Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear."

– Bertrand Russell

"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."

– Marcus Aurelius

"If it's not yours,

don't take it.

If it's not right,

don't do it.

If it's not ture,

don't say it.

If you don't know,

be quiet."

– Japanese Wisdom

1. Trump Gives Familiar Two-Week Deadline for Next Steps to End War in Ukraine

2. "Innovations saved Ukraine, now industry must take the lead" - Major General David Grange on defence, Armed Forces transformation, and aviation

3. FBI Raids Home, Office of Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton

4. With Putin, ‘Ultimately, Trump Holds the Cards’

5. Trump Says U.S. Will Take Nearly 10% Equity Stake in Intel

6. The Tragedy of Interwar Thinking

7. ‘Flying Blind’: Trump Strips Government of Expertise at a High-Stakes Moment

8. Donald Trump has purged one of the CIA’s most senior Russia analysts

9. Trump's intelligence chief ordered halt to intelligence sharing on Russia-Ukraine peace talks among 'Five Eye' allies, CBS reports

10. Hegseth fires head of Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse

11. JD Vance’s Tour in Iraq Taught Him His Government Lies

12. Putin’s Ukraine Summitry Was a Big Con

13. Army looking to inject more cyber capabilities into formations at the division level

14. Intelligence and Reconnaissance Brigades Give PLA Theater Commands Unprecedented Reach

15. Inside Russia’s Shadow Military Sustaining the War

16. Smuggling for the Motherland? Using Ukraine’s Criminal Organizations Against Russia

17. Quantum Leap for the Alliance: Europe’s Tech Drive Strengthens Transatlantic Security

18. Where the Arctic meets the Pacific: America’s overlooked frontline

19. The Pentagon plan to Americanize drone warfare

20.Mahan, Mackinder, and the New ‘Problem of Asia’

21. What America Can Learn from the Hamas Propaganda War

22. By Land or by Sea: Continental Power, Maritime Power, and the Fight for a New World Order

23. How a Multi-Domain Command in Japan Would Reshape US Alliances in the Indo-Pacific

1. Trump Gives Familiar Two-Week Deadline for Next Steps to End War in Ukraine

Excerpts:

“I think I’ll know the attitude of Russian, and frankly Ukraine,” Trump said at the White House Friday, “and then we’ll make a decision about what we’re going to do.”

Should the two leaders fail to take steps toward resolving the war in the timeframe, Trump said he could enact “massive sanctions” or “massive tariffs” or he might do nothing and “say it’s your fight.” Trump said he would determine his next steps depending on who he believes is at fault for delaying progress.

“I’ll see whose fault it is,” Trump said. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” He added: “I’ll know within two weeks what I’m going to do,” Trump said.

Trump Gives Familiar Two-Week Deadline for Next Steps to End War in Ukraine

New deadline caps a flurry of diplomatic activity to end fighting in Ukraine

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/trump-gives-familiar-two-week-deadline-for-next-steps-to-end-war-in-ukraine-24b546e7

By Annie Linskey

Follow and Alexander Ward

Updated Aug. 22, 2025 3:34 pm ET

President Trump, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders, arriving for a group photo in the White House on Monday. Photo: andrew caballero-reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—President Trump offered a new—and familiar—deadline for the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to move forward with a peace process or face possible U.S. retaliation, saying that within “two weeks” he’ll make his determination.

“I think I’ll know the attitude of Russian, and frankly Ukraine,” Trump said at the White House Friday, “and then we’ll make a decision about what we’re going to do.”

Should the two leaders fail to take steps toward resolving the war in the timeframe, Trump said he could enact “massive sanctions” or “massive tariffs” or he might do nothing and “say it’s your fight.” Trump said he would determine his next steps depending on who he believes is at fault for delaying progress.

“I’ll see whose fault it is,” Trump said. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” He added: “I’ll know within two weeks what I’m going to do,” Trump said.

Trump frequently gives himself—or others—a two-week deadline to make decisions. He said he’d decide within two weeks whether to bomb Iran and then did it within days. He has suggested that federal approvals to build nuclear power plants should take “two weeks;” offered other leaders “two weeks” to learn about trade deals and said in May that he’d know within “two weeks” if Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to end the war.

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

Trump also said Friday he’s “not happy” about the recent Russian strike on a U.S.-owned factory in Ukraine.

Trump has been engaged in a flurry of diplomacy in recent days to create a peace process aimed at ending the 3½-years-long war in Ukraine. But after initial high-profile meetings there’s been little visible progress, and Russian officials have rebuffed a series of proposals.

Ahead of his summit last week with Putin, Trump said he expected an agreement for a cease-fire, or the U.S. would retaliate against Moscow. The meeting ended with no agreement to stop the fighting, and Trump didn’t impose any new sanctions on Russia or tariffs on countries that buy its oil.

President Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin arriving for a news conference last week in Anchorage, Alaska, after their discussion ended with no agreement for a cease-fire in Ukraine. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg News

On Monday, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House and announced a two-step process toward peace. Putin and Zelensky, he said, would meet first and then he proposed a three-way meeting between himself and the Russian and Ukrainian leaders.

Trump also agreed to provide U.S. assistance for security assurances to enforce any peace agreement between the warring sides. And he put Secretary of State Marco Rubio in charge of a multinational task force to work out the details of what various countries will provide.

Last week, prior to the meeting with Europeans, Trump flew to Alaska where he met with Putin to discuss ending the war.

On Friday, Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, held up a photograph of himself standing next to Putin in Alaska that he said the Russian leader sent him. “I thought it was a nice picture of him—okay of me, but nice of him,” Trump said.

Trump said he planned to sign the photo for Putin.

Write to Annie Linskey at annie.linskey@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com

2. "Innovations saved Ukraine, now industry must take the lead" - Major General David Grange on defence, Armed Forces transformation, and aviation

An interview with MG Grange that covers a lot of ground.

"Innovations saved Ukraine, now industry must take the lead" - Major General David Grange on defence, Armed Forces transformation, and aviation

https://unn.ua/en/news/innovation-saved-ukraine-now-its-time-for-industrial-development-general-david-grange-on-defense-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine-and-aviation

Kyiv • UNN

August 22 2025, 11:30 PM • 12485 views

General David L. Grange, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian ‘Constanta Airlines’ since 2024, shares his views on the transformation of the Armed Forces, the lessons of the war, and the future of Ukrainian aviation.

David L. Grange, a retired US Army Major General, brings his extraordinary military background to his role as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ukrainian "Aircompany Constanta". During his 30-year military career, Grange served with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam, commanded a squadron in the elite Delta Force during the invasion of Grenada, served as a task force commander during the Gulf War, commanded the Ranger Regiment and led the 1st Infantry Division "The Big Red One" before retiring in 2000.

In Ukraine, David Grange is primarily known for founding the Osprey Global Solutions Ukraine Foundation, which provides free NATO standard training for Ukrainian first responders and military personnel in demining, explosive ordnance disposal, and emergency medical assistance. His humanitarian work in conflict zones worldwide, including personally facilitating evacuations from Afghanistan between 2021-2023, demonstrates his commitment to crisis response and rebuilding efforts.

Appointed Chairman of the Supervisory Board of "Aircompany Constanta" in April 2024, Grange's leadership aims to position the airline for both international operations and post-war reconstruction efforts in Ukraine.

In this interviewIn an interview for UNN, Major General Grange shares his insights on the evolution of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, readiness for long-term threats, steps needed to strengthen defense in the future, security challenges including demining, "Aircompany Constanta" operations, and the future of Ukrainian aviation.

General Grange, having observed Ukraine's military since 1995, how would you characterize its transformation from a Soviet-style force to today's battle-hardened army? What were the key turning points in this evolution?

My first time in Ukraine was in 1995 with one of the Partnership for Peace exercises in a training area outside of Lviv with Ukrainian airborne and mechanized armored forces. I was the assistant division commander for the 3rd Infantry Division US Army at that time stationed in Germany.

One thing that came to me immediately during the training was that it was obviously based on the Soviet model. Until the wall came down, I thought the Soviet military was much more powerful than it turned out to be in our training. Equipment was poorly maintained, training was lacking, leadership was poor. Good morale, tough guys, wonderful to train with, but I could see that they needed to westernize. Not that everything the West does is right, but it was much better than the Soviet structure. I've seen that in other Eastern European countries, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and other places. In the 2014 time frame, there were good exchange programs with Ukraine and the United States and other NATO forces like UK and Belgium that helped quite a bit both ways.

When the war started again in February of 2022 and the Russians attacked Ukraine, the Ukrainian army was in survival mode, as well as many civilians who supported their country, whether first responders or farmers who took up weapons. They did an unbelievable job stopping the Russian advance – a lot of that was done with anti-tank weapons. Ukrainians took advantage of Russian weaknesses: poor logistics, poor maintenance, poor leadership, and inability to adapt to what they found on the ground.

Thank God the invasion was stopped and the Ukrainian army regrouped very quickly, built whatever they could immediately because of the emergency crisis, and pushed the Russians back in many places. Crimea had already been temporarily occupied, as well as some other regions, but Ukrainians managed to reclaim much of the territory.

Russians regrouped, and as they regrouped, the lines became very static. Many Ukrainian generals have commented that it's like World War I, static defenses with what they call hybrid war innovations. The problem with the trench warfare model is that it's just a grind of soldiers and the civilian population, and casualties mount.

Innovations saved Ukraine at that time. Ukrainians innovated faster than the Russians. The Russians rely mainly on mass, whether thousands of soldiers in an attack, hundreds of armored vehicles, missiles, or drone attacks. The innovations that Ukraine developed — everybody talks about drones, but there was more: tactics, how to counter electronic warfare, how to work social media, guerrilla warfare behind the lines, and attacking deep into Russian lines.

Whether by air, missiles, or drones against Russian targets, logistical facilities, or airfields with strategic bombers, they took back Russian control of the Black Sea without having a navy, using unconventional warfare, water drones, and other means. I think they've sunk about a third of the Black Sea fleet of the Russian navy.

But now we're at an impasse, where both sides have drones, electronic warfare, and are using social media. There's unconventional warfare on both sides of the front lines.

What has been learned by the Ukrainian military and shared with NATO countries, including the United States, is exceptional. The United States is trying to integrate what was learned by the Ukrainian military in this hybrid war, which is a combination of traditional and irregular warfare. But that doesn't win the fight. That just keeps Ukraine alive.

You just mentioned the lessons learned by the Ukrainian army that can be used not only by Ukraine but also by the USA and the rest of the world. If you can name these lessons briefly, what would you say?

Obviously, the use of drones. Every war in history usually has a discriminator that comes with the innovation of technology and tactics. It could be the airplane and tank in World War I, or blitzkrieg in World War II. There are always discriminators. The helicopter changed warfare.

Now it's almost reversed with the helicopter, although there are solutions. The drone is a great example, but so is electronic warfare, concealment on the battlefield, cover from artillery, air attack, and missile attack. The ability to use innovations by air, sea, and land is crucial because geography matters.

How do you use the ground effectively? How do you take large formations, which the U.S. uses quite a bit, so do the Russians, and hide them? How do they continue to communicate with all the electronic warfare going on?

Everybody talks about drones, but there are many tactics and procedures that will eventually evolve into doctrine, which is the way you fight. Then how do you apply that to different kinds of war?

The United States' challenge is that the spectrum of war goes from guerrilla hostage rescue or terrorist attack, all the way up to major war with a competitor like Russia or China. What the United States has had to do is take innovations that Ukraine has developed and apply them to what our military must do. Our military is in over 100 countries at any day of the year, and they're not all the same.

The United States military is not that large. The army has less than a million soldiers to fight with, and many of those do other functions. We have an advantage in technologies, but we don't have the answer to everything, and we rely on allies like Ukraine.

What specific innovations and tactical lessons from Ukraine's experience should militaries worldwide be adopting? Which developments do you consider most transformative?

You have to take it by the different functions of a military, whether attack, defense, maneuver, air support, indirect fire, mines, or medical support. The medical function is the one I've been involved in the most. We've been working in Ukraine since a few months after the invasion in 2022, mostly with medical support, providing surgical supplies or training for medics for trauma care, as well as explosive ordnance disposal.

The tactics, techniques, and procedures that the U.S. military uses for medical support for the wounded and evacuation won't work the way we plan in this kind of war. The "golden hour," the time it takes to evacuate a wounded soldier from the front lines back to the next level of care, is not survivable unless you have complete control of the skies. The United States is spoiled because we normally have air superiority of commanders and elected officials.

That won't happen if we fight Russia or China, or even in some less developed countries, because of surface-to-air missiles or techniques learned from Somalia with RPG fire. Medical evacuation, which is the responsibility of commanders and leaders of nations, is a big deal. We've been working with Ukraine on means of evacuation to save lives and give hope to injured soldiers, which is a big morale factor and a responsibility.

Post-ceasefire, what critical military capabilities must Ukraine maintain to deter future Russian aggression? How should Ukraine balance demobilization with long-term readiness?

I look back at the United States after World War II. The American people were done with wars, just like your country. No one wanted more. Then 5 years later, Korea came. We had ignored preparations for the future. We reduced our army, didn't buy new equipment, didn't look at technology for innovation. We were caught off balance by North Korea.

The same happened after Vietnam. No one wanted war, and we had social media and propaganda problems. The American people were not supporting the military. After Vietnam, there was a period where our army was struggling. Training was terrible. No one wanted to talk about the military. We were not prepared for what came next. President Reagan fixed that.

When Ukraine comes to some agreement with Russia, you cannot rest. Ukraine must ensure they have a recruiting base and trained manpower. Even if citizens go to training and then return to civilian roles, they must be prepared for call-up immediately. You almost have to do like Israel does because of the threats. You need people trained and ready to return to service. Once the first bullet is fired, you don't have time for an elaborate recruiting plan.

Weapons and equipment must be given to you, bought by you, made by you, and a base for the military must be there. If there is a ceasefire, it'll be violated. There will probably be a pause by Putin. But you have to be constantly prepared by land, sea, and air with what you have, what you can get and what you can manufacture.

To do that, you have to take care of the soldiers you've recruited, whether they go back to civilian life or not. Continuation of care from the day they join until they take their uniform comes off, including veterans' hospitals for prosthetics, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and support for their families. Without that, you have no morale or the will to serve again.

When you get equipment, it must be maintained and trained upon. Ukraine's advantage is its defensive posture, which is easier than attacking. You're defending your own territory, your own sunflower fields, wheat fields, cities, and villages. You have the will to defend.

Keep the technologies going, build the Army stronger than it was, and state that it's for defensive purposes, just like the Baltic states, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania are doing. The military readiness will not end. You live in a tough neighbourhood.

What economic and institutional reforms are critical for sustaining Ukraine's military capabilities long-term? Where do you see the greatest obstacles to building a self-sufficient defense industrial base?

You need public-private partnerships with commercial companies and the military. We're going through that in the United States. Our bureaucratic process to bring new equipment to the military is too slow for today's world.

Building an industrial base is important. Getting partnerships with other countries is crucial for Ukraine because they're not in NATO. It's all about bilateral agreements with the United States, United Kingdom, or others.

Ukraine has a lot to offer. The United States cannot sustain its military industrial base without raw materials. Ukraine is flush with rare earth metals and elements — the best deposits in Europe. Make agreements with the United States immediately. Don't try to be too aggressive about it. Take what you can get now and establish those partnerships. The United States and Europe need these resources for everything from cell phones and computers to satellites and military equipment.

Take care of whatever you can abroad that can be brought back to Ukraine immediately, whether during conflict or after a ceasefire. Economics is critical. You have bureaucratic problems just like the United States. You have corruption problems — we all do. But that turns off potential partners. I talk to many congressmen and senators who always bring up corruption, inefficiencies, and regulatory controls that make it hard for private companies to work with Ukraine. That has to change.

As Ukraine faces the world's largest demining challenge, what immediate actions are most critical, and how should the international community prioritize support for this humanitarian security issue?

This issue is very dear to my heart. I dealt with it extensively in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Balkans fighting. Think about Cambodia, many places in the Middle East, and Africa. It's pretty much everywhere, but you have the biggest problem right now.

There are multiple levels: agricultural areas like sunflower and wheat fields with massive mine problems that require machinery and international support; and specialized mine/IED/booby trap issues in villages, schools, and playgrounds from the Wagner Group, Chechens, or other Russian-affiliated organizations, which require individual expertise by deminers.

The longer you wait, the worse it gets. When vegetation starts growing again in areas that have been destroyed by artillery or missiles, when roots start growing on trees, it makes demining harder. Mines move in the ground due to weather, freezing, flooding. A surge needs to happen to start demining as soon as possible.

Many people don't want to support Ukraine until there's a ceasefire, but that's too late. Demining must be done immediately. It should be a first priority, alongside services for life support like electricity, water, and fuel.

Training programs and contracts provided by other countries or international organizations to help demining efforts need to be increased. It's easier to get international support for demining than for fighting, as it's more humanitarian-focused. Our non-profit helps with demining when we can, though small we to continue.

In April 2024, you joined Constanta's board at a critical moment during the war. What factors influenced your decision to take this role, and how do you envision the company leveraging its international operations now while positioning for Ukraine's future recovery needs?

I had to think about this for a while. When you join a foreign board, there are regulations in the United States that must be followed. I had to ensure I wasn't compromised and went through a vetting process to make sure it was an upstanding company with great leadership. Otherwise, I wouldn't have joined "Constanta".

I also checked what they're doing outside of Ukraine — in Africa, Central Asia, and parts of Europe. I think it's a great opportunity. "Aircompany Constanta" is operating internationally, still using their airframes and pilots. I know they have great pilots and good maintenance, which is important anywhere, and they're respected internationally.

As soon as there is a ceasefire, "Constanta" can help their country by monitoring the ceasefire along the zone of separation, or whatever is put in place. I think they would be ready to go because of their current work overseas — to do resupply, medical transport, foodstuffs, supporting humanitarian efforts for the rebuild of Ukraine, and to start services between countries within Europe and Ukraine right away.

The opportunity is there, the leadership is there, and the reputation as a good organization is there. So they're ready to go, and I feel good about being part of the organization.

Ukraine's aviation sector faces unprecedented challenges today. What specific preservation strategies are essential now, and why do you see aviation as a critical component of both national security and economic recovery in Ukraine's future?

I'd say the same thing about the shipping industry as I would aviation. You have to operate as a country by air, land, and sea. Everybody has airspace and land, not everybody has coastline. But you have to be prepared for trade and military operations in all three domains.

If we have a ceasefire, where's the aviation? Ukraine has to prepare now. Support "Constanta" with their overseas operations, have them ready to go back to Ukraine immediately. It takes time to build new aircraft and get certified. Support those that are good to go now, so you're ready when airspace allows you to operate again.

The bureaucratic processes that may hinder movement need to be streamlined to support aviation and shipping. If I were a leader in Ukraine, I'd be pushing that very hard, because the time will come, and you have to be ready. The government is responsible for ensuring operations by land, sea, and air to support its population, economy and military.

Given all the potential of the industry, from manufacturing to human capital, what steps from the government should be taken to support and develop this strategic industry? What would you recommend?

Geography matters. The geopolitical situation matters. Ukraine is in a unique location at a crossroads for Europe. People talk about NATO all the time, but no NATO country has any desire to attack Russia. NATO was established to defend each other.

Bilateral agreements must be done as quickly as possible to enhance the defense and future of Ukraine. But Ukraine has to help those other countries as well — they have to get something out of it. It can't be just "give me, give me, I deserve it." It has to be a partnership that helps both countries.

On the geopolitical stage, this is difficult for the United States because we are everywhere. The military, just the Army itself, is in over 100 countries every day of the year. The United States can't ignore Asia Pacific, Europe, Ukraine, or the Middle East. Ukraine has to understand that and work out deals that support the United States as well.

Economics rules, and I mentioned rare earth elements and minerals. But there's also technology sharing. One thing I've learned is the robustness of Ukrainian technology — Ukraine is very technologically advanced. That's why they'll have no problem with support for the aviation business or shipping industry. They're in a great place with the intellect of their population. Hopefully many people who left will return to help develop the next phase.

I have been proud with Osprey Solutions Ukraine. You have supported Ukraine' s freedom and defence against aggression, and we plan to continue to the best of our ability.

3. FBI Raids Home, Office of Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton

Excerpts:

The administration’s crackdown targeting national-security issues and personnel intensified this week. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard cited a “failure to safeguard classified information” and the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” as justifications for revoking the security clearances of another 37 current and former government officials.

Most of the 37 had either participated in intelligence assessments related to Russia’s attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election or had signed a letter calling for Trump’s impeachment. “There were a lot of pockets where the deep state actors were very entrenched and were politicizing their centers or their positions,” Gabbard said Thursday on Fox Business.

Bolton’s bestseller, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” was highly critical of Trump, saying he consistently gave priority to his re-election and his family’s well-being ahead of the national interest when he made decisions.

Trump has complained about Bolton’s comments during his second term. On Wednesday, he criticized media coverage of his summit last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying in a Truth Social post that journalists were “constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, ‘Putin has already won.’ What’s that all about?”

Bolton on Friday morning continued to question Trump’s policies on Russia and the war in Ukraine. “Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don’t see these talks making any progress,” he wrote on X.

FBI Raids Home, Office of Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton

Search comes as part of probe into Trump critic’s handling of classified information

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/fbi-raids-home-of-former-trump-national-security-adviser-john-bolton-48f9dbc2

By Sadie Gurman

Follow and Brett Forrest

Updated Aug. 22, 2025 2:08 pm ET

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President Trump said he knew ‘nothing about’ the FBI raid of former national security adviser John Bolton’s home. Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP; Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Quick Summary

The FBI searched John Bolton’s Maryland home and D.C. office as part of an investigation into the mishandling of classified information.View more

The FBI on Friday searched the Maryland home and downtown D.C. office of former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, people familiar with the matter said, escalating a years-old probe into whether the prominent Trump critic mishandled classified information.

A spokeswoman for Bolton declined to comment. He clashed with the president over policies toward Iran and North Korea during his 18-month tenure in President Trump’s first term and has maintained a drumbeat of public criticism so far during the second.

“NO ONE is above the law,” Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel said on X around the time of the search.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, but pointed to a post from Attorney General Pam Bondi that said, “America’s safety isn’t negotiable.”

The Justice Department during Trump’s first term sued Bolton and launched a criminal investigation into whether he unlawfully disclosed classified information in his memoir, which offered a scathing assessment of Trump’s presidency.

The lawsuit said that while an initial government reviewer had judged the manuscript to be free of classified information, other senior officials later determined that it still contained classified passages. The Justice Department escalated the fight months later, when it launched a criminal probe into Bolton’s handling of the information, issuing grand jury subpoenas to him and his literary agent.

The Justice Department during the Biden administration dropped the lawsuit and the grand jury probe in 2021, but later reopened the investigation, people familiar with it said.

FBI agents outside John Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., on Friday. Photo: Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Friday’s searches stem from an investigation into whether Bolton illegally possessed or shared classified material, including to the media, one person said. Agents could be seen carrying boxes out of Bolton’s office building Friday afternoon.

Trump officials are pursuing his perceived enemies with new zeal in his second term, opening probes into some of his most vocal critics, many of them Democrats, and firing agents and prosecutors involved in federal investigations of the president and his allies.

For his part, Patel has taken on some of Trump’s top partisan priorities as he tries to overhaul a law-enforcement agency that has been a punching bag for the president. In recent weeks, Patel reupped investigations that have animated Trump’s base and fired, demoted or reassigned dozens of employees involved in investigations and other work that Republicans criticized.

Critics say Patel’s actions have opened him up to the same complaint he made for years about the FBI—that it has become a partisan weapon.

Friday’s searches extend a long-running feud between Trump and Bolton, whose security clearance Trump revoked on his first day back in the White House earlier this year. The president also ended Bolton’s security detail, even after officials said he was the target of a murder-for-hire plot by a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The administration’s crackdown targeting national-security issues and personnel intensified this week. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard cited a “failure to safeguard classified information” and the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” as justifications for revoking the security clearances of another 37 current and former government officials.

President Trump in 2018 during his first term with national security adviser John Bolton. Photo: nicholas kamm/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Most of the 37 had either participated in intelligence assessments related to Russia’s attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election or had signed a letter calling for Trump’s impeachment. “There were a lot of pockets where the deep state actors were very entrenched and were politicizing their centers or their positions,” Gabbard said Thursday on Fox Business.

Bolton’s bestseller, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” was highly critical of Trump, saying he consistently gave priority to his re-election and his family’s well-being ahead of the national interest when he made decisions.

Trump has complained about Bolton’s comments during his second term. On Wednesday, he criticized media coverage of his summit last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying in a Truth Social post that journalists were “constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, ‘Putin has already won.’ What’s that all about?”

Bolton on Friday morning continued to question Trump’s policies on Russia and the war in Ukraine. “Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don’t see these talks making any progress,” he wrote on X.

Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and Brett Forrest at brett.forrest@wsj.com

4. With Putin, ‘Ultimately, Trump Holds the Cards’

Excerpts:

Few in the West have a deeper understanding of Mr. Putin than Mr. Kotkin, 66, a historian whose monumental biography of Joseph Stalin—one of Mr. Putin’s heroes—awaits its third and final volume. Mr. Kotkin is a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a professor emeritus at Princeton.

His comments shouldn’t be taken as a show of admiration for Mr. Trump. At the Aug. 15 Alaska summit—which Mr. Kotkin disdainfully calls the president’s “surrender photo-op”—Mr. Putin “evidently told Trump that Russia is going to win anyway, so let’s just hand the territories taken over to Russia and save lives in the process.” But Mr. Trump “cannot surrender Ukraine,” he says. “The Ukrainians are not going to accede to that. And Mr. Trump cannot grant Putin a sphere of influence in his neighborhood because it’s been lost for good by Putin himself.”

Mr. Kotkin is similarly scornful of Monday’s White House summit with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, which he calls the “European rescue photo-op.” Europe’s leaders are “talking about providing security guarantees. Well, if they can do that, why are they flying to the White House to ask President Trump to make them do that? They were there to beg the president to help them deliver security. There was lots of theater, melodrama, and attention on President Trump, which, of course, is what he’s after. But I don’t know what, if anything, really happened in terms of Ukraine’s self-defense against Russia.”

Speaking by Zoom from his Hoover office, he’s keen to establish that we need to grasp three truths in the “big picture” of the war in Ukraine.

The first is a “paradox that people don’t usually put together”: Although much-smaller Ukraine may be “losing a war of attrition,” Mr. Putin “made an enormous strategic blunder and is damaging Russia severely for the long term.”

...

Second, Ukraine is “an asset, not a liability—but we don’t seem to be able to appreciate how it’s an asset, and why.” He means that “Ukraine has an army”—a serious one, unlike, say, Germany.

...

Third, Mr. Trump is “correct” to seek an end to the war: “I applaud his forced imposition of a negotiation process.” But the president “lacks follow-through and patience. He lacks consistency. This is a hard problem.

With Putin, ‘Ultimately, Trump Holds the Cards’

Stephen Kotkin, the pre-eminent historian of Russia, on Moscow’s long record of overreach, Biden’s Ukraine failure, and prospects that Kyiv can ‘win the peace.’

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/with-putin-ultimately-trump-holds-the-cards-history-europe-russia-ukraine-war-8fdf5771?st=AtBbSg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Tunku Varadarajan

Aug. 22, 2025 12:28 pm ET

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Stephen Kotkin. Illustration: Barbara Kelley

The stereotype of Donald Trump as a “puppet” of Vladimir Putin—Hillary Clinton’s term from a 2016 debate—is plainly nonsensical. The president demonstrated the point on Thursday by complaining on Truth Social that “crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND. How did that work out?” But Mr. Trump has been far from consistent in his approach to the Russia-Ukraine war. What are we to make of him and his relationship with the Russian dictator?

“Nobody can do more damage to Putin than President Trump,” Stephen Kotkin says. “Putin is actually afraid of Trump. Trump is the only one who could hurt Putin in a big way.”

Few in the West have a deeper understanding of Mr. Putin than Mr. Kotkin, 66, a historian whose monumental biography of Joseph Stalin—one of Mr. Putin’s heroes—awaits its third and final volume. Mr. Kotkin is a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a professor emeritus at Princeton.

His comments shouldn’t be taken as a show of admiration for Mr. Trump. At the Aug. 15 Alaska summit—which Mr. Kotkin disdainfully calls the president’s “surrender photo-op”—Mr. Putin “evidently told Trump that Russia is going to win anyway, so let’s just hand the territories taken over to Russia and save lives in the process.” But Mr. Trump “cannot surrender Ukraine,” he says. “The Ukrainians are not going to accede to that. And Mr. Trump cannot grant Putin a sphere of influence in his neighborhood because it’s been lost for good by Putin himself.”

Mr. Kotkin is similarly scornful of Monday’s White House summit with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, which he calls the “European rescue photo-op.” Europe’s leaders are “talking about providing security guarantees. Well, if they can do that, why are they flying to the White House to ask President Trump to make them do that? They were there to beg the president to help them deliver security. There was lots of theater, melodrama, and attention on President Trump, which, of course, is what he’s after. But I don’t know what, if anything, really happened in terms of Ukraine’s self-defense against Russia.”

Speaking by Zoom from his Hoover office, he’s keen to establish that we need to grasp three truths in the “big picture” of the war in Ukraine.

The first is a “paradox that people don’t usually put together”: Although much-smaller Ukraine may be “losing a war of attrition,” Mr. Putin “made an enormous strategic blunder and is damaging Russia severely for the long term.” He has lost his country’s old sphere of influence: “All his neighbors hate him and are afraid of him.” Even Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator in fraternal neighbor Belarus, is “looking for some distance, to get out of the stranglehold of Russia.” Mr. Putin has also “lost his civilian economy.”

Second, Ukraine is “an asset, not a liability—but we don’t seem to be able to appreciate how it’s an asset, and why.” He means that “Ukraine has an army”—a serious one, unlike, say, Germany. “We’ve been able to send a lot of our weapons and test them in battlefield conditions because of Ukrainian bravery and ingenuity.” As a result, “we’ve been able to see what a 21st-century land war looks like, and we’ve been able to change our defense industrial investments at home as a result.” He adds that military aid to Ukraine is “actually going to the American defense industry.”

Third, Mr. Trump is “correct” to seek an end to the war: “I applaud his forced imposition of a negotiation process.” But the president “lacks follow-through and patience. He lacks consistency. This is a hard problem. He promised to solve it in 24 hours,” but it’s “been going on since 1783,” when Catherine the Great annexed the Khanate of Crimea. Even so, “Trump’s instincts are correct. Ukraine, more than Russia, needs this war to end. And he’s groping towards that solution.”

Mr. Kotkin warns against facile obsessions with “winning.” We talk all the time, he says, about “who’s going to win the war. But what matters is winning the peace.” In Afghanistan, America won the war and lost the peace. In Vietnam, the other way around.

What does that mean for Ukraine? Russia is a “giant neighbor, armed with nuclear weapons, willing and able to build a war machine well beyond its GDP and ostensible means, and indifferent to the loss of its own lives.” Winning the peace isn’t easy against a foe like that: “That’s the conundrum we face, and have faced from the beginning. But we haven’t faced up to it,” he says, exasperated.

In the minds of most Ukrainians and many friends of Ukraine in high places, a win must include the return of Crimea, which Russia conquered in 2014. “We’re all talking about how Ukraine needs to get Crimea back, because Russia took it by force in a violation of international law.” Mr. Kotkin says with the laugh of an unsentimental realist. “Crimea is going back to Ukraine the day after Texas goes back to Mexico.”

Trump Says U.S. Will Take Nearly 10% Equity Stake in Intel

Move comes after days of discussion in Washington about options for troubled American chip-maker’s future

https://www.wsj.com/tech/trump-to-announce-u-s-taking-nearly-10-stake-in-intel-1a38225d

By Brian Schwartz

Follow, Robbie Whelan

Follow and Amrith Ramkumar

Updated Aug. 22, 2025 2:52 pm ET

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Speaking in the Oval Office, President Trump said Intel agreed to give the U.S. government the stake. Photo: Annabelle Gordon/Bloomberg News

President Trump said the government is taking a nearly 10% stake in Intel, capping a two-week frenzy in Washington over the future of the company and fueling speculation about what else might be done to help the troubled chip maker.

Trump said in the Oval Office Friday that the company has agreed to give the government the stake as part of discussions about the company’s future and billions of dollars in grants it has received from the 2022 Chips Act.

The agreement came out of a meeting last week between Trump and Intel Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan, which came days after the president called for Tan to resign over his past ties to China.

Intel has several billion dollars in grants from the 2022 Chips Act that could be converted to part of the 9.9% equity stake. Photo: Intel

Tan made a good impression on the president, who then proposed his latest deal with a private-sector company.

“I said, ‘You know what? I think the United States should be given 10% of Intel,’” Trump said while recalling the conversation Friday.

As part of the deal, the government won’t be on the board or play a major role in the company’s governance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a CNBC interview earlier this week about the continuing conversations.

Intel has about $8 billion in grants from the Chips Act that could be converted to part of the 9.9% equity stake.

The company is losing about $1 billion a month and needs customers or deals for its chip design and manufacturing businesses to get back on track, industry analysts say.

Intel shares were up about 7% on Friday afternoon.

Write to Brian Schwartz at brian.schwartz@wsj.com, Amrith Ramkumar at amrith.ramkumar@wsj.com and Robbie Whelan at robbie.whelan@wsj.com

6. The Tragedy of Interwar Thinking

Excerpts:

Technology should not be seen as a means to swiftly resolve wars without incurring human or financial costs; this is simply ahistorical. For technology to be effectively utilised, adaptability is essential, along with sufficient national/military production capacity and significant reserves.

This means coordination between defence, industry, universities, and research organisations to identify, develop, and integrate innovative solutions to future challenges. Moreover, there is a need to reinforce a realistic trust in a nation’s determination and abilities to overcome interwar thinking.

Mark Twain noted, ‘History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’ Today, we observe striking similarities to the eras of the 1890s and 1930s, characterised by tariffs, trade disputes, and political unrest, all set within the arc of a larger historical context. In the midst of all these challenges, nation-states must shake off their interwar thinking and gear up to effectively confront the possibility of war in the coming decades. In our interconnected world, assuming that the next war will be short-lived is a mistake, as every nation-state will be impacted, whether directly or indirectly. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East will matter to the Indo-Pacific, as they affect trade, migration, and international norms. War’s nature is to escalate, and any expression of political violence has the potential to be prolonged and extensive.

Crucially, we need to ensure that we have learnt from past mistakes in not preparing adequate, credible, and relevant military capabilities, and we must be equipped to understand the patterns and rhythms of future events. This includes having effective responses to any potential ‘black swan’ events that may arise on the horizon. Now is the time to see the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. Undeniably, this is indeed an interesting time to be alive.

The Tragedy of Interwar Thinking

nationalsecurityjournal.org · Iain MacGillivray · August 21, 2025

A notable global trend is influencing national mindsets. There seems to be a sense of invulnerability—perhaps a natural aspect of human psychology—that fosters an excessive optimism about the chances of positive events over negative ones, especially concerning war. This attitude is known as ‘interwar thinking.’

Interwar thinking conveys the notion that any forthcoming war will be unlike those of the past. Common bias suggests that future wars will be short, sharp, conducted at ever-increasing distances, and fought everywhere but on the land. It is common to perceive new technologies as possible ‘silver bullets’ that can insulate us from the historical horrors and costs of war. This interwar thinking is historically commonplace when a peace dividend is available, allowing nation-states to redirect funds to economic and social programs due to the perceived lack of war.

(Aug. 8, 2017) The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) at sea during exercise Saxon Warrior 2017, Aug. 8. Saxon Warrior is a United States and United Kingdom co-hosted carrier strike group exercise that demonstrates allied interoperability and capability to respond to crises and deter potential threats. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Theron J. Godbold /Released)

This article delves into the concept of ‘interwar thinking’. It examines its emergence as a prominent perspective among nation-states and societies regarding the next war, and how to overcome it. It will argue that, to move beyond interwar thinking, nations must create a cycle of adaptability, innovation, technology, flexible governance, and a constructive yet realistic trust in a nation’s determination and abilities.

The ‘short war’ fallacy and the technological ‘silver bullet’

Policy makers frequently demonstrate an optimism bias, believing that any forthcoming war will not happen or will be brief, and that their country has, or can develop at the point of crisis, the capabilities to address potential adversaries. History highlights a prevalent misconception: that war can be limited in both scope and duration, often referred to as the ‘short-war’ fallacy.

In truth, short wars are far more of an exception than the norm. The clear historical pattern, from the Crimean and Boer Wars, to the First and Second World Wars, and through to the recent Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, is that fighting usually lasts longer and incurs increasing costs—in terms of both lives and resources.

The British, for example, predicted that their 2006 incursion into Helmand would last three years, and cost £808 million. When they left fifteen years later, the cost was thirty-three times as much. States that strategise for quick wars with their available resources often discover themselves embroiled in prolonged fights that result in disastrous consequences and considerable financial pressure. The belief in short wars is deeply rooted in the character of interwar thinking.

Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, the Chief of the Australian Army, has emphasised this in his speeches at the ANU National Security College and the Lowy Institute. He remarked that the ‘siren’s song of interwar thinking is enticing’—meaning that nation-states may fall into this thinking and, as such, fail to prepare adequately or to innovate and adapt to changing global currents appropriately. The persistent and uncontrollable nature of war ensures that a battle in the Indo-Pacific between major powers will not be clean, quick, fought from afar, or away from land and populations. A potential war in the region, whether concerning Taiwan, another regional dispute, or a proxy conflict, is likely to be expansive and protracted, and to have profound effects on multiple countries.

A significant concern about interwar thinking is the assumption that advanced technology will easily open up the battlespace, swiftly deciding the outcomes of wars while reducing human losses. We are in a time where debates about information superiority persist, treating ongoing surveillance and precise weaponry as the ‘silver bullet’ that could deter or win wars. This is particularly evident in conversations about AI, hypersonic missiles, and drones, which are predicted to take the place of tanks, aircraft, surface ships, and ground troops. We must, however, be wary of declaring a new revolution in military affairs. While technology can change the conduct of war, it does not alter its fundamental nature.

A U.S. Army M1A2 SEPv2 Abrams assigned to Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division prepares to move off the live fire range after completing the day portion of Table VI Tank Gunnery conducted at McGregor Range, New Mexico, Sept. 29, 2023. Gunnery Table VI evaluates crews on engaging stationary and moving targets while utilizing all weapons systems in offensive and defensive positions, ensuring our crews are trained and ready for any mission. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. David Poleski)

The rise of drone usage has particularly ignited conversations about the potential redundancy of ground troops, aeroplanes, tanks, and even ships. However, as Stephen Biddle points out, Ukraine’s situation has developed to mirror that of the First and Second World War, where soldiers are entrenched in mud, tanks navigate city streets and artillery shells hit critical targets.

Despite the significant losses experienced by tanks and aircraft in Ukraine, Biddle references a historic precedent: in 1943, ‘the German Wehrmacht lost 122% of the tanks it initially had,’ while the German Luftwaffe suffered a ‘loss of 250% of its aircraft that year.’ However, no one argued that planes and tanks had become outdated after World War II, even with the advent of precision missile technology in the 1950s. Likewise, although drones have played a significant role in the Russo-Ukrainian war, and may still be providing an advantage, they are not proving to be fundamentally decisive; if they were, the war would have likely ended by now. Put, drones and long-range missiles cannot seize and hold physical terrain: the most categorical way of ending a war.

Relying on advanced critical technology as a last resort in a potential war carries an extremely high risk, unlike spreading risk across various alternatives. Critical technology may provide a disproportionate advantage, yet it can quickly become obsolete.

Peter Singer notes, ‘while there is a danger in putting all your bets on the best of the last generation, there is also danger in embracing too closely the first generation of the new.’ Technology plays a vital role in achieving success in war and must evolve, but it is only one factor influencing outcomes in real warfare.

Relying on technology as a quick fix is unrealistic, and history indicates that technology does not always guarantee success in fighting the short war, and even more importantly, the long, protracted one.

Moving beyond Interwar thinking

Nation-states globally remain lured by interwar thinking, except those who are experiencing the visceral realities of war. Breaking free from this mentality is not difficult: it simply requires a shift in thinking and assumptions. Decisive policy actions and transparent communications, which are crucial, can then follow. Planning for future conflict must match the realities of the potential for long war, rather than the optimism of the short war fallacy. Critical technology must evolve quickly to provide a strategic advantage, accompanied by an adaptable and innovative cycle.

Technology should not be seen as a means to swiftly resolve wars without incurring human or financial costs; this is simply ahistorical. For technology to be effectively utilised, adaptability is essential, along with sufficient national/military production capacity and significant reserves.

A soldier from the Idaho Army National Guard, Charlie Company, 2-116th Combined Arms Battalion, 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team makes Idaho National Guard history with the first firing of a Javelin anti-tank missile.

In a historic moment of training for the Idaho Army National Guard, soldiers from Charlie Company, 2-116th Combined Arms Battalion, 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team, fired the FGM – Javelin portable anti-tank missile on Sunday while conducting a series of field training exercises scheduled for the week on the Orchard Combat Training Center ranges.

This means coordination between defence, industry, universities, and research organisations to identify, develop, and integrate innovative solutions to future challenges. Moreover, there is a need to reinforce a realistic trust in a nation’s determination and abilities to overcome interwar thinking.

Mark Twain noted, ‘History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’ Today, we observe striking similarities to the eras of the 1890s and 1930s, characterised by tariffs, trade disputes, and political unrest, all set within the arc of a larger historical context. In the midst of all these challenges, nation-states must shake off their interwar thinking and gear up to effectively confront the possibility of war in the coming decades. In our interconnected world, assuming that the next war will be short-lived is a mistake, as every nation-state will be impacted, whether directly or indirectly. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East will matter to the Indo-Pacific, as they affect trade, migration, and international norms. War’s nature is to escalate, and any expression of political violence has the potential to be prolonged and extensive.

Crucially, we need to ensure that we have learnt from past mistakes in not preparing adequate, credible, and relevant military capabilities, and we must be equipped to understand the patterns and rhythms of future events. This includes having effective responses to any potential ‘black swan’ events that may arise on the horizon. Now is the time to see the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. Undeniably, this is indeed an interesting time to be alive.

About the Author: Dr. Iain MacGillvray

Dr. Iain MacGillivray is an analyst, researcher and speechwriter for the Chief of the Australian Army. He was also a founding member and geopolitical analyst at the first Australian think tank in the US, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Washington, DC (ASPI DC). Moreover, Iain was formerly a US and UK adviser at the Australian Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet, a 2021-2022 Yale Fox International Fellow at Yale University, and lecturer at the University of Melbourne. His areas of specialisation include Australian land and military power and Australian foreign and defence policy. He is also an expert in the international affairs in the Indo-Pacific region, US politics and security, and Middle East and Turkish politics. All views and discussions in this piece represent the personal opinions of the author and are not representative of the Chief of the Army or the Australian Army.

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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Iain MacGillivray · August 21, 2025

7. ‘Flying Blind’: Trump Strips Government of Expertise at a High-Stakes Moment

‘Flying Blind’: Trump Strips Government of Expertise at a High-Stakes Moment

President Trump has few sources of independent advice just as he is trying to broker an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, perhaps the trickiest negotiation of his presidency.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/us/politics/trump-government-expertise.html

President Trump has made it clear he believes his personal connection with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia can help him secure a peace deal on Ukraine.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Luke Broadwater and Julian E. Barnes

Reporting from Washington

Aug. 21, 2025

Leer en español

For decades, American presidents have relied on the expertise of foreign policy professionals to help guide them through tricky negotiations in high-stakes conflicts around the globe.

President Trump has taken a different approach toward such experts: He’s fired them.

Now, as Mr. Trump tries to navigate perhaps the trickiest negotiation of his presidency — ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine — he is doing so after having stripped away much of the infrastructure designed to inform him about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and to keep the United States from being outmaneuvered or even duped.

“They’re flying blind without the expertise,” said Evelyn N. Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University. She said the kinds of people who had been fired “have seen all the intelligence relating to Vladimir Putin’s intentions. They have spies on the ground. They know all kinds of information that’s gained through technical means.”

Mr. Trump has gutted the National Security Council, the collection of foreign policy analysts who have helped guide U.S. foreign policy for decades, cutting the staff by more than half. He has purged experts from the intelligence agencies because of tangential connections to a nearly decade-old investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Mr. Trump has made it clear he believes that his personal connection with Mr. Putin can help him get a peace deal on Ukraine, not being surrounded by a coterie of experts whom he sees as part of a “deep state” out to thwart his agenda.

“I think he wants to make a deal for me, you understand, as crazy as it sounds,” Mr. Trump told President Emmanuel Macron of France on Monday, in a moment caught on a hot mic.

As Russia continues to pound Ukraine with missiles and drones, Mr. Trump has chosen to rely mostly on himself and a handful of close allies, including friends from the business world. His actions are part of a broader pattern in which Mr. Trump has reshaped the administration to carry out his wishes, not to debate policy or offer him independent advice.

Image

Mr. Trump has stripped away much of the infrastructure designed to inform him about Mr. Putin and to keep the United States from being outmaneuvered or even duped. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

And while Mr. Trump has characterized his recent flurry of diplomacy as extremely productive, neither a cease-fire nor a peace settlement looks any closer, at least publicly.

A White House official argued that Mr. Trump was producing results through direct leader-to-leader negotiations, rather than embracing the approach of previous presidents who relied on hundreds of researchers and advisers. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Steve Witkoff, the real estate investor whom Mr. Trump tapped to be special envoy, had spent hours speaking to Mr. Putin.

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Mr. Trump has held a deep distrust for the National Security Council since the earliest days of his first term, in 2017, because he believed that its members were undermining him.

The Trump administration’s gutting of the N.S.C. was recommended by Robert O’Brien, who led the council as national security adviser during Mr. Trump’s first term and argued that its mission needed to be revamped to better carry out the president’s policy objectives.

“When we cut the N.S.C. policy staff that had become needlessly bloated under Obama by half in Trump 1.0, the N.S.C. became more efficient, stopped leaking and achieved big policy wins for President Trump,” Mr. O’Brien said.

The “rightsizing” efforts in the second term “have yielded similar results,” he said, citing Mr. Trump’s summits in Alaska and Washington.

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The purge of expertise ramped up this week when Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, announced she was stripping 37 current and former officials of their security clearances. At least three of the current officials had worked on Russian influence issues, though none were directly responsible for the conclusions Ms. Gabbard has derided as flawed.

After Ms. Gabbard revoked the security clearances, she announced that she would all but shut down the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which was established by Congress to coordinate efforts across the intelligence agencies to monitor meddling by Russia and other countries.

During the last election, the center held briefings for the news media and state officials about a variety of foreign threats to the vote. But many Republicans took offense at suggestions their supporters were amplifying Russian propaganda, and the Trump administration has proceeded to dismantle most of the efforts to monitor and warn about foreign influence operations.

Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said expert intelligence professionals were being forced out and those that remained were “sent a clear message” on what they should say.

“Vladimir Putin is sneering with satisfaction as Donald Trump, aided and abetted by his director of national intelligence, guts the intelligence community in pursuit of his political vendettas,” he said. He added that the intelligence community’s ability to perform “objective collection and analysis” was being systematically dismantled, a process that he said would “inevitably make our country less safe and less free.”

Senior Trump administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly, disputed the contention that significant Russia expertise was being lost. They suggested that the focus on Moscow over other foreign policy challenges was misguided. The purge of officials was focused on people involved in analytic work that Ms. Gabbard believes was poor, the officials said.

Image

Mr. Trump has chosen to rely mostly on himself and a handful of close allies to deal with negotiations on Ukraine, including Steve Witkoff, a friend from the real estate world whom Mr. Trump tapped to be special envoy.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Joel Willett, a former C.I.A. officer and National Security Council staff member, was among the 37 people who lost their security clearances this week. That meant he will no longer be able to work on classified government contracts.

In a social media post, Laura Loomer, the right-wing conspiracy theorist, said she had flagged Mr. Willett for signing a letter calling for Mr. Trump to be impeached in 2019 and noted that he was considering a run for the Democratic nomination for the Kentucky Senate seat being vacated by Senator Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader.

Mr. Willett said Ms. Loomer’s social media post contained falsehoods. But he said the bigger issue was that the purge of expertise on Russia and other national security matters would make it harder for the U.S. government to advise the president.

Mr. Willett served on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, and has looked on with dismay as Marco Rubio, the acting national security adviser and secretary of state, has reduced the size of the organization.

“We live in an age of interconnectedness and rapidly evolving global threats,” Mr. Willett said. “I, for one, appreciate knowing that my government has deep experts, highly engaged, and that the president has access to those experts to help recommend policy. But I think what we’ve seen is an administration that truly doesn’t value expertise because the president feels that he knows best about everything.”

Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concern that the administration was losing the very experts it needed at a precarious time.

“Russia remains one of our most dangerous adversaries — interfering in elections, unleashing relentless cyberattacks and carrying out a brutal war in Ukraine,” Mr. Warner said. “At the very moment we need our best experts on the front lines, this administration is purging them for political reasons, stripping their clearances and making Americans less safe.”

At the C.I.A. a senior Russia analyst, whose name was classified, was on the list Ms. Gabbard put out.

At the National Intelligence Council, a body that coordinates intelligence analysis at Ms. Gabbard’s office, the acting chair and his deputy were removed from their positions earlier this year, after a dispute over the intelligence community’s assessment of ties between a drug cartel and the Venezuelan government.

This week, over the objections of senior officials, Ms. Gabbard ordered the N.S.A.’s senior data scientist, Vinh Nguyen, fired.

Former officials said the firing of Mr. Nguyen would have profound implications for the N.S.A.’s ability to keep pace with China’s technological advancements in encryption, quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

But Mr. Nguyen was fired simply because he worked in a senior intelligence job tracking cyberoperations in 2016, when the assessment of Russia’s influence operations on the presidential election was drafted. Mr. Nguyen had little direct role in the assessment, former officials said.

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former C.I.A. officer who once led the agency’s clandestine operations in Europe and Russia, says beyond the exodus of people, the administration’s actions carry other problems.

“What is worrisome to me is the chill in analytic objectivity,” Mr. Polymeropoulos said.

Mr. Polymeropoulos said Mr. Trump did not want to hear intelligence reports about Russia’s bad acts and Ms. Loomer was seizing any excuse to try and get national security officials who worked on Russia ousted from the government.

“The whole idea of the intelligence community speaking truth to power is lost when it becomes so wildly politicized,” he said. “There are going to be real repercussions to all of this.”

Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.

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

8. Donald Trump has purged one of the CIA’s most senior Russia analysts

United States | Insecurity clearance

Donald Trump has purged one of the CIA’s most senior Russia analysts

The move will have a chilling effect inside American spy agencies

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/08/21/donald-trump-has-purged-one-of-the-cias-most-senior-russia-analysts

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Summary

Photograph: Getty Images

Aug 21st 2025

5 min read

he cia officer had worked in American intelligence for more than 20 years. In 2016, as the country’s top intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, she oversaw the production of a report, which described how Russia had meddled in that year’s presidential election in favour of Donald Trump. A few years later she returned to the agency as a senior manager, overseeing the cia’s operations and analysis relating to Russia and the former Soviet Union.

On August 19th her career came to an abrupt end, when Tulsi Gabbard, America’s director of national intelligence, revoked her security clearance, along with those of 36 other serving and former officials accused of “betray[ing] their oath to the Constitution”. Mr Trump’s administration has previously used its control over clearances as a political cudgel against retired officials. But the cia officer in question, along with two others involved in that 2016 report, Shelby Pierson and Vinh Nguyen, are some of the most senior serving career intelligence officials to be purged under Mr Trump. These steps mark a sharp escalation in his war on American spooks.

The Economist understands that the removal of the cia officer, who oversaw hundreds of analysts and other personnel, prompted alarm among many current and serving intelligence officials. To lose a clearance is a “career ender”, says Larry Pfeiffer, a former cia officer who had his own clearance yanked on January 20th. “Even the cleaning crews have clearance.” Many officers also rely on security clearances after retirement to seek consulting positions. The cia officer was thought to be close to retirement age. “Who will want to work on some controversial issue or go out on a limb analytically?” asks an insider. “It is one thing to speak truth to power in the abstract, and another when your career and family livelihood is very much on the line.”

In April an aide to Ms Gabbard pushed analysts to rewrite an assessment on Tren de Aragua, a gang, to suit Mr Trump’s policy. In June Mr Trump also attacked leaked intelligence assessments by the Defence Intelligence Agency which contradicted his claim to have destroyed Iranian nuclear sites. The cia has a long history of delivering unwelcome news to presidents—its dissenting analysis during the Vietnam war in the 1960s and the Iraq war in the 2000s resulted in repeated clashes between Langley and the White House—but this level of retribution is unprecedented. “It is hard to overstate the impact on morale,” says a former colleague of the cia officer. “Everyone is so afraid and looking over their shoulder, asking am I next?”

Many of the 37 targeted officials had worked on Russia only tangentially and a long time ago. Mr Nguyen was the chief data scientist at the National Security Agency (nsa), America’s signals-intelligence service. Weeks earlier insiders had told The Economist that he was “the most thoughtful person on ai in the federal government”. That agency’s director, General Tim Haugh, and its top lawyer, April Doss, were fired in April and July respectively. Others appear to be on the list for no other reason than their criticism of Mr Trump. Ted Gistaro, a former cia officer who served as Mr Trump’s main intelligence briefer from 2016 to 2019, had made mildly derogatory comments about Mr Trump. Most others appeared on a list published by Laura Loomer, a far-right activist, on July 29th.

The latest steps are part of a broader campaign to impugn officials and documents critical of Mr Trump. In July John Ratcliffe, the director of the cia, took the unusual step of publishing an internal review of the analytical “tradecraft” in the Russia report of 2016. The review praised many aspects of that report, but found that it had been written too quickly and with too much involvement from agency heads. That same month, Ms Gabbard also declassified a much older House Intelligence Committee review into the same report. The review, co-authored by Kash Patel, who is now the director of the fbi, included verbatim quotes from intercepts and descriptions of human sources in Russia, and was declassified over the objections of the cia.

On August 20th Ms Gabbard also announced that she would reduce her own Office of the Director of National Intelligence (odni), which co-ordinates the work of America’s 18 agencies, by 50%, in part with the aim of cutting bureaucracy and “rooting out deep state actors”. The odni was created after the September 11th attacks to ensure that intelligence was shared properly across America’s government. Ms Gabbard’s pruning is dramatic, but even many of Mr Trump’s critics acknowledge that the odni has grown too large and failed to stamp its authority on the agencies it oversees.

The administration is also using harsher legal means to strike at critics. In July it was reported that Mr Ratcliffe had made a criminal referral of John Brennan, one of his predecessors, to the fbi for allegedly lying to Congress. Mr Brennan, who had his clearance revoked in Mr Trump’s first term, was cia director at the time of the Russia report and clashed with the president in the early days of his first term. The Justice Department said it had also opened a criminal investigation into James Comey, the fbi director at the time of the report. Mr Comey had already been investigated for a social-media post in May which the Trump administration portrayed as an assassination threat.

“This is uncharted territory,” says Mr Pfeiffer, “particularly in terms of the numbers of people and the lack of detail about what they did wrong.” Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, speaking to The Economist shortly before the recent purges, said that the situation was worse than he had expected. “I thought Gabbard would be bad,” he observed. “I didn’t expect this bad.” In private, he noted, Republican colleagues on the intelligence committee, fearful of sticking their head above the parapet, had encouraged him to speak out in public. “I’ve literally had [allied] Five Eyes partners say: what’s going on?”

On August 20th Bill Burns, Joe Biden’s cia director, wrote an open letter to the “discarded” officials in the Atlantic, a magazine. “If intelligence analysts at the cia saw our rivals engage in this kind of great-power suicide, we would break out the bourbon,” he wrote. “Instead, the sound we hear is of champagne glasses clinking in the Kremlin and Zhongnanhai.” ■

9. Trump's intelligence chief ordered halt to intelligence sharing on Russia-Ukraine peace talks among 'Five Eye' allies, CBS reports

Trump's intelligence chief ordered halt to intelligence sharing on Russia-Ukraine peace talks among 'Five Eye' allies, CBS reports

kyivindependent.com · Dmytro Basmat · August 22, 2025

The Trump administration's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard ordered on July 20 that the U.S. intelligence community halt the sharing of information on ongoing Russia-Ukraine peace talks with so-called "Five Eyes" countries, CBS News reported on Aug. 21.

U.S. intelligence sources told CBS News that Gabbard signed a directive barring the sharing of information with the Five Eye alliance, which includes the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.

The directive limited the distribution of intelligence to information that had already been publicly released, and compartmentalized intelligence on peace talks within agencies where the intelligence originated from, according to CBS News.

The directive also does not prohibit the sharing of information obtained through diplomatic means, nor does it affect information sharing on U.S. military planning, including aid to Ukraine.

No rationale was provided for the decision, as peace talks between Russia and Ukraine — brokered by the United States — continue. The White House did not respond to the news agency's request for comment on the matter.

U.S. President Donald continues to attempt to broker peace between Moscow and Kyiv setting out in recent days to broker bilateral talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The renewed attempts come days after a meeting between Putin and the U.S. president in Anchorage, Alaska, followed by Zelensky's visit to the White House.

In recent days, Western allies, including member of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing," have pushed to establish security guarantees for Kyiv, with the backing of U.S. support. With the exception of Washington, all Five Eye nations are apart of the 31-nation Coalition of the Willing.

Gabbard has previously been intertwined with matters related to the war in Ukraine, after the U.S. halted intelligence sharing with Ukraine on March 5. The decision, which was reversed soon after, followed a heated exchange between Trump and Zelensky in the White House on Feb. 28.

Gabbard has previously with her comments on Ukraine, having echoed in early 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin's justification for the invasion of Ukraine, attributing the cause not to Moscow but to the Biden administration's failure to acknowledge "Russia’s legitimate security concerns."

Going around in circles — Trump sets new deadline for peace in Ukraine, Graham again threatens with tough legislation

We will know in within two weeks whether there will be peace in Ukraine. After that we will have to maybe take a different tact,” U.S. President Donald Trump told conservative commentator Todd Starnes.

The Kyiv IndependentAnna Fratsyvir

kyivindependent.com · Dmytro Basmat · August 22, 2025

10. Hegseth fires head of Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse

Hegseth fires head of Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse

The firing follows a June preliminary assessment from the DIA — the Pentagon’s main intelligence wing — of the Iran military strikes, which prompted vicious backlash from the Trump administration.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/08/22/defense-intelligence-agency-kruse-fired-hegseth/

UpdatedAugust 22, 2025 at 2:10 p.m. EDTtoday at 2:10 p.m. EDT

Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse during the House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on March 26, 2025. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

By Warren P. Strobel and Noah Robertson

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the latest senior military or intelligence officer to lose his position in a wider purge of national security agencies’ top ranks, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, didn’t immediately cite a reason for the dismissal other than “loss of confidence,” a catchall term Hegseth has used to justify the sacking of other senior military officers this year.

The firing follows a preliminary assessment from the DIA — the Pentagon’s main intelligence wing — of the military strikes on Iran’s three main nuclear sites in June, which prompted vicious backlash from the Trump administration after it was first reported by CNN and the New York Times.

That preliminary report assessed that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been set back only a matter of months, in contrast to Hegseth’s and President Donald Trump’s statements that the capabilities had been “obliterated.”

Follow Trump’s second term

The Pentagon and the Defense Intelligence Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since entering office, Hegseth has fired a slate of America’s most senior military officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles “C.Q.” Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan and Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin announced he would step down in November, after being asked to retire last week and forced out of his position.

The Trump administration has simultaneously purged a number of spy agency heads, whose roles, like the military’s, are supposed to be apolitical.

In April, Trump fired the head of the powerful National Security Agency, which conducts electronic and digital eavesdropping. Gen. Timothy Haugh and his deputy, Wendy Noble, were dismissed after far-right activist Laura Loomer advocated for their ouster.

In May, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard removed the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, Michael Collins, and his deputy. The move came after the NIC, a respected analytic hub, wrote an assessment that contradicted Trump’s rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act and deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

What readers are saying

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By Warren P. Strobel

Warren P. Strobel is a reporter at The Washington Post covering U.S. intelligence. He has written about U.S. security policies under seven presidents. He received numerous awards, and was portrayed in the movie "Shock and Awe," for his skeptical reporting on the decision to invade Iraq. Send him secure tips on Signal at 202 744 1312 follow on X@wstrobel

By Noah Robertson

Noah Robertson joined the Washington Post in 2025, where he covers the core national security committees in Congress. He previously covered the Pentagon and American politics from gun control to policing. follow on X@noahjrobertson

11. JD Vance’s Tour in Iraq Taught Him His Government Lies

A relatively long and enlightening read.

It begs the question of can the vaunted "E-4 Mafia" see and understand the big picture? Or do they only see things from their foxhole? (or in this case from behind a camera doing public affairs for an aviation unit).

And I mean no disrespect to the E-4 Mafia because they play an important role in our military, often as our conscience and reality checkers (Or Napoleon's corporal).

The War Issue | The Friday Read

JD Vance’s Tour in Iraq Taught Him His Government Lies

The vice president’s four years in the Marine Corps planted the seeds of his populism — and his pursuit of power.

Politico

The vice president’s four years in the Marine Corps planted the seeds of his populism — and his pursuit of power.

By Ian Ward08/22/2025 05:00 AM EDT

Ian Ward is a reporter at POLITICO.

JD Vance's official military portrait. Vance served in the Marine Corps from 2003 to 2007. | Illustration by Bill Kuchman/POLITICO (source images via U.S. Marine Corps and iStock)

In August 2005, a 21-year-old Marine named James David Hamel arrived at Al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq. Hamel was a combat correspondent, and he had been deployed to Al-Asad as part of a public affairs team from the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. His job for the next six months was to embed with soldiers at the base, documenting their missions in short articles for military publications and local papers back in the U.S. During assignments that took him “outside the wire,” as the troops called the areas beyond the boundaries of the base, he would carry a notebook, a camera and a rifle, just in case.

A few years earlier, this assignment would have thrilled Hamel, a bookish teenager from southwestern Ohio who had enlisted in the Marines with dreams of “heading to the Middle East to kill terrorists,” as he would later write. But now, two years into his enlistment, his faith in the American mission was flagging. During a stopover at a military base in Kuwait en route to Iraq, Hamel and a fellow public affairs Marine had overheard a conversation in the base’s chow hall between a group of lieutenants. After two and a half years of fighting in Iraq, one of the lieutenants said, the mission on the ground was stalling out. As soon as American troops cleared Iraqi insurgents from one region, those same insurgents would retake the same area.

Hamel completed his deployment in March 2006 and returned to the U.S., where he finished his enlistment at an airbase in North Carolina. But the feeling of disillusionment that took hold during his time in Iraq stayed with him. Fourteen years later, after graduating from the Ohio State University, earning a law degree at Yale Law School, publishing a best-selling memoir and landing a lucrative job at a private equity firm, Hamel — who by then had taken his grandmother’s last name of Vance — described the change that his six months in Iraq had wrought on his political outlook: “I left for Iraq in 2005, a young idealist committed to spreading democracy and liberalism to the backward nations of the world,” Vance wrote in the Catholic literary journal The Lamp in 2020, just months before launching a bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio. “I returned in 2006, skeptical of the war and the ideology that underpinned it.”

Vance is the first veteran of the post-9/11 wars to serve as vice president, and the first veteran of any sort to occupy the office since Al Gore. But Vance has only sparingly discussed his time in the military since emerging onto the national political stage in 2021. “It’s not a political talking point,” he said during an appearance on the conservative TV network Newsmax in 2022, when asked why he hadn’t made his military service a more prominent part of his campaign. “I’m a proud Marine, … but at the end of the day, I don’t think that people should wear the Marine Corps on their sleeve to try to get political points.” (Through a spokesperson, Vance declined to be interviewed for this piece.)

Yet Vance’s four years in the Marines stand as one of the most formative periods of his young-adult life. The experience was intensely personal: As Vance recounted in his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, his stint in the military marked a psychological turning point in his life, curing him of what he later identified as a crushing case of “learned helplessness” that he had acquired during his tumultuous childhood in postindustrial Ohio. “When I joined the Marine Corps, I did so in part because I wasn’t ready for adulthood,” Vance wrote. “Now I knew exactly what I wanted out of my life and how to get there.”

Yet Vance’s military service also had a profound effect on his politics. On the rare occasions that he has publicly mentioned his time in the armed forces, he has done so to describe its influence on his foreign policy thinking. In a speech arguing against additional U.S. military aid to Ukraine delivered on the Senate floor in April 2024, Vance pointed to his service in Iraq as the impetus for his anti-interventionist foreign policy. “I served my country honorably, and I saw when I went to Iraq that I had been lied to,” he said, singling out the “propaganda” suggesting that America was fighting “a war for freedom and democracy.” His critique of the war was tinged with the same disdain for America’s ruling elite that has become a hallmark of his populist rhetoric: “[I saw] that promises of the foreign policy establishment of this country were a complete joke.”

Now as vice president, Vance is bringing that criticism to bear on the execution of the Trump administration’s foreign policy. As the de facto leader of the GOP’s anti-interventionist faction, Vance has tried — with mixed results — to dissuade Trump from intervening directly in conflicts overseas. In March, he privately counseled against the air strikes that Trump eventually authorized against the Houthi in Yemen, and in July, he sought to limit the scope of the United State’s attack on Iran — a move that he had previously opposed, before publicly embracing it as a model of the emergent “Trump Doctrine.” As the administration seeks to end conflicts in Ukraine, where Vance has long called for a negotiated settlement, as well as in Gaza, Vance has another chance to press the anti-interventionsts’ case on the international stage.

Yet the ideological aftershocks of Vance’s military service extend far beyond foreign policy. In the Marine Corps, Vance began to form many of the ideas and inclinations that have come to define his broader political philosophy: his skepticism of political elites, his antagonism toward the news media, his ambivalent view of liberal democracy and even his restrictive ideas about immigration and American citizenship. As Vance put it in a speech in 2023, “My entire life has been influenced and affected by the decisions we made a month before I enlisted in the Marine Corps.”

In April 2003, a month after U.S. tanks trundled into the Iraqi desert, an 18-year-old Vance walked into a military recruiter’s office in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, accompanied by his older cousin, Rachael.

A few months earlier, Vance, who still went by his adoptive father’s last name of Hamel, had resolved to enroll at the Ohio State University after graduating from Middletown High School later that summer. But as the enrollment deadline approached, he was having second thoughts. His high school marks were mediocre, and he found the financial aid paperwork for OSU to be convoluted and confusing. Sensing her younger cousin’s indecision, Rachael, who had left the Marines a few years earlier, suggested that he enlist. Most of his family was vehemently opposed, but Vance was enticed. “There was college, or nothing, or the Marines,” he wrote in Hillbilly Elegy, “and I didn’t like either of the first two options.”

Later that summer, Vance reported to Parris Island, South Carolina, for 13 weeks of boot camp, followed by Combat Training School in North Carolina and public affairs training at the Defense Information School at Maryland’s Fort Meade. He had scored high enough on the military’s aptitude test to become a public affairs Marine, and in July 2004, he was assigned to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in eastern North Carolina.

At Cherry Point, he fell in with a small group of Marines from the public affairs office. The cohort worked out of a narrow building on the airfield, writing articles and pulling together material for the base’s official newpaper, The Windsock. Among the other public affairs Marines, Vance immediately stood out for his budding adolescent intellectualism and intense interest in politics. A fellow public affairs Marine at Cherry Point, who is still one of the vice president’s close friends and was granted anonymity to discuss their relationship, recalled that Vance would devour copies of The Economist that an officer would bring into the office and then engage other members of the team in lengthy debates about the articles — much to the bemused admiration of the higher-ups.

“I would chuckle a little bit, but I also admired how intelligent they all were,” said Shawn Haney, Vance’s supervisor in the public affairs office at Cherry Point. “I’ve heard young Marines conversing my whole life, but I never heard such intellectual policy debates happening.”

Before his deployment, Vance often assumed the role of the conventional conservative Republican in these intra-office debates, defending the Bush administration’s decision to go to war and its goal of delivering democracy to the Iraqis. His partisan sympathies were clear to his comrades — “He was nerding out over John McCain more than a normal person would,” the friend from Cherry Point recalled — but he was also interested in the ideas that animated conservative politics. At the time, he was dabbling with atheism and libertarianism, and he was particularly taken by the writings of “New Atheist” writers like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, who argued that religion in general — and radical Islam in particular — served as a divisive and degrading force in the world. (Of the three, only Hitchens offered a broad defense of the war effort.) More than one of Vance’s comrades recalled, with good-natured bitterness, that he encouraged them to read novels by the libertarian writer Ayn Rand.

It was clear to Vance’s comrades that he had a future in politics, even if he never admitted to harboring such aspirations. His potential as a public figure became something of a running gag in the office: At one point, a fellow Marine named Adam Testagrossa superimposed Vance’s face over an image of George W. Bush and printed out copies of the resulting face-smash for the other Marines to hang over their desks. “We kind of jokingly knew he had that potential in him — like, ‘He’ll be president someday,’ Testagrossa recalled. “You could just tell by looking at him that he always had a plan.”

Vance arrived at Al-Asad Airbase in August of 2005, just over two years into his enlistment. By the standards of military bases in Iraq, Al-Asad was a relatively plush assignment. The base was removed from the worst of the fighting, and enlisted soldiers lived in converted shipping containers with access to hot water, air conditioning, recreational facilities and fast-food joints like Burger King and Pizza Hut. Among the enlisted troops at the base, the relatively luxe accommodations earned it the not-entirely-endearing nickname “Camp Cupcake.”

Yet there was no forgetting that “Camp Cupcake” was still in the middle of a war zone. On the day Vance arrived at Al-Asad, he was greeted by a shelter-in-place warning announcing incoming mortar fire. Even during periods of relative calm, the base — which had been built by Saddam Hussein’s government during its war with Iran in the 1980s — retained a certain dystopian air. The grounds were littered with broken-down shells of Russian fighter jets, which earlier waves of American troops had covered with graffiti, and Marines spent their free time exploring the cavernous concrete bunkers that Saddam’s troops had abandoned after the U.S. invasion. Occasionally, troops at the base would encounter packs of wild dogs that had ingested toxic chemicals in the groundwater, requiring them to call military police to shoot the animals. The experience left a particularly sour impression on the dog-loving Vance, recalled the friend from Cherry Point who had deployed to Al-Asad at the same time and was present at the stop-over in Kuwait.

When on assignment at Al-Asad, Vance wrote up short articles about the goings-on at the base, occasionally spinning off longer profiles of individual Marines. Most of the work was completed from the safety of the base, and the vast majority of the assignments were routine and anodyne. Covering a military concert marking the fourth anniversary of 9/11, Vance recounted a speech by a colonel that “compared the patriots of the past to those serving today” and “applauded the Iraqis and Afghans fighting to establish their own democracy.” A few months later, in November, he wrote up a cake-cutting ceremony to celebrate the 230th anniversary of the Navy Chaplain Corps, which served as “an invaluable tool to inspire courage and maintain morale among service members.”

Depending on the pace of the fighting, Vance and his fellow correspondents would occasionally travel outside the wire, embedding with combat units or visiting forward operating bases in other parts of Iraq. The trips were carefully coordinated but not without their dangers: In May 2005, just before Vance’s deployment began, a combat correspondent named Aaron Mankin was caught in a roadside IED attack in Iraq, resulting in serious burns to his face, body and arms. For the most part, though, these journeys outside the wire were distinguished by a Kafkaesque quality, Vance’s friend from Cherry Point recalled. When on assignment, the public affairs Marines were required to carry their delicate camera equipment in backpacks, but the Marines’ uniform code prohibited backpacks, putting Vance and his comrades in a pickle: Wear the backpacks and get chewed out by one set of officers, or not wear the backpacks and get chewed out by a different set of officers. (They mostly wore the backpacks.)

The short dispatches that resulted from these assignments were published in military publications and occasionally in local papers back in the U.S. They were closely edited to comply with military style and standards, but Vance and his fellow correspondents did what they could to subtly flex their literary muscles, competing to slip little stylistic flourishes into their articles. (“The Huey landed under the watchful eye of the Cobra attack helicopter,” Vance wrote in a November 2005 dispatch about a firefight between Marines and local insurgents.) In private, they drew inspiration from the lineage of past literary-minded war correspondents like Ernest Hemingway, who landed alongside the Allied troops at Normandy, and Hunter S. Thompson, who wrote for an Air Force newspaper in the 1950s. “I was a little bit more Faulkner and he was a little more Hemingway,” recalled his friend from Cherry Point.

If Vance was harboring doubts about the trajectory of the United State’s mission, they didn’t find their way into his work. In a story published in September 2005 about a Marine battalion that was helping build bases for the Iraqi Security Forces, Vance reproduced a line from one of Bush’s recent speeches suggesting that the U.S. military presence in Iraq was coming to a close: “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” In the same piece, Vance quoted a lance corporal praising the base-building effort as “the first step in getting us home and letting the Iraqis take care of their own country.” Meanwhile, the daily expansion of the infrastructure at Al-Asad served as an inescapable reminder that “getting home” remained more of a talking point than a realistic objective.

When off the clock, Vance lived the life of an average 20-something: playing poker in the rec halls, smoking cigars on the roof of the public affairs office and shooting the breeze about books, movies, women and college football in the adapted shipping container — nicknamed “the can” — that he lived in with a half-dozen other Marines. Vance had a knack for solving a Rubik’s Cube, and he would entertain the other Marines by trying to crack it as quickly as possible. On one occasion, Vance’s fellow Marines played a friendly prank on him by convincing him that he had been reassigned to a different unit and was expected to depart Al-Asad imminently.

“We had him pack up all his shit up and drove him out to the tarmac, and he literally went up to check in and the guy was like, ‘What are you talking about? You’re not on this flight,’” recalled Micah Snead, a fellow public affairs Marine who worked with Vance in Iraq.

Yet even the pranks and the poker nights couldn’t distract from the reality that Vance had heard about in the chow hall in Kuwait: The war was not going according to plan. The U.S. body count was rising, yet the mission of pacifying Iraqi insurgents and bringing a stable democracy to the country was going nowhere.

A turning point for Vance came in the final months of 2005, when he was temporarily reassigned to provide security at polling stations for the Iraqi constitutional referendum and subsequent parliamentary elections — the first since the American invasion in 2003. At the time of the elections, Vance recalled on a conservative podcast called Moment of Truth in 2021, he was reading a book called The Case for Democracy by the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky. Sharansky’s book, which won plaudits from prominent Republicans like Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, painted a defiant picture of life under totalitarian dictatorships, arguing that oppressed populations around the world were looking to the U.S. and other Western democracies as models of the sort of liberal political systems that they aspired to claim for themselves. Western nations had both a moral obligation and a geopolitical incentive to meet that expectation whenever it arose, Sharansky argued — beginning in the Middle East.

But on the ground in Iraq, where the constitutional referendum and elections were beset by sectarian infighting and overt political violence, Vance discovered a very different reality than the one Sharansky described. “I’m reading this book while literally working with these Iraqi poll workers and thinking to myself, ‘Oh, my god, these people don’t give a damn about this,’” Vance recalled on the podcast. “They’re helping us out, and they’re all mostly nice people, but they’re really helping us out because they’re making a decent amount of money.”

Other unusual aspects of the elections caught Vance’s attention as well. At the polling stations, he was struck by the prevalence of sexual relationships between older male poll workers and their younger male coworkers. “It was like, What is going on? Is this rape? Is this some weird cultural practice I don’t understand?” Vance recalled on Moment of Truth, alluding to the tradition of “bacha bazi” in Afghanistan. At the time, humanitarian groups were alleging that a growing number of young Iraqi boys were being forced into the sex trade, often in response to the economic deprivation caused by the war. But Vance interpreted it as another sign that America’s foreign policy elites were deceiving the public — and themselves — about the situation in Iraq. “Elites just don’t talk about this stuff because it’s uncomfortable to accept that there’s some weird stuff going on over there,” he said on the podcast. “But when you’re actually a [soldier] on the ground in Iraq, you’re like, ‘Yeah, there’s some weird stuff going on.’”

Back in the U.S., the Bush administration hailed the elections as “a watershed moment in the story of freedom,” but for Vance, they were a nadir. Reflecting on the experience in interviews and speeches in the years since, Vance has often returned to three major lessons he took away his brush with Iraq’s dysfunctional democracy. The first lesson was that foreign policy experts in the U.S. were deluded by their own ideology. Back in Washington, commentators were interpreting Iraqis’ lack of enthusiasm for Western democracy in political terms: The Iraqis were upset that the U.S. had violated their national sovereignty and were responding with organized political resistance. But on the ground, Vance came to see, most Iraqis were approaching the conflict in more prosaic terms: The arrival of American troops had made the country less safe and less stable, so they wanted the U.S. gone. To grasp the nature of the conflict clearly, you had to understand it not as a clash of civilizations but as a conflict over raw power. “I brought a lot of American political ideas to my time in Iraq, and I got there and realized that a lot of those ideas were very stupid,” Vance said on the 2021 podcast.

The second lesson was that democracy, unlike steel or semiconductors, is not an easily exportable commodity. In his free time, Vance had been reading books about America’s founders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who likened the republican form of government to a living organism that had to be cultivated by a specific sort of citizenry and nurtured by particular political virtues. In Iraq, Vance came to see, the U.S. was trying to transplant self-governance into fundamentally inhospitable soil. “That was definitely one of those things [that he learned] — that you can’t force democracy onto people,” said his friend from Cherry Point.

The final lesson was more sobering. At a time of great social uncertainty, Vance saw that the Iraqis were motivated less by the abstract benefits of political self-determination than they were by the immediate need for safety and stability. “They don’t really care about democracy that much, they don’t care about being able to choose their leaders — they just want a safe country,” Vance recalled on the podcast. “That is, like, all they want.”

In late December 2005, the troops at Al-Asad were expecting a visit from a special guest. Rumors circulated around the base that it would be pop star Jessica Simpson, who was making regular stops at overseas bases for the U.S.O. The mysterious guest turned out to be Vice President Dick Cheney, much to the disappointment of many of the Marines — but not Vance. His zeal as a political junkie was, apparently, undiminished by his deepening skepticism of the war. According to his friend from Cherry Point, he was one of the few Marines who was more excited to see Cheney speak than to see Simpson sing.

During his trip to Al-Asad, Cheney sat down for roundtable discussion with a few dozen Marines. One of them was Vance. At one point in the discussion, a Marine corporal pressed Cheney on the apparent military stalemate. “From our perspective, we don’t see much as far as gains,” the corporal said. “We’re looking at small-picture stuff, [but] not many gains.”

“Well, Iraq’s looking good,” Cheney replied. Any suggestion to the contrary, he added, was media distortion.

Vance took in Cheney’s assurances about the progress of the war, but in private, he had started to seriously doubt them. His late-night conversations with his bunkmates in “the can” increasingly turned to the futility of the mission and the lack of a clearly stated objective for the war. “At an intellectual level, he saw the lies, the hypocrisy, the media spin of it all,” said Snead.

Even as their enthusiasm for the war flagged, his small group of public affairs colleagues took solace in their work telling the stories of average Marines. But it was not lost on the combat correspondents that they were part of a broader propaganda machine, enlisted to present a palatable picture of a war that some of them had privately come to doubt. Vance, who regularly worked with the journalists who traveled to Al-Asad to cover the war, saw firsthand how that rosy picture filtered into the mainstream coverage of the war. “That is something that we would talk about,” recalled his friend from Cherry Point. “He’s certainly cognizant of the fact that people have a narrative that they’re trying to drive.”

Vance’s deployment ended in March 2006, and he returned to Cherry Point. With a little over a year remaining on his enlistment, he was starting to plan for his life after the corps, taking online classes for college credit and musing about eventually attending law school. The public affairs shop was badly short-staffed following an uptick in overseas deployments, and Haney, his commanding officer, selected Vance, then a corporal, for special assignments — first as the air station’s community-relations liaison and then as the media officer, a job normally filled by a captain.

The assignment as media officer was “a big deal,” in Haney’s description. The station was gearing up for a big airshow, and Vance’s new responsibilities put him in near-constant contact with local media. He quickly discovered in his new role that he thrived in the media limelight, even during periods of crisis. During the airshow, in May 2007, a civilian prop plane carrying five passengers crashed into powerlines near the base, setting fire to a 10-acre plot of land. Vance became the airfield’s point person for the incident, interfacing with local media and coordinating the Marines’ response. “He was the guy that was having to jump up and run out to the flight line to escort media, he was taking the queries, he was having to run upstairs to our operations department to figure out what was happening with the aircraft,” Haney recalled. “He just had an innate ability to work with people [on things] that required attention to detail.”

When Vance was discharged from the corps in September 2007, he returned to Ohio to start as a freshman at Ohio State. He kept in touch with a group of Marines from Cherry Point, exchanging email and text messages and occasionally visiting them at their colleges and homes. A handful of his former comrades attended his wedding to his law school sweetheart, Usha, in 2014, and several received thanks in the acknowledgment section of Hillbilly Elegy when it was published in 2016.

Many of the Marines who spoke about their service with Vance said they found the sections of Hillbilly Elegy covering his military career to be an accurate — if partial — account of his time in the corps. The book leaned heavily on the quotidian transformations that Vance underwent during the military: learning to balance a checkbook, eat healthier food, take out a car loan and conduct himself like an adult. In one of the few passages about his deployment to Iraq, he recounted a story of gifting a pencil eraser to a child in an Iraqi village, waxing poetic about the profound sense of gratitude that the episode inspired in him. The abiding sense of political disillusionment that took hold over him during his stay at Al-Asad went unmentioned.

That sense of disillusionment was evident, however, in the the op-eds that Vance began writing for The New York Times in the leadb up to the publication of his memoir in the spring of 2016. The columns were devoted primarily to unpacking then-candidate Donald Trump’s appeal among white working-class Americans, which Vance attributed in large part to Trump’s blunt criticisms of the war in Iraq. Trump may have been “unfit for our nation’s highest office,” Vance wrote in his first colum in April 2016, but at least he was willing to say what other Republicans were not: “That the war was a terrible mistake imposed on the country by an incompetent president.”

Blame for the war didn’t lie with Bush alone. The entire war on terror, Vance argued, had been a class war of sorts, waged by Republicans elites on the white working-class voters who put them in office — and who fought and died in disproportionate number in the arid deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. Back home, those same Americans were now flocking to Trump because he understood the ugly truth about the war’s failure; he spoke to their rage at Republican elites whose fantasies of exporting democracy around the world were premised on the very real destruction of white working-class communities at home. And for what? “A feckless and disorganized Iraqi government,” wrote Vance, and “a Middle East that is humiliatingly worse off than the way we found it.”

Vance understood this rage, he wrote, because he shared it. “I am proud of my service and proud of those who served alongside me. But war is about more than service and sacrifice — it’s about winning.” This was the real source of Trump’s real power, the kernel of his nascent foreign policy: “To those humiliated by defeat, he promises we’ll win again.”

Late last year, after Vance was picked as Trump’s running mate, Haney traveled from her home in South Carolina to a rally in Atlanta to watch him stump for the president. Haney describes herself as not particularly political — “I’m not normally one to go to campaign rallies of any kind,” she said — but she wanted to see her former colleague in action on the campaign trail. After the rally, she rode with Vance in his motorcade, exchanging a few friendly words and a hug. On stage, he had seemed slightly different than she remembered him — more formal, more polished — but when she met with him afterward, he seemed like the same JD she had always known.

“That’s my Marine,” she thought. “He’s still my Marine.”

In office, Vance’s service record has become both a political asset and a liability. In February, after Vance’s combative Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Marine combat veteran and Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton attacked Vance as a “POG” — or “Person Other that Grunt,” a derogatory slang term for infantry members who didn’t see combat. Vance’s anti-interventionism has also occasionally put him at odds with Trump’s own foreign policy decisions — mostly notably on Trump’s decision to strike the Houthis in Yemen. In June, Vance sidestepped his past opposition to U.S. strikes in Iran to fall in line with the president’s decision to bomb the country’s nuclear facilities, over the objections of many of his ideological allies. When Vance did step forward to defend the bombings, his comments bore the imprint of his experience in Iraq. “I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East,” he said during a television interview shortly after the U.S. attack. “But the difference is that back then, we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives.”

The lessons of Iraq have resurfaced in Vance’s political program in less intuitive ways as well. During a speech at the conservative think tank the Claremont Institute in July, Vance defended the Trump administration’s border crackdown and mass deportation plans by pointing to the shortcomings of Iraq’s fledgling democracy in 2005. “You cannot swap 10 million people from anywhere else in the world and expect for America to remain unchanged, in the same way you can’t export the Constitution to some random country and expect the same kind of government to take hold,” Vance said. The underlying principle was the same one he had learned at the Iraqi polls in late 2005: Democracy is a fragile organism that only grows in certain, well-tended climates. If you disrupt the soil, you endanger the whole plant.

Vance’s former comrades from the corps have reacted in various ways to his ascent to the pinnacle of American power. After he was added to the Republican ticket, Haney and others, true to their public affairs training, organized a group chat of Vance’s closest contacts from the corps, in part to coordinate media outreach. (They titled it “The Vice President’s Own,” a play on the Marine Band’s old nickname.) Several traveled to Washington in January for the inauguration, posing for photos with the vice president at an inaugural ball. Others, put off by what they saw as the boosterish bent of their fellow Marines’ public comments about Vance, quietly left the group chat and distanced themselves from the vice president.

Snead, the combat correspondent from Al-Asad, described watching Vance’s ascent with a sense of surreal inevitability. Over a decade ago, Snead recalled, Vance and his wife stopped to visit him in Colorado during a road trip to California, and Vance mentioned that they had been listening to the audiobook of Bill Clinton’s memoir during their drive. “I remember being surprised — like, you’re conservative but you’re listening to Bill Clinton?” Snead said. “At the time, it just seemed like, ‘This guy is studying the path to power.’”

Then, earlier this year, Snead saw a clip of Vance chastising the media during one of Trump’s early Cabinet meetings. He had a flash of recognition, back to days at Al-Asad when Vance would lob sarcastic comments at his colleagues from the back of the public affairs office. “My blood kind of ran cold, because it was like, ‘That’s him,’” Snead said. He had the same feeling in late February when he watched Vance’s tense exchange with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office: “Now he gets to be a smart ass and seemingly there’s no consequences for it.”

At the same time, many of Vance’s former comrades have struggled to reconcile his newly pugnacious political persona with the gentle and bookish teenager they knew in the corps. Several of them still remember this younger Vance with genuine affection. Testagrossa, from Cherry Point, recalled that Vance bought him his first beer on his 21st birthday, even though he and Vance didn’t always get along on the base. Another of Vance’s close friends from Cherry Point, a former Marine named Serena Denson, remembered that when she had shipped her pet dog back to base from a deployment abroad, Vance offered to pick the dog up and drive him to her mother-in-law’s house. “It felt like he was a brother,” Denson said. “Somebody who you could always count on.”

In January, Denson was among the Marines who traveled to Washington for Trump’s inauguration, where she met with Vance briefly at one of the inaugural balls. She had so much to say to him: how proud she was of him, how happy she was that he had achieved his dream, how much she cherished the memories of watching The O.C. on television together during quiet nights in North Carolina. But she was also worried: about his comments disparaging immigrants, and about his newfound chumminess with the richest and most powerful people in the world, which she worried was overshadowing his sense of obligation to everyday Americans like her. She wanted to say it all, but it was too much to put into words. She broke down in tears instead.

Since then, Denson said she’s thought a lot about what she would have told Vance if she had kept her composure at the gala. “I think I would just say to remember who he’s fighting for,” she said. “It’s not for his rich and powerful friends. It’s for people like me — hardworking people in this country who just want a country that supports them.” She wanted him to be the kind of leader she knew he could be, the kind who volunteers to pick up a friend’s dog and drive it to her in-laws.

She harbors no animosity toward her friend, she said, but she wonders if he’s changed in some fundamental way since she knew him. “I know that he was an excellent person, an excellent friend, an excellent Marine,” she added. “I just hope that he’s still in there.”

Politico

12. Putin’s Ukraine Summitry Was a Big Con

Putin’s Ukraine Summitry Was a Big Con

A week after Alaska, it looks like nothing has changed in the Kremlin.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/vladimir-putin-donald-trump-volodymyr-zelensky-ukraine-russia-e08c4bcb

By The Editorial Board

Aug. 21, 2025 6:11 pm ET

Russian President Vladimir Putin Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Kremlin Poo/Zuma Press

The Trump-Putin Alaska summit followed by the visit of European leaders at the White House were supposed to jump-start momentum to end the Russia-Ukraine war. A week later we are back at the same old stand, as Vladimir Putin is playing familiar tricks and showing no serious interest in a deal. The question is what President Trump will do about it.

Mr. Trump suggested this week that Mr. Putin wants peace and is open to a bilateral meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Where’s the evidence other than statements by Americans? Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday tossed all sorts of obstacles in the way of such a meeting, which Mr. Zelensky has long sought.

Mr. Lavrov said Russia must play a role in providing security guarantees for Ukraine. Oh, and its ally China should be at the table. That’s right: Mr. Putin thinks he should select the military forces that are supposed to deter him from restarting his conquest. Meanwhile, Mr. Putin has launched some of the largest drone and missile attacks of the war, including targets in the west far from the front lines.

This isn’t the behavior of someone interested in peace. Mr. Putin and his mouthpieces are still talking about the war as a project to pull Ukraine into a Russian co-prosperity sphere. Mr. Lavrov said this week that Russia is “protecting” Ukraine from its own democratically elected government, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Mr. Putin still thinks he can swallow Ukraine.

The question now is how quickly Mr. Trump concludes he’s being played again, and the evidence is mixed. The President posted on social media Thursday that President Biden “would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND,” and it “is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking” the invading country. “There is no chance of winning!”

Good point. Mr. Biden, or whoever was running his Ukraine policy, had no strategy for victory. But Mr. Trump has also been reluctant to open up U.S. weapons stores and give Ukraine a real long-range missile arsenal and the freedom to use it.

Elbridge Colby, the chief Pentagon strategist, reportedly told Europeans this week that the U.S. will play only a minimal role in helping Ukraine with security guarantees. How will this note of American diffidence make Mr. Putin more likely to end the war?

Mr. Putin reads the papers, and the Trump Administration is trying to drive a bargain with the Russian dictator even as it tells Americans that what happens in Ukraine isn’t America’s problem. Mr. Putin also knows that Europe without U.S. help lacks the military power to be more than a trip-wire for his next attack.

Mr. Trump’s hawkish turn this summer is arguably what prodded Mr. Putin to seek a summit after months of U.S. sweet-talk failed. All the happy smiles of diplomacy won’t make a difference unless Mr. Putin thinks that the cost to him of continuing the war is higher than the risk of ending it.

It’s past time for Mr. Trump to apply secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil and gas. That might get China’s attention. Here’s another idea: Confiscate each week a portion of the $300 billion in Russian reserves frozen in the West as long as the bombing continues. The hard truth is that a durable peace in Ukraine isn’t likely without a much harder policy from Mr. Trump.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leaders from Europe and NATO join Donald Trump at the White House for a high stakes meeting aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.

Appeared in the August 22, 2025, print edition as 'Putin’s Summitry Was a Big Con'.

13. Army looking to inject more cyber capabilities into formations at the division level

A crucial warfighting capability that paradoxically also supports operations in the human domain.

Army looking to inject more cyber capabilities into formations at the division level

In the next two years, the Army wants to give more cyber tools to divisions.

Mark Pomerleau

defensescoop.com · Mark Pomerleau · August 22, 2025

AUGUSTA, Ga. — As the Army is reintroducing electronic warfare capability to formations, it’s looking to give them more cyber weapons as well.

Particularly, with divisions as the main units of action going forward, the service is aiming to add cyber tools at that echelon in the next two years.

While the Army has been on a path to introduce certain capabilities, largely through Radio Frequency-enabled cyber, it is building out new forces to provide cyber power for commanders on the battlefield.

“When we think about it today, we recognize that there needs to be something at division level, because your ability to understand the IP space, understand the networks that you’re operating within, while you’re defending your own and finding potential to work against an adversary’s, there needs to be something within the tactical formations,” Maj. Gen. Ryan Janovic, commander of the Cyber Center of Excellence, said in an interview this week at the TechNet Augusta conference. “We have the cyber mission force, but its ability to focus that level is challenged by the demand that’s put upon it for other priorities, serving geographic combatant commands.”

The cyber mission force includes the 147 teams that the military services provide to U.S. Cyber Command to conduct operations. They are largely aimed at the strategic level and have historically focused on Internet Protocol-based targets, conducting operations from remote locations.

Increasingly, there are targets that either aren’t reachable through IP networks or remote access might not be possible, necessitating the need for more expeditionary cyber capabilities and units. Additionally, maneuver commanders may need certain digital tools on the ground to support their activities.

Most of these capabilities the Army wants at division will fall under the banner of the Army’s 11th Cyber Battalion, which provides tactical, on-the-ground cyber operations (mostly through radio-frequency effects), electronic warfare and information operations. The unit consists of expeditionary Cyber and Electromagnetic Activities (CEMA) teams, or ECTs, which are scalable formations designed to augment units upon request.

The Army’s cyber branch, 17 series, also encompasses electronic warfare, meaning soldiers learn both disciplines at the schoolhouse. This is important given the similarities and sometimes blurred lines between tactical or expeditionary cyber, RF-enabled cyber and pure EW capabilities.

“What we find is the opportunity is to have a local cyber force in contact with adversary networks or understand what the adversary is doing in that space, and use that to decide what can be done locally, what has to be passed to a higher echelon to gain that support,” Janovic said. “As we experiment with that, finding the balance between what is cyber and what is electromagnetic warfare, that’s a problem of language that we often have is when we aggregate the language to be Cyber Center of Excellence, is several things. Knowing the difference between what our demands are in IP space and what our demands are in the RF spectrum, we’ve got to train 17s to do both of those. Oftentimes, when we’re thinking about cyber at the division level, really, what we’re talking about is electromagnetic warfare.”

At each staff section at echelon, the Army has planned to include CEMA sections that will act as planners. They will synchronize those capabilities, and if a commander believes a cyber effect should be executed at the division level, an ECT could be sent to reinforce.

The Army is still experimenting with where exactly those ECTs will come from or reside, theater or corps level, to downward reinforce at the division level.

The difficult task will be figuring out how to move these capabilities seamlessly at echelon to be responsive to a commander’s request in a timely fashion.

“That’s often the hardest part, is anticipating what the commander will require, what might be necessary at division and corps level,” Janovic said. “We work on a little bit longer cycle, sometimes in the generation of capabilities and outcomes in the cyber mission force. We need to experiment with that and see what can we do rapidly? How do we satisfy that? And then where I pointed out that it’s a bridge, how do you practice that bridge so it becomes more timely?”

Officials also noted that division-level cyber capabilities could also come from the Army’s Multi-Domain Task Forces.

Injecting these types of capabilities into tactical formations on the battlefield is a top priority for the Army’s new principal cyber advisor, who works directly for the service secretary and can influence the political will to get some of those tasks done.

“The other thing that I’m probably a champion for at the Pentagon is what [Army Cyber Command commander Lt.] Gen. [Maria] Barrett’s 11th Cyber Battalion is doing. It’s remarkable. I sell that as a success story and one that we should really expand,” Brandon Pugh, the principal cyber advisor and first political appointee in that role, told conference attendees. “I think that’s the type of capability making sure we’re infusing cyber in conflict and potentially in an operational unit and where we should get to … There are certain capabilities that we need proximate access for, we can’t do thousands of miles away looking at that, especially in an EW context.”

Pugh said part of his role within the secretariat’s office is raising awareness that these capabilities should be infused across the operational force and ensuring they’re resourced from a budgetary perspective.

“Part of the initial endeavors, when the secretary first came in, was looking through efficiencies and you’re realizing that perhaps we can cease procurement [of] certain capabilities, but reinvest that in other capabilities in a future battlefield they need. Just personally speaking, I see that [expeditionary cyber] being a prime example,” he said.

Written by Mark Pomerleau

Mark Pomerleau is a senior reporter for DefenseScoop, covering information warfare, cyber, electronic warfare, information operations, intelligence, influence, battlefield networks and data.

defensescoop.com · Mark Pomerleau · August 22, 2025

14. Intelligence and Reconnaissance Brigades Give PLA Theater Commands Unprecedented Reach

Too often we overlook the great work from TRADOC G2. I will put their work up against any civilian think tank.

Graphics at the link.

Excerpt:

The IRBs represent a significant PLA capability extending the reach of its fires and ISR and

operating at a scale and sophistication that likely merits a focused counterreconnaissance and threat

mitigation approach.

Intelligence and Reconnaissance Brigades Give PLA Theater Commands Unprecedented Reach

By Peter Wood & Rob Taber

08/21/2025

https://oe.tradoc.army.mil/product/intelligence-and-reconnaissance-brigades-give-pla-theater-commands-unprecedented-reach/

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Army’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance Brigades (IRBs) represent

a new and different challenge for U.S. Army Corps counter reconnaissance operations due to the scope,

scale, and multidomain nature of their capabilities. IRBs give China’s operational ground forces the

ability to collect, process, and exploit intelligence in support of Theater Command (TC) operations. These

highly capable, technologically advanced units, built around both manned and unmanned reconnaissance

assets, pose a sophisticated threat to U.S. Army forces by enabling deep targeting for long-range fires and

supporting joint operations. Understanding the IRBs’ disposition, organization, capabilities, and roles aids

the U.S. Army in developing effective tactics, techniques, and procedures, as well as adapting doctrine,

training, and force structure to accomplish the counterreconnaissance task to “destroy, defeat, or repel

all enemy reconnaissance element within capabilities and following engagement criteria.”1

The IRBs, which do not have an exact U.S. Army equivalent, are designed to support operational level, sophisticated mechanized forces and the PLA’s systems warfare approach using a combination of reconnaissance platforms.2

They provide critical intelligence support to TC fires and maneuver operations

through manned and unmanned deep reconnaissance, concealment, and infiltration missions. IRBs are one

of the enablers under a TC army, including standalone electronic warfare brigades and river crossing brigades,

that are not tasked to a specific group army but act as task-organizable assets to support operations. While

group armies’ combined-arms brigades have their own scout and reconnaissance units, the IRBs fill a vital

gap by providing direct reconnaissance support to PLA operational-level long-range fires.

IRB Disposition and Organization

Each of the PLA’s five TC Armies and the Xinjiang

Military Command have established subordinate

IRBs, described as a “new combat capability”

and one of President Xi Jinping’s priorities.

Information available on the 2nd IRB suggests

these units possess a mix of traditional dismounted

reconnaissance, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS),

counterintelligence, combat service, and service

support elements.3

Given the PLA Army focus on standardization, the structure is likely similar across

all TCs. The 6th IRB may differ due to the Western

TC’s larger formations, including combined-arms

divisions and regiments instead of group armies

and combined-arms brigades.

IRB Capabilities

IRBs field a diverse array of ground- and air-based manned and unmanned reconnaissance systems

to provide layered and redundant intelligence collection in their area of operations. The IRBs likely

employ a variety of ground surveillance and battlefield surveillance radars such as the JY-17A and

BS-903A, alongside UAS including the CH-4, BZK-006A, and KVD-002.4

To extend the capabilities of an IRBs’ ISR capabilities (and likely to match the increasing range of PLA Army fires, IRBs have been featured

using longer-range medium-altitude, long endurance UAS such as the KVD-002. The KVD-002, derived

from the CH-4, has an endurance of approximately 30 hours but must operate from a runway, unlike the

smaller rocket-assisted launch-capable BZK-006. IRBs likely also employ a multitude of smaller UAS with

a variety of sophisticated sensor options.5

While IRBs’ technical reconnaissance capabilities remain a gap in open-source information, it is highly likely they conduct electronic intelligence and signals intelligence

through ground- and UAS-based systems focused on radio direction-finding, network surveillance, radar

detection, and fire-finding.6

IRB Roles

IRBs represent the force pool the TC task organizes into “reconnaissance intelligence groups” to

conduct deep reconnaissance supporting fires, collection on high-value targets, and reconnaissance

support to PLA joint operations.7 Deep reconnaissance refers to operations focused beyond the range

of a unit’s organic weapons systems.8 For the TC, this includes the PCH-191 modular rocket launcher

system, which can range out to 500 kilometers. The PLA Army likely demonstrated this relationship

between the IRB and joint fires capabilities during the 2023 JOINT SWORD deterrence exercises, which

featured large-scale mobilization in Fujian Province across the Strait from Taiwan.

The IRBs likely answer TC intelligence requirements on adversary operational-level entities such

as command posts, long-range fires formations, sustainment nodes, and integrated air defense sites.

Additionally, IRB elements have been observed conducting integrated ground and air reconnaissance

training, and tactical coordination with PLA Army Aviation Brigades, conducting joint training with special

forces and People’s Army Police mobile contingents, and supporting disaster relief efforts.9

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE U.S. ARMY

The IRBs represent a significant PLA capability extending the reach of its fires and ISR and

operating at a scale and sophistication that likely merits a focused counterreconnaissance and threat

mitigation approach. The IRBs represents a highly capable, technologically advanced reconnaissance

threat operating in their opponents’ close and rear areas. By characterizing counterreconnaissance as a

continuous, proactive function in Field Manual 3-98, Reconnaissance and Security Operations, the U.S. Army

could shift its counterreconnaissance operations from detecting enemy reconnaissance to destroying,

defeating, or repelling it before it can effectively support adversary fires.

Incorporating scenarios that realistically replicate IRB capabilities and mission sets into U.S. Army

training could likely provide a more realistic UAS threat and drive counter-UAS training. This includes

IRB UAS, tactics, electronic warfare, and combined-arms integration. Simulating IRBs’ dispersed network

of dismounted and aerial reconnaissance assets would likely help units experience unprecedented levels

of transparency on the battlefield, requiring a renewed focus on camouflage, concealment, deception,

dispersal, and masking electronic signatures.

ENDNOTES

1 U.S. Army FM 3-98 Reconnaissance and Security Operations, 5-4, 10 JAN 2023.

2 U.S. Army Military Intelligence Brigades-Theater (MIB-T), Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTF), and Armored Cavalry Regiments

(ACR) have analogous capability and similar tasks, but are not identical in disposition, organization, capabilities, nor roles

to the IRB.

3 U.S. Army Asian Studies Detachment, OSIR: ASD24C01001, Basic Facts Sheet: Southern Theater Command Ground Force 2nd

Intelligence and Reconnaissance Brigade, 16 October 2023.

4 Arostegui, Joshua. “China Maritime Report No. 32: The PCH191 Modular Long-Range Rocket Launcher: Reshaping the PLA

Army’s Role in a Cross-Strait Campaign.” 19, 3 NOV 2023, and U.S. Army Asian Studies Detachment, OSIR: ASD24C01001, Basic

Facts Sheet: Southern Theater Command Ground Force 2nd Intelligence and Reconnaissance Brigade, 16 October 2023. And

Congyi, Lin, “PLA Army’s Newly Unveiled Armed Recon Drone Likely Joined Drills Around Taiwan Island, Global Times, 22

SEP 2023.

5 U.S. Army, ATP 7-100.3 Chinese Tactics, 2021.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 U.S. Army Asian Studies Detachment, OSIR: ASD24C01001, Basic Facts Sheet: Southern Theater Command Ground Force 2nd

Intelligence and Reconnaissance Brigade, 16 October 2023, and U.S. Army Asian Studies Detachment, OSIR: ASD25C21060,

China Southern Theater Command Military Activities Report, 6 May 2025, and U.S. Army Asian Studies Detachment, OSIR:

ASD25C01035, China Northern Theater Command Ground Force Activities Report, 3-6 May.

9 U.S. Army ADP 3-0 Operations, 3-35, 3-36, page 31, March 2025

Distribution A: Approved for public release

Categories:

INDOPACOM, Intelligence & Surveillance, Product, Red Diamond

Tags:

Article, China, INDOPACOM, People's Liberation Army

15. Inside Russia’s Shadow Military Sustaining the War

"Irregular formations are now embedded."

Excerpts:

Even if the war in Ukraine ended tomorrow, these structures would likely persist. Irregular formations are now embedded in Russia’s sprawling system of military and security services. In occupied territories, they can act as informal security forces or shadow governance bodies, suppressing dissent, intimidating civilians, and enforcing control without openly violating any peace agreement. Ultranationalist elements like Rusich or remnants of Wagner may continue operating as sanctioned spoilers or autonomous rogue actors, conducting sabotage, assassinations, and targeting attacks under the guise of local resistance. Just as Wagner and Redut fighters were re-routed from Ukraine to Syria, Libya, and Mali, today’s irregulars may become tomorrow’s mercenaries, quietly deployed under commercial, security services, or “volunteer” banners. Hardened in urban assault, sabotage, and drone warfare, these fighters offer the Kremlin a standing force for global hybrid operations.

But this hybrid model carries serious risks. It accelerates the erosion of professionalism within Russia’s regular armed forces, as most volunteers undergo abbreviated training and bypass the medical and psychological vetting required of regular recruits. Furthermore, irregular formations operate under conflicting loyalties. Some answer to military intelligence officers, others to regional powerbrokers like Ramzan Kadyrov or to private sponsors. Overlapping chains of command fuel friction, dilute discipline, and disrupt logistics. As the Wagner mutiny demonstrated, irregulars with ambiguous loyalties can quickly shift from asset to threat.

Russia’s irregular army is the product of unique circumstances: an authoritarian system that has cycled vast numbers of citizens through wars, mobilization constraints, and security-service patronage networks. While it has become a structural pillar of Moscow’s power projection, it cannot fully replace conventional forces. Russia’s own campaigns show that irregular formations function best as supplements to regular units. They also illustrate how states can fuse semi-formal networks, private actors, and digital platforms into hybrid force structures. Though not easily exportable to other contexts, this model provides a playbook for protracted or politically sensitive conflicts allowing governments to project power, sustain attrition, and operate in the gray space between war and peace.

Inside Russia’s Shadow Military Sustaining the War - War on the Rocks

Mariya Y. Omelicheva

August 22, 2025

warontherocks.com · August 22, 2025

“The Nevsky Battalion is accepting volunteers.” This recruitment ad appeared on Russian social media in summer 2025 and is hardly a one-off. Swap out “Nevsky” for “Wolves,” “Saint George,” or any of three dozen similar formations and a pattern emerges: Russia is leaning ever harder on irregular forces to sustain its war on Ukraine.

Moscow’s use of irregular units has transformed its military into a hybrid war machine. They are institutionalized under state control and deployed at scale, making up as much as 40 percent of the Russian-commanded troops now arrayed against Ukraine. Often tasked with the deadliest and most politically deniable missions, this shadow force gives Moscow a flexible instrument for attritional warfare and covert mobilization. While they expand Moscow’s manpower without triggering domestic political backlash, they erode the professionalism of regular forces, creating exploitable weaknesses in combined-arms proficiency. Still, even after fighting stops, these formations will blur the lines between war and peace.

U.S. policymakers and defense planners should account for Russia’s irregular formations as a core component of its military capacity, one that complicates Western deterrence strategies, intelligence assessments, and legal frameworks. This requires adapting threat assessment, force posture, and interagency coordination to effectively counter threats by these forces. Policymakers should also prepare for postwar scenarios where these units are deployed abroad under “volunteer” banners and apply diplomatic and economic pressure on host nations to deny basing or commercial cover for ex-Ukraine irregulars. As the Trump administration engages Russia on a path toward a peace deal, identifying, disarming, and demobilizing these irregular formations should be among the key conditions of a ceasefire agreement.

BECOME A MEMBER

What Are Russia’s Irregular Formations?

Russia’s irregular forces in Ukraine are layered and fluid. They range from private military companies — the group formerly known as Wagner and its state-controlled rival, Redut — to regional volunteer battalions such as Tatarstan’s Alga and Timer, far-right paramilitaries like Rusich, penal assault units such as Storm-Z, and the Ministry of Defense’s Combat Army Reserve. Many of these groups operate under the auspices of Russia’s Ministry of Defense or military intelligence. Their personnel typically serve on short-term civilian contracts creating a legal gray zone that blurs the line between formal and informal combatants.

This ecosystem traces back to Russia’s earlier interventions in Chechnya, Georgia, and Donbas, where covert operatives and militias operated alongside regular forces. During the Second Chechen War (1999–2009), the Russian government established multiple indigenous paramilitaries in Chechnya, which became the principle counter-insurgency force enabling the Kremlin to break the backbone of the Chechen insurgency. Russia relied on South Ossetian and Abkhaz militias, armed and trained by Russian forces, to help its regular army in Georgia during the August 2008 war. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia used its proxy forces, including the Chechen formations, Wagner Group mercenaries, and the Russian intelligence-backed “People’s Militias” in Donbas to destabilize Ukraine and influence its politics.

Both Redut and Wagner can trace their lineage to an anti-terrorist training center created by the veterans of the Chechen wars and former special operations (spetsnaz) forces in 1998. Redut evolved into a military intelligence-affiliated mercenary platform after 2008, though it was soon eclipsed by Wagner. The Wagner Group served as an unofficial instrument of Russian power, conducting expeditionary operations in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa while staying formally outside the Ministry of Defense control, until Yevgeny Prigozhin’s 2023 rebellion led to its fragmentation with some commanders joining Redut.

Following the partial mobilization crisis of late 2022, the Kremin accelerated irregular recruitment. Redut expanded into a network of over 20 irregular formations, composed of veterans, convicts, migrant laborers, and members of regional militias, deployed across Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. At the same time, Russia’s 85 regions were tasked with raising their own volunteer battalions. By autumn 2022, between 30 and 50 regions had done so. These regionally branded units were funded through a mix of local budgets, private donors, and political sponsors. With poor standards in training and equipment, they were deployed in high-casualty roles as frontline fillers.

The Ministry of Defense Combat Army Reserve system — originally established in 2015 as a formal volunteer reserve — absorbed some militia units, including Cossack formations and private military companies. These units, though technically affiliated with the Ministry of Defense, often operate alongside territorial defense units and private military companies, navigating overlapping and sometimes conflicting logistics, funding streams, and chains of command. For example, Konvoy — known as the private militia of Sergey Askyonov, the head of temporarily annexed Crimea — operates as both a private military company and a formal Combat Army Reserve unit with fighters signing contracts under both frameworks. This dual status creates parallel chains of command and funding, balancing patronage and regional control with the Ministry of Defense paperwork and benefits. In Russia’s western and southwestern regions bordering Ukraine, Combat Army Reserve units BARS-Kursk and BARS-Belgorod have been framed as “territorial defense units.” While tasked with local defense, these formations also support expeditionary operations in Ukraine, operating under both regional authorities and the Ministry of Defense, splitting funding streams and complicating logistics and reporting.

To reinforce these efforts, Russian oligarchs, state enterprises, and members of parliament have sponsored their own combat units, creating parallel channels of force generation. Ultranationalist formations, such as the Rusich sabotage-reconnaissance battalion, went further by leveraging social media to crowdfund equipment, move funds through cryptocurrency, and tap into criminal networks. An openly fascist group composed of ideologically driven Russian and European volunteers, Rusich functions as a compact, special-forces-style company focused on sabotage and assault reconnaissance. Once linked to Wagner, it now operates outside the Redut structure and maintains autonomy.

Scale and Structure of the Russian Irregular Army

Reporting on Russian combat operations often fails to distinguish between regular and irregular forces. Yet, estimates suggest that irregular formations account for between one-third and one-half of Russia’s deployed ground forces in Ukraine, a staggering proportion by any modern standard. Redut alone fields more than 25,000 fighters across 27 rebranded battalions. While precise numbers for all regional volunteer fighters are unknown, Chechnya’s battalions are estimated to total at least 19,000 volunteers, with an additional 10,000 to 15,000 recruits from other regions deployed in 2022. Ukrainian intelligence assesses that between 140,000 to 180,000 convicts had been mobilized as of January 2025 through penal recruitment system. The Ministry of Defense Combat Army Reserve volunteer forces, initially estimated at 10,000 to 30,000 at the start of the war, numbered around 40,000 by mid-2025, according to the Institute for the Study of War. In addition, between 2023 and 2024, Moscow’s centralized recruitment apparatus brought in over 1,500 foreign mercenaries from 48 countries. By far the largest group, with the estimated 603 recruits, came from Nepal. The Central Asian republics, collectively, contributed several hundred fighters, often motivated by economic incentives or promises of citizenship. Several hundred Chinese nationals have fought for Russia as well, despite Beijing’s official denial.

The size of Russia’s active-duty military in or near Ukraine has fluctuated between 580,000 and 700,000 from 2024 to 2025, with Ukrainian military intelligence placing the figure at 620,000 in spring 2025. By this count, irregular forces make up roughly 39.25 percent of Russia’s deployed force.

Efforts to consolidate this fragmented force began in 2023 when Redut and the Union of Donbas Volunteers convened in occupied Mariupol to create the so-called “Russian Volunteer Corps,” a loose military intelligence-linked framework uniting dozens of irregular formations. By 2025, this had evolved into Dobrokor (short for Dobrovolcheskii Korpus or “Volunteer Corps”), a state-sanctioned recruitment mechanism for irregulars. Dobrokor channels volunteers through military enlistment offices, granting them nominal legal status and promising social guarantees. The signup bonuses for a one-year contract range from $6,300 to $20,400 depending on the region. While the Ministry of Defense soldiers receive significantly higher signing bonuses, sometimes reaching up to $46,000, these contracts can be inaccessible or undesirable to many potential recruits. The financial incentives offered by Dobrokor are a major motivator for many volunteers, especially when viewed against prevailing wage norms in Russia. Yet, these recruits are often deployed in high-risk, attritional roles. Early in the war, formal Russian army forces were frequently deployed in human wave assaults, with casualty rates especially severe among regional battalions drawn from ethnic minority regions. These tactics led to plummeting morale in the army and public backlash. As the conflict evolved, irregular combatants, especially prisoners, have become the primary force used in frontal assaults aimed at exhausting Ukrainian defenses.

Although Dobrokor volunteers are technically the Ministry of Defense contractors, they have none of the rights, recognition, or protections afforded to career soldiers. Many volunteers are not integrated into regular Russian Armed Forces units. Their battalions comprise prisoners, veterans, ultra-nationalist fighters, and medically unfit recruits. Command structures of volunteer units are fragmented: Some answer to military intelligence and security services handlers, others to regional governors, and still other to battlefield commanders in occupied Ukraine. Early termination of contracts can lead to criminal prosecution and reports of nonpayment and logistical breakdowns are frequent. Therefore, Dobrokor institutionalizes a state-backed model for building an irregular army. It is a legal façade built on financial incentives, deniable leadership structures, and minimal political accountability.

A subset of irregular formations, especially those with extremist or ultra-nationalist affiliations, operate with relative autonomy and without formal ties to the Ministry of Defense or military intelligence, maintaining their own agendas inside the broader war effort. For instance, neo-Nazi group Rusich’s strategic goals broadly align with Russian imperialist ambitions to conquer large swaths of Ukraine. However, their vision of an ethno-Slavic state is compounded by the group’s militant ethos, which glorifies violence as a cleansing force and embraces brutality as a political and psychological weapon. In practice, Rusich has treated the war as a means to purge those it deems “degenerate” or “occupied” Slavs, an ideology that has fueled its notorious cruelty toward prisoners of war and Ukrainian civilians. This emphasis on purification has also led to tensions with state authority, exemplified by Rusich’s refusal to comply with official orders to remove social media posts calling for the execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Strategic and Operational Implications of Russia’s Irregular Force Model

Russia’s irregular formations are no longer stop-gaps — they are a central pillar of Moscow’s warfighting machine. This patchwork of paramilitaries, mercenaries, veterans, and convicts is ill-suited for decisive maneuver warfare or sustained campaigns without regular forces’ support. Yet, it provides the Kremlin with distinct strategic and operational advantages. Outsourcing warfighting to irregular formations enables Moscow to wage a prolonged war of attrition while insulating itself from domestic backlash. Disproportionally assigned to high-casualty, low-support frontline sectors, these units serve as expendable infantry, absorbing losses ahead of operations by regular or elite Russian forces. Their casualty rates rarely appear in the Ministry of Defense reporting, blunting public awareness of the true human loss. The result is a flexible, high-turnover force that bolsters operational capacity without triggering politically sensitive conscription or exhausting the regular military. Russia’s partial mobilization, announced in September 2022, triggered popular backlash and mass emigration, because it shattered the illusion of a limited “special military operation” (the Russian euphemism for the war), forcing ordinary citizens into the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose grip on power depends in part on maintaining high public approval, has since been reluctant to authorize another mobilization, wary of further undermining his domestic support.

Even if the war in Ukraine ended tomorrow, these structures would likely persist. Irregular formations are now embedded in Russia’s sprawling system of military and security services. In occupied territories, they can act as informal security forces or shadow governance bodies, suppressing dissent, intimidating civilians, and enforcing control without openly violating any peace agreement. Ultranationalist elements like Rusich or remnants of Wagner may continue operating as sanctioned spoilers or autonomous rogue actors, conducting sabotage, assassinations, and targeting attacks under the guise of local resistance. Just as Wagner and Redut fighters were re-routed from Ukraine to Syria, Libya, and Mali, today’s irregulars may become tomorrow’s mercenaries, quietly deployed under commercial, security services, or “volunteer” banners. Hardened in urban assault, sabotage, and drone warfare, these fighters offer the Kremlin a standing force for global hybrid operations.

But this hybrid model carries serious risks. It accelerates the erosion of professionalism within Russia’s regular armed forces, as most volunteers undergo abbreviated training and bypass the medical and psychological vetting required of regular recruits. Furthermore, irregular formations operate under conflicting loyalties. Some answer to military intelligence officers, others to regional powerbrokers like Ramzan Kadyrov or to private sponsors. Overlapping chains of command fuel friction, dilute discipline, and disrupt logistics. As the Wagner mutiny demonstrated, irregulars with ambiguous loyalties can quickly shift from asset to threat.

Russia’s irregular army is the product of unique circumstances: an authoritarian system that has cycled vast numbers of citizens through wars, mobilization constraints, and security-service patronage networks. While it has become a structural pillar of Moscow’s power projection, it cannot fully replace conventional forces. Russia’s own campaigns show that irregular formations function best as supplements to regular units. They also illustrate how states can fuse semi-formal networks, private actors, and digital platforms into hybrid force structures. Though not easily exportable to other contexts, this model provides a playbook for protracted or politically sensitive conflicts allowing governments to project power, sustain attrition, and operate in the gray space between war and peace.

BECOME A MEMBER

Mariya Y. Omelicheva, Ph.D., is professor of strategy at the National Defense University. She is a leading authority on Russian foreign and security policy, Eurasian regional security, and the crime-terror nexus. Her scholarship spans multiple books and numerous articles that have shaped understanding of informal institutions, hybrid threats, and translational criminal-terrorist linkages in post-Soviet states. All opinions presented herein are her own and do not represent an official policy of the U.S. government, the Department of Defense, or the National Defense University.

Image: Midjourney

warontherocks.com · August 22, 2025

16. Smuggling for the Motherland? Using Ukraine’s Criminal Organizations Against Russia

Excerpts:

Conclusions

Operation Spider’s Web is a masterclass in covert action, demonstrating Ukraine’s comparative advantage in innovation, adaptation, and flexibility. This operation has been publicly attributed to the work of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and there is no open-source evidence to confirm other players beyond the SBU. However, Ukraine would be shortsighted if it wasn’t considering how to leverage its domestic assets (in the form of sophisticated transnational criminal organizations) in either this or similar operations. They would join a long line of states and violent nonstate groups that have done so in the context of irregular warfare. Such collaboration would not be without risk, particularly given Ukraine’s historical struggles with corruption and the public justifications Russia has given for their actions. In a war where perception matters nearly as much as firepower, any revelation of collusion with organized crime risks eroding international support and feeding Russian propaganda. The operation was executed brilliantly and creates interesting irregular possibilities for Ukraine, but its long-term consequences are yet to be seen.

Smuggling for the Motherland? Using Ukraine’s Criminal Organizations Against Russia

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/08/22/ukraine-organized-crime-operation-spiders-web/

by Katharine Petrich

08.22.2025 at 06:00am

Abstract

This article explores the possibility of Ukraine’s strategic use of domestic organized crime networks as an asset in its asymmetric war against Russia, using the case study of Operation Spider’s Web. By leveraging the logistical expertise, transnational reach, and deniability of criminal groups, Ukrainian security services could amplify their operational capabilities beyond conventional means. While effective, this collaboration raises complex risks for governance, legitimacy, and long-term postwar stability.

Introduction

On June 1, 2025, after eighteen months of preparation, Ukraine launched a covert attack deep inside Russia, causing upwards of $7 billion USD in damage. Called Operation Spider’s Web, the attacks were executed by small drones that had been smuggled into Russia over the course of the past year through “covert logistical routes.” The drones were moved overland using trucks ostensibly hauling routine cargo – in this case, prefabricated buildings with drones concealed in the roofs.

Beyond the immediate damage, the secondary costs are significant: Russia must either accept the expense of fortifying or relocating countless military assets – those previously thought to be protected by ‘safe’ geography – or they must accept that these assets now exist on the front lines. Operation Spider’s Web was a clear success and much has been written about it, but fundamental logistical questions persist: How, exactly, did a production line in Ukraine deliver drones throughout Russia? Who dropped the containers off on the side of the road or parked them at gas stations within striking distance of the Russian airfields? Who confirmed the assets were in position?

Open-source reporting and Ukrainian government characterizes this as a highly sophisticated, technical covert operation carried out by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). According to President Zelensky, the SBU set up a secret assembly line within Russia itself – so component parts were manufactured in Ukraine, smuggled across the border, transported to Central Russia, assembled, hidden in shipping containers, and then deployed. Some reporting suggests that the truck drivers who transported the goods were unknowing patsies, but the Ukrainian government has stated any personnel who were involved in the operation were safely back on the Ukrainian side of the border before the attack commenced, with the implication all personnel involved were Ukrainian intelligence and special operations.

However, the truth may be more complex. There has been a notable silence from both official sources and media reporting on how exactly the component parts and key personnel were transported from Ukraine into Russia and extracted again. Instead, articles gesture vaguely at these key resources being ‘smuggled’ both into and out of the country. To the casual reader, this is unremarkable. To anyone who has worked in logistics, particularly those involving hardened wartime borders, it raises a few more questions. This is a complicated and dangerous endeavor with challenges that only increase with volume. However, there are actors in the region with sizeable experience in moving goods, people, and weapons across complex spaces, including borders in wartime: Ukrainian organized crime. Ukraine is home to some of the world’s most developed and sophisticated groups, which are busily making record profits moving all sorts of people and things back and forth between the belligerents. Could they have been the key piece in this logistical feat?

Organized Crime in Ukraine and Russia

Organized crime is generally defined under domestic legal structures, and as a result, the understanding of what ‘counts’ can vary quite widely. However in 2000, the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) established some basic conditions for signatory states: organized crime groups are “structured groups of three or more persons” which commit “serious crimes” (those crimes which are punishable with at least four years incarceration under the signatory’s legal system). This generally offers quite a bit of flexibility to the signatory government, neatly skirting issues of sovereignty and international organization overreach. In practice, transnational organized crime is nearly always some form of trafficking: the big three are drugs, arms, and people. Groups often move all three, along with a range of consumer goods. They are essentially highly sophisticated, innovative logistics companies specializing in illicit cargo.

Interestingly, while both Russia and Ukraine have both signed and ratified the Convention, in 2015 and again in 2022, the Ukrainian government informed the UN Secretary General that they would no longer guarantee enforcement of the Convention until the conflict with Russia was over. This disclosure can be read two ways: as an admission of uneven (legal) power projection by the Ukrainian government within their territory, particularly as physical control of territory changes, or as a public statement that transnational organized crime groups and activities represents an irregular asset of opportunity for the country, and Ukraine will use (or at least will not rule out using) such groups and their activities for the state.

Indeed, it would not be much of change for the neighborhood: Russia has long been credibly accused of using both its domestic criminal networks and their Ukrainian counterparts to advance its interests. In the current conflict, Russia has used criminal networks extensively to avoid sanctions, maintain liquidity, and source critical goods. This relationships extends beyond rent-seeking behavior (taking a ‘cut’ of illicit proceeds) to include command and control activities over criminal activities. Less attention has been paid to Ukraine’s wartime use of organized crime, though it is well established that Ukraine has a similarly robust community of organized criminal networks.

Triangulating these statements with news reports and academic research, a feasible picture begins to emerge: in 2023, Agence France Press reported that many Ukrainian organized criminals cut ties and recalibrated allegiances in the wake of Russia’s invasion, developing explicitly patriotic business frameworks or displacing collaboration with their Russian counterparts to other countries. At the same time, the Ukrainian government deployed a two prong deterrence and inclusion strategy, conducting high profile disruptions of groups collaborating with Russian actors while offering amnesty for those who engaged in resistance activities. Taken in sum, there is overwhelming evidence that the Ukrainian government is at least on speaking terms with the leadership of its country’s underworld.

Crime as Irregular Warfare

Crime, particularly sophisticated organized crime, shares much of its DNA with other irregular warfare activities. Indeed, the 2024 Congressional Research Service Primer on Irregular Warfare argues irregular warfare includes “nontraditional activities such as… criminal activities.” Criminal activity and corruption function as key grey zone strategies for eroding competitor territorial control, distributing governance and maintaining control of domestic populations, generating intelligence, and even advancing state interests in a larger Great Power competition. Functionally, both illicit individuals and organizations are expendable, and outsourcing to them can often be faster and significantly less expensive than building up comparable abilities within the legitimate bureaucracy. Finally, action by criminal groups comes with attractive plausible deniability for the state, especially in contexts characterized by direct action. So while it may seem a risky and counterintuitive move for the Ukrainian government, particularly in support of such a key mission, crime groups can be an immense asset to the state, acting as a “force multiplier that bridges law enforcement, national security and international relations”.

States have collaborated with organized crime groups before – historical examples abound: during World War II, for example, the United States Navy famously leveraged Italian organized crime groups in New York to collect intelligence, disrupt sabotage, and break organized labor work stoppages that would have impacted the operational tempo. Today, states like Iran and North Korea regularly employ organized criminals to evade sanctions, while policymakers in Brazil rely on a power sharing agreement with gangs to ensure a modicum of stability in the country’s favelas. The traditional understanding of how states use and engage with these groups is an ad-hoc, transactional manner – essentially a ‘guns for hire’ scenario. However, this dynamic only captures a small piece of the spectrum. Politically violent nonstate groups collaborate and incorporate criminal groups as well. For example, paramilitary groups are often comprised of ‘dual hatted’ individuals: government affiliated irregulars moonlighting as criminals to support the cause, or vice versa. Both terrorist groups and states regularly target criminals for recruitment, with the explicit purpose of increasing the larger group’s capabilities and funding avenues. Such groups also work to develop their own illicit capabilities as well as collaborating with their criminal counterparts.

In this case, Ukraine’s possible use of criminal actors is not ideological but practical—a wartime expedient. These groups are quite literally the best in the world at doing precisely what was needed to execute Operation Spider’s Web: move key people and material across a hard border, transit through a hostile country, remain hidden for a time, then move them back across the border. This is a task that requires not only intelligence but preexisting relationships, nuanced on the ground knowledge, and experience moving through a complex space with a high risk of discovery. Of course, the state could develop these capabilities – running this sort of covert mission is the bread and butter of many special operations forces worldwide. However, in an environment of constrained resources, collocated with experts with a preexisting robust illicit network designed to do exactly this sort of task, why would the state not consider collaborating?

However, just because cooperation is feasible, questions remain. The risks—betrayal, discovery, or incompetence—seem significant. The most obvious vulnerabilities center on trust and control: criminal groups seem inherently untrustworthy and using them in a mission of this importance and complexity is highly risky. Money alone cannot buy certainty because there’s always a chance of being outbid. Outsourcing means potentially giving up control over key operational elements, which can be particularly tricky in intelligence constrained or segmented contexts like this one. If discovered, the relationship has significant implications for the perceived legitimacy of the Ukrainian government, especially given the country’s history of problematic collaboration and corruption. Further, Russia could easily exploit the relationship ‘backwards,’ circumventing border controls to launch their own attack by simply paying off the same set of actors. Longer term vulnerabilities exist as well, some of which are acute in the Ukrainian context. Funneling money into criminal networks sets up a post-conflict challenger to the state, one that will have a large pool of resources in the form of returning veterans and internally displaced persons, as well as a region awash in weaponry.

To protect against defection and betrayal, a state interested in leveraging criminals should consider how criminal groups build trust in illicit contexts. Central to such a working relationship is iterated interactions, social networks, and balancing incentives with risk, as well as limiting information to ‘need to know’. In this case, there is clearly an opportunity for repeated interactions between the Ukrainian state and its organized crime actors, as well as a strongly connected (if aging) social network.

While compelling reasons for criminal partnership may exist on the state side, why would criminal groups agree to cooperate? Surely getting involved in an action like Operation Spider’s Web exposes them to unwanted risk. Generally, criminal leadership and groups involve themselves in politics for the same reasons many of their licit counterparts do: desire for power, enrichment opportunities, even patriotism. Collaborating with the state offers money-making opportunities with a partner that is unlikely to default on their obligations, and which could be parlayed into future peacetime revenue via blackmail and extortion. In addition to hard cash, working with the state could open significant post-conflict opportunities, ranging from amnesty to superior positioning within the criminal ecosystem

Conclusions

Operation Spider’s Web is a masterclass in covert action, demonstrating Ukraine’s comparative advantage in innovation, adaptation, and flexibility. This operation has been publicly attributed to the work of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and there is no open-source evidence to confirm other players beyond the SBU. However, Ukraine would be shortsighted if it wasn’t considering how to leverage its domestic assets (in the form of sophisticated transnational criminal organizations) in either this or similar operations. They would join a long line of states and violent nonstate groups that have done so in the context of irregular warfare. Such collaboration would not be without risk, particularly given Ukraine’s historical struggles with corruption and the public justifications Russia has given for their actions. In a war where perception matters nearly as much as firepower, any revelation of collusion with organized crime risks eroding international support and feeding Russian propaganda. The operation was executed brilliantly and creates interesting irregular possibilities for Ukraine, but its long-term consequences are yet to be seen.

About The Author

Katharine Petrich
Katharine Petrich is the Program Chair and an Assistant Professor of Threat Intelligence at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, CA, where she specializes in the intersection of asymmetric violent conflict and illicit economies. She is also a Nonresident Irregular Warfare Initiative Fellow and holds a PhD in Political Science from Northeastern University.

17. Quantum Leap for the Alliance: Europe’s Tech Drive Strengthens Transatlantic Security

Excertps:

European leadership in quantum technology is viewed as a profoundly beneficial development from an American perspective, aligning directly with key US strategic objectives, particularly Elbridge Colby’s strategy of denial and deterrence. This strategy posits that the most effective way to prevent aggression is to ensure an adversary’s primary military objectives are rendered unachievable or too costly to pursue.

A quantum-capable Western European NATO directly contributes to this strategy by bolstering the continent’s ability to deny potential adversaries, such as Russia, their strategic aims. This enhancement of Europe’s independent defensive posture and deterrent capacity strengthens the overall deterrent posture of the entire transatlantic alliance. Beyond traditional cybersecurity and military applications, quantum computing will revolutionize civil defense by enhancing capabilities in the areas of disaster prediction and early warning, secure communication through unbreakable encryption keys, and GPS-independent navigation that is less vulnerable to jamming and spoofing. These resilience measures reduce the cost of conflict while deterring malign actors by displaying a sense of NATO and US resilience to security challenges.

A critical aspect for the American audience is how European quantum development contributes to burden reduction. By developing robust quantum capabilities, Europe can independently strengthen its defensive posture and deterrent capacity. This reduces the burden on the United States for direct intervention and extensive resource sharing in Europe. Thus, it would allow the United States to reallocate its focus and resources towards its primary geopolitical competition with China. This reframes Europe’s pursuit of technological autonomy not as a withdrawal from partnership, but as a crucial contribution to a more efficient and strategically aligned division of labor within the alliance.

Ultimately, a confident, competent, and well-organized European Union, capable of securing its own defense through advanced technologies like quantum, frees up the United States to concentrate on the critical rivalry in the Indo-Pacific. This leads to a stronger, more resilient Western alliance overall. The maturing of Europe into a more self-reliant and capable security partner strengthens the entire NATO alliance’s capacity to address global challenges. This transforms the narrative from one of European reaction to US antagonism into one of strategic convergence, where Europe’s pursuit of quantum sovereignty is a shared strategic imperative that enhances collective security and allows for a more efficient allocation of alliance resources.

Quantum Leap for the Alliance: Europe’s Tech Drive Strengthens Transatlantic Security

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/08/22/quantum-leap-for-the-alliance-europes/

by Ian Murphy, by Marceli Hązła

08.22.2025 at 06:00am

A New Era of Transatlantic Technological Partnership

The global technological landscape is in a state of continuous and rapid evolution, with emerging technologies like quantum computing poised to fundamentally reshape economic, military, and geopolitical power dynamics. This dynamic environment necessitates a comprehensive re-evaluation of traditional alliances and an intensified emphasis on collective technological resilience. The growing geopolitical tensions observed across the world compel major economic centers, including the United States, China, and the European Union, to enhance the resilience of their value chains, aiming to mitigate geopolitical risks. This strategic imperative forms the broader context for the critical importance of technological sovereignty and international cooperation.

In this new era, the strength of the transatlantic alliance increasingly hinges not solely on military cooperation but, significantly, on shared technological advancement and the diversification of critical supply chains. Quantum technology presents an unparalleled opportunity to deepen this partnership. Its computational capabilities, which exceed current systems by several tens of orders of magnitude, promise revolutionary applications across various sectors. This would make access to this technology a key national and cybersecurity issue in the coming years.

This article aims to reframe Europe’s strategic pursuit of quantum technological leadership. Rather than being seen as a response to perceived past grievances or a move towards isolation on either side of the Atlantic, this endeavor is presented as a foundational element for a stronger, more resilient transatlantic alliance. It demonstrates how European autonomy and leadership in this critical domain directly serve the collective security interests of both Europe and the United States.

Europe’s Quantum Ambition: A Foundation for Strategic Autonomy and Global Leadership

The strategic imperative of quantum technology cannot be overstated. With its capacity to solve complex calculations simultaneously, quantum computing is poised to revolutionize fields such as drug development, the invention of new synthetic materials, supply chain optimization, investment portfolio management, machine learning, and cryptography. The profound increase in computational capabilities, by several tens of orders of magnitude compared to traditional algorithms, means that access to this technology will become a key national and cybersecurity issue for Europe in the coming years. Cybersecurity, in particular, is a global concern, especially with the anticipated “Q-Day,” when quantum computers could potentially break any classical encryption. This establishes the inherent value and strategic importance of quantum technology, underscoring why Europe’s focus on it is a critical strategic move.

Europe’s proactive stance in the quantum race is particularly noteworthy. Unlike the traditional silicon-based microchip sector, where Europe has experienced a gradual technological marginalization and dependence on imports from the United States and Taiwan, quantum technology is still an emerging topic. This means that all of the world’s major economic centers are starting from an equal position in this “quantum race,” presenting a significant opportunity for Europe to achieve leadership. The early stage of quantum technology’s development offers the European Union a unique chance to become a major player in this emerging market, a stark contrast to its position in the microchip sector.

Significant European investments and strategic initiatives underpin this ambition. To date, total global investment in quantum technology has amounted to approximately USD 42 billion. Of this, the European Union and the United Kingdom together account for USD 12.7 billion, representing 30.2% of the total, a substantial share compared to China’s 36.3% (USD 15.3 billion) and the USA’s 9.0% (USD 3.8 billion). High levels of investment into quantum technology demonstrates Europe’s commitment and potential, showcasing its capacity to be a strong and capable partner.

In 2023, the European Commission drafted the European Declaration on Quantum Technologies, articulating an ambition to develop the first quantum computers by 2025 and to become a world leader by 2030, envisioning Europe as the world’s “Quantum Valley”. Initially, countries like Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Ireland were at the forefront, rapidly adopting national strategies. By June 2025, however, a total of 27 European Union member countries had signed the Declaration, indicating broad commitment across the continent. The substantial EUR 800 billion “ReArm Europe 2030” plan also offers a significant avenue for further quantum investment, with suggestions to dedicate at least EUR 10 billion to this purpose. These figures and initiatives provide concrete evidence of Europe’s commitment and potential.

The emergence of specialized European quantum clusters further illustrates a strategic and diversified approach to development. These clusters are designed to collaborate with local scientific, business, and financial ecosystems, leveraging regional conditions. For instance, a French-German-Dutch cluster is envisioned to specialize in commercial solutions. Simultaneously, a Central and Eastern European cluster, spearheaded by Poland and the Czech Republic (where two of Europe’s six quantum computers are expected by 2025), could specialize in cybersecurity. This is a critical need given the geopolitical situation of the region and the necessity to counter Russian cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. Such a division of labor showcases Europe’s organized and diversified approach to quantum development, addressing the specific strategic needs of a collection of countries rather than individuals investing independently of each other.

Europe’s proactive investment in quantum technology, while serving its own strategic autonomy, simultaneously cultivates a stronger, more capable partner for the United States. This aligns directly with the United States’ strategic objective for its allies to assume a greater share of the defense burden. The drive for “technological sovereignty” through quantum is not a zero-sum competition against the United States. Rather, it represents a positive-sum development that directly contributes to the US strategic objective of burden-sharing. By investing in its own advanced capabilities, Europe becomes a more robust and self-reliant partner. This in turn frees up US resources for other global priorities. It reframes Europe’s internal strategic drive as a direct contribution to collective transatlantic security, transforming a narrative of “escaping dependence” into one of “strengthening partnerships.”

Quantum Technology: A Catalyst for Enhanced Transatlantic Security and Deterrence

European leadership in quantum technology is viewed as a profoundly beneficial development from an American perspective, aligning directly with key US strategic objectives, particularly Elbridge Colby’s strategy of denial and deterrence. This strategy posits that the most effective way to prevent aggression is to ensure an adversary’s primary military objectives are rendered unachievable or too costly to pursue.

A quantum-capable Western European NATO directly contributes to this strategy by bolstering the continent’s ability to deny potential adversaries, such as Russia, their strategic aims. This enhancement of Europe’s independent defensive posture and deterrent capacity strengthens the overall deterrent posture of the entire transatlantic alliance. Beyond traditional cybersecurity and military applications, quantum computing will revolutionize civil defense by enhancing capabilities in the areas of disaster prediction and early warning, secure communication through unbreakable encryption keys, and GPS-independent navigation that is less vulnerable to jamming and spoofing. These resilience measures reduce the cost of conflict while deterring malign actors by displaying a sense of NATO and US resilience to security challenges.

A critical aspect for the American audience is how European quantum development contributes to burden reduction. By developing robust quantum capabilities, Europe can independently strengthen its defensive posture and deterrent capacity. This reduces the burden on the United States for direct intervention and extensive resource sharing in Europe. Thus, it would allow the United States to reallocate its focus and resources towards its primary geopolitical competition with China. This reframes Europe’s pursuit of technological autonomy not as a withdrawal from partnership, but as a crucial contribution to a more efficient and strategically aligned division of labor within the alliance.

Ultimately, a confident, competent, and well-organized European Union, capable of securing its own defense through advanced technologies like quantum, frees up the United States to concentrate on the critical rivalry in the Indo-Pacific. This leads to a stronger, more resilient Western alliance overall. The maturing of Europe into a more self-reliant and capable security partner strengthens the entire NATO alliance’s capacity to address global challenges. This transforms the narrative from one of European reaction to US antagonism into one of strategic convergence, where Europe’s pursuit of quantum sovereignty is a shared strategic imperative that enhances collective security and allows for a more efficient allocation of alliance resources.

Tags: cyber security, NATO, quantum computing, strategic autonomy, Transatlantic

About The Authors

Ian Murphy
Ian Murphy, MBA, works as a China Subject Matter Expert at SecuriFense Inc., where he helps organizations understand developments in China’s economy and foreign policy. He is currently a PhD student in International Studies at Old Dominion University.
View all posts
Marceli Hązła
Marceli Hązła is a PhD candidate at Poznan University of Economics and Business (Poland) and a chairman of the Poznan branch of Polish Geopolitical Society. His research interests include the impact of geopolitics, new technologies, climate change and other trends on globalization and international economic cooperation.

18. Where the Arctic meets the Pacific: America’s overlooked frontline

Where the Arctic meets the Pacific: America’s overlooked frontline

Defense News · Iris Ferguson · August 21, 2025

While the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska underscored the Arctic’s decisive importance, there was another signal coming from just offshore: Russian and Chinese naval forces conducting a joint exercise near the Aleutians.

In the north Indo-Pacific, a geostrategic game is unfolding, one in which control over sea lanes, resources and influence will shape the 21st century. And Washington has been slow to catch up.

Despite Alaska’s undeniable role in the Indo-Pacific, providing a launch pad for force projection and missile defense, for three decades America has let its Pacific Arctic flank erode.

Only sustained attention, disciplined use of new funding and closer work with allies and partners will keep America from losing ground to competitors who already understand its value.

The Indo-Pacific Arctic has become one of the most active arenas of great power competition. Russia and China, while not allies, are cooperating here with arguably greater depth than anywhere else in the world.

Their joint naval patrols are no longer rare events but recurring, normalized operations, reinforced by last summer’s first combined bomber patrol and growing coast guard coordination. Their economic partnership has deepened as well, with China investing billions in Russia’s Arctic energy and mineral projects.

And Beijing is not simply riding Moscow’s coattails; it is operating independently, with five Chinese research vessels currently underway near Alaska. If these operations unfolded along Florida’s shoreline, they would dominate the front pages and trigger emergency hearings. Near Alaska’s waters, they barely register.

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stratton, right, shadows a Russian submarine about 57 miles northwest of Point Hope, Alaska, Sept. 15, 2024. (U.S Coast Guard)

In response to this unprecedented level of cooperation, the Pentagon has taken notice. Over the next several weeks, INDOPACOM and NORTHCOM are combining two of DoD’s most important exercises for the region — Northern Edge and Arctic Edge — for the first time.

With thousands of air, maritime and ground forces, the goal is to signal that Alaska and the Arctic are a strategic hinge between the Indo-Pacific and North America and to eradicate the challenging seam that exists between them.

While the commanders of INDOPACOM and NORTHCOM deserve great credit for coming together this month, momentum must be sustained. Bridging the lines between the Arctic’s multiple combatant commands is essential to close operational gaps, preserve stability and present a unified front in the face of competing interests that converge in the far north.

Against this backdrop, the recent reconciliation bill offers an opening that may not come again soon for the North American Arctic. From $8.6 billion for much needed icebreaker development to $24.4 billion for missile defense and the Golden Dome, developing these capabilities would aid homeland defense and our broader objectives in the Indo-Pacific. The challenge will be executing them on time and within budget.

Equally important is $115 million buried within the bill for the Defense Department to explore and develop existing Arctic infrastructure, including in Alaska.

These upgrades, from long neglected maintenance on existing bases to the creation of future operating sites, are vital for operations in one of the world’s most unforgiving regions, yet they have repeatedly been pushed to the margins of funding priorities.

History underscores the urgency. The Aleutians were the only part of the continental United States invaded and occupied by enemy forces during World War II. Today, those same islands form a natural bridge between the Arctic and Indo-Pacific theaters.

Adak provides a perfect example — once a vital Cold War and WWII military hub in the Aleutians, it remains strategically positioned and should be strongly considered for reopening.

The U.S. should identify, prioritize and execute projects now, while the legislative window and political will are aligned. The Pentagon in particular must act decisively, not stall in pursuit of the perfect analysis.

While this funding may be game changing, it only scratches the surface of what’s required to compete in the North American Arctic.

Beyond icebreakers and missile defense, America needs resilient communications networks, reliable energy in the cold, sensors that see farther and unmanned platforms that endure longer in extreme conditions.

Just as vital is sustained scientific research, which is not a luxury but a foundation for national security.

Without continuous investment in understanding the Arctic’s rapidly changing environment, the U.S. and its allies will be operating blind in one of the world’s harshest theaters.

Meeting these requirements is far beyond the capacity of any single nation, which makes allied investment and partnership not optional in the Arctic but indispensable.

The U.S. cannot go it alone in the Arctic. Even Russia, with its vast northern coastline, seems to recognize the necessity of relying on others. The colder, more austere Indo-Pacific side of the Arctic is especially demanding and expensive, and success will hinge on shared capabilities, presence and investment.

While the European Arctic rightly receives significant attention through NATO allies, far less focus has been given to the equally critical Indo-Pacific front. Beyond NATO and NORAD, the U.S. has an untapped opportunity to deepen cooperation with Japan and South Korea.

Both nations bring advanced technology, maritime expertise and shared concerns over Russian and Chinese intentions, making them natural collaborators in securing the high north and linking Arctic security to broader Indo-Pacific stability.

Ultimately, these partnerships are not only about deterring threats, but about building the ties of cooperation that keep the Arctic peaceful.

But partnership cannot be taken for granted. Allies will only stand shoulder to shoulder in the Arctic if Washington demonstrates sustained trust, credibility and respect.

Lastly, Arctic advocacy and action only happens with great intention, and the region needs leadership empowered to demand and coordinate the unique capabilities that the Arctic requires.

My former position fulfilled exactly that role for the Department of Defense. Personnel is policy, and if the U.S. is serious about ensuring security in the Arctic, while also advancing stability and opportunity, it will need dedicated leadership.

Without it, the Arctic risks falling through the cracks of bureaucratic seams, allowing competitors to set the pace in a region where time is not on our side.

Iris Ferguson is the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and Global Resilience and is currently president of IAF Strategies, specializing in national security and strategic innovation.

19. The Pentagon plan to Americanize drone warfare

The Pentagon plan to Americanize drone warfare

At drone experiment outside Indianapolis, various elements came together to reveal the way forward.

By Patrick Tucker

Science & Technology Editor

August 21, 2025 07:38 PM ET

defenseone.com · Patrick Tucker

CAMP ATTERBURY, Indiana–The Pentagon has been talking about rapidly scaling up drone forces for years—efforts that so far have produced interesting new prototypes and lively demonstrations. But while the services conduct experiments using small numbers of drones, there has not been a clear sense of how the United States would conduct sustained drone warfare, or how closely it would resemble what is happening today in Ukraine.

However, a combination of recent developments, tech breakthroughs, and policy changes suggests that could soon change. And the picture that has emerged is that future U.S. drone warfare will look like Ukraine—if Ukraine had had a cheat code before the Russian invasion.

The Technology Readiness Experimentation event, or T-REX, here this month brought together drone makers, AI, data, and communications software companies to show off not just how well new autonomous drones can hit targets, but also next steps for mass, coordinated drone warfare—the sort being used on the front lines of Ukraine, but at a far greater scale.

Under a muggy Indiana sky, Emil Michael, the newly confirmed undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, along with military officers, other officials, and a small contingent of media watched as a pickup truck carrying a refrigerator-sized box drove out to the middle of a field. One by one, a half dozen drones hatched from a “hive” and levitated into position. Inside, screens showed the target, as well as the location of various other elements, network connectivity, and more.

Michael and the others then saw drones move from their positions to take out the target: an armored vehicle some distance away.

As demonstrations of new military weapons go, it lacked the drama of a large-scale coordinated live fire. But the demonstration’s most important elements were invisible: a web of new sensing, communication, and autonomy technologies working together under tight time constraints to show a new path forward for drone warfare—one with all the elements Ukrainians say they wish they had more of from the beginning. That includes better communications, actual doctrine, and a robust manufacturing base.

The path is inspired and informed by the rapid innovation on Ukrainian battlefields, with front-line troops and a growing menagerie of drone makers working side by side—often under combat conditions—to reconfigure and sometimes even invent new weapons.

“What’s happening in Ukraine is, the whole world’s watching, right? It’s a new modality for warfare, and that means that you can keep humans behind and use machines or robots,” Michael said. “What you have to do, if you’re doing that, is rapid innovation, and what we’re all learning from that is that innovation matters. Every two, three weeks, you see something new coming out of Ukraine. You see the use of fiber-optic cables to prevent jamming. You see different defense methods. We’re taking all that in so that we can dominate in the next year.”

What sets the new U.S. military approach apart from Ukraine is a sense of urgency within the Pentagon that the United States must install the required elements to enable more effective and coordinated drone operations now, rather than try to improvise them in the midst of war, as the Ukrainians were forced to do.

Those elements include digital command and control that can stand up to aggressive electromagnetic warfare efforts; more effective autonomy distributed across drones and sensors; training doctrine, techniques, and procedures for front-line drone warfare so operators don’t have to teach themselves; a larger selection of drones from companies with experience updating or changing designs or software to meet rapidly changing needs from front-line operators; and an industrial base that can quickly produce and push out far greater numbers of drones.

Digital command and control and autonomy

One key way the United States is building on the Ukrainian model is by focusing on training with command-and-control capabilities that can support drone operations, even in contested environments. Due to constant Russian electronic interference efforts, Ukraine drone operations use minimal command and control.

While some software companies, such as Palantir, have been on the ground in Ukraine since the start of the 2022 expanded invasion, the broader Ukrainian telecommunications environment has been under relentless attack. Ukrainian commanders routinely highlight the need for more robust communications equipment.

The T-REX experiment included a digital backbone from AWS, partnering with GDIT. Tony Jacobs, an engineer from AWS’s Defense Department team, said the experiment enabled 26 different vendors to test not only their own equipment but also participate in larger missions and operations.

“There’s 26 different companies having data rounded in and fanned out. Some of them are low [technology readiness level], so we’re helping them understand how a mission is executed. Not just how do I do my job, but how do I do my job and integrate it with a larger system?” Jacobs said. He said the team created multiple data channels so video feeds from drones and other sensors, as well as command orders, could all be merged, or could operate separately and even pull from or send data to larger cloud resources.

Militaries in heavily electronically-contested environments don’t typically have access to large cloud data resources. Brandon Bean from GDIT said their intelligent routing software, DOGMA, allowed “nodes at the edge”—drones with sensors moving through a heavily jammed area—to connect with larger communication nodes even under conditions he described as “dirty internet,” or “any internet that you can’t control the infrastructure on. So what this does is allows you to set conditions for how you ingress and egress through a network.”

The DOGMA system uses secure vector routing and software-defined networking to essentially take that data coming off the battlefield to an AWS cloud securely, even through the commercial internet.

Drones will also increasingly rely on autonomy to make decisions without having to communicate with commanders. And that autonomous decision-making will be guided not just by the cameras and other sensors on the drone itself but by others, via what one military official described in the briefing as “a full autonomous kill chain,” which the Marines employed during the experiment. A passive sensor network provides any individual drone with the intelligence needed to detect—and discriminate—targets, allowing a single ground or air robot to determine if, say, a flying object is an enemy drone or bird, based on where it came from, how it’s behaving, and other factors.

The military official stressed that autonomous targeting and firing is “not protocol right now. But we know eventually we’re going to have to get there.”

U.S. drones flying against those of an adversary will also need a variety of means to take out their targets, including other jamming techniques, microwave or directed energy, missiles, or other kinetic effects.

Training, testing, scaled-up manufacturing

Last month, the Pentagon issued a memo to boost U.S. drone production, pushing more purchasing power to lower-level commanders. But that leaves critical questions that need answers before wide-scale drone deployment, namely: What training will operators have? What concepts of operation will they employ to figure out what equipment to buy? And where will they test out products?

Another obstacle to wide-scale deployment of drones has been a lack of tactics, techniques, and procedures for drone warfare. That, too, is changing. Col. Scott Cuomo, who commands the Marine Corps’ Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico, said the Marine Corps, working with the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment amd the 5th Special Forces Group, as well as Navy SEALs, is close to an announcement on a joint, overarching doctrine for drone warfare.

So where will forces with that new doctrine test equipment? Michael said he’s focused on opening real-world testing to a wider number of companies with less red tape through events like T-REX. More than 100 different companies were present at the event, including some “walk-ons.” He promised additional training ranges and other opportunities for smaller tech companies to test their wares, and an additional memo to come out soon.

“The point is that we have enough so that commercial industry can test at enough frequency, so that we get the innovation loops… test, try, prototype, revisit, build again, and so on,” Michael said.

The hope now is that those new elements—doctrine, more testing, digital infrastructure—will give drone makers the confidence to invest not only in prototypes but also in manufacturing capabilities.

“Mass production is a big part of this,” he said, citing the drone memo and other steps Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken to lay the groundwork for a robust U.S. drone industry.

But that new manufacturing base won’t look like today’s factory lines, where manufacturers produce large volumes of units and then issue periodic modifications. Rather, he said, the challenge now is for drone makers to produce drones that are highly customized for specific needs but on a scale much larger than previous efforts to mass-produce cheap, highly effective drones. That only happens through more teaming events where drone makers can “learn how to optimize [the drone designs], get feedback [from the operators], and continue iterating,” he said.

defenseone.com · Patrick Tucker

20. Mahan, Mackinder, and the New ‘Problem of Asia’

Excerpts:

It turns out that the group of conservative “Asia-firsters” of the 1940s and 1950s were way ahead of their time. Men like Sen. Robert Taft, former President Herbert Hoover, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Ambassador William Bullitt, publisher Henry Luce, Alfred Kohlberg, Ambassador Joseph Grew, Sen. William Knowland, and others, feared that Communist China would one day pose a greater threat to the United States than the Soviet Union did. They supported the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek in China’s civil war, and blamed the Truman administration for “losing” China by ending assistance to our World War II ally. Gen. MacArthur presciently noted that “The decision to withhold previously pledged support [to Chiang’s regime] was one of the greatest mistakes ever made in our history . . . Its consequences will be felt for centuries, and its ultimate disastrous effects on the fortunes of the free world are still to be unfolded.” MacArthur believed that America’s long-term destiny was as a Pacific and Asiatic power.

President Trump’s moves to consolidate American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere and his real “pivot” to the Indo-Pacific are Mahanian. So, too, are Trump’s trade deals and tariff negotiations, which are designed to reinvigorate our military-industrial base. Science and technology have made the “new” problem of Asia more dangerous today than in Mahan’s time. And it’s not going away any time soon. The old great game lasted for more than half a century. The new one may last even longer.

Mahan, Mackinder, and the New ‘Problem of Asia’ - Providence

providencemag.com · James Diddams · August 22, 2025

Mahan, Mackinder, and the New ‘Problem of Asia’

By Francis P. Sempa on August 22, 2025

read

In 1900, the American naval historian and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) wrote a series of articles that were later collected into a book titled The Problem of Asia. In Mahan’s time, the problem of Asia was the growing power of Russia and the unstable “debatable and debated ground” which stretched from the islands offshore of East Asia to the Middle East—roughly between 30degrees and 40 degrees north latitude.This broader central Asian belt today includes the South China Sea, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, all of China, much of India, Pakistan, the Bay of Bengal, Afghanistan, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, Iran, the oil-rich Caspian Sea basin, the Red Sea, the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Levant, and modern-day Turkey. It roughly tracks the Asian geography of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Today, China, not Russia, is the problem of Asia.

In Mahan’s time, the geopolitical struggle over this Asian region (the “great game”) was waged by Great Britain and Russia. Today, the geopolitical struggle over this region is waged by the United States and China. And this new great game will determine the global balance of power into the foreseeable future.

China launched the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, using economic leverage to further its geopolitical ambitions. Those ambitions include the unfinished business of the Communist Revolution of 1949, i.e., gaining control of Taiwan, which the U.S. prevented by inserting the 7 th Fleet between China and Taiwan at the beginning of the Korean War in the summer of 1950. China’s goals entail nothing less than what they see as full redemption from the “century of humiliation” (1839–1949) through the attainment of super power status by 2049. President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream,” described by Michael Pillsbury in The Hundred-Year Marathon as “a resurgent China that would reclaim its rightful place atop the global hierarchy,” could soon be a reality.

In Mahan’s time, Russia competed with Western powers to gain influence in a decrepit Chinese empire. Today, China has joined with Russia in a “strategic partnership” that threatens to disturb the geopolitical pluralism of Eurasia. Mahan understood that effective political control over key segments of Eurasia would threaten Britain’s global preeminence. The resources of Eurasia could transform its dominant land power into the world’s dominant sea power. This was also the assessment of Mahan’s British counterpart, Sir Halford John Mackinder (1861-1947), who famously argued that the key to geopolitical dominance would ultimately be control over the interior of Eurasia, stretching from Eastern Europe to China. Today’s great game includes land power, sea power, air power, space power, cyber power, and artificial intelligence (AI) power.

The geography of the contest has greatly expanded. In Mahan’s time, the conflict was limited to central Asia. Today, China’s Belt and Road Initiative reaches into Europe, Africa, and in parts of the Western Hemisphere, including the Panama Canal. The Arctic Ocean is also up for grabs, which is one reason why President Trump wants Greenland and talks of Canada as the 51st state. The great geopolitical thinker Robert Kaplan has noted that the melting Arctic Ocean has for the first time made Mackinder’s concept of the Eurasian-African “World-Island” a geographical and geopolitical reality.

In 1900, Mahan wrote that the geopolitical conditions in the central Asian belt “render[ed] the problem of Asia . . . at once perplexing and imminent.” Mahan noted that Britain and Russia had “zones of power” in Asia and would seek to acquire “new positions” to expand their respective power. Mahan urged U.S. leaders to maintain our naval predominance in the Western Hemisphere, control the Central American isthmus to construct a strategic canal, and establish an effective naval force in the western Pacific. He also urged the formation of alliances with smaller Asian powers, including Japan, to counterbalance Russia.

Today, the need for more naval power in the western Pacific is obvious given China’s growth in naval power and its huge lead in shipbuilding capacity. As in 1900, U.S. control of an isthmian canal is imperative to our ability to transfer warships from the Caribbean to Asia. And today the need for allies in the region is as great or greater than it was in 1900.

It turns out that the group of conservative “Asia-firsters” of the 1940s and 1950s were way ahead of their time. Men like Sen. Robert Taft, former President Herbert Hoover, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Ambassador William Bullitt, publisher Henry Luce, Alfred Kohlberg, Ambassador Joseph Grew, Sen. William Knowland, and others, feared that Communist China would one day pose a greater threat to the United States than the Soviet Union did. They supported the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek in China’s civil war, and blamed the Truman administration for “losing” China by ending assistance to our World War II ally. Gen. MacArthur presciently noted that “The decision to withhold previously pledged support [to Chiang’s regime] was one of the greatest mistakes ever made in our history . . . Its consequences will be felt for centuries, and its ultimate disastrous effects on the fortunes of the free world are still to be unfolded.” MacArthur believed that America’s long-term destiny was as a Pacific and Asiatic power.

President Trump’s moves to consolidate American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere and his real “pivot” to the Indo-Pacific are Mahanian. So, too, are Trump’s trade deals and tariff negotiations, which are designed to reinvigorate our military-industrial base. Science and technology have made the “new” problem of Asia more dangerous today than in Mahan’s time. And it’s not going away any time soon. The old great game lasted for more than half a century. The new one may last even longer.

Francis P. Sempa is the author of the books Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century and America’s Global Role. He is an attorney, a Contributing Editor to The American Spectator, and writes a regular column for Real Clear Defense. His writings have also appeared in Modern Age, the University Bookman, the Claremont Review of Books, Human Events, The Diplomat, Orbis, and other publications.

21. What America Can Learn from the Hamas Propaganda War

Excerpts:

The U.S. government has a dismal track record at dealing with such propaganda. The campaign to expose false-flag operations and other lies in the leadup to Russia’s massive attack on Ukraine in February 2022 failed to deter Vladimir Putin, but it made clear to most observers who started the war and why.

But for every mixed result, there are plenty of unadulterated failures. At one point, the State Department tried to disrupt ISIS’s online recruitment campaign by hiring people to argue with ISIS on social media platforms. Shockingly, this did not work well. Collaborations with social media companies to tamp down on disinformation reduced ISIS’s online presence somewhat, but the effort quickly spiraled into crazy censoriousness.

What America Can Learn from the Hamas Propaganda War

freebeacon.com · Mike Watson · August 16, 2025

The war that Hamas started is nearing the end of its second year, and the world is still fixated on the ongoing battle. The Israeli cabinet’s recent decision to occupy Gaza City has set off a new round of speculation about the fate of Hamas and the people under its thumb. But the quality of the information informing public discussion about the war has often been dismayingly bad. Some of this is due to the inveterate naiveté large sections of the media establishment display about the available sources in Gaza, and some to the relentless work of anti-Israel activists. Together, they have revealed to America’s enemies a potent weapon they can use against U.S. forces in future conflicts.

During previous conflicts, Hamas and its allies developed a relatively successful propaganda strategy focused on large, splashy accusations of Israeli atrocities. They put this plan into action 10 days after their initial murderous Oct. 7 attack, well before Israeli troops entered Gaza, when they claimed that Israel had bombed Al Ahli Arab Hospital, allegedly killing hundreds of civilians.

This time, Israel and its allies were ready for Hamas’s propaganda. The Israeli and U.S. governments quickly debunked Hamas’s false claims and showed that militants in Gaza had, probably inadvertently, rocketed their own hospital. Fortunately, the damage to innocent bystanders was minimal. Despite the best efforts of anti-Israel leaders such as U.N. secretary general António Guterres and Vladimir Putin to play up the story, the first major propaganda bomb fizzled out.

Hamas and its allies reconfigured their tactics. Rather than hoping for a big story to delegitimize Israel’s counteroffensive, they pounded out a steady drumbeat of falsehoods. A Hamas-controlled organization produced highly suspicious tallies of deaths in Gaza, which then-president Joe Biden and his defense secretary Lloyd Austin both cited uncritically. The new propaganda campaign produced some headlines and, during the previous administration, some pressure from Washington against further Israeli actions against Hamas, but it did not force Israel to withdraw.

Israel’s recent actions to bypass Hamas-controlled humanitarian aid channels and send food straight to hungry Gazans forced Hamas to change its tactics yet again. Over the past few weeks, the media have breathlessly reported lurid stories of starving civilians and massacres near the Israel-supported aid locations.

Many of these stories fall apart upon closer inspection. In some cases, Israel has released videos proving that the supposed massacres never took place. But by the time the Israelis showed what actually happened, Hamas has released more equally implausible stories that generate new headlines.

Alternative media have been no better. Podcast hosts who supposedly question conventional wisdom regurgitate the same claims as their established competitors. Some even sympathetically interview disgruntled former employees of these aid organizations who only lobbed accusations of atrocities after their begging for new work failed.

Although it is currently fighting Israel, Hamas is creating a template America’s adversaries can use in future conflicts with the United States. The next time American troops go into combat against a major enemy, they can expect an incessant stream of reports about alleged massacres and other war crimes.

Many of these atrocities will not be based on anything that actually occurred, but they will nonetheless draw the attention of American media organizations. If the pattern holds, the disaffected people who dominate American mainstream and alternative media will eagerly seize upon these stories to attack their ideological rivals in the United States. Retired veterans with dubious records will endorse these claims. Policymakers should thus expect to start any conflict in a hostile media environment.

The U.S. government has a dismal track record at dealing with such propaganda. The campaign to expose false-flag operations and other lies in the leadup to Russia’s massive attack on Ukraine in February 2022 failed to deter Vladimir Putin, but it made clear to most observers who started the war and why.

But for every mixed result, there are plenty of unadulterated failures. At one point, the State Department tried to disrupt ISIS’s online recruitment campaign by hiring people to argue with ISIS on social media platforms. Shockingly, this did not work well. Collaborations with social media companies to tamp down on disinformation reduced ISIS’s online presence somewhat, but the effort quickly spiraled into crazy censoriousness.

These facts point to an important civic duty for the press—and an interesting business opportunity as well. Debunking lies told by enemies who want to hurt Americans is a good thing to do, and news organizations that do that are performing an important public service.

This is an opportunity to do good and to do well. After all, why would anyone pay a subscription to get bad information about important matters when plenty of others do that for free?

Published under: Donald Trump , Hamas , Israel , Joe Biden , Lloyd Austin , Trump Administration , United Nations , United States

freebeacon.com · Mike Watson · August 16, 2025

22. By Land or by Sea: Continental Power, Maritime Power, and the Fight for a New World Order

Both/and or either/or?

Yes. Bad strategy will ruin us.

Excerpts:

Bad strategy could transform the United States from the essential power to the irrelevant power, as former partners form new alliances that exclude Washington. Such a shift would take time, but if it happens, the changes will be enduring. Europeans will grow stronger together, leaving the United States weaker and alone. In the worst-case scenario, Washington could become a shared primary adversary for China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, with no allies left to help it. But even short of that, it may have to compete with Beijing on its own. If so, it may struggle to prevail. China has nearly three times as many people as does the United States and a much larger manufacturing base. It has nuclear weapons that can reach the American homeland, and might not have moral qualms about using them. The United States could also become less queasy about deploying its arsenal. If a state is about to lose a great-power conflict, after all, it may be incentivized to go nuclear, transforming a bilateral catastrophe into a global one.

For Washington, a scenario that leaves it alone and defeated would be a tragic conclusion to the last 80 years. At the end of World War II, it had earned friends across the globe. But that moral capital, gained at great cost, is being squandered. Like Napoleon’s France avant tout, the recent reversion to America First is antagonizing allies everywhere. Undoubtedly, Washington’s enemies would relish seeing the United States brought low.

Too many Americans have taken the benefits of the maritime order for granted and harped on its imperfections, frittering away their many geographic and historical advantages in the process. Like the oxygen around them, they will miss the global order should it disappear. As the Athenian leader Pericles lamented long ago on the eve of a succession of Athenian mistakes that permanently ended that city’s preeminence, “I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy’s devices.”

By Land or by Sea

Foreign Affairs · More by S. C. M. Paine · August 19, 2025

Continental Power, Maritime Power, and the Fight for a New World Order

S. C. M. Paine

September/October 2025 Published on August 19, 2025

Eoin Ryan

S. C. M. PAINE is William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy Emerita at the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed here are her own.

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Great-power competition once again defines international relations. But the exact contours of today’s contest remain the subject of debate. Some observers emphasize ideological precedents from the Cold War. Others focus on changing military balances. Still others highlight leaders and their choices. In truth, modern conflicts over the international system flow from a long-standing, if unrecognized, disagreement over the sources of power and prosperity. The dispute originates from geography, and it has produced two antithetical global outlooks: one continental and the other maritime.

In the continental world, the currency of power is land. Most countries, by geography, inhabit a continental world with multiple neighbors. Such neighbors have, historically, been each other’s primary adversaries. Those with enough power to conquer others—continental hegemons such as China and Russia—believe the international system should be divided among them into huge spheres of influence. They funnel resources into their militaries to protect boundaries, conquer and intimidate neighbors in wealth-destroying wars, and entrench authoritarian rule at home to prioritize military over civilian needs. The result is a vicious cycle. To justify their repression and retain the throne, despots require a big enemy and manufacture security threats that lead to more wars.

By contrast, states with an oceanic moat have relative security from invasion. They can thus focus on compounding wealth rather than on fighting neighbors. These maritime states see money, not territory, as the source of power. They advance domestic prosperity through international commerce and through industry, minimizing the tradeoff between military and civilian needs. While continental hegemons gravitate toward finite-game, winner-take-all strategies that are ruinous to the defeated, those vested in the maritime order prefer the infinite game of wealth-compounding, mutually beneficial transactions. They view neighbors as trade partners, not enemies.

The maritime worldview goes back to the ancient Athenians, whose rimland empire depended on accruing wealth from coastal trade. Such states wish to treat the oceans as commons, so all can share them and safely trade. It is not a coincidence that Hugo Grotius, the founding father of international law, came from the Dutch Republic, a trading empire. And since World War II, commercially minded countries have developed regional and global institutions to facilitate trade, minimize transaction costs, and compound wealth. They have coordinated their coast guards and navies to eliminate piracy so that trade gets through. This has produced an evolving maritime, rules-based order with dozens of members that together enforce the regulations that protect them all.

Today’s competition is just the latest iteration of the continental-maritime conflict. Since World War II, the United States’ strategy has reflected its position as a maritime power. Because of its economic structure, the country has an interest in maintaining trade and commerce. And thanks to its geography and strength, it can hinder countries from undermining the sovereignty of other states. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, meanwhile, want to undermine the rules-based order because their leaders consider more liberal societies an existential threat to their rule and national security visions.

The United States can prevail in the second cold war, just as in the first, by hewing to the successful strategies of maritime power. But if it reverts to a continental paradigm—by erecting barriers, threatening neighbors, and undermining global institutions—it is likely to fail. It may then be unable to recover.

THE TRICKS OF TRADE

The United Kingdom developed the modern maritime playbook for countering continental powers during the Napoleonic Wars. London became the world’s dominant power not by deploying its army to obliterate rivals but by growing rich from trade and industry while other European countries ruined each other militarily. All continental states had to maintain large armies either to conquer or to avoid being conquered. Often, they organized their economies around the needs of their army, not their merchants. But the United Kingdom, protected on every side by water and by its dominant navy, was less afraid of an invasion. It therefore did not need a large, expensive, potentially coup-generating ground force. It focused on compounding its wealth through commerce, relying on its navy to defend shipping lanes.

Alone of all the great powers, the United Kingdom belonged to every successive coalition fighting France. After the Royal Navy defeated Napoleon at Trafalgar, he turned to an economic strategy. He imposed a continent-wide blockade on British commerce, known as the Continental System—a strategy that Napoleon described as la France avant tout (France first). But this blockade hurt the economies of France and its allies far more than it did the United Kingdom, which had maritime access to alternative markets across the planet. The blockade led Napoleon to launch his ruinous invasion of Russia, which continued trading with the British.

In the continental world, the currency of power is land.

Rather than fighting Napoleon’s large military directly, the United Kingdom used its growing wealth to fund and arm Austria, Prussia, Russia, and numerous smaller states, which together pinned down the bulk of Napoleon’s forces on the main front in central or eastern Europe. The British then opened a peripheral theater on the Iberian Peninsula, what Napoleon called his “Spanish ulcer,” which had better sea than land access, so that attrition rates favored them. The cumulative casualties from this and the main front ultimately overextended Napoleon, dooming his military when his adversaries simultaneously ganged up. Virtually every European country suffered extensive war damage, but the British economy emerged unscathed. The same was true for the United States in both world wars.

After the Napoleonic Wars, the Industrial Revolution introduced compounded economic growth. This tilted the playing field even more in favor of maritime powers. Suddenly, it was far easier to accrue power from industry, commerce, and trade than from wealth-destroying wars. Doing so depended on the external lines of communication provided by the seas rather than the internal lines that continental powers, such as Napoleonic France, leveraged to defend and expand their empires. As a result, today, the world order is maritime in nature—even though few perceive it that way. Around half the world’s population lives by the sea, coastal areas create roughly two-thirds of global wealth, 90 percent of traded goods (measured by weight) arrive at their final destination via oceans, and submarine cables account for 99 percent of international communications traffic. International bodies and treaties regulate trade. The seas connect everyone with everything. No one state can keep them open, but a coalition of coastal states can make them safe for transit.

This system has broadly benefited the world’s people. Trading rules have minimized bottlenecks, reducing costs. Safe, open seas facilitate economic growth, raising living standards. People can travel, work, and invest abroad. Billionaires are the greatest beneficiaries of the maritime order because they have the most to lose to confiscation when the rules disappear, and because their economic interests are global. Countries vested in the maritime order are far richer than those that seek to undermine it. Even those intending to overturn this system have benefited from it. China, for instance, became rich only after it joined the maritime order when the Cold War ended. The Iranian and Russian economies are a fraction of what they could be if they followed international law and built institutions to protect their citizens instead of their dictators.

CONQUER AND COLLAPSE

In the continental world, power is a function of territory. Neighbors are dangerous. Since strong ones may invade, continental hegemons work to destabilize nearby countries. In modern times, they do so by deluging them with fake news to fuel internal resentments and regional disagreements. Weak neighbors also pose a threat, as terrorism and chaos can bleed over shared borders. To protect themselves and increase their power, continental states often invade and ingest their neighbors, eliminating potential threats by wiping them off the map.

In their drive to increase in size and power, successful continental hegemons follow two rules: avoid two-front wars and neutralize great-power neighbors. But the continental theory of security provides no counsel for when to stop expanding and yields no permanent alliances. Neighbors understand that the hegemon promises long-term trouble. As a result, continentalists often find themselves overextended, alone, and, eventually, at risk of collapse. Both wars for territory and the destabilization of neighbors swiftly destroy wealth.

Germany, for example, could have dominated the European continent economically during the twentieth century, given its more rapid economic growth rate relative to its neighbors. Instead, it fought two expansionist world wars. In both, it violated the rules for continental empire by fighting on multiple fronts against multiple great powers. The wars, far from cementing Germany’s dominance, delayed its rise by generations at a massive cost in both lives and wealth across Europe.

U.S. aircraft carriers training in the Sea of Japan, June 2017 U.S. Navy / Reuters

Likewise, Japan prospered under a maritime trading order. Then, in the 1930s, it adopted a continental paradigm and seized a large empire on the Asian mainland. As with Germany, its quest initially yielded territory but produced multiple enemies and military and economic overextension that destroyed both Japan and those it invaded. Postwar Japan then returned to a maritime paradigm of working through international organizations and under international law. This produced the Japanese economic miracle, in which a ruined country quickly became one of the world’s richest. (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan had Cold War economic miracles thanks to the maritime system, as well.)

Overextension was also central to the fall of the Soviet Union. That empire not only ingested Eastern Europe at the end of World War II; it imposed an economic model conducive to dictatorial rule but not to economic growth. It then expanded this program to as much of the developing world as possible. Ultimately, the lethargic Soviet economy could not sustain Moscow’s imperial adventures and impracticable projects.

In World War I, every European power, including the United Kingdom, pursued continental strategies that required using massive armies to establish diverse empires with overlapping territory. Each state had different primary adversaries and primary theaters, even within each alliance system. This produced a series of uncoordinated, parallel wars. The European powers, including the United Kingdom, also struggled because they allowed army officers to oversee the war effort with inadequate input from civilian leaders who had insights into the economic underpinnings of power. Army officers doubled down on stalemated offensives for months, wasting hundreds of thousands of young lives rather than owning up to the profligacy of their strategy.

Arguably, no European country fully recovered from its World War I losses. The war destroyed the continental empires that had insisted on fighting it—Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia. Despite their victory, France and the United Kingdom were worse off afterward. The United States emerged disgusted by European entanglements, paving the way for the original America Firsters, who enacted tariffs that deepened the Great Depression and set the stage for a world war rerun. By contrast, during the long peace between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, Europe’s affluence compounded. Likewise, when the United States followed the maritime paradigm to win World War II, unprecedented prosperity ensued. Unlike after World War I, Washington did not recede into isolationism. Instead, it assumed the mantle of leadership by helping partners rebuild and acting as the guarantor of an international system it created in cooperation with its postwar allies to preserve peace. These institutions succeeded in Europe until Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

THE DOGS OF WAR

Most countries are geographically continental. They lack an oceanic moat completely insulating them from threats. Only the maritime rules-based order offers such states full protection. Institutions and alliance systems integrate the diverse capabilities of the many to contain the threats from the few. They are the insurance program for the rules-based order. They cannot eliminate dangers altogether, but if members coordinate to maximize their economic growth and constrain the continentalists, they can minimize risks.

But the world still has many committed continentalists. Putin has made it clear he intends to expand Russia’s borders. His initial objective is control over Ukraine, the hors d’oeuvre before the main course. “There’s an old rule that wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, that’s ours,” Putin said, laying out his menu. It features, at a minimum, central and eastern Europe, which Soviet troops occupied after World War II. His statement may also portend visions of power over Paris, which Russian troops reached at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

As during the first Cold War, Moscow wants to break apart the West both from without and from within. Ever since the Bolshevik Revolution, Russians have excelled at propaganda. They used it to successfully market communism around the world, costing many countries decades of growth. Now, Russia is using propaganda to spread the fiction that NATO threatens Russia rather than the reverse. (NATO countries do not covet Moscow’s territory; they want Russia to deal with its domestic dystopian mess and become a constructive member of the international system.)

Trading rules have minimized bottlenecks, reducing costs.

Social media has radically increased Russia’s ability to sow discord abroad, which it does by stoking hatred on both sides of divisive issues. Moscow has sought to transform the war in Ukraine into a wedge issue that divides the United States from Europe and different European states from each other, weakening both NATO and the EU. It helped promote Brexit, which has eroded the United Kingdom’s ties with the continent. It helped create massive migrant flows by supporting the dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces during the Syrian civil war and now by destabilizing Africa, sending refugees pouring into Europe. These inflows have been profoundly destabilizing, facilitating the rise of the continent’s isolationist right.

Other continental powers also wish to overturn the present global order. North Korea wants control of the entire Korean Peninsula, eliminating South Korea. Iran’s primary theater is the Middle East, where Tehran seeks to extend its influence over Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.

Then there is China. The country’s decision to integrate into the current world order in pursuit of wealth suggested that, despite its authoritarian government, it might be adopting a maritime outlook. It even built a large navy. But Beijing cannot reliably deploy that navy in wartime because of the narrow, shallow, island-cluttered, enclosed seas that surround its coasts. This makes it much like Germany, which built large navies it could not reliably use in either world war. The United Kingdom blockaded the narrow North Sea and Baltic Sea, eliminating Germany’s merchant traffic and reducing its naval traffic mainly to submarines. In World War II, Berlin required the long French and Norwegian coastlines for more reliable egress for its submarines, but that was still insufficient for its navy, let alone its merchant marine. China is even more reliant on trade and imports than Germany was then, particularly energy and food. The economic bottlenecks from a shutdown of its oceanic trade would debilitate its economy.

Installing an antitank landmine, Chasiv Yar, Ukraine, October 2024 Oleg Petrasiuk / Ukrainian Armed Forces / Reuters

As Ukraine has demonstrated with its sinking of Russian ships, drones can close narrow seas. China has 13 landward neighbors and seven seaward neighbors, and no shortage of disagreements with them. With submarines, shore artillery, drones, and planes, these neighbors can shut down China’s merchant traffic and make its naval passage perilous. Many of its close coastal neighbors, by contrast, do not need to traverse the South China Sea to reach the open ocean—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, as well as Taiwan, all have alternative coastlines on the open seas, making them difficult to blockade.

Like Russia, China retains a continental outlook. In addition to territorial claims on Japan and the Philippines, and its threat to use force to take all of Taiwan, Beijing seeks territory from Bhutan, India, and Nepal. When Chinese citizens list their historic lands, they either name the Mongol Yuan dynasty, which extended all the way to Hungary, or the Manchu Qing empire, which encompassed the lands the Belt and Road Initiative is now peeling away from the Russian sphere of influence. The Chinese still have two names for themselves, either “the central kingdom” or the even more grandiose “all under Heaven”—a complete world order unto itself and all the lands it conquers.

Beijing, unlike Moscow, has not yet launched outright wars of aggression. But China is waging financial war with its predatory Belt and Road Initiative loans, which leave recipients massively indebted. It is conducting cyberwarfare, hacking into other countries’ critical infrastructure and stealing their secrets. It engages in resource warfare by limiting rare-earth mineral exports, ecological warfare by damming Southeast Asia’s Mekong River and South Asia’s Yarlung Tsangpo River, and drug warfare by flooding the United States with fentanyl. It has even dabbled in irregular warfare, with incursions into Indian territory that killed Indian soldiers. This is a continental recipe for overextension.

AVERTING CATASTROPHE

To confront the continentalists, the United States and its allies do not need to reinvent the wheel. The strategy that won the previous Cold War remains equally serviceable today. It begins with a recognition that this struggle—like the last—will be protracted. Rather than attempting a rapid resolution, which could have triggered nuclear war, the victors in the first Cold War managed the conflict for several generations. The same advice applies today: the maritime powers must be patient and keep the current conflict cold. They should particularly avoid hot wars in theaters lacking adequate maritime access, in states surrounded by hostile countries likely to intervene, and in states where the local population is broadly unwilling to provide assistance. These characteristics applied to Afghanistan and Iraq, and help explain Washington’s unsuccessful conflicts there.

Instead of fighting hot wars, the United States and its partners should leverage the great strength of the maritime world against the great weakness of the continentalists: their different capacities to generate wealth. They should exclude continentalists from the benefits of the maritime order by sanctioning them until they cease violating international law, put aside warfare, and embrace diplomacy. Unlike tariffs, which are taxes on imports to protect domestic producers, sanctions make targeted transactions illegal to penalize malign actors. Even porous sanctions, which shave growth rates by a percentage point or two, can produce devastating, long-term compounding effects—as a comparison of sanctioned North Korea and unsanctioned South Korea illustrates. Sanctions are a form of economic chemotherapy. They may not eliminate the tumor, but they will, at a minimum, slow its progress. They can be particularly effective at setting back technological development, as the Soviets experienced.

Washington and its partners should accommodate states that are not revisionists. The victors in the last Cold War understood that alliances are additive. Partners bring new capabilities that can help overwhelm enemies. Institutions then mobilize expertise to provide services and prevent problems that can help member states combat the continentalists. The United States should thus strengthen and expand its network. It should focus on maintaining not just its own prosperity but also that of its partners, so they can gang up on the bullies. Alliance systems should also aid those beset by the continentalists, whose resistance weakens their enemies. Just as the West armed Moscow’s enemies until the Soviet Union withdrew from its war against Afghanistan, the West must now aid Ukraine for as long as it takes. The longer the Ukraine conflict continues, the weaker Moscow will become, opening itself up to possible Chinese predation.

Should Russia’s current regime fall, the resulting succession struggle will force it to reduce its foreign commitments—as occurred with the Soviet Union during the Korean War, when Joseph Stalin’s death led to that conflict’s rapid conclusion. Should any of the continentalists cease coveting other countries’ territory and instead peacefully contribute to improving international laws and institutions, then the United States and its partners should welcome them into the rules-based order. But if these countries do not change, containment is the answer. Washington prevailed in its earlier showdown with Moscow not with a dramatic military victory but by prospering while the Soviet Union endured an economic decline of its own making. In the 1980s, while Soviets waited in line for basic goods, Americans took family vacations. The present U.S. objective should be to keep other democracies and partners prospering while weakening the continentalists. The latter powers may not go away any time soon, but if they cannot match the economic growth rates of those upholding the maritime order, the relative threat will shrink.

OWN GOALS

The stakes of the clash between the continental order and the maritime, rules-based order have never been so high. There are many nuclear powers, and the United States is increasingly unwilling to act as the ultimate guarantor of the present global system by supporting allies and extending its nuclear umbrella. If the conflicts in Ukraine, across Africa, and between Israel and Iran expand and merge, a catastrophic third world war might ensue. Unlike in the previous ones, everyone would be vulnerable to nuclear strikes and their toxic fallout.

The United States has already taken major steps to defeat its continental adversaries. It has imposed strict sanctions and export controls. It has funded and armed the countries facing down shared antagonists. But critics of the rules-based order are gathering strength. They see the system’s many imperfections but not its even more important benefits—including the catastrophes the rules avert. The rules-based order benefits individuals, businesses, and governments not only by facilitating trade flows but also by deterring malign behavior. Unfortunately, people rarely appreciate a disaster averted.

Today, even top U.S. officials are critical of the present order. Over the last year, Washington has gravitated toward a continental approach. The United States will always have its natural moats—the Atlantic and the Pacific—to protect the mainland. But it also shares long borders with Canada and Mexico, and Washington is picking fights with both. It has berated numerous friendly democracies, levied tariffs on trading partners, and paralyzed international institutions that facilitate global economic growth by setting and enforcing the rules of the road. Musings from Washington about absorbing Canada, seizing Greenland from Denmark, and retaking the Panama Canal will, at a minimum, permanently alter Canadian and European shopping choices and vacation plans. At worst, they will rupture Western alliances.

Overextension was central to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Bad strategy could transform the United States from the essential power to the irrelevant power, as former partners form new alliances that exclude Washington. Such a shift would take time, but if it happens, the changes will be enduring. Europeans will grow stronger together, leaving the United States weaker and alone. In the worst-case scenario, Washington could become a shared primary adversary for China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, with no allies left to help it. But even short of that, it may have to compete with Beijing on its own. If so, it may struggle to prevail. China has nearly three times as many people as does the United States and a much larger manufacturing base. It has nuclear weapons that can reach the American homeland, and might not have moral qualms about using them. The United States could also become less queasy about deploying its arsenal. If a state is about to lose a great-power conflict, after all, it may be incentivized to go nuclear, transforming a bilateral catastrophe into a global one.

For Washington, a scenario that leaves it alone and defeated would be a tragic conclusion to the last 80 years. At the end of World War II, it had earned friends across the globe. But that moral capital, gained at great cost, is being squandered. Like Napoleon’s France avant tout, the recent reversion to America First is antagonizing allies everywhere. Undoubtedly, Washington’s enemies would relish seeing the United States brought low.

Too many Americans have taken the benefits of the maritime order for granted and harped on its imperfections, frittering away their many geographic and historical advantages in the process. Like the oxygen around them, they will miss the global order should it disappear. As the Athenian leader Pericles lamented long ago on the eve of a succession of Athenian mistakes that permanently ended that city’s preeminence, “I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy’s devices.”

Foreign Affairs · More by S. C. M. Paine · August 19, 2025

23. How a Multi-Domain Command in Japan Would Reshape US Alliances in the Indo-Pacific

All well and good to station a Multi Domain Task Force in Japan. I support that. However, we should establish a Combined Multi Domain Task Force in Korea.

Why America and South Korea Need a Combined Multi-Domain Task Force

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/why-america-and-south-korea-need-a-combined-multi-domain-task-force

How a Multi-Domain Command in Japan Would Reshape US Alliances in the Indo-Pacific

The establishment of the MDTF headquarters in Japan is poised to induce structural changes within the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

https://thediplomat.com/2025/08/how-a-multi-domain-command-in-japan-would-reshape-us-alliances-in-the-indo-pacific/

By Park Ki-Chul

August 21, 2025

U.S. Army Soldiers with Alpha Battery, 5th Battalion, 3rd Artillery Regiment, 1st Multi-Domain Task Force, U.S. Marines with 12th Marine Regiment, 3d Marine Division, and Japan Ground Self-Defense Force service members with 8th Division, Western Army pose for a group picture during the field training exercise portion of Resolute Dragon 23 at Hijyudai Maneuver Area, Oita Prefecture, Japan, Oct. 25, 2023.

Credit: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Paley Fenner

One of the most consequential military transformations underway in the Indo-Pacific region is the expansion and forward deployment of Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) units by the United States. Recent discussions between the U.S. and Japanese governments have centered on the establishment of a new MDTF headquarters in Japan. Simultaneously, there are indications that a key subordinate unit of the MDTF, the Multi-Domain Effects Battalion (MDEB), may be deployed in South Korea.

This decision is not merely about troop redeployment; it signifies a profound shift in the geopolitical landscape, driven by the rising influence of China and Russia, evolving Indo-Pacific strategies, and a reconfiguration of trilateral security cooperation among the United States., South Korea, and Japan.

For South Korea, the establishment of the MDTF is intricately linked to the redefinition of the role of U.S. forces stationed in the country, the strengthening of trilateral cooperation, and an increased imperative to counter China, thereby necessitating a strategic response.

Understanding the MDTF Concept and Mission

The MDTF is a novel military formation initiated by the U.S. Army in 2017, designed to counter the anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) strategies employed by China and Russia. These nations have developed capabilities such as long-range missiles, maritime denial systems, advanced air defense networks, and electronic warfare capabilities, which can potentially impede U.S. forces from reaching the battlefield. To overcome these challenges, the MDTF implements “multi-domain integrated operations,” which encompass not only traditional land, sea, and air operations but also cyber, space, and electronic warfare.

The structure of the MDTF includes long-range precision-strike missile battalions, artillery battalions, air defense battalions, and the MDEB. The MDEB plays a crucial role by utilizing reconnaissance satellites, space sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles, and over-the-horizon radar to detect enemy movements, integrating this information with signals intelligence and military intelligence. Additionally, it is tasked with disrupting enemy operations through non-kinetic means such as electronic jamming, cyberattacks, and psychological operations.

The Significance of Establishing the MDTF Headquarters in Japan

The U.S. plans to establish a total of five MDTFs, with three of them slated for deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. Currently, MDTFs exist in Washington State (1st MDTF) and Hawai’i (3rd MDTF), and there are plans for Japan to host one of two Multi-Domain Commands (MDC), overseeing the 4th MDTF. That would clearly shift the strategic focus of the Indo-Pacific strategy toward Japan.

This is not a coincidence; since 2001, the United States has designated Japan as a key hub for power projection in the Indo-Pacific, while U.S. forces in South Korea have been relatively constrained to a defensive role focused on the Korean Peninsula.

The establishment of the MDTF headquarters in Japan would institutionalize and concretize this strategic vision. With the MDTF in place, U.S. forces in Japan would evolve from a purely defensive posture to a central hub for deterrence against China and for intervention in regional conflicts.

This shift inherently raises questions about the future of the South Korea-U.S. alliance. There are indications that South Korea may host the MDEB rather than the MDTF headquarters itself. This unit would serve as the “eyes and ears” for the Japanese command, responsible for intelligence gathering and early warning functions in the Korean Peninsula and surrounding areas.

This arrangement carries significant symbolic weight for South Korea. While Japan assumes the role of strategic command, South Korea may find itself relegated to a supportive role focused on information provision. Such a dynamic raises concerns about the relative strategic standing of South Korea within the South Korea-U.S. alliance, potentially undermining its influence in regional security matters.

Strategic Implications for the South Korea-U.S. Alliance

The establishment of the MDTF headquarters in Japan is poised to induce structural changes within the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

First, the potential positioning of the MDTF in Japan could lead to a narrowing of the role of U.S. forces in South Korea, confining them to defensive operations on the Korean Peninsula and limited overseas support. This shift would effectively relocate the center of gravity of the South Korea-U.S. alliance towards Japan, potentially diminishing South Korea’s strategic relevance.

As a result, South Korea will need to recalibrate its position within the alliance. By linking with the MDTF, South Korea has the opportunity to maintain and enhance the strategic value of U.S. forces stationed in the country. A failure to do so could risk relegating South Korea to a secondary role within the trilateral cooperation framework, undermining its ability to influence regional security dynamics.

Thus, the establishment of the MDTF in Japan would heighten the pressure on South Korea to participate in the alliance’s strategy to counter China. The MDTF would significantly enhance the U.S. and Japanese capabilities to intervene in potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea, compelling South Korea to define its level of involvement in these strategic calculations. This could lead to increased military commitments and a reevaluation of South Korea’s defense posture.

The MDTF represents a new testing ground for trilateral security cooperation among the United States, South Korea, and Japan. Operations in cyber, space, and electronic warfare necessitate real-time information sharing and a high degree of trust among the three nations. This requirement could catalyze the institutionalization of cooperation among the three countries, potentially evolving into a de facto quasi-alliance.

Conversely, China and Russia are likely to perceive these developments as new threats. China has already deployed over 300 military satellites and is accelerating the development of hypersonic weapons. Russia, through its actions in the Ukraine conflict, has demonstrated its long-range missile and electronic warfare capabilities. The establishment of the MDTF in Japan is likely to exacerbate strategic tensions with these nations, prompting them to enhance their military capabilities in response.

South Korea’s Strategic Response to the Changing Landscape of Alliances

The planned establishment of the MDTF in Japan and the potential deployment of the MDEB in South Korea present both challenges and opportunities for South Korea.

First, the South Korean government must reaffirm the strategic value of U.S. forces stationed in the country through high-level strategic dialogues with the United States. This includes clarifying the core missions of U.S. forces (deterring North Korea and initial response) and coordinating roles with the MDTF to ensure that South Korea’s interests are adequately represented.

Second, South Korea should actively participate in trilateral cooperation by institutionalizing joint cyber and space training exercises and information-sharing mechanisms, thereby demonstrating its role as a “leading actor” in the alliance. This proactive approach would not only enhance South Korea’s strategic value but also solidify its position within the trilateral framework.

Third, South Korea must establish parameters for its participation in countering China, maintaining the principle of deterrence focused on the Korean Peninsula while proactively defining the scope and conditions under which it can contribute during crises related to China. This strategic clarity will be essential for navigating the complexities of regional security dynamics.

Finally, South Korea should expand its contributions in emerging domains such as cyber, space, and electronic warfare, articulating the capabilities of its military to enhance its strategic value amid the evolving landscape of the South Korea-U.S. alliance. By doing so, South Korea can position itself as a critical player in the broader Indo-Pacific security architecture.

The establishment of the MDTF headquarters in Japan marks a pivotal moment in reshaping the strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. forces in Japan are set to become the focal point for regional power projection, while the role of U.S. forces in South Korea may become more limited. However, South Korea should not view this development solely as a diminishment of its standing within the alliance. Instead, it presents an opportunity to secure new areas of contribution and to expand the South Korea-U.S. alliance from a focus on Korean Peninsula defense to a broader commitment to stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

Ultimately, it is crucial for South Korea to position itself not as a passive follower but as an active architect of the future of its alliances, shaping its role in a rapidly evolving geopolitical environment. By embracing this proactive stance, South Korea can enhance its strategic relevance and contribute meaningfully to the collective security of the Indo-Pacific region.

Authors

Guest Author

Park Ki-Chul

Dr. Park Ki-Chul, an army colonel (ret), currently serves as a visiting fellow at the Asia Center, Seoul National University, and holds the position of adjunct professor at Sookmyung Women’s University. He is also a former ROK WMD Planning officer of G35 in the U.S. Eighth Army.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

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