Quotes of the Day:

"ff anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin. Even though the result may gladden the whole world, that cannot help the hero; for he knows the result only when the whole thing is over, and that is not how he became a hero, but by virtue of the fact that he began."

– Soren Kierkegaard

"Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do."

– Immanuel Kant

"Be isolated, be ignored, be attacked, be in doubt, be frightened, but do not be silenced."

– Bertrand Russell

1. Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence

2. Five Key Considerations on Terrorism and Political Violence

3. Art and Irregular Warfare: Aesthetic Resistance, Symbolic Power, and the Battles for Meaning

4. How China’s Secretive Spy Agency Became a Cyber Powerhouse

5. Trump to Attend Pentagon Meeting With Top Commanders

6. Pentagon Pushes to Double Missile Production for Potential China Conflict

7. Russia’s Ambitious Plans in Africa Are Unraveling

8. ‘Biometric Exit’ Quietly Expands Across U.S. Airports, Unnerving Some

9. Venezuela, America and the Specter of Regime Change

10. Classified US intelligence warns of China's Taiwan invasion preparations

11. Why economists get Trumpism wrong

12. The U.S. Is Weighing A Massive Weapons Hub Near China's Doorstep

13. Special Operations News – September 29, 2025

14. Steady Erosion of Confidence: US’s Indo-Pacific Allies Grow Uneasy

15. Behind Taiwan’s ‘unification’ party, Chinese espionage — and a criminal gang

16. High time for Europe to stand with Taiwan, foreign minister says in Poland

17. China Goes on Offense: Beijing’s Plans to Exploit American Retreat

18. RFA needed as CCP races to cement global narrative: Bay Fang

19. Arthur Brooks: How to Heal Our Country? Love Your Enemies.

1. Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence

Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence 

Presidential Memoranda

September 25, 2025

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/

NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM/NSPM-7

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

              THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY

SUBJECT:      Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized

              Political Violence

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby direct the following:

Section 1.  Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence. Heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased in recent years. Even in the aftermath of the horrifying assassination of Charlie Kirk, some individuals who adhered to the alleged shooter’s ideology embraced and cheered this evil murder while actively encouraging more political violence. This was preceded by the 2024 assassination of a senior healthcare executive and the 2022 assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Two separate assassination attempts against my own life in less than 3 months took place during the 2024 Presidential election cycle. Riots in Los Angeles and Portland reflect a more than 1,000 percent increase in attacks on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers since January 21, 2025, compared to the same period last year. Just yesterday, a shooting targeting an ICE facility in Dallas resulted in multiple casualties.  Separate anti-police and “criminal justice” riots have left many people dead and injured and inflicted over $2 billion in property damage nationwide.

This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society. A new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them — is required. 

These campaigns often begin by isolating and dehumanizing specific targets to justify murder or other violent action against them. They do so through a variety of fora, including anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions. These campaigns then escalate to organized doxing, where the private or identifying information of their targets (such as home addresses, phone numbers, or other personal information) is exposed to the public with the explicit intent of encouraging others to harass, intimidate, or violently assault them. As in the case of several ICE agents in Los Angeles being doxed, the goal of these campaigns can be to obstruct the operations of the Federal Government as well as aid and abet criminal activity the Federal Government is lawfully pursuing. These campaigns are coordinated and perpetrated by actors who have developed a comprehensive strategy to achieve specific policy goals through radicalization and violent intimidation.

There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described “anti-fascism.” These movements portray foundational American principles (e.g., support for law enforcement and border control) as “fascist” to justify and encourage acts of violent revolution. This “anti-fascist” lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality. As described in the Order of September 22, 2025 (Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization), the groups and entities that perpetuate this extremism have created a movement that embraces and elevates violence to achieve policy outcomes, including justifying additional assassinations. For example, Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin engraved the bullets used in the murder with so-called “anti-fascist” rhetoric. 

The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts. Through this comprehensive strategy, law enforcement will disband and uproot networks, entities, and organizations that promote organized violence, violent intimidation, conspiracies against rights, and other efforts to disrupt the functioning of a democratic society.

Sec. 2.  Investigating Domestic Terrorist Organizations. (a) The National Joint Terrorism Task Force and its local offices (collectively, “JTTFs”) shall coordinate and supervise a comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law. This strategy shall include the investigatory and prosecutorial measures set forth in this section.

(b) The JTTFs shall investigate potential Federal crimes relating to acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons for the purpose of:

(i)  political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; or

(ii) the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights.

(c) The JTTFs shall also investigate:

(i)  institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations, that are responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct described in subsections (a) and (b) of this section; and

(ii) non-governmental organizations and American citizens residing abroad or with close ties to foreign governments, agents, citizens, foundations, or influence networks engaged in violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (22 U.S.C. 611 et seq.) or money laundering by funding, creating, or supporting entities that engage in activities that support or encourage domestic terrorism.

(d) The JTTFs shall consult and coordinate with executive departments and agencies (agencies) as needed to determine whether such agencies can apply existing authorities or exercise their own authorities, as appropriate, to support the JTTFs’ investigations and relevant prosecutions of political violence.

(e) The JTTFs may, to the extent permitted by law, request operational assistance from and coordinate with law enforcement partners when investigating domestic terrorism.

(f) The National Joint Terrorism Task Force shall provide regular progress updates to the President through the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor. 

(g) The Attorney General shall direct the Department of Justice to prosecute all Federal crimes, to the maximum extent permissible by law, related to the investigations described in subsections (a) through (c) of this section.

(h) The Attorney General shall issue specific guidance that ensures domestic terrorism priorities include politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder. This guidance shall also include an identification of any behaviors, fact patterns, recurrent motivations, or other indicia common to organizations and entities that coordinate these acts in order to direct efforts to identify and prevent potential violent activity. 

(i) The Secretary of the Treasury (Secretary), in coordination with the Attorney General, shall make available all resources, to the maximum extent permitted by law, to identify and disrupt financial networks that fund domestic terrorism and political violence. The Secretary, acting through the Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Office of the Department of the Treasury, shall deploy investigative tools, examine financial flows, and coordinate with partner agencies to trace illicit funding streams. The Secretary shall provide guidance for financial institutions to file Suspicious Activity Reports and investigate indicia of illicit funding streams to ensure such activity is rooted out at the source and referred for law enforcement action, as appropriate.

(j) The Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (Commissioner) shall take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism. In addition, where applicable, the Commissioner shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service refers such organizations, and the employees and officers of such organizations, to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.

(k) All Federal law enforcement agencies with investigative authority shall question and interrogate, within all lawful authorities, individuals engaged in political violence or lawlessness regarding the entity or individual organizing such actions and any related financial sponsorship of those actions prior to adjudication or initiation of a plea agreement. Investigations should prioritize crimes such as the following: assaulting Federal officers or employees or otherwise engaging in conduct proscribed by 18 U.S.C. 111; conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. 241; conspiracy to commit offense under 18 U.S.C. 371; solicitation to commit a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. 373; money laundering under 18 U.S.C. 1956; funding of terrorist acts or otherwise facilitating terrorism under 18 U.S.C. 2339, 2339A, 2339B, 2339C, and 2339D; arson offenses under 18 U.S.C. 844; violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C. 1961 et seq.); and major fraud against the United States under 18 U.S.C. 1031.

(l) All Federal law enforcement agencies with investigative authority shall adopt strategies similar to those used to address violent crime and organized crime to disrupt and dismantle entire networks of criminal activity.

Sec. 3. Department of Justice Designation. In the course of and as a result of the investigations directed by section 2 of this memorandum, the Attorney General may recommend that any group or entity whose members are engaged in activities meeting the definition of “domestic terrorism” in 18 U.S.C. 2331(5) merits designation as a “domestic terrorist organization.” The Attorney General shall submit a list of any such groups or entities to the President through the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor.

Sec. 4.  Domestic Terrorism as a National Priority Area. The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall designate domestic terrorism a national priority area and develop appropriate grant programs to allocate funding for law enforcement partners to detect, prevent, and protect against threats arising from this area.

Sec. 5.  General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)  the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. 

(c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d) The Secretary of Homeland Security is authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

                              DONALD J. TRUMP

2. Five Key Considerations on Terrorism and Political Violence

Excerpts:

Across these five key considerations runs a central thread: fragmentation is the adversary’s ally. Whether through technological disruption, institutional distrust, or policy overreach, disunity creates openings for extremist actors and criminal networks to exploit. On the other hand, cohesion serves as credible deterrence.

Adversaries are betting on a distracted, divided America. To prove them wrong requires operationalizing unity, not as rhetoric, but as measurable policy, trusted partnerships, and resilient communities. In an age where division itself can be weaponized, unity is not only America’s greatest strength but quite possibly its most consequential form of deterrence.

Five Key Considerations on Terrorism and Political Violence

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/09/29/five-key-considerations-on-terrorism-and-political-violence/

by Amos Fox

|

09.29.2025 at 06:00am

Abstract

The evolving threat of terrorism and political violence in the United States cannot be understood without observing technological change, institutional memory, and societal resilience. Recent discussions underscore five urgent considerations: (1) sustaining lessons from two decades of counterterrorism, (2) preparing for AI and drone-enabled battlefields, (3) confronting the misuse of commercial technologies, (4) maximizing open-source intelligence collaboration, and (5) analyzing the connection between counternarcotics and counterterrorism. Across all five lies a central truth: adversaries exploit division, while unity across government, private sector, and civil society is America’s most credible form of deterrence.

Introduction

Terrorism and political violence are not relics of the post-9/11 era; rather, they are evolving phenomena shaped by rapidly developing technology, shifting geopolitics, and domestic vulnerability. At The Soufan Center’s recent Global Summit on Terrorism and Political Violence, leaders from government, private sector, academia, and civil society underscored a recurring theme: adversaries thrive on fragmentation, whether in our institutions, our politics, or our digital ecosystems. What follows are five key considerations that when taken together, reveal both the complexity of today’s threat landscape and the urgency of unification across sectors of American society.

These are not just academic insights, they are warnings about how the democratization of violence, the misuse of everyday technologies, and the blurring of terrorism with criminal enterprises threatens to outpace current security frameworks. Analysis from the discussions held at the Global Summit on Terrorism and Political Violence point to a clear conclusion: unless the United States integrates lessons from past campaigns, adapts to emerging technologies, and strengthens trusted partnerships, it risks ceding strategic advantage to agile non-state actors.

1. Carrying Lessons Forward

While two decades of counterterrorism came at an extraordinary cost to the United States, those campaigns yielded hard-earned lessons that should not be discarded as strategic interest shifts toward great power competition. Leaders from the special operations community caution that great power competition and irregular warfare are not competing priorities but parallel challenges that must be confronted together. Neglecting one in pursuit of the other risks leaving the nation strategically unbalanced.

Today, non-state actors are exploiting technologies once reserved for nation-states such as drones, robotics, and artificial intelligence, blurring the old distinctions between terrorism, insurgency, and organized crime. What emerges is a more dangerous “even playing field,” where the key variable is not who the adversary is but rather how quickly and cheaply an actor can weaponize publicly available tools.

History warns of the dangers when rising and established powers collide, a dynamic defined by Graham Allison as the Thucydides Trap. Yet arguably the more immediate risk lies beneath the level of great power conflict. When violent non-state actors gain access to democratized technologies, they can destabilize regions and institutions, eroding stability long before states themselves ever move into direct confrontation. Institutional memory in this environment is not only about written doctrine, but also how successive practitioners are mentored to carry forward lessons from the past. While doctrine provides continuity, it’s ultimately the transmission of lived experience between generations that prevents costly relearning. Preserving and applying these lessons coherently ensures the nation is not divided between past and future priorities but prepared for both simultaneously.

2. The Future of Conflict: Drones and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The future of warfare is already visible in contemporary conflicts and being shaped in real time through mass produced drones and AI-enabled targeting. Currently in Ukraine, bottom-up innovation has produced a “drone revolution,” with micro-factories turning out millions of low-cost weapon systems that impose disproportionate losses on a better-armed adversary. Meanwhile in Israel, top-down AI integration through systems such as “Lavender” and “Gospel” are using AI to generate targeting recommendations. While Israeli Defense Force (IDF) commanders retain final air strike authority, the very presence of AI in the targeting process raises urgent operational and ethical questions about autonomy, accountability, and the future role of human oversight in armed conflict.

For the United States, the implication is critical as the strategy built around a handful of high value platforms risks obsolescence in an era defined by cheap, attritable systems guided by AI. While this doesn’t mean abandoning carriers or fifth-generation aircraft, it does require rethinking force design, acquisition, and doctrine around scale and adaptability. The central question is whether U.S. institutions can accelerate procurement cycles, integrate software-driven autonomy responsibly, and train forces for machine-speed conflict. If adaptation lags, adversaries who embrace democratized technologies will hold the advantage, eroding deterrence and potentially reshaping the balance of power before the United States can respond effectively.

3. Extremism in the Digital Commons

The same platforms that empower commerce and civil dialogue also give extremists unprecedented reach and capability. What once required the resources of a state can now be improvised in a garage or coordinated on social media. This democratization of violence blurs the lines between terrorism, insurgency, and criminal activity, creating a threat environment where adaptation consistently outpaces regulation.

Extremist groups are advancing along the two reinforcing fronts of decentralized propaganda ecosystems and the rapid weaponization of commercial technologies. For example, the collapse of ISIS’s territorial caliphate did not end its influence; instead, affiliated networks such as ISIS-Khorasan Province (ISKP) have splintered and innovated, extending their reach across regional, generational, and ideological boundaries. According to The Soufan Center’s recent IntelBrief, social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram (along with the increased use of gaming platforms) are fueling youth radicalization, driven by algorithms that amplify emotionally charged and extremist content. At the same time, extremist groups are expanding their propaganda methods, turning to generative AI to produce content that mimics the authority of mainstream media outlets or well-known online personalities. For the United States, this dynamic poses a profound risk. While U.S. and allied partners do monitor and infiltrate many of these online networks, the sheer scale and adaptability of digital ecosystems allow adversaries to continuously exploit openings.

From a tech-policy standpoint, it’s essential to identify a pathway to preserve the benefits of open innovation and civil freedoms, while closing off exploitation. Proposals include stronger identity verification measures, anomaly monitoring, and embedded safeguards such as technical “kill switches” that can disable systems when misuse is detected. Yet technical fixes alone are insufficient, governance must anticipate these challenges rather than react. Perhaps most importantly, there must be willing collaboration between government, private sector, and civil society partners. Fragmented responses only multiply vulnerabilities whereas coordinated efforts deny extremists the gaps they seek to exploit.

4. The OSINT Opportunity

While the online ecosystem is vast, the same openness that extremists exploit can also expose them. Every propaganda post, recruitment message, and comment leaves behind a digital footprint. Open-source intelligence (OSINT) transforms this vulnerability into opportunity, enabling systematic monitoring at scale without the barriers of classification. Properly harnessed, OSINT can map networks, anticipate migration across platforms, and allow earlier interventions.

The challenge is not one of technological capacity but of collaborative structure. OSINT’s value depends on whether insights can move quickly enough to make a difference. If analysis lingers in academic, governmental, or corporate silos, the window for preemption closes. Conversely, when OSINT is shared openly between law enforcement, intelligence community, and private sector, it can provide the kind of agility adversaries themselves rely on.

The strategic opportunity is twofold: first, to use OSINT not only for disruption but also for deterrence. Second, to embed OSINT into a broader culture of trusted partnerships, where government, private firms, and civil society treat information-sharing as routine. Here too, unity is deterrence, and the faster insights can move across institutional boundaries, the harder it becomes for adversaries to weaponize digital spaces against us.

5. Borders at the Crossroads

In today’s threat landscape, the boundaries between counterterrorism and counternarcotics are blurring in ways that pose both strategic and ethical dilemmas. Recent U.S. military actions against suspected drug-trafficking vessels signal a shift away from law enforcement led interdiction, which prioritizes evidence collection and prosecution, toward overt military force.

While reframing cartels as terrorist organizations may seem intuitive, doing so risks escalation and entanglement in irregular warfare across Latin America. Sovereignty sensitivities are acute, and unilateral U.S. action could erode the very partnerships required for long-term success. At the same time, the synthetic drug market has changed the equation as these substances are cheap to produce, adaptable in supply chains, and highly resilient to traditional interdiction efforts.

Domestically, designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations would also open a new legal front in which prosecutors could pursue material support charges under counterterrorism statutes, but courts would face difficult questions about evidentiary standards, jurisdiction, and due process when applying terrorism frameworks to actors traditionally treated as criminals. The result could be a flood of cases that strain an already burdened judicial system and blur the line between law enforcement and national security in ways that carry their own risks.

The strategic insight here is that while kinetic strikes might temporarily disrupt supply, they do not address the deeper social and economic forces fueling consumption at home. No volume of interdiction or targeted strikes will resolve the crisis if U.S. demand for synthetic opioids continues unchecked. Past approaches such as “Just Say No” campaigns of the 1980s to kingpin takedowns of the 1990s, show that neither deterrence by messaging or decapitation strategies alone can solve the problem. A coherent strategy must therefore combine strategic disruption abroad with emphasis on community-level resilience at home. In this sense, public health is national security, and treating it otherwise risks perpetuating a cycle that adversaries can exploit.

Conclusion: Cohesion Over Chaos

Across these five key considerations runs a central thread: fragmentation is the adversary’s ally. Whether through technological disruption, institutional distrust, or policy overreach, disunity creates openings for extremist actors and criminal networks to exploit. On the other hand, cohesion serves as credible deterrence.

Adversaries are betting on a distracted, divided America. To prove them wrong requires operationalizing unity, not as rhetoric, but as measurable policy, trusted partnerships, and resilient communities. In an age where division itself can be weaponized, unity is not only America’s greatest strength but quite possibly its most consequential form of deterrence.

Tags: political violence, SOF, terrorism

About The Author

• 
  
• Amos Fox
• Dr. Amos C. Fox is a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University's Future Security Initiative. He is the Managing Editor of Small Wars Journal. Amos also hosts the Revolution in Military Affairs podcast, which focuses on war, strategy, international affairs, and the impact of technology on warfare. In 2024, Amos published the book Conflict Realism: Understanding the Causal Logic of War and Warfare. He has two books being published in the next twelve months - Maneuver is Dead: Land Warfare in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury) and Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century (Howgate). Amos has a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Reading, masters degrees from the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) and Ball State University, and a bachelors degree from Indiana University-Indianapolis. Amos is also a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel.

3. Art and Irregular Warfare: Aesthetic Resistance, Symbolic Power, and the Battles for Meaning

Excerpts:

History demonstrates that art is far more than a mirror of conflict; it actively shapes the course of irregular and unconventional struggles. Across countless campaigns, art has fortified morale in clandestine partisan camps, ridiculed and undermined occupying regimes through sharp satire, and safeguarded collective memory from deliberate erasure. In these ways, it serves as a powerful non-kinetic instrument that operates across cognitive and informational domains. 

For planners and strategists engaged in irregular warfare, supporting local artistic expressions is not mere cultural ornamentation. It is a deliberate line of effort in cognitive operations: strengthening legitimacy among contested populations, disrupting and discrediting adversary propaganda, and maintaining the momentum of a broader war of ideas. Art can reinforce narratives that delegitimize enemy authority while affirming indigenous identities and grievances—directly contesting the adversary’s influence over hearts and minds. 

As George Orwell is often paraphrased, “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” In this sense, art becomes a medium through which truth can pierce the fog of disinformation, sustain resistance morale, and help set the psychological conditions for future operations. By consciously incorporating artistic initiatives into IW campaigns, practitioners leverage an often underestimated capability that can decisively shape the cognitive terrain on which tomorrow’s battles will be fought. 

Art and Irregular Warfare: Aesthetic Resistance, Symbolic Power, and the Battles for Meaning

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/09/29/art-and-irregular-warfare-aesthetic-resistance-symbolic-power-and-the-battles-for-meaning/

by Robert Redding

|

09.29.2025 at 06:00am

Pablo Picasso's Guernica (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid)

Standing before Pablo Picasso’s Guernica in Gernika is more than observing a painting; it is experiencing a cry of anguish cast in oil on canvas. Created in 1937 after the aerial bombing of the Basque town by Nazi and Italian forces allied with Franco, Guernica transcended its Spanish origins to become a universal emblem of civilian suffering and the brutality of total war. Moreover, Picasso’s insistence that the painting not be returned to Spain until democracy was restored illustrates how art can become a tool of prolonged cognitive resistance. 

Picasso’s Guernica traveled across Britain and the United States during the Spanish Civil War, drawing vast crowds and raising crucial funds for Spanish refugee relief. Beyond its financial impact, each exhibition forced Western audiences to confront the harrowing human cost of fascism, keeping the plight of Spanish civilians vivid in the public conscience. In this way, the painting became more than a work of art; it functioned as a roaming strategic envoy of political persuasion, galvanizing anti-fascist sentiment abroad and sustaining international attention on the horrors unfolding in Spain. 

Guernica provides an example of how art functions not merely as a cognitive consideration, but as a capability that can produce effects to be employed in irregular warfare (IW). From occupied Europe in World War II, to revolutionary Latin America, Cold War insurgencies, and today’s digital conflicts, the use of art shapes memories, fuels insurgencies, contests legitimacy, and serves as an enduring form of psychological and cultural operations.  

The Role of Art in Irregular Warfare 

Irregular warfare’s center of gravity is in the cognitive and cultural realms, where the opponents seek to fracture their adversary’s legitimacy and build alternative authority. Artistic production becomes central here; murals, songs, plays, and graffiti embed narratives of struggle and hope into daily life. Art provides effects to demoralize opponents, as well to counter propaganda and provide a narrative that is resistant to suppression.  

World War II: Art as Resistance in Occupied Europe 

Across Nazi-occupied Europe, art became a covert weapon wielded by the oppressed. In France, Resistance networks produced underground newspapers like Combat, filling their pages with razor-sharp political cartoons and caricatures that ridiculed both the Nazi occupiers and the collaborationist Vichy regime, undermining enemy authority and rallying wavering civilians. Graffiti scrawled with slogans such as “Vive De Gaulle” sprang up overnight on walls and alleyways in Paris, signaling defiance, emboldening clandestine networks, and reminding onlookers that the occupiers were neither omnipotent nor universally feared.  

In Poland, the Home Army orchestrated an extensive underground culture. The Kotwica emblem, which is an anchor-like symbol of “Polska Walcząca” (Fighting Poland), was painted across Warsaw’s walls, serving as a silent rallying cry. Underground theater troupes staged patriotic plays in basements, subtly reinforcing national identity and solidarity under occupation. Meanwhile, banned songs spread by word of mouth or clandestine radio broadcasts stoked courage and kept cultural memory alive, demonstrating how resistance art not only boosted morale but also eroded the occupier’s psychological hold on society. 

Even within Jewish ghettos such as Vilna, partisans organized clandestine poetry readings, musical performances, and theater productions, safeguarding cultural identity in the shadow of Nazi annihilation. These gatherings did more than preserve tradition; they offered vital psychological sustenance, reinforcing communal bonds and resilience at a time when armed resistance was scarcely imaginable. Through art, ghetto inhabitants reclaimed a sense of humanity and purpose, subtly resisting Nazi efforts to reduce them to mere statistics on the path to extermination. 

Central America in the 1980s: Murals, Music, and Narrative Warfare 

In Nicaragua, after the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza regime, whole neighborhoods in Managua erupted with vivid revolutionary murals. Walls bloomed with images of campesinos bearing arms, mothers cradling rifles alongside infants, and slain comrades resurrected as larger-than-life martyrs. These works did far more than beautify ruined streets; they functioned as visual manifestos, proclaiming that history, as well as the future, now belonged to the people. Serving as ideological maps, the murals educated, inspired, and bound communities together around a shared narrative of liberation, turning every street corner into a testament of collective ownership and revolutionary pride.

Brigada Muralista Felicia Santizo Panamá S.P.C. Policía Sandinista III-80 (Muralist Brigade Felicia Santizo Panama S.P.C. Sandinista Police III-80). Managua Airport Terminal 1980-1990.

In El Salvador, FMLN guerrillas harnessed the power of culture to sustain their fight in the rugged highlands. Traveling cultural brigades composed stirring songs and performed impromptu theater, while hand-pressed pamphlets circulated through remote villages, keeping spirits high and ideology alive far from urban centers. Meanwhile, murals blossomed on walls in towns like Perquín, vividly depicting key battles and paying homage to comrades slain by the Salvadoran military. Beyond decorating, these images etched the insurgency’s story into the very fabric of local life, ensuring that community identity and memory remained intertwined with the struggle for liberation. 

The Nueva Canción movement swept through Latin America, blending haunting melodies with sharp political critique. In Chile, Víctor Jara crafted songs that laid bare the plight of workers and the brutality of repression, transforming his guitar into a weapon of resistance. In Nicaragua, Carlos Mejía Godoy’s ballads chronicled the Sandinista struggle, turning local battles into anthems of continental solidarity. These artists didn’t just entertain; they mobilized, their music echoing across borders to awaken conscience, strengthen transnational ties, and rally countless others to the cause of justice and liberation. 

Vietnam War: The Contest of Images and Songs 

For the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, art was seamlessly woven into the fabric of revolutionary indoctrination. Hand-painted posters portrayed determined peasants triumphing over American “imperialists,” visually reinforcing the narrative of inevitable victory. In humid jungle camps, fighters recited poems that fused Marxist-Leninist doctrine with age-old nationalist legends, strengthening ideological conviction and a sense of historical destiny. Viet Cong Armed Propaganda teams traveled clandestinely across South Viet Nam, performing skits that exalted the Communist Cause and dramatized unity and shared sacrifice. Through these cultural expressions, art became an indispensable tool for binding fighters to the cause and embedding the struggle in collective memory.

In the U.S., art became a vehicle for protest. The Art Workers’ Coalition produced powerful anti-war posters (warning – graphic) that juxtaposed museum images with napalmed children. Musicians like Creedence Clearwater Revival penned songs such as “Fortunate Son” that cut through patriotic justifications. Even in Vietnam, U.S. soldiers scribbled peace symbols or sardonic slogans like “Born to Kill” on their helmets, personal art that expressed alienation from the war’s official narrative. 

Cold War Small Wars: From Algeria to South Africa 

During Algeria’s war for independence, the National Liberation Front (FLN) wielded cameras alongside rifles, capturing stark photographs and producing films that exposed French atrocities, from tortured prisoners to razed villages, all the while broadcasting their plight to sympathetic audiences worldwide. These images galvanized international outrage and lent legitimacy to the FLN’s struggle. Meanwhile, theorists like Frantz Fanon, in The Wretched of the Earth, insisted that decolonization was not only a military campaign but a profound cultural reawakening. Art, he argued, was essential for dismantling colonial narratives and forging a new post-colonial identity, enabling Algerians to reclaim their history and humanity from generations of imposed inferiority. In this way, cultural production became both a battlefield and a blueprint for nationhood. 

In South Africa’s struggle against apartheid, the Medu Art Ensemble turned creativity into a weapon of defiance. Operating from Gaborone, Botswana, they designed bold silkscreen posters that exposed savage police crackdowns and urged workers to rise up in strikes. These striking images were clandestinely ferried across the border, fueling dissent in townships and factories alike. So potent was their art that the apartheid regime deemed it a serious threat—responding with a brutal cross-border assault that killed several Medu members and obliterated their workshops. Yet this violent reaction only underscored the power of art to challenge oppression, ignite collective action, and keep hope alive under even the most repressive conditions.

The Strategic Power of Art in Modern Irregular Warfare 

In Ukraine, artists have transformed city streets into vibrant sites of resistance. Murals in Kyiv depict fallen soldiers with angelic wings, while caricatures of Vladimir Putin circulate as grotesque figures to ridicule Russia’s aggression and reinforce national resolve. These artistic expressions serve not only to commemorate, but to inspire cohesion and resilience—key objectives in unconventional warfare campaigns that rely on sustained population support and psychological momentum. 

But art is not exclusively defensive. It is also a potent weapon of cognitive manipulation. As detailed in Small Wars Journal, Russia’s evolving cognitive warfare doctrine fuses information operations, psychological warfare, and cultural subversion into a unified strategy that targets perception itself—not just what populations think, but how they think. Visual art and symbolic imagery are key tools in this approach. Russian campaigns routinely employ memes, doctored historical photographs, and emotionally charged iconography to bypass rational filters and seed disruptive narratives into target societies. 

These efforts are calibrated to exploit the “emotive-episodic cognitive style” that many populations rely on when consuming information. By embedding emotionally compelling visuals into the information space—often through proxies or unwitting influencers—Russia’s cognitive warfare apparatus aims to delegitimize adversaries, paralyze decision-making, and undermine democratic institutions. In this model, artistic expression becomes not a supplement to irregular conflict, but one of its front lines. 

Historical and contemporary examples reinforce this dynamic. In Syria, the civil war was famously catalyzed by graffiti: teenage boys in Daraa spray-painted the phrase “Your turn, Doctor,” referencing Assad—an act that triggered violent repression and nationwide revolt. In Tibet, traditional thangka painting and diasporic visual arts serve as long-term cultural resistance against Chinese assimilation and erasure. These aesthetic traditions operate as repositories of collective memory and tools of identity preservation in contested environments.

“Your turn, Doctor”

Even non-state actors like ISIS and Hezbollah have adopted this logic, investing heavily in visual propaganda—from stylized martyrdom posters to glossy magazines and short films. These are not mere recruitment materials; they are cognitive weapons designed to saturate the narrative space and dominate symbolic terrain. 

In today’s unconventional conflicts, the battle for legitimacy, identity, and influence increasingly takes place not only on the battlefield or in the digital sphere—but in galleries, streets, social media feeds, and the subconscious. Art, as both resistance and psychological instrument, has become an indispensable element of modern irregular warfare. 

Cultural Resistance as an Element of the IW Battlespace 

History demonstrates that art is far more than a mirror of conflict; it actively shapes the course of irregular and unconventional struggles. Across countless campaigns, art has fortified morale in clandestine partisan camps, ridiculed and undermined occupying regimes through sharp satire, and safeguarded collective memory from deliberate erasure. In these ways, it serves as a powerful non-kinetic instrument that operates across cognitive and informational domains. 

For planners and strategists engaged in irregular warfare, supporting local artistic expressions is not mere cultural ornamentation. It is a deliberate line of effort in cognitive operations: strengthening legitimacy among contested populations, disrupting and discrediting adversary propaganda, and maintaining the momentum of a broader war of ideas. Art can reinforce narratives that delegitimize enemy authority while affirming indigenous identities and grievances—directly contesting the adversary’s influence over hearts and minds. 

As George Orwell is often paraphrased, “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” In this sense, art becomes a medium through which truth can pierce the fog of disinformation, sustain resistance morale, and help set the psychological conditions for future operations. By consciously incorporating artistic initiatives into IW campaigns, practitioners leverage an often underestimated capability that can decisively shape the cognitive terrain on which tomorrow’s battles will be fought. 

Tags: art, insurgency, irregular warfare, Resistance Movements

About The Author

• 
  
• Robert Redding
• Dr. Robert Redding (Colonel, ret. US Army) is a national security practitioner with global experience in security cooperation and diplomacy. His military service include operational assignments in conventional and special operations units as well as at the US embassies in Tel Aviv and Ljubljana.
• 
  

4. How China’s Secretive Spy Agency Became a Cyber Powerhouse

Excerpts:

The Ministry of State Security operates largely in the shadows, its officials rarely seen or named in public. There was one exception: Wu Shizhong, who was a senior official in Bureau 13, the “technical reconnaissance” arm of the ministry.

Mr. Wu was unusually visible, turning up at meetings and conferences in his other role as director of the China Information Technology Security Evaluation Center. Officially, the center vets digital software and hardware for security vulnerabilities before it can be used in China. Unofficially, foreign officials and experts say, the center comes under the control of the M.S.S. and provided a direct pipeline of information about vulnerabilities and hacking talent.

Mr. Wu has not publicly said he served in the security ministry, but a Chinese university website in 2005 described him as a state security bureau head in a notice about a meeting, and investigations by Crowd Strike and other cybersecurity firms have also described his state security role.

“Wu Shizhong is widely recognized as a leading figure in the creation of M.S.S. cyber capabilities,” said Mr. Joske.

How China’s Secretive Spy Agency Became a Cyber Powerhouse

Fears of U.S. surveillance drove Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to elevate the agency and put it at the center of his cyber ambitions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/world/asia/how-chinas-secretive-spy-agency-became-a-cyber-powerhouse.html

Listen to this article · 9:06 min Learn more

• Share full article
• 
  
• 75

Surveillance cameras at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, last year.Credit...Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

By Chris Buckley and Adam Goldman

Sept. 28, 2025

American officials were alarmed in 2023 when they discovered that Chinese state-controlled hackers had infiltrated critical U.S. infrastructure with malicious code that could wreck power grids, communications systems and water supplies. The threat was serious enough that William J. Burns, the director of the C.I.A., made a secret trip to Beijing to confront his Chinese counterpart.

He warned China’s minister of state security that there would be “serious consequences” for Beijing if it unleashed the malware. The tone of the meeting, details of which have not been previously reported, was professional and it appeared the message was delivered.

But since that meeting, which was described by two former U.S. officials, China’s intrusions have only escalated. (The former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive meeting.)

American and European officials say China’s Ministry of State Security, the civilian spy agency often called the M.S.S., in particular, has emerged as the driving force behind China’s most sophisticated cyber operations.

In recent disclosures, officials revealed another immense, yearslong intrusion by hackers who have been collectively called Salt Typhoon, one that may have stolen information about nearly every American and targeted dozens of other countries. Some countries hit by Salt Typhoon warned in an unusual statement that the data stolen could provide Chinese intelligence services with the capability to “identify and track their targets’ communications and movements around the world.”

The attack underscored how the Ministry of State Security has evolved into a formidable cyberespionage agency capable of audacious operations that can evade detection for years, experts said.

For decades, China has used for-hire hackers to break into computer networks and systems. These operatives sometimes mixed espionage with commercial data theft or were sloppy, exposing their presence. In the recent operation by Salt Typhoon, however, intruders linked to the M.S.S. found weaknesses in systems, burrowed into networks, spirited out data, hopped between compromised systems and erased traces of their presence.

Image

A member of a Chinese hacking group monitoring global cyberattacks on his computer in Dongguan, China, in 2020.Credit...Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Salt Typhoon shows a highly skilled and strategic side to M.S.S. cyber operations that has been missed with the attention on lower-quality contract hackers,” said Alex Joske, the author of a book on the ministry.

For Washington, the implication of China’s growing capability is clear: In a future conflict, China could put U.S. communications, power and infrastructure at risk.

What you should know. The Times makes a careful decision any time it uses an anonymous source. The information the source supplies must be newsworthy and give readers genuine insight.

Learn more about our process.

China’s biggest hacking campaigns have been “strategic operations” intended to intimidate and deter rivals, said Nigel Inkster, a senior adviser for cybersecurity and China at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“If they succeed in remaining on these networks undiscovered, that potentially gives them a significant advantage in the event of a crisis,” said Mr. Inkster, formerly director of operations and intelligence in the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. “If their presence is — as it has been — discovered, it still exercises a very significant deterrent effect; as in, ‘Look what we could do to you if we wanted.’”

The Rise of the M.S.S.

China’s cyber advances reflect decades of investment to try to match, and eventually rival, the U.S. National Security Agency and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.

China’s leaders founded the Ministry of State Security in 1983 mainly to track dissidents and perceived foes of Communist Party rule. The ministry engaged in online espionage but was long overshadowed by the Chinese military, which ran extensive cyberspying operations.

After taking power as China’s top leader in 2012, Xi Jinping moved quickly to reshape the M.S.S. He seemed unsettled by the threat of U.S. surveillance to China’s security, and in a 2013 speech pointed to the revelations of Edward J. Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor.

Mr. Xi purged the ministry of senior officials accused of corruption and disloyalty. He reined in the hacking role of the Chinese military, elevating the ministry as the country’s primary cyberespionage agency. He put national security at the core of his agenda with new laws and by establishing a new commission.

Image

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, after he was elected as president at the National People’s Congress in Beijing, in 2013. After taking power, Mr. Xi moved quickly to reshape the Ministry of State Security.Credit...Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

“At this same time, the intelligence requirements imposed on the security apparatus start to multiply, because Xi wanted to do more things abroad and at home,” said Matthew Brazil, a senior analyst at BluePath Labs who has co-written a history of China’s espionage services.

Since around 2015, the M.S.S. has moved to bring its far-flung provincial offices under tighter central control, said experts. Chen Yixin, the current minister, has demanded that local state security offices follow Beijing’s orders without delay. Security officials, he said on a recent inspection of the northeast, must be both “red and expert” — absolutely loyal to the party while also adept in technology.

“It all essentially means that the Ministry of State Security now sits atop a system in which it can move its pieces all around the chessboard,” said Edward Schwarck, a researcher at the University of Oxford who is writing a dissertation on China’s state security.

Mr. Chen was the official who met with Mr. Burns in May 2023. He gave nothing away when confronted with the details of the cyber campaign, telling Mr. Burns he would let his superiors know about the U.S. concerns, the former officials said.

The Architect of China’s Cyber Power

The Ministry of State Security operates largely in the shadows, its officials rarely seen or named in public. There was one exception: Wu Shizhong, who was a senior official in Bureau 13, the “technical reconnaissance” arm of the ministry.

Mr. Wu was unusually visible, turning up at meetings and conferences in his other role as director of the China Information Technology Security Evaluation Center. Officially, the center vets digital software and hardware for security vulnerabilities before it can be used in China. Unofficially, foreign officials and experts say, the center comes under the control of the M.S.S. and provided a direct pipeline of information about vulnerabilities and hacking talent.

Mr. Wu has not publicly said he served in the security ministry, but a Chinese university website in 2005 described him as a state security bureau head in a notice about a meeting, and investigations by Crowd Strike and other cybersecurity firms have also described his state security role.

“Wu Shizhong is widely recognized as a leading figure in the creation of M.S.S. cyber capabilities,” said Mr. Joske.

In 2013, Mr. Wu pointed to two lessons for China: Mr. Snowden’s disclosures about American surveillance and the use by the United States of a virus to sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities. “The core of cyber offense and defense capabilities is technical prowess,” he said, stressing the need to control technologies and exploit their weaknesses. China, he added, should create “a national cyber offense and defense apparatus.”

China’s commercial tech sector boomed in the years that followed, and state security officials learned how to put domestic companies and contractors to work, spotting and exploiting flaws and weak spots in computer systems, several cybersecurity experts said. The U.S. National Security Agency has also hoarded knowledge of software flaws for its own use. But China has an added advantage: It can tap its own tech companies to feed information to the state.

Image

The World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, this year.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“M.S.S. was successful at improving the talent pipeline and the volume of good offensive hackers they could contract to,” said Dakota Cary, a researcher who focuses on China’s efforts to develop its hacking capabilities at SentinelOne. “This gives them a significant pipeline for offensive tools.”

The Chinese government also imposed rules requiring that any newly found software vulnerabilities be reported first to a database that analysts say is operated by the M.S.S., giving security officials early access. Other policies reward tech firms with payments if they meet monthly quotas of finding flaws in computer systems and submitting them to the state security-controlled database.

“It’s a prestige thing and it’s good for a company’s reputation,” Mei Danowski, the co-founder of Natto Thoughts, a company that advises clients on cyber threats, said of the arrangement. “These business people don’t feel like they are doing something wrong. They feel like they are doing something for their country.”

Julian E. Barnes contributed to this story from Washington, and Amy Chang Chien from Taipei, Taiwan.

Chris Buckley, the chief China correspondent for The Times, reports on China and Taiwan from Taipei, focused on politics, social change and security and military issues.

Adam Goldman is a London-based reporter for The Times who writes about global security.

5. Trump to Attend Pentagon Meeting With Top Commanders

It would be great to learn that the meeting was about national defense strategy and direction in substantive areas and that none of the negative and dire speciation that we are hearing was correct. 

Ironically, just by calling the meeting it has had the effect of people lining up on their respective sides of the issue and identifies who might be for and against the administration's policies.

Trump to Attend Pentagon Meeting With Top Commanders

The president says the gathering on Tuesday is to talk about ‘how well we’re doing militarily’

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-to-attend-pentagon-meeting-with-top-commanders-961ee814

By Robbie Gramer

Follow and Shelby Holliday

Follow

Updated Sept. 28, 2025 6:08 pm ET

President Trump in the Oval Office earlier this month. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Quick Summary

• President Trump will join a meeting of 800 generals, admirals, and senior enlisted members at Quantico, Va.View more

President Trump plans to join an unusual gathering of top U.S. military commanders that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will convene Tuesday.

Trump’s presence will add a further twist to the meeting at a Marine base south of Washington, where Hegseth is expected to address the senior officers and enlisted leaders on his calls to cultivate a “warrior ethos” in the armed services and other priorities of the Pentagon’s civilian leadership.

“It is really just a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily, talking about being in great shape, talking about a lot of good, positive things,” Trump told NBC News Sunday. “We have some great people coming in and it is just an ‘esprit de corps.’ You know the expression ‘esprit de corps’? That is all it is about.”

Some 800 generals and admirals as well as senior enlisted members were ordered on short notice to convene at Quantico, Va., for the event. There is no precedent in recent decades for an in-person meeting involving the commander in chief and so many of the top ranking members of the armed services.  

The Pentagon didn’t respond to requests for comment on Trump’s involvement in the meeting, which was reported earlier by the Washington Post.

Invitees were told to wear dress uniforms, according to several military officials. Some current and former administration officials said that generals and admirals should be able to join the event remotely, rather than leave their commands, many of which are overseas, to attend.

“This is enormously disruptive. All told, the price tag is in the tens-of-millions to fly these officers here, not to mention distracting them from executing their important missions for no clear reason,” said John Ullyot, a former Pentagon chief spokesman under Trump. “It is confusing at best.”

Ad Loading

00:00

/

06:11

WSJ’s Vera Bergengruen explains how the heightened rhetoric and military moves by the Trump administration and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro could escalate. Photo: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images; Francis Chung/CNP/Zuma Press

Hegseth has faced scrutiny over his management style in recent months and is the subject of a Pentagon inspector general report on whether he mishandled classified information in posting information about a U.S. attack against Yemen last March in unclassified chat groups.

The administration is expected to make public soon its national defense strategy, which some officials suggested could be one of the reasons for the meeting.

Trump “can’t miss out on a show,” said Jim Townsend, a former senior career civilian Pentagon official. “By the time he’s done, they will be way off schedule, all the oxygen will be sucked out of the room, and ‘second fiddle’ Hegseth will have no time left.”

The meeting comes as the U.S. has conducted multiple airstrikes against boats suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela. 

Trump on Saturday said he was ordering troops to Portland, Ore., which he described as “War Ravaged” in a social-media post that said the forces would have authority to use “Full Force” to protect federal facilities and to combat “antifa,” a term referring to antifascist protesters.

Hegseth’s invitation to commanders shared no details on what the meeting was about, fueling fears among the military ranks that he could use the gathering to fire more top military brass. But Trump said it would be a cordial meeting with Hegseth.

“Let him be friendly with the generals and admirals from all over the world,” Trump told NBC, referring to Hegseth. “You act like this is a bad thing. Isn’t it nice that people are coming from all over the world to be with us?”

Hegseth said last month that he had eliminated “woke culture and so-called diversity, equity and inclusion programs” in the military. He has fired over 20 top military commanders, including recently the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse. Hegseth has called for a further culling of four-star generals and admirals in what he has characterized as a bid to streamline the Pentagon’s leadership.

Write to Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com and Shelby Holliday at shelby.holliday@wsj.com

Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the September 29, 2025, print edition as 'President to Attend Pentagon Chiefs Meeting'.

6. Pentagon Pushes to Double Missile Production for Potential China Conflict

I think in this area, both offensive and defensive, quantity and mass will make a difference.

Pentagon Pushes to Double Missile Production for Potential China Conflict

Military leaders are urging defense contractors to increase assembly of 12 critical weapons

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-pushes-to-double-missile-production-for-potential-china-conflict-ee153ad3

By Drew FitzGerald

Follow and Lara Seligman

Follow

Sept. 29, 2025 5:30 am ET

A vendor points to Boeing’s PAC-3 Missile Seeker. The Pentagon is calling for more production from Boeing and other companies. Photo: Cheney Orr/Reuters

Quick Summary

• The Pentagon is urging missile suppliers to double or even quadruple production rates to address low weapons stockpiles for a potential conflict with China.View more

The Pentagon, alarmed at the low weapons stockpiles the U.S. would have on hand for a potential future conflict with China, is urging its missile suppliers to double or even quadruple production rates on a breakneck schedule.

The push to speed production of the critical weapons in the highest demand has played out through a series of high-level meetings between Pentagon leaders and senior representatives from several U.S. missile makers, according to people familiar with the matter. Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg is taking an unusually hands-on role in the effort, called the Munitions Acceleration Council, and calls some company executives weekly to discuss it, some of the people said.

The department summoned top missile suppliers to a June roundtable at the Pentagon to kick off the industry effort. The meeting, attended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew executives from several weapons makers, new market entrants like Anduril Industries, and a handful of suppliers of important parts like rocket propellant and batteries.

“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are exploring extraordinary avenues to expand our military might and accelerate the production of munitions,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, when asked about the efforts. “This effort has been a collaboration between defense industry leaders and senior Pentagon officials.”

Some people involved in the effort both inside and outside of the government worry that the government’s targets aren’t realistic. Individual missiles can take two years to fully assemble. It can take several months and hundreds of millions of dollars to test and qualify weapons from new suppliers as safe and reliable enough for U.S. service members to use.

There are also questions about the money needed to accelerate production. The Trump administration’s Big, Beautiful Bill, signed in July, provided an additional $25 billion in five-year munitions funding, but analysts say that hitting the Pentagon’s aggressive targets would cost tens of billions more.

20 ft. 3 in.

THAAD Interceptor

21 ft. 6 in.

Range: 124 miles

Speed: 6,292 mph

Standard Missile-6

Range: 173 miles

Speed: Over 2,200 mph

17 ft. 1 in.

PAC-3 MSE

13 ft.

Range: 22 miles

Speed: 3,836 mph

Precision Strike Missile

Range: More than 310 miles

Speed: High-subsonic to

low-supersonic

14 ft.

14 ft.

Long Range Anti-Ship Missile

Joint Air-Surface Standoff

Range: More than 230 miles

Speed: Subsonic

Range: More than 575 miles

Speed: Subsonic

Note: Specs for Joint Air-Surface Standoff missile shown are for the JASSM-ER variant.

Sources: Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies (PAC-3, SM-6); Army Recognition (PAC-3 MSE, SM-6, LRASM, PrSM); Lockheed Martin (PrSM, LRASM, JASSM); GlobalSecurity.org (THAAD interceptor)

Roque Ruiz/WSJ

“Companies don’t build these things on spec,” said Tom Karako, a munitions expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You wait for the government to put them on contract. There needs to be an expression of support with money. It can’t just be words.”

Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon say they have responded by adding workers, widening factory floors and growing spare-parts inventories to prepare for a potential demand surge. But some suppliers have struggled to hit the new targets and are wary of splurging on orders that the government has yet to fund.

Christopher Calio, the chairman and chief executive officer of Raytheon parent RTX, one of the military’s largest munitions producers, said in a July 3 letter to the Pentagon that it was ready to work with the Defense Department to increase production, but cautioned that the company would need additional money and commitments from the Pentagon to buy more munitions.

“Signaling the demand strength of these critical munitions to the supply base with Program of Record extensions…and funding to support is required,” he wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Military officials have fretted about the U.S. ability to ramp up weapons production since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration launched an effort to raise munitions production rates and smooth out supply-chain kinks in 2023.

“The current conflict in Ukraine has been a wake-up call,” then-Undersecretary of Defense Bill LaPlante said at the time. “We’ve allowed production lines to go cold, watched as parts became obsolete and seen sub-tier suppliers consolidate or go out of business entirely.”

New missile orders have since failed to keep up with the soaring use of expensive interceptors, including the Patriot, to defend Ukraine against intensifying Russian bombardment. U.S. officials want more of those interceptor missiles on hand to protect bases and allies around the Pacific region. 

A Patriot weapons system. Photo: Sebastian Apel/AP

By June, the Trump administration had set even more aggressive production goals. Then the U.S. fired hundreds of high-end missiles during the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, further depleting its missile arsenal.

The new acceleration council is focused on 12 weapons that the Pentagon wants on hand for a potential conflict with China, some of the people said. The list includes Patriot interceptors, Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, the Standard Missile-6, Precision Strike Missiles and Joint Air-Surface Standoff Missiles. Patriot is a particular priority because Lockheed has struggled to keep pace with surging global demand.

An early request for information asked weapons makers at the June roundtable to detail how they could increase production to 2.5 times current volumes through steps taken over the following six, 18 and 24 months, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The military also asked suppliers to describe how they might attract new private capital and potentially license their technology to third-party manufacturers.

The Army in September awarded Lockheed almost $10 billion to make nearly 2,000 PAC-3 missiles from fiscal year 2024 to 2026. The Pentagon wants suppliers to eventually pump out that same number of Patriots each year—nearly four times the current production rate, according to some of the people familiar with the matter.

A Lockheed spokeswoman said the company is exploring more investments in Patriot missile production and expects to deliver above its stated capacity for the next several years. An RTX spokesman declined to comment.

The effort is also mapping supply chains down multiple tiers to find areas for potential improvement and looking for second sources where single suppliers create bottlenecks. For example, the Pentagon is calling for more production of a Boeing-made seeker nested in the missile’s nose, which has become a chokepoint for Patriot production.

Boeing rushed this summer to calculate how big an order of the seekers it could fulfill and recently finished a 35,000-square-foot expansion project at its factory, which is still being outfitted with new assembly equipment. 

A Boeing spokeswoman said that monthly seeker deliveries have hit new records and that the company plans to further boost production. 

Some suppliers say they are willing to put capital at risk before contracts are in hand. A Northrop Grumman spokeswoman said the missile supplier “invested ahead of the need with more than $1 billion across solid rocket motor production facilities,” with plans to nearly double output over the next four years.

The Pentagon will soon be taking more steps to increase production, said Daniel Driscoll, the Army secretary, earlier this month. The department, he said, is planning “massively substantive changes to how we buy our stuff.”

Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com

7. Russia’s Ambitious Plans in Africa Are Unraveling

Russia’s Ambitious Plans in Africa Are Unraveling

Russian operations are in tatters two years after the death of the head of the mercenary outfit

https://www.wsj.com/world/africa/russias-ambitious-plans-in-africa-are-unraveling-f151906d?st=yv56Gd&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Benoit Faucon

Follow in London and Nicholas Bariyo

Follow in Kampala, Uganda

Sept. 28, 2025 11:00 pm ET

A poster depicted junta leader Ibrahim Traoré shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, last year. Photo: Zuma Press

Russia, not long ago a rising military force in Africa, is now struggling to maintain its footprint on the continent.

The Kremlin’s new official guns-for-hire military force, the Africa Corps, has failed to replicate the financial success and political sway once held by Russia’s private Wagner Group mercenary outfit. And some of Wagner’s own African ventures have unraveled since 2023 when its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, rebelled against President Vladimir Putin and then died when an explosive device blew the wing off his plane at 28,000 feet. 

Military juntas in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, according to a senior U.S. military official, are now experiencing “buyer’s remorse” after ousting U.S. and French troops over the past three years and, to varying degrees, accepting Moscow’s help fighting al Qaeda and Islamic State insurgents.

“They’re starting to ask for help—the Malians in particular,” said the senior U.S. military official, adding that any help would most likely come in the form of training.

Pentagon strategists, constrained by American laws and policies limiting security assistance to military governments, hope to sideline the Russians and get back into the West African security business. One plan under U.S. consideration is to have third countries—especially Morocco—train local armies to fight extremists. 

At the same time, Erik Prince, the well-connected American defense contractor, is in talks about providing security services to African governments, according to people familiar with the approach.

Islamist militant attacks

ALGERIA

LIBYA

MALI

MAURITANIA

CHAD

NIGER

THE SAHEL

SENEGAL

BURKINA

FASO

GUINEA

BENIN

NIGERIA

IVORY

COAST

GHANA

Note: 2025 data as of Sept. 24. Showing AQIM/JNIM attacks.

Source: Armed Conflict Location and Event Data via Africa Center for Strategic Studies

Emma Brown/WSJ

The shift shows how Russia’s influence across the Sahel, the semidesert band stretching across Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and beyond, is receding after the years when Prigozhin was one of the most powerful figures there. Security experts and Western defense officials now say Moscow’s involvement might instead have contributed to a worsening security outlook in the region, so much so that the Sahel is perhaps the hottest battlefield in the global contest between Islamist militants and the West and its allies. 

Over the past year, almost 11,000 people have died in connection to the Islamist insurgency in the Sahel, according to data analyzed by the Pentagon-funded Africa Center for Strategic Studies, around half of whom were killed in direct fighting.

The uprising began in Mali more than a decade ago, but the bulk of attacks now take place in Burkina Faso, with insurgents extending their ambitions south toward coastal states along the Atlantic’s Gulf of Guinea.

The Russian government and Defense Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment. Nor did spokespeople for the Africa Corps or Wagner Group.

Moscow’s struggles in Africa show the limits of its power, especially when its best military units are fighting in Ukraine, according to European security officials. 

An image released in 2022 by France's military shows Russian mercenaries boarding a helicopter in northern Mali. Photo: French Army/AP

A thousand Wagner mercenaries first arrived in Mali in late 2021, with the nation’s government paying $10 million a month for help fighting the insurgents. It was a battle French and United Nations troops, as well as American advisers, had been unable to win despite years of effort.

The Wagner mercenary mission had already turned into a fiasco by the time Africa Corps reinforcements arrived, according to an investigation released in August by the Sentry, a group co-founded by actor George Clooney that advocates against corruption and illicit financial flows.

Some of Wagner’s troubles were self-inflicted. In Mali, the mercenaries’ uncoordinated, brutal raids on civilian settlements “created chaos and fear within the Malian military hierarchy,” deterring informers from collaborating and creating recruitment opportunities for jihadists, the Sentry’s report said.

The Wagner mercenaries had hoped to cash in on their African ventures. But they found themselves unable even to reach a giant Malian gold deposit they were planning to mine because the area wasn’t safe enough to visit, the report said. “Wagner has seemingly gone unpaid for months and failed to obtain access to lucrative natural resources,” the Sentry analysts concluded. The report said its deployment in Mali wasn’t “a worthwhile investment for any party involved.”

A statue of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and chief military commander of Wagner Dmitry Utkin in Bangui, Central African Republic, in 2024. Photo: annela niamolo/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In June, Wagner mercenaries left Mali, their reputation in tatters because of their failure to blunt insurgent advances and their history of slaughtering civilians in the name of providing security. 

“Wagner’s failures in Mali should serve as a warning to other regimes across Africa that Russia is neither a reliable partner nor a quick fix for your problems,” said Justyna Gudzowska, Sentry’s executive director.

The Kremlin sent its Africa Corps, which is directly affiliated with its Ministry of Defense, to mend ties with authorities in Bamako, the Malian capital. “Russia is not losing ground,” Africa Corps said in a social-media post in June. “On the contrary, it continues to support Bamako at a more fundamental level.”

Just over a week later, however, a convoy of Africa Corps and Malian fighters drove into an ambush in the country’s Saharan north. Tuareg rebels, who sometimes fight alongside Islamist militants, destroyed half of the 40 armored vehicles in the convoy and killed dozens of fighters, according to European officials.

Russia is also facing new obstacles elsewhere on the continent. 

In the Central African Republic, where the government is trying to put down a persistent insurgency, Wagner mercenaries had a hand in a variety of business ventures, from mining gold to providing presidential bodyguards. Moscow is pushing President Faustin-Archange Touadéra to replace the existing deal he cut with the mercenaries with a cash contract with the Africa Corps, say European officials. 

People gathered in Moscow to pay tribute to Wagner fighters killed in Mali by Tuareg rebels, in 2024. Photo: yulia morozova/Reuters

The new Russian contractors mostly remain in their barracks to focus on training the local army, the European officials say, limiting their effectiveness.

Russian attempts to secure a deep foothold in Sudan’s civil war have failed. Under Prigozhin, Wagner had extracted gold in partnership with Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the rebel leader the U.S. has accused of genocide. After Prigozhin’s death, Moscow dispatched new personnel to guard mines and man the antiaircraft weapons that protected them, according to local activists and residents.

The effort flopped. Gunmen have conducted holdups around the mines, blocking fuel supplies and preventing local workers from reaching the mines, these people say. Sudanese government warplanes have repeatedly struck the mines, and the Russian guards left in May, activists and residents say.

A spokesman for Dagalo didn’t return a request for comment.

Similar Russian plans to develop a significant presence in new parts of Africa have also been rebuffed. In Burkina Faso, in the Sahel, a 300-strong Russian mercenary force from a company called Bear arrived in May 2024, but was recalled three months later to fight in Ukraine.

A small Africa Corps contingent is in the country to train the military in drone operations and protect junta leader Ibrahim Traoré, according to European security officials. But the ruling junta there has made it clear it wants Russia’s presence to remain limited, the European officials said. 

The Burkina Faso military didn’t return a request for comment.

Protesters in Mali celebrated France's decision to withdraw troops from the African country, in 2022. Photo: florent vergnes/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Moscow’s challenges create a fresh opening for Western powers to regain the access and influence in the Sahel they had lost after the military coups. In Niger, where a coup toppled a pro-Western president in 2023, Russian military instructors initially deployed to an air base last year, as French and U.S. counterterrorism forces were forced to leave.

Prince, an ally of President Trump, recently visited the country’s capital, Niamey, and later offered counterterrorism services, according to people familiar with the outreach.

In July, Rudolph Atallah, a Trump administration counterterrorism adviser, visited Mali to offer American assistance. He didn’t return a request for comment.

That same month, the commander of the French army command in Africa, Maj. Gen. Pascal Ianni, visited the Central African Republic to discuss the resumption of military training. Since then, members of the country’s security forces have been sent for training in France, according to the French Embassy there.

Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com and Nicholas Bariyo at nicholas.bariyo@wsj.com

8. ‘Biometric Exit’ Quietly Expands Across U.S. Airports, Unnerving Some

I see the cameras more often these days but I have never seen "federal officers" taking photos of departing passengers with a cell phone.

Excerpts:

Those officers were part of an expanding federal program called biometric exit, which involves taking photos of passengers leaving the country and applying facial recognition technology to ensure that travelers match their identification documents. This process is known as facial comparison.

For foreign nationals, the photos can remain in a database for up to 75 years. For U.S. citizens, the photos are matched to their passports and deleted within 12 hours, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

...

Today, 52 percent of departing air travelers are “biometrically confirmed,” according to Mr. Tanciar. Since June 2017, 810 million people have undergone the process; as of this month, 500,000 foreign nationals who have overstayed visas have been confirmed using this process, Mr. Tanciar said.

U.S. citizens can opt out and request to be verified manually by showing their passport to the C.B.P. officers or gate agents at the gate and undergoing a visual facial comparison.

Mr. Rodriguez said that an agent told him that in order to opt out, he would have to wait until others had boarded, which made him fear missing his flight. Mr. Tanciar stressed that biometric exit is quick and that the goal is not to delay flights or passengers.

The reliance on facial recognition concerns privacy experts like Jeramie Scott, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit. Facial recognition is prone to false positives, he said, particularly for people of color and women. He said the program also risks “mission creep” — the idea that the photos could be used for more than biometric exit.

‘Biometric Exit’ Quietly Expands Across U.S. Airports, Unnerving Some

The program, in which federal officers take departing international passengers’ photos, is set to grow, raising privacy concerns.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/travel/airports-biometric-exit-program.html

Listen to this article · 6:56 min Learn more

• Share full article
• 
  
• 823

Boston Logan International Airport is among the U.S. airports where departing international travelers can expect to have “biometric exit” photos taken as they board their planes.Credit...Matt West/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald, via Getty Images

By Claire Fahy

Sept. 26, 2025

Sign up for the Travel Dispatch newsletter.  Essential news on the changing travel landscape, expert tips and inspiration for your future trips. Get it sent to your inbox.

René Rodriguez accompanied his daughter to Ireland last month as she prepared for a fall semester abroad. As he boarded the flight from Boston Logan International Airport to Shannon Airport, he found two federal officers in the Jetway taking photos of passengers with their cellphones.

“It was an ambush,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “It really caught me by surprise, and really I felt violated in a lot of ways, because I didn’t give permission.”

Those officers were part of an expanding federal program called biometric exit, which involves taking photos of passengers leaving the country and applying facial recognition technology to ensure that travelers match their identification documents. This process is known as facial comparison.

For foreign nationals, the photos can remain in a database for up to 75 years. For U.S. citizens, the photos are matched to their passports and deleted within 12 hours, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

On Sept. 15, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs approved a proposed rule, clearing the way for the program to expand to all airports, seaports and land crossings across the country.

While the approval formalized the expansion, in reality the program has been growing for years and is now in use at dozens of airports and at seaports. It has not yet been put in place at most points of entry on land, but the rule will permit that as well, said Daniel P. Tanciar, a deputy director at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Image

On Sept. 15, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs cleared the way for the exit program to expand to airports, seaports and land crossings across the country.Credit...Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe, via Getty Images

Mr. Tanciar said that the process usually takes place at the airport boarding gate, using a camera on a stick bought by the airlines. For some smaller foreign airlines, C.B.P. will provide officers with cellphones equipped with a specific application to take the photos in place of the machines.

Keith Jeffries, the former federal security director of Los Angeles International Airport, said that because people’s appearances can change from the time they take their passport photos, biometric exit is a way to double-check a passenger’s identity. But, he said, the presence of federal agents in the Jetway seemed “strange.”

“Anytime you have federal agents in a Jetway, that is not common,” Mr. Jeffries said.

Today, 52 percent of departing air travelers are “biometrically confirmed,” according to Mr. Tanciar. Since June 2017, 810 million people have undergone the process; as of this month, 500,000 foreign nationals who have overstayed visas have been confirmed using this process, Mr. Tanciar said.

U.S. citizens can opt out and request to be verified manually by showing their passport to the C.B.P. officers or gate agents at the gate and undergoing a visual facial comparison.

Mr. Rodriguez said that an agent told him that in order to opt out, he would have to wait until others had boarded, which made him fear missing his flight. Mr. Tanciar stressed that biometric exit is quick and that the goal is not to delay flights or passengers.

The reliance on facial recognition concerns privacy experts like Jeramie Scott, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit. Facial recognition is prone to false positives, he said, particularly for people of color and women. He said the program also risks “mission creep” — the idea that the photos could be used for more than biometric exit.

Times travel coverage. When our writers review a destination, they do not accept free or discounted services or, in most cases, reveal that they work for The Times. We want their experience to be what you can expect.

Here’s more on our standards and practices.

“The main reason they’re using facial recognition is because it’s easy,” he said. “And it’s very easy to expand its use, and there are no overarching regulations in place to protect us in a meaningful way from its expansion.”

\

Regarding privacy concerns, Mr. Tanciar noted that air travelers have long been required to provide photo identification and that passport photos have always been on file with the government.

“The systems in place are secure,” he said.

But privacy worries unsettled Lorey Cavanaugh, 72, when an agent took her picture as she boarded a flight from Boston to Shannon this month. She regretted not asking questions or requesting to opt out. Ms. Cavanaugh, a U.S. citizen from Connecticut, said that she travels to Ireland multiple times a year and had not experienced this before.

“I’m mad at myself that I didn’t say something,” she said. “But it didn’t seem safe, frankly, to stop and have a conversation.”

Biometric entry, which usually involves foreign nationals providing photos and fingerprints upon entering the United States, has been in use since January 2004, but biometric exit has taken longer to put in place. Both programs were recommended by the 9/11 commission report, which was released in 2004.

President Barack Obama explored options for biometric exit, and according to Mr. Tanciar, a trial took place in Atlanta in 2016.

The system gathered momentum after President Trump’s 2017 executive order, known as the “Muslim ban,” which also required D.H.S. to expedite “a biometric entry-exit tracking system.”

The rule approved last week noted that the earlier regulations only allowed for biometric exit at “15 airports and seaports.” In the five years since the rule was first proposed, the number of airports has increased to 57, according to D.H.S.

The presence of federal agents taking photos has confused some travelers. Mr. Rodriguez and Ms. Cavanaugh, who both traveled on Aer Lingus, said they thought the officers they encountered were members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but D.H.S. said they were C.B.P. officers.

The initial impression by both travelers spoke to the anxiety rippling through airports nationwide as they become front lines in the current administration’s immigration crackdown. Mr. Rodriguez said the experience, even as someone born and raised in Connecticut, unnerved him.

“I’m also Latino. I see what they’re doing to people who look like me. It can be very intimidating,” he said.

Mr. Tanciar emphasized that what Mr. Rodriguez experienced is no cause for alarm, particularly as more travelers could start to see similar setups as the program expands.

“It is absolutely normal, absolutely possible that a C.B.P. officer or team of C.B.P. officers may be at your gate using their mobile phones to take photographs,” he said. “It is different than what they have experienced, but it is not certainly anything new or unusual or anything they should be concerned about.”

Lauren McCarthy contributed reporting.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2025.

Claire Fahy reports on New York City and the surrounding area for The Times.

9. Venezuela, America and the Specter of Regime Change

The World

Venezuela, America and the Specter of Regime Change

In this first edition of The World newsletter, we explore why a president who campaigned against “foreign wars” is sending warships to Venezuela.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/world/venezuela-trump-comey-russia-ukraine-drones.html?utm

By Katrin Bennhold

I am the host of The World.

Sept. 28, 2025

You’re reading The World newsletter.  A guide to understanding the news without feeling overwhelmed, made for readers around the globe. Get it sent to your inbox.

VideoInside Venezuela After U.S. Strikes Boats

3:09

The United States has blown up several boats in the Caribbean Sea and is now increasing its military presence off the coast of Venezuela. Julie Turkewitz, reporting from Caracas, explains how Venezuelans are reacting.

President Trump’s plans for Venezuela have been a slow-building mystery, but the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, is feeling the heat.

The U.S. military has deployed warships, surveillance planes and an attack submarine to the Caribbean. It has attacked boats from Venezuela that it has claimed, without evidence, were smuggling drugs, killing 17 people. The administration calls Maduro a cartel leader and a “fugitive of American justice.” Some current and former U.S. officials contend that the unstated goal is to force him from power.

In other words, regime change.

It sounds like the kind of foreign conflict Trump once campaigned against. But my colleague Julie Turkewitz, who just spent a week in Venezuela and has years of experience reporting on the region, told me that Trump might not be thinking about the country in those terms. (You can watch our conversation in full here.)

The question that could determine Maduro’s fate is whether the Trump administration sees a regime change effort in Venezuela as the kind of “foreign war” the president has pledged to avoid, or as an operation to protect America’s interests in its own backyard.

‘You turn Venezuela into Haiti’

There are plenty of Venezuelans who would be happy to see Maduro go. He has been accused of major human rights violations, including torture and forced disappearances. He lost the 2024 election, according to independent vote monitors, and held onto power anyway. In recent weeks, one of Venezuela’s opposition leaders, María Corina Machado, has said she would welcome the U.S. military’s help to remove him from office.

But during Julie’s time in Venezuela, she spoke to many people who didn’t feel the same way. In a part of the world where the U.S. has a long history of military intervention and support for dictatorships, there is a visceral rejection of the idea of American-imposed change.

Local diplomats and business leaders warn that military action could unleash bloodshed and chaos. If the government collapsed, armed actors in the region — including the military, Colombian guerrilla groups and paramilitary gangs — could join a battle for the spoils. And in Venezuela, with its oil, gold and other minerals, there are many spoils, Julie points out.

“You kill Maduro,” one businessman told her, “you turn Venezuela into Haiti.”

After long-running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the combination of the words America and regime change raises alarm bells, both inside and outside the U.S. Venezuela’s government may be trying to leverage that. The country’s vice president told Julie that the American people “do not want war in the Caribbean.”

Image

A march in Caracas, Venezuela, in support of Nicolás Maduro, last week.Credit...Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times

Sphere of influence?

As a presidential candidate, Trump promised not to involve the U.S. in foreign wars.

But he also campaigned on deporting undocumented immigrants back to Latin America and fighting drug smuggling. And he made inroads among Hispanic voters who strongly opposed socialist governments like those in Venezuela and its ally, Cuba.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been pushing for regime change in Venezuela. “We’re not going to have a cartel, operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere,” he told Fox News.

This focus on America’s “own hemisphere” suggests that administration officials think of Venezuela differently than, say, Ukraine or Iraq, Julie told me. They might see it as a country that plays a direct role in the issues they care most about, in a location that’s close to home — a country in America’s sphere of influence.

The military buildup off the coast of Venezuela, while striking, is just one example of the Trump administration’s interventionist approach to Latin America. It has threatened to take over the Panama Canal and to bomb Mexican drug labs. It has thrown itself into Brazilian domestic politics on behalf of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Last week, it offered a $20 billion loan to prop up the political fortunes of President Javier Milei of Argentina.

Some of this seems to be driven by ideological affinities: Trump sees Bolsonaro and Milei as allies, and Maduro as an enemy. But an aggressive focus on America’s backyard may soon be official U.S. doctrine. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reportedly preparing to release a new national defense strategy. It prioritizes “protecting the homeland and the Western Hemisphere.”

10. Classified US intelligence warns of China's Taiwan invasion preparations

Classified US intelligence warns of China's Taiwan invasion preparations

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-29/us-intelligence-warns-china-ferries-built-for-taiwan-preparation/105606720

ABC.net.au · Henry Zwartz · September 28, 2025

A classified US military intelligence report seen by the ABC says China is rapidly building up the country's commercial ferry fleet to prepare for an invasion of Taiwan.

The report dates from earlier this year and was prepared by members of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for the Pentagon.

The US intelligence says the large ocean-going vessels have been modified to carry tanks and partake in amphibious operations.

The ABC has seen the report on the condition that it is not quoted directly, in order to protect the source of the information.

In 2022 alone, some 30 Chinese commercial ferries were monitored by Five Eyes intelligence in military exercises involving People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops.

Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

China is building more than 70 of the large vessels by the end of 2026.

Taiwan's government confirmed to the ABC that it viewed the vessels as part of China's "expansionist intentions" vis-a-vis Taiwan.

"We are also seeing increasing grey-zone tactics … to weaken Taiwan's democracy and society, such as cyber attacks," Douglas Hsu, Taiwan's chief representative to Australia, told the ABC.

"Civilian vessels or other dual-use facilities in [the] maritime domain are also part of China's strategy," he said.

China's ocean-going ferries are capable of transporting armoured vehicles and soldiers. (Supplied: CCTV)

Cargo ships being used with new landing docks

Satellite intelligence of the ferries from earlier this year shows them being used alongside a series of new landing docks off China's coastline, as well as deploying amphibious forces in military exercises.

The landing docks are a new class of vessel that allows the ferries to deploy cargo and people onto a beach.

The US Department of Defense intelligence report assessed the commercial ferries as possible military targets in a conflict scenario with China.

This means the ferries could be targeted and sunk by US forces in the event of a Taiwan crisis, even with civilian crews on board.

It is a position partly reflected in discussion papers within the US Indo-Pacific Command, which has expressed growing alarm about the vessels.

"The direct insertion of troops into conflict is a belligerent act normally reserved for warships, yet the People's Liberation Army appears intent to use commercial roll-on-roll-off vessels (non-warships) for this purpose," an internal paper found.

A senior Australian government source, familiar with the matter, has confirmed to the ABC that Australia had also seen the report.

China's ferries have been used in propaganda videos about the Chinese military. (Supplied: CCTV)

Satellite imagery reveals preparations

China is building more than 70 large ferries for its domestic market by the end of next year, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The ferries serve as civilian ships to transport people and cargo, but have occasionally been filmed conducting PLA exercises.

Hu Bo, a director at the Center for Maritime Strategy Studies at Peking University, said the US military intelligence assessment was a "naked threat" to China.

"It's common sense that China is preparing for a Taiwan crisis. This does not mean China will do something quickly in the future. Preparation is not the same as intention," Professor Hu Bo told the ABC.

China considers Taiwan its territory, and any military effort to retake the island as a legitimate effort at reunification.

A satellite photo shows three interconnected barges and a 'ro-ro' ferry near the shore of Zhanjiang. (Supplied: Planet Labs)

US concerned over preparations

The US intelligence community believes that China's leader, Xi Jinping, has ordered the PLA to be capable of an invasion of Taiwan from 2027.

One of the largest stumbling blocks to that readiness has been the country's ability to deploy large masses of soldiers and material on a beachhead.

Until now.

The landing docks photographed earlier this year during sea trials. (Supplied)

Earlier this year, a series of mysterious landing barges were photographed on Chinese social media conducting a training exercise about 350 kilometres south-west of the Chinese city of Guangzhou.

The beach at Zhanjiang, where the vessels were filmed, is near the headquarters for the PLA's Southern Theatre Command, which runs the operations targeting Taiwan.

"China is undoubtedly building capabilities consistent with preparing for an invasion of Taiwan," James Corera, director of cyber, technology and security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), told the ABC.

Mr Corera has not seen the US intelligence report, which is classified.

A series of mysterious landing barges were photographed conducting a training exercise south-west of Guangzhou. (Supplied)

What do the images show?

The images were picked up by US intelligence and assessed as being three new classes of landing barges — capable of deploying troops and vehicles onto beaches.

Images captured in March show China's ferries parking up next to the landing barges.

The three classes are distinguished by differing sizes, with the smallest being 110-meters-long and the largest being 185-meters-long.

"The surprising thing is these are a matched set, like Russian dolls that go together," Thomas Shugart, a retired US naval captain and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said.

"They implant themselves and actually lift themselves out of the water," he said.

Satellite imagery shows more landing docks under construction at Chinese shipyards.

The US Naval War College said the landing docks appeared to be designed to be specifically used with China's roll-on-roll-off (ro-ro) ferries.

This was because of their various lengths and where the loading doors were located.

China's COMEC Shipyard where additional landing docks were photographed being built. (Supplied: US Naval WAr College/Maxar Technologies)

"China is building ports that sail — but they only matter if it can first win the seas. The barges don't win the beach — they scale up once the beach is won," Mr Corera told the ABC.

"They're vulnerable, limited, and only useful once China has already made significant progress ashore.

"In short, landing docks and ferries are logistics multipliers."

Patent plans of Chinese landing docks analysed by the US Naval War College reveal they can link together to form an 820-metre pier.

Chinese patent drawings of landing docks obtained and analysed by the US Naval War College. (Supplied: US Naval War College)

What is a 'ro-ro' ferry?

Ro-ro (roll-on-roll-off) ferries are commercial cargo vessels capable of holding hundreds of passengers and vehicles.

The first evidence of ferries being used for Chinese military operations came in 2019 when the 15,000-ton vessel the Bang Chui Dao participated in an amphibious assault exercise.

Some of the types of ferries that China is building are similar in size to the Spirit of Tasmania at about 200m long.

But the US Department of Defense report found that the design of the Chinese cargo ships' doors was reinforced to specifically allow for the transportation of tanks.

A report by the CSIS said China was building 76 large ferries for its own use from 2023 to 2026.

"There is clear evidence that the Chinese military intends to use ro-ros to support military operations," the report found.

The ferries have occasionally been filmed conducting PLA exercises. (Supplied: CCTV)

China is the world's largest shipbuilder.

Even so, the 76 ferries that China is building for its own use are close to 40 per cent of the country's entire commercial ferry production output over three years.

They include ferries built for exporting to other countries, according to the CSIS.

The scale of China's ferry production has alarmed the US Department of Defense, according to the intelligence report.

"Many [of these ferries] are owned by state-linked firms and modified under laws requiring 'national defence' features," Mr Corera said.

"These ferries have been integrated into PLA training, demonstrating strong progress under President Xi's civil-military fusion strategy. They can legally be mobilised in wartime, expanding lift capacity well beyond dedicated amphibious ships."

China's new landing docks extend to create a pier more than 800 meters long. (Supplied)

US intelligence a 'threat' to China

Professor Hu Bo has not seen the contents of the classified report but said it echoed "US militaristic thinking" and was a "threat".

"In wartime, China can legitimately use everything to support its operations. It must be noted that Taiwan is a domestic issue for China," he said.

China's position is made clear in an official white paper, called The Taiwan Question and China's Reunification in the New Era.

Chinese ferries unloading armoured vehicles. (Supplied: US Naval War College)

In it, China said: "The state shall never allow the 'Taiwan independence' secessionist forces to make Taiwan secede from China under any name or by any means."

Taiwan, for its part, sees itself as a sovereign nation.

Professor Hu Bo conceded the satellite intelligence could be connected to Taiwan.

"Every capability can be connected to a Taiwan scenario, but China can be very patient," he said.

"We can wait many years for a peaceful solution. I think the US has exaggerated China's intentions.

"I think the main reason China is strengthening its navy is very simple. It's because of the US military threat."

It comes after the Royal United Services Institute in London said it had acquired documents appearing to show Russia was helping China prepare for a potential invasion of Taiwan.

The ABC has sought comment from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Chinese landing docks leaving a landing area during exercises near Zhanjiang. (Supplied: US Naval War College)

Are China's ferries and landing docks something new?

Other nations, including the US, have used similar ferries in the past to deploy military units in peacetime operations.

Multiple nations, including Australia, also use amphibious vessels in their navies for landing soldiers and vehicles on beaches.

The Royal Australian Navy operates the Canberra-class landing dock, whereas the US has multiple classes of landing dock ships.

China's use of civilian ferries to act as a relatively affordable method of transporting troops and vehicles is a conundrum for Western military planners.

The sheer scale of China's ro-ro ferry fleet creates a strategic headache for US military planners.

The US is confronted with the prospect of sinking civilian ships during a Taiwan Straits crisis.

One of the Chinese landing docks under construction, this one measures around 135 meters long. (Supplied: US Naval War College)

This is because targeting civilian ships, like ferries, violates international legal norms, known as the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), unless they have been clearly requisitioned for military use.

The dilemma is explored in US Indo-Pacific Command discussion papers, which considered whether targeting civilian-built ferries would violate international law.

The paper was based on the scenario of a future armed clash with China over Taiwan. It concluded that ferries being operated by the PLA were legitimate military targets.

Mr Corera urged caution, noting that while intelligence was alarming, the real signals would be China's training tempo, carrier and rocket forces, and that the landing docks could be a red herring.

China's floating docks under construction. (Supplied: US Naval War College)

"These matter far more than a handful of barges. They speak directly to Xi Jinping's push to ensure the PLA can meet his 2027 capability milestone," he said.

"Landing docks look impressive in pictures, but they're vulnerable, limited, and only useful once China has already made significant progress ashore."

Professor Hu Bo said China was reaching a point where it had enough naval power in the Pacific to challenge the US.

"If the US tries to destroy Chinese vessels in a Taiwan crisis, it will face very serious countermeasures from China," he said.

The US Department of Defense and Australia's Defence Minister Richard Marles declined to comment.

Know more? Contact henryzwartz@protonmail.com

Posted 11h ago11 hours agoSun 28 Sep 2025 at 6:41pm

ABC.net.au · Henry Zwartz · September 28, 2025

11. Why economists get Trumpism wrong

Excerpts:

Movie directors know about turning points — the peripeteia in classical Greek drama — where events shift, either in the positive or the negative direction. To his supporters, Trump may well the person who arrests the decline of civilisation. They will end up disappointed. So may his detractors who see his presidency as a phase of comic relief, a moment that will eventually pass before the final happy ending sets in.

My guess is that America will not be great at the end of the MAGA episode. But America will be OK, if not great, whereas Europe will be neither. What we would really need is a reboot, but we are afraid. There was a tradition in European intellectual thought that started with the acknowledgement that you don’t know. Scio nescio, Plato wrote. Feynman’s comment about quantum mechanics is in that spirit too. That state of mind is a precondition for success. You start at zero. It is where the Age of Enlightenment began. It is where China started too.

Trump is the very opposite of this. The real tragedy is that his detractors, are too.

Why economists get Trumpism wrong

It will succeed before it fails

unherd.com · Wolfgang Munchau · September 28, 2025

The great physicist Richard Feynman once wrote: “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.”

I can say safely that nobody understands the economic and political consequences of Donald Trump. I am not likening his policies to one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. But what the two have in common is radical unpredictability. In quantum mechanics, unpredictability arises at the time of measurement. Economists have the same problem with Trump. We cannot look at the current slew of economic data to see where this is going. If you are an anti-Trump economic evangelist, you are very likely to get things wrong, just as economists did with Brexit or Trump’s first term.

I expect that the US economy will probably be fine. Before you jump to the conclusion that I am a Trump supporter, I can assure you that I am not. Nor was I a Brexit supporter, though I was critical of the self-defeating arguments of the Remain campaign. I see similar dynamics at work in the US right now. Trump’s critics, both in the US and Europe, keep on underestimating him with predictions of imminent gloom.

They predicted that his tariffs would raise inflation. So far that has not happened. I don’t think it will. Some also predicted that the US stock market would soon crash. In fact, Europeans celebrated the collapse in the S&P 500 that followed the Liberation Day tariffs. They erroneously relied on the markets as a corrective mechanism to frustrate Trump’s tariffs. That did not happen. The markets recovered and never looked back. The overall level of tariffs today is at least as high as those announced by Trump on 2 April. They are bound to get higher still, now that he has slapped a 100% tariff on branded pharmaceutical products and a 50% tariff on Ikea furniture.

It does not look like the stock market will do us the favour of crashing during the Trump presidency. It is quite possible that the S&P 500 will rise from its current level of around 6,400 to 10,000. Market valuations could rise from the stratospheric to the mesospheric to the exospheric. Prices will crash eventually. But that might not happen until the next Democratic president.

The economic success I expect to see is that of a last hurrah of a declining power. It will be a hell of a party, with the fake glitter of a Mar-a-Lago ballroom: lights, music and attention-deflecting smoke and mirrors.

John Maynard Keynes once said all politicians were under the influence of long-defunct economists. We can safely say that Trump is not. The Left hates him, of course. But so does the old Right. Monetarists would have been aghast at his assault on the independence of the Federal Reserve. Virtually every school of conservative economic thought, from the ancient to modern, would have rejected his tariffs. Or his unfunded tax cuts. Or the stablecoins through which he wants to attract investment in the US debt markets. You can’t even caricature his policies as “businessman economics” either. Businesspeople tend to be fiscally conservative.

The reason I chose not to underestimate him is that his big tax cuts, extreme deregulation and tariffs will turn the US into a super-competitive economy at the expense of other Western countries. We Europeans still live in the technological Stone Age, but at least we used to have competitive industries. We are now being squeezed by the US and China both in innovation and competitiveness.

China’s economic policies could not more different than Trump’s, but they share one important trait: they both ignore the advice of mainstream macroeconomics. President Xi Jinping is an old-fashioned mercantilist. He maximises exports and minimise imports. He does not care what this does to the rest of the world. China has not freed up its capital markets. The Chinese renminbi is locked in a semi-fixed exchange rate against the dollar. China unashamedly picks winners. Were we not told that government should never, ever do this? China’s central planners picked the electric car, the entire battery supply chain behind it, and solar panels. The problem with picking winners is not the act of picking. It is about what you pick. We Westerners should perhaps not pick winners. China did better.

Trump is picking fossil fuels. If your time horizon is four years, this is going to be fine. Cheap oil and gas fuel the fire of American entrepreneurialism. But China’s energy policy is much more sophisticated. They still burn coal, but they invest into renewable energies like nobody else. One of the water dams being planned will have a capacity as large as the entire energy consumption of countries such as Greece.

To use Trump’s own words: China has all the cards. It has more people; it has a work ethic that has been lost in the West; it has industrial supply chains; and it is willing to shift resources from one part to another in our economy with a ruthlessness that our democracies cannot replicate. I would rather live in Europe or the US than in China. But I am not optimistic about the long-term prospects of the West.

I have no doubt that Trump’s economics will fail in the end. It will not become the foundation of a new economic era; he will not match Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in influencing economic policy in the West for decades after they left the stage. They both failed before they succeeded. With Trump, it is more likely to be the other way round.

What I am sure of, however, that he will fail in his foreign policies even in the short run. The reason is a complete lack of interest in strategic alliances, and in strategic action in general. The only chance the democratic West has against the rise of China and its global partners-in-crime is as a well-managed team.

“The only chance the democratic West has against the rise of China and its global partners-in-crime is as a well-managed team.”

I am not just talking about his delusional announcements: that it would take him 24 hours to cut a peace in deal in Ukraine. Or his claim at the end of last week that we are about to have a peace deal in Gaza. He claims to have ended seven wars. He has not. Nor has he saved millions of lives. His “America First” agenda is by definition not one of foreign policy. His only foreign policy objective is to get the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump’s delusions are easy to dismiss, but they have will have serious effects. The first casualty of Trump’s foreign policy is Europe. Europe must be very careful about Trump’s latest policy u-turn on Ukraine. This looks like a setup to me. Don’t fall for the “Ukraine is winning” narrative that has recently popped up out of nowhere. Nothing substantive has changed on the ground. I think Trump is setting Europe up for failure by insisting that Ukraine can win the war, and that Europe should pay for it. If it fails, as I believe it will, he can blame Europe.

There is no way that Europe can make itself independent of Russian oil with the speed that Trump demands. He knows that, of course. Europe is financially too weak and politically too divided to be able to fund the Ukraine war on its own. This is still true if the EU commission ends up sequestering €200 billion in Russian reserve assets currently frozen in EU bank accounts. I concluded a long time ago that, because they all think in national terms, European political elites are incapable of strategic geopolitical thought. A Franco-German fighter project is on the rocks right now, because the two countries cannot agree on the work share. Pettiness has a habit of intruding all the time in European politics, even during emergencies.

Japan is as weak as Europe. It too has an outdated industrial base and a declining population. Under Trump, the West will fragment into a disparate collection of failed states. An inward-looking US will remain its most formidable power, but not a leader. The US will look like the Norma Desmond character from Sunset Boulevard, who thought that she was still big, and that it was the movies that got smaller.

Movie directors know about turning points — the peripeteia in classical Greek drama — where events shift, either in the positive or the negative direction. To his supporters, Trump may well the person who arrests the decline of civilisation. They will end up disappointed. So may his detractors who see his presidency as a phase of comic relief, a moment that will eventually pass before the final happy ending sets in.

My guess is that America will not be great at the end of the MAGA episode. But America will be OK, if not great, whereas Europe will be neither. What we would really need is a reboot, but we are afraid. There was a tradition in European intellectual thought that started with the acknowledgement that you don’t know. Scio nescio, Plato wrote. Feynman’s comment about quantum mechanics is in that spirit too. That state of mind is a precondition for success. You start at zero. It is where the Age of Enlightenment began. It is where China started too.

Trump is the very opposite of this. The real tragedy is that his detractors, are too.

Wolfgang Münchau is the Director of Eurointelligence and an UnHerd columnist.

12. The U.S. Is Weighing A Massive Weapons Hub Near China's Doorstep

The U.S. Is Weighing A Massive Weapons Hub Near China's Doorstep - SlashGear

https://www.slashgear.com/1978245/us-considers-weapons-hub-near-china/?utm

flip.it · UmmeAimon Shabbir · September 28, 2025

• Military

By Sept. 28, 2025 6:00 pm EST

Artran/Getty Images

The United States is weighing the creation of what could become the world's largest weapons manufacturing hub at Subic Bay in the Philippines, which was once one of the biggest American military bases in the world. It's sitting just 55 miles northwest of Manila and within striking distance of China. The plan surfaced after a June 2025 US House Appropriations Committee report directed the Pentagon, State Department, and International Development Finance Corporation to study the feasibility of a joint ammunition production and storage facility. President Donald Trump later called the project "very important," framing it as a way to boost US readiness while supporting the Philippines' own defense buildup.

For President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the proposal ties into his government's Self-Reliant Defense Posture (SRDP), a program meant to reduce dependence on imports by developing local arms production. The Subic facility would reportedly produce explosives such as nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin and stockpiles for both US and Philippine use.

But the location is strategic first and foremost. Subic Bay sits just 1,100 kilometers from Shenzhen and Taipei, and 2,800 kilometers from Beijing, well within China's missile range. Since 2023, the Philippines has expanded US base access under EDCA and hosted advanced missile systems, shifting from rotational presence to a more permanent American foothold. If built, the hub would mark the most significant US defense investment in the Philippines since the Cold War.

Local pushback and fears of sovereignty loss

OJUP/Shutterstock

The proposal has already drawn sharp criticism inside the Philippines. The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) issued a statement condemning the plan as a direct assault on sovereignty, warning that the Philippines risks becoming a "staging ground for US wars in Asia." The group links the move to the broader US Indo-Pacific Ammunition Manufacturing Strategy, calling it part of Washington's military-industrial complex. Critics point out that Subic Bay was the site of massive anti-base protests in 1991 that led to the US withdrawal, only for plans of large-scale military use to return three decades later.

Fisherfolk group Pamalakaya echoed those concerns, warning that an ammunition factory would threaten both livelihoods and national security. Leaders cited risks of toxic chemical waste damaging fisheries, alongside fears that the Philippines could become a target in a US-China conflict. They argue the project undermines the hard-fought victory of removing US bases and opens the door to new displacement and environmental hazards.

Even the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has responded cautiously. While welcoming investment, officials noted that foreign equity in such ventures is capped under Philippine law, and flagged unresolved issues from community pushback and environmental compliance. SBMA has emphasized that talks are still exploratory and that most current US-run facilities in Subic are for logistics and humanitarian supplies, not weapons.

Balancing alliances, security, and domestic concerns

Gregory Smith/Getty Images

The Marcos administration has framed the project as a practical response to rising tensions with China in the South China Sea, which Manila refers to as the West Philippine Sea. Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. has signaled openness, citing the potential benefits of resilience, employment, and technology transfer, though he says no formal US proposal has yet been submitted.

At the same time, domestic pushback has complicated the narrative. Critics argue that growing US military presence, from nine EDCA sites to newly deployed missile systems like Typhoon and NMESIS, erodes sovereignty while raising the risk of retaliation from Beijing. Vice President Sara Duterte has also warned that aligning too closely with Washington could turn the Philippines into a "bullet shield for China."

Still, momentum appears to favor expansion. The US has already leased new warehouse space in Subic for prepositioning equipment, while its Marine Corps and Navy (one of the largest navies in the world) continue to increase their footprint across the region. Supporters highlight that the Philippines has a Mutual Defense Treaty with the US, and that co-production of ammunition could reduce reliance on imports while deterring external threats.

Whether the Subic plan becomes a permanent weapons hub or stalls under political pressure, its implications are clear. It is a test of how far Manila is willing to integrate with Washington's Indo-Pacific strategy, and how much risk it is prepared to accept, especially with China and its expanding naval presence.

flip.it · UmmeAimon Shabbir · September 28, 2025

13. Special Operations News – September 29, 2025

Special Operations News – September 29, 2025

https://sof.news/update/20250929/

September 29, 2025 SOF News Update 0

Curated news, analysis, and commentary about special operations, national security, and conflicts around the world.

Photo / Image: U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard performs tire drills during an early morning physical training session with the military personnel assigned to 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Carson, Colo., Sept. 23, 2025. Tire drills, such as sledgehammer tire slams, are commonly used in military training to build strength, endurance and explosive power through full-body, functional movements. Drawing on her own military service, Gabbard joined the training session to better understand the physical and tactical demands faced by today’s service members. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Shelby Jones)

Do you receive our daily newsletter? If not, you can sign up here and enjoy it 2 or 3 days a week with your morning coffee (or afternoon tea depending on where in the world you are).

SOF News

Members of 160th Crew Identified. The four Soldiers who perished in a September 17th aircraft mishap while conducting routine flight training have been identified by the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC). The members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment included two CW3s and two SGTs. “USASOC Identifies Soldiers Who Perished in Aviation Mishap”, DVIDS, September 22, 2025.

AFSOC Ready for Caribbean Missions. Elements of Air Force Special Operations Command held a long-planned exercise on St. Croix just days before the first U.S. strike on an alleged drug boat. “We need to be ready to go’: AFSOC preps for potential Caribbean missions”, Defense One, September 24, 2025.

MV Ocean Trader. Numerous social media accounts are reporting that the MV Ocean Trader, a converted commercial vessel commonly referred to as a staging platform for special operations forces is now operating in the Caribbean. The vessel is described as a floating barracks, helicopter base, and command center for SOF. Air Force, Naval, and other military assets have moved to bases in the Caribbean over the past month. The U.S. has begun conducting air strikes on suspected narcotic smuggling vessels traveling from Venezuela. In addition, the U.S. government rhetoric on Venezuela has dramatically increased. Read more in “The elusive ship built to carry US special operators is in the Caribbean”, by Jeff Schogol and Patty Nieberg, Task and Purpose, September 25, 2025.

SF Core Competencies. This article focuses on how Special Forces can restore the human edge that has always been its hallmark. The author argues that the SF Regiment needs to reinvigorate language and culture training. “Rebuilding the Human Edge”, The Old and Bold, September 27, 2025.

Future JCETs to Tunisia? Tunisian Army Senior Col. Wajdi Zorgani, the Commander of the 2nd Special Forces Training Center (Tunisia), visited USASOC headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in September to discuss ongoing cooperation between U.S. and Tunisian special operations forces. One of the topics discussed was future Joint Combined Exchange Training opportunities.

USASOC CSM Moves On. U.S. Army Command Sergeant Major JoAnn Naumann has been selected to replace U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant Major Howard Kreamer as the Command Senior Enlisted Leader, U.S. Strategic Command. CSM Naumann currently serves as the Command Sergeant Major for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and previously served as the Command Senior Enlisted Leader for Special Operations Command, Korea.

Navy SEAL Training – SOAS. Since its inception in 2014, SEAL Officer Assessment and Selection (SOAS) has served as an important step in screening potential candidates for Navy SEAL training. Conducted in three classes each summer, this intense three-week course includes Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) officer candidates, Navy ROTC midshipmen, Officer Candidate School (OCS) recruits and current active-duty members. “Navy SEAL Timeline: From Acceptance to Training”, Military.com, September 17, 2025.

SOF Advising Overseas. So which is the better model for SOF advising and training partner forces? Sending a large team (like 12 individuals) for six months or less or embedding a smaller group of individuals with a partner force over a much longer period? “Maximizing the Indigenous Approach: Using Secondment to Enable Our Partners and Constrain Our Adversaries”, by Wyatt Thielen, Irregular Warfare Initiative, September 25, 2025.

SOF Operations in the Future. Kevin D. Stringer and Marius Kristiansen write on how special operations forces will need to transform to prevail in the space domain and polar regions. They call for two enhanced roles for SOF – a Space Joint Terminal Attack Controller (SJTAC) and an emphasis on security force assistance (SFA). “Space and Ice: Envisioning Special Operations Forces’ Role in Future Operational Environments”, Small Wars Journals, September 24, 2025.

AFSOC Has Confidence in Ospreys. The head of Air Force Special Operations Command says he has “complete confidence” in the safety of the CV-22 Osprey. The aircraft has had some issues and critics say that it is time to retire the Osprey. AFSOC has 51 Osprey air frames. Air and Space Forces, September 24, 2025.

SOF History

On October 3, 1943, the 5307 Composite Group – Merrill’s Marauders was established.

On October 6, 1964, Project DELTA (B52) was formed. The program was initially known as Project LEAPING LENA which was established on May 15, 1964. LEAPING LENA was a program for the Green Berets to train LLDB teams for missions into Laos. Project DELTA was the first of the three special reconnaissance units with a Greek letter formed by U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV).

Project DELTA

On October 1, 1974, the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment was established. On October 3, 1984, the 75th Ranger Regiment and 3/75th was established.

On October 3, 1993 – Operation Gothic Serpent, Battle of Mogadishu took place. It would end on October 4th. https://sof.news/history/operation-gothic-serpent/ At the end of the battle a U.S. helicopter pilot was missing which would prompt a days-long search for him until he was released by Somali insurgents. https://sof.news/conflicts/gothic-serpent-super-64/

On October 1, 2012, the Army Special Operations Aviation Command (USASOAC) was activated at Fort Bragg.

On October 4, 2017, four soldiers of the 3rd Special Forces Group died in an ambush in Niger.

National Security and Commentary

Gathering of Generals. Over 800 generals and admirals from all the branchs of military service have been summoned by the Secretary of Defense for a meeting this week – possibly on Tuesday at Quantico, Va. The summons is short-notice and there is no stated reason (available to the public) for the gathering. President Trump intends to make a presence at the unusual gathering.

Apparently a few of the topics will be about the “warrior ethos” and “military standards”. However, there is lots of speculation on the meeting – what could be so important that all of the high-ranking generals need to be called in together. Seems a Zoom session or an email just wouldn’t be good enough. Some of the rumors about the meeting include the re-focus of the DoD on defense of the Western Hemisphere, a massive reduction in general officer ranks, or the institution of some type of ‘loyalty oath’. The rumors are certainly making the rounds on social media!

TRADOC Goes Away. For better or worse – opinions differ- the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command was officially deactivated during a ceremony at Fort Eustis on September 26, 2025. Taking its place, and incorporating other departments of the Army, will be the U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command (T2COM – how do you pronounce that acronym? I guess it will be referred to as “T-Two-COM”). This new command will activate on October 2nd with a ceremony at the new headquarters in Austin, Texas. TRADOC has existed for 52 years and was instrumental in shaping and modernizing the Army through training, doctrine, and leader development. “Turning the Page: TRADOC inactivation marks new chapter in Army transformation”, U.S. Army, September 26, 2025.

Irregular Warfare. “Innovations in five areas are transforming the character and nature of irregular warfare (IW).” These enablers or “vehicles” are space, drones, artificial intelligence (AI), unconventional maritime operations, and global supply chains. “The Five Vehicles of Irregular Warfare”, Small Wars Journal, September 25, 2025.

Confronting the Cartels. Brian Michael Jenkins has authored an essay about the challenges of possible U.S. military action against Mexico’s drug cartels. It is a complicated situation and the U.S. must be prepared for possible counteractions. “Confronting the Cartels: Military Considerations South of the Border”, CTC Sentinel, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, September 2025.

U.S. Buildup in Caribbean. The U.S. military presence in the Caribbean has increased significantly in the past several weeks. A lot of this activity are exercises and events that have been on the calendar for months. However, some of it is ‘unscheduled’. The rhetoric on Venezuela has increased significantly. But keep your eye on Haiti, the rule of the armed gangs in Port-au-Prince has gone on long enough, perhaps there is some thought in the Trump administration to try to put that house in order.

IW in the Indo-Pacific. The author of this article explores how the U.S. and its partners can use irregular warfare to strengthen security cooperation, build trust, and enhance resilience among Indo-Pacific nations – especially those with limited conventional military capacity. “Applying the Alaska Territorial Guard Concept to Modern Indo-Pacific Irregular Warfare”, Irregular Warfare Initiative, September 25, 2025.

Another Intel Function Cut. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence, has cut an periodic strategic intelligence report that predicts the challenges the United States and the world will face in the coming decades. However, this valuable resource, published every four years, has been eliminated by the ODNI. The report, produced by the National Intelligence Council’s Strategic Futures Group, is yet one more step in the dismantling of the national security community by Gabbard. Last month the National Intelligence University was eliminated and there were sharp cutbacks in numerous intelligence agencies – as has been the case almost every month this year. “Gabbard Ends Intelligence Report on Future Threats to U.S.”, The New York Times, September 26, 2025.

Ukraine Conflict

Trump Shift on Ukraine? One never knows what President Trump is going to say or do next. This is especially true about the war in Ukraine. In the past week it appears his stance on Russia has hardened and that he seems to be more supportive of Ukraine. We shall see how long this lasts. In the meantime Ukrainians, who have been fighting the invaders the past three years, see a glimmer of hope in the recent Trump statements about the conflict. Rhetoric is one thing, but policy and actions are what count.

The Ukraine war has turned into a stalemate. Armored vehicles and equipment are destroyed before it even gets to the front lines. Drones are everywhere and the ‘no man’s land’ is more than 30 kilometers wide in some areas. Any attacks by the Russians are made by small groups, usually at night, and they are most times unsuccessful or yield little gain at great cost.

Russia’s Most Modern Tank – MIA. The T-14 Armata tank is the latest main battle tank has not had a major impact on the war in Ukraine. The T-14 made an appearance in 2023 in Ukraine – but it was likely for propaganda purposes. The Russians have likely determined that the new tank is too valuable to lose in a war where Russian tank losses number over 4,000. “Why is Russia Hiding the Armata Tank?”, by Maya Carlin, The National Interest, September 27, 2025.

SOF News welcomes the submission of articles for publication. If it is related to special operations, current conflicts, national security, or defense then we are interested.

Asia, Europe, and Middle East

DoD Misses Out on Important ROK Conference. An important conference recently held in Washington, D.C. saw no attendees from the Department of Defense. The gathering “was timely and consequential given the ongoing process of alliance modernization between Washington and Seoul”. This is not the only conference that DoD is missing out on. A July 2025 DoD policy now prohibits both military and civilian personnel from attending external events and conferences that are defense related. This isolates senior DoD officials from the ‘think tank’ crowd where important defense issues and policies are discussed. “Defense Dept. misses strategic discussion on future of ROK-US alliance”, by David Maxwell, UPI, September 26, 2025.

Sweden and ‘Total Defense’. A new roadmap issued by the Swedish government is emphasizing whole-of-society preparedness. “Sweden’s total defense urges citizens to prepare for war”, NORDISKPOST, September 23, 2025.

NATO Air Defenses on Alert. A number of drone incursions by Russia has put Europe’s air defense system on edge. Recent incursions into Poland, Romania, and other nations by Russian drones have prompted calls for an upgrade to drone defensive systems.

New Civil War in Syria? Negotiations between the Syrian Democratic Front (SDF) located in the Kurdish region of northwest Syria and the newly installed Syrian government (as of December 2024) are deadlocked with no resolution of the way the SDF and region it controls will come under Syrian government control. The 120,000-man force of the SDF is robust enough to cause problems for Syrian forces should a conflict break out. The intervention of Turkey on the side of the Syrian government forces would be a game changer.

Africa

South Sudan’s Troubles. A civil war is brewing between two factions in South Sudan. President Salva Kiir’s health is in decline and there soon will be a successor. This is one of the factors that might bring about a renewal of war between factions (and ethnic groups) in a nation that has been independent for less than two decades. The economy is in trouble due to the restrictions on exporting oil by pipelines to the Red Sea ports of Sudan – the country to the north engaged in civil war. Read a comprehensive article on the volatile situation in “Succession Fever Deepens South Sudan’s Malaise”, International Crisis Group, September 1, 2025.

Turkish Advisors Will Train Niger Army. Ankara plans to send military advisors to Niamey – another step to deepen its relations with countries of the Sahel region. Niger’s military is in a fight to counter militant groups. Although Niger is receiving Russian assistance it is broadening its base of international supporters beyond Russia. Among the advisors will be commandos and special forces. Turkey has been providing advisory services to Burkina Faso and Mali. “Turkey to train Niger army in fight against militant groups”, Middle East Eye, September 22, 2025.

Mali Ends CT Cooperation with France. Mali’s ruling junta has expelled five French Embassy employees and has ceased CT cooperation. “Mali ends counterterror cooperation with France and expels embassy staff”, AP News, September 25, 2025.

Al-Shabab’s Shadow State. Representatives of humanitarian and development organizations often confide that the insurgent group would make a better partner for the distribution of humanitarian aid than the current Somali federal government. “Al-Shabab’s shadow state: Why Somalia’s militants are winning legitimacy”, by Robert Kluijver, The New Humanitarian, September 25, 2025.

Books, Podcasts, Videos, and Movies

CTC Sentinel. The September 2025 issue of CTC Sentinel by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point is now available online. https://ctc.westpoint.edu/september-2025/

Video – Resupply at Sea. CARIBBEAN SEA – USNS Joshua Humphreys (T-AO-188), Henry J. Kaiser- Class Replenishment Oiler, participates in a replenishment at sea with the U.S. Navy Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7), 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Sept. 3, 2025. U.S. military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of the U.S. Southern Command mission, Department of War-directed operations, and the president’s priorities. DVIDS, 1 minute, September 27, 2025.

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/978492/resupply-sea

Video – The Untold Story of Operation Viking Hammer and Iraqi Kurdish Resistance. Mark Grdovic, a retired Special Forces officer (and master storyteller), is the guest in this interview about the 10th SFG(A) during the Iraq War. He talks about the planning, execution, and challenges faced during the invasion, including the establishment of relationships with local forces, communication, and military strategy. The Team House, YouTube, September 25, 2025, 2 hours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=jsVRZgrS2R0

SOF News Book Shop

View our selection of books about special operations forces at the SOF News Book Shop.

Upcoming Events

October 2025

Virtual MOG Mile

Three Rangers Foundation

October 7-9, 2025

Global SOF Europe

Athens, Greece

October 13-15, 2025

AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Association of the United States Army

Washington, D.C.

October 13-16, 2025

Special Operations Association Reunion (SOAR)

Las Vegas, Nevada

October 14-17, 2025

Special Forces Association Conference

Las Vegas, Nevada

October 18, 2025

William J. Donovan Award

The OSS Society

14. Steady Erosion of Confidence: US’s Indo-Pacific Allies Grow Uneasy

Excerpts:

This spread of far-right political ideology beyond the anglosphere is directly impacting political discourse in these countries around issues such as immigration, gender rights, and political culture.

Furthermore, while on one hand we see the US commitment to regional security standing on shaky ground, expectations from allies in the region have significantly increased. Allies have been asked to increase their defence spending and commit to a role in a potential Taiwan contingency, leaving several uneasy (perhaps with the exception of Japan). Similarly, Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy has also clashed with his predecessor’s security commitments. For instance, the AUKUS review by the Pentagon has emboldened sceptics, cautioning Australia to review the deal.

Cumulatively, these political, economic, and security issues strain US ties with allies. Trump’s hostility has alienated allies, further strengthening anti-US voices in these countries. Trump’s whims and fancies regarding trade and security have reversed Washington’s decades-long foreign policy stances. Therefore, if the Trump administration continues its transactional and hostile engagement with allies, it risks further fueling and consolidating anti-US sentiment, reducing its reliability and credibility as a serious actor.

Steady Erosion of Confidence: US’s Indo-Pacific Allies Grow Uneasy

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/steady-erosion-of-confidence-us-s-indo-pacific-allies-grow-uneasy

Author : Abhishek Sharma

Abhishek Sharma

Abhishek Sharma is a Junior Fellow with the ORF’s Strategic Studies Programme. His research focuses on the Indo-Pacific regional security and geopolitical developments with a ...

Expert Speak Raisina Debates

Published on Sep 29, 2025

Mounting trade disputes, security pressures, and political frictions under the Trump administration are forcing Indo-Pacific allies to question the US’s credibility and explore alternatives, including closer engagement with China.

More than six months have passed since US President Donald Trump’s administration took over from its predecessor. In this short time, a lot of water has flown down the bridge, which has increased US allies' anxiety. Given this context, allies are rethinking their engagement with the US under the current administration, moving towards a more transactionalist approach. Recent actions by the Trump administration regarding tariffs on trade, security alliances, political interference, and the US’s foreign policy decisions have led to growing uneasiness within Indo-Pacific capitals. Given this context, allies' confidence in the US and its reliability is increasingly being debated.

Washington’s Indo-Pacific Ties Under Strain 

The Indo-Pacific region has slipped from the radar since Trump assumed office in January 2025. Making matters worse, the trans-Pacific ties have been mired by trade tensions and uncertainties over changing tariffs, which have remained in place. Contemporary domestic political changes have consumed regional allies' time, deferring the earliest conclusion of trade negotiations. All of these issues have vitiated the existing political understanding between the allies.

Furthermore, the Trump administration’s domestic agenda has added to existing problems with allies, impacting diplomatic ties. Issues such as immigration, export controls, and investments have further created serious discord. The administration's disdain for minilateral and multilateral economic and security institutions has further strained relations.

Considering the steps taken by the Trump administration in recent months, US perception among allies has suffered further setbacks, signalling eroding reliability and trust. This has inadvertently elevated the Chinese position in the region as a credible and reliable actor.

Under the Trump administration, Washington’s economic ties with its allies have been strained due to new tariffs against Indo-Pacific partners. In parallel, the withering away of multilateral economic frameworks such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), established under the Biden administration, has reduced US economic influence in the region. These steps have inadvertently forced many US allies to turn to Beijing for trade and commerce, reversing the de-risking trend.

A similar challenge is emerging in the security domain, as the US demands allies increase their defence budgets, focus on denial defence (moving beyond grey zone scenarios), showcase strategic flexibility, and clarify their commitments in a Taiwan contingency, as part of the administration’s ‘Peace through Strength’ approach. However, some recent developments have added to the confusion, including the administration's double speak on its dealings with China on national security matters. Recent reports that the Pentagon’s latest National Defense Strategy focused more on homeland threats than countering China have left allies wondering about the US's strategic intentions and its commitment to regional security.

Although the changing perception of Washington’s reliability among US allies in the region was seen as troubling, deeper institutional ties acted as a cushion, safeguarding the overall relations. However, considering the steps taken by the Trump administration in recent months, US perception among allies has suffered further setbacks, signalling eroding reliability and trust. This has inadvertently elevated the Chinese position in the region as a credible and reliable actor.

Trade, Security, and Political Interference

In addition to the baseline, countries have been subjected to varying tariffs. Trump’s demands that allies invest in the US without any safeguards or clarity have put them in a difficult position. Speaking on this issue, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung cautioned that Washington’s demand that Seoul invest US$350 billion without a currency swap would lead to a situation similar to the 1997 financial crisis. Similarly, Japanese officials have contradicted US claims regarding the Trump administration’s complete discretion over the proposed US$500 billion investments. Using tariffs to pressure allies into negotiations has harmed the US's reputation as a proponent of free trade. Therefore, despite reaching a deal, several allies are concerned about trade with the US. Prospects of future tariffs against the semiconductor and pharmaceutical sectors risk damaging the economic relationship further.

Political interference is another cause of concern for US allies, particularly in the face of growing domestic far-right movements and their linkages with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement in the US.

Political interference is another cause of concern for US allies, particularly in the face of growing domestic far-right movements and their linkages with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement in the US. In particular, South Korea and Japan stand out as case studies where the MAGA movement's influence is increasing significantly. This spread of far-right political ideology beyond the anglosphere is directly impacting political discourse in these countries around issues such as immigration, gender rights, and political culture. These movements directly influence political and social equations within these countries, making it difficult for existing dispensations to undertake policy reforms. The arrest of 317 South Korean nationals employed at a Hyundai electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is one example that highlights the clash between Trump’s political and economic agenda. It represents the Trumpian agenda colliding with his attempts to revive manufacturing, delaying Hyundai’s battery production by at least two months.

Besides MAGA politics and its influence, the US stance on Gaza and Ukraine has become another point of divergence with Indo-Pacific allies. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan now starkly disagree with the US on a two-state solution and Ukrainian security. For instance, US diplomatic dealings with Russia on the Ukraine issue do not enjoy the support of its allies. This has forced many Indo-Pacific allies to reassess their expectations of the current US administration, particularly regarding its commitment to Taiwan. Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel, called the Australian recognition of the Palestinian state a ‘terrible’ decision, underlining this difference.

This spread of far-right political ideology beyond the anglosphere is directly impacting political discourse in these countries around issues such as immigration, gender rights, and political culture.

Furthermore, while on one hand we see the US commitment to regional security standing on shaky ground, expectations from allies in the region have significantly increased. Allies have been asked to increase their defence spending and commit to a role in a potential Taiwan contingency, leaving several uneasy (perhaps with the exception of Japan). Similarly, Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy has also clashed with his predecessor’s security commitments. For instance, the AUKUS review by the Pentagon has emboldened sceptics, cautioning Australia to review the deal.

Cumulatively, these political, economic, and security issues strain US ties with allies. Trump’s hostility has alienated allies, further strengthening anti-US voices in these countries. Trump’s whims and fancies regarding trade and security have reversed Washington’s decades-long foreign policy stances. Therefore, if the Trump administration continues its transactional and hostile engagement with allies, it risks further fueling and consolidating anti-US sentiment, reducing its reliability and credibility as a serious actor.

Abhishek Sharma is a Junior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.

• International Affairs
• China
• India
• USA and Canada
• The Pacific, East and Southeast Asia
• indo pacific allies
• indo pacific policy
• indo pacific policy under trump
• indo pacific region
• maga movement
• make america great again movement
• us in indo pacific
• us indo pacific policy

The views expressed above belong to the author(s).

ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.

15. Behind Taiwan’s ‘unification’ party, Chinese espionage — and a criminal gang

The real fight in Taiwan - political warfare with Chinese characteristics. What do we do if China is successful with its strategy and creates the conditions for "peaceful" Chinese unification? What do we do about that?

Behind Taiwan’s ‘unification’ party, Chinese espionage — and a criminal gang

The murky activities of the Chinese Unification Promotion Party show how Beijing is using organized crime to extend its reach in Taiwan.

Today at 5:00 a.m. EDThttps://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/09/29/china-influence-taiwan-gangsters/https://wapo.st/4pQNRxI

19 min

Summary

19

Chang An-lo, also known as the “White Wolf,” at the offices of the Chinese Unification Promotion Party in New Taipei City, Taiwan, in May. (An Rong Xu/For The Washington Post)

By Katrina Northrop and Pei-Lin Wu

TAIPEI, Taiwan — On a muggy afternoon in downtown Taipei, a self-confessed gang member turned political party leader emerged from a black Cadillac Escalade to a cheering crowd. Then Chang An-lo took to the stage to deliver a forceful speech advocating for Taiwan’s unification with China.

Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.

“Both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family,” Chang told the assembled rally. “Only with peaceful unification will Taiwan definitely be safe.”

Chang is the founder of the Chinese Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), which promotes the idea that Taiwan should be absorbed into China. But the CUPP is not just a political party. It is also closely tied to organized crime groups, according to Taiwan’s Interior Ministry.

“To the government, their organization is a gang,” said Sawyer Mars, Taiwan’s deputy interior minister, who is also known as Maa Shyh-yuan, in an interview.

Many leading members of the CUPP have a background in organized crime, according to Mars, often through the Bamboo Union, an underground criminal group that experts say is involved in drug smuggling and online fraud. Chang — also known as the “White Wolf” — freely admits to once being a member of the Bamboo Union. U.S. court documents say he was a leader of the gang.

The idea of unification that Chang and the CUPP promote may be a minority one here, but it is a fundamental belief of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

The Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, a vibrant democracy. But Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has laid out a vision for “rejuvenating” the Chinese nation, has made taking control of the island — which he views as a breakaway province — one of his key political goals.

Following World news

Following

Xi has made clear that he is willing to use force, if necessary, to achieve this aim, and China has in recent years tried to intimidate Taiwan with displays of military might. It has also stepped up efforts to spread disinformation and propaganda, the U.S. and Taiwanese governments have said in criticism of Beijing’s tactics.

A family hold their hands over their hearts as they watch the guards on duty for the Taiwanese flag-lowering ceremony at the Chiang Kai-shek memorial in Taipei in August 2023. (An Rong Xu/For The Washington Post)

A months-long Washington Post investigation found that CUPP members use their status at the nexus of organized crime and politics to advance Beijing’s interests in Taiwan, including threatening critics of the Chinese Communist Party, trumpeting Chinese propaganda and even trying to recruit spies for China on the island.

Chang acknowledged that “there are indeed some gang members” within the CUPP, but said in an interview that the party works for the “shared happiness” of Taiwan and China, which he claimed can best be achieved through “peaceful unification.”

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment.

Skip to end of carouselChinese organized crime goes global

The Washington Post is examining the globalization of Chinese organized crime and Beijing’s selective use or tolerance of criminal groups for geopolitical purposes. Mixing illicit activity and patriotism has become a hallmark of some Chinese organizations with overseas interests.

End of carousel

The Post’s investigation draws upon court records, corporate filings and social media posts, as well as interviews with Taiwanese domestic security and intelligence officials with direct knowledge of CUPP activities. The Post also spoke to Taiwanese lawmakers, CUPP and Bamboo Union members, experts on organized crime in Taiwan, and former U.S. intelligence officials.

The court records alone underscore the breadth of CUPP members’ activities: One has been charged in an ongoing case with accepting millions of dollars from the Chinese Communist Party to distribute pro-Beijing propaganda, particularly messages condemning critics of the Chinese government and promoting the strength of China’s military forces.

Three others were convicted of trying to recruit Taiwanese military officials to spy for Beijing. Yet another, a man who Taiwanese officials say is a senior leader in both the CUPP and the Bamboo Union, was found guilty of buying signatures to get a candidate running on brokering friendlier ties with Beijing on the ballot in Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election.

Some of these defendants have denied the charges against them, while Chang described many of the accusations and legal actions against the CUPP as politically motivated.

In addition, CUPP members frequently meet officials from central and local governments in China, as well as from the United Front Work Department, the Chinese Communist Party agency charged with expanding Beijing’s global influence, according to the court records, social media accounts and interviews with Taiwanese officials.

The CUPP may be a marginal political party here and just one small part of Beijing’s coercion efforts against Taiwan, but it is significant enough to warrant being denounced by Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te.

Lai in March described the CUPP as a conduit for Chinese espionage. Through groups such as the CUPP, “China has been taking advantage of democratic Taiwan’s freedom, diversity and openness to recruit gangs, the media, commentators, political parties … to carry out actions to divide, destroy and subvert us from within,” the president said.

Taiwan’s Interior Ministry has started the process to dissolve the party, and Mars said the government has launched criminal probes involving at least 134 CUPP members. In August, Taipei issued a wanted notice for Chang’s son, Chang Wei — who has also been affiliated with the CUPP but is suspected by the Taiwanese government of being in Hong Kong — over an embezzlement case. Chang Wei did not respond to a request for comment, but on Facebook slammed the case as political persecution.

Taiwanese reservists take part in training during Taiwan's annual Han Kuang military exercise in Taoyuan on July 11. (I-Hwa Cheng/AFP/Getty Images)

Officials in Taipei are particularly concerned about the potential for the CUPP to be weaponized in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

“These pro-unification individuals or gang members help the [Chinese Communist Party] with organizing and gathering intelligence during peacetime,” said Paula Yeh, who has overseen several investigations into CUPP members as director of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau’s national security operation division.

“But in times of war, they can become highly effective collaborators from within. Since they’re already working for the CCP, they can carry out sabotage everywhere if a cross-strait conflict breaks out,” said Yeh, who is sometimes called a “CCP spy killer” in Taiwan.

Chang does see a potential role for his party’s members should Taiwan be forcibly united with China.

“I encourage everyone in Taiwan to engage with mainland China,” Chang said, sitting in his office next to a statue of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. If Beijing invades Taiwan, he added, those who have been in touch with China can step forward.

“Cross-strait communication is crucial and a very important channel for the future survival of Taiwanese people,” said Chang, who was wearing a vest with a slogan encouraging Taiwanese people to avoid becoming “cannon fodder” in a potential war with China.

Taipei’s concern that the CUPP is a fifth column is bolstered, according to officials and crime analysts, by the group’s access to weapons. On an island with virtually no civilian gun use, Taiwanese authorities have seized nearly 200 firearms from CUPP and Bamboo Union members with ties to the CUPP in the past five years, according to internal Taiwanese government data obtained by The Post.

“The growing stockpile of weapons is worrying,” said Lin Ping-yu, an expert on China’s military threat to Taiwan who now serves as a councillor for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in New Taipei City. “Under China’s command, they could sabotage Taiwanese society with these firearms.”

Hundreds of friends and associates of Chen Chi-li, former head of the Bamboo Union gang, attend a memorial service in his honor in Taipei on Oct. 18, 2007. (Wally Santana/AP)

A life of crime

Chang, who is now an energetic 77, said he entered Taiwan’s criminal underworld as a young transplant from China.

When the civil war in China ended in 1949 with the Communist Party’s victory, the losing Kuomintang, or Nationalist, forces retreated to Taiwan. Chang’s family, along with a million other Chinese people, fled with them, and Chang took Taiwanese citizenship. At 16, he joined the Bamboo Union, a new gang made up of uprooted mainlanders, he said.

In his early 30s, Chang moved to the United States to attend graduate school at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. He became the head of the Bamboo Union in the U.S., according to U.S. court documents.

He was convicted on drug-smuggling charges and served nearly a decade in U.S. prison, part of a wide-ranging U.S. indictment against the gang. Chang still denies the charges.

Returning to Taiwan after his release, Chang was soon declared wanted by Taiwan’s government amid a crackdown on organized crime, and he moved in 1996 to China, where he lived for nearly 20 years.

By that time, Taiwanese gangs had expanded in China and many members had set up profitable businesses there, according to Ko-lin Chin, an expert on Taiwan’s organized crime at Rutgers University at Newark. Chang, for his part, tried his hand at investing, setting up a group that, he said, took a stake in Strategic Sports, a large manufacturer of sport and motorcycle helmets, in 1996.

Beijing willingly let some Taiwanese with connections to organized crime establish small fiefdoms in China, said Benjamin Sando, a fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute think tank who studies the Bamboo Union. China saw them as a potential tool to influence Taiwan, he said.

“The Chinese authorities were far more permissive to Taiwanese fugitives and Taiwanese gangs in China than they were to Chinese gangs,” Sando said. “What better people to use than gangsters? Because gangsters will do anything for a price.”

CUPP leader Chang An-lo attends a demonstration in Taipei in May held by Taiwanese protesting in support of Chinese spouses who have been deported back to China. (An Rong Xu/For The Washington Post)

In 2004, while still living in China, Chang founded the CUPP to advocate for peaceful unification. After moving back to Taiwan in 2013, he continued building the party, which now is estimated by Taiwan’s government to have about 30,000 members.

These days, Chang said, he is focusing on his political ventures and is not actively involved in Bamboo Union activities. Still, he called the group a “lifelong brotherhood” and is open about his past connections, even as many other members are more circumspect.

After Chang founded the CUPP, the helmet company seemed to thrive in China, in no small part thanks to government policies and attention, according to a review of government releases about the firm and an interview with a former employee. Strategic Sports — which has factories in Huizhou and Dongguan, two cities in Guangdong province — now commands one-third of the global sports helmet market, according to a Dongguan government news release.

Vanessa Tsao, who worked as a sales executive for the company in China for a decade until 2020, said the firm benefited from Chang’s contacts. “When we needed to reach some agreements with local governments on exports and production regulations, Chang An-lo’s association with the company helped facilitate the negotiations,” she said.

Statements from Guangdong and Dongguan authorities show that the firm saved more than $21,000 as a result of a government customs policy last year and received nearly $3.5 million of export tax rebates in just eight months during the covid-19 pandemic.

Strategic Sports has also provided customized helmets for the Chinese police and received a visit earlier this year from China’s United Front Work Department and technology officials, according to two local government statements.

Chang said the firm has not received any preferential treatment from Chinese authorities. He said he transferred his stake to his two sons around 2012.

Asked about Chang’s relationship to the company, founder Norman Cheng said Chang “is not involved in Strategic Sports operations at all.” He did not respond to detailed questions about whether the company benefits from Chang’s reputation in China.

A statue of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping at the offices of the CUPP in New Taipei City. (An Rong Xu/For The Washington Post)

A statue of Guan Yu, a late Eastern Han dynasty general revered for his loyalty, with a sculpture of a white wolf in honor of Chang An-lo's namesake, in the CUPP offices in New Taipei City. (An Rong Xu/For The Washington Post)

Information warfare

In Taiwan, the CUPP and its members have proved to be a useful megaphone for China, routinely amplifying Beijing’s messaging.

In November, Taiwanese prosecutors charged Chang Meng-chung, the spokesperson for the CUPP, and his wife, Hung Wen-ting, with receiving about $2.4 million from the Chinese Communist Party, allegedly to spread propaganda in Taiwan.

On their radio station and through online channels like YouTube and Facebook, the prosecutors allege, the couple endorsed specific candidates in the 2024 presidential and legislative elections. They also criticized pro-democracy Hong Kong activists and encouraged Taiwanese forces to give up in a future Chinese invasion, according to the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau.

In one Facebook post, for example, Chang Meng-chung declared: “People’s Liberation Army, Taiwan is ready!”

He died of kidney disease this month as he was awaiting trial, according to Taiwanese officials. His case will not go forward, though the case against Hung — who did not respond to requests for comment — will continue.

Chang Meng-chung brokered relationships with Chinese officials who paid the operating fees of the couple’s radio station, as well as for a house where a regional chapter of the CUPP was headquartered, according to Yeh, the Taiwanese investigator who oversaw the case.

The large bill Beijing was willing to pay shows how much the Chinese government values this type of “cognitive warfare” aimed at Taiwan, Yeh added.

Another potential example of this information warfare is a social media page called “Dark Family Empire,” which had nearly a million followers on Facebook as of this month, and depicts Taiwan as a society in chaos — with videos of criminal behavior and hair-raising traffic incidents.

Wang Chi-pin — a CUPP member who has admitted to being part of the Bamboo Union, according to a court judgment, although he denied this when questioned by The Post — said he is involved in running “Dark Family Empire.”

Puma Shen, a DPP lawmaker and expert on Chinese misinformation, said this type of social media page is useful for Beijing because “creating emotional turmoil and division in Taiwan is extremely important.”

A person who responded from the “Dark Family Empire” account said it reports on “injustices” in Taiwanese society and admitted links to Chang An-lo, but denied that Wang was involved in running the page.

Taiwanese military personnel participate in the annual Han Kuang military exercise, in Taiwan's Hsinchu County on July 10. (Ritchie B Tongo/EPA/Shutterstock)

Espionage accusations

The CUPP’s activities on behalf of Beijing extend far beyond the rhetorical.

Three members of the CUPP, including Deputy Secretary General Wen Lung, were found guilty in March of violating Taiwan’s National Security Act by attempting to create a spy network on behalf of China.

The recruitment began when Chang introduced Wen to an official from the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai, according to a Taiwanese court judgment. That led to Wen being introduced to two officials from the intelligence-gathering arm of the Central Military Commission, China’s highest military body and one that is overseen directly by Xi. The officials asked him to recruit current and former Taiwanese military personnel to potentially spy for China, the court judgment shows.

Wen also convinced two business partners, with whom he ran an agriculture company in China, to help with the recruitment effort.

In return, their Zhuhai-based company, Wenna Agricultural Technology Development, received special treatment from the government, prosecutors charged: With the help of a local official and the United Front Work Department, the firm obtained about 50 acres of land from the state at a discounted price, as well as free offices and stores. Wenna Agricultural Technology did not respond to a request for comment.

Ho Hsing-lei, a lawyer for one of Wen’s business partners, did not dispute the contact with Chinese officials but said that it simply reflected the “atmosphere of that era” in the 2010s, when Taiwanese businessman curried favor with Chinese officials to help boost their commercial interests. Wen and his lawyer did not respond to a detailed set of questions.

Asked about the case, Chang said he had “no recollection” of which official Wen met in Zhuhai, and described the case as “smear” by the DPP.

This case was one of the first in a broader trend now setting off alarm bells in Taipei.

The number of people charged with espionage in Taiwan rose more than 500 percent between 2022 and 2024, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said earlier this year. It identified organized crime groups as one of the main methods of infiltration.

China targets gang members for recruitment as intelligence assets because it is difficult for them to find legal work and “they ask for very little, yet end up handing over highly classified information,” which they often obtain from Taiwanese military personnel, Yeh said.

It’s unlikely that Beijing would give its “top intelligence priority” to organized-crime-linked groups given its numerous “more trusted and controllable” assets on Taiwan, said a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.

But Taiwan’s “laughable penalties” for espionage provide little deterrence, the official said. For example, Wen was sentenced to 10 months in prison, which he is expected to start imminently.

At times, the CUPP has also been accused of trying to intimidate critics of the Chinese government in Taiwan.

A protest by Taiwanese whose Chinese spouses have been deported back to China, in Taipei in May. (An Rong Xu/For The Washington Post)

Wang, the Bamboo Union and CUPP member linked to “Dark Family Empire,” filmed himself in March and May as he confronted groups of volunteers campaigning against politicians from the China-friendly Kuomintang. The videos show him asking whether the groups consider themselves Chinese and whether they were paid for their organizing, according to a review of his account on the Chinese version of TikTok.

“After that incident, we were quite worried,” said Kevin Lin, one of the volunteers whom Wang approached. “Some teams are even organizing self-defense training, while others carry pepper spray and whistles with them.”

In an interview, Wang said the groups were “exaggerating” their fear. “If I can’t do this, then does Taiwan really have the rule of law, democracy and freedom of speech? No.”

Chang said he did not “approve” of Wang’s behavior.

CUPP affiliates have also been involved in interfering with a commemoration of one of modern China’s most sensitive episodes: the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, when hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of students calling for democracy were killed by the Chinese military.

In 2022, three men conspired together to throw black paint over a sculpture set up in Taipei to memorialize the June 4 anniversary of the crackdown, according to court records. They were later found guilty of destroying the artwork and required to pay damages in a separate civil case.

In court, it emerged that the trio was affiliated with the CUPP: The judgment stated that one of the men, Chen Yan-hui, had “close interactions” with the party.

This appeared to be confirmed when a senior CUPP member, Lei You-jing, paid the damages for Chen and one of the other men after reaching a settlement, according to interviews with Tseng Chien-yuan, one of the Tiananmen event organizers, and his lawyers, as well as messages reviewed by The Post.

Lei also unsuccessfully attempted to buy the statue from the organizers, according to the lawyers.

The Chinese government “obviously doesn’t want to see this type of anti-Communist June 4 activity,” Tseng said. “The Chinese Communist Party is using Taiwan’s organized crime groups to harass us.”

Asked about the incident, Chen said he didn’t know Lei and wasn’t familiar with the CUPP. Lei declined to comment. Chang declined to respond to questions about the CUPP’s involvement in the incident, but said he did not approve of the men’s activities.

A Chinese flag hangs in the CUPP offices in New Taipei City. (An Rong Xu/For The Washington Post)

Can Taiwan stop the CUPP?

The Interior Ministry has signaled it will file a petition with the Constitutional Court to dissolve the CUPP on grounds that the party is engaging in organized crime and violating national security and anti-foreign-influence laws. If successful, it would mark the first time Taiwan has shuttered a political party for violating the constitution, according to Mars, the deputy interior minister.

“In Taiwan, we respect freedom of people’s association and freedom of speech, but we will not tolerate threats to our constitutional status — that’s why we started the procedure of dissolution,” Mars said.

Beijing condemned the dissolution petition as an attempt to “wantonly suppress and persecute patriotic unification forces on the island.”

Some experts believe Taipei’s focus on the CUPP is misguided given the marginal nature of the party and the slew of other coercive tactics Beijing uses against Taiwan. While these gang-affiliated members are ardently pro-China, they have gained very little political traction in Taiwan, said Chin of Rutgers.

But Taiwanese officials like Mars say it is necessary to take assertive action precisely because of the broader context of China’s pressure campaign against the island.

None of this is deterring Chang, the “White Wolf,” who has been the public face of the CUPP’s efforts. Even if the CUPP is dismantled, Chang said he’ll simply reconstitute the party.

“They cannot dissolve our belief. ... Dissolve one party today, and we will form another one the next day,” he said, flashing a knowing smile. “Even if they arrest one Chang An-lo, there will be another. We must have the spirit of charging forward, one after another.”

About this story

Vic Chiang contributed to this report. Text editing by Anna Fifield. Photo editing by Jennifer Samuel. Copy editing by Vanessa Larson.

19 Comments

More From World

• Trump to attend gathering of top generals, upending last-minute plans
• 
  
• Trump set to bail out Argentina, irking some in ‘America First’ camp
• 
  
• The full force of Trump’s federal job cuts is about to hit the D.C. region
• 
  

View 2 more stories

View 2 more stories

By Katrina Northrop

Katrina Northrop is a China correspondent for The Washington Post. Previously, she covered China's global impact on business and technology for The Wire China. Her work has also been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Providence Journal. follow on X@NorthropKatrina

By Pei-Lin Wu

Pei-Lin Wu joined The Washington Post’s China Bureau in 2021.

16. High time for Europe to stand with Taiwan, foreign minister says in Poland

High time for Europe to stand with Taiwan, foreign minister says in Poland

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/europe-taiwan-foreign-minister-poland-5376046

Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung answers questions from reporters, in Taipei, Taiwan on Feb 21, 2025. (File photo: REUTERS/Ann Wang)

29 Sep 2025 11:51PM

Bookmark

Read a summary of this article on FAST.

FAST

WARSAW: It is high time for Europe to stand with Taiwan given both face the same threats from authoritarian neighbours, the island's foreign minister said on Monday (Sep 29), seeking to find common cause with European democracies during a visit to Poland.

Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has found an increasingly sympathetic ear in parts of central and eastern Europe since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, even though almost all European countries only maintain formal diplomatic ties with Beijing and not Taipei.

Addressing the Warsaw Security Forum, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said economic security was inseparable from national security.

"Today, authoritarian regimes, namely China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, have formed an axis of upheaval to challenge the rule-based international order. China is largely seen as the decisive enabler behind Russia's invasion of Ukraine," he said.

Subscribe to our Chief Editor’s Week in Review

Our chief editor shares analysis and picks of the week's biggest news every Saturday.

This service is not intended for persons residing in the E.U. By clicking subscribe, I agree to receive news updates and promotional material from Mediacorp and Mediacorp’s partners.

Europe faces threats from Russian hybrid operations, similar to what Taiwan faces from China, like cyber attacks and military exercises, Lin added.

"It is high time for Europe to stand with Taiwan, to forge a robust coalition for our shared values and halt the expansion of authoritarian regimes. Taiwan is ready to work with Europe; is Europe ready to work with Taiwan?"

This is Lin's second visit to Europe this month, after earlier trips to Prague, Rome and Vienna, all of which earned a stern rebuke from China, especially as he was in Austria just a week after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

China says Taiwan is one of its provinces with no right to state-to-state ties, a view the government in Taipei strongly rejects.

Lin said Europe should put forward policies to welcome more companies from semiconductor powerhouse Taiwan, and pointed to the example of major chipmaker TSMC's investment in Germany.

"Through such economic interactions, Taiwan and Europe can forge a powerful synergy, one that fosters a resilient and diversified tech ecosystem and contributes to Europe's strategic re-industrialisation which is essential in rearming Europe."

17. China Goes on Offense: Beijing’s Plans to Exploit American Retreat

Excerpts:

But China’s success is not a foregone conclusion. Beijing may struggle to translate its grand aspirations into a real global realignment. Many countries understand that a China-centric world would come with strings attached, and Beijing may be unable to resist escalating its numerous territorial disputes in Asia or flexing its coercive capabilities. Time and again over the past decade, Beijing’s actions—from punitive economic measures against major trading partners to maritime harassment of rival territorial claimants in the South China Sea—have invited pushback from countries that prize their autonomy. Now, those countries could resist China’s order-shaping efforts by reducing their reliance on both Beijing and Washington. A more fragmented, anarchic world is not necessarily one that China will dominate.

Missteps by China or resistance from other countries could well thwart Xi’s designs. For the United States, such setbacks can buy time—until different leadership in Washington once again has a vision of the future built around more than looking out for itself.

China Goes on Offense

Foreign Affairs · More by Jeffrey Prescott · September 29, 2025

Beijing’s Plans to Exploit American Retreat

September 29, 2025

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaking in Tianjin, China, September 2025 Maxim Shemetov / Reuters

JEFFREY PRESCOTT served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies in Rome and is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

JULIAN GEWIRTZ served as Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council. He is Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University and the author of Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s.

• More by Julian Gewirtz

Print Subscribe to unlock this feature or Sign in.

Save Sign in and save to read later

A great unanswered question of the second Trump administration has been how its outright rejection of the existing global order would affect China’s international strategy. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called this order both “obsolete” and “a weapon being used against” the United States, and in his speech at the United Nations on September 23, President Donald Trump pilloried the “globalist” institution for “creating new problems for us to solve.” In the early months of this year, Beijing’s response to Washington’s attacks on the international order seemed mostly cautious and measured. China traded tit-for-tat tariffs with the United States, but it otherwise remained content to sit back and accrue benefits from Trump’s alienation of U.S. allies and withdrawal from international institutions.

That period of caution is now over. Beijing has decided on a much more ambitious course, putting its plans on vivid display at a September meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Hosting the once sleepy regional economic and security body, Chinese leader Xi Jinping clasped hands with Russia President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and met with 18 other leaders from across the Eurasian continent. A few days later, flanked by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Xi presided over a massive military parade in Beijing to show off China’s fast-growing arsenal. Trump’s comment about seeing the summitry on TV—“They were hoping I was watching, and I was watching”—inadvertently revealed the precise position in which China hoped to place the United States: the American president, so often the prime mover of global politics, had become a spectator on the sidelines of a changing world.

Xi aims to establish China as the fulcrum of an emerging multipolar world, and he is advancing a new, more active diplomatic strategy to realize that goal. Rather than force the United States out of its leading position in the international system or overturn the existing order, China is exploiting Trump’s rapid, willing abdication of Washington’s role. And China is building up its own power and prestige within existing institutions, seeking to shift their centers of gravity irrevocably toward Beijing. If this gambit succeeds, it will transform the international order from the inside out, placing China at center stage and undermining U.S. influence in ways that future American administrations may find difficult to reverse.

WORLD BUILDING

Not too long ago, foreign policy analysts might have shrugged off the pageantry of the China summit. After all, meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are often heavy on optics and light on substance. Disagreements among the group’s key members, such as a long-running border dispute between China and India, have tended to outweigh their areas of commonality. Indeed, some commentators and U.S. officials dismissed the recent Chinese-hosted events as “performative,” “for show,” and merely a “photo op.”

Eight months into Trump’s second term, this reading is optimistic at best. It discounts the extent to which global reactions to Trump’s actions are reshaping the world. The international order that the United States built and maintained for decades is coming to an end, and what follows is up for grabs. Many countries are competing for influence, and short-term, transactional dealmaking rather than long-term cooperation is becoming the new norm, ushering in a phase that one of us called “mercenary multipolarity” in Foreign Affairs. The United States and China remain the two most powerful countries, but others, such as India and Russia, as well as the European Union, are significant players with their own agendas. And as U.S. alliances fracture under Trump, rivals of the United States are collaborating in increasingly meaningful ways.

Yet with the ultimate shape of this new order still undefined, Xi sees a window of opportunity to forge a China-centric world without directly taking on the United States by moving assertively into areas where Trump’s “America first” policies leave openings. This project extends well beyond the optics of gathering global leaders in Chinese cities. While the U.S. president feuded with the leaders of Brazil and India, Xi addressed a virtual BRICS meeting hosted by Brasilia on the topic of “resisting protectionism” and welcomed Modi to China to shore up ties with these two key powers. While Trump imposes tariffs on much of the world and eliminates U.S. foreign assistance, Xi is courting the leaders of the developing world: Beijing announced cuts to Chinese tariffs on African goods in June and claimed in September that it would bolster efforts to reform the World Trade Organization to benefit developing countries’ economic growth. While the Trump administration embraced unabashed technology nationalism, titling its AI action plan “Winning the Race,” China hosted its annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference under the headline “Global Solidarity in the AI Era,” claiming that Beijing wants to share the benefits of AI and announcing a new global AI governance project to do so. And whereas Trump attacked climate change as “the greatest con job ever” and skipped a UN summit on the issue, Xi has set an emissions reduction goal that, although remarkably unambitious, has earned him plaudits in some quarters. The list goes on.

If China’s gambit succeeds, it will transform the international order.

Perhaps most worryingly for Washington, Xi’s actions have made clear that this China-centric world will reward resistance to the United States. There is no better symbol of this promise than Xi’s decision to give pride of place during the military parade in Beijing to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose country has been under punishing sanctions for decades and has sent troops to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Xi similarly embraced other leaders who have pushed back against the United States in some way: Putin, Modi, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian all received a lavish welcome in China, too.

China is now focused on being seen not as a disrupter but as the defender of the international order, putting a new spin on its long-standing effort to secure a privileged position in existing institutions and to boost its capacity to set norms and rules inside them. Until recently, China preferred the safer course of criticizing unpopular U.S. policies and focusing its activities in areas that attract limited international attention, such as development, culture, and peacekeeping. But with a combative Trump questioning the very purpose of the UN at his speech before the General Assembly, Beijing has an international audience that may be more receptive to its overtures. “China has all along acted as a staunch defender of world peace and security,” Chinese Premier Li Qiang said at the UN just a few days after Trump’s speech.

In September, Xi announced his Global Governance Initiative, which aims to put China’s stamp on the United Nations system. It invokes the desire of many countries for a more “just and equitable” international order and makes China—rather than any other country or international body—the arbiter of what that new order will entail. Beijing is already advancing principles that work in its favor, such as an absolutist but selective conception of national sovereignty that it applies to itself but not to all countries, and marginalizing values that it sees as threatening, such as universal human rights. China has offered few details about how it would resolve disputes within or introduce reforms to international institutions, and it has no desire to foot more of the bill for costly UN programs. But given the disdain that the Trump administration has showed toward the UN, countries that are committed to the UN system may well accede to China’s entreaties to support its new initiative and its positions on a variety of substantive issues. Paired with prominent if modest Chinese investments in UN bodies and their personnel, Trump’s continued neglect, Xi hopes, will enable China to reshape these institutions to its liking.

As with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, analysts might once have rolled their eyes at the Global Governance Initiative as mere sloganeering. But it is one of a set of projects—including the Global Development Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Security Initiative—that Chinese officials are working intently to translate into reality. The scholars Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Isaac Kardon, and Cameron Waltz recently found, for instance, that China’s internal security agencies have significantly increased their international policing partnerships and non-military security cooperation under the banner of the Global Security Initiative, especially in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Pacific Islands but also in Africa and Latin America. As the United States steps back, China is quietly layering new kinds of partnerships on top of its already robust trade ties, with the aim that, over time, more countries will see Beijing—not Washington—as their most important relationship.

BUMPS IN THE ROAD

It is unrealistic to expect the Trump administration to suddenly change its approach to diplomacy and multilateralism or to see the wisdom of embracing allies and competing with China for influence at the UN. Such steps would have support among the American people, a strong majority of whom think that U.S. alliances benefit the United States and that the UN plays a necessary, if imperfect, role in the world. But these moves would simply be too much at odds with the administration’s “America first” ideology to gain traction. For the next few years, therefore, the United States is likely to leave China with an open field in international institutions.

Xi’s efforts may build additional momentum thanks to Trump’s approach to diplomacy with Beijing. Ahead of his planned visit to China in 2026, Trump is focused on the optics of his personal relationship with Xi and on striking a bilateral deal—which, if prior negotiations are any guide, much of the world may judge as a good deal for China, even if Trump touts it as a win. Other countries are watching these negotiations closely, and any agreement that appears to reward China’s resistance to U.S. demands will further entrench the view that China is gaining influence relative to the United States.

But China’s success is not a foregone conclusion. Beijing may struggle to translate its grand aspirations into a real global realignment. Many countries understand that a China-centric world would come with strings attached, and Beijing may be unable to resist escalating its numerous territorial disputes in Asia or flexing its coercive capabilities. Time and again over the past decade, Beijing’s actions—from punitive economic measures against major trading partners to maritime harassment of rival territorial claimants in the South China Sea—have invited pushback from countries that prize their autonomy. Now, those countries could resist China’s order-shaping efforts by reducing their reliance on both Beijing and Washington. A more fragmented, anarchic world is not necessarily one that China will dominate.

Missteps by China or resistance from other countries could well thwart Xi’s designs. For the United States, such setbacks can buy time—until different leadership in Washington once again has a vision of the future built around more than looking out for itself.

Foreign Affairs · More by Jeffrey Prescott · September 29, 2025

18. RFA needed as CCP races to cement global narrative: Bay Fang

We have ceded the battlefield of human terrain, the human domain, to China. We need RFA and VOA.

Despite challenges and reduced staff, RFA continues to achieve measurable results in fulfilling its Congressional mandate. (Charlie Dharapak)

RFA needed as CCP races to cement global narrative: Bay Fang

https://www.rfa.org/english/about/releases/2025/09/29/rfa-needed-as-ccp-races-to-cement-global-narrative/

2025.09.29

WASHINGTON - Radio Free Asia marked its 29th anniversary today, when audiences in Beijing first accessed its inaugural Mandarin programming on Sept. 29, 1996. RFA President and CEO Bay Fang renewed the call for RFA’s work, as the governments of China and other authoritarian countries crack down on independent voices and a free press.

“Despite challenges and uncertainty besetting our organization this year, one thing remains clear: RFA is committed to its Congressionally mandated mission and work,” Fang said. “RFA’s incisive brand of journalism, shining a light into the darkest corners of the world, is needed more than ever as the Chinese Communist Party and other autocrats race to cement the global narrative to suit their own ends.

“It is RFA’s job to rise above obstacles, exposing propaganda and lies, in pursuit of freedom and courage in reporting.”

In the months since the U.S. Agency for Global Media terminated its Congressionally appropriated grant to RFA, and despite layoffs and furloughs that diminished editorial staff by more than 90%, RFA has continued to fulfill its Congressional mandate of providing accurate, timely news to people living in some of the most closed media environments in Asia. It has also won several awards, including two national Edward R. Murrow awards in August, and a Gracie Award in March. While many services, including RFA Uyghur and Tibetan, have gone dark, some continue, including Burmese, Khmer, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Vietnamese.

New content, formats drive growth

Although USAGM ended radio broadcasts, RFA continues to reach millions online: on the web, through mobile apps, and on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and X. Even some shuttered language services continue to see millions of views of archived content. Meanwhile new kinds of programming have been added to utilize resources and talent on hand. Some highlights include:

• RFA Perspectives | With limited staffing, RFA editors have focused on bringing RFA’s decades of expertise to video-first content like explainers that unpack a news event and interviews with experts to provide analysis and chart where a story might go next. 
• China’s crackdown on dissent | A human rights lawyer imprisoned for seven years for criticizing the government. A Xinjiang history buff who was tortured for speaking out on a livestream. These men told RFA Mandarin their stories this summer, adding to our essential reporting on Beijing’s brutality.
• The Thailand/Cambodia border clash | Long-simmering tensions catalyzed into armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia over a disputed border in July, killing dozens and displacing more than 300,000. RFA had reporters on both sides, with stories in Khmer for locals and in English for the world.
• The deadly Myanmar earthquake | In March, a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit civil-war-torn Myanmar, an impoverished country of rickety structures. More than 3,300 people died; millions are food insecure. RFA’s on-site coverage told citizens’ stories, showcasing where aid was needed.
• Remaking Vietnam’s government | Vietnamese leader To Lam is reinforcing his power: consolidating 63 provinces to 34, appointing relatives to key posts, and crafting policies to benefit select private firms. Local media faces state censorship. RFA’s unvarnished reports provide an unobstructed view.

# # #

19. Arthur Brooks: How to Heal Our Country? Love Your Enemies.

It is the advice of Arthur Brooks that we should embrace.

Excerpts:

Some have said that the tragic events of the past two weeks oblige us to agree with each other more often. That’s wrong. Agreement is a form of mediocrity. It necessitates a lack of competition.

I like competition. I like elections with more than one candidate. I like supermarkets with more than one brand. And I love ideas that are contested. The competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society.

We do not need to disagree less. We need to disagree better. And we must do so not by standing up to the other side, but by standing up to those on our own side who say we must hate each other. We must go looking for contempt, and run toward it with love.

I’ll end with one more story. As I’m frequently on the road, and try to go to Mass every day, I often find myself in unfamiliar churches. Once, in a church in Maryland, I saw a sign above the door. It wasn’t a sign for people coming into the church. It was for people to see as they were leaving, heading out to the parking lot to get into their cars and drive away. It said: “You are now entering the mission field.”

Today, tragedy calls you—and all of us—to a profound mission. As you leave this campus, where a senseless, unspeakable crime of political violence has occurred, join me in imagining a sign at the exit. Imagine it is calling you to love your enemies, and in doing so, to help restore the vitality, health, and competitive disagreement of the greatest country on Earth.

You are now entering the mission field.

https://www.thefp.com/p/arthur-brooks-how-to-heal-our-country-charlie-kirk-utah-valley-university?utm

Arthur Brooks: How to Heal Our Country? Love Your Enemies.

A protester and an Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy embrace during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd in Los Angeles on June 3, 2020. (David McNew via Getty Images)

Moral courage is standing up to the people with whom you agree, on behalf of those with whom you disagree.

By Arthur Brooks

09.29.25 —

Faith

Faith

The new religious revival, faith, and community, are explored in commentary from religious leaders, with stories brought to you by Madeleine Kearns and our team.

FOLLOW TOPIC

0:00

On Friday morning, Harvard professor and New York Times best-selling author Arthur Brooks spoke to an audience of more than 5,000 at the Faith Matters Restore conference in Orem, Utah. The topic? How to bring back our country from the brink of seemingly intractable polarization and hatred.

It’s a poignant subject, made even more so by the location: Utah Valley University, the same campus where, just over two weeks earlier, Charlie Kirk was assassinated, triggering a wave of ugly celebrations and frenzied political finger-pointing.

Brooks offered a simple solution to this hostility, one deeply rooted in faith: Love your enemies. Why? It’s the only way to realize that they aren’t your enemies after all.

We’re honored to bring you an adapted version of that speech today. —The Editors

“Hatred among brothers and neighbors has now reduced sacred cities to sites of sorrow.” These are the words of the late Russell M. Nelson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking in October of 2002.

Today, his words are eerily prophetic. Two weeks ago, Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University, the very campus where I now stand. The tragedy has provoked a number of impossible questions. Among them: Why here?

Here’s a hypothesis: You have been chosen for a great and vital journey. You have been called to respond to this murder by following the most countercultural teaching in the history of humanity: to love our enemies.

In 2014, I read an article on an idea called “motive attribution asymmetry.” Motive attribution asymmetry is the idea that implacable hostility between people springs from both sides believing, incorrectly, that they are driven by love, and their opponents by hate.

This idea explains civil wars. It explains permanent conflicts among nations. It explains divorces. And evidence for it is everywhere: in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Rwandan genocide, the Yugoslav Wars—and in America. Motive attribution asymmetry perfectly described, even back in 2014, the relationship today between political conservatives and progressives: I love this country, but you hate everything this nation stands for.

This research surprised me. I grew up in Seattle, among the least religious and most progressive large cities in America. My father was a college professor, and my mother an artist. They were quite liberal, while I was not. But that never mattered to me. Today, I spend much of my time giving hundreds of speeches to groups from all across the political spectrum. I will speak to any group that seriously wants to examine ideas.

After reading that 2014 article, I decided to see if I could find evidence of it myself. A couple months later, I was addressing a conservative activist conference, speaking alongside a large group of Republican politicians and candidates.

Read

Mary Katharine Ham: Look for God

As expected, the politicians said what politicians say at every political rally: They complimented the audience for their love of America, and railed on their opposition, declaring them stupid and evil and filled with hatred for the nation. Motive attribution asymmetry.

Then I gave my speech. It was an ordinary one on economic policy. But in the middle, I stopped and said: “My friends, you have been hearing from the previous speakers that your opponents don’t love America. But I want you to remember something. Those opponents are neighbors of yours. They are relatives of yours. They’re not stupid or evil. They’re simply Americans who don’t agree with you on politics. Nobody has ever been persuaded with insults. Nobody has ever been hated into agreement. But you have one tool that will work: love.”

It wasn’t an applause line. This was an immensely clarifying moment, because it helped me realize a solution.

My father used to tell me that moral courage is not standing up to the people with whom we disagree. Moral courage is standing up to the people with whom you agree, on behalf of those with whom you disagree.

Those politicians, when they were calling out liberal Americans as stupid and evil, were talking about my parents. I don’t share my parents’ politics. But there is nothing stupid and evil about them. They loved me. They brought me up as a Christian, with a belief in the radical equality of human dignity, no exceptions, now or ever.

And yes, they voted for Democrats. I don’t care. That doesn’t matter, and it’s not the point. The point is that the offense I took on behalf of my parents is the offense that you must take today with your own side—whichever side that happens to be—to restore this country.

We talk often about how angry the United States is. It’s true: Turn on cable TV at eight o’clock at night and you’ll see nothing but anger. But anger isn’t the problem. Anger is a basic, natural emotion that means I care what you think, and I want it to change. If you’re happily married, you feel anger toward your spouse sometimes. If you don’t, you’re probably not that happily married. In fact, studies show that anger and divorce frequently have nothing to do with each other.

The problem is when we combine anger with another rising emotion: disgust. Disgust is a basic emotion alerting you to a pathogen. Before vaccines and antibiotics, it was the only tool humans had telling us to be afraid of germs that are too small to see.

But when we deploy disgust in conjunction with anger, we produce a complex emotion called contempt: the conviction of the worthlessness of another person. And it is contempt that is the source of America’s greatest problems.

A few years ago I spoke with John Gottman, a clinical psychologist at the University of Washington. He and his wife Julie, also a clinical psychologist, run the Gottman Love Lab, a couples counseling center that has brought thousands of couples back together from the brink of divorce.

Arthur Brooks in Washington, D.C. on January 13, 2017. (J. Lawler Duggan/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

John claims that he can tell in 15 minutes with 94 percent accuracy whether a couple is going to make it. I asked him how. And he told me that in his conversations with couples, he asks them to discuss something of contention in their relationship. And if either one rolls their eyes, or expresses derision or sarcasm, that’s evidence of contempt, and it’s exactly what will drive them apart.

America today is like a couple on the brink of divorce. Most of us are guilty of adding to the contempt in our country—myself included. I once watched a tape of myself in a contentious debate on television. When another guest stated something I found ridiculous, I rolled my eyes. I didn’t do it on purpose. I guarantee you that she noticed, and took real offense. I’m sorry I did that.

Contempt can be an irresistible habit. And all too often, we hear that all we need to break it is civility and tolerance. That’s garbage. If I told you my wife and I are “civil” to each other, you’d say we need marriage counseling. And if I told you that my employees at my company are “tolerant” of me, you’d say I have a major human resources crisis on my hands.

The correct standard is one we already know. It comes from the Gospel of Matthew, and it is the most radical, transgressive teaching ever: “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” To explain this sentiment, we turn to Martin Luther King Jr., who invoked the passage in a 1957 sermon. “Like,” King said, is an affectionate emotion. It’s conditional on action. Love, on the other hand, is “redemptive.” And only when we love our enemies can we redeem them—and ourselves. Liking is sentimental. Loving is a decision—a commitment.

This redemptive power is real. I’ve had the honor to know and work with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Around the time of the 2016 presidential election, I asked him, “What do I do when I feel contempt, and I don’t know how to love my enemies?” And he said, “It doesn’t matter how you feel. Show warmheartedness.”

It seemed like a platitude—at first. But quickly, I realized: He lives it out every day. Despite being the leader of the Tibetan Buddhist people, the Dalai Lama doesn’t live in Tibet; he lives in India. That’s because he was forcibly exiled from Tibet in 1959 by Chinese Communists.

And yet, every day, he tells me, he prays for the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. He prays not that they will give back his homeland—which he hopes they will do—but that they will have good and happy lives with their families. He does this because contempt would harm himself, and harm the world, by perpetuating hatred. That’s what it means to show warmheartedness.

Then, the Dalai Lama told me how I could follow his lead: “Remember a time when you answered somebody’s hate with love. Remember a time when you did it by accident. Remember that feeling, and you will recreate the action.”

I like elections with more than one candidate. I like supermarkets with more than one brand. And I love ideas that are contested. The competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society.

So I did. I recalled the year 2006, when I’d published Who Really Cares, a book exploring the finding that conservatives tend to be far more charitable than liberals. I wasn’t expecting anyone to read it; few people had read any of my previous books. But it caught the attention of President George W. Bush, and I had the opportunity to brief him on its findings.

That brought massive attention to the book. And it changed my life. Feedback, both positive and negative, began to stream in. One piece of unsolicited hate mail came to my inbox about a month after the book came out. It was from a man from Texas: “Dear Professor Brooks,” it said. “You are a fraud.”

Thus began a 5,000-word email, detailing everything I’d written in my book, line by line, and critiquing it vitriolically. Naturally, I became defensive. But I couldn’t help but feel gratitude at the same time. He’d read my book!

So I wrote back to him: “I know you hated my book, and I know you don’t like me. But I want you to know that book took two years of my life to write, and you read every word. I’m grateful to you for doing that. Thank you very much.”

Fifteen minutes later, he responded: “Dear Professor Brooks: Next time you’re in Dallas, let me buy you dinner.”

We never ended up getting that dinner. But the interaction stuck with me. I had returned his hatred with love, and it changed our relationship. And even if it hadn’t changed our relationship, it changed me. That’s what loving your enemy does, and that’s what the Dalai Lama meant: Often, when you choose to love your enemies, you realize they aren’t your enemies after all.

Some have said that the tragic events of the past two weeks oblige us to agree with each other more often. That’s wrong. Agreement is a form of mediocrity. It necessitates a lack of competition.

I like competition. I like elections with more than one candidate. I like supermarkets with more than one brand. And I love ideas that are contested. The competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society.

We do not need to disagree less. We need to disagree better. And we must do so not by standing up to the other side, but by standing up to those on our own side who say we must hate each other. We must go looking for contempt, and run toward it with love.

Read

Tyler Cowen: Stop Blaming ‘Them’

I’ll end with one more story. As I’m frequently on the road, and try to go to Mass every day, I often find myself in unfamiliar churches. Once, in a church in Maryland, I saw a sign above the door. It wasn’t a sign for people coming into the church. It was for people to see as they were leaving, heading out to the parking lot to get into their cars and drive away. It said: “You are now entering the mission field.”

Today, tragedy calls you—and all of us—to a profound mission. As you leave this campus, where a senseless, unspeakable crime of political violence has occurred, join me in imagining a sign at the exit. Imagine it is calling you to love your enemies, and in doing so, to help restore the vitality, health, and competitive disagreement of the greatest country on Earth.

You are now entering the mission field.

The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.

Recommend The Free Press to your readers

A new media company built on the ideals that were once the bedrock of American journalism.

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