Quotes of the Day:

"It is easier to conquer than to rule. WIth sufficient lever, the world may be moved by a finger; but to support it the shoulders of Hercules are required."

– Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Never waste valuable time or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others – that is too high a price to pay."

– Robert Greene

"You can never really live anyone else's life, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you've become yourself." 

– Eleanor Roosevelt

1. In Eastern Ukraine, Fear and Disbelief Over Proposal to Cede Land to Russia

2. China’s Xi Reminds Tibet That Beijing Is in Charge

3. How European Leaders Studied Trump and Learned to Speak His Language

4. Trump Orders Pentagon to Deploy Three Warships Against Latin American Drug Cartels

5. Survivability Drift Theory and Attrition Mitigation in Special Operations Forces

6. Trump Says Ukraine Has No Chance of Winning War Without Striking Russia

7. Tanks, Tech, and Tungsten: The Strategic Mineral Alliance the West Needs

8. ARCYBER chief's advice to industry: Make interoperable tech and start at the edge

9. NATO defense chiefs to hold meeting on security guarantees for Ukraine

10. Preparing for the Silent Surge: Countering North Korea’s Gambit in a Dual Contingency

11. Ukrainian Suspected of Leading Nord Stream Sabotage Arrested in Italy

12. Reconstitution Under Fire: Insights from the 1973 Yom Kippur War

13. Opinion | One Sentence in the Constitution Is Causing America Huge Problems

14. The Tiny White House Club Making Major National-Security Decisions

15. Why the Nuclear Taboo Is Stronger Than Ever

16. When America stops leading, Asia starts looking elsewhere

17. Is Ukraine the Future of Asia?

18. Donald Trump’s fantasy of home-grown chipmaking

19. The Back Brief: The Airborne Mafia, The Mission, and the Ft. Bragg Cartel

20. Should America’s military plan for a retreat from the Pacific?

1. In Eastern Ukraine, Fear and Disbelief Over Proposal to Cede Land to Russia

In Eastern Ukraine, Fear and Disbelief Over Proposal to Cede Land to Russia

The Kremlin wants Ukraine to hand over the government-controlled part of Donetsk region to Moscow

https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-donetsk-russia-reaction-2adaef84

By Ian Lovett

Follow and Ievgeniia Sivorka | Photographs by Serhii Korovayny for WSJ

Aug. 20, 2025 9:00 pm ET

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine—Svitlana Kuznetsova laid a small bouquet of roses in front of a large photo of her grandson, who was killed fighting for Ukraine in March.

She isn’t sure how much longer she can keep up this ritual just outside City Hall, where portraits of dozens of dead local soldiers stand. If Ukraine hands this city over to Russia—as Moscow has demanded for a potential peace deal—she will flee her home of nearly half a century.

“No, no, no, no, no,” the 71-year-old Kuznetsova said on Wednesday. “God forbid that Ukraine withdraw.”

Among proposals under discussion in recent international talks, one calls for Ukraine to surrender the sizable chunk of Donetsk region that it still holds in exchange for a halt to fighting and security guarantees from Western countries.

Svitlana Kuznetsova visits a memorial in Slovyansk to her grandson, who was killed in action in March.

A sign outside Slovyansk still has bullet holes from fighting in 2014.

President Trump has said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should consider a land swap. Zelensky hasn’t dismissed it out of hand, but said any territorial concessions are against Ukraine’s Constitution and would require direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, something the Russian leader has thus far avoided.

Any deal to surrender land grimly defended for years would be a bitter pill for many Ukrainians. Kyiv still controls about a quarter of the Donetsk region, including large cities like Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. Almost everyone in Ukraine has a friend or relative who has died fighting in this part of the country.

But residents of Slovyansk, who have spent a decade living along the front line, expressed varied reactions to the proposed concession of their city. While many, like Kuznetsova, considered it a doomsday scenario, others were willing to pay almost any price to stop the fighting, or insisted that they wouldn’t leave no matter who was in control of the city.

Iryna Bondarenko moved to Slovyansk from Bakhmut before it was flattened by Russian assaults.

“I’d feel very sorry for those who died for nothing” defending this area, said Iryna Bondarenko, 24 years old, who moved here from the eastern city of Bakhmut before it was flattened during Russian assaults in 2023. “But on the other hand it would be good. Too many people are dying.” She said she would leave Slovyansk before Moscow took control of it.

Russia’s assault on Slovyansk began in April 2014, when about 50 Russian paramilitaries seized control of the city. Ukrainian forces retook Slovyansk that July.

Since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, the city’s population has fallen from more than 100,000 to 50,000, according to local officials. All schools have been closed and moved online, and most of the pupils have left the city. 

Though Ukrainians have grown more willing to make concessions to end the war since the full-scale invasion began, public opinion polls show they remain opposed to giving up territory. A June survey from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 52% of Ukrainians opposed to territorial concessions, with 38% willing to accept territorial losses as part of a peace deal. 

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WSJ’s Annie Linskey analyzes the high-stakes meeting between President Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and leaders of European powers to discuss a potential path to ending Ukraine’s war with Russia. Photo: Presidential Press Service

George Barros, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said that giving away the rest of the Donetsk region would be a strategic blunder. Cities like Slovyansk have been fortified since 2014, and also sit on high ground. Given the slow, grinding pace of Russia’s advance, it would likely take Moscow years to capture the major population centers in the region.

“The terrain further west from the Donetsk region is not nearly as defensible,” he said. “There are no large cities there. They haven’t been built up and fortified. Surrendering it without defensive positions to fall back on—that’s a huge liability.” 

He said only a very robust security agreement with Western countries—including involvement of a nuclear power—could make a voluntary withdrawal worth it for Kyiv. 

Slovyansk was one of the first cities seized by Russian proxy forces In 2014 and retaken by Ukrainians forces later that year.

Most soldiers in the area dismissed the idea of a land swap. “Nobody’s going to give Donbas away,” said Mykhailo Lovha, 28 years old, who has been fighting since the start of the full-scale invasion. “If we do, they’re just going to rearm and do the same thing again.”

However, even among the troops, some were eager to take any chance to stop the fighting. 

“This is realistic. Without that, [a peace deal] is not going to happen,” said Oleksandr Chmylov, a senior seaman in Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade. “You can talk about the betrayal of those who died. But if you keep holding the territory, how many more should die for it?”

The possibility that the city one day might fall back under Russian control left many Slovyansk residents reluctant to speak publicly about politics. Vladimir Motynha, a 41-year-old city worker, said he did not care who controlled the city as long as the fighting stopped.

“I don’t give a f—,” he said, standing with a shovel outside City Hall, just a few feet from the memorial to fallen soldiers from Slovyansk. “The main thing for me is no shots being fired.”

Vadym Lyakh, the mayor of Slovyansk.

After the 2014 invasion, Ukraine arrested suspected collaborators, including the mayor at the time. Vadym Lyakh, who has been mayor since 2015, said pro-Russian sentiment has diminished over the past decade, as Ukraine’s economy grew while cities in Russian-occupied parts of the Donetsk region languished. Schools have had 10 years to teach children about Russia’s effort to destroy Ukraine as an independent state.

Still, he acknowledged that some—especially older residents, who grew up in the Soviet Union—are hoping for the Russians to return. 

Illia Deineka, a 24-year-old soldier fighting in Ukraine’s 30th Mechanized Brigade, said he believed most civilians in the villages around Slovyansk were pro-Russian, adding that his unit had caught several spotters helping Russians aim their artillery. “If they’re looking at Russian TV,” he said, “of course they have a bad attitude toward Ukraine.” 

Alla Smelkova sells produce from her garden in central Slovyansk. She rejects any possibility of land swaps with Russia which include Moscow taking control over Donbas.

People relax at the beach in Slovyansk. Most of the city’s school-age pupils have left.

Slovyansk remains relatively intact, compared with other cities in the region. Though the city has been periodically hit with Russian missiles over the past three years, the buildings along its central square show little damage, and the nearby streets are lined with chestnut and birch trees. Parents continue to bring their children to a playground outside City Hall.

Many who have built lives here said they simply refused to think about the possibility that Ukraine could willingly cede the city.

“I wouldn’t trade my Donbas for western Ukraine,” said Alla Smelkova, 54 years old, who moved here as a child.

Her children and grandchildren left the region at the start of the full-scale invasion, but she refused to follow them, even when her husband was offered a job in Kyiv. As she spoke, she laid out grapes, peaches, cucumbers and other produce from her garden on a streetside stand to sell. Even if the Russians retook control of the city, she said, she and her husband wouldn’t go.

“How can I abandon this place?” she said. 

2. China’s Xi Reminds Tibet That Beijing Is in Charge

The three warfares as part of the PRC's political warfare strategy.

China’s Xi Reminds Tibet That Beijing Is in Charge

Leader visits Lhasa and reinforces Communist Party’s dominance

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-xi-reminds-tibet-that-beijing-is-in-charge-c061928c

By Chun Han Wong

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Aug. 21, 2025 5:03 am ET

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President Xi Jinping visits Tibet to commemorate six decades since China created the autonomous region. Photo: Yan Yan/Xinhua/AP

Quick Summary

• Xi Jinping visited Tibet, emphasizing the Communist Party’s dominance and the need for Tibetans to speak Mandarin and embrace socialism.View more

Chinese leader Xi Jinping traveled to Tibet to drive home a message of control to the restive region on China’s western periphery, where he demanded more efforts to reinforce Communist Party rule over the heartland of Tibetan Buddhism.

During a visit to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa this week, Xi told officials to get Tibetans to speak and write more Mandarin Chinese and bring Tibetan Buddhism closer in line with socialist principles—part of efforts to forge a stronger national identity among China’s 1.4 billion people.

The trip was Xi’s second visit to Tibet in four years, underscoring his focus on tightening party control over ethnic minorities—particularly in a region where resentment against Beijing has simmered for decades and sometimes flared into violent protests. Xi is the most senior Chinese leader to visit Tibet since Jiang Zemin went there as party chief in 1990.

“To govern, stabilize and develop Tibet, we must first maintain political and social stability, as well as ethnic unity and religious harmony in Tibet,” Xi told officials, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. “To handle Tibetan affairs well, we must always adhere to the party’s leadership.”

The visit came as Beijing gears up for a fight over the choice of successor to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, who turned 90 in July. The officially atheist Communist Party has denounced him as a separatist and insisted that they must approve the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama, for his part, declared last month that a religious panel based in India would have sole responsibility for choosing his successor.

In Lhasa, where Xi arrived Wednesday, the Chinese leader presided over festivities marking the 60th anniversary of the Tibet Autonomous Region, which Beijing set up in 1965 as part of its approach to granting ethnic-minority communities some nominal political autonomy while the party maintained control.

This photo released by a Chinese state-run agency shows Chinese President Xi Jinping arriving in Tibet. Photo: Yin Bogu/Xinhua/Zuma Press

Xi attended a cultural performance that conveyed “the sincere feelings of the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet to always listen to the party, be grateful to the party, and follow the party,” according to state media.

The festivities culminated in a grand ceremony on Thursday, staged against the backdrop of the Potala Palace, a residence for the Dalai Lama before his flight into exile in 1959. There, Xi listened to officials praise the party’s efforts to develop Tibet and reviewed processions of army and paramilitary troops, police officers, community representatives and cultural performers.

Tibet’s achievements over the past 60 years prove that only under the leadership of China’s Communist Party “can we achieve prosperity and progress in Tibet,” Wang Huning, the party’s top official overseeing ethnic affairs, said at the ceremony. “All attempts to split the motherland and undermine the stability of Tibet are doomed to fail,” he said.

The party has sought to consolidate control over Tibet since sending troops into the region in 1950. Since then, Beijing has directed long-running efforts to assimilate ethnic Tibetans and quash what it calls separatist forces led by the Dalai Lama, who was a teenager when the People’s Republic took control of Tibet.

The assimilation drive intensified after Xi took power in 2012, as he sought to forge a singular national identity centered on the Han Chinese majority and loyalty to the Communist Party.

While Xi’s predecessors relied more on economic development as a way to naturally integrate ethnic minorities, he has opted for a comparatively hard-line approach, with the party taking an active role in reshaping cultural identities.

This photo released by a Chinese state-run agency shows Xi greeting members of the Chinese military in Tibet. Photo: Li Gang/XINHUA/Associated Press

In Tibet, Beijing has imposed increased restrictions on Tibetan religion, education and language, while boosting the government’s ability to surveil residents—such as by building a network of police outposts that doubled as mini-community centers offering amenities such as household tools and cold medications. Authorities have also sent Tibetan children to state-run boarding schools at ever-younger ages, educating them predominantly in Mandarin and inculcating Chinese culture.

Chinese officials and media have also generally replaced the name “Tibet” with “Xizang” in English-language references to the region, switching to the standard Romanization of the Chinese name used by Beijing.

Chinese officials generally reject claims that they are diluting or suppressing Tibetan culture, instead arguing that the Communist Party has improved the lives and livelihoods of people in Tibet while preserving their religious and ethnic identities.

Xi previously visited Tibet as China’s leader in 2021, marking the 70th anniversary of Beijing’s annexation of the region. His trip this week represents the first time the country’s leader attends the Tibet Autonomous Region’s anniversary celebrations.

State media said Xi’s two trips in the past four years underscored the importance of Tibet to the party.

The visits “fully demonstrate General Secretary Xi Jinping and the party center’s high degree of attention to Tibetan affairs and their sincere care for cadres and the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet,” Xinhua said. “The party’s glory shines upon the frontiers, and the people of the frontiers align their hearts with the party.”

Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com

3. How European Leaders Studied Trump and Learned to Speak His Language

How European Leaders Studied Trump and Learned to Speak His Language

Officials made concessions and worked to improve relationship with president, seeking to keep trans-Atlantic alliance alive

https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-europe-leaders-communication-1e28560f

By Daniel Michaels

Follow and Laurence Norman

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Aug. 20, 2025 11:00 pm ET

President Trump’s Monday meeting with European leaders was far friendlier than some past encounters. Photo: Aaron Schwartz/Zuma Press

Quick Summary

• European leaders are learning to ‘speak Trump’s language’ to retain his support for Ukraine, after painful concessions on trade and military spending.View more

BRUSSELS—Six months ago, President Trump said the European Union was formed to screw America. On Monday, he lavished praise on European leaders as they gathered around a table at the White House to discuss the war in Ukraine.

He complimented German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s tan, told EU chief Ursula von der Leyen she was perhaps the most powerful of his guests at the table and described 57-year-old Finnish President Alexander Stubb as young and powerful.

The change in tone is the outcome of big, painful concessions Europe has made to Trump on trade and military spending. It is also the result of careful study, European officials say.

European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization more than doubled their military spending—at Trump’s insistence. The EU also swallowed a lopsided trade deal that slapped 15% tariffs on their imports to the U.S.

But European leaders say the secret sauce for getting Trump’s attention and admiration is learning to speak his language. In doing so, they have begun to gain his ear and retain his support for Ukraine.

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WSJ’s Annie Linskey analyzes the high-stakes meeting between President Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and leaders of European powers to discuss a potential path to ending Ukraine’s war with Russia. Photo: Presidential Press Service

“The default setting of the Europeans is to wait, worry and complain,” said Kurt Volker, who was U.S. special representative for Ukraine during Trump’s first term. 

“This is the worst instinct possible for dealing with Trump. What you need to do is be positive, do your own homework and make your own proposals and be proactive. I think Monday was a good demonstration of everybody figuring out how to do that.”

At the White House meeting this week, notes of discord were short-lived: When the French and German leaders pressed Trump to seek a cease-fire of the kind he had recently dismissed, the conversation remained cordial.

Where trans-Atlantic relations go next is of deep concern to Europeans, who fear Trump’s current support could prove fleeting. But for now they are seeing the fruits of their homework and seeking to capitalize on the results.

French President Emmanuel Macron was able to navigate contentious topics without the meeting turning sour. Photo: al drago/Reuters

NATO officials, who are used to Trump’s impatience during long diplomatic gatherings, expressed pleasant surprise at how engrossed the president appeared to be during the military alliance’s summit in June. The full-day event took place after European members pledged to spend 5% on defense.

When Trump closed the summit, which he described as “highly productive,” he said NATO is “not a rip-off.”

Here are some of the lessons Europe has learned from studying how Trump operates, according to people involved in the encounters:

Say ‘thank you’

In the Oval Office in February, Trump and Vice President JD Vance dressed down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for allegedly failing to express thanks for U.S. support. Trump claims credit for many achievements and wants them acknowledged by others, interlocutors say. On Monday, he said several times that he had resolved six wars. The European leaders thanked Trump about 30 times for his efforts during their public meeting. Trump thanked them at least a dozen times.

Talk to Trump

Since Trump won re-election, European leaders and their teams have striven to build and maintain contact with the White House—and particularly with Trump himself. The Europeans have worked hard to coordinate among themselves so that he hears one message from many voices. Their goal has been to surround Trump with Europe’s narrative, especially reinforcing their view that Russia is the aggressor in the war in Ukraine. Now, it isn’t just Europeans calling Trump; he calls them, too. Germany’s Merz and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte are regulars on Trump’s call list, say officials.

Trump’s stance on NATO appeared to have softened at the alliance’s June summit in The Hague. Photo: Beata Zawrzel/Zuma Press

Use Trump’s vocabulary

Trump loves tariffs and hates sanctions, so European leaders now talk more about using tariffs to punish Russia. Trump in recent days has also developed a distaste for the idea of a cease-fire in Ukraine, but he wants killings to stop. Von der Leyen, the EU Commission president, said in a news conference with Zelensky on Sunday that it was important not to get drawn into semantics. “Whether we call it a cease-fire or it’s a peace deal, stop the killing,” she said. Words matter with Trump, officials say.

Speak in real estate terms

Trump’s business career centered on real estate, and it is still a reference point for him. At the White House on Monday, Zelensky showed Trump a map of Ukraine to explain the situation, while European leaders compared Russian President Vladimir Putin’s territorial claims to the U.S. surrendering states such as Florida, Trump’s base outside Washington, according to officials. “Thank you for the map, by the way,” Trump told Zelensky. “It was great.”

Get friendly

Trump mixes work with family and friends. Leaders who enter the inner circle and develop a rapport with him stand a better chance of being heard. Stubb, the Finnish president, has spent hours playing golf with Trump. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s firebrand social conservatism has long struck a chord with the U.S. leader and his close aides, opening doors. Vance just spent a weekend with U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his family at his countryside residence. For Europe, that quality time has been priceless, officials say.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Do you think Trump is taking the right approach to diplomacy with Europe? Why or why not? Join the conversation below.

Write to Daniel Michaels at Dan.Michaels@wsj.com and Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com

Appeared in the August 21, 2025, print edition as 'Leaders Learn to Speak Trump’s Language'.

4. Trump Orders Pentagon to Deploy Three Warships Against Latin American Drug Cartels

Trump Orders Pentagon to Deploy Three Warships Against Latin American Drug Cartels

U.S. destroyers are expected to patrol the South American coast, including waters near Venezuela

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-orders-pentagon-to-deploy-three-warships-against-latin-american-drug-cartels-939c8240

By Lara Seligman

Follow and Brett Forrest

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Aug. 20, 2025 8:19 pm ET

Navy guided-missile destroyers, including the USS Sampson seen here, will interdict cartel drug shipments, sources say. Photo: U.S. Navy/AP

Quick Summary

• President Trump ordered the Navy to prepare to send warships to interdict drug cartels off South America, intensifying the U.S. confrontation with Venezuela.View more

President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to send three Navy warships to interdict drug cartels off the coast of South America, including near Venezuela, expanding the Pentagon’s role in combating illegal drug smuggling and intensifying a U.S. confrontation with the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

The guided-missile destroyers will have authority to interdict drug shipments, according to two people familiar with the planning, giving the Navy a direct counternarcotics mission in Latin America, instead of its customary role supporting the Coast Guard.

The move comes after the president earlier this month directed the Pentagon to prepare options to use military force against Latin American drug cartels, which he designated foreign terrorist organizations in a January executive order. Additionally, the Justice Department doubled its reward, to $50 million, for information leading to the arrest of Maduro. The administration accused him of being one of the world’s largest narco-traffickers and of working with cartels to flood the U.S. with cocaine.

“Washington’s accusation that Venezuela is involved in drug trafficking reveals its lack of credibility and the failure of its policies in the region,” said Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yvan Gil. “While Washington threatens, Venezuela advances firmly in peace and sovereignty, demonstrating that true effectiveness against crime is achieved by respecting the independence of peoples,” he added.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Photo: Jesus Vargas/Getty Images

Earlier this week, Maduro said during a TV interview that he would deploy more than 4.5 million militia members around the country.

The planned deployment comes a month after the White House supported Chevron in regaining its ability to pump oil in Venezuela, in an abrupt reversal of its policy toward the socialist dictatorship, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Details of the agreement are still unclear, but it comes after a prisoner swap that released all 10 remaining Americans detained by the Venezuelan government, people familiar with the matter said. In recent months, Maduro has received deportation flights from the U.S. carrying Venezuelans.

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The Arleigh Burke destroyers—USS Jason Dunham, USS Sampson and USS Gravely—which were involved in countering attacks from the Yemen-based Houthis in the Red Sea, will begin operations once Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signs the order, according to a U.S. official.

“For pure counter narcotics operations, the multibillion-dollar Aegis destroyers are overkill,” said retired Adm. James Stavridis, who formerly commanded U.S. Southern Command and U.S. European Command. “Coast Guard cutters would do just as well. But as a signal to Nicolás Maduro, the arrival off his coast of dozens of Tomahawk missiles, shore-bombardment capability, a thousand Navy sailors, and intelligence-gathering capacity is a very strong one.”

The Navy has long been involved in drug interdiction, along with law enforcement such as the Coast Guard, and has the skills for the mission, said former Vice Adm. John Miller, who previously commanded the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. The warships likely won’t be shooting missiles at the smugglers; instead they will be collecting intelligence and dispatching smaller boats to board vessels suspected of drug trafficking, he said. “I think it sends a strong signal to Maduro that his narco-terrorist assault on the U.S. will no longer be tolerated,” Miller said.

The Defense Department has long deployed U.S. military assets to support the Coast Guard that regularly intercept narcotics traffickers in the Pacific and Caribbean off Colombia’s and Venezuela’s coasts. But U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel have typically been in a supporting role, acting as backup in the event of a skirmish rather than interdicting the cartels. 

Now, the warships will be authorized to intercept drug smugglers, according to the U.S. official.

Write to Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com and Brett Forrest at brett.forrest@wsj.com

Appeared in the August 21, 2025, print edition as 'U.S. to Deploy Warships Against Drug Cartels'.

5. Survivability Drift Theory and Attrition Mitigation in Special Operations Forces

Conclusion:

We grounded Survivability Drift Theory in SOF realities and experiences for institutional application. It reshapes SOF survivability as an upstream and measurable trajectory rather than a regrettable departure or postmortem summary. By offering quantification and up-front detection, the SDT framework holds potential to reduce operator suicides and reorient force health protection while providing actionable clinical intelligence for command intervention. Future steps include multinational FLARES testing, implementation, and refinement; diagnostic criteria and disease classification for CROWNS; and doctrinal integration across SOCOM (e.g., Preservation of the Force and Family [POTFF]) and NATO-aligned medical and readiness system. (See Notes 1, 44). We know blast trauma progresses as Operators’ brains and bodies age, and suicides continue to plague the SOF community. This is important now more than ever, not only impacting the families of those involved, but also reducing a critical, outsized capability necessary to achieve U.S. national security interests against both state and non-state adversaries.

Academic Research Article| The Latest

Survivability Drift Theory and Attrition Mitigation in Special Operations Forces

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/08/21/survivability-drift-theory/

by Kate Rocklein, PhD, DNP, RN, by COL (Ret.) Bernd Horn, PhD, by Frank Larkin, MSc, by Jayna Moceri-Brooks, PhD, RN

|

08.21.2025 at 06:00am

Abstract 

Survivability Drift Theory (SDT) provides a practical framework to interrupt escalating attrition in special operations forces (SOF). Despite elite selection and resilience-focused programming, negative survivability trends in SOF account for losses that in other warfighting systems would trigger invasive corrective action. SDT identifies these patterned losses not as random, but as a progressive, detectable syndrome—drift, that unfolds across six key domains: neurological, moral, relational, cognitive, interoceptive, and identity. Drift is recursive, measurable, and reversible, providing commanders and clinicians with actionable opportunities for intervention before catastrophic endpoints.

Survivability, under this model, is no longer a binary (life or death) but a dynamic, longitudinal capacity affected by cumulative exposures: blast injury, role erosion, and combat exposures, among others. Rather than replacing clinical autonomy, SDT equips leadership with a surveillance lens and operational vocabulary for force health protection. The theory underpins novel SOF-specific clinical and diagnostic methods now in development, enabling units to track drift markers and force-level trends. Adoption of SDT principles can better enable commanders across SOF to steer survivability trajectories and mitigate attrition to better preserve this strategic national asset.

Introduction and Theoretical Context

Special operations forces worldwide remain high-performance ecosystems—bearing the brunt of two decades of counterterrorism operations while shifting to the demands of strategic competition today. (See Note 1). Despite the abundance of resilience-focused programming and various U.S. military wellness efforts, too many Operators have perished from attrition: dying by suicide or, at minimum, abruptly departing roles or teams for which they and their families have sacrificed so much. (See Notes 1-7).

Special Operators remain highly resilient and mission-critical tacticians, yet despite their elite selection and entrenched invincibility, suicide incidence in GWOT-era American SOF reveals a reversed survivability trend in attrition. (See Notes 1-3). Current prevalence-based comparisons, such as suicides per 100,000, drastically underestimate risk in SOF by failing to account for multiple variables like op tempo, kinetic density, and cumulative physiologic derangement. At present, even our cursory calculations of fatality data also found Operator suicide risk averaged to 75% higher than conventional U.S. military forces, supported by suicide accounting for 1 in every 33 SOF fatalities in Iraq theaters and 1 in every 100 SOF deployment deaths across all combatant commands. (See Note 1).

In any other high-value operational system, a 3% loss to a single failure mode would be considered catastrophic, declared non-mission-capable, and subjected to immediate institutional review and corrective action. Suicides occurring in a force engineered for resilience and survival warrants no less doctrinal and operational urgency. The core issue lies not within ratios and prevalence counts, but in degraded survivability manifesting within a specifically selected population in which every loss is a strategic national asset.

These events, especially within an exceptionally resilient ecosystem, appear to represent a progressive, detectable syndrome rather than an unpredictable or individualized phenomenon. We therefore propose Survivability Drift Theory (SDT) as a framework to guide clinical, operational, and policy interventions in high-risk SOF populations. Key aspects of SDT span the neurological, moral, relational, cognitive, interoceptive, and identity domains. Though originally conceptualized for special mission units, SDT’s cross-cutting explanatory value across the entire SOF enterprise quickly became apparent during theory construction.

Not designed to replace clinicians’ autonomy or medical diagnostics, SDT instead serves to surveil and flag early warning signs in direct-action SOF and special mission personnel under cumulative exposure conditions (blast-overpressure, institutional tension, hazardous materials, role erosion), and may generalize to other high-risk populations (e.g., first responders, intelligence operatives, etc.). (See Notes 1, 3, 8, 9).

Background and Theoretical Roots

Survivability drift in SDT is akin to tactical driving drift: cumulative forces—if not detected and corrected early—cause progressive loss of control. Just as skilled drivers learn to recognize early vehicle drift and adjust inputs before catastrophic loss, SDT emphasizes Operator-centered surveillance to detect survivability drift before irreversible collapse.

Based on our combined SOF-centric studies and efforts, SDT addresses a persistent conceptual gap: clinicians are typically presented with survivability as a binary concept (life vs. death, broken vs. not broken), yet we argue most SOF attrition arises through gradual degradation—not a single driving catastrophic event. (See Notes 1, 3, 8-52). Drawing from gold-standard theory construction models, we relate here a repeatedly observed condition in SOF that remains unnamed: a drift away from survivability. (See Notes 53-57).

We redefine SOF survivability as a multidimensional capacity rather than a terminal outcome, building on the evolutionary concept analysis methodology used previously to redefine SOF-situated trauma and resilience. (See Notes 58, 52, and 46). Though credible interpersonal theories certainly explain important elements of suicidality in Special Operations, SDT has a broader umbrella under which we reposition survivability as a situated, longitudinal construct influenced by both institutional-operational exposures and individual identity coherence.

Drift, however, is the central phenomenon—the progressive, syndromic loss of survivability across neurological, moral, relational, cognitive, interoceptive, and identity domains. It is patterned, cumulative, measurable, and reversible. Losses in Operator function within those domains explains eventual disengagement, physical collapse, and suicide. Drift is neither an abstraction nor metaphor—it is a real, lived, and empirically observable trajectory.

Figure 1. Visual model of SDT domains. 

Assumptions:

• Survivability exists on a continuum and is not a dichotomous outcome.
• Survivability loss is detectable before catastrophic endpoints.
• Institutions share responsibility for drift detection and prevention.
• Survivability degradation is not suboptimal resilience nor a behavioral response.
• Survivability reflects physiological, relational, and moral collapse.

Theoretical Key Components: Survivability and Drift

As apparent in SDT’s title, survivability and drift comprise the key components of the theory. Survivability refers to an operator’s ability to maintain whole-person functioning across their entire service arc and into post-service life. It is determined by whether the operator remains coherent and adaptive across six domains: neurological, moral, relational,cognitive, interoceptive (body-state), and identity.

In simple terms, can the Operator still think clearly, feel purpose, stay connected to/lead others, read their own body accurately, and retain a stable sense of self—even after cumulative operational exposures? For example, an Operator with years of blast exposure who is still sleeping well, thinking clearly, maintaining family bonds, and feeling purposeful—even with medical support, is demonstrating sustained survivability and readiness. Likewise, an operator who is post-retirement but remains engaged with their community and stable in health is also surviving well across domains.

Drift refers to the gradual, subclinical erosion of survivability—a process that builds slowly and silently, until critical collapse. Drift accumulates when exposures and injuries (such as blast overpressure, moral injury, physiological strain, survivor’s guilt, chronic injuries, family fracturing) begin to undermine domain integrity. This degradation loops recursively, weakening multiple domains simultaneously until survivability is threatened to the point where attrition is likely.

In simple terms, excessive exposure to blast overpressure, chronic insomnia and neuro-muscular pain leads to rage, ensuing shame, and cognitive fog, which in turn erodes identity and increases family strain—driving isolation and further body dysregulation until the whole system drifts toward collapse unless interrupted. For example, an Operator who can no longer regulate anger, cannot sleep through the night, forgets tasks, avoids family, loses confidence, and starts showing unexplained health problems is in active survivability drift, even if they are still technically cleared to deploy. Indeed, an Operator in drift is not “good to go.”

Figure 2. Visual model of unmitigated Survivability Drift: Operator Exposures (e.g., repetitive blasts, family separations, hazards) → Domain degradation → Drift (e.g., physical, family, financial) → Drift Accumulation (e.g., burdensomeness, isolation, discipline) → Collapse

The domains of drift include:

1. Neurological: unprovoked irritation, unrelenting pain, disrupted sleep, impaired coordination, emergent addiction, sensory changes (vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, etc.), unreasonable paranoia;
2. Moral-Existential: self-concealment, resentment, loss of purpose, betrayal, value conflicts, trauma, disillusionment, frustrated perfectionism, uncharacteristic dishonesty;
3. Relational-Societal: empathy decay, breakups, emotional blunting, legal exposures (divorce/custody), rejecting norms, financial difficulties, family disintegration, self-imposed isolation;
4. Interoceptive: inexplicable fatigue, hormonal/metabolic, inflammation, autonomic instability, chronic conditions, weight fluctuation;
5. Cognitive-Functional: unusual decision-making, marked avoidance, memory gaps, inattentiveness, executive dysfunction, procedural slips, masked degradation; and
6. Identity: “going quiet,” persona creation, hyper- or hypo-deployable, fractured operational self, detachment from future, vocational despair, collapse of self-concept.

SDT DomainFunctional / StableEmerging DriftAdvanced DriftCatastrophicNeurologicalNormal sleep, no painDisrupted sleep, headachesChronic pain, sensory changes, irritabilityCoordination loss, emergent addictionMoral-ExistentialPurpose-driven, alignedFrustration, subtle withdrawalResentment, self-concealmentValue collapse, suicidal ideationRelational-SocietalStrong unit/family tiesWithdrawing from friendsFamily strain, legal conflictsIsolation, divorce, estrangementInteroceptiveStable energy, metabolic balanceFatigue, minor weight changesChronic fatigue, inflammatory conditionsSystemic illness, collapseCognitive-FunctionalSharp, adaptiveMemory gaps, decision fatigueExecutive dysfunction, errorsTask failure, operational removalIdentityCoherent, mission-drivenIncreased masking, detachment“Going quiet,” fractured selfTotal identity collapse, suicide

Table 1. Domains of drift.

Of note, drift in one domain heightens vulnerability in others, creating a powerful negative feedback loop. Core assertions include:

1. Drift is recursive, progressive, and syndromic.
2. Drift is reversible, if caught early.
3. Failure to intervene is institutional neglect.
4. Operators rarely drift alone or without witnesses.
5. Systems induce or permit the conditions.

Usefulness, Testability, and Contribution to Knowledge

Usefulness. Survivability Drift Theory scaffolds the framework for symptom quantification, targeted precision medicine, survivability interventions, and informs doctrinal reform. It does this specifically by naming and structuring survivability erosion patterns seen in SOF populations and providing diagnostic and operational vocabulary for recognizing and interrupting these trajectories.

Testability. We are testing SDT through instrument analyses and planned comparisons to physiological and biomarker data in follow-on studies. Psychometric testing of the Froede-Larkin Assessment of Repetitive Exposures in SOF scale (FLARES; developed by authors KR and JMB, with Operators, to capture subtle drift) shows promising operational utility and initial theory confirmation. (See Note 44). It is a stable 36-item scale designed to quantify subclinical drift for clinicians and commanders across domains. Criteria embedded in Combat-Related Overpressure Wave Neurotrauma and Sequelae (CROWNS), also developed with Operator input, formally classifies drift as a syndrome and generates from FLARES outputs and SDT domains (explained further in adjacent manuscripts). (See Note 42).

Given that Operators are historically opposite to malingerers (e.g., SOF are far more likely to conceal injuries or deny suffering than disclose), FLARES incorporates statistical design to detect masking and downplay of symptoms and is structured for recurrent and modular use across SOF operational timelines, to feed into a digital command dashboard for aggregate readiness and force strength estimations. (See Notes 1, 42, 44).

Contribution. This theory reframes suicide and attrition as syndromic versus surprising, and bridges clinical, operational, and doctrinal silos. To our knowledge, this is the first Operator-centered theoretical framework to address SOF-specific exposure outcomes, while providing actionable metrics for command and leadership via an integrated survivability model to inform screening, intervention, and accountability systems.

Correcting Operator Drift—Steer into the Slide, Control the Drift Angle

In the tactical driving frame, the brain functions as the engine control system—governing not only cognitive steering, but physiological traction and relational stability. Survivability is the whole drive system: body, relationships, cognition, identity—all connected. When drift sets in, it is analogous to throwing the vehicle into a slide on black ice. Skill helps, but if you miss the early signals, recovery gets exponentially harder. Likewise, functional degradation via repeated blast exposures, moral injury, and/or accumulated physiological stress is like progressive loss of traction: the Operator still moves, but is increasingly off-line, harder to stabilize, and burning out unseen systems, regardless of their resilience.

Tactical Driving DriftSDT Survivability DriftVehicle drifts off intended pathOperator drifts off survivability domain trajectorySmall uncorrected inputs accumulateSubclinical domain erosion accumulatesLateral forces magnify if unaddressedDomain interactions amplify degradationDelayed correction = harder recoveryLate intervention = harder to reverse driftSkilled drivers detect early and adjustSurveillance detects early drift, enables reversal

 Table 2. Survivability drift compared to tactical driving.

Survivability drift is not a failure of the driver—it is the product of when too many internal systems redline or misfire under unchecked demand and persistent load. Just as a skilled driver cannot override a failing traction system forever, even elite Operators will crash out without deliberate upstream monitoring and adjustment of system integrity.

Figure 3. Visual model of mitigated drift: Targeted surveillance of domains → exposures and drifting captured → multi-disciplinary interventions launched → reassessment →  restoration of function (e.g., family, health, leadership ability, force strength, financial, social reengagement).

Looking to the Future of SOF Cognitive Resilience

We grounded Survivability Drift Theory in SOF realities and experiences for institutional application. It reshapes SOF survivability as an upstream and measurable trajectory rather than a regrettable departure or postmortem summary. By offering quantification and up-front detection, the SDT framework holds potential to reduce operator suicides and reorient force health protection while providing actionable clinical intelligence for command intervention. Future steps include multinational FLARES testing, implementation, and refinement; diagnostic criteria and disease classification for CROWNS; and doctrinal integration across SOCOM (e.g., Preservation of the Force and Family [POTFF]) and NATO-aligned medical and readiness system. (See Notes 1, 44). We know blast trauma progresses as Operators’ brains and bodies age, and suicides continue to plague the SOF community. This is important now more than ever, not only impacting the families of those involved, but also reducing a critical, outsized capability necessary to achieve U.S. national security interests against both state and non-state adversaries.

Notes:

(1) Rocklein, K., Paun, O., Hamilton, R., Shattell, M., Held, P., Chandler, G., & Viola, S. (2025). No Sky Too High, No Sea Too Rough: Qualitative Investigation of Resilience and Suicide in Special Operations Forces Service Members. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 63(5), 26-38.

(2) Government Accountability Office. (2023, April 27). Special operations forces: Actions needed to assess performance of the Preservation of the Force and Family Program (GAO-23-105644). https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105644.pdf

(3) Rocklein Kemplin, K., Paun, O., Godbee, D., Brandon, J. (2019). Resilience and suicide in Special Operations Forces: State of the science via integrative review. The Journal of Special Operations Medicine, 19(2), 57-66.

(4) Starr, B. (2019a, February 2). US Special Ops suicides triple in 2018, as military confronts the issue. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/02/politics/socom-military-suicide-spike-2018/index.html

(5) Starr, B. (2019b, September 26). Military Suicides Continue to Rise. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/26/politics/military-suicides-rise/index.html

(6) Altman, H. (2017, May 13). Altman column: Suicide rate for commandos continues to decline. Tampa Bay Times. https://www.tampabay.com/news/military/macdill/altman-column-suicide-rate-for-commandos-continues-to-decline/2323420/

(7) Zoroya, G. (2013, 9 July). Special forces’ marriages on shaky ground, survey shows. USA TODAY. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/09/marriages-military-families-elite-troops-stress/2432243

(8) Moceri-Brooks, J., Garand, L., Sekula, L. K., & Joiner, T. E. (2024a). Exploring the use of the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire to examine suicidal thoughts and behaviors among Post-9/11 US Combat Veterans: An integrative review. Military Psychology, 36(3), 340-352.

(9) Moceri-Brooks, J., Garand, L., Sekula, L. K., Zoucha, R., & Joiner, T. (2024b). The Purple Heart and suicide risk in Post-9/11 US Army Combat Veterans with a traumatic brain injury: A mixed methods study. Military Psychology, 36(4), 443-455.

(10) Horn, B. (2002). A self-evident truth: Special Operations Forces and intelligence in asymmetric warfare. The Army Doctrine and Training Bulletin, 5(4), 20-20.

(11) Horn, B. (2003). Complexity squared: Operating in the future battlespace. Canadian Military Journal, 4(3), 8.

(12) Horn, B. (2004a). Bastard sons: An examination of Canada’s airborne forces, 1942-1995. National Library of Canada/Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, Ottawa.

(13) Horn, B. (2004b). Special men, special missions: The utility of special operations forces–a summation. 

Force of Choice: Perspectives on Special Operations. McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP.(is duplicate number 12 above but didn’t want to mess up the numbering!)

(14) Horn, B., & Colonel, C. A. (2004). When cultures collide: The conventional military/SOF chasm. Canadian Military Journal, 5(3), 3-16.

(15) Last, D., & Horn, B. (Eds.). (2005). Choice of force: Special operations for Canada (Vol. 2). McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP.

(16) Horn, B. (2005). The Dark Side to Elites: Elitism as a catalyst for disobedience. Canadian Army Journal, 8(4), 65-79.

(17) Horn, B. (Ed.). (2006). The Canadian way of war: serving the national interest. Dundurn.

(18) Horn, B., & Balasevicius, T. (Eds.). (2007). Casting light on the shadows: Canadian perspectives on special operations forces. Dundurn.

(19) Horn, B. (2007). “Love ‘em or Hate ‘em”: Learning to Live with Elites. Canadian Military Journal, 8(4), 2007-2008.

(20) Horn, B. (2010). No Lack of Courage: Operation Medusa, Afghanistan. Dundurn.

(21) Day, D. M., & Horn, B. (2010). Canadian special operations command: the maturation of a national capability. Government of Canada: Ottawa, Ontario.

(22) Horn, B. (2011). From Cold War to New Millennium: The History of The Royal Canadian Regiment, 1953–2008. Dundurn.

(23) Horn, B., & Spencer, E. (Eds.). (2012). No Easy Task: Fighting in Afghanistan. Dundurn.

(24) Horn, B. (2014). A reflection on leadership: A comparative analysis of military and civilian approaches. Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 15(3).

(25) Horn, B. (2014). The strategic utility of special operations forces. Canadian Military Journal, 14(4), 66-70.

(26) Horn, B., & Bentley, B. (2015). Forced to change: Crisis and reform in the Canadian Armed Forces.

(27) Horn, B. (2016). No Ordinary Men: Special Operations Forces Missions in Afghanistan.

(28) Horn, B. (2016). Shadow Warriors/Les Guerriers de l’Ombre: The Canadian Special Operations Forces Command/Le Commandement des Forces d’Opérations Spéciales du Canada.

(29) Horn, B. (2016). A Most Ungentlemanly Way of War: The SOE and the Canadian Connection.

(30) Horn, B. (2017). The evolution of SOF and the rise of SOF Power 1. In Special Operations Forces in the 21st Century (pp. 15-27). Routledge.

(31) Horn, B. (2018). Nous trouverons un moyen: histoire des forces d’opérations spéciales du Canada.. Dundurn.

(32) Larkin, F.J. (2013). Vice Director Frank Larkin delivers remarks on “The Future of Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). The Institute for Defense and Government Advancement (IDGA) Conference.Washington, DC.

(33) Larkin, F.J. in Starks, T. (2017). Who’s next to lead the FBI, and the cybersecurity ramifications. https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-cybersecurity/2017/05/whos-next-to-lead-the-fbi-and-the-cybersecurity-ramifications-220257

(34) Larkin, F.J., in Lesniewski, N. (2018, Feb 26). Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Frank Larkin to Retire. Roll Call. https://rollcall.com/2018/02/26/senate-sergeant-at-arms-frank-larkin-to-retire/

(35) Larkin, F.J., in Derrick Van Orden Introduces Warrior Call Day Resolution, Co-Chairs Military Mental Health Task Force (2023a). Federal Information & News Dispatch, LLC.

(36) Larkin, F.J., in Van Orden’s Warrior Call Resolution Passes House (2023b). Federal Information & News Dispatch, LLC.

(37) Larkin, F.J., in Warren leads senate hearing to urge department of defense to better protect service members from weapon blasts (2024). Washington, DC: Federal Information & News Dispatch, LLC.

(38) Larkin, F.J., Rocklein, K.J., Moceri-Brooks, J. (2024, Mar 9). Expert testimony on traumatic brain injury and blast exposure care strategy: Hearing before the United States Senate Armed Services Committee, 118th Congress. https://t.ly/GLzuK

(39) Rocklein, K.J., Larkin, F.J., Moceri-Brooks, J. Military Suicide and Traumatic Brain Injury: Analysis & Recommendations for 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Submitted by request to the United States Senate Armed Services Committee, 31 Jan 2024.

(40) Rocklein, K.J., Larkin, F.J., Moceri-Brooks, J. Critical Review of the Warfighter Brain Health Initiative (WBHI) and Longitudinal Medical Study on Blast Pressure Exposure of Members of the Armed Forces. Submitted by request to the United States Senate Armed Services Committee, 1 Mar 2024.

(41) Rocklein, K.J., Larkin, F.J., Moceri-Brooks, J., with Warren, E., and Ernst, J. Blast Overpressure Safety Act, S. 4109 and H.R. 8025, 118th Congress. (2024, April 14). https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr8025/text

(42) Rocklein, K., Cook, D.J., Moceri-Brooks, J., Ditzel, R.D. (2025, May). Early detection of neurodegeneration and suicidality in Special Operations Forces: Future-phase epigenetic applications and initial validation of the FLARES-1 scale. Podium presentation, Special Operations Medical Association Scientific Assembly, Raleigh, USA.

(43) Rocklein, K. & Moceri-Brooks, J. (2025, May). Critical analysis of the Warfighter Brain Health Initiative and Longitudinal Blast Overpressure Study: Implications for future research and treatment of blast-exposed Special Operations personnel. Podium presentation, Special Operations Medical Association Scientific Assembly, Raleigh, USA.

(44) Rocklein, K. (2025, April). Combat-Related Overpressure Wave Neurotrauma and Sequelae: Strategic Implementation of the Blast Overpressure Ottawa Model for Rapid Harmonization of Multinational Efforts. Invited Speaker, NATO Science and Technology Symposium, Toronto, Canada.

(45) Ho, T., Rocklein Kemplin, K., Brandon, J. (2019). Testicular cancer in an American Special Forces soldier: A case report. The Journal of Special Operations Medicine, 19(1), 38-42.

(46) Rocklein Kemplin, K., Paun, O., Sons, N., & Brandon, J. (2018). The Myth of Hyper Resilience: Evolutionary Concept Analysis of Resilience in Special Operations Forces. The Journal of Special Operations Medicine, 18(1),54-60.

(47) Rocklein Kemplin, K., & Bowling, F.Y. (2017). Liberating the Oppressed: Research Knowledge Differentials and Ethical Investigation in Special Operations Clinical Science. The Journal of Special Operations Medicine, 17(1),7-11.

(48) Rocklein Kemplin, K., & Bowling, F.Y. (2017). Foreign Language Short Course: Special Operations Clinical Research Fundamentals. The Journal of Special Operations Medicine, 17(2),12-15.

(49) Rocklein, K. (2014). A Call for Innovation: Reflective Practices and Clinical Curricula of US Army Special Operations Forces Medics. The Journal of Special Operations Medicine, 14(4), 70-80.

(50) Rocklein Froede, K. (2011). Unconventional Medicine: The Genesis of Tactical Emergency Medicine and Indications for Special Operations Knowledge Exchange. Special Weapons and Tactics, 2011, 6-9.

(51) Rocklein Froede, K. (2011). Soldiers Can Take It: A Conceptual Analysis of Trauma. The Journal of Special Operations Medicine, 11(1), 18-22.

(52) Rocklein Froede, K. (2011). No shit, there I was: The Case for Narrative-Based Clinical Knowledge. The Journal of Special Operations Medicine, 11(4), 21-26.

(53 Meleis, A. I., Sawyer, L. M., Im, E. O., Messias, D. K. H., & Schumacher, K. (2000). Experiencing transitions: an emerging middle-range theory. Advances in Nursing Science, 23(1), 12-28.

(54) Meleis, A. I. (2010). Transitions theory: Middle range and situation specific theories in nursing research and practice. Springer Publishing.

(55) Im, E. O. (2014). Situation-specific theories from the middle-range transitions theory. Advances in Nursing Science, 37(1), 19-31.

(56) Peterson, S., & Bredow, T. S. (2019). Middle range theories: Application to nursing research and practice. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

(57) Im, E. O., & Meleis, A. I. (2021). Situation-specific theories: philosophical roots, properties, and approach. In Situation specific theories: development, utilization, and evaluation in nursing (pp. 13-27). Springer International Publishing.

(58) Rodgers, B. L. (1989). Concepts, analysis and the development of nursing knowledge: the evolutionary cycle. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 14(4), 330-335.

Tags: blast overpressure, brain, Medicine, Mental Health, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), SOF, Special Operations Forces, survivability, TBI

About The Authors

• 
  
• Kate Rocklein, PhD, DNP, RN
• Dr. Kate Rocklein is tenured associate professor at Queen’s University and a Jonas Foundation Veterans Health Scholar, serving since 2010 as subject-matter expert on military neurotrauma and combat survivability in Special Operations Forces (SOF). Dr. Rocklein has co-architected seminal legislative and presidential executive orders addressing combat trauma and military suicide, such as the Blast Overpressure Safety Act passed into the 2025 NDAA. Dr. Rocklein’s work since 2017 aims to advance NATO-aligned survivability initiatives for SOF and special mission personnel. Dr. Rocklein the granddaughter of a US Navy frogman, sister to a USASOC veteran, and former wife of SFC Michael Froede (JSOC/IC), who died by suicide in 2019.
• [Conflicts: KR is an unpaid advisory member to the Harvard/MGH/USSOCOM ReBLAST precision research initiative and holds intellectual property copyrights to the theory, scale, syndrome, and framework(s) herein.]
• View all posts
• 
  
• COL (Ret.) Bernd Horn, PhD
• Colonel (Retired) Bernd Horn, PhD, is former Deputy Commander of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM), Commanding Officer of 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, and Officer Commanding 3 Commando, the Canadian Airborne Regiment. Dr. Horn then served as the CANSOFCOM Command Historian and is currently an adjunct professor at the Royal Military College of Canada. A renown military scholar and doctrinal expert, Dr. Horn has published over 50 books and innumerable monographs, chapters, and articles on multinational SOF and leadership.
• View all posts
• 
  
• Frank Larkin, MSc
• Mr. Frank Larkin is a former Navy SEAL, retired US Secret Service Special Agent, and immediate past US Senate Sergeant-at-Arms, who has significantly advanced cross-sector efforts to reform neurotrauma detection and survivability across military and VA systems. Since the 2017 loss of his son, US Navy SEAL SO1 Ryan Larkin, Mr. Larkin has become a national leader in advocating for preventing suicide in SOF, and advances in treating neurotrauma from overpressure exposures. Mr. Larkin co-architected the Blast Overpressure Safety Act passed into the 2025 NDAA and has been instrumental in catalyzing congressional action toward blast exposures as a systemic threat to SOF survivability.
• View all posts
• 
  
• Jayna Moceri-Brooks, PhD, RN
• Dr. Jayna Moceri-Brooks is Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU specializing in military suicide prevention and traumatic brain injury (TBI) research. Dr. Moceri-Brooks has advised and advanced federal legislation on blast neurotrauma since 2009, finding in recent groundbreaking research that awarding the Purple Heart, an inexpensive non-clinical intervention, significantly reduces suicide risk among service members with combat-related TBI. As co-architect of the Blast Overpressure Safety Act passed into the 2025 NDAA, Dr. Moceri-Brooks' influential scholarship is further evident in advanced and emerging understanding of combat injuries and military mental health care.

6. Trump Says Ukraine Has No Chance of Winning War Without Striking Russia

Excerpts:

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country,” he wrote. “It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia.”

Trump then blamed former President Joe Biden for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on his watch, and for at times not allowing Ukraine to use U.S. arms to strike within Russian territory. “Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND,” Trump claimed.

Trump Says Ukraine Has No Chance of Winning War Without Striking Russia

White House describes president’s social-media post as ‘an observation’

https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-truth-social-ukraine-russia-a545b8a3

By Alexander Ward

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Updated Aug. 21, 2025 2:13 pm ET

Firefighters at the site of a missile strike in western Ukraine on Thursday. Photo: roman baluk/Reuters

Quick Summary

• President Trump stated Ukraine needs to continue attacks on Russia to win the war, after recently hosting peace summits.View more

President Trump said Thursday that Ukraine would have to continue attacks on Russia to have any hope of winning the war, days after hosting two summits designed to end the conflict.

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country,” he wrote. “It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia.”

Trump then blamed former President Joe Biden for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on his watch, and for at times not allowing Ukraine to use U.S. arms to strike within Russian territory. “Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND,” Trump claimed.

The Biden administration authorized Ukraine to launch American missiles at Russian targets, but transferred weapons with progressively longer ranges after months of worrying that direct attacks could prompt Moscow to escalate its invasion.

Trump also posted two images: one of him pointing at Russian President Vladimir Putin atop another of former President Richard Nixon poking his finger into the chest of then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

It’s unclear what Trump meant in his Truth Social posts. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “the president is making an observation, which happens to be true.”

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was one of Russia’s largest bombardments of the war and a sign Moscow isn’t interested in ending its invasion. Photo: Roman Baluk/Reuters

As president-elect, Trump said it was “stupid” of Biden to allow Ukraine to attack inside Russia without first consulting Trump. “I think it was a big mistake.” And in a December interview with Time Magazine, Trump torched the idea entirely.

“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse,” he said.

There have been past conversations over whether Trump might lift restrictions on Ukraine’s usage of U.S. weapons to attack inside Russia, or provide Kyiv with a new capability. However, a senior U.S. defense official said there has been no discussion about sending Ukraine Tomahawk missiles, a weapon long on Kyiv’s wish list.

Trump may be trying to heap pressure on Putin, who has shown no signs of seeking to end the war he started. Trump threatened before the Alaska summit to impose new sanctions on Moscow and its trading partners. Higher U.S. tariffs on India, a major buyer of Russian oil, are due to go into effect next week.

After meeting with Putin last week, Trump said the Russian committed to an imminent one-on-one meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for direct peace talks. But in recent days senior Russian officials have balked at the idea, saying many lower-level discussions and agreements must come first.

Russia has continued to launch deadly attacks on Ukraine, including during Zelensky’s Monday summit with Trump in Washington. On Thursday, a Russian missile struck an American electronics factory in western Ukraine.

Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com

7. Tanks, Tech, and Tungsten: The Strategic Mineral Alliance the West Needs

Conclusion:

Focusing on strategic and security implications by prioritizing U.S.-E.U. cooperation on defense-related critical minerals could provide impetus for both sides to retool the Minerals Security Partnership, resolve trade differences, or broker minerals agreements. Doing so could allow the two economies to erect trade guardrails to protect their nascent mineral-technology industries, bolster current efforts already underway, and streamline policy implementation by leveraging lessons learned. Europe has shown its determination to continue economic, humanitarian, and military support for Ukraine and strengthen its own defense capabilities. More self-reliant and militarily capable European allies would not only contribute to trans-Atlantic security but also support U.S. efforts to secure critical minerals and preserve industrial capacity to support its strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific — it’s an opportunity to thread the needle on securing supply and supplying security.

Tanks, Tech, and Tungsten: The Strategic Mineral Alliance the West Needs - War on the Rocks

Fabian E. Villalobos, Khrystyna Holynska, and Peter Handley

August 21, 2025

warontherocks.com · August 21, 2025

What good is a tank if you can’t get the metals to build it?

This week’s meeting between U.S., Ukrainian, and European leaders showed potential progress towards security cooperation. And while the new U.S.-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund agreement marks an important step toward increasing the resilience of both U.S. and European supply chains, there is more work to be done. Building on this momentum, the United States and the European Union should seek closer critical minerals supply chain cooperation.

There are several opportunities for the two economies to work together by focusing on defense and security — rather than the economic and clean energy framing of the past. Tighter cooperation could strengthen the E.U. defense-industrial base, enhance military readiness, and strengthen NATO’s deterrence posture while enabling the United States to secure critical minerals, preserve manufacturing capacity, and redirect precious resources to the Indo-Pacific. Supply chain cooperation would also help both sides reduce dependence on China, which dominates the critical minerals market by creating oversupply and using export restrictions. Indeed, the China challenge requires the United States and Europe to work together.

The cooperation mechanisms we highlight — trade guardrails, bolstering industrial base efforts, and leveraging lessons learned — are novel and could be included within existing frameworks, a broader U.S.-E.U. minerals deal, or as individual agreements.

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Europe Sharpens Its Defense-Industrial Priorities

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has helped to catalyze Europe’s shift from mere discussions about defense capacity-building to concrete action beyond NATO’s new spending pledge. Defense and security are central issues for the 2024–2029 political cycle in Europe. The European Union has prioritized boosting defense production in key policy documents and regulatory proposals, including the 2023 European Defence Industry Reinforcement Through Common Procurement Act. The act’s €300 million ($350 million) seed funding has already unlocked over €11 billion ($12.8 billion) in joint procurement. This funding is rapidly replenishing ammunition and modernizing key platforms such as armored vehicles and tanks.

Meanwhile, the European Defence Fund supports research projects with participants from multiple countries and strengthens interoperability. The proposed European Defence Industry Programme promises a further €1.5 billion ($1.75 billion) to shore up industrial resilience and secure a steady supply of goods and services so E.U. members can meet their defense-related commitments. The recent activation of the Stability and Growth Pact’s escape clause by at least 15 members provides flexibility to dedicate up to 1.5 percent more of their GDP to defense investments over the next four years.

Further still, the 2024 Draghi report on European competitiveness and the Niinistö report on strengthening Europe’s Civilian and Military Preparedness and Readiness laid the groundwork for future action to support the European defense industrial base.

In March 2025, the European Union set out a strategic vision for strengthening its defense capabilities in its White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030 and the ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030 financing scheme. The latter dedicates €800 billion ($933 billion) in defense spending by allowing E.U. countries to increase their budgets, launches a €150 billion ($175 billion) loan instrument, and expands European Investment Bank lending for defense projects.

To achieve this vision, the European Union must secure the critical minerals — like cobalt, rare earth elements, and gallium — needed for military applications and dual-use technologies. This includes lithium-ion batteries, for which demand will only increase “exponentially” in the future, as noted in the 2024 European Critical Raw Minerals Act.

This first European Union-wide regulation dealing with critical minerals aims to reduce the bloc’s dependence on foreign sources with outsized market power (i.e., China), build resilience, and secure the materials needed for clean energy, digital, and defense technologies. Beyond a strong push to use more European resources through mining, refining, and recycling, there is an effort to diversify imports through bilateral (14 in place so far) and multilateral mechanisms like the International Energy Agency, the G7, and the Minerals Security Partnership.

Shared Goals but Slow Progress

European defense capacity-building is a shared goal of the United States and the European Union, and securing important supply chains and maintaining access to critical resources, including critical minerals, should be central to this effort. Cooperation on critical minerals should reflect the reality that the U.S. and European supply chains are already tightly integrated across many parts of the trans-Atlantic defense-industrial base. The 2022 Minerals Security Partnership laid the groundwork for cooperation through matching mining projects with capital. And the European Union tried to advance bilateral cooperation in 2023 and 2024 by negotiating a Critical Mineral Agreement with the United States. While these efforts focused primarily on critical minerals for energy and digital technologies that address climate change and promote economic growth, critical minerals for defense and aerospace applications have now become as important. Addressing this demand requires rethinking how this cooperation can be shaped, especially in light of restructured Inflation Reduction Act tax incentives.

Progress is complicated by the unpredictability and inconsistency of current U.S. trade policy. Despite ongoing communication and regular engagement, the structure and scope of potential U.S.-E.U. cooperation remain unclear. The future of international cooperation mechanisms like the Mineral Security Partnership and Trade and Technology Council also remain in doubt pending the Senate confirmation of senior administration officials and the Section 232 investigation into critical minerals. Whether through the Minerals Security Partnership, trade talks, or mineral agreements, shifting towards a defense and security cooperation framework could be the answer to slow progress.

New Opportunities for Defense-Industrial Base and Supply Chain Cooperation

While U.S. trade policy poses challenges to U.S.-E.U. relations across various sectors, including critical minerals, it can also create opportunities for collaboration. Current U.S. policy could potentially serve as a springboard for strategic mineral talks including joint initiatives and minerals agreements centered on defense and security. One priority area could include developing coordinated guardrails to protect U.S. and European firms up and down the mineral-technology value chain. This would help address China’s unfair market practices. This system of guard rails could include a sectoral trade agreement on a select commodity group, mineral-swap agreements to sell stockpiled commodities to one another in the future, and supply chain intelligence sharing. Joint stockpiling of critical minerals could build off existing Nordic initiatives, which could secure minerals from European mines for U.S. stocks and could further support European efforts to boost domestic extraction and processing capabilities.

The United States can bolster current E.U. efforts. For example, the bloc has already begun implementing the Critical Raw Mineral Act. In March 2025, the European Commission selected 47 strategic domestic projects, including initiatives focused on magnesium and tungsten. In June, it selected another 13 strategic projects outside the European Union, including in Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Brussels and Washington can work together to reduce risk of these projects and the United States has expressed a willingness to do so: At the July 2025 Ukraine Recovery Conference, the U.S. Development Finance Corporation announced it would welcome co-investment by the European Investment Bank in the new U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund.

The United States and the European Union can also learn from each other to develop new capabilities to secure supply chains. The European Union recently launched an Energy and Raw Materials Platform to pool demand for energy and minerals that includes a matchmaking mechanism between suppliers and consumers. The platform’s hydrogen matchmaking mechanism is already running and its raw materials one will soon follow. By the end of 2026, in line with the Draghi report, the European Union will set up a Critical Raw Material Centre to jointly purchase raw materials for interested companies and in cooperation with individual member states. Other areas of potential U.S.-E.U. cooperation might include coordinating strategic stockpiles, supply chain monitoring, and designing financial products to invest in upstream supply. If done with sufficient ambition and financial power, the Critical Raw Material Centre could resemble the European equivalent of the Japan Organization for Metal and Energy Security, which has effectively managed Japan’s mineral supply chain risks. The European Union’s efforts to adapt institutions to the industrial challenges posed by China’s exports can serve as lessons learned and leveraged by the United States to address its techno-economic competition with China.

Conclusion

Focusing on strategic and security implications by prioritizing U.S.-E.U. cooperation on defense-related critical minerals could provide impetus for both sides to retool the Minerals Security Partnership, resolve trade differences, or broker minerals agreements. Doing so could allow the two economies to erect trade guardrails to protect their nascent mineral-technology industries, bolster current efforts already underway, and streamline policy implementation by leveraging lessons learned. Europe has shown its determination to continue economic, humanitarian, and military support for Ukraine and strengthen its own defense capabilities. More self-reliant and militarily capable European allies would not only contribute to trans-Atlantic security but also support U.S. efforts to secure critical minerals and preserve industrial capacity to support its strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific — it’s an opportunity to thread the needle on securing supply and supplying security.

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Fabian E. Villalobos is a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation and professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy whose research focuses on the intersection of technology, economics, and geopolitics. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Khrystyna Holynska is a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation whose research focuses on international security and strategic competition.

Peter Handley is a strategic advisor with the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a senior fellow with the European Initiative for Energy Security. You can follow him on LinkedIn.

Image: Midjourney

warontherocks.com · August 21, 2025

8. ARCYBER chief's advice to industry: Make interoperable tech and start at the edge

ARCYBER chief's advice to industry: Make interoperable tech and start at the edge - Breaking Defense

"The biggest opportunities that I see are from a modularity and platform independence standpoint," Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, the commanding general of Army Cyber Command, said.

breakingdefense.com · Carley Welch · August 20, 2025

TECHNET AUGUSTA 2025 — As the Army embarks on its modernization journey in line with the service’s recent transformation initiative, its cyber leader made clear that the service is seeking interoperable, off-the-shelf capabilities from industry to replace more bespoke, rigid offerings.

“The biggest opportunities that I see are from a modularity and platform independence standpoint. I think our approach is to use shared frameworks and APIs [application programming interfaces] in order to have cyber and EW [electronic warfare] effects be able to talk to each other,” Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, the commanding general of Army Cyber Command, said Tuesday during a fireside chat here in Augusta.

Army leaders have said that such interoperable capabilities will be vital in working with its sprawling Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) initiative — the service’s plan to combine intelligence, C2 and fires all in one system so commanders can have information more readily available.

“If you’re a commander on the battlefield, I think that just means, you know, bottom line, it’s tactical flexibility. It’s the ability to take an effect and put it against any platform,” Barrett said. “If you’re able to do that, you’re able to really buy down some of the training that you might have to do because you’re able to reuse these effects and just plug them onto the platform according to the target that you want to prosecute.”

Another benefit to buying interoperable capabilities, she said, is that it will over time help decrease the Pentagon’s mounting technical debt, something the department has grappled with for some time.

“If you nail this modularity piece really well, as you continue with that experimentation, and you learn things and you modify what you’re doing, you’re going to be able to future-proof whatever it is that you’re doing because of this aspect,” Barrett said. “You’re not going to be stuck with some sort of engineering tech debt that you have that has to be completely redone.”

Barrett added that while the Army is looking for interoperable platforms and capabilities, industry needs to ensure that such tools are engineered in a way that they are first and foremost operable at the tactical edge, particularly in denied, degraded, intermittent and limited (DDIL) environments.

“You need to make sure that this can work at the edge and then come back. Don’t try to take an enterprise solution and then really try to do cheetah flips to make it work at the edge. It just, it just really isn’t a good approach,” Barrett said. “I would say start with designing for that contestation when you’re building it. That really is key.”

“DDIL has to be planned for,” she added. “You train like you fight. So every experimentation, every CTC [combat training center] rotation, every warfighter, we need to be inserting real world scenarios.”

breakingdefense.com · Carley Welch · August 20, 2025

9. NATO defense chiefs to hold meeting on security guarantees for Ukraine

NATO defense chiefs to hold meeting on security guarantees for Ukraine

Defense News · Sam Mcneil · August 20, 2025

BRUSSELS — NATO defense chiefs were due to hold a virtual meeting Wednesday, a senior alliance official said, as Western countries pushing for an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine devise possible future security guarantees for Kyiv that could help forge a peace agreement.

Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, the chair of NATO’s Military Committee, said that 32 defense chiefs from across the alliance would hold a video conference amid a U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the fighting.

U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, will take part in the talks, Dragone said on social platform X. U.S. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also set to participate, a U.S. defense official said.

Caine also met with European military chiefs Tuesday evening in Washington to assess the best military options for political leaders, according to the defense official, who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chided efforts to work on security arrangements in Ukraine without Moscow’s involvement.

“We cannot agree with the fact that it is now proposed to resolve collective security issues without the Russian Federation. This will not work,” Lavrov said Wednesday, according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

Russia will “ensure (its) legitimate interests firmly and harshly,” Lavrov added at a news conference in Moscow with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi.

Defense chiefs work on details of a Ukraine security force

U.S. President Donald Trump met last Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and on Monday hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and prominent European leaders at the White House. Neither meeting delivered concrete progress.

Trump is trying to steer Putin and Zelenskyy toward a settlement more than three years after Russia invaded its neighbor, but there are major obstacles. They include Ukraine’s demands for Western-backed military assurances to ensure Russia won’t mount another invasion in the coming years.

“We need strong security guarantees to ensure a truly secure and lasting peace,” Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post Wednesday after Russian missile and drone strikes hit six regions of Ukraine overnight.

Kyiv’s European allies are looking to set up a force that could backstop any peace agreement, and a coalition of 30 countries, including European nations, Japan and Australia, has signed up to support the initiative.

Military chiefs are figuring out how that security force might work. The role that the U.S. might play is unclear. Trump on Tuesday ruled out sending U.S. troops to help defend Ukraine against Russia.

RELATED

After meetings on Russia-Ukraine war, major obstacles to peace remain

There was little concrete progress Monday on the obstacles to ending the war — a deadlock that likely favors Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has repeatedly said that it would not accept NATO troops in Ukraine.

Attacks on civilian areas in Sumy and Odesa overnight into Wednesday injured 15 people, including a family with three small children, Ukrainian authorities said. Russian strikes also targeted ports and fuel and energy infrastructure, officials said.

Zelenskyy said the strikes “only confirm the need for pressure on Moscow, the need to introduce new sanctions and tariffs until diplomacy works to its full potential.”

Switzerland could host a Putin-Zelenskyy summit

Trump said Monday he has begun arrangements for a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, although the Kremlin hasn’t publicly confirmed such a possibility and no venue was suggested.

Lavrov, in his Moscow press conference, said Russia is prepared to continue negotiations with Ukraine in any format.

He said Putin proposed to Trump raising the level of representation in delegations that recently took part in largely fruitless direct talks in Istanbul. He added that “a separate block (of talks) should be devoted to examining the political aspects of the settlement, along with the military and humanitarian ones.”

Ukraine and Western leaders have accused Putin of dragging out peace negotiations in the hope of capturing more land before any settlement.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said the summit could happen in Europe and proposed the Swiss city of Geneva. Switzerland has expressed its willingness to act as host.

Putin’s ability to travel abroad is limited because he is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on a warrant dating back to March 2023 for alleged involvement in the abduction of Ukrainian children. More than 100 countries are ICC signatories and have a legal obligation to arrest the Russian leader on their soil.

Switzerland intends to ask the ICC to exempt it from sanctions in order to allow Putin in for a summit, according to a senior official in The Hague with direct knowledge of the request. The official was not authorized to speak about the proceedings and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Molly Quell contributed from The Hague and Mike Pesoli from Washington.

10. Preparing for the Silent Surge: Countering North Korea’s Gambit in a Dual Contingency

I concur with Dr. Kim. My focus (below) has been on IW in north Korea as a result of post regime collapse and post conflict scenarios for the most part though I strongly agree that we need to conduct an IW campaign plan for north Korea. But the bottom line is we are missing the boat on the IW threat in Korea (because we have to be consumed with the nuclear threat and the very likely large scale combat operations that will be conducted. But there are people and headquarters that could focus on this for the Alliance)

Developing an Irregular Warfare Campaign for North Korea

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/developing-an-irregular-warfare-campaign-for-north-korea/

Irregular Warfare on the Korean Peninsula (2010)

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_11-23_ch14.htm

A Modern National Security Decision Directive for Irregular Warfare: Guidance from President Reagan’s NSDD 32

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2024/11/26/a-modern-national-security-decision-directive/

A Psychological Operations Strategy for the Korean Peninsula from Lessons Learned in Ukraine

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/a-psychological-operations-strategy-for-the-korean-peninsula-from-lessons-learned-in-ukraine/

Resilience and Resistance: Interdisciplinary Lessons in Competition, Deterrence, and Irregular Warfare

https://jsou.edu/Press/PublicationDashboard/284

See this article (pages 411-430):

III. More than a Terror State: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a Misunderstood and Neglected Global Malign Actor that Requires an Innovative New Strategy

https://jsouapplicationstorage.blob.core.windows.net/press/551/2025_RR Book_FINAL.pdf

And of course we cannot focus solely on Korea (or solely on Taiwan). They are both/and not either/or.

America Must Stop Treating Taiwan and Korea as Separate Security Issues

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/04/america-must-stop-treating-taiwan-and-korea-as-separate-security-issues/

Optimizing U.S. and Allied Forces for Deterrence and Defense Throughout Indo-Pacom: From Korea to Australia and Everywhere in Between

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/24/us-allies-deterrence-indo-pacific/

Excerpts:

To mitigate this risk, U.S., Japanese, and Republic of Korea planners must transcend traditional combined arms paradigms and systematically integrate irregular warfare (IW) countermeasures across joint and multinational planning. This effort could begin with the establishment of a standing Trilateral Special Operations Coordination Cell, preferably co-located with U.S. forces in Okinawa or at Camp Humphreys, to facilitate intelligence fusion, flexible response options, and high-fidelity mission planning tailored to rear-area sabotage scenarios.

Second, the three allies should conduct recurring IW-focused command post and field exercises utilizing red teams modeled on North Korean SOF tactics. These exercises should simulate coordinated, multi-domain attacks on soft targets such as urban subway systems, water treatment plants, media broadcast centers, and hospital networks, integrating cyber-physical threats and information warfare effects.

Third, national-level civil-military resilience mechanisms must be elevated to strategic priority considering potential rear-area sabotage and covert attacks by North Korean special operations forces. In both Japan and South Korea, operators of critical infrastructure—especially in the energy, telecommunications, and transport sectors—must be integrated into national defense drills that simulate SOF-led attacks, cyber-physical disruption, and disinformation.

Preparing for the Silent Surge: Countering North Korea’s Gambit in a Dual Contingency

irregularwarfare.org · Ju Hyung Kim · August 21, 2025

Strategic planners across the Indo-Pacific must reckon with an increasingly plausible scenario: a dual contingency in which North Korea opportunistically launches a full-scale war against South Korea while China conducts military operations against Taiwan. Such a scenario, discussed in a recent Atlantic Council report, represents an acute test of U.S. extended deterrence and allied defense posture in the region.

Yet, an overlooked dimension of this potential conflict lies not in nuclear escalation—but in North Korea’s probable deployment of irregular warfare tactics against U.S., Japanese, and South Korean rear-area targets. While the Guardian Tiger simulations emphasized North Korea’s use of tactical nuclear weapons, it remains plausible—perhaps even preferable from Pyongyang’s perspective—to abstain from nuclear use in the opening stages of conflict. North Korea’s regime may remain deterred from nuclear escalation by the United States’ extended deterrence, reinforced by robust trilateral coordination with Japan and South Korea through mechanisms such as the Camp David Summit agreements and the Nuclear Consultative Group.

Meanwhile, nuclear use could undermine North Korea’s ideological narrative of Korean liberation from “U.S. imperialism” and alienate potential diplomatic supporters such as Russia or China. Instead, Kim Jong Un may seek to exploit the United States’ and its allies’ distraction by unleashing asymmetric capabilities—particularly North Korean special operations forces (SOF)—to sabotage critical infrastructure, disrupt command and control, and sow social and psychological disruption across both South Korea and Japan.

The Silent Threat: North Korean Special Forces in a Dual War Scenario

North Korea’s SOF—estimated at over 200,000 troops—are a formidable unconventional force. Their operational doctrine emphasizes stealth, rapid infiltration, and psychological effect over brute force. Their mission set is extensive: sabotage of civilian infrastructure, disruption of airbase and seaport operations, insertion into urban centers to spread panic, and targeted assassination or abduction of political and military leaders.

Even more concerning is the possibility of dual-front SOF operations, in which North Korean operatives strike not only the South Korean homeland but also critical U.S. and Japanese military installations across Japan, including those operated by U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ), in concert with Chinese aggression towards Taiwan. The United States and Japan jointly developed Concept Plan 5055—which later evolved into Operational Plan (OPLAN) 5055—to define bilateral response options in the event of a Korean contingency. That plan, as noted in a recent interview, explicitly considers the possibility of North Korean special operations forces infiltrating Japanese territory and targeting as many as 135 critical facilities.

North Korean planners are believed to envision two primary infiltration methods. First, operatives disguise themselves as North or South Korean refugees or civilians, potentially arriving in Japan amid the chaos of full-scale conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Second, forces make covert maritime landings using small fishing boats along the Japanese mainland to evade detection. The Japanese Coast Guard is better postured to interdict covert maritime infiltrations, but both scenarios present challenges for planners and defense forces.

North Korean special operations forces are also gaining valuable experience in realistic, modern scenarios. In late 2024, North Korea deployed thousands of military personnel to support Russia in its war against Ukraine. Special operations units such as the Storm Corps operated under Russian command and in Russian uniforms, integrated into Russian brigades, and have engaged in frontline combat during the Kursk offensive—receiving a crash course on modern hybrid warfare in real combat conditions, at the cost of thousands of lives.

Even if their role was limited, such experience—or even secondhand observation through liaison and embedded officers—may allow Pyongyang to absorb and adapt new tactics tested through years of conflict in Ukraine. These new tactics include the battlefield use of loitering munitions, mobile encrypted communications, GPS spoofing and jamming, and deep-cover infiltration strategies. The Ukraine conflict may thus serve as a live laboratory for North Korea’s future doctrine innovation and force modernization, especially for its special operations forces.

One could envision North Korea’s strategy as consisting of a two-pronged campaign: a high-tempo conventional invasion aimed at quickly seizing symbolic and strategic terrain north of the Han River, coupled with the simultaneous deployment of special operations forces to South Korea’s rear areas. The conventional thrust would aim to create military leverage near Seoul, while SOF units would create a second front that focuses on infiltration via subterranean tunnels, coastal infiltration using semi-submersible boats, or civilian disguises aboard commercial vessels. Their goals could include sabotaging critical infrastructure, paralyzing logistics, and sowing psychological disruption, maximizing chaos before a coordinated Republic of Korea-U.S. response could be fully mobilized.

Meanwhile, coordinated sabotage attacks on USFJ bases in Okinawa, Iwakuni, and Yokota could delay U.S. reinforcements, distract focus from other regional conflicts, and degrade command and control capacity. Such an approach seeks to create the perception of paralysis across allied rear areas, enabling North Korea to push for a rapid ceasefire and political settlement under a fait accompli framework before U.S. reinforcements arrive from the continental United States.

To be sure, South Korea would respond with layered, coordinated defense across multiple domains, limiting the long-term impact of North Korea’s two-pronged strategy. Nevertheless, the initial stages of such an assault would be deeply disruptive, especially in the information domain and civil infrastructure. The risks of public panic, strategic delay, and political pressure for ceasefire make this a serious and urgent threat that conventional force posture alone cannot deter.

A Trilateral Response: Integrating Irregular Warfare Countermeasures

To mitigate this risk, U.S., Japanese, and Republic of Korea planners must transcend traditional combined arms paradigms and systematically integrate irregular warfare (IW) countermeasures across joint and multinational planning. This effort could begin with the establishment of a standing Trilateral Special Operations Coordination Cell, preferably co-located with U.S. forces in Okinawa or at Camp Humphreys, to facilitate intelligence fusion, flexible response options, and high-fidelity mission planning tailored to rear-area sabotage scenarios.

Second, the three allies should conduct recurring IW-focused command post and field exercises utilizing red teams modeled on North Korean SOF tactics. These exercises should simulate coordinated, multi-domain attacks on soft targets such as urban subway systems, water treatment plants, media broadcast centers, and hospital networks, integrating cyber-physical threats and information warfare effects.

Third, national-level civil-military resilience mechanisms must be elevated to strategic priority considering potential rear-area sabotage and covert attacks by North Korean special operations forces. In both Japan and South Korea, operators of critical infrastructure—especially in the energy, telecommunications, and transport sectors—must be integrated into national defense drills that simulate SOF-led attacks, cyber-physical disruption, and disinformation.

Governments should establish public-private coordination frameworks to support rapid threat dissemination, infrastructure hardening, and continuity of operations—particularly in sectors like energy, telecommunications, and transportation where private operators play a critical role. Models such as Japan’s Basic Act on Cybersecurity, which mandates coordination between the National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity and key infrastructure companies, and South Korea’s Act on the Protection of Information and Communications Infrastructure, which provides the legal basis for incorporating private entities into cyber-physical resilience planning, offer valuable precedents.

At the municipal level, Japan’s Tokyo Metropolitan Government has conducted integrated disaster response and cybersecurity exercises with Tokyo Electric Power Company and NTT Group. In South Korea, while wartime-specific drills remain limited at the local level, city governments are increasingly engaged in public-private coordination for emergency communication and infrastructure resilience. Municipalities across both countries should build on these models to rehearse citizen alert protocols and emergency response, drawing on Cold War-era civil defense concepts while adapting them to the realities of modern hybrid threats.

This emphasis on resilience aligns with the argument advanced in Winning Without Fighting: Resilience as National Security Imperative, which proposes resilience as a fifth pillar of national power, alongside the traditional diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments. The authors contend that in an era defined by persistent geopolitical competition, climate disasters, pandemics, and technological shocks, the ability to endure and recover from crisis is as vital to national security as battlefield strength. In this view, resilience is not merely reactive but constitutes a form of strategic deterrence—enabling societies to withstand disinformation campaigns, infrastructure sabotage, and irregular warfare without collapsing under pressure while raising the costs of an aggressor’s actions. For frontline democracies like Japan and South Korea, institutionalizing resilience is no longer a luxury but a strategic imperative.

Fourth, to ensure operational readiness, the U.S. and its allies should consider adapting existing prepositioning and joint-use frameworks—such as APS-4 in Korea and Japan—to irregular warfare needs. This could include forward-deploying defense kits tailored for tactics associated with irregular warfare, including comprising swarm drone counters, electronic warfare gear, and SOF detection tools near critical infrastructure nodes. While not yet standard practice, such adaptations represent a logical extension of current force posture amid growing irregular threats.

Finally, given the psychological and disinformation dimension of irregular warfare, the three nations must develop a trilateral information operations strategy to inoculate civil society against fear and misinformation. This strategy should include a unified crisis communication framework, joint public service messaging capabilities, and contingency plans for countering fake news, deepfakes, or manipulated casualty reports disseminated by adversaries during the opening stages of conflict.

Building Irregular Resilience Before It’s Too Late

North Korea’s most dangerous asset may not be its nuclear arsenal, but its ability to wage irregular warfare in the shadows of a broader regional conflict. As China draws U.S. attention toward Taiwan, Pyongyang may calculate that a fast, asymmetric strike against Japan and South Korea could shift the strategic initiative. The consequences of failing to prepare for such a scenario would be dire: strategic delay, domestic confusion, and allied disunity.

Only a unified, integrated response by the United States, Japan, and South Korea—built around irregular warfare resilience and real-time operational coordination—can blunt the effects of such a silent surge. The time to build that network of irregular resilience is now—not in an emergency.

Dr. Ju Hyung Kim is President of the Security Management Institute, a defense-focused think tank affiliated with South Korea’s National Assembly. He has published articles on special operations and unconventional threats in SOF News, Small Wars Journal, and The Defense Post. His doctoral dissertation explores Japan’s security cooperation with South Korea, including potential North Korean SOF infiltration scenarios during Korean contingencies.

Views expressed in this article solely reflect those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.

Main Image: Image generated by ChatGPT using DALL·E, OpenAI (August 18, 2025).

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11. Ukrainian Suspected of Leading Nord Stream Sabotage Arrested in Italy

Ukrainian Suspected of Leading Nord Stream Sabotage Arrested in Italy

Former army officer is accused of heading the team that allegedly blew up Russia’s main gas pipeline system to Western Europe

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukrainian-suspected-of-leading-nord-stream-sabotage-arrested-in-italy-3f648838

By Bojan Pancevski

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Updated Aug. 21, 2025 1:51 pm ET

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Gas bubbled on the surface of the Baltic Sea following an attack on the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022. Photo: danish defense command/Reuters

Quick Summary

• A former Ukrainian military officer was detained in Italy for allegedly leading the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage in 2022.View more

A former Ukrainian military officer suspected of leading a team that sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 was detained in Italy on Wednesday under an international arrest warrant issued by German prosecutors, according to investigators and people familiar with the case. 

The officer, identified by German police as Serhii K., allegedly headed a team of two soldiers and four civilian divers covertly recruited by a special Ukrainian military unit to lay explosives that damaged the undersea pipelines, investigators said. 

He is the first to be arrested among the crew suspected of carrying out the daring operation using a small sailboat they rented in Germany. The development marks a breakthrough in the international manhunt for the alleged culprits of the attack, which is thought to be among the largest acts of modern-day wartime sabotage.

Italian police detained the suspect near the seaside town of San Clemente shortly before midnight on Wednesday while he was accompanying his son to a local university, the people said. German prosecutors had issued international arrest warrants for him and several other suspects earlier this year following a nearly three-year German investigation into the audacious attack, which was dreamed up by senior Ukrainian military officers during a drunken evening in May 2022.

“Serhii K. was part of a group of individuals who placed explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines,” Germany’s federal prosecutor general said Thursday.

Prosecutors said they suspect the accused coordinated the operation. He was arrested on suspicion of jointly causing an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of infrastructure, they said.

Nord Stream 1

Nord Stream 2

Maritime territorial claims

Exclusive Economic Zones

FINLAND

RUS.

ESTONIA

Swe.

LATVIA

SWEDEN

LITHUANIA

DEN.

Blast sites

Den.

RUS.

POLAND

GER.

Sources: S&P Global Commodity Insights (pipelines); European Space Agency (blast sites); Marine Regions (claims, zones)

German investigators tracked down the suspect, who traveled with his wife and two of their children from Ukraine to Italy via Poland. When the suspect and his family arrived in the north of Italy on Aug. 18, the German police issued an arrest warrant and notified their Italian counterparts, according to German prosecutors and Italian police.

The family then moved south to a village on the Adriatic coast, where the suspect used his passport to check into the accommodation, triggering an alert with Italian police, who dispatched the gendarmerie known as Carabinieri to arrest him, investigators said. The man didn’t resist arrest, the Carabinieri said. On Thursday afternoon, the suspect was being held in a prison in the coastal town of Rimini, the Carabinieri said. It wasn’t possible to reach him or the lawyer that was assigned to him for comment. An appeals court in Bologna will rule whether to extradite the suspect to Germany.

Serhii K., a now-retired captain in Ukraine’s armed forces, previously served in Ukraine’s secret service SBU, as well as in an elite unit that defended Kyiv in the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. He commanded a small unit that was involved in aerial defenses, according to his former commanders.

In May that year, he and two fellow servicemen were recruited, along with civilian divers, for a secret mission to destroy the $20 billion Nord Stream pipeline, which funneled Russian gas to Europe across the Baltic Sea, people familiar with the matter said. 

The plot was developed by senior Ukrainian military and secret service officers under the command of a senior special forces general commanding the elite army unit.

The sabotage plan—internally code-named Operation Diameter—was ultimately overseen by the then-commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, according to multiple people involved in or familiar with the mission.

President Volodymyr Zelensky was later informed and, after objections from the Biden administration, ordered Zaluzhniy to abort the mission. Nevertheless, the team proceeded, detonating the explosives on Sept. 26, 2022, an attack that set off years of international investigation and disrupted Europe’s energy markets.

Zelensky and Zaluzhniy have publicly denied involvement in the plot. Zelensky also said he didn’t believe Ukrainian services could be behind the sabotage plot. The Germany inquiry hasn’t linked Zelensky to the clandestine operation.

Under the European arrest warrant system, Italian authorities must extradite the suspect to Germany. Conviction carries a sentence of up to 15 years, which could be reduced if he cooperates with prosecutors, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The accused will be brought before the investigating judge after being extradited from Italy, the German prosecutor said.

Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, former commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces. Photo: sergei supinsky/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Last year, German police issued an arrest warrant for another man suspected of being in the Ukrainian crew, a diver who lived in Poland. But Polish authorities failed to carry out the warrant and the suspect managed to return to Ukraine, which doesn’t extradite its own citizens. 

The Nord Stream pipelines were sanctioned by the European Union, with German support, last month, as punishment for Russia’s continuing war in Ukraine.

During their construction—Nord Stream 1 came online in 2011 and Nord Stream 2 was completed in late 2021 but never became operational—the pipelines were highly controversial in both Europe and the U.S., where consecutive administrations criticized Germany for helping build them since they increased Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.

The Nord Stream pipelines were among Europe’s most important energy arteries and the world’s largest offshore gas infrastructure, designed to deliver up to 110 billion cubic meters annually for at least half a century.

No one was killed, injured or captured during the Ukrainian attack, which ultimately caused energy prices to remain high and left Moscow with only one main avenue for channeling gas to Europe: pipelines traversing Ukraine. Despite the war, Ukraine was collecting, until January 2025, lucrative transit fees for Russian oil and gas estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com

12. Reconstitution Under Fire: Insights from the 1973 Yom Kippur War

Conclusion:

For modern militaries, the Israeli experience offers enduring lessons on preparing for high-intensity and protracted conflict in contested environments. The capacity to reconstitute under fire, both in terms of restoring platforms and replacing human capital, will determine success in future wars that may be characterized by surprise, complexity, and destruction. General Starry defined this capacity as the “timely regeneration” of “people, organization, command structure, and material” for “battle and sustainment of the force,” and the IDF’s volatile campaign provides an instructive example of the adaptation and perseverance required for it. If the Israelis fell victim to the temptation to plan for the perfect outcome in 1973, their response to unexpected losses demonstrates how military forces must be prepared to persevere through the first shocks of battle, however costly, and fight through to victory on the other side.

Reconstitution Under Fire: Insights from the 1973 Yom Kippur War - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · Nathan Jennings · August 21, 2025

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The 1973 Arab-Israeli War confronted Israel’s military with a sudden and existential crisis. Initiated by simultaneous Syrian and Egyptian offensives from the north and south, the bitter conflict demonstrated the value of operational endurance as each side sustained unexpected attrition. Within hours, Israeli assumptions about intelligence overmatch, maneuver superiority, and air dominance collapsed under the weight of the Arab assaults. Responding to significant losses in men and materiel, Israel subsequently initiated a painful process of battlefield regeneration to recreate combat power and establish conditions for large-scale counteroffensives that could end the war on favorable terms. While combatants on both sides demonstrated courage and commitment in the face of daunting challenges, the Israeli capacity to persevere ultimately paid the highest dividends and yielded a conditional strategic victory.

How did the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) achieve, albeit at a tremendous societal cost, this systemic regeneration across both ground and air services while continuously engaged on multiple active fronts? The Israelis’ desperate response to simultaneous crises in the Sinai and the Golan Heights—which derailed prewar plans for synchronized air-ground maneuver designed to achieve rapid decision—combined important aspects of veteran leadership, logistical resiliency, and strategic adaptation with critical functions of tactical recovery and tiered mobilization to achieve formation reconstitution at echelon. Characterized, as US Army General Donn Starry described it, by “enormous equipment losses in a relatively short time” and “lethality at extended ranges,” the conflict now underscores the enduring imperative for military institutions to avoid the quicksand of wishful thinking and instead prepare to fight, and win, in the bitter crucible of attritional combat.

Recovery, Regeneration, and Reconstitution

Israel’s military posture in October 1973, which followed its dramatic success in the Six-Day War, reflected an unquestioned faith in the qualitative superiority of its active duty force of 75,000 service members and its rapidly mobilizable component of 350,000 reservists. When Egypt and Syria launched their surprise offensives on October 6 against the dramatically outnumbered defenders, the IDF found itself facing much larger and well-armed Arab armies with vastly improved technological and tactical capabilities. The Egyptian use of Sagger antitank missiles and surface-to-air missiles, in particular, decisively defeated Israeli armor and airpower in the Sinai during the opening phases. By the third day of fighting, the stunned IDF had lost 40 percent of its tanks and dozens of fighter-bomber aircraft, and was left grappling with the unexpected losses.

In response, Israel executed a full-scale, societal mobilization that benefited from the way local communities had gathered in centralized locations to celebrate Yom Kippur. The IDF General Staff, under intense pressure to stabilize the collapsing northern front and rescue besieged forts along the Suez Canal, activated over 300,000 reservists into tiered combat formations within seventy-two hours. While some soldiers joined units already at the front as replacements, others formed entirely new units to reinforce the bloodied divisions along the Suez Canal or across the Golan Heights. However, though the reinforcements proved vital for restoring the irreplaceable armored divisions that had suffered in previous days, the chaotic mobilization resulted in the haphazard and desynchronized arrival of critically needed artillery, infantry, and engineer forces to the front.

The Israeli requirement to enact large-scale reconstitution across separate fronts benefited from Operation Nickel Grass, a massive American resupply effort that provided replacement platforms and ammunition to the struggling Israeli Army and Air Force. While the transfer of almost one hundred aircraft that included F-4 Phantoms, A-4 Skyhawks, and C-130 Hercules provided immediate replacements for fighter-bombers and transports downed by surface-to-air missiles, the provision of artillery and tank munitions in massive quantities allowed the battered armored forces to keep fighting into the second and third week of the war. In total, the American delivery of more than twenty-two thousand tons of supplies by airlift and more than thirty-three thousand tons by sealift, despite most of the tank replacements arriving too late to be of impact, enabled the IDF to regenerate combat capability with enough mobility and firepower to seize the initiative in both the ground and air domains.

This plan for rapid force regeneration extended beyond mobilization statistics and timetables and into human considerations. IDF leaders confronted the daunting psychological challenge of rebuilding bloodied tank crews that had suffered high losses in men and materiel. Commanders and noncommissioned officers, many who were veterans of the Six-Day War and the 1956 Suez Crisis, reconstructed tactical cohesion even as they were engaged in active fighting. As tank losses became critical, the IDF brigades sent recovery teams, at great risk, forward at night to retrieve battle damaged platforms to be repaired and returned to service. These aspects of reconstitution, centering on the psychological as much as the physical, would prove vital for allowing the battered Israeli forces to rebuild capability and transition to offensive operations.

Aggressive leadership by engaged leaders proved essential in allowing Israel to recover from the initial setbacks and transition to offense. Division, brigade and battalion commanders, operating under mandates to limit further attrition, developed innovative tactics to defeat or isolate Egyptian and Syrian forces, which now included substantial armored reinforcements from Iraq and Jordan. In the Golan, the IDF’s 7th Armored Brigade, under Avigdor Ben-Gal, endured heavy losses while employing innovative tactics to repel multiple Syrian armored divisions and retake the heights. In the south, the restored 143rd Reserve Armored Division, under Ariel Sharon, led an ambitious crossing of the Suez Canal to establish a bridgehead in Africa. These attacks, though complicated by quarreling senior commanders and stubborn Arab resistance, revealed nuanced operational art designed to posture Israeli political leaders for advantageous negotiations.

By mid-October the IDF had transitioned from reactive defense to synchronized counteroffensives by countering Egyptian and Syrian standoff firepower with integrated artillery suppression, infantry support, and most importantly, attacks from an Israeli Air Force that had likewise recovered from initial losses and learned how to reduce surface-to-air missile threats. On the northern front, the Northern Command recaptured the Golan Heights, invaded Syria proper, struck Damascus, and defeated major Iraqi and Jordanian counterattacks. In the south, the Southern Command crossed the canal, reduced the feared Egyptian surface-to-air missile networks, encircled the battered Egyptian 3rd Army to the south, and held the besieged Egyptian soldiers as leverage to negotiate a favorable ceasefire. These successes were only made possible by extraordinary efforts to reconstitute broken formations and regain operational initiative over the first week of the destructive conflict.

Reconstitution: A Strategic Imperative

The 1973 Yom Kippur War, which saw the IDF lose more than eight hundred main battle tanks and one hundred attack aircraft in three weeks of fighting, validated the timeless imperative for modern militaries to maintain systematic reconstitution as a vital capability. Faced with total collapse, the Israelis regenerated combat power, restored operational initiative, and transitioned from a stunned defensive posture to execute decisive counteroffensives across separate fronts. As argued by Avraham Adan, commander of the 162nd Armored Division, which recovered from severe losses to lead the IDF breakout in Africa, the Israelis “fought back, accumulated strength, attacked, and forced the enemy to ask for a cessation of hostilities.” This costly recovery depended not on any single technological offset or tactical innovation, but on an integrated approach that synchronized societal mobilization, formation reconstitution, crew rebuilding, and battlefield adaptation in ways that recreated cohesion and combined arms capability.

These capabilities, though on display by the IDF in a war more than half a century ago, remain relevant even amid the evolving character of warfare in the twenty-first century. As seen in the 2017 Battle of Mosul, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War of 2020, and the extraordinarily destructive Russo-Ukraine War, battlefield attrition remains a fundamental feature of modern combat. This means that contemporary militaries, regardless of expectations for technological or decision dominance through qualitative superiority, must train to execute mobilization, deployment, reconstitution, and organizational recovery in order to extend operational endurance and ensure strategic flexibility. As cautioned by the late theorist, Dr. David Johnson, this means that the US military and its partners must “challenge existing assumptions, concepts, and capabilities” rather than “validate current approaches” that may reflect wishful thinking or obsolete conceptions.

For modern militaries, the Israeli experience offers enduring lessons on preparing for high-intensity and protracted conflict in contested environments. The capacity to reconstitute under fire, both in terms of restoring platforms and replacing human capital, will determine success in future wars that may be characterized by surprise, complexity, and destruction. General Starry defined this capacity as the “timely regeneration” of “people, organization, command structure, and material” for “battle and sustainment of the force,” and the IDF’s volatile campaign provides an instructive example of the adaptation and perseverance required for it. If the Israelis fell victim to the temptation to plan for the perfect outcome in 1973, their response to unexpected losses demonstrates how military forces must be prepared to persevere through the first shocks of battle, however costly, and fight through to victory on the other side.

Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Jennings is the executive officer to the provost of Army University. He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and holds a PhD in history from the University of Kent. Jennings is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies and is a LTG Dubik Writing Fellow with Army University Press.

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: Israel Defense Forces

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mwi.westpoint.edu · Nathan Jennings · August 21, 2025

13. Opinion | One Sentence in the Constitution Is Causing America Huge Problems

Excellent constitutional discussion that we need to have. Does the interpretation of one sentence trump the totality of the intent of the Founding Fathers to ensure separation of powers and checks and balances? Aren't those the overriding principles of the Constitution?

A long read for an OpEd.

Opinion | One Sentence in the Constitution Is Causing America Huge Problems

NY Times · David French · August 21, 2025

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David French

Aug. 21, 2025, 5:03 a.m. ET

By

Opinion Columnist

On Nov. 8, 1787, a pamphleteer who wrote under the pseudonym Cato published one of the most prescient warnings in American history.

Cato looked at the proposed Constitution and declared that it might well turn into a vehicle for tyranny.

He didn’t see a Constitution of enumerated rights that sharply limited the power of the president. Instead, he saw a Constitution that granted the president such sweeping authority “that if the president is possessed of ambition, he has power and time sufficient to ruin his country.”

In other words, Cato could see a man like Donald Trump coming, and he knew the Constitution could not prevent his rise.

We’re not sure who Cato was — some historians believe he was George Clinton, then the governor of New York. But we know he was an antifederalist, and the antifederalists are remembered as the losers of one of the most important arguments of the American founding, the argument over the ratification of the Constitution.

In some respects, however, the antifederalists were right, and it’s important that we remember their words and heed their warnings.

Like many Americans, I find myself in the curious position of both revering the Constitution as a world-historical document that advanced liberty and justice and also recognizing that it contains a number of flaws. Many of the Constitution’s flaws remain hidden when America is governed by decent men, but that become obvious and dangerous when it is not. Poor character creates a constitutional stress test, and it can reveal fatal defects in much the same way that a physical stress test can expose flaws in your heart.

And nowhere are those flaws more apparent than in Article II, the article which created the American presidency. We should consider a change.

The fundamental goal of the first founding of America was to discard the British monarchy, to establish a republican form of government. We see this in Benjamin Franklin’s famous response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

“A republic,” Franklin replied, “if you can keep it.”

Can we keep it? That’s the concern that preoccupied antifederalists such as Cato. While Franklin himself said the Constitution, for all its flaws, was as “near to perfection” as we could reasonably expect, the antifederalists saw it as inherently dangerous. It lacked a Bill of Rights. (The antifederalists were instrumental in persuading the states to ratify the Bill of Rights after they ratified the Constitution.) It gave too much power to the central government and ruling elites. And the presidency, in the hands of a bad man, could produce despotism.

The problems with the presidency, according to Cato, began in the first words of Article II. “The construction of the first paragraph of the first section of the second article,” he said, “is vague and inexplicit.”

He is exactly right. It’s so vague and inexplicit, in fact, that it’s hard to discern what it actually means. Ambitious leaders are eager to fill the vacuum created by ambiguity.

Here is the key sentence: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” That sentence immediately raises two questions: What is executive power? And, crucially, what are its limits?

When President Trump entered office in his first term, he didn’t have a clear theory of power. Trump isn’t a constitutional scholar (to say the least), and initially he was surrounded by more or less traditional Republicans who were far more wedded to longstanding American constitutional traditions than he was.

This time, however, he’s surrounded by a different breed of Republican — people who possess a theory of power, declare that it’s found right in the text of the Constitution, and then press that power to its limit and beyond.

The best description of Trump’s theory comes from Jack Goldsmith, a law professor at Harvard, who says that it has four distinct elements:

(a) the Constitution vests all of the executive power in the president; (b) all subordinate executive branch officials are removable at will by the president; (c) the president’s Article II duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” entails an exclusive presidential power to decide which laws to enforce or not to enforce; and (d) the president can thus direct and control all subordinate executive officials.

We see each of these elements at work in countless Trump actions and decisions in his second term, from his mass terminations of executive branch employees, to defunding executive branch agencies established by Congress, to refusing to enforce the law that effectively bans TikTok. Trump is turning Congress into an advisory committee. It gets to pass the law, but he decides which laws to enforce.

Taken together, these four principles turn the constitutional order upside down. I’m not a big fan of trigger warnings, but I must confess that there is a phrase that triggers me every time I see it: “coequal branches of government.”

Um, no. Our nation is not supposed to have coequal branches. Congress is supposed to reign supreme. Yes, the other branches have the power to check Congress (presidents can veto legislation; courts exercise judicial review), but Congress alone possesses the power of the purse. Congress alone is supposed to possess the power to declare war. Congress can impeach and remove members of the executive and judicial branches of government, including the president and justices of the Supreme Court.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to call the person who can fire me “boss.”

There is a very good reason for that congressional supremacy. Congress — particularly the House of Representatives — is our most democratic, most representative branch of government. It’s Congress more than the presidency (or any court) that makes our country a democracy.

But now Congress is our weakest branch of government. It’s wholly defined by the president. When it’s controlled by the president’s party, it’s entirely supine. When it’s controlled by the opposition, it’s defiant. But it’s never truly independent. It is not exerting its own will.

Nothing I’m saying is original. Lots and lots and lots of people from all over the American political spectrum recognize Congress’s weakness. The American people despise Congress. According to Gallup polling, it’s the least-trusted governmental institution in the United States. Americans can see clearly that Congress is almost entirely partisan, and the president defines the contours of that partisanship more than anyone else.

This concern doesn’t originate with Trump. If the problem were only Trump, then it could be solved when he leaves office. In reality, his presidency represents the amplification and culmination of a longstanding bipartisan trend. Presidents from both parties have stretched their power — at a lesser scale than Trump — but the executive had become the most powerful branch of government well before Trump became president. Arthur Schlesinger had most likely never heard of Donald Trump when he first wrote about “the imperial presidency.”

We’re living in the miserable reality that our presidents have made for us. Every four years, Americans go to the polls to elect the most powerful man in the world — at the helm of the most powerful branch of government — yet most of us don’t cast meaningful votes. Unless we live in one of the half-dozen or so true swing states, we don’t have much of a voice in selecting our nation’s true — and sometimes only — real leader.

Most solutions to this problem amount to little more than moral exhortation and public shaming. “Be better,” we tell Congress. “Exert your authority.” We have different admonitions for presidents. “Restrain yourself,” we tell them. “Don’t try to push too far.”

How long must we struggle before we realize that the system itself needs to change? When the antifederalists looked at the scope of presidential power in the Constitution, from the vague and sweeping first sentence of Article II, to the president’s broad authority over pardons and his control over the military, they had a warning for us — a king is coming, an American king is coming to replace the British one.

As I’ve written before, the federalist answer to the antifederalist complaint came in the form of a legal principle (impeachment) and a virtuous person (George Washington).

This moment reminds me of the Virginia ratification debate, when George Mason and other antifederalists sounded the alarm about the president’s pardon power and his sweeping authority over the armed forces.

James Madison rose in response.

“If the president be connected in any suspicious manner with any persons,” he said “and there be grounds to believe he will shelter himself; the House of Representatives can impeach him — they can remove him if found guilty.”

Impeachment, Madison said, was a “great security.”

It is not. It took more than 230 years for a senator to vote to convict a president of his own party. That senator was Mitt Romney in 2020, and he stood alone. After the president of the United States helped foment a violent attack on the Capitol and attempted to reverse the results of a presidential election, only seven members of his party broke ranks — far too few to convict.

And then, when the president pardoned the Jan. 6 rioters, connecting him in a “suspicious manner” with people who attempted a violent coup on his behalf, Congress did nothing.

Compounding the problem, Washington’s influence has waned.

As the most revered American of his time, he could have grasped near-absolute power and governed the nation as long as he lived. Instead, he term-limited himself. In contrast with modern politicians who can sometimes pursue the presidency with an almost maniacal zeal, Washington was the reluctant president, and at every step was conscious that he was setting a precedent. He lived to create a legacy.

The antifederalists admired Washington, but they knew that his example would not endure. An antifederalist writing under the pseudonym An Old Whig said it well, “So far is it from its being improbable that the man who shall hereafter be in a situation to make the attempt to perpetuate his own power, should want the virtues of General Washington,” he wrote, “that it is perhaps a chance of one hundred millions to one that the next age will not furnish an example of so disinterested a use of great power.”

We are in the next age, and we are governed by a man who shuns Washington’s example and grasps for power with both hands.

There is a constitutional answer to this national challenge. We can — at long last — heed the warnings of the antifederalists, and we can do it simply enough, by changing the first sentence of Article II. Instead of declaring “The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America,” it should read, “A president of the United States of America shall execute laws passed by Congress.”

This simple change has sweeping implications. It removes the president as the chief executive of the nation and turns him or her into a steward of the laws passed through the democratic process. In this formulation, the Department of Defense and the Department of Education aren’t his agencies, they’re his to run according to the rules and guidelines established by Congress.

No longer would the president possess a free-standing “executive power” that would grant him the authority that Trump seeks, including the discretion to decide which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore.

Revising the executive vesting clause isn’t the only necessary or prudent constitutional change (the pardon power should be revisited, for example), but it would make explicit what the Constitution makes implicit: Congress is the supreme branch, and at a stroke the Constitution would no longer enable, in Cato’s formulation, an ambitious president to “ruin his country.”

This new presidency wouldn’t be powerless. The president would still command the armed forces, for example, and he or she would still nominate judges and make treaties.

Nor would this amendment permit Congress to run amok. The president would still possess the veto. Courts would still possess the right of judicial review.

But the balance of power would shift, and the populist project of maximum executive authority would come to an end, and only another amendment would make it rise again.

If history is any indication, unless the next president has Washingtonian character and foresight, then it is quite likely that he or she will imitate Trump and wield all the power that he or she can — though in service of their own ends, rather than Trump’s. In fact, in the absence of congressional action it will take a Trumpian exercise of power to simply undo all the worst excesses of his second term.

But there is another path. Our nation can look at our escalating political conflicts, at the hysteria that engulfs the country every four years as we elect a quasi-monarch, and decide that enough is enough.

This will take time. Americans are so divided that any constitutional amendment that’s seen as partisan is dead on arrival. But it’s also a mistake to believe that our present polarization is permanent. When this terrible political moment does end, wise men and women will need to step forward and propose the changes that will prevent the next American demagogue from grasping for power that threatens our republic.

Some other things I did

On Sunday, I wrote about the president’s deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C. I focused on the danger to the military of the deployment, and since I wrote the column, the danger has only become more profound. Red state governors are now sending elements of their National Guard units to D.C. — a decision that only heightens the concern that the military is now being wielded as an instrument of partisan retribution:

Much of the commentary surrounding President Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to Los Angeles and now Washington, D.C., has centered on its impact on American democracy. Do we want to live in a republic that puts military boots on city streets at the whim of a politician, rather than in response to an extraordinary need?

Yet I’m just as concerned about the effect of Trump’s deployments on the military itself. He isn’t just deploying America’s military into the streets; he’s deploying it into the American culture war. And he’s threatening to expand his campaign into blue cities in blue states where homicide rates are actually far lower than in many cities in red states — such as my beloved Memphis, where I spent countless hours as a kid. In fact, a large number of the most dangerous cities in the nation are in red states.

The military is America’s most-trusted government institution, and its tradition of nonpartisan service is indispensable to maintaining that trust. If the president uses the military against his domestic foes, he risks fracturing its bond with the American public and diminishing its ability to recruit young Americans from all of our political factions.

That’s reason enough for presidential restraint, but the problem with Trump’s deployments runs far deeper — to the point where they raise grave risks for one of America’s most indispensable institutions.

Let us count the ways.

On Saturday, we published a round-table conversation with two of my colleagues, Jamelle Bouie and Michelle Cottle. We talked about Trump’s crackdown in D.C., and I pondered whether Trump is truly tough on crime:

Here’s one caution I would add: Yes, crime in D.C., violent crime in D.C.’s at a 30-year low, but it’s a pretty violent city relative to other U.S. cities. There are also a lot of people — especially those who are not used to and have not seen the improvement in D.C. since the pandemic — who, if they come from other cities, might find the kind of low-level disorder in D.C. pretty shocking. So I think one mistake people can make here is to say: Look, he’s doing this, and D.C.’s fine, D.C.’s fine. I don’t think we should say D.C.’s fine. What we should say is that D.C. is improving substantially, and this is not the way to achieve further improvements.

And this is a consistent pattern in dealing with Trump. Often people will look at an institution or a place that he’s attacking, and there’s this instinct to rally completely to its defense. Well, sometimes these institutions do have problems. They do need reform. It’s just not his reform. His reform is destructive and dangerous in many ways.

What this reminds me of is that it’s not so much that Trump is tough on crime; it’s really that he wants to be tough on his enemies. And that is a different thing than being tough on crime because being tough on crime requires a lot more intelligent thought. It’s a lot harder than calling in this National Guard and plopping them on the Mall.

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David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” You can follow him on Threads (@davidfrenchjag).

NY Times · David French · August 21, 2025

14. The Tiny White House Club Making Major National-Security Decisions

Sigh...

The Tiny White House Club Making Major National-Security Decisions

Trump has pushed out career experts and aides who challenged him.

By Missy Ryan, Jonathan Lemire, Nancy A. Youssef, and Michael Scherer

The Atlantic · Missy Ryan, Jonathan Lemire, Nancy A. Youssef, Michael Scherer · August 15, 2025

During Donald Trump’s first term, his top advisers attempted to run a traditional process for shaping foreign policy, tapping experts from the White House’s National Security Council, debating recommendations from across the government, and steering the president away from decisions that they feared would damage America’s interests. But Trump was deeply mistrustful of the NSC, which he saw as too big, too cumbersome, and too attached to Republican orthodoxy.

Back in office, Trump has pushed away the help of career experts, and major decisions—the handling of the war in Gaza, for example, and negotiations over Ukraine—are now made by a tiny core group of loyal advisers, including Vice President J. D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chief of Staff Susie WiIes, and one or two others. The president “is now fully the quarterback, and he doesn’t want too many guys in the huddle,” a former official, who remains in close contact with the White House, told us. “And those that are there need to run the play he calls, no questions asked.”

This time, Trump has a better understanding of the levers of power and greater trust in his own instincts—he doesn’t want to be slowed down by contrary viewpoints, according to nearly a dozen current and former White House officials, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to give a candid assessment of sensitive deliberations. Trump is more Trump in his global statecraft.

By shrinking the number of people involved in major decisions and making fealty the indispensable trait in selecting aides, Trump has pushed the system in a more personalized direction. The more centralized setup allows Trump’s impulses—his disregard for historic alliances, his love of dealmaking, and his focus on perceived abuses of American largesse—to drive U.S. policy.

But by isolating his decision making, Trump has limited his ability to harness expertise, or to ensure that his decisions are executed by an often unwieldy bureaucracy. And by discarding a process designed to surface different views and analyze moves from all sides, he has increased the risk of unintended consequences.

From the June 2025 Issue: ‘I run the country and the world’

“On the one hand, this arrangement is much more nimble. The president is the decision maker,” said Victoria Coates, who served as deputy national security adviser during Trump’s first term and continues to support Trump’s foreign-policy moves. “But the downside is you don’t have that NSC muscle to bludgeon the interagency into doing what you want.”

The risks of the new approach will be fully on display in Anchorage, Alaska, today, as Trump holds talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, giving an adversary a win without extracting much in return. Trump’s first-term advisers would have counseled against the hastily arranged summit.

The consolidated setup has also led to policy whiplash—as was the case with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s on-again, off-again suspension of military aid to Ukraine in July, which confused officials at a moment when Trump was trying to dial up pressure on Moscow. It can also hamper problem-solving and policy innovation. Allied nations often struggle to navigate a system in which even high-ranking officials cannot provide clarity, because a wider array of decisions must be taken to the Oval Office, where Trump remains inscrutable and often erratic.

The White House defended the changes. Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement that the NSC was now “more relevant and consequential than ever before, allowing the administration to execute the President’s foreign policy agenda more effectively.” She cited the setbacks dealt to Iran’s nuclear capability, the return of U.S. citizens detained overseas, and the peace deals that have included halts to India-Pakistan and Armenia-Azerbaijan hostilities.

Trump returned to the White House in January with a sense of vindication. He and his advisers also brought a scathing assessment of Joe Biden’s foreign-policy record, blaming him for the humiliating end to the war in Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and other crises they vowed to put right. And they came armed with lessons about what had gone wrong the first time around, when Trump cycled through four national security advisers.

Trump remained regretful about the departure of the one he trusted most: Michael Flynn, who stepped down less than a month into Trump’s first term over his undisclosed ties to Russia. In the years that followed, Trump felt stage-managed by H. R. McMaster and then John Bolton. (He was mostly fine with his final national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, who was more in sync with Trump’s preference for a limited role for the NSC.)

From the July 2025 Issue: The talented Mr. Vance

McMaster and Bolton didn’t love the experience either. McMaster grew exasperated with what he called the “adhocracy” of disjointed deliberations that yielded rushed executive orders or other chaotic steps. Bolton later wrote that discussions of consequential trade issues, which occurred in weekly gab sessions rather than orderly meetings, “more closely resembled college food fights than careful decision-making.” Throughout, both men enlisted senior administration figures like James Mattis, John Kelly, and Mike Pence to redirect Trump or talk him out of what they saw as particularly counterproductive moves, such as reneging on America’s commitment to stand by NATO allies.

But the man Trump chose as national security adviser after his reelection, Representative Michael Waltz of Florida, was an awkward fit from the start. Some of Trump’s long-serving aides viewed the former Green Beret, who once was an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, with suspicion, pegging him as a hard-liner on Russia and Iran and overly beholden to traditional foreign partners.

Waltz continued to adhere to a conventional process—in which NSC staff convene a series of high-level discussions with officials from across government agencies to tee up policy options for the president—but struggled to navigate the West Wing’s deep mistrust of his staff. At certain points, turf wars flared with the West Wing over foreign-leader visits and who would control the president’s schedule and time. By May, even senior subject-matter experts were sometimes left out of the loop on visits by senior officials from regions within their portfolios, one former official said.

This former official said that Waltz’s subordinates had doubts from the beginning about the weight his determinations carried with the president. “You’d coordinate the interagency; you’d come to a consensus; the national security adviser would make a decision,” he said. And then nothing further would be heard; NSC staff would have no idea if their policy advice was being adopted or even read in the West Wing. “It needed to be tabled until you could get a decision or opinion from the president.”

In early April, the administration abruptly fired half a dozen NSC officials after Laura Loomer, the far-right activist, accused them of not being supportive enough of the president’s agenda. Some of those dismissed included staffers close to Waltz, illustrating his inability to shield them.

Vivian Salama, Michael Scherer, & Jonathan Lemire: Trump invites Putin to set foot in America

Waltz’s departure may have been inevitable, but it was hastened when the national security adviser accidentally added The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a text chat on Signal in which Waltz and other officials shared sensitive plans for bombing Yemen on March 15.

The security breach and Waltz’s response—he claimed on Fox News that Goldberg’s number had somehow been “sucked” onto his phone—provided further ammunition for his West Wing rivals. By early May, Waltz was gone, nominated to represent the administration at the United Nations. (Waltz, who gave up his congressional seat to serve in the White House, has not yet been confirmed. He did not respond to a request for comment.)

Rubio, meanwhile, got an additional job. To the surprise of those who expected friction between Trump and his 2016 Republican-primary rival, whom the president once derided as “Little Marco,” Rubio’s style as interim national security adviser has gained purchase with the president and those around him.

White House officials defended using the secretary of state in this role, saying it made for quicker decisions and better operational security, pointing to Trump’s strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June. One White House official told us that the dual position is Rubio’s as long as he wants it. “He knows his subject matter better than just about anybody in the government,” the official said.

Tommy Pigott, a spokesperson for the State Department, said that Rubio and the department back Trump’s “America First” agenda and are “proud to support him as he leads our country in a golden era of American diplomacy.”

Rubio has likened the NSA role to the conductor of an orchestra of Cabinet members. “The president picks the music; the instruments play off the same sheet; and it’s the job of the conductor to make sure everyone’s playing—that every instrument’s playing correctly and playing together,” he said last week.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans

Rubio quickly restructured the NSC, which had grown to more than 300 people in recent years. By late May, 100 staffers had been dismissed and numerous NSC offices had been closed or consolidated. Vance’s aide Andy Baker and Wiles’s aide Robert Gabriel, both of whom were named deputy national security advisers in May, are now key figures in managing the smaller, more streamlined NSC.

In addition to the core decision team of Trump, Vance, Rubio, and Wiles, Stephen Miller plays a key role on issues related to homeland security. On decisions involving Russia and Israel, envoy Steve Witkoff is included. And on military matters, the president pulls in Hegseth and General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

One of the former officials said that Trump would have likely retained a more robust NSC and a less centralized setup if Waltz had survived. He said that Waltz’s departure allowed for the sort of restructuring long sought by some of Trump’s West Wing advisers, for whom the shadow of the 2019 impeachment and the potential for “deep state” figures—like Alexander Vindman, the Ukraine expert and Army officer who testified against Trump—to constrain the president continued to loom large.

“It was an opportunity that they seized,” the former official said. “‘Let’s do it, and go after the ghost of Vindman.’”

Trump’s new setup is a stark contrast to Barack Obama’s “team of rivals,” which encouraged debate and sometimes sparring between different agencies as the chief executive sought to tease out the best approach. While that kind of debate could sometimes lead to never-ending interagency discussion, as many of his advisers later complained, it had the advantage of enabling a more exhaustive analysis of policy pros and cons. That sort of process might have helped Trump avoid some of the legal challenges his administration has faced to its rapid-fire executive orders and its rushed efforts to dismantle federal agencies, and helped minimize the commercial disruption that has resulted from his tariff pronouncements.

Mark Montgomery, a retired Navy rear admiral and former NSC official now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told us the centralized setup discourages contrarian viewpoints. “And you’re not going to surface any problems until they really surface,” he said.

Nick Miroff and Jonathan Lemire: Stephen Miller has a plan

Another former official noted that as Trump sought to intensify competition with China during his first term, a more diffuse system and more empowered agencies allowed a host of military, commercial, and diplomatic initiatives to bubble up.

“None of that is happening” now, the former official said. “This time, the principle is that the only things that are done are things specifically directed by the president.”

Some current and former officials fear the setup may also mean inadequate vetting of questionable ideas, such as Trump’s announcement earlier this month that he had repositioned two nuclear submarines in response to bellicose remarks by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin ally. It caught many in the Pentagon by surprise; neither the White House nor the military typically publicly discusses submarine movements. Even after the fact, some Pentagon officials said they weren’t sure whether the submarines had already been scheduled to move or not.

To achieve strategic deterrence, the Navy’s ballistic-missile fleet relies on stealth. “That’s the whole fucking point of submarines. You don’t know where they are,” one defense official explained.

Vivian Salama contributed to this report.

*Illustration Sources: Chip Somodevilla / Getty; Nathan Howard / Bloomberg / Getty; Bonnie Cash / UPI / Bloomberg / Getty; Andrew Harnik / Getty; Kayla Bartkowski / Getty.

The Atlantic · Missy Ryan, Jonathan Lemire, Nancy A. Youssef, Michael Scherer · August 15, 2025

15. Why the Nuclear Taboo Is Stronger Than Ever

Will such thinking and surveys help or hinder deterrence?

Excerpts:

Military-trained survey respondents also appeared to care deeply about the indiscriminate effects of such weapons. When asked to describe the best reasons to never use a nuclear weapon, the most common answers given by current and former troops were that they would “would affect civilians indiscriminately” and “would cause environmental catastrophe,” and the general population also felt similarly. Also like the general public, approximately a third of military-trained Americans showed concern for the fact that nuclear weapons would cause “unnecessary suffering to troops,” even if they were used away from civilian areas. They also referenced nuclear weapons and other indiscriminate or inhumane weapons as being “banned by international treaties.” In fact, service members were even more likely than the public to state that protecting the nuclear non-use norm itself was a reason never to use such a weapon.

Military perceptions of what is unlawful matter because service members are required to disobey manifestly unlawful orders—including the use of indiscriminate weapons—and they can be prosecuted if they do not. Human Security Lab’s newest survey data—this time with a sample of just active-duty military—shows even just thinking about the concept of manifestly unlawful orders before answering a question on nuclear use reduces willingness to obey a hypothetical nuclear launch order from 69 to 54 percent.

To be sure, these numbers also suggest that many others would follow such an order. And, of course, what matters is the attitudes of the individuals actually placed in the nuclear chain of command rather than the average private, colonel, or general. It also remains to be studied whether this finding extends to the militaries of other nuclear states.

But since the United States is a hard case, with its relatively permissive nuclear doctrine and sense of exceptionalism, it is reasonable to think it might. Studies of Russian public opinion on nuclear weapons have found similar levels of concern and caution, as is evident in NATO countries. China, for its part, already espouses a no-first-use doctrine and is now pushing for a new treaty process to codify such a norm.

With today’s international laws, global criminal justice architecture, and humanitarian standards on indiscriminate weapons, it may even be the case that fears of proliferation and the “crumbling” of the earlier nuclear order could actually accelerate international norm-building to restrict nuclear use. Even if nuclear states never sign on to such efforts, the stigma created by instruments like the TPNW galvanizes civil action. More importantly, it shapes the moral judgments of those in a position to burn civilian cities to the ground.

Why the Nuclear Taboo Is Stronger Than Ever

Fears of proliferation and the crumbling of an earlier nuclear order could actually be accelerating international norm-building.

By Charli Carpenter, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and director of Human Security Lab.

Foreign Policy · Charli Carpenter

August 20, 2025, 12:14 AM

Eighty years ago in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more than 200,000 people were killed in ways that nearly defy imagination: incinerated, burned alive, boiled in rivers, or slowly consumed by radiation sickness. Over the past decades, the international community has attempted to establish safeguards against nuclear proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons, a mission best articulated by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who said that a nuclear war “cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Today, however, with resurgent nuclear brinkmanship and proliferation, it is easy to wonder whether developments in international law matter much at all, let alone enough to stem a nuclear launch. Both the United States and Russia have withdrawn from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Veiled nuclear threats are increasing between Russia and the United States, and Saudi Arabia has signaled an interest in arming. Even non-nuclear states in Europe, fearful of losing access to a U.S. nuclear umbrella with U.S. President Donald Trump pulling back from NATO, have begun considering acquiring nuclear weapons themselves. It is no wonder that Doreen Horschig and Heather Williams argued, even before Trump returned to office, that the nuclear order is “crumbling.”

It is true that the nonproliferation regime is under strain. When scholars refer to this regime, they are typically talking about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which 191 states—including the five original nuclear ones—have signed and ratified. The NPT permits the five to possess nuclear weapons on the condition that they will work together to prevent others from obtaining them and take steps toward disarmament; non-nuclear states pledged not to acquire the weapons in exchange for the right to peaceful nuclear technology. Today, however, key nuclear states are slowing or reversing decades of progress toward disarmament. These actions make the world more dangerous partly because they raise the likelihood of violent counter-proliferation tactics, like the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites this summer.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean, as some suggest, that a nuclear exchange is now likelier than it was during the Cold War. That’s because another set of international laws have strengthened over time, alongside the nuclear nonproliferation regime: the ones against the use of nuclear weapons. The nuclear taboo—the moral stigma against actually using nuclear weapons—is grounded not just in the NPT (or the realities of nuclear deterrence) but increasingly also in humanitarian law.

In 1968, when the NPT was signed, such humanitarian law norms were still in their infancy. Even after the horrors of World War II, the 1949 Geneva Conventions didn’t address the use of weapons in combat; they were limited to the treatment of civilians, prisoners of war, and military personnel. It wasn’t until 1977, when the first two Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions were signed, that important rules governing the use of weapons were added to the treaties.

The first of these was Article 36 of Additional Protocol I, which required states to determine whether newly developed weapons were consistent with two important principles of humanitarian law: the prohibition on arms that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering, which was first codified in the late 19th century to ban projectiles like exploding bullets; and the prohibition against weapons that could not be used in a discriminate manner—that is, directed away from civilians and toward legitimate military targets only—which included the question of whether their effects could be controlled.

The second was a set of rules in Article 51 of Additional Protocol I, which prohibited and defined indiscriminate attacks, including attacks carried out with weapons whose effects, by their very nature—such as fire or radiation—could not be directed away from civilians or limited once unleashed. Even the lowest-yield nuclear weapons today would certainly fall into that category: According to Nukemap, a tactical nuclear weapon detonated over a military target like the U.S. Defense Department would affect a mile or so around Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia, and cause approximately 17,000 civilian deaths and injuries. Indiscriminate attacks were outlawed to avoid that exact outcome.

These legal innovations unleashed a spate of humanitarian disarmament initiatives over the next decades. The Convention on Conventional Weapons, signed in 1981, further codified norms against superfluous injury and indiscriminate weapons, specifically banning weapons such as bullets filled with undetectable fragments and the use of lasers designed to cause permanent blindness. This was followed by norm-building efforts to comprehensively prohibit the use of chemical weapons (1993), anti-personnel landmines (1997), and cluster munitions (2008) because their indiscriminate and inhumane effects could not be justified by their military utility.

No such comprehensive ban on the use of nuclear weapons emerged during this period, however. Nonetheless, customary law has gradually overruled the idea that states could simply opt out of the 1977 Additional Protocol’s prohibition on indiscriminate attacks, which is now considered binding on all states, even non-parties to that treaty. The law on reprisals against civilians also evolved during this period, meaning that targeting civilians is illegal even if an enemy attacks a state’s own civilians first.

These normative shifts—and the concerted role of global civil society during this period—threw plans for general nuclear war left over from the earlier Cold War era into a different kind of relief. Acknowledgement of the humanitarian effects of nuclear use culminated with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was signed in 2017. Modeled on the treaties comprehensively banning landmines and cluster munitions rather than the NPT, the TPNW is a humanitarian disarmament treaty prohibiting the development, possession, and use of nuclear weapons because of their inherently indiscriminate character. At least 94 states have signed the treaty, and 73 have ratified it. Advocates and some scholars have argued that the norms complement and strengthen the NPT, as well as contribute to the moral stigma against nuclear weapons, because even the countries that have not signed the treaty are bound by and largely agree with the prohibitions on indiscriminate attacks.

Others doubt the power of the TPNW and even view it as counterproductive to nonproliferation and disarmament efforts. Notably, no nuclear state has signed, nor have many states who benefit from extended deterrence, including Japan, whose civilian population has experienced the terrible effects of nuclear war.

Whether or not any of that is true as regards disarmament and nonproliferation norms, one thing is certain: The nuclear taboo seems resilient to these shifts and is likely getting stronger due to these international legal developments, even in places that reject the treaty, like the United States.

Survey data from Human Security Lab, the research lab that I run at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, shows that the percentage of Americans who consider the use of nuclear weapons to be a violation of international law has held steady at 83 percent since 2017, even as nuclear brinkmanship has returned and the NPT has wavered. And in survey experiments where civilians are given information on international law or reminded of the inhumane effects of nuclear weapons (as the media has been focused on recently), their willingness to support the use of nuclear weapons and indiscriminate attacks—even in scenarios designed to incentivize that use—decreases.

But perhaps the best indicator that the nuclear non-use norm is stronger than it may appear, at least in the United States, is the fact that significant numbers of military-trained Americans now see nuclear weapons use—especially if the United States has not first absorbed a nuclear strike—as a war crime. New polling data from my lab, published in July in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, shows U.S. troops and veterans view nuclear weapons use against populated areas as unlawful in roughly equal proportions to the general U.S. population.

Moreover, military-trained Americans trust the president’s sole nuclear launch authority and wide-ranging discretion over nuclear weapons even less than the general population: Only 31 percent believe the commander in chief should be able to launch a nuclear weapon whenever they decide it’s necessary. The trust that exists plummets in times of actual nuclear security crises, as our data showed during the recent 12-day war between Israel and Iran: The number of active-duty military and veterans who said nuclear weapons should be used not at the president’s discretion but only in “extreme and limited circumstances” rose from 48 to 61 percent during the crisis. A steady 21 percent said nuclear weapons should never be used at all. Furthermore, the number who support specific kinds of limitations (such as oversight over the president or a no-first-use norm) has increased across the board since Trump took office. This dovetails with renewed domestic efforts to introduce currently nonexistent limitations on U.S. nuclear use.

While our research is still underway, preliminary evidence suggests that the global community’s opprobrium toward nuclear weapons in the form of the TPNW has influenced military-trained Americans’ attitudes against the idea that nuclear weapons could ever be used lawfully. Our experimental data shows simply learning about the TPNW causes shifts in both how military personnel answer questions on nuclear legality and how they explain their answers.

Military-trained survey respondents also appeared to care deeply about the indiscriminate effects of such weapons. When asked to describe the best reasons to never use a nuclear weapon, the most common answers given by current and former troops were that they would “would affect civilians indiscriminately” and “would cause environmental catastrophe,” and the general population also felt similarly. Also like the general public, approximately a third of military-trained Americans showed concern for the fact that nuclear weapons would cause “unnecessary suffering to troops,” even if they were used away from civilian areas. They also referenced nuclear weapons and other indiscriminate or inhumane weapons as being “banned by international treaties.” In fact, service members were even more likely than the public to state that protecting the nuclear non-use norm itself was a reason never to use such a weapon.

Military perceptions of what is unlawful matter because service members are required to disobey manifestly unlawful orders—including the use of indiscriminate weapons—and they can be prosecuted if they do not. Human Security Lab’s newest survey data—this time with a sample of just active-duty military—shows even just thinking about the concept of manifestly unlawful orders before answering a question on nuclear use reduces willingness to obey a hypothetical nuclear launch order from 69 to 54 percent.

To be sure, these numbers also suggest that many others would follow such an order. And, of course, what matters is the attitudes of the individuals actually placed in the nuclear chain of command rather than the average private, colonel, or general. It also remains to be studied whether this finding extends to the militaries of other nuclear states.

But since the United States is a hard case, with its relatively permissive nuclear doctrine and sense of exceptionalism, it is reasonable to think it might. Studies of Russian public opinion on nuclear weapons have found similar levels of concern and caution, as is evident in NATO countries. China, for its part, already espouses a no-first-use doctrine and is now pushing for a new treaty process to codify such a norm.

With today’s international laws, global criminal justice architecture, and humanitarian standards on indiscriminate weapons, it may even be the case that fears of proliferation and the “crumbling” of the earlier nuclear order could actually accelerate international norm-building to restrict nuclear use. Even if nuclear states never sign on to such efforts, the stigma created by instruments like the TPNW galvanizes civil action. More importantly, it shapes the moral judgments of those in a position to burn civilian cities to the ground.

Foreign Policy · Charli Carpenter

16.  When America stops leading, Asia starts looking elsewhere

"Asia starts to hedge."

A wake up call for us?

Excerpts:

None of this is inevitable. Asia is not turning away because it prefers authoritarianism, but because it feels increasingly disrespected by a power that still speaks the language of equal partnership – while treating its allies as subordinates.

If the United States still wants to lead, it must start acting like a leader again – not by coercing but by inspiring. That requires treating Asian partners not as junior clients, but as genuine co-architects of the international order.

Only by treating its partners with respect, restraint and a genuine sense of dignity can Washington regain the moral authority that once made others follow willingly.

Asia remains open to US leadership – but it will no longer follow blindly. The choice is still America’s to make. Time, however, is no longer on its side.

When America stops leading, Asia starts looking elsewhere - Asia Times

Leadership is earned, not imposed – and the US is losing the legitimacy that once made its Asian allies follow

asiatimes.com · Hanjin Lew, Jio Lew · August 20, 2025

As political scientist Joseph Nye argues, successful leadership requires more than coercion. It relies on soft power, the ability to persuade through example, credibility and shared benefits.

For decades, the US understood this. It led not through coercion but through example. It provided security, opened markets and built institutions that others wanted to join – a model sometimes described as “imperialism by invitation.” That is what made the US-led order legitimate.

Washington is now undermining that legacy with its own hands.

Instead of persuading allies through shared interests and mutual respect, it increasingly relies on pressure, threats and transactional demands.

Allies are publicly shamed for being “ungrateful” and “not paying enough.” Security guarantees are being dangled like bargaining chips, and tariffs are imposed on long-standing friends arbitrarily.

In the process, the US is doing China’s job for it – pushing the region to close ranks and look for common cause within Asia.

Everyone in Asia sees China’s predatory behavior. But the uncomfortable truth is that the US is beginning to resemble a bully – and once that distinction blurs, even close friends begin to hedge.

Allies respond to respect, not demands

When a superpower starts to sound desperate, it stops sounding like a leader. What allies hear is not resolve, but insecurity. It sounds less like a leader upholding the rules-based order and more like a frustrated power signaling that it can no longer provide the leadership that made that order possible in the first place.

The problem is not that the US is asking others to share the burden – it’s that it does so in ways that seem arrogant and wound the national pride of its allies.

As one scholar of great-power management warns, “The status quo powers must exhibit empathy, fairness and a genuine concern not to offend the prestige and national honor of the rising power.”

Washington has forgotten that lesson before – and it paid dearly.

Racism and the road to 1941

While the oil embargoes were the immediate trigger for Japan’s attack on the US in 1941, the deeper cause lay in racism and exclusion.

At the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, the Japanese delegation – officially invited as a great power – was openly ignored.

Japanese delegates to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Photo: Library of Congress

When America stops leading, Asia starts looking elsewhere

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau even remarked, “To think that there are blonde women in the world; and we stay closed up here with these Japanese, who are so ugly.”

Japan’s proposal for a racial equality clause at Versailles was flat-out rejected without debate. When the Council of Four was formed, Japan was excluded.

That contempt became institutionalized in the US when the 1924 US Immigration Act declared Asians “ineligible for citizenship,” and it was reinforced thereafter when the Washington Naval Treaty imposed a discriminatory naval tonnage ratio.

Edward House – President Wilson’s closest adviser – privately warned, “Japan is barred from all the undeveloped places of the earth, and if her influence in the East is not recognized as in some degree superior to that of the Western powers, there will be a reckoning.”

Attempt to create a new order

Carl von Clausewitz famously wrote, “War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.” As diplomacy and appeals for equal treatment failed, Tokyo concluded that only war could create an order in which it would no longer be treated as a subordinate power.

That reckoning came soon enough – in the form of war in 1941. Japanese novelist Sei Itō wrote in December 1941, “Our destiny is such that we cannot realize our qualifications as first-class people of the world unless we have fought with the top-ranking white men.”

As Japanese historian John Dower explains, Japanese leaders framed their campaign by claiming they had already “secured Manchuria against the ambitions of the Soviet Union and freed most of China from Anglo-American exploitation,” and that their next goal was to “liberate East Asia from white invasion and oppression.”

The lesson is not that Japan was justified. The lesson is that when a rising power is repeatedly denied dignity and equality, it eventually seeks to create a new order.

Old prejudices, new forms

A century later, the pattern is recurring. Chinese scholars and researchers have increasingly faced suspicion and visa denials under the “China Initiative.” In many cases, they were investigated not because of what they did but simply because of their ethnicity.

The problem is that this pattern now extends beyond China – affecting even America’s closest allies in Asia.

In 2025, a Korean-born PhD student and longtime US permanent resident was detained for more than a week at San Francisco International Airport – without explanation, despite holding legal status.

Japanese citizens – including ordinary tourists and young women visiting Hawaii – have also reported being denied entry at US airports in recent months, as immigration officials cite vague “suspicion” and apply increasingly discretionary standards.

For South Koreans and Japanese alike, Washington’s indiscriminate harsh treatment of Asians – both friends and foes – seemingly confirms that race still matters, reviving the message of 1924: that Asians will never be fully trusted or accepted.

Asia is losing faith

While race is not the principal driver of today’s tensions in the region, Asia is once again being told – implicitly and explicitly – that it will never be treated as an equal under a US-led order.

Beijing is capitalizing on this perception. “Americans take all visitors from China, South Korea and Japan as Asians. They cannot tell the differences and it’s the same in Europe,” said Wang Yi, the head of the ruling Communist Party’s foreign affairs commission. “No matter how yellow you dye your hair, or how sharp you make your nose, you’ll never turn into a European or American, you’ll never turn into a Westerner.”

Most in South Korea and Japan reject that rhetoric. Yet more and more are starting to ask: Is Beijing wrong – or speaking an inconvenient truth?

A new Asian alignment is beginning to emerge – not because China offers a more attractive vision, but because the US no longer looks like a confident and dependable leader.

Asia starts to hedge

On August 16, a leading Korean newspaper reported an interview with a Japanese political scientist who warned that South Korea and Japan should begin discussing a “security Plan B” without the United States, amid growing concern that a future Trump administration may scale back US involvement in Northeast Asia.

This perception is already shaping regional behavior. In Seoul, even conservative policymakers speak openly about preparing for US disengagement.

In Tokyo, the government has quietly reopened diplomatic channels with Beijing – not out of admiration, but as a hedge.

Regional participation in China-backed initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) keeps expanding, while enthusiasm for the US-backed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) remains muted.

This is not alignment out of attraction. It is alignment driven by a loss of faith in the existing leader.

Changes needed

None of this is inevitable. Asia is not turning away because it prefers authoritarianism, but because it feels increasingly disrespected by a power that still speaks the language of equal partnership – while treating its allies as subordinates.

If the United States still wants to lead, it must start acting like a leader again – not by coercing but by inspiring. That requires treating Asian partners not as junior clients, but as genuine co-architects of the international order.

Only by treating its partners with respect, restraint and a genuine sense of dignity can Washington regain the moral authority that once made others follow willingly.

Asia remains open to US leadership – but it will no longer follow blindly. The choice is still America’s to make. Time, however, is no longer on its side.

Hanjin Lew is a political commentator specializing in East Asian affairs. Jio Lew contributed research for this article.

asiatimes.com · Hanjin Lew, Jio Lew · August 20, 2025

17. Is Ukraine the Future of Asia?

Excerpts:

Ultimately, Trump’s Ukraine strategy underscores the essence of his “America First” worldview. In his second term’s opening months, Asia has already seen the hard edge of this approach in the realm of trade, with alliances and security interests set aside in favor of economic nationalism. His diplomacy with Putin on Ukraine now suggests that even the security concerns of allies may be sacrificed if they clash with Trump’s vision of stable ties with China and Russia.

Kishida’s warning that Ukraine is the future of Asia was originally meant to highlight the importance of defending international norms against aggression. Under Trump, the phrase has acquired a different meaning: It signals the risks of relying on the U.S. in a world where America’s strategic choices are increasingly transactional. For Asia’s allies, the lesson is sobering. They may need to prepare for a future where American commitments are uncertain and transient, and the burden of securing the region rests more heavily on their own shoulders.

Is Ukraine the Future of Asia?

Foreign Policy · C. Raja Mohan

Washington’s switch to accommodating Moscow’s geopolitical goals sends an ominous signal.

Mohan-C-Raja-foreign-policy-columnistC. Raja Mohan

By C. Raja Mohan, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a former member of India’s National Security Advisory Board.

August 20, 2025, 4:49 AM

Trump’s Second Term

Ongoing reports and analysis

When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that the war and its outcome would be a harbinger of Asia’s future. His message was clear: Just as Europe faced Russian territorial expansionism, Asia was confronting the challenge of China’s growing assertiveness—each with potentially profound consequences for the respective continent.

Three years later, Kishida’s warning has acquired a more ominous meaning. U.S. President Donald Trump is pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to cede territory in exchange for peace of an uncertain duration, while demanding that European allies fall in line. For Asia, Trump’s high-handed diplomacy raises troubling questions about whether America will remain a reliable security guarantor in the Indo-Pacific.

At the Shangri-La Dialogue in June 2022, Kishida argued that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow.” This was consistent with Tokyo’s long-standing emphasis on a “rules-based international order” and its regional adaptation—the quest for a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” Japanese leaders, especially former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, had worked for years to mobilize international support for such a framework in response to China’s rise.

Japan did more than endorse Western resistance to Moscow; it became an active participant. Responding to Washington’s call, Tokyo—along with Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea—joined NATO’s 2022 Madrid summit, signaling a willingness to integrate trans-Atlantic security into Asian concerns. Yet for these four Asia-Pacific powers—the so-called AP4—that decision now looks misguided. Trump’s reversal of former President Joe Biden’s Ukraine policy leaves them exposed and highlights the fragility of America’s geostrategic fancies.

Much of Asia took a different path. China, India, and most of Southeast Asia avoided directly condemning Russia’s invasion. Their reluctance reflected caution, but today also looks prescient. With Washington reversing course and seeking accommodation with Moscow at Ukraine’s expense, these states can claim vindication for resisting Western pressure.

Meanwhile, Asia’s own security dilemmas have only deepened. China’s power in its region dwarfs Russia’s in Europe. Unlike Russia, situated on Europe’s edge, China sits at Asia’s core, sharing long land borders and strategic waters with many states. While Beijing has resolved most land disputes, including against Russia, it continues to press claims against Bhutan and India. There, the question looms: Will China be tempted to assert itself more aggressively in the Himalayas?

The maritime domain poses even sharper concerns. China’s disputes in the East and South China seas have persisted for decades, and the erosion, in Ukraine, of the norm proscribing the use of force to change borders could embolden Beijing. If Moscow is allowed to use force to secure territorial gains without consequences—and is even gifted with additional territories, as Trump and his envoy to Putin, Steve Witkoff, seem to be proposing—then China’s neighbors will fear similar tactics at sea. Taiwan, already under mounting pressure after Beijing’s unilateral absorption of Hong Kong, faces particular danger.

A peace settlement in Ukraine that rewards Russian annexation will likely encourage Chinese assertiveness. Yet Beijing has reason to worry as well. Trump has described Russia and China as “natural enemies” and accused Biden of driving them closer together. His hope is to separate Moscow from Beijing. Although the “no-limits” partnership between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely to collapse, Trump’s maneuvering could give both Moscow and Washington greater room to deal with Beijing on their own terms.

For New Delhi, however, Trump’s diplomacy offers little comfort. India has long argued that Western pressure was pushing Russia into China’s arms. But a U.S.-Russia rapprochement provides no strategic relief for India. Washington is simultaneously targeting India’s oil imports from Russia while sparing China, the other major buyer. Worse still, Trump is courting Xi with the same gusto he displays with Putin. Convinced he can work out a productive relationship with Xi, Trump risks devaluing allies and partners across Asia as he prioritizes reordering ties with the two great powers.

This approach sets troubling precedents. In Europe, Trump has chosen to negotiate Ukraine’s fate over the heads of America’s allies, compelling them not only to accept the settlement but also to underwrite it. For Asia, where security rests on bilateral rather than multilateral alliances, the implications are even starker. Unlike Europe, which benefits from institutional cushions such as NATO and the EU, Asian allies operating in bilateral or informal minilateral formats are far more exposed to shifts in Washington’s policies.

There is also the danger of miscalculation. Trump appears to underestimate China’s strengths and overestimate Washington’s ability to manage Beijing unilaterally. That leaves Asian allies—Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others—in an even more precarious position.

Ultimately, Trump’s Ukraine strategy underscores the essence of his “America First” worldview. In his second term’s opening months, Asia has already seen the hard edge of this approach in the realm of trade, with alliances and security interests set aside in favor of economic nationalism. His diplomacy with Putin on Ukraine now suggests that even the security concerns of allies may be sacrificed if they clash with Trump’s vision of stable ties with China and Russia.

Kishida’s warning that Ukraine is the future of Asia was originally meant to highlight the importance of defending international norms against aggression. Under Trump, the phrase has acquired a different meaning: It signals the risks of relying on the U.S. in a world where America’s strategic choices are increasingly transactional. For Asia’s allies, the lesson is sobering. They may need to prepare for a future where American commitments are uncertain and transient, and the burden of securing the region rests more heavily on their own shoulders.

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Foreign Policy · C. Raja Mohan

18. Donald Trump’s fantasy of home-grown chipmaking

In a recent event I participated in, I learned from experts that the most advanced chips are only made in Taiwan and can only be made in Taiwan because of the unique combination of the supply chain and human and physical infrastructure that has taken 30 years to perfect. It cannot be easily replicated anywhere else and certainly not in Arizona and Texas.

Donald Trump’s fantasy of home-grown chipmaking

To remain the world’s foremost technological power, America needs its friends

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/08/21/donald-trumps-fantasy-of-home-grown-chipmaking?etear=nl_weekly_1

Aug 21st 2025

|

5 min read

Listen to this story

H

ow low mighty Intel has fallen. Half a century ago the American chipmaker was a byword for the cutting edge; it went on to dominate the market for personal-computer chips and in 2000 briefly became the world’s second-most-valuable company. Yet these days Intel, with a market capitalisation of $100bn, is not even the 15th-most-valuable chip firm, and supplies practically none of the advanced chips used for artificial intelligence (AI). Once an icon of America’s technological and commercial prowess, it has lately been a target for subsidies and protection. As we published this, President Donald Trump was even mulling quasi-nationalisation.

More than ever, semiconductors hold the key to the 21st century. They are increasingly critical for defence; in the ai race between America and China, they could spell the difference between victory and defeat. Even free-traders acknowledge their strategic importance, and worry about the world’s reliance for cutting-edge chips on tsmc and its home of Taiwan, which faces the threat of Chinese invasion. Yet chips also pose a fiendish test for proponents of industrial policy. Their manufacture is a marvel of specialisation, complexity and globalisation. Under those conditions, intervening in markets is prone to fail—as Intel so vividly illustrates.

To see how much can go wrong, consider its woes. Hubris caused the firm to miss both the smartphone and the ai waves, losing out to firms such as Arm, Nvidia and tsmc. Joe Biden’s CHIPS Act, which aimed to spur domestic chipmaking, promised Intel $8bn in grants and up to $12bn in loans. But the company is floundering. A fab in Ohio meant to open this year is now expected to begin operations in the early 2030s. Intel is heavily indebted and generates barely enough cash to keep itself afloat.

Illustration: Deena So'Oteh

The sums needed to rescue it keep growing. By one estimate Intel will need to invest more than $50bn in the next few years if it is to succeed at making leading-edge chips. Even if the government were to sink that much into the firm, it would have no guarantee of success. The company is said to be struggling with its latest manufacturing process. Its sales are falling and its plight risks becoming even more desperate.

The Biden administration failed with Intel, but Mr Trump could make things worse. He has threatened tariffs on chip imports, and may try to browbeat firms such as Nvidia into using Intel to make semiconductors for them. These measures might buy Intel time but they would be self-defeating for America. Chipmaking is not an end in itself but a critical input America’s tech sector requires to be world-beating. Forcing firms to settle for anything less than the best would blunt their edge.

What should America do? One lesson is not to pin the nation’s hopes on keeping Intel intact. It could sell its fab business to a deep-pocketed investor, such as SoftBank, which has reportedly expressed interest in buying it and this week announced a $2bn investment in Intel. Or it could sell its design arm and pour the proceeds into manufacturing. Intel may fail to catch up with TSMC even then. Either way, the federal government should not throw good money after bad. Taking a stake in Intel would only complicate matters.

That leads to a second lesson: to look beyond Intel and solve other chipmakers’ problems. tsmc is seeking to spread its wings. It is running out of land for giant fabs in Taiwan and its workforce is ageing. It has already pledged to invest $165bn to bring chipmaking to America. A first fab is producing four-nanometre (nm) chips and a second is scheduled to begin making more advanced chips by 2028. Samsung, a South Korean chipmaker that is having more success than Intel, is setting up a fab in Texas. But progress has been slow: Samsung and TSMC have both struggled with a lack of skilled workers and delays in receiving permits.

The last lesson is that, even if domestic chipmaking does make America more resilient, the country cannot shut itself off from the rest of the world. One reason is that the supply chain is highly specialised, with key inputs coming from across the globe, including extreme-ultraviolet lithography machines from the Netherlands and chipmaking tools from Japan. The other is that Taiwan and its security will remain critical. Even by the end of this decade, when tsmc’s third fab in America is due to begin producing 2nm chips, two-thirds of such semiconductors are likely to be made on the island. TSMC’s model is based on innovating at home first, before spreading its advances around the world.

To keep America’s chip supply chains resilient, Mr Trump needs a coherent, thought-through strategy—a tall order for a man who governs by impulse. No wonder he is going in the wrong direction. On Taiwan he has been cavalier, confident that China will not invade on his watch, while failing to offer the island consistent support. His tariffs on all manner of inputs will raise the costs of manufacturing in America; promised duties on chip imports will hurt American customers. He thrives on uncertainty, but chipmakers require stability.

A sensible chip policy would make it attractive to build fabs in America by easing rules over permits and creating programmes to train engineers. Instead of using tariffs as leverage, the government should welcome the imports of machinery and people that support chipmaking. Given the bipartisan consensus on the importance of semiconductors, the administration should seek a policy that has Democratic support—with the promise of continuity from one president to the next.

Economic nationalists should also see the progress of chipmakers in allied countries as a contribution to America’s security. Samsung is aiming to start producing 2nm chips in South Korea later this year. Rapidus, a well-funded chipmaking startup in Japan, is making impressive progress. Both countries have a tradition of manufacturing excellence, and may have a better shot at emulating Taiwan.

The chipmaking industry took decades to evolve. It is built for an age of globalisation. When economic nationalists build their policies on autarky, they are setting themselves a needlessly hard task—if not an impossible one. ■

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19. The Back Brief: The Airborne Mafia, The Mission, and the Ft. Bragg Cartel

The Back Brief: The Airborne Mafia, The Mission, and the Ft. Bragg Cartel

Three new books reviewed covering JSOC, the CIA, and the Airborne Infantry

https://thehighside.substack.com/p/the-back-brief-the-airborne-mafia?r=7i07&utm

Jack Murphy

Aug 20, 2025

∙ Paid

The Airborne Mafia by Robert F. Williams

“The Airborne Mafia” tells the history of the American airborne infantry fraternity, making the case that the so-called airborne “mafia” has been influential on American national security far beyond its original scope of static line parachute infiltrations.

Williams starts with the birth of American airborne culture in the early 1940s and into its dramatic entrance into World War II, covering not just the history of these airborne units but also what makes them different. What is the airborne culture, and why did it permeate so strongly through the Army after World War II, and in a world where parachute infiltration was increasingly no longer the preferred method to deliver troops into battle?

The author pins the difference on a few key factors, including the specialized assessment and selection that applied to paratroop units. Airborne soldiers had to have a slightly higher IQ than the average soldier back in the 1940s, and then they had to pass the physically and mentally challenging airborne course. Their bravery had to be demonstrated in training by jumping from perfectly good aircraft, a character trait that bled into other aspects of the soldier's job.

Perhaps the most important characteristic of the airborne mafia though was its emphasis on decentralized maneuver warfare. While the hope was always that airborne units would land in one place, and assemble as intact units on the ground, this was rarely the case. More often than not, units were spread out across a dozen or more miles, leading to them fighting as individual squads or coming together in an ad hoc manner on the ground, sweeping up paratroopers dispersed across the battlespace into small platoon-size elements, and then taking the fight to the enemy on their own initiative.

This individual initiative and creativity was cultivated in the airborne for the above mentioned tactical reasons, but it was a quality that bled over into every other aspect of the airborne culture. Commanders expected their platoon leaders, and even their privates, to seize the initiative and come up with solutions on their own.

Airborne officers who went on to have an outsized impact on the overall force after World War II included Gen. Matthew Ridgeway, Brig. Gen. William Yarborough, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, and Lt. Gen. James Gavin, all of whom went on to serve in the upper echelons of the Army, where they advocated for airborne units and the airborne mentality. These airborne commanders also founded the airmobile capability — the use of helicopter insertions — which was widely employed during the Vietnam conflict.

While the airborne mafia influenced the development of airmobility, and even the Army’s force structure during the atomic age, what brings the Army’s airborne capability into the 21^st century is that it is sold as a strategic response force. To this day, the 75^th Ranger Regiment maintains a battalion of Ranger Ready Force 1 (RRF1) recall alert while the 82^nd Airborne Division maintains an Immediate Response Battalion (IRB) as a part of its larger Immediate Response Force (IRF). Both of these battalions are prepared to deploy globally in a matter of hours in response to contingencies as directed by the president.

“The Airborne Mafia” is superbly researched, with the author taking a neutral-to-positive tone about his subject matter while also pointing out some of the dangers posed by such an influential community, such as sending paratroopers in to squash domestic riots or civil unrest. “Because of their intrinsic readiness and well-honed combat skills, parachute forces have become a double-edged sword,” the author writes. “High-readiness troops are seldom the best choice for constabulary functions — yet they are often the only choice.”

In short, I highly recommended the book. “The Airborne Mafia” reminds us why the sky is blue, what makes the grass grow green, and why the airborne hates dirty nasty legs.

The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces by Seth Harp

Roughly analogous to Matthew Cole's “Code Over Country: The Tragedy and Corruption of SEAL Team Six,” Seth Harp's new book about murder, rape, drug trafficking, and other criminal activities within Special Forces and Delta Force is sure to blow out a few o-rings down at Fort Bragg as the United States continues a period of post-Global War on Terror reflection that is as needed as it is dreaded.

Harp (himself an Army veteran) focuses primarily on the lives and deaths of Green Beret Mark Leshikar and Delta operator Billy Lavigne as an entryway into the world of criminal activity in and around Fort Bragg. Mark and Billy were best friends, until one day when Billy gunned Mark down in his home under circumstances that were never properly explained.

From this jumping off point we land in a different type of military environment than the professional one that the public often imagines, detailing the alleged rape of Erin Scanlon by a Delta Force operator, the mysterious beheading of 82^nd Airborne Division soldier Enrique Roman-Martinez, and finally the incredible story of Lavigne's link to former Army logistics specialist Timothy Dumas (whose body was found next to his on Fort Bragg) and their relationship with a former police officer turned drug trafficker named Freddie Huff.

The author and I have both covered some of the same stories, although Harp has spent more time on this topic, dived deeper into it, and found connections that I hadn't. Therefore, this is an interesting case in which I can vouch for the factual veracity of Harp's reporting. “The Fort Bragg Cartel” is spot on regarding the criminal activity around the Army post, which is located in Fayetteville, North Carolina; and yes, I can confirm that drug traffickers around Bragg are known locally as “the cartel.”

Harp finds the connections between Dumas and Lavigne, while also bringing to light Dumas’ relationship with Huff. Dumas was involved in the so-called “black mafia” in the Fort Bragg area while Huff was a disenfranchised former police officer who used his cop know-how to evade law enforcement while running a criminal empire smuggling drugs from Mexico to North Carolina. Dumas was one of his distributors, and he sold drugs with Billy Levigne. It sounds a bit convoluted when summarized here, but Harp does a good job laying it all out.

Readers of “The Fort Bragg Cartel” are likely to want to throw the book against the wall a few times in frustration with the incompetence of Army criminal investigators who fail every step of the way, special operations senior leaders who should have reined in the criminal behavior, and the Cumberland County Sheriff's office, which gave so many free passes to drug trafficking, raping, and murdering special operators on Fort Bragg that one has to question exactly what the relationship is between Army special operations forces and the local police.

The only detracting factor is Harp's frequent use of florid language to describe his subject matter with many references to black ops assassins or off the books ops read-ons (the latter of which being a bit of contradiction) and so on. This type of talk carries currency with people who watch too many Oliver Stone movies, but is likely to be seen as discrediting in the eyes of most military veterans and current Army leaders. This is unfortunate, because they are the ones who most need to read Harp’s book.

There is much more going on in “The Fort Bragg Cartel” for readers to explore on their own, including multi-generational drug trafficking at an airfield close to Bragg, details about sexual harassment in Delta Force, and even a guided tour through the Delta compound. Harp's book deserves to be read by the military community, discussed on its merits without emotion, and acted upon by current senior leaders at Bragg. However, as Matthew Cole said about his own book, this is going to take some time for people to digest.

The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century by Tim Weiner

“The Mission: The CIA in the 21^st Century” is Tim Weiner's follow-up to his now-seminal work on the history of the CIA, “Legacy of Ashes.” “The Mission” picks up where “Legacy of Ashes” left off, detailing the CIA's history over the last 30 or so years. “Legacy of Ashes” was impressive in its wide-ranging scope and command of history, and “The Mission” aims to replicate that as a chronological sequel.

However, a few of the more interesting passages are actually about pre-9/11 activities including the fact that the United States executed 14 extraordinary renditions prior to 2001, including of the al-Qaida local leader in Albania who had been hunted down by CIA officers. Another fascinating episode transpires in the skies over Peru during the Airbridge Denial Program run by the CIA and Peruvian allies from 1995 to 2001, which resulted in numerous aircraft shootdowns, which appear to have been completely illegal, and one of which resulted in the death of a missionary family targeted in error.

“The Mission” then launches into the post-9/11 history, detailing the dark days for the CIA immediately following that terrible attack, the invasion of Afghanistan, and then, 18 months later, the invasion of Iraq. The book is peppered with memorable characters, many of them former guests on The Team House, featuring the likes of Jack Devine, Ric Prado, Luis Rueda, Douglas Wise, Pat Weninger, Jim Lawler, and I.S. Berry, just to name a few.

There is much to discuss, more than can be unpacked in a short review, although I get into more of it in my Team House interview with Weiner. Let me pull out a few vignettes that will likely get you interested.

The chapter titled “A Beautiful Operation” is one of the book’s most explosive, and details a CIA operation run by Robert Gorelick, Paula Doyle, and Jim Lawler to interdict fissile material being smuggled by bad actors to ostensibly build a nuclear weapon. The CIA team was the little known Special Activities Unit and was responsible for subverting and destroying the infamous A.Q. Khan network. These CIA officers set up fake entities that posed as nuclear component smugglers themselves in order to draw out their targets.

Then, when they discovered that a Swiss family named Tinner had been supplying Khan for decades, they bugged the Tinners, stole their files, and got inside their bank accounts before Lawler went ahead and recruited them as assets, paying them a cool million dollars from a CIA front company called Big Black River Technologies. This set up the CIA to be right on top of A. Q. Khan when he and the Tinners established a “sprawling nuclear weapons component factory” in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, Weiner writes, noting that by this time the CIA basically had Khan's entire operation under surveillance.

Other fascinating accounts detail the assassination of senior Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh, the CIA's so-called hacking of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence staffers, the recruiting and compromise of Chinese agents by the CIA, Russian cyber operations, and much more.

However, there is as much missing as included in “The Mission.” To be fair, the book's scope is massive and impossible to contain within a single volume. Additionally, it is incredibly difficult if not impossible to write a “history” that is still unfolding in real time from Gaza to Ukraine.

Still, some topics are noticeably shortchanged: Havana Syndrome is mentioned in a few sentences in passing; the CIA's regime change program in Syria (known as “Brennan's Baby” inside CIA headquarters) receives about a paragraph; the Counter-Terrorism Pursuit Teams in Afghanistan get a sentence. The Special Tactics Unit in Iraq is not even mentioned, nor is the global Counter Terrorism Operations Program (CTOP) in which the CIA utilizes surrogates for counter-terror operations. These are glaring omissions in a post-9/11 history of the CIA.

“The Mission” is likely to appear on intelligence studies syllabi across the country, and judging by sales and publicity, it seems that the general reading public has also taken great interest. This should be of no surprise, as few authors have the access and talent to write such a wide ranging foray into the history of post-9/11 intelligence gathering.

New fiction!

If you have an another minute I will lay on you some appropriately-themed novels I’ve read recently. Many readers are likely to relate to T.R. Hendrick’s protagonist in his thriller titled “The Instructor “ about a former Marine recruited by the FBI to infiltrate a militia (and hopefully escape with his life).

Although not a new novel, “Agents of Innocence” by David Ignatius was new to me. I gave it a read after several former CIA officers recommended it to me, saying it is basically a fictionalized version of how the CIA recruited members of the PLO during the 1970s. At the moment, I am reading “The Chaos Agent” by Mark Greaney in his popular Gray Man series. So far, I’d say this is one of his better outings, with a fast-moving plot about a global crisis involving AI tech leaders being assassinated. Next on my to-read list is former MARSOC officer Ivan Ingraham’s novel “Once We Pledged Forever: A Novel of Combat, Marines and the War Within,” which I’m really looking forward to.

Editor’s Note: This article contains Amazon hyperlinks for books. If you buy a book after clicking on a link, as part of the Amazon Affiliates program, The High Side will earn a small commission.

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20. Should America’s military plan for a retreat from the Pacific?

No retreat. No surrender.

Should America’s military plan for a retreat from the Pacific?

militarytimes.com · Michael Peck · August 20, 2025

When America goes to war, it likes to be on the offensive. “Nobody ever defended anything successfully,” Gen. George S. Patton famously said. “There is only attack and attack and attack some more.”

But for six months after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military retreated and retreated some more. The U.S. garrison in the Philippines, under Gen. Douglas MacArthur, steadily retreated before the Japanese onslaught that culminated in the surrender at Bataan in May 1942. Isolated outposts at Wake Island and Guam fell, while the decimated and outnumbered U.S. fleet carefully stuck to hit-and-run as America mobilized for total war.

Today, a U.S. Army officer has a warning: In the face of growing Chinese military power, America needs to relearn how to conduct a fighting retreat in the Pacific.

“Fading advantages in firepower, distributed forces, and the growing operational reach of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) require an expansion of operational thought,” wrote Maj. Patrick Smith in a recent essay for Military Review, an Army professional publication. “The joint force must consider methods of retrograde to shape advantages in time, space, and force.”

Smith lists several factors that imperil America’s position in the Pacific.

“Small constellations of U.S. elements — ashore and afloat — encircle the looming mass of mainland China,” he wrote. “Operating on tenuous exterior lines, they are vulnerable to defeat in detail by a prodigious array of standoff munitions or blockade.” Resupply is difficult within range of Chinese weapons, reserves of personnel and munitions are scarce, and “regional partners can quickly about-face on support to U.S. forces, making presence in some locales untenable.”

Smith also worries that the U.S. lacks sufficient sealift, arguing that “glaring training shortfalls in crisis response, worsened by maintenance deficiencies, compromise U.S. capacity to conduct amphibious actions.”

Of all military operations, retreat under fire is probably the most difficult. Smith points to several historical examples where U.S. forces had to conduct fighting withdrawals, including the American Revolution, Civil War and World War II. Perhaps the most relevant example for the Pacific today is the 1941 Philippines campaign, where MacArthur planned a delaying action that called for U.S. and Filipino troops to gradually retreat from Manila south to the fortified Bataan peninsula — and then hold on until a relief force arrived from America. “Dugout Doug” MacArthur’s leadership in 1941 was controversial to say the least, but the six-month resistance until May 1942 did inflict some delay on Japanese operations.

Given that Manila was 2,000 miles from Tokyo and 5,000 miles from Pearl Harbor, choosing to conduct a retrograde operation while awaiting reinforcement was not an unreasonable strategy. The problem was that the relief force lay at the bottom of Pearl Harbor after the Japanese attack on December 7th. Not only didn’t the promised reinforcements arrive, but there was insufficient transport to evacuate the Philippines garrison.

“Strategic planners failed to prioritize sealift as the American Filipino force grimly gave way,” Smith noted. A similar fate nearly befell Washington’s army with its backs to the East River at the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, but for a regiment composed of Massachusetts fishermen who ferried the Continentals to safety.

A more successful example was Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s 1864 campaign in Virginia, when the Army of the Potomac withdrew from Cold Harbor. Through an elaborate deception campaign, Grant diverted Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s attention by ordering the Army of the Shenandoah to make a feint attack toward Lynchburg 140 miles away. The Army of the Potomac then redeployed by crossing the James River, a potentially fatal operation if the Confederates had attacked.

Smith argues that the U.S. needs to relearn how to retreat.

“Fighting withdrawals and delays will be sharpened arrows in the quiver of operational leaders campaigning in the early stages of a Pacific fight,” he wrote. “In those precarious moments, the joint force should prudently select positions from which it can absorb repeated blows while degrading enemy means.”

Smith envisions a widely distributed joint force that would “confound the PLA with a targeting dilemma if it decides to switch to the offensive.” Deception operations would be key: “Similar to Grant’s illusory movements to confuse Lee, feints, demonstrations, and advances within and outside of theater may freeze enemy actions to create time and space for movement of friendly forces.”

Adroit maneuvers, well-timed withdrawals and clever deception operations would exploit American strengths and Chinese weaknesses, Smith argued.

Nonetheless, most Americans would probably agree with Patton that the best defense is a good offense. Knowing how to retreat is important, but it’s more important to be able to absorb the enemy’s blows while inflicting your own, Eric Heginbotham, a researcher at MIT’s Center for International Studies, told Defense News.

In contrast to 1941, the situation in the Pacific today “has to do largely with long-range fires and our ability to survive adversary ones while conducting our own,” Heginbotham said. The problem is that the U.S. has failed to harden its Pacific airbases against Chinese missile barrages, or ensure that U.S. forces enjoy flexible and redundant logistics that can function in the face of Chinese attacks.

“This has a bit less to do with retrograde per se, than not putting our forces forward in highly vulnerable positions,” said Heginbotham. Dispersing for distributed operations can help mitigate those vulnerabilities.

Nonetheless, Heginbotham agrees the U.S. military needs to know how to retrograde operations. Ironically, despite America’s distaste for retreat, the U.S. can do this better than China.

“One advantage we do enjoy in the Pacific is maritime depth and the ability to engage where and when we want,” Heginbotham said. “In contrast, the Chinese fleet is up against a continent. It has nowhere to run or hide and is, in effect, in the shooting gallery from day one.”

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