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Quotes of the Day:
"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."
– Robert A. Heinlein
“Once the mind has been expanded by a big idea, it will never go back to its original state.”
–Thomas Carlyle
"If education doesn't teach you to resist injustice, it has failed."
– John Dewey
1. The Utah Governor Urging America to ‘Disagree Better’
2. Ukraine strikes key Russian oil terminal in massive drone attack
3. How Taiwan Is Trying to Defend Its Democracy From Mis- and Disinformation
4. For Beijing’s Foreign Disinformation, the Era of AI-Driven Operations Has Arrived
5. What China Wants With Global Governance
6. A new world order isn’t coming, it’s already here − and this is what it looks like
7. The Golden Age of Multilateralism Is Over
8. The end of US-led global counter-terrorism? Changing trends in terrorist designation
9. US terminates agreements with Europe to help fight Russian disinformation and fake news
10. If the US Retreats to the Western Hemisphere, What Happens to Asia?
11. Trump’s ‘War Department’ faces first big test in the Far East
12. America’s Greatest Threat Comes From Within
13. Taiwan’s Squandered Defensive Potential
14. 5 Reasons the A-10 Warthog Must Be Retired
15. As China’s military shows off a mighty arsenal, its people are untested
16. Russia Is at War with the West
17. A U.S.-China War over Taiwan: Who Wins?
18. I Am a Defense Expert Who Lives in Poland. Russia Is Testing the NATO Alliance
19. The high, high cost of fewer foreign students in America
20. Eastern Philosophy and Influence on the Special Forces Soldier
1. The Utah Governor Urging America to ‘Disagree Better’
Rage. We need to think about the Governor's words. I see this every day on social media. It is all about rage. Expressing rage. And acting on rage.
Excerpt:
“To my young friends out there: You are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage,” the Republican said. “It feels like rage is the only option…We can choose a different path.”
The rage comes from perceived grievances and the idea that the "other" side is out to ruin our way of life or take away our freedoms. I think those feelings are common to both sides of the political spectrum.
We should realize that we are being manipulated by those who exploit those grievances. There are very real grievances across the political spectrum. But there are leaders out there who know how to exaggerate these grievances and they know how to communicate this well. As a fellow SF brother has pointed out: Exaggerated grievances communicated well. This is the foundation of insurgencies and political revolutions (read our Declaration of Independence). The question for us is can we recognize the difference between legitimate grievances that we and our elected officials must address and exaggerated grievances communication well? Ask yourself these questions when the rage builds up inside you.
Two ideas that we should consider and actually live by as Americans. They are foundational to the American ideals of democracy and liberty.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia: "I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can't separate the two, you gotta get another day job. You don't want to be a judge. At least not a judge on a multi-member panel."
Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," (actually coined by Evelyn Beatrice Hall to summarize Voltaire's ideas on free speech in her 1906 book, The Friends of Voltaire.)
The Utah Governor Urging America to ‘Disagree Better’
Spencer Cox, a Republican, is urging Americans to ‘choose a different path’ after the shooting death of Charlie Kirk
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/utah-spencer-cox-interview-01b5132b?st=NbN1TC&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
By Natalie Andrews
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Sept. 13, 2025 5:00 am ET
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox Photo: Tess Crowley/Associated Press
Quick Summary
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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is urging Americans to choose a less rage-filled political path.View more
“I don’t want to get too preachy,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said during a news conference Friday, two days after a gunman fatally shot conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus. Cox then took a few minutes to warn that America is in trouble.
“To my young friends out there: You are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage,” the Republican said. “It feels like rage is the only option…We can choose a different path.”
In a political ecosystem dominated by divisive rhetoric and fierce disagreements, Cox is taking his own advice. The 50-year-old two-term governor has dedicated much of his time in public office to building bridges across the aisle, launching a “Disagree Better” campaign in 2023 with Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis in a bid to tone down the toxicity of U.S. politics.
Cox, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, acknowledged the enormous hurdles he faces but said he thought most voters were with him. “This is radical because no one is doing it,” he said.
“It’s important to understand that in our political system today all of the incentives are lined up against this concept of dignity and respect,” he added. “We made a decision that we would only run for this position if we could do it in a different way and it had to be a positive vision.”
Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore with Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox in a discussion on bipartisanship. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Few politicians of either party are embracing Cox’s playbook. Lawmakers lash out at each other in the halls of Congress, on social media and on cable news. Some on the left have labeled President Trump a fascist and an authoritarian. Trump has said Democrats hate the country.
On the same day Cox made his appeal for restraint, Trump took a different approach. “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy,” the president said on Fox News.
But Cox’s words nonetheless appeared to resonate with Trump. The president called Cox after his news conference and complimented him, the governor said.
Utah is a heavily Republican state. Its last Democratic governor left office in 1985. The state was founded by Mormon pioneers in the mid-1800s looking for peace after persecution in Illinois and other states. Values espoused by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints still dominate the state’s politics.
Republicans have a supermajority in both chambers of the state legislature. In Utah, Cox’s biggest confrontations have been with his own party. In March 2022, he vetoed a bill to block transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. Cox noted that of Utah’s 75,000 student athletes, only four were transgender, and only one competed in women’s sports. The legislature overrode the veto.
The governor was booed off the stage at his state party convention last year. A frustrated Cox said that he had blocked diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the state, sent Utah National Guard troops to defend the border and sued the Biden administration—and that didn’t seem to be enough.
“Maybe you just hate that I don’t hate enough,” Cox said.
Cox has also at times objected to Trump’s rhetoric.
In 2016, Cox said Trump “represents the worst of what our great country stands for.” While running for governor in 2020—when Trump was on the presidential ballot—Cox said he didn’t vote for Trump. After Trump was shot in 2024 and while he was running for re-election, Cox endorsed Trump and published a letter asking the then-candidate to unite the country.
The two men have since learned to disagree better. “People are always shocked that we have such a great relationship,” Cox said, noting that Trump still gives him a hard time for not supporting him. The two spoke several times since Kirk was shot, and Cox called the White House on Wednesday to inform the president’s team that Kirk had died.
Former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, picked Cox to be his lieutenant governor in 2013 when Cox was just nine months into his first term in the state legislature. “It wasn’t all of a sudden, bang, he’s got this metamorphosis in 48 hours. That is really Spencer Cox,” Herbert said. Cox commuted nearly two hours each way to Salt Lake City from his farm in Fairview, Utah, for years until becoming governor in 2021.
As lieutenant governor, Cox advocated for a more compassionate brand of politics. In 2016, when 49 people were killed during a shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Cox spoke at a vigil and apologized for mistreating gay people when he was in high school.
When Cox launched his gubernatorial campaign, he toured the state in a green-and-yellow bus, stopping in all 248 incorporated cities to do service projects.
As governor, Cox sued social-media companies, accusing them of designing addictive features, harming minors’ well-being and engaging in deceptive business practices. He championed legislation banning children from having access to the platforms.
“Social media is a cancer in our society right now, and I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass, go hug a family member, go out and do good in the community,” he said at the news conference Friday.
On Wednesday, Cox and Polis both had to deal with school shootings in their respective states. Authorities said a 16-year-old boy opened fire at a Colorado high school, injuring two students. The two men, who have developed a close relationship as part of the “Disagree Better” initiative, traded emails and expressed sympathies.
“I think deep in his bones, he has a vision for a better America where we learn to love our neighbors, regardless of their religion or their political party,” Polis said of Cox.
Write to Natalie Andrews at natalie.andrews@wsj.com
2. Ukraine strikes key Russian oil terminal in massive drone attack
The "bleed to peace" strategy in action?
Ukraine's New War Strategy: 'Bleed' Russia Into Peace
https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/ukraines-new-war-strategy-bleed-russia-into-peace/
Ukraine strikes key Russian oil terminal in massive drone attack
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cderllgw84ro
24 hours ago
Rachel Hagan
X
Smoke was seen rising over buildings in Tosno, a satellite town of St Petersburg, in the early hours of Friday morning
Ukraine has struck Russia's largest oil terminal on the Baltic Sea during one of its biggest overnight drone attacks in months.
The aerial assault targeted the Primorsk oil port in the Leningrad region, the final station of the Baltic Pipeline System and a crucial hub for Russia's maritime exports, Ukraine's security services told multiple outlets.
More than half of the 221 drones sent to Russian territory were intercepted over the Bryansk and Smolensk regions, where Lukoil facilities were also reportedly targeted, the Russian defence ministry said.
Meanwhile, officials said two civilians were killed in Ukraine's Sumy region when a Russian glide bomb struck a village near the border.
Authorities in the Leningrad region said 28 drones were brought down and that a fire had broken out at a vessel and a pumping station in Primorsk. They added that the blaze was extinguished without casualties or leaks.
The port is also central to Russia's so-called "shadow fleet" of ageing tankers used to skirt international sanctions.
The Ukrainian security services said drone strikes also hit several pumping stations feeding the Ust-Luga terminal, near the border with Estonia.
Russian state energy firm Rosatom reported a drone attack on a power unit at its Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant, near the Belarussian border.
Russian officials said drones were intercepted across at least nine other regions, including Kaluga, Novgorod and the Moscow area, where nine drones were said to have been destroyed. Debris was recorded across several areas, though authorities insisted there had been no casualties.
In Bryansk, southwest of the capital, a drone hit a bus, injuring seven people, including five civilians and two military personnel, the region's Governor Alexander Bogomaz said. Operations at St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport were briefly suspended.
Moscow's figures, which the BBC has been unable to independently verify, suggest Thursday night's attack constituted one of the largest Ukrainian aerial bombardments in over four months.
Russia said it destroyed a record 524 drones on 7 May. By comparison, Ukrainian officials said Russia had deployed 818 drones against their territory in recent weeks.
The aerial assault is being described as one of the most significant for the Leningrad region since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine three-and-a-half years ago. The attack saw operations at St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport temporarily suspended.
Cross-border drone raids have become an increasingly prominent feature of the war. In July, a sustained Ukrainian drone attack forced the temporary closure of all of Moscow's airports.
In recent months, Ukrainian strikes have reached deeper into Russian territory, hitting refineries, fuel depots and logistics hubs hundreds of miles from the frontlines in a bid to limit fuel supplies and drive up costs.
While these strikes have been ongoing for more than a year, they escalated sharply in August, with more than a dozen refineries hit. The damage, coupled with Western sanctions, is proving increasingly difficult to repair.
During those attacks, Ukraine disabled 20% of Russia's oil refining capacity during August, the White House said last month - though Russian media has downplayed the cause of the damage, citing "unscheduled repairs".
But Russian newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets warned this week that petrol supplies were "near critical", with drivers in far eastern Russia reporting kilometre-long queues, rationing and soaring prices.
Strikes have also hit the Druzhba pipeline, disrupting exports to Hungary and Slovakia - potentially cutting off a key source of foreign currency for Russia.
Moscow has intensified its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and energy facilities over the summer as US-led efforts to reach a peace agreement faltered.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that there had been a "pause" in peace negotiations, blaming Ukraine's European allies for "hindering" the process.
Thursday night's attacks came ahead of the start of a major joint military exercise between Russia and ally Belarus on Friday, which is staged every four years.
But this time it is taking place just days after a number of Russian drones were shot down or fell on Poland, in what Warsaw called an unprecedented incursion into its airspace.
3. How Taiwan Is Trying to Defend Its Democracy From Mis- and Disinformation
All democracies must defend against mis- and disinformation.
I hate to keep beating the poor horse. But we should all heed these words from the 2017 National Security Strategy. This is the responsibility for all citizens of democratic countries who wish to remain free.
"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."
Access NSS HERE
How Taiwan Is Trying to Defend Its Democracy From Mis- and Disinformation
Taiwan’s efforts to combat mis- and disinformation involve a whole-of-society approach, including legal change, civil society, and education.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/09/how-taiwan-is-trying-to-defend-its-democracy-from-mis-and-disinformation/
By Cathy Harper
September 10, 2025
Taiwan’s version of the “democracy sausage” – a public display at the Presidential Palace, Taipei, August 2025.
Credit: Cathy Harper
“Taiwan is on the front line,” Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Dr. Lin Chai-Lung said ahead of a recent referendum, “and we have to come up with solutions.”
Taiwan is ranked highly as a liberal democracy, but it is the target of significant pro-China misinformation and disinformation campaigns, aimed at undermining trust in elections and democracy, according to several reports and a growing body of academic research.
Its solutions involve a whole-of-society approach, including legal change, civil society and education.
Taiwan’s Fraud Crime Hazard Prevention Act 2024 imposes significant fines on social media platforms that do not remove content that is verifiably fake and intended to be misleading, such as fake videos of celebrities promoting a product that they don’t actually endorse. Taiwan’s cyber ambassador, Audrey Tang – who until last year was its first minister of digital affairs – said that since the law’s enactment “there are no deep fake ads anymore if you scroll on Taiwan Facebook or YouTube.”
Additionally, before national elections in 2020, Taiwan passed the Anti-Infiltration Act, which imposes criminal penalties of up to five years in prison and significant fines on persons or entities receiving support from “hostile external forces” aiming to disrupt elections and democracy. The law is not without critics, though – the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) warns that it could be used in a politicized manner and violate fundamental rights.
Tang does not endorse censoring content or banning social media due to Taiwan’s almost four decades of martial law (1949-1987) when freedom of speech was curtailed and political dissidents were jailed and killed. She agrees with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance who spoke out strongly against any form of censorship, including on social media and the internet, in a major speech in Munich in February. In 2022, Taiwan’s government proposed a Digital Intermediary Services Act (modeled on the European Union’s Digital Services Act 2022 aimed at preventing the spread of disinformation), but it was withdrawn due to public concern about censorship.
But Tang does support regulation of social media platforms in other ways, such as promoting “freedom of movement.” She speaks favorably of the U.S. state of Utah’s recently-enacted Digital Choice Act which requires social media companies to allow users to take their personal data, such as friends and connections, to another platform if they wish.
Fact Checking
Taiwan has a vibrant civil society involved in fact-checking, which have been credited with reducing the impact of mis- and disinformation, including Taiwan FactCheck Center, MyGoPen, CoFacts. and Doublethink Lab – some of them able to respond quickly to disinformation through crowdsourcing.
Before the 2020 presidential election in Taiwan, Facebook created an Election Operation Center, which communicated with the Central Election Commission and others to identify and restrict access to some election-related content such as voter suppression and unlawful campaign activities.
But Tim Niven, Doublethink Lab’s deputy CEO, said that fact-checking has significant limitations because it’s a reactive strategy applied after disinformation has already spread. He said the focus must be on long-term targeted strategic communications that combat narratives such as “democracy is chaos.” As an example, he pointed to the marketing of household solar power to particular parts of the American public as a way of being “independent of government” rather than focusing on the environmental benefits. But he acknowledged that reaching and influencing people beyond their usual echo chambers is extremely challenging.
The government has done some of its own “counter-narrative” work. Before the 2020 election, it began a public health-type campaign that characterized disinformation as a virus that potentially anyone can catch (a no-fault concept), but which everyone can take steps to help stop.
Parliamentary monitoring organization Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) takes a long-term approach, building databases of publicly-available information about the work of individual legislators, including those who spread disinformation for political gain. Voters can use the database to assess legislators’ work and the “best” legislators use CCW endorsement to promote their work.
Taiwan released its Digital Era Media Literacy Education White Paper in March 2023, incorporating “Information & Media Literacy” as one of the nine core values in the school curriculum. Tang said that generative artificial intelligence must be used “on the defending side… to make sure that our young children can navigate and steer AI and can come up with their own deep research and balanced take on the state of things.”
Tang said bottom-up change is the key and speaks favorably of programs such as X’s “community notes”’ (based on Twitter’s “birdwatch” program, before Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform) and Meta’s new similar program; both designed so users themselves “correct” false or misleading information.
A big part of the answer to the harmful effect of disinformation on elections and democracy, said Tang, is “to build bridging systems: … pro-social media that elevates not the extremes, but the nuanced common ground, rarely discovered, rarely discussed common ground between people.”
The author travelled to Taiwan in August 2025 with a group of journalists courtesy of Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Authors
Guest Author
Cathy Harper
Cathy Harper is managing editor of the Melbourne Asia Review, University of Melbourne.
4. For Beijing’s Foreign Disinformation, the Era of AI-Driven Operations Has Arrived
A threat to us. We must be vigilant.
Excerpts:
Yet, those findings represent only the tip of the iceberg in an emerging phenomenon. A series of reports, incidents, and takedowns over the summer – spanning OpenAI, Meta, and Graphika – shed further light on the latest uses of AI by China-linked actors focused on foreign propaganda and disinformation. Notably, generative AI tools are now employed not only for content production but also for operational purposes like data collection and drafting internal reports to the party-state apparatus. This evolution marks a new frontier in Beijing’s information warfare tactics, offering insights into what a more AI-dominated future could yield and why urgent attention is needed from social media platforms, software developers, and democratic governments.
A close review of these reports reveals five key dimensions:
1. Using AI for Content Generation
2. Using AI Models for Operational Purposes
3. Wide Range of Targeted Topics and Audiences – Many Unrelated to China
4. Multi-Faceted Hints of Ties to the Chinese Party-State
5. Resilience and Vulnerabilities on Display
For Beijing’s Foreign Disinformation, the Era of AI-Driven Operations Has Arrived
From content generation to operational refinement, China-linked accounts are increasingly using generative AI to support influence operations.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/09/for-beijings-foreign-disinformation-the-era-of-ai-driven-operations-has-arrived/
By Sarah Cook
September 09, 2025
Credit: Illustration by Catherine Putz
In early August, two professors from Vanderbilt University published an essay outlining a trove of Chinese documents linked to the private firm GoLaxy. The sources revealed a sophisticated and troubling use of artificial intelligence (AI) not only to generate misleading content for target audiences – such as in Hong Kong and Taiwan – but also to extract information about U.S. lawmakers, creating profiles that might be used for future espionage or influence campaigns. The article received significant coverage, rightfully so.
Yet, those findings represent only the tip of the iceberg in an emerging phenomenon. A series of reports, incidents, and takedowns over the summer – spanning OpenAI, Meta, and Graphika – shed further light on the latest uses of AI by China-linked actors focused on foreign propaganda and disinformation. Notably, generative AI tools are now employed not only for content production but also for operational purposes like data collection and drafting internal reports to the party-state apparatus. This evolution marks a new frontier in Beijing’s information warfare tactics, offering insights into what a more AI-dominated future could yield and why urgent attention is needed from social media platforms, software developers, and democratic governments.
A close review of these reports reveals five key dimensions:
1. Using AI for Content Generation
While prior China-linked disinformation campaigns had deployed AI-tools to generate false personas or deepfakes, these latest disclosures point to a more concerted effort to leverage these tools for creating entire fake news websites that distribute Beijing-aligned narratives simultaneously in multiple languages. Graphika’s “Falsos Amigos” report published last month identified a network of 11 fake websites, established between late December 2024 and March 2025, using AI-generated pictures as logos or cover images to enhance credibility.
The websites published almost exclusively spin-offs from China Global Television Network (CGTN), the international arm of China’s broadcaster and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mouthpiece China Central Television (CCTV). Graphika documented that the sites were “systematically publishing AI-generated summaries of CGTN articles in English, French, Spanish, and Vietamese,” alongside machine translation for full articles. The summaries varied in tone and style to suit diverse audiences, while the websites presented them as original content with CGTN only cited as a reference, an attempt to launder propaganda through a façade of independence.
OpenAI’s threat report published in June cited the use of similar tactics, noting that now banned ChatGPT accounts had used prompts (often in Chinese) to generate names and profile pictures for two pages posing as news outlets, as well as for individual persona accounts of U.S. veterans critical of the Trump administration in a campaign the firm dubbed “Uncle Spam.” These efforts aimed to fuel political polarization in the United States, with AI-crafted logos and profiles amplifying the illusion of authenticity.
Another key strategy involved simulating organic engagement. OpenAI detected China-linked accounts bulk-generating social media posts, with a “main” account posting a comment followed by replies from others to mimic discussion. The “Uncle Spam” operation generated comments from supposed American users both supporting and criticizing U.S. tariffs.
One striking case involved Pakistani activist Mahrang Baloch, who has criticized China’s investments in the disputed territory of Balochistan. Meta documented a TikTok account and Facebook page posting a false video accusing her of appearing in pornography, followed by hundreds of apparently AI-generated comments in English and Urdu to simulate engagement.
In another multi-layered campaign that OpenAI named “Sneer review,” Chinese operatives used ChatGPT to generate comments critical of a Taiwanese game in which players work to defeat the CCP. They then disingenuously used the tool to write a “long-form article claiming it had received widespread backlash.”
These examples point to how China-linked information operations are increasingly using generative AI tools to further refine previously deployed tactics like content laundering, covert dissemination of state propaganda, smear campaigns, and development of fake social media personas.
2. Using AI Models for Operational Purposes
Beyond content creation, generative AI tools are beginning to serve as a vehicle to improve operational efficiency in the China-linked disinformation ecosystem. OpenAI disrupted four China-linked operations from March to June 2025 that had used ChatGPT. Ben Nimmo, principal investigator on OpenAI’s intelligence and investigations team, told National Public Radio (NPR) that the China-linked operations “combined elements of influence operations, social engineering, [and] surveillance.”
This multifaceted approach includes attempts at mass dissemination through coordinated networks. The 11 fake news domains that Graphika identified also had 16 matching social media accounts, active on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Threads, and X. The network displayed similar designs and synchronized posting patterns, matching CGTN English’s own posting schedule almost to the minute. OpenAI also noted cross-platform activity on TikTok, X, Reddit, Facebook, and Bluesky, one of the first such documented examples on that platform, indicating a broadening digital footprint.
Some of this activity was likely facilitated by China-linked accounts querying AI tools. According to OpenAI, they asked for advice to optimize posting schedules and content distribution to maximize user engagement.
OpenAI also reported that the China-linked users sought assistance with data collection. They requested code to extract personal data – profiles and follower lists – from X and Bluesky, possibly aiming to analyze characteristics for targeted influence. The Vanderbilt essay revealed GoLaxy’s compilation of profiles for 117 U.S. members of Congress and over 2,000 political figures, opening up the potential to personalize propaganda and disinformation to specific individual users.
AI tools were also found to support internal strategizing and reporting. OpenAI documented ChatGPT use to draft internal documents, including an essay on embodying Xi Jinping’s teachings for public security agencies and a performance review describing in detail the steps taken to run the operation – matching the actual behavior observed. While such blatant self-documentation can aid disruption of these campaigns by firms like OpenAI, left undetected, making use of AI in this capacity could also allow CCP-linked actors to refine tactics in real time, adapt to platform countermeasures, and maximize impact.
3. Wide Range of Targeted Topics and Audiences – Many Unrelated to China
This particular sample of campaigns targeted diverse issues and regions, often unrelated to Beijing’s direct interests or communities systematically persecuted by the CCP. Graphika noted content on U.S. food insecurity, tariffs, and a youth conference promoting “win-win” ties with China, as well as geopolitical topics like Iran-Israel tensions and Ukraine. OpenAI highlighted debates over the closure of USAID.
Notably, many of the detected campaigns sought to meddle in the internal affairs and political debates of foreign countries, especially democracies. OpenAI’s “Uncle Spam” sought to amplify U.S. polarization. Meta’s May 2025 report detailed the removal of a network of 157 Facebook and 17 Instagram accounts that targeted Myanmar, Taiwan, and Japan. While posing as local citizens, the accounts (some using profile images likely generated by AI) posted about current events in these countries, while criticizing civil resistance to Myanmar’s junta and political leaders in Japan and Taiwan.
Graphika also identified pro-China, anti-West content tailored for young audiences in the Global South. Content on the fake news sites explicitly targeted youth in Africa, the Americas, and Asia, using terms that market to “tech-savvy and socially conscious young professionals across South and Southeast Asia,” alongside hashtags like “independent media” that mask state backing. Graphika’s analysis of domain source code revealed prompts targeting “children aged 8-16,” reflecting an intent to shape long-term perceptions in regions with growing geopolitical significance.
In one example, ActuMeridien, a fake French news site from the network exposed by Graphika, said at its launch that it would focus on francophone youth that are “connected, curious, and engaged.” It announced in French that the website and social media account will be “highlighting the voices, ideas, and realities of the Global South.” The post garnered 1,400 likes – possibly through artificial amplification.
If successful, such use of generative AI tools to tailor content to local languages and cultural contexts alongside a focus on youth could leverage social media’s popularity to deceptively build trust in pro-Beijing sources and influence future leaders in developing regions.
4. Multi-Faceted Hints of Ties to the Chinese Party-State
Although each of the investigative reports is careful to avoid absolute attribution, taken together, the available evidence suggests involvement from the regime’s propaganda and security apparatus.
Graphika found all 11 fake news domains registered via Alibaba Cloud in China, with 10 registrants in Beijing, including one linked to Global International Video Communications, a state-owned enterprise tied to CGTN. Four of five Facebook pages had managers in China, and one ad beneficiary’s name matched a CGTN digital employee’s LinkedIn profile. OpenAI noted a now banned ChatGPT user linked to the detected operations who claimed affiliation with the CCP propaganda department, though this could not be verified. Lastly, the Vanderbilt essay ties GoLaxy to the state-controlled Chinese Academy of Sciences, with documented collaboration with intelligence, military, and CCP entities.
5. Resilience and Vulnerabilities on Display
At the moment, the details of these operations and their disruption reveal both resilience and vulnerabilities. Graphika reported limited organic traction, with Facebook pages gaining 3,000-6,000 followers but minimal likes or shares, and almost no followers on Instagram, Mastadon, or Threads. OpenAI’s teams also caught operations early. They rated the level of actual impact at a 2 or 3 on 1-6 scale (1 being the lowest, 6 the highest).
Yet outliers emerged: OpenAI noted TikTok videos with 25,000 likes and an X account with 10,000 views. Notably, Bluesky’s VeteransforJustice account – whose logo was generated by a ChatGPT user linked to the PRC network – reached over 11,000 followers, a relatively high total for a newer and smaller platform.
Moreover, the resources and willingness to invest in detecting and disrupting such influence operations remain uneven across platforms and tools. While the investigations from Meta and OpenAI demonstrate the potential importance of investing in these defenses, it remains unclear whether China-linked operatives are making similar use of tools like X’s Grok or Protonmail’s more private Lumo LLM. At the same time, apps owned by China-based companies like DeepSeek or TikTok have even fewer incentives to disrupt CCP-linked campaigns and a higher risk of reprisals if they do.
Closing Thoughts
As use of generative AI tools expands globally – for benign, productive, and malicious purposes – a close read of these studies makes clear that the Chinese party-state apparatus remains committed to engaging in foreign information influence campaigns and to using whatever tools are available to maximize their reach, improve their efficacy, smear CCP critics, and disrupt democratic debate.
From that perspective, any private initiatives or government regulatory action that could level the playing field and create a baseline for transparency and cross-platform collaboration would be a welcome next step. It is one of the many actions needed to enhance resilience to the inevitable future manipulation campaigns that will emanate from Beijing.
Authors
Guest Author
Sarah Cook
Sarah Cook is an independent researcher and consultant, and the author of the UnderReported China newsletter.
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5. What China Wants With Global Governance
Sure, perhaps China (or the CCP) are not seeking actual global governance. But they clearly are seeking to be the dominant influence.
Excerpts:
As these examples highlight, Western fears and Chinese aspirations are a far cry from the praxis of global governance. Like other powers, China is forced to operate within the constraints of the existing global order, which means that the potential for change is likely to be gradual and partial. This is not to downplay the concerning developments in global debates about human rights norms or deny that increased Chinese influence will affect the position of Western countries negatively.
As the world faces multiple armed conflicts and a coterie of strongmen, the image of a global order on the brink looms large. In this context, we would be wise not to neglect the diversity of Chinese preferences, as compromise and accommodation are possible and even advantageous in various elements of global order. To be sure, any path toward striking this balance will be fraught with challenges, not least because of China’s role in enabling Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and the United States’ confrontational course. As with previous periods of great power competition, we should hope that cooler heads prevail.
I do not think I am being alarmist when I say I stand by my assessment that China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions directly and/or indirectly through proxies, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, while displacing democratic institutions through subversion. It takes a long term approach, employing unrestricted warfare and its three warfares to set conditions and achieve objectives, with the main objective being the unification of China (i.e., the recovery of Taiwan).
What China Wants With Global Governance
While increasingly widespread, the view of China as an existential challenge to the current world order reflects political alarmism more than sober analysis.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/09/what-china-wants-with-global-governance/
By Steven Langendonk and Matthew D. Stephen
September 12, 2025
China’s President Xi Jinping addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s 70th session, Sep. 28, 2015.
Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak
What does China want from world order? Many observers, especially in the West, look upon China’s growing assertiveness and expanding ambitions with trepidation. In a speech on China-EU relations in 2023, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that “the Chinese Communist Party’s clear goal is a systemic change of the international order with China at its center.” She went on to characterize China’s diplomacy in multilateral institutions as demonstrating a “determination to promote an alternative vision of the world order. One, where individual rights are subordinated to national security. Where security and economy take prominence over political and civil rights.”
Similarly, in a speech at the Körber Foundation in Berlin in January 2025, Friedrich Merz – then Germany’s opposition leader, currently the chancellor – lumped China in with Russia as the leaders of a new systemic conflict between liberal democracies and “anti-liberal autocracies,” which aggressively oppose the multilateral order as it has existed since the end of World War II Such statements follow in the footsteps of the United States, which classified China as a “revisionist” power in 2017.
While increasingly widespread, the view of China as an existential challenge to world order reflects political alarmism more than sober analysis. Our research on China’s ambitions for world order leads us to a different conclusion. While China does indeed pose a challenge to some aspects of the contemporary world order, there is little evidence to suggest that it poses a greater challenge to world order than other revisionist powers, including today’s United States. Moreover, China’s ambitions vary across different domains of world order, where it faces challenges that limit what it can achieve.
Owing to its growing influence around the world, what China wants for world order has become one of the decisive questions of our time. Scholars have sought to identify and understand China’s goals using a variety of methods. Some look at China’s domestic political and economic order, which is authoritarian capitalist, and extrapolate this to the international level. Others infer China’s preferences based on theoretical arguments about its position in the international system. We argue that a more accurate picture can be gained by looking empirically at China’s track record. In particular, we focus on two aspects of China’s behavior: what it says (i.e. its vision for world order) and what it does (i.e. its behavior in different international regimes).
First, we find that China’s vision for world order has become increasingly explicit over the last decade. Today, China strives for what it calls “discourse power”: the ability to shape global narratives. China’s vision builds on many elements of the existing order, but it also emphasizes some aspects while de-emphasizing others.
As Xi Jinping has consolidated his control over the Chinese Community Party, the Chinese government has articulated increasingly ambitious visions for international order. Soon after coming to power at the end of 2012, the Chinese leadership announced the Belt and Road Initiative and called for a “Community with a Shared Future for Mankind” as a new normative vision for the international community. While China is still a realpolitik power par excellence and continues to rely heavily on bilateral relationships, it now publicly promotes itself as a guardian of the extant order and an advocate for “true multilateralism.”
China’s vision does not divide the world into liberal democracies and illiberal autocracies, and mostly ignores liberal ideals such as human rights, free markets, and constitutional government. Instead, the Community with a Shared Future emphasizes values such as peace, cooperation, harmony, development, inclusiveness, and mutual respect. It is tempting to dismiss such ideas as empty rhetoric and sloganeering. Yet these concepts resonate with many audiences around the world, especially those who share China’s criticism of “hegemony by certain countries” and Western double standards.
Reshaping global norms would help China to boost its legitimacy and build coalitions with other states in the Global South. Yet China can be criticized for its own double standards: its talk of cooperation and harmony is challenged by its posture in the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait, and its call for indivisible security is hardly commensurate with its toleration of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Second, instead of writing China off as an existential threat to international order, it pays to examine China’s real behavior in specific international regimes. In recent years scholars have offered an increasingly nuanced and empirically founded image of China’s behavior in different areas of global order. In some areas, China’s behavior does indeed conform to the skeptics’ image of China as a challenger and threat to established rules and liberal norms. Yet in others, China’s behavior upholds and deepens the existing order.
For example, China behaves in a way that undermines the idea of universal human rights. As China has increasingly been subject to international criticism – especially over human rights abuses in Xinjiang – it has sought to shape the international human rights agenda. In recent years, Beijing has tried to counter criticism by supplanting political and civil rights with the “right to development” as the fundamental human right.
In human rights bodies at the United Nations, China leads the “sovereigntist” agenda that subordinates individual rights to sovereign discretion. This includes sidelining independent civil society voices and promoting participation of state-backed NGOs (so-called GONGOs).
While its influence in the secretariats of U.N. human rights bodies remains limited, China has gained backing from many developing countries. Research from Hyunkyu Kim and Sanghoon Park even shows that nations involved in China-led international organizations tend to use more favorable language in their U.N. human rights reviews.
It remains to be seen whether China will be successful in its aim to center economic development. However, the inconsistencies in the human rights policies of many Western countries – notably in relation to the recent Israeli conduct in Gaza – demonstrate that challenges to robust human rights norms do not only originate from China or its close partners.
The global security regime, centered on the United Nations, offers a different and more mixed picture. China’s role in global security is growing – a sign of increasing engagement that belies depictions of China as a destroyer of multilateralism. Scholars point to its increasingly active presence at the U.N. Security Council (UNSC), where China has become less shy about using its veto power, typically alongside Russia. In recent years, its politics at the UNSC is increasingly being couched in the narrative of a “Global Security Initiative,” espousing lofty ambitions for the future of global security, and backed up by funding and forces for peacekeeping efforts.
Yet, at the same time, China avoids leading on key resolutions and Chinese nationals are yet to hold top security positions at the United Nations. What explains this gap between support for security governance and limited participation in its implementation?
Besides the enduring dominance of Western powers (the P3) in this domain, we find that China’s approach to security governance may be less about raw power and more about how China wants to be seen. China’s support for U.N. peacekeeping is about boosting its global image as much as achieving strategic goals. Part of China’s preferred image is its long-standing commitment to noninterference, hence the lack of participation. While this may not be the behavior of a principled multilateralist, it is also not the behavior of a revisionist power bent on undermining the system. In fact, China’s desire for status may lead it to expand support for security governance at the U.N. while leaving Western hegemony over global security governance largely intact.
At a time when the United States has rejected the postwar trade regime and declared trade wars against all its trading partners, it is also difficult to portray China as the main disruptor of global economic governance. In fact, China has a real interest in upholding the institutions of economic governance that have facilitated its astounding economic ascent. Rather, China wants two things from international economic institutions like the World Trade Organization and the World Bank: more control, commensurate with its economic size, and continued access to world markets.
In participating in the global economy, China pursues a kind of strategic mercantilism, using government control to build national champions and dominate strategic economic sectors. This is not markedly different from the practices of other rising economic powers in the past, like the United States, Japan and the European Union, to which they are now seemingly returning.
Contrary to Western fears, new Chinese initiatives like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) don’t aim to replace the global financial system. The AIIB, for instance, closely mirrors traditional institutions and seems more about boosting China’s status or gaining leverage for reform. The BRI, on the other hand, is less a formal institution and more a broad, flexible strategy that varies by country and project. Researchers say it’s more about influence – both at home and abroad – than a clear, top-down economic plan, and claims about deliberate “debt trap diplomacy” have been conclusively disproven.
China’s position as a limited revisionist in the trade regime is illustrated by its dual identity as a major economic power and a developing country. In global talks on digital trade, for example, it walks a tightrope – protecting domestic tech policies while promoting its tech giants abroad. Researchers highlight how China’s alliances shift depending on the issue, sometimes backing developing countries, other times aligning with the West. Ultimately, China’s economic behavior doesn’t fit neatly into narratives of confrontation – it’s shaped by a mix of pragmatism, self-interest, and a desire for global recognition.
As these examples highlight, Western fears and Chinese aspirations are a far cry from the praxis of global governance. Like other powers, China is forced to operate within the constraints of the existing global order, which means that the potential for change is likely to be gradual and partial. This is not to downplay the concerning developments in global debates about human rights norms or deny that increased Chinese influence will affect the position of Western countries negatively.
As the world faces multiple armed conflicts and a coterie of strongmen, the image of a global order on the brink looms large. In this context, we would be wise not to neglect the diversity of Chinese preferences, as compromise and accommodation are possible and even advantageous in various elements of global order. To be sure, any path toward striking this balance will be fraught with challenges, not least because of China’s role in enabling Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and the United States’ confrontational course. As with previous periods of great power competition, we should hope that cooler heads prevail.
A German-language version of this article will be published in issue 189 of WZB-Mitteilungen in September 2025.
Authors
Guest Author
Steven Langendonk
Steven Langendonk is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Chair of International Political Economy at the Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg. His research focuses on Chinese diplomacy and diplomatic history.
Guest Author
Matthew D. Stephen
Matthew D. Stephen is professor for international political economy at the Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg and a member of the Heisenberg Programme of the German Research Foundation.
6. A new world order isn’t coming, it’s already here − and this is what it looks like
Excerpts:
Yet none of this new global reality means that things are now fixed. Indeed, the new world order is in a state of disruptive flux that promises years of growing pains. Both the U.S. and China need allies, and countries in the Global South will continue to hedge between the competing powers.
As such, the world is in for a process of constant jostling as the major powers seek alliances while dealing with domestic pressures. In that messy status quo, many questions remain: Who will be most effective in building durable alliances? Will China manage its internal challenges? Will Europe get its act together? Will Russia continue its disruptive ways? Could a post-Trump U.S., post-Putin Russia and post-Xi China move the world in yet a different direction altogether?
And there is one large question above all others: Can the major powers manage their competition through shared global interests, such as combating climate change, environmental pollution and pandemic threats? Or will mounting conflict in the newly contested areas of the Arctic, cyberspace, outer space and the oceanic realm, and in ongoing geopolitical hot spots provide the trigger for outright conflict?
All world orders come to an end. The hope is the old one is doing so with a whimper rather than a bang.
A new world order isn’t coming, it’s already here − and this is what it looks like
theconversation.com · John Rennie Short
On Sept. 3, 2025, China celebrated the 80th anniversary of its victory over Japan by staging a carefully choreographed event in which 26 world leaders were offered a podium view of Beijing’s impressive military might.
The show of strength was deliberate and reignited a debate in Western media over whether we are on the cusp of a China-centric “new world order” to replace the U.S.-dominated international “rules-based order.”
But as someone who writes about geopolitics, I believe we are already there. It might be in flux, and the U.S. still has a big role in it, but a new world order has begun – and as it develops, it will look increasingly different than what it’s replacing.
A brief history of world orders
Global history can be understood as the rise and fall of different orders, defined as a given era’s dominant power relations and attendant institutions and norms.
From 1815 to 1880, the United Kingdom was the undisputed world superpower, with an empire and navy that spanned the globe. The period from 1880 to 1945 was one of imperial rivalries as other countries – largely European and the U.S. – sought to copy Britain’s success and replace its dominance. Supplanting that was the bipolar world of two competing superpowers, the Soviet Union and the U.S., marking the period from 1945 to 1991.
The fall of the Soviet Union was the beginning of a brief period, from 1991 to 2008, of a unipolar world centered on U.S. global dominance, military power and economic might. With the retreat of global communism, the U.S. increased its influence, and that of the international rules-based order it helped establish after 1945, through institutions such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
The tearing down of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the Cold War. Colin Campbell/Getty Images
It did not last long in the face of a long war on terrorism, the fiasco of the invasion of Iraq, the long occupation of Afghanistan and finally the 2008 global financial crisis that undermined U.S. strength and weakened domestic support for Washington’s role as the world’s policeman.
Toward a multipolar world
In recent years, a new multipolar world has emerged with at least four distinct sources of power.
The U.S. remains central to this world order. It is blessed with a huge territory, a dynamic economy and the strategic luxury of large oceans on its east and west and much smaller powers to its north and south. The U.S. had a global military presence in the previous bipolar and unipolar order. But the cost of this imperial overstretch has prompted Washington to shift the cost burden toward its former allies, leading to a new militarization in Europe and East Asia where most countries now aim to increase military spending.
There is also a change in economic arrangements. In the unipolar order, the U.S. promoted a frictionless free trade arrangement and economic globalization. This resulted in the global shift of manufacturing that in turn created a populist backlash in those countries where manufacturing employment was hollowed out.
Now, economic nationalism is becoming a much more common refrain than free trade. Long the promoter of purportedly open markets, the U.S. is now leading the way in resurrecting tariff barriers to levels that haven’t been seen on the global stage in decades.
The military realignments and growing trade barriers will make it increasingly difficult to assemble durable alliances. In the short term the U.S. can leverage its existing power to its advantage, but over the long term other countries will likely pivot away from too much reliance on the U.S. The American Century that publishing magnate Henry Luce famously described in 1941 has to all intents and purposes come to an end.
China is now a peer competitor to the U.S. in both economic and military power. Increasingly, under the powerful leadership of Xi Jinping, China openly seeks a more Sino-centric world order with institutions and a global arrangement to match. To that end, it is assembling an axis of resistance to a U.S.-dominated world order. Russia, suffering from post-imperial syndrome, is an important member but not an equal partner.
Russian power is limited to establishing a Eurasian sphere of influence across its former Soviet republics and disrupting liberal democracies. But in that, Russia is more of a spoiler than an architect of the new order.
And then there is Europe, facing what British Prime Minister Keir Starmer referred to as a “generational challenge” as the U.S. pivots away from Europe toward the Indo-Pacific just as Russia poses a more serious threat to Europe, especially for its easternmost states.
Europe is remilitarizing after decades of demilitarizing. Sweden and Finland joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively. In the coming decades, Europe could emerge as an independent source of both economic and military power with a different agenda from the U.S. – more keen to confront Russia, less willing to support Israel, and perhaps more willing to engage with China.
But all three power centers – the U.S., China and Europe – will struggle with similar and unique internal challenges.
All of them have sluggish economies and aging populations. The U.S. faces growing inequality and political instability as it shifts from a liberal democracy to competitive authoritarianism. China has an untested military, a looming demographic crisis, a faltering economy and a forthcoming succession struggle.
Finally, Europe is beset with a nationalist populism and growing social welfare costs just as military expenditures are set to increase.
The growth of the Global South
This threefold division is strangely reminiscent of the tripartite global division in George Orwell’s “1984,” where Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia fought a permanent war of shifting alliances.
But Orwell was writing at a time when much of what is now called the Global South was either under the informal or formal control of the superpowers. That is no longer the case in the Global South, especially in the case of the larger countries such as Brazil, India and Indonesia.
The Global South is not yet a coherent bloc, more an informal arrangement of independent actors that tend to hedge between the major powers.
A world in flux
Yet none of this new global reality means that things are now fixed. Indeed, the new world order is in a state of disruptive flux that promises years of growing pains. Both the U.S. and China need allies, and countries in the Global South will continue to hedge between the competing powers.
It doesn’t have to end this way. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
As such, the world is in for a process of constant jostling as the major powers seek alliances while dealing with domestic pressures. In that messy status quo, many questions remain: Who will be most effective in building durable alliances? Will China manage its internal challenges? Will Europe get its act together? Will Russia continue its disruptive ways? Could a post-Trump U.S., post-Putin Russia and post-Xi China move the world in yet a different direction altogether?
And there is one large question above all others: Can the major powers manage their competition through shared global interests, such as combating climate change, environmental pollution and pandemic threats? Or will mounting conflict in the newly contested areas of the Arctic, cyberspace, outer space and the oceanic realm, and in ongoing geopolitical hot spots provide the trigger for outright conflict?
All world orders come to an end. The hope is the old one is doing so with a whimper rather than a bang.
theconversation.com · John Rennie Short
7. The Golden Age of Multilateralism Is Over
Excerpts:
Most fundamentally, the international power structure has shifted. The replacement of U.S. unipolarity with a U.S.-China bipolar system has led both Washington and Beijing to pay more attention to relative gains versus the other—to the detriment of multilateral cooperation. One important consequence is Washington’s shift from economic engagement with China to a policy of tariffs and derisking. Another is the changing geopolitical outlook. While Russia wages war in Ukraine and blocks every initiative at the U.N. related to Ukraine, the United States seems unable to decide whether to support Russia or Ukraine, and it has also created uncertainty about its NATO security commitments and is openly flirting with the idea of annexing Greenland. China is supporting Russia in order to strengthen its own position vis-à-vis the United States, whereas India continues to work with Russia in an attempt to prevent it from becoming too wedded to China.
Finally, whereas the U.S. unipolar system created a belief in multilateralism from the outset, the current shift from U.S. unipolarity to bipolarity has resulted in a less favorable mindset. Most importantly, the Trump administration believes that the multilateral system is working against the United States, but U.S. President Donald Trump’s animosity toward multilateralism is only part of a broader wave within Western countries in recent years. Brexit is another notable example of this trend, as is the growing popularity that Euroskeptic and nationalist parties across Europe are enjoying.
Even though the conclusion is very much open for debate, a narrative is taking form among many Americans and Europeans that globalization is to blame for their economic woes. Also, despite being the greatest winner of globalization during the U.S. unipolar era, China still harbors a negative view on key aspects of the multilateral system, including the human rights regime, and gives a lot of attention to alternative institutions, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, that gravitate toward Beijing.
Moreover, nationalism is on the rise in the United States, Europe, China, India, and Russia. Nationalist regimes normally harbor deeper fears about the intrusiveness of global bodies than democratic governments.
...
Two final points on where we go from here: First, it is time to realize that the golden age of multilateralism is irretrievably over. Neither China nor the United States is interested in saving more than the parts that work for their own countries. Neither a multilateralism-friendly Europe, nor a more cooperative post-Trump America, nor a more multipolar world with a greater voice for the global south will be able to resuscitate it.
Second, an inferior and deficient multilateral system is still worth fighting for—simply because the alternative is even worse. But the future multilateral system is likely to be a more fragmented one, where small groups of like-minded countries—so-called minilaterals—join to solve specific problems. These groups will sometimes be driven by shared values but more often by common challenges—of which there is certainly no lack in the world today.
The Golden Age of Multilateralism Is Over
And it cannot be revived by China, Europe, post-Trump America, or the global south.
September 12, 2025, 2:40 PM
By Jo Inge Bekkevold, a senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies.
Foreign Policy · Jo Inge Bekkevold
- United Nations
- Geopolitics
Multilateralism matters. As a growing number of issues become increasingly global, international cooperation is simply a must. Nonetheless, the multilateral system established at the end of World War II, with the founding of the United Nations and other organizations, is now unraveling in front of our eyes. This calls for a serious debate about why the system is unraveling, whether it can be saved, and what may replace it if not.
The school of realism in international relations suggests that all institutions are a function of the international power structure. Fundamental shifts in the latter rob the former of its foundation. From now on, realism advises us, we must accustom ourselves to more fragile and suboptimal forms of cross-border cooperation.
Multilateralism defined in its most rudimentary form—as the practice of three or more states coordinating policies—is not dead, of course. Short-term cooperation among groups of states has a long history and will continue to take place. However, the formation of complex multilateral regimes with persistent rules, followed by a wide range of governments to prescribe behavior and constrain state activity, is a much rarer phenomenon. Indeed, the multilateral system and institutions that emerged in the late 1940s are unique in human history. It is this system that is now falling apart.
The multilateralism index compiled by the International Peace Institute showed that the number of states and nongovernmental organizations signing up to the multilateral system continues to grow. But the same index also revealed that the performance of the system as a whole—in terms of how well multilateral institutions can implement policies across their membership—has deteriorated during the last decade or so. This is particularly evident with issues such as peace and security, human rights, and climate policy.
Even U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres—who is hosting world leaders at the 80th session of the U.N. General Assembly in September—has admitted that people are losing faith in multilateralism. Nothing better illustrates the system’s demise than the Trump administration’s tariff policy: Based on impulsive unilateralism and bilateral deal-making, it has reduced the already half-dead World Trade Organization (WTO) to an empty, meaningless husk.
As a former diplomat representing Norway, a relatively small country, I know firsthand the importance of a well-functioning multilateral system to manage international affairs in a fair and sustainable manner. But as an academic whose worldview is firmly anchored in realism, I am also convinced that the multilateral system cannot sustain itself without the support of major powers. While the school of liberalism in international relations claims that institutions have considerable agency of their own, realism posits that the multilateral system, including the level of participation in international institutions and their effectiveness, largely reflects the power balance in the international system at any given time.
In fact, the U.S. unipolar moment—the two decades following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, when the United States was the world’s sole and undisputed great power—most likely represented the zenith of multilateralism. Washington was not always a perfect guardian of the international system: It did not sign up to all forms of international cooperation, it occasionally abused its power position in the Middle East and elsewhere, and its policy was driven more by national interests than altruism. Nevertheless, the United States was an unprecedented facilitator for multilateral cooperation during this period, when there was widespread global and U.S. domestic support for the multilateral system.
Bush and Gorbachev, both seated, lean toward each other and laugh, the latter pointing as he talks. Three other men stand and lean in toward them. The flags of the United States and the Soviet Union hang on the wall behind them.
U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev speak during a summit in Moscow in 1991. Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
More specifically, three major factors contributed to this golden age of multilateralism.
First and most importantly, the United States was powerful enough to think in terms of absolute gains for the entire global system. It might seem like a paradox that unipolarity, not multipolarity, best supports multilateral cooperation. Yet in the context of international anarchy—where there is no global police to constrain great-power behavior—the presence of two or more such powers means that each is worried that another might achieve relatively greater gains from collaboration and strengthen its relative power position. Each great power views interdependence with other great powers as a potential source of vulnerability. Indeed, how concerns about relative gains limit cooperation is a basic proposition in the realist school.
Because great powers implement statecraft to enhance their own power position relative to other great powers in the system, their incentives for collaboration differ significantly in unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar systems.
The level of collaboration among great powers is expected to be the lowest in a bipolar power structure, where two great powers seek to minimize their interdependence. This leads to a polarized international system around two blocs, like the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during the Cold War. In that era, the multilateral system worked very well within the Western bloc, but it was certainly not global, with the Soviet Union and its allies remaining outside much of the multilateral system for large parts of the period. The People’s Republic of China, for instance, was not admitted into the United Nations until the early 1970s, and it became a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank even later.
Multipolar power structures with three or more great powers may be less polarized than bipolar ones, but they are even less favorable for collaboration. With great powers mainly balancing each other through alliances with other great powers (like Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries), there is always a risk that a power abandons an existing alliance to join another. This especially reduces the incentive to implement free trade policies, since the shared benefits of trade, including the diffusion of technology, would then accrue to the other side. In a multipolar system, great powers would trade with each other, but their governments would have a heavy hand in channeling the flow of goods, similar to the way great-power disagreements hampered the development of free trade during the multipolar period between the two world wars.
Read More
- Pax Americana is dead, but Pax Sinica is nowhere in sight.
Kenneth Waltz, an American international relations scholar who was considered the father of structural realism, never wrote at length about unipolar power structures, but he made an important observation on relative versus absolute gains. He claimed that in the extreme case when a state feels very secure, a quest for absolute gains may prevail over the usual quest for relative ones. The unipolar system was such a case, with the United States secure enough to provide public goods to almost all countries in the system, which led to absolute gains for all parties involved. Above all, the United States worked hard to integrate China into the WTO and other multilateral regimes. Washington preferred the long-term benefits of multilateral solutions—including lower transaction costs and increased international stability—to more short-term, brittle solutions, such as overt coercion.
The second factor behind multilateralism’s golden age was the United States’ nature as a liberal leviathan. As much as realism can explain by focusing on raw power structures, these are not the only variables informing the extent of multilateral cooperation. Indeed, the writings of influential realist scholars like E. H. Carr (1892-1982) and Hans Morgenthau (1904-1980) show that even the pantheon of realism has room for domestic factors, such as support for law and morality. A dominant great power would most likely undermine the multilateral system if it was a dictatorship with conquest in mind, but the United States was a champion of democracy, the market economy, and free trade. The United States pursued regime change and intervened militarily in other countries on numerous occasions, but it never conquered territory. Washington’s promotion of democracy and liberal values was not always welcome in capitals around the world, and U.S. support for these values was often selective. Some have argued that liberal dreams were doomed to fail and ran counter to hard-power goals and intentions, but any such argument must consider plausible alternatives. An isolationist, authoritarian, or otherwise nationalist leviathan may have been an even larger burden on international cooperation and multilateralism.
Third, the origin of the U.S. unipolar power structure contributed significantly to the belief in multilateral solutions. During the Cold War, it was quite evident that the U.S-led Western bloc—built around multilateral institutions including NATO, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the G-7, the IMF, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the WTO’s predecessor)—provided higher economic growth and better living standards for its citizens than the Soviet bloc, which was held together by occupation and coercion. Thus, when the United States prevailed in the Cold War rivalry, there was both domestic and international support to integrate more countries into a successful and well-functioning post-WWII multilateral system. China, for instance, was rather keen to join that system.
The current situation differs vastly on all three accounts.
Zelensky and Trump, both seated in front of an ornate gilded mantle, frown.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump meet at the White House in Washington on Aug. 18. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Xi Jinping gestures with his hand out as he points the way to Vladimir Putin, both in suits and standing in front of their respective countries' flags.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand together during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin, China, on Sept. 1. Suo Takekuma – Pool/Getty Images
Most fundamentally, the international power structure has shifted. The replacement of U.S. unipolarity with a U.S.-China bipolar system has led both Washington and Beijing to pay more attention to relative gains versus the other—to the detriment of multilateral cooperation. One important consequence is Washington’s shift from economic engagement with China to a policy of tariffs and derisking. Another is the changing geopolitical outlook. While Russia wages war in Ukraine and blocks every initiative at the U.N. related to Ukraine, the United States seems unable to decide whether to support Russia or Ukraine, and it has also created uncertainty about its NATO security commitments and is openly flirting with the idea of annexing Greenland. China is supporting Russia in order to strengthen its own position vis-à-vis the United States, whereas India continues to work with Russia in an attempt to prevent it from becoming too wedded to China.
Finally, whereas the U.S. unipolar system created a belief in multilateralism from the outset, the current shift from U.S. unipolarity to bipolarity has resulted in a less favorable mindset. Most importantly, the Trump administration believes that the multilateral system is working against the United States, but U.S. President Donald Trump’s animosity toward multilateralism is only part of a broader wave within Western countries in recent years. Brexit is another notable example of this trend, as is the growing popularity that Euroskeptic and nationalist parties across Europe are enjoying.
Even though the conclusion is very much open for debate, a narrative is taking form among many Americans and Europeans that globalization is to blame for their economic woes. Also, despite being the greatest winner of globalization during the U.S. unipolar era, China still harbors a negative view on key aspects of the multilateral system, including the human rights regime, and gives a lot of attention to alternative institutions, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, that gravitate toward Beijing.
Moreover, nationalism is on the rise in the United States, Europe, China, India, and Russia. Nationalist regimes normally harbor deeper fears about the intrusiveness of global bodies than democratic governments.
A painting of Mount Rushmore and an eagle combined with a view of various flags.
This 1974 photo shows a painting of Mount Rushmore and an eagle combined with a view of various flags.Ernst Haas/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The current breakdown of the multilateral system should not come as a surprise. For years, academics and commentators have debated what a post-American world order would look like. John Ikenberry, a Princeton University international relations scholar and one of the strongest proponents of liberal internationalism, warned a decade ago that the multilateral moment was coming to an end. Today, the conditions for a strong multilateral system are even worse than when Ikenberry was writing.
There is no shortage of ideas on how to improve the multilateral system, but they mostly involve more participation from nonstate actors and a stronger voice for the global south. It is only natural that major powers like India and Brazil want a greater say in the multilateral system; indeed, it is hard to argue against a fairer and more just representation in a system that, at least in theory, is supposed to benefit everyone. Yet the international system of states simply doesn’t work in the same way as a domestic democracy. Pluralism may be a precondition for democracy, but a multipolar distribution of power does not herald a more multilateral world. Expanding the number of countries in the U.N. Security Council may enhance its legitimacy but not necessarily its influence. The national interests and actions of great powers are driven by other factors than who sits on a multilateral body.
Two final points on where we go from here: First, it is time to realize that the golden age of multilateralism is irretrievably over. Neither China nor the United States is interested in saving more than the parts that work for their own countries. Neither a multilateralism-friendly Europe, nor a more cooperative post-Trump America, nor a more multipolar world with a greater voice for the global south will be able to resuscitate it.
Second, an inferior and deficient multilateral system is still worth fighting for—simply because the alternative is even worse. But the future multilateral system is likely to be a more fragmented one, where small groups of like-minded countries—so-called minilaterals—join to solve specific problems. These groups will sometimes be driven by shared values but more often by common challenges—of which there is certainly no lack in the world today.
This post appeared in the FP Weekend newsletter, a weekly showcase of book reviews, deep dives, and features. Sign up here.
Foreign Policy · Jo Inge Bekkevold
8. The end of US-led global counter-terrorism? Changing trends in terrorist designation
Conclusion:
The recent divergence in terrorist listing between the United States and its partners raises questions about the purpose and future of terrorist designation. Is a terrorist list simply a list of “bad guys” or political enemies, unique to each country? To what extent are there objective and transparent criteria behind the designation? Can the United States still lead on global security issues with such distinct priorities compared to its allies? Does it want to? Regarding the future of designation, research tells us that sanctions work better when they are multilateral – generally, the more parties trying to punish an entity or prevent its actions, the more effective it will be. Thus, coordination among countries on terrorist designation is likely to be valuable. But global counter-terrorism will be difficult to sustain if countries’ priorities continue to separate.
The end of US-led global counter-terrorism? Changing trends in terrorist designation
icct.nl · Brian Phillips
Global counter-terrorism is fundamentally changing, as is evident in recent patterns of terrorist designation. For decades, the US Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) list has been a bellwether of counter-terrorism policies – countries around the world, both US allies and others, have often followed the list when updating their own terrorist lists. However, a strong divergence is becoming apparent.
The United States under President Donald Trump is shifting course by focusing counter-terrorism resources on groups traditionally thought of as criminal organisations – drug traffickers in Mexico and gangs in Haiti, for example. The United States has added 12 such groups to its FTO list this year so far. Most other countries, however, have not added these criminal organisations, or any criminal groups, to their own terrorist lists. Traditional US partners like European countries do not seem to view crime groups as appropriate subjects of counter-terrorism. For the first time ever, most other countries are not following the FTO list.
Meanwhile, US allies increasingly focus counter-terrorism on far-right organisations. Canada and the United Kingdom each include eight far-right or white supremacist organisations on their terrorist lists, and the EU, Australia, and New Zealand list such groups as well. The US FTO list, however, does not include any far-right organisations.
This article analyses global patterns in terrorist designation. It describes the wave of criminal groups added to the FTO list this year, explaining why this occurred and why it is so unusual. The article then discusses the recent pattern of other countries listing far-right organisations. It concludes with broader trends and implications.
Terrorist designation: widespread and consequential
One of the most widespread and enduring legacies of post-9/11 counter-terrorism is terrorist designation – the labelling of certain entities as terrorist organisations, which usually imposes serious punishments on the groups and those who might support them. Some aspects of the “war on terror,” like major military interventions and drone strikes, have waxed and waned over time, but terrorist lists seem to only grow.
Dozens of countries, along with international institutions like the United Nations and the European Union, now maintain terrorist lists. This is not only a Western phenomenon. Russia and China, India and Pakistan, Argentina, and Nigeria all have their own terrorist lists, as does the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Hundreds of armed groups around the world appear on at least one national or regional terrorist list.
The terrorist lists are highly diverse. This is due to different definitions of terrorism, legal restrictions, and distinct goals regarding terrorist listing (e.g., foreign policy vs. domestic policy). For example, the US FTO list, with 81 organisations, includes only non-US groups, and about half are Islamist organisations. The UK lists a similar number of groups (84), but a clear majority (about 70 percent) are Islamist, and the list includes US-based and domestic UK organisations. The European Union list contains 22 organisations, from Europe and abroad, and only about one third are Islamist. Countries in other regions, with distinct threats and different types of legal systems (e.g., Russia and China), have terrorist lists that are even more dissimilar.
Research shows that terrorist designation can lead to important consequences. In the United States, terrorist designation has led to tens of millions of dollars frozen or seized from listed organisations. Some studies show that the financial pressure on designated terrorist groups is associated with subsequent reductions in terrorism, at least for certain kinds of groups. Terrorist designation also has implications for civil war, sometimes hindering peace processes. There are also substantial human rights implications, including when groups and individuals feel they have been wrongly listed. In spite of these costs, terrorist designation as a practice is increasingly common, with organisations often added to lists, and few organisations removed. Terrorist designation can provide a helpful signal to the international community about priorities, and within each country, it can help counter-terrorism agencies coordinate and prioritise on certain terrorist threats.
The US FTO list as the most influential CT signal
One of the oldest terrorist lists is the US FTO list, launched in 1997 and maintained by the State Department Bureau of Counterterrorism. The list initially included 28 FTOs, such as Hamas, the PKK, and the Shining Path. For groups to be included, they needed to meet three criteria: they should be foreign, engage in terrorist activity, and threaten the security of US nationals or US national security. Once an organisation is designated, it becomes a crime to provide “material support” to it; non-citizens can be barred from the United States if they are deemed to be associated with the group, and US financial institutions should freeze any funds associated with the organisation. Over the years, dozens more groups have been added, often groups linked to al-Qaeida or the Islamic State. The United States has other terrorist lists, like Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), but these lists are often more specific and do not include the “material support” restriction. FTO status also seems to be unique for its notoriety, its international visibility.
Since the FTO list was first created, and certainly since 9/11, it has been a beacon of counter-terrorism trends, a clear indicator of groups seen as global counter-terrorism threats. Several analyses of countries’ and international institutions’ terrorist lists have shown that the FTO list is the most globally influential country terrorist list. One of the strongest indicators of whether a country will put a group on its own terrorist list is if the group had previously been labelled as a US FTO. This is the case for Western allies of the United States, but also for countries like Russia and Pakistan, as my own research has found. One study calls the United States the key global “trendsetter” in terrorist designation. Perhaps the most comprehensive analysis of designation, studying all terrorist lists in the world, concludes that “the United States is the most important leader in terrorist designation and many other countries’ lists follow the FTO list.” That article was published in 2023 – times have changed.
War on crime: The FTO list gets a major makeover…
President Trump’s second term, starting in January 2025, has altered many aspects of US foreign policy, and counter-terrorism is no exception. Since February, the State Department has added 14 groups to the FTO list. This is the biggest expansion of the list since its creation. The graph below shows that the number of FTOs has steadily increased since 1997, but the biggest jump, the steepest spike, occurs in 2025 with the 14 new groups. (The bump a few years earlier is the result of the first Trump administration listing seven new groups, and the subsequent Biden administration later removing several different organisations.)
Groups on the US Foreign Terrorist Organisation list per year, 1997-2025
Even more noteworthy than the quantitative increase is that twelve of the new groups are qualitatively different from other FTOs – they are Latin American criminal groups. The FTO list now includes the Sinaloa Cartel and five other Mexican drug cartels, and gangs from Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, and Venezuela. This is a major change in policy, and it is an unusual understanding of “terrorist organisation.”
Declaring criminal groups to be terrorists is a fundamental change because for decades, experts have used separate frameworks – theories, laws, etc. – for criminals and terrorists. Criminals are motivated primarily by profits, while terrorists are ultimately driven by political goals like regime change or policy concessions. A classic analysis of more than 100 definitions of terrorism found that most definitions identify terrorism as having a “political” element, such as an ideological or religious motivation.
The differences between criminals and terrorists are not only theoretical. Distinct types of violence have unique causes and therefore solutions. Unemployment can encourage criminal violence, but it is often unrelated to political violence like terrorism. In another example, killing or arresting group leaders often reduces the violence of terrorist or insurgent organisations, because charismatic leadership and appearances can be important for mobilisation. But leadership removal frequently causes more violence when criminal groups are targeted, as competition for high-stakes drug territory upends business relationships. There are connections between criminals and terrorists, and it has long been noted that some criminals use terrorist tactics, but these two group types are generally considered distinct for good reason.
The new criminal groups on the FTO list might arguably meet the three criteria for designation – being foreign, using terrorism, and threatening US security or US nationals. However, the motivations behind (and thus solutions for) cartel violence suggest it is probably not what most people think of as “terrorism.” In terms of these groups directly threatening US national security, this is also debatable. Some of the twelve criminal FTOs have harmed US nationals, but so have many insurgent and criminal groups around the world, and most such groups are not on the FTO list.
The invention of a new criminal type of FTO is consistent with Trump’s militarised approach to crime, and his more general use of national security or “emergency” justifications for unprecedented actions. Trump had proposed designating Mexican cartels as FTOs as early as 2019, in his first term, although he eventually backed off the idea because Mexico and others opposed the move. In the meantime, he sent the military to the Mexican border. More recently, he ordered the US military to start using force against foreign drug cartels, including killing eleven people in a missile strike near Venezuela. In another unprecedented move, he has sent the National Guard to the streets of Washington, D.C., to deter ordinary crime. These actions could be seen as part of a pattern of extreme domestic politics signalling, showing voters that the government is “doing something,” regardless of consequences. Some of these policies also facilitate advances on a related issue that is a priority for the president, reducing immigration from Latin America.
… but other countries aren’t following this time
The new US focus on counter-terrorism is not yet catching on. Most US allies have not added any criminal organisations to their terrorist lists, in spite of some activity from the new US FTOs in Europe and Australia. Furthermore, the vast majority of countries and international institutions have refrained from labelling their own local criminal organisations – such as British gangs or the Italian Ndrangheta – as terrorist organisations.
There are some exceptions. Canada added some of the Latin American criminal groups to its own list at the same time as the US FTO designation. However, sanctions experts argue that Canada updated its terrorist list under pressure – it was a “direct response” to threatened US tariffs. The United States apparently tried to get other countries in Latin America to follow its counter-terrorism approach. A few states with Trump-friendly leaders, like the Dominican Republic, have declared one Venezuelan cartel to be a terrorist organisation. Others in the region, such as Brazil, have declined such pressure. One other notable case of a country using an explicit counter-terrorism framework against organised crime is El Salvador – but the authoritarian Salvadoran government has done this for years. Overall, the lack of corresponding changes to other countries’ terrorist lists suggests a profound change in global counter-terrorism: few countries are updating their terrorist lists to follow the new wave of FTO designations.
Why aren’t other countries following? It could be in part due to general opposition to the Trump regime, at least for some countries. However, it is more likely that most countries do not see criminal organisations as an actual threat on par with traditional terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeida and the Islamic State. Additionally, they probably view counter-terrorism approaches like military raids or deradicalisation programs as excessive and counterproductive (in the case of raids) or unlikely to affect non-ideological groups (in the case of deradicalisation). In short, they do not see criminal groups as terrorists.
Outside the US, a growing focus on far-right terrorism
Another reason countries might not be focused on criminal organisations is that other types of violent non-state actors are seen as more of a priority – like the far-right. The decline in Islamist terrorism since the 2015 peak of Islamic State-related activity, combined with a growing melange of generally far-right extremism, has Western governments shifting counter-terrorism resources toward the far right. The 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand, attack – where a white supremacist killed 51 people at a mosque and Islamic centre – seems to have been a turning point. Beyond the death toll, the attack stood out for being livestreamed to a large audience and producing a manifesto that has inspired subsequent attacks and attempted attacks worldwide.
The increasingly visible movement also led to a terrorist designation. The United Kingdom first proscribed the British group National Action in 2016. It has added seven other far-right groups, both local and from other countries, since 2020. Canada proscribed two far-right groups in 2019 (UK-founded Blood and Honour and its armed wing, Combat 18), and others in 2021. Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union added far-right groups to their terrorist lists in recent years as well, such as the white supremacist US groups The Base and Atomwaffen, and UK-based Sonnenkrieg Division. The banned groups and their various branches have been associated with a substantial amount of violence, such as the killing of a German politician, fatal shootings at an LGBTQ bar, and attempted lethal attacks disrupted by police.
The United States has mostly refrained from adding such groups to its terrorist lists. The influential FTO list, with its 81 organisations (including twelve criminal groups), has not been updated to add the far-right or white supremacist groups listed by partner countries. A few far-right groups or individuals have been added to other US terrorist lists. The Specially Designated Global Terrorists list includes several far-right groups: the Russian Imperial Movement, the Nordic Resistance Movement, and the Terrorgram Collective. However, as noted above, these listings are not as visible or as impactful as the FTO designation. As one expert has argued, the United States has been “reluctant” to designate far-right organisations, more so than its longtime allies.
It should be acknowledged that part of the reason for differences between the FTO lists and those of other countries is that the FTO list, as its name implies, only includes foreign groups. It legally cannot include US-based groups like The Base or Atomwaffen. But this does not explain why foreign groups such as the Nordic Resistance Movement or Combat 18 remain off the FTO list.
Part of a broader pattern
Of course, terrorist designation is not the only sign of disagreement between the United States and other countries on security issues. The United States is separating from its traditional allies on issues like the importance of NATO, relationships with major tech companies, and the threat of climate change, to name a few. The rift over counter-terrorism priorities is surprising, however, because the US-led coalition (with some clear dissent, like the 2003 Iraq war) had defined counter-terrorism priorities for many countries since 9/11, and to a broader degree in the entire post-Cold War era. The apparent falling-out is occurring on numerous issues, but the contrasting new additions to terrorist lists underscore the significant change in priorities.
The future of terrorist designation?
The recent divergence in terrorist listing between the United States and its partners raises questions about the purpose and future of terrorist designation. Is a terrorist list simply a list of “bad guys” or political enemies, unique to each country? To what extent are there objective and transparent criteria behind the designation? Can the United States still lead on global security issues with such distinct priorities compared to its allies? Does it want to? Regarding the future of designation, research tells us that sanctions work better when they are multilateral – generally, the more parties trying to punish an entity or prevent its actions, the more effective it will be. Thus, coordination among countries on terrorist designation is likely to be valuable. But global counter-terrorism will be difficult to sustain if countries’ priorities continue to separate.
icct.nl · Brian Phillips
9. US terminates agreements with Europe to help fight Russian disinformation and fake news
Excerpts:
But Republicans in Congress blocked efforts to extend the agency’s mandate, leading to its closure by the Trump administration in April.
Terminating the memoranda of understanding with European countries is the final step to closing the programme.
Darren Beattie, acting under-secretary for public diplomacy at the State Department, said: “Far from spiking a single plan, we were proud to spike the entire GEC. Not only was GEC’s infamous censorship activity profoundly misaligned with this administration’s pro-free speech position, it was woefully and embarrassingly ineffective on its own terms.”
Russia has been accused of malicious involvement in a series of elections both inside and outside Europe, most famously in the 2016 US election which saw Donald Trump elected for his first term.
According to the US Intelligence Community, Russia launched a “hacking and disinformation campaign” at the direct orders of president Vladimir Putin, in order to damage Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming president and help Trump take office in the White House.
Both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump denied that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election.
Since 2016, Moscow has appeared to make efforts to meddle in a series of elections across Europe, boosting the chances of parties and figures who are deemed pro-Russia, or at least take a far softer stance on Russia.
US terminates agreements with Europe to help fight Russian disinformation and fake news
independent.co.uk
US terminates agreements with Europe to help fight Russian disinformation and fake news | The Independent
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The US is set to step back from joint efforts to combat disinformation from countries including Russia, China, and Iran, according to European officials.
European countries received a notice from the State Department last week about the move, explaining that the US is terminating a memorandum of understanding which was signed in 2024 under President Joe Biden, the officials told The Financial Times.
The agreements had been created to form a unified approach to identifying and exposing harmful information from Russia, China and Iran, designed to sow chaos.
The initiative was run by the Global Engagement Centre (GEC), the State Department agency that tackled disinformation spread overseas by US adversaries and terror groups.
James Rubin, who led the GEC until December, described the move as a "unilateral act of disarmament" in the information war against Russia and China.
“Information warfare is a reality of our time and artificial intelligence is only going to multiply the risks from that,” he said.
The Trump administration has dismantled a number of agencies in government which had sought to protect the integrity of US elections and to combat foreign malign influence.
Donald Trump speaks at Washington’s Museum of the Bible on Monday September 8 2025 (AP)
After it was established in 2011 to counter violent extremism and terrorist propaganda online, the centre’s mission was expanded to include tracking and exposing disinformation campaigns.
But Republicans in Congress blocked efforts to extend the agency’s mandate, leading to its closure by the Trump administration in April.
Terminating the memoranda of understanding with European countries is the final step to closing the programme.
Darren Beattie, acting under-secretary for public diplomacy at the State Department, said: “Far from spiking a single plan, we were proud to spike the entire GEC. Not only was GEC’s infamous censorship activity profoundly misaligned with this administration’s pro-free speech position, it was woefully and embarrassingly ineffective on its own terms.”
Russia has been accused of malicious involvement in a series of elections both inside and outside Europe, most famously in the 2016 US election which saw Donald Trump elected for his first term.
According to the US Intelligence Community, Russia launched a “hacking and disinformation campaign” at the direct orders of president Vladimir Putin, in order to damage Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming president and help Trump take office in the White House.
Both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump denied that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election.
Since 2016, Moscow has appeared to make efforts to meddle in a series of elections across Europe, boosting the chances of parties and figures who are deemed pro-Russia, or at least take a far softer stance on Russia.
10. If the US Retreats to the Western Hemisphere, What Happens to Asia?
A strategic mistake that could possibly be unrecoverable.
If the US Retreats to the Western Hemisphere, What Happens to Asia?
There are strong indications Washington is moving toward hemispheric retrenchment. The consequences for the Asia-Pacific could be dramatic.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/09/if-the-us-retreats-to-the-western-hemisphere-what-happens-to-asia/?utm
By Denny Roy
September 12, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump announces his sweeping reciprocal tariffs at the White House in Washington, D.C., April 2, 2025.
Credit: Official White House Photo
U.S. grand strategy under the new Trump administration remains unsettled. There are strong indications Washington is moving toward a nascent hemispheric retrenchment approach. It is not yet clear, however, whether that would include a withdrawal of US strategic influence from the Asia-Pacific region. If so, the consequences for the region will be dramatic.
According to media reports, the Trump administration’s soon-to-be-released National Security Strategy breaks with recent practice by prioritizing homeland security and threats within the Western Hemisphere over countering China. This follows months of other statements and actions suggesting a desire to consolidate the United States’ control over its own geographic region, including interest in annexing Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal; renaming the “Gulf of America”; and dispatching U.S. Navy vessels to waters near the coast of Venezuela to intimidate the Maduro government.
The White House has also backed away from the United States’ accustomed postwar leadership role in Europe by distancing itself from NATO and showing little willingness to meaningfully punish Russian aggression against Ukraine. The U.S. government has decided to stop funding programs for building Europe’s capacity to defend against a possible attack from Russia. The movement toward a permanent NATO-U.S. separation is not based solely on policy disagreements, but also stems from an ideological schism.
In the Middle East, the Trump administration’s approach involves mostly diplomacy and economic deals. Despite the air strikes he ordered against Iran, the Trump team favors reduced U.S. military commitments. Indeed, his MAGA base is highly sensitive to any apparent departure from the promise to avoid another “forever war” in the Middle East.
Much of this is consistent with an intention to hunker down in the U.S. home region, stop playing global cop, and leave the management of strategic affairs in other regions to local major powers. But what about Asia, where the “prioritizers” insist the United States should continue to compete for strategic pre-eminence even while shedding commitments elsewhere?
U.S. policy in Asia still displays much continuity with the recent past. Security cooperation with friends and allies continues, including efforts to build their capacity to contribute to a coalition to oppose territorial expansionism by China. New agreements with Japan, South Korea, and Australia will help offset weaknesses in the United States’ shrunken defense industrial base. Senior officials including Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby have said the U.S. must continue to block Chinese attempts to dominate Asia.
Weaknesses are visible, however, in the Trump administration’s willingness to enforce the U.S.-sponsored regional order in Asia. Allies and security partners in the Asia-Pacific are potentially valuable strategic assets in this project. Yet the Trump administration often treats them as economic or strategic liabilities. Trump frequently speaks of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan as defense freeriders, but he rarely if ever acknowledges them as contributors to U.S. security.
He has spoken of increasing South Korea’s host nation support payments tenfold, believes South Korea-U.S. military exercises are a waste of money, and reportedly wants to withdraw all U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula. He seems anxious to remove any reason for North Korea to aim missiles at the United States.
Trump has also suggested that Taiwan is indefensible and that he would not send U.S. forces to intervene if China attempted to invade.
High tariffs against Asia-Pacific allies suggest a prioritization of economic interests over strategic considerations in U.S. grand strategy. Washington imposed a 10 percent base tariff rate on Australia despite a U.S. bilateral trade surplus, and rebuffed Canberra’s request for exemption from a 50 percent tariff on imported steel and aluminum. Japan and South Korea drew 15 percent tariffs, while Taiwan got 20 percent. All are countries Washington is pressuring to spend more money to strengthen their armed forces. Imports from the Philippines, which recently agreed to open four new military bases for U.S. use and to host two advanced U.S. missile systems, get charged a base 19 percent tariff. All of these U.S. tariff rates are much higher than the average rate of about 2 percent that prevailed immediately before Trump re-entered the White House.
Washington’s abrupt squabble with India trashed years of careful cultivation of a strategic partnership with a country that takes pride in its nonalignment but also sees China as a serious potential threat. For no apparent commensurate gain, the United States badly damaged the recently-revived Quad and literally drove Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the welcoming arms of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.
The U.S. government announced in June that it is reviewing the AUKUS agreement, signed by the Biden administration, for fidelity to the “America First” agenda. Under the agreement, the United States will build nuclear-powered attack submarines for purchase by Australia. The Australian government has already delivered a non-refundable down-payment of $1.6 billion in investment in U.S. shipbuilding capacity. Colby is leading the review. He is on record as saying the United States builds so few submarines that it cannot spare any for Australia.
Most importantly, a withdrawal of U.S. strategic influence from the Asia-Pacific region is possible because of Trump’s desire to reach a blockbuster bilateral trade agreement with China, something he tried but failed to do with his “Phase One” deal in 2020. Dangling the possibility of ending U.S. practices such as “freedom of navigation” patrols in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, surveillance flights near the Chinese coast, and especially arms sales and other forms of support for Taiwan would give Trump huge leverage to demand concessions from China that he could sell to his domestic supporters as a major victory for the United States.
If the hemispheric retrenchment policy prevails over prioritizing China, some results are foreseeable.
The most likely and immediate result would be China annexing Taiwan within a few years, either by Taipei agreeing to Beijing’s demand for a negotiated unification or by Taiwan succumbing to Chinese military pressure, most likely a long and gradually escalating blockade. This outcome, a tragedy for Taiwan, would also accelerate other states in eastern Asia concluding that the era of U.S. leadership was over and that accommodating China was their best option.
The next most likely outcome would be the discontinuation of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, loss of confidence in the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and Seoul opting to develop and deploy its own nuclear weapons arsenal. A majority of the South Korean public already favors taking this step. South Korea would face significant barriers, including large financial costs, international criticism for proliferating, and a possible cutoff of the imported fuel for reactors that produce one-third of the country’s electricity. Nevertheless, existing under a permanent and unanswered nuclear threat from North Korea – which recently declared that it now considers South Korea a separate, enemy state and is no longer interested in reunification – would prove intolerable.
The decision by Seoul to acquire a nuclear arsenal would open a window of even higher tensions with North Korea. The circumstances would require Pyongyang to consider a preventive strike to set back or dissuade the South’s march toward a nuclear capability. With the U.S. nuclear umbrella gone, the North Korean government might conclude it could strike with impunity. The likelihood that South Korea getting nukes would compel Japan to follow suit would compound Pyongyang’s motivation to strike first.
Finally, regardless of the state of inter-Korean relations at the time, the withdrawal of a U.S. commitment to help defend Japan would almost certainly result in Japan going nuclear rather than accepting total Chinese escalation dominance.
Chinese Communist Party rhetoric maintains that Asia would be more peaceful after a withdrawal of U.S. military influence. There is a possibility of that proposition being tested in the near future. The aim of a grand strategy of hemispheric retrenchment would be to prevent the United States from paying for other countries’ security. Other regions would sort out which countries dominate and are dominated, while Americans would focus on commerce rather than using military power to shape the global strategic environment beyond the (expanded) homeland. The assumption is this approach would result in a world peaceful enough for unhindered trade and unlikely to threaten the U.S. homeland.
Given what happened last century, that gamble is problematic.
Authors
Guest Author
Denny Roy
Denny Roy is a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu who specializes in Asia-Pacific security issues.
11. Trump’s ‘War Department’ faces first big test in the Far East
Conclusion:
The wild card, as usual, is Trump. Priding himself as a man of peace, he’s talked about reducing the number of American troops in both Korea and Japan while bargaining for both countries to contribute more toward the costs of American defense. If renaming the Department of Defense is to mean anything, he may eventually have to demonstrate America’s vaunted military might in a region where conflict, once it begins, would be far bloodier than what are still “limited wars” confined to Gaza and Ukraine.
Trump’s ‘War Department’ faces first big test in the Far East
by Donald Kirk, opinion contributor - 09/12/25 3:00 PM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/5501224-china-russia-north-korea-alliance/?utm
President Trump’s decision to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War seems to conflict with his boast to have resolved up to seven different wars in his campaign to win a Nobel Peace Prize. The name change actually changes nothing in the U.S. defense posture, but it does fortify the image that Trump would like to convey of an incredibly strong American military machine — so strong that no foreign leader would dare to challenge it. The stronger the United States appears militarily, the less likely any foreign power would doubt American supremacy. Peace, then, according to this logic, will prevail.
So far, however, the United States has not had to respond militarily to the worst threats to peace — not in eastern Europe, despite the war in Ukraine, and not in the Middle East, as Israel goes on obliterating Gaza.
The worst danger, however, is that of the three leaders who sat side by side at the great “Victory Day” parade in Beijing: the host, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and his top two guests, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un. The fact that Xi placed Kim in such a place of honor showed China’s enduring support of the same regime that it rushed to defend in the Korean War.
The man who ruled China then, Mao Zedong, had just completed the takeover of the Chinese mainland by his Red Army. Xi, by far the strongest Chinese leader since the era of Maoist rule, is fully capable of supporting Kim in a second Korean War. Putin, the most enduring Russian leader since Joseph Stalin, would almost certainly ally with Xi, as did Mao and Stalin. Kim, having sent about 15,000 troops along with thousands of artillery shells and other weaponry to Russia to support its campaign in Ukraine, counts on Moscow to support him as in the first Korean War, after Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, installed by the Russians in 1945, decided to invade South Korea five years later.
All that’s holding the Chinese, Russians and North Koreans back right now is the fear of a regional war in which they would risk heavy losses without much of a chance of winning. Trump, for all the big talk from him and “War Department” Secretary Pete Hegseth, has so far shown no sign of strengthening America’s defenses in the region. Rather, he has appeared inclined to weaken U.S. treaties with South Korea and Japan, talking of his “love” for Kim, with whom he believes he might be able to arrange yet another meeting in the near future.
But Kim does not “need” Trump as he did in 2018 and 2019 when he agreed to two summits. The first of the two, in Singapore, wound up with a vapid statement that clearly did nothing to advance the American demand for the North to give up its nuclear program, and the second, in Hanoi, ended disastrously when Trump cut off dialogue after Kim made clear he would keep his nukes and missiles. With Xi and Putin now totally on his side, Kim can afford to ignore Trump’s entreaties for a meaningless talkfest that almost certainly would produce no substantive results. Why should he bother?
The lines in east Asia, after the Beijing victory show featuring its military might, are now drawn more sharply than ever. Facing the two giant powers and their enthusiastic protectorate, the United States counts on Japan, a sleeping giant with a numerically small number of men and women under arms but a technologically advanced military establishment, and South Korea, a major arms exporter. Moving down the island chain, Taiwan and the Philippines also face China in separate standoffs in which unrelenting U.S. support is needed if they are to survive. South Korea, always fearful of upsetting China, its greatest trading partner, wants no part of the defense of either of them, but Japan sees their freedom and independence as vital to regional security.
The wild card, as usual, is Trump. Priding himself as a man of peace, he’s talked about reducing the number of American troops in both Korea and Japan while bargaining for both countries to contribute more toward the costs of American defense. If renaming the Department of Defense is to mean anything, he may eventually have to demonstrate America’s vaunted military might in a region where conflict, once it begins, would be far bloodier than what are still “limited wars” confined to Gaza and Ukraine.
Donald Kirk has been a journalist for more than 60 years, focusing much of his career on conflict in Asia and the Middle East, including as a correspondent for the Washington Star and Chicago Tribune. He is currently a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea, and is the author of several books about Asian affairs.
12. America’s Greatest Threat Comes From Within
Discourse between two political and ideological opposites done well. Attack ideas not people.
America’s Greatest Threat Comes From Within
A conversation with former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
By Garry Kasparov
The Atlantic · Garry Kasparov · September 12, 2025
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In the fight to save democracies from the grips of autocrats, defenders of democratic values must partner with people who would otherwise be their political opponents. In this episode, host Garry Kasparov seeks to demonstrate this lesson by welcoming former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan as his guest. Their long-held and many disagreements aside, Garry and Jake find common ground in standing up to the forces that are working to undermine the rule of law and endanger American democracy.
The following is a transcript of the episode:
[Music]
Garry Kasparov: In a fight as important as the one to save American democracy from the grips of would-be autocrats and dictators, we must partner with people who would otherwise be our political opponents. We must welcome them to the cause and put aside other disagreements, at least for the time being.
This is a lesson dissidents in unfree places understand well, but not one that comes easy to Americans. It is a lesson I hope to personally demonstrate in today’s episode.
From The Atlantic, this is Autocracy in America. I’m Garry Kasparov.
[Music]
My guest today is Jake Sullivan, the former National Security Adviser for President Joe Biden, and before that, a top adviser to Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state and when she ran for president.
My disagreements with him are too numerous to detail in full, but I will offer this summary. Sullivan and the presidential administrations he has worked for have too often failed to understand and predict the threats facing the world and misjudged what those threats mean for America and its democracy. They have been flat-footed time and again in Afghanistan, in Ukraine, in the Middle East. The list goes on.
In 2023, I called for congressional hearings into Sullivan’s leadership at the National Security Council, and I even wrote that Biden should fire him to be replaced with someone who understood the meaning of deterrence. But even with all those many disagreements, Jake and I still see eye to eye on the threat to American democracy, and that’s why I asked him to join me for this conversation.
[Music]
Kasparov: Hello, Jake. Welcome to the show.
Jake Sullivan: Hi, Garry. Thank you for having me.
Kasparov: I want to first say thank you very much for accepting my invitation to speak, given that you know I was one of your fiercest critics and that I’m about to ask you some very difficult questions. Thank you for your courage, which is so important and necessary now as we face challenges that may feel insurmountable.
I, of course, want to ask you to analyze the war in Ukraine as it stands now, but first let’s add some context to the conversation. Let’s go back to the early 2000s. Vladimir Putin rose to power, and every subsequent U.S. president has had to deal with him. Tell me how you view America’s foreign policy, specifically its Russia policy in this quarter century.
Sullivan: Well, what’s clear is that Vladimir Putin has become an increasing menace to his neighbors, to the world, to his people, and neither the United States nor anyone else has been able to reverse that trend. And it is certainly the case over the course of the past quarter century that President Putin, Vladimir Putin has just kept growing his appetite for death and destruction, disruption. And I think it’s fair to say that the sum total of U.S. policy from the late ’90s through the 2000s and the 2010s was not able to turn that around.
Kasparov: Let’s go back to the early days of Vladimir Putin’s rise. Why does every new administration seem to fall into the same mistake with Putin, negotiating with him as though he’s someone who would keep his word?
Sullivan: Well, it’s harder for me to speak—I wasn’t in the Clinton administration or the Bush administration. I did serve at the State Department and then as National Security Adviser to then–Vice President Biden during the [Barack] Obama administration. And of course the Obama administration had the reset [in Russia]. That was when you had President [Dmitry] Medvedev technically leading the country, though of course we knew that Vladimir Putin remained the power behind the throne.
Interestingly, Garry, when I was the director of policy planning at the State Department from 2011 to 2013—and thanks, actually, to some really, really smart Russia experts on my team—I actually produced a memo for Secretary Clinton in 2012 that basically said, This is going to go in a very dark direction as President Putin comes back to power, and we have to be ready for a very aggressive and assertive Russia.
And in fact, Secretary Clinton ended up sending her own memo over to the White House, essentially making that case at the end of 2012. That was when, watching Putin come back into power, that I really saw the threat and challenge that he posed. And I put that down on paper and made my views clear at the time.
Kasparov: You mentioned Hillary Clinton and the reset policy, the failed reset policy. So I was always wondering, and maybe you can tell us a secret. Whose idea was it for Hillary Clinton to give a reset button to her counterpart, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, in 2009?
Sullivan: (Laughs.) Well, that was not mine. You know, that’s not for me to say. That’s for others to say. All I could say is it was not my idea. But that was a policy that Secretary Clinton was carrying out, of course. The original concept of the reset had emerged in the transition, then was enunciated by the White House, and then of course carried forward by the State Department as well.
Kasparov: So then you moved to the White House to work with then–Vice President Biden. And that was the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine. So I understand that Vice President Biden wanted Obama to give at least some lethal attack weapons to Ukraine, like the Javelin anti-tank weapon. What was your advice to Biden?
Sullivan: Well, of course, I’m very careful not to share my private advice to principals. I think it’s important that I not do that. What I can say is that [then–Vice] President Biden was very clear about his view that the United States should step forward and supply that defensive assistance, defensive equipment to Ukraine at the time. And of course, President Obama didn’t agree and chose a different course, but that was the advice coming out of the office of the vice president.
Kasparov: Okay. Now, we can miss four years of [Donald] Trump’s presidency. I still want to ask you: How do you evaluate Trump’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia and Ukraine at the time?
Sullivan: I think basically President Trump was focused on just trying to maintain a decent relationship with President Putin, for reasons I don’t fully understand. And I think he had people working for him who were very active in wanting to support Ukraine. And I think steps like the provision of Javelins were good. But writ large, I felt that his approach vis-à-vis Putin, as we saw on display in Helsinki, for example, was one that Secretary Clinton had predicted, which is him basically cozying up to President Putin in ways that I did not think advanced U.S. interests.
What’s fascinating, though, is that he has been prepared to take very tough action against friends. He’s been prepared to take very tough action against competitors, like the 145 percent tariffs on China. But at no point has he been prepared to take tough action against Putin’s Russia. Even when he applied tariffs across the board—almost every country in the world, even Ukraine, for goodness sake—he did not impose tariffs on Russia. It is a very strange, consistent feature of his approach to foreign policy that Putin tends to get a pass.
Kasparov: Okay. Now go back to your tenure as the National Security Adviser. So you are in the office, and at what point do you recognize that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine would be inevitable?
Sullivan: I don’t know about inevitable, but we were concerned about the possibility of an invasion of Ukraine in the spring.
Kasparov: Spring 2021?
Sullivan: Yes, in the spring of 2021, the large buildup of Russian forces. Actually one of the reasons that President Biden met with President Putin in a summit in Geneva in the summer was because there had been a big buildup of forces on the border of Ukraine that spring, and it certainly didn’t look like a drill.
Kasparov: So what are the results of this summit, and why are you convinced that Putin would attack Ukraine?
Sullivan: Part of the purpose of those was to lay out what the consequences would be with respect to A) the economic sanctions we would impose, B) the support we would provide Ukraine, and C) the way in which we would rally the world against Russia. And President Biden made no bones about that. He laid all that out for President Putin to let him know that this is what would unfold. So we made an effort, of course, which was not successful, to avert, to head off—even though we knew it was a long shot.
Kasparov: No, it seems that he was not impressed by the consequences.
Sullivan: Well, not impressed by the consequences, or simply—as many of our Russia experts in the intelligence community noted—determined to invade Ukraine no matter the cost. And of course, as we see today, with more than a million Russian dead and wounded and the economy under massive pressure, and Russia having mortgaged its future, he is still determined, because this is something that President Putin has decided is the most important thing for him to do.
Kasparov: Jake, I see the little gap in the story, because if you were convinced back in June, July 2021 that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was very likely, if not inevitable, and then—
Sullivan: Sorry, no. I didn’t say in June, July we thought an invasion was likely or inevitable. Sorry, I’m not making that claim. What I’m saying is that the risks—the concern over what Putin would do with respect to Ukraine was present in March and April, because he did a huge buildup. We had the summit; had no real outcomes on Ukraine. So the concern remained—where’s this all going? But it wasn’t until we saw the intelligence in the fall that we became convinced that this was going to happen.
Kasparov: Okay. Fall. But then, why did the United States decide not to provide Ukraine with any lethal weapons in this period? You still had four, five months to beef up Ukrainian defenses.
Sullivan: As I recall, we did provide Ukraine with defensive assistance that fall.
Kasparov: It’s what? Javelins and Stingers? I mean, it’s not any heavy weapons that could have been very useful, facing a Russian invasion.
Sullivan: Well, I think in fact the Javelins and Stingers were what helped the incredible and brave Ukrainian defenders save Kyiv.
Kasparov: Throughout the war—so this is 2022—Ukrainians, demonstrating heroism and determination, survived, defended Kyiv, inflicted huge losses to the Russian force attack in Kyiv. It was a big victory. Liberated territories near Kyiv. And then they had a massive counterattack in August 2022. And then there was the moment in 2023, in June: the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive that unfortunately did not work. So tell us why the United States was always very slow in providing Ukraine with more weapons that, as we know, were available.
Sullivan: You know, Garry, I’ve heard this critique obviously many times, including from you. And I’d like to divide between two elements, just so we’re at least on the same page with what the argument is. And then we can respectfully disagree, or maybe we come to agreement.
One is that we were slow generally in supplying weapons. The other is there were certain weapons systems that we were slow in providing. The way you just put the question, it made it sound like we just were slow in giving them stuff generally. I don’t accept that at all. I think we moved incredibly rapidly to supply at speed and scale a massive amount of military equipment to Ukraine, far beyond what anyone would’ve expected when the war broke out in February.
And in fact, we built an efficient pipeline in Poland that not only supplied American military equipment but was able to draw in military equipment from around the world and supply it. So that by the time the counter-offensive started in June, everything that had been agreed between the U.S. military and the Ukrainian military in terms of their needs was provided. So I would just disagree with the premise of the question in that regard.
Then we can talk about the particular weapon systems that are the source of criticism, one of which was the A1 Abrams tanks. And there, basically, our military said these tanks are not going to be useful. They don’t—they need Bradleys, which we supplied at at great scale. Those are a much more effective fighting vehicle than the Abrams. But to this day, Garry, the Abrams have never been a particularly useful or central weapon in this war. So that’s the Abrams.
Then there are the F-16s. President Biden approved the F-16 transfers in May of 2023. You and I are talking here in September of 2025, more than two years later. And there’s really only a handful of these planes in Ukraine, and that’s because it’s very hard to build an air force, which was the argument our military was making against doing it: Put the money and the effort toward other systems that you can actually get in, because you’re not going to be able to build the whole F-16 air force in Ukraine.
And then of course there was the issue of the ATACMs [Army Tactical Missile Systems]. And on the ATACMs, what the Pentagon consistently argued was, We have a limited number of these. We need to keep a certain reserve for America’s combatant commands, and we just don’t have enough to give Ukraine for it to make a material difference on the front line in the battlefield. That was an argument that they consistently made. Eventually, we were able to give them; they were used. And they were used to good effect operationally, but obviously they’re not a silver bullet for changing the course of the war. And so I think there has been an overemphasis on these particular weapon systems at the expense of looking at the full suite of material. Every single dollar Congress gave us we spent, on time and in full, to push weapons into Ukraine. And we were, in my view, really resourceful in doing so. And we went way beyond just the kinds of things that were on the front page of the paper on a given month. In fact, from the beginning we played a critical role and helped stand up Ukraine’s drone program that now is operating to such good effect.
We sourced and developed entirely new capabilities that had never been fielded before to transfer to Ukraine. I was holding a meeting every single day in my office, basically trying to figure out how we could get more, faster, better to Ukraine, and I did that from the first day to the last.
Am I satisfied? No. I would’ve obviously liked to get more money from Congress, give more stuff to Ukraine. But I think that there has been a kind of view among a certain group of critics that somehow we were sitting there, holding back, being cautious, not providing. And frankly, I just don’t think the record actually reflects that, or the enormous effort that was put into this coordinated from the NSC.
Kasparov: Did Russians explicitly threaten to use nukes?
Sullivan: Well, you saw them publicly, constantly—
Kasparov: I’m talking about conversations. Public stories are one level. But was the threat used in the negotiations between your team and the Russian counterparts?
Sullivan: Well, we didn’t have, really, negotiations with our Russian counterparts.
Kasparov: Okay, conversations.
Sullivan: But yes, we did have engagements with them. I would say they were not saying to us, Hey, we’re about to use nuclear weapons. What the most senior people at the CIA and the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] presented to the president was that if there was a catastrophic collapse of Russian lines, it was a coin flip as to whether Russia would use tactical nuclear weapons to respond to that. That was the information given to President Biden. That’s what he had to contend with in terms of the risk. And that was based on, well, it was based on things I can’t go into in this podcast.
Kasparov: Okay. Now we are where we are now. September 2025. And the war keeps going on; more people are being killed. So what do you expect?
Sullivan: I guess there’s a difference between what I hope and what I expect, because I’m just not sure what to expect, honestly, from President Trump. I don’t know if he’ll follow through and finally impose pressure. But there’s an obvious road map here, and the road map is that the Russian economy is very weak, and oil markets are pretty permissive. And that means there is room to really squeeze Russian oil revenues in a way that puts a hurt on Putin’s pocketbook. And I think if we combine that with a further surge of military assistance to Ukraine, we can create the conditions in which a real negotiation for a real, just, and sustainable peace could take place. That’s what I would like to see happen.
Kasparov: I remember that in August 2023, I was in Denmark. I met the Danish foreign minister and his team, and I asked them why Denmark was so shy not to shut these two key straits controlled by Denmark that are vital for Russia’s oil export, because more than half of Russia’s oil export goes through the north. And after giving me some nonsense about the WTO, they just ended up saying, Look, we can’t do it because Americans don’t want to see oil prices going up.
Sullivan: I can tell you, Garry, I don’t recall any conversations with the Danes about closing the straits and stopping all Russian ships going through.
Kasparov: But what about—
Sullivan: I don’t know if that happened somewhere else, but I don’t remember that. However, I will acknowledge—I have acknowledged publicly before, as have others—that the reason that we didn’t impose all of the sanctions that we could on Russia’s oil program was because we had to balance sustaining American support to provide weapons to Ukraine with taking money away from Russia. And if you tell Americans Your gas prices are gonna go up by $2, $3, $4 [a] gallon, then, you know, our judgment—not my personal judgment, but the administration’s judgment—was that that would crater U.S. support for the war.
Those are the kinds of hard decisions you have to make if you’re president. You’re looking at this, you’re saying, I’m gonna need to continue to ask the Congress and the American people for tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine. And if I’m creating a policy that is hitting Americans hard in their pocketbook, I’m not likely to be able to achieve that.
So it wasn’t actually until late in ’24—remember in ’22, ’23, oil prices were really high, the oil market was really tight. By the end of ’24, the oil market had become a lot more slack. And so President Biden said, Let’s go. Let’s tighten oil sanctions. Because he was trying to put the maximum amount of pressure on Russia without creating the kind of backlash in a democracy in the United States that could leave Ukraine without the support that it would need ongoing. And that’s part of the reason I said that it’s not just that Russia’s economy is weak right now. It’s in fact that the oil market is permissive. We could do this without harming the American people while hurting the Putin war machine. And that’s why the moment is ripe for this to happen, and I hope it does happen.
[Music]
Kasparov: We’ll be right back.
[Break]
Kasparov: Okay, so I want to ask a key geopolitical question. It’s about American isolationism. It is a strain of thought that has run through the last decades. Obama saying he would end foreign wars. Trump, of course, was America First and, again, ending all the wars. Biden to a great extent as well, in my view. Now Trump again. Can America afford this isolationist instinct? Is it a self-destructive policy?
Sullivan: Well, it depends on what you mean by isolationism. If what you mean is this kind of, you know, We have no responsibility for anything in the world, we shun our friends, we don’t stand up to bullies, all that kind of thing, then no. We can’t afford that. If what you’re saying is, can we effectively pursue a principled foreign policy without putting the U.S., and U.S. men and women, directly at war? I do believe there is a way to proceed without ending up in deep and extended military entanglements overseas, while discharging our responsibilities to our own people and to the cause of a more just, more free, more prosperous world as well.
So what I would like to see is investments in the sources of American strength and power, including military power, so that we can deter wars, so that we can have strong allies, and so that we can effectively win the competition against our competitors and adversaries, so that the world works for us rather than against us. And that does require an active, engaged America—not an isolated America, not this kind of America alone, America F everybody approach that President Trump is taking.
Kasparov: But a couple weeks ago, we saw the demonstration of the unity of nondemocratic leaders—okay, authoritarian. Call it brotherhood, Dictators Inc., led by Xi Jinping. So clearly he’s calling the mantle of the global leader of this anti-Western alliance. Is it the result of the vacuum created by the United States?
Sullivan: To be honest with you, I think in many ways it’s the result of the United States pulling together the free world. Why did Xi start going down this road? It’s because he saw President Biden rally NATO, grow NATO, add Finland and Sweden, rally Japan and South Korea. An unprecedented level of military and other forms of cooperation. And link Europe and Asia. And then, of course, deepen the relationship with India. Xi looks at all of that and says, I need an answer to this, to a certain extent. So do I think that there is a real competition underway? I do. Do I believe that if we stick with our strategy of rallying like-minded democracies across every dimension—defense, technology, economics, supply chains, you name it—that we have the winning hand? I really do believe that.
And I think the hand we passed on to Trump—alliances at all-time high in Europe and Asia—what he’s chosen to do with that in the last eight months is a whole other deal, and I think it has made the Chinese in particular look and say, Holy cow. He’s doing our work for us. And I think that that’s a shame, because I think that works really strongly to America’s strategic disadvantage.
Kasparov: Now, I want to shift from foreign policy back to domestic issues, because all the issues we argue about, all the disagreements, they pale in comparison to the challenge of the threat to American democracy. One question I can’t avoid asking: Was it a mistake for President Biden to declare that he would run again instead of looking for a more viable candidate to oppose Donald Trump?
Sullivan: Well, I think it’s important to divide between two issues that I think have gotten very much conflated. One is, should President Biden have run again? I mean, he left the race, so obviously no, he shouldn’t have run again. The other is, did I have concerns about him actually doing the job of president while he was president? No, I did not. But the way things played out, obviously he left the race, and—
Kasparov: But was it too late?
Sullivan: Yes, and I think that answers your question.
Kasparov: Okay. So that’s too late. And the mood in the administration? I mean, it’s this—how did the team, you and others surrounding President Biden, evaluate the chance of Donald Trump coming back and causing this tremendous damage both to American democracy and to global stability?
Sullivan: Look, we were extremely concerned about it. And, just to take one example, what it would mean for the war in Ukraine. When President Trump was elected, we had 78 days to surge equipment into Ukraine as rapidly and fully as we possibly could. But as soon as President Trump was reelected, I was deeply concerned, because they had laid out a playbook in Project 2025 and beyond—saying the kinds of things they were gonna do to chip away, not just at the institutions of democracy in America, but at many of the things that are America’s fundamental enduring strengths and qualities. Our ability to attract talent, our innovation ecosystem, even our manufacturing base, where we’ve actually lost manufacturing jobs over the course of the past several months.
Kasparov: Okay. Jake, you were at the NSA [National Security Agency]. You know much more about the global threats to America than almost anyone. Do you agree that the greatest threat to American security now comes from within?
Sullivan: I do. Yes.
Kasparov: So tell me about the threats as you see them.
Sullivan: Look, we face real threats and challenges from abroad. Deep, long-term strategic competition with China, the threat that Russia poses, the threat that North Korea poses. And then there are threats like the climate crisis and nuclear proliferation, pandemics, and the like. But we ourselves are our greatest threat. That is, you know, us turning on the things that made our country great. And that starts with the foundational principle of the rule of law. When that gets challenged, everything’s up for grabs.
And all of the elements that have made America the most dynamic, the most prosperous, the most innovative, the most free nation in the world—each of the pillars that built that are being chipped away at systematically. And that is so much greater a threat to the long-term health and vitality of the American way of life than anything that emanates from abroad.
Kasparov: I believe that people around Donald Trump are openly preparing to seize power in the midterm elections. It may not be free and fair elections, for the first time in American history. So how do you see this challenge of the 2026 election season, where I’m afraid that the FBI and DOJ could play a crucial role in securing the result Donald Trump wants to see?
Sullivan: I think that it is imperative on everyone—whatever your platform, whatever your voice—to speak out on the essential principle of a free and fair election in 2026, and to call out every step that is taken, that goes in the wrong direction as far as that’s concerned. And I think we should be collectively pushing back against any effort to stack the deck or unlevel the playing field or do even more extreme things. And that’s not just the candidates or the party that needs to do that. That is everyone. And I think, especially, it’s important to pin down people in the president’s own party to say what’s too far. I think we’ve already gone too far in many respects, but there has not been pushback from the Republican party. And so I think there should be a constant question to members of Congress, senators, governors who are Republican, to draw some line, say No, you will not allow it to go beyond this. And I think that work has to start now.
Kasparov: Do you think the Democratic Party is properly equipped to do the job?
Sullivan: I think that the jury is out right now. We don’t know. Do I think that there are a sufficient number of really smart, dedicated, competent people who could, if they were empowered and stepped up? Do we have it within ourselves—not just the Democratic Party, but all of those folks who are concerned about what might come to pass? Do we have the tools? Do we have the capacity? We do. We just need to make sure that we exercise it effectively in pushing back against the backsliding, the democratic backsliding that we’re seeing.
Kasparov: Are you optimistic?
Sullivan: You know, I’ve said this before, but I’m Sullivan. I’m Irish. It is said of Irish people that we have an abiding sense of tragedy that sustains us through temporary periods of joy. So I’m never very optimistic about anything. But my abiding sense of tragedy, on the one hand, and my concern about what I’m seeing is, to a certain extent, offset by a genuinely deep belief in the American people: that they’re not going to tolerate a dramatic effort to upend our democracy. They’re just not gonna tolerate it, and that that will ultimately be a break. But it’s not good enough just to assert that. Everyone’s gotta do the work.
Kasparov: Now, back to Trump. Trump doesn’t have a vision, in my view. It’s just, it’s all transactional. But Trumpism as a concept offers a vision—a wrong one, but it’s a vision. So what is your vision? What to do with Europe, with China, with Russia? Say you come back in 2028: What’s the right course for America to recover from all the failures and all the mistakes made since the end of the Cold War? So make the case for how it will be better than it was when Biden was president or Obama was president. Or, of course, much better than when Trump was president.
Sullivan: So I think that there are a few basic elements, and it’s all about the execution. No. 1: We need to invest in the sources of our own strength. We need to make sure that we fully rebuild our industrial capacity. And we made strides in the Biden administration, real strides that we hadn’t seen in a long time. But it wasn’t enough, and it was because we faced all kinds of bureaucratic and technical obstacles to really finish the job.
No. 2: We gotta overhaul our defense-industrial base, drag it into the 21st century in a real way. Again, we made some progress in the Biden administration. I think we arrested the decline, but we didn’t build up everything we needed to. And that’s a long-term project. We need to rebuild our innovation ecosystem—which Trump is destroying by going at universities and science funding and the like—so that we continue to have the most dynamic and innovative economy in the world. If the United States is tending to the sources of its own strength at home, we are going to be a very powerful nation in the world. So that’s one.
Two, we need to get back in the game when it comes to strong, robust, diversified alliances. And I think if we do that, then we’re playing with a hand that is much stronger than our authoritarian competitors and adversaries are.
And so for me, it’s executing those elements in a full-throated, robust, and effective way. And then finally, the U.S. has to get back in the game of mobilizing collective action across a range of countries to get after these underlying dynamics like the climate crisis, like AI risk, like the possibility of a future pandemic that’s even worse than COVID-19. And we’ve got to be at the head of the table in organizing a collective effort to make those risks—to reduce them so they don’t come to bite Americans down the road.
That’s how I see an effective foreign policy. And, from my perspective, a piece of that is making sure that we have built up our deterrent and defensive capabilities in Europe and Asia, but that we’ve asked our allies to step up to do their part. And part of it is that we’ve built a technology ecosystem among like-minded countries so that technology works for us rather than against us, and that China’s not writing the rules of technology for the rest of this century and beyond.
So that’s what I would argue for. And I think that that is within our grasp. And I actually think it’s what most Americans want, at the end of the day—something rooted in their interests, but enlightened self-interest. That is, we all do better if we all do better working in common cause with other countries who share our values. And that’s exactly what Trump has torn up out of the playbook and I think that we have to put back together.
Kasparov: Just a couple of questions, to clarify. So would you demand the reform of the United Nations? In my view, it’s an outdated institution that has to be reformed.
Sullivan: That’s a complicated question. It operates on consensus and in some cases, on veto in other cases. But no, I’m not gonna say that the U.N. as currently constructed is fit for purpose, and it could use an update and overhaul.
Kasparov: And what about NATO?
Sullivan: Well, one thing I think that NATO has to do, which we took a lot of strides forward on, in my view, is think about security in a very holistic way. So we really introduced cyber as a critical component of NATO. It hadn’t been there very much before President Biden came in. Thinking about issues like defense-industrial base coordination—how are we all collectively going to have the magazine depth so that we can credibly fight and win a war? And because we can credibly fight and win a war, we can deter a war. We need NATO to think about broader supply-chain resilience in everything from critical minerals to semiconductors so that we’re not exposed to being squeezed by China or anybody else. So I think NATO needs to have a more holistic picture of security, and a greater degree of resilience against the type of hybrid warfare and gray-zone activities that we see from the Russians and, increasingly, from other adversaries, as well. All of that I think we took steps on, but we didn’t get far enough, and there’s a lot more to do.
Kasparov: Will you take Ukraine into NATO?
Sullivan: Well, we said at the end of the Biden administration—of course, the Trump administration has essentially taken that off the table—that Ukraine’s future is in NATO. And I stand by that.
Kasparov: And will you offer ironclad guarantees to, say, Baltic nations—that they will be protected by all-American military might if Russia crosses the border?
Sullivan: That’s what Article V says.
Kasparov: And yeah, Article V is still a piece of paper.
Sullivan: It needs to mean that. It needs to mean that without any question whatsoever, coming and going. Absolute sacred obligation to follow through on Article V.
Kasparov: So a new administration, a new Democratic administration in 2028, very likely will bring America back, and with all the commitments. And will not be shy of using force if necessary. Correct?
Sullivan: Well, I cannot predict what a new Democratic administration will do by any stretch.
Kasparov: No, no, no. We’re talking about the vision of Jake Sullivan. I believe you will play a role in formulating these new concepts. Probably one of the most renowned experts in the party. So would you suggest that America will play this leading role and will not be shy of using force if necessary to protect the allies and the global stability?
Sullivan: I think that we need to send a clear message that when we make a security guarantee to a country through Article V—whether in the NATO context or our allies in Asia—that we will follow through on it coming and going, and that we mean business. And I think the most important thing in that is not the assertion. It’s having the capacity through our defense-industrial base, through our technology, and through the strength and robustness and burden-sharing of our alliances, that we can make that a very credible and real deterrent.
[Music]
Kasparov: I think we should close with reflection about how people who find themselves at odds with one another politically should still find common ground in supporting the values that will preserve our democracy. And it would seem that you and I found ourselves in this particular situation. Thank you very much for joining the show, Jake, and good luck.
Sullivan: Thank you, Garry. And thank you for everything that you’re doing day in, day out to fight for the values you love in this country that we both love.
Kasparov: This episode of Autocracy in America was produced by Arlene Arevalo. Our editor is Dave Shaw. Original music by Rob Smierciak. Mix by Erica Huang. Fact-checking by Ena Alvarado. Special thanks to Polina Kasparova and Mig Greengard. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio. Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Next time on Autocracy in America:
Bret Stephens: We’ve moved from a world where the difference is between liberal and conservative to a world where the difference is between liberal and illiberal. Because I think the Republican party, to a great extent, has become an illiberal party, not a conservative party. There’s an important distinction.
Kasparov: I’m Garry Kasparov. See you back here next week.
The Atlantic · Garry Kasparov · September 12, 2025
13. Taiwan’s Squandered Defensive Potential
Conclusion:
Donald Trump’s presidency creates both pressure and opportunity for reform. Many Taiwanese officials fear that absent a serious commitment to self-defense, Trump will simply abandon the island. That anxiety provides political cover for overdue changes — and Washington should use its leverage strategically. Instead of tolerating Taipei’s symbolic provocations, the United States should publicly disavow President Lai’s recent “country” comments and make clear its opposition to Taiwanese independence while selling only weapons suited for asymmetric defense — mobile air defenses, drones, and coastal- and anti-ship missile systems that make a Chinese invasion costly and uncertain. These steps would reduce tensions with Beijing, steer Taipei toward building a credible defense, and help create a Taiwan capable of denying China a quick victory — far more secure than one reliant on U.S. intervention and less likely to draw America into a devastating war.
Taiwan’s Squandered Defensive Potential • Stimson Center
Taiwan touts an asymmetric defense, but outdated thinking and mismanagement of its natural advantages undermine the island’s security
stimson.org · · September 11, 2025
In his June 22 speech, President Lai Ching-te declared, “Of course, Taiwan is a country,” asserting the island’s sovereignty while stopping short of a formal declaration of independence. Beijing responded with predictable fury, with People’s Daily denouncing the speech as a “Taiwan independence” provocation that falsified history and promoted separatist ideas. Lai is playing a dangerous game, provoking China with bold rhetoric even as Taiwan’s military remains unready to face the fallout.
During a research trip to Taipei in late June 2025, we conducted extensive interviews with Taiwanese defense officials, retired flag officers, defense analysts, and security experts. What emerged was a troubling portrait of strategic misalignment — an island blessed with natural defensive advantages but undermined by conventional military thinking, inadequate preparations, and a lax disposition. These advantages are significant. As our colleagues MacKenna Rawlins and Dan Grazier argue, Taiwan possesses favorable geography for an asymmetric defense, including mountainous terrain, extensive rice paddies, and urbanized coastal areas, all of which complicate invasion by creating natural obstacles and logistical challenges for an attacking force.
Yet our conversations revealed a striking gap between rhetoric and reality: While Taiwan often invokes “asymmetric defense” to reassure American audiences, its defense establishment — especially the Ministry of Defense — remains wedded to conventional planning, leaving the island’s natural advantages largely untapped and fostering problematic dependencies on external support. The United States should make clear that it will not assume the burden of Taiwan’s mistakes.
Porcupine Promises, Legacy Plans
Defense experts broadly agree that Taiwan should pursue an asymmetric approach — the so-called “porcupine strategy” — to deter and, if necessary, defend against a Chinese invasion. Attempting to match China ship-for-ship or jet-for-jet would be prohibitively expensive and ineffective given China’s numerical advantage. Those expensive legacy platforms would also be particularly vulnerable to air and missile strikes, raising the possibility that Taiwan could be rendered defenseless within hours.
Instead, a porcupine defense leverages Taiwan’s favorable defensive geography by deploying large numbers of dispersed and mobile coastal-defense missiles, air defenses, fast missile boats, naval mines and mine-layers, and small surveillance drones. If China attempted to seize the island, these assets would be used to strike Chinese ships and aircraft as they approach Taiwan’s shores, disrupt amphibious landings, and target forces attempting to disembark on its beaches. This approach is more survivable and cost-effective, and by making any invasion difficult and costly, it strengthens Taiwan’s deterrence and defense against China.
Taiwan may “talk the talk” on asymmetric defense, but in practice, the rhetoric often mirrors conventional, legacy approaches. One government analyst claimed that Abrams tanks qualify as “asymmetric” weapons simply because they can move. Another argued Taiwan needs F-35 fighter jets to go toe-to-toe with Chinese fighters and be able to achieve “windows of air superiority” during a Chinese invasion attempt. When pressed on how these expensive aircraft would operate after Chinese missiles crater the runways at Taiwan’s air bases and civilian airfields — a capability Beijing has heavily invested in — a senior defense analyst dismissed the threat entirely, insisting Chinese missiles are far less accurate and reliable than the U.S. military and American defense experts suggest.
This traditional mindset extends to Taiwan’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program. These noisy systems are ill-equipped to operate in the shallow, rocky Taiwan Strait, yet the government continues investing exorbitant amounts into the program, with the cost of the first of these submarines alone totaling $1.54 billion. One government analyst conceded the submarines would have a limited role in the Strait, suggesting they are better suited for securing Taiwan’s distant sea lines of communication, but this does little to address the island’s urgent asymmetric defense needs.
Such choices are not strategic thinking — they are wishful thinking dressed up as military strategy.
Taiwan’s military culture perpetuates these misguided priorities by rewarding prestige systems, parochialism, and institutional inertia over the hard, unglamorous work of building a survivable defense. Political leaders further reinforce this tendency by favoring high-profile acquisitions and symbolic gestures that reassure voters but avoid the domestic costs of reforming a broken military. The result is a persistent mismatch between Taiwan’s stated strategy and its investment priorities, with part of its defense establishment, particularly the Ministry of Defense, speaking fluently about asymmetric warfare while continuing to support legacy systems that undermine those very goals.
Performance over Preparation
An asymmetric strategy depends as much on preparation and sustainment as on tactics or equipment. Yet Taiwan still lacks the trained military reserves and resilient civil defense needed to sustain a prolonged defense, much less mount the kind of dispersed resistance that would make occupation both prohibitively difficult and costly for Beijing. While many of our interviewees likened Taiwan’s need for self-defense to Israel or Ukraine, the island’s reserve system and civil defense efforts fall short of those standards.
These gaps in readiness are especially evident in Taiwan’s reserve system. Taiwan’s 1.66 million-strong reserve force is meant to support 153,000 active-duty personnel, helping the island to resist a larger Chinese force, absorb casualties, and sustain a protracted fight. In practice, however, it is much smaller and less capable than its paper strength suggests. Retired senior officers that we spoke with expressed little confidence in the reserve force’s effectiveness, and one retired general noted the army lacks enough rifles to equip even 250,000 reservists. Taiwan’s strategic priorities reflect this shortfall: The $1.54-billion-dollar cost of a single Hai-Kun submarine could instead arm over 500,000 soldiers with the newest XTS-112 rifles.
Taiwan’s ability to quickly mobilize its reserves is also in doubt. Its antiquated infrastructure still relies on police officers to hand-deliver paper mobilization notices rather than using digital systems like smartphone apps. One retired general estimated that it could take 60 to 90 days to mobilize significant numbers — by which point a war could be over. Meanwhile, Taipei continues debating advanced fighter acquisitions while showing little appetite to fix structural deficiencies, particularly given the unpopularity of military service among young Taiwanese.
Civil defense tells a similar story. We visited Taipei just days before Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang military exercise. Officials highlighted civilian participation, including urban warfare simulations, and this year’s drills fully integrated civil defense exercises under the broader “2025 Urban Resilience (Counter Air Attack) Exercise.” Yet both experts and civilians were skeptical. One retired general called the exercises “all for show” — media attend, but “after that, nothing else is done.” He added that political leaders prioritize voter approval over genuine preparation, a view echoed by taxi drivers, shopkeepers, and other citizens, who often shrugged or dismissed the exercises outright.
The performative nature of these drills underscores a deeper problem: Without effective civil defense and well-trained reserves, Taiwan’s asymmetric strategy risks collapsing under sustained Chinese pressure, reducing what should be a credible deterrent to little more than theater.
It’s the Boring Stuff that Matters
The focus on spectacle comes at a cost: Taiwan consistently neglects the critical, behind-the-scenes preparations — like stockpiles and logistics — essential for sustained resistance. As one retired general officer noted, much of Taiwan’s artillery is decades old — some pieces fifty years in service. During exercises, new artillery is used instead of old, due to safety and civilian concerns. “We talk a lot about asymmetric warfare, but if you look at what we have, munitions are quite old,” he said, highlighting a disconnect between Taiwan’s public messaging and the practical realities of its military readiness. Other interviewees echoed this concern, pointing to shortages in small arms, ammunition, and spare parts, as well as gaps in essential supplies like fuel and medical equipment.
The issue extends beyond artillery. As another defense analyst asked, “After the first twenty-four hours, how does Taiwan plan to defend itself? Do soldiers still have meals? Fuel? Bullets?” Multiple interviewees confirmed that Taiwan lacks the weapons, munitions, and spare parts needed to keep its forces in the fight and sustain operations over time. One retired general added that even during exercises, meals often fail to arrive on schedule because the deliverers do not know the units’ locations, underscoring broader logistical challenges that would only worsen in an actual conflict.
At the same time, Taiwan’s rugged mountains and urban environments — ideal for dispersed caches and guerrilla bases — remain largely untapped. Our interviewees noted that weapons, ammunition, and other critical military supplies are not pre-positioned in these areas, leaving forces vulnerable to rapid strikes and making sustained resistance nearly impossible. Without decentralized stockpiles that leverage the island’s natural terrain, both the population and military are ill-prepared to sustain a protracted fight.
Voices of Reform
Not everyone in Taiwan’s defense establishment suffers from strategic myopia. Our conversations included retired senior military officers and security experts who understand the urgent need for genuine asymmetric reforms and publicly advocate leveraging Taiwan’s natural advantages rather than undermining them with conventional military thinking — pushing for a shift away from big-ticket warplane and warship projects toward swarms of drones and mobile anti-air and anti-ship missile units capable of denying China a quick victory.
However, these reform advocates remain systematically marginalized by an active-duty leadership more comfortable with conventional prestige projects than uncomfortable strategic realities. The Ministry of Defense has long resisted and slow-walked meaningful reforms, squandering Taiwan’s natural advantages and sidelining reform-minded officers.
As one retired general candidly observed, “Our geography is unfavorable to China — we have one main highway that moves north to south. I just fear that there will be no one there to meet them on that road.” His comment captures Taiwan’s fundamental challenge: Natural defensive advantages mean little without forces ready to exploit them.
The Trump Administration’s Opportunity
Donald Trump’s presidency creates both pressure and opportunity for reform. Many Taiwanese officials fear that absent a serious commitment to self-defense, Trump will simply abandon the island. That anxiety provides political cover for overdue changes — and Washington should use its leverage strategically. Instead of tolerating Taipei’s symbolic provocations, the United States should publicly disavow President Lai’s recent “country” comments and make clear its opposition to Taiwanese independence while selling only weapons suited for asymmetric defense — mobile air defenses, drones, and coastal- and anti-ship missile systems that make a Chinese invasion costly and uncertain. These steps would reduce tensions with Beijing, steer Taipei toward building a credible defense, and help create a Taiwan capable of denying China a quick victory — far more secure than one reliant on U.S. intervention and less likely to draw America into a devastating war.
stimson.org · Joaquin Matamis · September 11, 2025
14. 5 Reasons the A-10 Warthog Must Be Retired
But we so love the sound it makes when it fills tanks and the enemy for us.
5 Reasons the A-10 Warthog Must Be Retired
nationalsecurityjournal.org · Brent M. Eastwood · September 13, 2025
Key Points and Summary – Beloved for saving troops in Desert Storm and the war on terror, the A-10 Warthog is finally headed for retirement.
-The Air Force plans to divest all 162 jets by 2026, arguing modern air defenses, rising sustainment costs, and mission overlap with the F-35 and F-15EX make the A-10 untenable.
-Today’s contested skies favor stealth, range, networking, and precision weapons over low-and-slow gun runs.
-Drones now hunt armor; networked F-35s can cover the A-10’s CSAR niche.
-Fans will miss the GAU-8’s “BRRRT,” but budgets and survivability drive the shift.
-The Warthog’s legacy endures—in air shows and grateful Marines.
BONUS – National Security Journal back in July visited with the A-10 Warthog on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum. The bulk of the photos in this article are original and were taken at the museum outside of Dayton, Ohio.
5 Reasons We Need to Say Goodbye to the A-10 Warthog
I admire the A-10 Warthog. The aircraft was instrumental in winning Operation Desert Storm and shortening that conflict, keeping casualties to a minimum. During the war on terror, the A-10 conducted countless close-air-support missions to protect U.S. and coalition ground fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the A-10’s days are numbered. In the most recent Air Force budget request, the service called for retiring all 162 Warthogs in 2026, two years sooner than originally estimated. This is a disappointing outcome for a strike airplane that has enjoyed a strong record since it was first designed to destroy enemy armored vehicles during the Cold War.
The F-35 Can Do Its Job
One of the reasons for decommissioning the Warthog is redundancy. While the A-10 is great at its job, which consists of ground strike and close air support, these missions can be carried out by the F-35. Since the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy all fly F-35s, each service can call in Lightning IIs for danger-close missions. The F-35 does not have the Warthog’s GAU-8/A Avenger 30-mm rotary cannon, but it can drop numerous munitions when it is equipped in beast mode. F-35s can launch the StormBreaker smart weapon and the Paveway laser-guided bomb. The F-35 can also share targeting data in real time with other airplanes.
The A-10 Would Not Survive In Modern War
Another reason to retire the Warthog is its low survivability. Air defenses are constantly improving, with better radar and surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems such as the Russian S-400 and S-500 that are layered in depth.
A-10 Warthog NSJ Photos. Image taken on 7/20/2025.
A-10 Warthog National Security Journal Photo Essay Picture.
The A-10 would have little protection from being detected, tracked, and destroyed by newer SAMs. The A-10 is not known for speed and maneuverability, although its performance in air shows has left me impressed. A-10s are also not stealthy like the F-35, and they are much slower and less maneuverable.
The A-10 Is Costly to Keep in the Air
Further, the A-10 is an older airframe. It was introduced in the 1970s and requires significant maintenance. The airplane’s need for spare parts and tender loving care makes it expensive to keep in the air.
The money saved by no longer maintaining Warthogs can be spent on other airplanes, such as the new F-15EX, as well as the F-35. The cost per flight hour of the Warthog ranges between $19,000 and $22,000. This adds up quickly, and in a future war, the costs would multiply. The Air Force has requested $57 million to retire all A-10s.
Would It Even Have Any Tanks to Destroy?
Finally, warfare is changing. Combat in Ukraine has focused on first-person view drones that loiter and drop down to eliminate tanks and people. The A-10 is not the best tool to take out small drones.
Plus, the tank, which has historically been the main target of A-10s, is becoming an obsolete platform. The A-10 could still offer close air support for soldiers and Marines in tight spots on the ground, but there may not be as many tanks and armored personnel carriers on the battlefield compared to the days when the United States first fought in Iraq.
Not Needed for Combat Search and Rescue
The A-10 had a secondary use for combat search and rescue, but the F-35 can carry out this mission as well. Special operations forces have personnel called “combat controllers” who act as air traffic controllers on the ground. Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data collected by the F-35 can be shared with the combat controller, who then relays the findings to other special operators and helicopters that can rescue downed pilots or stranded personnel.
A-10 Warthog Cannon NSJ Photo. Taken at U.S. Air Force Museum on 7/19/2025.
A-10 Warthog National Security Journal Photo.
A-10 pilots will be greatly missed. These aviators are specifically trained for the close-air-support role. Fighter pilots are more attuned to aerial combat in hunter-killer roles to eliminate enemy fighter jets.
For an F-35 pilot, close air support may not be a main talent. A-10s have made many friends with infantry soldiers, Marines, and their special-ops brethren. Time will tell if the F-35 or F-15EX can assume the air-support role as effectively as the Warthog did.
So, the A-10 has reached the end of its road. The distinctive “brrrtttt” sound from its rotary cannon was music to soldiers’ ears for decades. The A-10 has saved countless lives and eliminated numerous enemy tanks and armored vehicles.
Yes, the F-35 will take over its job, but the A-10 was distinctive; it excelled in the close-air-support mission. The airplane is indeed expensive to fly, and this money can be invested in other places.
The A-10 is obviously not stealthy. It was never meant to be. It might not be survivable in a contested environment. Its original tank-plinking mission is probably a thing of the past, and the A-10 would not be effective against small, loitering kamikaze drones.
The A-10 Warthog Must Retire
Hail to the A-10 and its sterling combat record. Soldiers and Marines counted on it to save their lives, and it fulfilled every expectation. I will miss the A-10 as a former Army infantry officer. It was an excellent instrument, and it could save my men’s lives.
That is what close air support is all about. The A-10 will still be seen at air shows, and attendees will still be impressed by its performance. The pilots of the Warthog will miss it greatly.
About the Author: Brent M. Eastwood
Brent M. Eastwood, PhD is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for US Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former US Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.
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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Brent M. Eastwood · September 13, 2025
15. As China’s military shows off a mighty arsenal, its people are untested
1979?
As China’s military shows off a mighty arsenal, its people are untested | The Strategist
aspistrategist.org.au · Joe Keary · September 12, 2025
It feels like we’re now living with a steady drumbeat of activity from China’s military that captures headlines and keeps analysts busy trying to figure out what it all means. Beijing’s latest offering, the 3 September parade, gave us striking images of a rapidly modernising force. But it told us little about the military’s ability to use these advanced weapons, or how confident its leader is in its human element.
Stories about China’s military are now a regular feature of foreign affairs reporting. In May 2022, a Chinese fighter jet released chaff ahead of an Australian surveillance plane, a dangerous manoeuvre that made us stop and think: what if an Australian plane were lost because of provocations from China’s military? Later that year, Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the United States House of Representatives, visited Taiwan. This triggered large-scale Chinese drills around the island, aimed at intimidating the government, people and international partners of Taiwan. Such exercises are now frequent.
This year, China’s navy sent a naval task group to circumnavigate Australia, showing that our distant continent is no longer out of its range. And this month, we saw what was described as the largest-ever display of modern Chinese military capabilities: soldiers, rockets, drones and fighters paraded past a smiling Chinese president, flanked by his closest international partners and friends.
Put all this together and commentators are quick to suggest that China’s military may be approaching or leading the US in certain areas; that the parade’s new technologies demonstrate China’s ability to seize Taiwan while repelling US intervention; or, more broadly, that it signals that Chinese President Xi Jinping is increasingly willing to use his military to pursue regional and global ambitions.
We already knew that China was fielding some of the most advanced military technologies in the world. Its missile capabilities likely lead the list. One of its military branches, the rocket force, has the world’s largest and most diverse inventory of land-based ballistic and cruise missiles, including new hypersonic weapons. China’s shipbuilding capacity tops the world and supports the largest navy by ship count. Its cyber, space and electronic warfare capabilities are all formidable.
This rise is driven by China’s civil-military fusion strategy: Xi’s signature policy that centralises and accelerates the use of civilian research and industrial capacity for military modernisation. To understand this, imagine a Sydney University lab developing quantum sensors that automatically feed into Royal Australian Air Force navigation systems, or Atlassian’s cloud services being adapted for Australian Defence Force command-and-control networks. While Australia has some elements of civil–military cooperation, in China the process is directed and comprehensive. That level of integration gives the Chinese armed forces structural advantages and helps explain the meteoric rise in technology recently displayed.
But there are also limits to what we can learn from parades and exercises. We still have only a partial understanding of how capable the Chinese military actually is with all this new kit.
Frequent exercises around Taiwan show that the navy can deploy troops and ships faster and operate in more challenging conditions, and that’s definitely impressive. But other events should give us pause. An 11 August collision off the Philippines between a ship of China’s navy and another from its coast guard raised questions about operational control. How capable is Xi’s supposedly world-class military if accidents like this can happen? After all, the Chinese armed forces haven’t fought a war since 1979. And what about the 2022 chaff incident? Was it the result of careful planning from Beijing or a pilot taking orders too far?
Xi’s ongoing purges of top military commanders also deserve attention. Corruption has long been an issue in the armed forces, but these dismissals may also reflect Xi’s doubts about military leaders’ ability to meet milestones: an ability to fight and win a regional war by 2027, and completion of basic modernisation by 2035. Despite the advanced technology, there are signs that Xi is still questioning the human element of his rapidly modernising force.
Another lesson from the military parade is how much these displays are aimed at domestic audiences. Xi frequently links military modernisation to the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’, showing military strength as proof that the Communist Party is delivering for the country. Grand parades serve as a signal to the Chinese public that their nation is strong, modern and respected abroad. In this sense, displays of power are as much political theatre as military deterrence.
Ultimately, China’s military rise is a story of impressive technology and strategic ambition, but it is also a story of uncertainty. Advanced weapons, sprawling fleets and cyber capabilities may suggest near-peer status with the US in some areas, yet questions about operational experience, human judgment and leadership remain. Understanding China’s military requires looking beyond the spectacle and assessing both the tools and the people who wield them. Parades can impress, but they cannot answer the toughest questions about effectiveness and judgment.
aspistrategist.org.au · Joe Keary · September 12, 2025
16. Russia Is at War with the West
Download the pdf of this 7 page report at this link: https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/IS-636.pdf
The question for us: Does the victim understand the game?
Conclusion:
NATO leaders would do well to remember that “Creeping aggression backed by militaristic ruthlessness has succeeded many times in the past. Appeasement does not prevent war, it assures conflict.” Defending against Russia’s aggression is necessary, but not enough to change Russia’s calculus whether it should stop, or at least scale down, its campaign against targets on NATO territory. NATO members ought to begin thinking and speaking publicly about their own offensive responses against targets in Russia, keeping in mind the degree of damage Russia causes in the West. These discussions should include sabotage of Russia’s military and logistical hubs and its energy infrastructure, the primary enablers of Russia’s aggression against the West. A principle of reciprocity may be the only way to convince Moscow to stop. If that is too difficult politically, the West should at least enable Ukraine to continue waging its fight against the Russian aggressors with its full support.
Michaela Dodge, Russia Is at War with the West, No. 636, September 11, 2025
Russia Is at War with the West
Dr. Michaela Dodge
Dr. Michaela Dodge is a Research Scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy.
https://nipp.org/information_series/michaela-dodge-russia-is-at-war-with-the-west-no-636-september-11-2025/
If the victim does not understand the game, the loss of a pawn here or a knight there does not worry him. If his thoughts are elsewhere, he does not see the traps set for him by his opponent. If his will to win in insufficient, his strength is gradually eroded until, when the tide of combat goes clearly against him, he discovers too late that the price of defeat is intolerably high.
The term “hybrid warfare,” defined as a set of activities below the level of armed conflict, is not useful to describe Russia’s activities against the West. In fact, the term masks the severity of Moscow’s actual actions and distracts the West from pursuing the kind of retaliatory measures that would lead Russia to pull back from its campaign against targets in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) states. By evoking the term “hybrid warfare” (or its close euphemisms like “gray zone conflict,” “shadow war,” or activities “below the level of armed conflict”) rather than acknowledging that Russia is, by its own account, at war with the West, gives the impression that the situation is less serious than it actually is.
Russia’s activities are an element of its comprehensive warfare against the West. Russia’s goals include restoring its former sphere of influence in former Warsaw Pact countries that are now NATO members, undermining the legitimacy of the democratic process, and sowing disputes within NATO. So far, NATO countries have lacked the political will to impose costs that would dissuade Russia to stop its destructive activities that extend well beyond simply the information sphere. Countering Russia’s activities demands a comprehensive response beyond the West’s contemporary defensive measures.
Russia’s Aggression in Europe
Russia’s list of aggressive actions against targets in Europe is long and its campaign is “intensifying” according to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. The number of Russia’s attacks quadrupled between 2022 and 2023, and tripled between 2023 and 2024. Russia has conducted over 150 operations on NATO territory since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s activities range from assassinations and murder attempts, attacks against NATO’s infrastructure, to acts of vandalism through people recruited by Russian handlers via social media. Russia is becoming bolder, with its drones violating Polish airspace in September 2025. Poland in cooperation with NATO allies shot several down of these drones. The more immediate goal of the campaign is to weaken Europe’s support for Ukraine and to disrupt supply chains through which aid for Ukraine flows. Russia also wants to weaken NATO and undermine the political consensus within the Alliance.
Moreover, Russia is the prime suspect in several operations that resulted in cuts to undersea power and communication cables that run across the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The attribution is challenging because the acts of sabotage are executed by oil tankers that are a part of Russia’s “shadow” fleet, or operating under flags of convenience and a difficult-to-trace ownership structure. A China-owned ship allegedly with a Russian captain cut two undersea cables in November 2024. The cables’ repairs will cost millions of dollars. Russia is also believed to had been behind a string of physical break-ins to water treatment plants in Finland and Sweden, potentially testing the security of the sites in the case it needed to contaminate the water supply. Russia has reportedly plotted attacks against U.S. military bases in Europe. Moscow also planned on setting parcels on fire on cargo flights bound for the United States. The parcels exploded at logistics depots in Britain, Germany, and Poland. In March 2024, Russian pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who defected to Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion, was gunned down in the garage of his apartment in Spain.
NATO countries were able to foil some of these attempts. For example, Russia tried to kill the CEO of the Rheinmetall arms manufacturer Armin Papperger in 2024. Five men were charged with arson and sabotage against Ukraine-linked businesses to benefit the Russian state in the United Kingdom in April 2024.
Willingness to cause a significant loss of life marks a departure from Russia’s previous influence operations campaigns that were primarily focused on shaping the information environment. Russia’s campaign is marked by “increasing recklessness,” according to the chief of Britain’s MI5 Security Service Ken McCallum. The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service Bruno Kahl said that Russia’s activities have reached a “level previously unseen,” and that “direct military confrontation with NATO has become an option for Moscow.” Russia could present even more significant military threat to U.S. allies in Europe within a few years of a ceasefire in Ukraine, because it could concentrate its forces closer to NATO’s countries’ borders.
Russia’s aggressioon against NATO members and individuals started prior to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia’s operatives blew up an ammunition depot in the Czech Republic in 2014, killing two people. In 2018, the same operatives poisoned several people on British territory, causing one death. The target of the operation was Sergey Skripal, reported to be a defector from Russia’s intelligence service. In 2006. Russia’s agents poisoned and killed Alexander Litvinenko, another Russian defector in the United Kingdom. In another case in Germany, a man, later revealed as a Russian intelligence service operative, shot dead a former Chechen commander at Russia’s request in 2019.
Obscuring Russia’s Nature
The term “hybrid warfare” has served to obscure Russia’s nature as a revisionist, imperialist, and nuclear-armed adversary. There are no universally shared definitions among allies with respect to when hybrid war ends, and armed conflict begins. A lack of shared understanding “hampers our ability to deter, mitigate and counter this threat.” Yet, an overt focus on definitional problems can further complicate countering these types of activities, because they obscure understanding of hybrid warfare, particularly for policy makers who are obliged to make decisions to address it, as historian Kenton White observes.
The West has mostly ignored Putin’s 2007 speech in Munich, in which he openly declared an intent to remake the post-Cold War order in Russia’s own image. For Russia, so-called hybrid operations are a matter of degree in its war against the West. Moscow’s primary goal is to shape the information environment so that countries make choices advantageous to Russia’s interests without them realizing they are being manipulated to do so. These efforts were known as “active measures” during the Cold War.
The West’s response to Russia’s invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine 2014 were so weak that Vladimir Putin may have concluded that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a next logical step from the perspective of Russia’s imperialism, would be acceptable and that the West’s response would not amount to much. But the West has rallied behind Ukraine and enabled it to fight back. Putin was certainly mistaken thinking that Russia could take Kyiv in two weeks. Yet, the Russian leadership has so far concluded that continuing its aggression is more beneficial to Moscow’s interests than stopping it.
The West’s support for Ukraine can contribute to mitigating Russia’s hybrid campaign, besides Russia’s defeat in Ukraine remaining in NATO’s geopolitical interest. Ukraine forces Russia to focus its resources and attention, and it seems highly likely that otherwise Russia would use at least a part of these resources to expand its campaign against NATO states. Through support for Ukraine, Western countries can retaliate for Russia’s malign activities and increase costs of Russia’s hybrid activities against the West. Russia’s hybrid operations against NATO started years prior, and the cessation of help to Ukraine will not stop them. This is because Russia desires a fundamental restructuring of the global world order against U.S. and allies’ interests, in addition to defeating Ukraine.
Countering Russia’s Activities
The West’s response to Russia’s aggressive actions remains limited. Irregular activities have always been a part of warfare, and a decision on whether one is at war is made at a political level. So far, politicians have been hesitant to characterize their countries as being at war with Russia, even though Russia says that Europe’s support of Ukraine puts them at war with Russia.
The repeated nature of Russia’s actions indicates that Moscow has concluded that its sabotage campaign will contribute to its objectives at acceptable costs. For the moment, these objectives center around undermining NATO support for Ukraine, but the broader goal is to undermine the West globally. Russia’s objectives also likely include gathering information and testing procedures in case of more active hostilities with NATO and undermining NATO’s unity.
There is almost no discussion at the political level of the West taking similar offensive actions. Granted, Russia has been subjected to attacks on its territory, but these attacks are executed by Ukraine, a country Russia invaded, even if Ukraine occasionally uses Western-provided weapons. The lack of political will to discuss offensive response measures is a major gap and an indication of the limitation in current strategies to counter Russia’s actions—which Moscow sees as weakness to be exploited. Increasing the public’s support for more assertive counter-actions, e.g. sabotage of Russia’s military and logistical hubs and its energy infrastructure, is a necessary prerequisite to answering Russia’s aggression against the West, as is sensitizing the public to the fact that Russia sees democratic governments and populations that support them as adversaries. Indeed, if NATO fails to respond adequately, it is only inviting further, and perhaps escalated, Russian aggression within European borders. Western officials also should publicly highlight that the comprehensive nature of Russia’s actions is a part of Moscow’s broader effort to undermine democracies and shape the global world order in its image.
Conclusion
NATO leaders would do well to remember that “Creeping aggression backed by militaristic ruthlessness has succeeded many times in the past. Appeasement does not prevent war, it assures conflict.” Defending against Russia’s aggression is necessary, but not enough to change Russia’s calculus whether it should stop, or at least scale down, its campaign against targets on NATO territory. NATO members ought to begin thinking and speaking publicly about their own offensive responses against targets in Russia, keeping in mind the degree of damage Russia causes in the West. These discussions should include sabotage of Russia’s military and logistical hubs and its energy infrastructure, the primary enablers of Russia’s aggression against the West. A principle of reciprocity may be the only way to convince Moscow to stop. If that is too difficult politically, the West should at least enable Ukraine to continue waging its fight against the Russian aggressors with its full support.
Donald Armstrong, The Reluctant Warriors (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1966), pp. 180-181.
The term originates with the 2006 war in Lebanon. In the context of Russia, it was popularized by Mark Galeotti, who has distanced himself from its contemporary usage. See Lawrence Freedman, “Liberal International Isaiah Berlin Lecture,” October 2, 2023, available at https://liberal-international.org/news-articles/2023-liberal-international-isaiah-berlin-lecture-sir-lawrence-freedman/.
Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Tom Balmforth, “Russia demands NATO roll back from East Europe and stay out of Ukraine,” Reuters, December 17, 2021, available at https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-unveils-security-guarantees-says-western-response-not-encouraging-2021-12-17/.
Keir Giles, “Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West Continuity and Innovation in Moscow’s Exercise of Power,” Chatham House, March 2016, available at https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/2016-03-russia-new-tools-giles.pdf.
“Joint press conference by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte with the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz,” November 4, 2024, available at https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_230188.htm.
Seth G. Jones, “Russia’s Shadow War Against the West,” The Center for International and Strategic Studies Brief, March 2025, p. 1, available at https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2025-03/250318_Jones_Russia_Shadow.pdf?VersionId=LHamL2L7HJwLgZ7a_wq6xkTIwMh3TFpk.
Sophia McGrath, “Spotlight on the Shadow War: Inside Russia’s Attacks on NATO Territory,” The Helsinki Commission, December 2024, p. 3, available at https://www.csce.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Spotlight-on-the-Shadow-War-Website.pdf.
Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska, “‘We are here. Join us.’ What the trial of two Wagner Group promoters in Poland reveals about Russia’s covert campaign in Europe,” Meduza, April 11, 2025, available at https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/04/11/we-are-here-join-us.
Alan Charlish, Lidia Kelly and Barbara Erling, “Poland downs drones in its airspace, becoming first NATO member to fire during war in Ukraine,” Reuters, September 10, 2025, available at https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/poland-downs-drones-its-airspace-becoming-first-nato-member-fire-during-war-2025-09-10/.
Ibid.
Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, International Security and Estonia, 2025, p. 56, available at https://raport.valisluureamet.ee/2025/upload/vla_eng-raport_2025_web-002.pdf.
Arno Van Rensbergen, “Hybrid threats: Russia’s shadow war escalates across Europe,” The Parliament, January 21, 2025, available at https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/hybrid-threats-russias-shadow-war-escalates-across-europe.
Ibid.
Charlie Edwards, “Russia’s hybrid war in Europe enters a dangerous new phase,” International Institute for Security Studies, November 26, 2024, available at https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2024/11/russias-hybrid-war-in-europe-enters-a-dangerous-new-phase/.
Peter Apps, “Russia’s suspected sabotage campaign steps up in Europe,” Reuters, October 20, 2024, available at https://www.reuters.com/world/russias-suspected-sabotage-campaign-steps-up-europe-2024-10-21/.
Jones, “Russia’s Shadow War Against the West,” p.13, op. cit.; and Kateryna Denisova, “From spy rings to arson — Russia’s sabotage across Europe continues unpunished,” Kyiv Independent, May 14, 2025, available at https://kyivindependent.com/russia-suspected-in-series-of-sabotage-across-europe-here-are-key-cases/.
Andrius Sytas and David Shepardson, “Exploding parcels in Europe part of plot to target US flights, officials say,” Reuters, November 5, 2024, available at https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lithuania-says-russia-responsible-exploding-parcels-that-caused-fires-2024-11-05/.
Claudia Chiappa, Eva Hartog, and Veronika Melkozerova, “The death of a Russian defector: Who failed Maxim Kuzminov?,” Politico, November 18, 2024, available at https://www.politico.eu/article/maxim-kuzminov-russia-ukraine-defector-murder-fsb-spain-helicopter/.
Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand and Frederik Pleitgen, “Exclusive: US and Germany foiled Russian plot to assassinate CEO of arms manufacturer sending weapons to Ukraine,” CNN, July 11, 2024, available at https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/11/politics/us-germany-foiled-russian-assassination-plot/index.html.
Emine Sinmaz, “Briton charged with aiding Russia and planning arson against Ukraine-linked business in UK,” The Guardian, April 26, 2024, available at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/26/man-charged-conducting-hostile-activity-uk-benefit-russia.
Michaela Dodge, “Russia’s Influence Operations in the Czech Republic During the Radar Debate and Beyond,” Occasional Paper Vol. 1, No. 2 (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, February 2021), available at https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/OP2-for-web.pdf.
Peter Apps, “Russia’s suspected sabotage campaign steps up in Europe,” Reuters, October 20, 2024, available at https://www.reuters.com/world/russias-suspected-sabotage-campaign-steps-up-europe-2024-10-21/.
Csongor Körömi and Hans von der Burchard, “German spy chief: Putin’s covert operations reach unprecedented level,” Politico, October 14, 2024, available at https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-intelligence-spy-chief-warns-sabotages-russia-attack-nato-bruno-kahl-bnd/.
Ben Barry et al. “Defending Europe Without the United States: Costs and Consequences,” The International Institute for Strategic Studies, May 2025, pp. 8-11, available at https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/media-library—content–migration/files/research-papers/2025/05/defending-europe-without-the-united-states/iiss_defending-europe-without-the-united-states_costs-and-consequences_052025.pdf.
“Czechs Confirm Russian Involvement In Blasts At Ammunition Depots In 2014,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 29, 2024, available at https://www.rferl.org/a/czech-police-vrbetice-blasts-russia-gru-ammunition-depots/32925105.html.
“Russian spy poisoning: What we know so far,” BBC, October 8, 2018, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43315636.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“Germany expels Russian diplomats after hitman sentenced in Berlin,” BBC, December 15, 2021, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59667937.
Michaela Dodge, “What Do Russia’s Nuclear Threats Tell Us About Arms Control Prospects?,” Occasional Paper Vol. 4, No. 1 (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, January 2024), available at https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Vol.-4-No.-1.pdf.
Patrick J. Cullen and Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud, “Understanding Hybrid Warfare,” Multinational Capability Development Campaign Countering Hybrid Warfare Project, 2017, p. 8, available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a8228a540f0b62305b92caa/dar_mcdc_hybrid_warfare.pdf.
Kenton White, “Academia and the Armed Forces: Formal Colleagues or Passing Acquaintances?” Journal of Policy & Strategy Vol. 5, No. (Spring 2025), p. 31, available at https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Analysis-White-5.1.pdf.
Vladimir Putin, “Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy,” February 10, 2007, available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034; Daniel Fried and Kurt Volker, “The Speech In Which Putin Told Us Who He Was,” Politico, February 18, 2022, available at https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/18/putin-speech-wake-up-call-post-cold-war-order-liberal-2007-00009918.
Mason Clark, “Russian Hybrid Warfare,” Institute for the Study of War, September 2020, available at https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Russian Hybrid Warfare ISW Report 2020.pdf.
Denver Nicks, “Putin Boasts of Being Able to Take Kiev in 2 Weeks,” Time, September 2, 2014, available at https://time.com/3259699/putin-boast-kiev-2-weeks/.
Michaela Dodge, “Geopolitical Consequences of Ukraine’s Defeat,” Information Series No. 612 (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, January 13, 2025), available at https://nipp.org/information_series/michaela-dodge-geopolitical-consequences-of-ukraines-defeat-no-612-january-13-2025/.
Edward Lucas, “Getting to ‘Ouch’: Hybrid Deterrence,” Center for European Policy Analysis, September 15, 2024, available at https://cepa.org/article/getting-to-ouch-hybrid-deterrence/.
“UK is a de facto participant in Ukraine war, claims Russian ambassador,” The Guardian, May 17, 2024, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/may/17/russia-ukraine-war-live-drone-attack-crimea-sevastopol-kharkiv-news-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-6647407a8f0835020111336c#block-6647407a8f0835020111336c; Uliana Pavlova, “Kremlin spokesperson claims US is “de facto” involved in Ukraine conflict,” CNN World, October 11, 2022, available at https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-10-11-22#h_659e44127299d3792b739fb0622634fe;
Armstrong, The Reluctant Warrior, op. cit., p. 180.
The National Institute for Public Policy’s Information Series is a periodic publication focusing on contemporary strategic issues affecting U.S. foreign and defense policy. It is a forum for promoting critical thinking on the evolving international security environment and how the dynamic geostrategic landscape affects U.S. national security. Contributors are recognized experts in the field of national security. National Institute for Public Policy would like to thank the Sarah Scaife Foundation for the generous support that made this Information Series possible.
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© National Institute Press, 2025
17. A U.S.-China War over Taiwan: Who Wins?
Excerpts:
If Washington truly believes Taiwan is worth defending, it must act now. Industrial capacity must be expanded at speed and scale, especially in the realm of missiles, hardened bases, and sustainment. Allies must be clarified and commitments synchronized to eliminate the ambiguity that tempts aggression. Civil defense must be strengthened both in Taiwan and in the United States, where the public must be prepared for sacrifice if deterrence fails.
Deterrence will hold only if its credibility is real, and credibility does not rest on rhetoric but on readiness.
America could save Taiwan. But unless it sharpens its tools, steels its will, and invests now in the grim requirements of denial, it risks fighting not for victory but merely to stave off defeat.
A U.S.-China War over Taiwan: Who Wins?
nationalsecurityjournal.org · Andrew Latham · September 12, 2025
Key Points and Summary – War in the Taiwan Strait wouldn’t yield a clean U.S. win. China’s missiles, submarines and proximity threaten carriers and forward bases.
-Taiwan is shifting to asymmetric defense—mobile missiles, hardened infrastructure, civil resilience—but the U.S. industrial base, munitions stocks and repair capacity lag.
-Likely phases: opening missile/cyber/space strikes; a brutal sea-denial fight against invasion convoys; possible blockades and urban combat if a beachhead forms, with nuclear risk overhead.
-The most plausible outcome is denial—China fails to conquer—but at staggering cost. To deter or prevail, Washington must surge production, harden bases, lock in allied access and prepare publics now.
A Taiwan War: Who Wins and At What Cost?
On any given day in the not-too-distant future, the Taiwan Strait could erupt in war. Missiles and aircraft could race across the Strait’s skies; warships and submarines could fight in its waters. And the world will ask: did America—and its friend Taiwan—have a fighting chance?
This question is not idle speculation. More than a year of stepped-up Chinese military exercises, an expanding Chinese submarine fleet, and accelerating defense reforms in Taiwan have given new urgency to the question.
The answer, uncomfortably, is that the United States can probably prevent a Chinese conquest of Taiwan. But it can do so only at far greater cost, risk, and uncertainty than most public debates suggest.
Preemptive Efforts
Deterrence is the best hope, but if deterrence fails, America will not “win” cleanly. Indeed, the most likely outcome is a bloody denial of Beijing’s objectives, one that depends on the industrial depth of the American and allied response and the strength of Taiwan’s asymmetric defenses.
Beijing has prepared extensively. Carrier strike groups that once symbolized unchallengeable dominance are now vulnerable to salvos of DF-21D and DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles. The PLA Navy is the largest in the world, while its rocket force and counterspace systems are designed to blind, disrupt, and overwhelm American power projection.
Geography compounds these challenges: Beijing fights on its doorstep with short supply lines and the ability to mass firepower quickly, while Washington would have to operate across thousands of miles, threading its way through missile envelopes and cyber disruption into a battlespace engineered to destroy it. The strategic balance has shifted because China has deliberately built the tools to tilt it.
Taiwan Bolsters Defences
Taiwan, aware of this shifting environment, has responded by moving away from overreliance on the promise of American rescue. In recent years, it has stood up a fourth Patriot missile battalion, begun receiving PAC-3 MSE interceptors, and tested its indigenous Tien Kung-IV air defense system. It has also created a Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee to coordinate civil-defense training, secure critical materials, and harden infrastructure.
J-10 Fighter From China. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Earlier this month, Taipei issued an updated handbook to prepare its citizens for disinformation and attack. These initiatives are not just about Taiwan’s self-defense; they are recognition that China’s buildup makes it impossible for the United States to guarantee salvation. Taiwan is preparing to fight because it understands that it may have to hold out on its own.
By contrast, the picture for the United States is more ambiguous. Washington still teeters uncomfortably on the knife-edge of “strategic ambiguity,” a policy that buys flexibility but invites doubt. On the one hand, the FY-2025 Pacific Deterrence Initiative allocates nearly ten billion dollars to improve logistics, forward basing, and allied integration. The Marine Corps has converted its Okinawa regiment into a Littoral Regiment designed to survive inside the PLA’s missile envelope. Access to nine Philippine bases has been secured, including northern Luzon sites positioned near the Taiwan Strait.
These are serious steps that respond directly to Chinese capabilities and Taiwan’s vulnerabilities. On the other hand, the US defense industrial base is fragile. Production of long-range anti-ship missiles, hardened aircraft shelters, and naval repair capacity lags far behind the demands of a major conflict.
Magazine stores are shallow, logistics are overstretched, and repair yards are inadequate. And while American access to bases in Japan and the Philippines enhances the ability of US forces to sustain their campaign, China’s opening salvos against these facilities might become the brutal prelude to a wider war.
Staged Conflict
The conflict itself would likely play out in several phases. The opening week would be defined by missile barrages aimed at Taiwan’s defenses and US forward bases, along with cyber and space attacks to blind command networks. Taiwan’s dispersal plans and mobile launchers would mitigate, but not eliminate, the damage.
The next phase would be the battle for sea denial. Submarines, mines, and long-range anti-ship weapons would be hurled against convoys carrying PLA troops and supplies across the Strait. Geography favors the defenders, but China’s proximity and numerical advantage mean some ships would get through. The outcome of this battle for sea denial would turn on whether enough could survive repeated strikes to sustain a lodgment.
If the lodgment falters under relentless attrition, America and its allies will have succeeded in denying conquest, though at staggering cost in lives, matériel, and economic disruption. If Chinese forces succeed in securing even a tenuous beachhead, the war would slide into urban combat, blockade, and prolonged attrition, with Taiwan devastated and America drained by the effort. Nuclear escalation would loom over every stage of the war, raising the risk that the conflict could spill beyond the conventional theater.
Outcome Factors
Factors decisive for the outcome of the conflict include industrial capacity, Taiwan’s asymmetric defenses, allied access, and public resilience. Industrial capacity remains the first. Without a dramatic surge in missile production, sustainment, and repair, America’s ability to outlast China in a protracted struggle is in doubt.
Taiwan’s asymmetric defenses are the second decisive factor. If its mobile missile batteries, hardened infrastructure, and civil defense systems perform as advertised, they could tip the scales in a drawn-out campaign. Allied access is the third. Basing rights in Japan and the Philippines could prove the difference between rapid reinforcement and dangerous delay.
Finally, public resilience matters. Taiwan has invested heavily in civil defense and social cohesion, but disinformation, bombardment, and casualties could erode morale. For America, the test would be whether its public would accept the scale of sacrifice required.
H-6 Bomber from China. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The United States today could likely prevent Beijing from conquering Taiwan outright. The most plausible outcome is denial: Taiwan survives as a de facto independent polity, the PLA fails to consolidate control, and Beijing’s gamble ends in frustration. But this would be a pyrrhic success, with allied forces bloodied, Taiwan shattered, and America’s global posture degraded. A less frequent outcome is a contested stalemate: a campaign in which Chinese troops cling to a fragile beachhead.
The possibility of outright defeat—China achieving conquest while the US fails to dislodge them—remains low, but cannot be dismissed. In each case, the costs would be immense and enduring.
If Washington truly believes Taiwan is worth defending, it must act now. Industrial capacity must be expanded at speed and scale, especially in the realm of missiles, hardened bases, and sustainment. Allies must be clarified and commitments synchronized to eliminate the ambiguity that tempts aggression. Civil defense must be strengthened both in Taiwan and in the United States, where the public must be prepared for sacrifice if deterrence fails.
Deterrence will hold only if its credibility is real, and credibility does not rest on rhetoric but on readiness.
America could save Taiwan. But unless it sharpens its tools, steels its will, and invests now in the grim requirements of denial, it risks fighting not for victory but merely to stave off defeat.
About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham
Andrew Latham is a Senior Washington Fellow with the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities, and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham. He writes a daily column for National Security Journal.
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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Andrew Latham · September 12, 2025
18. I Am a Defense Expert Who Lives in Poland. Russia Is Testing the NATO Alliance
Excerpts:
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, there have been numerous incidents of Russian drones entering the airspace of states bordering Ukraine, including Poland and Romania. Still, so far, the numbers had been small, and those nations and other NATO members had not attempted to bring these unmanned flying objects down.
Officials have cited the physical danger that such actions could cause and a desire to avoid an escalation in tensions between Russia and NATO. Poland’s military and political leaders urged the civilian population to stay at home, calling out the regions of Podlaskie, Mazowieckie, and Lublin as most at risk, and added: “This is an act of aggression that poses a real threat to the safety of our citizens,” explained the Polish Military Command on social media.
I Am a Defense Expert Who Lives in Poland. Russia Is Testing the NATO Alliance
nationalsecurityjournal.org · Reuben Johnson · September 10, 2025
Key Points and Summary – Before dawn in Warsaw, Russia’s mass drone-and-missile strike on Ukraine spilled into Poland, with at least eight—and possibly more than twenty—drones crossing NATO airspace.
-Poland activated emergency procedures, scrambling F-16s alongside Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS, tankers, and German Patriot units to intercept successive waves.
An M1 Abrams main battle tank provides security during the Combined Arms Company field exercise at Novo Selo Training Area, Bulgaria, Sept. 16, 2015. The CAC is a newly formed armor element supporting the Black Sea Rotational Force, which reassures our NATO allies and partners of our commitments and will enhance training exercises and operations with partners in the region. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Justin T. Updegraff/Released)
-Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned this is the closest Poland has come to open conflict since WWII, even as authorities urged calm.
-Debris struck a home in eastern Poland; no injuries were reported. The incident underscores a rising pattern of cross-border risk, probing allied air defenses and elevating escalation dangers across NATO’s eastern flank.
Drones Over Poland: NATO Jets Fire as Warsaw Faces Its Gravest Test
WARSAW, POLAND – A colleague of mine with tours of duty in more than one combat zone had a saying: “Wars are like rain,” he used to say. “If it’s happening in your neighbour’s backyard, then it’s also probably coming your way soon.”
Those thoughts were probably in the mind of the entirety of Poland’s national security apparatus this morning. The spectre of a war spreading entered the frame when, according to the count of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, overnight, Russia and Belarus launched a total of 415 drones and 40 missiles in an attack on Ukraine.
However, at least eight of those drones, according to the Ukrainian leader, did not hit any targets in Ukraine and were “aimed toward Poland.”
The count is still unconfirmed, but somewhere between eight and 23 drones that had originated in Russia and Belarus continued across the Ukrainian border and into the territory of Poland, a NATO alliance member.
NATO allies are now hastily marshalling support for Poland after a coalition of Polish F-16 fighter jets, Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS surveillance planes, and NATO mid-air refueling aircraft were scrambled. In the operation that followed, they began shooting down Russian drones entering Polish airspace on Tuesday evening. One wave after another of these suicide attack drones kept on coming until Wednesday morning, Polish officials detailed.
Close To an Open Conflict
By early this morning Warsaw time, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had called an emergency session of government and military leaders. The group convened following a meeting of the Presidential office’s Biuro Bezpieczeństwa Narodowego (National Security Bureau or BBN) that had gathered as much information as possible on the Russian strikes at that early hour.
Tusk then told Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, that the country is “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War Two,” although he added that he had “no reason to believe we’re on the brink of war.”
In response to the number of drones that entered its airspace during this widespread Russian attack, Poland called the incursion “an act of aggression” and became the first member of the NATO alliance to fire shots in the war.
Poland’s military command told media outlets that the Russian drones repeatedly violated Polish airspace during this prolonged Russian attack across its border. By this morning, Poland’s military reported that operations against these violations had finally concluded.
Both airborne and ground-based air defense radars tracked more than 10 objects, and those that could pose a threat were “neutralized,” military command authorities said.
“Searches and efforts to locate the potential crash sites of these objects are ongoing,” read a Polish military statement. Command authorities thanked NATO’s air operations centers and the F-35 fighters of the Dutch air force for the assistance they provided.
A Pattern of Increasing Danger
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, there have been numerous incidents of Russian drones entering the airspace of states bordering Ukraine, including Poland and Romania. Still, so far, the numbers had been small, and those nations and other NATO members had not attempted to bring these unmanned flying objects down.
Officials have cited the physical danger that such actions could cause and a desire to avoid an escalation in tensions between Russia and NATO. Poland’s military and political leaders urged the civilian population to stay at home, calling out the regions of Podlaskie, Mazowieckie, and Lublin as most at risk, and added: “This is an act of aggression that poses a real threat to the safety of our citizens,” explained the Polish Military Command on social media.
Drones Hit House in Poland
One of the drones struck the home of pensioner Tomasz Wesolowski, who was literally watching the television news reporting on Russian drones flying into Polish airspace at the exact moment when a drone crashed into his house. The drone struck the upper section of his residence at 0630 hours Poland time, destroying the roof, damaging a bedroom, and also scattering debris across his garden.
“I turned on the TV, and all the news was about this massive drone flight, and after a while, I heard a plane flying over… and suddenly something boomed, the light fell from the ceiling in the downstairs living room,” he told the UK-Canada Reuters news service from outside his home in the eastern Polish village of Wyryki-Wola.
“I ran out into the yard, and I saw the whole roof in shreds, everything was destroyed,” he said. Wesolowski’s wife, Alicja, said she ran outside the house and then saw a plane overhead. She wondered whether they were being bombed or if someone would start shooting at her. Neither of the two was hurt, and their full story can be read here.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Reuben Johnson · September 10, 2025
19. The high, high cost of fewer foreign students in America
I heard a comment recently - the fall of America will come not because of immigration but because of our own xenophobia.
The high, high cost of fewer foreign students in America - Asia Times
Sharp drop in international students could cost US $7 billion this school year — but the real loss goes beyond the numbers
asiatimes.com · Tara Sonenshine · September 13, 2025
American college campuses from Tucson to Tallahassee are buzzing with the familiar routine of students getting settled in classes and dorms. One new trend, though, is emerging.
An estimated 30% to 40% fewer international students are expected on American college campuses in the fall of 2025, compared with trends in the 2024-2025 academic year, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators – a nonprofit that focuses on international education – and JB International, a for-profit educational technology firm.
In total, an estimated 150,000 fewer international students were expected to arrive this fall, due to new visa restrictions and visa appointments being canceled at US embassies and consulates in many countries, such as India, China, Nigeria and Japan. NAFSA and JB International are expected to release updated data on international student enrollment in November 2025.
There were over 1.1 million international students – more than half of whom were from China or India – on American college campuses in the 2023-2024 academic year, according to the Institute for International Education, which monitors foreign student programs and shares the most comprehensive available recent data.
This sharp drop in international students could cost the US economy US$7 billion in the 2025-26 school year, according to estimates from NAFSA.
For every three international students in the US, one new American job is created or supported by the average $35,000 these students spend in their local communities on housing, food and transportation, and other costs.
As a senior fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy in the Obama administration, I oversaw many of the student exchange programs involving multiple countries around the globe.
I foresee a major economic crisis over international students that could last for years.
A Chinese Columbia University student and a friend attend graduation in May 2019. Photo: Mark Lennihan / Associated Press via The Conversation
A growing trend, quickly reversed
International students began coming to the US in the early 20th century, when philanthropists like the Carnegie, Rockefeller and Mott families sought out scholars from the US to go overseas.
These philanthropists helped create international fellowships and grants that later on would often be funded by the US government – like the Fulbright program, which gives money to American students to spend time and research abroad. By 1919, nonprofits like the Institute for International Education were serving as mediators between foreign students and American universities.
International student enrollment in the US has steadily risen since the end of World War II, coinciding with an emerging world that became easier and cheaper to travel across. While 26,000 foreign students came to the US in the 1949–1950 school year, that number had ballooned to 286,343 three decades later.
In the 1990s, there were more than 400,000 international students attending school in the US each year. That number continued to climb and surpassed 500,000 in the early 2000s. International student enrollment in the US first topped more than 1 million in the 2015-2016 school year.
While international students made up just 1% of the 2.4 million university and college students in the US in 1949-50, they were about 6% of the total 18.9 million students in the US in 2023-24, according to the Migration Institute, a nonpartisan research organization.
This percentage is relatively small, however, compared with the international student representation in other countries.
International students represented 38% of overall Canadian university enrollment, made up 31% of all university students in Australia and 27% of all students in the United Kingdom during the 2024-2025 school year.
Trump’s warnings to international students
Within the first 90 days of his return to office, President Donald Trump invoked the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the secretary of state the authority to expel foreign students whose behavior could pose a threat to US foreign policy interests.
The administration has since revoked the visas of 6,000 foreign students, the State Department reported in August 2025.
There have also been several high-profile arrests of international students, including Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested Ozturk in March 2025 shortly after the administration revoked her visa.
Her arrest came one year after she co-wrote an opinion piece calling for Tufts to recognize a genocide in the Gaza Strip and to divest from all companies with ties to Israel.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended Ozturk’s arrest, saying in March that the government will not give visas to people who come to the US intending to do “things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.”
A federal judge ruled in May that there was no evidence showing Ozturk posed a credible threat to the US. She was then released from an immigration detention facility.
But her arrest coincided with the arrest of other international students in high-profile cases, like Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student and US permanent resident who was arrested after he participated in Palestinian rights protests on campus. These arrests all sent a message to foreign students: It is not as safe as it once was to come to the US.
The administration has announced other changes that will make it more difficult for foreign students to spend time in the US – like a 2025 travel ban that prohibits or restricts the entry of people from 19 countries, mostly in the Middle East and Africa.
The administration also announced in August that it plans to cap the length of time foreign students can stay in the US to four years. Currently, foreign students have a 60-day grace period to stay in the US following graduation before they must secure a work visa or another kind of authorization to legally stay in the country.
Harvard graduates exit the university’s commencement ceremony holding globes in May 2025. Photo: Sydney Roth / Anadolu via Getty Images / The Conversation
A simple math equation
New York University, Northeastern University in Boston and Columbia University hosted the largest number of international students in 2023-2024. But international students are not concentrated in just major liberal cities.
Arizona State University hosted the fourth-highest number of international students that school year, and Purdue University in Indiana and the University of North Texas are also among the 10 schools that host the most international students.
All of these schools – and others, like Kansas City colleges and universities, which are now welcoming far fewer international students than they planned to in the spring because some of the students could not get visas – will feel the financial effects of turning international students away from the US.
Doing the math, I believe that a solid argument can be made for increasing the number of foreign students coming to the US, not cutting back.
Tara Sonenshine is Edward R Murrow professor of practice in public diplomacy, Tufts University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
\asiatimes.com · Tara Sonenshine · September 13, 2025
20. Eastern Philosophy and Influence on the Special Forces Soldier
For all my 1st Special Forces group brothers.
Eastern Philosophy and Influence on the Special Forces Soldier
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/09/12/eastern-philosophy-and-influence-on-the-special-forces-soldier/
by David Maxwell
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09.12.2025 at 06:00am
Author’s Note: at the behest of a fellow Special Forces brother from 1st Special Forces Group, I am providing a follow-up to my previous essay “The Enlightened Warrior: Applying Reason and Critical Thinking in Special Forces” from an Eastern philosophical perspective.
Introduction
In the modern age of complex conflict, irregular warfare, and political competition, the Special Forces (SF) soldier must be more than a warrior. He must be a philosopher, strategist, and statesman who embodies the universal values of human dignity, freedom, and resilience. While the Enlightenment thinkers of the West provide one foundation for critical thinking and moral clarity, the Eastern philosophical traditions offer equally profound lessons that shape the intellectual and ethical framework of the modern SF soldier.
Sun Tzu and the Art of Strategy
No thinker has had a greater impact on the conduct of warfare than Sun Tzu, whose Art of War remains a timeless manual on strategy and statecraft. Sun Tzu’s assertion that ‘all warfare is based on deception’ underlines the irregular warfare environment in which Special Forces thrive. He advises leaders to win without fighting, to attack the enemy’s strategy rather than their forces, and to create dilemmas that paralyze the adversary. For the Special Forces soldier, this translates to influence, information, and unconventional warfare as strategic tools.
Lao Tzu and the Way of Restraint
Where Sun Tzu teaches the art of winning, Lao Tzu offers the wisdom of restraint. In the Tao Te Ching, he writes, ‘The greatest conqueror is one who overcomes himself.’ For the Special Forces soldier, often operating in ambiguous environments, this lesson of humility and self-control is vital. Lao Tzu’s philosophy emphasizes non-action (wu wei), not as passivity but as disciplined alignment of action with the natural flow of events. This resonates with the SF principle of the ‘quiet professional,’ whose discipline lies in measured restraint.
Confucius and the Ethic of Duty
Confucius placed supreme emphasis on virtue, duty, and harmony within society. His teaching that leaders must govern by moral example rather than coercion resonates with the Special Forces’ role as advisors and partners to indigenous forces. Confucius wrote, ‘To see what is right and not do it is the want of courage.’ For SF soldiers, courage is not only found in combat but also in maintaining moral clarity, preserving human dignity, and embodying ethical conduct. Confucian ideals shape the SF operator as a moral exemplar and mentor.
Yi Sun Shin and the Warrior-Scholar
Admiral Yi Sun Shin of Korea, who defended the peninsula against overwhelming Japanese invasion in the late sixteenth century, embodies the warrior-scholar ideal. His war diaries, the Nanjung Ilgi, reveal a leader who was disciplined, humble, and deeply reflective. Despite betrayal, imprisonment, and constant adversity, Yi Sun Shin persevered through resilience and devotion to his people. He wrote, ‘Do not grieve when faced with misfortune. Instead, always be mindful of duty.’ For the Special Forces soldier, this ethos underscores the resilience required in irregular conflict.
Kautilya and the Arthashastra: Gupta Karya and Statecraft
No discussion of Eastern strategy is complete without Kautilya, the ancient Indian philosopher and author of the Arthashastra, a treatise on governance, statecraft, and war dating to the 4th century BCE. Kautilya emphasized that the survival of the state depends on the effective use of both overt and covert means. Central to his work is the concept of ‘Gupta Karya,’ or secret operations, which encompassed espionage, psychological warfare, and the cultivation of alliances. A recent essay in Small Wars Journal by Gaurav Kumar highlights how modern Indian doctrine has revisited Gupta Karya to guide operations in the 21st century. For Special Forces soldiers, the Arthashastra validates the importance of intelligence, influence, and clandestine action as essential complements to overt operations.
Siddhartha Gautama and the Discipline of Mind
The Buddha’s teachings on suffering, impermanence, and the path to enlightenment offer practical lessons for the SF soldier. Operating in the gray zone of conflict demands mindfulness, detachment from ego, and clarity of perception. The Four Noble Truths remind the soldier that suffering is inherent in human existence, but it can be transcended through right understanding and right action. Meditation and mindfulness cultivate resilience under stress, sharpen perception in ambiguity, and ground the operator in ethical awareness.
Gandhi and the Power of Nonviolence
While Special Forces are trained for combat, Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance provides an equally critical dimension to irregular warfare. Gandhi demonstrated that moral force and mass mobilization can achieve political change without arms. His concept of satyagraha, or ‘truth-force,’ shows that legitimacy and justice can dismantle oppression. For the SF soldier, especially in influence and information operations, Gandhi’s lessons illustrate how empowering populations with dignity and moral clarity can undermine tyranny without direct combat.
The Dalai Lama and Compassionate Leadership
The Dalai Lama represents the fusion of spiritual discipline and political struggle. Despite exile and the loss of his homeland, he champions compassion, dialogue, and nonviolent resistance. He teaches that true strength lies in compassion, and that peace is inseparable from justice. For the Special Forces soldier, who often works with vulnerable and oppressed populations, the Dalai Lama’s leadership underscores the moral imperative of empathy. Compassion builds trust, strengthens legitimacy, and ensures enduring partnerships. As an aside, the Special Forces soldier has a special relationship with the Dalai Lama. In 1943, Ilia Tolstoy and Brooke Dolan of the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA and Special Forces, gifted the Dalai Lama a Patek Philippe watch on behalf of President Roosevelt to gain his support in World War II.
Rumi and the Inner Battle
Rumi, though rooted in the Islamic mystical tradition, has profoundly influenced Eastern and global spirituality. His poetry speaks of the inner struggle as the most decisive battle. ‘Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.’ This inward turn is critical for the SF soldier, whose resilience and moral clarity are forged in the inner battle of character. Rumi’s vision reinforces that the true victory of the warrior is not over adversaries but over the self.
Miyamoto Musashi and the Way of Strategy
Finally, Miyamoto Musashi, the famed Japanese swordsman and author of The Book of Five Rings, embodies the warrior who masters both technique and philosophy. Having fought and won over sixty duels, Musashi distilled his experience into principles that transcend the sword. His central teaching is adaptability: ‘You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain.’ For the Special Forces soldier, this means cultivating versatility, whether in irregular warfare, political engagement, or influence operations. Musashi also emphasized the unity of mind, body, and weapon, warning against attachment to any single method. Above all, his philosophy stresses clarity of mind and relentless preparation, ensuring that the warrior is never overcome by hesitation.
Conclusion: The Eastern Enlightened Warrior
The Special Forces soldier is the embodiment of both warrior and sage. While Western Enlightenment values of reason and critical inquiry provide one intellectual arsenal, the traditions of Eastern philosophy furnish another equally powerful set of tools. Sun Tzu provides strategy, Lao Tzu humility, Confucius moral duty, Yi Sun Shin resilience, Kautilya clandestine statecraft, the Buddha mindfulness, Gandhi moral force, the Dalai Lama compassion, Rumi inner wisdom, and Musashi adaptability. Together they shape the archetype of the Eastern Enlightened Warrior, a figure prepared to navigate the moral, strategic, and psychological dimensions of modern irregular warfare with wisdom and restraint.
Tags: Army SOF, Eastern Philosophy, SOF, Special Forces
About The Author
- David Maxwell
- David Maxwell is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia Pacific region (primarily Korea, Japan, and the Philippines) as a practitioner, specializing in Northeast Asian Security Affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. He is the Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy. He commanded the Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines during the war on terrorism and is the former J5 and Chief of Staff of the Special Operations Command Korea, and G3 of the US Army Special Operations Command. Following retirement, he was the Associate Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is a member of the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society, on the board of advisers of Spirit of America, and is a contributing editor to Small Wars Journal.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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