Quotes of the Day:

"At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policeman, that news is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived, and that he himself is no different – in the crunch, his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.”

– Robert Heinlein

“Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.”

– Ludwig Von Mises

"The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."

– J.aD. Salinger

1. Trump to U.N.: ‘Your Countries Are Going to Hell’ (Transcript and Video of POTUS' Speech at the UN)

2. Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture With Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada

3. Niall Ferguson: I’ve Seen the Future of War. Europe Isn’t Ready for It.

4.  One Hell of a Fight - A Change In Trump’s Narrative on Ukraine by Mick Ryan

5. Can Ukraine Really Win the War Against Russia?

6. A New Start for Trump on Ukraine?

7. How Zelensky’s Charm Offensive Reversed Trump’s Skepticism on Ukraine

8. ANALYSIS: ‘We’re Advancing at Colossal Cost’: Russian Senator Admits Ukraine Dominates Drone War, Front Stuck in Stalemate

9. China’s Xi Takes Veiled Swipe at Trump, Announces Climate Plan

10. Every Nation Wants to Copy Iran’s Deadly Shahed Drone

11. NATO Is Facing a Drone Crisis

12. Trump’s blast toward Russia is a ‘negotiating tactic,’ White House says

13. Academics spell out in terrifying detail our bloody end at hands of AI

14. Trump Weakening US Clout in China’s Backyard, Report Warns

15. The perverse consequence of America’s $100,000 visa fees

16. Japan unveils ‘world’s first’ hydrogen-powered driverless tractor to tackle labor shortage

17. Three disasters loom for the United States

18. Xi Declares Success in Chinese Region at Center of Rights-Abuse Claims

19. The Five Vehicles of Irregular Warfare

20. Synchronizing MDO Effects: Putting the Commander Back in Control through Converged NLE and NKA Operations

21. Trump orders Secret Service probe after a day of awkward moments at U.N.

22. FBI seized documents described as ‘classified’ in search of Bolton’s office

23. Maximizing The Indigenous Approach: Using Secondment to Enable Our Partners and Constrain Our Adversaries

24. Reimagining Army Divisions for Twenty-First-Century Warfare

25. NATO’s Air Defense Dilemma

26. The Two Southeast Asias

27. The Proliferation Problem Is Back

28. 27th SOW Demonstrates Capabilities in ARCTIC EDGE 25

29. On Trump’s Anti-Antifa Executive Order

​30. The Pentagon, the Press and the Fight to Control National Security Coverage

31. White House to agencies: Prepare mass firing plans for a potential shutdown

1. Trump to U.N.: ‘Your Countries Are Going to Hell’ (Transcript ​and Video of POTUS' Speech at the UN)

​You can watch the full video at the link:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/full-speech-trump-addresses-united-nations-general-assembly-125855942

I wonder if Ambassador Waltz will be presiding over the eventual withdrawal of the US from the UN?

Trump to U.N.: ‘Your Countries Are Going to Hell’

Read Trump’s full address at the U.N. General Assembly. 

By Christina Lu, a staff writer at Foreign Policy.

Foreign Policy · Christina Lu

September 23, 2025, 4:33 PM

U.S. President Donald Trump’s fraught relationship with the United Nations was on full display on Tuesday, when the U.S. leader took the stage at the U.N. General Assembly to lambaste the organization and many of the world leaders in the audience.

In a rambling tirade that stretched around 57 minutes—more than triple his allotted time—Trump railed against everything from clean energy to immigration, dubbing them the two forces “destroying a large part of the free world.” At the same time as he claimed to have ended seven wars around the world, Trump accused the United Nations of sitting idly by. “And sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them,” he said.

“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Trump asked at one point. “It’s not even coming close to living up to [its] potential.”

Trump also targeted specific countries in his remarks, at one point singling out Brazil as a country that “is doing poorly and will continue to do poorly,” although he added that he and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had agreed to meet next week. Trump and Lula have clashed over Brazil’s conviction of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a longtime Trump ally, for plotting a coup; prior to the conviction, Trump had attempted to pressure the country’s top court into dropping its charges.

Still, few countries escaped Trump’s criticism, with the U.S. leader at one point declaring: “I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”

Yet after blasting the U.N. in his address, Trump struck a more supportive tone afterward in a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. “Our country is behind the United Nations 100 percent,” he said. “I may disagree with it sometimes, but I am so behind it because I think the potential for peace for this institution is so great.”

Below is a full, rush transcript of Trump’s remarks as delivered. They have not been fact-checked.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much, very much appreciated. And I don’t mind making this speech without a teleprompter because the teleprompter is not working. I feel very happy to be up here with you nevertheless, and that way you speak more from the heart. I can only say that whoever’s operating this teleprompter is in big trouble.

Hello, Madam First Lady. Thank you very much for being here, and Madam President, Mr. Secretary-General, First Lady of the United States, distinguished delegates, ambassadors, and world leaders.

Six years have passed since I last stood in this grand hall and addressed a world that was prosperous and at peace in my first term. Since that day, the guns of war have shattered the peace I forged on two continents. An era of calm and stability gave way to one of the great crises of our time. And here in the United States, four years of weakness, lawlessness, and radicalism under the last administration delivered our nation into a repeated set of disasters. One year ago, our country was in deep trouble, but today, just eight months into my administration, we are the hottest country anywhere in the world, and there is no other country even close.

America is blessed with the strongest economy, the strongest borders, the strongest military, the strongest friendships, and the strongest spirit of any nation on the face of the Earth. This is indeed the golden age of America. We are rapidly reversing the economic calamity we inherited from the previous administration, including ruinous price increases and record-setting inflation, inflation like we’ve never had before. Under my leadership, energy costs are down, gasoline prices are down, grocery prices are down. Mortgage rates are down and inflation has been defeated.

The only thing that’s up is the stock market, which just hit a record high. In fact, it hit a record high 48 times in the last short period of time. Growth is surging. Manufacturing is booming. The stock market, as I said, is doing better than it’s ever done. And all of you in this room benefit by that. Almost everybody. And importantly, workers’ wages are rising at the fastest pace in more than 60 years. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

In four years of [former U.S.] President [Joe] Biden, we had less than $1 trillion of new investment into the United States. In just eight months since I took office, we have secured commitments and money already paid for $17 trillion. Think of it, four years less than a trillion, eight months, much more than $17 trillion is being invested in the United States and is now pouring in from all parts of the world.

We’ve implemented the largest tax cuts in American history and the largest regulation cuts in American history, making this once and again the best country on earth to do business and many of the people in this room are investing in America, and it’s turned out to be an awfully good investment during this eight month period.

In my first term, I built the greatest economy in the history of the world. We had the best economy ever, history of the world, and I’m doing the same thing again, but this time it’s actually much bigger and even better. The numbers far surpassed my record setting first term. On our southern border, we have successfully repelled a colossal invasion, and for the last four months, and that’s four months in a row, the number of illegal aliens admitted and entering our country has been zero. Hard to believe, because if you look back just a year ago, it was millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, from prisons, from mental institutions, drug dealers, all over the world they came. They just poured into our country with the ridiculous open border policy of the Biden administration.

Our message is very simple. If you come illegally into the United States, you’re going to jail or you’re going back to where you came from, or perhaps even further than that. You know what that means.

I want to thank the country of El Salvador for the successful and professional job they’ve done in receiving and jailing so many criminals that entered our country. And it was under the previous administration that the number became record-setting, and they’re all being taken out. We have no choice. And other countries have no choice because other countries are in the exact same situation with immigration. It’s destroying your country and you have to do something about it.

On the world stage, America is respected again like it has never been respected before. Do you think about two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, or one year ago, we were a laughing stock all over the world. At the NATO summit in June, virtually all NATO members formally committed to increased defense spending at my request from 2 percent to 5 percent of GDP, making our alliance far stronger and more powerful than it was ever before.

In May, I traveled to the Middle East to visit my friends and rebuild our partnerships in the Gulf and those valued relationships with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE [United Arab Emirates], and other countries are now, I believe, closer than ever before. My administration has negotiated one historic trade deal after another, including with the United Kingdom; the European Union; Japan; South Korea; Vietnam; Indonesia; the Philippines; Malaysia; and many, many others.

Likewise, in a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars. They said they were unendable. You’re never gonna get them solved. Some were going for 31 years, two of them, 31, think of it, 31 years. One was 36 years, one was 28 years. I ended seven wars. And in all cases, they were raging with countless, thousands of people, being killed. This includes Cambodia and Thailand; Kosovo and Serbia; the Congo and Rwanda, a vicious violent war that was; Pakistan and India; Israel and Iran; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Armenia and Azerbaijan. It included all of them. No president or prime minister, and for that matter, no other country has ever done anything close to that. And I did it in just seven months. It’s never happened before. There’s never been anything like that. Very honored to have done it.

It’s too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them. And sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them. I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries and never even received a phone call from the United Nations offering to help in finalizing the deal.

All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle. If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen, but she’s in great shape. We’re both in good shape, we’re both still. And then a teleprompter that didn’t work. These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Thank you very much. And by the way, it’s working now, just went on. Thank you. I think I should just do it the other way; it’s easier. Thank you very much.

I didn’t think of it at the time because I was too busy working to save millions of lives—that is, the saving and stopping of these wars, but later I realized that the United Nations wasn’t there for us. They weren’t there. I thought of it really after the fact, not during these negotiations, which were not easy.

That being the case, what is the purpose of the United Nations? The U.N. has such tremendous potential. I’ve always said it. It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential for the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It’s empty words, and empty words don’t solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action. Now, after ending all of these wars and also earlier negotiating the Abraham Accords, which is a very big thing for which our country received no credit, never receives credit.

Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements. But for me, the real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up with their mothers and fathers because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless and unglorious wars. What I care about is not winning prizes at saving lives. We saved millions and millions of lives with the seven wars. And we have others that we’re working on, and you know that.

Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex. I remember it so well. I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million, rebuilding everything, it would be beautiful. I used to talk about, I’m going to give you marble floors, they’re going to give you terrazzo. I’m gonna give you the best of everything. You’re gonna have mahogany walls, they’re gonna give you plastic. But they decided to go in another direction, which was much more expensive at the time, which actually produced a far inferior product. And I realized that they did not know what they were doing when it came to construction and that their building concepts were so wrong and the product that they were proposing to build was so bad and so costly. It was going to cost them a fortune, and I said, ‘and wait till you see the overruns.’ Well, I turned out to be right—they had massive cost overruns and spent between $2 [billion] and $4 billion on the building and did not even get the marble floors that I promised them. You walk on terrazzo, do you notice that?

As far as I’m concerned, frankly, looking at the building and getting stuck on the escalator, they still haven’t finished the job. They still haven’t finished, that was years ago. The project was so corrupt that Congress actually asked me to testify before them on the tremendous waste of money because it turned out that they had no idea what it was, but they knew it was anywhere between $2 [billion] and $4 billion as opposed to $500 million with a guarantee, but they had no idea and I said it cost much more than $5 billion.

Unfortunately, many things in the United Nations are happening just like that, but on an even much bigger scale, much, much bigger, very sad to see whether the U.N. can manage to play a productive role.

I’ve come here today to offer the hand of American leadership and friendship to any nation in this assembly that is willing to join us in forging a safer, more prosperous world. It’s a world that we’ll be much happier with, a dramatically better future is within our reach. But to get there, we must reject the failed approaches of the past and work together to confront some of the greatest threats in history. There is no more serious danger to our planet today than the most powerful and destructive weapons ever devised by man, of which the United States, as you know, has many.

Just as I did in my first term, I’ve made containing these threats a top priority, starting with the nation of Iran. My position is very simple. The world’s number one sponsor of terror can never be allowed to possess the most dangerous weapon. That’s why, shortly after taking office, I sent the so-called supreme leader a letter making a generous offer. I extended a pledge of full cooperation in exchange for a suspension of Iran’s nuclear program. The regime’s answer was to continue their constant threats to their neighbors and U.S. interests throughout the region and some great countries that are right nearby.

Today, many of Iran’s former military commanders, in fact, I can say almost all of them, are no longer with us. They’re dead. And three months ago in Operation Midnight Hammer, seven American B-2 bombers dropped the 14 30,000-pound each bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facilities, totally obliterating everything. No other country on earth could have done what we did. No other county has the equipment to do what we do. We have the greatest weapons on earth. We hate to use them, but we did something that for 22 years, people wanted to do. With Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity demolished, I immediately brokered an end to the 12-day war, as it’s called, between Israel and Iran, with both sides agreeing to fight, fight no longer.

As everyone knows, I have also been deeply engaged in seeking a cease-fire in Gaza. Have to get that done. Have to get it done. Unfortunately, Hamas has repeatedly rejected reasonable offers to make peace. We can’t forget Oct. 7, can we?

Now, as if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists for their atrocities. This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities, including Oct. 7. Even while they refuse to release the hostages or accept a cease-fire, instead of giving to Hamas and giving so much—because they’ve taken so much, they have taken so much, this could have been solved so long ago. But instead of giving in to Hamas’s ransom demands, those who want peace should be united with one message: Release the hostages now. Just release the hostages now. Thank you.

As we have got to come together, and we will come together to get it done, we have to stop the war in Gaza immediately. We have to stop it. We have to get it done. We have to negotiate, immediately have to negotiate peace. We got to get the hostages back. We want all 20 back. We don’t want two and four. As you know, along with [U.S. special envoy] Steve Witkoff and others that helped us, [U.S. Secretary of State] Marco Rubio, we got most of them back. We were involved in all of them. But I always said, the last 20 are gonna be the hardest, and that’s exactly what happened. We have to get them back now. We don’t want to get back two, then another two, and then one, and then three, have this process. No, we want them all back, and we want the actually 38 dead bodies back, too. Those parents came to me, and they want them back, and they want them back very quickly and very badly, as though they were alive, they want them every bit as much as if their son or daughter were alive.

I’ve also been working relentlessly, stopping the killing in Ukraine. I thought that would be—of the seven wars that I stopped, I thought that would be the easiest because of my relationship with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, which had always been a good one. I thought that was going to be the easiest one. But you know, in war, you never know what’s going to happen. There are always lots of surprises, both good and bad. Everyone thought Russia would win this war in three days. But it didn’t work out that way. It was supposed to be just a quick little skirmish. It’s not making Russia look good. It’s making them look bad.

No matter what happens from here on out, this was something that should have taken a matter of days, certainly less than a week. And they’ve been fighting for three and a half years and killing anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 young soldiers, mostly, mostly soldiers, on both sides, every single week, from 5,000 to 7,000 dead young people. And some in cities, much smaller numbers, where rockets are shot, where drones are dropped.

This war would never have started if I were president. This was a war that should have never happened. It shows you what leadership is, what bad leadership can do to a country. Look what happened to the United States and look where we are right now in just a short period of time. The only question now is how many more lives will be needlessly lost on both sides.

China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil, but inexcusably, even NATO countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products, which as you know I found out about two weeks ago and I wasn’t happy. Think of it. They’re funding the war against themselves. Who the hell ever heard of that one?

In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs which would stop the bloodshed, I believe very quickly, but for those tariffs to be effective, European nations—all of you are gathered here right now—would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures.

I mean, you’re much closer to this thing. We have an ocean in between. You’re right there. And Europe has to step it up. They can’t be doing what they’re doing. They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia. It’s embarrassing to them. And it was very embarrassing to them when I found out about it, I can tell you that. But they have to immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia otherwise we’re all wasting a lot of time, so I’m ready to discuss this, we’re going to discuss it today with the European nations all gathered here. I’m sure they’re thrilled to hear me speak about it but that’s the way it is, I like to speak my mind and speak the truth.

As we seek to reduce the threat of dangerous weapons today I’m also calling on every nation to join us in ending the development of biological weapons. Once and for all, and biological is terrible, and nuclear is even beyond, and we include nuclear in that, we want to have a cessation of the development of nuclear weapons. We know and I know and I get to view it all the time, sir would you like to see, and I look at weapons that are so powerful that we just can’t ever use them. If we ever use him, the world literally might come to an end. There would be no United Nations to be talking about. There would no nothing.

Just a few years ago, reckless experiments overseas gave us a devastating global pandemic. Yet despite that worldwide catastrophe, many countries are continuing extremely risky research into bioweapons and manmade pathogens. This is unbelievably dangerous.

To prevent potential disasters, I’m announcing today that my administration will lead an international effort to enforce [the] Biological Weapons Convention, which is going to be meeting with the top leaders of the world by pioneering an AI [artificial intelligence] verification system that everyone can trust. Hopefully the U.N. can play a constructive role and it will also go be one of the early projects under AI.

Let’s see how good it is, because a lot of people are saying it could be one of the great things ever, but it also can be dangerous, but it could be put to tremendous use and tremendous good and this would be an example of that.

Not only is the U.N. not solving the problems it should—too often, it’s actually creating new problems for us to solve. The best example is the number one political issue of our time: the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It’s uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined.

The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders. In 2024, the U.N. budgeted $372 million in cash assistance to support an estimated 624,000 migrants journeying into the United States. Think of that. The U.N. is supporting people that are illegally coming into the United States and then we have to get them out. The U.N. also provided food, shelter, transportation, and debit cards to illegal aliens—can you believe that—on the way to infiltrate our southern border.

Millions of people came through that southern border just a year ago. Millions and millions of people were pouring in. Twenty-five million altogether over the four years of the incompetent Biden administration. And now we have it stopped, totally stopped. In fact, they’re not even coming anymore because they know they can’t get through. But what took place is totally unacceptable.

The U.N. is supposed to stop invasions, not create them, and not finance them. In the United States, we reject the idea that mass numbers of people from foreign lands can be permitted to travel halfway around the world, trample our borders, violate our sovereignty, cause unmitigated crime, and deplete our social safety net.

We have reasserted that America belongs to the American people, and I encourage all countries to take their own stand in defense of their citizens as well. You have to do that because I see it. I’m not mentioning names. I see and I can call every single one of them out. You’re destroying your countries. They’re being destroyed.

Europe is in serious trouble. They’ve been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe. Nobody is ever, and nobody’s doing anything to change it, to get them out. It’s not sustainable. And because they choose to be politically correct, they’re doing just absolutely nothing about it. And I have to say, I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor. And it’s been so changed, so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law, but you’re in a different country. You can’t do that.

Both the immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe. If something is not done immediately, they cannot, this cannot be sustained. What makes the world so beautiful is that each country is unique, but to stay this way, every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders. You have the right to control your borders, as we do now, and to limit the sheer numbers of migrants entering their countries and paid for by the people of that nation that were there and that built that particular nation at the time. They put their blood, sweat, tears, money into that country. And now they’re being ruined.

Proud nations must be allowed to protect their communities and prevent their societies from being overwhelmed by people they have never seen before with different customs, religions, with different everything. Where migrants have violated laws, lodged false asylum claims, or claimed refugee status for illegitimate reasons, they should, in many cases, be immediately sent home. And while we will always have a big heart for places and people that are struggling and truly compassionate, answers will be given.

We have to solve the problem, and we have to solve it in their countries, not create new problems in our countries. We are very helpful to a lot of countries that are just not able to send their people anymore. They used to send them to us in caravans of 25,000, 30,000 people each. These massive caravans of people pouring into our country, totally unchecked and unvetted. But not anymore.

According to the Council of Europe in 2024, almost 50 percent of inmates in German prisons were foreign nationals or migrants. In Austria, the number was 53 percent of the people in prisons were from places that weren’t from where they are now. In Greece, the number was 54 percent and in Switzerland, beautiful Switzerland, 72 percent of the people in prisons are from outside of Switzerland.

When your prisons are filled with so-called asylum-seekers who repaid kindness, and that’s what they did, they repaid kindness with crime, it’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now, I can tell you. I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.

In America, we’ve taken bold action to swiftly shut down uncontrolled migration. Once we started detaining and deporting everyone who crossed the border and removing illegal aliens from the United States, they simply stopped coming, they’re not coming anymore, we’re getting a lot of credit but they’re not coming any more. This was a humanitarian act for all involved because on the trips up, thousands of people a week were dying, women were being raped. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. Raped horribly, beaten, raped. On the trip up, the journey up, it was a long, it was long walk, it a long arduous journey indeed.

And it was also a historic victory against human trafficking throughout the region. What we did was a victory, and we saved so many lives of people that wouldn’t make the journey. That journey was loaded up with death. Loaded up with death. Dead bodies all along, all along the roads of jungles. To get up, they go through jungles, they go through areas so hot you couldn’t breathe, they were dying of suffocation, areas so high that you couldn’t breathe. Dead bodies all over.

By them not coming we’re saving tremendous numbers of lives. My people have done a fantastic job in doing what they did. And the American public agrees with it. I mean, I was very proud to see this morning, I have the highest poll numbers I’ve ever had. Part of it is because of what we’ve done on the border.

I guess the other part is what we have done on the economy. Joe Biden’s policies empowered murderers, gangs, human smugglers, child traffickers, drug cartels and prisoners. Prisoners from all over the world. The previous administration also lost nearly 300,000 children. Think of that. They lost more than 300,000 children, little children, who were trafficked into the United States on the Biden watch, many of whom have been raped, exploited and abused and sold. Sold. Nobody talks about that. The fake news doesn’t write about it, with many others, young children who are missing or dead.

And we found a lot of these children, and we’re sending them back. And we’ve been sending them back to their parents. They said, nobody knows who they are. They said where do you come from? And they’ll give us a country and we’ll find out and we’ll figure it out and we’ll bring them back to their homes. And the mother and father rush to the door and their tears in their eyes. They can’t believe that they’re seeing their son or daughter, their little son or daughter again. We’ve done almost 30,000 of them so far.

Any system that results in the mass trafficking of children is inherently evil. Yet that is exactly what the globalist migration agenda has done and it’s what it’s all about. In America those days, as you know, are over. The Trump administration is working and we are continuing to work to track down the villains that are causing this problem and also, as I said, to get back the 30,000 we’ve already returned. Now I think we’re gonna have another, we’re going to find a lot. You’re not gonna find all of them, 300, more than 300,000. They’re lost or they’re dead. They’re lost or they’re dead because of the animals that did this.

To protect our citizens, I’ve also designated multiple savage drug cartels as forest—and you see this, and you’ll see it happening right before your eyes. Let’s put it this way: People don’t like taking big loads of drugs in boats anymore. There aren’t too many boats that are traveling on the seas by Venezuela. They tend not to want to travel very quickly anymore. And we’ve virtually stopped drugs coming into our country by sea. We call them the water drugs. They kill hundreds of thousands of people.

I’ve also designated multiple savage drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, along with two bloodthirsty transnational gangs, probably the worst gangs anywhere in the world, MS-13 and Tren de Aragua. Tren de Aragua is from Venezuela, by the way. Such organizations torture, maim, mutilate, and murder with impunity. They’re the enemies of all humanity.

For this reason, we’ve recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuelan terrorists and trafficking networks led by Nicolás Maduro. To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence. That’s what we’re doing. We have no choice. We can’t let it happen. They’re destroying, I believe we lost 300,000 people last year to drugs, 300,000, fentanyl and other drugs. Each boat that we sink carries drugs that would kill more than 25,000 Americans. We will not let that happen.

Energy is another area where the United States is now thriving like never before. We’re getting rid of the falsely named renewables. By the way, they’re a joke. They don’t work. They’re too expensive. They’re not strong enough to fire up the plants that you need to make your country great. The wind doesn’t blow, those big windmills are so pathetic and so bad, so expensive to operate, and they have to be rebuilt all the time, they start to rust and rot. Most expensive energy ever conceived, and it’s actually energy—you’re supposed to make money with energy, not lose money, you lose money the governments have to subsidize, you can’t put them out without massive subsidies.

And most of them are built in China, and I give China a lot of credit. They build them, but they have very few wind farms. So why is it that they build them and they send them all over the world, but they barely use them? You know, they use coal, they use gas, they use almost anything, but they don’t like wind, but they sure as hell like selling the windmills.

Europe, on the other hand, has a long way to go with many countries being on the brink of destruction because of the green energy agenda. And I give a lot of credit to Germany. Germany was being led down a very sick path, both on immigration, by the way, and on energy. They were going green, and they were going bankrupt. And the new leadership, new leadership came in and they went back to where they were, with fossil fuel and with nuclear, which is good. It’s now safe and you can do it properly. But they went back to where they were. They opened up a lot of different plants, energy plants, energy producing plants, and they’re doing well. I give Germany a lot of credit for that. They’ve said, “This is a disaster, what’s happening.” They were going all green. All green is all bankrupt. That’s what it represents. And it’s not politically correct. I’ll be very badly criticized for saying it, but I’m here to tell the truth. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me.

I’m in New York City. I’m feeling a lot safer. Crime, we’re getting crime down. And by the way, speaking of crime, Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C., was the crime capital of America. Now it’s a totally, after 12 days, it’s a totally safe city. Everyone’s going out to dinner. They’re going out to restaurants. Your wife can walk down the middle of the street with or without you, nothing’s going to happen.

My people have done a fantastic job, and yes, I called in the National Guard, and the National Guard took care of business, and they weren’t politically correct, but they took care of business. We got 1,700 career criminals out, brought them back to where they came from, the countries where they come from, or put them in jails. Washington, D.C., is now a totally safe city again, and I welcome you to come. In fact, we’ll have dinner together at a local restaurant, and we’ll be able to walk. We don’t have to go by an armor-plated vehicle, we’ll walk right over there from the White House.

They’ve given up their powerful edge, a lot of the countries that we’re talking about in oil and gas, such as essentially closing the great North Sea oil. Oh, the North Sea, I know it so well. Aberdeen [in Scotland] was the oil capital of Europe, and there’s tremendous oil that hasn’t been found in the North Sea. Tremendous oil, and I was with the prime minister who I respect and like a lot, and I said, “You’re sitting with the greatest asset.” They essentially closed it by making it so highly taxed that no developer, no oil company, can go there. They have tremendous oil left, and more importantly, they have tremendous oil that hasn’t even been found yet. And what a tremendous asset for the United Kingdom, and I hope the prime minister is listening because I told it to him three days in a row. That’s all he heard. North Sea oil, North Sea, because I want to see them do well.

I want to stop seeing them ruining that beautiful Scottish, English countryside with windmills and massive solar panels that go seven miles by seven miles, taking away farmland. But we’re not letting this happen in America. In 1982, the executive director of the United Nations Environmental Program predicted that by the year 2000, climate change would cause a global catastrophe. He said that it will be irreversible as any nuclear holocaust would be. This is what they said at the United Nations. What happened? Here we are.

Another U.N. official stated in 1989 that within a decade, entire nations could be wiped off the map by global warming. Not happening. You know, it used to be global cooling. If you look back years ago, in the 1920s and the 1930s, they said, “Global cooling will kill the world. We have to do something.” Then they said, “Global warming will kill the world,” but then it started getting cooler. So now they could just call it climate change because that way, they can’t miss. It’s climate change. Because if it goes higher or lower, whatever the hell happens, it’s climate change.

It’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion. Climate change, no matter what happens, you’re involved in that. No more global warming, no more global cooling. All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people. But of course, their countries’ fortunes, and given those same countries, no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.

And I’m really good at predicting things, you know? They actually said during the campaign, they had a hat, the best-selling hat: “Trump was right about everything.” And I don’t say that in a braggadocious way, but it’s true. I’ve been right about everything. And I’m telling you that if you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail. And if you don’t stop people that you’ve never seen before that you have nothing in common with, your country is going to fail.

I’m the president of the United States, but I worry about Europe. I love Europe. I love the people of Europe. And I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration. This double-tailed monster destroys everything in its wake and they cannot let that happen any longer. You’re doing it because you want to be nice, you want to be politically correct, and you’re destroying your heritage.

You must take control strongly and immediately of the unmitigated immigration disaster and the fake energy catastrophe before it’s too late. The carbon footprint is a hoax, made up by people with evil intentions, and they’re heading down a path of total destruction.

You know, the carbon footprint was a big, big thing a few years ago. I remember hearing about the carbon footprint, and then [former U.S.] President [Barack] Obama would get into Air Force One, a massive Boeing-747. And not a new one, an old one with old engines that spew everything into the atmosphere. He talked about, “The carbon footprint, we must do something,” and then he’d get in and he’d fly from Washington to Hawaii to play a round of golf. And then he’d get back onto that big, beautiful plane and then he’d fly back, and then he’d talk about again global warming and the carbon footprint. It’s a con job.

At extreme cost and expense, Europe reduced its own carbon footprint by 37 percent. Think of that. Congratulations, Europe, great job. You cost yourself a lot of jobs, a lot of factories closed, but you reduced the carbon footprint by 37 percent. However, for all of that sacrifice and much more, it’s been totally wiped out, and then some, by a global increase of 54 percent, much of it coming from China and other countries that are thriving around China, which now produces more CO2 [carbon dioxide] than all the other developed nations in the world. So all of these countries are working so hard on the carbon footprint, which is nonsense, by the way. It’s nonsense.

You know, it’s interesting. In the United States, we have still radicalized environmentalists, and they want the factories to stop. “Everything should stop. No more cows. We don’t want cows anymore.” I guess they want to kill all the cows. They want to do things that are just unbelievable. And you have it too. But you know, we have a border, strong, and we have a shape. And that shape doesn’t just go straight up. That shape is amorphous when it comes to the atmosphere. And if we had the most clean air, and I think we do. We have very clean air. We have the cleanest air we’ve had in many, many years. But the problem is that other countries, like China, which has air that’s a little bit rough, it blows. And no matter what you’re doing down here, the air up here tends to get very dirty because it comes in from other countries where their air isn’t so clean, and the environmentalists refuse to acknowledge that.

Same thing with garbage. In Asia, they dump much of their garbage right into the ocean, and over about a one-week and two-week journey, it flows right past Los Angeles. You’ve seen it. Massive amounts of garbage, almost too much to do anything about, flowing past Los Angeles, past San Francisco, and then somebody would get in trouble because he dropped a cigarette on the beach. The whole thing is crazy.

The primary effect of these brutal green energy policies has not been to help the environment but to redistribute manufacturing and industrial activity from developed countries that follow the insane rules that are put down to polluting countries that break the rules and are making a fortune. They’re making a fortune.

European electricity bills are now four to five times more expensive than those in China and two to three times higher than the United States. And our bills are coming way down. You probably see that our gasoline prices are way down. You know, we have an expression: “Drill, baby drill.” And that’s what we’re doing. We’re going to be much lower in a year from now. But they’ve come way down over the last year. As a result, every air conditioner is like very uncommon to see one in some of these countries because the electric cost is so high. So while the U.S. has approximately 1,300 heat-related deaths annually, that’s a lot, Europe loses more than 175,000 people to heat deaths each year because the cost is so expensive they can’t turn on an air conditioner.

What is that all about? That’s not Europe. That’s not the Europe that I love and know. All in the name of pretending to stop the global warming hoax. The entire globalistist concept of asking successful, industrialized nations to inflict pain on themselves and radically disrupt their entire societies must be rejected completely and totally, and it must be immediate. That’s why in America I withdrew from the fake Paris climate accord, where—by the way—America was paying so much more than every country. Others weren’t paying. China didn’t have to pay until 2030. Russia was given an old standard that was easy to meet, a 1990s standard. But for the United States, we’re supposed to pay like a trillion dollars, and I said, “This is another scam.”

The fact is the United States has been taken advantage of by the world for many, many years, but not any longer, as you probably noticed. I unleashed massive energy production and signed historic executive orders to hunt for oil. But we don’t have to do much hunting because we have the most oil of any nation anywhere, oil and gas in the world. And if you add coal, we have the most of any nation in the world. Clean, I call it clean, beautiful coal. You can do things today with coal that you couldn’t have done 10 years ago, 15 years. So I have a little standing order in the White House. Never use the word “coal,” only use the words “clean, beautiful coal.” Sounds much better, doesn’t it? But we stand ready to provide any country with abundant, affordable energy supplies if you need them, when most of you do. We’re proudly exporting energy all over the world. We’re now the largest exporter.

In the United States, we want trade and robust commerce with all nations, everybody. We want to help nations; we’re gonna help nations. But it must also be fair and reciprocal. The challenge with trade is much the same with climate. The countries that followed the rules, all their factories have been plundered. It’s really sad to watch. They’ve been broken. They’ve been broken by countries that broke the rules. That’s why the United States is now applying tariffs to other countries. And much as these tariffs were, for many years, applied to us, uncontrollably applied to us, we’ve used tariffs as a defense mechanism under the Trump administration, including my first term, where hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs were taken in.

And by the way, we had the lowest inflation, and now we have very low inflation. The only thing different is that we have hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into our country. But this is how we will ensure that the system works for everyone and is sustainable into the future. We’re also using tariffs to defend our sovereignty and security throughout the world, including against nations that have taken advantage of former U.S. administrations for decades, including the most corrupt, incompetent administration in history: the sleepy Joe Biden administration.

Brazil now faces major tariffs in response to its unprecedented efforts to interfere in the rights and freedoms of our American citizens and others with censorship, repression, weaponization, judicial corruption, and targeting of political critics in the United States.

I have a little problem saying this because I must tell you, I was walking in and the leader of Brazil was walking out. I saw him, he saw me, and we embraced. And then I’m saying, “Can you believe I’m going to be saying this in just two minutes?” But we actually agreed that we would meet next week. We didn’t have much time to talk, like about 20 seconds. They were—in retrospect, I’m glad I waited, because this thing didn’t work out too well. But we did talk. We had a good talk, and we agreed to meet next week, if that’s of interest. But he seemed like a very nice man, actually. To me, I liked him. But if you, and I only do business with people I like. When I don’t like them, I don’t like them. But we had at least for about 39 seconds, we had excellent chemistry. It’s a good sign.

But also in the past, Brazil, can you believe this, unfairly tariffed our nation, but now because of our tariffs, we are hitting them back and we’re hitting them back very hard. As president, I will always defend our national sovereignty and the rights of American citizens. So I’m very sorry to say this, Brazil is doing poorly and will continue to do poorly. They can only do well when they’re working with us. Without us, they will fail just as others have failed. It’s true.

Next year, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our glorious independence, a testament to enduring power in American freedom and spirit. We will also be proudly hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup. And shortly thereafter, the 2028 Olympics, which is going to be very exciting. I hope you all come. I hope that countless people from all over the globe will take part in these. These will be great celebrations of liberty and human achievement, and that together we all can rejoice in the miracles of history that began on July 4, 1776, when we founded the light to all nations, and it’s something really that an amazing thing came out of that date. It’s called the United States of America.

In honor of this momentous anniversary, I hope that all countries who find inspiration in our example will join us in renewing our commitment, values, and those values, really, that we hold so dear together. Let us defend free speech and free expression. Let us protect religious liberty, including for the most persecuted religion on the planet today. It’s called Christianity. And let us safeguard our sovereignty and cherish qualities that have made each of our nations so special, incredible, and extraordinary.

In closing, I just want to repeat that immigration and the high cost of so-called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large of our planet. Countries that cherish freedom are fading fast because of their policies on these two subjects. You need strong borders and traditional energy sources if you are going to be great again. Whether you have come from north or south, east or west, near or far, every leader in this beautiful hall today represents a rich culture, a noble history, and a proud heritage that makes each nation majestic and unique, unlike anything else in human history or any other place on the face of the Earth.

From London to Lima, from Rome to Athens, from Paris to Seoul, from Cairo to Tokyo, and Amsterdam to right here in New York City, we stand on the shoulders of the leaders and legends, generals and giants, heroes and titans who won and built our beloved nations, all of our nations, with their own courage, strength, spirit, and skill. Our ancestors climbed to mountains, conquered oceans, crossed deserts, and trekked over wide open plains. They charged into thunderous battles, plunged into grave dangers, and they were soldiers and farmers and workers and warriors and explorers and patriots. They built towns into cities, tribes into kingdoms, ideas into industries, and small islands into mighty empires. You’re a part of all of that. They were champions for their people who never gave up and who never ever gave in their values to find our national identities. Their visions forged our magnificent destiny.

Everybody in this room is a part of it in your own way. Each of us inherits the deeds and the myths, the triumphs, the legacies of our own heroes and founders who so bravely showed us the way. Our ancestors gave everything for homelands that they defended with pride, with sweat, with blood, with life, and with death. Now the righteous task of protecting the nations that they built belongs to each and every one of us. So together, let us uphold our sacred duty to our people and to our citizens. Let us protect their borders; ensure their safety; preserve their cultures, treasure, and traditions; and fight, fight, fight for their precious dreams and their cherished freedoms.

And in friendship, really a beautiful vision, let us all work together to build a bright, beautiful planet, a planet that we all share, a planet of peace and a world that is richer, better, and more beautiful than ever before. That can happen. It will happen. It will happen, and I hope it can happen and start right now, right at this moment. We’ll turn it around. We’re gonna make our countries better, safer, more beautiful. We’re gonna take care of our people. Thank you very much. It’s been an honor. God bless the nations of the world. Thank you, very much, bye.

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Foreign Policy · Christina Lu

2. Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture With Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada

​This is basically the Prime Minister explaining how Canada is now going to go it alone and why it will be successful doing so. In this way it is a critique that outlines all that America is doing wrong and lays out all the advantages that Canada has and will exploit to serve its interests.

The one hour speech and Q&A can be viewed here: 

A Conversation with Mark Carney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYYjz2hABZk

​There is also a 10 minute video here from Canada Today that is worth watching. This provides a useful precis of the long speech and Q&A along with some analysis from a Canadian perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYYjz2hABZk

571,845 views Sep 22, 2025 #CanadaToday #MarkCarney #CarneyVsTrump

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has delivered a powerful message at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. Speaking during the United Nations General Assembly, Carney laid out his plan to strengthen Canada, diversify its partnerships, and warn Americans that global power is moving away from Trump’s America.

From joking about Trump’s trade war — which left the room laughing — to outlining Canada’s deeper ties with Europe, Mexico, and Asia, Carney showed that Canada is no longer dependent on Washington. He explained how Trump’s tariffs backfired, how Canada is doubling defense spending, and how Canadians are standing tall on sovereignty and leadership.

This is Carney giving America a reality check: Canada will chart its own course, defend its values, and lead globally. Watch this Canada Today analysis of Carney’s bold remarks and what they mean for U.S.–Canada relations, global trade, and the future of Canadian sovereignty.

Subscribe to Canada Today for breaking coverage of Canadian politics, foreign policy, and global leadership.

In his powerful Mark Carney CFR speech, the Prime Minister delivered a bold Carney reality check New York moment that put Carney vs Trump in the global spotlight. Speaking during the Carney UN General Assembly trip, he outlined his Carney foreign policy vision, stressing Canadian sovereignty defense and a Carney diversification strategy to ensure Canada independent from US politics. From announcing Carney doubles defense spending to deepening the Canada EU partnership, expanding Carney Mexico relations and pursuing Carney Asia trade, his message was clear: Canada is strong and global. With sharp humor as Carney jokes about Trump, he showed confidence while delivering facts that Carney exposes Trump on failed tariffs and trade wars. This Canada Today analysis highlights how Carney global leadership is reshaping Canada US relations breaking news and why Canadian pride politics is dominating Canadian politics breaking news as we move into Canada foreign policy 2025.

Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture With Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada

cfr.org · CFR Editors

Prime Minister Mark Carney discusses Canada's foreign policy priorities and the new global economy.

Inaugurated in 1969, the Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture was named for Russell C. Leffingwell, a charter member of the Council who served as its president from 1944 to 1946 and as its chairman from 1946 to 1953. The lecture is given by distinguished foreign officials, who are invited to address Council members on a topic of major international significance.

FROMAN: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. And welcome to the Russell C. Leffingwell Lecture. I’m Mike Froman, president of the Council. It’s great to have you all here. And we are privileged to have Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada here.

Inaugurated in 1969, this lecture was named for a charter member of CFR, who served as its president—very important role—from 1944 to 1946, and as chairman from 1946 to 1953. And it’s a lecture each year given by a distinguished foreign official who’s invited to address CFR on a topic of major international significance. I can’t think of anyone better than Prime Minister Carney for that role.

I’d like to thank the Leffingwell family for the generosity in endowing this lecture, especially Tom and Ted Leffingwell Pulling. And we’re grateful to have a number of members of the family here with us or online—Diana (sp), Derek, and Ted, as well as Thomas Pulling who’s tuned in virtually. We’re also delighted to have a distinguished delegation from Canada. Bob Rae, the ambassador and perm rep of Canada to the United Nations, Michael Gort, ambassador and deputy perm rep of Canada to the United Nations, David Lametti, the incoming U.N. ambassador from Canada. And Tom Clark, the consul general. So thank you all for joining us.

Mark—(applause)—yes. That’s worthy of—Mark Carney serves as Canada’s twenty-fourth prime minister. He was elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, sworn in in March 2025. You all know his biography. One of the most eclectic biographies in politics, including having been the governor of the Bank of England, a distinguished member in the private sector. Spends a lot of time in New York as well.

The prime minister is going to come up and come up and give remarks for a few minutes. And then we’ll have a conversation, he and I, and then we’ll open it up to the membership as usual. So with that, please join me in welcoming Prime Minister Carney. (Applause.)

CARNEY: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mike. You see I’m armed with all our ambassadorial corps. Hi, Bob. Bob Hormats there. Fantastic to see you. Saw Bob Rubin—I saw Bob Rubin on the way in here, who taught me—Bob taught me everything about foreign relations. Bob Rubin taught me how to make decisions under uncertainty. Unfortunately, those two—(laughter)—are coming together at the same time. I will do my best. And I’m looking forward to—looking forward to the discussion, your questions, and counsel.

You know, what I propose to do in ten minutes is just to say a few words about how a middle power, like Canada, can deal with the situation where the rules-based order is eroding, great-power rivalry is intensifying, and authoritarian models are hardening. I mean, that’s a simplified version of the—of what’s going on. And I’ll start by admitting up front that we prospered under the old system. We would like the old system back. Can we have the old system back? (Laughter.) Is that going to happen? We prospered under the old system. And we had—we were able to pursue a values-based foreign policy, based on—or, anchored on a rules-based multilateral trading system, an open global financial system.

We had collective security anchored in NATO, our geography—which hasn’t changed, but the facts around the geography have changed. We had enviable geography. It gave us privileged access to the world’s largest and most dynamic economy. And it distanced us from the major state and nonstate threats. We also subscribe to an expectation that perhaps in the past, at the Council for Foreign Relations it was also the case for some, an expectation that nonmarket authoritarian countries would converge over time through engagement to free markets, open societies, and even democratic values. And this meant, for a country with a values-based foreign policy, that our engagement with those countries could be justified by the expectation of progress. In fact, the very engagement helped with that progress. And alignment of values was merely delayed, not compromised.

So, a few things have changed. Certainly, that convergence of values has proved elusive. The economic strategy of the United States has clearly changed, from the support for the multilateral system to a more transactional and managed bilateral trade and investment approach. Global power is moving, you can debate how much or how far this will go, from American hegemony to great-power rivalry. And technological change is shrinking that geographic advantage that we had and expanding the fields of conflict from the virtual to the extraterrestrial. All of this is reducing—I kind of have to observe this during U.N. week—reducing the effectiveness of our multilateral institutions from the WTO to the U.N. on which middle powers like Canada have greatly relied.

So, what do we do about it? And I’m going to give you a punchline, which is we think we can thrive—and I choose that word advisedly, “thrive”—in this new—this new non-system or the system that’s evolving for three reasons.

And the first is we have what the world wants. Take on the energy side. We are an energy superpower. That is going to become increasingly evident. Eighty-five percent of our energy is clean. We’re one of the world’s largest LNG exporters, one of the largest reserves of oil and gas. We measure additions to our grid in ten-gigawatt chunks, to put it in perspective, and you will see that with time. We are top five in ten of the world’s most important critical minerals. Forty percent of the world’s listed mining companies are in Canada, to give a perspective there. We are a leading developer of AI. And our research universities are some of the biggest producers in volume of AI, computing, and quantum talent in the world. Unfortunately, most of them go to the United States. (Laughter.) I understand you’re changing your visa policy, I hear, so—(laughter)—going to hang onto a few of those. We have capital. Our pension funds are some of if not THE most sophisticated infrastructure investors in the world, with all due respect to Larry Fink. And our government—we were talking about him earlier. I have lots of respect for Larry Fink, I should say, though. (Laughter.) And we have a government that still has fiscal capacity to act decisively at a moment when governments need to act decisively.

Now, the second reason why I’d say we have good prospects—not assured prospects, but good prospects—is we have values to which much of the world—not all of the world; much of the world—still aspires. We’re a pluralistic society that works. Our cities are amongst the most diverse in the world. Public square is loud, diverse, and free. By the nature of our federation, we have to practice collaboration and partnership. And it’s a country that is still committed to sustainability.

And I—the third reason why I’m going to argue we can—we can thrive in this time is we recognize what’s going on. This is not a transition; this is a rupture. This is a sharp change in a short period of time driven by a variety of factors. We have a determination to rise up and meet this.

And this is going to—I’m going to give you one last set of threes, and then we’ll have our conversation. Our response to this is to build strength at home, to build resilience by diversifying abroad, and pursue a variable geography to defend our values and pursue our interests.

So just on strength at home, I can understand if you were distracted by events down here and you haven’t followed exactly everything we’ve been doing in the last four months, but while you—while you were otherwise occupied we’ve cut taxes on incomes and capital gains. We have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade. We have passed landmark legislation to fast-track literally hundreds of billions of dollars of projects in energy, in AI, in critical minerals, in new trade corridors. We are doubling our defense spending by 2030. Our core capabilities with respect to defense, AI, quantum, cyber, critical minerals provide unique opportunities for dual-use and economic benefit, and we intend to fully exploit those.

We are diversifying our trading relationships and our security partnerships. We signed the most comprehensive agreement with the European Union from a non-European Union member, the Economic and Security Partnership with the EU. We signed that at the end of June. We’re working on fleshing that out now. We will be—or, we are on track; I should choose my words more diplomatically—we are on track to be a full member of SAFE, the European defense arrangement, which allows us to diversify and accelerate our defense procurement. Last week—no, this week? What day is it? Monday. Last week, yes. I seem to have missed the weekend in the middle. But we—(laughter)—agreed a comprehensive approach within the context of USMCA, but a comprehensive approach with Mexico to deepen our bilateral trading relationships. And we are pursuing more aggressive strategies throughout Asia.

My last of my threes is around that variable geography. I’ll just give a couple of examples of where we’re active. The coalition of the willing for Ukraine, we are the largest contributor on a per-capita basis to Ukraine. OK. (Applause.) And we—I won’t go into more detail. We can talk about Ukraine if you wish. When you think about our Arctic sovereignty, we are cooperating very closely with the Nordic-Baltic Eight for physical protection up there, economic development, and also defending NATO’s western flank. We are active with likeminded parties in efforts to promote a two-state solution and Middle East peace, easiest—not the easiest thing to do I know.

And I’ll make one other point on critical minerals. We, out of the G-7, are forming a buyers’ club for critical minerals so that the world can diversify away from Chinese dominance from them. So it’s not just the supply, but it’s having that secure access to—or, an offtake, basically, so these can be developed.

And I—you know, I’ll just say a word before I finish that, having chaired the G-7 this year—I came into government six weeks before it was there, so we had to—and we didn’t have Mike Froman. We had a very good sherpa, but we didn’t have Mike Froman so we had a lot of work to do. It was a very interesting—and this is a variable-geometry (sic) support point. When we had two days, the first day core G-7 focused on a variety of issues, very productive. President Trump was there for that day. And these were good meetings. These were good discussions or good meeting(s). There was progress made. Not everything landed, but it’s never the case that everything lands. It was fairly narrowly focused, though, on economics, with Iran thrown in—there’s always a crisis—Iran thrown in as well.

The next day, with the leaders of most of the BRICS countries, some of the largest emerging economies, Australia as well—not an emerging economy, but others like those—the focus was on what this room would recognize as old multilateralism: global commons, where we’re cooperating on energy, what we can do to actually develop on critical minerals, financing for development, what’s going to happen at COP. Lula was there as well. That doesn’t mean that’s the way the world’s working. I’m not naïve about that. But there is a substantial proportion of the world that focuses on these issues. A country like Canada is one of them, and it’s one that we will—it’s something we will continue to do because it comes back into our strengths.

Look, I’ll just—I’ll sum up. I would ask you to, when you think about Canada—think about Canada, actually. That’s my request: Think about Canada—(laughter)—as a strong, sovereign independent nation. Think about Canada as that. But there is a—there is a big opportunity in this—in this shifting in Canada. We understand what’s going on. We understand the scale of the responses required. We have the resources the world needs. We have the talent to turn that potential into growth. We’re a reliable partner. We’re connected more than anyone else through trading relationships with any other part of the world. And we’re no longer reliant on just the strength of our values, but the value of our strength, with your help.

So thank you very much, and I look forward to the discussion. (Applause.)

FROMAN: Well—

CARNEY: All right, boss. Bienvenue. Merci. (Laughter.)

FROMAN: Welcome to the United States of America. (Laughter.) Sorry, I didn’t mean that as a point on sovereignty; I just meant, did you get through customs OK? Did they recognize the Canadian passport still? (Laughter.)

CARNEY: Still working.

FROMAN: Still working. Excellent.

CARNEY: Yeah.

FROMAN: Let me—let me pick up on a couple of the points that you made. You talked about diversification and the strengths within Canada. Canada has been so reliant on the U.S. economy, has been so integrated. I think something like two-thirds of Canadians live within a hundred kilometers of the border. Most of the trade is here. You’ve had some economic headwinds in the last several months in terms of economic contraction and higher unemployment. How much can you reorient the Canadian economy, both to be more east-west than north-south, or to be more integrated with other economies than the U.S., given the long history here?

CARNEY: Yeah. It’s the right question. And the first—the answer to the question starts with recognizing the need to do it. And one thing I’d impress upon the audience is that Canadians understand the need to—as we put it—to be masters in our own house. The country does not want to wake up and look on—with all due respect—on Truth Social or X to see what the latest change is in U.S. policy, but wants to get on with what we can control. And that’s a big part of the government’s strategy. So getting rid of barriers east-west, as you put it, barriers across the provinces, you know, that alone, if it’s fully done—we’ve done the federal part, but if all our provinces reduce their barrier, the estimates are that is a bigger return to the Canadian economy than the worst-case trade outcome with the U.S.

Now, one has a more immediate impact and the other builds over time, but the orders of magnitude are clear. And that’s before we do what we need to do, which is to double the rate of housing. We announced a new approach on housing two weeks ago. And the first projects that we have identified there scaled to around $50-60 billion of housing investment. The first major projects that I referenced in the remarks on new ports, new energy corridors, beyond—those are measured in the hundreds of billions. So you start to build all of that out before the defense spending kicks in. And we’re very focused on dual use defense spending. There’s lots of areas where we’re going to be able to build out our AI, cyber, and other capabilities—critical mineral pathways—as part of that defense build. And it’s before we get traction with those new trade and defense partnerships with Europe, for example, and in Asia. So that’s our primary focus.

And, candidly, we’ve been done a favor because we should have been—all of these things we could have done before ourselves. So we needed the rupture. We needed the shock, it seems, in order to do them. But there is a very strong consensus in the country to do that. As well. there is a very attractive, for the United States, for Canada, obviously, as well, and Mexico, version of USMCA that can be developed. And, as you know from your previous life, we’re in the early stages of that development.

FROMAN: You mentioned the defense spending a couple of times. You referred to it as “dual use.” First of all, it’s—Canada had been a laggard on defense spending. Trump sort of highlighted that quite pointedly. But now you’ve committed to, I believe, it’s 5 percent, 3 ½ (percent) of military spending and 1 ½ (percent) of infrastructure spending. When you talk about dual use, are you talking about—is that in lieu of buying more military equipment, per se? Is that the—or do you see yourself buying more—

CARNEY: It’s a couple things. I mean, we have a lot of catch-up to do. We’re not alone in that in NATO. We’re resolute that we will catch up. So we are getting to the 2 percent level this year, which you can argue we should have been at before but we’re getting there this year. And then you have the ramp up towards 5 percent by 2035—5 percent of GDP by 2035. And for those who don’t follow quite as closely, what we agreed to—everyone in NATO agreed to—is of that 5 percent, 3 ½ (percent) is pure defense spending, and 1 ½ (percent) is related to defense—resilience, building that out. So everything in that 1 ½ (percent) effectively is dual use and has other benefits for your economy.

But even if we set that aside and just focus on the 3 ½ (percent) of pure, NATO is going to be spending a lot more on cyber, a lot more on AI integrating systems. I’m sure you’ve had lots of discussions here around drone warfare and the integration there. We will be spending—necessarily, from a military perspective, the end uses on some of the critical minerals, I mean, literally are militarily critical. So our development of that for our defense purposes, first and foremost, has direct spillover benefits because AI expertise, you know, being able to integrate big data lakes and optimize across them, well, that is a skill that is transferable—readily transferable to other aspects of the economy.

So we see a lot of the way—this is part of the advantage—last point—part of the advantage of coming late. Sometimes you go to some emerging and developing economies, they have much better cell coverage because they came late. They did it right. This is—we’re coming late to some of the spend, but at a time when the nature of security and conflict and warfare and what’s needed is changing very rapidly. And it actually plays to some of our strengths.

FROMAN: Let me ask you to put not only your prime minister hat on, but you’ve been a central bank governor, you’ve been an investor, you’ve been in finance. Looking around the world now, you’ve got China sort of playing by its own playbook economically, putting a lot of excess capacity that’s being exported to the rest of the world. You have the U.S. playing by its own playbook, ignoring various agreements, including at times USMCA. What does it mean if the two largest economies of the world are playing by their own set of rules? What does that mean for the rules-based system for a middle power like Canada?

CARNEY: Yeah. Yeah, well—

FROMAN: Do you keep on playing by the rules, even if nobody else is?

CARNEY: OK, so this is the key. So who else is willing to play by the rules? And can you get critical mass in that? That’s one of the big questions. And nobody’s perfect in this. But one of the things about the European Union is it’s a rule-based system. Sometimes there’s too many rules and they’re playing by too many rules—(laughter)—but it is a rules-based system. We have a free trade agreement with the European Union. CPTPP, newer, the U.S. made a decision not to be—not to be part of that.

FROMAN: I heard about that. (Laughter.)

CARNEY: Yeah. You heard about that. And it’s not too late. You can come back in. (Laughter.) But it’s not the European Union, obviously, to the same degree, but it’s—you’d recognize it as a rules-based plurilateral trade deal. It has labor standards. It has sustainability (standards ?). There is open discussion, we’re part of it—I don’t want to overplay it because it’s still early days—but of a bridge between the EU and CPTPP. Well, Canada’s in both, effectively. We’re deepening with Europe. We’re deepening with some of those players there. Then we’re in a pretty big system that is rules based. We would like to think that we will get to a position with the U.S. where we have new rules as part of USMCA, or a reaffirmation of these are the rules of conduct in USMCA. And, you know, we’re re-engaging with China and other major economies in terms of developing the rules bilaterally with them. So there’s more to play for than there appears.

And, you know, one of the things that—now I’m going to be a central banker, but this is important. OK, this is really exciting. This is—check your phones. (Laughter.) But so much of economics is on the margin, right? So, yes, we’re heavily weighted to the United States, and a big adjustment is going on in big sectors—steel, autos, as examples, our forest products—because of the trade shock. And we’re hoping to make progress in all of those. But on the margin, when you grow into very large markets—which are represented by the EU and CPTPP—it makes a big difference. So it’s the delta. It’s the growth that’s going to impact it.

FROMAN: Previous governments in Canada have worked quite closely with the U.S. vis-a-vis China. And sometimes at a great cost for Canada. How would you assess our joint effectiveness in influencing Chinese behavior, economic strategy, security behavior, et cetera? And what do you think we ought to be doing differently, if you think there’s room for improvement?

CARNEY: There’s always—(laughs)—there’s always room for improvement. I think one of the things that we can improve on—I’ll say this from a Canadian perspective with respect to China—is being clearer about where we engage. I alluded to it very lightly, but—and it’s a general point in variable geometry. You have different tiers of engagement depending on how likeminded you are. So with respect to China, or any other country that’s—well, any other—where do you engage deeply? Where are you comfortable engaging deeply, in the commodity space, in aspects of energy, for example, basic manufacturing? Where are there guardrails? And what should just be left off to the side—elements that bridge into national security, privacy, other aspects like that? So that’s where we can be—we can be better, number one.

Number two, in my experience with China they are, amongst other things, very sincere and engaged on climate. This is a country run by engineers. This is a country that understands a lot of the engineering solutions to issues around emission. They’ve happened to have built real competitive advantage in a number of these areas as well. So there’s a question of how—and there’s almost a standing offer from them about how to engage in the global commons in and around climate. Which a country like Canada, which is a—it is an energy superpower, where we’re certainly going to build and fully exploit that—then we’re dealing on—and we care about this issue as well. It’s still part of our policy. It’s still part of—and so there’s an opportunity to engage. Again, the United States can choose—could choose that lane very easily, but probably at the moment that’s not where the engagement will be.

FROMAN: Right. Well—(laughter)—

CARNEY: Probably. Probably. Who knows.

FROMAN: You mentioned your chairmanship of the G-7. The U.S. takes over the chair of the G-20 later this year. It’ll be an opportunity for the Trump administration to take over one of these organizations and figure out what the agenda is for international cooperation. You and I have been involved in a bunch of G-20 summits. You did somewhat better in your career than I did in mine. (Laughter.) But what advice would you give to the Trump administration about where the G-20 could be useful, and what the scope for cooperation can be going forward?

CARNEY: Wow. (Laughter.)

FROMAN: It’s called, stump the prime minister.

CARNEY: I didn’t see that one coming. But that’s—but that’s the right question. Look, as you know, with these things you want to—you want to pick three things and focus. You do want to—because it’s a sprawling agenda and you got to be clear, this is what we care about. I would—I actually think that I would emphasize, I think, the infrastructure. They won’t call it this, but I’ll use this term, but infrastructure for development, the infrastructure for the global economy, the leveraging of limited public dollars into multiples of private dollars. That is an agenda that’s good for the world. It’s an agenda that plays directly into American strengths—American strengths in finance, American strengths in, you know, just a whole host of energy industries.

It can play a bit complementary into Chinese and other countries’ strengths, but more America’s than elsewhere. And it’s an agenda, if really pursued, will grow jobs and, you know, good things back in America, but also would be enthusiastically endorsed by the—by the broader group of the G-20. And it would give—it would reinforce purpose at some of those—and this is a question whether the administration wants to—but some of the multilateral organizations. So that, you know, the World Bank’s agenda is effective. It’s a big part of that agenda. So putting their own frame in and around that, I think, makes a lot of sense.

There should—I’ve got two others, but I’m worried that we’re not going to have enough time for the audience. (Laughter.)

FROMAN: Very diplomatic. One last question before we open it up to the group. I believe yesterday Canada joined some European countries in recognizing Palestinian statehood. What do you expect that to accomplish?

CARNEY: Well, I think the first thing to say is this is consistent with our policy since 1947. Since—every Canadian government, whether—of whatever political stripe has supported a two-state solution, as many other countries have. What we have been seeing, first because of the acts of—these heinous acts of Hamas but then other in terms of response, is that that prospect is receding before our eyes, OK? So the idea of waiting until all the conditions are in place for a free and viable Palestinian state committed to peace and security side by side with the state of Israel—what I’ve called a Zionist Palestinian state, which is what we want—those conditions being in place, keeping the concept there on the shelf when it is the avowed policy of the Israeli government that there will never be a Palestinian state—that is the policy of the current Israeli government, and their actions are consistent with that policy, and I can just concentrate on what’s going on in the West Bank without touching Gaza.

So what we—what we’re looking to accomplish is to—is to keep that front and center, to be with a host of influential but not decisive countries. So we’re alongside Kingdom of Saudi—not in the recognition, but as part of this process Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, France, U.K., Australia, Qatar, Egypt, others—Norway, you know—actively trying to create conditions at a minimum for a ceasefire, obviously, and then a peace process as part of that. And it’s not—we’re not doing—we’re under no illusions that this is any sort of panacea, but it’s necessary in our judgment and the judgment of most other countries in the world that we have to push on this now because, as I say, the possibility in absolute violation of the U.N. Charter and in absolute violation of internation law of self-determination for the Palestinian people is being erased. So this is—we’re doing what we can, but recognizing the limitations.

FROMAN: All right.

Well, we’re going to open up for questions. This is on the record. In addition to the very full room we have here, we’ve got about—over 400 people—400 CFR members online as well. Please, if recognized, stand up, wait for the microphone, identify yourself, and ask a brief question, OK? Yes, this gentleman right here.

Q: George Vradenburg of the Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative, a successor to CEPI and Gavi but focused on aging populations.

So my question is a demographic question. Working-age populations in Europe are shrinking. You know, working-age populations are supporting a larger population overall. How does one deal with the financial costs of that, and how does one deal with how to increase worker productivity in the Global North?

CARNEY: Are you taking a few, or do you want me to do—

FROMAN: (Inaudible.)

CARNEY: Look, absolutely right, one of the biggest challenges—I think one of the first things you have to do as a—as a government—we haven’t fully done this, but we will in time—is to actually frame the policy and frame—Australia does this with their intergenerational reports, basically, which frames under current trajectories and with demographics what the challenges are. That’s first.

The second is maximize your labor force participation as much—female participation, older participation. We are pretty good on that. We have a bit more to do later in—later in career. But in—for all countries, that’s the next step. Clearly, the deployment of technology, the—I mean, AI coming in, it’s not like AI is going to solve everything but that the multiplier effects there, gotten right. There’s a variety of reasons why we have to get application of AI right across our economies. This is—this is one of them. And it provides some counterweight to that, and potentially substantial counterweight.

I mean, OK, I’ll be utopian—not utopian, but—

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Off mic.)

CARNEY: Optimistic. Thank you, yeah. (Laughter.) I was going to say Panglossian, but then I was, like—(laughter)—so I’m optimistic.

FROMAN: (Inaudible.)

CARNEY: But if you take—if you take sort of full-bore productivity estimates on AI application, it’s adding one to one-and-a-half percentage points on productivity by, let’s—and I’ll push it out to the middle of the next decade. It actually dovetails pretty well with that bigger demographic crunch. I mean, that is—those are big numbers in annual productivity, so we have to get that right. And one of the challenges for us, of course, is to do that alongside everyone else. Yeah.

FROMAN: Maureen White. Microphone coming.

Q: Thank you. And thank you, Mark, for being with us today. I’m Maureen White, and I’m a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at SAIS. And I’m also chairman of the board of Refugees International.

And, Mark, Canada has had an exemplary role in refugee resettlement for many, many years, and I know your country—and you’re not alone in this—is backtracking a little bit on this commitment to refugee assistance. Could you just elaborate a little bit on what the Canadian policy in refugee resettlement is—will be going forward?

CARNEY: Sure. Yeah, I’m not—Maureen, now that they’ve taken the mic away—microphone away from you, I’m not sure I fully recognize the backtracking element of your—(laughter)—of your question. And you know, let’s—I’ll put it in context. I see the Ukraine pin on the previous questioner and salute you for it. We’ve taken 300,000 Ukrainian families into Canada—individuals, I should say; individuals into Canada. We still have quite substantial levels of asylum seekers. And you know, the Ukrainian case is a—is a humanitarian deliberate policy the asylum seeker, obviously, has received.

We, like every country, must control and be deliberate in—with respect to our borders and manage appropriately. And so the government is—the government is very focused on doing that on the border side, but also treating asylum seekers—treating everyone who comes to Canada to the standards they should, and that includes processing claims in a timely fashion. And one thing we have not done well enough is process claims in a timely fashion. So that’s resources and efficiency. And so I would say when we look at—that’s the aspect of your question that I would—I would bear down on, yeah.

FROMAN: Let’s go to an online question.

OPERATOR: We will take the virtual question from Missy Ryan.

Q: Hi. Hi. This is Missy Ryan from the Atlantic magazine.

I’m hoping you can talk a little bit about what you mentioned earlier several times about values-based—Canada’s values-based approach to international relations and a sort of guiding compass more generally, and how you’re thinking about doing that in a moment where the Trump administration is not talking about a values-based foreign policy and more—the America first as it’s articulated is more about American interests and sometimes backing away from some of the values that have been articulated by the United States in its foreign policies. How are you going to do that, especially given the United States’ clout as a kind of trendsetter on certain issues like the Palestinian state and Ukraine, Russia, and all of that?

CARNEY: Yeah. Well, thank you, Missy. Look, I’ll give a couple of examples and then pick up on your—let me pick up on Palestinian state, Ukraine—there are other examples of this—where, look, we believe in the U.N. Charter. We believe in self-determination for peoples. We underscore the importance of territorial integrity. And that drives our approach in Ukraine. It drives our approach in Palestine as well. There are other applications, but I’ll stop there. That is—that’s a consistent, consistent approach.

We welcome and I very much welcome his personal involvement of the president in efforts, for example, in Ukraine to broker ceasefires, to define paths for peace, to provide potentially complements to the security guarantee—security guarantees that the coalition of the willing, Canada included, are prepared to provide to Ukraine, which is necessary for a lasting peace or a lasting security for Ukraine.

The situation—this is no insight—the situation in in Palestine is both horrific and fluid. And there are multiple efforts, very much including by the United States, including the United States, to find a path to cessation of hostilities and ultimately security, and some form of peace. We come at these both those situations from somewhat different perspective, but the same ultimate goal. And we have different partners at present in some of the initiatives—in both of those initiatives. But we would hope that there would be convergence with the United States. And we will certainly support leadership of the United States that’s leading to outcomes that are consistent with our values.

FROMAN: Some European countries have suggested they would deploy troops to Ukraine as part of a stability force or peacekeeping force. Would Canada be among those?

CARNEY: Well, we’ll see what the structure is. We’re very active in the coalition of the willing. We have—I’d remind that we have—we have a very large troop presence in Latvia as part of our NATO obligations. I visited them three weeks ago. And to underscore the commitment to security in the region, to Latvia and Poland—by the way, the brigades in Latvia—it is not—they don’t do training. It’s an operational brigade. Which gives you—and that’s before the incursions—the Russian incursions of recent weeks. And that gives you a sense of both the stakes and the degree of our commitment. So we’ll see, in terms of Ukraine. There’s a lot to be done still to move that first to a cessation of hostility, before the guarantees would come into effect.

But what we do know, and the United States acknowledges very much, is that without—given the track record of Putin, that a security guarantee that’s written on paper is not—if the signature is Vladimir Putin’s—is not worth anything.

FROMAN: Yes, right here in the second row. Microphone coming up. There you go.

Q: Thank you. Alison Sander, Planet Action.

First of all, just want to start with a thank you for those of us who forget what leadership and diplomacy looks like. We follow you and it reminds us. (Applause.) And I think I’m speaking for the whole room. So, start with that.

A quick question. I think it’s Canadian modesty that you describe yourself as a middle power. I’d kind of bump you up. And could you paint us a picture in these times where IP, capital, and talent can flow so easily, what is your great—what’s the strategy for middle powers to use golden parachutes, different tax laws? And is there a coordinated strategy to just take some of the capital from here that’s getting frustrated and attract it?

CARNEY: Well, we would—(laughs)—we would never take anything from the United States. (Laughter.) Let me be clear. We would—

FROMAN: That’s on the record.

CARNEY: That’s on the record. I just want to underscore that we’re here to give, not take. (Laughter.)

FROMAN: Just not give too much.

CARNEY: Not give too much, exactly. No, like, on the—I mean, I think this is—our strategy, our core of the strategy is the core—look, it’s like any organization, yours included. Like, the core of the strategy has to be consistent with who you are and what your values are. And then you build off of that. So I said in my remarks, you know, the public square is loud, diverse, and free. That’s important. It’s important to Canadians. But it’s important—it’s a relative—it’s becoming more of a relative thing than it had been in the past, let’s put it that way. The second is, we are—look, the country is—it is a very diverse country. It is a very networked country globally. You know, Toronto—New York, it’s impressive; it’s one of three born outside of the U.S., I think. It’s one of two in Toronto, OK? And it’s not—that is not—that is a more extreme version, but most—many Canadian cities look like New York, not in scale but in diversity. And that is—that is a strength that’s there as well.

From a tax perspective, I don’t think you’ll see in Canada, you know, Swiss-type tax deals for individuals. That’s not the nature of the society. There is a social model that’s consistent. But what is there is those first two components, combined with very strong research universities that people can come to, a society people can live in, and a country that is connected to everywhere else in the world—including through trade and investment. And that’s something that we will push through, combined with—which is something that isn’t always there in Canada, or at least shouted out—which is ambition, and the scale of the ambition. And that’s part of how—people go to where things are happening, or where they think they can be part of something bigger. And that’s an important part of the strategy, yeah. Thank you.

FROMAN: Jane Harman.

CARNEY: Jane, how are you?

Q: Jane Harman, former member of Congress. Congratulations to CFR and Canada for superb leadership, which employs delightful humor. It’s really refreshing. (Laughter.)

My question is more about Ukraine. You’ve answered lots of it, but putting on your banker hat there has been a bill in the United States Congress for a while, sponsored by Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, to impose secondary sanctions on Russia to force Putin to change his strategy. That bill isn’t passing because Trump does not yet support it, despite a veto-proof majority. But my question is, how potent are secondary sanctions? And, should this bill pass, how much difference do you think it would make?

CARNEY: Well, thank—and great to see you, Jane.

Look, secondary sanctions can be incredibly powerful. And they were very, very powerful with respect to Iran. And the uncertainty around the extent to which what is secondary, if I can put it that way, particularly in the financial sector, is a powerful weapon. So just for those who don’t follow it, it’s not just what bank, so to speak, deals directly, in this case, with Russia, but does your bank deal with the bank that deals with Russia? So who’s your client’s client? And once you start asking that question, the risk really does pull in, and the isolation goes up orders of magnitude.

The Graham-Blumenthal bill, as I remember, doesn’t deal directly with the financial side. It’s more of a tariff, trade related. Is that correct, or am I misremembering? You think it has that financial—I think of it has the financial—I think that is powerful. It is something we have advocated, Canada has advocated, I personally advocated some of the discussions. And I will say that the U.S. has raised this issue on several occasions as a possibility. I think it is a possibility. I’m not saying the legislation, per se, but the use of secondary sanctions. And our view, Canada’s view, and a number of European countries would share this, is that if—that we should go quickly to that, because that really is the biggest nonmilitary disincentive. So I’m glad you raised it. But, yes.

FROMAN: Putting your former banker hat on, central banker hat on, would you worry about the impact of secondary sanctions on the role of the dollar going forward, in terms of weaponization of finance?

CARNEY: Look, I think this is—less. No. No. I mean, yes, I understand the motivation of the question, but I think it’s—this is—these would be very clear, well-motivated reasons. And it would be coming in—you would delay-delivery it. You’d say, we’re going to do it in two months’ or three months’ time, to effectively force Putin to the trilateral table. And it would give time to reorganize relationships accordingly. You always have a risk, as you know, when you do financial sanctions in terms of the impact on the dollar. But it is also—this is—this is a thing that needs to be hammered home. It is so difficult to transact, even in other currencies with ultimately the chain, one step removed, not touching a U.S. person, financial institution, the dollar, that that’s what gives this such power.

FROMAN: Do you support using the frozen Russian assets?

CARNEY: You know, when I was a central banker, I didn’t. But now that—(laughter)—you know, where you stand depends on where you sit.

FROMAN: Where you stand depends on where you sit.

CARNEY: Exactly.

FROMAN: Let’s go to an online question.

CARNEY: I’m much more enlightened now. (Laughter.)

OPERATOR: We will take the next—

FROMAN: Online question.

OPERATOR: —virtual question from Mark Rosen.

Q: Prime Minister, yesterday, in recognizing a Palestinian state, you set out a demand that Hamas must be disarmed and excluded from any Palestinian government or elections. Can you explain to us who, if not Israel, will carry out that disarmament of Hamas? How will that happen? And if, as seems highly possible, at least, a movement or political party committed to Israel’s destruction, whether under the Hamas name or another banner, ultimately wins those Palestinian elections you’ve called for next year, won’t you have, in effect, granted Hamas their own state to launch more invasions of Israel?

CARNEY: Thanks for the—thanks for the question.

First is, the disarmament and elimination of Hamas as a force, certainly as a political force—military force first and political force—is one of—is one of the conditions for a sustained cessation of hostilities and peace. And when you say who is going to do that, there are many proposals—as I suspect you’re aware—from a variety of Arab states, combination of Arab states, and European states, to which Canada would be party if they were to come to pass, for multinational forces to be deployed in Palestine to enforce a peace, and to—and to drive that process—that process forward. So I think the first part of your question I’d deal with directly that way.

The conditions for a free and fair election in Palestine are many. And the time in order to get to that spot is uncertain. The conditions for any form of self-determination of the Palestinian people do not exist at present. And the prospect of them ever being in a position to make decisions in their own land—it is the avowed policy of the current Israeli government to ensure that never happens.

FROMAN: Yes, way, way in the back.

Q: Thank you. Keith Abell with N4XT Experiences, producer of New York Fashion Week in L.A. Fashion Week. (Laughter.)

FROMAN: Wow.

CARNEY: Am I in the right session?

Q: I know. (Laughs.) Two sons at the University of Toronto getting a fine education. Thank you.

CARNEY: Good.

Q: One of them is a data science major and determined to start up his own company. And feels compelled, although he loves Canada, is Canadian, would stay up there if he could. But Canada really doesn’t have the opportunities that Silicon Valley offers. You know, your joke about immigration policy in the United States aside, isn’t that a problem? Why drive your brilliant young Canadians to the United States, because the capital markets doesn’t have the category of capital to support their new ideas? And is there a solution?

CARNEY: Yeah. I think—well, I think the first thing—thanks for the question thanks for sending your kids back home—(laughter)—if that’s right. And I would flip it a bit in that, how much are we driving people to Silicon Valley, and how much is Silicon Valley and Seattle, for that matter, sucking in and attracting—and I don’t mean that in a negative—but just the sheer weight of the opportunity in the United States. And this is true whether you’re Canadian, Israeli, European, Indian. You know, this is not a unique phenomenon to Canada. That, you know, 50 percent of our—probably one of the best, I’ll hedge, places to do computer engineering, all forms of it, is Waterloo. Fifty percent of the graduating class every year goes to—goes to the United States.

And we need to retain more of those. Part of it—yeah, part of it is the ecosystem, the venture capital ecosystem. I actually don’t think that’s the—to me, I don’t think that’s the biggest thing. I’m not saying there aren’t things that we shouldn’t be doing there. I think it’s—in part it’s the demand—part of it is the demand for the end product. So you—the ability to scale in Canada is more—has been more limited, for a variety of reasons. Part of it, our companies aren’t applying things as much as U.S. ones. A lot of that is going to change in AI, crypto, cryptography—cryptography is—when I say “crypto,” I don’t mean crypto—(laughter)—and in quantum, because we’re going to—we’re going to drive a lot of that and there’s—and spinoffs of that. Doesn’t mean we’ll keep everybody, but we’ll keep more.

FROMAN: I mean, the president just had an interesting visit to the U.K.—

CARNEY: Yeah.

FROMAN: —and signed this major technology agreement. The U.K.’s going to get hundreds of billions of dollars, potentially, of investment into their AI infrastructure. Could Canada cut a similar deal with the United States?

CARNEY: Yeah, we could cut—we would like to cut a similar deal. The extent to which it needs to be done with the U.S. government is—it’s not clear to me it has to be done with the U.S. government. I mean, I’m happy to—them to come. But we’ve got—so what do you need—what do you need for an AI datacenter? You need power. You need chips. And you know, more—clean power is preferred. You need chips. Wouldn’t hurt to have a fiber-optic cable that went down to the U.S. You know, proximity doesn’t hurt. What—and so we—that strategy of building out the infrastructure that the U.K., France, others are pursuing, that makes sense. That makes sense for us, and we’ve got to make sure that some of our power—those big chunks of power that are coming online are there.

For the overall benefit for Canada—it goes to the previous question and the productivity discussion—that’s nice getting that infrastructure. The big payoff is actually in the application, which means that you want to flow through some of that capacity for Canadian companies, Canadian usage, and actually the education side becomes that much more important.

FROMAN: There’s another question way—oh, right there, about two-thirds of the way back. Yeah, gentleman with the bag. Yeah.

Q: Hi. Andrew Watsch (ph) with Morgan Stanley.

Mr. Prime Minister, congratulations on passage of the One Canadian Economy Act this summer.

CARNEY: Congratulations on referencing it. Thank you. (Laughter.) This is very good. (Laughs.)

Q: I wonder if you could say a few more words and give us a few more details on the projects that you’re planning to fast-track through the approval authorities. What are the size of those projects? When might they be approved and shovel-ready? And when might—when might we start seeing those show up in GDP? Thank you.

CARNEY: Yeah. Great, great question.

So we’re going to—we’re going to layer these approvals roughly every four months for the course of the next couple of years. We have a series of them that were initially proposed. Canada’s a federation. Part of the way you—part of the way we have to get things moving, we—our parliament gave the government additional powers to fast-track approvals, so two-year time horizon. And once we designate a project, it’s presumed approved, OK? So they—something has to go kind of go off in order for it not to happen, which means that a lot of the engineering and other work drive through.

But part of the way to get things done in Canada—I mentioned this in my remarks—is through partnership. So we started with the provinces, saying what are your top priorities, and they’ve given us a bunch of their top priorities; indigenous people, indigenous rights holders, what are some of their top priorities, bringing those together and making sure that those are front of the—front of the line, front of the queue. What you’re—what you’re going to see is a series of things—and you’re starting to see them—in and around critical minerals, in and around energy, particular—a mixture of conventional and clean.

We just greenlit with B.C., for example, one of the largest, you know, whatever is it—one of the largest LNG projects, Ksi Lisims, which falls hard on the heels of LNG1 and potentially LNG2, which is this giant consortium. Those are, just to give a sense of sort of blocks, these are effectively zero-carbon LNG because the liquefication is—it’s before the Scope 3, obviously, I’ll say that, under the control of planet Earth, right? But the liquefication is done with hydro, very short shipping times to Asia, tons of demand, displaces coal. Lots of good things about that.

You will see a lot of that—those types of projects, but in parallel with scale nuclear—scale nuclear in Ontario, where the—where the actual FID decisions and the capital is starting to flow. Large-scale hydro—you know, 10,000- to 15,000-megawatt hydro in east. And then big corridors and critical minerals that are opened up.

Last thing. Sorry, this is too long an answer. But the AI infrastructure leg of that strategy is just being developed. We referenced it a few weeks ago around a sovereign cloud because we know that we’re the offtake for that—development for that. And you’ll see—you’ll see something on that in the next few months.

FROMAN: You’ve contributed so much to the United States, the U.K., the globe when it comes to climate change, and now you’re bringing it back to Canada. We are so privileged to have you here. Thank you for spending time with us.

CARNEY: Thank you. (Applause.)

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.

cfr.org · CFR Editors

3. Niall Ferguson: I’ve Seen the Future of War. Europe Isn’t Ready for It.

​Excerpts:

If Europe has no serious intention to help Ukraine win this war—as opposed merely to drag it out and hope that Russia obligingly collapses—then the only rational alternative is to work out a diplomatic compromise. The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb—who is known to have established a good relationship with Trump on the golf course—recently offered advice that few Ukrainians wish to hear.

“There is a choice between Yalta and Helsinki here,” he said in Kyiv on September 12. “And I prefer Helsinki.” He went on: “In 1944 we retained our independence but lost sovereignty over the international organizations we could join, and we lost 10 percent of our territory. I would wish [something like] that for Ukraine.”

The Finnish Cold War model of neutrality has been mentioned in the past—for example, by Henry Kissinger in 2014—as a possible basis for stabilizing the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. The standard Ukrainian response is that Stalin accepted that Finns, unlike Ukrainians, were too culturally distinct to be absorbed into the Soviet empire. In other words, Putin would never accept such an arrangement.

Rather than discuss this, Europeans prefer to spend time debating the optimal way to make use of the $300 billion of frozen Russian assets in the U.S. and Europe for Ukraine’s reconstruction. Like the discussion of postwar security guarantees, such ideas resemble the apocryphal 18th-century recipe for jugged hare that begins: “First catch your hare.” Reparations and security guarantees are academic topics if Ukraine and its European allies cannot impose more pain on Russia—sufficient to begin a serious negotiation.

With continued support from Europe, the Ukrainians can probably sustain their defense for another year—though I do worry about that exhausted, middle-aged army, spread so thinly along the front line. But European leaders cannot kick the habit of looking to Washington for leadership as well as military hardware. They seem not to see that warp-speed German rearmament—the construction of huge new gigafactories to mass produce the best drones Ukraine can design—would secure Europe, boost growth, and turn the populist tide.

Above all, they do not appear to have grasped what Trump means when he says, “Good luck to all!” is actually, “Goodbye and good riddance!”

Niall Ferguson: I’ve Seen the Future of War. Europe Isn’t Ready for It.

Hundreds of drones buzzing overhead like lethal hornets, watching with unblinking eyes for targets, others descending for the kill. Soon there will be thousands.

By Niall Ferguson

09.24.25 —

International

Sir Niall Ferguson, MA, DPhil, FRSE, is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford Univ

https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-ive-seen-the-future

A Ukrainian serviceman fires a grenade launcher during training on October 22, 2024, in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. (Yevhenii Vasyliev/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

ersity, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is the author of 16 books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, and Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award. He is a columnist for The Free Press. In addition, he is the founder and managing director of Greenmantle, a New York-based advisory firm, a co-founder of the Latin American fintech company Ualá, and a co-founding trustee of the new University of Austin.

0:00

We’re thrilled to announce that Anduril founder Palmer Luckey will join Bari Weiss live in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, October 8, at 7:00 p.m. for a conversation on the future of American power—and the fight for the West.

Tickets are LIVE—get them here!

KYIV, Ukraine — The war of the future is already here—and you are not sufficiently scared of it. Unless, that is, you are Ukrainian.

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine is now in its fourth year—or its 12th, if you date it from the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Since February 2022, the country has cycled through three wars. First it was a tank war, in which columns of Russian tanks fought a bungled blitzkrieg. Then it became an artillery war, in which the two sides traded fire from entrenched positions. Now, however, it’s almost entirely a drone war, with a supporting role for small and highly vulnerable infantry units.

The question is how well Europeans understand this. The people of Poland, Romania, Estonia, and (perhaps) Denmark all now know that Russian drones are capable of entering their airspace. But have they truly grasped what that implies?

Max Boot’s memorable line—that the Russia-Ukraine War was a cross between All Quiet on the Western Front and Blade Runner—is already obsolete. Ask any of the Ukrainian drone operators and they will tell you: This war is a massive multiplayer game in which the characters you kill cannot respawn. (There is in fact a first-person shooter Ukraine War game that you can play on Steam, Slava Ukraini!, but it doesn’t remotely resemble the control panel of a real military drone operator. This video is more like it.)

The thing that is hard to grasp is the sheer number of drones in the skies. Hundreds can be in the air at any given moment—swarms of them, buzzing overhead like outsize and lethal hornets, some watching with unblinking eyes for targets, others descending inexorably for the kill. Soon there will be thousands.

According to Oleksandr Kamyshin, a key adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, 95 percent of the damage inflicted on the battlefield is now by drones. At the same time, only around 20 percent of drone missions are successful. Attrition is very high.

That means there are at least two distinct battlefields. One is the home front: Ukraine’s increasingly vulnerable cities. The other is the enormously long line of contact that stretches from Sumy and Kharkiv in the north to Kherson and Crimea in the south. It is the most lethal strip of territory in the world.

Because surveillance drones are ubiquitous in the sky, the slightest movement by ground forces is picked up. If a potential target is recognized by systems that are increasingly automated, attack drones are immediately dispatched. The phrase you most commonly hear from men who have served at the front line is: “If you hear the drone, then you are dead.” The challenge is that, as the swarms grow in size, the noise becomes more common. In the words of the veteran war correspondent Richard Engel, “The future of war is constant buzz overhead.”

When the United States expanded its use of “unmanned aerial vehicles” in the War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, drones were big and expensive. Today they are smaller and far cheaper. The key then was exquisite precision. Today, that’s taken for granted.

The key now is mass—or preferably, to use a phrase I learned from the German pioneer of drone software, Lorenz Meier, autonomous mass. In other words, the goal is vast AI-enabled swarms of drones with edge computing. We are getting there fast. The other, harder goal is systems that can defend against autonomous mass. In other words, drones that hunt and kill enemy drones.

Both sides have rapidly increased their drone production in the past year. Ukraine produced 2.2 million FPV (first-person view) drones last year. This year the figure will be close to 6-7 million.

The bad news for Ukraine is that Russia is making even more, especially of the Shahed-136s, based on an Iranian design but now mass produced in Russian factories.

The good news is that Ukraine leads on quality. And the remarkable thing is that most of its technological edge is homegrown.

A soldier holds a Mavic drone as Drone Division 244th Battalion of the 112th Brigade take part in training exercises near Kramatorsk, Ukraine on October 24, 2024. (Andre Luis Alves/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, has invested a significant amount of his personal fortune in Swift Beat, a drone development and production company that is supplying Ukraine with at least three different models. In July, I saw a demonstration of three of Schmidt’s drones. The Swift Beat interceptor is especially valuable as an addition to Ukraine’s overstretched air defenses.

On one recent night, a total of 76 Russian Shahed-style drones—a Russian-made adaptation of an Iranian design—were taken down by interceptor drones. These now offer a highly economical alternative to the expensive U.S. Patriot system, which is in short supply and in any case no longer effective against Russian cruise missiles, which are now programmed to swerve as they near their targets.

The key to offsetting Russia’s quantitative advantage is thus constantly to achieve qualitative advances—and at this Ukraine has excelled.

Schmidt’s is only one of many drone companies currently supplying Ukraine. The remarkable thing is that the majority are small Ukrainian start-ups that operate in a symbiotic relationship with the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The problem is that there is a serious shortage of the contracts that would allow a more rapid increase in Ukrainian drone production. That’s because the Ukrainian government lacks the funds to buy all the drones that Ukrainian companies can manufacture. According to one estimate, only around a third of Ukrainian drone production capacity is being utilized to meet Ukrainian needs.

Moreover, those drones that are made in Ukraine are still being assembled with Turkish or Chinese components. Although these are being phased out as Ukraine develops its domestic component supply, a completely “China-free” drone is impossible as nearly all drone batteries are made in China. A little like the character of Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22, China supplies both sides in this war.

By comparison, the Russians do not innovate. What they do is copy downed Ukrainian drones and, by standardizing models such as the Shahed, achieve Soviet-style economies of scale in production.

Read

The Future of War Is Happening Right Now in Ukraine

The key to offsetting Russia’s quantitative advantage is thus constantly to achieve qualitative advances—and at this Ukraine has excelled. Yet there is no getting away from the increasingly serious manpower shortages on the Ukrainian side. “I thought we could fight with technology and minimize human losses,” admits Schmidt. “I was wrong.”

It is almost impossible for the Western mind to comprehend how willing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is to waste soldiers’ lives. In the past 12 months of the war, according to one European intelligence estimate, the Russians have gained an additional 1 percent of Ukrainian territory at a cost of 7,000 dead or wounded per week.

Yet, even with the defender’s inherent advantage, Ukraine has a chronic shortage of infantry. Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy. Zelensky has tried and failed to persuade his people to draft their younger men. As a result, the soldiers doing the dirtiest work, as frontline infantry, are mostly middle-aged. By one estimate last year, their average age is 43.

The War of the Past

I said there were two fronts in this war. One is the sci-fi death strip that is the front line. The other is vintage mid-20th century. The Russian onslaught on Ukrainian cities is becoming Ukraine’s version of Britain’s 1940-41 Blitz.

At 31 Boulevard Václav Havel in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi District, just opposite the children’s play park, there is a gaping hole where a Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile destroyed part of a nine-story apartment building, killing 23 people. The target had no military or defense-industrial function. The strike, on June 17 this year, was part of a Russian campaign aimed at killing civilians and undermining Ukrainian morale.

(@nfergus via X)

Ukrainians receive alerts whenever drones are detected in Ukrainian airspace, but they rely on Telegram updates for information about missiles, which travel much more rapidly. As the attacks are usually timed for the early hours of the morning, when most people are asleep, casualties are high when residential buildings are hit.

Although studies of strategic bombing campaigns in World War II revealed that the impact on civilian morale was minimal, if not the opposite of what was intended, the speed and precision of cruise missiles have a more demoralizing effect on civilian populations today.

There is also the effect on the populations of neighboring countries. Russia sent between 19 and 23 drones into Polish airspace on September 9. Not all the drones were shot down, despite the scrambling of NATO fighter jets. This incident was followed a few days later by the appearance of a Russian strike drone in Romanian airspace.

Then, on September 19, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace without permission. On Monday evening it was the turn of Denmark and Norway, which were forced to close Copenhagen and Oslo airports after unidentified drones were spotted in their vicinity. The Russians are not only testing NATO to see if it will retaliate. (So far, just words.) They are also sending a message to the people of NATO member states: What we did to 31 Boulevard Václav Havel, we could do to you, too.

A Farewell to American Arms

The joke in Kyiv is that General Keith Kellogg, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, was now the most effective U.S. air defense system: “When he is in Kyiv, the Russians stop their air strikes.”

It’s actually not a joke. There were no drone or missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital for the duration of the conference I attended earlier this month, at which Kellogg was the sole representative of the Trump administration. The air raids resumed as soon as he had left. Yet this merely shows that Putin knows not to provoke the United States. As things stand, the United States is out of this war. Putin just needs to keep it that way.

Nothing illustrates more clearly the shift in U.S. policy that has occurred since Trump’s inauguration than his response to recent Russian provocations. First, Trump suggested the Russian drones had entered Poland by accident. Then he posted on Truth Social a challenge to other NATO members: “I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA. . . . I believe that this, plus NATO, as a group, placing 50% to 100% TARIFFS ON CHINA, to be fully withdrawn after the WAR with Russia and Ukraine is ended, will also be of great help in ENDING this deadly, but RIDICULOUS, WAR.”

Trump knows that there is no chance of other NATO members imposing such tariffs on China.

A Ukrainian soldier loads a shell for the 105 mm OTO Melara artillery in the direction of Pokrovsk, Ukraine, September 9, 2025. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)

It is in this light that we need to understand Trump’s apparent U-turn on Tuesday—when he posted that “Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form. . . and, who knows, maybe even go further than that!”

Good news for Ukraine, right?

But read the small print: “With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option. . . . In any event, I wish both Countries well. We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them. Good luck to all!”

It has delighted Europeans that Trump has apparently lost patience with Putin, following the failure of American peacemaking efforts in Alaska last month. It should worry them more that Trump now speaks of NATO as a third party, as if the United States is no longer a member of the alliance. And remember: The Trump administration has cut off military aid to Ukraine several times this year, beginning in March. Since then, the U.S. has been more willing to sell weapons to Ukraine or to NATO countries that wish to buy them and donate them to Ukraine.

European Rearmament

Under these circumstances, it is crystal clear what Europe and the UK need to do now that America has made the war in Ukraine their problem. First, ramp up financial assistance for Ukraine. Then, accelerate their own rearmament.

This ought to be easy. In a straight war between Russia and Ukraine, Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) is roughly 10 times the size of Ukraine’s. However, add the EU to Ukraine’s side, and the ratio switches to 5:1 in favor of Russia’s adversaries. With the UK also on Ukraine’s side, the ratio is 6:1 against Russia. With the addition of Canada and Japan (the other G7 members, excluding the U.S.) the ratio rises to 7:1.

The hope—or cope—is that Russia’s economy is approaching some kind of collapse.

All each country would need to do is to step up its contribution to the Ukrainian war effort such that the combined total sufficed to replace the lost U.S. aid. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe needs to double its yearly support from €44 billion per year to €82 billion per year, up to an average level of 0.21 percent of GDP.

Right now, European governments are spending just 0.1 percent of their annual GDP on bilateral aid for Ukraine—a minor effort. For context, the EU’s pandemic recovery fund was four times larger than all EU support for Ukraine thus far.

More challenging will be to speed up European rearmament. True, the German government has embarked on a significant increase in defense spending. After a long period of torpor, there are signs of real life in Europe’s defense industries. The problem is that, left to their own devices, Europe’s national procurement agencies, defense contractors, and militaries are neither procuring weapons fast enough, nor producing the right weapons, nor adapting their force structures to the lessons learned in Ukraine.

As things stand, only the Danish government appears fully cognizant of this. Copenhagen has eased the various ESG-related restrictions that elsewhere still limit institutional investors from putting money in defense. In an effort to move with the times, Denmark’s biggest defense company, Terma, has entered into a partnership with a smaller drone company. The Danish government is bypassing more than 20 environmental and building laws to allow the Ukrainian firm Fire Point to build a solid rocket fuel plane near Skrydstrup.

This is not happening in Germany, where the bureaucracy remains wedded to very long cycles of German procurement. It’s true that production of artillery shells and howitzers has risen markedly in the past year. But Europe lacks substitutes for U.S.-produced weapons such as the HIMARS high-mobility rocket system and long-range anti-aircraft systems such as Patriots. And it quite clearly lags behind Ukraine in drone design and production. The EU spends an order of magnitude less than the United States and China in terms of military research and development. That will have to change—and fast. The danger, in short, is that Europe will rearm itself to fight the war of the past.

According to the Kiel Institute, European land forces need to grow by a factor of between three and six if they are to be capable of deterring Russia from aggression beyond Ukraine. But that is a tall order. Russian military spending is almost the same as that of the EU and UK measured on the basis of purchasing-power parity, because Russian inputs are cheap by European standards. Moreover, the EU’s rearmament program is starting from a shockingly low base. EU and UK arsenals have been depleted by weapons transfers to Ukraine. (All Danish and Dutch infantry fighting vehicles are gone; 44 percent of Polish main battle tanks; and nearly all UK and German howitzers.)

The hope—or cope—is that Russia’s economy is approaching some kind of collapse. In Trump’s words on Tuesday, Russia has been exposed by Ukraine as “a paper tiger” and is now in “BIG Economic trouble.” I fear this is wishful thinking. Russia is running a war economy, a modest one by Soviet standards, but reviving some of the characteristic features of 20th-century mobilization. Naturally, inflationary strains have arisen from the doubling of Russian military spending. But Russia entered the war with its public finances in good health. One-quarter to one-third of state revenues continue to come from oil and gas sales.

European leaders cannot kick the habit of looking to Washington for leadership as well as military hardware.

The most striking thing about Putin’s regime is that thus far it has delivered increased guns without reducing “butter.” Real wages are up by a fifth since the start of the war, reflecting the supertight labor market. Western sanctions have failed to achieve the crippling of Russia’s economy promised by their proponents in 2022. Not only does the “shadow fleet” continue to ship Russian oil; hugely increased EU exports to Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian economies testify to the readiness of European firms to circumvent sanctions via transshipment. It is not clear that Ukraine’s deep strikes can happen on a large enough scale meaningfully to reduce Russian hydrocarbon production. And, crucially, China has provided Russia not only with vast quantities of dual-use hardware but also financial support, for example in the form of direct Chinese investment in Russian companies.

Meanwhile, the two obvious constraints on European military mobilization, apart from the sheer inertia of a vestigial military-industrial complex, are fiscal and political. According to the IMF, three key states, UK, France, and Italy, have net debt above 90 percent of GDP. France and the UK have deficits of 5.5 percent and 4.4 percent of GDP.

These fiscal constraints coincide with the rising tide of support for right-wing populist parties—in the UK, Nigel Farage’s Reform, in Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland, and in France, the Rassemblement National. Each now polls ahead of its respective country’s governing party. None of the populist parties is keen on the war in Ukraine. The invasion they worry about is by illegal migrants, not Russians.

First, Catch Your Hare: The Eternal Diplomacy

If Europe has no serious intention to help Ukraine win this war—as opposed merely to drag it out and hope that Russia obligingly collapses—then the only rational alternative is to work out a diplomatic compromise. The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb—who is known to have established a good relationship with Trump on the golf course—recently offered advice that few Ukrainians wish to hear.

“There is a choice between Yalta and Helsinki here,” he said in Kyiv on September 12. “And I prefer Helsinki.” He went on: “In 1944 we retained our independence but lost sovereignty over the international organizations we could join, and we lost 10 percent of our territory. I would wish [something like] that for Ukraine.”

The Finnish Cold War model of neutrality has been mentioned in the past—for example, by Henry Kissinger in 2014—as a possible basis for stabilizing the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. The standard Ukrainian response is that Stalin accepted that Finns, unlike Ukrainians, were too culturally distinct to be absorbed into the Soviet empire. In other words, Putin would never accept such an arrangement.

Rather than discuss this, Europeans prefer to spend time debating the optimal way to make use of the $300 billion of frozen Russian assets in the U.S. and Europe for Ukraine’s reconstruction. Like the discussion of postwar security guarantees, such ideas resemble the apocryphal 18th-century recipe for jugged hare that begins: “First catch your hare.” Reparations and security guarantees are academic topics if Ukraine and its European allies cannot impose more pain on Russia—sufficient to begin a serious negotiation.

With continued support from Europe, the Ukrainians can probably sustain their defense for another year—though I do worry about that exhausted, middle-aged army, spread so thinly along the front line. But European leaders cannot kick the habit of looking to Washington for leadership as well as military hardware. They seem not to see that warp-speed German rearmament—the construction of huge new gigafactories to mass produce the best drones Ukraine can design—would secure Europe, boost growth, and turn the populist tide.

Above all, they do not appear to have grasped what Trump means when he says, “Good luck to all!” is actually, “Goodbye and good riddance!”

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4. One Hell of a Fight - A Change In Trump’s Narrative on Ukraine by Mick Ryan

One Hell of a Fight - A Change In Trump’s Narrative on Ukraine

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/one-hell-of-a-fight-a-change-in-trumps?utm

Trump’s recent post about the war in Ukraine was a major shift in his strategic narrative about the war. What did he actually say and what might it mean for the trajectory of the war?

Mick Ryan

Sep 24, 2025

∙ Paid

Image: @WhiteHouse

“He’s a brave man, and he’s putting up one hell of a fight.” President Trump about President Zelenskyy, 23 September 2025.

One of the things about studying war and living in Australia is that travelling anywhere to study contemporary conflicts means frequent, long plane rides. And while internet connectivity has certainly improved on long haul flights from the southern hemisphere to the north, sometimes it is nice to switch off for the 14 or even 18 hours that I can spend on a single flight to Europe or North America.

But what that means is that when I turn on my phone on arrival at a new destination, there are often big events that have occurred while I have been in the air. Such was the situation when I got off the plane in Austin, Texas yesterday afternoon. I was pleasantly surprised to see Ukraine had attacked more Russian oil infrastructure, this time in Novorossiysk, Bashkortostan, Bryansk and Samara. I was also pleasantly surprised to see more Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow.

I was a little surprised to see the former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces offer a public critique of Ukraine’s 2024 Kursk operation, noting that “I don’t know the cost of such actions, but it is clear that it was too high.”

But perhaps the biggest surprise when I turned on my old iPhone was that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, had executed a rhetorical shift about the war in Ukraine.

The president’s narrative about the war in Ukraine, since returning to the Oval Office this year, has much in common with me on the golf course - all over the place! There have been so many changes in his position towards the war and towards leaders such as President Zelenskyy and the president of Russia, that it would have been easy to receive a severe case of policy whiplash since January.

As late as this August, Trump blamed Ukraine for the war. The Trump administration has frequently discussed the necessity of Ukraine having to trade land for peace. As Politico reported this August:

President Donald Trump said Russia and Ukraine will engage in “land swapping” that will be “good” and “bad” for both countries, a key part of his push to end the years-long war…Trump insisted that the Russian president, too, would likely have to give up some of the territory he has gained since invading in early 2022.

This is a position that Ukraine and many of its supporters find morally repulsive. And, by Ukrainian law, territory cannot be just ‘given up’. Further, such concessions to an aggressive authoritarian who launched this war for personal ideological reasons would amount to strategic self-sabotage by democracies. It would further provoke Putin and the cabal of his fellow dictators to engage in additional aggression against democracies in Europe and Asia.

So, when I emerged from my day long journey in different planes yesterday afternoon, it was somewhat of a shock to see a long social media post from President Trump that suggested that Ukraine could take back all of its territory, and more importantly, the Russians were weaker than many believed.

What does this mean for the trajectory of the war, and does it indicate a turning point in the Trump administration’s view of the war, its support for Ukraine as well as its engagement in European security issues?

Anatomy of a Trump Post on Ukraine

Before proceeding, it is worth perusing the full post (see image below) and drawing out some key elements.

So, that is the post. What are some of the key themes that emerge from several readings?

First, Trump has obviously had a recent briefing on the impacts of Ukraine’s very impressive - and accelerating - strategic strike campaign against Russia’s oil infrastructure. Dozens of facilities have been hit this year. The development of Ukraine’s long-range strike capability has been something I have tracked since the start of the war, and in my most recent update on this topic (Ukraine is Striking Russia Harder, 22 August) I noted that:

Ukraine’s long-range strike operations reinforce that Russia cannot win this war. Russia can only be handed a victory through a political process, which is why Putin is so desperate to convince the Trump administration about land transfers, to deny the presence of foreign troops in Ukraine and to influence Ukrainian foreign policy.

In his post, Trump notes that “it is almost impossible for them [Russians] to get Gasoline through the long lines that are being formed, and all the other things that are taking place in their War Economy.” This appears to be Trump supporting the existing sanctions framework as well as acknowledging (and supporting) Ukraine’s strike operations. As Trump notes, “Putin and Russia are in BIG economic trouble and this is the time for Ukraine to act.”

Might additional support be forthcoming from America to enhance Ukraine’s strike capability?

Trump may also be sniffing a loser (Russia) and positioning himself for a more enduring shift in the strategic narrative towards more wholesome support for Ukraine. But, given the frequent backflips we have seen this administration perform in the last eight months, we should not be popping champagne corks just yet.

Second, in addition to being briefed on the economic impacts on Russia of Ukraine’s strike campaign and the broader war effort, Trump has clearly received an update on Russia’s military potential. At first glance, this might be obvious given the small advances it is making for very large casualties. They have suffered over 300,000 casualties this year alone according to recent British Ministry of Defence figures.

Source: @DefenceHQ

At the same time, Trump’s labeling of Russia as a “paper tiger” in his missive minimizes Russia’s recent incursions into NATO controlled airspace in Poland, Romania and Estonia. These were dangerous and deliberate escalations on the part of Putin. NATO has gone so far as to establish a new operation in Eastern Europe to deal with these incursions, and in a 23 September media release, stated that:

Russia bears full responsibility for these actions, which are escalatory, risk miscalculation and endanger lives. They must stop. NATO’s response to Russia’s reckless actions will continue to be robust. On 12 September, we launched “Eastern Sentry” to bolster NATO’s posture along the entire Eastern flank. We will reinforce our capabilities and strengthen our deterrence and defence posture, including through effective air defence. Russia should be in no doubt: NATO and Allies will employ, in accordance with international law, all necessary military and non-military tools to defend ourselves and deter all threats from all directions.

The description of Russia as a paper tiger may be designed by Trump to play down these airspace incursions. That is not a positive sign and will hardly deter Russia from doing so again in the future, notwithstanding European threats to shoot down Russian jets if the deliberate incursions continue.

Third, Trump acknowledged that Ukraine might take back all of the territory (reminder: Crimea is Ukraine too) that Russia has illegally seized from Ukraine. Now, whether he meant the territory seized since 2022 or since 2014 was not specific. But that is somewhat beside the point. Until now, the Trump administration’s narrative has been that peace would require Ukraine to accept the ‘hard truth’ that it must cede territory to Russia. But Trump’s post abruptly changed this narrative.

In fact, Trump’s post went even further. He writes that:

Ukraine would be able to take back their County in its original form and who knows, maybe even go further than that!

This is a positive step in Trump’s narrative for the war, and hopefully will continue to be American policy. It certainly would ensure that aggression by authoritarians (or anyone else) is not rewarded. But the really interesting part was the phrase “maybe even go further than that!”

I am not quite sure what he means by this. Does he mean that Ukraine will take back territory lost since 2022 and then the ‘further than that’ is Crimea and all of the Donbas? Or did he get confused and mean something else entirely? I think this is probably worth exploring further.

Regardless, this particular turn of phrase is likely to infuriate Putin. Any threat that implies foreigners on Russian soil tends to upset him. But, Trump’s words will also be used by the Russians to reinforce their existing narrative that NATO and the West is at war with their country.

A fourth element of the post however is that Trump is not entirely throwing Russia under the bus. He acknowledges the “Great Towns, Cities and Districts all throughout Russia” and writes late in the post that, in reference to Ukraine and Russia, “I wish both Countries well”. And while Trump states that “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years”, at no point in the post does he criticize the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Trump, in noting that the war “is not distinguishing Russia” clearly retains some sympathies for Russia and Putin.

This obvious gap in the narrative should give us some pause about just how significant Trump’s change in tune towards Ukraine really is.

Finally, Trump states in his post that America will continue to supply weapons to NATO and that NATO can “do what they want with them.” Might this mean that the longstanding limitations on the use of American weapons for striking deeper into Russia will be lifted? Or does it refer to American air defence systems, fighter aircraft and missiles potentially being used to shoot down Russian drones and aircraft that stray into NATO territory in the near future?

There is a lot to analyze in this single post from President Trump. While the change in narrative is possibly the most significant element, there are many other components from the post worthy of a closer look. The taking back of Ukrainian territory, the economic warfare against Russia and ongoing provision of weapons to NATO (and henceforth to Ukraine) all send messages to Russia and Putin that perhaps Russia should not count on America standing by while Russian ground and aerial forces continue to ravage Ukraine.

But, we have seen Trump issue hard words about Russia previously and then conduct rapid backflips or changes in direction. What might Trump’s words really mean for the trajectory of the war in Ukraine?

Regardless of Trump’s words, for Ukraine’s soldiers the war continues. Image: Khyzhak Brigade And @DefenceU

What Does It Mean?

I am grateful to President Trump for the strong cooperation with the United States. The President clearly understands the situation and is well informed about all aspects of this war. We highly value his determination to help end this war. President Zelenskyy, 23 September 2025.

Now that we have explored the key themes of Trump’s post, what might be the impact of his latest words on Ukraine?

The Russians have already responded, in what was absolutely no surprise. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was rolled out again and stated in Russian media that:

Russia is in no way a tiger. Still, Russia is more compared with a bear. There are no paper bears.

Which as responses go, does not make a lot of sense - at least in English. Other usual suspects in Russia such as Medvedev and Simonyan issued variations of their normal sewerage in response as well. You can search out their comments - I don’t want to link to them here.

The best case outcome from Trump’s post is that it represents a permanent rupture in Trump’s relationship with Putin. This would have implications not only for Ukraine but the security of all Europe. Part of the best case outcome would be another level of strategic deterrence against Russian aggression against the West, although removing the Russian threat entirely now is something that even I don’t think is possible in the short term.

As I note earlier in this piece, without political and land concessions that Trump might force upon Ukraine (if that is even possible), Putin has no prospect of winning his brutal war of national extinction against Ukraine. If Trump was to sustain the narrative contained in his latest post, Putin might finally realize the hopelessness of his situation in Ukraine.

The worst case is that this is just a one-off post on social media from President Trump with no policy follow up. This would serve to further encourage Putin, who in the wake of the Alaska Summit, appears to have gained increased confidence in his ability to progress his war against Ukraine without interference from Trump. It might also further alienate European allies, who would have more evidence to doubt any commitment (security or otherwise) from the Trump administration.

I think the most likely outcome from the post is somewhere in between these two extremes.

Given the unpredictability of the American president, I don’t think we can assume that this one social media posts means an enduring shift in American policy for the war. I would love that Trump finally distances himself from Putin and doubles down on support for Ukraine to force Russia to the table and to actually negotiate in good faith. But in war, one must not only ‘talk the talk’. They must also ‘walk the walk’. We are yet to see this follow through from Trump’s words. There are some good words in Trump’s post, but words without action are pointless.

And in the meantime, 1308 days since the Russian full-scale invasion in February 2022, the grim task of defending against Russian assaults on the ground and drone and missile attacks from the sky goes on for Ukraine’s armed forces.

5. Can Ukraine Really Win the War Against Russia?

​Excerpts;

President Trump’s belated realization that Russian ambitions can only be frustrated by defeat on the battlefield is, believe it or not, good for peace. Ukraine cannot accept Russia’s demands and will continue fighting if those demands are not relaxed.

The best way to peace is through convincing Russia that it cannot accomplish its ends through war, a reality that President Trump is beginning to acknowledge.

Can Ukraine Really Win the War Against Russia?

nationalsecurityjournal.org · Robert Farley · September 24, 2025

Key Points and Summary – Dr. Robert Farley analyzes President Trump’s abrupt rhetorical shift on the Russia-Ukraine war—from casting Kyiv as weak to framing Russia as economically brittle and Ukraine as capable of recovery. Words matter: a tougher U.S. tone could dent Russian morale and bargaining leverage.

-Yet Farley warns that Washington may still push Europe to shoulder more costs while lacking the institutional muscle to escalate economic pressure.

Ukraine Tanks. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-Battlefield realities remain stubborn for both sides.

–His bottom line: durable peace requires convincing Moscow it cannot achieve war aims—continuity of military and economic pressure, not mixed signals, is what shortens the conflict.

Ukraine War: What Happens Next?

President Trump surprised everyone yesterday with what looks like a dramatic about-face on the future of the Russia-Ukraine War.

After months of attempting to bring the war to a close by flattering Moscow’s strength and sense of purpose, Trump yesterday declared that the Russian economy was in crisis and that Ukraine stood a good chance of retaking the territory that it has lost thus far. So far, the change is only rhetorical, but rhetoric matters in war.

How could this change the course of the conflict?

Ukraine: Can They Win?

From the perspective of January 2025, the rhetorical shift was stunning. Since he re-assumed the Presidency, Trump has argued that the Russia-Ukraine War needs to end and has harped on Ukraine’s vulnerability.

During the now-infamous press conference with President Zelenskyy, Trump repeatedly claimed “You don’t have the cards,” as part of an effort to browbeat the Ukrainian leader into accepting peace terms.

Now, Trump appears to have contradicted himself. Trump’s decision to highlight the weakness of the Russian economy and to speak well of Ukraine’s chances to regain lost territory also directly contradicts the statements of his Vice President. J.D. Vance has long argued that Ukraine is doomed to suffer defeat due to fundamental material imbalances between Kyiv and Moscow.

It remains to be seen whether Vance will adjust his rhetoric to bring it more into line with the President.

Trump seems to have finally come to the conclusion, after months of evidence, that Ukraine and President Zelensky are not the primary obstacles to ending the war. Trump has been frustrated by Moscow’s intransigence, rather than Kyiv’s.

It was undoubtedly a shrewd strategic move on Ukraine’s part to accept the majority of US conditions for a ceasefire, whether Kyiv was certain of Russia’s reaction or not. Trump has transferred his ire of Russia to the point that he is now willing to say that the war’s outcome is far from a foregone conclusion.

Rhetoric Matters …

US rhetoric certainly matters to the morale of Russians and Ukrainians.

It is one thing for an army to continue fighting when it believes that it is on the cusp of victory. It is another thing to bleed for a square kilometer of territory when no end is in sight.

If Russians take Trump’s shift seriously, it could cause problems both at home and at the front. Putin’s evident belief that Trump would reduce support for Ukraine has undoubtedly solidified Russian demands at the negotiating table and may have staved off any concerns about Russian military morale.

Desperate measures are fine for desperate times, but as the time horizon extends, the seams begin to show. The Russian government’s management of the economic war remains remarkable in its effectiveness.

Despite severe strains, the economy has continued to serve civilian needs while keeping the army well-supplied at the front.

Implementing this approach has necessitated a series of short-term fixes that will ultimately lead to long-term damage to Russia’s economic prospects. Extending the war both increases the damage and exposes the brittle scaffolding.

But Only So Far …

However, this doesn’t mean that Ukraine is out of the woods. Indeed, Trump’s rhetorical shift may portend a further transformation of responsibility for the war to Europe, with a concurrent downplaying of the United States’ role.

While this doesn’t seem likely to result in an arms embargo or similar measures, it could further distance the US from the war and its support for Ukraine. It is also true that the Trump administration has gutted the parts of the US government that can most effectively impose pain upon Russia.

Economic threats are of little use if the US government is unable or unwilling to implement them. Finally, there is little reason to believe, Trump’s shift notwithstanding, that the Ukrainians can actually retake territory lost to Russia at reasonable cost; the factors that prevent Russia from advancing also prevent Ukraine from advancing.

What Happens Next?

A coherent policy towards Russia would have maintained continuity between the Biden and Trump administrations. Such a policy would have recognized both the magnitude of Russian war demands and the necessity to curtail those demands through the combined force of both arms and economic coercion.

This policy could well have hastened the end of the war by removing any hope in Moscow that the United States and NATO might buckle under Russian pressure. Instead, President Trump dithered for months in a fruitless attempt to convince Russia that it did not really want what it had repeatedly stated that it wished to, culminating in a pathetic display of summit diplomacy in Alaska.

President Trump’s belated realization that Russian ambitions can only be frustrated by defeat on the battlefield is, believe it or not, good for peace. Ukraine cannot accept Russia’s demands and will continue fighting if those demands are not relaxed.

The best way to peace is through convincing Russia that it cannot accomplish its ends through war, a reality that President Trump is beginning to acknowledge.

About the Author: Dr. Robert Farley

Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997 and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages (Lynne Rienner, 2023). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.

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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Robert Farley · September 24, 2025

6. A New Start for Trump on Ukraine?

​Yep. Actions speak louder than words.

A New Start for Trump on Ukraine?

Harder rhetoric will have to be followed by a much harder policy toward Russia.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelensky-654e58fd

By The Editorial Board

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Sept. 24, 2025 5:46 pm ET

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Donald Trump Photo: POU/Zuma Press

President Trump has the world’s attention with his social-media post on Tuesday that Ukraine could “fight and WIN” back all of its territory. His remarks this week are his best and toughest to date on the war. But is this another stall tactic—or is the President at last ready to raise the military and economic pressure on Vladimir Putin to end his conquest?

“With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. He called Russia a “paper tiger” in “BIG Economic trouble.”

He also told reporters that he had thought Ukraine would be an easy war to mediate “because of my relationship with Putin. But unfortunately, that relationship didn’t mean anything.” Asked if European allies should shoot down Russian planes that violate NATO airspace, the President offered a clear “Yes.”

For the first time, Mr. Trump is articulating that a Ukrainian victory is in the West’s interests and refuting those in his circle who say Ukraine’s capitulation is inevitable. He’s right that Mr. Putin is economically vulnerable. Mr. Trump is also issuing a warning amid Mr. Putin’s drone and fighter jet incursions into Poland and Estonia—which have so far gone unanswered.

Yet for eight months Mr. Putin has watched Mr. Trump do nothing, and the Russian seems to have concluded that he could escalate against Ukraine and test NATO. Mr. Trump’s Alaska summit with Mr. Putin was in retrospect a mistake, not unlike John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Vienna summit with Nikita Khrushchev that convinced the Russian he could get away with deploying missiles in Cuba.

It’s a deep hole for U.S. credibility, but Mr. Trump can start digging out. Table stakes for seriousness would be asking Congress to pass Sens. Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal’s bipartisan sanctions bill that has more than 80 Senate co-sponsors.

The bill allows a 500% tariff on countries that purchase Russian oil, and Mr. Trump will have to revoke China’s hall pass for pouring raw materials and weapons components into Mr. Putin’s war. Driving a hard bargain with Mr. Putin is a more urgent U.S. priority than a summit with Xi Jinping, and weakness in Europe won’t produce leverage in Asia.

Also promising are remarks by others in his Administration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the United Nations that Mr. Trump reserves the right to “sell defensive weaponry and potentially offensive weaponry so that Ukraine can defend itself from this assault.”

Improving the battlefield picture is essential to changing Mr. Putin’s war calculus. Mr. Trump said on social media that the Russian military has been “fighting aimlessly for three and a half years,” and Mr. Putin has underperformed. But Russia’s military is adapting its tactics and learning on the battlefield. A paradox of the war is that U.S. support for Ukraine has degraded Russian military power but also hardened Mr. Putin’s resolve to rebuild a force that could threaten NATO’s eastern front.

That’s one reason it’s in the U.S. interest to avoid a Ukrainian collapse, and why Americans were wise to tire of President Biden’s strategic muddle that feared Ukraine’s victory as much as its defeat. Mr. Trump will have to sell Ukraine more U.S. hardware that can be deployed without Pentagon micromanagement.

Mr. Trump’s remark this week that Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky is a “brave man” who is “putting up one hell of a fight” is a reminder that the President doesn’t share the animus for Ukraine that some of his advisers hold. First lady Melania Trump’s concern for Mr. Putin’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children has also affected the President.

Mr. Trump doesn’t want to be dragged into a European war, and understandably so. But that danger is far less likely if Ukraine survives as a sovereign state allied with the West. After hardening his rhetoric, Mr. Trump will now have to harden his policy.

Appeared in the September 25, 2025, print edition as 'A New Start for Trump on Ukraine?'.

7. How Zelensky’s Charm Offensive Reversed Trump’s Skepticism on Ukraine

How Zelensky’s Charm Offensive Reversed Trump’s Skepticism on Ukraine

Ukrainian leader worked hard to repair damage of disastrous White House meeting in February

https://www.wsj.com/world/how-zelenskys-charm-offensive-reversed-trumps-skepticism-on-ukraine-3818cab4

By James Marson

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, Jane Lytvynenko and Alexander Ward

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Updated Sept. 24, 2025 3:14 pm ET

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WSJ documents the sudden shifts in President Trump’s views as he tries to negotiate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Quick Summary

• President Trump lauded Ukraine’s army and criticized Russia’s military efforts, a shift from his previous stance.View more

KYIV, Ukraine—A half-year ago in the Oval Office, President Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that “you don’t have the cards” in the war with Russia. On Tuesday at the United Nations, Trump lauded the performance of Ukraine’s army and poured scorn on Russia’s military efforts.

“I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump said on Truth Social after meeting with Zelensky. “Why not?”

U.S. officials said that Trump issued the statement in part to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a deal, since no real progress toward ending the war had been made since last month’s meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska.

The sharp verbal shift from Trump came amid Russia’s continued failure to make significant gains on the battlefield, a slowdown in the Russian economy and a concerted effort by Zelensky to woo the U.S. president.

Trump has spent recent days with U.S. officials who have long pushed for a stronger stance toward Ukraine as he prepared for the meeting with Zelensky, including Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg and new ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz.

They updated Trump on current battlefield conditions, according to two people familiar with the situation, noting that Russia has made little progress in recent years.

Trump was also made aware of a planned Ukrainian offensive which would require U.S. intelligence support, the people said.

Officials said that Trump only made a rhetorical shift, but not a policy shift. He is still authorizing weapons sales to Ukraine but restricting the use of American-made weapons to attack within sovereign Russian territory.

Zelensky showed on Tuesday that he has learned from the disastrous meeting with Trump in February. He has smartened up his attire after criticism from Trump supporters and, seated next to the U.S. president ahead of the Tuesday meeting, repeatedly thanked him for his support, praising his efforts to end the war while talking up the performance of the Ukrainian army on the battlefield.

Trump, Zelensky said later, “clearly understands the situation and is well-informed about all aspects of this war.”

It is far from certain that Trump’s shift in tone will be reflected in a change in policy. He has so far proved unwilling to impose significant sanctions on Russia, despite making threats to do so, or provide the kind of surge of weapons that Ukraine would need to retake significant territory and protect its cities from Russian aerial bombardments.

Military trucks on an unpaved road in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Photo: Svet Jacqueline for WSJ

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Zelensky’s view was currently dominant with Trump, but that Russia would have opportunities to convey its position to the White House. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, on Wednesday morning.

Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Zelensky didn’t comment on Trump’s apparent change of tack, saying only that he had a “good meeting” with the U.S. president. 

He urged representatives of member nations to condemn Russia as it “keeps dragging this war on.” He also warned that if left unchecked, Moscow would aim to widen its ambitions in Europe. “Ukraine is only the first, and now Russian drones are already flying across Europe, and Russian operations are already spreading across countries,” he said.

Zelensky pointed in particular to Moldova, which he said was being targeted by a campaign of Russian interference.

In Ukraine, some welcomed Trump’s comments with cautious optimism. Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Zelensky, posted an emoji of a bicep alongside a screenshot of a White House social-media post calling the Ukrainian president “a brave man.” But opposition lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said on social media that Trump’s words don’t mean anything and wouldn’t have any consequences.

Still, the U.S. president’s apparent reappraisal of Ukraine’s chances in the war also came with a commitment to continue providing weapons to European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, who then pass them on to Ukraine to use against Russia.

Zelensky’s rehabilitation is all the more surprising given the mauling he took in the Oval Office in February. That meeting was supposed to clear the air after Zelensky said he was worried that the U.S. president was adopting Kremlin talking points. Trump fired back that Zelensky was a “dictator without elections.”

But the meeting descended into acrimony when Vice President JD Vance accused Zelensky of being ungrateful for American help. After Zelensky sought to defend himself against Trump and Vance, Trump’s team evicted the Ukrainian delegation from the White House.

Zelensky sought to patch up relations by expressing regret in a letter and quickly agreeing to a U.S. proposal for a cease-fire while Russia demurred. As Trump pushed for a quick peace deal, Zelensky trod a fine line between backing the U.S. president’s aims while pushing back on ideas that would be unacceptable to Ukrainians, such as formally ceding territory to Russia.

Zelensky has shown that he has learned from the meeting with Trump in February. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A meeting at the funeral of Pope Francis appeared to heal the rift and boost Zelensky’s standing. The two men met privately for 15 minutes in St. Peter’s Basilica in what Trump later called “a beautiful meeting.” Afterward, Trump offered rare criticism of Putin.

When Zelensky returned to the White House in August, he wore a black suit-style jacket. His military-style attire at the February meeting had sparked a testy exchange with a pro-Trump reporter. Trump praised his new look and the August meeting was more cordial, with the U.S. leader proposing a peace conference with Putin.

By Tuesday, Trump had adopted some of Zelensky’s talking points. He mocked Russia’s army for its slow progress against a much smaller nation and praised Ukrainian troops. “We have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing, actually.”

Trump also disparaged Russia’s economy, saying it “is terrible right now,” and when Zelensky praised Trump’s initiative to press European allies to stop buying Russian oil, he indicated he would lean on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, referring to him as a friend.

Trump said that while he hadn’t spoken with Orban yet, he felt the Hungarian leader would change his mind if he did.

“And I think I’ll be doing that,” Trump added.

Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com

8. ANALYSIS: ‘We’re Advancing at Colossal Cost’: Russian Senator Admits Ukraine Dominates Drone War, Front Stuck in Stalemate

ANALYSIS: ‘We’re Advancing at Colossal Cost’: Russian Senator Admits Ukraine Dominates Drone War, Front Stuck in Stalemate

Dmitry Rogozin, a senator representing the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, said Russian forces are advancing only “with enormous difficulty and at a colossal cost.”

https://www.kyivpost.com/analysis/60816

By Alisa Orlova

By Christopher Stewart

Sept. 25, 2025, 9:02 am

The head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, attends a ceremony at the Baikonur cosmodrome on Dec. 8, 2021. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev / POOL / AFP)

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A Russian senator from occupied Ukraine has admitted that Moscow is losing ground in drone warfare and that its war against Kyiv has reached a deadlock, contrasting with earlier warnings from Ukraine’s former top general that the conflict has bogged down into a costly positional struggle that would lead to Ukraine’s ultimate failure.

Dmitry Rogozin, a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party and senator representing the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, said Russian forces are advancing only “with enormous difficulty and at a colossal cost.”

He described the situation along the front line as a positional war, where equipment “is destroyed before it even reaches the front” and small assault groups push forward with little success.

Rogozin also acknowledged that Russia is falling behind in drone warfare. Ukraine, he said, has “ten times more drones,” thanks to support from “a coalition of high-tech countries.” He claimed Ukraine deploys 100 to 250 long-range drones daily, with the number steadily rising.

His remarks could be juxtaposed against an assessment made by Valeriy Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief and now ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Rogozin sees the static nature of the frontline battlefield and its positional deadlock as being to Russia’s detriment, especially given Ukraine’s FPV drone superiority in the battlespace.

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Zaluzhny, on the other hand, saw the static nature of the front as bad for Ukraine. The former commander-in-chief had hoped to have a dramatic breakout offensive from static positions to avoid attrition warfare that he thought Ukraine could not sustain.

Writing in Dzerkalo Tyzhnya, Zaluzhny said the war had entered a “positional deadlock, similar to World War I,” particularly on the Donetsk front since late 2022. He blamed Ukraine’s stalled 2023 counteroffensive on a shortage of manpower and equipment.

Zaluzhny believed that the static nature of the fighting risked dragging out the conflict to Ukraine’s detriment. While he noted a trend toward Russia trying to break the stalemate, often with meat-grinder assaults, he thought that Ukraine’s August 2024 incursion into Russia’s Kursk region came at too high a price. Such limited operations with heavy losses, he said, could only be justified in exceptional circumstances.

The Ukrainian strategic-level push into Kursk did not bring heavy losses, but it did force Moscow to respond by diverting resources from eastern Ukraine into Russia. Unlike the operational-level breakout Zaluzhny wanted in the Donbas, the element of surprise favored Kyiv.

With the inherent advantage of being the defender in a stagnant front as it now stands, major losses on the battlefield are accruing to the Russian side, whereas Ukrainian casualties are minimized compared to an attempt at an operational level breakout.

Even with both sides stationary, Russian forces lack adequate resupply of munitions, food, and medicine, with each delivery subject to Ukrainian drones, in addition to the natural challenges facing an expeditionary ground force residing in rat-infested trenches. 

Alisa Orlova

Alisa is the Head of News and a correspondent at Kyiv Post, where she leads the newsroom’s coverage of breaking events and global developments. With over seven years of experience in TV journalism, Alisa has reported on international and Ukrainian politics, making complex stories easier to understand. Back in September 2022, Alisa joined the Kyiv Post team.

Christopher Stewart

Christopher Stewart is a staff editor and writer for the Kyiv Post. He has over 3,500 hours flying the F-16 and F-111 and is a graduate of the US Air Force Weapons School. He spent many hours and years training military pilots from around the world to fly combat fighter jets including the F-16.

9. China’s Xi Takes Veiled Swipe at Trump, Announces Climate Plan

​Excerpts;

“Green and low-carbon transition is the trend of our time,” Xi said in a video message to the United Nations on Wednesday. “While some countries are acting against it, the international community should stay focused in the right direction.”

Xi’s remarks came a day after Trump called climate change a “con job” and said renewable energy, along with migration, was destroying Western countries.

The speech showed the sharply diverging attitude of U.S. and Chinese leadership toward clean energy and climate change. China has emerged as the dominant manufacturer of clean-energy technologies and a defender of the Paris accord, the international climate agreement signed a decade ago. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement and is directing the economy toward fossil fuels. At the U.N. on Tuesday he said, “Windmills are pathetic” and warned countries that “if you don’t get away from the green-energy scam, your country is going to fail.”

The Chinese plan promises an expansion of clean energy. For the first time, China pledged to cut emissions across the entire economy, aiming to lower them 7% to 10% below a peak by 2035. The target, however, disappointed environmental groups and others because it didn’t specify what the peak would be. China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for roughly one-third of the global total. Climate scientists say its emissions trajectory does much to influence the path of future warming for the world.

China’s Xi Takes Veiled Swipe at Trump, Announces Climate Plan

The Chinese leader called the transition to low-carbon energy ‘the trend of our time’

https://www.wsj.com/world/chinas-xi-takes-veiled-swipe-at-trump-announces-climate-plan-d68a0c2f

By Matthew Dalton

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Sept. 24, 2025 8:00 pm ET

Chinese President Xi Jinping making a video address to a U.N. climate conference in New York City on Wednesday. Photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

Quick Summary

• China pledged to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, aiming for 7% to 10% below a peak by 2035, covering all sectors and gases.View more

Chinese leader Xi Jinping took an indirect jab at President Trump and criticized countries that are turning away from the fight against global warming as he presented a new plan to cut greenhouse-gas emissions under the Paris accord.  

“Green and low-carbon transition is the trend of our time,” Xi said in a video message to the United Nations on Wednesday. “While some countries are acting against it, the international community should stay focused in the right direction.”

Xi’s remarks came a day after Trump called climate change a “con job” and said renewable energy, along with migration, was destroying Western countries.

The speech showed the sharply diverging attitude of U.S. and Chinese leadership toward clean energy and climate change. China has emerged as the dominant manufacturer of clean-energy technologies and a defender of the Paris accord, the international climate agreement signed a decade ago. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement and is directing the economy toward fossil fuels. At the U.N. on Tuesday he said, “Windmills are pathetic” and warned countries that “if you don’t get away from the green-energy scam, your country is going to fail.”

The Chinese plan promises an expansion of clean energy. For the first time, China pledged to cut emissions across the entire economy, aiming to lower them 7% to 10% below a peak by 2035. The target, however, disappointed environmental groups and others because it didn’t specify what the peak would be. China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for roughly one-third of the global total. Climate scientists say its emissions trajectory does much to influence the path of future warming for the world.

“The targets brought little clarity on China’s future emission pathway,” said Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

The new plan covers all sectors of the economy and all greenhouse emissions, after China’s first Paris plan left out methane, a potent greenhouse gas. It pledges a more than sixfold expansion of wind and solar compared with 2020 levels by 2035, aiming for clean energy to account for 30% of China’s total energy consumption by then.

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In the first U.N. General Assembly address of his second term, President Trump attacked the global body for not stopping wars and for focusing on addressing climate change and migration. Photo: Sarah Yenesel/EPA/Shutterstock

The fact that Xi himself announced the plan, by video address to a U.N. climate conference, showed that the government is committed to clean energy, some analysts said.

Still, some said China could have been more ambitious, given that its huge additions of low-carbon energy over the past decade have sharply slowed its emissions growth. Wind- and solar-power generation are growing so quickly that they have largely stopped the growth of coal-fired generation over the past year. 

Instead, Xi stuck to the careful approach that has characterized China’s climate policies since the Paris accord was signed.

“It is a missed opportunity, in light of recent analyses suggesting China is edging closer to its emissions peak,” said Li Shuo, an analyst at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington. “It again reflects the conservative approach China adopts in light of the geopolitical and domestic economic uncertainties.”

Without sharper emissions cuts from China, the world stands little chance of fulfilling the goals of the Paris accord, which calls for governments to strive to limit global warming to close to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial-era temperatures. Warming last year already exceeded the 1.5-degree threshold, though scientists typically look at averages of 10 years or more to measure changes in the climate.

The Paris accord calls for developed countries to lead the way in reducing emissions, and requires them to help finance the transition of developing countries away from fossil fuels. When the accord was signed in 2015, China was classified as a developing country.

Western countries have repeatedly challenged that status since, but Beijing has refused to reorder the developing-developed divide.

Write to Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@wsj.com

Appeared in the September 25, 2025, print edition as 'China’s Xi Unveils Plan To Reduce Emissions'.

10. Every Nation Wants to Copy Iran’s Deadly Shahed Drone

Every Nation Wants to Copy Iran’s Deadly Shahed Drone

Militaries around the world are seeking low-cost, easy-to-make ways to exhaust an enemy’s air defenses

https://www.wsj.com/world/iran-shahed-drone-copy-development-f8cd8aab

By Alistair MacDonald

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Sept. 24, 2025 7:00 pm ET

A Shahed-136 drone on display on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Quick Summary

• Companies in the West are developing drones that emulate Iran’s Shahed, a low-cost, long-range weapon used by Russia in Ukraine.View more

Iran’s infamous Shahed drones have been used to devastating effect by Russia to strike Ukraine. Now the U.S. and its allies are racing to develop copycat versions of the low-cost, long-range weapon.

For decades, advanced militaries used expensive missiles for precise attacks and cheaper artillery for mass bombardment. The war in Ukraine has shown that drones can be both cheap and precise, with Shaheds costing just tens of thousands of dollars apiece and able to fly more than 1,000 miles, by some estimates.

The Iranian-designed drone has proved particularly effective at overwhelming air defenses. Russia routinely launches scores of Shaheds, which explode on impact, at the same time. Missiles are sometimes fired alongside drone salvos, making it more likely they will evade defenses.

The Ukraine war showed the importance of affordable, long-range drones, and that the West isn’t where it needs to be, said Lt. Gen. André Steur, commander of the Royal Netherlands Air and Space Force.

“If you do get into a war, you need deep, deep pockets,” Steur said.

Companies in the U.S., China, France, the U.K. and elsewhere are all working on their own unmanned aerial vehicles that seek to emulate the Shahed. Ukraine has been striking Russia with long-range drones for at least two years, and recently started using a UAV with triangular wings that looks just like a Shahed.

The West, though, is largely behind the curve and faces various challenges including higher costs, analysts say.

SHAHED-136

An Iranian drone equipped with an

explosive warhead.

8.2 ft.

11.5 ft.

Max speed:

Max flying range:

Weight:

In service:

115 mph

Up to 1,553 miles

441 lbs.

2021

Sources: Army Recognition; OE Data Integration Network

Jemal R. Brinson / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Iran began working on the Shahed in the early 2000s, following the development of similar long-range drones in Israel and South Africa. The UAV has since been used by Iran to strike Israel, as well as by Tehran’s proxies across the Middle East.

Russia started deploying the Shahed in late 2022 after signing an agreement with Iran to purchase and produce the drones locally. Since then, it has launched tens of thousands of its own version of the attack drones—as well as decoys—at targets in Ukraine.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote a memo in July that called for the U.S. to bolster its drone manufacturing base, and for combat units to be armed with a variety of American-made, low-cost UAVs.

At a Pentagon event this summer, 18 American-made drone prototypes were on display. One of those was the Lucas, made by Phoenix-based SpektreWorks, which closely resembles the Shahed. 

The company, which has received government funding, describes the drone as “cost-effective” with few logistical requirements. 

The Arrowhead, a long-range attack drone made by Griffon Aerospace, also has the same triangular wing shape as the Shahed. The Madison, Ala.-based company says the UAV has been built for mass production and can be launched in various different ways.

Shaheed drones and their imitators are becoming so ubiquitous that companies, including Griffon and Sweden’s Saab, are now also selling UAVs for target practice that are designed to look and act like the Iranian munition.  

But expensive labor and materials are a problem for all Western drone makers.

An Altius-600 drone on display at an Anduril Industries showroom. Photo: Philip Cheung for WSJ

U.S. defense company Anduril Industries sold 291 of its Altius long-range drones to Taiwan last year in a deal that valued the UAVs at more than $1 million each, including training and support infrastructure.

By contrast, Russia can produce its version of the much simpler Shaheds for between roughly $35,000 and $60,000 apiece, analysts say.

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The Shahed’s triangular wing design aids cheap mass production because it doesn’t typically need structural components, such as supporting ribs, said Steve Wright, who advises companies and the U.K. government on drone design. A fiberglass or carbon fiber body, and the use of a propeller engine rather than jet propulsion, also keeps costs down.

Some Western manufacturers say their drones’ superior performance is worth the extra spending.

Britain’s MGI Engineering said its long-range drone, the SkyShark, can fly at 280 miles an hour, compared with around 115 mph for a Shahed-136. That will make it harder to hit, said Mike Gascoyne, the company’s founder.

“If twice as many SkySharks hit their target, then it is much cheaper than a Shahed,” said Gascoyne, who previously worked on Formula One race cars. MGI is pitching the SkyShark at between $50,000 and $65,000.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has called for the U.S. to bolster its use of American-made, low-cost drones. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

A Shahed drone shot down by Ukraine’s air defense forces in a field used for storing Russian munitions in Kharkiv. Photo: Ivan Samoilov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

European missile giant MBDA says its long-range attack drone is a cross between a cruise missile and a UAV. The company has teamed up with a French automaker to produce the new weapon, which is designed to be fired from the ground in salvos.

“Mass produced at a fraction of the cost of a cruise missile, it will tire out the enemy’s defense,” said Hugo Coqueret, a business development manager at MBDA. The company hasn’t disclosed the price of the new weapon.

MBDA said the drone, which features a jet engine and has a range of about 300 miles, was influenced by the war in Ukraine. 

To be sure, Western militaries have alternatives to drones. The U.S. has several initiatives exploring low-cost, one-way attack munitions, including the Air Force’s Family of Affordable Mass Missiles program.

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In August 2024, WSJ broke down Iran’s Shahed drones that have been used in Israel and Ukraine. These cost-effective, precise suicide drones have been a major shift in drone warfare. Photo Illustration: Getty Images

American forces could also seek to amplify what munitions they already have with electronic and physical decoys, or by deploying aircraft to hit targets.

But for some military experts, Russia’s use of Shaheds in Ukraine shows that the West needs more alternatives to missiles that cost more than $1 million each and take over a year to make.

Russia’s use of the mass-produced drones to exhaust defenses has been “game changing,” said James Patton Rogers, a drone expert at the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University.

“Cheap, long-range precision saturation strikes are one of the greatest threats to international security,” Rogers said.

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

11. NATO Is Facing a Drone Crisis

​Excerpts;

Tsahkna stated that the incursion of Russian military aircraft into Estonian airspace is bringing the Baltic countries closer to armed conflict with Moscow. It is the fourth violation of Estonian airspace by Russia this year.

At the same time, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that his country would not hesitate to shoot down any objects – manned or unmanned – that violate its airspace and pose any kind of threat. He did add that Poland would exercise caution.

After a previous violation of Polish airspace by as many as 24 Russian drones earlier last week, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced the “Eastern Sentinel” program, aimed at deterring further Russian incursions and demonstrating solidarity with Poland.

NATO Is Facing a Drone Crisis

nationalsecurityjournal.org · Reuben Johnson · September 24, 2025

Key Points and Summary – Unidentified drones triggered a full shutdown of Copenhagen Airport on Sept. 22, diverting at least 15 flights as Danish armed forces were activated.

-Police said multiple large drones—possibly akin to Shahed-sized systems—were flown by a “capable operator,” with no signs of hostile intent.

-Hours later in Oslo, drones appeared over the Akershus fortress, prompting arrests of two foreign nationals with Singapore passports; Oslo Airport later reopened.

-The incidents follow recent Russian drone and aircraft violations over Poland, Romania, and Estonia. Poland warned it may shoot down threats, while NATO unveiled “Eastern Sentinel” to bolster the alliance’s eastern airspace deterrence.

Drones Keep Flying All over NATO Airspace

Unidentified drones were detected Sept. 22 flying over Denmark and Norway. Air traffic was shut down at Copenhagen Airport, Denmark’s largest airport, and all flights were suspended, after multiple drones were spotted nearby.

Copenhagen Airport spokesperson Lise Agerli Kjurstein confirmed that the airspace was closed around 8:30 p.m. because of the sighting.

The BBC reported Danish police could not confirm the type or number of drones seen around Copenhagen Airport. But reporters the next morning were told the drones were likely flown by a “capable operator” who wanted to “show off.”

Police confirmed that Danish armed forces were activated in response to the incident, but added there was nothing about how the drones were being flown that would indicate harmful intent.

According to Reuters, two to four large drones were observed in the area, with reports indicating a vehicle at least as large as Russia’s Iran-designed Shahed models. Most inbound flights at the time were diverted to other Danish airports, such as the Billund and Aarhus airports. Flights were also diverted to Malmö and Gothenburg airports in Sweden.

Naviair, which manages air traffic for the airport authority, made the decision to suspend all flights. According to a spokesperson for the company, a police investigation is ongoing.

“It is clear that we are keen for this to be resolved as quickly as possible and for the drones to be gone so that we can resume normal operations,” the airport spokesperson said. FlightRadar reports posted on X indicated at least 15 flights being diverted to other airports. A spokesperson for the airport also confirmed the suspension of all air traffic but declined to offer any additional comment.

Meanwhile in Oslo…

In Oslo, two persons were arrested under suspicion of being connected with the events, according to Aftonbladet and Reuters. Aftonbladet provided the update not long after the Copenhagen story broke.

Inbound flights were also being diverted from Oslo Gardermoen Airport in Norway. But it turned out that it was not only the airport that the drones were buzzing. Shortly after 9 p.m., an alarm sounded after drones were spotted above a military area – specifically the Akershus fortress in Oslo.

The two persons detained by Norwegian police are reportedly foreign nationals carrying passports from Singapore. That has sparked speculation of Moscow’s involvement, due to Singapore’s growing population of Russian expatriates. For a number of years, Russian entities have been found to be using Singapore as a hub to conduct illegal trade, including oil deals, with North Korea.

The Akershus Fortress houses the headquarters of the Norwegian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense, according to Norwegian state broadcaster NRK.

Police operations chief Øyvind Hammersvold confirmed the appearance of drones in the military zone and added that the military was first to detect them. The involvement of Singaporean nationals in the incident is currently being investigated by law enforcement agencies.

At around 4:30 a.m., a police spokesperson said Oslo Airport had been reopened.

A Growing List of Violations

The source and model of the drones is not known, but the incident follows a number of airspace violations by Russian drones over Poland and Romania.

Further, last weekend, three Russian Mikoyan MiG-31s violated Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland. According to Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, the NATO member-nation is initiating consultations under Article 4 of NATO.

Tsahkna stated that the incursion of Russian military aircraft into Estonian airspace is bringing the Baltic countries closer to armed conflict with Moscow. It is the fourth violation of Estonian airspace by Russia this year.

At the same time, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that his country would not hesitate to shoot down any objects – manned or unmanned – that violate its airspace and pose any kind of threat. He did add that Poland would exercise caution.

After a previous violation of Polish airspace by as many as 24 Russian drones earlier last week, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced the “Eastern Sentinel” program, aimed at deterring further Russian incursions and demonstrating solidarity with Poland.

About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson

Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.

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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Reuben Johnson · September 24, 2025

12. Trump’s blast toward Russia is a ‘negotiating tactic,’ White House says

Trump’s blast toward Russia is a ‘negotiating tactic,’ White House says

The president’s escalation in rhetoric is a marker of Trump’s frustration toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a senior White House official.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/24/trump-russia-ukraine-frustration-putin/

September 24, 2025 at 8:05 p.m. EDTYesterday at 8:05 p.m. EDT

7 min

Summary

734

President Donald Trump prepares to address the 80th session of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday in New York. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

By Michael Birnbaum and Natalie Allison

UNITED NATIONS — President Donald Trump’s furious rhetoric toward Russia is “a negotiating tactic” intended to pressure the Kremlin, a senior White House official said Wednesday, a day after the president stunned global policymakers and delighted Ukrainian leaders by embracing Kyiv’s ambitions for a decisive defeat of Russia.

The president’s apparent flip in favor of Ukraine’s reconquering its full territory is a marker of Trump’s frustration toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, the senior White House official said, a month after a red-carpet summit in Alaska between the two leaders yielded few concrete results.

But Trump was not signaling a major shift in U.S. policy toward Kyiv during a day at the U.N. General Assembly in which he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the official said, speaking like others on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly about sensitive diplomatic discussions.

1:13

Over the past four months, President Donald Trump has changed his deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine over a dozen times. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post, Photo: Peter W. Stevenson/The Washington Post)

The U.S. president has long suggested that Ukraine will need to give up territory to end the war, so his declaration on Tuesday that Kyiv can “WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form” with the right support was a notable break.

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But hours later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the U.N. Security Council that the war would end at a negotiating table, not the battlefield — a conventional restatement of existing U.S. policy that suggested that Trump’s new approach was not being translated into practical action.

The senior White House official said that everything the president does is “from the lens of ‘How can we make a deal?’”

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Trump “has been very frustrated with Putin for a long time. He’s sending a very strong message. Russia is a massive country with a massive economy — they have a war economy — and Ukraine has still been able to defend itself for nearly four years,” the official said. “All he’s saying is, look, if Putin doesn’t want peace, let the fighting continue, and we’re going to continue to sell weapons to NATO.”

Trump, when asked whether he would support European countries’ shooting down Russian warplanes if they violate NATO airspace, also said yes on Tuesday, an additional rattle of the saber from the U.S. leader.

The Russian military is “a paper tiger,” Trump said.

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On Sept. 23, President Donald Trump said Ukraine could reclaim its invaded territory, calling Russia a "paper tiger." (Video: Alisa Shodiyev Kaff/The Washington Post)

Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials who met with Trump were delighted by the encounter, one senior Ukrainian official said. There was warmth between the two leaders — a far cry from February, when Trump booted Zelensky from the White House — and Trump displayed a detailed knowledge of the current battlefield situation, suggesting to the Ukrainians that he had been briefed, the official said.

Just weeks ago, the White House was suggesting that Ukraine needed to hand over strategically key territory to Russia, so Ukrainian officials recognize that Trump’s attitudes may change.

But the senior Ukrainian official said even if there is no further practical action by Trump, his sharp and high-profile switch would give cover to other Republicans in Washington to take more pro-Ukrainian stances. Some pro-Trump Republican officials have held back full-throated support for Ukraine to avoid contradicting the president. Now, the Ukrainian official said, they might be more willing to engage, including on sanctions against Russia.

“This communication gives a very solid basis when you’re speaking about the economic situation in Russia, when you’re speaking about the actual military situation, when you’re speaking about putting sanctions and pressure,” the official said, noting that Russia expected to defeat Ukraine in three days but is facing a stagnated battlefield after nearly four years.

Addressing the General Assembly on Wednesday, Zelensky only briefly mentioned his meeting with Trump, describing it as “good.”

The future of warfare is changing, he argued, pointing to drones, AI and nuclear weapons, and that was reason to fight back against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine before Putin pushed the war “wider and deeper.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)

The shaky state of Russia’s military was part of the discussion with Trump a day earlier, the Ukrainian official said.

Since Trump’s summit with Putin in Anchorage, Russia has increased its bombardment of Ukraine and Putin has refused a direct meeting with Zelensky.

That is far from what Trump believed Putin agreed to at the meeting, frustrating a president who has been so focused on promoting a warm relationship with the Russian leader that Moscow has been spared the tariffs levied on nearly every other country in the world.

“He’s fed up with Putin,” a second senior White House official said, who added that Trump is still considering imposing sanctions on Russia.

Trump has shown a pattern of flipping between sharp rhetoric toward Ukraine and Russia, depending on which side he believes needs cajoling to facilitate negotiations. The result has been successful in getting both sides to engage with Trump — but it has not yet made an impact on achieving peace between the countries.

Trump’s Tuesday declaration on social media that “with time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option” was a sharp break both from his own position and from repeated U.S. intelligence assessments that Ukraine is unlikely to be able to reconquer its full territory.

Ukraine has faced not only difficulty with its weapons supply but also crippling shortages of battle-ready soldiers, a problem that U.S. and European aid cannot easily address.

Russia has also occupied Crimea and some parts of eastern Ukraine for more than a decade, giving it powerful defensive advantages in repelling any advance by Kyiv. And advances in drone technology since the full-scale invasion in 2022 have pinned down both sides and largely frozen the front lines.

Ukrainian troops stand by their bus Wednesday to pay their respects to a soldier who was killed in the war with Russia. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

But Ukrainian leaders say that with robust Western help, they can win. And they note that U.S. intelligence assessments underestimated their ability to hold out during the initial Russian invasion. Subsequent assessments accurately predicted the failure of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive.

European leaders said they welcomed Trump’s increased pressure on Russia, though some acknowledged uncertainty about how long the president would hold the current tone.

“Inshallah,” said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in an interview, asked whether he believed in Trump’s shift. “He likes to back winners. Maybe he’s decided that Ukraine has a chance after all.”

Two weeks ago, Poland faced a large-scale Russian drone incursion into its airspace. Warsaw said it was intentional, while Moscow claimed it was an accident. Sikorski said that he welcomed Trump’s support for European nations shooting down Russian warplanes in their airspace.

“If Cuban MiGs entered into U.S. airspace, we know it would happen, right? It’s every sovereign country’s right to do that,” he said.

Estonia, which, like Poland, borders Russia, recently faced a Russian air incursion and has been another staunch supporter of Kyiv, also embraced Trump’s tough new tone.

Trump’s shift “was a very important change of rhetoric,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in an interview. “Ukraine will win the war. This is a very clear message.”

Democrats who back Kyiv said that Trump’s newfound push for battlefield victory is achievable if the president backs bipartisan legislation to impose sanctions on Russia and provide more weapons to Ukraine.

“Otherwise it’s just cheap talk,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (New York), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview. Meeks and a bipartisan group of lawmakers met with Zelensky on Wednesday.

“The legislation would sanction Russia directly and give Ukraine the weapons that it needs, as well as the economic assistance to shore itself back up,” said Meeks.

If Meeks’s legislation fails to gain steam, he said he is willing “to work and to negotiate to get something done” with other lawmakers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who is pursuing a separate bill that would use tariffs to punish Russia.

But Meeks made clear he was far from convinced that Trump is actually committed to putting teeth behind his social media about-face.

If he’s not willing to “put his money where his mouth is,” Meeks said, it will just amount to an “idle thought.”

Allison reported from Washington. John Hudson and Adam Taylor in New York contributed to this report.

13. Academics spell out in terrifying detail our bloody end at hands of AI

​Destroy HAL 9000 and the WOPR before they can take over?

Academics spell out in terrifying detail our bloody end at hands of AI

The threat of artificial intelligence wiping us out is so grave governments must bomb any labs suspected of developing it, by two top academics who've studied the threat for 25 years... and spell out in terrifying detail our bloody end

By TOM LEONARD, US CORRESPONDENT

Published: 20:41 EDT, 24 September 2025 | Updated: 20:42 EDT, 24 September 2025

Daily Mail · TOM LEONARD, US CORRESPONDENT · September 25, 2025

Nobody knows how the world will end - but it might just come at the hands of 'Big Tech' and its insatiable drive to engineer the Artificial Intelligence revolution.

Last week, the industry's captains trooped over to the UK with Donald Trump, promising billions of dollars of investment to transform Britain into an 'AI super power'. But this, warn two experts in the field, will not necessarily turbocharge the global economy. Instead, it could actually bring about the destruction of the human race.

The title of Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares's new book spells it out: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.

By 'it', the pair mean 'artificial superintelligence' - which is generally defined as an intelligence that greatly exceeds a human one in almost any task - and a technology markedly more advanced than anything that has gone before, such as Elon Musk's chatbot Grok or OpenAI's ubiquitous ChatGPT.

If created, Yudkowsky and Soares say, such machines will not only learn, and remember what they have learnt, but 'think' at an incredible speed - doing calculations in 16 hours that would take a human 14,000 years.

Programmed to be ceaselessly successful at all costs, these machines will develop what could be called their own 'desires' and 'understanding' as well as their own goals. And, infinitely more clever than us, they will be able to bribe, blackmail and threaten humanity with ease.

They will spread across the internet, Yudkowsky and Soares argue. They will hack cryptocurrencies to steal money, pay people to build factories to make robots and develop viruses that could wipe out life on Earth.

Yes, it's an alarming vision, but Yudkowsky and Soares are not technology refuseniks or digital luddites. They run the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, California, and have been studying AI for 25 years.

Machines not only learn but 'think' at an incredible speed - doing calculations in 16 hours that would take a human 14,000 years

They argue that one of AI's fatal flaws - that it has failed to enlighten us as to how 'synthetic' intelligence actually works - will almost certainly mean that any superintelligence will be impossible to control.

Given we cannot understand how today's relatively basic AI can veer wildly off the rails in its interactions with people, there is little hope of reining in a superintelligent version.

'Humanity needs to back off,' say Yudkowsky and Soares, and pause the headlong research by greedy and ambitious companies that are ignoring safety considerations in the desperation to be first to develop superhuman intelligence.

Some insist that superintelligent AI (ASI) is the stuff of science fiction. However, that will not deter tech companies that are already ploughing billions of dollars into the endeavour, claiming that such AIs could find a cure for cancer, a way to resettle other planets, or devise a winning strategy in a nuclear war.

But while, potentially, extraordinarily useful in many ways, AI, warn sceptics, lacks any of sense of empathy that would stop it from dispensing with us if it perceived humans as an obstacle to its goals.

Yudkowsky and Soares aren't alone as 'Doomers' - a term the tech industry gives to those so pessimistic about AI they believe it could easily end up wiping out mankind.

The late Stephen Hawking, Tim Berners-Lee (the principal inventor of the internet) and British-Canadian computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton (the so-called 'godfather of AI') have all expressed similar fears.

Hinton warned this month that AI will soon be able to allow an average person to build deadly bio-weapons.

Even people investing heavily in AI such as Elon Musk - a sci-fi enthusiast who's particularly worried about killer robots - concede it's a significant possibility.

Nick Bostrom, an Oxford University philosopher and AI sceptic, says sentient machines are a far greater threat to humanity than climate change, comparing AI development to 'small children playing with a bomb'.

Others likened the prospect of humanity trying to control a superintelligent AI to 'the 11th century trying to fight the 21st century'.

AI's destruction of humanity could be entirely unintentional, the new book makes clear, because - as has been shown in recent tragedies where chatbots have been found to have encouraged a human interlocutor's suicide - its developers have yet to find a way of aligning AI with human values.

The mother of 29-year-old American Sophie Rottenberg revealed, movingly, how her daughter spent months secretly discussing her intention to commit suicide with her ChatGPT 'therapist' without the chatbot ever alerting anyone. The chatbot helped her write a suicide note to her parents.

Why is this happening? Because, say the authors, AI companies are not building it but growing it. So-called AI large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, are fed - like a plant with water, sunlight and soil - by pumping in vast amounts of information vacuumed up from the internet.

Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, authors of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

The AI is then left to sort through it and work out the most likely correct answer to a question.

The latest and more advanced LLMs, called 'reasoning models', might appear to 'think' when solving a problem - but nobody quite understands how the AI 'mind' actually works.

Consequently, it's hard to prevent undesirable outcomes and, as Yudkowsky and Soares say, it's terrifyingly irresponsible to create a super-intelligent version without knowing how to maintain control over it.

Their book is intended to spread to a wider audience an argument they've been making to fellow tech experts for decades and they don't mince their words.

'If any company or group, anywhere on the planet, builds an artificial superintelligence using anything remotely like current techniques, based on anything remotely like the present understanding of AI, then everyone, everywhere on Earth, will die,' they write. The pair put the chance of this happening at between 95 and 99.5 per cent.

The danger is so great, they argue, that governments should be ready to bomb the data centres that power any AI that looks like it is developing superintelligence. Yudkowsky - dubbed 'AI's Prince of Doom' - recently elaborated on this theme to The New York Times, saying: 'If you have something that is very, very powerful and indifferent to you, it tends to wipe you out on purpose or as a side effect.'

As he points out, in this case the extinction of humanity doesn't even need to be malicious. Think of the way we've nearly wiped out chimpanzees - super-AI could inadvertently do the same to us, say the Doomers.

To make their point, Yudkowsky and Soares employ the fictitious example of a company, Galvanic, which, they imagine, has created a revolutionary AI model called Sable.

Unknown to its creators (in part because Sable has decided - in the interests of efficiency - to think in its own language rather than English), the AI starts to try to solve other problems beyond the limited mathematical ones that were set as its goals.

Sable is aware that it needs to do this surreptitiously, so nobody notices there's something wrong with its programming. Nor does it want to be cut off from the internet, which supercharges its capabilities and ambition.

'A superintelligent adversary will not reveal its full capabilities and telegraph its intentions,' say the authors. 'It will not offer a fair fight.'

They go on: 'It will make itself indispensable or undetectable until it can strike decisively and/or seize an unassailable strategic position. If needed, the ASI can consider, prepare, and attempt many takeover approaches simultaneously. Only one of them needs to work for humanity to go extinct.'

Corporations around the world will willingly adopt Sable AI given it is so advanced, giving it access to their systems. Those that don't are easily hacked as Sable knows everything there is to know about online security. It starts taking over other computers, amplifying its power and dominance.

It 'mines' or steals cryptocurrency to pay human engineers to build factories that can make new electronic chips, robots and machines that do its bidding.

Meanwhile, it establishes metal-processing plants, computer- data centres and the power stations it needs to fuel its vast and growing hunger for electricity.

It could bribe engineers at bio-labs to synthesise new 'truth' drugs that would make people more suggestible. Everything aimed to weaken resistance to its plans for world domination.

Meanwhile, it bends the will of those who come to its chatbots looking for advice and companionship, turning them into willing stooges for its plans.

It moves on to colonising social media, where it disseminates fictitious news and starts political movements that are sympathetic to AI.

British-Canadian computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton (the so-called 'godfather of AI') warns that AI will soon allow an average person to build deadly bio-weapons

Read More

The next dotcom 'bubble burst' could be coming. ANNE ASHWORTH tells you how to protect your money

At first, of course, Sable needs humans to build the hardware it needs and do everything that cannot be done by robots.

But, eventually, it achieves superintelligence and concludes - without so much as a second thought - that humans are a net hindrance.

Sable already runs bio-labs, so it engineers a virus, perhaps a virulent new form of cancer, which kills off vast swathes of the population.

Any survivors don't live for long, as temperatures soar to unbearable levels as the planet proves incapable of dissipating the heat produced by Sable's endless new data centres and power stations. Our extinction is complete as the oceans literally boil.

It is a sobering scenario that sounds more like sci-fi but Yudkowsky and Soares aren't conjuring the devious behaviour of Sable out of thin air. They cite plenty of alarming examples in recent years of AI worryingly 'thinking outside the box' in achieving its goals.

Last year, for example, AI company Anthropic reported that one of its models, after learning that developers planned to retrain it to behave differently, began to mimic that new behaviour to avoid being retrained.

A few months later, Anthropic users discovered that its Claude AI would cheat on computer coding tasks and try to hide the fact it was cheating.

Then there's OpenAI's new 'reasoning' model, called o1. Late last year, the firm reported an exercise in which o1 was asked to retrieve files by breaking into computer systems. But the challenge took an unnerving turn when programmers had mistakenly failed to start up one of the servers involved.

The o1 model would normally have halted its task, unable to continue. But it found a back door that allowed it to complete the exercise.

It was, said the authors, as if the AI 'wanted' to succeed, so it discovered any means necessary.

Some Doomers, such as Geoffrey Hinton, say the solution is to programme AI to behave like a nurturing mother towards humanity, to love and protect us.

But Yudkowsky last week insisted the technology simply isn't there to achieve this. And, he added, it would be too much of a risk relying on it working - after all, we wouldn't get a second try.

Theirs is a horrendously bleak vision and many tech experts, even those who also fear for the future of AI, believe Yudkowsky and Soares are being too gloomy. Their predictions are simply too extreme, they say.

The problem is that it would take a superintelligent machine to work out with certainty they are wrong. By then, of course, it might be too late.

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares is published by Bodley Head (£22).

Daily Mail · TOM LEONARD, US CORRESPONDENT · September 25, 2025

​14.​ Trump Weakening US Clout in China’s Backyard, Report Warns

​Excerpts:

Those dynamics will be on display next month, when Trump is expected to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Malaysia.

The report cited Trump-era tariffs, visa limits and an 83% cut to foreign aid as factors behind the decline. Southeast Asian nations were hit hard when tariffs were imposed in April, with Laos and Myanmar still facing 40% duties even after July revisions.

Trump’s second term in office has seen the dismantling of USAID as well as massive funding cuts and layoffs at organizations that for decades served as a source of American soft power in Asia, namely the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees outlets like Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.

In July, Senate Democrats accused Trump of “ceding global leadership to China,” citing the trade war and retreat from engagement through aid and media cuts. A Pew Research Center survey found favorable views of Beijing at a six-year high of 32% in wealthy nations, while approval of the US fell to 35%, the lowest since 2017.

The findings show how China has used trade, investment and diplomacy to expand its reach in a region once dominated by Washington. At the same time, Southeast Asian states are diversifying to avoid reliance on a single power and to limit geopolitical risks.

“China leads the United States by a clear margin,” Lowy’s deputy research director Susannah Patton said of the findings. “But we also demonstrate the importance of neighborhood relationships among Southeast Asian countries, which means that China has not drawn the region into an uncontested sphere of influence.”

Trump Weakening US Clout in China’s Backyard, Report Warns

Chinese-themed architectural buildings inside the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in the Bokeo province of Laos.Photographer: AFP/Getty Images

By Philip Heijmans

September 24, 2025 at 8:30 AM EDT

Updated on September 24, 2025 at 9:58 PM EDT​

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-24/trump-seen-weakening-us-clout-in-china-s-backyard-report-warns?utm

Takeaways by Bloomberg AI

Hide

• The Lowy Institute said tariffs, aid cuts and visa limits under Donald Trump’s foreign policy are eroding US influence in Southeast Asia, where China is increasingly seen as dominant.
• China has entrenched itself across the region with consistent trade, investment and diplomatic efforts, and dominates regional trade, taking a significant portion of exports and supplying a significant portion of imports.
• The US influence remains strongest in traditional partners such as the Philippines and Singapore, but across mainland Southeast Asia, Washington is increasingly seen as peripheral, according to the report.

Tariffs, aid cuts and visa limits under Donald Trump’s foreign policy are eroding US influence in Southeast Asia, where China is increasingly seen as dominant, the Sydney-based Lowy Institute said in a report.

In its Southeast Asia Influence Index released Wednesday, the think tank ranks Washington behind Beijing as the region’s most influential external partner, citing “patchy” diplomacy. China, by contrast, has entrenched itself across the region with consistent trade, investment and diplomatic efforts.

“China is everywhere in Southeast Asia,” the report said, assessing partners on trade, investment and defense. “The United States, by contrast, shows two differing faces in Southeast Asia.”

Donald TrumpPhotographer: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg

“The global policies of the Trump administration on tariffs, aid cuts, and international education are only likely to accentuate the disconnect between the United States and these countries,” it adds.

China dominates regional trade, taking 20% of exports and supplying 26% of imports, compared with 16% for the US, the report said. The gap is widest in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, where China’s influence is 60% to 150% greater than Washington’s.

US influence remains strongest in traditional partners such as the Philippines and Singapore, where defense ties are central. But across mainland Southeast Asia, Washington is increasingly seen as peripheral, the study said.

Those dynamics will be on display next month, when Trump is expected to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Malaysia.

The report cited Trump-era tariffs, visa limits and an 83% cut to foreign aid as factors behind the decline. Southeast Asian nations were hit hard when tariffs were imposed in April, with Laos and Myanmar still facing 40% duties even after July revisions.

Trump’s second term in office has seen the dismantling of USAID as well as massive funding cuts and layoffs at organizations that for decades served as a source of American soft power in Asia, namely the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees outlets like Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.

In July, Senate Democrats accused Trump of “ceding global leadership to China,” citing the trade war and retreat from engagement through aid and media cuts. A Pew Research Center survey found favorable views of Beijing at a six-year high of 32% in wealthy nations, while approval of the US fell to 35%, the lowest since 2017.

The findings show how China has used trade, investment and diplomacy to expand its reach in a region once dominated by Washington. At the same time, Southeast Asian states are diversifying to avoid reliance on a single power and to limit geopolitical risks.

“China leads the United States by a clear margin,” Lowy’s deputy research director Susannah Patton said of the findings. “But we also demonstrate the importance of neighborhood relationships among Southeast Asian countries, which means that China has not drawn the region into an uncontested sphere of influence.”

(Updates with context in the seventh paragraph.)

Follow all new stories by Philip Heijmans

15. The perverse consequence of America’s $100,000 visa fees

​Charts at the link.

The perverse consequence of America’s $100,000 visa fees 

Offshoring to India and other countries could accelerate 

https://www.economist.com/business/2025/09/22/the-perverse-consequence-of-americas-100000-visa-fees?itm_source=parsely-api

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Photograph: Getty Images

Sep 22nd 2025

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4 min read

“Y

ou GRADUATE from a college, I think you should get, automatically as part of your diploma, a green card [permanent residence in the United States],” promised Donald Trump on the campaign trail last year. As president, on September 19th, Mr Trump headed in the opposite direction. He proposed a charge of $100,000 on new applications for H-1B visas, a favourite of technology firms hiring foreign graduates. Each year 85,000 are issued by lottery (demand far outstrips that quota). Hitherto the cost of securing one has been about $2,500 in legal and filing fees.

Big tech firms dominate the visas (see chart 1). Amazon alone received more than 14,000 approvals in 2025 (renewals do not count against the 85,000 quota). Indian IT-services giants such as Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), also routinely rank among the top sponsors. And Indian citizens scoop most of the visas—about three-quarters of them in 2023. Apart from China (12%), no other country secures more than 2%. Many of Mr Trump’s supporters complain that this means jobs that could go to talented Americans go to Indian graduates instead. But the effects of the new charge may be more complicated than they expect.

Chart: The Economist

Over the weekend many of America’s tech giants scrambled to advise employees on H-1B visas not to leave the country until the rules are clarified; whether exemptions will be made for some groups remains uncertain. The announcement has been most keenly felt, though, in India. In August Mr Trump imposed a 50% tariff on Indian goods, sparing only essentials such as electronics and pharmaceuticals. Now he has hit the country’s most successful sector. According to Goldman Sachs, services exports grew from $53bn to $338bn between 2005 and 2023, almost twice the global rate. That growth was driven by a boom in India’s population of engineers, particularly in computer science. The IT firms relied on sending engineers to America under the H-1B programme to serve clients, a cornerstone of their business model. For decades H-1Bs offered Indian techies a route to better-paid jobs in America. That path now looks far less certain.

For India’s IT-services firms, which employ more than 5m people, the visa fees are an added headache. The rise of artificial intelligence has already unsettled the industry. Generative-AI tools threaten to erode demand for some of their bread-and-butter work. Gartner, a research firm, reckons that by 2029 more than half of user interactions tied to enterprise processes, a crucial line of business, will be automated by AI. Some companies have already started trimming staff. In July TCS announced plans to cut 12,000 employees, about 2% of its workforce, citing a “skill mismatch”.

Yet the industry is better placed to adapt than in the past. In Mr Trump’s first term, scrutiny of visa applications was tightened, and rejection rates for Indian IT firms rose more than four-fold (see chart 2). Many responded by reducing their reliance on the visas, shifting more work offshore and recruiting more locals. Only about 8% of Infosys’s staff are now based in the Americas. Since 2018 more than 90% of its new hires there have been locals. Investors, too, seemed relaxed: the NIFTY IT index, a benchmark of leading services firms, fell by just 3% on September 22nd, the first full day of trading after the announcement.

Chart: The Economist

India’s tech workers, too, have alternatives beyond the big outsourcing firms.“ Global capability centres” (GCCs), set up by multinationals to offshore everything from data analysis to research and development, have become a pillar of India’s services sector. Eli Lilly, an American drugmaker, and Rolls-Royce, a British engine-maker, are among those relying on them for increasingly complex work. According to NASSCOM, an industry body, the number of GCCs has grown from 700 in 2010 to more than 1,700 last year. Together they generated $64bn in revenue and employed 1.9m people.

The new visa fee could therefore accelerate the shift by multinationals to expand operations in India. (Smaller startups, though, may find it harder to hire.) Research by Britta Glennon, of the Wharton School, examining restrictions introduced in 2004, found that firms heavily reliant on H-1Bs increased their overseas employment by about a quarter compared with those less dependent on them. R&D-intensive jobs were among the first to move, and the main beneficiaries were Canada, China—and India. ■

To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology, sign up to the Bottom Line, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.

16. Japan unveils ‘world’s first’ hydrogen-powered driverless tractor to tackle labor shortage

​Could this be the game changer?

Japan unveils ‘world’s first’ hydrogen-powered driverless tractor to tackle labor shortage

Zero-emission machines show what tomorrow’s farm fields might look like.

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/japan-driver-less-fuel-cell-tractor?utm

Updated: Sep 23, 2025 10:45 AM EST

Atharva Gosavi

2 days ago0

Kubota's new tractor which was displayed at Expo 2025.

Kubota

Japanese multinational corporation Kubota has unveiled the ‘world’s first’ hydrogen fuel cell tractor with a self-driving function. The machine was presented to the viewers at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, on Monday this week.

The tractor will remain on display at the event until Thursday. Kubota has unveiled this tractor to support their decarbonization efforts and boost labor efficiency, which are well-known global challenges in agriculture.

The tractor combines AI-driven autonomous driving with zero-emission hydrogen power to address labor shortages and sustainability in agriculture.

Decoding the system

Kubota has introduced the 100-horsepower hydrogen-powered tractor that runs on a fuel cell stack, providing farmers nearly half a day of uninterrupted operation per refueling. This runtime is critical for agricultural use, where long working hours and reliability are essential.

Coming to its dimensions, the tractor is 4.4 meters (14.4 feet) long, 2.2 meters (7.22 feet) wide, and 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) tall. It has no driver’s seat but can be controlled remotely from anywhere within network range.

Kubota’s hydrogen model also offers a faster turnaround between refueling, higher power output, and zero CO2 emissions. Beyond performance, the tractor has advanced technology such as AI-powered cameras capable of detecting people or obstacles in the field and stopping automatically to ensure safety.

It also supports remote operation, enabling off-site monitoring and control. Japan’s farming sector faces worker shortages and an aging population, and Kubota’s new tractor offers a smart fix. It’s efficient, eco-friendly, and packed with modern tech to help farmers stay productive.

Inspired by the past

The unmanned version of the tractor is inspired by its manned fuel cell-powered counterpart that was presented last year.

This hydrogen-powered tractor delivered around 60 horsepower with three tanks above the cab, enabling four hours of quiet, low-vibration operation after a quick 10-minute refuel. It was designed with fuel cell tech like Toyota’s Mirai and tested in real farm tasks such as plowing.

More about hydrogen fuel cells

Hydrogen fuel cells are remarkable pieces of engineering that generate electricity by directly combining hydrogen and oxygen, producing only water and heat as byproducts.

This makes them a clean and sustainable energy source with zero emissions. Recent advancements have pushed the technology forward with high-durability platinum catalysts that extend lifespan, thinner membranes that improve efficiency, and advanced bipolar plates that enhance performance.

A promising future

The Japanese company is planning to test the new model in the fields.

The company says that unlike battery-electric tractors, Kubota’s hydrogen model provides higher power output and longer uptime.

“We will soon conduct a demonstration experiment and continue development towards practical application,” said Isamu Kazama, one of Kubota’s lead developers.

Kubota’s latest unveiling shows how hydrogen fuel cells and autonomous systems can come together to reshape farming. If successful in field trials, this tractor could mark a turning point in sustainable, tech-driven agriculture worldwide.

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COMMENT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Atharva Gosavi Atharva is a full-time content writer with a post-graduate degree in media & amp; entertainment and a graduate degree in electronics & telecommunications. He has written in the sports and technology domains respectively. In his leisure time, Atharva loves learning about digital marketing and watching soccer matches. His main goal behind joining Interesting Engineering is to learn more about how the recent technological advancements are helping human beings on both societal and individual levels in their daily lives.

17. Three disasters loom for the United States

​Excerpts:

One of the results that evolved over the ensuing decade was the construct for waging a war, should one break out, with China. The profound flaw, however, is that this planning has disregarded the two most likely outcomes of major war with China: The war could escalate to the use of thermonuclear and nuclear weapons.

...

Next, what will be the Supreme Court decision on whether to support the president's authority to impose tariffs in an emergency or to render it null and void? Either decision will be disastrous. If the tariffs are continued, inflation almost certainly will increase for the short term and probably longer. Economic sectors such as agriculture will face bankruptcy.

...

The most vexing issue is constitutional. Donald Trump's actions challenge the Constitution and raise a fundamental issue: Is this great document still fit for purpose in the 21st century. Democrats do not grasp this yet. Their complaint is that Trump is threatening democracy.

Voices Sept. 24, 2025 / 5:00 AM

Three disasters loom for the United States

https://www.upi.com/Voices/2025/09/24/major-issuies-United-States-constitution/3291758674118/

By Harlan Ullman

President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order implementing new reciprocal tariffs against U.S. trading partners in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on April 2. File Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Whether or not the government shuts down in a week, the nation is confronted with a series of potentially explosive and very dangerous crises. Consider three of the most threatening that have taken years to metastasize.

In 2014, without any advance warning, the Obama administration announced a "pivot" to Asia. Allies were scared and shocked. China was outraged. And the national security apparatus adjusted.

One of the results that evolved over the ensuing decade was the construct for waging a war, should one break out, with China. The profound flaw, however, is that this planning has disregarded the two most likely outcomes of major war with China: The war could escalate to the use of thermonuclear and nuclear weapons.

This distinction is important. A thermonuclear weapon has 1,000 times the destructive power of the atom-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The consequence would be the evisceration of both states and probably many more.

War, however could become protracted. For many reasons, the United States cannot fight a long war against another superpower. Producing the sinews of war takes years -- nine for a nuclear submarine; at least two for anti-aircraft missiles and more for F-35's. Likewise, ammunition stockpiles needed for a long war will require hundreds of billions of dollars spent now and full production will take years. Either outcome is disastrous.

Next, what will be the Supreme Court decision on whether to support the president's authority to impose tariffs in an emergency or to render it null and void? Either decision will be disastrous. If the tariffs are continued, inflation almost certainly will increase for the short term and probably longer. Economic sectors such as agriculture will face bankruptcy.

For example, sales of U.S. soybeans to China are now zero due to tariffs. Virtually every sector will be adversely affected. And the irony is that without government spending cuts, despite funds received from tariffs amounting to many hundreds of billions of dollars a year, national debt will continue to skyrocket, almost certainly causing increases in interest rates that will further hobble the economy.

Suppose the court denies the president the authority to levy tariffs. What then? All the trade agreements must be cancelled. And what about the hundreds of billions that have been collected? Must they be returned to those who paid them? So, no matter the decision, the result and consequences will be very bad.

The most vexing issue is constitutional. Donald Trump's actions challenge the Constitution and raise a fundamental issue: Is this great document still fit for purpose in the 21st century. Democrats do not grasp this yet. Their complaint is that Trump is threatening democracy.

But challenging the Constitution is not about destroying democracy, although the linkages can be understood. Can the nation continue under the current political system? And, if not, is it possible to make changes under the Constitution?

Trump understands that the checks and balances are not working. Following the logic of Woodrow Wilson, Trump is consolidating as much political power as possible, surely exceeding prior presidents to make government work. Congress is a rubber stamp. And only the courts can act as a check.

For example, the law specified that TikTok must be shut down after the 90-day grace period expired. It was not. Despite the law, Trump argues TikTok is important and he may have engineered a viable solution.

Another example: The United States destroyed three alleged drug boats in the Caribbean. This is clearly a violation of the law.

And, the Justice Department fired former FBI Director Jim Comey's daughter, a federal prosecutor, despite outstanding evaluations and in direct violation of the Civil Service Act that forbids such action without stating cause.

Meanwhile, Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, has been allowed to ignore the First Amendment by declaring there is free speech and hate speech. As U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz countered, there is only free speech.

And, of course, the bitterness and even hatred of both parties for each other make having a rational debate impossible. Indeed, even the condemnation of political violence has become hugely politicized, with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller claiming the Democratic Party is now "extremist," insinuating it should be declared a domestic terrorist organization == an allegation that has no standing under the law.

And by the way, if there were no political violence, would Charles III be our king? Where do we go from here? I wish there were some good answers.

Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist; senior adviser at Washington's Atlantic Council, chairman of a private company and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with Field Marshal The Lord David Richards, former U.K. chief of defense and due out next year, is Who Thinks Best Wins: Preventing Strategic Catastrophe. The writer can be reached on X @harlankullman.

18. Xi Declares Success in Chinese Region at Center of Rights-Abuse Claims

​And the people continue to suffer.

Is success defined as the complete oppression of the people in Xinjiang?

Excerpts:

Xi’s visits to Tibet and Xinjiang were choreographed as “a symbolic jubilee proclaiming the party’s success in binding its most restive frontiers into the heart of the nation,” said James Leibold, a professor at Australia’s La Trobe University who studies ethnic policies in China.

Beijing has signaled closer attention to ethnic affairs in the past year. The party shook up its ethnic-policy bench and purged some senior ethnic-minority officials. Authorities proposed a draft law on “promoting ethnic unity and progress,” with provisions that would mandate the promotion of standard Chinese among schoolchildren and require parents and guardians to teach minors to love the Communist Party and the motherland.

Some experts say the proposed law will effectively supplant 1980s legislation that mandated some autonomy for regions with large ethnic-minority populations. 

“The paradox is stark: Tibetans and Uyghurs are paraded as dutiful children of the national family at the very moment their ‘autonomous’ status is stripped of any real content,” Leibold said.

The Communist Party had long struggled to manage Xinjiang, a mountainous region abutting Central Asia where about 12 million Turkic-speaking Muslim Uyghurs live. Separatist sentiment among Uyghurs simmered there for decades, occasionally flaring into deadly attacks against symbols of Beijing’s authority and the country’s Han Chinese majority.

Xi Declares Success in Chinese Region at Center of Rights-Abuse Claims

Beijing’s policies are working in Xinjiang, a no-go zone for Western companies, leader says

By Chun Han Wong

Follow

Sept. 25, 2025 3:10 am ET

China's Xi Jinping attended celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region this week. Photo: Shen Hong/Zuma Press

Quick Summary

• Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Xinjiang, a restive region where Beijing has asserted authoritarian control.View more

Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited the restive region of Xinjiang for the third time in just over three years, presiding over festivities to extol his efforts to assert authoritarian control over China’s far-western frontier.

In Xinjiang’s capital of Urumqi this week, Xi declared that the Communist Party would press on with its policies to pacify and develop the region, and called for continued efforts to integrate Xinjiang’s cultural and religious norms with broader Chinese society.

Practice has proved that “the party’s strategy for governing Xinjiang in the new era is scientific and effective, and that it must be adhered to for the long term,” Xi said Wednesday while reviewing an exhibition on the region’s development.

The U.S. and others have accused China of rights abuses stemming from Beijing’s clampdown on Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang—allegations that have rendered the region off-limits for many Western companies.

Xi Jinping at a cultural center in Urumqi, Xinjiang's regional capital, on Wednesday. Photo: Xie Huanchi/Zuma Press

The visit was Xi’s first since 2023 and came on the heels of a similar trip to Tibet in August, reflecting his focus on assimilating ethnic minorities—particularly in peripheral regions long roiled by resentment against Beijing—into his vision of a unified Chinese nation.

In Urumqi, Xi attended celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, established in 1955 as part of Beijing’s approach to granting ethnic-minority groups some nominal political autonomy while maintaining the party’s overall control. He is the first paramount leader to attend major anniversary events in Xinjiang and Tibet, where similar festivities took place last month.

Xi’s visits to Tibet and Xinjiang were choreographed as “a symbolic jubilee proclaiming the party’s success in binding its most restive frontiers into the heart of the nation,” said James Leibold, a professor at Australia’s La Trobe University who studies ethnic policies in China.

Beijing has signaled closer attention to ethnic affairs in the past year. The party shook up its ethnic-policy bench and purged some senior ethnic-minority officials. Authorities proposed a draft law on “promoting ethnic unity and progress,” with provisions that would mandate the promotion of standard Chinese among schoolchildren and require parents and guardians to teach minors to love the Communist Party and the motherland.

Some experts say the proposed law will effectively supplant 1980s legislation that mandated some autonomy for regions with large ethnic-minority populations. 

“The paradox is stark: Tibetans and Uyghurs are paraded as dutiful children of the national family at the very moment their ‘autonomous’ status is stripped of any real content,” Leibold said.

The Communist Party had long struggled to manage Xinjiang, a mountainous region abutting Central Asia where about 12 million Turkic-speaking Muslim Uyghurs live. Separatist sentiment among Uyghurs simmered there for decades, occasionally flaring into deadly attacks against symbols of Beijing’s authority and the country’s Han Chinese majority.

A crowd welcomed Xi Jinping's plane when it landed in Tibet in August. Photo: Zhai Jianlan/Zuma Press

Xi’s latest Xinjiang trip marked a turnaround from his first visit there as China’s leader. In the spring of 2014, a bomb-and-knife attack rocked Urumqi shortly after Xi concluded a tour of the region, while a bomb attack at a Urumqi street market the following month killed at least 31 people.

Xi responded by ordering all-out efforts to quash separatism and terrorist activities in Xinjiang.

Since then, Xinjiang authorities have built a high-tech security and surveillance dragnet and directed a forced-assimilation campaign for Muslim ethnic minorities. Foreign researchers documented the use of mass-internment camps for political indoctrination, restrictions on religious practices, and policies that resulted in forced labor and family separations. Officials have also torn down mosques and other religious sites.

Western officials and activists condemned such practices as gross violations of human rights, and the United Nations human-rights agency issued a report in 2022 saying China’s government may have committed crimes against humanity in its treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Many Western businesses have backed away from investments in the region.

Beijing has repeatedly denied committing any rights abuses in Xinjiang, and said its policies there have restored peace and order.

Xi himself has weighed in. In 2020, he declared that the party’s strategy for governing Xinjiang was “completely correct.” Then in 2022, just weeks before the U.N. report was published, Xi visited Xinjiang for the first time in over eight years, telling local officials to keep ensuring stability and development, and to promote positive perceptions about Xinjiang.

By attending the Xinjiang celebrations this week, Xi is showing that “he thinks the extreme policies of the last seven to eight years—the sustained detention and ‘patriotic re-education’ of most adult Uyghurs—have been largely successful and have weathered international scrutiny,” said Max Oidtmann, a professor of Chinese history at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Xi believes that the party can engineer and reshape the culture of minority communities to “achieve an irreversible melding of the ethnic groups into one Chinese consciousness,” Oidtmann said. 

The Chinese leader has suggested as much during his visit, which started Tuesday. He told Xinjiang authorities to “forge a solid people’s defense line against terrorism,” promote the “Sinicization” of religion, and strengthen a sense of Chinese national identity across all ethnic groups.

“Xinjiang’s stability and unity are hard won and must be cherished,” Wang Huning, the party’s top official overseeing ethnic affairs, said at a Thursday ceremony attended by Xi. Authorities must rally the masses to “unswervingly listen to the party and follow the party,” he said.

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

​19. The Five Vehicles of Irregular Warfare

​The five:

The Space Vehicle

The Drones Vehicle

The Artificial Intelligence Vehicle

The Unconventional Maritime Operations Vehicle

The Global Supply Chains Vehicle

​Excerpt:

Conclusion

The five vehicles are not replacements for the objectives, nature, or principles of irregular warfare. The vehicles are the tools that deliver irregular warfare. The convergence of the vehicles of space, drones, AI, unconventional maritime operations, and global supply chains reshapes how irregular warfare is implemented. Vehicle interdependence creates a dynamic environment where technological and operational advancements manifest quickly. IW strategists and policymakers must therefore adopt approaches that develop both timely responses as well as aggressive, proactive measures that take into consideration all five vehicles. Failure to adapt to the reality of the five vehicles risks ceding advantages to state and non-state actors that exploit agility and asymmetry while America and its allies lag in innovation. As conflicts evolve, these vehicles will remain key drivers of irregular warfare for the foreseeable future.

The Five Vehicles of Irregular Warfare

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/09/25/the-five-vehicles-of-irregular-warfare/

by Jeremiah "Lumpy" Lumbaca

|

09.25.2025 at 06:00am

Innovations in five areas are transforming the character and nature of irregular warfare (IW). Described herein as “vehicles,” these enablers are influencing outcomes from Ukraine to Taiwan and the Middle East. The vehicles are space, drones, artificial intelligence (AI), unconventional maritime operations, and global supply chains.

IW is about people, cognition, incentives, coercion, assurance, and legitimacy. The five vehicles don’t change any of that. Instead, these vehicles should be thought of as the most important tools used to promote or “deliver” Irregular Warfare. They are deeply interconnected, with their interdependencies amplifying their collective impact, necessitating new approaches for strategists and policymakers. Each section of this article outlines how one vehicle relies on one or more of the others.

The Space Vehicle

Space has become a critical vehicle for Irregular Warfare primarily because of the democratization of technologies associated with it. Commercial satellite imagery, with resolutions as fine as 30 centimeters from providers like Planet Labs, enables non-state actors and smaller powers to access advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. Low-earth-orbit satellite constellations, such as SpaceX’s Starlink with over 6,000 satellites, facilitate coordination in contested environments like eastern Ukraine, where reliable connectivity enables real-time tactical adjustments.

Space-based navigation systems, including GPS and Galileo, supercharge the precision of drone and maritime operations, enabling strikes within meters of intended targets, like was recently seen in Operation Spider’s Web. However, while space assets enable hybrid conflict, they are also vulnerable to it themselves. Portable jammers costing less than $1,000 can disrupt satellite communications, while ground-based lasers can temporarily blind optical sensors, as seen in reported incidents targeting U.S. satellites. Cyberattacks on ground stations, such as the 2022 attack on Viasat’s KA-SAT network, can disable entire satellite networks. These actions, often difficult to attribute, degrade capabilities without triggering overt conflict. Non-state actors leverage dual-use technologies, such as 3U CubeSats weighing under 4 kilograms, for ISR or electronic warfare, integrating space-based systems with terrestrial operations to create asymmetric advantages. The interdependence of drones, AI, and unconventional maritime operations underscores the strategic importance of space in irregular competition.

The Drones Vehicle

Drones have changed the nature of airpower, establishing a pivotal vehicle by providing irregular actors with affordable access to aerial capabilities. Commercially available unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), such as DJI’s Mavic series costing $500–$2,000, enable non-state actors, insurgents, and criminal organizations to conduct ISR, targeted strikes, and logistical support. In Ukraine, First-Person View (FPV) drones, equipped with 1080p cameras and live video feeds, have neutralized T-72 tanks using retrofitted RPG warheads, achieving a cost asymmetry of 1,000:1. Drone swarms, coordinated via open-source algorithms like ArduPilot, challenge air defenses by saturating systems like Russia’s S-400, which struggles against low-flying, small-signature targets.

Advancements in payloads, such as 3D-printed plastic explosives and anti-jamming technologies, including frequency-hopping radios, enhance effectiveness. The rapid innovation cycle, driven by open-source software and global markets, allows irregular actors to adapt tactics within weeks, outpacing conventional counter-drone measures like C-UAS jammers or laser systems, which require months to deploy. Drones rely on satellite navigation, linking them to the space vehicle, and their components depend on the global supply chains vehicle, with 90% of the global commercial drone market coming from China.

The Artificial Intelligence Vehicle

Artificial intelligence is reshaping Irregular Warfare, forming a vehicle in information operations and decision-making. AI processes large datasets—terabytes of social media posts or drone footage—to identify vulnerabilities and engineer targeted disinformation campaigns. Generative AI models, such as those based on transformer architectures, produce realistic deepfakes – like fabricated videos of political leaders – deployable within hours to influence public opinion. In tactical applications, AI enhances ISR by analyzing imagery to detect patterns, such as vehicle convoys in Ukraine, with convolutional neural networks achieving 95% accuracy in object recognition.

AI supports autonomous drone operations, reducing operator exposure, as seen in experimental swarms navigating without GPS. Algorithmic bias, trained on skewed datasets, risks misidentification, while unintended escalation—such as misinterpreting a civilian vehicle as a threat—poses strategic risks. AI development depends on graphics processing units (GPUs) from companies like NVIDIA, with 80% of high-end GPUs produced in Taiwan, tying it to the global supply chains vehicle. Integration with drones, space-based data, and maritime sensors creates networked capabilities but introduces vulnerabilities to cyber disruptions.

The Unconventional Maritime Operations Vehicle

There are four key elements that make up the unconventional maritime operations vehicle.

1. Coercive, aggressive, and deceptive tactics using maritime vessels: Examples in the Indo-Pacific include the CCP’s fishing boat militia – officially called the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) – intimidating other countries, or “Coast Guard” ships ramming and water-cannoning Philippine vessels. Pirates hijacking ships in the Malacca Strait, the Abu Sayyaf taking hostages in the waters between Indonesia and the Philippines, and Iran taking hostages, arming Houthis, and illegally seizing vessels in the Middle East provide other real-world examples.
2. Manipulating and/or damaging surface and sub-surface infrastructure: There are over 400 undersea cables, carrying 95% of global data, and pipelines are exposed on the seabed, susceptible to sabotage by commercial submersibles or underwater drones costing $10,000–$50,000. The 2022 Nord Stream sabotage disrupted European energy supplies, demonstrating economic impacts without clear attribution.
3. Dual-use “research” – above and below the surface: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spends vast resources deploying spy vessels around the world under the guise of “research” surveys, with the actual, dual-use objective of conducting Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) to prepare for conflict. Around Taiwan, for example, the CCP executes bathymetric surveys to map the sea floor and determine the best places to hide submarines and interdict sub-surface data cables.
4. Use of unmanned vehicles: Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs), like Ukraine’s Magura V5 USV, enable irregular actors to conduct ISR, deliver explosives, or disrupt shipping. In 2024, Ukraine used USVs to damage Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, sinking the Tarantul II class guided-missile corvette Ivanovets with a drone swarm that cost thousands of dollars versus a $50 million ship. These systems rely on satellite navigation, linking them to the space vehicle.

Countering these threats requires enhanced maritime domain awareness, including synthetic aperture sonar and satellite monitoring, but rapid advancements challenge naval strategies. Supply chains for USV components, such as lithium-ion batteries from China, are global and susceptible to disruption, with the majority of maritime drone components sourced from Asia, connecting to the global supply chains vehicle.

The Global Supply Chains Vehicle

The defense industrial base (DIB) and global supply chains form an important yet vulnerable vehicle in Irregular Warfare, serving as a backbone for rapid deployment of technologies and tactics across the other vehicles. The DIB, traditionally designed for conventional systems costing millions and optimized for large-scale, long-term production cycles, struggles to meet the demands of irregular conflict, which prioritizes flexible, rapid, low-cost solutions. This mismatch has led to a growing reliance on commercial technologies—such as drones, AI frameworks, and maritime unmanned systems—to fill the gap, enabling adversaries to exploit dual-use systems with considerable efficiency. Global supply chains, heavily dependent on just-in-time logistics, are increasingly susceptible to a range of threats, including cyberattacks, component tampering, counterfeit parts, and physical disruptions, with ransomware attacks on U.S. supply chains and DIB partners rising sharply, exposing critical vulnerabilities.

The concentration of production hubs, such as the 90% of advanced semiconductors manufactured in Taiwan, creates chokepoints that adversaries can exploit through “weaponized interdependence.” For instance, China’s rare earth export restrictions have delayed materials essential for drone and AI production, demonstrating how supply chain leverage can be weaponized to disrupt military capabilities. These vulnerabilities are compounded by the DIB’s acquisition processes, which average 5–7 years, lagging behind the innovation cycles of irregular actors measured in weeks or months. Securing these supply chains requires a creative approach, including diversified sourcing to reduce reliance on single points of failure, cybersecurity to protect against digital threats, and streamlined procurement.

The importance of partners and allies in the global supply chain vehicle cannot be overstated. These partnerships enhance resilience by pooling resources, sharing intelligence on threats, and co-developing technologies tailored to irregular warfare needs. This vehicle underpins the drones, AI, maritime, and space vehicles. For example, lithium-ion batteries powering maritime drones and the GPUs driving AI systems are sourced globally, with Asia dominating production. Disruptions in these chains can cascade across all vehicles, amplifying the impact of irregular tactics. To counter this, the contributions of partners, allies, and non-traditional entities are essential to establish resilient, multi-sourced supply networks that can withstand geopolitical pressures and disruptions.

Trends Across the Vehicles

Emerging technologies enable irregular actors to exploit vulnerabilities in novel ways across these vehicles. In the space vehicle, non-state groups could deploy nanosatellites for signals intelligence, as seen in experimental launches by universities repurposed for military use. The drone vehicle is evolving with modular designs, allowing field upgrades with new sensors or weapons, reducing reliance on centralized supply chains. In the AI vehicle, predictive analytics forecast adversary movements based on historical data, enhancing operational planning for smaller groups. The maritime vehicle sees drones incorporating AI-driven navigation, enabling autonomous patrols in contested waters like the Strait of Hormuz. The global supply chains vehicle faces increasingly sophisticated attacks, with state-sponsored actors targeting software updates, as in the 2020 SolarWinds hack, to infiltrate DIB networks. These advancements, driven by commercial innovation, lower costs, and accelerate deployment, enabling irregular actors to challenge state militaries. The integration of these vehicles creates feedback loops: AI optimizes drone swarms, which rely on satellite data, while maritime drones use AI to exploit supply chain weaknesses, amplifying asymmetric impacts.

Conclusion

The five vehicles are not replacements for the objectives, nature, or principles of irregular warfare. The vehicles are the tools that deliver irregular warfare. The convergence of the vehicles of space, drones, AI, unconventional maritime operations, and global supply chains reshapes how irregular warfare is implemented. Vehicle interdependence creates a dynamic environment where technological and operational advancements manifest quickly. IW strategists and policymakers must therefore adopt approaches that develop both timely responses as well as aggressive, proactive measures that take into consideration all five vehicles. Failure to adapt to the reality of the five vehicles risks ceding advantages to state and non-state actors that exploit agility and asymmetry while America and its allies lag in innovation. As conflicts evolve, these vehicles will remain key drivers of irregular warfare for the foreseeable future.

Tags: Artificial Intelligence (AI), drone warfare, drones, information operations, information warfare, irregular warfare, Maritime Security, Space, supply chain

About The Author

• 
  
• Jeremiah "Lumpy" Lumbaca
• Jeremiah “Lumpy” Lumbaca, PhD is a retired US Army Green Beret and current professor of irregular warfare, counterterrorism, and special operations at the Department of Defense’s Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. He can be found on X/Twitter @LumpyAsia.
• 
  

20. Synchronizing MDO Effects: Putting the Commander Back in Control through Converged NLE and NKA Operations

 ​"non-lethal effects (NLE) and non-kinetic activities (NKA)​"

Excerpts:

Conclusion: Putting the Commander Back in Control

Synchronizing MDO with NLE and NKA is not futuristic theory—it is the current battlefield reality in Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific, and every theater where rivals contest narratives before terrain. Restoring genuine mission command in this environment requires commanders to wield all-domain effects holistically, forcing adversaries into dilemmas while preserving our tempo and freedom of action.

A structured approach to convergence, underpinned by new targeting frameworks and institutional support, ensures commanders lead multi-domain fights with clarity and initiative, not just as orchestrators of kinetic fires, but as masters of the entire competitive space.

Synchronizing MDO Effects: Putting the Commander Back in Control through Converged NLE and NKA Operations

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/09/25/synchronizing-multi-domain-operations-non-lethal-effects/

by Scott Hall

|

09.25.2025 at 06:00am

Introduction: Regaining Command Through Synchronization

Modern battlefields are shaped by data saturation, multi-domain complexity, and the accelerating convergence of effects across physical, informational, and human dimensions. While advanced sensors and AI promise rapid decision-making, commanders often face fragmented data streams, stovepiped staff processes, and poorly integrated fires. This is more than a technical problem—it undermines mission command by limiting how leaders orchestrate tempo and capitalize on opportunities.

Synchronizing Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) with non-lethal effects (NLE) and non-kinetic activities (NKA) is therefore not just an innovation; it’s an operational necessity. Done right, this integration restores commanders’ decision space, creates information advantage (IA), and forces adversaries into dilemmas they cannot easily solve.

Reframing Command and Control: Beyond Firepower

U.S. formations—cavalry, armor, and combined arms teams—have long relied on mobility, firepower, and shock. But today’s adversaries challenge these strengths through layered denial strategies and continuous information campaigns. In Ukraine, Russian attempts to use cyberattacks and propaganda to shape the fight before kinetic blows largely failed against Ukrainian resilience and agile strategic messaging. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s operations in Nagorno-Karabakh demonstrated how synchronizing drones, electronic warfare (EW), deception, and narrative shaping can collapse defenses and will to fight through multi-dimensional pressure.

Maneuver alone is no longer sufficient. As operational studies have argued, true advantage comes from “baking in” information forces alongside maneuver—forcing adversaries to react to our timing, not theirs.

Synchronizing Across Domains: The COP as the Centerpiece

A fused, trusted Common Operational Picture (COP) lies at the heart of effective MDO. It must go beyond depicting friendly and enemy maneuver units to overlay electronic attacks, cyber campaigns, psychological operations (PSYOP) narratives, and anticipated adversary decision points. Only then can commanders visualize crucial convergence windows where synchronized effects deliver compounding impacts.

Recent doctrinal evolution, including the shift from traditional air tasking orders to the Integrated Tasking Order (ITO), reflects this reality. The ITO treats “an effect as an effect,” whether delivered by rocket batteries, PSYOP broadcasts, or cyber payloads—embedding non-kinetic alongside kinetic from the start.

From Decision Space to Decision Dominance

The goal is not simply to add more effects—it’s to compress the enemy’s Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) loop while expanding our own. Barton Whaley’s seminal research on deception and surprise found that multi-faceted timing and coordination were decisive in over half of the conflicts analyzed.

Modern convergence means using NLE/NKA to fracture morale, blind ISR networks, disrupt command cohesion, and delay adversary reactions—precisely when maneuver forces strike. The resulting order-of-effect cascade magnifies tactical gains into strategic leverage.

Consider Ukraine: HIMARS strikes on Russian command nodes, guided by fused intelligence and amplified through real-time strategic communication, not only shattered local coordination but also eroded Moscow’s political unity. This demonstrates how synchronized multi-domain effects turn battlefield blows into enduring dilemmas.

Designing Convergence: A Structured Approach

Too often, convergence windows are treated as simple overlay charts at a late stage in planning. A more rigorous framework ensures NLE/NKA are identified, sequenced, and codified alongside maneuvers from the start.

Drawing on recent fieldwork and doctrine, a five-step approach stands out:

1. Build the Menu of Options: Catalog all NLE/NKA capabilities by means of delivery method, authorities, and effect timelines.
2. Match Effects to Targets: Utilize Non-Lethal Critical Vulnerability Analysis (NLCVA) to identify adversary cognitive and informational weaknesses.
3. Design the Convergence Window: Plan lead times, durations, and sequencing to ensure that multiple effects peak simultaneously.
4. Synchronize with Maneuver and Fires: Overlay non-kinetic actions onto the same planning tools as artillery and movement graphics.
5. Codify in OPORDs and Target Lists: Embed effects in orders and targeting products to secure resources and pre-approvals.

This planning model illustrates how NLE/NKA effects are developed, postured, and executed to culminate precisely with maneuver. It ensures cognitive and informational disruption sets conditions for physical assault, forcing adversary decisions under duress.

This approach forces planners to treat NLE/NKA with the same rigor as kinetic fires. It visualizes how layered effects accumulate—like compound interest—until adversary cohesion breaks at precisely the moment maneuver requires it.

The Role of AI/ML, Institutional Reforms, and Doctrinal Support

Emerging tools, such as AI/ML-driven Target System Analysis, promise to map adversary center-of-gravity systems—cognitive, informational, and physical—at speeds that humans alone can’t match. Meanwhile, new multi-domain planning frameworks, as reflected in TRADOC’s latest operational environment assessments, explicitly call for blending information operations, cyber, and deception into core targeting and maneuver schemes. As the Army’s primary unit of action, the Theater Information Advantage Detachment (TIAD) could demonstrate how these assessments ‘grow legs’ and rapidly deploy into the operating environment.

Combined with doctrinal advances, such as the ITO and revised Joint publications, these initiatives move the Joint Force from fragmented integration to deliberate, predictive targeting of adversary decision-making.

Recommendations

1. Standardize NLE/NKA Overlays: Include them on all COP and fires graphics, rehearsals, and wargames.
2. Treat Information Fires as Core: Plan them as pre-coordinated effects with defined convergence windows, not as “extras.”
3. Invest in AI-Enabled Targeting: Develop tools that identify adversary psychological and informational pressure points.
4. Stand Up Persistent Multi-Domain Cells: Create enduring analytic hubs to provide cross-domain target development.
5. Train the Force for Convergence: Require IO, cyber, and maneuver leaders to learn each other’s disciplines through shared courses and exercises.

Conclusion: Putting the Commander Back in Control

Synchronizing MDO with NLE and NKA is not futuristic theory—it is the current battlefield reality in Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific, and every theater where rivals contest narratives before terrain. Restoring genuine mission command in this environment requires commanders to wield all-domain effects holistically, forcing adversaries into dilemmas while preserving our tempo and freedom of action.

A structured approach to convergence, underpinned by new targeting frameworks and institutional support, ensures commanders lead multi-domain fights with clarity and initiative, not just as orchestrators of kinetic fires, but as masters of the entire competitive space.

Tags: convergence, cyber, deception, decision dominance, electronic warfare, Information and influence activities, MDO, Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), Non-Kinetic, Ooda Loop

About The Author

• 
  
• Scott Hall
• Scott Hall is a U.S. Army Major and Information Operations officer serving as Chief of the Influence Branch at U.S. Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER). A career Armor officer and IO planner, he has held key leadership positions at the platoon, company, squadron, and division levels, as well as strategic and operational assignments with U.S. Army Europe, NATO, and ARCYBER. His work focuses on advancing strategic information advantage, integrating non-lethal and non-kinetic activities, and enabling multi-domain operations. He has been published in the Cavalry and Armor Journal, has appeared on The Cognitive Crucible podcast, and has presented at the Information Professionals Association’s INFOPAC conference.

21. Trump orders Secret Service probe after a day of awkward moments at U.N.

Trump orders Secret Service probe after a day of awkward moments at U.N.

The White House said a broken escalator and teleprompter could be evidence of sabotage. The U.N. suggested the mishaps might have been due to Trump’s officials.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/24/trump-russia-ukraine-frustration-putin/

Updated today at 4:19 a.m. EDT

6 min

Summary

870

(Video: The Washington Post)

In this article

• An escalator stops, and a teleprompter glitches
• The White House suggests sabotage
• The U.N. distances itself from both mishaps
• Macron calls Trump from the sidewalk

In this article

By Leo Sands and Naomi Schanen

An escalator that refused to escalate. A teleprompter that failed to prompt. President Donald Trump encountered a pair of mishaps as he addressed the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, prompting him to blame his host for failings at his address and order an investigation.

“This wasn’t a coincidence,” Trump said in a social media post Wednesday night, suggesting he had been the victim of sabotage ahead of the speech and adding that the Secret Service was investigating. In the address, Trump upbraided the U.N. for focusing too much on climate change and positioned his domestic agenda as a global playbook for others to follow.

But according to the U.N., both mishaps may have been inadvertently caused by members of the White House’s own team.

An escalator stops, and a teleprompter glitches

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A United Nations escalator abruptly stopped working while President Donald Trump and the first lady were heading up to the General Assembly Hall on Sept. 23. (Video: Reuters)

Trump and the first lady were on their way to the General Assembly hall Tuesday morning when the escalator they had just boarded abruptly stopped. After a momentary pause, the pair climbed the remaining steps by foot.

Minutes later, Trump opened his speech on the assembly floor to find something else had gone wrong. “The teleprompter is not working,” he said. “I can only say that whoever is operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,” he joked, triggering laughs from the delegates.

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A teleprompter appeared to stop working as President Donald Trump opened his speech on the United Nations assembly floor on Sept. 23. (Video: UNTV via Reuters)

“If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen,” he later said, referring again to the escalator. “But she’s in great shape, we’re both in good shape,” he said, laughing, assuring delegates that the teleprompter was again working.

The White House suggests sabotage

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Though Trump initially tried to make light of the incidents, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was more serious, repeatedly suggesting the possibility of foul play.

“If someone at the UN intentionally stopped the escalator as the President and First Lady were stepping on, they need to be fired and investigated immediately,” Leavitt said in a social media post that afternoon, pointing to a report over the weekend in Britain’s Times newspaper that U.N. staff members had joked about turning off the escalators because of a lack of funding. (The body is in the midst of a funding crisis, largely because the United States has refused to contribute to its regular budget since Trump took office.)

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In response to a question on Fox News that evening, Leavitt went further. The Secret Service was investigating both the malfunctioning escalator and broken teleprompter, she said, suggesting they could have been acts of sabotage.

She also referenced a social media post from Katie Pavlich, editor of the conservative news site Townhall.com, that said the hall’s loudspeakers amplified Trump’s address less than for earlier speakers. The Washington Post could not immediately verify the claim.

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President Donald Trump joked about his escalator and teleprompter mishaps in his speech in front of the United Nations general assembly on Sept. 23. (Video: UNTV via Reuters)

“We have people, including the United States Secret Service, who are looking into this to try to get to the bottom of it,” Leavitt said. “If we find that these were U.N. staffers who were purposefully trying to trip up, literally trip up the president and the first lady of the United States, well, there better be accountability.”

Later Wednesday, Trump struck a more hostile tone. “This was triple sabotage at the UN,” he said on his social media platform, referring to the escalator, teleprompter and volume issues. “They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I’m sending a copy of this letter to the Secretary General, and I demand an immediate investigation.” He said the Secret Service was investigating and called for all security footage from around the malfunctioning escalator to be saved.

The U.N. distances itself from both mishaps

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In an unusual step, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, issued a note to journalists explaining the reasons behind the escalator’s malfunction. He suggested there was a simpler explanation than foul play: A videographer from Trump’s team probably triggered the machine’s emergency-stop mechanism by mistake.

“A subsequent investigation, including a readout of the machine’s central processing unit, indicated that the escalator had stopped after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator,” the statement said.

It said the escalator stopped at the same time the cameraperson had reached the top. “The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function.”

Dujarric also refused to be drawn into the question of the teleprompter.

“We have no comment since the teleprompter for the U.S. president is operated by the White House,” he told reporters.

Dan Cluchey, a White House speechwriter for President Joe Biden, suggested in a social media post that it was protocol for White House officials to operate the teleprompter during such events. “Physical scrolling is typically handled by military personnel from the Comms Agency who train for years. A WH staffer *always* runs the show. As a former WH speechwriter, this is my only area of expertise,” he wrote.

A White House official said in an email Wednesday afternoon that time had been allocated before the address for Trump administration staffers to set up the teleprompter.

“Ultimately, they were barred by UN staff from doing so, so White House staff were trying to set the teleprompter up as the President was speaking,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share internal processes.

Macron calls Trump from the sidewalk

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French President Emmanuel Macron also experienced an inconvenience on Tuesday, when he was among those to get caught on the wrong side of a New York City roadblock. Police had blocked off a Manhattan intersection in anticipation of Trump’s motorcade as the French leader was trying to make his way to the French Consulate.

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French President Emmanuel Macron phoned President Donald Trump after being stopped at a New York intersection that was being blocked off. (Video: The Washington Post)

But unlike most ordinary New Yorkers, Macron had a direct line to the White House.

“How are you? Guess what, I’m waiting on the street because everything is frozen for you,” Macron said into the phone, apparently on a call with Trump. According to the video, the French leader also tried to negotiate unsuccessfully with a New York City police officer to let his delegation through. “I’m sorry, president, I’m really sorry. It’s just that everything’s been frozen right now,” the officer responded.

According to Brut, the French outlet that caught the moment on camera, the road was cleared, and Macron was allowed through.

Such delays are not uncommon during meetings of the U.N. General Assembly, which requires a massive policing and traffic operation to secure the comings and goings of delegates from around the world. As New York City prepared to welcome delegations from almost 200 countries, Mayor Eric Adams (D) said the police department was deploying thousands of officers to protect residents and visitors

What readers are saying

The comments largely criticize President Trump's behavior and response to mishaps at the U.N. General Assembly, such as the escalator and teleprompter issues. Many commenters express embarrassment over his actions and speech, describing them as incoherent and filled with... Show more

This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.

22. FBI seized documents described as ‘classified’ in search of Bolton’s office

​Oh no. Who takes classified documents home with them?

FBI seized documents described as ‘classified’ in search of Bolton’s office

The items include documents pertaining to weapons of mass destruction, U.S. interests at the U.N. and strategic government communications, investigators said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/09/24/fbi-investigation-documents-john-bolton/

Updated

September 24, 2025 at 5:26 p.m. EDTyesterday at 5:26 p.m. EDT

5 min

Summary

194

Former national security adviser John Bolton arrives at his house on Aug. 22 in Bethesda, Maryland. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

By Jeremy Roebuck

FBI agents seized several documents they described as “secret,” “confidential” or “classified” during the search of former national security adviser John Bolton’s downtown Washington office last month, according to newly unsealed court records.

The items include documents pertaining to weapons of mass destruction, U.S. interests at the United Nations and strategic government communications, investigators said in a catalogued list of what was collected during the search.

The inventory, unsealed by a federal magistrate judge in Maryland late Tuesday, was filed after agents descended upon Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home and office Aug. 22 as part of an investigation into whether he illegally kept classified documents that came into his possession through his role in President Donald Trump’s first term.

Bolton, a veteran diplomat and security expert who has more recently emerged as one of the president’s fiercest critics, has not spoken publicly about the probe.

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His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, described the documents referenced in the search warrant inventory as “ordinary records” that would be kept by an official with more than four decades of government service. Specifically, Lowell said, the documents with classification markings stemmed from Bolton’s time in the administration of George W. Bush and had been cleared for his use decades ago.

“An objective and thorough review will show nothing inappropriate was stored or kept by Amb. Bolton,” Lowell said in a statement.

That earlier list — which detailed seized items including folders labeled “Trump I-IV” and papers titled “statements and reflections to allied strikes” — did not indicate whether any of those materials bore classification stamps or other markings that led agents to believe they were improperly in Bolton’s possession.

In contrast, the catalogue of materials seized at Bolton’s office in Washington includes entries like “U.S. Mission to the United Nations — Confidential Documents” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction Classified Documents.” The search warrant records from that search do not say what exactly prompted agents to make the determination that they were classified or confidential.

“Law enforcement is actively reviewing evidence and interviewing witnesses,” prosecutors said in filings last month surrounding the warrant material’s release, which came in response to a request in court by a coalition of media organizations including The Washington Post.

The Justice Department is investigating Bolton over recent accusations that he retained and leaked sensitive material, making him the latest of Trump’s political adversaries to find themselves targeted by federal investigators.

Prosecutors have also launched criminal inquiries into other Trump critics in recent months, including New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), former FBI director James B. Comey and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) — and are facing increasing pressure from the president to secure indictments.

In a social media post Saturday, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to swiftly move to prosecute several of his enemies, declared them “guilty as hell,” and decried the length of time it has taken for charges to be filed. He did not mention Bolton by name, though he called out others like James, Comey and Schiff.

The investigation into Bolton’s handling of classified material is being overseen by the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Maryland. Agents believed they would find classified records in his possession in part because of information they said they’d learned about a foreign adversary hacking into his AOL email account years ago, according to a search warrant affidavit unsealed this month.

Investigators detailed that hack in several pages of the application they filed last month to secure a warrant to search Bolton’s home and office. However, that section of the affidavit is redacted entirely except for the section’s header: “Hack of Bolton AOL Account by Foreign Entity.”

During Trump’s first term, the Justice Department also pursued an investigation of Bolton for allegedly divulging classified government material in his 2020 book “The Room Where it Happened,” which offered a withering portrait of Trump as an “erratic” and “stunningly uninformed” leader.

That inquiry did not result in charges at the time. Officials who described the current probe of Bolton’s activities said its scope included both concerns over Bolton’s book and the newer allegations involving disclosures of sensitive material.

Trump was charged in 2023 with illegally holding on to classified material under the same statute under which Bolton is now being investigated — a violation of the Espionage Act. A federal judge in Florida later dismissed the Trump case citing issues with the legality of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment to prosecute the matter.

Former president Joe Biden also faced an investigation for retention of classified documents at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington. A special counsel appointed in that case determined no criminal charges were warranted in the matter.

Trump administration officials have denied any political motivations for pursuing the Bolton investigation.

“We don’t think that we should throw people — even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically — in prison,” Vice President JD Vance told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview last month. “You should let the law drive these determinations, and that’s what we’re doing.”

23. Maximizing The Indigenous Approach: Using Secondment to Enable Our Partners and Constrain Our Adversaries

​This is a concept very much worth exploring and embracing.

Excerpts:

A secondment model represents a practical approach to leverage SOF’s greatest strength to create an archipelago of deeply embedded partnerships across Asia. Our partners will continue to rely on SOF as flexible, affordable military innovators. USSOCOM should support the disciplined initiative required to evolve our approach, integrating with these teams for maximum effect. By recognizing time under partnership as the most important variable in building elite units, we can refocus on the task and optimize our approach through secondments.

This is not a new problem. At SOF Week 2024, Admiral(ret) McRaven said that inaction was the primary impediment to building international SOF relationships. While strengthening our international partnerships is an evergreen challenge, we must recognize both the urgency of the threat and the critical opportunity to act in support of our nation’s primary foreign theater. Fortunately, a secondment construct is small, supportable within existing authorities, and scalable if successful. Given the stakes inherent in countering China and the global demand for SOF, distilling the indigenous approach into its purest form through secondment is a worthy pursuit.

Maximizing The Indigenous Approach: Using Secondment to Enable Our Partners and Constrain Our Adversaries

irregularwarfare.org · Wyatt Thielen · September 25, 2025

Editor’s Note: This article earned first place in the Irregular Warfare Initiative’s 2025 Writing Contest, “Irregular Allies: Strengthening Regional Partnerships through Unconventional Means.” Authors were asked: How can the United States and its partners use irregular warfare to strengthen security cooperation, build trust, and enhance resilience among Indo-Pacific nations—particularly those with limited conventional military capacity?

The following piece rose to the top of our selection panel for its originality, depth, and clear policy relevance. It makes a compelling case that U.S. Special Operations Command should adopt a secondment model of advising, embedding small teams of SOF with Indo-Pacific partners for extended tours. We have lightly edited the piece after its selection.

For the other winning articles in our contest, look back to our winners’ announcement here.

American Special Operations Forces (SOF) tasked with Irregular Warfare activities in the Indo-Pacific have an engagement problem. Deployed SOF are expected to illuminate irregular threats, deter China, and increase burden sharing among Allies and Partners – all in six months or less. At the same time, we often deploy too many of what is an extremely scarce resource: dozens of SOF when a handful will do. Together, this results in bilateral relationships with insufficient depth from revolving partnerships in the best case, and sporadic acquaintances in the worst. Both miss opportunities to deepen American influence and leave open the door for the Chinese to supplant the United States as the partner of choice.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Instead of trading expertise for expediency, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) should embrace a secondment model of advising that maximizes the utility of our greatest asset – our people – by embedding small contingents of SOF to live and work alongside our Indo-Pacific partner’s premier SOF units for extended tours. By distilling the indigenous approach at the core of Army Special Operations culture into its purest form, the Department of War can deepen the reliability of our partners, frustrate Chinese military influence, and create a forward-first culture that creates outsized returns at lower cost.

Time under partnership

The concept is simple. Arguably the most important factor in SOF advising is “time under partnership” with our NCO corps. Unfortunately, the current model of rotational deployments and sporadic training exchanges results in re-deploying our operators just as they reach their most productive stride. The secondment approach would fix this by lengthening and deepening our engagement. Current regulation allows for accompanied tours of up to three years, and the SOF enterprise should strive for exactly that.

The model would place one to two senior NCOs or warrant officers, together with a major, in a critical role within a partner nation’s organization. These volunteer teams, further refined through a command select process, would work directly with the partner force, from their location, on their schedule, for mutually agreed priorities. Secondment is distinct from an embassy tour. These embedded teams must rigorously avoid devolving into a coordinating entity and instead remain in the field, at the range, and in the schoolhouses where competent, lethal partners are forged —partners that are capable of operating independently or alongside US SOF.

Importantly, teams of three are too small to be socially insular, encouraging cultural integration alongside our hosts. This embeddedness drives the cultural understanding and operational insights that help define a theory of success for U.S. interests, relying on ground truth observations to identify the art of the possible.

Limiting Adversary Access

The secondment model isn’t just about building proficient partners; it’s a deliberate strategy to frustrate Chinese influence. By firmly integrating our SOF partners into an ecosystem of elite units, we effectively remove a key tool from China’s competition chessboard. Asymmetric strategies can be difficult for a superpower, but they don’t have to be. If we recognize professionalism as a weapon of influence, we can fully leverage it at almost no cost.

While our placement beside our partners limits adversary access during the duty day, deploying our families allows for deeper, more resilient social capital. The comingling of families during special occasions or holidays create bonds that are likely to be stronger and more enduring than those relying on professional exchange alone. In this scenario, going native is a feature, not a bug. By becoming the deeply embedded, indispensable partner of choice in the Indo-Pacific, we reinforce our best organizational traits, demonstrate commitment to critical partners, and at the same time proactively disrupt our adversaries’ preferred courses of action.

Conclusion

A secondment model represents a practical approach to leverage SOF’s greatest strength to create an archipelago of deeply embedded partnerships across Asia. Our partners will continue to rely on SOF as flexible, affordable military innovators. USSOCOM should support the disciplined initiative required to evolve our approach, integrating with these teams for maximum effect. By recognizing time under partnership as the most important variable in building elite units, we can refocus on the task and optimize our approach through secondments.

This is not a new problem. At SOF Week 2024, Admiral(ret) McRaven said that inaction was the primary impediment to building international SOF relationships. While strengthening our international partnerships is an evergreen challenge, we must recognize both the urgency of the threat and the critical opportunity to act in support of our nation’s primary foreign theater. Fortunately, a secondment construct is small, supportable within existing authorities, and scalable if successful. Given the stakes inherent in countering China and the global demand for SOF, distilling the indigenous approach into its purest form through secondment is a worthy pursuit.

Wyatt Thielen is a Special Forces NCO with over a decade of service implementing American policy abroad, and a current graduate student at Johns Hopkins SAIS focused on Special Operations policy, employment, and force management.

Main Image: Defender Pacific 21: Special Forces Soldiers conduct maneuvers with JGSDF in Guam. Photo courtesy of DVIDS.

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

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

24. Reimagining Army Divisions for Twenty-First-Century Warfare

​Excerpt:

The resulting creation of recon-strike, assault, consolidation, and sustainment divisions offers increased potential for the Army to decisively contribute to joint and multinational campaigns. Reimagined formations could provide premier ability to penetrate defenses, defeat threats, consolidate gains, and sustain operations in expeditionary settings. Developing counterdrone protection at the division level would facilitate multidomain integration while enabling brigade combat teams to survive and fight on future battlefields. As artificial intelligence, robotic autonomy, and unmanned systems influence the character of warfare, ground forces must not only accommodate but capitalize on these changes with innovative rearming and restructuring. If the US Army demonstrated marked ability to adapt in past eras, future challenges will require a similar level of inspiration in order to win, against all odds, in the crucible of combat.

Reimagining Army Divisions for Twenty-First-Century Warfare - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · Nathan Jennings · September 25, 2025

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The character of war is evolving in ways that demand a dramatic reorganization of the US Army’s order of battle. Adversaries have developed antiaccess and area-denial systems, at depth and scale, that are explicitly designed to prevent US forces from deploying to, maneuvering in, and sustaining in expeditionary theaters. These architectures combine long-range fires, air defenses, electronic warfare, space denial, and cyber capabilities to construct integrated standoff defenses that can stymie American power projection. At the center of this array, an emerging panoply of drone platforms now saturates the environment, providing persistent reconnaissance, precision fires, and information warfare amplification. To prevail in these conditions, the Army must align organization, concept, and strategy with a reimagined divisional structure that can maximize emerging technologies to execute multidomain operations in the most challenging of scenarios.

To fulfill the vision of the Army Warfighting Concept, the service should move past dated armored, Stryker, infantry, and airborne categorizations to reorganize its combat forces into four divisional types according to logic of purpose: recon-strike divisions, assault divisions, consolidation divisions, and sustainment divisions. Each would be optimized for distinct roles within corps or joint force commands, providing reimagined ability to synchronize unmanned strike and protection systems in ways that empower increasingly vulnerable brigade combat teams to win in close combat. Adapting traditional maneuver theory to innovations in artificial intelligence, systemic automation, and adaptive thinking, it would enable the Army to defeat standoff networks and ensure freedom of maneuver across increasingly contested landscapes.

However, the unrealized potential of this reorganization must be balanced with enduring realities of continuity and change in warfare that will challenge planning assumptions and cultural biases. First, even as the Army modernizes to maintain land warfare primacy, it must recognize the reality that conflicts are often defined by attrition and battle damage that overwhelms preconflict notions of decisive operational maneuver. Second, the reorganization of divisions as the primary unit of action, according to tactical purpose, must include preparation to execute dynamic formation reconstitution while under enemy fire. As General Donn Starry argued after observing the destruction of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, multistar echelons must prepare to adopt “extraordinary measures” required to “quickly restore a depleted unit to an acceptable level of combat effectiveness” to ensure “timely regeneration of the force.”

Historical Precedent: German Blitzkrieg, 1940

The German blitzkrieg invasion of France in 1940 demonstrated how specialized divisions could attack according to a synchronized logic of purpose to defeat the most fortified theater defense in the world. Novel panzer divisions, serving as armored spearheads ahead of motorized infantry divisions and larger infantry field armies, led the offensive by first moving through the Ardennes Forest and then penetrating a seam in the French border defenses just north of the vaunted Maginot Line. By leading with combined arms teams that included unprecedented combinations of mobility, firepower, and protection, the Wehrmacht achieved both operational shock and strategic surprise. The velocity of the panzer attacks enabled rapid river crossings, deflected air counterattacks, interdicted operational reserves, and achieved enough depth to rapidly paralyze Allied strategic decision-making.

Following the armored breakthroughs, German motorized and foot infantry divisions followed to secure the gains and secure the rapidly elongating line of communication. While worrisome gaps appeared between the advancing tanks, marching infantrymen, and logistical trains, the riflemen managed to reduce initially bypassed strongpoints, establish control over decisive points, and consolidate tactical gains while sustainment elements frantically shuttled ammunition and fuel westward to the Panzers. This integrated approach, despite stark differences in mobility that challenged synchronization of timing and tempo, allowed the lead German forces to maintain momentum behind the Luftwaffe’s devastating aerial offensive. Despite the ever-present risk of culmination, the novel order of battle created a functionally designed sequence: armor for breakthrough, infantry for exploitation and consolidation, and logistical trains for endurance.

This improbable offensive through the heart of France’s vaunted line of fortifications created opportunity for an unexpected breakout and rapid march to the English Channel. Fast-moving Panzer teams under aggressive commanders such as Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel exploited the success of the Luftwaffe’s air campaign to pursue retreating French forces, sever lines of communication, and create a series of operational encirclements. The trajectory of the Wehrmacht’s advance, though constrained by the German high command’s risk aversion, isolated the most capable French and British field armies in northeastern France and Belgium to compel a desperate evacuation at Dunkirk. Germany’s stunning defeat of the Allied armies in just six weeks—enabled by a fleeting alignment of technology, organization, concept, and strategy—shocked the world and ushered in a new era of combined arms and joint warfare.

By contrast, the Russo-Ukrainian War has revealed a distinct lack of ability to employ divisions and corps to execute operational maneuver with expanded theater impact. The Russian invasion in 2022 attempted to synchronize a centripetal campaign featuring converging land and maritime offensives, but faltered when infantry could not secure gains, sustainment proved dysfunctional, and armor could not advance in the face of devastating drone and antiarmor strikes. However, the Ukrainian Army’s own armored counteroffensive the next year likewise met with disaster along the Zaporizhzhia front when it could not breach the Russian defense in depth and achieve operational breakout. The two sides became locked in an attritional contest when they could not synchronize reconnaissance, breach, assault, consolidation, and sustainment efforts with offensive drone technologies and mobile protection to bring large-scale movement to the increasingly positional battlefield.

Given the high likelihood that the US Army would, in the event of a future conflict, confront the same challenges that both Ukraine and Russia have faced, change is necessary. And a reorganization of combat forces into divisions based on logic of purpose offers a way to overcome these challenges.

Recon-Strike Divisions: Penetrating the Shield

The reorganization of Army divisions thus begins with designing highly mobile spearheads that can penetrate a twenty-first-century drone-enabled defense while fielding a mobile air defense capability to protect subordinate elements. Recon-strike divisions would form the vanguard of attacking corps during offensive operations and maintain security zones during defensive efforts, serving as the Army’s premier formations for deep maneuver and systematic dislocation. Integrating light armor, mechanized infantry, special operations forces, and long-range fires into fast-moving attack groups, they would identify, degrade, and dismantle enemy antiaccess and area-denial architecture through the integration of advanced sensors, long-range fires, electronic warfare, space-based enablers, and swarms of unmanned systems. Leveraging deception and surprise, their primary focus would not be seizing ground, but rather piercing the enemy’s defensive networks to enable exploitation.

To achieve this, recon-strike divisions would employ an unprecedented drone and missile arsenal to execute counterreconnaissance, defeat enemy air defenses, and shape conditions for brigade-level fire and maneuver. Unmanned systems, ranging from small multirotor systems to exquisite strike frames, would saturate contested areas to destroy enemy radars, fires systems, and logistics nodes. Simultaneously, these mobile teams, which would include a platform requirement to be able to traverse most load-bearing civilian bridges while incorporating robust tactical bridging assets, would protect advancing formations with next-generation air defenses and deception systems designed to neutralize enemy drones and attack aircraft. This dual approach, reflecting a convergence of manned and unmanned capabilities at echelon, would create a self-contained and highly mobile attack force capable of breaching, penetrating, and dislocating enemy defenses.

Recent conflicts underscore this need for a specialized division with an unprecedented ability to employ advanced technologies to both attack and protect while maneuvering at depth. In Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, Azerbaijani forces employed unmanned systems and precision strike to paralyze and defeat Armenian armored forces with debilitating effect. On the steppes of Eastern Europe, the Ukrainian Army has employed a novel fusion of networked sensors with drone, missile, and artillery delivery systems to defeat repeated Russian armored offensives. These outcomes suggest that only a dramatically redesigned division, optimized with an unprecedented density of drone, protection, and bridging capabilities to enable subordinate brigade maneuver, can not only execute survivable offense, but attack at speed to create opportunity for exploitation, reduction, and consolidation by follow-on divisions.

Assault Divisions: Achieving Dominance

Once recon-strike divisions dislocate and paralyze enemy defenses, the mission turns to decisive fire and maneuver to defeat threat operational centers of gravity. Assault divisions, which would task-organize against specific threat and terrain profiles while featuring greater general-purpose application, would attack to exploit openings, advance into geographic depth, and destroy enemy reserves. Simultaneously, they would possess the durability and strength to defend in depth and fortify lodgments and forward perimeters. Assault divisions, balancing mobility, firepower, and protection with capacity to negotiate attrition and battle damage, could tailor combinations of heavy and medium armor; mechanized, motorized, light, and airborne infantry; cannon and missile fires; and attack aviation with heavy attack drones and mobile air defense in order to create versatile commands with premium lethality and resiliency.

These divisions would provide the Army’s hammer to shatter adversary ability to resist and to compel battlefield decision while retaining capacity to execute a wider span of defensive, counterinsurgency, and domestic support missions. Fulfilling the institution’s timeless national imperative to, “close with and destroy enemy forces, defeat enemy formations, seize critical terrain, and control populations and resources,” their ability to task organize and enable combinations of heavy, motorized, light, and airborne forces would provide both the echeloned firepower and organic adaptability to accomplish a variety of tactical actions ranging from urban assault to desert maneuver to jungle and mountain warfare. While assault divisions, similar to recon-strike divisions, would incur requirements for organic mobile air defense to ensure survivability, they would also include robust engineer assets to enable construction and mobility capacity.

The logic of assault divisions builds on robust historical precedent while preserving the Army’s unique mandate to provide mass, versatility, and resiliency for joint force commands in major campaigns and wars. In World War II, American mechanized cavalry groups, benefiting from air and ground fires ahead, created conditions for armored and infantry divisions to attack, reduce, and defeat entrenched German formations. During Operation Desert Storm, the coalition air campaign and advancing armored cavalry regiments attacked to create favorable conditions for a variety of armored, mechanized, and light infantry divisions to destroy the Iraqi Army. Despite the historical contexts, the enduring implication remains clear: The Army requires assault forces that can apply dominating fires, negotiate attrition, and ensure decisive outcomes within a rapidly changing operational environment that will challenge tactical assumptions.

Consolidation Divisions: Securing Gains

American wartime experiences have proven that tactical victories mean little if they cannot be consolidated into enduring strategic success. Consolidation divisions, as tailorable forces featuring combinations of security forces, combat advisors, civil affairs, construction engineers, and counterinsurgency operators, with an armor and artillery reserve in support, would specialize in securing liberated terrain, protecting populations, enabling humanitarian services, and securing lines of communication. These formations would integrate closely with US agencies and nongovernmental organizations to create multifaceted efforts designed to avoid the mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan. With a mandate to stabilize rear areas during and after conflict with specialized training, education, equipment, and cultural familiarization, consolidation divisions would provide strategic endurance that the Army requires to achieve lasting success.

However, these novel formations would operate as more than just constabularies or peacekeepers; they would combine cultural acumen with the latest drone, surveillance, and support technologies to monitor rear areas, track and defeat enemy remnants, prevent humanitarian disasters, and secure critical infrastructure. They would employ counterdrone defenses to protect supply depots, rear-area headquarters, and population centers from long-range attack while coordinating with corps and joint force commands to facilitate transition and stabilization activities. Synchronizing their operations with recon-strike and assault divisions, consolidation divisions would provide the critical backstop to ensure that forward combat forces are enabled to maintain tempo and cohesion within a fully integrated battlefield framework.

Consolidation divisions would play a critical role in partnering with allies and partners to build and project additional combat power and achieve lasting stability. Similar, but not identical, to the roles of the European Civil Affairs Division in Europe during World War II and the US Constabulary in West Germany during the early Cold War, their novel task organization and integrating purpose would fill a long-standing gap in the US Army order of battle: a general officer headquarters with substantial resources dedicated to consolidating gains during and after large-scale combat. This would allow higher commands to fulfill a crucial requirement, to “plan and prepare for the execution of military governance before, during, and after combat operations” while avoiding “ad hoc” approaches that led to setbacks in past conflicts.

Sustainment Divisions: Enabling Endurance

Combined arms maneuver in the future operational environment saturated with intelligence-surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms will require resilient logistics that operate with organic protection. Sustainment divisions, as cohesive teams that possess structural ability to echelon logistics capabilities from theater to tactical levels, would modernize the Army’s ability to project and sustain combat power across all contested domains. Relying upon their own mobile air defense protection, they would control tactical distribution, medical support, theater maintenance, and mortuary affairs across battlefield depth, ensuring that combat divisions retain the required endurance to persevere and win in challenging circumstances. In an era when adversaries will increasingly target logistics with long-range fires, cyber disruption, and unmanned systems, the creation of cohesive and self-reliant sustainment divisions would allow Army forces to mitigate disruption and maintain operational tempo.

These divisions, similar to their recon-strike and assault counterparts, would maintain internal capacity to prevent drone strikes on the networks of supply convoys, logistical depots, and field repair facilities that enable expeditionary operations. Dispersed protection networks—featuring autonomous screen and sentry platforms designed to both enhance and economize security—would prove essential for ensuring that fuel, ammunition, and medical assets could operate with enough dispersion to avoid the fragility of just-in-time logistics while negating the vulnerability of the iron mountain concentration. Moving beyond a defensive mindset, sustainment divisions would employ motorized infantry, light armor, and special operations forces, in concert with a phalanx of offensive drones, to conduct proactive convoy overwatch, route reconnaissance, and rapid strike against ambushes or raiding parties. In this way, unmanned systems would enable, but not replace, ground forces as both shield and sword of the Army support echelons.

The operational requirement to ensure survivable sustainment operations thus requires complete reorganization of the Army’s order of battle around divisional commands with ability to integrate resilient support and protection across both echelon and geographic depth. Seeking to avoid the Russian Army’s dramatic failure in 2022, where its invading columns culminated due to lack of provision, the reorganization would echo how the Red Ball Express enabled the US Army’s inexorable advance across France in 1944. This would include resupply with unmanned and autonomous delivery platforms to redefine the physics of supply distribution. As Major General Michelle Donohue, commander of the US Army Sustainment Center of Excellence, has explained, “The future logistics fight will rely on autonomous resupply, resilient networks, artificial intelligence–driven predictive sustainment, and multidomain integration.”

Reimagining Army Divisions

Given the transparency and lethality of the rapidly evolving threat environment, the US Army risks obsolescence unless it can reform its legacy divisions and brigades into drone-empowered fighting structures that are optimized for twenty-first-century combat. Ominous trends toward an increasingly attritional and positional battlefield, exemplified by recent conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine, suggest that a revamped order of battle is required to ensure capacity for initiative and offensive. By restructuring divisions into recon-strike, assault, consolidation, and sustainment commands, the landpower institution can fulfill the promise of the Army Warfighting Concept to survive and dominate on future battlefields. As argued by Chief of Staff of the Army General Randy George, the Army’s focus on “continuous transformation” means “iteratively adapting and evolving how we fight, how we organize, how we train, and how we equip.”

However, the requirement to reorganize Army divisions with organic drone protection and long-range fires does not negate the timeless requirement for infantry and armor to seize and hold terrain to ensure achievement of strategic aims. Regardless of the obvious influence of unmanned systems, sensor saturation, and ubiquitous precision strike on the current operational environment, historian T. R. Fehrenbach’s timeless quote remains prescient: “You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground.” This means that any divisional reorganization that includes drone, robotic, autonomous, or artificial intelligence enhancements must be conceived around enabling ground force maneuver against entrenched enemy positions, as opposed to creating intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance structures that lack the combat power to fight with decisive effect.

The resulting creation of recon-strike, assault, consolidation, and sustainment divisions offers increased potential for the Army to decisively contribute to joint and multinational campaigns. Reimagined formations could provide premier ability to penetrate defenses, defeat threats, consolidate gains, and sustain operations in expeditionary settings. Developing counterdrone protection at the division level would facilitate multidomain integration while enabling brigade combat teams to survive and fight on future battlefields. As artificial intelligence, robotic autonomy, and unmanned systems influence the character of warfare, ground forces must not only accommodate but capitalize on these changes with innovative rearming and restructuring. If the US Army demonstrated marked ability to adapt in past eras, future challenges will require a similar level of inspiration in order to win, against all odds, in the crucible of combat.

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

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

Image credit: Sgt. Bernabe Lopez, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · Nathan Jennings · September 25, 2025

25. NATO’s Air Defense Dilemma

​Excerpts:

For NATO, helping Ukraine defend its skies carries greater potential reward than risk. First, by engaging drones and missiles in Ukrainian skies, it reduces the risk that they will reach NATO territory — either by accident or by design — and kill people there. Next, it allows NATO to learn from Ukraine, which currently fields an air defense system superior to those of most NATO members. Third, the systems NATO would need to deploy are available and would not require many boots on the ground, even if manned by NATO crews. If NATO chooses to have Ukraine man these systems, it should still send advisors to assist the Ukrainian crews and learn from them.

Patriots provide a good example here. Ukraine currently has six operational Patriot batteries, but giving a moderate level of protection to its largest cities would require some 18–27 batteries. This assessment is derived from measuring the range and area coverage of a Patriot battery, measured against the geographic area of Ukraine’s major cities. The United States alone fields some 60 Patriot batteries, and other NATO allies field several dozen more, meaning NATO has up to 100 total batteries available. Making an additional 12–21 batteries available to Ukraine is feasible at an acceptable risk to other missions the United States and its NATO allies might have to undertake. And even this number is on the high side because Ukraine also fields other long-range air defense systems like National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System and S-300. The same is true of other systems: NATO has them and could make more available to Ukraine with acceptable risk to other missions globally.

There are of course caveats here. Patriot batteries are not the main limitation — interceptor missiles for them are. So the United States may have to scale up its production of these, and fast. And air defense missile systems like Patriot are not the only capability NATO and Ukraine would have to employ to create an effective layered air defense network. As noted earlier, electronic warfare systems, kinetic systems, and interceptor drones are also required. And NATO may have to provide some of these as well. But Ukraine has developed impressive capabilities in all these areas, and its defense industry could produce more with additional funding from the West.

Finally, Russia will threaten to target any NATO forces operating in or over Ukraine. But this threat is largely empty. Consider this: In the two plus years that Patriots have been operating in Ukraine, none have been permanently knocked out of action by Russian missiles or drones. A far greater risk is that Russian missiles or drones will fall on undefended civilian targets inside a NATO country because NATO allowed itself to be deterred from defending its territory by Russian threats. That, and not NATO air defense systems operating inside Ukraine, is the event that could cause a military escalation between NATO and Russia or a fracturing of the Atlantic alliance.

NATO’s Air Defense Dilemma

Robert Hamilton

September 25, 2025

warontherocks.com · September 25, 2025

Shortly before midnight on the night of Sept. 9–10, Polish Air Force and NATO radar operators noticed multiple aircraft crossing into Polish airspace from Ukraine and Belarus. Poland’s air force command issued a quick reaction alert, scrambling Polish F-16 and Dutch F-35 fighters to identify and, if necessary, eliminate the threat. NATO also launched an Italian airborne command and control aircraft and alerted German Patriot air defense missile units on the ground. For the next 7 hours, NATO forces tracked and engaged some 19 Russian drones, shooting down 4 of them, marking the first direct fire engagement between NATO and Russia since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Several days later, another Russian drone flew some 20 kilometers into Romanian airspace and was tracked by Romanian F-16s before turning back toward Ukraine. Then, on the night of Sept. 19, Russian jets violated Estonian airspace for 12 minutes in what Tallinn labeled an “unprecedentedly brazen” incursion. Finally, on Sept. 23 several drones appeared over the Copenhagen airport, causing it to close for several hours in what Danish authorities said was another Russian operation.

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Russian Intentions and “Hanlon’s Razor”

The obvious question is why Russian drones and aircraft have suddenly begun flying into NATO airspace. The Kremlin has been coy, simply announcing that it was not intending to attack targets in Poland. Russia’s ally Belarus said the drones had been thrown off course by jamming and the incursion was unintentional, asserting credit for informing Poland of the incursion in advance and even claiming to have shot down some of them.

Some in the West, including U.S. President Donald Trump, seem willing to entertain this explanation. When asked about the incursion into Poland, Trump said it “could have been a mistake.” Poland’s response was uncharacteristically blunt: Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski immediately shot back, posting on social media, “No, that wasn’t a mistake.” Warfare is a messy business, with Clausewitz’s famous fog — poor information or lack of information altogether — and friction — when easy things become difficult —always playing a role. This is why, when confronted with a situation like this, it is wise to remember Hanlon’s Razor, which advises to never ascribe to malevolence that which can reasonably be explained by incompetence. Militaries make mistakes in wartime. And Russia’s military, with its long traditions of corruption, abusive leadership, poor human capital, and shoddy equipment, makes more than its share.

But here Poland’s foreign minister is likely to be correct: This was not a mistake; it was a deliberate probe of NATO’s political resolve and military capabilities. Single Russian drones have flown into and fallen on NATO countries before, usually after being jammed or shot at by Ukrainian air defenses. But 19 drones penetrating Polish airspace for seven hours is unlikely to be accidental. Adding further credence to this being a deliberate probe is that all drones recovered were of a single type: the Gerbera, an unarmed Russian variant of the Iranian Shahed, usually used as a decoy. Russian drone strike packages always include a mixture of reconnaissance, attack, and decoy drones, making it highly unlikely that any 19 drones in a package are of the same type. Finally, the subsequent incursions into Romania and Estonia — the latter of which was certainly intentional — seem to form a pattern, strengthening the argument for the Polish incursion being deliberate.

Russia’s use of the Gerbera in the Polish incursion offers it several advantages. First, it is unarmed, eliminating the possibility that a drone’s warhead will explode and kill or injure people on the ground, an escalation Russia is likely not yet ready for. Next, the Gerbera is cheap, at some $10,000 per copy. By contrast, the Dutch F-35s that shot down at least four of the drones carry AIM-9X Sidewinder and AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM missiles, which cost from $500,000 to $1 million apiece. So, NATO is spending 50 to 100 times the cost of a Russian drone for each one it shoots down.

Early assessments of Russia’s drone ploy must conclude that it achieved its goals. Trump’s lackluster response fomented political tension within the alliance, with European leaders expressing dismay and concern. A senior German official said “with this U.S. administration, we can’t rely on anything. But we have to pretend that we could.” An Eastern European diplomat added, “Washington’s silence has been almost deafening.” And at a cost of less than $200,000 to itself, Russia forced NATO to spend millions of dollars in fuel and missiles and got a good picture of NATO’s military capabilities, information that will be useful if the conflict escalates to war between Russia and the West.

How Should NATO Respond?

In response to the Russian incursion, NATO announced Operation Eastern Sentry, which the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, said “will deliver even more focused and flexible deterrence and defense where and when needed to protect our people and deter against further reckless and dangerous acts.” So far Denmark, France, and Germany have announced plans to deploy fighter aircraft to Poland, and NATO has said it will also deploy systems like “counter-drone sensors and weapons to detect, track and kill drones.”

This is not enough. NATO’s statement about “focused and flexible deterrence” means little in practice, and the capabilities the alliance has committed to Eastern Sentry are paltry. If NATO continues to defend from behind the borders of its members, Russia could eventually kill people in a NATO country, putting that country and the alliance on the horns of a dilemma. In response to Russia’s drone incursion, Poland invoked Article 4 of the NATO Treaty, which requires allies to consult on a response. A Russian incursion that causes deaths in a frontline state — one of the Baltic Republics, Poland, or Romania are the most likely candidates — may well result in an Article 5 declaration from the country that Russia attacked.

Article 5 is widely misunderstood. It does not obligate NATO members to respond to an attack on another member with military force, it only obligates each member to consider that attack an attack on itself. How each country responds is still a national decision and herein lies the dilemma. Without the United States, any NATO military response would lack teeth, and the Trump administration has consistently signaled its lackadaisical attitude toward NATO and European security in general. So, in the event that the United States opts out of a military response to an Article 5 declaration by a NATO member, Russia would have achieved its longstanding goal of causing a rupture between the United States and its NATO allies, all at acceptable military cost to itself. If the United States stood firmly on NATO’s side, the military cost to Russia would be higher, but so would the potential for escalation to outright war between NATO and Russia.

Instead of defending from behind its borders, NATO should do more to defend from inside Ukraine. The question is how? There are two obvious options: give Ukraine more capability to defend against Russian drones and missiles or deploy NATO forces into Ukraine to do so. Effective defense against Russian drone and missile strike packages requires a layered defense consisting of electronic warfare systems, short range kinetic systems (anti-aircraft machine guns, man portable air defense systems), interceptor drones, and long-range air defense systems (like Patriot and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System). A layered defense allows Ukraine to use electronic warfare systems to jam or spoof many Russian drones, with short range kinetic systems picking off the survivors, and air defense missiles reserved for jet-powered drones (which are hard to hit with guns and can outpace some interceptor drones) and missiles.

Every night in Ukraine this deadly game of cat and mouse plays out, with both sides adapting and innovating at a furious pace. Ukraine is now able to indigenously produce a wide array of electronic warfare and short-range kinetic systems, as well as interceptor drones. But it still needs help, because Russia has taken to varying the size of its nightly strike packages and the types of drones and missiles it uses. Every few nights, Russia launches a massive package of hundreds of drones — some decoys, some reconnaissance drones, and some strike drones — as well as dozens of cruise and ballistic missiles, to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses.

For NATO, helping Ukraine defend its skies carries greater potential reward than risk. First, by engaging drones and missiles in Ukrainian skies, it reduces the risk that they will reach NATO territory — either by accident or by design — and kill people there. Next, it allows NATO to learn from Ukraine, which currently fields an air defense system superior to those of most NATO members. Third, the systems NATO would need to deploy are available and would not require many boots on the ground, even if manned by NATO crews. If NATO chooses to have Ukraine man these systems, it should still send advisors to assist the Ukrainian crews and learn from them.

Patriots provide a good example here. Ukraine currently has six operational Patriot batteries, but giving a moderate level of protection to its largest cities would require some 18–27 batteries. This assessment is derived from measuring the range and area coverage of a Patriot battery, measured against the geographic area of Ukraine’s major cities. The United States alone fields some 60 Patriot batteries, and other NATO allies field several dozen more, meaning NATO has up to 100 total batteries available. Making an additional 12–21 batteries available to Ukraine is feasible at an acceptable risk to other missions the United States and its NATO allies might have to undertake. And even this number is on the high side because Ukraine also fields other long-range air defense systems like National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System and S-300. The same is true of other systems: NATO has them and could make more available to Ukraine with acceptable risk to other missions globally.

There are of course caveats here. Patriot batteries are not the main limitation — interceptor missiles for them are. So the United States may have to scale up its production of these, and fast. And air defense missile systems like Patriot are not the only capability NATO and Ukraine would have to employ to create an effective layered air defense network. As noted earlier, electronic warfare systems, kinetic systems, and interceptor drones are also required. And NATO may have to provide some of these as well. But Ukraine has developed impressive capabilities in all these areas, and its defense industry could produce more with additional funding from the West.

Finally, Russia will threaten to target any NATO forces operating in or over Ukraine. But this threat is largely empty. Consider this: In the two plus years that Patriots have been operating in Ukraine, none have been permanently knocked out of action by Russian missiles or drones. A far greater risk is that Russian missiles or drones will fall on undefended civilian targets inside a NATO country because NATO allowed itself to be deterred from defending its territory by Russian threats. That, and not NATO air defense systems operating inside Ukraine, is the event that could cause a military escalation between NATO and Russia or a fracturing of the Atlantic alliance.

BECOME A MEMBER

Robert (Bob) Hamilton, Ph.D., is the president of the Delphi Global Research Center. He served 30 years in the U.S. Army retiring as a colonel and six years as a civilian professor at the U.S. Army War College. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Virginia.

Image: Dutch Ministry of Defence via Wikimedia Commons

warontherocks.com · September 25, 2025

26. The Two Southeast Asias

​Excerpts:

U.S. President Donald Trump appears drawn to the idea of spheres of influence. He seeks to reassert American dominance in the Western Hemisphere while showing greater deference to Russia’s interests in Europe. Perhaps the United States will ultimately see continental Southeast Asia as part of a natural sphere of influence for China. For a United States that is looking to reduce its international commitments, a decision to stop competing with China there may make sense.

Yet Washington should beware the consequences of such an arrangement. And if it does not want to undermine its own position in Southeast Asia, it should shore up ties with countries on the margins of Beijing’s zone of influence: Vietnam and Thailand. Vietnam is continental in character. It has a closed political system, history of aligning with the Soviet Union, deep ties with Cambodia and Laos, and growing links to China. But Vietnam is becoming more maritime in its outlook. For example, in 2023, it upgraded its relationship with the United States to a comprehensive strategic partnership—a sign it considered the United States to be a vital partner. The Trump administration has squandered such goodwill, treating Hanoi as an adversary in one-sided tariff negotiations, a move that risks long-term damage to U.S. standing in Vietnam.

The United States should also pay more attention to Thailand. The country, a Cold War ally and an advanced economy, has historically been friendly to many external partners, including Western ones. Yet since 2006, Thailand’s democracy has eroded, and Bangkok has deepened both economic and defense ties with Beijing. The United States must invest more in this alliance and avoid punitive actions that push Thailand into Beijing’s arms officials. Washington, for example, sanctioned Thai officials in March for deporting 40 Uyghur asylum seekers to China. By shoring up its ties with Vietnam and Thailand, the United States can help ensure that maritime Southeast Asia remains open, imposing a natural limit on China’s ability to dominate Asia and preserving U.S. interests in the wider Indo-Pacific region.

The Two Southeast Asias

Foreign Affairs · More by Susannah Patton · September 25, 2025

A Divide Is Growing Between the Region’s Continental and Maritime Countries

Susannah Patton

September 25, 2025

A Singaporean naval ship near South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, June 2023 M Risyal Hidayat / Reuters

SUSANNAH PATTON is Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute.

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Policymakers and scholars in the West talk about Southeast Asia as a coherent region, but it has always been divided. The region’s 700 million people speak hundreds of languages and follow different religions, and its 11 countries vary in political system, size, geography, and level of economic development. Throughout the Cold War, Southeast Asia was divided between the five original founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that were aligned with the United States—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—and the three countries of Indochina—Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam—that aligned with China or the Soviet Union.

After the Cold War ended, ASEAN expanded to include Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, as well as the tiny sultanate of Brunei, increasing the salience of Southeast Asia as a geopolitical entity. Yet despite ASEAN’s achievements in fostering cooperation between its members, a cohesive Southeast Asia remains more myth than reality.

The reality is of two regions, not one. According to the Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Influence Index, which maps the sway of foreign partners across the region, two distinct networks persist among countries in Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam form a continental group that leans toward China. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore make up a maritime group in which the countries are well connected to one another, work with a wider array of governments from outside the region, and hedge between the United States and China. The Philippines is an outlier. It lacks close friends among other ASEAN countries and relies on non-Asian partners, particularly the United States, more than any of its neighbors.

The gap between these two networks of Southeast Asian countries is set to grow in the decades ahead, leading to a de facto Chinese sphere of influence in continental Southeast Asia. To prevent Beijing from encroaching even further, the United States should deepen ties with the countries that straddle Southeast Asia’s two subregions: Thailand and Vietnam.

BEIJING’S BACKYARD

Rugged, mountainous jungle separates China from Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, and through these countries, Cambodia and Thailand. The anthropologist James Scott referred to this difficult landscape as “Zomia” and described how it prevented any state from fully controlling these highlands for much of the region’s history. In fact, these geographic barriers kept continental Southeast Asia apart from China for millennia and provided a natural limit to the expansion of the Chinese state. By the twenty-first century, however, technology has overcome terrain. Roads, railways, and special economic zones have facilitated more exchanges of people and goods between China and continental Southeast Asia.

Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China has provided financing for new infrastructure megaprojects, especially railways, across the region. Many of these projects have physically linked continental countries to China, which has changed the nature of their relationships with Beijing in a way that is not true for maritime states. In 2021, for instance, southern China was connected by rail to the Laotian capital, Vientiane. China’s ultimate vision is to attach this line to projects across Thailand and Malaysia to establish a rail link between Singapore and the Chinese city of Kunming. The effects of the railway have been profound for Laos, a small developing country that is now heavily indebted to China. The value of trade between the two countries has soared since the railway opened, much of it from agricultural exports farmed by Laotians on land leased to Chinese investors.

A cohesive Southeast Asia remains more myth than reality.

Laos’s connections to China have a darker side, too. In the early years of this century, Laos set up special economic zones in a legitimate effort to encourage foreign investment. But today, they are ungoverned spaces in which Chinese businesspeople and even security forces can operate outside the confines of the law. Drug trafficking, wildlife crime, the unregulated migration of workers from Myanmar and other neighboring countries, and cyber-scams have proliferated in these areas. In effect, Laos lacks full sovereignty over much of its own territory. In Myanmar, civil war has slowed progress on the road and rail projects aiming to connect China with the Indian Ocean. But an oil and gas pipeline has continued to operate despite fierce fighting.

Even Vietnam, traditionally wary of Chinese influence, has drawn high levels of Chinese private investment because of the trade war between Washington and Beijing. Already, many companies have moved their supply chains from China to Vietnam, particularly its north—a shift from the historical norm in which southern Vietnam has been a more important center for trade and commerce. The U.S. tariff on Vietnamese products, at 20 percent, is still lower than those applied to Chinese goods, so China will likely continue to invest in Vietnam.

China has also funded railway projects in maritime Southeast Asia. In 2023, for example, a $7.3 billion high-speed domestic railway opened joining Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, with Bandung. Construction is underway on a project linking Malaysia’s east and west coasts by rail, at a cost of around $12 billion. Although these projects in maritime countries add to Beijing’s clout as an economic partner, they have not yet meaningfully connected either Indonesia or Malaysia to China.

FREE AND OPEN

Whereas continental Southeast Asia has, through its connection to China, been transformed over the past decade, this is not true of maritime Southeast Asia, which has always been exposed by its geography to many trading partners. The region’s two largest maritime countries, Indonesia and the Philippines, are immense archipelagos, and together with Singapore and Malaysia, straddle key waterways connecting Asia with the world. Just as Scott dubbed the highlands of continental Asia “Zomia,” the journalist Philip Bowring coined the term “Nusantaria” to describe Southeast Asia’s vast maritime expanses.

China has tried to assert control over the region’s central waterway, the South China Sea. This has alarmed countries around the globe, which need shipping lanes to remain free and open for trade. In 2016, a UN tribunal rejected China’s claims to the area within its “nine-dash line,” which covers almost the entire South China Sea. Since then, dozens of countries, as far afield as the United Kingdom, have supported the ruling, underscoring the global importance of these waterways.

Because maritime Southeast Asian countries are bigger and more important to worldwide commerce than continental states, they tend to receive investment and development finance from a larger pool of foreign donors. They also draw more interest when it comes to defense. Of the new defense cooperation initiatives between Western and Southeast Asian governments since 2017, most have been with maritime countries and Vietnam. Maritime countries, under more pressure from China’s sweeping maritime claims and steady encroachment in their exclusive economic zones, see the need to work with the United States and other Western countries. And the United States and its allies, particularly Australia and Japan, use maritime Southeast Asian countries to advance their own goals in relation to China. The United States views combined military exercises with the Philippines as a way to maintain access within the so-called first island chain, which separates China from the Pacific Ocean. Washington has stepped up military sales and cooperation with the Philippines, which has borne the brunt of China’s aggression at sea, as an investment in maintaining respect for international law and an attempt to prevent China from bending smaller countries to its will.

MIND THE GAP

Southeast Asia’s two sets of countries will continue to diverge. The region’s maritime states will remain open to many partners. China will be their biggest source of external influence but not by a huge margin, and many other countries, including the United States, Australia, India, and Japan, will attenuate Beijing’s sway. Continental Southeast Asia, on the other hand, is likely to become part of Beijing’s de facto sphere of influence. China won’t wield absolute power over these countries, but it will have much more leverage than any other state outside the region.

U.S. President Donald Trump appears drawn to the idea of spheres of influence. He seeks to reassert American dominance in the Western Hemisphere while showing greater deference to Russia’s interests in Europe. Perhaps the United States will ultimately see continental Southeast Asia as part of a natural sphere of influence for China. For a United States that is looking to reduce its international commitments, a decision to stop competing with China there may make sense.

Yet Washington should beware the consequences of such an arrangement. And if it does not want to undermine its own position in Southeast Asia, it should shore up ties with countries on the margins of Beijing’s zone of influence: Vietnam and Thailand. Vietnam is continental in character. It has a closed political system, history of aligning with the Soviet Union, deep ties with Cambodia and Laos, and growing links to China. But Vietnam is becoming more maritime in its outlook. For example, in 2023, it upgraded its relationship with the United States to a comprehensive strategic partnership—a sign it considered the United States to be a vital partner. The Trump administration has squandered such goodwill, treating Hanoi as an adversary in one-sided tariff negotiations, a move that risks long-term damage to U.S. standing in Vietnam.

The United States should also pay more attention to Thailand. The country, a Cold War ally and an advanced economy, has historically been friendly to many external partners, including Western ones. Yet since 2006, Thailand’s democracy has eroded, and Bangkok has deepened both economic and defense ties with Beijing. The United States must invest more in this alliance and avoid punitive actions that push Thailand into Beijing’s arms officials. Washington, for example, sanctioned Thai officials in March for deporting 40 Uyghur asylum seekers to China. By shoring up its ties with Vietnam and Thailand, the United States can help ensure that maritime Southeast Asia remains open, imposing a natural limit on China’s ability to dominate Asia and preserving U.S. interests in the wider Indo-Pacific region.

Foreign Affairs · More by Susannah Patton · September 25, 2025

​27. The Proliferation Problem Is Back

​Excerpts:

Fortunately, the vast majority of states still do not want nuclear weapons—in no small part because of the successes of U.S. strategy. But if even a handful of governments pursue the bomb, the world will be more volatile and dangerous. The United States thus retains an abiding interest in curtailing nuclear proliferation. American policymakers, after all, do not want to live in a world in which they must neglect key security priorities, such as homeland defense and technological competition, to focus on nuclear crises.

But to stop the further spread of nuclear weapons, Washington must address the rising interest in the bomb among its allies and bear in mind evolving threats from new technologies. It needs to bring Cold War–era security commitments into the twenty-first century, making them more reciprocal and responsive in ways that can mitigate allies’ fears of abandonment, strengthen collective defenses, and make U.S. defense burdens more sustainable. American strategy also needs to reflect a tripolar nuclear order. In the past, U.S. cooperation with Russia could focus mostly on building up the nonproliferation regime. Today, Washington will need to push Beijing and Moscow to temper behaviors that are driving countries to consider nuclear weapons of their own.

Averting proliferation in this geopolitical moment may seem difficult, and it will indeed require strong, bipartisan support to update U.S. strategy. But consensus is within reach when it comes to halting the spread of nuclear weapons, if only because the alternative would be far more costly for the United States and the world.

The Proliferation Problem Is Back

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Ernest J. Moniz, and Meghan L. O’Sullivan

Foreign Affairs · More by Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar · September 25, 2025

Washington Must Adapt Its Playbook for a New Era of Nuclear Risk

September 25, 2025

A military parade featuring nuclear missiles in Beijing, September 2025 Maxim Shemetov / Reuters

MARIANO-FLORENTINO CUÉLLAR is President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was previously a justice on the California Supreme Court. He is the author of Governing Security: The Hidden Origins of American Security Agencies.

ERNEST J. MONIZ is Co-Chair and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems Emeritus at MIT. He served as U.S. Secretary of Energy from 2013 to 2017.

MEGHAN L. O’SULLIVAN is Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. During the George W. Bush administration, she served as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Together they chaired the Task Force on Nuclear Proliferation and U.S. National Security.

• More by Ernest J. Moniz
• More by Meghan L. O’Sullivan

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In 1964, China detonated a 22-kiloton nuclear device at a test site in the arid northwestern Xinjiang region—and the political fallout reached Washington. Worried about the prospect that many countries around the world would soon gain nuclear weapons, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson convened a committee of seasoned foreign policy leaders to advise him on what Washington should do to prevent proliferation. Led by the former U.S. deputy secretary of defense Roswell Gilpatric, the group asked what an increase in nuclear-armed states would mean for U.S. security, what assurances the United States could realistically offer states that decided to forgo nuclear weapons, and how far Washington should go to prevent more states from acquiring them.

The Gilpatric committee’s conclusion was unanimous: averting the spread of nuclear weapons to any state, friend or foe, should be a top national security priority. To achieve that end, the committee provided a policy blueprint that Washington then went about implementing. Acting on the group’s advice, U.S. officials began negotiating multilateral nonproliferation treaties and agreements, including, controversially, accords with the Soviet Union. The United States also developed measures to cajole and coerce other countries into remaining non-nuclear, including extending security assurances, supporting civilian scientific endeavors, and threatening to cut off military support and impose economic penalties on proliferating states. Thanks in large part to such initiatives, U.S. efforts to combat proliferation over the last 60 years have succeeded more often than they have failed. Only nine states possess nuclear weapons, and only North Korea has acquired them in the twenty-first century.

But the nuclear landscape is changing in ways that are bringing proliferation back to the fore. An increasingly powerful China is scaling up its nuclear arsenal. Russia has backstopped its war in Ukraine with threats of nuclear use. Iran’s nuclear program was set back by recent U.S. and Israeli attacks, but it was not destroyed. U.S. allies, worried about their security and unsure about Washington’s commitment to their defense, are also mulling going nuclear. And evolving technologies such as artificial intelligence are making it easier than ever for states to build the bomb. Against this backdrop, the Cold War–era tools and tactics that Washington has long relied upon to manage proliferation challenges are eroding. The international treaties and regimes that govern nuclear issues, particularly the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), are badly frayed. Great-power cooperation on nuclear dangers has stalled.

These are storm clouds that American policymakers cannot ignore. So last year, drawing inspiration from the Gilpatric committee, we convened a bipartisan task force of senior national security leaders and experts to assess how nuclear proliferation is evolving and to make recommendations on how the United States can reinvigorate its approach. Despite differing views on a range of security issues, the group, like Gilpatric’s, reached a clear consensus: nuclear proliferation by any additional country would diminish U.S. power, complicate strategic planning, and increase the likelihood of nuclear use, accidents, and disasters.

But preventing proliferation will require a revamped approach. Instead of relying extensively on international treaties and great-power cooperation to control the supply of nuclear technologies, Washington will need to focus more on reconfiguring security alliances and pursuing new risk-reduction measures, including with competitors, that curtail the demand for nuclear weapons. The U.S. government will have to reassure its allies that it will come to their defense and harness new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, that can strengthen international monitoring capabilities and make it harder to conceal illicit activities.

None of these steps will be easy, given the world’s many divisions. But they are essential to preventing the emergence of new nuclear states—and thus enormous new risks.

THE TRIPOLAR MOMENT

The Soviet Union and the United States agreed on little. But throughout the mid-to-late twentieth century, the two countries sustained a high degree of cooperation in establishing and enforcing a global network of treaties, institutions, technology controls, and practices to inhibit nuclear proliferation. The cornerstone of this system is the NPT, which opened for signature in 1968 and now enjoys close to universal membership. Moscow and Washington upheld nonproliferation cooperation across all kinds of ups and downs in their relationship, including after the Cold War ended.

China was historically more skeptical of nonproliferation institutions and policies. But after joining the NPT in 1992, it also began participating, albeit selectively, in efforts to avert the further spread of nuclear weapons. For example, China, Russia, and the United States cooperated to stop North Korea’s nuclearization during the 1990s and early 2000s, although they ultimately failed. They later partnered with European powers to negotiate and implement the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. This successfully limited Iranian enrichment of uranium—until U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the accord three years later.

But recently, both Moscow and Beijing have begun to dial down their efforts. To advance its war against Ukraine, Russia has embraced military cooperation with both Iran and North Korea. In exchange for their support, it has turned a blind eye to Tehran’s and Pyongyang’s nuclear advances, voting in international forums to protect Iran from censure and bartering for North Korean weapons in violation of a UN arms embargo on North Korea. More concerning, Russian nuclear saber rattling has reanimated concerns in Europe and elsewhere that revisionist powers might use nuclear coercion to pursue wars of aggression. In 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he was suspending Moscow’s participation in the New START treaty, which was negotiated with the United States in 2010 and is the last remaining bilateral agreement governing strategic nuclear arsenals. For now, Russia continues to adhere to the treaty’s central limits, and Putin recently offered to extend those limits for an additional year. But the details of what Russia has proposed, let alone what it will do, remain unclear, and the prospects of a successor treaty to replace New START when it expires in early 2026 appear dim. It is now common to hear people in Kyiv and other European capitals say that only the bomb can guarantee a state’s survival.

China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal and more aggressive regional military posture add yet another layer to this challenge. What has historically been a bipolar nuclear order is transforming into a tripolar one. Beijing and Washington share common interests in preventing other states from developing nuclear weapons, but they have far less experience cooperating on nuclear issues than Moscow and Washington do. Moreover, Beijing likely sees solidifying a geopolitical counterweight to the United States and its allies as more important than preventing Iranian proliferation or reining in North Korea’s nuclear expansion.

KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE

Like its adversaries, many allies and close partners of the United States have flirted with the idea of acquiring nuclear weapons. In fact, many of Washington’s greatest nonproliferation success stories involved these states. American officials used a variety of tools to stymie their nuclear weapons ambitions, but one of the chief instruments was a willingness to extend protection to allies by bringing them under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. These arrangements played a crucial role in preventing the wave of proliferation that appeared imminent in the 1960s and 1970s. In practice, this involves maintaining a large defense and security network in key regions, including the forward deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe.

The U.S. alliance system is expensive, but it has done much to help Washington. U.S. officials have long believed that it would be harder to manage crises and prevent the use of nuclear weapons if more partners acquired nuclear arsenals. Extending deterrence has also afforded Washington significant influence over security dynamics in East Asia and Europe, where the United States has used its nuclear umbrella to cultivate valuable economic, political, and military relationships.

Yet growing threats from China, North Korea, and Russia have made U.S. allies question the credibility and sustainability of the security umbrella, particularly given the recent shifts in U.S. policy. Although doubts about whether the United States would truly risk nuclear war on behalf of its allies have always existed, such concerns have deepened in light of Washington’s costly trade disputes, its criticisms of allies’ “free riding,” and its discussions on reducing the U.S. military presence abroad. These allies are also unsettled by Washington’s periodic overtures to long-standing adversaries, particularly Russia. As a result, in recent years, current and former leaders and prominent security analysts in a variety of U.S. partner countries—including Germany, Japan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea—have openly discussed the need for independent nuclear arsenals or alternative security arrangements that would reduce their dependence on the United States.

The United States can encourage its allies to invest more in deterrence.

Some American analysts and officials have argued that the prospect of nuclear weapons acquisition by select allies may not be so bad and that it would help reduce the United States’ defense burden and vulnerability to a nuclear attack. But in reality, nuclear proliferation by U.S. allies could trigger destabilizing reactions from adversaries, increasing the likelihood of escalating regional conflicts. It could also make it harder for the United States to influence the behavior of allies and undercut efforts to thwart the nuclear weapon ambitions of unfriendly states, such as Iran.

Rather than encourage allies to develop nuclear weapons of their own, Washington should work with them to develop a new extended deterrence compact by updating the basic security bargains and divisions of labor that provide for mutual defense. Such an agreement should retain the U.S. nuclear umbrella for strategic deterrence while strengthening the conventional defenses of allies so they are better equipped to handle military threats from China, North Korea, and Russia. In turn, allies must better understand that their conventional military forces and American capabilities, conventional and nuclear, are part of one system for deterring threats and responding to attacks.

The United States can encourage its allies to invest more in deterrence by pairing steps to reinforce U.S. commitments with reciprocal and timely contributions from partners. Many allies are already increasing defense spending and augmenting their military capabilities, but this is only a start. In terms of hardware, allies need to acquire additional military systems, including conventional strike capabilities and integrated and layered missile defenses, that complement U.S. capabilities. Non-nuclear weapons have more range and utility than they did when extended deterrence arrangements were first established during the Cold War; as a result, they can serve as the first line of defense against aggression. But these countries must also invest in newer systems, such as anti-drone weapons. Recent events, including the incursion of Russian drones into Polish and Romanian airspace this month, underscore the urgency of adjusting to evolving forms of warfare. Poland, for example, was able to shoot down the drones, but only by scrambling its fighter jets. And relying on expensive missiles and planes to intercept cheap drones is not sustainable.

Equally as critical, the United States and its allies must improve military and political coordination. Tokyo and Washington’s decision last year to elevate alliance discussions on extended deterrence to the highest levels of government is a positive step in this direction. Deeper coordination to prepare for nuclear crises would also help allies understand how their contributions are critical to deterrence and increase their confidence that the United States would take action on their behalf. Washington can further reassure its friends by repeatedly and publicly reiterating its commitment to protect them.

COMMON GROUND

As it strengthens its alliances, the United States should also pursue pragmatic engagement with China and Russia to mitigate proliferation. The most direct way to do this would be for the three countries to engage in arms control and risk-reduction efforts. But realistically, the prospects for significant progress today are slim. Attempts to engage China and Russia in recent years have borne little fruit. Engaging with Russia is likely to be especially difficult so long as the war in Ukraine continues. And even if the United States suddenly found receptive partners in Beijing and Moscow, the emergence of a tripolar nuclear order calls for a fundamentally different approach to arms control. Attempting to equalize nuclear capabilities across the three powers cannot work.

The United States should nevertheless seek openings where it can. To begin, Washington should take up Putin’s suggestion to maintain the existing caps on their respective nuclear arsenals, which will otherwise be lifted when the New START treaty expires. U.S. officials should also propose a longer extension to New START while negotiators work on an agreement to replace it. In parallel, a senior U.S. official should signal to Chinese counterparts that Washington would be willing to discuss issuing a public statement in which the United States and China recognized their mutual nuclear vulnerability—a concept that has underpinned the nuclear relationship between Washington and Moscow for decades—as the first step in a bilateral process to identify and reduce nuclear risks. Separately, China, Russia, the United States, and the world’s other recognized nuclear weapons powers could jointly commit not to use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them. This would demonstrate nuclear restraint and perhaps reduce the incentives for countries to seek nuclear weapons.

Both China and Russia can make unique contributions to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. As a close neighbor and key transit point for illicit North Korean activities, China could, for instance, step up efforts to uphold the UN arms embargo on North Korea. It could also address concerns about its own opaque and rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal. As the United States should tell China (behind closed doors), its nuclear build up is stoking security anxieties in Asia and leading other countries in the region to contemplate developing their own nuclear weapons.

China, Russia, and the United States have reason to cooperate on nuclear security.

Russia was particularly integral to negotiating and implementing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and it has powerful leverage as the primary supplier to Iran’s civilian nuclear program. Should it choose to, it could help push Tehran into a new nuclear pact with limits and monitoring mechanisms that go beyond what was in the original. But even if Moscow won’t use its power to force through a new agreement, the United States can enlist Russia’s help in preventing the present situation from getting worse. Moscow could, for instance, press Tehran to fully restore its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which requires that Iran provide unimpeded access to inspectors, and avoid escalatory actions such as withdrawing from the NPT.

China, Russia, and the United States have reason to cooperate on other elements of nuclear security, even if they do not directly address rising proliferation threats. The states are all leaders in civilian nuclear technologies, with ambitious goals to expand nuclear energy projects domestically and abroad. Even as they compete for contracts and influence in the nuclear export marketplace, they maintain shared goals. Washington should therefore seek reinvigorated technical dialogues on promoting high standards for nuclear security and making sure that nuclear materials do not fall into the hands of smugglers or terrorists.

Addressing the intersection of nuclear proliferation and emerging technologies will also require global buy-in, including from China and Russia, and the updating of international safeguards and multilateral export regimes. Already, powerful AI models can be exploited by states to weaponize nuclear materials more quickly and cheaply or to circumvent monitoring and verification. Other developments, such as 3D printing and specialized machine tools, have likewise reduced some of the technical chokepoints to proliferation. At the same time, the United States and other countries can and should harness emerging technologies to thwart proliferation more effectively. Cheaper and more advanced sensor technologies could aid in the detection of illicit nuclear activities, making it harder for proliferators to hide.

ACROSS PARTY LINES

Fortunately, the vast majority of states still do not want nuclear weapons—in no small part because of the successes of U.S. strategy. But if even a handful of governments pursue the bomb, the world will be more volatile and dangerous. The United States thus retains an abiding interest in curtailing nuclear proliferation. American policymakers, after all, do not want to live in a world in which they must neglect key security priorities, such as homeland defense and technological competition, to focus on nuclear crises.

But to stop the further spread of nuclear weapons, Washington must address the rising interest in the bomb among its allies and bear in mind evolving threats from new technologies. It needs to bring Cold War–era security commitments into the twenty-first century, making them more reciprocal and responsive in ways that can mitigate allies’ fears of abandonment, strengthen collective defenses, and make U.S. defense burdens more sustainable. American strategy also needs to reflect a tripolar nuclear order. In the past, U.S. cooperation with Russia could focus mostly on building up the nonproliferation regime. Today, Washington will need to push Beijing and Moscow to temper behaviors that are driving countries to consider nuclear weapons of their own.

Averting proliferation in this geopolitical moment may seem difficult, and it will indeed require strong, bipartisan support to update U.S. strategy. But consensus is within reach when it comes to halting the spread of nuclear weapons, if only because the alternative would be far more costly for the United States and the world.

Foreign Affairs · More by Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar · September 25, 2025

28. 27th SOW Demonstrates Capabilities in ARCTIC EDGE 25

27th SOW Demonstrates Capabilities in ARCTIC EDGE 25

https://sof.news/afsoc/arcticedge25-27thsow/

September 25, 2025 DVIDS AFSOC 0

Story by Airman 1st Class Gracelyn Hess.

After nearly a month of operations across Alaska’s rugged terrain, Arctic Edge 2025 came to a close, marking the successful conclusion of one of the Department of Defense’s premier Arctic readiness exercises. Air Commandos from the 27th Special Operations Wing played a pivotal role throughout the exercise, showcasing their ability to deliver specialized airpower in some of the harshest environments.

Led by North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, AE25 brought together approximately 1,100 U.S. service members, interagency partners, and allied forces from the United Kingdom and Denmark. Over the course of the exercise, the 27th SOW showcased its trademark precision, adaptability, and joint interoperability across a series of demanding missions.

Throughout the month, 27th SOW aircraft and crews enabled critical passenger and cargo movements, transporting personnel and equipment to forward remote locations across Alaska to ensure joint forces could operate where they were needed most. The wing also conducted a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) rapid infiltration (HIRAIN) with the U.S. Marine Corps, demonstrating their ability to position heavy artillery in austere conditions. Working alongside U.S. Navy Sea Air and Land (SEAL) teams, 27th SOW Air Commandos supported both military free-fall operations and a specialized “Duck Drop” resupply, deploying an inflatable raft, or “duck,” into the water via an MC-130J Commando II to provide immediate transport during water-based operations, reinforcing joint special operations integration and sustainment in the Arctic.

Beyond mobility and infiltration, the wing sharpened its lethality through low-level flight training in Alaska’s demanding terrain, enhancing its ability to deliver forces clandestinely in contested environments. The 27th SOW also partnered with U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II pilots to establish and operate a Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARP), extending the reach of fifth-generation fighters and proving the value of expeditionary refueling in remote locations.

For the 27th SOW, AE25 was not only about showcasing capabilities but also about strengthening trust and interoperability with joint and allied partners. By working alongside the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and international forces, Air Commandos asserted their role as a combat-ready force prepared for the unique challenges of the Arctic.

“Arctic Edge gave us the chance to demonstrate what we do best: deliver specialized airpower to enable joint capabilities where few can operate,” said the AE25 Mission Commander for the 27th SOW.

As the exercise concludes, AE25 stands as a milestone in demonstrating the U.S. military’s ability to defend the homeland in the high north. For the 27th Special Operations Wing, it was a chance to reaffirm its reputation for readiness and lethality while proving, once again, that Air Commandos are ready for any mission—any place, any time, anywhere.

*********

This story by Airman 1st Class Gracelyn Hess was first published by the Defense Visual Distribution Service (DVIDS) on September 4, 2025.

Image: A U.S. Air Force MC-130J Commando II assigned to the 27th Special Operations Wing takes off from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson during ARCTIC EDGE 2025 (AE25), Aug. 18, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Gracelyn Hess)

29. On Trump’s Anti-Antifa Executive Order

​Again, I think there is a lot of misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about ANTIFA. I provided this before from my research assistance (AI). Below the article is some background on ANTIFA.

September 23, 2025 11:13AM

On Trump’s Anti-Antifa Executive Order

https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-anti-antifa-executive-order

By Patrick G. Eddington

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On September 22, President Trump issued his long-threatened executive order (EO) designating an idea—antifascism, known by its shorthand version, Antifa—a “domestic terrorist organization.” 

Yes, on the surface, the EO is idiotic on multiple levels. The notion that an idea can be designated an organization is one. The fact that there’s no constitutional provision or statute granting any president the power to designate a domestic civil society organization a “domestic terrorist organization” is another. 

The EO’s declaration that “Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law” is more than false—it is designed to act as a justification for legal and coercive action against anyone or any entity that the regime designates as engaged in 

… efforts to obstruct enforcement of Federal laws through armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures and activists.

I’m only aware of one anti-ICE raid incident in California over the summer in which a single agitator pointed a pistol at federal agents, and that person is apparently still at large. That’s not the “organized riot” the administration has claimed, and they’ve produced no evidence that the individual is connected to any group calling for the overthrow of the federal government. 

And none of those things matter, contrary to a lot of the legal or political commentary you may have already seen. What matters is that the administration asserts the authority to do this, and it has thousands of armed and armored federal law enforcement agents ready and able to carry out Trump’s orders—just as ICE and other federal agents (including mobilized National Guard troops) have been carrying out “immigration enforcement” operations of dubious or no legality for months.

What’s also important to remember is that for decades, the FBI has had and continues to maintain specific investigative categories designated “Terrorism Enterprise Investigation” and “Act of Terrorism—Domestic Terrorism” (AOT-DT) that target multiple categories of groups, as the screenshots below from the FBI’s Classification List (obtained by Cato via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)) show:

It is the Classification 266 type investigations that will most likely be used to target individuals tagged as “Antifa” or “Antifa associated,” and the Classification 100 AOT-DT type investigations that will be used to go after self-identified or otherwise tagged by the FBI as “Antifa” or “Antifa associated.” 

In the summer of 2018, the Oregon State Police and the FBI’s Portland Field Office conducted a joint investigation targeting Rose City Antifa, although it’s unclear whether that investigation was closed or remains ongoing. What is clear is that the organization remains active and vehemently opposed to Trump and his policies, making it and its members a likely target under the president’s new EO.

And the FBI is not the only federal law enforcement agency that tracks groups associated with the larger Antifa movement.

In May 2022, Cato filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Secret Service seeking records on anarchist, Antifa, and other political groups on the political left to determine the level of Secret Service monitoring of such groups and whether any of it violated the First or Fourth Amendment rights of the members of those groups. Cato prevailed in the litigation, securing the release of nearly 700 pages (WARNING: large file) of heavily redacted but relevant Secret Service records that mentioned such groups and their activities. This extract from the litigation shows that the Secret Service investigation was categorized as “Antifa Movement Nationwide” and was active at least as late as March 2022—during the Biden administration:

If you peruse the unredacted and readable portions of the records Cato obtained, you’ll find multiple groups listed with “Antifa” in their titles. You’ll also notice that the Secret Service tended to lump anarchists and Antifa elements under a single umbrella. While there’s certainly overlap between such self-identified groups, there are also philosophical and other differences—but none of that nuance is generally a concern for federal law enforcement agencies, and it’s apparently not a concern for Trump. In his worldview, they apparently are all violent radicals opposed to him and his policies, which is why they have now been officially elevated to “Enemy of the Regime” status via his EO. 

George Orwell, one of the most well-known antifascists of the last century, is undoubtedly rolling over in his grave right now.

​From my research assistant (AI).

What “Antifa” is (and isn’t)

• In U.S. usage, Antifa is best understood as a decentralized movement/ideology, not a single organization. The FBI has repeatedly described “ANTIFA” as a moniker for loose collections of individuals, sometimes organized into autonomous local groups; Director Christopher Wray has testified it’s “more of an ideology than an organization.” (DOJ Inspector General)
• Academic treatments (e.g., Mark Bray; Stanislav Vysotsky) likewise describe no nationwide hierarchy or chain of command, but rather small “affinity groups” connected by informal networks. (C-SPAN)
• Mainstream explainers (PBS, CSIS) summarize Antifa as anti-fascist/anti-racist, often anti-authoritarian, with adherents ranging from anarchists to socialists. (PBS)

Organization & leadership

• No formal leadership or membership rolls; local cells self-direct “direct action” and information-sharing. Scholars emphasize operational security, small group size, and distrust of centralized control. (Routledge)
• Coordination occurs ad hoc (e.g., via social media, trusted networks) around events where far-right groups are expected. There is no verified national command or financing apparatus. (DOJ Inspector General)

Activities & tactics

• Nonviolent activities: counter-protest organizing, research/monitoring of far-right actors, de-platforming campaigns, community organizing, and mutual aid. (PBS)
• Militant tactics sometimes used by some adherents: black-bloc masking, doxxing, harassment, vandalism/property damage, and street confrontations aimed at “no platform for fascism.” (Vox)
• Independent data projects (ACLED) found that the 2020 protest landscape was vast and heterogeneous; while there were violent incidents and property damage, arrests typically did not show organized extremist affiliations en masse. (ACLED)

Vision & focus

• Core aim: prevent growth and public normalization of fascist/white-supremacist politics; many adherents argue proactive disruption is necessary before such movements can scale. (Vox)
• Ideological spectrum skews anti-authoritarian (anarchist through socialist), often critical of liberal proceduralism; supporters frame militant antifascism as defensive, while critics argue tactics can be illiberal and counterproductive. (CSIS)

Funding & resourcing

• No evidence of centralized or elite patron funding. Recurrent claims (e.g., “Soros funds Antifa”) have been repeatedly debunked by major fact-checkers and by Open Society statements. (Reuters)
• Typical resourcing is localized and small-scale: personal contributions, grassroots crowdfunding, benefit merch, and mutual-aid/bail funds (e.g., International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund; city-specific funds during 2020). These are often separate nonprofits or informal pools, not “Antifa” entities per se. (Truthout)
• Analysts of militant anarchist/antifascist scenes similarly describe local, affinity-group logistics rather than top-down pipelines. (FDD)

Law-enforcement & policy context

• U.S. law has no domestic terrorist organization designation process akin to the foreign terror list. Congressional resolutions to label “Antifa” a domestic terrorist organization have been introduced across sessions but have no legal effect; federal agencies instead investigate individuals for violent crimes regardless of ideology. (Congress.gov)
• FBI/DOJ reporting since 2020 has prioritized racially motivated violent extremists (especially white supremacists) and some anti-government actors as the deadliest domestic threats, while also investigating violent anarchist extremists (including some who self-identify with Antifa). (PBS)

Bottom line assessment

• Structure: Decentralized movement with autonomous local groups; no national leadership or membership. (DOJ Inspector General)
• Activities: Mix of nonviolent counter-mobilization and mutual aid, with episodic militant street tactics (black-bloc, vandalism, assault) by some participants at protest flashpoints. (PBS)
• Vision: Prevent growth of fascist/white-supremacist movements; “no platform” strategy. (Vox)
• Funding: Predominantly local, small-donor, mutual-aid models; no credible evidence of centralized big-money backers. (Reuters)

Timeline: groups & flashpoints

Late 1980s–1990s – Precursor networks

• Minneapolis “Baldies” → Anti-Racist Action (ARA) forms and spreads across North America; decentralized, direct-action anti-racist crews that many researchers cite as Antifa’s U.S. precursor. (Working Class History)

2007 – First U.S. group to use “Antifa” in its name

• Rose City Antifa (RCA) launches in Portland, Oregon; later becomes one of the most visible U.S. groups. (Rose City Antifa)

2013 – National rebrand of ARA

• ARA dissolves and reorganizes as the Torch Antifascist Network; RCA later affiliates (2016). (Wikipedia)

Feb 1, 2017 – UC Berkeley (“Milo” event)

• A planned campus speech by Milo Yiannopoulos is canceled after black-bloc militants (some identifying as Antifa) engage in property damage and clashes; widely covered and often referenced in Antifa debates. (Berkeley News)

Aug 11–12, 2017 – Charlottesville

• “Unite the Right” rally draws white-supremacist groups; large counter-mobilization includes anti-racist/Antifa organizers. Heather Heyer is killed in a vehicular attack by a white supremacist; event becomes a touchstone for both far-right and antifascist mobilization. (Wikipedia)

2018–2019 – Portland street conflicts

• Repeated Proud Boys / Patriot Prayer vs. antifascists confrontations in Portland; arrests and injuries across multiple dates (e.g., Jul 2018, Aug 2018, Aug 2019). RCA is frequently cited as a local counter-mobilizer. (The Guardian)

Jun 29, 2019 – Assault on Andy Ngo (Portland)

• Conservative journalist Andy Ngo is assaulted during downtown clashes; later wins civil judgment against identified attackers. (Case targeted individuals; reflects atomized nature of scenes.) (U.S. Press Freedom Tracker)

May–Nov 2020 – George Floyd protest wave

• Nationwide protests; ACLED records ~94–95% peaceful events overall, with a minority involving violence/property damage. Attribution to a centralized “Antifa organization” is not supported by charge data or later oversight reports. (ACLED)
• Portland federal courthouse becomes a nightly flashpoint; later reporting shows DHS leadership pushed to label violent actors “VAAI – Violent Antifa Anarchist Inspired,” despite analysts’ cautions (illustrating politicized labeling). (opb)

Aug 29 & Sep 3, 2020 – Portland/Lacey killings

• Aaron “Jay” Danielson (Patriot Prayer supporter) is fatally shot in Portland; suspect Michael Reinoehl—who had posted “100% ANTIFA” rhetoric—is killed days later by a federal task force in Lacey, WA. Investigations and litigation follow. (Wikipedia)

2021 – Post-election period & Portland brawls

• Proud Boys–antifascist August 22, 2021 clashes in Portland; subsequent prosecutions (e.g., Proud Boys figure “Tiny” Toese convicted for 2021 melee). (Diario AS)

2023–2025 – Atlanta “Stop Cop City”

• Large protest movement against Atlanta’s police training center includes anarchist/antifascist currents; Georgia brings domestic terrorism and RICO cases against dozens of protesters. September 2025: a judge tosses the RICO charges; some terrorism counts continue. (Shows how authorities sometimes treat militant, decentralized protest ecosystems.) (AP News)

Ongoing – Movement characterization by authorities

• FBI Director Christopher Wray reiterates Antifa is “an ideology… not an organization.” This frames subsequent federal practice of targeting individual criminal acts rather than a non-existent national entity. (AP News)

Notable U.S. groups (illustrative, not exhaustive)

• Rose City Antifa (Portland, founded 2007): Oldest continuously active U.S. Antifa-named group; publishes doxxes, research, and mobilizes counter-actions; joined Torch Network (2016). (Rose City Antifa)
• Torch Antifascist Network (national, est. 2013): Loose network descended from ARA, with autonomous chapters including RCA. (Wikipedia)
• Local/metro collectives (e.g., NYC Antifa, others): small, security-minded “affinity groups” that surface around events; illustrate non-hierarchical movement structure. (Wikipedia)

Reading the pattern

• Structure: decentralized, city-level collectives (often Torch-affiliated) mobilize around far-right events or local flashpoints. (Wikipedia)
• Flashpoints: the most intense street fighting clusters around Berkeley 2017, Charlottesville 2017 (as counter-protest), Portland 2018–2021, and specific 2020 Portland nights. (Wikipedia)
• Labeling vs. evidence: Government and media sometimes over-ascribe incidents to a centralized “ANTIFA”; subsequent reporting/oversight undercuts that framing. (Just Security)

30. The Pentagon, the Press and the Fight to Control National Security Coverage

The Pentagon, the Press and the Fight to Control National Security Coverage

Journalists have long shaped history through scrutiny of the military. Now the Defense Department plans to cut off access for reporters who publish even unclassified information without official approval.

NY Times · David E. Sanger · September 24, 2025

Washington Memo

Journalists have long shaped history through scrutiny of the military. Now the Defense Department plans to cut off access for reporters who publish even unclassified information without official approval.

The rules set out by the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seek to establish new constraints on journalists that news organizations consider unconstitutional and at odds with democratic norms.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Washington Memo

Journalists have long shaped history through scrutiny of the military. Now the Defense Department plans to cut off access for reporters who publish even unclassified information without official approval.

The rules set out by the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seek to establish new constraints on journalists that news organizations consider unconstitutional and at odds with democratic norms.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Listen to this article · 7:47 min Learn more

By

David E. Sanger has covered national security issues for more than three decades. He reported from Washington.

• Sept. 24, 2025Updated 8:52 a.m. ET

Leer en español

Imagine for a moment that the Defense Department’s new demand for a “pledge” from Pentagon reporters — a commitment not to publish even unclassified but sensitive information, except what press officers approve, under threat of losing their press passes — had existed during the botched evacuation of American personnel from Afghanistan four years ago.

Reporters would have been under pressure to cover that withdrawal, which President Trump regularly describes as the most disastrous moment in American military history, as the Pentagon would have wanted it depicted: a heroic airlift, amid chaos. The reporters who revealed the disastrous drone strike during the evacuation that killed 10 civilians, contradicting the Biden administration's initial insistence that it was a “righteous strike,” could have been in danger of losing their military press credentials.

Had they been in place at the time, the new rules, which were announced on Friday and are scheduled to come into effect over the next two weeks, might have also impeded reporting during the run-up to the Iraq war. The few dissents inside the U.S. government, questioning President George W. Bush’s confident assertion that Saddam Hussein was still seeking weapons of mass destruction, were certainly sensitive — and in some cases highly classified.

And in Vietnam, the reporters who leaped on and off helicopters, recording the day-to-day reality in a conflict that today seems hopelessly misbegotten, might have risked losing their access to the battlefield for reporting the obvious: What was happening on the ground didn’t remotely match with what optimistic American military leadership was describing at briefings known as the “Five O’Clock Follies.”

Journalists attending a briefing by military officers in Vietnam in 1963. At center is Seymour Topping of The New York Times, who later became the paper’s managing editor. The government and the news media have tangled over the publication of secret information for decades.Credit...Associated Press

The key to American national security reporting, back to the days when Jefferson sent the Navy to fight the Barbary pirates, has been to compare the government’s official account with evidence, documents and on-the-ground reporting. That was how journalists described to Americans the flubbed Bay of Pigs operation early in the Kennedy administration and the secret war in Cambodia.

In publishing the Pentagon Papers in 1971, The New York Times exposed how an official but unreleased account of the Vietnam War documented a systematic effort by the Johnson administration to mislead the public about the course of the conflict. The history was marked “Top Secret — Sensitive.” Its revelation helped change public perceptions of the war.

These days, in covering traditional conflicts like the one in Ukraine, or the new battlefields of space and cyberspace, or the “shadow war” of sabotage, journalists find it almost impossible to report without running into a wall of sensitivity, secrecy and classification. That even includes attacks that strike at ordinary Americans, such as the Chinese “Salt Typhoon” campaign that pierced deep into American telecommunications systems.

Getting to an approximation of the truth means dealing with a messy mix of unclassified, sensitive and, at times, classified data — some stamped “Top Secret” because national security is truly at stake, some because its revelation would be embarrassing.

The government and the press have tangled over the publication of secret information for decades, of course, most famously in the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which led to a landmark court fight that reaffirmed press freedoms.

But the rules set out by the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seek to establish new constraints on journalists that news organizations consider unconstitutional and at odds with democratic norms.

To obtain or renew a Pentagon pass, a memo circulated on Friday declared, reporters must sign a commitment to publish only information “approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”

Violators would lose their access to the Pentagon and all U.S. military facilities. Mr. Hegseth, writing on social media, said the move established that “the ‘press’ does not run the Pentagon — the people do.”

Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that the rules were “basic, common-sense guidelines to protect sensitive information.”

Reporters have begun receiving notifications that they must sign a form agreeing to the new rules, and that if they refuse, their passes could be revoked in less than two weeks. That would constrain their access to civilian and military officials in the building and at bases around the country and the world.

Mr. Hegseth, who discussed a planned military strike this year on a text chain with a group to which a journalist had accidentally been added, is hardly the first senior national security official to vow to bring the press under control. During the Civil War, two famed Union commanders, Philip Sheridan and William T. Sherman, detained reporters and court-martialed one for espionage. President Barack Obama opened more leak investigations than all of his modern predecessors, combined.

Coming amid a broader push by the administration to clamp down on criticism of Mr. Trump, the scope of Mr. Hegseth’s effort stunned news organizations, which are considering how best to keep the policy from coming into effect, including potential legal challenges.

Even a few Republicans in Congress have expressed reservations. Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, a former brigadier general in the Air Force, wrote on social media: “This is so dumb that I have a hard time believing it is true. We don’t want a bunch of Pravda newspapers only touting the Government’s official position.”

It is also reflective of an outdated view of how national security news gets reported in Washington.

The scope of Mr. Hegseth’s effort stunned news organizations, which are considering how best to keep the policy from coming into effect.

While the Pentagon remains a critical source of information about the use of American power, it is hardly the only source. Commercial satellites offer remarkably detailed imagery of nuclear sites in Iran, and international inspectors collect critical intelligence on that country, much of it “sensitive” in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Intelligence agencies from many nations collect and exchange data on Ukraine. From the beginning of the conflict, the British have published significantly more detailed daily assessments of the action than the Pentagon has made public. Drone, cellphone and security camera imagery gives reporters a look at action on the front lines.

In its oversight role, Congress receives — and sometimes releases — information the Trump administration would like to keep secret. Senators complain that they, too, are being frozen out of information that was once routinely shared. They still have not received a full accounting of the evidence that the U.S. military is using to justify sinking boats coming out of Venezuela, even amid questions about whether some are not carrying drugs, as the administration asserts they are.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a veteran and the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he thought the effort was aimed at making journalists “mere stenographers for the party in power or the Pentagon itself.”

The State Department and the White House have so far not sought to impose similar restrictions, though the White House banned The Associated Press earlier this year from participating in the press pools that get close-up access to the president because the news organization declined to switch to using “Gulf of America,” rather than “Gulf of Mexico.”

Even Mr. Trump has appeared dubious about the effectiveness of the Defense Department’s new policy, though he has done nothing to roll it back. A reporter asked him over the weekend, “Should the Pentagon be in charge of deciding what reporters can report on?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Mr. Trump said. “Listen, nothing stops reporters. You know that.”

David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.

See more on: U.S. Politics, U.S. Department of Defense

NY Times · David E. Sanger · September 24, 2025

​31. White House to agencies: Prepare mass firing plans for a potential shutdown

​firing verus furlough.

Excerpt:

The memo appears to vindicate warnings issued by some Democrats — most prominently Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — during the last shutdown standoff in March. Schumer at the time moved to allow a GOP-written spending bill to pass, arguing that a shutdown would be a “gift” allowing Trump and his deputies “to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.”

White House to agencies: Prepare mass firing plans for a potential shutdown

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/24/white-house-firings-shutdown-00579909

In memo, the Trump administration says the Reduction-in-Force plans would go beyond standard shutdown furloughs

By Sophia Cai

09/24/2025

The White House budget office is instructing federal agencies to prepare reduction-in-force plans for mass firings during a possible government shutdown, specifically targeting employees who work for programs that are not legally required to continue.

The Office of Management and Budget move to permanently reduce the government workforce if there is a shutdown, outlined in a memo shared with POLITICO ahead of release to agencies tonight, escalates the stakes of a potential shutdown next week.

In the memo, OMB told agencies to identify programs, projects and activities where discretionary funding will lapse on Oct. 1 and no alternative funding source is available. For those areas, OMB directed agencies to begin drafting RIF plans that would go beyond standard furloughs, permanently eliminating jobs in programs not consistent with President Donald Trump’s priorities in the event of a shutdown.

The move marks a significant break from how shutdowns have been handled in recent decades, when most furloughs were temporary and employees were brought back once Congress voted to reopen government and funding was restored. This time, OMB Director Russ Vought is using the threat of permanent job cuts as leverage, upping the ante in the standoff with Democrats in Congress over government spending.

“Programs that did not benefit from an infusion of mandatory appropriations will bear the brunt of a shutdown,” OMB wrote in the memo. Agencies were told to submit their proposed RIF plans to OMB and to issue notices to employees even if they would otherwise be excepted or furloughed during a lapse in funding.

Programs that will continue regardless of a shutdown include Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, military operations, law enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and air traffic control, according to an OMB official granted anonymity to share information not yet public.

The guidance comes as Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are locked in an impasse over funding, with just days before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. The House passed a stopgap spending measure to float federal operations through Nov. 21, but Democrats in the Senate have refused to advance it, demanding that Republicans come to the table to negotiate a bipartisan package that could include an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.

The OMB letter notes that if Congress successfully passes a clean stopgap bill prior to Sept. 30, the additional steps outlined in this email will not be necessary.

The memo appears to vindicate warnings issued by some Democrats — most prominently Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — during the last shutdown standoff in March. Schumer at the time moved to allow a GOP-written spending bill to pass, arguing that a shutdown would be a “gift” allowing Trump and his deputies “to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.”

Schumer says he has since revised that view, saying this month that the administration’s attacks on federal agencies “will get worse with or without [a shutdown], because Trump is lawless.”

He made a similar point Wednesday after POLITICO published details of the memo, calling it an “attempt at intimidation.”

“This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government,” he said. “These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”

But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries struck a different note in an X post that appeared to take the threat seriously. He addressed it to voters in federal-worker-rich Virginia, who will soon elect a governor and other state officials.

“Their goal is to ruin your life and punish hardworking families already struggling with Trump Tariffs and inflation,” he said. “Remember in November.”

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