 2025
Credit: Depositphotos
Strangely enough, the literature on “state capacity” – including that on industrial policy and on the entrepreneurial state – says very little about the people who staff the higher ranks of the state. Attention may be given to the top-most leaders, but not to the officials responsible for formulating and implementing the key economic development policies. This includes the decades of studies on the “East Asian miracle” economies and the lauded developmental state bureaucracy epitomized by Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry, South Korea’s Economic Planning Board, and Taiwan’s National Development Council.
Behind every successful policy, reform or effective agency is a group of people making judgment calls, managing trade-offs, and shaping the direction of development. Yet most accounts treat these policymakers as faceless parts of bureaucracies.
If governments elsewhere are to learn the lessons from the East Asian miracle so that more countries can escape the “middle-income trap” (only about a dozen economies have managed to do so), a closer look at the individuals behind East Asia’s economic miracle is warranted. Whom have these governments recruited (and maintained) to lead high-impact innovation strategies?
We tackle this lacuna in our study, “Who’s governing the market?” We compiled a data set of the 1,110 individuals who led innovation policy in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China from 1945 to 2021. We then analyzed who these people were in terms of where and what they studied and where they worked before taking the leading positions.
Our primary finding is that there are strong national patterns, meaning high degrees of similarity, in terms of where and what policy leaders studied and where they worked before taking on leadership roles. For example, in Japan the large majority studied in the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo, and then worked in government. In Taiwan and China, they tended to study natural sciences and engineering, in Taiwan coming mostly from National Taiwan University and in China from a wider mix of universities. In South Korea they came from a more mixed distribution between law, business studies, engineering, and most studied at the three elite universities. This suggest that in East Asia, similarity of background as both student and professional may have mattered more than subscribing to a particular discipline or ideology.
The Power of “Birds of a Feather Flock Together”
This raises questions about the implications of two established ideas. First, that groups that are diverse in terms of cognitive and demographic traits outperform more homogeneous groups. We find that in East Asia it may have been the fact that “birds of a feather were flocking together” (technically called “homophily”) that enabled their effective pursuit of innovation strategies in line with national development objectives.
Second, research on the “Chicago Boys” in Latin America argues that exposure to particular schools of economic thought (like neoliberalism) shaped reform agendas. According to this argument, the time spent together in Chicago fostered tight social networks and a coherent world view that then translated into “Pinochet’s economists” pursuing neoliberal reforms. In East Asia we find that each country had distinct patterns in terms of the subjects studied and the institutions attended. This leads us to suggest that it may be less the content of what they studied and more the tightness of the shared worldview and social networks that enabled the strong performance. The latter factors have helped to generate a critical condition of an effective developmental state: namely that officials internalize national objectives as their own personal objectives.
The quintessential economic miracle, Japan, has the greatest degree of consistency among its policymaking elite, with its innovation policy leaders being six times more likely to have the same educational and professional background than their equivalent cohorts in China, South Korea, or Taiwan. As noted earlier, most Japanese policy leaders studied in the Faculty of Law at University of Tokyo, where the curriculum has long emphasized “public management” more than “law” in the English sense. Another common factor: they spent nearly their entire careers within government. Few moved between government and other sectors such as academia or business. This high level of similarity may help explain the strong commitment to the national development vision Japan pursued after World War II.
Similarity of background can mean that leaders are more likely to agree on strategies, and more likely to reinforce one another’s choices. That can foster coherence and efficiency. On the other hand, it can also limit creativity, because the bureaucracy becomes prone to group think.
Similar But Different National Patterns
We have four more specific findings about these similar but different patterns across the individuals leading innovation policy for East Asia’s miracle economies.
First, there are clear national patterns with respect to studying abroad – or not. Japanese officials were the least likely to study abroad. In contrast, many South Korean and Taiwanese leaders studied in the United States, often earning advanced degrees at top U.S. universities. Chinese policymakers were more likely to have studied in Russia or the Soviet Union during the Cold War, although this trend shifted in later decades. Over time, we found a growing reliance on domestic university education across all four countries. National universities have increasingly become training grounds for policy elites, especially for undergraduate degrees. But in South Korea, Taiwan, and China, international postgraduate education still plays a significant role in who gets recruited to top positions.
Second, in terms of universities, Japanese policy leaders studied overwhelmingly at just one domestic university: University of Tokyo. Their Korean and Taiwanese counterparts also came from a tiny number of elite national universities – South Korea’s “SKY” universities of Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University, and National Taiwan University in Taipei, respectively. In contrast, there is more variation among Chinese innovation policy leaders. The two elite universities, Peking and Tsinghua, comprised a much smaller share of Chinese leaders’ educational backgrounds than elite universities in the other cases, suggesting a national pattern in which networks in Beijing form as leaders emerge from provincial clusters.
Third, in terms of degree subjects, Japanese policy leaders overwhelmingly studied law (at Tokyo University). Japan’s approach to teaching law comprises training in public administration and policy, more than the legal studies one would cover in a Western law school. In contrast to Japan’s law focus, Chinese and Taiwanese policy leaders mostly have natural science and engineering backgrounds, while South Korea’s lead cohort was more disbursed across law, business, social science, and engineering. Again, rather than similarly trained bureaucrats across the four governments, we see nationally coherent and distinct patterns.
Fourth, the three prior roles that policy leaders were most likely to hold before taking on their roles were all in government. Among the four countries, Japanese policy leaders had the fewest movements, while Korean policy leaders had more private sector posts, and Chinese and Taiwanese policy leaders moved across academic or think tank positions before leading innovation policy.
Perhaps surprisingly, these national patterns have held relatively steady over time. Despite dramatic changes in the global economy and in each country’s domestic politics, the preferred universities and degree subjects of policy elites have remained largely the same.
East Asia’s Flying Geese
For too long, the individuals behind the East Asian miracle have been missing from the narrative. The “lessons drawn” point to structures and strategies, not to the people. Our research suggests that the shared backgrounds of national innovation policy elites in East Asia helped to align goals, smooth coordination, and sustain long-term development strategies.
Japan’s case is especially striking. Its policymakers’ common education, career paths, and institutional loyalty contributed to a shared sense of purpose. That model helped launch the developmental state, and inspired emulators across the region. But even among those “flying geese” who tried to copy Japan, few matched its level of coherence. It is striking that this pattern of studying law (or in practice, public management) at the elite domestic university was not replicated across the developmental states that followed, especially because research suggests that they purposefully adopted other aspects of the Japanese model.
Understanding the human side of policy is crucial for countries looking to replicate East Asia’s success. It is not just about having the right institutions or policies on paper. It is also about ensuring the cohesion of the people in charge: their training, experiences, and networks.
Countries hoping to develop strong innovation strategies, for example, might focus not just on building pilot agencies or adopting “the right” policies, but on facilitating shared training for cohorts of future leaders with shared missions. That could mean investing in education at home, creating exchange programs, or fostering ties between government, academia, and business in intentional ways. In practical terms, this could look like the Singaporean government’s “public service commission” scholarship program, which helps the country recruit and retain outstanding talent with similar experiences studying overseas.
In short, East Asia’s success was not just about what policies were chosen, the architecture of the developmental state, geopolitics. The effectiveness of the region’s developmental states also rested on a high degree of similarity (“homophily”) in the elite officials who led the national innovation effort, giving them shared objectives across many generations such that they internalized national development objectives as their own personal objectives. The reason so few countries have escaped the middle income trap may partly be that this lesson has, until now, not been one of the standard “East Asian miracle” lessons.
This is a summary of a research paper that was originally published in World Development. Read the full paper here.
Authors
Guest Author
Robyn Klingler-Vidra
Robyn Klingler-Vidra is vice dean (Global Engagement) of King's Business School at King’s College of London.
Guest Author
Adam Chalmers
Adam Chalmers is senior lecturer of Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh.
Guest Author
Robert Wade
Robert Wade is professor of Political Economy and Development at London School of Economics and Political Science.
12. Why China Isn’t Lecturing Trump About His Costly Bill
Excerpts:
China’s main concerns about its holdings has long been over the dollar’s value and whether the United States will fail to pay its obligations, said Yasheng Huang, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“These two concerns are far more material today,” he said. “The dollar has already depreciated, dragging down the Chinese holdings. In terms of the other concern, I personally do not trust this administration to uphold rule of law and debt obligations.”
In covering the debate, Chinese state media have emphasized how divisive the bill has been and the seeming futility of the American democratic process to reflect popular will. Reports described the debates as a “political circus,” while Chinese pundits said the vote highlighted “increasing polarization” in the United States.
But Chinese officials have not yet publicly criticized the Trump administration and could be focused on other considerations.
...
From China’s perspective, rather than fuel American economic growth, the measure could push Washington closer to a fiscal cliff and undermine its ability to compete with Beijing.
“The chances of Trump’s success are at best uncertain,” said Shen Dingli, a scholar of international relations in Shanghai. Instead, the measure “could indirectly help make China great again” by weakening the United States, he said.
Crises and chaos in the United States feed into one of Mr. Xi’s primary assertions about the state of the world, that the East is rising and the West is declining. China has highlighted the Trump administration’s alienation of U.S. allies and partners and disregard for global norms.
Why China Isn’t Lecturing Trump About His Costly Bill
Beijing has a history of warning Washington about the safety of its Treasury holdings. This time it may have reasons to stay silent, at least publicly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/world/asia/trump-bill-debt-china.html
The House passed a sweeping bill to extend tax cuts and slash social safety net programs. The budget office reported the measure would increase U.S. national debt by at least $3.4 trillion over a decade.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
By David Pierson and Berry Wang
Reporting from Hong Kong
July 4, 2025
Leer en español
As one of the largest holders of U.S. debt for the last two decades, China has not shied away from lecturing the United States about its financial behavior.
Like a parent scolding a child for racking up credit card bills, China needled Washington to protect its assets during the 2013 debt ceiling impasse and blamed Americans for setting off the 2008 global financial crisis with their profligate spending.
But as American lawmakers debated, and ultimately passed, a giant domestic bill championed by President Trump that is projected to add more than $3 trillion to the federal debt by 2034, China has remained largely silent despite the potential long-term risk it poses to its holdings.
China’s main concerns about its holdings has long been over the dollar’s value and whether the United States will fail to pay its obligations, said Yasheng Huang, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“These two concerns are far more material today,” he said. “The dollar has already depreciated, dragging down the Chinese holdings. In terms of the other concern, I personally do not trust this administration to uphold rule of law and debt obligations.”
In covering the debate, Chinese state media have emphasized how divisive the bill has been and the seeming futility of the American democratic process to reflect popular will. Reports described the debates as a “political circus,” while Chinese pundits said the vote highlighted “increasing polarization” in the United States.
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But Chinese officials have not yet publicly criticized the Trump administration and could be focused on other considerations.
Averting a Trade War Is a Priority
China probably sees no reason to antagonize Mr. Trump by publicly criticizing his bill when it is in a shaky truce with his administration in a trade war that had earlier seen both sides impose sky-high tariffs on each other’s goods.
The two sides have agreed to lift certain countermeasures, and keep working toward a deal. Momentum may even be building toward a meeting between Mr. Trump and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping.
Beijing, which is trying to revive economic growth, can ill afford an extended trade war. Concerns over its treasury holdings are not top of mind. More pressing are the tariffs and efforts by the Trump administration to persuade other countries to restrict their own trade with China.
“China is still trying to maintain a fragile trade truce with the United States,” said Joe Mazur, an analyst at Trivium, a research firm. “Criticizing Trump’s signature piece of legislation could anger him and torpedo recent diplomatic understandings.”
Why Interrupt Your Enemy’s Mistake?
From China’s perspective, rather than fuel American economic growth, the measure could push Washington closer to a fiscal cliff and undermine its ability to compete with Beijing.
“The chances of Trump’s success are at best uncertain,” said Shen Dingli, a scholar of international relations in Shanghai. Instead, the measure “could indirectly help make China great again” by weakening the United States, he said.
Crises and chaos in the United States feed into one of Mr. Xi’s primary assertions about the state of the world, that the East is rising and the West is declining. China has highlighted the Trump administration’s alienation of U.S. allies and partners and disregard for global norms.
On social media, one popular hashtag read: “Big, Beautiful Bill will make 17 million people lose their health insurance.” Internet commenters also cheered on Elon Musk, who has described the bill as “insane.”
In contrast, Chinese analysts said, China has raised its debt levels, in part, to build infrastructure and to loan money to developing countries — spending that is geared toward expanding China’s influence.
China is also struggling with a growing mountain of debt because of borrowing by local governments, their investment vehicles and real estate developers.
Yao Yang, an economist at Peking University, was skeptical that China stood to gain from any disruption caused by Mr. Trump’s bill. He said the United States could continue to borrow for years to come as long as it remained the world’s biggest consumer market.
“America’s financial dominance can’t be easily overturned, and the same goes for the dollar’s supremacy,” he said.
China Is Less Exposed to U.S. Debt
Beijing has long complained that Washington has printed more money to serve its domestic needs without considering how it devalues the dollar, and, by extension, foreign countries’ holdings of U.S. assets.
But it has also been gradually reducing its holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds, from a peak of $1.3 trillion more than a decade ago, to about $750 billion now, investing instead in other assets like gold.
China is also invested in weakening what it calls the U.S. dollar’s hegemony as the world’s leading currency for trade.
That power fuels the world’s dependency on American consumers, making major exporting nations like China “more submissive” to the United States because of the threats of tariffs, said Henry Huiyao Wang, president of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing.
“The United States is using the greenback and its large deficit financing to sustain its global power,” he said.
David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
13. China Has Paid a High Price for Its Dominance in Rare Earths
China Has Paid a High Price for Its Dominance in Rare Earths
Dust and groundwater contaminated with heavy metals and radioactive chemicals pose a health threat that the authorities have been trying to address for years.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/business/china-rare-earth-environment.html
An artificial lake of sludge, partly covered with water, was created in Baotou, China, from the waste from rare earth and iron ore processing. It was built without a liner to prevent its contents from seeping into groundwater.Credit...The New York Times
By Keith Bradsher
Keith Bradsher, who has covered the rare earths industry in China since 2009, reported from Baotou and Longnan in China.
July 5, 2025
Updated 8:27 a.m. ET
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Chinese mines and refineries produce most of the world’s rare earth metals and practically all of a few crucial kinds of rare earths. This has given China’s government near complete control over a critical choke point in global trade.
But for decades in northern China, toxic sludge from rare earth processing has been dumped into a four-square-mile artificial lake. In south-central China, rare earth mines have poisoned dozens of once-green valleys and left hillsides stripped to barren red clay.
Achieving dominance in rare earths came with a heavy cost for China, which largely tolerated severe environmental damage for many years. The industrialized world, by contrast, had tighter regulations and stopped accepting even limited environmental harm from the industry as far back as the 1990s, when rare earth mines and processing centers closed elsewhere.
In China, the worst damage occurred in and around Baotou, a flat, industrial city of two million people in China’s Inner Mongolia, on the southern edge of the Gobi Desert. Baotou calls itself the world capital of the rare earth industry, but the city and its people bear the scars from decades of poorly regulated rare earths production.
Related
How did China become the dominant player in rare earths?
July 5, 2025
An artificial lake of sludge known as the Weikuang Dam, four square miles in size, holds the waste left over after metals are extracted from mined ore. During the winter and spring, the sludge dries out. The dust that then blows off the lake is contaminated with lead, cadmium and other heavy metals, including traces of radioactive thorium, according to technical papers by Chinese scholars.
During the summer rainy season, the sludge becomes coated with a layer of water that mixes with poisons and thorium. This dangerous mix seeps into the groundwater underneath the lake.
Image
The artificial lake of sludge is contaminated with lead, cadmium and other heavy metals, including traces of radioactive thorium, according to technical papers by Chinese scholars.Credit...The New York Times
The Weikuang Dam, also known as a tailings lake, is seven miles north of the Yellow River and was built in the 1950s without the thick, waterproof liner underneath that became standard in the West in the 1970s. Baotou’s lake is so large that it cannot easily be rebuilt with a liner.
Government cleanup efforts have helped mitigate some health and safety risks in the industry. But Chinese academics and other experts have warned that environmental damage remains after years of poor practices and lax oversight.
“The closer to the tailings lake, the more serious the pollution and the higher the environmental and ecological risk,” said scholars at the Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology in a research paper in January.
Similarly, researchers at the elite Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, which is a government ministry, warned in a technical paper last year about “serious air and tailings pond pollution” in the Baotou area.
The Baotou Radiation Environment Management Office warned in 2009 that at the Bayan Obo iron ore and rare earths mine, 80 miles north of the city in the Gobi Desert, radioactive thorium was being “discharged into the environment in the form of waste slag, wastewater and dust.” In 2003, another paper found intellectual development disorders among children in Baotou affected by rare earths industry pollution, and a paper in 2017 found that children in Baotou still had potentially harmful levels of rare earths in their urine.
Image
A dirt road near iron and rare earth factories in Baotou in October 2010.Credit...The New York Times
The enormous Bayan Obo strip mine produces most of China’s so-called light rare earths, like lanthanum for oil refining, and most of its medium rare earths, like samarium for the magnets in fighter jets and missiles. In trade disputes with the United States and the European Union, China has since April halted exports of samarium to any country and has restricted exports of heavy rare earths, which are mined separately near Longnan in south-central China.
Until a crackdown in 2010 and 2011, many illegal mines in south-central China spilled acid and ammonia into streams, poisoning rice fields.
China’s leaders have been working for over a decade to clean up the country’s rare earth industry, at a cost running into the billions of dollars.
“Excessive rare earth mining has resulted in landslides, clogged rivers, environmental pollution emergencies and even major accidents and disasters, causing great damage to people’s safety and health and the ecological environment,” China’s cabinet wrote in 2012 in a comprehensive report on the industry’s pollution.
During a visit I made in 2010 to the Baotou tailings lake, a berm, little more than a high pile of earth, lay around its perimeter to contain the sludge. Rare earth refineries, then along the north side of the lake, were crude facilities with workers stirring big vats by hand. A nearby residential community had high rates of pollution-related health problems, according to Chinese experts at the time. Baotou itself was shrouded with smog, and the air had an acrid, faintly metallic taste.
Image
A sheep herder walking past men working on a pipe to an area where waste from iron and rare earth factories is discharged in Baotou in October 2010.Credit...The New York Times
Some progress since then is visible. During a return visit in early June, it was clear that the berm had been reinforced with stones. And outside the berm was a concrete-walled moat that could catch leaks from the berm.
The residential community had been moved to a less polluted area of the city. Replacing it were steel-walled industrial sheds. Few people were around. The smog had disappeared, and the air tasted clean.
Dust from the lake is a more difficult problem to resolve. In processing rare earths, acid is used to pry apart the chemical envelope that contains them in nature. Radioactive thorium is almost always released. In Baotou, it was simply dumped into the lake for decades instead of being stored in special repositories, as required in the West.
The Inner Mongolia government announced in 2015 that refineries had begun treating their waste before discharging it into the lake, but did not specify how the thorium was handled.
In the days of the Soviet Union, thorium dust blew across Scandinavia from a tailings pond at a rare earth processing facility in Estonia. Soon after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the European Union spent close to 1 billion euros to build an adjacent pit with 10-foot-thick concrete walls, move the sludge into it and then cover it with 30 feet of dirt.
The Weikuang Dam has vastly more sludge because the effluent from rare earth processing is mixed into an enormous volume of material from iron ore processing. Any effort to move and store the sludge would be a logistical challenge, and no attempt to do so was visible when I visited in June.
Image
An active mine for heavy rare earth metals on the outskirts of Longnan in south-central China’s Jiangxi Province in April.Credit...Keith Bradsher / The New York Times
But even as other cleanup measures continue, the Chinese authorities have increasingly censored discussions of rare earth industry pollution. State media reported a decade ago that thousands of acres of grasslands near Baotou had been closed to livestock grazing after sheep and goats had been fatally poisoned by dust from the rare earth industry. But practically no mention of that incident can be found online now inside China.
Oversight of the rare earth industry in Baotou is complicated. Pollution regulation in China is mainly the responsibility of provincial governments — in this case, the government of Inner Mongolia.
But the same provincial government also owns Baogang Group, a mining and chemicals giant that runs the Bayan Obo mine, the steel mills and most of the rare earth refineries in Baotou. Baogang has been a pillar of China’s military-industrial complex since Mao. The Baotou Museum celebrates that Baogang made much of the steel for China’s tanks and artillery in the 1950s.
During my trip to Baotou in early June, two colleagues and I were stopped on a public road by eight carloads of police officers and Baogang security guards and questioned. We were put in the back of a police cruiser and later taken to a guardroom at Baogang’s headquarters. With 21 carloads of police officers and local officials outside, we were held for two hours and questioned further before being released and told that the Weikuang Dam was “a business secret of the Baogang Group.”
A woman there who said she was with Baogang’s rare earth subsidiary, but did not provide her name, said that Baogang declined to comment.
There were also modest signs of environmental improvement during a visit in April to the main valley producing heavy rare earths near Longnan.
A small tailings pond next to the largest of the mines had a black liner visibly sticking up around its sides, in an apparent attempt to contain pollution.
But a creek flowing through the valley past several smaller mines was bright orange and bubbling mysteriously.
Li You contributed research.
China’s Lock on Rare Earths
China Tries to Stop Smuggling of Rare Earths as Shortages Loom Abroad
June 4, 2025
What to Know About China’s Halt of Rare Earth Exports
June 3, 2025
U.S. Dependence on China for Rare Earth Magnets Is Causing Shortages
June 2, 2025
Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic.
14. China’s Rare Earth Origin Story, Explained
China’s Rare Earth Origin Story, Explained
Low environmental standards helped China become the world’s low-cost producer of rare earths, but Beijing was also focused on helping the industry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/business/china-rare-earth-history.html
The Bayan Obo mine produces rare earth metals and iron ore in Inner Mongolia, China. It is pictured here in July 2011.Credit...Reuters
By Keith Bradsher
Reporting from Baotou, China
July 5, 2025
Updated 8:35 a.m. ET
The DealBook Newsletter Our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and his Times colleagues help you make sense of major business and policy headlines — and the power-brokers who shape them. Get it sent to your inbox.
Rare earth metals were an afterthought for most world leaders until China temporarily suspended most exports of them a couple of months ago.
But for almost half a century, they have received attention from the very top of the Chinese government.
During his 27-year rule in China, Mao Zedong focused often on increasing how much iron and steel China produced, but seldom on its quality. The result was high production of weak iron and steel that could not meet the needs of the industry.
In the late 1940s, metallurgists in Britain and the United States had developed a fairly low-tech way to improve the quality of ductile iron, which is widely used for pipelines, car parts and other applications. The secret? Add a dash of the rare earth cerium to the metal while it is still molten. It was one of the early industrial uses of rare earths. And unlike most kinds of rare earths, cerium was fairly easy to chemically separate from ore.
When Deng Xiaoping emerged as China’s paramount leader in 1978, he moved quickly to fix the country’s iron and steel industry. Mr. Deng named a top technocrat, Fang Yi, as a vice premier and also as the director of the powerful State Science and Technology Commission.
Image
Fang Yi was named as vice premier overseeing science and technology policy in 1978. He quickly decided to extract rare earths in ore from the Bayan Obo mine.Credit...Sven Simon/United Archives, via Getty Images
Mr. Fang immediately took top geologists and scientists to Baotou, a city in China’s Inner Mongolia that had vast steel mills and the country’s largest iron ore mine nearby. Baotou had already made much of the iron and steel for China’s tanks and artillery under Mao, but Mr. Fang’s team made an important decision to extract more than iron from the mine.
The city’s iron ore deposit was laced with large quantities of so-called light rare earths. These included not just cerium, for ductile iron and for glass manufacturing, but also lanthanum, used in refining oil.
The iron ore deposit also held medium rare earths, like samarium. The United States had started using samarium in the 1970s to make the heat-resistant magnets needed for electric motors inside supersonic fighter jets and missiles.
Related
China has paid a heavy environmental price for its rare earth mining.
“Rare earths have important application value in steel, ductile iron, glass and ceramics, military industry, electronics and new materials,” Mr. Fang declared during his visit to Baotou in 1978, according to an exhibit at the city’s museum.
At the time, Sino-American relations were improving. Soon after his Baotou visit, Mr. Fang took top Chinese engineers to visit America’s most advanced factories, including Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas assembly plants near Los Angeles.
Image
Samples of rare earth minerals from the Bayan Obo mining district on display at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing in May 2025.Credit...VCG
Rare earth metals are tightly bound together in nature. Prying them apart, particularly the heavier rare earths, requires many rounds of chemical processes and huge quantities of acid.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had each developed similar ways to separate rare earths. But their techniques were costly, requiring stainless steel vats and piping as well as expensive nitric acid.
China ordered government research institutes to devise a cheaper approach, said Constantine Karayannopoulos, a chemical engineer and former chief executive of several of the largest North American rare earth companies. The Chinese engineers figured out how to separate rare earths using inexpensive plastic and hydrochloric acid instead.
The cost advantage, together with weak enforcement of environmental standards, allowed China’s rare earth refineries to undercut competitors in the West. Facing increasingly stiff environmental regulations, almost all of the West’s refineries closed.
Separately, China’s geologists discovered that their country held nearly half the world’s deposits of rare earths, including rich deposits of heavy rare earths in south-central China, valuable for magnets in cars as well as for medical imaging and other applications.
Image
Workers at a rare earth metals mine in south-central China’s Jiangxi Province, in March 2012.Credit...Reuters
In the 1990s and 2000s, Chinese refinery engineers mastered the task of prying apart heavy rare earths. That gave China an almost total monopoly on heavy rare earth production.
“The Middle East has oil,” Mr. Deng said in 1992. “China has rare earths.”
By then, he and Mr. Fang had already trained the next leader to guide the country’s rare earth industry: a geologist named Wen Jiabao. He had earned a master’s degree in rare earth sciences in the late 1960s at the Beijing Institute of Geology, when most of the rest of China was paralyzed during the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution.
Mr. Wen went on to become a vice premier in 1998 and then China’s premier from 2003 to 2013. During a visit to Europe in 2010, he declared that little happened on rare earth policy in China without his personal involvement.
Li You contributed research.
Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic.
15. The Algebra of Irregular Warfare: A Planning Methodology for Transregional Operations
Please go to the link to view the graphic.
This "realistic fictitious" scenario illustrates the complexity of our geographic organizations and authorities with multiple "stakeholders" versus threats that are not bound by geographic boundaries or authorities and have only their authoritarian leader as the stakeholder.
Maybe we need a thorough relook of the UCP, GCC boundaries (or whether we need them at all), and authorities. Or ask what is the appropriate organization that should have the responsibility for dealing with the threats described below?
Excerpts:
As a realistic fictitious example, if there is an operation in South America against Russian private military companies, the strategic risk holder is the commander of the U.S. European Command as the commander retains primacy when countering Russia.05 The operational/tactical risk holder is the commander of the U.S. Southern Command. Concurrence from both is required to conduct this operation. This challenge is further exacerbated depending on the type of effect desired. If U.S. Cyber Command is delivering a payload to achieve an effect, then the operation needs their consent as well. In this example, the operation needs the approval of three combatant commanders, the concurrence of three different staffs with different levels of targeting expertise, and three different legal offices with varying frames of reference. If transregional irregular warfare is to move at the speed of war, there needs to be a faster way to gain approvals and synchronize operations. In the interim, the below equation can assist in optimizing the operations process when coupled with accounting for (M)(CIAcAu):
(A+P)4= ([Access + Placement] × [Authorities + Permissions] × of [Allies + Partners] predicated on [Availability + Possible])
News | July 1, 2025
The Algebra of Irregular Warfare: A Planning Methodology for Transregional Operations
https://www.swcs.mil/Special-Warfare-Journal/Article/4231569/the-algebra-of-irregular-warfare-a-planning-methodology-for-transregional-opera/
By By Lt. Col. Shawn Bourdon and Maj. Brian Hamel Special Warfare Journal
How do special operations forces (SOF) plan operations against threats delineated in the National Security Strategy that transcend the geographic and legal boundaries imposed by the Goldwater-Nichols Act and Unified Command Plan? The Department of Defense (DoD) requires, but does not have, an entity that connects, integrates, and globally synchronizes irregular warfare across combatant commands and the interagency. The solution to fulfilling that requirement is to create an entity that can integrate and leverage all the instruments of national power, domestically within the U.S. and through international allies and partners throughout all phases of the conflict continuum.
In November 2021, the commanding general of U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) established a transregional irregular warfare task force to address gaps and seams being exploited by adversaries of the United States. Since its inception, this task force has garnered perspectives on planning and coordinating globally integrated irregular warfare. Since 2021, it has been assessed by the irregular warfare task force planners that conventional planning tools U.S. leaders use are rigid and not optimal in some problem sets. The DoD emphasizes traditional planning over the ingenuity, critical thinking, and flexibility required to compete in the irregular warfare space. Novel solutions, integration of agencies outside of the military, leveraging multinational partners, and non-traditional planning methods employed in new ways are critical in preparing and synchronizing transregional irregular warfare effects.
Task force planners have observed the joint planning process and military decision-making process as stand-alone methods which are suboptimal to address the complexities of transregional irregular warfare. The planning methodologies do not account for the complexity of spatial, temporal, and human variables when they are overlaid by threat streams that cross multiple combatant commands. In the same vein that T.E. Lawrence observed elements in his surrounding that were constants in his planning considerations, the authors suggest the following algebraic equation as a start point to conceptualize known variables that can be rapidly iterated on in a complex environment:
(M)(CIAcAu)(A+P)4= properly planned irregular warfare operation
Figure 1: This graphic represents a simplified rendition of the algebraic expression meant to depict iterative planning considerations for irregular warfare operations.02
Inputs for the variables can be derived from multiple sources, and no one variable has absolute primacy. For example, a capability or authority can be sourced from the interagency, an intergovernmental organization, a commercial partner, or an ally. Below is the context of the variables as the planners have applied them against problem sets.03
M = MAPPING RELEVANT STAKEHOLDERS: This should be the first variable to be addressed to accurately plan. Alternative compensatory control measures, special access programs, and other controlled access programs (the intelligence community variant of special access programs) exacerbate the problem of finding equities that can contribute to, or are already contributing to, a problem set. If not mapped completely, planners and executors may spend years on an initiative only to find an adjacent organization rendered their work redundant. To conduct transregional irregular warfare effectively, a planner needs to map stakeholders (conducting a form of link and nodal analysis) across capability developers (MIT Lincoln Labs, Sandia National Labs, the U.S. Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), intelligence agencies, those that can generate access (special mission units or departments within the intelligence community), authority holders (combatant commanders, or chiefs of station), and allies and partners, while continuously updating this map. This is also an early step to identify risk-holders, discussed below.
C = CAPABILITY: An agent (person) or physical device(s) that affects the targeted system in the desired way. As an example, think of a physical implement that can degrade a SCADA system’s ability to monitor industrial equipment.04 A capability can be derived from an on-hand solution, produced from the Defense Industrial Base, or through partnerships with academia. Capabilities have a close relationship with the Available or Possible expression, as some capabilities are developed for a specific operation, activity, or investment. Scientists and researchers may focus efforts on a capability that functions on the edge of what physics permits (possible).
I = INTELLIGENCE: Refers to the most appropriate collection capabilities, production methods, details, and disciplines (e.g. human intelligence, signals intelligence, open-source intelligence, measures and signature intelligence, etc.), in which each contributes to target identification and decomposition, link and nodal analysis, and efficacy of measures of performance or measures of effectiveness. These outputs are facilitated through a multi-layered approach in coordination with intelligence community and international partners.
Ac =ACCESS: What kind of access is needed? Physical (on the ‘X’), proximal (one terrain feature away but within range of the selected capability), or virtual (in cyberspace parlance this is access to the logical layer, available to anyone around the world predicated upon technical acumen and a network that is not air-gapped). Any type of access can be achieved by working by, with, and through partners or an indigenous force. Ultimately, understanding what kind of access is needed to achieve the desired effect should help answer who, or what is the optimal equity (special mission unit, inter agency, ally or partner) to facilitate the intelligence collection process or finish option (e.g. leveraging the Office of Foreign Assets Control to emplace economic sanctions against a State-Owned Enterprise, or working with the National Security Agency to develop access to a threat actor’s cyber infrastructure). Access is traditionally predicated upon placement because placement establishes the existence of and reason for being at a particular location relative to a system or geographic location. Access is the subsequent step, involving the ability to interact with, retrieve, or use the placed item or resource in question. Without placement, access customarily has no starting point.
Au = AUTHORITIES: Whose authorities (granted by Constitutional and Congressional frameworks and delegated to Combatant Commanders), and permissions (delegated from combatant commanders to subsequent commanders to approve or disapprove an action) are required to execute this operation? Authorities typically revolve around a particular program or aspect of warfare which varies by maturity across combatant commands. As an example, U.S. Central Command’s program surrounding space control is the most mature and advanced of any other combatant command because of the last 20 years of the Global War on Terror. An authority holder assumes a portion of risk. However, in transregional problems, there are often multiple entities assuming risk in different geographic regions. This assumption of risk becomes complicated when the operational or tactical risk holder is not the strategic risk holder.
As a realistic fictitious example, if there is an operation in South America against Russian private military companies, the strategic risk holder is the commander of the U.S. European Command as the commander retains primacy when countering Russia.05 The operational/tactical risk holder is the commander of the U.S. Southern Command. Concurrence from both is required to conduct this operation. This challenge is further exacerbated depending on the type of effect desired. If U.S. Cyber Command is delivering a payload to achieve an effect, then the operation needs their consent as well. In this example, the operation needs the approval of three combatant commanders, the concurrence of three different staffs with different levels of targeting expertise, and three different legal offices with varying frames of reference. If transregional irregular warfare is to move at the speed of war, there needs to be a faster way to gain approvals and synchronize operations. In the interim, the below equation can assist in optimizing the operations process when coupled with accounting for (M)(CIAcAu):
(A+P)4= ([Access + Placement] × [Authorities + Permissions] × of [Allies + Partners] predicated on [Availability + Possible])
Two of the [A+Ps] seem to mirror the initial ‘AA’ in the CIAA expression. However, the ‘CIAA’ portion of the expression is typically introspective, in that it looks for solutions that are organic to the DoD and wider U.S. government to engage in irregular warfare tasks. The key here is applying the mapping function of the variables within the polynomial against (A+P)4 to understand what our allies and partners can develop and facilitate. The virtual or physical, access and placement of our allies and partners is different from that of the U.S. The access and placement of partners represent another front to create dilemmas and facilitates a symbiotic relationship with US capabilities when competing against a common adversary. Partners and allies have authorities and permissions, especially in the information dimension and materiel acquisition timeline that are more efficient for irregular warfare tasks (function at the speed of relevance) when compared to U.S. policy. This efficacy allows allies and partners primacy during certain phases of an operation to contribute to the intelligence gathering process in different ways. Leveraging multiple allies and partners across different operations also allows planners to widen the scope of work as the analytic rigor is spread to a broader community.
(A+P) = AVAILABILITY + POSSIBLE: Planners need to consider if certain capabilities, intelligence platforms, formations, or infrastructure are available or possible (bounded by physics), both within the context of U.S. power and that of participating allies and partners.
All the variables of the expression, when applied against each other should illuminate shortfalls, complications, or opportunities. It is important to note that these known variables in the expression should change as planning efforts mature, inform subsequent stages of the operation, and shape how the commander or civilian lead accepts risk and uncertainty.
T.E. Lawrence astutely identified three elements, which would impact his campaign against the Turks. The algebraic element highlighted immutable variables that would impact his operations. The authors assess that operations conducted between combatant commands require a similar approach taken by T.E. Lawrence and have crafted an expression to showcase the variables of trans-regional irregular warfare. The authors found the above expression is best applied when integrating special operations, space, cyberspace, the interagency, and allies, all of whom maintain the operational flexibility to impose cost throughout the competition continuum. In late 2021, the USASOC commander established a task force designed to address transregional problem sets with the combatant commands. These efforts need to scale accordingly. The joint staff should implement concepts from this paper by examining how they conduct and synchronize transregional irregular warfare at the speed of war for the U.S. to accumulate strategic relative advantages against our adversaries.
Lateral Thought Experiment for the Concept of Transregional Operations
A lateral thinking exercise illustrates the points of this paper with a simple scenario posing hypothetical questions.
SCENARIO: Imagine your neighbor is stealing your packages and mail and you want to confirm or deny this fact, as well as intervene to stop this behavior. How would you confirm this information? How would you set conditions to stop the behavior? Some answers appear obvious at face value, if you are unconstrained in your planning. Rarely is planning unconstrained. For the point of illustration, it’s important that your neighbor doesn’t know that you suspect them, and you want to ensure they come to the natural conclusion it’s no longer worth the trouble.
Outcomes: Consider the variables laid out in the article. First, what’s your desired outcome? To confirm who is stealing your mail and stop the behavior. Then determine what effects will produce the desired outcome?
MAPPING: The planner must consider all relevant actors. Of course, you and your neighbors are stakeholders, but so too are your adjacent neighbors, your children, the neighbor’s children, the mail carriers, delivery services, and the police, as examples. They are all affected in different ways by the neighbor’s action and your counter actions. You, as the planner, must map and consider those actors and their interests.
THE VARIABLES: The next is to look at (CIAA)(A+P)4 holistically; as a combination, what obvious solutions exist? Are there solutions that are less obvious, but equally effective? Are there solutions that are unobtrusive and indirect, yet also effective? Each of these can be considered in any order.
INTELLIGENCE: What intelligence is needed to confirm or deny what your neighbor is doing, and how do you resource those? This includes talking to the mail carriers or other neighbors to determine if they have any information. Look at your home camera footage and ask to see others’ home camera system footage. Can you make a direct observation at your neighbor’s house while asking to borrow their yard tools? These are ways to generate incriminating evidence or indicators that lead to reasonable conclusion. For the scenario, assume you have strong indicators your neighbor is stealing your packages and mail.
CAPABILITY: What capabilities are useful to set conditions to deter your neighbor? A direct solution from afar where a note is left in your mailbox or the neighbor’s mailbox that reminds them of the federal penalty. If you have a strong research and development bone, a glitter bomb deliberately left on their doorstep. You could take a more indirect route and pay your children or ask other neighbors to drop hints while at their house for a weekend barbeque. Each of these capabilities is determined by your level of access to the suspected perpetrator’s home discussed in detail below. Finally, you could amass the evidence and call the police or mail service to report the behavior as they represent both a capability and appropriate authority.
ACCESS: For the collection and deployment of capability, a determined level of access is needed. Considerations include what type of access do you need, and for how long? Simple observation, by coming home early and observing user access you already have. A little more audacious is access to public spaces like their mailbox. To apply the capability and collect the intelligence, different accesses may be required. Of course, getting onto their property or into their home is the most challenging with the greatest risks. But access by someone else, such as your neighbors at backyard barbeques or your children who play with the neighbor’s children, present opportunities for collect or delivery.
AUTHORITY: In this case, outcome is tied to your morals, perceptions, and legal frameworks. The authority is held by the risk holder who has the power to say “yes.” So, the authority lies in the decision to act, and manage the risk or uncertainty tied to decisions. Retaliation is probably not an effective deterrent in this case and may sour the neighborhood milieu or escalate into a mail thievery war. Communicating your knowledge of the situation and your continued discretion could be an acceptable option, since you have the power to act, and your risks become balanced by continued theft or behavior change. As mentioned before, calling an authority, such as the post office to report the theft and using the associated legal framework is an option, whereas you are not transferring options to another authority. As in the police example, you could invoke a civil dispute with legal consequences that have both the authority to act and the capability to deliver your desired effect - legal and lasting deterrence. But now your risks affect stakeholders differently. Finally, you can execute other options that may not be illegal but are alternative and indirect means, which carry different risks.
ALLIES AND PARTNERS: Do you have friends in other neighborhoods or towns, whose hobbies may be conducive to assisting you in determining your neighbor’s culpability? How much do you trust them, and can they do differently than your immediate neighbors, who may be able to help you solve the problem of the mail thief.
AVAILABLE AND POSSIBLE: Your friends who live in an adjacent neighborhood are several tax brackets above you and can afford the most technologically advanced drones that money can buy. The drone makes no noise and can be retrofitted with advanced imaging devices that can help you identify if your neighbor is stealing your mail.
AUTHORITIES AND PERMISSION: Due to their affluence, this same group of friends received a special permit (permission) from the Federal Aviation Administration (authority holder) to fly at a higher altitude, further obfuscating their activities to help you uncover the culprit.
ACCESS AND PLACEMENT: These friends who live in an adjacent neighborhood don’t come to your house very often and might tip your neighbor off that something is awry if they suddenly are routinely coming to your house. However, they can use the drone to obfuscate and offset their activities (proximal access), so your immediate neighbor doesn’t suspect that you are surveilling his house.
By mapping out who can help you and with what capability – either directly or indirectly – to gain information, you will be well on your way to determining the culpability of your neighbor.
About the Authors
Lt. Col. Shawn Bourdon serves as a Strategy, Plans, and Policy Planner for the U.S. Army. Shawn’s 17-year career is marked by several deployments to the U.S. Central Command area of operations to support the U.S. Coalition and allied partners. His notable achievements include a Batchelor’s in Nursing Science and a Master’s in Operational Planning from the School of Advanced Military Studies. His academic work discusses the integration of cyber-electromagnetic activities into U.S. Army formations. Of interest, Shawn is currently exploring and writing fictional topics intended to experiment with and illustrate modern and future warfare concepts. The views, opinions, and analysis expressed do not represent the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.
Maj. Brian Hamel is the Space Operations Officer for TF 40-25 at Fort Bragg, N.C. He holds multiple advanced degrees and is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies. His previous articles and podcasts focus on special operations forces’ contributions to space warfare and operationalizing celestial lines of communication to augment sustainment systems to the joint force in the Indo-Pacific. He has deployed to multiple theaters to support special operations. The views, opinions, and analysis expressed do not represent the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.
References
01 Lawrence, T.E. The Evolution of a Revolt. Accessed March 24, 2025. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/evolution-of-a-revolt.pdf.
02 CIAA as a concept is not intended to be represented as the authors’ original idea. The authors unsuccessfully attempted to source the original author. This planning construct is routinely used by special operations planners and has been expanded upon in this article to meet broader trans-regional irregular warfare planning needs.
03 The last two pages of this article are dedicated to an addendum that is structured as a lateral thinking exercise as a mechanism to help describe the articulated variables in a different scenario that may resonate better with readers.
04 A Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system is a system that allows industrial organizations to monitor and control their processes remotely. Emplacing a capability to disrupt industrial SCADA system could result in physical damage.
05 https://jamestown.org/program/russian-pmcs-and-irregulars-past-battles-and-new-endeavors/
16. America’s Navy Is Falling Behind. This Plan Could Fix It
Excerpt:
A new Naval Act is the big, beautiful block buy that can get naval shipbuilding ready for potential war this decade.
America’s Navy Is Falling Behind. This Plan Could Fix It
The National Interest · by Brent D. Sadler
Topic: Security
Region: Americas
July 3, 2025
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To deter China’s growing naval power, the US must rapidly expand its fleet through a modern Naval Act, embracing large block buys and innovative shipbuilding reforms to boost capacity and speed.
A significant amount of money could be spent on ordering warships this coming year. Still, we also need to work on reversing the retirement of many warships that occurred under President Biden.
This reversal is all the more necessary when you consider what has been proposed for fiscal year 2026: the procurement of just 19 warships. That’s wholly inadequate given the growing dangers we face from our adversaries.
America Needs More Warships to Defend Itself
Think China is a good neighbor? So far this year, it has tested a massive mobile pier for invasion of Taiwan, landed forces on the Philippines’ Sandy Cay, and sustained large-scale provocative military operations in the Taiwan Strait. As its decades-long military modernization and expansion proceed at a rapid pace, from 395 warships today to a fleet of 435 modern warships by 2030, there is little reason for Beijing not to push boundaries.
When our nation was confronted with revanchist foes in the 1930s, the President and Congress implemented the Naval Act, which set conditions for industrial expansion, enabling the arsenal of democracy to win World War II. As in the 1930s, we again need a Naval Act to revive our naval shipbuilding before it is too late.
Today, our Navy musters 293 warships, according to the most recent Index of Military Strength, which is rapidly aging and nearing retirement for a fleet that is currently assessed as too weak. Moreover, according to its most recent 2023 fleet plan, the Navy is short one aircraft carrier, 19 attack submarines, two cruisers destroyers, and 47 frigates. There is a risk in maintaining the status quo.
America Needs a New Naval Act
A Naval Act today, as it did in 1938, can grow the nation’s naval shipbuilding capacity for a potential war with China. Such a commitment shields shipbuilders from vacillating and tardy budgets that have retarded needed capacity investments.
A modern naval act, echoing the nation’s historic success in preparing for war in the Pacific, would galvanize meaningful action. This growth would be driven by orders for more warships of designs already in production. This demand would fuel shipyard expansion, which is critical if war becomes inevitable with China as early as 2027.
Ordering warships in multiples, known as block buys, provides efficiencies that result in savings. Recent experience indicates savings of up to 15 percent. The Congressional Budget Office notes that the cost of warships increased by upwards of 10 percent as building proceeded and delays ensued.
This situation persists in part because shipbuilders and the Navy are encouraged to underbid the initial costs. It is far better to lock in the costs, even if they are higher upfront, than to suffer infuriating and politically unsustainable piecemeal increases and incipient delays due to labor and shipyard limitations.
A Naval Act today would fund a large order of warships based on the planned purchase of ships. This would be based on the most recent long-range shipbuilding plan’s Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), which includes: 10 destroyers, 7 frigates, 10 attack submarines, 4 ballistic missile submarines, 3 amphibious transport docks, 1 amphibious assault ship, and 6 oilers. Total cost in fiscal year 2025 dollars: $150.56 billion.
That’s too big a slice of the Department of Defense’s budget pie to work in the nominal National Defense Authorization Act, making a stand-alone bill appropriate. Given Congress’s record of supporting naval shipbuilding, there appears to be a political appetite for reviving the nation’s shipbuilding efforts.
How Can the Navy Afford So Many New Warships?
However, to enable the Navy and the shipbuilders to make the best engineering decisions and capital investments, a new contracting mechanism is needed: Shipyard Accountability and Workforce Support (SAWS). This isn’t a novel approach for commercial, large, and capital-intensive projects, but it’s not how Congress and the Navy run naval shipbuilding.
SAWS enables the Navy to authorize funds for future yearly ship procurement to shipbuilders, thereby growing capacity and workforce in anticipation of planned orders, which helps prevent delays and cost overruns. Of course, this must come with stronger accountability for underperforming shipyards.
Moreover, Congress is considering the Building SHIPS for America Act to revive the nation’s lackluster commercial shipbuilding sector. This bill is currently in committee, and one idea from that effort that should be applied to naval shipbuilding is a Distributed Profits Tax. This would reward shipbuilders by waiving taxes on profits reinvested in the workforce or shipyard infrastructure, meeting a critical need to grow shipyard capacities.
As Congress debates the President’s Big Beautiful Bill, consideration is likewise warranted for a big beautiful block buy of warships. After 30 years of underinvestment in naval shipbuilding by the US, and China acting increasingly confidently and boldly, innovative action is urgently needed.
A new Naval Act is the big, beautiful block buy that can get naval shipbuilding ready for potential war this decade.
About the Author: Brent Sadler
Brent D. Sadler is a senior research fellow for Naval Warfare and Advanced Technology at The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security. He joined The Heritage Foundation after a 26-year Navy career with numerous operational tours on nuclear-powered submarines, personal staffs of senior Defense Department leaders, and as a military diplomat in Asia. As a senior research fellow, Brent’s focus is on maritime security and the technologies shaping our future maritime forces, especially the Navy.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/Vytautas Kielaitis.
The National Interest · by Brent D. Sadler
17. The Right Division for the Fight: Force Design and Force Structure Lessons from the Cold War
Please go to the link to view the line and block organization charts.
Conclusion:
Since the end of the Cold War, weapons ranges have continued to increase, and tactical communications systems now have a global range. The concept of multidomain operations is different from AirLand Battle, but both spread the responsibility of combined arms maneuver across echelons. This prevents individual commanders from being overwhelmed by managing the more numerous, longer-range effects. For multidomain operations, this facilitates convergence, “the integration of capabilities in all domains” and across echelons. The Army has begun using artificial intelligence and passively tracking command-and-control systems such as the Tactical Assault Kit. Leveraging these systems, how much more combat power can an echelon effectively control in combat? Ultimately, the better the Army balances span of control, combat power, and mobility in its force design, within the never-static cycle of national security policy and amid personnel and budget constraints, the more likely it is to achieve operational success on the battlefields of tomorrow.
The Right Division for the Fight: Force Design and Force Structure Lessons from the Cold War - Modern War Institute
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-right-division-for-the-fight-force-design-and-force-structure-lessons-from-the-cold-war/
mwi.westpoint.edu · by Max J. Meinert · July 4, 2025
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“In principle organization should be based on effective command in combat.”
— Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair in a January 1944 memorandum to General George C. Marshall
The US Army is undergoing a significant transformation. The Army of 2030 is conceptualized as a force optimized for new challenges and characterized by new capabilities. The multidomain operations operational concept shifts the service away from the contingency operations of Iraq and Afghanistan and toward large-scale combat operations. But an even more fundamental change, spanning and interacting with the full range of transformation—from technological to operational—is one of force design and structure. The Army is moving from the brigade-centric model adopted for the post-9/11 wars to a division-centric one. But what should those divisions actually look like?
While today’s operational environment presents different challenges, the Army has made similar adjustments before. During the Cold War, Army structure and design reflected a pendulum of national security policies and priorities. The Army oscillated between heavy, nuclear-capable forces to defeat Soviet armor in the Fulda Gap and light, rapidly deployable forces for contingencies along the periphery. As we shape the Army of tomorrow, it is important to reflect on the lessons of history.
Force design refers to the composition of a particular unit. Force structure refers to the number and type of units in the Army. The two have an interdependent relationship. Both are critically important to success on the battlefield and are constrained by budget and available manpower. For example, during World War II the Army designed smaller divisions so it could field the large force structure of eighty-nine divisions. Since then, an array of complex factors, both external and internal, combined to require the Army to adapt. A successful force design assigns commanders at echelon sufficient combat power to flexibly task organize within their span of control to conduct combined arms maneuver and defeat an adversary in combat.
Cold War national security policy was the most significant external factor that drove force design changes to US Army infantry divisions. Eisenhower’s New Look policy, Kennedy’s Flexible Response, the Nixon Doctrine, and the Reagan Doctrine all envisioned distinct roles for the Army. In combination with the cycles of conflict, these different policies caused Army budget and personnel fluctuations. Each policy attempted to forecast who the most likely enemy was, what type of combat operations would occur, when the next conflict was expected, where the fight was expected, and how the force would be employed according to the latest doctrine. More accurate national security policies increased the probability that the Army was structured and designed to properly meet the threat.
Technology evolved rapidly during the Cold War, bringing with it force design changes. Greater weapons ranges increased the breadth and depth of the battlefield. Motorization and longer radio communications ranges allowed units to operate at these increased distances, altering tactical and operational doctrine. The invention of the nuclear bomb and its availability in smaller weapons also had significant impacts on infantry division design. Improved weapons technology could eliminate the need for specialty units, as when the introduction of the bazooka made dedicated antitank gun units unnecessary. New weapons could also increase combat power or provide a capability that was worth stretching a commander’s span of control and adding sustainment costs, as helicopters did. New technology created both solutions and problems for force design planners.
During the Cold War, each new infantry division design attempted to balance internal factors for combat effectiveness, the most important being span of control, combat power, and mobility (with strategic mobility at odds with tactical mobility). To maximize combat power within a commander’s span of control, the Army used the principles of streamlining and pooling. Streamlining limited a unit to what it needed daily while pooling held occasionally used assets at higher echelons. Pooling assumed that a division would not operate independently. Higher echelons then attached pooled assets to subordinate units to create task forces designed to conduct specific missions within a commander’s span of control. With global responsibilities during the Cold War, planners often prioritized the ability to deploy by aircraft from the United States over firepower and tactical mobility on the battlefield.
The Army conducted nine major reorganization efforts during the Cold War: the reorganization of triangular divisions, 1947–1948; the pentomic division, 1955–1963; the Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD), 1960–1963; the 11th Air Assault Division (Test), 1963–1965; the 1st Cavalry Division triple capability, 1971–1974; the Division Restructuring Study (DRS), 1975–1979; Division 86, 1978–1980; the high-technology motorized division, 1980–1988; and the 7th Infantry Division (Light) 1983–1986. The four most significant of these offer particularly relevant lessons to the Army of today: the triangular division, the pentomic division, ROAD, and Division 86, which led to the Army of Excellence light division.
Combat lessons from World War II coupled with better weapons technology created a modified triangular division that fought the Korean War. President Eisenhower’s New Look policy called for the pentomic division to survive both a nuclear battlefield and budget cuts. ROAD adapted to President Kennedy’s Flexible Response policy by being capable of competing with communism anywhere on the spectrum of conflict, and it adjusted to meet the requirements of combat in Vietnam. After the Vietnam War, the less interventionist Nixon Doctrine and Division 86 refocused on conventional heavy divisions deterring Soviet aggression in Europe, although Cold War events created a requirement for light divisionsAmerica’s undulating Cold War national security policy, personnel and budget constraints, and the need to incorporate technological improvements while balancing span of control, combat power, and mobility interacted to drive these changes to infantry division force design.
Triangular Division
Although used during the Spanish-American War, the US Army first formalized the triangular division in 1905 with the publication of Field Service Regulations, United States Army. The newly established Army General Staff departed from European and American military norms by making the division, instead of the corps, the basic unit for combining arms. The 1910 Field Service Regulations, United States Army codified division end strength for the first time and called for a division of 19,850 soldiers. However, in preparation for the trench warfare on the Western Front, the Army organized into 28,000-man square divisions in 1917, maximizing firepower at the cost of mobility. After the war, General John J. Pershing advocated for a more mobile three-unit system. Budget cuts delayed modernization efforts until the 1930s, at which point other countries were experimenting with motorized and armored divisions.
After testing in 1937 and 1939, Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall approved the new triangular division, which was designed to be more mobile and flexible than the previous square division. Being half the size, the triangular division required less road space and transitioned faster from movement to battle formation. It was also more flexible since it eliminated the fourth regiment, seen as an excessive reserve, and its smaller size allowed corps to maintain a division in reserve. The name was derived from the elimination of two brigade headquarters and one infantry regiment from the division, leaving three infantry regiments. The approved variant eliminated artillery regiments in favor of four battalions, three of 105-millimeter artillery and one of 155-millimeter. This allowed the division to create regimental combat teams by attaching field artillery battalions to each infantry regiment. After streamlining the division by pooling support units at higher echelons, the triangular division strength at the start of World War II was 11,485 soldiers.
During World War II, division and corps commanders believed the triangular division was too streamlined and lacked important capabilities. The 1948 reorganization added an organic tank battalion and antiaircraft artillery battalion to the division as well as an organic tank company for each infantry regiment. This codified what were habitually attached capabilities from higher headquarters during World War II. It also added more engineers, military police, maintenance, quartermaster, communications, intelligence, reconnaissance, and administrative soldiers seen as necessary to operate on the larger battlefields created by motorized formations. Artillery batteries increased from four guns to six, increasing the division’s artillery firepower by 50 percent without increasing overhead staffs. These additions resulted in an end strength of 18,804. Planners made these changes based on lessons learned from combat.
Infantry Division, July 7, 1948
In 1950, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea unexpectedly invaded the Republic of Korea. To maintain the number of overall divisions with postwar budget cuts, the Army had left divisions undermanned, which created a hollow Army. General Douglas MacArthur “almost totally gutted” the 7th Infantry Division in order to bring his other three divisions up to strength for combat in Korea. US divisions relied on Korean Augmentation to the United States Army (KATUSA) soldiers to become fully manned. The divisions received new weapons technology that increased firepower including the 105-millimeter recoilless rifle, a larger 3.5-inch bazooka, new 81-millimeter and 4.2-inch mortars, along with more automatic rifles. The new bazooka removed the need for dedicated antitank units, and its increased firepower was necessary to penetrate Soviet-built T-34 tanks. The Korean War also saw the combat debut of the helicopter. Infantry divisions were each authorized ten helicopters for supply and medical evacuation. The Army chief of staff estimated that the updated triangular division achieved 68 percent more firepower with only a 20 percent increase in personnel.
Pentomic Division
President Dwight Eisenhower’s New Look policy sought to deter the Soviet threat, cut taxes, and balance the budget. To meet the Soviet threat to US security, it relied on “the capability of inflicting massive retaliatory damage” delivered through the Strategic Air Command as a more cost-efficient method than maintaining a large standing army. The Army’s budget was cut from $15 billion in 1953 to $7.5 billion in 1957. To maintain the force structure of twenty divisions, the Army reduced division force design by 760 soldiers and undermanned divisions in the continental United States by 2,700 soldiers each. The cuts weren’t enough, and the number of divisions dropped from twenty to fourteen.
Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell Taylor embarked upon a restructuring to keep the Army relevant within the New Look policy, protect its budget, and fight on a nuclear battlefield. The Army found the solution in tactical nuclear weapons. The Army War College began a study in 1954 that produced what would become the pentomic division. It was small, with only 8,600 soldiers, and almost completely air transportable. The design cut from the division all armor, antiaircraft, engineer, and reconnaissance units, in addition to most logistical and administrative personnel. It replaced all division types: infantry, airborne, and armored. The armor, artillery, and engineering communities all objected to the design, and the Command and General Staff College did not believe the new division had the mass necessary for combat.
Pentomic Infantry Division, February 1, 1960
The pentomic division derived its name from the five subordinate battle groups that replaced the old brigades, regiments, and battalions. Fewer intermediary headquarters meant faster orders processing time from division to company. A colonel commanded each of the battle groups of 1,427 soldiers that were composed of five infantry companies. To reduce span of control issues in the battle group’s headquarters company the radar section, reconnaissance platoon, heavy mortar platoon, and assault weapons platoon formed a separate combat support company. These assets allowed the battle group to conduct combined arms operations organically. The doctrine was to mass quickly for combat and then disperse to avoid presenting a target large enough to elicit an enemy tactical nuclear strike. The small amount of division artillery had tactical nuclear capability with an Honest John rocket battery and an 8-inch howitzer battery. To increase strategic mobility at the cost of combat power, planners chose the airmobile 105-millimeter over the more powerful 155-millimeter howitzer.
Although General Taylor supported the pentomic division, it was not popular. The testing of the pentomic division revealed strengths in flexibility, unity of command, mobility, and nuclear firepower. However, the structure was deficient in ground surveillance, artillery support, staff organization, and the ability to conduct sustained combat operations. The airlift capability forced compromises that reduced the division’s combat power. Radio technology was not sufficient to allow division and battle group commanders to maintain their span of control over the widely dispersed units. “Every time I think of the . . . Pentomic Division I shudder,” said General Paul Freeman, former commander of Continental Army Command . “Thank God we never had to go to war with it.”
Reorganization Objective Army Division
The pentomic division did not meet the requirements of President John F. Kennedy’s Flexible Response policy. In February 1961, shortly after Kennedy took office, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara sent the president a letter proposing changes to the military budget: “In concentrating on nuclear war, we have in recent years neglected our ability to wage non-nuclear war and have severely limited our range of policy choices. . . . In sum, the primary mission of our overseas forces should be made non-nuclear warfare.” After an examination, McNamara concluded that the US military had been successful in deterring an “overt attack” from the Soviets but was “neither organized nor oriented for the task of meeting and counteracting” the Soviet strategy of indirect aggression. Kennedy supported a $100 million plan for Army procurement and reorganization. With additional funding, Kennedy directed the Army to improve tactical mobility, increase nonnuclear firepower, and modernize its divisions in Europe.
The new Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD) initiative envisioned an infantry division designed to operate against heavy conventional Soviet forces in Europe or against communist insurgents on the periphery. Infantry, mechanized infantry, and armored division designs were standardized. Infantry divisions had eight mechanized and two tank battalions, mechanized divisions had seven mechanized and three tank battalions, and armored divisions had five mechanized and six tank battalions. The division consisted of “a military police company; aviation, engineer, and signal battalions; a reconnaissance squadron with an air and three ground troops; division artillery; and a support command.” The division operated from three command posts and had two assistant commanders to expand the division commander’s span of control. division support command was a new concept that also helped increase the division commander’s span of control by delegating supply, maintenance, medical services, and rear area security responsibilities to the support commander.
ROAD Division Base, 1961
The design was largely a return to the triangular division except ROAD divisions labeled their subordinate units brigades instead of regiments. Battalions were largely unchanged from their configuration in the later stages of the triangular divisions with a headquarters company, three line companies, and a headquarters and service company. Two new weapons added to the battalion were Davy Crockett low-yield nuclear recoilless guns and antitank missiles. Like combat commands from armored divisions in World War II, brigades were only responsible for directing combat operations of standardized, self-sufficient battalions. The battalions received administrative support directly from the division. Ironically, there were more battalions than previous battle groups, which increased flexibility and survivability on a nuclear battlefield. Despite their greater number, these battalions were easier to control due to the addition of the brigade echelon.
The Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the threat of an imminent war in Europe put the transition to ROAD on hold. In a summit in Vienna, Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev met for the first time. Khrushchev gave Kennedy an ultimatum that if Soviet demands for a withdrawal of all armed forces from Berlin were not met, access to West Berlin would expire at the end of the year. On 24 July, President Kennedy authorized an immediate strengthening of conventional US Army forces in Europe under the existing pentomic division structure. The plan was to fully man and equip the five US divisions in Europe and add one thousand soldiers each to the three divisions in the United States so they would be combat ready by December. Supplemented by NATO troops, the goal was to be able to stop a Soviet conventional attack by the end of the year.
Kennedy announced his six-step plan the next day: “To fill out our present Army Divisions, and to make more men available for prompt deployment, I am requesting an increase in the Army’s total authorized strength from 875,000 to approximately 1 million men.” On August 13, the Soviets began constructing the Berlin Wall. Fortunately, the Berlin Crisis did not turn the Cold War hot, and the pentomic division was not tested in combat. In Kennedy’s words, “It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” During the crisis, production of the new M14 rifle, M60 machine gun, M60 tank, and M113 armored personnel carrier were expedited, which allowed for a faster transition to ROAD after the crisis. To shorten deployment timelines, the Army prepositioned equipment in Europe for one armored and one infantry division. This was an expensive workaround to increase strategic mobility.
The 1st Armored and 5th Infantry Divisions organized under ROAD in 1962 as a test, with the rest of the Army to follow. Tensions with the Soviets rose again and interrupted the transition, this time during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962, the newly restructured 1st Armored Division was assigned to an assault force to invade Cuba. The division moved from Fort Hood, Texas to Fort Stewart, Georgia where it trained to conduct amphibious operations. Again, the crisis passed without the outbreak of war and the 1st Armored and 5th Infantry Divisions began testing the ROAD design, where both performed well.
General George Decker, the Army chief of staff, reported to the secretary of the Army that “ROAD provides substantial improvements in command structure, organization flexibility, capability for sustained combat, tactical mobility (ground and air), balanced firepower (nuclear and nonnuclear), logistical support, and compatibility with Allied forces (particularly NATO).” The new structure had better reconnaissance due to the increased number of helicopters and twenty, as opposed to the previous twelve, cavalry platoons. With only a 2 percent increase to end strength, ROAD brought a significant increase to nuclear and conventional firepower. A drawback was that the twelve-channel very-high-frequency radio for the division headquarters was time-consuming to operate and its forty-five-foot antenna was too conspicuous. The new force design was only possible because the budget increased by $12 billion from 1961 to 1963, but the planned strength increases of thirty-one thousand troops during that period did not occur, leaving divisions stationed in the United States understrength.
In 1965, the ROAD divisions and the first airmobile division, the recently reorganized 1st Cavalry Division, experienced their baptism of fire in Vietnam. Air mobility capitalized on advances in helicopter technology, increasing the speed at which the Army could move troops across the battlefield. Air mobility and attack helicopters were especially useful with Vietnam’s limited road network. Most infantry units adapted to combat in Vietnam by adopting modified light infantry tables of organization. Select divisions received extra battalions to increase their combat power. Infantry battalions added a fourth rifle company for base defense. In terms of weapons systems, the Army adopted the M16 rifle and M72 light antitank weapon, which replaced the heavier 90-millimeter recoilless rifle, giving the infantry more mobile combat power. Better radio communications allowed units to call for substantial fire support from firebases, helicopters, and aircraft. After the 1st Cavalry Division proved that the 155-millimeter howitzer could move by helicopter, both airmobile divisions in Vietnam received an additional 155-millimeter battalion. The real-world challenges of war drove organic change as airmobile and infantry divisions adapted to the combat environment in Vietnam.
Division 86 and the Army of Excellence Light Division
In 1969, Richard Nixon became president, and America’s experience during the Vietnam War heavily influenced his defense policy. He instituted the less interventionist Nixon Doctrine, which promised that “the role of the United States as world policeman is likely to be limited in the future.” During and after the withdrawal from Vietnam, the Army experienced significant reduction to end strength from 1.5 million to 650,000 soldiers by 1972. Only twelve regular Army divisions remained. On the same day as the Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced the end of the draft. In 1968, 299,000 men were drafted, compared to only 50,000 in 1972. As the Army transitioned to the all-volunteer force, it also refocused planning on a conventional war against the Soviets in Europe. 1973 Arab-Israeli War demonstrated the lethality of modern systems and helped spur the Army toward technological innovation to compensate for being outnumbered in the Fulda Gap.
In 1975, Army Chief of Staff General Fred Weyand was concerned that new technology resulted in “add ons” to the divisions without being properly integrated and called for a new force design. The recently created Army Training and Doctrine Command was tasked with conducting the Division Restructuring Study, which created a “heavy” division under the concept of active defense. Before testing was complete, General Donn Starry assumed command of Training and Doctrine Command. Starry stressed offensive capability and the ability to decisively mass effects of air and ground combat power against an opposing force. His ideas evolved into AirLand Battle, which Field Manual 100-5, Operations formalized as doctrine in 1982. AirLand Battle called for speed, flexibility, rapid decision-making, and deep attack. It was a nonlinear concept that further enlarged the battlefield and stressed maneuver.
Division 86 was developed around the concept of AirLand Battle, which focused on fast-paced, heavy fighting against Soviet forces in Europe. It was named Division 86 since the Army believe that 1986 was the furthest it could forecast the threat the division type was built to face. Theoretically, AirLand Battle would allow a smaller US Army with better-trained soldiers and leaders to defeat a larger Soviet force. “Division 86,” wrote one Army officer in a historical review of force structure and design, “was probably the most well orchestrated and thorough division design effort ever conducted.” With AirLand Battle established, designers knew how, where, and against whom the divisions would fight. The restructuring began with the concept of the heavy division.
Designing standardized light divisions proved more difficult, because there wasn’t a perceived requirement for limited contingencies under the Nixon Doctrine. Then the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis occurred, which created the perception that a flexible, rapidly deployable division was needed. The success of light forces in the Falklands War, the Lebanon War, and the invasion of Grenada proved their efficacy. Starry standardized infantry, airborne, and airmobile divisions into a light division concept that could be airlifted to fight “in contingency areas, such as the Asiatic rim” while still having the combat power to fight Soviet forces in Europe.
On January 18, 1984, President Ronald Reagan approved a 10,791-soldier-strong light division. Completely air transportable, it consisted of a headquarters and headquarters company; a military police company; signal, air defense artillery, intelligence, and engineer battalions; nine infantry battalions; division artillery; three brigade headquarters; an aviation brigade; a support command; and a band. Division artillery consisted of three towed 105-millimeter howitzer battalions, and one battery of 155-millimeter howitzers. The attack aviation brigade contained an attack aviation battalion and a reconnaissance squadron. Each infantry battalion had three rifle companies and a headquarters company, which contained a dismounted reconnaissance platoon, an antiarmor platoon with four antitank missile launchers, and a heavy mortar platoon. The only vehicles present in the infantry battalions were high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles. When augmented and task organized appropriately, light infantry forces would be able to combine arms at brigade, battalion, and company levels.
Light Division, October 1, 1985
Light divisions could operate in more restrictive terrain and were smaller, cheaper, and faster to deploy than heavy divisions, but the overall reorganization to create them was costly in personnel and money. Part of the new “Army of Excellence,” light divisions planned to rely on lightweight, high-technology weapons and highly trained “soldier power” to compensate for the lack of weight and numbers. The division was so light it could only operate for forty-eight hours in a low- or mid-intensity combat environment before requiring external support. In order to build the light divisions, the Army trimmed down the authorized size of heavy, air assault, and airborne divisions and also relied on roundout brigades from the Army Reserve and National Guard. The combination of heavy and light divisions proved effective during the First Gulf War.
The Army Division of Tomorrow
During the Cold War, Army planners nested infantry division force design within the swinging pendulum of Cold War national security policies. The Soviet Union provided a stable adversary to plan against. ROAD infantry divisions and light divisions were designed to compete with the global communist threat on the periphery, while pentomic divisions and Division 86 were optimized to defeat Soviet armored columns in the Fulda Gap. Infantry divisions had the challenging task of being light enough to strategically deploy via airlift but heavy enough to fight Soviet armor in Europe. foundation for successful force design.
As the priorities of today’s Army swing back to division-centric, large-scale combat operations, there are multiple adversaries to plan against. The 2022 National Defense Strategy describes the People’s Republic of China as the pacing challenge, Russia as the acute threat, and North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations as persistent threats. This diverse set of adversaries makes structuring and designing the Army difficult. Operating on widely dispersed islands across the Indo-Pacific has significantly different requirements than fighting in the Suwalki Gap. This is reflected in two of the new division types, light and armored (reinforced). However, in considering new division structures the Army should be careful not to overspecialize. The light division concept was ineffective in the Southwest Pacific during World War II, and motorized divisions were found to be impracticable in 1943 because of shipping constraints. This raises an important design question: Should an armored division (reinforced) be a separate division type, or would it give the corps commander more flexibility to pool the specific engineer assets assigned to it at the corps level?
During the Cold War, the Army exercised a combination of five options when faced with personnel constraints: reduce force design, reduce force structure, underfill units, rely on roundout units from the National Guard and Army Reserve, or rely on augmentation by allied and partner forces like in Korea. Understrength units during peacetime created low readiness levels and repeatedly led to a hollow Army. Leveraging roundout units also decreased readiness by increasing deployment timelines.
Today, the Army is reducing force design and force structure to avoid creating a hollow force while also building new capabilities. Infantry and Stryker brigade cavalry squadrons are being inactivated, infantry brigade weapons companies are being downsized to platoons, and security force assistant brigades are losing some of their positions as the Army seek to build multidomain task forces (MDTFs). Given the faster and more lethal character of war, dependence on roundout units means incurring more risk. The KATUSA program continues to this day. Given the pace of change, are prepositioned equipment sets still a suitable method of decreasing mobilization timelines?
Changes to force structure and design are expensive. Historically, successful changes have required political support to secure funding and the sponsorship of an influential general to gain institutional support from the Army for cultural change. Not only do MDTFs enable the Army to conduct multidomain operations, but they also maintain Army relevancy against the pacing challenge. Three of the five MDTFs have been assigned to the Indo-Pacific.
Throughout the Cold War, doctrine adapted to weapons and communications technology, pushing the echelon for combined arms maneuver downward. Weapon ranges and communication distances increased the breadth and depth of the battlefield. New systems increased combat power that compensated for mass lost by dispersion. Improved weapons technology, such as the bazooka or nuclear-capable 155-millimeter round, could eliminate the need for specialized units. Some innovations provided a capability that stretched a commander’s span of control and added support costs, such as long-range antitank missiles and the helicopter. Infantry divisions had an entire aviation brigade by the end of the Cold War. However, new systems increased the burden on battlefield commanders to integrate all their effects. In the case of the pentomic division, this overextended the commander’s span of control. To counteract this, ROAD added the brigade echelon, allocated deputies, and created division support commands to reduce the number of reporting units.
Since the end of the Cold War, weapons ranges have continued to increase, and tactical communications systems now have a global range. The concept of multidomain operations is different from AirLand Battle, but both spread the responsibility of combined arms maneuver across echelons. This prevents individual commanders from being overwhelmed by managing the more numerous, longer-range effects. For multidomain operations, this facilitates convergence, “the integration of capabilities in all domains” and across echelons. The Army has begun using artificial intelligence and passively tracking command-and-control systems such as the Tactical Assault Kit. Leveraging these systems, how much more combat power can an echelon effectively control in combat? Ultimately, the better the Army balances span of control, combat power, and mobility in its force design, within the never-static cycle of national security policy and amid personnel and budget constraints, the more likely it is to achieve operational success on the battlefields of tomorrow.
Major Max J. Meinert is an infantry officer currently transitioning to serve as an Army strategist. He holds a bachelor of science in military history from the United States Military Academy and a master of arts in public history from Villanova University. His assignments include the 82nd Airborne Division, US Army Europe G5, Special Operations Joint Task Force Afghanistan, 1-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, and I Corps Stryker Warfighters’ Forum.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Richard Hart, US Army
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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Max J. Meinert · July 4, 2025
18. Compass Points - Conflict of Visions? Which way for the Marine Corps?
Compass Points - Conflict of Visions?
Which way for the Marine Corps?
Marine Corps Compass Points
Jul 02, 2025
https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-conflict-of-visions
Compass Points - Conflict of Visions?
Which way for the Marine Corps?
July 2, 2025
Marine Corps Compass Points
Broader Thinking, Deeper Understanding, and Better Decisions, for a Stronger Marine Corps
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Perhaps the discussion of the future of the Marine Corps is a discussion that involves a conflict of visions. In one vision, the future of the Marine Corps is primarily as a sit and sense, sensor node in a joint kill chain off the coast of China. In another vision, the Marine Corps in the future is called upon as it has in the past, to be a global, combined arms, 9-1-1 crisis response force.
Which conflicting vision best represents the future of the Marine Corps? One Korea era Marine, Thomas Sowell has written about conflicting visions.
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Visions are the foundations on which theories are built. The final structure depends not only on the foundation, but also on how carefully and consistently the framework of theory is constructed and how well buttressed it is with hard facts.
― Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions
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A long time Compass Points member, Samuel Whittemore, suggests that in discussing the future of the Marine Corps it is worth remembering some words from the past -- specifically from another Korea era warrior, T.R. Fehrenbach.
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In July, 1950, one news commentator rather plaintively remarked that warfare had not changed so much, after all. For some reason, ground troops still seemed to be necessary, in spite of the atom bomb. And oddly and unfortunately, to this gentleman, man still seemed to be an important ingredient in battle. Troops were still getting killed, in pain and fury and dust and filth. What happened to the widely-heralded pushbutton warfare where skilled, immaculate technicians who never suffered the misery and ignominy of basic training blew each other to kingdom come like gentlemen?
In this unconsciously plaintive cry lies the buried a great deal of the truth why the United States was almost defeated.
Nothing had happened to pushbutton warfare; its emergence was at hand. Horrible weapons that could destroy every city on Earth were at hand—at too many hands. But, pushbutton warfare meant Armageddon, and Armageddon, hopefully, will never be an end of national policy.
Americans in 1950 rediscovered something that since Hiroshima they had forgotten: you may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men in the mud.
-- T.R. Fehrenbach, - This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War
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Which vision? Marines in the mud? Or missile Marines sitting and sensing on islands?
From bootcamp, Marines are taught that the mission of the Marine Corps rifle squad is to locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat.
Is that wrong? Is a better mission to sit on islands, monitor joint sensors, and pass on data?
The foundational publication of the Marine Corps MCDP-1 Warfighting says nothing about joint kill chains.
It talks about many important things including sections on:
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-- Speed and Focus
-- Surprise and Boldness
-- Creating and Exploiting Opportunity
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This discussion leads us to a corollary thought: the importance of creating and exploiting opportunity. In all cases, the commander must be prepared to react to the unexpected and to exploit opportunities created by conditions which develop from the initial action. When identification of enemy critical vulnerabilities is particularly difficult, the commander may have no choice but to exploit any and all vulnerabilities until action uncovers a decisive opportunity. As the opposing wills interact, they create various
fleeting opportunities for either foe. Such opportunities are often born of the fog and friction that is natural in war. They may be the result of our own actions, enemy mistakes, or even chance. By exploiting opportunities, we create in increasing numbers more opportunities for exploitation. It is often the ability and the willingness to ruthlessly exploit these opportunities that generate decisive results. The ability to take advantage of opportunity is a function of speed, flexibility, boldness, and initiative.
-- MCDP-1 Warfighting, p2-26
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Offensive, opportunity seeking, Marine Corps? Or a Marine Corps sitting and sensing on islands?
One of the hard facts is that the world is still a dangerous place. Crises and battles will erupt when and where they are least expected. When the next crisis comes and the Marine Corps is once more sent into the fray, what should Marine Corps be focused on? Sitting and sensing? Or fighting and winning?
Perhaps the answer to the conflict of visions is that a Marine Corps with the units, equipment, and capabilities for worldwide crisis response can also easily sit and sense. The opposite is not true. A Marine Corps focused on the units, equipment, and capabilities to sit and sense may have a terrible struggle when thrown into a sudden combined arms battle.
Author T.R. Fehrenbach came to the conclusion that the war in Korea was a war where too many American warriors died because they were unprepared for the fight. Let the Marine Corps restore and enhance its worldwide combine arms, forward deployed MAGTF. If there is sitting and sensing that need to be accomplished, The Marine MAGTF can accomplish the sit and sense mission as needed.
In the brutal conflicts ahead, there will be no time for the Marines to sot out conflicting visions. It is time for the Marine Corps to focus once again on the magnificent MAGTF and worldwide combined arms, crisis response.
Author T.R. Fehrenbach greatly admired the Marines who fought in Korea. The Korea era Marines were not split by conflicting visions, they were united by a shared commitment to overcome all obstacles and all enemies by always advancing to locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat.
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In 1950 a Marine Corps officer was still an officer, and a sergeant behaved the way good sergeants had behaved since the time of Caesar, expecting no nonsense, allowing none. And Marine leaders had never lost sight of their primary—their only—mission, which was to fight. The Marine Corps was not made pleasant for men who served in it. It remained the same hard, dirty, brutal way of life it had always been.
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War
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How can the Marine Corps best serve the Nation? How can the Marine Corps be best prepared for whatever challenge the future may bring? The answer maybe to focus first, last, and always, not on any narrow, defensive mission, but on a broad, global, crisis response mission. When Marines onboard Navy amphibious ships arrive off a nation in crisis, enemies are deterred, and friends are encouraged.
A restored and enhanced Marine MAGTF can complete a variety of missions, not only missile and drone strikes, sitting, and sensing and passing on data, but also a variety of other missions including fight, strike, deter, evacuate, rescue, restore order, and more. A renewed focus on worldwide crisis response is both the best way for the Marine Corps to serve the Nation, and is the best way for the Marine Corps to unify its conflicting visions and arrive at tomorrow’s battlefield stronger than today.
19. Marines Axe Adoption Of Ground-Launched Tomahawk Cruise Missile
Marines Axe Adoption Of Ground-Launched Tomahawk Cruise Missile
Tomahawks launched from uncrewed ground vehicles were seen as a new way for Marines to hold targets at risk over long distances.
Joseph Trevithick
Published Jul 3, 2025 12:27 PM EDT
twz.com · by Joseph Trevithick
The TWZ Newsletter
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The U.S. Marine Corps’ plans to sling Tomahawk cruise missiles from remotely operated 4×4 launcher vehicles have come to an end. The service determined that the complete Long Range Fires (LRF) system could not be effectively used in the kinds of austere environments that it expects to be a centerpiece of its future operations. This might have further implications for the U.S. Army, which has been eyeing LRF as a possible smaller and more readily deployable companion to its Typhon system and its large tractor-trailer launchers capable of firing Tomahawks and SM-6 multi-purpose missiles.
The decision to cancel the LRF program is noted in the Marine Corps’ portion of the Department of the Navy’s 2026 Fiscal Year budget request, which started being released last week. The Marines first announced they were looking to field a land-based Tomahawk cruise missile capability in 2020. At that time, ground-launched Tomahawks had not been found anywhere in the U.S. military since 1991, when the U.S. Air Force scrapped its nuclear-tipped BGM-109G Gryphon variants to comply with a now-defunct treaty. The Corps stood up its initial LRF unit – Battery A, 11th Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton in California – in 2023, something TWZ was first to report.
The two Long Range Fires Launchers are seen in the background of this picture from the Battery A, 11th Marines activation ceremony on July 21, 2023. USMC
“The Marine Corps has concluded that the LRF system was not able to be employed in austere, expeditionary, littoral environments and has made the decision to terminate the program,” the 2026 Fiscal Year budget request states bluntly.
No further details are provided about how the Marines reached this conclusion. The underlying vehicle used for the LRF launcher is the Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary Fires (ROGUE-Fires), an uncrewed derivative of the 4×4 Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV). The Marines are continuing to field the Navy and Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), which also uses ROGUE-Fires-based launchers, but to fire the smaller Naval Strike Missile (NSM) anti-ship cruise missiles.
The ROGUE-Fires-based NMESIS launcher vehicle. USMC
It is worth noting that the LRF launcher vehicle could only carry one Tomahawk at a time before needing to be reloaded, which may have presented complications in an expeditionary environment. The Marines have publicly highlighted in the past potential challenges when it comes to reloading NMESIS launchers, which can accommodate two NSMs at once, in the field.
“Marines are, again, looking at it [NSM] from [sic] different ways than the Navy has been handling it in the past,” Marine Col. Bradley Sams, the service’s program manager for Ground Weapons Systems, said during a presentation at the Modern Day Marine exposition in May. “They [the Navy] take it straight from the OEM [original equipment manufacturer] to the pier, put it on the ship, and it goes out.”
“So we have to look for different methods of handling that weapons system, taking it from point A to point B, and I’d love to hear different ideas on how we could do this using the existing NSM and canister,” Sams added.
Dedicated resupply vehicles with trailers are integral parts of a standard NMESIS battery, per the Marine Corps budget documents. Other factors could well have played a role in the Marine Corps’ decision to terminate LRF, as well.
Marines move NSM launch canisters from a truck to a trailer during an exercise in the Philippines earlier this year. USMC
With NMESIS, the Marines are still set to have ground-based standoff anti-ship missile capability that also offers a secondary ability to strike targets on land. During an exercise in the Philippines earlier this year, the Corps highlighted the immense value of being able to rapidly deploy the system when it sent one of the launchers to an island right in the middle of the highly strategic Luzon Strait. The Strait is some 220 miles across at its narrowest, and on the other end is the island of Taiwan.
A rough depiction of the area within range of the NMESIS launcher deployed to Batanes Islands in the Luzon Strait during the exercise earlier this year. Google Earth
Using NMESIS launchers forward deployed on island outposts to help hold enemy naval movements at risk is exactly why the Marines are acquiring this system in the first place.
However, LRF had been expected to provide the Marines with an additional and far longer-ranged layer of strike capability. NSM has a substantially shorter maximum range (around 126 miles in its baseline form) compared to Tomahawk (roughly 1,000 miles).
At present, the Marine Corps does not look to be considering a different ground-based weapon system to hit targets at similar distances to Tomahawk. The service is planning to field the Army’s Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) short-range ballistic missile, including the anti-ship variant now in development, using its existing M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers. PrSM, at least in its current guise, which has a demonstrated maximum range of some 310 miles, still has less reach than Tomahawk. The Army is planning to develop additional versions of PrSM able to hit targets at least 620 miles away, if not more, in the future.
A HIMARS launcher fires a PrSM short-range ballistic missile during a test. Lockheed Martin
As noted, there may be additional ramifications on the Army side from the Marine Corps’ decision to axe the LRF program.
“There’s some interest from the Army and other services about that single-cell JLTV[-based launcher], as well, because it is a nice complement to the larger four-cell container that’s on a heavy truck,” Edward Dobeck, program director of Launching Systems at Lockheed Martin, told TWZ in April. “There have been some discussions about how to maybe make it [Typhon] lighter.”
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the LRF launcher and the Army’s Typhon system. Typhon, which the Army has also deployed to the Philippines on a semi-permanent basis, is sometimes referred to as the Mid-Range Capability (MRC) and as the Strategic Mid-Range Fires (SMRF) system.
“From an MRC standpoint, you can see what that is going on in the Philippines,” Dobeck added in April. “MRC provides a very strategic asset for [use from] the Philippines to be able to provide that capability in the region.”
The main components of a current U.S. Army Typhon battery, four tractor-trailer launchers and a trailer-based mobile command post. US Army
Still, it is the Army’s experiences with Typhon in the Philippines that have been driving the service to look at alternatives.
“So, the Mid-Range Capability, we fielded it, we have put it into the theater, but we’re learning lessons on how we can improve the next evolutions of that,” Army Col. Michael Rose, commander of the service’s 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) headquartered at Fort Shafter in Hawaii, said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual conference last year. “How do we make it more mobile? How do we make it smaller? How do we make it more agile? How do we employ it most effectively and how do we sustain it? A lot of those lessons are feeding back into our RDT&E [research, development, test, and evaluation] and acquisitions professionals to improve and enhance that new operational capability.”
The Marine Corps’ conclusion that the LRF system is not suitable for its expeditionary concepts of operations may now prompt additional questions about the ability to deploy and operate the larger Typhon system at forward locations. At the same time, the Army’s concept for employing Typhon does not involve distributing the launchers to very remote locales as the Marines intended to do with LRF.
In a contracting notice put out last month, the Army did express additional interest in a potential new uncrewed launcher vehicle capable of firing Tomahawks, as well as Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) surface-to-air missiles, based on the 10×10 M1075 Palletized Loading System (PLS) truck.
A U.S. Army M1075 Palletized Loading System (PLS) truck seen in its standard configuration unloading a shipping container. US Army
In the meantime, the Army’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget shows the service is still pressing ahead with Typhon in its current form, but is only planning to order a very small number of missiles for those systems – just seven Tomahawks and six SM-6s – in the upcoming fiscal cycle. Interestingly, the budget documents also say the Army is shifting to purchase only anti-ship optimized Marine Strike Tomahawk (MST) variants for Typhon going forward. MST, which retains a land-attack capability, is one of three versions of the latest Block V Tomahawk, the others being the baseline type and one with an advanced warhead design. Whether the service expects to purchase additional Tomahawks and/or SM-6s through other funding streams is not immediately clear.
Whatever might happen going forward on the Army side, the Marine Corps’ future is no longer set to include ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
Deputy Editor
Joseph has been a member of The War Zone team since early 2017. Prior to that, he was an Associate Editor at War Is Boring, and his byline has appeared in other publications, including Small Arms Review, Small Arms Defense Journal, Reuters, We Are the Mighty, and Task & Purpose.
twz.com · by Joseph Trevithick
20. The Influence of Ukraine’s Drone War on the Middle East
Excerpts:
Meanwhile, America’s Gulf allies are hedging their bets. Following Trump’s recent visit, Saudi Arabia agreed to invest north of $100 billion in US weapons. Qatar is also investing in expensive American systems. It’s a prudent move to buy influence and also to ensure a stable supply of air defense systems. Ukraine itself desperately needs more air defenses to protect itself.
Nonetheless, the Gulf States should look to Kyiv for inspiration and begin developing their fleets of drones. While it’s essential not to overindex on lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian war, many remain relevant, especially as drone warfare is reshaping how conflicts are fought in the 21st century.
Taking lessons from the war in Ukraine, the proposed US defense budget now prioritizes investment in drones and missiles, including increased funding for small drones in direct response to their battlefield effectiveness. In many ways, Ukraine is setting the pace for global defense modernization.
Ukraine turned to drones out of necessity, compensating for shortages in artillery and other critical systems. Yet even with limited resources, drones have granted smaller states unprecedented asymmetric capabilities, a lesson that all nations cannot afford to ignore.
The Influence of Ukraine’s Drone War on the Middle East
The National Interest · by David Kirichenko
Topic: Security
Region: Middle East
Tags: Drone Warfare, Qatar, Russia, Technology, and Ukraine
July 3, 2025
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Ukraine’s drone innovations are reshaping warfare, influencing Middle Eastern conflicts and prompting global shifts in defense strategy, as nations recognize low-cost unmanned systems can disable billion-dollar assets with devastating effect.
Ukraine’s recent strike on four Russian airfields was among the most audacious of the war, inflicting an estimated $7 billion in damage. While Donald Trump claims Ukraine holds no leverage, Kyiv proved otherwise.
However, it was also a warning to defense officials around the world that warfare has evolved rapidly.
Ukrainian Drones Decimated the Russian Military
In a covert 18-month operation named Spiderweb, Ukraine’s security service (SBU) remotely used 117 low-cost First-Person-View (FPV) drones, smuggled into Russia inside cargo trucks, to disable over 40 long-range bomber aircraft central to Russia’s campaign of strikes on Ukrainian cities. The operation delivered not only a tactical blow but a psychological one, showing that even Russia’s most protected assets are vulnerable.
With limited air defenses and slow Western resupply, Kyiv struck at the source. Russia, for all its bluster, may find its threats harder to carry out when its bombers no longer make it off the ground. What was once considered one of Russia’s greatest strengths, its vast territory, is increasingly proving to be one of its most significant liabilities.
Following the operation, which damaged multiple Russian bomber bases, Moscow was forced to relocate its Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers to the Far East, including Anadyr and Yelizovo, pushing round-trip missile strike missions against Ukraine to nearly 23 hours.
The New York Times wrote, “A defense official in a NATO country in Europe said Ukraine’s strikes have already led to discussions as to whether allies needed to reassess their vulnerabilities.” The attack also ignited discussions about the vulnerability of American ports to similar attacks from Chinese cargo ships.
Many of the components used in Ukraine’s FPV drones, including batteries and electric motors, are manufactured in China, amplifying fears about strategic dependency and potential sabotage. While the Pentagon and NATO members are ramping up investments in counter-drone technologies, including jammers and interceptors, comprehensive protection across all potential targets remains years away. This is a challenge Kyiv itself faces, as it struggles to protect its cities from waves of low-cost Russian Shahed drones.
Ukraine’s small conventional navy was scrapped at the beginning of the war. However, it quickly built a fleet of sea drones, creating a tech-driven force that has since destroyed or damaged a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. While Russia initially blockaded Ukrainian ports, today it is Russian warships that are forced to hide in port to avoid Ukrainian drone strikes. In recent months, these sea drones, equipped with missiles, destroyed Russian helicopters and fighter jets worth tens of millions of dollars.
Much like the fireships of the age of sail, wooden vessels packed with combustibles and steered into enemy fleets to ignite chaos, Ukraine’s sea drones are reviving a centuries-old tactic with modern precision. Fireships once forced navies to break anchor or scatter formations in panic, and now Kyiv has done it once again to Moscow’s fleet.
The Middle East Is Learning from Ukraine’s Drone Tactics
However, the Middle East is a region where asymmetric disruption has already been a feature of conflict, and it is also likely to feel the impact of Ukraine’s disruptive innovations in warfare. Kyiv has demonstrated that the race for a technological edge on the battlefield is allowing states to wage more precise and effective asymmetric warfare than ever before. Omar Al-Ubaydli, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, wrote that the scale of drone warfare we are witnessing is leading Gulf States to rethink their defense doctrine.
The Middle East is already witnessing the consequences of this tactical evolution. In Yemen, Houthi rebels have shot down seven US Reaper drones in under six weeks, inflicting over $200 million in losses. The Trump administration quickly had to rethink the cost structure of its campaign and call it quits. “Our adversaries use $10,000 one-way drones that we shoot down with $2 million missiles,” said Army Gen. Bryan P. Fenton.
“That cost-benefit curve is upside down.”
Fred Kagan, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, asked the question: “Could those have been B-2s at the hands of Iranian drones flying out of containers, let alone Chinese?” The Saudis must be asking themselves the same question as well.
Even before Ukraine’s widespread use of drones, the Middle East had already seen the disruptive potential of unmanned systems. In 2019, a major drone attack claimed by the Houthis forced Saudi Arabia to shut down half of its oil production, cutting about 5.7 million barrels per day, nearly 5 percent of global output. Following the attack, US President Donald Trump stated that he did not want war.
In the future, Iran could position ships carrying containers that release a flood of drones near oil refineries to disrupt global energy flows. Sea drones could mine narrow waterways or strike tankers and naval escorts, effectively blocking access to the Persian Gulf. The US has traditionally relied on aircraft carrier strike groups to maintain the region’s open access, as demonstrated in the Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise, which showed how swarming tactics could overwhelm superior forces.
Israel and the Houthis Are Adopting Drone Warfare
The Houthis, learning from Ukraine’s use of sea drones, might deploy drone carriers to launch FPV drones against inland targets, an approach Kyiv now uses regularly with devastating impacts. The Houthis could also use sea drones to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint vital to global shipping. An actual nightmare scenario would involve kamikaze drones targeting tankers or mining the narrow waterway, forcing insurers to halt operations and threatening a collapse in Red Sea maritime traffic.
Iran, meanwhile, could turn to sea drones in a direct naval confrontation with the United States if the current hostilities expanded, sending expendable vessels to disable warships and clog sea lanes.
In July 2024, the Houthis launched a long-range drone from Yemen that struck Tel Aviv after flying over 1,600 miles along an unexpected route. The attack killed one person and injured several others, exposing gaps in Israel’s air defense network.
Israel, in turn, mirrored Ukrainian-style tactics within weeks of Operation Spiderweb in Russia. Mossad smuggled parts for hundreds of explosive-laden quadcopters into Iran using trucks and commercial shipping. When the Israeli air force launched a major strike on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure, these drones were deployed from within the country to disable air defenses and missile launchers. It allowed Israel to establish air dominance quickly.
Even the most expensive systems will struggle to handle the scale and adaptability of drone threats. Ukraine has demonstrated that modern warfare is a technological contest, where each side must continually evolve and overcome new countermeasures to maintain its advantage. The system one side bought yesterday might already be ineffective on the battlefield the next day. procurement must be quick, and systems must be scalable.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief, said, “Whether you want to believe it or not, whether you have or are about to sign contracts for tanks and helicopters for the next 10 years, the nature of military power has already changed.”
The Gulf States Are Investing in American Defense Systems
Meanwhile, America’s Gulf allies are hedging their bets. Following Trump’s recent visit, Saudi Arabia agreed to invest north of $100 billion in US weapons. Qatar is also investing in expensive American systems. It’s a prudent move to buy influence and also to ensure a stable supply of air defense systems. Ukraine itself desperately needs more air defenses to protect itself.
Nonetheless, the Gulf States should look to Kyiv for inspiration and begin developing their fleets of drones. While it’s essential not to overindex on lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian war, many remain relevant, especially as drone warfare is reshaping how conflicts are fought in the 21st century.
Taking lessons from the war in Ukraine, the proposed US defense budget now prioritizes investment in drones and missiles, including increased funding for small drones in direct response to their battlefield effectiveness. In many ways, Ukraine is setting the pace for global defense modernization.
Ukraine turned to drones out of necessity, compensating for shortages in artillery and other critical systems. Yet even with limited resources, drones have granted smaller states unprecedented asymmetric capabilities, a lesson that all nations cannot afford to ignore.
About the Author: David Kirichenko
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank. His research focuses on autonomous systems, cyber warfare, irregular warfare, and military strategy. His analyses have been widely published in outlets such as the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, the Irregular Warfare Center, Military Review, and The Hill, as well as in peer-reviewed journals.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/Parilov.
The National Interest · by David Kirichenko
21. Taiwan Is on the Cusp of an Energy Revolution
Excerpts;
As a first step, Huang is working with lawmakers to pass a bill that would lift restrictions on geothermal drilling in national parks—opening up more land to developers outside of Indigenous reserves. The legislation would also streamline permit application rules.
Geothermal may lose its luster once drilling begins. Fracking technology can spark earthquakes, a perennial problem in Taiwan. In 2017, seismic activity from a geothermal project in South Korea triggered a damaging earthquake that set the country’s geothermal industry back years.
Huang isn’t worried. “We’re very used to earthquakes. There’s a joke that if you’re in a room when an earthquake happens and if you’re very chill and just sit there, you’re probably Taiwanese,” he said.
Even if there is a tremor in Taiwan, Huang said the energy source has something going for it that nuclear power never did: broad political appeal. “Geothermal is one of the most cross-partisan energy resources,” he said.
Taiwan Is on the Cusp of an Energy Revolution
Foreign Policy · by Alexander C. Kaufman
As the island phases out nuclear power, can it harness its vast geothermal reserves?
By Alexander C. Kaufman, an award-winning reporter who has covered energy, climate change, and geopolitics for more than a decade.
July 4, 2025, 6:00 AM
Taiwan is experiencing an energy crisis. As the island completes a phaseout of nuclear power plants—long the bedrock of its energy mix—plans for a promised offshore wind buildup have sputtered. All the while, industry has become more dependent on imports of liquefied natural gas. But that source is not only dirty—it also leaves the island at risk of a blockade and other forms of coercion by China. In 2024, electricity rates in Taiwan hiked twice in the same year after two consecutive years of increases, reaching record levels for industrial users. Another rate hike could be coming this year. Blackouts have become more common.
Taiwanese leaders could find relief if they harness the heat beneath their feet. Sandwiched between two tectonic plates on the Pacific Rim, Taiwan is rich in geothermal resources. Although they have so far mostly gone untapped, that could soon change. President Lai Ching-te has expressed strong support for growing Taiwan’s geothermal footprint to produce more clean power and shore up the island’s grid.
Taiwan’s economics ministry last year rolled out new guidelines to encourage geothermal development. In April, Google announced a deal with Swedish geothermal developer Baseload Capital to build a small pilot-scale geothermal energy facility to power its existing Taiwanese data centers. The companies have not yet announced the plant’s exact location, but drilling has already begun on Taiwan’s east coast. In a show of support from the government, top Lai administration officials in April took part in Taiwan’s leading geothermal industry summit.
“Right now, there’s a very positive feeling in Taiwan for geothermal,” said Alexander Helling, Baseload Capital’s chief executive. “There’s a big opportunity.”
Taiwan was among the earliest countries in Asia to develop geothermal power. The island began investing heavily in the resource in the 1970s, and its first geothermal plant came online in 1981. But the plant’s power station faced problems immediately as crystalline deposits in the well diminished its energy output—and in 1993, Taiwan gave up on and closed the project.
By then, Taiwan—like nearby Japan and South Korea—had staked its future on a different source of power: nuclear energy. All three places have limited land and no real oil or gas reserves. Nuclear power promised to generate abundant electricity regardless.
Taiwan’s nuclear industry was tied to politics. The Taiwanese government built its nuclear power plants under the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese nationalists who declared martial law on the island in 1949 after fleeing communist defeat in mainland China. Since Taiwan’s transition to democracy in the 1990s, the KMT has been the island’s leading conservative party. While the party has backed away from its support for eventual reunification, which is widely opposed by Taiwanese voters, it supports closer relations with China.
The KMT’s main opponent is the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which formed in 1986 as an outgrowth of a pro-democracy movement just months after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in the Soviet Union. In addition to their differences over Taiwan’s future—the DPP is in favor of preserving the island’s status quo and challenging Beijing’s sovereignty claims—one of the most polarized issues between the two parties has always been nuclear power. Lai is a member of the DPP.
The DPP’s anti-nuclear stance eased throughout the 2000s as concerns over climate change rose. But the March 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi disaster in Japan revived the party’s activist stance. In 2014, DPP-affiliated protesters pressured then-President Ma Ying-jeou, of the KMT, to pause construction on Taiwan’s fourth nuclear power plant. After the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen swept to victory in 2016 presidential elections, the project’s fate was sealed.
Under Tsai, the DPP passed a law that set a goal of closing Taiwan’s three other nuclear power plants. But as the DPP forged a more antagonistic relationship with China, the island depended more than ever on its so-called silicon shield: the theory that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is so important to the global economy that Beijing would think twice about an invasion. Taiwan represents roughly one-fifth of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity and has more than 90 percent of the world’s capacity to churn out advanced microchips.
Once Taiwan’s nuclear reactors started going offline in 2018, electricity prices surged and blackouts grew more frequent. The final reactor shut down in May. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the giant behind the silicon shield, warned that it would now pay the highest electricity prices in the world at home.
In response, some anti-nuclear factions in Taiwan have softened their approach. Lai has suggested he would be open to restarting the nuclear plants. In August, Taiwanese voters will cast ballots in a KMT-organized referendum on whether to restart the most recent plant to shut down. But as the KMT becomes ensnared in a growing list of controversies, the plebiscite’s prospects are uncertain.
The KMT and DPP align far more in their aspirations for geothermal power. The energy source behaves like nuclear power in that it has consistent output, satisfying the KMT. The DPP likes that geothermal energy is renewable and doesn’t generate radioactive waste.
Read More
The logo of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which is a gridmarked circle with the red letters TSMC over it, hangs from the ceiling of a large lobby.
The logo of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which is a gridmarked circle with the red letters TSMC over it, hangs from the ceiling of a large lobby.
In the U.S.-China tech standoff, supply vulnerabilities give Beijing leverage.
A man fishes at a port near the Lungmen, a nuclear power plant that has suspended its construction, in New Taipei City.
A man fishes at a port near the Lungmen, a nuclear power plant that has suspended its construction, in New Taipei City.
The island’s resistance to a dependable—and desperately needed—source of energy has been shaped by a covert history.
At the start of the nuclear phaseout in 2016, the DPP promised that offshore wind turbines and solar panels would make up for the lost atomic energy. But construction proved harder than leaders thought, and the weather-dependent nature of renewables meant that replacing reactors’ consistent output required using more fossil fuels. Coal and gas made up nearly 80 percent of Taiwan’s electricity mix as of last year, according to data from public utility Taipower.
So leaders gave geothermal another look. In 2021, a developer called Fabulous Power revived the original site of Taiwan’s debut geothermal station from the 1980s to sell energy to Taipower. Although it only took one year for the developer to bring the plant back online, it took four for the government to get the operating permits in order, said Ricky Huang, an advocate for geothermal technology in Taiwan and the co-founder of the nonprofit Climate Era Catalyst.
Bureaucracy was hardly the only problem for embracing a new form of domestic energy. Government surveys of the island’s geothermal resources showed that as much as 90 percent of underground hot water reservoirs—the conventional source of geothermal power—were located on Indigenous land.
Taiwan’s Austronesian Indigenous people had borne the brunt of the island’s other energy development. In the 1980s, the government secretly opened a dump site for low-level nuclear waste on Lanyu Island, the tropical homeland of the Tao people, one of Taiwan’s 16 Indigenous tribes.
While support for the nuclear repository today is mixed on Lanyu—it offers some of the best-paying jobs in what is otherwise mostly a tourist economy—Indigenous opposition to solar power is greater, since a large share of panels ended up on aboriginal land, said Fran Minchen, a member of the Paiwan Indigenous group native to southern Taiwan.
“When Indigenous people see solar panels, we think the government is here to take our land,” she said, adding, “Geothermal is in the same situation.”
While Helling, the Swedish executive, declined to disclose the exact location of Baseload Capital’s plant in Taiwan, he said it was located outside an Indigenous reserve—areas of land where tribal members can live with a degree of autonomy.
Minchen, who previously worked as a Taiwanese diplomat in New Zealand, thinks that the country’s geothermal industry could be a good model for Taiwan. Geothermal energy generates more than one-fifth of New Zealand’s electricity and is its second-largest source of power.
In New Zealand, many of the best geothermal resources were located on Maori land. But the industry cut the Maori into the deals; a geothermal project owned by the Maori’s land trust was among the first big operators in New Zealand. New Zealand’s free trade agreement with Taiwan includes one of the world’s only specific chapters outlining Indigenous cooperation.
Fairer, more deliberate deals with Taiwan’s Indigenous groups aren’t the only solution to scaling up geothermal power on the island. The total amount of power that could be generated from tapping into the conventional geothermal resources on or near Indigenous lands is about 989 megawatts—just under 2 percent of Taiwan’s total electricity needs.
Currently, Taiwan is using less than 8 megawatts of that potential geothermal energy. But the government has set a target of more than doubling that to 20 megawatts by the end of the year. The target then skyrockets fiftyfold to 1 gigawatt—or 1,000 megawatts—by 2027, with steady growth to 6 gigawatts by 2050. Reaching anything beyond 1 gigawatt using conventional geothermal technology is “literally impossible,” said Huang, the geothermal advocate.
That’s good news for U.S. start-ups such as Fervo Energy and Sage Geosystems, which are pioneering the use of fracking technologies to drill deeper to access geothermal heat. Conventional geothermal companies get energy from shallow reservoirs of underground water heated by the planet’s magma core. Fracking technology would allow companies to dig deep enough to harvest heat from the planet’s molten depths.
Using fracking tools for geothermal could provide two benefits for Taiwan: bolstering the island’s supply of clean, reliable, and secure energy while also balancing its trade with the United States amid the Trump administration’s tariff war.
“When I think of potential export markets for geothermal, Taiwan is basically at the top of the list,” said Wilson Ricks, a Princeton University researcher who tracks geothermal technology. “I don’t think there’s a place on Earth where the need is higher for something like this.”
While Taiwan is currently focused on building out conventional geothermal resources, it could generate at least 32 times as much power using next-generation fracking technologies, according to a recent study by scientists at Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute.
Last October, state-owned petroleum company CPC Taiwan and the research institute Academia Sinica started drilling an exploratory well on the island’s northeast coast. For the industry to scale up, however, Huang said Taiwan needs to carry out a more rigorous geological survey to confirm the best drilling locations and make permits easier to obtain.
As a first step, Huang is working with lawmakers to pass a bill that would lift restrictions on geothermal drilling in national parks—opening up more land to developers outside of Indigenous reserves. The legislation would also streamline permit application rules.
Geothermal may lose its luster once drilling begins. Fracking technology can spark earthquakes, a perennial problem in Taiwan. In 2017, seismic activity from a geothermal project in South Korea triggered a damaging earthquake that set the country’s geothermal industry back years.
Huang isn’t worried. “We’re very used to earthquakes. There’s a joke that if you’re in a room when an earthquake happens and if you’re very chill and just sit there, you’re probably Taiwanese,” he said.
Even if there is a tremor in Taiwan, Huang said the energy source has something going for it that nuclear power never did: broad political appeal. “Geothermal is one of the most cross-partisan energy resources,” he said.
Foreign Policy · by Alexander C. Kaufman
22. Ukraine: Masters of the digital battlefield
A view from the UK.
Excerpt:
Kyiv’s inspiring men and women are very much still in the fight and more than deserving of our support. They need more. Britain’s military instructors tell me privately that in reality, it is they who are being trained by the already battle-hardened Ukrainians, who are today’s blue-sky military thinkers, the true heirs of those early Trojans and Vikings, and not the other way around.
Ukraine: Masters of the digital battlefield | Peter Caddick–Adams | The Critic Magazine
On Operation Spider’s Web
Features
By
Peter Caddick–Adams
4 July, 2025
thecritic.co.uk · by Daniel Johnson · July 3, 2025
This article is taken from the July 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25.
The greatest defence failures of history often originate from a lack of imagination. From the collapse of the walls of Jericho, as chronicled in the Book of Joshua; to the wooden horse left by the gates of Troy; to the monk-slaying expedition of the Vikings who raided Lindisfarne on 8 June 793, the inability to anticipate catastrophe has led to Armageddon.
At some stage in the past, instead of picking up a stone or club, Ug’s stone-age neighbour tied a sharpened flint to a pole and stabbed him to death. Generations later, Nog, armed with his spear, was impaled by a finely crafted arrow shot from afar.
The unknown genius who blended saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur into black powder to develop the first “fire-spurting bamboo lances” used by Chinese warriors in the 9th and 10th centuries, gifted 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II the perfect futuristic weapon with which to pound the walls of Constantinople for 55 days, leading to its capture on 29 May 1453.
The fall of Constantine’s city and of the Byzantine Empire not only marked the end of the 1,500-year Roman Empire but is regarded as the end of the medieval and beginning of the early modern period. It was also a turning point in military history, with the most impregnable of stone fortifications overcome by gunpowder in an excellent example of the blue-sky thinking of one side and the lack of vision by their opponents.
Such asymmetry has continued ever since, notably via the battlefield use of chlorine gas in 1915 and Japanese swoop on Pearl Harbor of 1941, to the 11 September 2001 and 7 October 2023 attacks of our own times.
A mural in Kyiv depicting the head of Ukraine’s Security Service Vasyl Malyuk, architect of Operation Spider’s Web (Photo credit: AP Photo)
To these must now be added Operation Spider’s Web, Ukraine’s remotely piloted drone attacks on far distant Russian aerodromes on 1 July. Conveyed to the vicinity hidden in wooden containers driven by unsuspecting truck drivers, at the flick of a distant switch, swarms of unmanned machines rose into the air and hit many of the Kremlin’s armed and fuelled strategic bombers, destroying 20–30 per cent of the entire fleet.
“It took 18 months and 9 days from the start of planning to execution of the operation, which spanned five oblasts across five time zones,” announced President Zelenskyy, savouring every juicy detail. Damage was particularly heavy at the Belaya Air Base in Eastern Siberia, where aircraft were lined up on the tarmac, wingtip to wingtip, and assumed to be safe from front line incursion, 2,700 miles away. Days later, in another audacious assault, more drones hidden in a railroad grain hopper were released by remote control, disabling its engine and the 13 tanks, seven artillery pieces and 103 armoured vehicles being pulled by the locomotive. Significantly, the United States was not alerted beforehand to either surprise attack, unthinkable in the pre-Trumpian era.
The reason why we were treated to Kyiv’s normally secret intelligence insights soon became apparent from their correct reading of Kremlin bureaucracy. Russian transport is literally now gridlocked as every container truck and rail carriage is searched by fearful and zealous militiamen, anxious to avoid a repeat performance on their watch, which would result in a one-way ticket to the front or defenestration from a tall building.
The scenario of anticipating an opponent’s behaviour several moves ahead could almost be a plot from Mission Impossible. President Zelenskyy and his men are undoubtedly masters of the modern digital battlefield. They have displaced Israel at the cutting edge of world military achievement.
Photo credit: Alamy Stock Photos
Spider’s Web was a salutary lesson in Trumpian hubris and an appropriate riposte to the US President’s 21 February claim that “Ukraine has no cards left to play”. Kyiv has now won back the tactical initiative, if it had ever lost it, but does not have the strength to exploit the moment and win the war. It is rather like the advent of British tanks on 15 September 1916 on the Somme or later at Cambrai on 20 November 1917, which caused long-lasting ripples in military history but couldn’t be successfully exploited for decisive victory at the time.
Poland recognised this moment by abruptly cancelling its plans to buy 32 Lockheed Martin S-70i Black Hawk helicopters for its armed forces, citing a “shift in defence spending priorities”.
Between the lines, their experts tell me of the “pointlessness of buying a new helicopter fleet that could be overwhelmed by a cheap, unmanned drone swarm”, a view gaining traction in many defence ministries.
The UK has apparently not been deterred from its proposed purchase of 44 of the same aircrafts but, doctrinally, drones are causing panic as it is too soon for the mists to clear and understand the full range of their capabilities and drawbacks.
★
Fighting for your life against Russia concentrates the mind wonderfully and makes all the difference to battlefield tactics: integrating vast drone fleets into all-arms combat is still on the distant horizon for most armed forces outside Ukraine. To continue the First World War analogy, victory in the West only came with the August 1918 battle of Amiens, when the allies perfected their war fighting doctrine and learned how to integrate all their newly-matured war-fighting assets (infantry, engineers, artillery, armour and air) and developed the human and machine strength to overwhelm their opponents during the subsequent hundred days campaign, culminating with the armistice of 11 November.
Ukraine isn’t at this point yet and on current form is finding its Amiens moment elusive. Meanwhile, dithering Western support and Putin’s determination to reinforce failure to at least reel in a face-saving pyrrhic victory (tactics which eventually worked for his predecessor in the Russo-Finnish war of 1939–40 and against the Germans after 1942) seem merely a recipe for a long, drawn-out conflict that is likely to end in mutual exhaustion.
After years of vituperative diplomatic mudslinging, neither side will suddenly forgive and forget but instead pause, reconstitute and start round two. Pointing to the bigger wheels of history, I might observe that is what happened in the last century in Europe: the war that began in 1914 ended not in 1918, but in 1945 after a two-decade breather in the middle.
Western support, whether formerly American or that of the current EU and non-US NATO, is with Ukraine “for as long as it takes”. The phrase first appeared on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion in February 2023 and was parroted by politicians without a thought as to what “it” is. All helped arm Ukraine well enough to avoid defeat but never enough to ensure victory.
The end state has never been clear, and its visualisation varies radically throughout the anti-Russian coalition. Do they mean the ejection of Russia from every scrap of Ukrainian territory? The further humbling of Moscow militarily, diplomatically and economically, so a repeat performance is impossible? The dismantling of the Russian Federation? Or maybe a frozen conflict with ceasefire lines à la Cyprus or Korea?
Some in the West are fearful of triggering regime change in Russia, on the basis that a Putin successor could be worse: better the devil you know. Many Europeans, notably businessmen, bankers and luxury goods manufacturers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Istanbul and the Middle East, plus diamond merchants in Amsterdam, consider the whole business a ghastly mistake and wish everything would blow over so they can get back to trading with Moscow and handling the assets of its oligarchs, whilst ships’ chandlers in the fleshpots of Malta and Cyprus bemoan the departure of Russian luxury yachts to service and maintain.
Flushed from celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE Day, Westminster’s placing of military expenditure at the top of the Treasury’s spending programme for the first time since 1945 via the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) is a recognition in an era of unparalleled international uncertainty that warfare has grown beyond its traditional three domains of maritime, land and air to include three more: space, cyber and information.
Personnel numbers matter but so does new technology, and both send a message to the UK’s foes. With the UK’s civil defence infrastructure of bunkers and warning stations sold off, an inadequately-sized army, navy and air force, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in crisis mode and recruitment to all declining, it has prompted Sky News to create the superbly-informed wargame podcast “What If Russia Attacked the UK?” It is well worth a glance.
However, we must worry that the SDR was predicated on a spend of 2.6 per cent of GDP, whilst the debate has already shifted to when 3 per cent will be attained. Some NATO members, including the US, are pushing for a further rise to 5 per cent. More money doesn’t mean more things; it opens the door to new programmes and capabilities.
The UK has always been geared to maximising defence and lethality from platforms rather than concentrating on mere numbers. Traditionally, well-resourced defenders should be able to inflict a loss rate of 3:1 on their attackers. As Russia’s human casualties coast towards the million mark, Ukraine has demonstrated that it’s possible to up that ratio with a wise use of doctrine and technology to 10:1.
A further problem arises in that hugging a defence spending figure of 2.6 per cent like a climber clinging to a rocky overhang fast becomes irrelevant in an international crisis and removes the inclination for the blue-sky thinking of those earlier Trojans, Vikings and Sultan Mehmed II. The trouble with fixed figures is they take no account of the fluidity of international security or advances in defence technologies, which are subject to their own dramatic cost rises above inflation.
All the six war-fighting domains are already being tested throughout Europe by the Kremlin, which suggest any ceasefire or peace in Ukraine that is not meaningful would merely provide Russia with the necessary pause to re-equip, train and re-arm before embarking on a new kinetic adventure. Subsea cables have been cut far outside the combat zone, and, as I write, Sweden is currently investigating the “unexplained sabotage attacks” on 30 mobile phone masts along its coastline. Stockholm police hint there is only one serious contender for the crime.
In the wake of arson attacks in 2024 on factories supplying Ukraine in Berlin and London and a Bulgarian spy ring working for Moscow recently uncovered and jailed in the UK, a senior NATO official announced there had been a Russian plot to kill Armin Papperger, head of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall. “We have seen incidents of sabotage taking place across NATO countries over the last couple of years, by which I mean derailment of trains, acts of arson, attacks on politicians’ property, plots to assassinate industry leaders,” he observed. “We need a war mentality because there is a continuous and escalating campaign of destabilisation against all of our countries.”
In the event of any cessation of hostilities, Moscow would require a period to restock, ease the stress on its economy and devise new doctrine. For Putin, his “special military operation” ceased long ago to be about Ukraine. Every day has confirmed his deep-seated belief that the West is fundamentally hostile to Russia. In his eyes (transmitted to all Russia by his media), their response in helping Kyiv is part of that far deeper narrative.
The smart money is on a maximum of a decade for complete Russian military reconstitution, with “dry runs” such as sabotage and assassination to maintain the initiative and test scenarios against a range of targets, of whom the Baltics seem most likely in the Kremlin’s firing line.
Meanwhile, any American bulldozing of Kyiv to acquiesce in Russian demands that the Donbas and Crimean regions permanently secede from Ukraine might trigger a new wave of kinetic breakaways from separatists or “unification” invasions elsewhere across the globe.
★
Much of the Western debate has concerned the means of Ukraine’s survival, not the end. This turns conventional Clausewitzian strategy-making on its head. Traditionally, whether in statecraft, war or business, there must be a definition of a desired outcome, from which is derived the means to achieve it. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is very good at drumming up international support for the means — more tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, longer-range rockets, air defence missiles. His end, if not that of his allies, is crystal clear: Russia out.
However, with Ukraine entirely reliant on outside assistance to prevail, not unlike France or Belgium during the First World War, we are duty bound to ask, as that help wavers, morphs and wobbles, what could Zelenskyy have done differently to better further the means to his end?
In many ways, it is difficult to fault his inspirational leadership. From his selfless refusal of exile in February 2022 when he stated, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” he has so far played an extraordinarily good game with an initially very poor hand of cards. Through his example and nightly addresses, not unlike Winston Churchill in 1940, he has forged in Ukraine a cohesive sense of identity, previously lacking.
On my most recent visit to Lviv, after lingering in an air raid shelter listening to the motors of Russian rockets whooshing overhead, I was taken to see the assembly of drones in people’s houses and the repurposing of damaged and captured tanks in small workshops — part of the great national resourcefulness Zelenskyy has encouraged, alongside some quite breathtaking military strikes against his larger opponent.
However, we might single out two areas where Ukraine might have benefitted from a different approach. From the start, Zelenskyy chose to preserve his youth and not to conscript 18-to-27-year-olds, instead mobilising those up to 60. Only in April 2024 was the age threshold reduced to 25. Kyiv’s greatest internal battle has been its self-imposed recruitment crisis, with continued street-sweeps and raids on public places by law enforcement to net evaders producing extreme public hostility.
Commanders assess their lack of personnel to be a greater crisis than shortage of ammunition. An estimated 60,000 eligible for the draft are still at large, with half having fled abroad, whilst a similar number continue to live off grid. Although President Putin is doing exactly the same to his population, the optics do not look good for Kyiv. Better to have roped in the fittest 18-to-25-year-olds from the start, as most combatant nations did in the two world wars, which would have provided the country with the extra military manpower it desperately needs.
Photo credit: Ukranian TV
Zelenskyy’s other battle remains with corruption, a leftover from the immediate post-Soviet era and one of his main priorities when he came to power in 2019. In my early visits to Ukraine, I remember his hugely popular TV show Servant of the People, which ran from 2015–19, where he played a fictional high-school history teacher who won the presidential election after a video of him ranting against government grift went viral.
Then fiction translated into reality after the 2019 election. His presidential predecessors, Yanukovych and Poroshenko, had failed to square up to the all-powerful oligarchs and their chums. Domestic and international media have been rife with horror stories providing ammunition to the aid-averse and sceptical America First lobby across the Atlantic.
Ukraine currently ranks 105th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2024 corruption index, but Zelenskyy’s achievement is to have at least decreased this by 28 places since 2019. Scams range across the judiciary and parliament, to education, healthcare, business and police: weapons ordered and paid for but not delivered, reconstruction funds distributed to cronies, the resale of Western-donated aid equipment (something I have witnessed personally) and backhanders to officials for documents to avoid conscription.
These two very large issues apart, the war in Ukraine has fascinated observers, as it is the conflict NATO trained to fight against the Soviet Union between 1949–91 but never did. Instead, all the West’s doctrine and war-fighting expertise has been passed to Kyiv’s legions who have more than made good use of it. Under Operation Orbital, British and Canadian troops trained 22,000 Ukrainian soldiers in-country between 2015–22.
Currently, in Operation Interflex, delivered in partnership with Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Kosovo, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Sweden and New Zealand, over 70,000 recruits from Ukraine have been trained to NATO standards at several sites across the UK at a rate of 10,000 warriors every 120 days.
Kyiv’s inspiring men and women are very much still in the fight and more than deserving of our support. They need more. Britain’s military instructors tell me privately that in reality, it is they who are being trained by the already battle-hardened Ukrainians, who are today’s blue-sky military thinkers, the true heirs of those early Trojans and Vikings, and not the other way around.
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thecritic.co.uk · by Daniel Johnson · July 3, 2025
23. How to Prevent a Fiasco in the Far East
On this day 75 years ago was the Battle of Osan.
I hope Bridge Colby thinks about Task Force Smith the way we do - e.g., no more Task Force Smiths - yes we had readiness issues with the occupation Army of Japan, but the cause of the failure was a result of policy and strategy which is the purview of the USD(P).
How to Prevent a Fiasco in the Far East
The legacy and lessons of Task Force Smith
https://freebeacon.com/columns/how-to-prevent-a-fiasco-in-the-far-east/
An F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft takes off from the flight deck of the USS Nimitz (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Mike Watson
July 5, 2025
The Fourth of July is usually a time of celebration for Americans, and rightly so. But amid the fireworks and hoopla, a discordant note sounds in the background for some members of the armed forces. Today marks the 75th anniversary of one of the great debacles in this country’s military history, and it is only through constant vigilance that America can avoid another Task Force Smith.
On June 25, 1950, with the blessing and support of its Chinese and Soviet allies, North Korea sneak attacked South Korea. As the Communists drove southward relentlessly, the underequipped and poorly trained American garrison in Japan rushed across the sea to slow them down. Task Force Smith, the first American unit to encounter the North Koreans, watched in horror as most of its shells bounced harmlessly off the sides of enemy tanks. The unit was routed on July 5 at the Battle of Osan.
Failures of that magnitude stem from many causes. The American public had little appetite for big defense budgets, so the Truman administration had to prioritize. Much of the nation’s best equipment flowed across the Atlantic, not the Pacific.
There was not much to go around. Paul Nitze and the State Department’s policy planning team reviewed the strategic situation after the Communists conquered China and the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb. They found in April 1950 that "the military weaknesses of the United States vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, however, include its numerical inferiority in forces in being … and munitions power in being and readily available" before warning ominously, "there exists a sharp disparity between our actual military strength and our commitments." President Truman referred their review, NSC-68, to his budget experts and otherwise ignored it.
Clever diplomacy failed to paper over the problem. In January 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson sketched out an American "defensive perimeter" in Asia that notably excluded South Korea. He pined for a Sino-Soviet split, stating "we must not undertake to deflect from the Russians to ourselves the righteous anger, and the wrath, and the hatred of the Chinese people which must develop."
Public opinion favored the prioritizers until Mao Zedong and Josef Stalin backed Pyongyang’s war of aggression. Then, the American people demanded a firm response. American forces surged into Korea and defense spending shot up from 5 percent of the U.S. economy in 1950 to nearly 14 percent in 1953. The war cost 36,574 American lives, and U.S. troops are still defending South Korea today.
"No more Task Force Smiths" is one of the U.S. Army’s unofficial mantras, but it is not clear that Washington is adequately preparing its forces for future conflicts. To be sure, our military is a highly professional force, and the Israelis and Ukrainians are demonstrating just how effective much of the U.S. arsenal is. But the Pentagon may not be moving fast enough. For example, the Army intends to equip each division with about 1,000 drones over the next two years, but Ukraine acquired more than 1.5 million just in 2024.
One option, which today’s prioritizers favor, is to sharply reduce or even cut off support for partners and allies in theaters they think are not vital. Many of them also lamented American support for Israel’s air campaign over Iran. They lost that argument, but halting deliveries to Ukraine of air defense missiles, artillery shells, and other munitions even as Russia ramps up its air attacks on Ukrainian cities was an important victory for this camp. Evidently, they think the risks of tolerating Iran’s nuclear program or inviting further Russian aggression are acceptable.
Another is to try to engineer a new Sino-Soviet split. Acheson was not wrong in January 1950: Beijing and Moscow eventually fell out. But it took another decade and a half before the wrath, hatred, and anger—righteous or otherwise—of the Chinese people developed toward Moscow. There is no indication today that the Russians are close to breaking with the Middle Kingdom.
Communist China studies the Korean War obsessively, largely because its forces have not otherwise squared off with Americans. Hopefully, Beijing learned that while the American people can grow uninterested in global affairs for a time, they will respond in fury when attacked. Permitting aggression in one theater can also set back Beijing’s other goals: Taiwan looked vulnerable before the North Koreans attacked, but once the United States surged forces to the western Pacific, attacking the island became impossible.
But just as many Americans learn the wrong lessons from history, our adversaries can too. Better to keep the military ready, just in case.
Published under: China , Cold War , Foreign Policy , North Korea , Russia , South Korea
24. Taiwan tests civil-military response in ambitious drill
Excerpts:
"From July 9 to 11, we will address gray-zone disturbances, July 12 will focus on emergency operations, and July 13 to 18 will cover comprehensive warfare, including joint anti-landing and sustained combat," explained Tung Chi-hsing (董冀星), a spokesperson for Taiwan's defense ministry. Military analysts point out that the exercise's expanded scope coincides with a marked increase in Chinese naval activities in waters surrounding Taiwan, contributing to broader security concerns throughout the Indo-Pacific region. The decision to extend Han Kuang to its longest-ever duration signals Taiwan's growing apprehension about regional stability and the potential for conflict with its powerful neighbor.
Taiwan tests civil-military response in ambitious drill
https://t.media/2921517
Reporter Lu Hsin Yang
Release time：2025/07/04 15:37
Last update time：2025/07/04 15:37
TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Against a backdrop of intensifying regional tensions and deep political divisions at home, Taiwan is preparing to launch its most ambitious military exercise in the island's history. The Han Kuang 41 exercise (漢光41號演習), Taiwan's annual war games simulating a Chinese invasion, will run for an unprecedented 10 days beginning next Thursday (July 9), incorporating civilian response drills in a comprehensive test of the island's defense readiness. Officials have allocated NT$1.7 billion (approximately US$58.9 million) for the exercises, underscoring Taiwan's deepening investment in military preparedness as cross-strait relations continue to deteriorate.
The Ministry of the Interior (MOI, 內政部), Taiwan's agency responsible for domestic affairs and civil defense, will oversee the urban resilience component from Tuesday (July 15) through Friday (July 18), with implementation schedules tailored to different regions across the island. This integration of civilian and military elements represents a significant evolution in Taiwan's defense doctrine, acknowledging that modern warfare would require coordinated responses from both sectors. The Ministry of National Defence (MND, 國防部) has designed the exercises to follow a realistic escalation pattern, beginning with China's increasingly common "gray-zone" tactics — military activities that fall short of actual combat — before progressing through more intensive conflict scenarios.
"From July 9 to 11, we will address gray-zone disturbances, July 12 will focus on emergency operations, and July 13 to 18 will cover comprehensive warfare, including joint anti-landing and sustained combat," explained Tung Chi-hsing (董冀星), a spokesperson for Taiwan's defense ministry. Military analysts point out that the exercise's expanded scope coincides with a marked increase in Chinese naval activities in waters surrounding Taiwan, contributing to broader security concerns throughout the Indo-Pacific region. The decision to extend Han Kuang to its longest-ever duration signals Taiwan's growing apprehension about regional stability and the potential for conflict with its powerful neighbor.
The upcoming drills will feature an unprecedented level of civilian participation, with Taiwan's major urban centers — Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan — conducting coordinated civil defense, air raid, and critical infrastructure protection exercises. Local governments across Taiwan's 22 administrative divisions will evaluate public accessibility to designated air raid shelters, with special attention to transportation hubs and commercial areas where large numbers of people congregate. Taiwanese citizens will receive real-time emergency alerts on their mobile devices during the simulation. Notably, PX Marts, a popular Taiwanese supermarket chain, will transform its locations nationwide into emergency supply distribution centers and evacuation assistance points during the exercises.
"We're extending this partnership to include convenience stores as well," a MOI official confirmed, underscoring the government's strategy to incorporate Taiwan's ubiquitous convenience store networks into national emergency response plans. These expanded civil-military exercises arrive at a politically delicate moment for President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), who has taken office amid rising cross-strait tensions and has positioned himself as both pragmatic and supportive of Taiwan's distinct identity, describing himself as "a pragmatic advocate of Taiwan independence" despite Beijing's warnings against such rhetoric.
Lai's administration faces significant headwinds, with recent polling data from June showing a 46% disapproval rating as the president navigates a deeply divided domestic political environment. This internal pressure compounds the external challenges posed by China's increasingly assertive military posture, with People's Liberation Army aircraft and naval vessels approaching Taiwan's territorial boundaries at unprecedented frequencies. Military and political analysts view this year's expanded Han Kuang exercise as more than a routine drill — it represents both an assessment of Taiwan's defensive capabilities and a test of the Lai administration's capacity to manage complex security challenges while governing a politically polarized society.
(At time of reporting, US$1 equals approximately NT$28.847)
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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