Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"You always have the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone."

– Marcus Aurelius

"Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible."

– Fyodor Dostoevsky

"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."

– WIll Rogers.

1. Is Irregular Warfare America’s Blind Spot?

2. US Proposes to Create Military Unit to Counter Nuclear Proliferation

3. Trump’s Defining Issue: China

4. Xi Revisits WWII to Boost China in Great-Power Rivalry With U.S.

5. Russian Drone Parts, Made in China

6. The Road to Freedom Campaign by Spirit of America

7. New Study Shows Trump Might Be Right on Tariffs

8. US ally opens new base at China choke point

9. These American mercenaries are revered in China. Their relatives are among the few US invitees to Xi’s WWII parade

10. By Tying Ukraine’s Hands, the Pentagon Undermines Trump

11. Trump in talks to deploy private army to Ukraine

12. Ukraine Pursues a Weapons Buildup More Potent Than Any Security Guarantee

13. AI-Powered Drone Swarms Have Now Entered the Battlefield

14. Eighty years after WWII’s end, the consensus it forged is crumbling

15. The Doctrine of Obedience: Iran’s Recruitment Architecture and the Illusion of Diplomacy

16. The Countdown to Venezuela’s Digital-AI Authoritarian Future: Two Clocks in a Strategic Race

17. Reimagining Indian Military Doctrine: Operation Sindoor Through the Lens of Gupta Karya

18. Don't Abandon AUKUS by Gary Roughead, Marise Payne, Nicholas Carter, and James Mattis

19. Recruit–Train–Equip–Repeat Isn’t Enough Anymore: Bringing Transformation to the Army’s Generating Force

20. Faster Wars, Smarter Minds: Driving the Army’s Quiet Cognitive Revolution

21. Roosevelt's 1941 Labor Day Radio Address

22. America Is Cutting Off the Five Eyes. The Results Could Be Catastrophic.

23. Government shutdown looms as Congress returns after monthlong August recess

24. Trump appointee exits US foreign aid agency after four-month sprint: ‘Mission accomplished'

25. The case for the em dash

26. ‘Keep up the fire’: The Boxer Rebellion and the Marines who fought it

1. Is Irregular Warfare America’s Blind Spot?

For those with 55 minutes to spare, Dr. Rob Burrell hosts LTG Charles Cleveland and me to discuss irregular warfare.

Access the podcast at this link. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-irregular-warfare-americas-blind-spot/id1715344430?i=1000724428879

LTG Cleveland references the memo from General Amos, Admiral McRaven and the late General Odierno. The seven page document is worth reviewing.

Strategic Landpower: Winning the Clash of Wills

Strategic Landpower and the Inherently Human Nature of Conflict

It could be found at this link:

https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/310007.pdf

Is Irregular Warfare America’s Blind Spot?

Text the ATB Team! We'd love to hear from you!

In this episode of the GNSI At the Boundary podcast, USF’s Dr. Rob Burrell is joined by Colonel Dave Maxwell (Ret.), of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and the Global Peace Foundation, and Lieutenant General Charles T. Cleveland (Ret.) to examine the future of the American way of irregular warfare. From the overlooked role of the human domain to the need for a national-level capability dedicated to irregular warfare, the conversation challenges conventional thinking about U.S. defense and security.

General Cleveland highlights why the United States must move beyond a purely conventional mindset, while Colonel Maxwell revisits the Nunn-Cohen amendment to Goldwater-Nichols, advocating for a dedicated organization to address the nation’s irregular warfare challenges. Together, they argue that political warfare and irregular strategies must be fully integrated into U.S. national security policy—just as airpower became indispensable in the 20th century.

Links from the episode:

• Register for CyberBay Here!

• Register for.a webinar on irregular warfare with Dr. Rob Burrell and Chris Mason!

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

• The American Way of Irregular War

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.

The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

2. US Proposes to Create Military Unit to Counter Nuclear Proliferation

US Proposes to Create Military Unit to Counter Nuclear Proliferation - Militarnyi

militarnyi.com · Vladislav V. September 1, 2025 19:43

#Nuclear weapons

#USA

#World

B-2 and B-52 strategic bombers on Diego Garcia Island. Photo credits: @thenewarea51

The United States is proposing to create a special military unit to respond quickly to threats of nuclear proliferation in the world.

The proposal was made by Henry Sokolski, Executive Director of the Center for Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Breaking Defense reports.

The idea became relevant after Donald Trump’s statement about preventing the spread of nuclear technology. Soon after, Secretary of State Rubio met with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi and reaffirmed Washington’s position.

After the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, there was a need to consolidate the forceful nonproliferation policy as a systemic, not a one-time action. Consistency will determine the credibility of the United States in this area.

Historically, Washington has acted inconsistently. Under Presidents Ford and Carter, the United States blocked plutonium reprocessing in South Korea, Taiwan, and Brazil. At the same time, the policy towards Pakistan, India, and Iran was much more lenient.

B-2 bomber and GBU-57A/B MOP bomb. Photos from open sources

Iraq was an exception: the Americans destroyed its nuclear facilities and introduced one of the strictest control regimes. But later, the United States reached unstable agreements with the DPRK and Iran, which created the impression of a willingness to compromise instead of firm enforcement.

In June, the Trump administration drew a ‘red line’ by banning Iranian nuclear fuel production. However, to maintain credibility, Washington must respond in the same way to other countries that may start their own programs.

The closest example is Saudi Arabia. The United States wants to conclude a nuclear cooperation agreement with Riyadh that will allow it to enrich uranium. At the same time, the Saudis openly state that they will get a bomb if Iran succeeds.

An additional threat is Iran’s possible withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). North Korea took a similar step in 2003, and three years later, it created its own bomb. However, it is questionable whether the Trump administration is ready to prevent this scenario from happening again.

US Air Force B-1B Lancer strategic bombers fly to an air base in Norway, August 2025. Photo credits: ac.nato.int

The bombing of Iran set a precedent and temporarily halted its program. Now Washington has a chance to consolidate this course in the form of a long-term strategy.

The initiative proposes to create a nonproliferation control unit that will coordinate with other commands. It should have its own analytical staff and access to intelligence outside of traditional channels, including Israel and the IAEA.

The second component will be rapid response military assets, primarily bombers with penetrating munitions, capable of operating against nuclear facilities in any region of the world.

The creation of such a force would require a redistribution of StratCom resources and would inevitably provoke resistance. However, if counterproliferation is a true White House priority, the military will have to be adapted to this mission.

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militarnyi.com · Vladislav V. September 1, 2025 19:43

3. Trump’s Defining Issue: China

Excerpts:

The Tianjin summit is akin to a Haka, a Maori ritual familiar to fans of New Zealand rugby. In a Haka, the members of New Zealand rugby teams stomp and shout to show their strength before the real contest begins. Once the Haka is over, it’s game on. Mr. Trump’s Haka has also been dramatic as he asserts dominance over allies and adversaries alike to prepare for the showdown with China. Using trade carrots and sticks, he has consolidated American leadership over a sullen Europe.

...

The side that performs the most impressive Haka doesn’t always win the ensuing contest, and China and the U.S. have a mix of asymmetric strengths and weaknesses that make the outcome of a struggle between the two powers hard to predict. Mr. Trump believes that China’s need for America’s consumer market will ultimately force Beijing to make large concessions. China appears to believe that the world’s need for the products it makes and the strategic commodities it controls will force Washington to compromise.

Mr. Trump has dealt mostly with powers much weaker than the U.S. and won a string of victories. In the next phase, he will be facing a Chinese-led coalition of stronger countries that want the U.S. and its president to fail. What kind of bargain Mr. Trump drives with China will likely define his place in American and world history more than anything he has done or left undone in his presidency to date.

Trump’s Defining Issue: China

While Xi flexes at his Tianjin summit, the U.S. president aims to prevail on trade.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-defining-issue-china-e783c766

By Walter Russell Mead

Sept. 1, 2025 5:01 pm ET

Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, China, Sept. 1. Photo: Sergei Bobylev/Associated Press

Chinese President Xi Jinping is doing something unusual this week. He is driving Donald Trump off the front page. The story the world is watching isn’t datelined Washington. Instead Tianjin, China, was front and center as Mr. Xi held the largest summit to date of the China-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Besides Vladimir Putin and the usual crowd of Central Asian presidents, attendees include Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and leaders representing Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

It was a big event. Mr. Putin’s presence showed that despite Trump administration attempts to drive wedges between China and its allies, the two Eurasian supergiants are still presenting a united front. The presence of Iran’s president, at a time when Germany, Britain and France are pushing for tightened United Nations sanctions on the embattled Islamic Republic, underscored Tehran’s continued commitment to the cause of resistance. And the presence of Mr. Modi, whose once-special relationship with Mr. Trump has become strained, was a hint to Washington not to take India for granted.

The Tianjin summit won’t be remembered for its achievements. But the meeting was a significant move. China and America are positioning themselves for what Messrs. Xi and Trump both consider the main event of Mr. Trump’s second term: negotiations over the trade relationship between the geopolitically hostile but economically entangled superpowers of the 21st century.

The Tianjin summit is akin to a Haka, a Maori ritual familiar to fans of New Zealand rugby. In a Haka, the members of New Zealand rugby teams stomp and shout to show their strength before the real contest begins. Once the Haka is over, it’s game on. Mr. Trump’s Haka has also been dramatic as he asserts dominance over allies and adversaries alike to prepare for the showdown with China. Using trade carrots and sticks, he has consolidated American leadership over a sullen Europe.

A similar strategy has been less successful with America’s Asian partners. Japan, despite the unpopularity of Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the weakness of the current Japanese government (having lost majorities in both houses of the Diet), is doing its best to work with Washington. Other allies are harder to corral.

Mr. Xi’s Tianjin summit highlights what China sees as the limits of Mr. Trump’s power. The American president’s efforts to drive wedges between Russia and China have so far failed. Mr. Putin is resisting Mr. Trump’s mediation over Ukraine, and the Russian leader’s presence at the summit reaffirms his strategic choice to align with the East to fight the West.

Mr. Trump hasn’t given up, but China for now seems to be outbidding Washington in the Russia auction, and Mr. Xi is rubbing it in. Mr. Putin’s high-profile role in Tianjin (and his expected attendance at the military parade Wednesday in Beijing to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II) are calculated to demonstrate Mr. Trump’s diplomatic failure with Moscow to the world.

And North Korea, a country Mr. Trump famously tried and failed to “flip” into a new relationship with Washington, looks even more out of reach. Mr. Trump’s strongest card with Pyongyang was North Korea’s fear of becoming too dependent on China. But by building a relationship with Russia over Ukraine, North Korea has diversified its portfolio without Washington’s help. Kim Jong Un’s expected presence at Mr. Xi’s Wednesday military parade signals to Mr. Trump that the North Korean leader will be harder than ever to reach.

The side that performs the most impressive Haka doesn’t always win the ensuing contest, and China and the U.S. have a mix of asymmetric strengths and weaknesses that make the outcome of a struggle between the two powers hard to predict. Mr. Trump believes that China’s need for America’s consumer market will ultimately force Beijing to make large concessions. China appears to believe that the world’s need for the products it makes and the strategic commodities it controls will force Washington to compromise.

Mr. Trump has dealt mostly with powers much weaker than the U.S. and won a string of victories. In the next phase, he will be facing a Chinese-led coalition of stronger countries that want the U.S. and its president to fail. What kind of bargain Mr. Trump drives with China will likely define his place in American and world history more than anything he has done or left undone in his presidency to date.

Xi Revisits WWII to Boost China in Great-Power Rivalry With U.S.

Communist Party uses celebration of 1945 victory to promote Beijing’s global standing and claim to Taiwan

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-xi-world-war-ii-536daeca

An installation in Beijing commemorating the 80th anniversary of the victory over Japan in World War II. Photo: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images

By Chun Han Wong

Sept. 1, 2025 11:00 pm ET

Eight decades after the end of World War II, China’s Communist Party is still battling for recognition of its role in securing final victory and its claims to the territorial spoils—amid a bruising rivalry with the U.S.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has directed an expansive propaganda campaign in recent months to trumpet the party’s account of how it helped defeat Japan. On Wednesday, he will oversee a grand parade of troops, missiles and tanks rumbling through central Beijing to commemorate the 1945 victory.

Xi’s goal is to rouse popular support for the party and for his agenda as he grapples with a sluggish economy and the escalating competition with the U.S., officials and scholars say.

By promoting the party’s war narratives, Xi aims to boost China’s standing as a world power, justify Beijing’s territorial claim over the island democracy of Taiwan and rally international support for China’s efforts to challenge U.S. pre-eminence.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping visiting a memorial to resistance efforts against Japan this summer. Photo: Xie Huanchi/Xinhua/ZUMA Press

“Xi Jinping is rewriting the history of the Second World War” to serve his political interests, said Hans van de Ven, a professor of modern Chinese history at Cambridge University.

In China, the party’s messaging is unavoidable ahead of the 80th anniversary celebration. Films and television shows lionize Communist guerrillas for resisting the Japanese invasion. Party scholars and curators produced essays and exhibitions portraying the Communists as a foundation of Chinese war efforts against Japan—diluting the credit traditionally given to Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party, which governed mainland China until 1949.

Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of China’s Nationalist Party. Photo: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Japanese soldiers advance near Beiping, as Beijing was then known, in August 1937. Photo: AP

Abroad, Chinese diplomats have stressed that China helped defeat the Axis powers and build an international order centered on the United Nations—a multilateral system that Beijing accuses President Trump of trying to dismantle to advance his “America First” agenda.

In its place, Beijing has cast itself as a force for global stability.

China’s Communist Party, by stressing its role in World War II, is seeking “co-ownership of the postwar international order,” said Rana Mitter, a China historian at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The goal is to cast Beijing as a rule-maker in global governance, not a revisionist power trying to rewrite the rules, Mitter said.

The ‘correct outlook’

Since taking power in 2012, Xi has sought to enforce what he calls a “correct outlook on history”—one that advances his “China Dream” of national rejuvenation and justifies his autocratic rule.

In practice, this means presenting the Communist Party as the sole guarantor of China’s rise, while quashing alternative views about the past.

Xi paid particular attention to World War II. China’s fight with Japan started years before the 1939 outbreak of war in Europe and the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor that brought America into the conflict. Historians estimate that some 14 million to 20 million Chinese died during the war—a sacrifice that Chinese officials and scholars feel has been overlooked in the West.

When marking the 70th victory anniversary in 2015, the party put more emphasis on how Mao Zedong’s Communist forces wore down Japanese forces through guerrilla warfare, challenging the broad scholarly consensus that the Nationalists did most of the heavy fighting. Authorities also sought more international recognition of China’s significance in the broader conflict.

Chinese Communist soldiers in training in 1937. Photo: ullstein bild/Getty Images

“For a long time, there have been various prejudices” that emphasized the Western role in defeating fascism and ignored China’s contributions, Qi Weiping, a professor at Shanghai’s East China Normal University, wrote in a recent essay. China fought in a battlefield with “the highest number of casualties and the highest cost,” and played “an important role in the establishment of the United Nations,” Qi wrote.

Such messaging has intensified as China pushes back against mounting Western criticism of Beijing’s allegedly unfair industrial policies and its continued support of Moscow as Russia waged war on Ukraine.

Xi has cited the events of World War II to account for China’s close ties with Russia, describing the two countries as forces for good that jointly defeated fascism.

The claim to Taiwan

The Chinese leader also used the anniversary to assert Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan, which was a Japanese colony for five decades before it came under Nationalist control in 1945. In an essay published in Russia ahead of Moscow’s Victory Day celebration in May, Xi backed his claim by citing wartime statements by Allied powers—including the 1943 Cairo Declaration, which pledged to return “all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese” to the Nationalist-governed Republic of China.

Chinese officials say the Communist Party, upon seizing power in 1949, became the rightful ruler of all territory that the Nationalists took from Japan after the war, including Taiwan, where a defeated Chiang retreated with his government. The Communist Party has never governed Taiwan but has vowed to take control of it, by force if necessary.

Going into the Sept. 3 war anniversary, Chinese diplomats around the world have echoed Xi’s arguments. “Taiwan’s return to China is an important part of the World War II victory and the postwar international order,” Beijing’s ambassador to Germany, Deng Hongbo, said at a July seminar in Berlin. “Its historical and legal facts are beyond doubt.”

Western officials and historians, as well as those in Taiwan, typically dispute that conclusion. Some say the Cairo Declaration’s intent was fulfilled when the Nationalists took control of Taiwan in 1945, while others argue that the declaration, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and China’s then leader, Chiang, wasn’t legally binding.

Within China, the party is projecting its war narratives on television and cinema screens. A 10-part documentary, “Victory,” recounted the Communist Party’s “mainstay role” in fighting Japan. One new historical drama depicted how a band of Communist guerrillas in northeastern China, after being routed by Japanese forces, regrouped and fought back.

Promoting the Communists’ “mainstay” role in the resistance will help people understand the party’s “greatness, glory, and correctness,” and “unite the masses more closely around the party center with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core,” Zhu Jiamu, a senior historian at the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, wrote in a recent essay.

People visit a filming location for the Chinese war film “Dead to Rights” in Shanghai. Photo: Imago/ZUMA Press

In theaters now

In Chinese cinemas, messaging about Japanese war crimes has resonated. A film set during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, “Dead to Rights,” has grossed more than $400 million since its release in late July, drawing audiences with its depiction of how a group of people at a Nanjing photography studio preserved negatives of photos documenting the massacre, during which Japanese troops killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians, by some estimates.

Authorities recommended visits to World War II-themed exhibitions at some 80 museums and historical sites across China. A Beijing museum, for instance, focused on how Communist forces helped the Allies win the war by pinning down Japanese troops.

Without the Communists’ guerrilla warfare, “it would have been impossible to open up and sustain the battlefield in the enemy’s rear” and thus achieve victory, Luo Pinghan, a party historian, wrote in a party-run magazine.

Such messaging is meant to rouse the nation behind Xi’s efforts to reshape the economy and win a grueling confrontation with the West, Chinese scholars say.

“We are embarking on a new journey of building a strong country and rejuvenating the nation with our heads held high,” the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in a leading party journal. “Although this is no longer a life-or-death struggle of blood and fire, it is a tenacious struggle of hardships and dangers.”

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

5. Russian Drone Parts, Made in China

And pray tell, how is POTUS supposed to stop Xi's support for Putin?

Russian Drone Parts, Made in China

Trump hasn’t been able to stop Xi Jinping’s support for Putin.

By The Editorial Board

Sept. 1, 2025 4:00 pm ET

Vladimir Putin President of Russia, and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping shake hands on Sunday. Photo: Sergei Bobylev/Zuma Press

Chinese President Xi Jinping put on a show of solidarity Monday with Russia and India at a summit in China that shows what President Trump is up against as he tries to end the Ukraine war. Russia’s biggest benefactor is in Beijing.

China doesn’t want Russia to lose in Ukraine because it wants U.S. attention divided between Europe and Asia. That’s what Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Europe’s top diplomat last month, according to the South China Morning Post. That would explain why China does so much to fuel Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

Energy revenue funds Mr. Putin’s war, and China has been the top purchaser throughout the Ukraine invasion, importing more than $310 billion in Russian fossil fuels, according to the nonprofit Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Total bilateral trade rose to $245 billion last year, more than double from 2020.

Mr. Wang says China doesn’t provide lethal weapons to Russia or Ukraine. But that’s a distinction with little difference, since Chinese suppliers provide components and machinery that let Russia produce its own arms. Mr. Wang also said Beijing strictly controls the export of dual-use products, but China’s own customs statistics suggest otherwise.

In the first half of 2025 the Russians imported from China $1.9 billion of “high-priority dual-use items” subject to export controls and sanctions in the West, according to an analysis of Chinese government data by the China-Russia Dashboard, a project of several European think tanks. Their researchers also found Chinese shipments of other dual-use products that can help make tanks, armored vehicles, military jets, drones and body armor.

Chinese machinery keeps popping up in Russian weapons factories, as John Hardie of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has documented. Ukrainian military intelligence posts an online database of foreign components found in Russian arms. As of this week it lists more than 300 examples of Chinese parts in drones, missiles and other weaponry.

Reuters has a report on Chinese-made engines that went to a Russian state-owned manufacturer of Shahed-type drones. The shipments were mislabeled as “‘industrial refrigeration units’ to avoid detection.” Ukrainian military intelligence has described one new model of Russian drone as “made entirely of Chinese components.”

On the front lines lately, Russia has expanded its use of drones that can’t be jammed because they’re controlled by fiber optic cable. Surprise, surprise, Chinese exports of fiber optic cable to Russia have correspondingly increased. Western-made fiber optic costs more, which limits Ukraine’s ability to scale up its production of similar drones.

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bipartisan sanctions package would address this problem by imposing stiff tariffs on countries that buy Russian energy and uranium. Another part of the bill includes sanctions for knowingly selling weapons or component parts to the Russian military or materially undermining Ukraine’s military readiness. This could put new pressure on Beijing to abandon the Kremlin.

Mr. Putin will remain intransigent at the negotiating table as long as he feels confident he can keep going on the battlefield. President Trump is seeking a giant trade and security deal with China as a second-term capstone. But a key measure of success will be whether he can get China to stop backing Mr. Putin’s war.

https://youtu.be/vBmB2nQvSsE

The Road to Freedom CampaignUnlisted

Spirit of America

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7. New Study Shows Trump Might Be Right on Tariffs

I certainly hope the study is correct.

New Study Shows Trump Might Be Right on Tariffs – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

Older economic models might overstate the costs of protection and understate its structural impact.

spectator.org · F. Andrew Wolf Jr.

A few months before last year’s presidential election, I penned a piece inquiring whether Donald Trump was channeling Pat Buchanan. It appears that this same question is again warranted.

When Buchanan campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1990s, he made tariffs a central pillar of his platform. He warned that unchecked globalization would hollow out American industry, erode the middle class, and leave the nation vulnerable to economic dependence. His message resonated — he won the New Hampshire primary in 1996 and reshaped the conversation within the GOP.

It won’t reverse globalization, but it can tilt the playing field back toward American producers.

So, where would the U.S. be today, economically, if it had adopted Buchanan’s ideas sooner — before Trump’s return to the White House?

New research dealing with that question gives us a clue.

The United States, it concludes, would likely be economically richer, including a more productive manufacturing sector.

Economists Hayato Kato, Kensuke Suzuki, and Motoaki Takahashi, in their paper, “Trade Policy and Structural Change,” analyze the effects of a major trade policy shift. What if the U.S. had raised tariffs on imported manufactured goods by 20 percent beginning in 2001 — the year George W. Bush began his presidency?

(It is interesting that the authors chose that percentage rate; Bloomberg Economics estimates that if tariffs remain as they have been assessed by Trump, they will average 15.2 percent in 2025.)

The model presented finds that such a policy would have boosted the national economy by 0.36 percent and raised the manufacturing share of the economy by about one percent. What does a 0.36 percent gain in the economy mean in real terms? It’s equivalent to a permanent increase in real consumption — enough that, over a lifetime, the average American household would have enjoyed the purchasing power of an extra $7,200. By contrast, economists’ estimates of the gains from the now-defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ranged from just 0.1 to 0.12 percent of GDP — making the modeled benefit from Buchanan and Trump-style tariffs roughly three times greater.

The contrast between historical fact and what could have been fits remarkably well with both Buchanan’s and Trump’s advocacy: a return to national industry, bolstered by protective tariffs, to restore economic sovereignty.

Tariffs and the Shape of the Economy

The paper does more than reignite a policy debate. It questions how economists have modeled trade and growth for decades.

Unlike standard trade models, which assume consumers always spend in fixed proportions regardless of income, the authors use a more realistic assumption — their premise is that as people get richer, they shift their spending toward services and away from goods. The model also includes the idea that manufacturing and services aren’t easy substitutes for each other, and are inextricably related to production and consumption.

These dynamics help explain economic structural change — the long-term transition in advanced economies from goods production to the service sector. By raising the relative price of imported goods, tariffs partially slow this drift and redirect spending — and capital — back into domestic industry. That shift, in turn, raises income. The two effects pull in opposite directions: higher prices favor manufacturing while higher incomes orient spending toward services. In the researchers’ model, the price effect prevails, leading to more manufacturing and a lasting improvement in real income.

What About Retaliation

The authors also model what happens if other countries respond with identical tariffs of their own. This was a complaint of those skeptical of Trump’s tariff policy.

In that scenario, U.S. GDP falls by 0.12 percent — a modest loss that wipes out the gain from unilateral action.

Theory vs. Practice

When President Trump imposed broad tariffs during his first term, many U.S. trading partners responded not with retaliation but with negotiation. Canada and Mexico agreed to rewrite NAFTA. Japan and South Korea entered new trade talks. China signed the Phase One agreement. More recently, as the Trump administration has introduced a new round of tariffs on everything from cars to computer chips to green technology, foreign governments have mostly refrained from counter-tariffs.

Instead of matching duties, many countries have sought exemptions, adjusted their export strategies, or reduced their own barriers. As the authors suggest, the real-world response to U.S. tariffs has resembled strategic accommodation more than correlative escalation.

A Modest Gain, but Real Nonetheless

A 0.36 percent GDP gain is not transformational. But in economic policy, neither is it trivial. It’s larger than the projected gains from nearly every modern trade agreement, and of critical importance — it is permanent. The authors’ analysis implies a permanently higher level of real consumption, one that grows in value over time.

And the shift in sectoral composition is not insignificant: a one-percentage-point increase in the manufacturing share of GDP is remarkable in the context of the U.S. economy, which saw that share fall from 16 percent in 1999 to just under 11 percent today.

What gives credence to the authors’ work is that they are careful not to oversell their results. Their model assumes efficient recycling of tariff revenues, frictionless capital markets, and gradual adjustment. But they also show that older models — those assuming fixed preferences and easy substitution between manufacturing and service sectors — tend to overstate the costs of protection and understate its structural impact.

A New Question

The economic debate over tariffs today is no longer dichotomous. Policymakers no longer start from the assumption that any deviation from free trade must necessarily distort outcomes. Instead, the new question becomes: What is the purpose of one’s trade policy — what national objective does it serve, and what tools are available to shape long-run economic structure?

The authors’ paper offers one answer: A well-designed tariff policy — targeted, sustained, and matched with domestic investment can raise real income and preserve manufacturing capacity.

It won’t reverse globalization, but it can tilt the playing field back toward American producers.

It also affirms something Buchanan understood early and that Trump (and now America) are implementing today: free trade is not neutral, but neither is tariff policy. The shape of an economy is a set of policy choices with serious implications for generations of Americans.

Had the country chosen differently in 2001, the model suggests, Americans might be $7,200 richer today — and with more factories still operating.

US ally opens new base at China choke point

Newsweek · Micah McCartney · September 1, 2025

The Philippines has opened a new base in its far northern Batanes province, in the middle of the strategic Luzon Strait frequented by Chinese navy ships.

Why It Matters

The Philippines is part of the so-called first island chain, a string of Pacific allies the Pentagon views as critical to containing China's military in the event of a conflict. Since last year, the U.S. has deployed missile systems to the northern Philippines that put parts of China—and any ships passing through the narrow strait—in range.

Manila is locked in a territorial dispute over China's expansive patrols within the Philippines' maritime zones, and the presence of the U.S. missiles has further inflamed tensions, with Manila resisting Beijing's demands to remove them, insisting their deployment is not aimed at any country in particular.

Newsweek reached out to the Philippines armed forces and the Chinese Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

U.S. troops fly a CH-47 Chinook aircraft over Itbayat Island, Batanes, Philippines during an exfiltration mission during Exercise Balikatan 25 on April 30, 2025. U.S. troops fly a CH-47 Chinook aircraft over Itbayat Island, Batanes, Philippines during an exfiltration mission during Exercise Balikatan 25 on April 30, 2025. Spc. Charles Clark/U.S. Army

What To Know

On Thursday, Batanes Governor Ronald Aguto Jr. joined the Philippine navy's Northern Luzon Command in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new base in Mahato, on Batan Island.

The site "will serve as a hub for territorial defense, maritime domain awareness, and humanitarian assistance and disaster response," the command said in a statement posted to social media.

"More than a military facility, it is envisioned as a whole-of-nation platform, open for use by maritime agencies such as the Philippine Coast Guard and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, as well as local fisherfolk, to enhance coordination, safety, and rapid response in the Philippine seas," the statement added.

Batanes, located about 120 miles from Taiwan's southern tip, sit closer to the China-claimed island than to the Philippine capital of Manila.

China has vowed to unify with Taiwan by force if necessary, and has in recent years stepped up military pressure, including large-scale drills simulating a blockade.

Taiwan, a key tech hub and major trade partner of the United States, sources most of its weapons from Washington, which maintains a policy of public "strategic ambiguity" on whether it would come to the island's defense in a conflict.

Quietly behind the scenes, however, the United States and allied forces are planning for the worst—as is China.

What's Next

If a war does break out over Taiwan, the Philippines would inevitably be drawn into the conflict, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said last month.

"There is no way that the Philippines can stay out of it, simply because of our physical geographic location," he said, adding that the top priority would be evacuating some 160,000 Filipino migrant workers living in Taiwan.

In April, the U.S. deployed the ship-killing NMESIS missile system to Batanes for joint war games with the Philippines, although the exercise did not involve live fire. The move followed the deployment in 2024 of a U.S. mid-range "Typhon" missile system, to northern Luzon province.

The U.S. and the Philippines share a Mutual Defense Treaty. In 2023, Manila increased the number of bases U.S forces can access from five to nine, as the countries stepped up security ties in response to China tensions.

China has not yet publicly responded to the opening of the Mahato base.

About the writer

Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian security issues, and cross-strait ties between China and Taiwan. You can get in touch with Micah by emailing m.mccartney@newsweek.com.

Newsweek · Micah McCartney · September 1, 2025

9. These American mercenaries are revered in China. Their relatives are among the few US invitees to Xi’s WWII parade

This is some fascinating history that is also too often overlooked. But it is interesting that the Chinese pay tribute to these great Americans.

These American mercenaries are revered in China. Their relatives are among the few US invitees to Xi’s WWII parade | CNN

CNN · Brad Lendon · September 1, 2025

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Consider this job offer:

A one-year contract to live and work in China, flying, repairing and making airplanes. Pay is as much as $16,725 a month with 30 days off a year. Housing is included, and you’ll get an extra $700 a month for food. And there’s an extra $11,000 for every Japanese airplane you destroy – no limit.

That’s the deal – in inflation-adjusted 2025 dollars – that a few hundred Americans took in 1941 to become the heroes, and some would even say the saviors, of China.

Those American pilots, mechanics and support personnel became members of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), later known as the Flying Tigers.

The group’s warplanes featured the gaping, tooth-filled mouth of a shark on their nose, a fearsome symbol still used by some US military aircraft to this day.

The symbolic fierceness was backed up by AVG pilots in combat. The Flying Tigers are credited with destroying as many as 497 Japanese planes while losing only 73.

Today, despite US-China tensions, those American mercenaries are still revered in China.

“China always remembers the contribution and sacrifice made to it by the United States and the American people during the World War II,” says an entry on the Flying Tigers memorial page of China’s state-run newspaper People’s Daily Online.

The bond is such that the daughter and granddaughter of the Flying Tigers’ founder are among the few Americans invited to Wednesday’s military parade in Beijing commemorating the end of World War II.

The formation of the Flying Tigers

In the late 1930s, China had been invaded by the armies of Imperial Japan and was struggling to withstand its better equipped and unified foe. Japan was virtually unopposed in the air, able to bomb Chinese cities at will.

Leader Chiang Kai-shek, who had been able to loosely unite China’s warlords under a central government, later hired American Claire Chennault, a retired US Army captain, to form an air force.

A Chinese soldier guards a line of American P-40 Flying Tiger fighter planes at an airfield somewhere in China.

US National Archives

Chennault first spent a few years putting together an air raid warning network and building airbases across China, according to the Flying Tigers’ official website. In 1940, he was dispatched to the United States – still a neutral party – to find pilots and planes that could defend China against Japan.

With good contacts in the administration of US President Franklin Roosevelt and a budget that could pay Americans as much as three times what they could earn in the US military, Chennault was able to get the fliers he needed.

A deal was secured to get 100 Curtiss P-40B fighters built for Britain sent to China instead.

In his memoirs, Chennault wrote that the P-40s he got lacked a modern gun sight.

His pilots were “aiming their guns through a crude, homemade, ring-and-post gun sight instead of the more accurate optical sights used by the Air Corps and the Royal Air Force,” he wrote.

What the P-40 lacked in ability, Chennault made up for in tactics, having the AVG pilots dive from a high position and unleash their heavy machine guns on the structurally weaker but more maneuverable Japanese planes.

In a low, twisting, turning dogfight, the P-40 would lose.

A ragtag group of fliers

The pilots Chennault enrolled were far from the cream of the crop.

Ninety-nine fliers, along with support personnel, made the trip to China in the fall of 1941, according to the US Defense Department history.

Some were fresh out of flight school, others flew lumbering flying boats or were ferry pilots for large bombers. They signed up for the Far East adventure to make a lot of money or because they were simply bored.

Perhaps the best known of the Flying Tigers, US Marine Greg Boyington – around whom the 1970’s TV show “Black Sheep Squadron” was based – was in it for the money.

“Having gone through a painful divorce and responsible for an ex-wife and several small children, he had ruined his credit and incurred substantial debt, and the Marine Corps had ordered him to submit a monthly report to his commander on how he accounted for his pay in settling those debts,” according to a US Defense Department history of the group.

US World War II veterans, including former Flying Tigers, pose for pictures with a banner as a cheering crowd welcome them at the Chongqing Jiangbei Airport on August 18, 2005.

China Photos/Getty Images

Chennault had to teach his disparate group how to be fighter pilots – and to fight as a group – essentially from scratch.

Training was rigorous and deadly. Three pilots were killed early in accidents.

During one training day, which became known as “Circus Day,” eight P-40s were damaged as pilots landed too hard, or the ground crew taxied too fast, causing collisions.

Chennault expressed his disappointment at his group’s first combat mission against Japanese bombers attacking the AVG base in Kunming, China, on December 20, 1941. He thought the pilots lost their discipline.

“They tried near-impossible shots and agreed later that only luck had kept them from either colliding with each other or shooting each other down,” the Defense Department history says.

Still, they shot down three Japanese bombers, losing only one fighter that ran out of fuel and crash-landed.

Establishing a legend

The pilots quickly conquered their steep learning curve.

A few days after Kunming, they were deployed to Rangoon, the capital of British colonial Burma and a vital port for the supply line that got allied war materiel to Chinese troops facing the Japanese army.

Japanese bombers came at the city in waves over 11 days during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. The Flying Tigers ripped holes through the Japanese formations and cemented their fame.

“The AVG had officially knocked 75 enemy aircraft out of the skies with an undetermined number of probable kills,” the group’s website says. “The AVG losses were two pilots and six aircraft.”

The Flying Tigers spent 10 weeks total in Rangoon, never fielding more than 25 P-40s.

American Volunteer Group aircraft flying in tight formation during World War II.

Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

“This tiny force met a total of a thousand-odd Japanese aircraft over Southern Burma and Thailand. In 31 encounters they destroyed 217 enemy planes and probably destroyed 43. Our losses in combat were four pilots killed in the air, one killed while strafing and one taken prisoner. Sixteen P-40’s were destroyed,” Chennault wrote in his memoir.

Despite the Flying Tigers’ heroics in the air, allied ground forces in Burma could not hold off the Japanese. Rangoon fell in March and the AVG retreated north into Burma’s interior.

But they’d bought vital time for the allied war effort, tying down Japanese planes that could have been used in India or elsewhere in China and the Pacific.

Claim to fame

Though news didn’t travel quickly in 1941-42, the United States – still reeling from the devastating December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – was eager for heroes. The Flying Tigers fit the bill.

Republic Pictures cast John Wayne in the leading role of “Flying Tigers” in 1942. Movie posters showed a shark-toothed P-40 diving in attack mode.

Meanwhile, the AVG’s sponsors in Washington asked the Walt Disney company to make a logo.

Disney artists came up with “a winged Bengal Tiger jumping through a stylized ‘V for Victory’ symbol,” the US history says.

A World War II-era P-40 Warhawk, painted in the colors of the American Volunteer Group the "Flying Tigers" is on display in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 2007.

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images/File

The logo didn’t include the iconic shark mouth featured on the Flying Tigers’ aircraft.

Chennault wrote that the shark mouth didn’t originate with his group, but was copied from British P-40 fighters in North Africa, which in turn may have copied them from Germany’s Luftwaffe.

“How the term Flying Tigers was derived from the shark-nosed P-40’s I never will know,” he wrote.

Whose country to fight for

When the US entered the war, US military leaders wanted the Flying Tigers assimilated into the US Army Air Corps.

But the pilots themselves either wanted to go back to their original services – many came from the Navy or Marine Corps – or wanted to stay as civilian contractors of the Chinese government, where the pay was much better.

Most told Chennault they’d quit before doing what Washington wanted. When the Army threatened to draft them as privates if they didn’t volunteer, those who’d considered signing on opted out.

Chennault was made a brigadier general in the US Army and agreed that the Flying Tigers would become a US military outfit on July 4, 1942.

Though the Flying Tigers continued to wreak havoc on the Japanese in the spring of 1942 – striking ground targets and aircraft from China to Burma to Vietnam – it was clear the force was entering its waning days, according to US military history.

The AVG flew its last mission on the day it would cease to exist, July 4.

Four Flying Tiger P-40s faced off against a dozen Japanese fighters over Hengyang, China. The Americans shot down six of the Japanese with no losses of their own, according to a US history.

A US Air Force A-10 attack jet is pictured in Iraq in 2004. The Flying Tigers iconic nose art lives on the A-10 fleet.

Master Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo/Digital/US Air Force

A contribution never forgotten

Despite frosty relations with Washington in recent years, the bond that American mercenaries made with China 80 years ago remains untarnished.

There are at least half a dozen museums dedicated to or containing exhibits about the Flying Tigers in China, and they’ve been the subject of contemporary movies and cartoons.

A visitor walks past images and old uniforms of the Flying Tigers at the Anti-Japanese War Museum in Dayi county in China's Sichuan province in 2005.

Liu Jin/AFP/Getty Images

The Flying Tiger Heritage Park is on the site of an old airfield in Guilin where Chennault once had his command post in a cave.

In the US, the website for the Louisiana museum that bears Chennault’s name sums up what he hoped his legacy would be at the top of its mainpage, using the last lines of the general’s memoir:

“It is my fondest hope that the sign of the Flying Tiger will remain aloft just as long as it is needed and that it will always be remembered on both shores of the Pacific as the symbol of two great peoples working toward a common goal in war and peace.”

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CNN · Brad Lendon · September 1, 2025

10. By Tying Ukraine’s Hands, the Pentagon Undermines Trump

What the...? Who is in charge?

By Tying Ukraine’s Hands, the Pentagon Undermines Trump

Officials quietly revived a Biden-era policy stopping Kyiv from striking Russia with American weapons.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/by-tying-ukraines-hands-the-pentagon-undermines-trump-00b761b3

By Mark Montgomery and John Hardie

Sept. 1, 2025 2:54 pm ET

A Flamingo cruise missile launches in Ukraine. Photo: handout/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Vladimir Putin’s intransigence isn’t the only problem President Trump faces as he tries to bring peace to Ukraine. He must also deal with an uncooperative Defense Department that undermines him.

The Journal reported last month that for months the Pentagon has quietly stopped Ukraine from using American ballistic missiles and British cruise missiles to strike targets inside Russia—a move that effectively reinstated a policy during much of the Biden administration.

It’s unclear if Mr. Trump approved this policy, but the Pentagon has caught the White House off guard before, as when it suspended critical arms deliveries to Kyiv in July. Mr. Trump eventually made sure those deliveries did get to Ukraine. He should similarly overrule the Pentagon’s policy on Ukrainian missiles. As the president has noted, it’s “very hard” for Ukraine to defeat Russia’s unprovoked invasion if Kyiv isn’t allowed to punch back. By untying Kyiv’s hands, Mr. Trump can help force Moscow to the negotiating table.

Ukraine has achieved some success using locally produced drones to strike Russia’s industrial base, energy infrastructure and other targets. But these drones tend to pack far less punch than missiles, limiting their effect against large targets. Ukraine could achieve more, and faster, if it could use American long-range munitions, intelligence and targeting.

Some help is on the way. As part of an $850 million arms package—largely funded by European allies—the U.S. is preparing to deliver several thousand Extended Range Attack Munitions to Ukraine. The ERAM is a relatively low-cost air-launched cruise missile that the Air Force developed with Ukraine in mind. Reports suggested that the missile, designed to resist Russian GPS jamming, has a range of up to 280 miles.

If such reports are accurate, the ERAM could target command centers, logistical hubs and other critical assets, and disrupt Russia’s efforts to seize more Ukrainian territory. The Pentagon’s ban on American-made weapons to strike targets on Russian soil, however, would limit the ERAM’s effectiveness on the battlefield, wasting this opportunity to increase pressure on Moscow.

The U.S. should also provide Ukraine with long-range munitions beyond the ERAM. This could include more Army Tactical Missile Systems (particularly the 186-mile variants), which the U.S. Army is replacing in its own arsenal with the more capable Precision Strike Missile. Washington should also provide longer-range missiles, such as the JASSM-ER and Tomahawk, which can strike key military-industrial plants deeper in Russia, including those supplying the missiles and drones that bombard Ukrainian cities.

Mr. Trump could still prohibit Ukraine from using American missiles against Russian critical infrastructure that doesn’t serve a direct military purpose. Mr. Putin’s forces and military-industrial complex, however, shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy safe haven—a luxury Russia certainly doesn’t afford Ukraine.

Despite Mr. Trump’s diplomatic Mr. Putin is refusing to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until Kyiv swallows Moscow’s maximalist demands. The Russian autocrat insists that Ukrainian troops withdraw from the eastern Donbas region, an idea Kyiv quickly rejected. Mr. Putin is also demanding other concessions that would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future Russian aggression.

As long as Mr. Putin conditions peace on unacceptable demands, an end to the war will remain elusive. But if he feels sufficient military and economic pressure and is made to realize that he can’t attain his objectives through arms, Mr. Putin may become willing to stop the bloodshed.

Some Trump officials may argue, as Biden officials did, that permitting Ukrainian strikes in Russia risks escalation by Moscow. Recent precedent suggests these concerns are overblown. Previous Ukrainian strikes in Russia with Western missiles didn’t prompt Moscow to start World War III or employ tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Mr. Trump has the tools to pressure Moscow. For that to happen, he’ll need every member of his administration, including the Pentagon, to row in the same direction.

Mr. Montgomery is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral. Mr. Hardie is deputy director of the Russia program at the foundation.

11. Trump in talks to deploy private army to Ukraine

How will this turn out?

Trump in talks to deploy private army to Ukraine

Telegraph reveals peace plan taking shape behind closed doors

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/08/30/trump-talks-deploy-private-army-ukraine/

Joe Barnes.

Connor Stringer

Deputy US Editor

Border reinforcement

European officials said the primary strategy for preventing war in the future was continuing to rebuild Ukraine’s battle-stricken armed forces into the main form of deterrence.

Under the plan, Ukrainian formations would defend a reinforced border at the front lines as agreed in any peace deal.

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s Alaska summit failed to bring about a conclusion to the Russia-Ukraine war Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty

Kyiv’s forces would be re-armed and trained by European Nato allies, using existing and new mechanisms.

For example, Ukraine could continue to buy US systems, such as Patriot air-defence batteries or Himars rocket launchers, using funds provided by European allies.

US contractors

Front-line fortifications and bases nearby could be built by American private military contractors as was done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The presence of American contractors on the ground in Ukraine would be seen as a major boost for European powers, which want American buy-in to an eventual peace deal.

Their deployment would mean the White House has skin in the game and would increase the deterrent effect against a Russian attack for fear of US retaliation, sources said.

Discussions over the use of American contractors can be traced back to the signing of a joint deal to extract Ukraine’s vast minerals and rare earth wealth between Washington and Kyiv.

The White House remains opposed to deploying its own troops to Ukraine, but has agreed to broad support to European forces being used to underpin any peace deal.

A Whitehall source said private American contractors “puts American ‘boots’, i.e. American passport holders, on the ground, which is then effectively the deterrent to Putin”.

Using private contractors would also allow Mr Trump to allay fears among his Maga supporters who are against foreign intervention, while also providing him with another business deal to champion, officials said.

Buffer zone

Some European nations have floated the idea of a demilitarised buffer zone to separate Ukrainian and Russian forces once the fighting has ended.

It could be patrolled by peacekeepers or observers as agreed by both Kyiv and Moscow in any peace settlement.

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, would likely demand that European troops be stationed in the zone. The Kremlin has suggested China could be used as a security guarantor in talks over a peace deal.

Mr Trump also suggested deploying Chinese troops as peacekeepers in postwar Ukraine during his meeting with European leaders last week, according to the Financial Times.

Differences between the warring nations mean this option is unlikely to be agreed upon by all sides.

The idea, which was first put forward by Putin, was opposed by Europe and has previously been rejected by Mr Zelensky because of Beijing’s support of Russia’s war effort.

And European nations are insisting they would not position their servicemen and women on the front lines between the Ukrainian and Russian armies.

Responding to reports of the prospect of a buffer zone, Mr Zelensky has said the Russians could retreat if they wanted to create more space between themselves and Ukrainian forces.

Reassurance force

A European-led force could be stationed deeper in Ukraine to offer a third line of defence should Russia choose to invade.

It would primarily serve as another deterrence deployment made up of thousands of European troops.

“The principal aim is to demonstrate to the Ukrainians that we would be in the fight with you if Russia re-invades,” one official said.

Dozens of countries have told their counterparts they would be willing to join the deployment.

These include the likes of Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, as well as the Baltic, Nordic and Scandinavian nations.

It had previously been discussed as a deployment of around 30,000 European troops.

This figure has been seemingly scaled back because of a lack of resources and a fear it could be seen as “too muscular” in the eyes of Putin, a source added.

Mr Trump has signalled he is willing to support a European-backed peace plan without deploying US troops Credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty

Offers of support for the mission have not often been backed up with concrete pledges of how they can join, officials said of discussions.

It would, however, be contingent on a number of American pledges of support, including a so-called “backstop” and other assistance with logistics and intelligence.

The Telegraph has previously reported that this reassurance force would only be deployed to Ukraine for between five to 10 years, or until involved nations are confident that Ukraine’s military is capable of defending itself.

Air policing mission

European nations have been in discussions over introducing a no-fly zone to allow Ukraine to confidently reopen commercial aviation routes.

The scheme could be phased, The Telegraph can reveal, starting in the West and slowly covering more airspace until the entire country is safe enough for commercial air travel, for example.

Allowing air travel to start is seen as a key element in providing an investment boost to the war-torn country and would also help refugees to return home.

At first, the mission – using Western fighter jet patrols and ground-based air defence systems – would aim to open Lviv and other Ukrainian airports in the West of the country.

As confidence builds in any ceasefire arrangements holding, the mission would be extended eastwards towards Kyiv and other cities.

Black Sea task force

Under the plans, Turkey would lead a naval mission in the Black Sea aimed at securing commercial shipping routes in and out of Ukraine.

Kyiv has been able to keep open its own wartime shipping corridors, and the operation would see more routes re-established through Western naval patrols.

The mission, supported by Black Sea nations Bulgaria and Romania, would also lead efforts to de-mine the waters.

Romania has been buying naval vessels from Turkish shipyards as it gears up to play a more pivotal role in the region.

Military contractors take part in a firefight in Iraq in 2004. Private armies could now be used to help rebuild Kyiv’s defences Credit: Gervasio Sanchez/AP

Turkey has blocked access to the Black Sea for both Russian and newer vessels promised to Ukraine by Western allies as it seeks to limit the conflict in the area.

Western training missions

The most likely European deployment would come in the shape of military trainers moved to new bases in Western Ukraine.

The idea was first proposed by Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, last year amid concerns that too many Ukrainian troops were going AWOL from training camps in his country.

It was rejected as escalatory by Joe Biden at the time, a former US official said.

But this year, it re-emerged under Mr Trump’s pressure to build a peace plan as a way of providing another deterrence effect against a renewed Russian invasion.

Training forces would also speed up the process of rearming and rebuilding Ukraine’s armed forces to create the “steel porcupine” effect on the front lines.

As well as France’s mission, Britain’s highly successful training programme, Operation Interflex, would likely be moved to Western Ukraine, according to the current plans.

US support seen as vital

US logistical support for any European deployment is seen as a prerequisite for the security guarantees.

European officials believe Washington has been amenable to requests for assistance in the form of American heavy-lift aircraft to move equipment and troops eastwards towards Ukraine.

This would also help keep Western weapons flowing into Ukraine. European nations have already pledged to buy at least $10bn in American-made military equipment for Kyiv in recent weeks.

Ukraine has also tabled a proposal that would see the country promise to buy a further $90bn worth of hardware once the war comes to an end.

In preparation, the US state department has already approved a potential sale of air-launched cruise missiles and related equipment to Ukraine for an estimated $825m.

The potential sale of 3,350 extended range attack munition (Eram) missiles, which could be delivered to Kyiv within weeks, includes GPS guidance kits and electronic warfare defences for the weapons, which have a range of “several hundred” miles.

The package also includes support equipment, mission planning software, spares, and technical support, the Pentagon announced on Thursday.

Intelligence is key

Another prerequisite for any European deployment would be an offer of American intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR) support, officials said.

European nations lack the satellite capabilities needed to sufficiently monitor any ceasefire.

As well as supporting boots on the ground, intelligence assistance would also be key for the air policing mission to succeed, it is believed.

Mr Trump temporarily withdrew IRS support from Kyiv after his Oval Office spat with Mr Zelensky, which has been blamed on the Ukrainian armed forces losing their foothold in the Russian Kursk region at an accelerated rate.

The Pentagon has reportedly not fully turned on the intelligence needed by Ukraine to mount cross-border missile strikes, creating a de facto American veto over any such plans.

A source told The Telegraph that US officials had also asked Britain’s Ministry of Defence not to share intelligence to this effect while Mr Trump’s peace talks take place with Putin.

Command and control

Europe also lacks experience in co-ordinating major military missions, which has mainly been left to American four-star generals.

European and American officials have discussed the prospect of a US military commander being used to oversee all deployments under the peace plan.

US general Alexus Grynkewich, Nato’s top commander, has been mooted as a possibility for a role, should the idea get the go-ahead from Mr Trump.

The White House has already signed off on his involvement in the recent flurry of military planning, in what is seen by European allies as one of the greatest signs of support for security guarantees by the president.

By handing a greater role to Gen Grynkewich, the coalition will benefit from pre-made plans to defend the continent against a Russian invasion and extra American buy-in for any security guarantees.

US backstop

Most European nations remain privately concerned that any troop deployment can only go ahead with serious support from the US.

“We’ll be involved from the standpoint of backup. We’re going to help them,” Mr Trump told reporters last week.

But Europeans have said that they were yet to hear how the White House was willing to support the mission.

The main request from European governments is for Mr Trump to station fighter jets and missiles in neighbouring Poland or Romania, ready to respond at the first signs of Russian aggression.

European officials believe this level of guarantee from Washington would make Russia think twice about mounting an attack on their troops stationed in Ukraine.

“The prospect of an American military response is an entirely different prospect to a European response,” a source said.

Even if Mr Trump is to verbally agree to the concept, there is unease from European capitals about the pledge’s sustainability.

The American president is known to frequently change his mind, and even if he was to uphold the promise, it could fall when he eventually leaves the White House.

“The issue is that Trump himself believes that his word and the power of Trump is enough to deter the Russians,” one Whitehall source said.

“As you can imagine, that’s not necessarily washing with the Ukrainians.”

Putin remains untrusted

There is also a feeling among European officials that plans for security guarantees will never see the light of day because they’re not confident Putin is prepared to agree to a ceasefire in the first place.

Many believe he is misleading Mr Trump and dragging out the war to gain more territory.

Ukrainian soldiers practice suing a US armoured personnel carrier. Scepticism lingers over whether Russia is interested in ending the war Credit: Sergey Kozlov/Shutterstock

Russia said on Friday that Western proposals for security guarantees were “one-sided” and “designed to contain Russia”, only adding to the levels of scepticism in Europe.

Putin’s reluctance to agree to a ceasefire has led Mr Trump to withdraw economic incentives offered to Russia to end the war.

Earlier this month, The Telegraph revealed that the US president arrived at the summit in Anchorage, Alaska, armed with a number of money-making opportunities for Putin

They included opening up Alaska’s natural resources to Moscow and lifting some of the American sanctions on Russia’s aviation industry.

The biggest of the lot was a potentially lucrative deal that would give Putin access to rare earth minerals in the Ukrainian territories currently occupied by Russia.

Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the president of Ukraine, said no pressure was being put on Ukraine by the US to make territory concessions.

“I am satisfied with the meeting with Witkoff ... no one from the American side is putting pressure on Ukraine regarding any territories,” he said following his meeting with Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s special envoy, in New York.

12. Ukraine Pursues a Weapons Buildup More Potent Than Any Security Guarantee

The right to self defense can never be denied. I cannot blame Ukraine for not wanting to totally depend on the fickle international community to come to its defense.

Ukraine Pursues a Weapons Buildup More Potent Than Any Security Guarantee

Kyiv sees a well-equipped army as a stronger deterrent to Moscow than any Western pledges to defend it. It is working to attract billions to buy more arms.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/world/europe/ukraine-weapons-security.html?unlocked_article_code=1.i08.eSD8.zxyLB04stYNv&smid=url-share

Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk region of Ukraine in May. Kyiv is counting on its booming domestic defense industry, which has already delivered drones that swarm the battlefield.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

By Constant Méheut

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Sept. 2, 2025, 5:07 a.m. ET

Ukraine is pursuing a multibillion-dollar arms buildup that would be funded by Europe, seeing it as the best chance of ensuring the country’s long-term survival as American assistance dries up and Western security guarantees remain uncertain.

Kyiv wants not only to sustain its army through the current war but also to make it the backbone of any postwar settlement, with the goal of deterring Russia from invading again. As Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, recently put it: “Ukraine must become a steel porcupine, undigestible for potential invaders.”

At the center of these efforts is a new NATO-backed procurement system that will channel European funds into buying U.S. weapons for Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky hopes the system will enable $1 billion in purchases each month, with a particular focus on acquiring U.S.-made Patriot air-defense systems to expand Kyiv’s limited arsenal.

The new system would both help replace U.S. arms donations that President Trump has ended and also increase and streamline deliveries of weapons to Ukraine over time. A first sale of cruise missiles and GPS navigation kits, worth $825 million, was announced on Thursday.

Kyiv is also betting on its booming domestic defense industry, which has already delivered drones that swarm the battlefield and is now working to produce more powerful weapons. This month, Ukraine said it had completed the development and begun production of its first domestically made long-range cruise missile.

How far this military buildup can go remains uncertain. European nations that are already grappling with budget strains may struggle to sustain the level of funding Ukraine says it needs, and Kyiv’s army must address persistent manpower shortages to become a truly deterrent force.

But Ukraine has few options other than bolstering its own defense. Vague Western pledges of postwar security guarantees have yet to turn into concrete commitments, and the push for a more robust military reflects concerns that such promises may never materialize.

“The main guarantee of Ukraine’s security is a fully capable, well-trained army that remains in constant combat readiness,” Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s interior minister, said last week in an interview.

Image

President Trump met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House in August.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

As the Trump administration pushes for a peace deal with Russia, Kyiv’s Western allies have been debating security guarantees to ensure that an end to the war would not be followed by another Russian invasion. Some European countries have signaled readiness to station troops in Ukraine, while the United States has said it may send air support. France will host European leaders and Mr. Zelensky in Paris on Thursday to continue the talks.

But these discussions have yielded few results so far, and Moscow has sought to derail them by demanding a say in their terms and opposing any peace deal involving the deployment of Western troops on Ukrainian soil.

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So Ukraine is focused on developing its own security guarantees that its much larger neighbor cannot undermine. Kyiv’s domestic weapon production and its acquisition of Western arms are areas where Moscow has little leverage.

“This is not something the Russians can really discuss,” said Alyona Getmanchuk, Ukraine’s new ambassador to NATO. “That’s our advantage.”

Ukraine is hoping it will soon be able to rely on its new missile, which is called Flamingo. On paper, it can fly more than 1,800 miles with a 2,500-pound payload, according to experts, meaning the missile could strike Moscow and Russian cities far beyond. Its effectiveness on the battlefield, however, remains untested.

Still, experts say such a weapon could serve as a more potent deterrent to the Kremlin than any Western pledge of protection. “A mass-produced deep-strike weapon like the Flamingo is arguably Ukraine’s strongest security guarantee in a postwar European order,” Fabian Hoffmann, a weapons expert at the University of Oslo, wrote in a recent analysis.

Image

Workers inspecting a Flamingo cruise missile at a factory in Ukraine in August.Credit...Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

Even if Ukraine’s army grows, it could never match Russia’s in sheer size. That is why Kyiv sees acquiring and producing more advanced weapons as essential to its long-term survival.

Ukraine’s belief that it needs to provide for its own defense is rooted in the hard experience of watching past security assurances collapse when put to the test. Ukrainian officials point to the Budapest Memorandum, a pledge signed in 1994 that was meant to protect the country after it gained independence.

Under that accord, Ukraine gave old Soviet nuclear weapons back to Russia in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States and Britain. But the deal did not detail those guarantees and offered no promise of military support in case of attack. Ukraine says the lack of specificity gave Russia free rein to attack, as it did starting in 2014.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine initially pinned its hopes on joining NATO, viewing the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense clause as the strongest security guarantee it could aspire to.

Those hopes were dashed when Mr. Trump declared NATO membership off the table. As an alternative, Ukraine’s European allies recently floated a security framework that would offer “Article 5-like” guarantees without admitting Kyiv into the alliance. But Ukrainians have greeted the idea with caution, warning that its vagueness risked repeating the ambiguities of the Budapest Memorandum.

“Any ‘Article 5-like’ idea should be legally binding and underpinned by a real deterrence force,” Mr. Getmanchuk, the Ukrainian ambassador, said.

Still, Ukrainian officials acknowledge that building up a credible deterrent depends on foreign money to equip it with powerful weaponry that is no longer coming free from the United States.

Acquiring such weapons was the main goal of Mr. Zelensky’s proposal to Mr. Trump last month at the White House, where he offered to buy $90 billion worth of American weapons. The package would include Patriot air-defense systems, the only ones capable of intercepting Russian ballistic missiles, which can cause devastating damage, as shown by the recent deadly strikes on Kyiv.

Image

A Ukrainian soldier in the Donetsk region in May.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Mr. Zelensky said Kyiv’s European allies would finance the bulk of the package, most likely through the NATO-backed procurement system, which has so far secured more than $2 billion in pledged funding from eight European countries. The mechanism was created after the Trump administration made clear it would no longer donate weapons to Ukraine, but would agree to sell them to European partners.

That places the burden of funding Ukraine’s military buildup on European nations, even as they embark on their own sweeping domestic rearmament programs. Still, Europe has already outpaced the United States in military aid, providing roughly $95 billion to Washington’s $75 billion, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Recent pledges from Germany and Norway to provide up to $10 billion each in military and civilian support next year suggest that Europe might be prepared to meet the challenge.

The large sums involved mark a shift. Previously, Western partners provided smaller, short-term financial allocations, often in response to urgent battlefield needs.

With larger financial packages committed over several years, Ukraine can better plan for the long-term task of arming its military, analysts say.

“The whole model is that we get contracts, written agreements, that state we will have this number of weapons provided to Ukraine by this year, from the United States, from the Europeans,” said Maksym Skrypchenko, the president of the Transatlantic Dialogue Center, a research group in Kyiv.

Image

Emergency workers at the site of a Russian missile strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

Mr. Skrypchenko said Ukraine was working to channel Western money not only into buying foreign weapons but also into its own defense industry, which has grown rapidly during the war but still lacks the funding needed to produce at scale.

That could allow Ukraine to produce the very missiles Western partners have been reluctant to supply — or have delivered under strict usage limits — for fear of escalation. The United States, Britain and France have provided small batches of ballistic and cruise missiles, but their use is restricted so that they cannot be used to strike major Russian cities like Moscow. Germany has long refused to transfer its long-range Taurus cruise missiles.

Fire Point, the Ukrainian defense firm behind the Flamingo missile, said it would welcome Western funding to speed up production. The company says it currently makes one missile per day, but plans to increase output sevenfold by this fall. Ukraine has also developed a short-range ballistic missile named Sapsan that recently entered production.

“The best guarantor of the Ukrainian independence is our own missile program,” Mr. Skrypchenko said. “When we’ll have several hundred ballistic missiles with the range capable to hit targets in Moscow, it will be a completely different game.”

Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people.

13. AI-Powered Drone Swarms Have Now Entered the Battlefield

Photos and graphics at the link below.

AI-Powered Drone Swarms Have Now Entered the Battlefield

In a new frontier for warfare, Ukraine is using technology to allow groups of drones to communicate and make decisions independent of their operator

https://www.wsj.com/world/ai-powered-drone-swarms-have-now-entered-the-battlefield-2cab0f05?st=L7X5Di&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Swarmer drone technology is tested in Ukraine.

By Alistair MacDonald

| Photographs by Justyna Mielnikiewicz for WSJ

Sept. 2, 2025 5:36 am ET

Quick Summary

Ukraine is using AI to coordinate drone attacks on Russian positions, marking the first known routine use of swarm tech in combat.View more

On a recent evening, a trio of Ukrainian drones flew under the cover of darkness to a Russian position and decided among themselves exactly when to strike.

The assault was an example of how Ukraine is using artificial intelligence to allow groups of drones to coordinate with each other to attack Russian positions, an innovative technology that heralds the future of battle.

Military experts say the so-called swarm technology represents the next frontier for drone warfare because of its potential to allow tens or even thousands of drones—or swarms—to be deployed at once to overwhelm the defenses of a target, be that a city or an individual military asset.

Ukraine has conducted swarm attacks on the battlefield for much of the past year, according to a senior Ukrainian officer and the company that makes the software. The previously unreported attacks are the first known routine use of swarm technology in combat, analysts say, underscoring Ukraine’s position at the vanguard of drone warfare.

Swarming marries two rising forces in modern warfare: AI and drones. Companies and militaries around the world are racing to develop software that uses AI to link and manage groups of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, leaving them to communicate and coordinate with each other after launch.

Ukraine's military has used technology from local company Swarmer to launch drone attacks.

But the use of AI on the battlefield is also raising ethical concerns that machines could be left to decide the fate of combatants and civilians.

The drones deployed in the recent Ukrainian attack used technology developed by local company Swarmer. Its software allows groups of drones to decide which one strikes first and adapt if, for instance, one runs out of battery, said Chief Executive Serhii Kupriienko.

“You set the target and the drones do the rest,” Kupriienko said. “They work together, they adapt.”

Swarmer’s technology was first deployed by Ukrainian forces to lay mines around a year ago. It has since been used to target Russian soldiers, equipment and infrastructure, according to the Ukrainian military officer.

The officer said his drone unit had used Swarmer’s technology more than a hundred times, and that other units also have UAVs equipped with the software. He typically uses the technology with three drones, but says others have deployed it with as many as eight. Kupriienko said the software has been tested with up to 25 drones.

A common operation uses a reconnaissance drone and two other UAVs carrying small bombs to target a Russian trench, the officer said. An operator gives the drones a target zone to look for an enemy position and the command to engage when it is spotted. The reconnaissance drone maps the route for the bombers to follow and the drones themselves then decide when, and which one, will release the bombs over the target.

Three people are involved in these missions: a planner, a drone operator and a navigator. Without the swarm software, nine people would be required, the officer said. Using the technology saves time and frees up personnel to work on other tasks, he added.

How an AI-powered drone swarm operation works

Operator

Operators give the drones a target zone to look for a trench and a command to engage when it is spotted.

Navigator

The reconnaissance drone maps the route for the bomber drones to follow. The drones then decide when, and which one, will release the bombs over the target.

Planner

Large quadcopter drones able to drop 25 small bombs, or grenades, along the line of the trench fulfill the mission.

Sources: staff reports; Bavovna (large quadcopter)

“You don’t require a separate pilot for each drone, one pilot can work with many drones,” Kupriienko said.

That is a help for Ukraine, which is fighting an adversary in Russia with far greater manpower. Fewer operators also simplifies coordination, while having drones communicate with each other at proximity reduces the risk that the enemy can interfere with signals to the UAVs.

To be sure, the Ukrainian operations fall short of what many would consider a full swarm, said Bob Tollast, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a U.K.-based think tank. That could be described as hundreds of drones moving together intelligently and autonomously reacting.

Still, “even a small level of autonomous teaming would be impressive,” Tollast said.

Swarmer said it is preparing to test a swarm of more than 100 drones.

The business, which has secured funding from U.S. investors, is one of a number of companies working on swarm technology. On a visit last year to its office, hidden in a suburban house, two young engineers worked on a ping-pong table welding circuit boards and attaching components to drones. Elsewhere, a 3-D printer noisily produced a new component.

Outside, a neighbor mowed his lawn, seemingly oblivious to what was happening next door. Drones are loaded onto vehicles in a garage away from public view.

The U.S., China, France, Russia and South Korea are among the countries pursuing swarm technology. But analysts said they weren’t aware of it being used regularly in combat until hearing of the Ukrainian operations.

The U.S. has been exploring the technology since at least 2016, when it launched more than 100 small drones from three jet fighters. “The micro-drones demonstrated advanced swarm behaviors such as collective decision-making, adaptive formation flying, and self-healing,” the Defense Department said at the time.

Swarmer engineers used a ping-pong table in a suburban house to weld circuit boards and attach components to drones.

In 2021, officials from Israel’s military told local media that it used a swarm of small drones to locate, identify and attack militants in Gaza.

However, the Israeli military doesn’t appear to have talked about swarming since, leading some drone experts to suggest that there may be challenges with its technology. The Israeli military declined to comment.

For all drone swarms, maintaining stable and reliable communication links between the UAVs is likely to be a challenge, said Zak Kallenborn, a drone-warfare expert at King’s College London.

In Ukraine, Swarmer’s technology had teething problems. At one stage, drones were swapping too much information and overloading the network, the Ukrainian officer said.

The technology also makes drones more expensive. That is a negative for Ukraine, which burns through UAVs. The country produced over 1.5 million drones last year alone, the government said.

AI is a growing focus for militaries and is increasingly being used in combat, though mostly to analyze data or navigate.

But the rise of AI in war is raising ethical concerns about the potential for machines to make life-or-death decisions without human oversight. The United Nations has, for example, called for regulation of lethal autonomous weapons.

The U.S. and its allies require a person in the so-called kill chain under current rules of engagement.

Swarmer said a human ultimately makes the decision on whether to pull the trigger.

“Folks have been talking about the potential of drone swarms to change warfare for decades,” said Kallenborn. “But until now, they’ve been more prophecy than reality.”

Write to Alistair MacDonald at Alistair.Macdonald@wsj.com

14. Eighty years after WWII’s end, the consensus it forged is crumbling

So what comes next for us?

Say what you want about the last 8 decades but at least the leaders from the Greatest Generation had a vision for the future. I want to know what is our vision for the future?

My "research assistant" (AI) summarized the vision and contributions of the Greatest generation for us:

The Greatest Generation faced and overcame the economic hardships of the Great Depression, fought and won World War II, and built a prosperous postwar American economy, characterized by resilience, sacrifice, duty, and traditional values. For the world, their victory in WWII halted the spread of authoritarian regimes and ushered in an era of American global influence and the creation of a more stable international order.

For the United States:

Economic Transformation:
They endured the Great Depression, fostering values of frugality and hard work, which then propelled the nation into an era of unprecedented post-war economic growth and prosperity.
National Mobilization:
They volunteered in huge numbers for military service and supported the war effort on the home front through rationing and sacrifice.
Infrastructure and Innovation:
The war effort led to technological advancements and a fundamental shift in America's infrastructure, transforming a largely rural nation into a largely urban and suburban one.

For the World:

Victory in World War II:
This generation fought and won a global war against fascism and imperialism, saving the world from the cost of 60 million lives lost.
Global Leadership:
The US emerged from the war with unparalleled global strength, with its military larger than all other world navies combined, establishing a new global order.
A Legacy of Values:
Their experiences instilled enduring values of unity, humility, personal responsibility, and patriotism that were seen as a model for other generations.

Eighty years after WWII’s end, the consensus it forged is crumbling

On Sept. 2, 1945, Japanese envoys surrendered aboard the USS Missouri, launching an era of alliances and free trade. Now memories of the war are fading — and so is the consensus on how to avoid a repeat.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/02/world-war-ii-consensus-crumbling-trump/

September 2, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EDTToday at 5:00 a.m. EDT

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme Allied commander, and Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright witness the formal Japanese surrender signatures aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945. Other Allied officials and military personnel stand behind the generals. (AP)

By Naftali Bendavid

When a U.S.-led armada sailed into Tokyo Bay 80 years ago to accept the Japanese surrender in World War II, it was just 27 days after an atomic bomb killed some 70,000 people in a single blow at Hiroshima.

It was 125 days after Adolf Hitler shot himself, ending the life of a man responsible for the slaughter of 60 million people. It was 218 days after the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, whose skeletal survivors testified to humanity’s depths.

The lessons, to many Americans, seemed self-evident: Isolationism, nationalism and authoritarianism lead to disaster. Alliances, free trade and democracy are the only way forward. And the U.S. has to take the lead.

Despite some hits, that consensus largely held — at least among policymakers — for nearly 80 years. But Donald Trump’s presidency, with its single-minded pursuit of American advantage, may signal its demise.

Follow Trump’s second term

That dismays those who believe strongly in the war’s lessons.

“How do you navigate a complicated and dangerous world? You don’t navigate it by unraveling what has worked,” said former senator and defense secretary Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska). “You don’t unravel a post-World War II world order that is based on institutions and rule of law and common interests. That is very dangerous. It is the biggest threat to the future of mankind.”

Hagel’s father served in the South Pacific during the Second World War, and Hagel, who earned two Purple Hearts in Vietnam and served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama, said the memory of World War II was everywhere when he grew up in small-town Nebraska.

“In the ’50s, everybody in the town was a World War II veteran,” Hagel said. “Every kid in that era had a sense of what happened and why, and how did it turn out and what was the future.”

But the generation that remembers Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the death camps and the atrocities is largely gone. Of the 16.4 million American veterans of World War II, only 45,418 — far less than 1 percent — are still alive, according to the National World War II Museum.

World War II veteran Ben Mendoza, 97, is wheeled by his son, Marco Mendoza, both of Austin, at a wreath ceremony in 2021 at the World War II Memorial in Washington commemorating the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Of the five American presidents who have served this century, four — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Trump and Joe Biden — were born during World War II or just afterward. The next president is certain to have grown up in a much later era.

And fewer Americans today believe that being engaged in the world is important for the U.S. In 2024, 56 percent of Americans said the country should take an active part in world affairs — a near record low, according to a poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

That change reflects a growing sense among many Americans that the U.S. has tried to do too much: overextending itself, wasting money, squandering lives, meddling where it is not wanted and letting others take advantage.

White House officials argue that this is not a binary choice and that Trump has succeeded in promoting global stability while ensuring that U.S. interests come first. They cite the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement, the Abraham Accords, and a peace deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo as evidence that Trump is more than willing to act on the world stage, just not in a way that wastes American lives and dollars.

“America First has never meant America Only, and President Trump has effectively restored America’s standing on the world stage while simultaneously strengthening global stability,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “The president’s foreign policy accomplishments speak for themselves — by leveraging his diplomatic relationships around the world, fair trade is being restored, over 70 Americans detained abroad are home, the border is secure, Europe is taking responsibility for its own defense, and decades-long conflicts around the world are over.”

Kurt Volker, U.S. ambassador to NATO under Bush, said Trump’s approach reflects a long-standing element of U.S. public opinion. “There is an underlying current in American life that we really don’t want to be burdened with the world, that we are separated by oceans, we are peaceful and free, and we just want to get on with life,” Volker said. “That has been a latent tendency forever.”

Volker contended, however, that most Americans still believe in the U.S. promoting democratic values. “President Trump and Vice President Vance are expressing a frustration with how they feel America has been doing too much and others need to do more,” he said. “They can get people to follow them, but I don’t think it’s where the hearts of Americans are today.”

Moreover, defenders of the postwar consensus maintain that even if many Americans would prefer to withdraw from the world, doing so isn’t sustainable.

“The world will come to you if you are not there, and that is what happened in World War II. We thought we could stay out, and then Japan attacked us,” said Ivo Daalder, who followed Volker as NATO ambassador under Obama.

“The danger is that in a world that remains deeply interconnected — deeply interdependent — the ability to withdraw from that world is close to zero,” Daalder said.

Eighty years ago, desperate to prevent another global cataclysm, world leaders built bulwarks that have defined the modern world. Leaders gathered in New Hampshire in 1944 to create an interconnected financial system, and they met in San Francisco in 1945 to form the United Nations. NATO was born in 1949, and an early version of the European Union a few years later.

The philosophy: anything to bind countries together so they would not fight again.

European leaders stand alongside President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Aug. 18. (Tom Brenner/For the Washington Post )

Trump has attacked many of those institutions, questioning the value of NATO and criticizing the United Nations. The European Union, he said in February, was “formed in order to screw the United States.” With a slew of heavy tariffs, Trump has upended the international trading system that began with the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Trump has seized on widespread disenchantment with the results of America’s global engagement. Few would dispute that America has regularly fallen short of its aspiration to be a beacon of freedom. During the Cold War in particular, the U.S. regularly supported authoritarian regimes simply because they opposed the Soviet Union, while targeting democratic groups if they resisted aligning with the West.

The Soviet Union for decades was a nuclear-armed menace that, for most Americans, underlined the need to be engaged. Its collapse in 1991 prompted many to question whether that involvement was still necessary. The Iraq War, launched a dozen years later, seemed to highlight the folly of U.S. overreach, as roughly 4,500 American service members died without a clear purpose.

Trump, with his blunt messaging style, adopted “America First,” a slogan used by the isolationists who opposed America’s entry into World War II. He embraced terms like “nationalist,” which has long carried a whiff of authoritarianism and prejudice.

“You know what I am — I’m a nationalist, okay?” Trump told a 2018 rally in Houston. “I’m a nationalist. Nationalist! … Use that word! Use that word!”

For years, Republicans were more favorable to U.S. engagement than Democrats were, according to the Chicago Council’s polling. That shifted around 2015, as Trump rose to prominence. In the most recent poll, 68 percent of Democrats said America should take an active role in world affairs, compared with 54 percent of Republicans and 47 percent of independents.

Fewer Americans believe, as they once did, that when the U.S. tries to avoid the world’s problems, they find us anyway, those figures suggest.

Those doubts draw from deep roots in American political culture. In the 1910s, many Americans strongly opposed joining World War I, seeing it as a conflict between doddering European dynasties that were irrelevant to America’s future. Then German submarines began sinking American merchant ships, and public opinion swung sharply behind intervention.

Twenty-five years later, charismatic figures like Charles Lindbergh inveighed against the U.S. entering the Second World War. When Japanese planes launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, killing about 2,400 people, America’s isolationist movement vanished overnight.

A small boat rescues a USS West Virginia crew member from the water after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. (AP)

The message that the World War II generation took away, Daalder said, was that the U.S. had tried isolationism and protectionism, and they did not work. “That persists from Roosevelt through Biden,” Daalder said. “Trump railed against the consensus in the first term but was held back from undermining it. Now he is unleashed. His fundamental argument, which is a 1930s argument, is that our freedom, prosperity and security does not depend on anyone else.”

It’s not just Trump. Even in Europe, where many of World War II’s tragedies played out, once-ironclad lessons drawn from the war are losing their force. Britain left the European Union in 2020, a rebuke to the postwar system of alliances. Nationalist and anti-immigrant parties are gaining power and shedding their pariah status — even in Germany and France, two countries at the heart of the Second World War.

When ships from Allied nations gathered in Tokyo Bay on the morning of Sept. 2, 1945, some observers saw not just the end of the war but also a hoped-for conclusion to an era of carnage that encompassed the First World War and the Great Depression.

Japanese representatives boarded the USS Missouri and signed the Instrument of Surrender just after 9 a.m., followed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who said he hoped that “a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past.”

In a broadcast later that day, MacArthur proclaimed that “a great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death.” But he added a darker warning: “We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.”

American leaders and their counterparts then set about trying to build that more equitable system. But with memories of the war gone, the sense of potential Armageddon has faded as well.

“The living memory of World War II is pretty much over — that is what is significant,” said Eliot Cohen, who was a top adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “There was not a consensus about foreign policy in a detailed sense, but an awareness that truly dreadful things can happen and that isolation is not a real option.”

In forgetting that lesson, Cohen said, “we are tempting fate. We are increasing the risk of a cataclysm. For Britain in 1940, at least there was the United States standing behind them. There is no United States standing behind the United States.”

Hagel said he hopes the country’s future leaders will continue to heed the war’s lessons.

“We are the indispensable leader of the world. For us to walk away from the indispensable leadership of the world is a catastrophe,” Hagel said. “Nature abhors a vacuum. Something will fill the vacuum of leadership. … If we give up what we’ve had over the past 80 years, we are not going to get it back.”

15. The Doctrine of Obedience: Iran’s Recruitment Architecture and the Illusion of Diplomacy

Excerpts:

The nuclear issue represents only the most visible aspect of Iran’s multifaceted threat, yet it is not the foundation upon which Tehran’s regional and global power rests. At the heart of Iran’s influence is a deeply entrenched ideological framework that fuses theology with statecraft, ensuring that military operations, cultural outreach, and diplomatic engagements are all interconnected instruments of a singular strategic vision. Addressing nuclear capabilities in isolation risks creating a false sense of security while leaving intact the highly mechanisms that produce, sustain, and expand Iran’s proxy network. Scholarly analyses of ideological insurgencies demonstrate that when the belief system remains unchallenged, militant structures quickly regenerate even after tactical or operational setbacks. A credible policy approach must therefore integrate counter-ideological measures with military deterrence and diplomatic negotiation. This requires targeting the clerical and educational institutions that legitimize violence, dismantling financial channels that sustain recruitment, and promoting alternative religious and political narratives through trusted community leaders. International coalitions should coordinate to expose the strategic use of religious doctrine for geopolitical gain, reinforcing norms that separate faith from militant politics.

Without such a comprehensive strategy, any nuclear agreement risks becoming a taqiyyah tactic: a deliberate deception enabling Tehran to maintain plausible deniability in international forums while continuing to advance its nuclear program in a more secretive manner, or simply postponing full-scale development for four years until the end of President Trump’s term with the intention of negotiating with a new administration less inclined to confront it. This calculated patience would grant Iran valuable time to reinforce its ideological and military infrastructure. Ultimately, it is impossible to achieve a genuine and lasting peace agreement with an adversary that openly labels the United States as the “Great Satan” and whose declared religious mission envisions eliminating its perceived enemies from the face of the earth.

The Doctrine of Obedience: Iran’s Recruitment Architecture and the Illusion of Diplomacy

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/09/02/the-doctrine-of-obedience-irans-recruitment-architecture-and-the-illusion-of-diplomacy/

by Albert Hadi

09.02.2025 at 06:00am

Ayatollah Khamenei addresses Iranian university students and representatives from student associations as part of an annual event held at the end of the holy month of Ramadan (Islamic Republic News Agency, 7 April 2024).

Abstract

Iran’s global recruitment strategy is deeply embedded in an ideological architecture that fuses religious doctrine, militant training, and political manipulation. From classrooms and cultural centers to encrypted cyber networks, Tehran projects influence far beyond its borders. This article examines the ideological foundations, recruitment mechanisms, and global reach of Iran’s proxy networks, and argues that any nuclear deal must dismantle these ideological pipelines alongside curbing atomic capabilities.

Iran’s Ideological Foundations

While nuclear talks dominate headlines, the real engine of Tehran’s power lies in its global ideological network, a system of influence carefully crafted since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Supreme Leader’s authority is framed not merely as a political role but as a divine obligation. In 2010, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa proclaiming himself the representative of the Prophet Muhammad and Shi’ism’s 12th Imam on Earth. For Iran’s fighters and proxies, this declaration is far more than symbolic; it is a binding religious command that makes loyalty to the regime an act of worship. In the eyes of believers, following Khamenei’s orders is tantamount to obeying the will of Allah himself. This transforms political directives into sacred obligations, psychologically binding recruits and supporters to the regime with a sense of divine mission. Whatever actions they take whether on the battlefield, in political advocacy, or through propaganda are perceived as blessed by God, since they come from his appointed representative on Earth.

Such theological framing is essential to the regime’s endurance. By intertwining religious devotion with political loyalty, Tehran ensures that its followers’ commitment is reinforced not only by ideology but by spiritual identity. This is a doctrine that transcends policy debates or economic grievances; it roots allegiance in the realm of eternal salvation and cosmic struggle. History offers multiple examples of regimes using similar constructs to consolidate and sustain their power.

In medieval Europe, the concept of the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ gave monarchs absolute authority by claiming their rule was sanctioned by God, making dissent both treasonous and heretical. The French monarch Louis XIV famously declared himself the ‘Sun King,’ ruling under the belief that his authority flowed directly from God. During the Crusades, papal decrees sanctioned wars as holy endeavors, promising spiritual rewards for those who fought, thereby merging politics, religion, and warfare in a way that mobilized entire populations.

In more recent times, extremist movements such as ISIS exploited religious decrees to justify territorial conquest, slavery, and mass violence under the pretext of reestablishing God’s law on earth. Al-Qaeda’s leadership issued fatwas declaring war on the United States and its allies as a divine mandate, effectively turning terrorism into an act of religious devotion. Similarly, in the 20th century, Emperor Hirohito of Japan was revered as a living deity, a status used to inspire absolute loyalty and sacrifice, even to the point of mass suicide missions by kamikaze pilots. Emperor of Ethiopia was viewed by followers of the Rastafari movement as a messianic figure, with his political actions imbued with divine significance.

Even in non-religious authoritarian states, leaders have employed quasi-divine cults of personality to cement their rule. North Korea’s Kim dynasty, for example, has constructed a mythology portraying its leaders as almost supernatural beings whose words and deeds are infallible. In Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, leaders like Mussolini and Hitler presented themselves as chosen saviors of their nations, employing ritual, propaganda, and myth to evoke a sacred mission.

Khamenei’s fatwa fits firmly within this historical pattern. It allows him to command not just political allegiance but spiritual obedience, creating a loyalty that is immune to policy shifts or pragmatic compromises. By fusing the authority of state with the sanctity of religious mission, Iran’s leadership has built a system where ideology is not merely believed; it is worshipped. This doctrinal structure is the bedrock of the regime’s ability to mobilize its proxies and sustain its confrontation with the West, regardless of diplomatic developments.

Indoctrination in Education and Culture

Iran’s domestic education system is designed to cultivate ideological warriors from childhood. Textbooks include lessons on the oppression of Muslims worldwide, the righteousness of resistance, and the rewards of martyrdom. Students chant slogans such as Death to America and Death to Israel. This ideological conditioning extends beyond Iran’s borders through cultural centers in countries such as Nigeria, Tajikistan, France and elsewhere.

These centers offer scholarships and aid while quietly promoting Tehran’s political theology. State-run media reinforces educational indoctrination, broadcasting religious programming aimed at youth, including dramatizations of martyrdom stories and heroic portrayals of fallen fighters. Such programming serves to normalize militant sacrifice as an honorable and even desirable life path. Internationally, Iranian cultural attachés work in coordination with local Shi’a communities to host religious events where political messages are subtly woven into religious discourse, ensuring that ideological messaging is both persistent and culturally resonant.

Recruitment of the Vulnerable

Iran targets impoverished and displaced populations with tangible incentives. Recruits to groups such as the Fatemiyoun Brigade and Zainabiyoun Brigade receive monthly salaries, housing, and residency in Iran. Once enlisted, they undergo ideological training portraying martyrdom in service to the Supreme Leader as a spiritual obligation. Recruitment often takes place through community leaders or local clerics who act as intermediaries for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Potential fighters are identified based on both economic vulnerability and religious receptiveness. The IRGC has perfected this dual approach: first addressing material needs to gain trust, then gradually introducing ideological content to cement loyalty. Former fighters have testified in human rights reports that indoctrination sessions often use historical Shi’a narratives, such as the martyrdom of Imam Hussein at Karbala, to frame contemporary conflicts as spiritual obligations.

Members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade.

Diplomatic Deception: The Role of Taqiyyah

Taqiyyah, historically a Shi’a practice of concealing faith under threat, has been transformed by Tehran into a state-level strategy of deception. It enables Iran to negotiate agreements while its proxies conduct militant operations abroad. This strategic use of taqiyyah allows Tehran to maintain plausible deniability in international forums. For example, during periods of heightened conflict, Iranian officials may issue conciliatory statements abroad while domestic speeches by the Supreme Leader reaffirm the uncompromising revolutionary line. Such dual messaging not only confuses opponents but also reassures domestic hardliners that ideological goals remain intact.

Coordinated Proxy Operations

Iran’s proxy network operates like a multinational corporation, with the IRGC-Quds Force as headquarters. Groups such as Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, and Hezbollah operate in coordination with Tehran. These proxies engage in military pressure, political influence, and cultural indoctrination to advance Iran’s objectives. Funding and logistical support for these groups are often routed through charitable foundations known as bonyads, which operate with minimal transparency. These entities not only finance militant activities but also invest in local infrastructure projects to win public support in areas where proxies operate. By blending social services with militant agendas, Iran’s proxies become entrenched in local communities, making them difficult to dislodge without significant civilian backlash.

Cyber and Media Warfare

The IRGC has developed sophisticated cyber capabilities, producing multilingual propaganda disseminated via Telegram, YouTube, and Twitter. These campaigns use emotionally charged content to radicalize and recruit across borders. In addition to social media, Iran operates state-backed news outlets that produce content tailored for foreign audiences, such as Press TV in English and HispanTV in Spanish. These platforms push narratives aligned with Tehran’s foreign policy objectives, often highlighting Western failures and promoting Iranian resilience. Cyber operations also extend to hacking campaigns aimed at collecting intelligence on dissidents and adversary governments.

Iran’s Behavior During Nuclear Negotiations

During the 2015 JCPOA negotiations, Iran intensified its military operations in Syria, expanded its support for the Houthis, and provided Hezbollah with advanced weaponry. This dual strategy allowed diplomacy to mask battlefield escalation. Iran’s concurrent escalation during talks illustrates a calculated approach using diplomatic engagement to secure concessions without sacrificing operational momentum. This mirrors earlier tactics from the Iran–Iraq War, when ceasefire discussions were employed to regroup and rearm.

Policy Implications for the United States

A successful agreement must address Iran’s ideological infrastructure. This includes sanctioning clerics and educators promoting anti-American jihad, monitoring cultural institutions, and exposing propaganda. Policymakers should also increase cooperation with regional allies to share intelligence on proxy activities and track financial flows. In addition, targeted public diplomacy campaigns can help undermine Tehran’s messaging in vulnerable communities abroad.

Countering the Ideological Threat

Countering Iran’s ideological threat is not simply a complementary measure to nuclear oversight; it is the central pillar upon which any lasting peace must rest. No agreement, however meticulously negotiated, can endure when one party continues to teach successive generations that the other is an existential enemy and the source of all their suffering. Iran’s political and religious leadership has, for decades, cultivated a doctrine that frames the United States as the ‘Great Satan,’ embedding this belief into the fabric of education, media, and public discourse. This is not a matter of fringe rhetoric but an institutionalized worldview propagated from elementary school classrooms to Friday sermons, ensuring that hostility toward the U.S. is both a political and religious duty. Such indoctrination erodes the foundation of trust required for diplomacy and incentivizes the regime to bide its time, betting on political transitions in Washington or elsewhere to resume its nuclear ambitions unhindered.

The danger is compounded by Iran’s adept use of strategic deception—presenting a conciliatory face to international negotiators while maintaining an uncompromising ideological stance at home. To secure any meaningful agreement, this doctrine of animosity must be confronted directly. Counter-ideological strategies should target the clerics, educators, and media organs responsible for embedding these narratives, replacing them with messages that promote coexistence and mutual respect. This requires working with credible voices within the global Muslim community to offer alternative interpretations of Islamic principles, dismantling the theological justifications for perpetual enmity. It also demands coordinated international efforts to expose and delegitimize the use of religion as a geopolitical weapon. As long as the Iranian regime teaches its citizens that hating the United States is a divine obligation, no treaty will translate into real peace or security regionally or globally. Neutralizing this ideological infrastructure is therefore not optional; it is the prerequisite for any stable and sustainable resolution to the conflict.

Conclusion

The nuclear issue represents only the most visible aspect of Iran’s multifaceted threat, yet it is not the foundation upon which Tehran’s regional and global power rests. At the heart of Iran’s influence is a deeply entrenched ideological framework that fuses theology with statecraft, ensuring that military operations, cultural outreach, and diplomatic engagements are all interconnected instruments of a singular strategic vision. Addressing nuclear capabilities in isolation risks creating a false sense of security while leaving intact the highly mechanisms that produce, sustain, and expand Iran’s proxy network. Scholarly analyses of ideological insurgencies demonstrate that when the belief system remains unchallenged, militant structures quickly regenerate even after tactical or operational setbacks. A credible policy approach must therefore integrate counter-ideological measures with military deterrence and diplomatic negotiation. This requires targeting the clerical and educational institutions that legitimize violence, dismantling financial channels that sustain recruitment, and promoting alternative religious and political narratives through trusted community leaders. International coalitions should coordinate to expose the strategic use of religious doctrine for geopolitical gain, reinforcing norms that separate faith from militant politics.

Without such a comprehensive strategy, any nuclear agreement risks becoming a taqiyyah tactic: a deliberate deception enabling Tehran to maintain plausible deniability in international forums while continuing to advance its nuclear program in a more secretive manner, or simply postponing full-scale development for four years until the end of President Trump’s term with the intention of negotiating with a new administration less inclined to confront it. This calculated patience would grant Iran valuable time to reinforce its ideological and military infrastructure. Ultimately, it is impossible to achieve a genuine and lasting peace agreement with an adversary that openly labels the United States as the “Great Satan” and whose declared religious mission envisions eliminating its perceived enemies from the face of the earth.

Tags: ali khamenei, foreign fighters, Iran, iranian proxies, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, taqqiyah

About The Author

Albert Hadi
Albert Hadi is an accomplished author and expert in Middle Eastern political and security affairs, with over 25 years of experience collaborating with U.S. interagency entities. His career includes serving as an Arabic Press Officer in Iraq with the Department of State and Editor-in-Chief of A Word of Truth Magazine, a CJTF-OIR publication countering extremist propaganda like ISIS’s Dabiq. Mr. Hadi is widely recognized for his in-depth analysis of human rights, racial justice, press freedom, and social equity, contributing significantly to global understanding of these critical issues. He has published six books in Arabic and English, alongside numerous articles and research papers addressing terrorism, radicalization, and extremist ideologies.

16. The Countdown to Venezuela’s Digital-AI Authoritarian Future: Two Clocks in a Strategic Race

Excerpts:

No foreign military is coming. No court in The Hague will dismantle Venezuela’s security apparatus. The fight will be decided inside the country, in barrios, streets, and clandestine networks—not in exile.

If the opposition fails to adapt, the outcome is clear: an oil-rich, digitally fortified dictatorship capable of preemptively crushing dissent while projecting instability abroad. One that is allied to other increasingly belligerent authoritarian regimes—in China, Cuba, Russia, and Iran (and its proxy Hezbollah)—which are undermining democracies in Latin America, actively cooperating with criminal and designated terrorist entities, and seeking to facilitate narcotics trafficking into our nation.

The race between these two clocks will determine whether Venezuela becomes the hemisphere’s first fully realized digital authoritarian state or whether its people reclaim the possibility of democratic governance.

The time for hesitation is over. The people must act now—before the alarm sounds on 10 January 2031.

The Countdown to Venezuela’s Digital-AI Authoritarian Future: Two Clocks in a Strategic Race

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/09/02/the-countdown-to-venezuelas-digital-ai-authoritarian-future-two-clocks-in-a-strategic-race/

by Ron MacCammon

09.02.2025 at 10:00am

The Physical and Digital-AI Duality of the Nicolás Maduro Regime’s Increasing Authoritarian Power. Source: C/O Futures GEN AI Initiative.

Venezuela is in a strategic race against time. Nicolás Maduro’s regime—with direct Chinese and Cuban support—is building a predictive authoritarian control system that fuses biometric surveillance, AI-driven analytics, and foreign advisory support to eliminate dissent before it emerges. Accelerated after the contested 2024 election, this “digital jail” aims to ensure that no fraud claims or protests disrupt the 2030 election, securing total control by 10 January 2031—the next presidential inauguration. In irregular warfare terms, it is a contest between a maturing counter-resistance architecture and a fragmented opposition with a narrowing window to act.

Two Clocks

Two clocks are ticking in Venezuela. One belongs to Nicolás Maduro, racing to complete a digital control system by the 2030 presidential election to prevent a repeat of the 2024 election’s fraud allegations, protests, and unrest.[1] This could happen earlier if rapid technological advances, substantial new funding, or some other unexpected surge of external support allows the regime to accelerate deployment, further narrowing the window for the opposition to act.

The other belongs to the Venezuelan people, who have until the day before to stop the final lock from snapping shut. In irregular warfare terms, this is a race between a maturing counter-resistance architecture and a fragmented opposition struggling to adapt. Which clock reaches zero first will determine whether Venezuela becomes the hemisphere’s first fully realized digital authoritarian state—or whether its people reclaim the possibility of democratic governance.

This contest is not hypothetical, and the timelines are not symbolic. Maduro’s side is working methodically toward a fixed operational goal: building a layered system that fuses biometric surveillance, AI-enabled analytics, and foreign advisory support to control the population’s physical and cognitive space. The 2024 election—marked by documented fraud, protests, and communication crackdowns—exposed vulnerabilities the regime is now racing to eliminate.[2]

The opposition’s side, by contrast, is constrained by time, resources, and fragmentation—yet still holds a narrowing opportunity to disrupt the regime’s plans.

The humanitarian crisis—empty shelves, hollow faces, and mass migration—remains the visible surface. Beneath it lies the strategic reality: the regime is moving to close Venezuela’s last open spaces for dissent. The outcome will not be decided in international courtrooms or exile conferences, but in the barrios, streets, and clandestine networks inside the country. And the clock is running.

The Regime’s Clock: Doomsday on Maduro’s Desk

On Maduro’s desk sits a figurative Doomsday Clock ticking down to January 2031. The regime doesn’t want a repeat of the public outcry from 2024 presidential election.

That completion point could come sooner if breakthroughs in technology, or some unexpected surge of external support allows faster system integration. When the alarm rings, billions of dollars in Chinese technology and Cuban intelligence expertise will have fused into an unbreakable chain around the Venezuelan population.

The regime is building more than a surveillance system—it is constructing a predictive authoritarianism model designed to anticipate, isolate, and neutralize dissent before it can organize. The emerging “digital jail” is already visible in its component parts:

The Fatherland Card (Carnet de la Patria)—built with assistance from Chinese telecom giant ZTE—serves as a biometric ID tied to subsidies, pensions, healthcare, and food programs. Data collected includes medical history, voting behavior, and party [3] Human Rights Watchhas documented multiple cases of citizens denied Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción (CLAP) food boxes or other benefits after criticizing officials.[4]
Telecommunications control—all ISPs in Venezuela operate under the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL). The state internet service provider (ISP), CANTV, has throttled or blocked access to independent media, Wikipedia, livestreams, and messaging platforms, particularly during elections or protests.[5][6] Access Now and VE Sin Filtro have traced these outages to targeted, not accidental, disruptions.[7] The regime has also moved against social media platforms like X and WhatsApp to repress opposition communication.[8]
Foreign advisory integration—Cuban intelligence officers are embedded within Venezuela’s security services, while Chinese technical advisors maintain ZTE’s data infrastructure.[9] These inputs are used to flag “disloyal” citizens in near-real time.
AI-assisted monitoring—procurement records and Ministry of Science & Technology announcements indicate active investment in machine learning systems to detect and predict “social instability,” integrating Fatherland Card data, telecom metadata, and electoral databases.[10][11][12]

These are not isolated measures—they are converging into a layered control architecture: biometric access to services, mass metadata collection, content filtering, and algorithmic risk scoring. By 2031, if unopposed, the system will be fully operational—a “Cuba with oil,” fortified by data instead of just guns.

The People’s Clock: Resistance or Ruin

The opposition’s clock is running out. The 2024 election exposed the regime’s vulnerabilities but also its resolve to close communication and mobilization channels. Each year of regime progress—expanding biometric tracking, throttling platforms like X and WhatsApp, and refining AI analytics—tightens the digital noose. The opposition must disrupt this system before the 2030 election locks it in place. Over the past decade, Venezuela’s opposition has faced devastating setbacks:

2014 Protests– Sparked by high crime rates, inflation, and shortages, nationwide demonstrations drew hundreds of thousands. Security forces and pro-regime colectivos killed at least 43 people and arrested over 3,000. Lacking unified leadership and strategy, the movement dissipated under repression.[13]
2017 Protests– Triggered by the Supreme Court’s attempted dissolution of the National Assembly, protests lasted over four months. More than 120 were killed, thousands wounded, and hundreds imprisoned as security forces escalated force and intelligence penetration.[14]
2019 Interim Government Crisis– National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó was recognized by over 50 countries as interim president. Initial defections were limited, the military remained loyal to Maduro, and the “Operation Liberty” push collapsed. By 2021, the interim government had lost momentum and credibility.[15]
2024 Election Fraud– The presidential election saw systematic manipulation: disqualification of leading opposition figures, state media control, targeted internet outages, and ballot-stuffing documented by domestic and international observers. Maduro’s contested victory further demoralized the electorate and deepened opposition fragmentation.[16]

Symbolic politics are insufficient. The opposition must become a resistance movement in the irregular warfare sense—decentralized, adaptive, and committed to sustained disruption of the regime’s control systems.

Doctrinal and Theoretical Context

In US joint doctrine, irregular warfare (IW) is defined as a “violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations.”[17][18] The Venezuelan regime’s evolving control system is a textbook case of counter-resistance—the systematic reorganization of a society to deny adversaries freedom of maneuver in the human domain.

This fusion operates on three mutually reinforcing levels:

Physical coercion– The traditional security apparatus: armed forces, intelligence units, and regime-loyal militias used to intimidate and punish selectively. This mirrors the “coercive apparatus” concept in authoritarian durability theory.[19]
Cognitive domain dominance– Control over perception and decision-making through information manipulation, predictive analytics, and targeted punishment to discourage resistance formation. Joint Publication 3-13 emphasizes this as central to shaping the battlespace in the information environment.[20]
Targeted deprivation of services – Precision use of state resources as both carrot and stick. Unlike the blunt resource control measures of historical COIN campaigns, Venezuela’s system uses biometric tracking to ensure punishment is surgical, minimizing blowback while reinforcing loyalty.

From a resistance perspective, the operational environment matches the Resistance Operating Concept (ROC): a repressive state, eroding opposition legitimacy, and a shrinking space for organization.[21] ROC warns that once a regime controls access to resources, communications, and mobility at scale, resistance viability collapses. That is the path toward January 2031.

For US practitioners, Venezuela’s model also reflects the threat convergence described in the 2020 Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy: authoritarian regimes are integrating advanced technology, foreign advisory networks, and domestic coercive structures into resilient, sanctions-proof systems.[22] This marks a shift from traditional kinetic counterinsurgency toward data-enabled authoritarianism, requiring new resistance support frameworks.

This trajectory also resonates with the literature on surveillance capitalism. Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism describes how data extraction and predictive analytics—originally developed for commercial profit—create new asymmetries of knowledge and power between institutions and individuals. In Venezuela, these techniques are being adapted not for markets but to oppress the population, where predictive data represses rather than helps commercial decision-making. Framing the problem through this lens highlights that the Venezuelan model is not a dystopian fantasy, but part of an emerging global shift in which authoritarian regimes fuse state power with surveillance capitalism’s logics to preempt resistance.[23]

A Strategic Shift: From Opposition to Resistance

In irregular warfare, time favors the side that adapts faster. The opposition cannot match the regime’s firepower, but it can exploit vulnerabilities in three areas:

Information and Communication– Build secure, redundant underground networks for mobilization and intelligence-sharing, modeled on Poland’s Solidarity or Myanmar’s post-2021 resistance.[24][25]
Legitimacy and Exposure– Document repression systematically for international leverage, imposing sustained reputational costs on regime enablers.
Economic Disruption– Target key regime revenue streams through coordinated acts of civil resistance, labor action, and disruption of logistics.

These actions must be small, sustained, and locally led, avoiding the high-risk, one-off confrontations that have repeatedly failed.

Conclusion

No foreign military is coming. No court in The Hague will dismantle Venezuela’s security apparatus. The fight will be decided inside the country, in barrios, streets, and clandestine networks—not in exile.

If the opposition fails to adapt, the outcome is clear: an oil-rich, digitally fortified dictatorship capable of preemptively crushing dissent while projecting instability abroad. One that is allied to other increasingly belligerent authoritarian regimes—in China, Cuba, Russia, and Iran (and its proxy Hezbollah)—which are undermining democracies in Latin America, actively cooperating with criminal and designated terrorist entities, and seeking to facilitate narcotics trafficking into our nation.

The race between these two clocks will determine whether Venezuela becomes the hemisphere’s first fully realized digital authoritarian state or whether its people reclaim the possibility of democratic governance.

The time for hesitation is over. The people must act now—before the alarm sounds on 10 January 2031.

Endnotes

[1] “Carter Center Statement on Venezuela Election.” The Carter Center. 30 July 2024, https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2024/venezuela-073024.html.

[2] “Carter Center Finds Democracy Thwarted in Venezuela.” The Carter Center. 18 February 2025, https://www.cartercenter.org/news/features/p/democracy/center-finds-democracy-thwarted-in-venezuela.html.

[3] Angus Berwick, “How ZTE Helps Venezuela Create China-Style Social Control.” Reuters. 14 November 2018, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/venezuela-zte/. Also see Alma Keshavarz and Robert J. Bunker, “Venezuela Imports Chinese Social Control System.” Operational Environment Watch. Vol. 8., Iss. 12., December 2018: 67.

[4] “Venezuela.” World Report 2021: Events of 2020. New York: Human Rights Watch. 2021, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/venezuela.

[5] “The Many Means of Surveillance and Control in Venezuela.” Access Now. 25 January 2021, https://www.accessnow.org/the-many-means-of-surveillance-and-control-in-venezuela/.

[6] “Venezuela: Freedom on the Net 2021 Country Report.” Freedom House. 2021, https://freedomhouse.org/country/venezuela/freedom-net/2021.

[7] “Sin Derchos en #Internetve Reporte 2021 [English Version: “#2021Report: Digital rights, censorship and connectivity in Venezuela].” VE Sin Filtro. 6 April 2022, https://vesinfiltro.org/noticias/2021_annual_report/.

[8] Targeted blocking of social media platforms in Venezuela documented at “2024 Elections and Internet Shutdowns Watch.” Access Now. 2024, https://www.accessnow.org/campaign/2024-elections-and-internet-shutdowns-watch/. See also, “Emboldened Offenders, Endangered Communities: Internet Shutdowns in 2024.” Access Now and #KeepItOn. February 2025, https://www.accessnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/KeepItOn-2024-Internet-Shutdowns-Annual-Report.pdf.

[9] Angus Berwick, “Imported Repression: How Cuba Taught Venezuela to Quash Military Dissent.” Reuters. 22 August 2019, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/venezuela-cuba-military/. See also, Angus Berwick, “How ZTE Helps Venezuela Create China-Style Social Control.” Reuters. 14 November 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/special-report-how-zte-helps-venezuela-create-china-style-social-control-idUSKCN1NJ1ZV/.

[10] Marianne Diaz Hernández, “Venezuela: Digital ID as a Tool of Oppression.” Tech Policy Press. 10 September 2024, https://techpolicy.press/venezuela-digital-id-as-a-tool-of-oppression/.

[11] Association for Progressive Communications (APC), “Artificial Intelligence and Social Development in Venezuela.” Global Information Society Watch. 2019, https://www.giswatch.org/sites/default/files/gisw2019_web_venezuela.pdf.

[12] Werner Kristjanpoller and Carlos Caceres, “Forecasting Social Unrest: A Machine Learning Approach.” IMF Working Paper. Vol. 2021, no. 263, November 2021: 1–29, https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2021/263/article-A001-en.xml.

[13] “What lies behind the protests in Venezuela?” BBC News. 27 March 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-26335287.

[14] Girish Gupta and Anggy Polanco, “All eyes on Venezuela military after protests, vote.” Reuters. 1 August 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/world/all-eyes-on-venezuela-military-after-protests-vote-idUSKBN1AH5GK/.

[15] Jeff Wallenfeldt, “Juan Guaidó.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 24 July 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Juan-Guaido.

[16] “Carter Center Statement on Venezuela Election.” The Carter Center. 30 July 2024, https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2024/venezuela-073024.html.

[17] US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept (JOC), Version 1.0. Washington, DC: US Joint Chiefs of Staff. 11 September 2007, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joc_iw_v1.pdf.

[18] Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency. Washington, DC: US Joint Chiefs of Staff. 2022, https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp3_24.pdf.

[19] Eva Bellin, “The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Politics. Vol. 36, no. 2, 2004: 139–157, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4150140?origin=crossref.

[20] Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews, “The Russian ‘Firehose of Falsehood” Propaganda Model.” RAND. 11 July 2016, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html.

[21] Otto C. Fiala, Ed., Resistance Operating Concept (ROC). US Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR). MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2020.

[22] Summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy. Washington, DC: US Department of Defense. January 2020, https://media.defense.gov/2020/Oct/02/2002510472/-1/-1/0/Irregular-Warfare-Annex-to-the-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.PDF.

[23] Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Public Affairs, 2019.

[24] Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, 3rd Ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. See also Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.

[25] “Responding to the Myanmar Coup.” Asia Briefing No. 166. International Crisis Group. 16 February 2021, https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/b166-responding-myanmar-coup. See also, “Myanmar: Internet Restrictions Severely Impact Fundamental Freedoms.” Human Rights Watch. 4 February 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/02/04/myanmar-internet-restrictions-severely-impact-fundamental-freedoms.

Tags: Hybrid Warfare, information warfare, Surveillance Capitalism

About The Author

Ron MacCammon
Ron MacCammon, Ed.D., is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel and former political officer at the US State Department who has written extensively on security, governance, and international affairs. He has lived and worked in Latin America for more than 20 years and was assigned to the US Embassy, Caracas, Venezuela, from 1999 to 2002.

17. Reimagining Indian Military Doctrine: Operation Sindoor Through the Lens of Gupta Karya

Excerpts:

Operation Sindoor is not just a case study in counterterrorism. It is a watershed in Indian strategic thought, reflecting a shift toward cognitive warfare anchored in civilizational principles. It signals that India’s strategic posture is evolving, embracing its own doctrinal past while mastering modern warfighting. Gupta Karya is no longer a relic of ancient thought—it is an active blueprint for deterrence, precision, and controlled escalation.

The soul of a nation’s culture is vitally connected with their glorious past. The study of ancient Indian Strategic culture and its rich military education system, therefore, is the key to India search for unravelling the soul of this treasure trove, especially when military leaders are required to be socialized and exbibit.

Operation Sindoor reflects the evolution of India’s strategic posture and its emergence as a distinctive voice in global strategic affairs. The success of Operation Sindoor stands as a testament to the timeless wisdom enshrined in the Sanskrit maxim “Kāryāṇām guptam sādhanaṁ sādhayet” — one must achieve objectives through secrecy. In a complex operational environment marked by high stakes, inter-agency coordination, and the need for rapid yet calculated action, the emphasis on confidentiality was not just strategic, but essential.

Reimagining Indian Military Doctrine: Operation Sindoor Through the Lens of Gupta Karya

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/09/02/reimagining-indian-military-doctrine-operation-sindoor-through-the-lens-of-gupta-karya/

by Gaurav Kumar

09.02.2025 at 06:00am

Introduction

Operation Sindoor, a covert Indian response to cross-border terrorism, marked more than just a military retaliation—it revalidated the ancient Indian strategic doctrine of Gupta Karya, (clandestine action). Unlike imported military philosophies, Operation Sindoor affirmed the enduring relevance of indigenous frameworks of warfare rooted in deception, ambiguity, and strategic autonomy. The Arthashastra’s concept of Gupta Karya offers a valuable lens to comprehend India’s modern defense posture through civilizational continuity (See Note 1).

Chronology

On April 22, 2025, a brutal terror attack in Pahalgam, a town in the Indian state of Jammu, and Kashmir, killed 26 civilians, including a Nepali national. This attack was the deadliest terror attack in India since the 2008 Mumbai carnage. The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot, The Resistance Front (TRF), claimed responsibility for the attack. India responded swiftly.

The next day, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) announced the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, diplomatic downgrading, the closure of the Wagah border, and restrictions on bilateral agreements. Pakistan retaliated by closing its airspace and suspending the Shimla Agreement, along with increased ceasefire violations.

On April 25, the Indian Air Force (IAF) initiated Exercise Arakmaan, and by May 5, the Government of India conducted nationwide civil defense drills. The government framed these drills as routine preparedness exercises, but in hindsight, they served as operational masking. By the night of May 6, unconfirmed reports of precision strikes began surfacing on social media.

On May 7, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) released a guarded statement, hinting that “appropriate strategic deterrence measures” had been undertaken—indicating the veiled execution of Operation Sindoor. India maintained plausible deniability while allowing strategic narratives to circulate, shaping public opinion at home and abroad without direct confrontation. In doing so, India practiced Gupta Karya in a modern setting, i.e., the government sought to achieve strategic objectives without open warfare or a formal declaration.

Gupta Karya in Action: Operation Sindoor as Strategic Deception

Kautilya’s Arthashastra outlines statecraft rooted in pragmatism, espionage, and secrecy (See Note 2). The doctrine of Gupta Karya empowers a state to protect its interests via deception, covert strikes, and psychological warfare (See Note 3). It is not about gallantry, but about effect—victory through subtlety, surprise, and precision. India’s ability to mask operational intent using public drills, the delay between provocation and retaliation, and calibrated ambiguity in messaging confused adversaries.

The two week “cooling period” served to blur enemy assessment and denied Pakistan any window to pre-empt India’s offensive action. In this gap, public discourse was flooded with rumors and speculation, which furthered India’s strategic cover.

The Role of Technology: From Strategy to Spectrum Supremacy

Operation Sindoor was also a masterclass in electronic warfare and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled deception. The IAF’s Rafale jets employed the X-GUARD towed decoy system, enhanced by AI-assisted situational awareness, to mislead Pakistani air defenses. A U.S. F-16 pilot reportedly described India’s use of a 30 kg decoy device as “the best deception ever seen,” following Pakistan’s false claim of having shot down an Indian jet.

This was not just a tactical victory—it was a shift in doctrinal warfare. India moved from brute force to information dominance, controlling perception as much as the physical battlespace. The electromagnetic spectrum was as much the battlefield as the sky. This mirrors Chanakya’s or Kaultiya’s core tenet: control perception, manipulate the narrative, strike without exposure.

Deception as Doctrine: A Philosophical Shift

Chanakya asserted that wars are won not only by armies but by strategy, state, and society. Kautilya differs from Thucydides or Machiavelli in that he offered a fully integrated manual for governance, war, espionage, and economic control—centuries ahead of his time and highly relevant to understanding Indian strategic culture today. That is where Gupta Karya becomes doctrine, not just tactic. India has historically studied military traditions across the world, but Operation Sindoor shows that India does not always need to look West. To be sure, India has its own rich, non-Western strategic traditions, grounded in texts, practices, and philosophies that are deeply relevant even in the AI era.

From the Mahabharata to Arthashastra, Indian warcraft has stressed strategic ambiguity, multi-domain synergy, and purposeful restraint. The study of these traditions is essential not for nostalgia, but for doctrinal renewal so that India’s armed forces operate not only with imported frameworks, but with homegrown intellectual confidence.

Conclusion: From Response to Resurgence

Operation Sindoor is not just a case study in counterterrorism. It is a watershed in Indian strategic thought, reflecting a shift toward cognitive warfare anchored in civilizational principles. It signals that India’s strategic posture is evolving, embracing its own doctrinal past while mastering modern warfighting. Gupta Karya is no longer a relic of ancient thought—it is an active blueprint for deterrence, precision, and controlled escalation.

The soul of a nation’s culture is vitally connected with their glorious past. The study of ancient Indian Strategic culture and its rich military education system, therefore, is the key to India search for unravelling the soul of this treasure trove, especially when military leaders are required to be socialized and exbibit.

Operation Sindoor reflects the evolution of India’s strategic posture and its emergence as a distinctive voice in global strategic affairs. The success of Operation Sindoor stands as a testament to the timeless wisdom enshrined in the Sanskrit maxim “Kāryāṇām guptam sādhanaṁ sādhayet” — one must achieve objectives through secrecy. In a complex operational environment marked by high stakes, inter-agency coordination, and the need for rapid yet calculated action, the emphasis on confidentiality was not just strategic, but essential.

Note 1: Arthashastra is an ancient Indian treatise on governance, economics, military strategy, and espionage, authored by Kautilya (also known as Chanakya), advisor to Emperor Chandragupta Maurya (c. 4th century BCE). Often compared to Machiavelli’s The Prince, it lays out detailed guidance for ruling an empire, including secret intelligence operations (Guptakarya). It reflects early realpolitik thinking from South Asia. Read the full English translation by R. Shamasastry.

Note 2: Kautilya, also known as Chanakya, was an ancient Indian philosopher, economist, and royal advisor, best known for authoring the Arthashastra—a treatise on statecraft, military strategy, and political economy. Often compared to Machiavelli, he played a crucial role in the rise of the Mauryan Empire around the 4th century BCE.

Note 3: Guptakarya is conceptually an ancient prototype of what we today call gray zone operations or hybrid tactics, but it is more methodical and ethically flexible. It differs from irregular warfare, which tends to be more tactical, decentralized, and used by weaker parties in asymmetric conflict. Chanakya’s approach is strategic, preemptive, and state-led, prioritizing secrecy, control, and psychological domination — not just military wins.

Tags: India-Pakistan Conflict, Operation Sindoor, Way of war

About The Author

Gaurav Kumar
Gaurav Kumar is a defense researcher at the United Service Institution of India (USI), New Delhi, India where he contributes to Professional Military Education (PME) programs, military history research, and small arms policy studies. He has supported curriculum development for officer training and written on strategic affairs. Trained at BHU and JNU, his work has been cited by national media outlets including The Print and Sputnik India.

18. Don't Abandon AUKUS by Gary Roughead, Marise Payne, Nicholas Carter, and James Mattis

Excerpts:

Some officials within defense departments, ministries, and legislatures have raised legitimate concerns about AUKUS and the U.S. submarine force structure. One argument is that nuclear submarines are more expensive than a conventional alternative—which is true. Another is that providing nuclear submarines to Australia will mean fewer submarines for the United States, at a time when the U.S. industrial base can’t meet U.S. needs. But these costs are worth the benefits. The three states will essentially be operating common submarines, which will ultimately provide industry with a longer runway and thus the necessary industrial predictability to increase production. It will mean stability for the submarine, for the submarine workforce, and for myriad suppliers. It will create a more fungible allied submarine force over time that will improve responsiveness to the challenges of the future. Accordingly, it will enhance deterrence.

Finally, AUKUS partners must establish a more decisive leadership and coordination model. Vesting oversight primarily in defense departments and ministries is a traditional inclination. But the scope of AUKUS––particularly regarding dual-use emerging technologies—means that the leadership of AUKUS should come from a consortium of defense, foreign, and commerce departments or ministries. The leader of each country’s delegation should be deemed an ambassador, or have a title and organizational stature commensurate with the scope and complexity of the endeavor. Such leaders must possess the authority necessary to effectively coordinate and, when required, compel action. AUKUS should be further managed by a trilateral secretariat staffed with requisite experience and competence from relevant organizations and industries, as a counterweight to the tendencies of parochialism and bureaucratic insularity.

This is, unquestionably, an unusual and potentially bureaucratically contentious proposal. But the old means of doing things are not delivering in the ways and at the speed required to match China’s and Russia’s ambitions, investments, and progress. Abandoning AUKUS would do the work of Washington’s adversaries for them. It is time to change the order of things and, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, go forward together.

Don't Abandon AUKUS

Foreign Affairs · More by Gary Roughead · September 2, 2025

Don’t Abandon AUKUS

The Case for Recommitting to—and Revitalizing––the Alliance

September 2, 2025

A submarine docked at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia, February 2025 Colin Murty / Reuters

GARY ROUGHEAD is Robert and Marion Oster Distinguished Military Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2007 to 2011, he served as U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations and as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

MARISE PAYNE is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. She served as Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2018 to 2022 and Minister for Defense from 2015 to 2018.

NICHOLAS CARTER is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He served as Chief of the Defence Staff for the United Kingdom from 2018 to 2021.

JAMES MATTIS is Davies Family Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He served as U.S. Secretary of Defense from 2017 to 2018.

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In June, the U.S. Department of Defense announced it would spend the summer conducting a review of AUKUS: the security partnership established in 2021 among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The review—designed to determine if the AUKUS agreement is aligned with U.S. President Donald Trump’s priorities—has sparked angst among stakeholders in all three countries. The second Trump administration, after all, has not been shy about revamping Washington’s major partnerships.

It is not unusual for an incoming administration to review major programs and initiatives in its early days, as the Trump administration is now doing with AUKUS. We are hopeful that the Pentagon will find that the alliance is more than worth the investment—and perfectly in keeping with Trump’s “America first” agenda. In an unsettled international environment, AUKUS serves each member country’s urgent national security needs and advances shared priorities. It enables a frictionless defense environment among the three countries, and is a stimulus for reforming dated yet compatible defense industrial bases. It can be a model and an incentive for strengthening relations with other allies and special partners. A vibrant AUKUS is a deterrent in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, as relevant in the Arctic and the higher reaches of the North Atlantic as it is in the western Pacific. Moreover, it helps the Australian, British, and U.S. militaries adopt the advanced technologies necessary to win in the future.

AUKUS is often seen in terms of its pillars and programs. But a focus on just its components is too superficial and narrow a perspective. Its significance, like that of all great alliances, is that it formalizes decades of entwined initiatives and enduring interests. At a time when questioning the meaning, value, and obligations of partnerships is in vogue and doubts about the United States’ reliability swirl, AUKUS can show that Washington remains dependable and prove that democratic forms of government, particularly when working together, yield strong economies and military capabilities. It can show that democracies form strong alliances. Washington should thus do more than just recommit to AUKUS. It should revitalize the pact for the decades ahead.

Joining Forces

In matters of defense, AUKUS can help all three countries rapidly adopt new technologies. It can aid them in developing coherent research initiatives, leveraging their comparative advantages, and coordinating (rather than replicating) investments so that they can quickly apply game-changing innovations in a variety of areas—such as undersea warfare, hypersonic weapons, cyber-capabilities, and drones. These advances are essential to modern warfare. All of them have been highlighted by national security leaders from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. AUKUS can also help speed up the delivery processes for new technologies by acting as a forcing function and convening mechanism.

Defense manufacturing offers a case in point. Over the past three decades, the defense industrial bases of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have atrophied. The reasons for this decline can be debated, but the fact remains that each country’s base must be revitalized. That can be done singularly or collectively, but a singular approach would be more costly and disjointed. A collective approach, by contrast, could build integrated workforces and supply chains and establish more locations from which the three countries’ forces could operate with common support. This would boost interoperability during a conflict. The benefits of working together will become even more consequential, for example, as digital designing and the 3D printing of complex parts allow the military to more quickly repair its platforms and systems. AUKUS could help its members take advantage of these advances by providing a global allied logistics and maintenance network, in which engineers, technicians, and artisans collaborate across time zones. This shared enterprise would serve as a strong deterrent against China and Russia, which see the allies’ distance from their areas of interest and potential conflict as a liability that works to China’s and Russia’s advantage. Instead, under this evolved AUKUS model, the tyranny of long supply lines would come to an end. Defense platforms would no longer be tied to each country’s specific support sites and systems.

Consider, for example, nuclear submarines. Australia’s investments in its naval industrial base will, for the first time, provide AUKUS partners with a substantial, modern nuclear submarine base and maintenance and repair facility in the Indian Ocean. That base, named HMAS Stirling, will give all three countries access to key sea lanes in the Indian Ocean. It will be the closest facility that each country’s nuclear submarines have to critical Indo-Pacific chokepoints, making it essential in the event of a crisis in the East China or South China Seas. HMAS Stirling, for example, is approximately 2,750 miles from the Strait of Malacca, which is the shortest shipping route between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and thus facilitates massive amounts of global trade and energy flows among Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Currently, the closest similar base and nuclear-capable maintenance and repair complex is in Hawaii, which is 7,800 miles away from the strait. HMAS Stirling, when fully developed, will enable extensive repair capability and can thus enable more time on mission for Australian, British, and U.S. submarines and less time spent traveling for maintenance and resupply. Even if it didn’t shorten transit, having two robust nuclear submarine repair facilities serving the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean is better than one. Building up HMAS Stirling is, to be sure, costly. But bringing the base to full operational and repair capability must be a top priority for the Australian government. To call it game-changing would be an understatement.

Once and Future

AUKUS has two pillars. Pillar 1 is a combined effort to deliver nuclear submarine capability to Australia and to enhance that of the United Kingdom and the United States. Pillar 2 is the collaborative development of emerging technologies. These goals may appear bifurcated, but they will become increasingly intertwined in the years ahead. The extreme endurance of stealthy nuclear submarines—which can remain submerged far longer and move much faster than conventionally powered submarines—makes them essential to deterrence. They will become more versatile and valuable as emerging technologies, such as hypersonic weapons, mature and are fielded. Because they can reposition quickly and stealthily and remain poised and undetected for long periods, hypersonic missile-armed submarines will be the platform of choice for prompt strikes. Nuclear submarines will also be the silent motherships for advanced autonomous undersea and, potentially, air systems. Nuclear submarines, paired with those Pillar 2 offshoots, will therefore be transformational. They will confound and erode adversaries’ confidence.

But the partnership’s work on emerging Pillar 2 technologies is less coherent than AUKUS plans for Australian nuclear submarines. Frankly, this effort is operationally adrift, and hopefully, the Department of Defense review should drive change. AUKUS has succeeded in catalyzing some long-needed reforms to export regulations that limit the sale of emerging military and dual-use technologies to other countries, and it has facilitated collaboration in some technology development. But more must be done, particularly to help small- and medium-sized defense firms that lack large compliance teams but want to grow their customer bases. A revitalized AUKUS should aim higher. Its members should agree on Pillar 2 technology priorities—emphasizing, for example, those that enhance undersea warfare and autonomous systems—and quickly remove the remaining impediments to the diffusion of U.S. technologies. One target should be the parameters and constraints of the outdated Missile Technology Control Regime, which was designed to control missile technology proliferation and predated the drone world of today. Government and industry leaders must come together to synchronize efforts—not to talk past one another or relegate key strategic decisions. Washington needs a tool for breaking through defense industrial bureaucratic inertia, so even if there weren’t an AUKUS, the United States would have to create one.

A vibrant AUKUS is a deterrent in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

The strongest argument for AUKUS is that China and Russia object to it. When a country’s adversaries don’t like what it is doing, it should usually press on. China and Russia are right to see AUKUS as a threat. Increased numbers of more capable nuclear submarines among all three partners, operating out of a closer operating base, would complicate their nuclear strategies. Additional nuclear attack submarines in the Pacific, even if they lacked nuclear warheads, would put China’s sea-based nuclear deterrent at risk. They also would threaten Chinese ships and military installations, including those recently established in the South China Sea.

The same can be said for Russia’s calculus in the Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Russian Far East. Although Moscow has spent decades contending with U.S. and British submarines operating in the Atlantic and in the Pacific, adding Australian nuclear submarines to the mix would make AUKUS submarine numbers greater and more fungible. The addition of Australian nuclear submarines in the Pacific would enable U.S. and British submarines to be on patrol elsewhere as circumstances demand. When it comes to the advanced technologies of Pillar 2, meanwhile, Moscow and Beijing have already made significant progress in many of those areas on their own, and they do not want Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to apply their innovation engines toward shared military ends. AUKUS, then, should do exactly that.

Process Makes Perfect

The Trump administration, in concert with Australia and the United Kingdom, can refine AUKUS and make it fit for today’s purpose. It can resoundingly deliver on the alliance’s potential. In fact, AUKUS can serve as a vehicle for the administration’s drive to streamline government. In doing so, AUKUS can reinforce an “America first” agenda and still advance the interests of all three partners.

AUKUS, for example, can serve as the impetus for streamlining processes, clearing out burdensome bureaucratic hurdles, and thinning out regulations around technology and defense manufacturing. American investors, businesses, and, just as important, their workforces and suppliers need such changes to better help the armed services. National security leaders in all three countries must commit to more multiyear procurement contracts and authorize and appropriate more funding for cutting-edge defense technologies. They must be willing to gamble—yes, gamble—on introducing emerging technologies faster. Otherwise, new innovations will struggle to take root and thrive. Officials cannot expect small companies and their investors to participate if orders cannot be assured and if those orders are limited to a single year.

Some officials within defense departments, ministries, and legislatures have raised legitimate concerns about AUKUS and the U.S. submarine force structure. One argument is that nuclear submarines are more expensive than a conventional alternative—which is true. Another is that providing nuclear submarines to Australia will mean fewer submarines for the United States, at a time when the U.S. industrial base can’t meet U.S. needs. But these costs are worth the benefits. The three states will essentially be operating common submarines, which will ultimately provide industry with a longer runway and thus the necessary industrial predictability to increase production. It will mean stability for the submarine, for the submarine workforce, and for myriad suppliers. It will create a more fungible allied submarine force over time that will improve responsiveness to the challenges of the future. Accordingly, it will enhance deterrence.

Finally, AUKUS partners must establish a more decisive leadership and coordination model. Vesting oversight primarily in defense departments and ministries is a traditional inclination. But the scope of AUKUS––particularly regarding dual-use emerging technologies—means that the leadership of AUKUS should come from a consortium of defense, foreign, and commerce departments or ministries. The leader of each country’s delegation should be deemed an ambassador, or have a title and organizational stature commensurate with the scope and complexity of the endeavor. Such leaders must possess the authority necessary to effectively coordinate and, when required, compel action. AUKUS should be further managed by a trilateral secretariat staffed with requisite experience and competence from relevant organizations and industries, as a counterweight to the tendencies of parochialism and bureaucratic insularity.

This is, unquestionably, an unusual and potentially bureaucratically contentious proposal. But the old means of doing things are not delivering in the ways and at the speed required to match China’s and Russia’s ambitions, investments, and progress. Abandoning AUKUS would do the work of Washington’s adversaries for them. It is time to change the order of things and, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, go forward together.

Foreign Affairs · More by Gary Roughead · September 2, 2025

19. Recruit–Train–Equip–Repeat Isn’t Enough Anymore: Bringing Transformation to the Army’s Generating Force

Excerpt:

All That is to Say . . .

This is a complex issue, likely even more so than articulated in the 1,400 words above (we promised we’d keep it short). But whether the true underlying issue is the program objective memorandum, the TRAS, or some other cyclical process, the time is now for the center of excellence commanders to be empowered to act more aggressively and with greater discretion to simply change their respective subordinate TDA organizations to meet the needs of the transforming operating force. This can and must occur, regardless of what staff calculations and bureaucratic processes say, to truly generate continuous transformation in the Army. ATI and ARSTRUC have set the Army on a change trajectory, which increases in velocity each day. The generating force must keep up lest we fail to produce the soldiers and leaders the operating force will need to fight and win the next war.

Recruit–Train–Equip–Repeat Isn’t Enough Anymore: Bringing Transformation to the Army’s Generating Force - Modern War Institute

Scott Dawe and David Neuzil | 09.02.25

mwi.westpoint.edu · Scott Dawe · September 2, 2025

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Buckle up: This piece is going to get wonky. For those readers who particularly enjoy the minutiae of Army organizational structures, you’re welcome. For the rest of you, please accept our apologies—but since this issue affects vastly more people in the Army than are engaged on the topic, we hope you’ll stick with us. After all, it’s only 1,400 words.

If we’ve learned one thing from the Army Transformation Initiative (ATI) and the recent Army Structure (ARSTRUC) memorandum for 2028–2032, it’s that the Army recognizes it needs rapid, organizational change to meet the challenges posed by the modern battlefield. If we’ve learned a second thing, it’s also that the Army is in fact capable of this change. Units represented by what are known as MTOEs (modified tables of organizational equipment)—the vast majority of the operating force—will likely soon look nothing like they did fifteen, ten, or even five years ago. But one set of organizations left behind by all of the restructuring and modernizing efforts seems to be those operating under a different model of apportioning personnel and equipment—the TDA (table of distribution and allowances).

To put it bluntly, TDA organizations are weird—almost inexplicably so. They reflect their evolutionary and piecemeal design and redesign, with bits and bobs bolted on, ultimately taking on a Frankenstein’s monster structure all their own. It is invariably shocking when those who have grown up in brigade combat teams in the operating force arrive at a TDA organization, likely still called a brigade, and find key position grade plate differences or even entire staff sections completely absent. Even TDA organizations with the same mission set (e.g., the 197th and 198th Infantry Brigades at Fort Benning, Georgia, responsible for training 11B infantrymen and 11C indirect fire infantrymen, respectively) do not have the same structure. How we got to this mashup is mildly interesting, but where those structural changes are going will be critical.

The Current Situation

TDA organizations are generally found in the Army’s generating force. They facilitate recruiting, training, and equipping units in the operating force, with many such organizations falling under the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC, which, per the ARSTRUC, is about to combine with Army Futures Command to become Transformation and Training Command, or T2COM). Given the emphasis on transformation, it’s prudent to ask how these organizations in the generating force are changing to support the ATI and ARSTRUC in preparation for large-scale combat operations. The answer seems to be: They aren’t. One reason for this is the cumbersome and byzantine way in which TDA structures change in the first place.

Simply put, our current operating environment is moving faster than either the program objective memorandum model or the Training Requirements Analysis System (TRAS) can support. To understand the constraints, it’s helpful to look at the existing resourcing processes within the TRADOC enterprise. The TRAS, by design, is a three-to-seven-year process. It is also heavily dependent on several other processes and boards to validate and resource training. (See figures below.)

Interaction between Army budgeting and TRAS (source: TRADOC Regulation 350-70)

Timeline of TRAS documents, operations and budgetary processes, and timelines for submission (source: TRADOC Regulation 350-70)

The TDA is wrapped up under the TRAS and is influenced, as shown in the figures above, by an alphabet soup of mechanisms—the CRM/IA (course resource model / instructor actions), IMRL (instructor manpower requirements list), ITRM (institutional training resource model), SMDR (structured manning decision review), TRAP (training resource arbitration panel, POM (program objective memorandum, already mentioned), and others. These models and systems all have an influence on the TDA.

The TRAS is a complex and methodical process that doesn’t lend itself to rapid change. That’s not to be said that this wasn’t, at one time, the appropriate model for training resource management. But a cycle that takes the tenures of between two and four commanders to realize change is not acceptable given the needed pace of change exemplified by the operating force.

A Way Forward

As ATI and ARSTRUC have shown us, the byzantine processes of the Army optimized over the course of nearly two decades of post-9/11 wars need not remain sacrosanct in a new era with very different operational and strategic imperatives. One potential solution, which is in keeping with the ATI drive to innovate at the lower levels, would be to enable commanders of the Army’s centers of excellence more leeway to drive the change in their organizations. It can and should be these commanders’ prerogative to identify and direct changes to the TDA organizations within their centers of excellence to best support the coming ATI and ARSTRUC changes in the operating force. This can begin with an internal look at how the TDAs are structured to deliver results now, not just in the context of, for instance, SMDR projections into the future. Even if the directed changes are temporary and require later codification through the normal process or revalidation by subsequent commanders, this would allow the centers of excellence to react more swiftly to circumstances, take necessary risks, and increase creative problem solving and experimentation.

It would also enable TDA changes to be trialed and more rapidly nest with change in the operating force rather than perpetually lagging because changes have been based on analysis that is outdated within a single fiscal year, let alone the multiple fiscal years that current processes require for changes to take place. If ranks need to be adjusted, adjust them. If paragraphs and line numbers aren’t aligned with the way an element actually trains, realign them. If property needs to be centralized or decentralized, just execute the changes.

Additionally, there needs to be much less adherence to structure for structure’s sake. We should not waste mental energy trying to conform the structure of today to the needs of tomorrow if they are not clearly fit for that purpose. That means we must be willing to embrace entire headquarters realignment on installations if warranted. This is also happening with the merger of Army Futures Command and TRADOC, but it cannot stop there. If the operating force can shed its attachment to the old brigade combat team structure for the sake of transformation, then so should the generating force be able to examine and adapt its own organizations.

Finally, we must more broadly accept the importance of generating force billets in our officer career progression. Generating force company-level commands are too often perceived as a dumping ground for those who couldn’t cut it in the operating force. But if we continue to assume risk with the managers of the proverbial seed corn, our harvest will be that much worse for it. All branches should prioritize their initial entry training company/troop/battery commands, whether as key developmental jobs or broadening assignments on par with assignments as observer controller/trainers at the Army’s combat training centers, to better develop officers who can speak intelligently about the whole Army and understand where their soldiers come from. The emphasis placed by the noncommissioned officer corps on the position of drill sergeant must be similarly replicated by the officer side.

All That is to Say . . .

This is a complex issue, likely even more so than articulated in the 1,400 words above (we promised we’d keep it short). But whether the true underlying issue is the program objective memorandum, the TRAS, or some other cyclical process, the time is now for the center of excellence commanders to be empowered to act more aggressively and with greater discretion to simply change their respective subordinate TDA organizations to meet the needs of the transforming operating force. This can and must occur, regardless of what staff calculations and bureaucratic processes say, to truly generate continuous transformation in the Army. ATI and ARSTRUC have set the Army on a change trajectory, which increases in velocity each day. The generating force must keep up lest we fail to produce the soldiers and leaders the operating force will need to fight and win the next war.

Lieutenant Colonel Scott Dawe is an armor officer and currently commander of 5th Squadron, 15th Cavalry Regiment (19D one-station unit training) in the 194th Armored Brigade, Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning Georgia.

Retired Sgt. 1st Class David Neuzil is a former 19D scout and is currently the GS-13 lead training developer for the 194th Armored Brigade, Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning Georgia.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Patrick A. Albright, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · Scott Dawe · September 2, 2025

20. Faster Wars, Smarter Minds: Driving the Army’s Quiet Cognitive Revolution

This line applies to so much more. Whether it is PSYOP/MISO, Cyber, or many other things that are not easily visible or kinetic, we always get the feeling that if we cannot see it, it may not be happening.

“If I can’t see it, maybe it’s not happening.”

Excerpts:

The Work is Quiet, But It Is Moving

We’ve heard the concern: “If I can’t see it, maybe it’s not happening.” But that assumption misses the nature of the challenge.

Modernizing cognition isn’t about throwing technology at the problem. It’s about teaching humans how to think in a world that’s changing faster than ever before. That means fewer grand unveilings and more hard conversations in curriculum reviews, doctrinal rewrites, and cross-functional sprints. It means hundreds of senior non-commissioned officers and captains adjusting how they teach, what they evaluate, and how they adapt under pressure. These changes are messy. They’re not suited to a 30-minute brief. But they’re happening. In fact, they’re accelerating.

The Combined Arms Center is not just reacting to the future: It is building it, one syllabus, one classroom, one integrated training environment at a time.

Faster Wars, Smarter Minds: Driving the Army’s Quiet Cognitive Revolution

warontherocks.com · September 2, 2025

“The speed of warfare is outpacing human cognition.”

-Col. (ret.) John Antal, Protection Senior Leader Forum

The U.S. Army stands at the convergence of two accelerating forces: the exponential growth of battlefield technology and the finite limits of human cognition. From low earth orbit to tactical edge networks, the tools of warfare are changing faster than our cognitive infrastructure — education, training, and judgment — can adapt. While it’s tempting to believe the answer lies in fielding faster tools, better networks, or more advanced artificial intelligence, the truth is: no amount of technology can offset a deficit in human adaptation. Artificial intelligence should be seen not as augmented or automatic intelligence, but as additional intelligence — a means to enhance, not replace, human judgment.

The Army’s educational institutions, especially the Combined Arms Center and its subordinate Centers of Excellence, are already adapting swiftly across educational, operational, and technological fronts to equip future leaders with the creativity and cognitive tools tomorrow’s wars demand. These organizations remain singularly focused on doctrine, force structure, training, and leader development from the individual soldier to the theater command.

Progress in the educational domain is not always immediately visible or easily reduced to dashboards or slide decks. But it is happening — quietly, deliberately, and with urgency. The quiet delivery is intentional and for good reason.

As Juliet Funt observed in A Minute to Think, there are “lead measures” and “lag measures.” A lead measure tracks actions you can control that drive results, such as studying daily or rehearsing battle drills. A lag measure tracks the results that appear later, like test scores or mission success. Cognitive investments often fall under the latter, yielding results only over time.

Professional military education is such a domain. Unlike a new weapon system that shows immediate improvements in range or lethality, the cognitive impact of professional military education becomes clear only when leaders apply what they’ve learned years down the line, often under uncertainty. Education fosters cognitive growth. Training fosters behavioral growth and is more like a lead measure. Both are essential, but they operate on different clocks.

BECOME A MEMBER

Rethinking What and How We Educate

For generations, the Army’s schools have taught soldiers what to know and how to do it. That foundation endures, but the character of war is shifting too fast for education to remain a static exercise. We are no longer filling rucksacks with facts. The Army is sharpening minds to improvise, to connect dots no manual can yet chart, and to see the fight as it unfolds in unexpected ways. To train for tomorrow, the Army needs to teach leaders not just to execute doctrine, but to bend it, stretch it, and reimagine it under fire.

This begins with new approaches that strip away barriers and focus learning on adaptive thinking. It continues with changing skills that blend institutional and operational training to close the cognitive gap. And it relies on technology that sharpens, rather than replaces, human judgment.

More Than Inputs and Outputs

Our efforts to transform professional military education began with reducing barriers to learning while preserving rigor. In 2024 alone, we streamlined over 346 hours of distributed learning requisites across professional military education programs, completely removing the prerequisite requirement for officers and reducing to 50 hours combined in the advanced and senior leader courses for non-commissioned officers. This effort wasn’t about eliminating content. Rather, it was about giving time back to operational units and enabling learners to focus on what matters most: adaptive thinking and problem-solving.

Across the enterprise, the Combined Arms Center and its centers of excellence are modernizing how learning happens. Partnerships with academic institutions have shown us that delivery matters as much as content. At the Cyber Center of Excellence, for example, students use game-based tools like Kahoot! to reinforce technical concepts. At the Defense Language Institute, AI-enabled systems like LinguistNext help students master context-based usage of language while continuously adapting to individual learning gaps.

These tools do more than convey information. They add to skills development while simultaneously developing cognition efficiently and effectively. Creative Thinking: A Field Guide to Building Your Strategic Core by Angus Fletcher has been added to the Command and General Staff College curriculum. Based on partnerships with researchers at the Ohio State University, it was proved that creativity can be taught. Fletcher’s other book, Primal Intelligence: You Are Smarter Than You Know, applies this work on creative thinking in ways applicable to military education. We all have the gift of creativity but tend to lose it over time due to the requirements of our profession to think in certain ways. The focus on critical thinking ought to be balanced with creative thinking.

In this way, artificial intelligence is becoming additional intelligence.

Changing Skills for a Changing Fight

Operational demands remain largely the same: leaders must still lead, fires must integrate, and logistics must sustain. However, the environment in which these tasks occur is radically different. Recognizing this, the Combined Arms Center launched innovative approaches like the mobile advanced readiness training model, currently active at Fort Gordon’s Cyber Center of Excellence and Fort Sill’s Fires Center of Excellence. This model blends institutional and operational learning by deploying instructors, program managers, and vendors to train soldiers not just on new systems, but on how to integrate those systems within existing formations.

Some may think that mobile training teams and new equipment training or fielding teams do this already, but they focus on a specific piece of equipment and how to operate, maintain, and use the system. The training model we are using, on the other hand, leverages centers of excellence instructors and faculty, teamed with program evaluation offices, program managers, and vendors, to deliver training that helps soldiers and leaders understand how to integrate new capabilities into the systems that currently exist inside of a formation.

It is this integration work that fills the cognitive gap. Learning how to operate a new system as a stand-alone or replacement is one thing, but integration into the systems of systems of an organization in the context of warfighting is different. Additionally, the centers of excellence teams learn from each encounter or transform-in-contact events and can immediately transfer lessons, trends, observations and insights into doctrine, lesson plans, and course curriculum. In general, this approach bridges the gap in learning at the institutional and operational force.

This is how the Army closes the cognitive gap: not just by teaching what something is, but how it fits into the larger fight. These changes aren’t just technical: they are fundamental cognitive shifts in how the Army conceptualizes, employs, and fights with emerging technologies.

Tech Should Enhance, Not Replace, Cognition

Many fear that artificial intelligence and automation may replace human decision-making, but the more productive view is that technology should augment cognition — not override it. The systems will not think for us. They are designed to augment our ability to think faster and better.

The Army is already seeing results. As Maj. Gen. Michelle Donahue, commanding general of the Sustainment Center of Excellence, explained to the Army vice chief of staff, “What took us months or weeks to do in changing doctrinal manuals now takes hours.” The Training Development Tool delivers similar gains. Traditionally, programs of instruction — broad frameworks like the Rifle Marksmanship Program — could take up to three years to update under existing policy and governance rules. The real hurdle, though, isn’t the program itself but the lesson plans inside it. Those can now be revised in minutes instead of hours. Meanwhile, the Intelligence Center of Excellence at Fort Huachuca is developing an AI-enabled personal assistant trainer, a military counterpart to platforms like Khan Academy or Cognito, to guide learners through professional military education and beyond, enhancing both personalization and understanding.

Technology can enhance cognition—but only if the Army equips soldiers and leaders to ask better questions and think critically about the answers.

Trust, Repetition, and Ethics in the Digital Age

Education is not a download of information. It is the slow forging of judgment. In a digital age where algorithms promise speed, the Army’s task is to prepare leaders who know when to trust machines, when to question them, and how to anchor every decision in professional ethics. Trust in technology grows when soldiers learn to work with data rather than simply receive it. Repetition through writing and discourse strengthens the habits of thought that turn ideas into doctrine. And ethics keep pace with innovation, ensuring that new tools sharpen judgment instead of dulling it.

New Roles of Coordination: Trusting Tech by Training People

Trust in digital systems must be earned through experience, not imposed by policy. That’s why we’ve embedded operational data literacy into professional military education across various cohorts. The scope and depth vary by military occupational specialty and branch: Some courses at the Cyber Center of Excellence now include over 1,300 hours of data science, and sustainment courses exceed 900 hours.

More importantly, for the first time, the Combined Arms Center is assessing data acumen. In partnership with the Army Research Institute, we recently piloted a pre- and post- assessment with a cohort of non-commissioned officers. The group’s baseline score was 62 percent. After training, that jumped to 92 percent — a 30 percent increase in knowledge. It will take additional education and experience to increase understanding, the highest domain in the cognitive hierarchy. While this doesn’t turn soldiers into data scientists overnight, it proves that with the right exposure and tools, they can quickly gain and apply data proficiency leading to enhanced understanding of “Data Centricity” across our Army. The Carnegie Mellon Artificial Intelligence Integration Center program, the Army’s partnership with Arizona State University, and our evolving work with Vantage and CamoGPT are building leaders who not only use data — but challenge it. To be data literate means having the “ability to read, work with, analyze, and communicate using data.”

Reinforcement and Repetition Matter

The Harding Project, often viewed as a writing initiative, is restoring our institutional muscle memory of professional discourse. With the launch of the Line of Departure website, branch journals now reach over 20,000 readers per month — a tenfold increase over previous years. This is not just good communication — it’s cognitive exercise. Reflection, writing, and publication all reinforce critical thinking across generations. The four 2025 Harding Fellows are currently enrolled in the Mass Communications Master’s Program at the University of Kansas with six more fellows coming in 2026.

The increase in writing and professional dialogue and discourse creates a cognitive explosion that drives the lessons that we need to incorporate across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and policy. With this increase in writing and demonstration of clear thinking, the impact on our doctrine is tangible. Several articles have migrated to handbooks and doctrinal publications in less than a year’s time. As examples, “The Graveyard of Command Posts” is now a handbook and insights from articles on drones, electronic warfare, and deception are now in doctrine.

Good writing is good thinking, and good thinking is used to help enable the Army to fight at echelon in a major war.

The Salience of Ethics

Deepfakes and autonomous weapons show that ethics are central to modern war. The Army is embedding them directly: a Deception Planners Course, ethics-driven updates to Field Manual 3-37, all centers of excellence shaping Army Doctrine Publication 1, and new training for contested environments. The Institute for Religious Studies will soon join the Combined Arms Center, strengthening how the Army thinks about artificial intelligence in doctrine, training, and leader development.

In professional military education, the Combined Arms Center updated policy to enable students to leverage tools to increase their cognitive abilities. Some might think these new tools will make soldiers lazy. I’d beg to differ. If we understand how to use new tools ethically and responsibly, soldiers won’t become lazy, but rather more intellectually aware and astute. In the end, an increase in cognitive efficiency and reduction of time-consuming tasks can be achieved in ethical and responsible ways.

The Work is Quiet, But It Is Moving

We’ve heard the concern: “If I can’t see it, maybe it’s not happening.” But that assumption misses the nature of the challenge.

Modernizing cognition isn’t about throwing technology at the problem. It’s about teaching humans how to think in a world that’s changing faster than ever before. That means fewer grand unveilings and more hard conversations in curriculum reviews, doctrinal rewrites, and cross-functional sprints. It means hundreds of senior non-commissioned officers and captains adjusting how they teach, what they evaluate, and how they adapt under pressure. These changes are messy. They’re not suited to a 30-minute brief. But they’re happening. In fact, they’re accelerating.

The Combined Arms Center is not just reacting to the future: It is building it, one syllabus, one classroom, one integrated training environment at a time.

BECOME A MEMBER

Lt. Gen. Milford “Beags” Beagle Jr. is the commanding general of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center on Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he is responsible for integrating the modernization of the fielded Army across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and policy. He has served in multiple leadership capacities from platoon through division level, and his career deployments span the globe from Hawaii to the Republic of Korea. He previously served as the commanding general of 10th Mountain Division (Light).

Image: Dan Neal via U.S. Army

warontherocks.com · September 2, 2025

21. Roosevelt's 1941 Labor Day Radio Address

FDR knew how to prepare and operate in the information environment. He sought and obtained information advantage. He spent a lot of time and effort (and political capital) laying the groundwork for victory in WWII.

We can learn a lot from him.

Roosevelt's 1941 Labor Day Radio Address

warontherocks.com · September 1, 2025

Editor’s Note: In honor of the Labor Day holiday in the United States, War on the Rocks is publishing a transcript of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Labor Day radio address from Sept. 1, 1941.

* * *

On this day — this American holiday — we are celebrating the rights of free laboring men and women.

The preservation of these rights is vitally important now, not only to us who enjoy them—but to the whole future of Christian civilization.

American labor now bears a tremendous responsibility in the winning of this most brutal, most terrible of all wars.

In our factories and shops and arsenals we are building weapons on a scale great in its magnitude. To all the battle fronts of this world these weapons are being dispatched, by day and by night, over the seas and through the air. And this Nation is now devising and developing new weapons of unprecedented power toward the maintenance of democracy.

Why are we doing this? Why are we determined to devote our entire industrial effort to the prosecution of a war which has not yet actually touched our own shores?

We are not a warlike people. We have never sought glory as a Nation of warriors. We are not interested in aggression. We are not interested — as the dictators are — in looting. We do not covet one square inch of the territory of any other Nation.

Our vast effort, and the unity of purpose that inspires that effort, are due solely to our recognition of the fact that our fundamental rights — including the rights of labor — are threatened by Hitler’s violent attempt to rule the world.

These rights were established by our forefathers on the field of battle. They have been defended — at great cost but with great success — on the field of battle, here on our own soil, and in foreign lands, and on all the seas all over the world.

There has never been a moment in our history when Americans were not ready to stand up as free men and fight for their rights.

In times of national emergency, one fact is brought home to us, clearly and decisively — the fact that all of our rights are interdependent.

The right of freedom of worship would mean nothing without freedom of speech. And the rights of free labor as we know them today could not survive without the rights of free enterprise.

That is the indestructible bond that is between us — between all of us Americans: interdependence of interests, privileges, opportunities, responsibilities — interdependence of rights.

That is what unites us — men and women of all sections, of all races, of all faiths, of all occupations, of all political beliefs. That is why we have been able to defy and frustrate the enemies who believed that they could divide us and conquer us from within.

These enemies all know that we possess a strong Navy — a Navy gaining in strength. They know that that Navy — as long as the navies of the British Empire and the Netherlands and Norway and Russia exist — can together guarantee the freedom of the seas. These enemies know also that if these other navies are destroyed, the American Navy cannot now, or in the future, maintain the freedom of the seas against all the rest of the world.

These enemies know that our Army is increasing daily in its all-round strength.

These enemies know that today the chief American fighters in the battles now raging are those engaged in American industry, employers and employees alike.

These enemies know that the course of American production in the past year has shown enormous gains and that the product of these industries is moving to the battle fronts against Hitlerism in increasing volume each day.

But these enemies also know that our American effort is not yet enough — and that unless we step up the total of our production and more greatly safeguard it on its journeys to the battlefields, these enemies will take heart in pushing their attack in fields — old and new.

I give solemn warning to those who think that Hitler has been blocked and halted, that they are making a very dangerous assumption. When in any war your enemy seems to be making slower progress than he did the year before, that is the very moment to strike with redoubled force — to throw more energy into the job of defeating him — to end for all time the menace of world conquest and thereby end all talk or thought of any peace founded on a compromise with evil itself.

And we know that a free labor system is the very foundation of a functioning democracy. We know that one of the first acts of the Axis dictatorships has been to wipe out all the principles and standards which labor had been able to establish for its own preservation and advancement.

Trade unionism is a forbidden philosophy under these rule-or-ruin dictators. For trade unionism demands full freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Trade unionism has helped to give to every one who toils the position of dignity which is his due.

The present position of labor in the United States as an interdependent unit in the life of the Nation has not come about by chance. It has been an evolutionary process of a healthy democracy at work.

Hitler has not worked that way. He will not — he cannot work that way. Just as he denies all rights to individuals, he must deny all rights to groups — groups of labor, of business — groups of learning, of the church. He has abolished trade unions as ruthlessly as he has persecuted religion.

No group of Americans has realized more clearly what Nazi domination of the world means than has organized labor — what it means to their standard of living, their freedom — their lives. No group has a greater stake in the defeat of Nazism, in the preservation of the fundamental freedoms, in the continuance of democracy throughout the world.

We have already achieved much; it is imperative that we achieve infinitely more.

The single-mindedness and sacrifice with which we jointly dedicate ourselves to the production of the weapons of freedom will determine in no small part the length of the ordeal through which humanity must pass.

We cannot hesitate, we cannot equivocate in the great task before us. The defense of America’s freedom must take precedence over every private aim and over every private interest.

Yes, we are engaged on a grim and perilous task. Forces of insane violence have been let loose by Hitler upon this earth. We must do our full part in conquering them. For these forces may be unleashed on this Nation as we go about our business of protecting the proper interests of our country.

The task of defeating Hitler may be long and arduous. There are a few appeasers and Nazi sympathizers who say it cannot be done. They even ask me to negotiate with Hitler — to pray for crumbs from his victorious table. They do, in fact, ask me to become the modern Benedict Arnold and betray all that I hold dear — my devotion to our freedom — to our churches — to our country. This course I have rejected — I reject it again.

Instead, I know that I speak the conscience and determination of the American people when I say that we shall do everything in our power to crush Hitler and his Nazi forces.

American workers, American farmers, American businessmen, American church people — all of us together — have the great responsibility and the great privilege of laboring to build a democratic world on enduring foundations.

May it be said on some future Labor Day by some future president of the United States that we did our work faithfully and well.

warontherocks.com · September 1, 2025

22. America Is Cutting Off the Five Eyes. The Results Could Be Catastrophic.

I hope this report and analysis are wrong. There must be more to his story. Certainly we could not be so foolish as to cut off Five Eyes. Are we being hyperbolic here?

America Is Cutting Off the Five Eyes. The Results Could Be Catastrophic.

The National Interest · Peter Suciu · August 27, 2025

Topic: Security

Blog Brand: The Buzz

Region: Americas, Europe, and Oceania

August 27, 2025

By: Peter Suciu

If Tulsi Gabbard’s directive is maintained, the United States could find itself in a world where its most trusted partners primarily discuss security in venues that do not include America.

The White House did not acknowledge the exact exchange that President Donald Trump had in his high-level meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska earlier this month.

While it’s not surprising that the details were not released to the public at this point, some of America’s closest allies also remain largely in the dark—and have expressed frustrations about the lack of communication to the Trump administration.

According to a recent report from CBS News, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, “issued a directive weeks ago to the US intelligence community” that its information regarding the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine no longer be shared with the so-called “Five Eyes”—the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—which have historically cooperated closely on intelligence matters. Information related to the peace talks was classified as “NOFORN,” meaning that it could not be shared with any foreign nationals, friend or foe.

“This is a siren, not a memo,” warned geopolitical analyst Irina Tsukerman, president of threat assessment firm Scarab Rising. “Seal Russia–Ukraine diplomacy inside a NOFORN box, and you do not just trim a distribution list. You redraw the security map. Allies hear a slammed door. Rivals hear an invitation.”

Tsukerman further suggested the decision to wall off information about Russia–Ukraine negotiations from the Five Eyes would not be perceived as a bureaucratic adjustment, but as an insult.

“The Five Eyes alliance was built on the premise that the English-speaking democracies share more with each other than with anyone else,” she warned. “When Washington suddenly redraws the lines and stamps the most critical issue in European security ‘NOFORN,’ it signals to friends and adversaries alike that America no longer treats even its closest allies as part of the inner circle.”

America’s Intelligence-Sharing Apparatus Is Falling Apart

The Five Eyes, regarded as one of the world’s most successful intelligence partnerships, has seen its share of setbacks in recent years. In 2020, cracks appeared in its foundation when the British government opted to proceed with plans to have the Chinese-based tech giant Huawei build out its 5G network—drawing bipartisan complaints from Washington. A year later, New Zealand refused to condemn Beijing for its de facto military takeover of the contested South China Sea or its suppression of democracy in Hong Kong, seeking to maintain its bilateral relations with China.

The Edward Snowden leaks in 2013 also exposed extensive surveillance activities carried out by the Five Eyes, which created internal friction within the alliance.

This latest snub is not likely to repair past damage.

“Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have long operated under the assumption that their intelligence insights buy them a seat at the grown-up table. They hand over sensitive intercepts, deploy resources that Washington cannot, and open up access points around the globe. In return, they expect to be part of the full conversation when great power conflicts are at stake,” said Tsukerman. Gabbard’s directive would appear to violate that expectation.

Moreover, it could be seen as telling London, Canberra, Ottawa, and Wellington that their trust is conditional, or that their value is limited—and is insufficient to guarantee access to American information.

“Adversaries, meanwhile, are watching gleefully,” said Tsukerman. “Moscow sees an opening to paint America as an unreliable partner, one that hoards secrets even from those who share its worldview and security burdens. “

Without America, the Other Four “Eyes” Will Go Elsewhere

It is also important to note that this intelligence sharing is not just about exchanging data, but also about building a common strategic picture. The United States has excluded allies from the picture—with consequences that are difficult to foresee.

“If allies are cut out of the loop on Russia–Ukraine talks, they begin to form their own assessments without Washington’s input,” said Tsukerman. “Once alternative networks and channels form, they will not dissolve quickly.”

As a result, the United States could find itself in a world where its most trusted partners primarily discuss European security in venues that do not include America—a historic reversal of roles, with the United States outside peering in.

Of course, the Five Eyes have never been completely transparent with each other, and their national interests with respect to information will occasionally diverge. However, the timing of Gabbard’s announcement is particularly inauspicious, as the West’s negotiating power vis-a-vis Russia will likely be weakened if Western nations are hostile towards each other over intelligence issues.

America First or America Alone?

Supporters of the Trump administration argue that many Western nations—including other members of the Five Eyes—have been free riders on American security guarantees for too long. However, that does not explain why it would be necessary to keep the intelligence to a minimum—especially as President Trump was already set to meet with multiple world leaders.

“The broader danger is self-isolation,” said Tsukerman. “Cutting out the Five Eyes does not make America smarter. It makes America smaller. The alliance works because each partner sees a different slice of the world and feeds that slice into a shared picture.”

Indeed, America has derived many intelligence benefits from Five Eyes cooperation over the past decades—in particular the United Kingdom’s expertise on Russian affairs, and Australia’s access in the Pacific.

“Remove those inputs and the US analytic picture narrows,” Tsukerman added. “The timing makes this even more reckless. Peace talks that crawl invite opportunism. Moscow excels at performative diplomacy that buys time while artillery writes the real story. If the negotiations sputter, a closed US loop does not create discipline. It creates blind spots. Partners with fresh intercepts or ground reads cannot correct the US picture in real time.”

The long-term danger of this snub lies in the erosion of trust among the Five Eyes. These closest allies may question whether they’re treated as allies. And even as America declines to share information with its partners, those partners might think twice about sharing information with America—or might be more transactional in how it is shared.

“The crown jewels of intelligence, the most sensitive signals and human sources, [would] become bargaining chips rather than routine contributions,” Tsukerman concluded. “When that happens, the strength of the Five Eyes is replaced by transactional calculations, and the alliance loses its unique character. A world where Britain or Australia hesitates before passing along a crucial lead is a world where adversaries gain breathing room. By narrowing the circle, Washington may think it is securing control. In reality, it risks making the United States more isolated.”

About the Author: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu has contributed over 3,200 published pieces to more than four dozen magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].

Image: Shutterstock / metamorworks.

The National Interest · Peter Suciu · August 27, 2025

23. Government shutdown looms as Congress returns after monthlong August recess

Will Congress do its job?

Government shutdown looms as Congress returns after monthlong August recess

AP · MARY CLARE JALONICK · August 31, 2025

Congressional Republicans scored a massive victory this summer when they passed President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” of tax and spending cuts without a single Democratic vote. But as they return to Washington this fall after a monthlong August recess, they will have to find a way to work with Democrats — or around them — as a government shutdown looms.

The annual spending battle will dominate the September agenda, along with a possible effort by Senate Republicans to change their chamber’s rules to thwart Democratic stalling tactics on nominations. The Senate is also debating whether to move forward on legislation that would slap steep tariffs on some of Russia’s trading partners as the U.S. pressures Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine.

In the House, Republicans will continue their investigations of former President Joe Biden while Speaker Mike Johnson navigates a split in his conference over whether the Trump administration should release more files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

A look at what Congress will be doing as lawmakers return from the August break:

Keeping the Government Open

The most urgent task for Congress is to avoid a government shutdown on Sept. 30, when federal funding runs out. And it’s so far unclear if Republicans and Democrats will be able to agree on how to do that.

Congress will have to pass a short-term spending measure to keep the government funded for a few weeks or months while they try to finish the full-year package. But Republicans will need Democratic votes to pass an extension, and Democrats will want significant concessions. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s vote with Republicans to avoid a shutdown in March prompted furious backlash within his party.

The Trump administration’s efforts to claw back previously approved spending could also complicate the negotiations. Republicans passed legislation this summer that rescinded about $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funds and Trump notified Congress again on Friday that he will block $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid.

Democrats have warned that such efforts could tank the broader negotiations. “Trump is rooting for a shutdown,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., posted on social media Friday.

Senate Nominations Fight

Senators are expected to return to Washington right where they left off in early August — fighting over Trump’s nominees.

Exasperated Republicans fled Washington for the month after making little headway with Senate Democrats over their nominations blockade, which has forced delays in confirmations and angered Trump as many of his administration’s positions remain unfilled. Republican leaders called it quits after a rare Saturday session that ended with a breakdown in bipartisan negotiations and Trump posting on social media that Chuck Schumer could “GO TO HELL!”

Republicans now say they’re ready to try and change Senate rules to get around the Democratic delays, and they are expected to spend the next several weeks discussing how that might work.

Russian Sanctions

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s closest congressional allies, has pushed the president for months to support his sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill that would impose steep tariffs on countries that are fueling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by buying its oil, gas, uranium, and other exports. The legislation has the backing of 85 senators, but Trump has yet to endorse it, and Republican leaders have so far said they won’t move without him.

Graham has stepped up his calls after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy last month in hopes of a peace deal. Since then, Russia has continued to step up attacks on Ukraine.

“If we don’t have this thing moving in the right direction by the time we get back, then I think that plan B needs to kick in,” Graham said of his bill in an interview with The Associated Press last month.

Oversight of the CDC

Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy will appear before the Senate Finance Committee to discuss his health care agenda on Thursday, less than a week after he ousted Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Several other top officials also resigned in protest.

Kennedy has tried to advance anti-vaccine policies that are contradicted by decades of scientific research. Monarez’s lawyers said she refused “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican chairman of the HELP panel that oversees the CDC and a member of the Finance Committee, has called on the CDC to delay a meeting of outside experts who make recommendations on the use of vaccines until Congress can look into the issue.

Divisions over Epstein

The House left Washington in July amid disagreements among Republicans about whether they should force President Donald Trump’s administration to release more information on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein. The pressure for more disclosure could only get more intense when lawmakers return.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky are pushing the House to take up their bill to force the Department of Justice to publicly release its investigation. They are planning a news conference this week joined by Epstein victims. The House Oversight Committee is also investigating the issue.

Democrats are eager to keep pressing on the Epstein files, especially after the Trump administration reneged on pledges for transparency. The case for years has been the subject of online conspiracy theories and speculation about who may have been involved or aware of the wealthy financier’s abuse.

Investigating Biden

The House Oversight Committee will return from August recess with a slate of interviews lined up as part of its investigation into former President Joe Biden’s mental state while in office. The committee has already conducted interviews and depositions with nearly a dozen former top Biden aides and members of the president’s inner circle.

The Republican-led committee will hear from former top Biden staffers in September like Jeff Zients, Biden’s final White House chief of staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, the former White House press secretary, and Andrew Bates, a top press aide.

Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has said public hearings and a full report can be expected sometime in the fall.

Stock Trading Ban

Congress has discussed proposals for years to keep lawmakers from engaging in trading individual stocks, nodding to the idea that there’s a potential conflict of interest when they are often privy to information and decisions that can dramatically move markets.

That push is now gaining momentum. A Senate committee has approved legislation from GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri that would also extend the prohibition on stock trading to future presidents and vice presidents — while notably exempting Trump. In the House, several members are putting forward proposals and even threatening to maneuver around GOP leadership to force a vote.

Still, there is plenty of resistance to the idea, including from many wealthy lawmakers who reap dividends from their portfolios.

___

Associated Press writers Matt Brown and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

AP · MARY CLARE JALONICK · August 31, 2025

24. Trump appointee exits US foreign aid agency after four-month sprint: ‘Mission accomplished'

Mission complete?

Trump appointee exits US foreign aid agency after four-month sprint: ‘Mission accomplished'

Dasgupta, who was appointed in May as political head of MCC, focused on competing with China through strategic investments

By Jasmine Baehr Fox News

Published August 31, 2025 2:57am EDT

foxnews.com · Jasmine Baehr Fox News

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Dr. Sohan Dasgupta, appointed earlier this year as the political head of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), told Fox News Digital he is stepping down after a four-month sprint, declaring his mission to preserve and reposition the U.S. agency as a strategic foreign policy tool as "accomplished."

Created by Congress in 2004, MCC delivers five-year infrastructure and energy compacts to developing nations that meet strict governance standards. Unlike traditional aid, its investments are structured to drive long-term economic growth and open markets for U.S. companies.

Since its creation under President George W. Bush, MCC has often been grouped with other U.S. aid programs.

Career staff have long emphasized development goals like poverty reduction, education, and infrastructure, but unlike USAID, MCC was established as a corporate body with a fiduciary duty to ensure effectiveness.

CDC OFFICIAL WHO BLASTED TRUMP’S ‘WEAK SCIENCE’ LED POLITICIZED BIDEN-ERA MONKEYPOX RESPONSE

Dr. Sohan Dasgupta, political head of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, meets with Senegalese officials to discuss MCC programs. (Courtesy of Dr. Sohan Dasgupta)

A White House official, speaking on background to Fox News Digital, argued the agency too often presented itself as aid rather than investment before President Donald Trump took office.

Dasgupta pushed staff to adopt a different lens, pressing them to evaluate projects based on the return on investment for the United States, the degree of strategic alignment with partner countries, and whether MCC compacts could be used to strengthen U.S. leverage in negotiations.

A Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report this spring argued that MCC is not a traditional aid agency but an "investment" tool uniquely suited for an "America First" agenda.

The authors warned shuttering it would hand China "diplomatic and economic wins" while leaving half-built projects abroad, and noted Trump-era partner selections, from Nepal to Côte d’Ivoire to the Pacific Islands, were strategically chosen to counter Chinese influence.

"The United States and the world are safer, stronger, and more prosperous with the MCC model than without it," the report concluded.

OBAMA OFFICIAL SAYS DEMOCRATIC PARTY 'AFRAID OF ITS OWN FUTURE,’ WANTS IT TO EMBRACE MAMDANI STRATEGY

Dr. Dasgupta is leaving the Millennium Challenge Corporation after a brief stint in the agency as an appointee under President Trump. (Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images)

MCC’s current portfolio under Trump includes some of its largest-ever compacts: a $500 million deal in Nepal funding nearly 200 miles of transmission lines, a $480 million compact in Sierra Leone expanding electricity access and a $202 million program in Kosovo focused on grid-scale battery storage. Other investments include $536 million in Côte d’Ivoire, $537 million in Mozambique and a water compact in Mongolia.

Dasgupta told Fox News Digital that his role was to press MCC staff to think in terms of U.S. national security and economic benefits. "Reforming MCC into a vital national security and foreign policy asset" was how he described his "mission accomplished" moment.

A May 9 email from the White House Liaison to MCC staff, obtained by Fox News Digital, shows Dasgupta was appointed as a Schedule C senior advisor "assuming political leadership for the agency."

MCC’s Fiscal Year 2026 Candidate Country Report, released this month, lists Kosovo, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Mongolia, Solomon Islands, Fiji and Tonga among its eligible partner nations.

Dr. Sohan Dasgupta, political head of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, meets with Nepal’s ambassador at MCC headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Courtesy of Dr. Sohan Dasgupta)

"Service has many forms. My goal was to carry out particular projects and missions, then make way for others," Dasgupta said.

On China, he added: "Critical minerals and rare earth elements are a vital part of American strength… MCC has really understood that."

Kosovo’s ambassador to the U.S., Ilir Dugolli, praised Dasgupta’s responsiveness. "We worked closely soon after he arrived at MCC… I respect him enormously for the way he handled his portfolio and how professional he was," Dugolli told Fox News Digital.

On energy security, Dugolli said: "Kosovo fully aligns with U.S. foreign policy… Batteries are extremely important, especially after last year’s terrorist attack on the Iber-Lepenc canal. The compact is the single most critical investment for our country’s energy security and economic resilience."

Dasgupta’s departure also comes as the Trump administration pursues cuts to traditional U.S. foreign aid programs and seeks to reframe America’s global engagement under its "America First" policy.

Former employees of USAID leave the headquarters building in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 27, 2025. (Leigh Green for Fox News Digital)

While agencies such as USAID have faced reductions and restructuring, Dasgupta argues the MCC has been preserved as a leaner, investment-driven tool aligned with the administration’s emphasis on strategic deals and competition with China.

Analysts estimate China controls about 70% of global rare earth mining and nearly 90% of processing capacity, according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Between 2023 and 2025, China imposed export restrictions on strategic minerals, according to CSIS. Dasgupta argues MCC’s work in allied nations can help diversify supply chains and strengthen resilience, though MCC has not publicly described critical minerals as a formal focus of its work.

"We want independence in every sense of the word… these are the premises and predicates of American strength," Dasgupta said.

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"Quick wins" like Kosovo’s battery project and Nepal’s power lines, Dasgupta said, show how American aid can advance prosperity abroad while reinforcing security at home.

With his departure, MCC continues compacts in dozens of countries worldwide.

The MCC did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Jasmine Baehr is a Breaking News Writer for Fox News Digital, where she covers politics, the military, faith and culture.

foxnews.com · Jasmine Baehr Fox News

25. The case for the em dash

Interesting. I wonder why ChatGPT relies so heavily on this?

The case for the em dash

Style is important for writers—don't you think?

https://www.hardingproject.com/p/the-case-for-the-em-dash?utm

John Geracitano

Sep 02, 2025

I’ve relied on the em dash for years. It’s not just punctuation—it’s a stylistic choice that adds clarity and emphasis. Yet lately, every time I use one, reviewers strip it out and swap it with a comma.

The reason? ChatGPT. Because the AI leans heavily on em dashes, some assume their presence signals machine-written text. But that’s a mistake. We cannot let algorithms dictate the rules of style. Writers deserve the freedom to use established, legitimate tools without suspicion. The em dash is part of our language’s history, not a glitch to be corrected. To let AI reshape writing etiquette is to hand over authority that belongs to human authors and editors.

A dash of history

The em dash is a punctuation mark with well-entrenched roots and a legacy to match. Although medieval scribes used long strokes to indicate pauses or breaks in thought, the em dash emerged as a standard during the 15th-century printing revolution. And they became popularized by authors like Laurence Sterne and Emily Dickinson in the 18th and 19th centuries. Dickinson used them to convey emotion, hesitation, and for rhythm. So much so, they were called “Dickinson Dashes.”

Around this time, printers began delineating dash lengths, and thus came the various options: em, en, and the hyphen.

Photo courtesy of the author.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, typewriters made these variations tricky. There was no em dash key—just the hyphen. Two hyphens then became the accepted em dash, which was formalized in the digital era, in which word processors automatically convert two hyphens to an em dash.

While there are different standards and styles for spacing and usage, the em dash is a significant form of punctuation. It has a rich history—one more deserving than I offer here. But alas, sometimes knowing just a little about a topic is sufficient. However, here is a great Substack article about the em dash by Thao Thai.

To dash or not to dash?

Although there will be perpetual doubt as to whether Shakespeare actually authored his body of work, he at least is not accused of using AI to write his eloquent masterpieces. (He did use a lot of em dashes, though.) This is simply the age in which writers live. A year from now, another element of our writing might be under scrutiny thanks to AI’s prevalence.

So, to all Hardos, writers, reviewers, and readers, don’t let AI take away a beloved piece of punctuation–before it’s too late!

John Geracitano is a U.S. Army Signal officer and LTG(R) Dubik Writing Fellow currently serving as a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

A guest post by

John Geracitano

John Geracitano is a U.S. Army Signal officer and LTG(R) Dubik Writing Fellow currently serving as a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

26. ‘Keep up the fire’: The Boxer Rebellion and the Marines who fought it

WTFO MIlitary Times?

The 9th US Infantry Regiment (Manchu) is an Army unit not a Marine unit. The Army's 9th Infantry Regiment 's motto is "Keep up the Fire." The regime was commanded by COL Liscum. He was an Army officer and not a Marine.

Excerpt:

Among those killed was Col. Liscum, who was leading the assault when he saw the color bearer shot down. As he went to retrieve the regimental colors, he was shot in the abdomen by an Imperial rifleman. His last words to his men were allegedly “Keep up the fire” — still the motto of the 9th Marine Regiment.

?????

Yes I am biased, having served in the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry on my first assignment to Korea.

‘Keep up the fire’: The Boxer Rebellion and the Marines who fought itBy Jon Guttman

Friday, Aug 29, 2025

Adm. Sir Edward Seymour's relief column crosses a river to attack a Chinese arsenal near Tientsin (Tianjin) during the Boxer Rebellion. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Since its inauguration in 1862, the Medal of Honor has gone through an evolutionary standard. Until World War I, many of the deeds that led to their award were not described in convincing detail. Sometimes it took a witness of the act of heroism to supply those details. An early case in point occurred during the Boxer Rebellion.

On Oct. 18, 1899, a Chinese nationalist movement called the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, or Boxers by foreign observers, rose up against the seven concession cities representing the Western imperialist powers on Chinese soil, also turning their wrath on merchants, missionaries, Christian converts and other westernized Chinese.

While the Europeans and Americans (the only dominant foreigners who did not hold any Chinese real estate) mobilized their forces in the Far East. Manchu Empress Tzu-Hsi (Cixi) initially opposed the rebellion, but in 1900 she committed the Imperial Army and its more advanced weaponry to helping the rebels.

For eight weeks, as Western embassies fought for survival in siege-like conditions, eight normally rival Western troops marched together for the common cause without an overall command.

On June 21, 1900, they tried to advance to Beijing through mud, open plain and high walls of Tientsin (Tianjin), only to be halted by Boxers and Imperial troops.

At 0800 hours on July 13, the Eight-Nation Alliance launched an all-out assault on Tientsin, involving British, Japanese, French and Americans, only to be pinned down by the Boxer and Imperialist forces until 2000, when the Alliance troops finally managed to disengage. It is from that situation that a handful of Marines caught their commander’s eyes.

Born in Heckscherville, Pennsylvania on Feb. 19, 1866, Alexander Joseph Foley was the son of an Irish coal miner who made up his mind to be anything but that. In 1888 he joined the Marine Corps, subsequently re-enlisting in 1893 and again in 1898, seeing his first combat in Cuba.

Rising to the senior noncommissioned officer rank of first sergeant, he was serving in the Philippines with the 9th Infantry Regiment under Col. Emerson Hamilton Liscum — a 60-year-old Army veteran of the Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish-American War and Philippine-American Wars — when word came in about the Boxer Rebellion and his unit joined the international 50,000-man expeditionary force marching on Tientsin and on the besieged legations in Beijing.

Serving alongside Foley, Sgt. Clarence Edward Sutton had a more troubled military career. Born to merchant Thomas E. and Emily Sutton in Urbanna, Virginia, on Feb. 18, 1871, he had entered Virginia Military Institute on Aug. 18, 1885, but was held back a year to the class of 1890 and resigned without graduating in 1888.

In June 1899, he traveled to the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. and enlisted in the Marine Corps and, after being assigned to the 9th Infantry, served in the Philippines before shipping out to China.

The struggle for Tientsin involved 6,000 Westerners against a mixed bag of Boxers and better-armed Imperial soldiers. Shortages of ammunition limited the 9th Infantry to 180 rounds per man and it suffered nine casualties as it fought alongside the British Naval Regiment. Among those killed was Col. Liscum, who was leading the assault when he saw the color bearer shot down. As he went to retrieve the regimental colors, he was shot in the abdomen by an Imperial rifleman. His last words to his men were allegedly “Keep up the fire” — still the motto of the 9th Marine Regiment.

Among the 9th Infantry’s most grievous casualties was Maj. James Regan, who was wounded and under fire on open ground.

What followed was officially declared “meritorious combat” on the part of Foley, Sutton, Sgt. John Mapes Adams and Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Harry Chapman Adriance.

To that terse summation, however, was an added citation: “Although under heavy fire from the enemy, Sutton assisted in carrying a wounded officer from the field of battle.”

Another more detailed citation came Foley’s way: “In the presence of the enemy in the battle near Tientsin, China, July 13, 1900, Foley distinguished himself by meritorious conduct.”

Adding the most to the four Marines’ merit, however, was the testimony by the officer whose life they’d saved, Maj. Regan:

“It was with the greatest of difficulty and persistence in their noble work that they got me off the field. They placed me on an improvised litter made of two flannel shirts and two rifles. I was a heavy man and with the greatest care over the roughest kind of ground, under fire, they carried me to the marine hospital in the city, a distance of about three miles.... such men are worthy of all the distinction the Government can confer upon them.”

On July 14 the Alliance forces finally fought their way into Tientsin, bringing an end to the bloodiest battle of the rebellion. The defenders at Beijing were finally relieved and on Sept. 7, 1901 the Imperial government formally surrendered, unwittingly laying the groundwork for its own demise in 1912.

At the U.S. Marine garrison at Cavite, on May 11, 1902, six Marines were awarded the Medal of Honor: 1st Sgt. Alexander J. Foley, Sgt. Clarence E. Sutton, Cpt. Andre W. Brewster, Sgt. John Mapes Adams and Cpl. Edwin Nelson Appleton.

Those cited for their role in saving Maj. Regan did not live long thereafter. Alexander Foley died while on duty in Culebra, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 14, 1910, and was buried in the municipal cemetery.

Clarence Sutton rose to first sergeant, but in 1909 he resigned from the service due to failing health. He died on Oct. 19, 1916, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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