Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Weak people seek revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore."

– Albert Einstein

“The easiest and quickest path into the esteem of traditional military authorities is by the appeal to the eye, rather than to the mind. The ‘polish and pipeclay’ school is not yet extinct, and it is easier for the mediocre intelligence to become an authority on buttons, then on tactics.”

– Captain Sir Basil Liddell-Hart,Thoughts on War, 1944

“A man on a 1000 mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, today I'm going to cover 25 miles, and then rest up and sleep.”

– Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.

Apologies for my tardiness. I was traveling today.

1. Xi Is Ratcheting Up China’s Pain Threshold for a Long Fight With Trump

2. China Bets Trump Will Back Down on Tariffs

3. Russia Pummels Kyiv, Prompting Rare Rebuke From Trump

4. Trump Administration Live Updates: President Says He Has ‘No Allegiance’ in Russia-Ukraine War

5. For Russia, the U.S. peace deal could be a way of weakening Ukraine

6. Trump Is Facing Six Wars, and He’s Losing All of Them by Hal Brands

7. In defense of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

8. ‘He gets him what he needs’: Hegseth’s new favorite adviser helped set up Signal on one of secretary’s computers at Pentagon

9. U.S. Navy Plans to Order U.S. Army Landing Ship for the Marine Corps

10. Would De-Dollarization Threaten The Dominance Of The US Dollar?

11. This Is the Lecture That the Naval Academy Didn’t Want Me to Give

12. Is a Military Coup Unfolding at the Pentagon?

13. Trump Is Losing Asia – An incoherent policy is speeding Beijing’s rise.

14. Critical Followership: Thinking, Failing, and Leading

15. Order Without America – How the International System Can Survive a Hostile Washington

16. Trump is a revolutionary. Will he succeed?

17. Calm down: the ‘geopolitical crisis’ narrative is overblown

18. Amid a trade war, Xi Jinping may be purging China’s armed forces

19. The Real Lesson of SignalGate

20. Out Thinking Our Adversaries by Mick Ryan

21. Trump Can Protect the Post-WWII World Order or Destroy It

22. The Pentagon Can’t Be Run Like a Business

23. Polygraph Threats, Leaks and Infighting: Pentagon Chaos Rattles Hegseth

23. Statement by Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell on the Conclusion of Service of DOD Advisory Committee Members

24. The fight to restore VOA continues. China hopes the agency loses.

1. Xi Is Ratcheting Up China’s Pain Threshold for a Long Fight With Trump

Who wins an economic warfare fight?

Xi Is Ratcheting Up China’s Pain Threshold for a Long Fight With Trump

Censorship and surveillance have helped keep the Communist Party in control, and they are getting better.

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-xi-trump-tariff-fight-79aca79c?mod=hp_lead_pos7

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(10 min)

Xi Jinping has spent lavishly on reinforcing the country’s authoritarian tools. Photo: Alex Plavevski/Shutterstock

By Josh Chin

April 23, 2025 11:00 pm ET

Key Points

What's This?

China is strengthening authoritarian tools to prepare for a confrontation with the U.S.
Xi Jinping has consolidated power to levels unseen since Mao, focusing on stability amid trade tensions.
China is using AI and surveillance to preempt dissent, showing resilience despite economic pressures.

As President Trump tries to play hardball in his trade war with Xi Jinping, he faces an adversary who has armed China to play a long and potentially painful game in its contest with the U.S.

In the weeks since the U.S. president first slapped sky-high tariffs on China, Beijing has responded with defiance. A spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry posted on X footage from 1953 of Mao Zedong promising to fight to the end against U.S.-led forces in the Korean War. “We are Chinese,” she wrote. “We don’t back down.”

The Mao post and other messages from Beijing highlight what China sees as one of its core advantages against the U.S.: While Trump and his Republican backers are vulnerable to the whims of American voters, the party that Mao built is deeply entrenched, having maintained power through more than seven decades despite war, famine, political upheaval and financial crises.

Xi isn’t resting on those laurels. Since an earlier trade war during the first Trump administration, he has intensified his grip on the country’s leadership and spent lavishly reinforcing the authoritarian tools that underpin the party’s longevity, including enhancements of the world’s most sophisticated systems for censorship and surveillance. The Chinese leader wants to harden his country specifically for a confrontation with the U.S., urging officials to engage in what he calls “extreme scenario thinking.”

Portraits of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong for sale at a souvenir shop in Beijing. Photo: Pedro Pardo/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Trump has already struck a more conciliatory tone this week, saying he wants to enter into negotiations with Beijing and is willing to lower the 145% tariffs he has imposed on China in his second term.

The White House hasn’t said what it ultimately hopes to achieve in negotiations with China. Any push to significantly reduce the U.S.’s $295 billion trade deficit would require China to fundamentally change its economic model.

In Xi, Trump is facing off with an equally pugilistic figure. Before he even took power, Xi swiped at “foreigners with full bellies and nothing better to do” who had the temerity to criticize China. He has repeatedly stated his belief that the age of American dominance is nearing its end, due in large part to the capitalist excesses of the very consumer-driven economy the U.S. hopes to foist on China.

Where the Trump administration is riven with factions and embraces chaos, Xi has focused on stability. He eliminated term limits in 2018 and has used an endless crackdown on corruption to centralize power to a greater degree than any leader since Mao. He has also packed the party’s senior leadership with officials experienced in propaganda and security, who have made it a priority to inoculate China against the risk of mass dissent.

“Chinese society has an incredibly high capacity for pain,” said Yasheng Huang, a professor of global economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the forthcoming “Statism with Chinese Characteristics.”

“There is one scenario in which stability breaks down and this is the scenario in which there is a serious split among top leaders, as happened in 1989,” Huang said, referring to internal party divisions over that year’s pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. China is now further away from such a rupture than at any other time since the start of the post-Mao reform era in 1978, according to Huang.

The Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in 1989 loom large in the minds of China’s leaders. Photo: Associated Press

To be sure, the Trump administration can inflict real pain on China, which is heavily dependent on exports for growth. The country’s debt-laden economy grew by 5% in 2024, according to official figures, though that number has its skeptics. At the start of the earlier China-U.S. trade standoff during Trump’s first term, it was closer to 7%.

By some estimates, the new Trump tariffs could wipe out half or more of Chinese exports to the U.S. Economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that as many as 20 million workers in China are exposed to U.S. exports.

“No political system, and no political leader, could emerge unscathed by tariffs of the dimension proposed by Trump, if they go ahead in a sustained fashion,” said Richard McGregor, a China expert at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank. “Factories will close and many thousands of people will lose their jobs, with little in the way of a welfare system to fall back on.”

Workers are the biggest drivers of dissent in China, accounting for more than 40% of in-person and online protests in the country in the first three quarters of 2024, according to tracking by China Dissent Monitor, a project of the U.S.-based nonprofit Freedom House.

China Bets Trump Will Back Down on Tariffs

Chinese officials call for full repeal of levies and dismiss suggestions that trade talks with Washington have begun

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-bets-trump-will-back-down-on-tariffs-04097ec3

By Brian Spegele

Follow and Jason Douglas

Updated April 24, 2025 1:32 pm ET

A store in Beijing displays Chinese and U.S. flags. Photo: Andy Wong/Associated Press

Key Points

What's This?

President Trump’s tariff softening boosted markets, but China sees it as a sign he will cave if they wait.
China dismisses negotiation claims, demanding complete tariff elimination for dialogue.
Analysts doubt a comprehensive deal will be made, fearing conflict spillover into investment and finance.

BEIJING—President Trump’s apparent softening on tariffs against China in recent days has buoyed markets and raised hopes for a detente between the world’s two largest economies. For Chinese leaders, it only strengthens their resolve that Trump will eventually cave if they wait him out.

After weeks of spiraling hostilities, Trump now says he is willing to cut tariffs on Chinese goods. His administration is considering slashing levies in some cases by more than half in a bid to de-escalate tensions with Beijing, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

While such a reprieve would ease anxiety over further escalation, it still wouldn’t prevent a painful rupture between the world’s two biggest economies. Nor would it likely be enough to satisfy Beijing.

Asked on Wednesday whether the administration was actively talking with Beijing on trade, Trump responded, “Actively. Everything is active.” A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman dismissed any suggestion that the two sides were negotiating as “fake news.”

On Thursday, Trump said his administration is talking about trade with Beijing, without providing details.

“This tariff war was launched by the U.S., and the Chinese side’s position has always been clear and consistent,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Thursday. “If we fight, we will fight to the end; if we talk, the door is wide open. Any dialogue or negotiation must be based on equality, respect and mutual benefit.”

Russia Pummels Kyiv, Prompting Rare Rebuke From Trump

The attack, which killed at least 12 people, was the deadliest on Ukraine’s capital in nearly a year. President Trump called on President Vladimir V. Putin to “STOP!” in a post on social media.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/world/europe/ukraine-kyiv-russia-attack.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/world/europe/ukraine-kyiv-russia-attack.html

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Russia Launches Large Aerial Attack on Kyiv, Killing at Least Nine People2:03

The attack, the biggest on the capital since last summer, came hours after the Trump administration threatened to walk away from peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

By Kim Barker and Maria VarenikovaPhotographs by Brendan Hoffman

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

April 24, 2025

Updated 2:47 p.m. ET

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Russia killed at least 12 people and injured 90 others in a huge attack on the Ukrainian capital early Thursday, prompting President Trump to issue a rare public critique of Moscow just hours after he lashed out at President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

The assault was the deadliest on the capital, Kyiv, since last summer. Explosions shook buildings and sent more than 16,000 people into the subway system to take shelter; clouds of smoke rose over the city as the sun came up.

One missile hit a two-story building with 12 apartments where emergency workers hunted for survivors. A five-story building next door lost all its windows. People stood outside, staring at the damage and talking on their phones, telling loved ones that they were alive. No military target was visible nearby.

Mr. Zelensky said nearly 70 missiles, including ballistic ones, and about 150 attack drones had targeted cities across the country — although Kyiv was hit the hardest.

About the same time, Mr. Trump lashed out at President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the attack, showing how his administration’s positions can seem to flip-flop without warning.

“Vladimir, STOP!” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social, saying that he was “not happy” with the Russian strikes. “Not necessary, and very bad timing,” the post added.

The attack came hours after Mr. Trump and his top aides demanded that Kyiv accept an American-designed plan that would seemingly grant Russia all the territory it has gained in the war, which started with Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The plan also offered Kyiv only vague assurances about future security. So far, Mr. Zelensky has said Ukraine cannot accept such a deal.

Before cutting short a trip to South Africa, which currently holds the presidency of the Group of 20, Mr. Zelensky said at a news conference in Pretoria that he saw no indication Russia was being pressured to agree to a cease-fire. He said that with more pressure brought on Moscow, “we will be able to get closer to a complete, unconditional cease-fire.” To him, Mr. Zelensky added, the attack on Kyiv instead appeared intended to pressure the United States.

Video

The assault was the deadliest on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, since last summer.CreditCredit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

“We were attacked, we were occupied, many children, and adults were buried alive,” he said. “This is a big compromise that we are ready to sit at the negotiating table with terrorists.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, who was at the same news conference, threw his weight behind Ukraine, criticizing what he called precondition before negotiations began. He reaffirmed that “the only path to peace is through diplomacy, inclusive dialogue and a commitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter.”

Since Mr. Trump took office in January, his administration has echoed Kremlin talking points in the war, a reversal of previous U.S. policy under the Biden administration. Over the past week, the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to walk away from the peace process, claiming that the two sides were both intransigent.

On Wednesday, planned peace talks in London were downgraded, largely because the United States decided not to attend.

Image

At the site of a Russian missile strike in Kyiv on Thursday.

Mr. Trump later called Mr. Zelensky “inflammatory” in a post on social media and said the Ukrainian president would only “prolong the ‘killing field.’”

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In his Truth Social post on Thursday, Mr. Trump said he wanted to “get the Peace Deal DONE!” He also said in the Oval Office on Thursday while sitting beside Norway’s prime minister, “I have my own deadline” for when Russia and Ukraine need to strike a peace deal. “We want it to be fast,” he added.

Mr. Trump said he had “no allegiance” to either side in the Russia-Ukraine war and that his only goal was to stop the war and save lives. He said Russia has made a “pretty big concession” to end the war. Later, when pressed about what concessions Russia has offered, Mr. Trump replied, “Stopping taking the whole country.”

Mr. Zelensky earlier pointed out that in March Ukraine accepted a U.S. proposal for a 30-day cease-fire but that Mr. Putin has refused to agree to that plan. While Mr. Putin did announce a temporary truce for Easter Sunday, it seemed more of a public relations stunt than a cease-fire along the front line. Ukrainian cities, at least, were largely spared for the truce’s 30 hours.

But that was not the case early on Thursday. Shortly after midnight, the first air alarms sounded.

Yevhenii Plakhotnikov, 40, lives just across the street from the two-story apartment building struck by a missile. He said that he had awaken to the alarm, heard the buzzing sound of drones and then started getting dressed. A message on Telegram — the messaging platform that many Ukrainians rely on for missile alerts — said a ballistic missile had been launched.

Mr. Plakhotnikov said he went to the hallway to put on his shoes.

“While I was putting on the second sneaker, I heard the first explosion,” he recalled in an interview. “Then I heard something heavy fall. All my interior doors were torn in half. I opened the door and saw shrapnel flying.”

He said he helped get other people out of his building. There, one man was standing, covered in blood.

Image

Liuba Haldetskaya, 76, sitting outside her damaged apartment building on Thursday.

Tetyana Hrynenko, 58, stood on the street, covering her mouth with her hands and looking up at her ruined apartment next to the flattened building.

“The most important thing is that we are alive,” said Ms. Hrynenko, adding that she had heard two explosions, seen clouds of dust and smelled burning. She added: “People were shouting and asking for help. I looked out into the stairwell, and there were no stairs. And I live on the fifth floor.”

Residents managed to clear the stairwell of debris, allowing Ms. Hrynenko and others to make it outside.

On Thursday afternoon, dozens of classmates and friends of Danylo Khudya, 17, came to hold a vigil. The teenager, known as Danya, was missing under the rubble, along with his parents. Watching the emergency workers dig, the boys were stone-faced, while many of the girls, including Danya’s girlfriend, sobbed inconsolably.

“I am waiting for Danya,” said one friend, Denys, 19, who did not want to give his last name.

Ukrainian officials have said that Russia has only intensified attacks against civilians since the start of U.S.-led peace negotiations.

The attack on Kyiv on Thursday was one of the deadliest of the war and the worst in the capital since July, when Russian missiles destroyed a children’s hospital and killed more than 20 people throughout the city. Recent deadly missile strikes have also targeted the cities of Sumy and Kryvyi Rih, inflicting heavy civilian casualties.

Image

Emergency workers searching for victims under the rubble in Kyiv on Thursday. Ukrainian officials have said that attacks on civilian targets have intensified since U.S.-led peace negotiations began.

By Thursday evening, the death toll in Kyiv had climbed as emergency workers recovered more bodies from the rubble. Just after 5 p.m. local time, an emergency worker walked up to the huddle of teenagers and asked for any identifying marks of Danya. The workers had spotted a teenage boy’s body in the rubble. The teenagers volunteered some through their tears.

“Your friend is not with us anymore,” the worker told the teenagers, who burst into tears and hugged each other. And then, defeated, they left to go home.

Those affected by the strike said that they wanted the war to end but could not see accepting a one-sided deal that would benefit Russia.

“Yesterday, we were very disappointed that the negotiations hadn’t moved forward, and then overnight, it hit me directly,” said Ms. Hrynenko while surveying her damaged apartment. “I am disappointed. Exhausted.”

Mr. Plakhotnikov said he did not know of a way out for Ukraine.

“There’s no point in continuing the war,” he said, “but it’s also impossible to stop.”

Image

Emergency workers continued to work through the night in Kyiv.

Reporting was contributed by Andrew E. Kramer from Kharkiv, Ukraine; Oleksandra Mykolyshyn from Kyiv, Ukraine; Jonathan Swan from Washington; and Zimasa Matiwane from Johannesburg, South Africa.

Kim Barker is a Times reporter writing in-depth stories about the war in Ukraine.

Maria Varenikova covers Ukraine and its war with Russia.

4. Trump Administration Live Updates: President Says He Has ‘No Allegiance’ in Russia-Ukraine War

From a negotiation standpoint did we just throw Ukraine under the bus? What does this signal to Zelensky and Putin?

Trump Administration Live Updates: President Says He Has ‘No Allegiance’ in Russia-Ukraine War

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/24/us/trump-news

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President Trump and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store of Norway spoke to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Where Things Stand

War in Ukraine: President Trump, speaking alongside the prime minister of Norway, said that he had “no allegiance” to either side in the war between Russia and Ukraine and that his only goal was to stopping the war. Mr. Trump reiterated that he was “not happy” with Russia’s deadly attack on Kyiv overnight, which came as his administration demanded Ukraine agree to territorial concessions and other terms favorable to Moscow. Pressed about what concessions Russia had offered, he said, “stopping taking the whole country.”
School funding: A federal judge in New Hampshire limited the Trump administration’s ability to withhold funds from public schools over diversity and equity initiatives, saying its policy threatened free speech. The order applied to many schools, including any employing a member of the nation’s largest teachers’ union. Read more ›
Transgender troops: The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let it start enforcing a ban on transgender troops serving in the military that has been blocked by lower courts. Read more ›

5. For Russia, the U.S. peace deal could be a way of weakening Ukraine

For Russia, the U.S. peace deal could be a way of weakening Ukraine

Many of the elements of the U.S. proposal would be politically damaging to Zelensky, creating an opening Moscow could exploit, say analysts and officials.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/24/russia-ukraine-peace-deal-trump/

April 24, 2025 at 12:10 p.m. EDTToday at 12:10 p.m. EDT

Russian soldiers stand in formation before the start of a “Victory Rally” in Moscow, on Thursday. (Yuri Kochetkov/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

By Catherine Belton

Russia is presenting itself as potentially open to a U.S.-sponsored peace deal — even one that doesn’t meet all of its maximalist conditions — as a way to ingratiate itself with President Donald Trump and lay a political trap for Ukraine, Western officials and Russian analysts say.

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Moscow’s apparent adoption of a more conciliatory tone appeared to be working after Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that Russia had agreed to a deal and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was more difficult.

According to several people familiar with the agreement, the United States has put forward a proposal that would rule out NATO membership for Ukraine, include U.S. acceptance of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, leave the Russian army with nearly all of the territory it has taken so far and not give any real security guarantees for Ukraine. The elements would be deeply damaging to Zelensky if he accepted.

The path to any agreement however is still fraught, especially after Trump condemned Russia for launching a massive bombardment of Kyiv early Thursday that killed at least 12 and wounded dozens of others, and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff is expected in Moscow for further talks on Friday. “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing,” he said in a post on Truth Social.

Follow Trump’s first 100 Days

But Russia’s tactics otherwise appeared to be effective: Trump blamed Zelensky for undermining peace talks after the Ukrainian president expressed doubts about a number of the provisions, including de facto recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea — a provision one U.S. official called “a poison pill” for the Ukrainian leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly.

At first glance, the U.S. proposed agreement would appear to fall short of Russian officials’ maximalist demands, which include dismantling the Ukrainian state and full control over the four Ukrainian regions on the front line — Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk — it has claimed. But Western officials and Russian analysts say that Moscow realizes the proposal would be politically destructive for Zelensky and so are open to backing it.

Ever since Putin declared a 30-hour Easter truce over the weekend, Russian analysts and members of the elite have emerged to say that the Kremlin could agree to drop its maximalist war aims — at least temporarily.

“Putin could change his tactics,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “I don’t exclude that Putin could agree. He can see this as a transition period. He needs political change inside Ukraine, and nothing will stop him from waiting and achieving that.”

“The political risks are much higher for Ukraine than for Russia,” she added. “These are colossal compromises for Ukraine. For Zelensky it is the beginning of the end and nothing will stop Russia from saying in a year that the peace agreement has been broken by Ukraine and therefore we have to return to our initial demands” of taking control of the Ukrainian state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, before their talks in St. Petersburg, on April 11. (Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, Kremlin/Pool/AP)

Agreeing to many of the elements of the U.S. proposal — especially if there are no clear security guarantees — would be politically damaging to Zelensky and create an opening Moscow could exploit to destabilize Ukraine and undermine his hold on power.

It would also open the way for Putin to blame Zelensky for any future violation of the agreement, pointed out Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst.

Even if Ukrainian authorities blamed Putin for any breach, “Who do you think Trump will believe: Putin or Zelensky? Of course he will believe Putin,” he said.

The Russian maneuvering comes after Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio all indicated that the U.S. administration’s patience was beginning to wear thin over the apparent intractability of a conflict that Trump initially said he could solve within 24 hours.

“The Russians are anxious to please Trump — or what you could call play Trump,” a European official said, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “They want to portray Ukraine as the bad guy, and with Trump it might be realistic,” he said.

“They have recognized that for now Russia maybe can’t advance militarily and there has to be some change of tools,” he added.

The shifting approach in Moscow comes as Russia’s military advance in Ukraine appears to have stalled and as Western sanctions take an ever greater toll on the economy. For months, interest rates have been at a sky high 21 percent to rein in rampant inflation of nearly 10 percent, while recently falling oil prices are now cutting into Russia’s ability to fund its war machine.

Economists and European officials have argued that the United States would have far greater leverage were it to further tighten sanctions rather than offer concessions such as handing Moscow the 20 percent of Ukrainian territory it has seized during the full-scale invasion.

“It is strange that the U.S. is only pressuring the victim, not the aggressor,” the European official said.

Russia has been angling to reset relations with Trump’s America to end its isolation from the West while deepening fissures in the transatlantic alliance. A faction of Kremlin strategists has been pushing for Putin to take advantage of the U.S. pressure against Kyiv before the American president turns his attention elsewhere, the official added.

“Russia needs to be seen as constructive enough on Ukraine that Witkoff can persuade the president to reset relations even if Russia doesn’t give him what he wanted in Ukraine,” the U.S. official said.

Trump’s display of anger after Putin suggested at the end of March that Ukraine should temporarily be placed under U.N. control to elect what he called a more “competent” government “was a wake-up call that was received in Moscow,” said Thomas Greminger, head of the Geneva Center for Security Policy and former director general of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Greminger cautioned that while Moscow may have opted for taking a more conciliatory line in talks with the United States, he believed the sides were still far from any breakthrough.

Russian analysts added that Moscow is also seeking to ensure that any deal would result in an end to U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine. “Trump needs a ceasefire so he can stop military supplies to Ukraine,” Markov said. “And the signing of such a ceasefire would be a good reason for Trump to lift sanctions against Russia.”

One part of the U.S.-proposed deal that might still be tough for Russia to swallow is the presence for European and non-NATO forces to monitor any ceasefire, according to people familiar with the plan. Russian officials have flatly stated this would be unacceptable, in particular troops from NATO countries.

The idea that Russia could freeze the conflict — and still benefit — was touted in a memo written by strategists at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, or IMEMO, for the Kremlin at the end of January, according to a copy of the document obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post.

In the memo, the strategists proposed that Russia could parlay “an unspoken recognition of the status quo in Ukraine” and de facto control over the occupied Ukrainian territories into a partial lifting of sanctions and an easing of “anti-Russian rhetoric.”

Two senior IMEMO officials, Alexander Dynkin and Feodor Voitolovsky, visited the United States this month and sought to present a more friendly Russian face during meetings with academics, according to a person familiar with the visit. “They communicated a willingness to compromise” and sought to portray Ukraine as only one small element in the discussion in the U.S.-Russia relationship, the person said.

Reached by The Post, Voitolovsky denied that the memo seen by The Post could have been written by anyone at IMEMO and said he was against any freezing of the conflict.

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War in Ukraine

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By Catherine Belton

Catherine Belton is an international investigative reporter for The Washington Post, reporting on Russia. She is the author of “Putin's People,” a New York Times Critics’ Book of 2020 and a book of the year for the Times, the Economist and the Financial Times. Belton has worked for Reuters and the Financial Times.follow on X@CatherineBelton

6. Trump Is Facing Six Wars, and He’s Losing All of Them by Hal Brands

"The six:"

The first war is the one Trump has always seemed most confident about ending: the cataclysmic conflict in Ukraine.

...

The second war is in the Middle East, where the US has been pounding — but not yet deterring — the Houthis in Yemen. It is raging alongside a third war, as Israel again takes the offensive in hopes of finally defeating Hamas.

...

(four) Yet those campaigns might simply be prelude to a larger potential war with Iran over its nuclear program.

...

(five) Then there is the new cold war, with China.

...

Meanwhile, the peril for Taiwan grows as Beijing cinches its military noose tighter.

...

(six) Finally, don’t forget the larger trade war.

Conclusion:

This disorder may not bother Trump, who says that he makes all the decisions himself. But now he has entered a period that will define his presidency and shape the fate of the international system. America, and the world, will pay a high price if he doesn’t get his act together fast.

Trump Is Facing Six Wars, and He’s Losing All of Them

Events of the next few months will forge the president’s legacy — including crises over Iran’s nukes, Houthi missiles, China tariffs and Ukraine’s devastation.

April 24, 2025 at 2:00 AM PDT

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-04-24/trump-is-facing-six-wars-and-he-s-losing-all-of-them?utm

By Hal Brands

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Off to make peace?Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump anointed himself, in his second inaugural, as the world’s “peacemaker.” Just three months later, his presidency is consumed by conflict. The coming months will be Trump’s season of crisis, a legacy-making period in which he must navigate three hot wars, a cold war, a potential war and a trade war.

Unfortunately, he’s starting from a deficit of his own making: His decisions have left America’s alliances strained, its economic power tattered, and its strategic competence in question.

The first war is the one Trump has always seemed most confident about ending: the cataclysmic conflict in Ukraine. Trump wagered that making peace would be easy — a matter of menacing Russia with sanctions and forcing Ukraine to give up on regaining lost lands. Yet Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s maximalist aims, and his belief that he is slowly winning, have made reaching a settlement all too hard.

Trump must choose, in the coming weeks, whether to really squeeze Russia — through harsher oil sanctions and other economic coercion, along with continued military and intelligence support for Ukraine — or walk away and let the war take its course. The first course would be distasteful for a president who often shows sympathy for Moscow and contempt for Kyiv. The second, by raising the risk of a Ukrainian defeat, could be disastrous for the security of Europe and the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The second war is in the Middle East, where the US has been pounding — but not yet deterring — the Houthis in Yemen. It is raging alongside a third war, as Israel again takes the offensive in hopes of finally defeating Hamas.

Yet those campaigns might simply be prelude to a larger potential war with Iran over its nuclear program. Trump seems torn between a minimalist approach of simply keeping Iran short of a nuclear weapon, which Tehran might accept, and a more ambitious set of demands — tearing Iran’s nuclear program down to the studs — that the Iranians might well reject, even at risk of conflict.

The clock is ticking. If there’s no agreement by mid-summer, Trump will have to decide whether to green-light a military strike by Israel, the US, or both countries acting in unison. He will also have to resolve the tension between two longstanding priorities: avoiding a nuclear Iran and avoiding new Middle Eastern wars.

Then there is the new cold war, with China. As the president’s second term started, Beijing was abuzz with hopes for Trump’s long-promised “grand bargain.” But now hostilities have hardened: Amid surging trade tensions, China is declaring that it will fight to the end.

Meanwhile, the peril for Taiwan grows as Beijing cinches its military noose tighter. Trump’s choice, in US-China relations, is between showing weakness by backing down in the commercial dispute — or settling in for a more intense, comprehensive confrontation, with all the investments and dangers that entails.

Finally, don’t forget the larger trade war. After beginning April with a wild week of all-azimuths commercial antagonism, Trump delayed the highest and most destructive tariffs against nearly everyone but China. Yet that move may only have been a 90-day stay of execution for the global economy. The weeks ahead will determine whether Trump can negotiate the trade deals that would bring a more lasting de-escalation — or perhaps even find a way, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has suggested, of lining up friendly countries for an economic contest with Beijing.

The stakes of all this are terribly high. They involve the peace and stability of key regions across Eurasia, as well as the health of the world economy and the cohesion of the democratic community. This would be a daunting panorama for any administration. But Trump enters his time of testing with two self-inflicted liabilities.

First, he has squandered key elements of American strength. Ideally, the US would enter a fraught moment with a roaring economy and solid alliances. But Trump has tanked the stock market, sent capital fleeing and pushed America toward an utterly avoidable recession.

NATO, meanwhile, is in a fix as the allies confront a patron that seems indifferent, if not hostile, to Europe. US friends everywhere are presumably astonished by how radical and reckless Trump’s America has become. Maybe beating down the Houthis will instill some fear in US enemies. But for all Trump’s talk about an American “golden age,” many countries see a superpower in decline.

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Second, crisis management challenges even the competent, and Trump’s team seems anything but. The Pentagon is in turmoil that would be unacceptable to any other president. The chaotic rollout, and rollback, of Trump’s tariffs reveal a president playing fast and loose with the economic fate of countries everywhere. The National Security Council, when it isn’t sharing sensitive information via Signal, hardly seems to function at all.

This disorder may not bother Trump, who says that he makes all the decisions himself. But now he has entered a period that will define his presidency and shape the fate of the international system. America, and the world, will pay a high price if he doesn’t get his act together fast.

Brands is also a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the co-author of “Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China,” and a senior adviser to Macro Advisory Partners.

In defense of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

By Christopher Tremoglie

April 24, 2025 9:48 am

Washington Examiner · April 24, 2025

“The message to our adversaries in these first 100 days in office has been undeniably clear — America is back,” Hegseth said. “At the Defense Department, that means no more distractions, no more social engineering, no more climate change worship, no more electric tanks, no more gender confusion, no more pronouns, no more excuses, no more quotas, and no more woke bullshit that undermines commanders and command climates.”

This is the real reason they hate Hegseth and want him gone.

If Hegseth were a member of the Biden administration, every excuse possible would be used to cover for his supposed errors, mishaps, and controversies. There would be a national media campaign suggesting that it was a minor infraction not worthy of any significant scrutiny. Look at how Democrats and legacy media handled the inefficiencies and cataclysmal failures of former “border czar” Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas regarding illegal immigration and border security. These were two problems that legitimately threatened national security and led to the harming of innocent citizens.

Sure, people would have you believe that the Signal chat controversies and the possible national security vulnerabilities that supposedly stemmed from them are why there are calls for Hegseth’s removal. But that is all hyperbolic noise meant to influence and manipulate public opinion. Hegseth’s (and Trump’s) opponents hope to create enough performative outrage that Trump will deem Hegseth an unnecessary distraction and eventually remove him from his position.

But let’s be clear about why they want him removed. It’s not because of the Signal chat incident or any threats to national security that the Signal chat may have caused. It’s because they want to embarrass President Donald Trump politically and remove the person leading the charge to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the Department of Defense.

First, a Trump firing of Hegseth, especially early in his second term, would reflect poorly on the president and give credence to the claims that Trump is incompetent and chaotic. Second, Hegseth has been adamant about reshaping the military to fit his vision of intelligent, fit, ambitious, physical warriors that the whole world should fear. Moreover, he wants the military to be comprised of service members who achieved their successes, positions, and ranks through a meritocracy and not radical left-wing ideological programs such as DEI. Having Hegseth removed would be a 2-for-1 political victory for MAGA detractors.

Are there things Hegseth needs to improve upon? Sure, and I would argue that even Hegseth would admit this. However, he has only been Secretary of Defense since Jan. 25. Not even two months into his term, detractors were looking to force Hegseth’s resignation because of some mishaps, a standard that nearly every presidential administration has not been held to. These errors are amplified even more, given legacy media’s sympathies and ideological alignment.

Objectively speaking, many would try to make it a big story if Hegseth sneezed the wrong way. And let’s not forget the attacks bestowed upon him during his confirmation hearing, especially criticisms of his infidelity. In arguably one of the most significant moments of lacking self-awareness in U.S. Senate history, Democrats linked cheating on a spouse with the ability to do a federal government job effectively. They have been after Hegseth since before he was head of the Pentagon.

Consider the Signal chat controversy. Liberals, Democrats, and the Trump administration’s political opponents were looking for Hegseth’s scalp even though the whole ordeal was primarily the fault of national security adviser Mike Waltz. Yet, somehow, Waltz’s error became Hegseth’s fault, and the attacks began, as did the calls for his resignation. All of them were disingenuous and agenda-driven antics with hopes of achieving the abovementioned outcomes.

Next, consider the name the left-wing agitprops have bestowed upon Hegseth’s most recent supposed controversy — Whiskey Leaks. The nomenclature is supposed to be a reference to accusations of Hegseth’s alcoholism, despite there being no evidence that alcohol had anything to do with any of this. It was all made up to smear Hegseth, try to embarrass him, and then use this humiliation to discredit the secretary of defense.

HEGSETH TURNS TO HIS MISSION TO RESHAPE THE MILITARY

These are not serious people. They are aggressive, agenda-driven people. Furthermore, if Hegseth’s mishap were as serious a problem as his detractors claim, it would not be linked to such immature insults as “whiskey leaks.” They resort to such tactics because they are catchy for the public and the Democratic base, not because of their validity. The same people pushing for Hegseth’s ouster are the same people who promoted political narratives such as “the border is secure” and “Joe Biden is mentally fit for office.”

Everyone should want to ensure that the nation’s secretary of defense uses secure communication that geopolitical foes cannot compromise. But if Hegseth were a Democrat or a Biden administration official and not a Republican, especially a MAGA Republican, this would be a non-issue. Let’s pump the brakes before continuing the over-the-top “outrage” and calling for Hegseth’s resignation. And let’s start by acknowledging the real reason behind the attacks.

Washington Examiner · April 24, 2025

8. ‘He gets him what he needs’: Hegseth’s new favorite adviser helped set up Signal on one of secretary’s computers at Pentagon

The poor retired Colonel. His new civilian career might come to a quick end. He may be about to become the scapegoat.

‘He gets him what he needs’: Hegseth’s new favorite adviser helped set up Signal on one of secretary’s computers at Pentagon | CNN Politics

CNN · by Natasha Bertrand, Haley Britzky, Jake Tapper · April 24, 2025

Col. Ricky Buria shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon on April 24.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

CNN —

Last month, after news broke that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was using Signal to discuss sensitive military operations in violation of Pentagon policy, one of his closest military aides made an unusual inquiry to the Defense Department’s chief information officer: Would they grant an exception so Hegseth could keep using Signal freely?

The question came from Col. Ricky Buria, a former aide to previous Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin who has rapidly established himself as a key member of Hegseth’s inner circle, multiple people familiar with the matter told CNN. The Signal inquiry raised eyebrows among other senior Pentagon officials, who wondered whether the request was appropriate — especially from a uniformed officer, rather than Hegseth’s civilian chief of staff.

Weeks earlier, before The Atlantic revealed that Hegseth had been using the app to discuss detailed military plans, Buria had pushed to get Hegseth an extra desktop computer in his office that he could use Signal on, ostensibly for personal communications so he could more easily text friends and family from the Pentagon, the sources said.

The Secretary’s office is considered a secure space, where cell phones are not typically permitted. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency recommends that highly targeted individuals use Signal, but DoD policy says Signal is “NOT authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information.” It notes that requests for exceptions to that policy can be submitted to the chief information officer.

It is not clear whether Hegseth was ever given an exception to use Signal freely, or if he has continued to use it for sensitive military planning in the fallout of the Signalgate episode.

In a statement to CNN, Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said, “The Secretary of Defense’s use of communications systems and channels is classified. However, we can confirm that the Secretary has never used and does not currently use Signal on his government computer.”

Parnell did not comment on why Hegseth had another computer set up in his office that Signal was installed on.

A rapid rise in Hegseth’s inner circle

Buria, a career Marine with multiple combat deployments who served as both Austin and Hegseth’s junior military assistant, has for months been straddling the line between military aide and civilian adviser, the sources said. And last week, he submitted his retirement papers to the Marine Corps, a Marine spokesperson confirmed.

On Thursday morning, Buria was at the Pentagon in civilian clothing and greeted the NATO Secretary General before accompanying him, Hegseth, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon’s head of policy into a meeting room.

Hegseth greets Rutte during a bilateral meeting at the Pentagon on April 24. Buria is seen at the table.

Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Buria did not respond to repeated requests for comment about his increasingly influential position in Hegseth’s inner circle, including his role in helping to facilitate Hegseth’s use of Signal inside the Pentagon.

Buria’s plan is to stay at the Pentagon, but as a senior civilian adviser to Hegseth, the sources said. Hegseth is even considering appointing Buria as his new chief of staff, now that his former chief of staff Joe Kasper is moving into a new role at the department, the sources added.

Buria’s transition from military assistant to senior adviser was extremely unusual, particularly since he worked so closely with Austin, according to officials that served in the Biden and second Trump administration. And Hegseth moved quickly to root out other “holdover” military officials upon taking office, including former Joint Chiefs Chairman CQ Brown; former Air Force vice chairman Gen. Jim Slife; former Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti; and Jen Short, a three-star general who was appointed senior military assistant under Austin.

Underscoring the trust Hegseth placed in him, Buria, not even a general officer, filled the crucial senior military assistant role on an acting basis, current and former officials said. The SMA, which is a three-star position that requires Senate confirmation, serves as both the chief military point of contact for the secretary and as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s representative to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

The sources all said that Buria’s rise appears to largely be a function of how much Hegseth has narrowed his inner circle, as he has become increasingly paranoid about leaks and concerned about being undermined. After firing two of his most senior advisers last week and accusing them of leaking, Hegseth now relies primarily on his wife Jennifer, Buria, and his lawyer for counsel, the sources said.

Hegseth also likes Buria’s “yes, sir” attitude, said one defense official who has observed their interactions.

“He likes that Ricky does what he asks and gets him what he needs,” the official said.

Under Secretary Austin, Buria was “cool, calm, collected, never got ruffled, and had a good attitude,” a former senior Pentagon official in the Biden administration told CNN, adding that he was “very good and capable.” But he was also essentially a “body man” for Austin — carrying his bags and appearing only in the background of official photos, if at all.

Under Hegseth, however, Buria has in a few short months become one of Hegseth’s most trusted advisers and friends.

Elon Musk is greeted with Buria at the Pentagon on March 21.

US Air Force Senior Airman Spencer Perkins/Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs

Buria has routine access to Hegseth’s personal and government phones, multiple people familiar with the matter told CNN, and is often seen working out with the secretary in photos posted on X. He has even started sitting at the table with foreign leaders, most recently during official meetings in Panama and with El Salvador’s defense minister at the Pentagon. He also appeared in a photo laughing with Elon Musk when he visited the Pentagon earlier this month.

Buria never did anything of the sort while serving in the same role for Austin, the former senior Pentagon official said.

“He would never sit in on bilats or meetings or anything like that, like he is now,” the former official said, referring to official bilateral meetings between the secretary and his counterparts.

‘An unlikely path’

Current and former officials have also raised questions about whether Buria is experienced enough to serve as Hegseth’s chief of staff — and whether the White House would accept that, given Buria’s history working under Austin and Trump’s push to root out Biden-era “holdovers” from his administration.

“It’s certainly an unlikely path, to move from the military assistant to a political appointee,” said a second former senior DOD official. “I can’t think of another case.”

It could be a tough adjustment, the first former senior official said.

“You need someone with a political background who understands the political context, someone who can call up a four-star and yell at them for not being on message or not doing things the right way,” this person added. “I think that’s the biggest concern … do we really think [CENTCOM Commander] Erik Kurilla is going to take Ricky seriously, as a recently retired colonel?”

In this photo from the Department of Defense, Buria, left, attends a meeting with Hegseth and El Salvador Minister of National Defense René Francis Merino Monroy at the Pentagon on April 16.

US Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza/Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs

A third former senior DOD official who served under Austin agreed, saying the chief of staff has to be comfortable holding their own against career political operators who are working at senior levels of other government agencies.

As for his work with Austin, the second former senior DoD official emphasized that the military services — in Buria’s case, the Marine Corps — put forward their rising-star officers for the job of junior military assistant.

The officers themselves shouldn’t be considered political, and Buria never appeared to be, this former official said. While he seemed ambitious, this person added, there was “no indication he would be interested in leaving the military service and becoming a Trump political appointee.”

In fact, multiple sources told CNN that Buria was on the fast-track to becoming a general officer within the Marine Corps, which has made his decision to leave uniform all the more bewildering to those who have worked alongside him.

As he has risen in Hegseth’s inner circle, Buria has gotten bolder in advising Hegseth on political and policy matters, the current defense official and a former official said. And he has sometimes ruffled feathers in the way he’s spoken to more senior military officers, including at least two combatant commanders, the sources added.

“He’s gotten far too casual with them, and presents too unprofessionally,” said the current official.

In a sign of his increasingly political role, Buria joined X in January, and three days ago began regularly reposting Trump, Hegseth, and Vance, as well as posts from DoD’s rapid response account criticizing the media coverage of Hegseth — including one calling NPR a “fake news propaganda machine.”

CNN · by Natasha Bertrand, Haley Britzky, Jake Tapper · April 24, 2025

9. U.S. Navy Plans to Order U.S. Army Landing Ship for the Marine Corps

I saw these two comments on social media with this article.

"It could be a DuffleBlog headline."

"Or it could be the ultimate example of 'jointness.'"

I would add, have we reached the state of "enlightenment" envisioned by Goldwater Nichols where jointness is a way of life?

U.S. Navy Plans to Order U.S. Army Landing Ship for the Marine Corps

maritime-executive.com · by The Maritime Executive

The U.S. Navy is preparing to resolve its long debate with the Marine Corps over the fate of the Landing Ship Medium (LSM), the amphibious force's small transport for inter-island warfare in the Pacific. On April 7, Naval Sea Systems Command quietly issued notice that it plans to award Bollinger a sole-source contract to build one lead-ship LSM based on the U.S. Army's Gen. Frank S. Besson-class.

The ship that the U.S. Navy plans to buy is based on a revised version of the Army design that Bollinger-owned VT Halter built for the Israeli Navy. In Israeli service, this variant makes 14 knots with a cargo of up to 2,000 tonnes in deep-draft pier-to-pier mode, with a lesser payload for beaching operations. The design has a bow visor for better seakeeping in open water, rather than the original Besson-class' flat ramp.

INS Nahshon (IDF image)

The class also has a stern ramp that can be used to load and offload while Med-moored at a pier. In U.S. Army service, the ramp facilitates drive-through ro/ro cargo transloading for the complex Joint Logistics Over The Shore (JLOTS) transfer system.

Unless it is to be heavily modified, the IDF's Besson variant does not have a suite of high-end air defense or surface warfare weaponry. The long Navy-Marine Corps fight over the LSM's fate hinged on whether there would be a few highly survivable and very expensive hulls - the Navy's preference - or whether there would be a large number of less expensive ships built to a less stringent standard, as the Marine Corps demanded. The Besson-class appears to land further towards the Marine Corps' version: it is serviceable enough to be the primary landing and logistics ship for the U.S. Army, and for the Israeli Navy, but it is not an exquisite naval weapons platform (unless up-armed).

As first reported by USNI, NAVSEA is also buying the technical data package for the Damen LST 100, a popular landing ship design of comparable size and specifications - but equipped with an enclosed foredeck and an aft helideck. The LST 100 is in use by the Nigerian Navy and was recently ordered by the Australian Army.

A Nigerian Navy Damen LST 100 on delivery (Damen)

A rendering of the LST 100 design for Australia's armed forces (Damen)

maritime-executive.com · by The Maritime Executive

10. Would De-Dollarization Threaten The Dominance Of The US Dollar?

Protecting the dollar as the reserve currency is a vital national interest for the US. It is a strategic imperative. Without it we cannot afford to maintain our military for our defense.

Would De-Dollarization Threaten The Dominance Of The US Dollar? – OpEd

eurasiareview.com · by Dr. Bawa Singh · April 24, 2025

The U.S. Dollar (USD) has long been holding the strong position in the financial world as the primary reserve currency. The strong status of the USD has shaped the global financial world since the end of World War II. The dominance of the USD was solidified by the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944, which pegged the dollar to gold. Notwithstanding, the US abandoned the gold standard in 1971 and in the post of the same, the USD continued to dominate the global financial world due to the strength of the US economy, political stability, and the establishment of the petrodollar system. Under the petrodollar agreement which mandated the oil exporting countries to carry out the oil transactions in USD. This arrangement further bolstered the US to exert a strong dominance and influence over the global economic systems and implement effective international sanctions.

However, given the recent geopolitical and geo-economic developments, particularly the rise of the BRICS (comprising of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has raised questions about the future of the dollar. The agenda of de-dollarization has become a central agenda for the BRICS countries, as they seek to reduce their dependence on the USD for their international trade and financial transactions. It is argued by many policy makers and practitioners that this shift is driven by several geopolitical and geo-economic factors, including the frequent use of the dollar as a tool for imposing financial sanctions. The frequent imposing of the financial sanctions further pushed many countries such as Russia, Iran, and Venezuela towards the de-dollarization. These countries perceiving that such actions on part of the US, threatening to their sovereignty and are motivated to seek alternatives to the dollar.

Historically, the US officials have been expressing their confidence in the dollar’s enduring appeal and influence. For instance, the President Barack Obama had emphasized the dollar’s influence and strength in 2009, attributing it to the U.S. economic strength, political stability and the global investors’ trust in the USD. However, this confidence in the USD, is being challenged by the recent shifts in U.S. economic policy, particularly with respect to tariffs and sanctions. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had arguably acknowledged that U.S. sanctions, particularly against Russia, have prompted other partner countries to seek alternatives to the use of dollar as a global financial transaction currency. She suggested that the more sanctions imposed, the more countries will look for alternative financial transaction methods that do not involve the USD.

Against this background, the BRICS has made de-dollarization as a priority agenda. Under this agenda, the BRICS has actively worked to create their own financial frameworks over dollar. The use of common currency for the BRICS has proposed to support the regional trade in local currencies. This movement is taken further by the BRICS by accumulation of gold and bilateral/regional trade agreements. The countries like Russia and China significantly increasing their gold reserves and engaging in bilateral/regional trade agreements by bypassing the USD. For instance, in 2023, China and Russia agreed to conduct energy trade in Yuan and Rubles, marking a practical shift away from dollar dependency.

Current Trends

Since financial crisis 2008 that has exposed vulnerabilities in the U.S.-led financial system, prompting calls for reform. The recent dynamics such as the US sanctions, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Russia’s pivot away from the dollar have further fuelled the de-dollarization momentum. Apart from BRICS, ASEAN countries have also been discussed local currency trade in 2023 and Saudi Arabia signalled openness to non-dollar oil transactions.

However, notwithstanding these efforts, the USD has been remaining the lynchpin of the global financial system. The USD has been accounted for approximately 57.8% of allocated global foreign exchange reserves as of late 2024, and around 54% of global trade is still being carried out in USD. On the other hand, trust in other alternative currencies is limited due to factors such as China’s capital controls and lack of transparency. However, the dollar’s dominance remains robust. U.S. Treasury securities are still the global benchmark for safe assets, and the Federal Reserve’s influence over global monetary policy is unmatched. Even as countries diversify reserves, the dollar’s share has declined only gradually (from 71% in 2000 to 58% in 2023, IMF data).

Conclusion

Against this background, at last, can be argued that the de-dollarization is not merely rhetorical but a tangible movement driven by BRICS and supported by several countries that are seeking financial autonomy. Given several factors, the geopolitical and geo-economic dynamics have shifted toward a more multipolar world, wherein China and India are strongly positioned to play larger roles in global financial system.

Historical cycles suggest that dominant currencies (e.g., the British pound) had eventually lost primacy, but such transformative shift is slow and required shaky global economic realignments and transformations. Notwithstanding this hazy possibility of de-dollarization, it is argued that the dollar’s dominance is unlikely to be seriously threatened particularly given the strong political and economic position of the US in the near future. The position of dollar likely to remain strong given its strong entrenched position, unmatched liquidity, and the absence of a credible alternative currency.

At last, it can be said that while de-dollarization is happening in slow mode but it is not an imminent reality. Although, the world has been moving toward a more inclusive financial order, several efforts in the direction of de-dollarization are being made, but given the trends of international trade and reserve show the grip of the dollar likely to remain strong in the coming time.

About the authors:

Prof. Bawa Singh, Department of South and Central Asian Studies, Central University of Punjab
Ms. Sonal Meena, Department of South and Central Asian Studies, Central University of Punjab
Jay Koche M., Research Scholar, Department of South and Central Asian Studies, Central University of Punjab

Dr. Bawa Singh

Prof. (Dr.) Bawa Singh has been teaching at the Department of South and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Central University of Punjab. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Panjab University. He has extensive teaching and research experiences and has held various academic roles. Prof. Singh has held key administrative positions, including Head of the Department and Dean of the School of International Studies. His research interests include the geopolitics of South and Central Asia, Indian foreign policy, regional cooperation, and global health diplomacy. He has led significant research projects, including an ICSSR-funded study on SAARC's geostrategic and geo-economic role. Singh has published 61 papers, 15 book chapters, 100 commentaries, and two books published by Routledge and Springer Nature.

eurasiareview.com · by Dr. Bawa Singh · April 24, 2025

11. This Is the Lecture That the Naval Academy Didn’t Want Me to Give

I hope this passed around to all the Midshipmen. They need to read/hear this (as do all West Point and Air Force Cadets). And we should all be inspired by Admiral Stockdale.

Have we lost our way on free expression and critical thinking? Are we no longer able to speak truth to power or question political decisions

This Is the Lecture That the Naval Academy Didn’t Want Me to Give

We have gotten to a place where even a basic defense of intellectual freedom is now considered ‘too political’ for a government institution.

By Ryan Holiday

04.23.25 — Free Speech

Ryan Holiday delivered three lectures at the Naval Academy—but not a fourth. (Courtesy of Ryan Holiday)

0:00

-22:44

I was supposed to give a talk at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland on April 14. I found out about 20 minutes before I was due to go onstage that it wasn’t going to happen. The lecture was about wisdom and how to cultivate it. It was a staunch defense of reading widely, perhaps especially, books you don’t agree with. The Naval Academy’s leadership had learned I was going to challenge the terribly sad fact that this wonderful institution had banned 381 books from the academy’s Nimitz Library, on the orders of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

They asked me to delete this part of the speech. I declined. My lecture was canceled.

Look, I understand the impossible position that the good folks at the Naval Academy are in. Any Naval Academy employee who defied the edict would have risked their job security or pension. But I’m a private citizen. Nobody suggested that there would be serious consequences for me, but there was a heaviness to the demand nonetheless, an expectation that I could not come back if I didn’t play ball.

My intention is not to embarrass anyone or cause trouble. In fact, if anyone was afraid of controversy, they would have been disappointed, which is sort of the point. We have gotten to a place where even a basic defense of intellectual freedom is now considered “too political” for a government institution. Still, I could not in good conscience deliver a lecture about wisdom and not address the fact of the removal of books from a library a few hundred yards away. It would have undermined the messages of my three previous lectures at the Naval Academy on the subjects of courage, discipline, and doing the right thing.

Although the Naval Academy stopped me from going onstage, when I got home from Annapolis, I recorded it in full. You can watch it here:

And, if you prefer, here is an edited transcript of the video:

I want to take you back to the summer of 1943. A young man from Illinois named James Stockdale is about to be sworn into the Naval Academy.

As World War II rages across the globe, he swears his oath to the Constitution and to the country. And his father, who had dreamed for many years that his son would one day enter the Naval Academy, gives him a parting word of advice.

He says: “I want you to try to be the best man in that hall.”

What did he mean by this? Class rank?

Ultimately, James Stockdale ranked about 130th in his class at the Naval Academy—which, although impressive, is by no means the best. But perhaps his father meant best in some other way. Perhaps his advice was something similar to a piece of guidance that a Stoic philosopher gave another impressive soldier, Pompey the Great, as he set out to battle pirates in the Mediterranean.

Pompey stopped in to visit the Stoic philosopher Posidonius, to ask him if he had any advice for him before he departed. And Posidonius said, quoting The Odyssey: “You must be best and always superior to others.”

Now, again: Was Posidonius referring to winning all of the battles? Was he referring to the greatest conquests, or the greatest feats of intellectual achievement, or piling up the most money? I don’t think so. I think he was referring to the idea of virtue, the Stoic virtues of courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom. Be the most virtuous man; be superior to others.

It reminds me of another story about two Spartan wrestlers. After a long, hard battle, one wins. And as the other reaches up his hand to shake that of the victor, he says, “The better man won.”

The wrestler who won corrects him and says, “No, the better wrestler.”

This is a story about sportsmanship, but also the idea that winning is not everything. Rank is not everything. Achievements are not everything. But who you are, the standards you hold yourself to, the character that you possess: This is everything.

These were different times. Stockdale entered the Naval Academy in ’43 as part of the class of ’47. Women were not allowed in the Naval Academy at this time. It is, in fact, not until 1980 that Elizabeth Rowe and Janie Mines become the two of the first female graduates of the Naval Academy. These two powerful, inspiring women are a reminder that—as the Stoics in fact talked about, long before diversity, equity, and inclusion—there is nothing gendered about virtue or greatness. Courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom are demanded of each of us as individuals, and that is what we ought to aspire to, whoever we are, whatever we do. It is the compass that guides us. It is our true north.

And there is a reason that wisdom is considered the mother of the virtues: Because it tells us when to apply courage. It tells us what is right and what is wrong. It tells us what the right amount of things are, what to resist, and what to accept. Wisdom is probably the most ineffable of the virtues. It is hard to define. It’s being smart, and it’s knowledge and facts, and it’s insight. It’s intelligence and intuition. It’s experience and education and philosophy and practical understanding and awareness and wit, perspective and perception. It’s even prudence, as the ancients sometimes called wisdom. It’s all these things and more. And while we might quibble over the exact definition of wisdom, I think we can all agree that it’s not something you’re born with. It’s not something that someone can give you. Wisdom is something you have to earn.

As Seneca would say, “No one is wise by chance.” It is the result of toil and struggle, trial and error, and so many things. Wisdom is work, and it’s really the work of our lives.

It was certainly the work of Stockdale’s life.

He graduates from the Naval Academy, then spends almost 20 years in the Navy and rises to the rank of commander. Then he’s sent to Stanford to get a master’s degree. Now, it might seem strange that the Navy would send a fighter pilot in his late 30s to a first-rate college to get an advanced degree in the humanities, but Stockdale knew exactly why he was there.

And in fact, he was a bit frustrated his first year or so at Stanford.

One of the things that struck him was that he’d taken all these classes, he’d spent all this time studying, but the one thing that he hadn’t gotten was wisdom. He said, “I was lacking an inspiration or a pole star to guide me.” He had just been processing relatively tedious material.

And then, as he walked through the halls of Stanford, one day, a man approaches him, at first confusing him for a fellow professor, because Stockdale was so much older than the other students. This man is named Philip Rhinelander.

Rhinelander had himself served in the Navy during World War II, and he asked Stockdale what he’s doing and what he’s looking for. They strike up a friendship. The hero’s journey often involves seeking out a mentor. Marcus Aurelius said that a mastery of reading and writing requires a master. For him, the master was his philosophy teacher, Junius Rusticus, who he thanks at the beginning of Meditations. Specifically, Marcus thanks Rusticus for loaning him a book from his own library. That book is by the great Stoic philosopher Epictetus.

Navy midshipmen stand during the national anthem during the Army-Navy football game in Landover, Maryland, last December. (Patrick Smith via Getty Images)

Just as reading and writing require a mentor, so does life. And Rhinelander becomes that for Stockdale, who comes to spend countless hours in Professor Rhinelander’s office getting reading recommendations and life advice, discussing big ideas, and ultimately taking Rhinelander’s course in philosophy. But before all that, Rhinelander lent Stockdale a book—an introduction to the very same Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius was introduced to all those years before: Epictetus. It changed Stockdale’s life.

Michelle Howard, a graduate of the Naval Academy and our first female four-star admiral, would say, “You can either figure it out on your own and stumble. . . or you can talk to someone who has the same shared experiences.” We can learn by trial and error, or we can learn from the experiences of others.

Because as the Stoics say: It is impossible to learn that which you think you already know. Ego gets in the way. Our ambition gets in the way. Our entitlements get in the way. Our conceit gets in the way. There’s a famous statue of Nero, who was also given a great teacher in Seneca, one of the wisest minds in the ancient world. And he, too, had the opportunity for years and years of on-the-job study. But he resents Seneca’s leadership, and as you can see in the statue by Eduardo Barrón González, his body language resembles that of the petulant teenager, the person whose ego tells them that they already know everything they need to know. It is the sulking, close-minded, deliberate ignorance of a petty narcissist. All the things that Nero was and all the things that ultimately proved to be his undoing.

Look, learning is not always fun. Mentors are not always nice. The course they set out for us is not always easy. But as Epictetus said, and as Stockdale would have read, the philosopher’s lecture is a hospital. It’s painful, he says. You shouldn’t walk out of it feeling good, but you should still be in pain because you weren’t well when you entered the work, the rework, the changes, the remedies. Where we end up, that is what matters and that is what’s important.

I think of the World War II hero, General George S. Patton, who sincerely believed he was the reincarnated spirit of countless warriors from the past. He wrote in a famous poem: Through a glass, and darkly / The age long strife I see / Where I fought in many guises, / Many names, but always me. And there is a story about him touring the site where the awful and violent Battle of the Wilderness in 1864 was fought during the Civil War, 20 years before Patton’s birth. And as he discussed the battle with his tour guide, he began to argue, saying that the tour guide’s version of events was incorrect, that it happened this way and the troops had traveled that way. Patton believed he had been there as a boy.

I think the explanation here is that, as a young boy, Patton was almost debilitatingly dyslexic. He did not write or read until he was 11 years old. His parents actually kept him out of school. They were worried that he would never do these things, and wondered if he was disabled in some form. But instead of giving up on their son, what they did was they read to him a lot. They read him The Odyssey, and every classic they could get their hands on. His father also used his professional connections to bring in Civil War veterans and politicians and any well-known person that he could contact, so that Patton could ask them every question he possibly could.

He grew up surrounded by history. History—these myths, these legends, these great moments, great battles, great personalities—became almost real to him. He had lived with them in a way that his fellow schoolchildren never could have even imagined.

This is what books ultimately became to Patton, who became a lifelong reader and was seen reading in all of his campaigns. It was said that by the time World War II broke out, he had read nearly every book about war ever published. He read books about everything he could get his hands on. And the reason he did this is that through history we annex, as Seneca said, all the errors and wisdom of the past into our own lives. It’s what I do every time I pick up a book. It’s what Stockdale was doing when he was introduced to Epictetus.

Reading is a superpower. Because when we are reading, we are not just conversing with the dead who created that book, but all the dead people who have read it since your predecessors—your ancestors who picked it up in a library, whose parents read it to them, who were recommended it by a friend whose lives were changed by the ideas in those books.

The great General James Mattis, who spent 40 years in the Marine Corps and became secretary of defense, would say “reading is an honor and a gift from a warrior or historian who—a decade or a thousand decades ago—set aside time to write. He distilled a lifetime of campaigning in order to have a ‘conversation’ with you.”

Who would decline such a supernatural experience?

Unfortunately, this is precisely what so many of us do to follow breaking news, to gossip, to veg out in front of the television, to distract ourselves with social media.

Stockdale claimed that he didn’t have time to be “a bookworm” while he was a fighter pilot, but that he still spent several hours buried in books each week. “On my bedside table,” he explained, “no matter what carrier I was aboard, were my Epictetus books: Enchiridion, Discourses, Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates, and The Iliad and The Odyssey. (Epictetus expected his students to be familiar with Homer’s plots.)”

My own copy of Meditations is pretty worse for wear after 20-odd years. Its cover is falling off, nearly every page is marked or folded. But that’s the point. I am not just reading it, but rereading it and rereading it, and each time I pick it up, I take something new out of it. As Heraclitus said: “You can’t step in the same river twice.” Although the book doesn’t change, you change, the world changes, and thus you take something new out of it each time. And I am communing not just with Marcus Aurelius, who is dead. I am communing with a younger version of myself who captured a bit of myself in these pages, in these memorabilia that I left behind. And I can see who I used to be.

I can disagree with myself. I can talk with my younger, more ignorant self. When I say that we have to read, I don’t just mean we read the popular books or we read the acceptable books. We have to read critically. We have to read dangerously.

Understanding and being familiar with something is not the same as liking or endorsing or embracing it.

Seneca said that we have to read like a spy in the enemy’s camp. And this is what he was doing. Seneca wasn’t afraid of a rival’s school of philosophy. In the fall of 1961, Stockdale enrolled in a class he had eagerly been trying to get into, which was a class on comparative Marxist thought. He said that what struck him about the class is that they didn’t read criticisms of Marx or summaries of Marxism. They read only the Marxists themselves.

Stockdale was reading like a spy in the enemy’s camp. He would write a letter home to his father that one of the things he learned from his parents is that you can’t beat something you don’t understand, that you will be better equipped to beat something you understand than something you don’t understand. Something you have closed your mind to.

Today we should consider what Stockdale would think about the news that almost 400 books have been removed from the Naval Academy library. I suspected at first that it was an April Fools’ joke. The idea that the best and brightest stars in the country are seen as too fragile, too easily manipulated, too susceptible to be exposed to works that people don’t like or disagree with.

This transgresses the very ethos, the very purpose of higher education, which is to challenge, which is to open doors, which is to allow you to understand things. And understanding and being familiar with something is not the same as liking or endorsing or embracing it. Because when people tell you you shouldn’t be allowed to read something, you shouldn’t be able to engage with an idea, it is precisely those ideas that intellectually curious people ought to go toward.

Read dangerously. Read curiously. Plunge into unfamiliar territory. Get behind enemy lines, and seek to understand anything and everything, particularly the points of view of the people you disagree with. Steelman rather than strawman. Investigate rather than persecute. This is what Seneca was saying: We must read like a spy in the enemy’s camp.

But also, I think it’s essential to point out here that the books that have been removed from the library at the Naval Academy are not Marxist texts or Mein Kampf. They are, in many cases, art, literature, works of legitimate, if not controversial, scholarship. They are criticisms of America and American history. Maya Angelou is not the enemy. If Stockdale can read the enemy and try to understand, we certainly can make room for some of our greatest poets and writers.

And you never know when this information is going to be of use to you in the future, when this understanding, when this curiosity will benefit you.

Having studied at Stanford, Stockdale ended up back in the army, fighting in Vietnam, where he was ultimately imprisoned at the Hanoi Hilton. He was repeatedly interrogated and tortured. And he was able to withstand, in part, the propaganda and the misinformation and the barrage of criticism and questions that were thrown at him because, as he said, he understood Marxist theory more than his interrogators did. Later, he would speak of pushing back against one of his interrogators, nicknamed Rabbit. “That’s not what Lenin said,” he’d say. “You’re a deviationist. You’re paraphrasing; you’re deviating from the party line.” It was his familiarity with the ideas that allowed him to do this.

If the history you are reading doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you are not reading history. If your deepest held beliefs aren’t regularly being challenged, I don’t know what path you are on, but it is not the path to wisdom. Things are not simple, and if they are simple to you, you are doing it wrong.

Maybe you know the Tennyson poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” or the Iron Maiden song about it. It’s about soldiers who didn’t need to ride into the valley of Death. Although their heroism was incredible, it was also pointless. If the commanding officer, who knew that the charge was almost certainly mistaken, had the courage to question what obviously resulted from a miscommunication, that heroism wouldn’t have been necessary. They could have been saved for another day.

I would argue that all change, all innovation, not only comes from questioning the status quo but is made possible despite the resistance against it. Look at the history of the Navy. Steamships were resisted and ironclads were resisted. Submarines were resisted, and aircraft carriers were resisted. So, too, was integration. So, too, were the reforms that allowed women to enlist, and the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Just because something has been true for a long time, just because it’s been repeated, just because it’s comfortable, doesn’t mean it’s right.

We have to figure out a way to respect tradition but despise convention. To preserve traditions that are worth preserving, but be willing to embrace change and abhor complacency. Those who are being trained for leadership are being selected for their ability to think and to learn and to adapt to think for themselves. That is what they bring to this future.

You should be curious. You should investigate. You should put everything to the test. You don’t need to be scared about the books you have access to. And if you are scared—what business do you have being in charge of anyone, let alone a cutting-edge fighter jet or an aircraft carrier or a weapon of any kind?

Whoever you are, wherever you are in life, it’s not just about becoming a student, but about remaining a student for the rest of your days. General Mattis, who fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Gulf, said that there is assigned reading for every rank of Marine, that even generals are assigned new sets of books that they must consume. Whatever your rank, there are people who have been in your exact shoes who have written about or been written about, and that experience is there for you. You can talk to them, you can travel back in time. You can anticipate the future problems you’re going to have.

To face them, you will need wisdom. You will need something to draw on, and you can only make that withdrawal if you’ve been making the deposits along the way.

Stockdale said that it’s in hardship that the heroes and the bums get sorted out. For him, the pivotal moment came in September 1965. That was when, while piloting an A-4 Skyhawk over North Vietnam, he began to take flak and had to eject. And as he was parachuting down into what he knew would be certain imprisonment and quite possibly death, he said to himself, “I am leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.”

In this moment, he is thinking of what he had learned at Stanford. He is drawing on the wisdom that he had been studying, not just there in his college days, but also in his bunk on the carrier. And then he was exposed to years of solitary confinement, deprivation, torture. He said it was the laboratory of human experience, and it was an ordeal that is almost incomprehensible. In these early days, as the highest-ranking in the Hanoi Hilton there, he had to put a lot of thought into what his orders should be, how he would communicate to the men he was charged with leading—which he did, tapping through the walls in furtive moments and brief encounters, through the letters he wrote home, through the messages that were passed man to man.

He was rewriting what it meant to be a prisoner of war, rewriting what it meant to resist, rewriting what it meant to stand on principle, he said. “I remember Phil Rhinelander telling me one time,” Stockdale recounted, “that a man with a proper education could, should the necessity arise, refound his own civilization.”

That’s exactly what Stockdale had to do: create a prison civilization. “We as a group,” he said, “had to develop the confidence to disregard bogus orders from home; we had to become the center of our own world where we could bring out the best in ourselves. We had to have our own laws, our own customs, maybe our own heroes.”

It was exactly as his father had hoped. In the worst circumstances imaginable, Stockdale found a way to be the best man there, to be superior to others. Certainly he was superior to those who tried to break him.

And that’s what wisdom is. That’s what virtue is about.

Ryan Holiday owns and operates The Painted Porch Bookshop in Bastrop, Texas. He also is a devoted Stoic and joined an episode of Honestly to discuss why power corrupts, how ego can destroy you, and the limits of loyalty. For more of his work, explore his YouTube channel here, and his website here.

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

12. Is a Military Coup Unfolding at the Pentagon?

I have to disagree with this premise, at least as it pertains to the uniformed military and the professional civil servants. I will not accept the argument that the uniformed military is conducting a coup.

Did a "cabal of officers" force these political appointees out? Or was it their own actions? Were uniformed military officers responsible for the "leaks?"

Is there a cabal of officers trying to undermine civilian control of the military? I have never known a single military officer who believed there should be anything but civilian control of the military.

But the question is will this article and discussions like it weaken or strengthen the inviolate principle of civilian control of our military? I remain optimistic that the vast majority of officers will defend civilian control whether they like or agree with the political appointees or not. To do otherwise is to violate our oath of office.

Excerpts:

As Secretary of Defense, Hegseth is supposed to embody civilian control of the military, a civilian who oversees the Pentagon, not a part of it. Yet his office has been all but hollowed out in recent days, with five of his top aides being mysteriously drummed out. This includes:

Hegseth’s Chief of Staff Joe Kasper,

Hegseth’s Deputy Chief of Staff Darin Selnick,

Hegseth’s senior advisor Dan Caldwell

Hegseth’s assistant for public affairs, John Ullyot, and

Colin Carroll, Chief of staff to the Deputy Defense Secretary.

Caldwell, one of the people fired, alluded to the dynamic in a Monday interview:

“… let's be honest, everyone knows where that's [the leaks] coming from. It's from the career staff who don't like what the president and the secretary and vice president wanna do. There's people on the joint staff that I’ve come to respect, but a lot of them are incredibly hostile to the secretary, to the president, and the vice president's worldview.”

“For all the concern people have been expressing about a constitutional crisis, we’re closer to one here than we are with immigration,” a senior retired general officer tells me.

...

“I’m not comfortable with a cabal of officers agitating to undermine civilian control,” the retired general officer says. He points out that liberals and Trump-haters should equally be concerned. “If Bernie Sanders were president and he was slashing the defense budget, I would imagine that people would be zealously defending him, saying that cutting back the military is the will of the American people, that that’s why they elected him in the first place.”

Is a Military Coup Unfolding at the Pentagon?

The Hegseth scandal threatens civilian control of the military

Ken Klippenstein

Apr 22, 2025

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/is-a-military-coup-unfolding-at-the?utm

kenklippenstein.com · by Ken Klippenstein

Hegseth

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is embroiled in yet another scandal, but there’s a far greater crisis lurking behind his leaky ship, one that has real consequences for America.

It is a campaign of subversion carried out by the military brass, one that is undermining the very principle of civilian control of the military. Through leaks, forced firings, insubordination and other forms of bureaucratic intransigence, the Pentagon bureaucracy is going out of its way to destroy his tenure (something he was plenty capable of himself!)

“As much as Hegseth’s detractors might be right that he is chaotic and ‘unqualified,’” a senior serving officer said in an email exchange with me this week, “he is Senate confirmed. It’s up to Donald Trump to remove him, not the uniformed military because they want someone else to lead them.”

Hegseth is, of course, a dumbass. He vows to bring back a “warrior culture” but all I see is a culture warrior. His focus on fighting “wokeness” in the military is a tedious detour into AM radio slop, especially while the U.S. is engaged in real wars in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and here at home.

Uniformed military officers and Pentagon officials I’ve talked to agree with this assessment, and they agree that those trying to defeat Hegseth are operating dangerously outside their lane. As one said to me over the weekend, “you can’t say you’re defending your oath and the Constitution while working to undermine it.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that “the entire Pentagon is working against” Hegseth. Whatever you think of Hegseth or the hyperbole, this is not good for America.

We have a civilian in charge of the military (with the president as “commander-in-chief”) to ensure that the military is accountable to the people and their elected representatives, not to the whims of those in uniform. “If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military,” President Harry Truman once said. The general and admirals don’t get to decide their priorities, or their budget, or even their own terms of service.

As Secretary of Defense, Hegseth is supposed to embody civilian control of the military, a civilian who oversees the Pentagon, not a part of it. Yet his office has been all but hollowed out in recent days, with five of his top aides being mysteriously drummed out. This includes:

Hegseth’s Chief of Staff Joe Kasper,
Hegseth’s Deputy Chief of Staff Darin Selnick,
Hegseth’s senior advisor Dan Caldwell
Hegseth’s assistant for public affairs, John Ullyot, and
Colin Carroll, Chief of staff to the Deputy Defense Secretary.

Caldwell, one of the people fired, alluded to the dynamic in a Monday interview:

“… let's be honest, everyone knows where that's [the leaks] coming from. It's from the career staff who don't like what the president and the secretary and vice president wanna do. There's people on the joint staff that I’ve come to respect, but a lot of them are incredibly hostile to the secretary, to the president, and the vice president's worldview.”

“For all the concern people have been expressing about a constitutional crisis, we’re closer to one here than we are with immigration,” a senior retired general officer tells me.

As he and others I talked to have explained, Hegseth is being undermined and perhaps even drummed out of office by the uniformed military, aided by the permanent bureaucracy. One official told me that there had been tension between Hegseth’s office and the top commander in the Middle East over policy and priorities. A senior military intelligence specialist told me that Hegseth is near-universally loathed by the uniformed colleagues he works with.

On the rare occasion these days that civilian control has been raised at all by the press, it’s inverted to say that the firing of this or that general somehow undermines civilian control of the military. These same stories often quote generals criticizing the firings with zero awareness of the irony.

In some cases civilian control is outright dismissed as an annoying detail. Former Council on Foreign Relations president Richard N. Haas scoffed at the relevance of civilian control on MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday. “You’ve got, obviously, civilian primacy, but, you know, you have a civilian in the Pentagon who’s violating rules,” he said.

Instead what we get in the news media is a titillating blow-by-blow, with military brass leaking unflattering but often frivolous details about Hegseth’s conduct. It is direct retaliation on the part of the bureaucracy, what Donald Trump calls the “Deep State.”

“I’m not comfortable with a cabal of officers agitating to undermine civilian control,” the retired general officer says. He points out that liberals and Trump-haters should equally be concerned. “If Bernie Sanders were president and he was slashing the defense budget, I would imagine that people would be zealously defending him, saying that cutting back the military is the will of the American people, that that’s why they elected him in the first place.”

More than just the abstract concerns about civilian control, the stakes are very real. Now with the departures of Hegseth’s top civilian aides, the Pentagon brass is more empowered to run defense policy with minimal interference. This comes in the context of a growing war on the southern border and ongoing tensions with Iran, tensions which nearly culminated in a massive joint U.S.-Israeli strike, as the New York Times reported last week.

As the Times describes it, while Trump officials opposed military action, including Hegseth, Michael (“Erik”) Kurilla, the four-star Army general and leader of U.S. Central Command, wanted to join Israel. The military was scrambling to develop an operations plan to attack Iran, largely, according to the Times, because Kurilla was nearing retirement and wanted to go out with a bang.

Per the Times:

“... even if U.S. assistance was forthcoming, Israeli military commanders said that such an operation would take months to plan. That presented problems. With General Kurilla’s duty tour expected to conclude in the next few months, Israeli and American officials wanted to develop a plan that could be carried out while he was still in command.”

With a record number of B-2 bombers and two aircraft carriers deployed in the region, the military is doing what it does, which is to be ready when the President and the Secretary of Defense gives the order. But a military commander going rogue and “preparing” for a strike, with the added danger that he maneuvers his forces in such a way to possibly cause an inadvertent war? That’s the very reason the Secretary of Defense is in the chain of command.

Part of the reason civilian control gets so little attention is because of how much it’s been eroded already. When Barack Obama became president, he hired a retired general to be his national security advisor, and he hired retired generals and admirals as the CIA director and the Director of National Intelligence. Obama was clearly trying to shore up his national security credentials, but the move also politicized the military in that these were Democrat generals and admirals. Since then, some of those appointees (Mike Hayden, for example) have become vociferous Trump critics and regulars on the partisan circuit.

This isn’t just a Democrat problem, though. When Donald Trump nominated retired Marine Corps General James Mattis, the “warrior monk,” to be his first Secretary of Defense in 2017, it was the first time since 1950 that a retired general had been selected for the civilian position (and only the second time in U.S. history). Retired generals are forbidden by law from serving as Defense Secretary before a seven-year “cooling off” period, but Trump waived the requirement.

Mattis ended up quitting because of a dispute with Donald Trump over the president’s desire to remove U.S. troops from Syria, but the tenure left behind a sense that a retired general knew better, basically the opposite of what the Constitution sought to establish.

When Joe Biden became president, he selected retired Army General Lloyd Austin to be his Secretary of Defense. Democratic congressman Jared Golden, a member of the Armed Services committee and a Marine Corps veteran, voted against Austin. Per his statement:

“History shows that Congress has long respected and taken seriously the requirement of civilian control and provided a waiver for only the most exceptional circumstances. I do not believe we find ourselves in such circumstances today.”

Senior military officials also tell me that many of the top military commanders bristle because the Secretary of Defense was “only” a Major when he served in the military, and thus is far beneath them.

Congressman Adam Smith, ranking member on the Armed Services committee, even told Anderson Cooper yesterday that Trump’s new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine “seems like a decent person, but he’s [only] a three star general,” to give you a sense of that world’s obsession with rank.

I invite the congressman to consider how many wars his brilliant four stars have won. Why should they be in charge?

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Trump Is Losing Asia

An incoherent policy is speeding Beijing’s rise.

By Robert A. Manning, a distinguished fellow with the Strategic Foresight Hub at the Stimson Center, where he works on its global foresight and China programs.

Foreign Policy · by Robert A. Manning

April 21, 2025, 11:31 AM

For more than a decade, security and economic dynamics in the Asia-Pacific have been pulling in opposite directions. Geopolitical tensions and competing nationalisms have reinforced the U.S. role as a security guarantor, while China’s economic rise has integrated regional economies more closely with one another and China and pulled them away from the United States, as Evan Feigenbaum and I argued in these pages 13 years ago.

Yet U.S. policy toward the region has been mostly one of continuity. Is this sustainable—or is the combination of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, disparaging of allies, retreat from the values and institutions of the post-World War II order, and decoupling from China forcing the region to make the dreaded either-or choice?

So far, U.S. security policy seems insulated from the Trump revolution. A leaked interim defense strategy memo says the region remains a strategic priority for the United States. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s March trip to Asia appeared to offer further reassurance to allies. Hegseth’s trip included a speech in Honolulu pledging to “work with our allies and our partners” to counter China; in Japan, an effort to advance a Biden-era initiative to create a joint military headquarters in Tokyo; and in the Philippines, revealing new U.S. weapons systems to be deployed to deter China.

It may be that the inertia of military-centric cooperation in response to Chinese coercive behavior—such as the China Coast Guard blocking Filipino fishers and the Philippine Navy from operating in the country’s own exclusive economic zone and intimidating Vietnam from developing offshore gas fields in its own waters—sustains its momentum. But economic trends and both the words and deeds of the Trump administration point to a unilateral “America First” agenda so riddled with contradictions and competing goals that a coherent policy is unlikely to emerge.

Why? For the past 70 years, the Asian peace, like the European peace, has been underpinned by the United States as the guarantor of security and by the prosperity of the U.S.-led financial system, with inclusive and relatively open markets. Washington has been a development catalyst and consumer of last resort, facilitating the Asian miracle.

This symbiotic arrangement has been slowly eroding in direct proportion to China’s rapid emergence and the diffusion of wealth and power from West to East generated by globalization. The United States accounts for a declining share of Asia-Pacific trade and is not in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) or the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the region’s key free trade agreements, despite having spent years trying to negotiate the CPTPP’s predecessor, which Trump withdrew from in 2017. In the new geometry of trade, the United States is self-marginalizing, and China has become the top trading partner to most countries in the region. Intraregional trade has now reached nearly 60 percent of the total.

The U.S. role was already becoming marginalized, and now Trump is blowing up an already fragile system. The decoupling of the United States and China—43 percent of world GDP between them—is disrupting businesses across Asia. In a matter of weeks, sweeping tariffs, imposed and lifted again at seemingly the whim of the president, are read as an economic declaration of war. Trump is undermining free trade agreements with Australia, South Korea, and Singapore. The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and Voice of America—tools of soft power projecting American values and presence—also sent a signal.

Though China’s political-military coercive behavior has reinforced the U.S.-led security system, Trump’s heavy-handed defense demands on allies may accelerate hedging. As Japanese negotiators arrived in Washington on April 16 for trade talks, Trump made clear that he sees defense as linked to trade in rebalancing ties, writing on his Truth Social platform: “Japan is coming in today to negotiate Tariffs, the cost of military support, and ‘TRADE FAIRNESS.’”

Trump has complained that “Japan doesn’t have to defend us” and that the United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars to defend it and therefore Tokyo should spend 3 percent of GDP on defense. In his previous term, Trump considered withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea and wants Seoul to pay more protection money, and on Taiwan, he is demanding that the island quadruple defense spending to 10 percent, which Taipei says is “impossible.”

The fusion of U.S. trade and geopolitical shifts is fast corroding trust and raising existential questions in the region about U.S. reliability as a partner, let alone a security guarantor. This is mitigated by pragmatism, as the efforts at tariff reduction deals highlight, but the psychological shock has been profound.

But don’t take it from me. The canary in the coal mine was a Feb. 14 speech by the defense minister of Singapore, a close U.S. partner, lamenting that the image of the United States has suddenly “changed from liberator to great disruptor to a landlord seeking rent.” And conservative former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull expressed Australians’ anguish, saying in an April interview with the New York Times: “We’re dealing with an America whose values no longer align with ours.”

Tariffs coming down hard on regional manufacturing hubs—Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, which since Trump’s first term have become “China+1” reshoring destinations—may wreak havoc. South Korean and Japanese auto and electronics investment (both face, at a minimum, 10 percent tariffs, plus auto, steel, and aluminum tariffs) is a key part of the Asian economic operating system.

The White House has been clear that one goal of the tariffs is to destroy regional manufacturing hubs using and transshipping Chinese components. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the administration’s tariff strategy is to force a choice to curb trade with China for lower tariffs. When White House trade advisor Peter Navarro said Vietnam’s cutting of U.S. tariffs to zero “means nothing,” he explained that “it’s the nontariff cheating that matter.” Ending these value chains would rip the region’s economic fabric.

Asian states are lining up to make deals to reduce their U.S. tariffs—buying more U.S. liquefied natural gas, buying more military equipment, and aiding U.S. shipbuilding. But they are unlikely to eliminate their trade deficit with the United States: With a nearly $30 trillion economy, the United States inevitably buys more than it sells to smaller, low- and medium-income nations such as Vietnam and Cambodia, even if tariffs are cut.

So how do these Asian states, for which export-led growth is the coin of the realm, respond? Trump may be inadvertently pushing them toward China, which is waging a charm offensive. The United States may be separating itself from the world, but much of the world is doubling down on new patterns of globalization, as Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong pledged in a major speech on April 8.

That U.S. allies South Korea and Japan met with China to renew efforts at a trilateral trade agreement and talked, according to Chinese reports, of coordinating responses to the United States is a sign of the times. Europe is exploring new economic ties to China, such as licensing electric vehicle and battery factories, as Spain and Hungary are doing. One indicator of such trends in Asia would be if China’s bid to join the CPTPP is accepted by Japan and Australia or if the European Union moves toward trade arrangements with the CPTPP. Such scenarios could sustain a post-U.S. rules-based system and shape new rules and tech standards.

Another risk from Asia’s loss of confidence in the United States is de-dollarization. Asian countries may see the United States under Trump as less of a safe haven for some $3 trillion in U.S. Treasurys recycled from their trade surpluses, which help fund the $37 trillion U.S. budget deficit.

But to fully capitalize on U.S. economic self-marginalization, Beijing would need to revise its policies. Beijing can’t shift its $439 billion in U.S. exports to the global south, already so alarmed about Chinese overcapacity that they’ve filed dozens of complaints against China to the World Trade Organization. Could Trump lead Chinese President Xi Jinping to revise predatory trade policies and beef up domestic consumption to compensate for lost U.S. markets?

How this all plays out will depend much on the fate of U.S.-China relations. There are competing factions seeking to shape Trump’s still uncertain China policy: China hawks such as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who favor weakening, decoupling, and preparing for war with Beijing; business types such as Elon Musk and finance firms that have interests in the China market; and Trump himself, always wanting a deal.

But what U.S.-China deal is possible in the toxic environment in both capitals? Trump’s disappointing deal in his first term casts a shadow over current efforts. One analogy is the 1985 Plaza Accord with Japan, which redressed similar trade tensions. Tokyo revalued the yen against the dollar, built auto factories in the United States, and agreed to voluntary export restraints. Despite frequent U.S. complaints about a weak yuan, currency is less of a problem in the U.S.-China case. In theory, they could agree to a range of fluctuation, and China might just be willing to voluntarily curb exports—but reshoring manufacturing is Trump’s goal.

During last year’s election campaign, Trump said he was fine with China building EV and battery plants in the United States and hiring U.S. workers, and joint ventures licensing Chinese technology would boost U.S. manufacturing. But it is difficult to see Congress accepting Chinese investment amid a bipartisan anti-China climate, with its efforts to remove China’s most-favored-nation status, delist Chinese firms from U.S. stock exchanges, ban China from buying land, and remove all Huawei technology, just for starters.

In the current game of chicken, China, as economist Adam Posen argues, has escalation dominance: The United States needs irreplaceable stuff from China (i.e., rare earths) more than China needs U.S. goods. Asymmetric interdependence may ultimately temper the trade war. But both sides are decoupling the two intertwined economies, with $582 billion in trade in 2024. Business, the ballast of the U.S.-China relationship over the past four decades, is now spurring separation. Strategic competition in all domains—land, sea, air, and space—is not abating. Tensions over Taiwan are already on the razor’s edge.

For the Asia-Pacific, full-spectrum U.S.-China competition will at a minimum fuel hedging on both economics and security. It may mean bandwagoning with China on trade while deepening already thickening intra-Asian security cooperation now driven by not just Chinese coercion but U.S. unreliability, if not imperiousness.

Which Asian states will elide Chinese investments in their value chains, ban Chinese digital networks, or shun its artificial intelligence or weapons? Who can put their trust in a Washington willing to shred agreements without even a moment’s notice? The specter of Chinese ambitions will prolong the viability of the U.S.-led latticework of allies and partners as a counterweight, even as trust in the United States becomes wobblier and more uncertain. Who will show up—or allow the United States access to ports and airfields—in a China-Taiwan contingency?

Will America First politics sustain the U.S. role as the region’s top cop or ebb as it is marginalized economically in Asia? Whatever Taiwan’s fate, for East Asia, the United States may stay or go, but China is forever. More than ever, U.S. determination to stay on top in the Asia-Pacific is fighting both geography and economics.

Foreign Policy · by Robert A. Manning

14. Critical Followership: Thinking, Failing, and Leading

Perhaps these lessons may be useful for some in the Pentagon given the current controversies. Some thoughts here to provoke critical thinking.

Excerpts:

The modern battlefield is unpredictable, requiring a force that can think as well as fight. Encouraging soldiers to engage critically with their roles strengthens operational effectiveness and ensures military organizations remain agile in the face of evolving threats. By embracing critical followership, military institutions can foster a culture of excellence, where both leaders and followers contribute meaningfully to mission success.

It is this very cohort today from which tomorrow’s senior leaders—and critically, their followers—will emerge. The future of military leadership depends on those in uniform today. If cadets and junior officers are not encouraged to develop habits of critical followership now, when will they? Leadership is a continuum that begins with followership, and fostering an environment where subordinates can critically engage with their superiors ensures that tomorrow’s military leaders will be more adaptable, insightful, and effective.

Opinion / Perspective| The Latest

Critical Followership: Thinking, Failing, and Leading

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/04/24/critical-followership-thinking-failing-and-leading/

by Siamak Naficy

04.24.2025 at 06:00am

Introduction

Critical thinking is essential for military leadership, yet its counterpart— critical followership—remains underexplored. Effective military operations rely not only on strong leadership but also on subordinates capable of independent assessment, adaptation, and constructive feedback. Leaders emerge through experiences as followers, making critical followership an indispensable component of mission success.

Critical followership entails independent thought while remaining aligned with organizational goals. Unlike passive obedience, it fosters adaptability and resilience in dynamic environments. Understanding that leadership and followership are intertwined roles within the broader leadership framework is crucial. Effective followership enhances mission success through questioning assumptions, providing informed feedback, and executing orders with strategic awareness.

Positive vs. Negative Followership

Followership is not passive; it actively shapes organizational effectiveness. Critical followership—characterized by independent thinking, initiative, and alignment with the leader’s intent—enhances mission success. In contrast, uncritical followership, whether in the form of blind obedience or passive resistance, can lead to inefficiencies and mission failure.

Robert E. Kelley’s work on followership identifies key styles:

Alienated Followers: Critical but passive, often cynical and disengaged.
Conformist Followers: Active but uncritical, executing orders without questioning effectiveness.
Exemplary Followers: Critical and engaged, balancing independence with loyalty to mission objectives.

Understanding these styles helps foster an adaptive, resilient military force. Different challenges require distinct followership approaches:

Wicked Problems: Require constructive dissent to challenge flawed intelligence or strategic missteps.
Tame Problems: Demand technical expertise and adherence to protocol for operational success.
Critical Situations: Necessitate immediate compliance to maintain order and discipline.

A failure to encourage critical followership results in operational inefficiencies and mission failure. Engaging with alienated followers and ensuring that conformist followers develop critical thinking skills are essential leadership tasks. Leaders must foster an environment where followers feel empowered to voice concerns without fear of retribution. This balance ensures both discipline and innovation, preventing stagnation and groupthink within military units.

Followership in Command, Management, and Leadership

Military effectiveness depends on the interplay between command, management, and leadership, each demanding different followership approaches.

Command (Obedient Followership in Crisis): Requires immediate execution of orders, with rapid situational judgment within defined parameters.
Management (Competent Followership in Structured Environments): Involves optimizing processes while applying critical thinking within established guidelines.
Leadership (Adaptive Followership in Complex Situations): Demands anticipation of challenges, strategic problem-solving, and adaptation to evolving conditions.

By integrating positive and negative followership models within these categories, military institutions can refine how subordinates engage critically while maintaining cohesion and order.

Mary Parker Follett’s insight that “The best leader knows how to make his followers actually feel power themselves, not merely acknowledge his power” underscores the active role of followership in shaping outcomes. Followers are not passive recipients but participants in decision-making, reinforcing the necessity of critical engagement.

A robust military force thrives on its ability to cultivate intelligent, adaptable personnel. Training programs should not merely focus on leadership development but also on followership training, equipping soldiers with the cognitive tools to assess situations critically. Emphasizing mission command philosophy, where subordinates exercise disciplined initiative, ensures they can operate effectively in uncertain conditions. When soldiers understand the intent behind orders rather than blindly executing commands, they contribute meaningfully to strategic objectives.

The Necessity of Critical Thinking in the Military

Anna Simons (2012) in “How Critical Should Critical Thinking Be?” examines the challenge of fostering analytical reasoning within military constraints. Critical followership builds on this idea by shifting focus from leadership to followership, emphasizing its role in mission command and decentralized decision-making. By refining models of followership, we can strike a balance where adaptability enhances operational effectiveness without eroding cohesion and order.

Military education often frames critical thinking as a leadership trait, yet it is equally vital for effective followership. Soldiers who apply critical thought without undermining command structures enhance adaptability and decision-making. Striking a balance between independent analysis and disciplined execution strengthens military effectiveness, mitigating operational risks and fostering resilience.

The ability to think critically in high-pressure environments allows followers to identify potential threats and inconsistencies in intelligence. Encouraging constructive skepticism within the ranks prevents strategic miscalculations. However, fostering critical followership requires trust—leaders must be open to feedback, creating an environment where subordinates feel comfortable challenging flawed reasoning. Without this openness, hierarchical rigidity stifles innovation, leading to ineffective decision-making.

Overcoming Barriers to Critical Followership

Despite its benefits, several challenges hinder the development of critical followership. Traditional military hierarchies often discourage questioning authority, reinforcing a culture of obedience over inquiry. To counteract this, military training institutions must integrate exercises that promote decision-making under uncertainty, fostering adaptability without eroding discipline. From the Prussian Auftragstaktik to modern decentralized command structures, militaries that encourage initiative and critical engagement at all levels tend to outperform those that emphasize blind obedience.

A key challenge is distinguishing between constructive dissent and insubordination. Followers must learn how to present concerns tactfully, ensuring their feedback contributes to mission success rather than undermining authority. Leaders, in turn, must differentiate between questioning that strengthens operational effectiveness and resistance that disrupts cohesion.

Additionally, cognitive biases pose a threat to effective followership. Confirmation bias, groupthink, and authority bias can cloud judgment, leading to poor decisions. Training programs should incorporate scenario-based exercises that challenge these biases, encouraging followers to assess situations objectively.

The Role of Education and Training

To cultivate critical followership, military education must evolve beyond technical skill-building to include cognitive and ethical development. Programs should emphasize:

Scenario-Based Learning: Simulated battlefield environments that require rapid, independent decision-making.
Case Studies: Analyzing historical military failures and successes through the lens of followership.
Ethical Decision-Making: Encouraging soldiers to weigh the moral implications of orders.
Communication Skills: Training followers to articulate concerns constructively and propose viable alternatives.

By incorporating these elements, military institutions can develop soldiers who not only execute orders but also contribute to strategic success through informed decision-making.

Conclusion

The U.S. military operates under the principle of mission command, which empowers leaders at all levels to exercise judgment and initiative. Orders are issued with both a task and a purpose—so if circumstances make the task unfeasible, soldiers can adapt while still achieving the broader objective. Many soldiers who have served in ambiguous combat zones describe moments where doctrine and reality clash—where the map says one thing, but the terrain tells a different story. Navigating this tension is where critical thinking must thrive, yet without undermining military cohesion. Understanding intent enables flexibility, which is critical in complex and unpredictable combat environments.

Decentralized decision-making and initiative at lower levels improve military effectiveness. A Ukrainian non-hierarchical approach initially helped counter Russian forces and serves as a successful albeit short-lived example of mission command in practice. In contrast, the Russian (and non-NATO) model generally is rigidly task-focused, providing no additional guidance or room for adjustment. This fundamental difference underscores the importance of critical thinking in military effectiveness.

Fostering critical followership enhances military success further by promoting adaptability, reducing risk, and improving decision-making at all levels. Recognizing followership as an active intellectual process enables military institutions to navigate modern warfare’s complexities more effectively. Leaders who cultivate an environment of critical engagement empower their subordinates, ensuring a more strategic, resilient force.

The modern battlefield is unpredictable, requiring a force that can think as well as fight. Encouraging soldiers to engage critically with their roles strengthens operational effectiveness and ensures military organizations remain agile in the face of evolving threats. By embracing critical followership, military institutions can foster a culture of excellence, where both leaders and followers contribute meaningfully to mission success.

It is this very cohort today from which tomorrow’s senior leaders—and critically, their followers—will emerge. The future of military leadership depends on those in uniform today. If cadets and junior officers are not encouraged to develop habits of critical followership now, when will they? Leadership is a continuum that begins with followership, and fostering an environment where subordinates can critically engage with their superiors ensures that tomorrow’s military leaders will be more adaptable, insightful, and effective.

Tags: auftragstaktik, followership, leadership

About The Author

Siamak Naficy
Siamak Tundra Naficy is a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Department of Defense Analysis. An anthropologist with an interdisciplinary approach to social, biological, psychological, and cultural issues, his interests range from the anthropological approach to conflict theory to wicked problems, sacred values, cognitive science, and animal behavior. The views expressed are the author’s and do not reflect those of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, or the Naval Postgraduate School.

15. Order Without America – How the International System Can Survive a Hostile Washington

I think we should be putting all our effort into ensuring the strength of the international system that we built and make sure it keeps working for us just as every country around the world thinks it works for us.

Tearing it down because of ideology and politics and misguided beliefs or lack of historical knowledge will not do any good for America. You do not burn a village to save it.

I could be wrong and your mileage may vary as I know there are many who believe that we are getting "screwed" as some in leadership positions espouse. But we remain the richest and strongest country in the world and we have been for decades so there is that. Do we want to knock yourselves out of the top spot?

Order Without America

Foreign Affairs · by More by Ngaire Woods · April 22, 2025

How the International System Can Survive a Hostile Washington

Ngaire Woods

May/June 2025 Published on April 22, 2025

A view of the Washington Monument, Washington, D.C., January 2025 Daniel Cole / Reuters

NGAIRE WOODS is Professor of Global Economic Governance and Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford.

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In a remarkably short time, the second Trump administration has upended many of the precepts that have guided international order since the end of World War II. President Donald Trump has rapidly redefined the U.S. role in NATO while questioning U.S. defense guarantees to Europe and Japan and even intelligence sharing with its Five Eyes partners: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. At the United Nations, the United States has sided with Russia and other erstwhile adversaries, such as Belarus and North Korea, and against nearly all its traditional democratic allies. European officials, scrambling to react, have begun wondering whether they need to develop their own nuclear deterrents and whether Washington will continue to maintain U.S. troops on the continent.

Yet just as important as these security considerations is the administration’s rejection of the treaties, organizations, and economic institutions that the United States has done so much to shape. On the first day of his second term, Trump issued executive orders to withdraw from the UN Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization and imposed a 90-day pause on all delivery of U.S. foreign aid. In early February, he ordered a sweeping 180-day review of all international organizations to which the United States belongs and “all conventions and treaties to which the United States is a party.” And more aggressive moves may be coming: Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the second Trump administration, which has anticipated many Trump policies, calls for a U.S. exit from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, cornerstones of global development and economic stability that the United States has for decades guided with a firm hand.

From all this it may be easy to conclude that the postwar order is falling apart. By renouncing U.S. leadership, the Trump administration appears to be marking the end of American primacy and benevolent hegemony. As the historian Robert Kagan and others have argued, in the absence of the American superpower, a chaotic jungle may emerge. Of course, it is possible that the Trump administration could use raw power to undermine global stability and enable the United States, China, Russia, and others to carve out their own spheres of influence. In such a world, wars might be more frequent, and previous close allies of the United States, whether in Europe or Asia, could be vulnerable to outright coercion. Yet it is not preordained that this kind of breakdown will occur. The old order may well be disappearing, but whether that leads to chaos and conflict also depends on the many other countries that have until now upheld the institutions on which it has rested.

There are many ways that interstate cooperation can continue to be effective without U.S. leadership and even act as a restraining force on unilateral moves by Washington. But for that to happen, core members of the postwar order, including European countries, Japan, and other partners in Asia and elsewhere, must preemptively join together to reinforce cooperation with one another. They cannot afford to wait and see, with the risk that some might peel away. The Trump administration is moving fast to reset what the United States wants and bypassing long-established multilateral arrangements to get it. Other countries must move just as fast to protect and build on those structures, which they will need now more than ever.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

In standard accounts of international relations, order requires a powerful hegemon that is prepared to use its dominant military and economic power to uphold the rules, norms, and institutions that govern interactions among states. This understanding—known as hegemonic stability theory—is often invoked to explain the breakdown of order in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, when no country was both willing and able to underwrite cooperation: the United Kingdom was willing and the United States was able, but neither was both. By contrast, after World War II, the United States, driven by the global threat of communism, had both the will and the capacity to enforce order. Applied to today’s world, the theory suggests that a U.S. withdrawal from the international treaties and organizations it helped create would cause a collapse of order.

As the political scientist Robert Keohane pointed out in the 1980s, however, hegemonic stability theory looks only at the “supply side”: the willingness of a powerful country to supply the conditions for cooperation. But the demand side matters, too. Many countries, including the vast majority that lack dominant power, support various forms of multilateral cooperation to secure their own interests. That demand exists because in a world rife with competition, uncertainty, and conflicts, most countries recognize that ad hoc deal-by-deal diplomacy is unlikely to succeed. Such deals will tend to favor strong powers and thus lead to the kind of coercive behavior Trump has already used against weaker countries such as Canada and Mexico. As a result, even in the absence of a hegemon, countries may seek collective institutions to pool their power, build a bulwark against instability, and capture the mutual gains that occur when a modicum of cooperation is achieved. This insight suggests new possibilities for order without the United States.

In fact, multilateralism without a hegemon has a long history in Europe. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, the European powers convened to create a rudimentary order. What emerged was the Concert of Europe, a group that would come to include Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Although the United Kingdom had great naval and economic strength at the time, it did not have hegemonic power over the continent. Rather, a combination of diplomatic cooperation and a balance of power kept order until the Crimean War and the unifications of Germany and Italy disrupted it. A yet older example of such cooperation is the Hanseatic League, the confederation established by northern European cities in the thirteenth century to protect and promote their trading interests. Highly successful, it flourished for hundreds of years.

Multilateralism without a hegemon has a long history in Europe.

Since World War II, although Washington has occupied a hegemonic role in the overall order, there have been several prominent examples of demand-driven cooperation among groups of countries that do not include the United States. Take the European Union. Even in the face of U.S. apprehensions about protectionism, European countries successfully organized their economies as one large, powerful bloc. As a result, Europe has strong and durable institutions, including collective financial resources, such as the European Central Bank and the European Investment Bank, which now have major influence in international affairs. And as European countries scale up public investment to respond to the world’s overlapping crises amid volatile changes in American foreign and trade policy, the euro could provide an attractive alternative to the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency.

Another prominent example of interstate cooperation without a hegemon is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, a group that includes the major oil producers of Africa and the Middle East, as well as Venezuela. Since its establishment in 1960, OPEC has suffered defections, internal price wars, and regular cheating on its quota limits, but it has nonetheless empowered a group of resource-rich countries without strong armies or diversified economies to sway global affairs and generate leverage in capitals around the world. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the group has successfully coordinated production quotas among its own members and the ten other countries that form OPEC+ to stabilize and sustain high oil prices, furnishing its members more than a trillion dollars in gross revenue.

A looser form of demand-driven multilateral organization is the BRICS+ group of countries. Founded in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, BRIC (as it was known then) has since grown to ten members. Although some have dismissed it as an ineffectual attempt to provide an alternative to Western-dominated international financial institutions, the group is held together by a shared interest in reducing risks. For example, many BRICS+ members worry that their reliance on the U.S. dollar and U.S.-led international institutions makes them vulnerable to coercion and sanctions. They have created institutions that they hope will make them more resilient, including the New Development Bank, which by the end of 2022 had approved more than $32.8 billion in loans for 96 projects in BRICS+ countries and other emerging economies.

Each of these cases illustrates that countries that have common interests or a need to protect themselves against shared risks can make effective arrangements on their own. If the Trump administration decides to withdraw from international institutions, renege on U.S. commitments, and ignore established norms of diplomacy, that does not mean that other countries cannot create and sustain frameworks for negotiation and agreement. Indeed, there are several pathways by which the world could transition from U.S.-led institutions, treaties, and alliances to ones shaped by other countries.

BUILD BANK BETTER

Among the most promising areas in which the rest of the world can sustain multilateral cooperation without the United States is international development. When the United States began erecting the postwar economic order at Bretton Woods in 1944, key pillars included the creation of the IMF and the World Bank and, subsequently, the designation of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. From then on, U.S. policy dominated both institutions and the way they managed economic crises. But the second Trump administration has already shown its hostility to many international institutions, and some policy analysts close to the president have called for a dramatic reduction of or even an end to U.S. support for the IMF and the World Bank.

If Washington takes such extreme steps, they need not lead to the collapse of economic order. On the contrary, these moves could provide a spur to other countries to rethink the institutional framework, either by remaking existing organizations or by finding alternatives to them. Consider the World Bank and its lending agencies, the International Development Association, which provides funds to the poorest countries, and the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development, which provides loans and development policy advice to middle-income countries. The IDA’s effectiveness is undisputed: it can sustain aid efforts at a fraction of what it would cost individual countries to do so alone. For every dollar a country puts in, the IDA is able to raise and lend nearly four dollars to countries most in need. The agency can achieve this multiplier effect because it fortifies countries’ direct contributions with international capital market borrowing, repayments from past IDA loans, and profit transfers from the IBRD.

If the United States stopped funding the IDA, however, other donor countries would need to step up fast. In fact, there is a strong strategic incentive for them to do so. For years, the United States, as the largest single donor, has been able to tailor IDA lending to its own interests, supported by the U.S.-led power structure of the World Bank itself. But Washington’s dominance of the IDA has long been disproportionate to its contributions. In the agency’s last replenishment, agreed to in December 2021, the United States contributed a mere 14.89 percent of overall funding, only fractionally more than Japan, which accounted for 14.63 percent. By contrast, the countries of Europe, taken together, contributed more than 50 percent. Other important donors include China at 5.62 percent, Canada at 5.04 percent, and Saudi Arabia at 2.98 percent. If the United States ceased to contribute, other donors would have an opportunity to correct this imbalance and demand more of a direct say in how the agency spent its funds.

G-7 foreign ministers at a meeting in Charlevoix, Canada, March 2025 Saul Loeb / Reuters

Of course, the United States will resist any loss of influence. The Trump administration may well try to ratchet up its control over both the IDA and the IBRD, even as it drastically decreases its own contributions. There is precedent for this: in the 1980s, the Reagan administration reduced U.S. funding to the United Nations, the IMF, and the World Bank while seeking greater control over them. Other countries failed to find an effective way to push back, and the result was yet greater U.S. influence. Similarly, the Trump administration will likely put enormous pressure on the head of each organization and perhaps even on the staff to do Washington’s bidding. The World Bank has already had to warn some of its staff not to travel through the United States after two Colombian staff members had their diplomatic visas revoked and were denied entry into the country by U.S. immigration authorities, as the Trump administration pressed the Colombian government to accept U.S. military flights carrying deportees.

Nonetheless, by acting together, other donor countries have significant leverage of their own. They must not automatically accept any new conditions imposed by the United States or leave the heads of these agencies to fend for themselves. Nor should they simply abandon the bank or let it wither. Instead, these countries must make clear to the Trump administration that the United States can either maintain its influence by contributing or lose it. And they have the tools to do so: according to World Bank rules, if one member fails to meet any of its obligations to the bank—even if it is the most powerful member—a simple majority of other countries, exercising a majority of the total voting power, can suspend that member. This rule has yet to be used.

More drastically, the United States could exit the World Bank entirely, as called for by Project 2025. European states, Japan, and other countries need to prepare for such an outcome now. According to the bank’s founding charter, if the leading contributor to the bank decides to leave, the organization’s headquarters must relocate to “the territory of the member holding the greatest number of shares.” Most likely, this would mean moving the bank to Japan, a step that could set the stage for building a coalition of members more closely involved in decision-making. Under Japan’s leadership, for example, the bank could establish a major branch of the IBRD in the territory of one of the bank’s largest fee-paying middle-income clients, such as Brazil or India; it could also place a major branch of the IDA in Europe, where many of the agency’s largest contributors are located, or in Africa, closer to its major borrowers. Likewise, China could host a major branch devoted, perhaps, to financing sustainable energy. It could sit alongside Beijing’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which already co-finances extensively with the World Bank.

In short, the inevitable shakeup of the World Bank that would result from a U.S. withdrawal could present an opportunity to strengthen the institution. By properly planning for this scenario, the World Bank’s members can ensure that the bank continues to function and that it sustains its multilateral character. Such a transformation could also become a template for how other international institutions can adapt to an order that is no longer led by the United States.

A FALTERING FUND?

Another major casualty of the Trump administration’s rejection of multilateralism could be the IMF, but the challenges it faces are different from those of the World Bank. For decades, U.S. policy has dominated the IMF, which has provided a place to pool reserves and to manage economic crises in a coordinated way. So dominant was this system in the late twentieth century that by the end of the Cold War, an international monetary and financial order without the United States seemed almost unthinkable. But the world looks very different today, and it is not just the United States that has changed.

For now, the Trump administration seems unlikely to withdraw from the IMF, which does much to protect U.S. interests using other countries’ charges and contributions. In 2023 alone, the United States reported unrealized gains from the IMF—the rise in value of U.S. shares in the fund—of $407 million. But the fund is not as important to other countries as it once was. If the Trump administration decided to reduce U.S. contributions to the IMF while exerting greater control, other members would not have to remain beholden to it. Instead, they could draw on and expand a number of emerging alternative structures that carry out many of the same functions as the IMF.

In a world that depends less on the dollar, the United States has less influence.

For one thing, many countries now have substantial foreign exchange reserves, which offer insurance against external shocks and can provide foreign currency to their own banks if they come under stress. By the end of 2018, total foreign currency reserves held globally had increased tenfold compared with 30 years earlier; two-thirds of those reserves were held by emerging and developing countries. Moreover, in building these reserves, many countries are relying less on the U.S. dollar. The proportion of foreign exchange reserves held in dollars has declined from around 71 percent in 1999 to 57 percent in 2024, as countries seek yields in easy-to-trade currencies such as the Australian dollar, the Canadian dollar, Chinese renminbi, South Korean won, the Singaporean dollar, and the Nordic currencies. The shift away from U.S. dollars could rapidly accelerate if the Trump administration acts on a trade policy document written by the economist Stephen Miran shortly before he became a senior adviser to the president, which appears to endorse the idea of forcing foreigners to convert their five- and ten-year U.S. Treasury bonds to 100-year securities bearing low interest rates; or on White House adviser Robert Lighthizer’s suggestion that the United States tax foreign purchases of U.S. treasuries. A world that depends less on the dollar and less on the IMF is a world in which a unilateralist United States will have less influence.

A second line of defense to a weakened IMF is the growing use of currency swap agreements. CSAs call directly on another country’s central bank for assistance in the event of a crisis. By 2024, China’s central bank had signed 40 bilateral swap agreements, 31 of which were in force with a total value of about $586 billion. Brazil signed swap agreements with Argentina, in 2008, worth $1.8 billion and with China, in 2013, worth $30 billion. India has concluded CSAs with more than 25 countries, in most cases prioritizing countries with which it runs a current account deficit. CSAs have often been precursors to broader agreements among countries. Since their introduction in 2009, China’s swap lines with Argentina have facilitated Chinese investment in Argentina’s strategic infrastructure.

Equally important is the emergence of regional institutions that replicate many of the IMF’s crisis-assistance roles. The Latin American Reserve Fund, or FLAR, evolved in the 1980s, offering financial support to countries in the region facing a balance-of-payments crisis. Similarly, in 2000, in the wake of the East Asian financial crisis, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations came together with China, Japan, and South Korea to create a multilateral currency swap arrangement known as the Chiang Mai Initiative, which they have subsequently strengthened. A decade later, during the eurozone crisis, European countries established their own regional arrangement—what is now called the European Stability Mechanism. In 2014, BRICS created a Contingent Reserve Arrangement, which offers financial support in a crisis or anticipatory loans to avoid a crisis. And in 2025, the African Development Bank announced the creation of the African Financial Stability Mechanism to provide concessional refinancing—offering access to capital on favorable terms—to countries in crisis. Most of these arrangements have some link to the IMF, but each is also performing substantial forms of regional governance on its own.

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

In addition to upholding institutions that support economic order, countries can respond to a renegade hegemon by reshaping multilateral political forums. For decades, the United States has used a variety of groupings, including the G-7 and, in the twenty-first century, the G-20, to bring leaders together to shape collective responses to global problems. The G-7 emerged in the 1970s when the leaders of France, the United Kingdom, the United States, West Germany, and, subsequently, Canada, Japan, and representatives of EU institutions came together to manage new economic shocks. The broader G-20 emerged in 1999 and went on to play a key role in containing the 2008 financial crisis, orchestrating a global response and guiding the actions of various multilateral organizations to address the economic fallout. Overall, the G-7 and the G-20 have played key roles in forging mutual understanding and cooperative solutions.

But the Trump administration has expressed deep skepticism of both groups. In his previous term in office, Trump took the unprecedented step of refusing to join fellow G-7 leaders in the traditional joint communiqué issued at the end of a summit. Since returning to the White House, he has also directly contradicted other G-7 members by announcing a desire to bring Russia, a country that is under extensive Western sanctions for its aggression in Ukraine, back into the group. (Russia took part in G-7 meetings from 1998 until 2014, when G-7 members disinvited it because of its annexation of Crimea.) Trump has been equally critical of the G-20, refusing to send U.S. representatives to the G-20 meetings of foreign and finance ministers in Johannesburg in February 2025. In explanation, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited both the Trump administration’s hostility to South Africa and a desire not to “coddle anti-Americanism.”

With the United States increasingly absent, other countries must now step up to reshape these groups, including planning meetings potentially without the United States. In fact, the G-7 has often had a somewhat elastic membership, sometimes meeting in smaller groupings, as when five core members met in 1985 to sign the Plaza Accord to depreciate the U.S. dollar against other leading currencies, or inviting select guest countries to take part. Similarly, the G-20 has regularly invited additional attendees. This flexibility suggests a way forward if the United States withdraws or seeks to hobble these forums.

To be effective, a new group would need to include countries with substantial economic and/or military power, such as Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Members must also have a strong commitment to existing multilateral organizations, which would exclude Russia and the current U.S. administration. Of course, the exact membership would require careful consideration. The inclusion of China in particular would present a dilemma for countries that regard China as an adversary.

China has quietly increased its role in multilateral agencies.

As many countries see it, the growing contest between China and the United States is not only for control over markets and technology but also over who controls the rules of the game. The United States has enjoyed enormous influence over international rules and norms through its position in multilateral institutions. After all, it created these agencies after World War II with loyal junior partners in Japan, the United Kingdom, and Europe. China, by contrast, has had to build up its influence elsewhere through bilateral diplomacy and by setting up multilateral institutions of its own, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

But the Trump administration is now relinquishing its influence over the multilateral system, preferring instead to handle countries one by one, transaction by transaction. In so doing, it is thrusting China to the fore, and Beijing seems well prepared. It has quietly increased its role in multilateral agencies, becoming the third-largest shareholder in the IMF and the World Bank. And it has seized opportunities to publicly advocate for the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization at a time when the United States has shown antagonism toward both. Like all powerful states, China relentlessly pursues its own national interests and participates in multilateral institutions as the best way to secure those interests in the long term. For other countries, this coincidence of self-interest and multilateralism—previously a defining characteristic of U.S. hegemony—is vital for sustaining international cooperation. Of course, it also raises the question of whether China in turn will become hegemonic. The answer to that will depend on how actively other countries press for and act on their own demands for cooperation.

Regardless of its exact membership, a new group would need to convene at speed. The United States is due to take over the leadership of the G-20 in December 2025, and other members cannot assume that the group will continue to function as it has in the past. Perhaps the longest-serving members of the original group—the governments of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—could consider convening a selection of members of the EU, the United Kingdom, and some members of BRICS+ in the intervening months, as a way of laying the groundwork for possible further shifts ahead.

BRAVE NEW ORDER

With the Trump administration’s stark rejection of multilateral rules, norms, and institutions, the postwar order shaped by U.S. leadership is disappearing. But other countries do not have to be passive bystanders. European countries, Japan, and other major allies of the United States, along with potential new coalition partners, have several options. They can step up and replace the U.S. role in existing institutions, as in the case of the IDA and the World Bank. They can find alternative ways to perform some of the same functions when institutions become fundamentally weakened. And they can build new coalitions that are willing to sustain cooperation and support collective crisis management, creating what might now be a G-9 or G-12.

The institutional order that emerges from this upheaval will be unlike the U.S.-led one that has been in place for more than eight decades. There will be serious new risks, and the presence of a hegemon that has largely withdrawn from international arrangements will pose far-reaching challenges. But taken together, the broad group of countries that continue to support global institutions and multilateralism—a group that could span from Europe to much of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East—will represent a large chunk of global GDP and will be backed by significant military power. And by rebuilding or recrafting the institutions that matter most, they can do much to maintain stability, address global problems, and protect their members against crises. If they do not, many countries may find themselves more exposed than ever, scrambling to protect narrow, short-term interests without leverage or influence in a more dangerous world.

NGAIRE WOODS is Professor of Global Economic Governance and Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Ngaire Woods · April 22, 2025

16. Trump is a revolutionary. Will he succeed?

I don't know. It is too early to tell. Most have rendered judgment already (both pro and con). BUt the project of remaking the American government has only begun. There is a lot to agree with and disagree with.

But the question for me is will we come through this and continue on with our great American experiment and be stronger for this "inflection point?" Will the constitutional principles of our federal democratic republic be stronger in the end. And we should remember that what makes America great is that we correct our mistakes. Those currently in leadership believe they are correcting past mistakes and those who come after will have the opportunity to correct what they believe are mistakes as well.

Excerpts:

Eventually, bad polls will impinge on elected officials. America is a federal system that is too big and has too many rival centres of power to become Hungary (whose population is about the same as New Jersey’s). Congress, too, could become a problem for Mr Trump. Republicans have a thin majority in the House and were able to pass a budget framework only because a couple of Democratic representatives had died. Betting markets give Democrats more than an 80% chance of winning back the House next year. Control would enable the Democrats to frustrate Mr Trump, even if he continued to govern by executive order. In the Senate, Republicans are seven votes short of the 60 needed to avoid a filibuster. Those constraints are real.

The last source of resistance is the courts. The law moves slowly, but the Supreme Court has already handed down a 9-0 ruling in the case of a man wrongly deported to El Salvador. As with other institutions, the courts have less to fear from the defiance of an unpopular president. The administration may yet lose cases on tariffs, on the president’s ability to fire officials and close agencies without congressional backing, and on Mr Trump’s scattergun use of break-glass emergency provisos such as the Alien Enemies Act. If that happens, his theory of executive power will be discredited.

Even on the most optimistic reading of the MAGA revolution, Mr Trump has already done lasting harm to America’s institutions, alliances and moral standing. And if he is thwarted by investors, voters or the courts, he is liable to lash out against institutions with even greater ferocity. Using the newly politicised Department of Justice, he may persecute his opponents and stir up the fear and conflict that give him licence to operate. Abroad, he could cause alliance-wrecking provocations in, say, Greenland or Panama. There is no going back to the way America was 100 days ago. Only 1,361 days left.

Leaders | Only the beginning

Trump is a revolutionary. Will he succeed?

He has already done lasting harm to America

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/04/24/trump-is-a-revolutionary-will-he-succeed?utm

Listen to this story

HE HYPERACTIVE first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term have been the most consequential of any president this century, and perhaps since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Before the inauguration Americans wondered what sort of government they were getting. That debate is now over. Mr Trump is leading a revolutionary project that aspires to remake the economy, the bureaucracy, culture and foreign policy, even the idea of America itself. The question for the next 1,361 days is: will he succeed?

Mr Trump’s presidency has been popular with his voters. His approval among Republicans is at 90%. He has faced little resistance as he has charged ahead on all fronts, attacking the civil service, law firms, universities, the media and any institution he associates with the Democratic-leaning elite.

As with any revolution, MAGA has a method and a theory. The method is to bend or break the law in a blitz of executive orders and, when the courts catch up, to dare them to defy the president. The theory is one of unconstrained executive power—the idea that, as Richard Nixon suggested, if the president does something then it’s legal. This has already undermined things that actually make America great: a view of the national interest large enough to take in paying for AIDS medication in Africa; a sense that independent institutions have their own value; a belief that your political opponents can be patriots; and faith in the dollar.

If this revolution is unchecked it could lead towards authoritarianism. Some MAGA intellectuals admire Hungary, where Viktor Orban exercises control over the courts, the universities and the media. And America does indeed leave some room for a would-be authoritarian. Congress has created a lot of exceptions to normal rules which can be activated by the president declaring an emergency, and Mr Trump is making full use of them—witness his delight at the president of El Salvador’s ability to lock people up without trial. Although MAGA cannot control the media, it can intimidate their corporate owners—and, besides, fragmentation has diluted the press’s power to check the president. Congress is supine because Republicans owe him their jobs, and they know it. One worry is that the courts will stand their ground, only for the administration to defy their rulings. Another is that, fearing this, the Supreme Court may try to preserve its authority by pre-emptively caving in.

Yet there is another, more likely, scenario in which the extremism of the first 100 days stirs up powerful forces of resistance. One such force is investors in the bond market and the stockmarket. Though they were broadly enthusiastic about Mr Trump’s election, they have been his most effective opponents—not out of political conviction, but because they deal in reality. They are rightly alarmed about the economy being poisoned by tariffs. Uncontrolled budget deficits and incompetent policy could lead to a crash of the dollar.

Faced with distress in the markets, Mr Trump has backed down twice in the past month, first over imposing “reciprocal” tariffs, and this week over firing Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve. And as Elon Musk promises to spend less time bulldozing the bureaucracy in order to tend to his ailing electric-car business instead, Mr Trump has hinted that he wants to find a way out of the unsustainable and ill-thought-through trade war he has launched against China.

Another source of resistance could be voters, including Republicans, if the economy does badly. Although Mr Trump has succeeded in suppressing illegal immigration, his national approval rating has already fallen further and faster than any other president’s, beating his own first-term record for annoying Americans. Our modelling suggests his approval rating is now below 50% in every swing state he won in November.

Most Americans do not want a revolution. Many like the sound of bringing manufacturing back home, but only a quarter say they would work in those new factories. They like the idea of fair trade, but they do not want chaos. None is keen on inflation. Mr Trump, like other presidents, may see a narrow election win as an invitation to pose for Mount Rushmore, but it does not give him the right to rule by diktat, shut agencies created by Congress, suspend habeas corpus or grab Greenland.

Eventually, bad polls will impinge on elected officials. America is a federal system that is too big and has too many rival centres of power to become Hungary (whose population is about the same as New Jersey’s). Congress, too, could become a problem for Mr Trump. Republicans have a thin majority in the House and were able to pass a budget framework only because a couple of Democratic representatives had died. Betting markets give Democrats more than an 80% chance of winning back the House next year. Control would enable the Democrats to frustrate Mr Trump, even if he continued to govern by executive order. In the Senate, Republicans are seven votes short of the 60 needed to avoid a filibuster. Those constraints are real.

The last source of resistance is the courts. The law moves slowly, but the Supreme Court has already handed down a 9-0 ruling in the case of a man wrongly deported to El Salvador. As with other institutions, the courts have less to fear from the defiance of an unpopular president. The administration may yet lose cases on tariffs, on the president’s ability to fire officials and close agencies without congressional backing, and on Mr Trump’s scattergun use of break-glass emergency provisos such as the Alien Enemies Act. If that happens, his theory of executive power will be discredited.

Even on the most optimistic reading of the MAGA revolution, Mr Trump has already done lasting harm to America’s institutions, alliances and moral standing. And if he is thwarted by investors, voters or the courts, he is liable to lash out against institutions with even greater ferocity. Using the newly politicised Department of Justice, he may persecute his opponents and stir up the fear and conflict that give him licence to operate. Abroad, he could cause alliance-wrecking provocations in, say, Greenland or Panama. There is no going back to the way America was 100 days ago. Only 1,361 days left. ■

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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Only 1,361 days to go”

17. Calm down: the ‘geopolitical crisis’ narrative is overblown

Change is hard and uncomfortable. But it is a reality. And change can be good. Change can be necessary.

Excerpts:

What awaits is a future where countries have to work a bit harder for their security through defence but especially through diplomacy, prioritise economic protectionism for security reasons, and forego the luxuries of liberal progressivism, “values”-promotion and moral righteousness in foreign affairs. It is not the end of the world, but the end of a world: an anomaly in human history when one country, America, exercised for a brief period global hegemonic power on a democratic basis and guaranteed both security and prosperity for its motley collection of Western allies who got to grow rich, fat, lazy and defiant in its shadow.

That unparalleled US power base – 50 per cent of world GDP in 1945, for example – has by now been severely eroded, and Washington’s authority and influence have frittered been away in the post-Cold War frenzy of globalist foolishness from Iraq to Afghanistan. With China now almost its equal or even surging ahead in many areas such as manufacturing, the old model of quasi-total US geopolitical dominance is untenable.

Choices about a turn to retrenchment and a different, pragmatic, diplomacy-first approach must be made in US policy – and, soon, in allied countries too, even though their elites are generally still stuck in an outdated, over-reaching mindset focused on “global power projection” and other such notions. These had they day, first in the age of empire, and then continued in that of US primacy. Now, if anything, it is isolationism that will be the next big wave in Western politics.

Contact with reality, at this time of change, is hard and uncomfortable. Risks and the demands on genuine statecraft (which is in very short supply in the West), increase. But none of this represents an actual crisis – except for those whose worldview is losing out.

Calm down: the ‘geopolitical crisis’ narrative is overblown

brusselssignal.eu · by Gabriel Elefteriu · April 24, 2025

It has become cliché to say that the advent of the second Trump administration has thrown the world into chaos. Just look at what we are told around the clock by experts, opinion makers, the media and pretty much anyone with a view on the matter. They are all competing in hyperbolic language to describe the state of the world. We hear of convulsions, tectonic changes, epochal transformations, mayhem and disarray in foreign affairs – all, of course, stemming from the White House’s new policies which are almost universally being described as “destructive” and “destabilising”.

In the shaken telling of much of the Trans-Atlantic community, the revised direction of US foreign policy presages unmitigated catastrophes. Ukraine is being thrown under the bus, we are told; Canada and Greenland are being targeted for US conquest; Europe is suddenly left at best defenceless, at worst a prey for both Trump’s and Putin’s equally-wicked quests for dominance. The tariffs are seen as almost akin to a declaration of war. Indeed, in the view of many sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome, America has transformed overnight from the continent’s key ally and security guarantor into its whip-wielding master, even enemy.

No wonder that nerves have snapped, even amongst the smartest, most cerebral and sensible of European and British observers, for whom total calamity is at hand and defence spending must – must! – be doubled or tripled if we are to stand a chance at avoiding some kind of “1930s”-something. As noted in these pages before, the very fact that “the 1930s” keeps recurring in our debates as, apparently, one of the only historical references for an otherwise largely strategically-illiterate “expert” class (see the West’s global strategic track record post-1992), gives the measure of just how low the conversation has fallen.

The universal response from the panic-stricken foreign policy elites to these recent “shocks” – especially in the Old World – has been wailing, fear and loathing, combined with grand rhetoric about having to mobilise like never before to meet some impending apocalypse triggered by Orange Man. It has all been a Godsend for caricature “leaders” with delusions of grandeur like Macron who now get to play at “statesmanship” one more time and pretend to be “saving democracy”, or the world, or something. For them, the more drama, the better; it is in their own and their respective factions’ political interest to crank up the doom-mongering to the max.

As usual, in reality most of the actual policy reaction is just posturing (e.g. deployments to Ukraine) or straight-up lies, such as Ursula von der Leyen’s famed “800 billion euros for defence” which is a complete fabrication based on money that does not exist.

The new European trend in favour of an opening to China, as a supposed answer to Trump’s tariffs, is only the silliest of a series of responses to Trump from a demonstrably incompetent “strategic community” and political class, driven largely by hype and emotion rather than any serious rational analysis. This is also the reason why critiquing – or rather, ridiculing – the massive shakeup of the US Government by Trump’s team has become such a popular sport in Europe in particular.

The hyper risk-averse and geopolitically failing European elites have long lost contact with reality and believe that any radical change to the world as they knew it until five minutes ago is bound to be a disaster – but what they really mean is, a disaster for them. Hardly anyone is asking what were the risks of continuing as we were, on the trajectory, reinforced by elite consensus, that had brought the entire West almost to its knees in a mere three decades – with war in Europe and a China turned superpower – starting from a position of unquestioned dominance in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union.

What exactly is this big crisis that we are told is about to befall us? Even if the United States is indeed bent on loosening its ties to European allies and pursuing a new détente with Russia – on the precedent set by Nixon and Kissinger – how would this justify the apocalyptic atmosphere and the angst and fury percolating through the cynical establishments of Europe? Surely it cannot simply be about the fate of Ukraine; even if the war did end with a negative result for Kiev, that would be unfortunate but not a direct problem for NATO and EU members as – despite the prevailing narrative – this is not their war and Ukraine is not a treaty ally. Harsh as this may sound, it is simply a statement of fact and a realist reading of the situation.

Rather, the real answer to the crisis question usually has to do with “Russia”, in the form of some presumed further Russian attack on Europe sometime in the future. But those who worry about what Putin might do next after Ukraine, are often the same people who, at the same time, maintain that “Russia has already failed”, who ridicule the performance of Russia’s armed forces in the field, and who believe that Russia is in fact very weak. So weak, they claim, that it is actually on the brink of collapse, if only the West were bold enough to push more strongly against it (via the Ukrainian proxy of course). The fact that there is a complete contradiction between the notion of a Russia ready to take on the whole of NATO, and a Russia that (presumably) can’t even defeat Ukraine, doesn’t seem to interfere too much with the task of crisis-manufacturing in Europe. What is more, these arguments precede Trump’s return to office.

However one views the Ukraine war – as a demonstration of Russian military strength, or weakness – there can hardly be any debate over its costs and destructiveness, and the sheer difficulty for the attacker in an age when the defence in general has such huge and amply demonstrated advantages on the battlefield, mainly as a function of technology, e.g. drones. If Putin’s invasion has proven anything, it is the near impossibility of “quick wins” in invading other nations, and the near certainty of a long, messy war that is likely to draw in other countries – all the more so when it comes to NATO allies, with or without US involvement.

Considering these facts, the question of exactly why would Putin or his successor unleash a new war in NATO Europe never seems to be seriously considered beyond trite assumptions about Putin’s supposed desire for conquest, as if he is some medieval king. And that question can only arise in the first place after Putin will have defeated and pacified Ukraine, since it’s folly to start another conflict before finishing the first – yet, again, the mainstream Western narrative is very clear that Ukraine cannot lose, and certainly that it would not be allowed by the West to lose.

A more “sophisticated” reasoning advanced by the Russia hawks on the “Russia threat” issue is that Putin would want to “test” Article 5 through a small incursion; if the Alliance’s response is less than unified, experts argue, NATO would be somehow “finished” because its core security guarantee would have been proven hollow. But, again, this entire argument is invalidated by the very story of Ukraine itself, a country which still received huge amounts of NATO support despite not being a NATO member, which it used to hold off the Russian attack.

If European nations were willing to give so much help even to a non-allied country, Putin would have to expect even more such help to be given to a NATO member if he (Putin) attacked it, irrespective of the formal state of the Alliance or of what the US would do. Russia would be all but guaranteed to not be able to achieve its military goals in such a campaign on NATO soil anytime soon, certainly not in the Baltic area which has now become a NATO lake. And once openly engaged in warfare on NATO soil, Europe’s collective demographic and economic superiority (even without the US), once mobilised, would leave Russia no hope of any meaningful victory in a long war. The European defence industrial capacity is already expanding: for example, Rheinmetall’s 155mm shell production has grown ten-fold since 2022, to 700,000 rounds per year; BAE Systems has achieved an eight-fold increase. Even if one harbours grave doubts about Europe’s ability to mobilise in a real war and avoid major initial losses, after the Ukrainian experience Russia could never be sure that it can actually bring the conflict to an early conclusion, in which case a war of attrition against Europe would likely be unwinnable for Moscow.

All this is to say that the risk of Russia looking to invade NATO post-Ukraine – if it ever brings Ukraine under its control – is in fact receding not increasing, irrespective of what America does. If anything, a US-brokered détente with Russia would only reduce that risk further by buying more time for the Europeans to increase their defence capabilities. Countries outside the European institutional boundary – i.e. outside NATO or the EU – such as Moldova or Ukraine itself at a later stage, might indeed come under Russian pressure or aggression in the future, but, again, from a historical perspective and from a European-self-interest point of view that would not automatically mean catastrophe for Europe itself.

Moving on from the Russian question and taking a step back, the only other dimension of US policy under Trump that could justify the crisis hype would be the general restructuring of the global security system at a grand strategic level. The new “trade wars” are part of this process and Trump’s tariffs function largely as a geostrategic tool for resetting global power dynamics and forcing new alignments in the international system – for example by using tariff negotiations to isolate China.

The idea that the US could be willingly terminating its “primacist” or “hegemonic” post-1945 role in favour of giving world order a final push back towards a multipolar or classic balance of power model, is inherently and deeply disturbing – first of all, psychologically – to many people across Western establishments.

Trump does not want America to play the “world policeman” anymore. Allies now suddenly realise they need to stand on their own feet a bit more, rather than Uncle Sam protecting them from bullies, and they resent Trump for it. But none of this means the sky is falling – merely that global affairs are reverting to their historically normal pattern of a multipolar, mercantilist-tilting world.

What awaits is a future where countries have to work a bit harder for their security through defence but especially through diplomacy, prioritise economic protectionism for security reasons, and forego the luxuries of liberal progressivism, “values”-promotion and moral righteousness in foreign affairs. It is not the end of the world, but the end of a world: an anomaly in human history when one country, America, exercised for a brief period global hegemonic power on a democratic basis and guaranteed both security and prosperity for its motley collection of Western allies who got to grow rich, fat, lazy and defiant in its shadow.

That unparalleled US power base – 50 per cent of world GDP in 1945, for example – has by now been severely eroded, and Washington’s authority and influence have frittered been away in the post-Cold War frenzy of globalist foolishness from Iraq to Afghanistan. With China now almost its equal or even surging ahead in many areas such as manufacturing, the old model of quasi-total US geopolitical dominance is untenable.

Choices about a turn to retrenchment and a different, pragmatic, diplomacy-first approach must be made in US policy – and, soon, in allied countries too, even though their elites are generally still stuck in an outdated, over-reaching mindset focused on “global power projection” and other such notions. These had they day, first in the age of empire, and then continued in that of US primacy. Now, if anything, it is isolationism that will be the next big wave in Western politics.

Contact with reality, at this time of change, is hard and uncomfortable. Risks and the demands on genuine statecraft (which is in very short supply in the West), increase. But none of this represents an actual crisis – except for those whose worldview is losing out.

brusselssignal.eu · by Gabriel Elefteriu · April 24, 2025

18. Amid a trade war, Xi Jinping may be purging China’s armed forces

Excerpts:

That would show Mr Xi’s military purges are not over. Li Shangfu, then the defence minister, was targeted in 2023. Miao Hua, the admiral responsible for enforcing loyalty to Mr Xi within the pla, was placed under investigation in 2024. In March a senior member of the military commission’s anti-graft unit, Lieutenant General Tang Yong, lost his job as an adviser to the national legislature. Such shake-ups are not a sideshow: the pla is a core component of the Communist Party itself and purges may have weakened its combat effectiveness, according to American intelligence.

The interplay between the economic consequences of the trade war and signs of turmoil at the top of the party are crucial to understanding China. In one scenario the trade war forces it to liberalise its economy, boosting consumption rather than state-led investment and easing up on entrepreneurs. But in a more paranoid environment it could make a more nationalistic pivot to rally the public. This is visible already. On April 15th China’s spy chief, Chen Yixin, warned that China must “resolutely win the comprehensive war against hegemony”. Grey-zone activities intimidating Taiwan are operating at an intense pace.

What probably matters most to Mr Xi is his own position and legacy. That will be decided in 2027 at the next party congress, when many analysts expect him to seek a fourth term as party boss. The next couple of years may be his biggest test yet. ■

China | Two fronts

Amid a trade war, Xi Jinping may be purging China’s armed forces

Why the tariff confrontation is not the only thing on his mind

https://www.economist.com/china/2025/04/22/amid-a-trade-war-xi-jinping-may-be-purging-chinas-armed-forces?utm

Photograph: Shutterstock

Apr 22nd 2025|BEIJING

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n Beijing, springtime warmth has drawn queues to restaurants offering al-fresco dining; trendy shopping districts are crowded. Mr Jia, a 36-year-old investor, says he is not bothered by America’s tariffs. Standing outside his friend’s cupcake shop, he says Donald Trump’s levies are a sign that America feels threatened by China’s rise. America’s power is declining, he says. “What you feel in today’s world is that hegemony is very hard to achieve.”

The trade war is everywhere. State media trumpet President Xi Jinping’s support for “multilateralism and international trade rules”. Newspapers have shown Mr Xi on a visit to South-East Asia, “creating development opportunities” and supporting “regional economic integration” in the face of maga protectionism. China has warned countries it will retaliate if they buckle to American pressure to impose tariffs on China. There is some evidence the charm-and-harm campaign is working. On April 22nd it was reported that Mr Xi will be presented this week with a letter from Ishiba Shigeru, Japan’s prime minister, aimed at maintaining stable trade links.

Yet for Mr Xi, what matters more is the domestic picture. Relations with America and the world are “not top of the list for the things that might keep him awake at night”, says a former senior American intelligence official. Part of that calculus relates to the economic consequences within China of the trade war. The other is less noticed, but critical. Just as the economy is battling serious headwinds, Mr Xi’s campaign to drive out corruption and enforce loyalty in the top ranks of the Communist Party is generating turbulence.

Officials have seized on data that appear to show China’s ability to withstand tariffs. On April 16th they declared first-quarter growth of 5.4% year on year, better than predicted; the full-year target is “about 5%”. The figure was buoyed by stimulus and a front-running of exports ahead of tariffs: the volume of shipping containers processed rose by 10% year on year in the week to April 20th, says Bloomberg, a news and analysis firm. Still, economists expect a sharp slowdown. Freight-activity indicators suggest a drop is coming, says a survey by Goldman Sachs, a bank. Before “liberation day”, ubs, another bank, predicted growth of 4% in 2025. It now says 3.4%, if the levies remain.

Party leaders are paranoid about social stability and Mr Xi will be watching how an export and industrial slowdown might filter through into fragile public confidence. There are signs of nervousness. A survey by Morgan Stanley, another bank, after tariffs soared this month found that 44% of 2,000 respondents in cities across China were worried that they or family members might lose their jobs, with many citing the levies. This was the highest share since the bank began conducting such polls in 2020.

In terms of the relative negotiating hand China has with America, a weakening of domestic confidence has to be weighed against the carnage in the United States. On April 22nd reports emerged that Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, had reassured investors in a private meeting that a trade deal with China would eventually be struck. Also that day, Mr Trump said his tariffs on Chinese imports would “come down substantially” if a deal is reached. But for now Mr Xi is likely to stimulate more in order to prop up consumers. “We have the ability…to address external challenges,” according to a statistics official. A Politburo meeting in late April may be the moment for more measures to boost housing, consumption and industry.

At that Politburo meeting Mr Xi’s other domestic obsession may be visible: a never-ending purge of the armed forces. One of the Politburo’s members has not been seen in public since early March. He is General He Weidong, one of two vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission (cmc) and number three in the military hierarchy. He was absent from a tree-planting activity in Beijing in early April attended by Mr Xi and other cmc members. State television did not show him at a conference on diplomacy on April 8th and 9th. If General He has been purged, he would be the highest-ranking uniformed member of the cmc to be dismissed since 1967.

That would show Mr Xi’s military purges are not over. Li Shangfu, then the defence minister, was targeted in 2023. Miao Hua, the admiral responsible for enforcing loyalty to Mr Xi within the pla, was placed under investigation in 2024. In March a senior member of the military commission’s anti-graft unit, Lieutenant General Tang Yong, lost his job as an adviser to the national legislature. Such shake-ups are not a sideshow: the pla is a core component of the Communist Party itself and purges may have weakened its combat effectiveness, according to American intelligence.

The interplay between the economic consequences of the trade war and signs of turmoil at the top of the party are crucial to understanding China. In one scenario the trade war forces it to liberalise its economy, boosting consumption rather than state-led investment and easing up on entrepreneurs. But in a more paranoid environment it could make a more nationalistic pivot to rally the public. This is visible already. On April 15th China’s spy chief, Chen Yixin, warned that China must “resolutely win the comprehensive war against hegemony”. Grey-zone activities intimidating Taiwan are operating at an intense pace.

What probably matters most to Mr Xi is his own position and legacy. That will be decided in 2027 at the next party congress, when many analysts expect him to seek a fourth term as party boss. The next couple of years may be his biggest test yet. ■

Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world.

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Fighting on two fronts”

19. The Real Lesson of SignalGate

The political controversy is just a distraction from the real issues.

This is the issue:

The SignalGate episode is a terrible failure of operational security. But it is not a one-off mistake. It is a glimpse of a much more far-reaching crisis, one that threatens the United States and every other country that relies on the digital world in making its most important and sensitive decisions.

Failure to acknowledge this and correct our mistakes are what is going to really damage our national security.

The Real Lesson of SignalGate

Foreign Affairs · by More by Ronald J. Deibert · April 24, 2025

A Surveillance Arms Race Has Poked a Gaping Hole in National Security

Ronald J. Deibert

April 24, 2025

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Washington, D.C., February 2025 Leah Millis / Reuters

RONALD J. DEIBERT is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He is the author of Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy.

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In the weeks since the explosive revelation that top U.S. officials inadvertently shared attack plans in Yemen with a journalist on a Signal group chat, fresh questions about the Trump administration’s lax approach to digital security have continued to emerge. On April 20, The New York Times reported that the security breach is even worse than initially understood: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had also shared many of the same details about the imminent U.S. bombing strike in Yemen in a second group chat with several family members, a personal lawyer, and others, using his private phone.

The fiasco now known as SignalGate raises many urgent issues related to national security. Communicating classified information via nonapproved channels potentially violates the U.S. Espionage Act, setting messages to automatically disappear contravenes U.S. federal laws on preservation of official records, and officials’ family members and journalists should certainly not be privy to this kind of information. These are huge lapses. But by focusing on National Security Adviser Mike Waltz’s unwitting inclusion of The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in the first chat group, much of the debate has downplayed an even larger problem: the very real possibility that a foreign government or other hostile power was snooping on the devices through which those communications were taking place.

Convened by Waltz, the first Signal group included not only the defense secretary but also CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Vice President JD Vance, White House adviser Stephen Miller, and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, among others. Every one of these figures is an extremely high-value target for foreign espionage. Moreover, at least some of the participants were communicating on personal electronic devices (as was the defense secretary, and at least some of the participants, in his second group chat), and several were traveling overseas at the time. Witkoff, for instance, was in Moscow (although he denies using a personal device during that leg of the trip), while Gabbard was in Southeast Asia. It is highly likely that one or more of the participants’ devices was already being targeted by a U.S. adversary armed with advanced spyware capabilities. And the compromise of just one phone is all it takes. One weak link and all of the chat groups’ discussions could be exposed.

These episodes point to a looming digital security crisis. Even as high-level officials, for convenience or other reasons, rely more on personal devices for sensitive communications, those devices have become increasingly vulnerable to targeted exploitation and surveillance. Once a device is compromised, hostile regimes and other malicious actors can spy on communications regardless of whether the information in question is encrypted. Thankfully, there are steps that the United States and other governments can take to mitigate this risk. But to do so, they must first recognize the real problem with SignalGate: how exposed sensitive communications and private information have become for anyone reliant on a modern smartphone.

MISSED SIGNALS

It is important to clarify that the security failures at the heart of SignalGate were not related to potential weak points in Signal itself. Signal is the gold standard of secure, end-to-end encrypted messaging and employs the highest standard of cryptography. Its codebase is open source and widely peer reviewed. For all these reasons, many government agencies, such the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, now recommend using Signal for nonclassified communications.

But that does not mean that Signal or any other app is appropriate for discussing highly sensitive plans about imminent military operations on regular, unsecured personal devices. Governments, including the United States, have developed very strict procedures for handling classified information. They require personnel to use tightly managed “work” devices to which access is strictly limited, even within the national security hierarchy. Many governments also create protocols to ensure that officials’ discussion of classified information is restricted to sensitive compartmented information facilities, known as SCIFs, which are structurally designed to prevent outside eavesdropping, guarded by sentries and other access controls, whether inside an agency’s headquarters, in mobile situations (such as in vehicles or aircraft), or in foreign embassies.

By using Signal to discuss U.S. plans for bombing Yemen, Waltz and the other 18 members of the “Houthi PC Small Group” were effectively trying to create a do-it-yourself SCIF. According to The New York Times, the information that Hegseth shared on the two group chats, including “the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen,” originated from a secure government system at the U.S. military’s Central Command, a system designed for handling classified information. As is now clear, sharing this information proved far from secure. Many of the participants presumably connected to Signal on their personal devices, as evidenced by the fact that Waltz had a journalist in his contact list and Hegseth set up his group, which included his brother, his lawyer, and his wife, before being appointed Pentagon chief. Given strict access controls that are typically implemented on devices cleared for classified communications, it is likely that many of the other senior government officials who were members of these groups were using their personal phones to connect, as well. In doing so, the Signal group members exposed the Pentagon, and the United States itself, to a slew of sophisticated digital security risks.

ENCRYPTION FRICTION

Ever since the advent of the smartphone, governments have developed capabilities to surreptitiously hack into those devices. As I described in a 2022 Foreign Affairs essay, “The Autocrat in Your iPhone,” for many intelligence services, smartphones are irresistible targets: not only do users tend to organize their communications, contacts, financial activities, and general digital presence around their personal phones, they tend to carry them wherever they go. Moreover, efforts to make messaging apps more secure have paradoxically fueled even more invasive forms of surveillance.

Traditionally, governments sought to eavesdrop on individuals by gathering data directly from the telecommunications or Internet service providers’ networks through which their communications passed. But beginning around 2013, following the Edward Snowden disclosures about U.S. government surveillance programs, robust encryption protocols began to spread to ordinary consumer communications, and users began to adopt secure applications such as Signal. That rendered the old approach less productive, pushing intelligence and law enforcement to seek ways to get inside devices themselves. Rather than try to crack advanced encryption protocols, why not find access to the unencrypted end of an end-to-end encrypted communication? To acquire the necessary technology, they turned to a growing number of private mercenary firms, such as NSO Group, a notorious Israeli firm that has over the past decade sold its spyware technology to governments around the world. Mercenary spyware firms employ highly skilled engineers to either develop in-house or purchase software vulnerabilities from gray market firms, known as exploits or zero days, of which manufacturers of consumer devices and applications are not yet aware. They or their clients then use those exploits to hack into the target’s personal phones.

The most advanced phone-hacking technology sold by mercenary firms requires no target interaction and leaves no indication that the device has been tampered with. The technology does not require targets to click on a link or download an attachment in order to trigger an infection. Instead, it takes advantage of flaws in hardware, operating systems, or apps to gain silent access to the inner workings of a device, allowing attackers to then implant their spyware surreptitiously. If the attack is successful, targets are unaware that anything about their device has been compromised and simply continue using it, but now with someone peering over their shoulder.

Waltz outside the White House, Washington, D.C., April 2025 Carlos Barria / Reuters

At their most sophisticated, tools such as NSO’s Pegasus can then offer a “god’s-eye view” of a target’s entire life. Once inside a device, a remote operator can turn on the camera, activate the microphone, and track the location of the device’s owner. The operator can look back in time, too, scrolling through camera rolls or observing previous communications to gather information on a target’s personal relationships and past activities. Most important, with this surreptitious access to the device itself, they can read messages that are end-to-end encrypted. When spyware firms boast that they can “crack” Signal, what they really mean is that they can compromise a device on which Signal is loaded.

Consider the case of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist who was executed in a Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018. Before his execution, Khashoggi had been communicating for months with the exiled Saudi activist and Canadian permanent resident Omar Abdulaziz over what they assumed was a secure, end-to-end encrypted app. But research by the Citizen Lab, the research team I direct that specializes in investigating digital threats, revealed that Abdulaziz’s phone had been hacked with Pegasus, rendering both sides of the conversation completely transparent to Saudi operatives.

This mercenary spyware industry is almost entirely unregulated, and over the last decade and a half, security agencies around the world have used its wares to go on an unbridled hacking spree. Along with other groups, Citizen Lab has shown how spyware such as Pegasus has been used by governments in multiple countries to hack into the devices of political opposition members, activists, investigative journalists, and government officials themselves. Although authoritarian regimes are the most prolific abusers of such technology, our research has uncovered domestic espionage and abuse of spyware in the West, as well, including by the governments of Greece, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Poland, and Spain.

In principle, senior U.S. government officials’ work devices are managed in accordance with NSA standards and may include NSA-developed technology that is resistant to these infections. But privacy regulations justifiably forbid the NSA from checking the personal devices of government officials—a gap in defenses obvious to any adversary armed with mercenary spyware and contemplating where to aim their precious cyber-espionage assets. Rather than try to break into an NSA-secured device, an undertaking that would be technically complex and extremely expensive, they can simply aim at the target’s personal phone. Why bother clambering over a wall topped with barbed wire when you can just stroll around it and enter through an unlocked gate? Thus, the personal device of any high-level official presents a juicy opportunity for intelligence gathering—bringing into relief the dangerous risks posed by the Houthi PC Small Group chat.

PRISONERS OF THEIR OWN DEVICES

The risks posed by using personal devices extend well beyond the threat of spyware. Most personal smartphones are loaded with apps whose underlying purpose is to harvest information about their users. Every digital scrap is sucked into a huge data vacuum: a user’s location information, WiFi networks, SIM card, and other device identifiers are routinely collected by apps and browsers and fed into a vast data bazaar. Primarily, this data is used for marketing purposes—sold to “big data” firms that target consumers with advertisements. When consumers receive advertisements for a vacation spot shortly after they were casually searching for one online, that’s today’s personal data surveillance economy at work.

But these properties also lend themselves to a more sinister application. Another mercenary surveillance industry has emerged alongside spyware, known as “advertising intelligence” or ADINT, that packages this type of advertising data on potential targets into intelligence products to help governments spy. One such firm, the U.S.-based Fog Data Science, brags in its marketing materials that it can collect “15 billion location signals each day” from “250 million devices” and “tens of thousands” of mobile apps. It touts that it can provide security agencies with the ability to see all the identifiers associated with every device active in a given location in a given time frame.

It is highly likely one of the participants’ phones was already targeted with spyware.

Although the scale of the industry is unclear because of secrecy, it is clear from their own advertising that ADINT firms can gather sweeping intelligence on particular targets of interest. Fog Data Science claims that it can track a specific device’s location history over months or even years, analyzing patterns to identify what the firm creepily calls a target’s “bed-downs.” By fusing data collected from data brokerage firms with other open-source information—including from data breaches circulating on the dark web—these advertising intelligence companies can produce extremely precise dossiers on a person’s primary residences, places of employment, known associates and relatives, medical or therapy appointments, religious affiliations, hotel rooms frequented, travel itineraries, and much more.

This kind of information can be supplied to some of the world’s most notorious despots, hostile foreign adversaries, or even organized criminal groups with the click of a purchase order. Nothing is currently stopping Iran or China from using front companies to purchase information on the detailed movements and smartphone configurations of U.S. officials or suspected intelligence officers and their families and then acting on that information as they choose.

Experiments undertaken by researchers and journalists have shown how access to these real-time data brokerages can reveal highly sensitive information about high-value government targets, including active U.S. military personnel. To get a sense of just how detailed this information can be, consider how much information journalists could uncover in the open domain about members of the Houthi PC Small Group. Investigations by Wired showed that several members, including Hegseth, Waltz, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, had left information about their Venmo contacts and transactions either entirely or partially public. Journalists from Der Spiegel used commercially available people-search engines and information from data breaches to reveal passwords, phone numbers, and other information linked to Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, Signal, and WhatsApp accounts owned by Gabbard, Hegseth, and Waltz.

ADINT firms can combine such openly available information with advertising data to present a detailed file on almost any target. In the case of the Signal group chats, hostile governments could have used ADINT services to map any of its participants’ locations and precise movements and then put them under physical surveillance, perhaps to gain covert access to their phones when an opportunity arises. Or such services could be used to undertake reconnaissance on the make and model of their personal devices, or those of their acquaintances, in order to target those devices for hacking using precision spyware exploits. Such detailed files could include known associates of principal targets and contain highly specific information about their habits, devices, and applications, broadening the number of potential clandestine entry points into a sensitive conversation. (Hegseth’s Signal group was reportedly created before his appointment as secretary of defense and at one point included a dozen people “from his personal and professional inner circle.”)

UNSAFE TRAVELS

One of the greatest security risks posed by personal devices occurs in a situation when they are most often used: during travel. To connect to the telecommunications network, a cellphone must first communicate with a nearby cellular tower using its built-in radio. Information from the phone’s SIM card is sent to the network for authentication. Behind the scenes, a wide variety of systems—base stations, mobile switching centers, and other infrastructure—route calls and data to and from the device. Although a plethora of fine-grained information gathered from domestic cellular networks is routinely accessed by government agencies, it is when a mobile user travels abroad that their devices may be particularly vulnerable.

When subscribers roam on another provider’s network, telecommunications companies exchange massive amounts of data every second. Telecom companies can use these signals to retrieve detailed personal information about roaming users, including when a phone number is active on a cellular network, the services they draw on, and their precise location. Access to this international signaling network was once confined to a relatively small club of mostly Western telecommunications firms, and by extension, the state intelligence agencies that colluded with those firms, either informally or through lawful access requests. But a growing number of mercenary surveillance firms have managed to acquire licenses, called global titles, or have found ways to cooperate with existing cellular service providers to enter that club. Once inside, these firms can find someone’s exact location, block or slow down their cellular services, or eavesdrop on their calls and texts. They may even be able to intercept two-factor verification codes to hack accounts or surreptitiously transmit spyware.

Many firms now market this kind of surveillance to a growing number of government agencies. A 2020 Citizen Lab report revealed that Circles, a firm that sells signaling surveillance services, had government clients in Botswana, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Serbia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Another Citizen Lab investigation revealed that between November 2019 and March 2020, millions of malicious signaling requests were sent per month from networks in Saudi Arabia to geolocate the phones of Saudi users when they traveled to the United States.

As noted, several members of the Houthi Signal group were outside the United States while participating in the group’s chats. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Canada; Witkoff was in Russia and Azerbaijan during part of the group’s discussions. (Witkoff denies communicating on his personal device on those trips, although he has not said whether he was carrying his personal device and whether it was turned on.) Gabbard was on a multicountry trip across Asia, including Thailand. The Royal Thai Army was once a Circles client, and a 2022 Citizen Lab investigation revealed an extensive government espionage campaign targeting Thai pro-democracy protesters and activists, at least 30 of whom had their devices infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. It would have been trivial for government clients to acquire the Signal group members’ phone numbers or other identifiers and then use malicious roaming messages to covertly track their locations in real time, disrupt their access to messaging platforms, hijack two-factor authentication checks, or inject spyware into their devices should those targets have opened a poorly encrypted website.

CONTROL OR BE CONTROLLED

Threats to the security of personal devices are made worse by the lack of effective regulation of surveillance vendors. Many of these firms employ the same type of obfuscation techniques as oligarchs and money launderers, making regulation challenging. The result is that dozens of governments and even nonstate actors now possess advanced digital surveillance capabilities that were once limited to only a few great powers and can deploy them largely in the absence of restraints. Were any of the Houthi Signal group members compromised at the time they discussed the Yemen attack plans? Frankly, it would be shocking if they were not.

One can only hope that somewhere, professionals are ensuring that the devices of top U.S. officials are free from mercenary spyware and not being tracked. For the moment, the signs are not encouraging. Instead of launching a full investigation of the security breakdown and holding those responsible to account, the Trump administration has defended the defense secretary’s use of the chat groups and continued to downplay their significance. At the same time, the administration has taken steps to weaken or dismantle government offices designed to protect the United States from foreign digital interference and cyberwarfare, shutting down the FBI’s foreign influence task force and radically downsizing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, including those responsible for “red teaming” government systems. And in early April, apparently in response to a demand by the right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, the president fired the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command—the top U.S. official managing the country’s cyberdefenses.

The spyware industry is almost entirely unregulated.

The consequences of this disregard for device security could soon come back to haunt the administration. To be fair, there are no easy fixes. It would be impractical, and possibly illegal in some jurisdictions, to ban government personnel from using personal devices on their own time. And the only way to truly insulate government officials from the growing number of surveillance risks would be for them to completely avoid using personal devices while they travel—another impracticality. Most government officials have found it extremely challenging to properly do their business without using personal devices in one way or another. Yet as of today, these devices—managed and secured at their user’s own discretion—remain a huge risk.

To truly address the problem, the United States and other governments will need to take a far more ambitious approach. First and foremost, SignalGate should serve as a wake-up call to rein in the mercenary surveillance industry. Governments should put in place much stronger controls for the sale and use of surveillance technology, including imposing transparency requirements and adding export regulations. Regulators must mandate stronger standards for the telecommunications sector writ large, as the United Kingdom has recently done, and hold telecommunications companies responsible for closing known loopholes in their signaling systems. Legislators must pass stricter privacy laws that prevent the unauthorized and uncontrolled sale of location data, advertising intelligence, and other personal data, and drastically improve oversight across law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Finally, law enforcement and government watchdogs must impose real penalties on those caught flouting government protocols for the handling of classified information.

The SignalGate episode is a terrible failure of operational security. But it is not a one-off mistake. It is a glimpse of a much more far-reaching crisis, one that threatens the United States and every other country that relies on the digital world in making its most important and sensitive decisions.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Ronald J. Deibert · April 24, 2025

20. Out Thinking Our Adversaries by Mick Ryan

Hooah.

Yes we must outfight our enemies. but outfighting is not sufficient. We must out think them as well. We must build the intellectual edge. Let's cultivate our heads.

Excerpts:

To conclude, Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have once said that every head should be cultivated. In essence this is what building our intellectual edge – as individuals, as institutions and as a nation – is about. It is about recognising and developing the inherent capacity in all our people to solve the problems we face in the coming years.

Our people must be able to contextualise, plan, decide, act and adapt faster and more successfully relative to adversaries. Creativity, diverse views, critical thinking and good communication skills are essential. And we must celebrate our elite thinkers, just as we might celebrate and value elite sportspeople. But to do this we need the best leaders who set an example in all these things.

The skills you are developing here are central to that.

We must be able to outthink the authoritarian regimes who place a premium on denying people the ability to develop the full measure of their potential.

Good army leaders who can read and research critically, and who are able to write clearly and with purpose, are central to this challenge. If you are sitting here today, this is something that is well within your capacity to do.

You just have to decide to do it.

The Future of War

Out Thinking Our Adversaries

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/out-thinking-our-adversaries?utm

Today at Westpoint, I spoke about how defeating the aspirations and predations and of vicious techno-authoritarians this century will demand not that we out spend them but that we outthink them.

Mick Ryan

Apr 24, 2025

∙ Paid

This week I have had the honour of visiting the United States Military Academy at Westpoint, and to speak with cadets and staff about the lessons of modern war, and what these insights mean for how they lead soldiers in the 21st century. I have also had the opportunity to discuss the employment of fiction to round out the development of military officers, and my book about a war over Taiwan, White Sun War.

Today, I had the privilege to speak about a different topic however. I spoke with cadets and staff about the imperative in the technological age to not out-spend or ‘out-tech’ our adversaries, but to develop our minds in order to out think them.

Thank you to the convenors of this symposium for your invitation to speak here today. I have been asked to discuss why leaders must read, write, research, and think critically about war, strategy, and military service and how research and writing can serve as leadership tools for future officers

I don’t suppose you have many Australians speak here you, and probably even fewer just-retired senior Australian Army officers!

But believe me when I say that even standing here in front of you is somewhat fantastical to me. I was brought up in a speck of a mining town in the Australian outback. It was a great place to grow up, particularly in the 1980s, which as we all know was the highpoint for music in all of human history!

Now, in this small town, I didn’t even wear shoes to school until high school. The idea that I would one day have the honor of speaking to cadets and staff at the world’s most famous military academy would have been dismissed out of hand by my friends and family, even if I had the audacity to imagine such a thing was possible.

But I had the great privilege of being accepted into the Australian Defence Force Academy in 1987. But in my first year I failed every subject. All eight. I think it is still a record. But amazingly, the commandant of the academy – who was an Army major general – took me aside, told me a might still make a half decent army leader, and sent me to our 18-month officer training course.

I learned a couple of important lessons. First, that second chances matter. They can be life changing for those who receive them, and those who give them. I was in touch with the general who gave me a second chance until he passed away, and still correspond with his widow. Second, this taught me that failure did not have to be the end of all things. It was an opportunity to learn, to reflect, and to hone my personal resilience and philosophy on life.

Now you might be wondering, why is he telling me all this?

Well, I am telling you because I was determined to make the most of my second chance. I have always wanted to be a soldier, and while I messed up my first chance, I was not going to mess it up a second time. I was going to be the best army leader possible. And part of my journey of learning about leadership, a journey that never ends by the way, has been my reading, writing, and research about war and military affairs as well as a range of other topics.

These are topics I feel very strongly about. Good armies have always been clever armies. And the cleverest have been those that recognise the need to hone the bodies and the minds of their people.

Our most important possession is the capacity to generate what I have called an intellectual edge over our competitors, whether this be in areas such as trade, or in more perilous endeavours in national security. In particular, overcoming the predations of vicious techno-authoritarians this century will demand NOT that we out spend them BUT that we outthink them.

Technological disruption and recent developments in national security affairs, are challenging the orthodoxy established in the 1950s with regards to the profession of arms. The analogue, machine-based world that existed when important publications such as Huntington’s The Soldier and the State were written has changed considerably. In addition to traditional instruments of war, current and future military leaders must prepare for various non-kinetic instruments such as cognitive warfare that will threaten our societal cohesion and our national security.

Advantage is what military leaders seek to generate over their adversaries. Historically, while we could observe that it takes many forms, advantage in the military can be generated in one of five ways. These are: geography, mass, time, technology and an intellectual advantage.

Geography has long held an important place in how nations and their military forces build a competitive advantage. Clever military leaders generate advantage by exploiting geography to ensure they can gain and retain the initiative against an adversary. As late British scholar and strategist Colin Gray wrote, “geography is the most fundamental of factors which condition national outlooks on security problems and strategy solutions. The influence of geography truly is pervasive, notwithstanding the fact that its influence must vary in detail as technology changes.”

However, the advantages of good geography enjoyed in previous eras are not what they once were. Security through geographic distance has declined in the age of intercontinental missiles, cyber operations, globalised supply chains and cognitive warfare. The speed of connectivity, long-range sea and air transport and the ability of individuals to move at will to any point on the globe means that geography no longer guarantees sovereignty.

Mass is a second historic source of a military capability edge. Generating a larger force than an adversary has long been the aspiration of military institutions. Whether it is to provide the capacity to concentrate forces and achieve local overmatch, or to exploit mass in order to provide the requisite scale necessary to operate across many different parts of the globe, mass has played a crucial role in historical military success. Prussian theorist Karl von Clausewitz wrote that ‘in tactics as in strategy, superiority of numbers is the most common element in victory’.

But, given modern meshed sensor networks, ubiquitous uncrewed systems across land, air and maritime domains, the meaning of ‘mass’ is different in the 21st century. The types of conventional mass that may have been decisive in the 19th and 20th centuries will not have the same impact in the 21st century.

A third way of generating military advantage is through the clever use of time. American military theorist Robert Leonard has written that “we are in the midst of the most exciting revolution in military art and science since the invention of gunpowder. At the centre of it all will be a contest for time.”

Being able to effectively use time, and deny it to an adversary, is one of the great arts of military command. But this is a method just as available to an adversary as it is to us.

The fourth method that military forces can use to generate advantage is superior technology. From Greek Fire to crossbows, tanks to jet aircraft, the enigma machine to contemporary high-capacity computing, military institutions throughout history have sought to secure a competitive edge by possessing better technology than their adversaries.

Advanced technology has provided an edge for Western military forces for generations, but its advantages are significantly less than in the past. Complicating this situation even further, when western nations might generate a technological advantage, it is likely to be only a transient rather than an enduring one.

We now face significant challenges to these four historic elements of military leverage and influence.

As a consequence, military institutions must therefore devote more resources to cultivating another source of advantage: the intellectual edge. The clever application of military forces within a national approach is built on the best ideas being applied to tactics, operational concepts, strategy and different organisational constructs. A well-honed intellectual edge can be used to offset the growing military, financial and information capabilities of potential adversaries. This intellectual edge has two components.

One component of the intellectual edge is institutional. This is an organisations’ capacity to effectively nurture and exploit the disparate intellectual talents of its individuals to solve complex institutional problems.

Such an approach requires military institutions to sustain and treasure their recruiting, individual and collective training, as well as educational activities.

The institutional intellectual edge has another important component - ‘institutional learning and adaptation’. Achieving effective learning across a large institution and then using it to adapt is a complex undertaking. Institutions must possess the essential mechanisms for learning, which includes training and education, formal study of lessons learned, a means to disseminate lessons and the mechanisms to adapt ideas and organisations quickly.

They must also cultivate an institutional culture that embraces and incentivises learning at all levels. Further, institutional learning must encourage the observation of, and learning from, the expertise of friends and adversaries.

But the institutional manifestation of the intellectual edge is founded on individual excellence, or what might otherwise be called professional mastery. The intellectual edge for any individual military leader is their ability to creatively out-think and out-plan potential adversaries. This requires a diverse range of training, education, experience and talent management. It also demands one’s personal dedication to continuous self-learning over a long period of time.

And this brings me back to the subject for today: you cannot generate an intellectual edge if you don’t love reading, if you are unable to do so critically, if you cannot turn your reading into good research skills, and if you then cannot write in a compelling, understandable way that communicates key ideas in an accessible manner.

There are few important ideas that I would now like to discuss which might help you to think about how you can be a better reader, researcher and writer.

First you must dedicate yourself to understanding the provenance of our profession and as much of its history as possible. Not only does this provide the intellectual foundations for being a steward of the profession and taking it forward, understanding the history of military affairs provides for multiple layers of intellectual armour for our people.

This armour, the knowledge of events in the past, allows our leaders to appreciate that they are certainly not the first to find themselves in sticky battlefield situations – and that many others before them have found solutions to exactly the same problems they face. This not only gives insights into solutions but should give our leaders confidence that they can solve problems. And finally, this provides the focus necessary to ensure that you are reading, researching and writing about the right things!

Second, you must be intellectually humble and possess an insatiable curiosity. This means you must be a continuous learner. The contemporary pace of change is rapid. And, you cannot spend your whole life in the schoolhouse. You are needed in the army to lead soldiers.

But while you are doing this, you must develop your personal discipline of self-learning. In 1982, a junior officer of the United States Marines, Paul van Riper wrote on the requirement for self-study to complement formal training and educational programs. He noted that “the responsibility for professional development between periods in formal programs rests with the individual officer. This is inherent in the nature of the military officer's calling. It is inherent because the body of knowledge which constitutes the art and science of war is not only broad and deep but is also dynamic.”[i]

Recently, Israeli scholar and futurist Yuval Harari has forecast that the “automation revolution will not consist of a single watershed event, after which the job market will settle into some new equilibrium. Rather, it will be a cascade of ever bigger disruptions. Old jobs will disappear, and new jobs will emerge, but the new jobs will also rapidly change and vanish. People will need to retrain and reinvent themselves not just once, but many times.” This also applies to you in the army. We are not immune to the pace of change in the world.

Reading and writing are not only two sides of the same coin, but they are core aspects of being a military leader and member of the profession of arms.

Hand in hand with this intellectual side is the need for continually developing a range of communication skills. Reading, writing, and research skills hones this capacity to communicate and to influence. And being able to communicate effectively, and influence a variety of different audiences, is what being a leader in this profession is all about.

I also use writing as another way of learning new things. It forces me to hone my research skills. This is especially the case with facts, opinions, and analysis that might challenge my current beliefs or knowledge. When I talked to folks in my own military about the essentials of leadership, I always emphasized the need for intellectual diversity.

It is only through nurturing different ways of thinking in our people that we might solve the very complex security challenges we face. Part of nurturing intellectual diversity is challenging one’s own ideas. So, for me, the foundational research, reading and discussion of writing allows me to challenge my own views and beliefs. It ensures that I practice what I preach.

But this takes discipline and practice. John Scalzi has written that: If you want to be a writer, then be a writer, for god’s sake. It’s not that hard, and it doesn’t require that much effort on a day-to-day basis. Find the time or make the time. Sit down, shut up and put your words together. Work at it and keep working at it. And if you need inspiration, think of yourself on your deathbed saying “well, at least I watched a lot of TV.[ii]

I have ideas I want to explore, and my personal research and writing allows me to do this. Demographic developments are changing our societies. Technological breakthroughs in areas such as artificial intelligence and robotics, and evolutions of older technologies, are shifting how we communicate, work, trade, entertain ourselves and, of course, fight with each other. Changes in the geopolitical environment are shaping how we think about strategy, strategic competition and conflict. This provides a fertile field for thinking about new ways of war, and new methods of preparing our people for digital age warfare.

I want to be part of that. And you should too.

Finally, I see reading and writing and the associated act of research as a way to understand and critically discuss those things that are important to us as military professionals. We should all seek to be part of this wider discourse about our profession. It is easier than ever to join in given how so much discussion about our profession is fostered on social media, blogs, journals, and unit PME sessions.

Starting with Twitter in late 2014, it quickly became clear to me that this was the means to connect those of us who not only care deeply about our profession but want to talk about it and have our ideas tested and critiqued. This discourse encompasses our past, contemporary issues and thinking about the future of war and our profession.

One of the wonderful things about our democratic society is that we have the freedom to discuss the broadest range of ideas related to our profession, and to criticize the ideas of others. In the end, it allows us to build the healthy intellectual foundation that is critical to success in the profession of arms.

There is one final thing about writing I want to briefly mention. I want to emphasise the art of revising your work. Editing is vital. I probably spend more time on this than actual writing itself.

Novelist Stephen King has written that “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates…it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life as well.”[iii]

I read and I write every day. I find my writing a source of comfort when I am frustrated, a source of knowledge when I am uninformed and always tremendously enriching. I see my writing as an indispensable part of honing my approach to leadership. It helps me to think through and craft intent and be better at providing purpose to our people. It is something that I continue to work on. But writing is now part of who I am, wrapped up in my personality as tightly as my sense of humour (or lack of) and appreciation of family and friends. I hope I am a better person, and was a better soldier, because of it.

To conclude, Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have once said that every head should be cultivated. In essence this is what building our intellectual edge – as individuals, as institutions and as a nation – is about. It is about recognising and developing the inherent capacity in all our people to solve the problems we face in the coming years.

Our people must be able to contextualise, plan, decide, act and adapt faster and more successfully relative to adversaries. Creativity, diverse views, critical thinking and good communication skills are essential. And we must celebrate our elite thinkers, just as we might celebrate and value elite sportspeople. But to do this we need the best leaders who set an example in all these things.

The skills you are developing here are central to that.

We must be able to outthink the authoritarian regimes who place a premium on denying people the ability to develop the full measure of their potential.

Good army leaders who can read and research critically, and who are able to write clearly and with purpose, are central to this challenge. If you are sitting here today, this is something that is well within your capacity to do.

You just have to decide to do it.

Thank you.

[i] Van Riper, P., A Self-Directed Officer Study Program, US Army War College, 1982, p. 1.

[ii] Scalzi, J., Don’t Live For Your Obituary: Advice, Commentary and Personal Observations on Writing, 2008-2017, Subterranean Press, 2017.

[iii] King, S., On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Scribner, 2000.

21. Trump Can Protect the Post-WWII World Order or Destroy It

Excerpts:

Trump could surprise everyone by executing one of those sudden changes of mind and policy reversals for which he is famous and make the morally correct and strategically sound decision on Ukraine. Instead of a having a pro-Putin ceasefire and final settlement, Trump could commit the United States to provide the weapons and intelligence support that will enable Ukraine not only to survive a war of attrition, which was the Biden policy, but actually to prevail in its valiant resistance to Russia’s aggression. That 180 degree turnaround would be a shock to both Putin and China’s Xi and set back their expansionist plans, potentially to the point of inducing regime change in Moscow and Beijing. That would be a Nobel-worthy achievement for Trump.

When Rubio reinforced Trump’s frustration with ceasefire negotiations, he took pains to remind everyone that “this is not our war, we didn’t start it.” That was inconsistent with his message as a U.S. Senator that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine poses not only a danger to the peace of Europe but is an affront to the entire system of international law that has kept global peace for 80 years after World War II. Trump can either preserve that system or join the Putins and Xis of the world in destroying it.

Trump Can Protect the Post-WWII World Order or Destroy It

By Joseph Bosco

https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2025/04/24/trump_can_protect_the_post-wwii_world_order_or_destroy_it_1106158.html

President Trump's Ukraine policy has arrived at what Joe Biden frequently referred to as “an inflection point.” Weeks after Volodomier Zelensky unconditionally accepted the U.S. proposal for a ceasefire, Vladimir Putin still refuses to do so, instead adding conditions and caveats that are clearly unacceptable to Ukraine and its European allies and go well beyond what the Trump team proposed.

Having pocketed Trump’s effusive public flattery bordering on adulation–his 2014 invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine was “genius”--Putin now seems intent on humiliating him the way Trump and J.D. Vance did in their Oval Office tag-team attack on Zelensky. Putin is almost openly mocking the absurdity of Trump’s repeated campaign promises to end the war within a day of taking office, and his claim that the 2022 invasion would never have happened had he been there to prevent it. Putin seems to be telling Trump and the world that only he is the alpha male who decides Ukraine’s fate, not Trump or any other American president. Trump’s embarrassment is deepened because of his reliance on Putin’s assurances that he was ready, even eager, to end the war. Trump, for the second time, may find himself denying that he was “duped” by one of the two global dictators he has openly admired–Xi Jinping’s dissembling and deception on the origin and spread of Covid in 2019 was the first. Trump’s reliance on Xi’s word cost the lives of 1.3 million Americans, halted America’s economic rebound, and contributed to his 2020 election loss. Yet, Trump still considers Xi his “friend.”

Trump’s inflection point can now go in one of three directions. He could do what he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have indicated Trump would do–abandon U.S. efforts to arrange a ceasefire and leave it to the warring parties either to find a way to reach a settlement of some kind or to continue with another endless war. Or, he could do what he has done in other situations when his course has been obstructed and frustrated–that is, back down from his threat to pursue a ceasefire and allow Putin to dictate the course of eventual negotiations, with the U.S. relegated to a titular role as host and passive supporter of Ukraine’s defeat. Either course would constitute a victory for Putin and vindication of his intransigence. It would also be a major repudiation of Trump’s campaign commitments, the failure of his desire for recognition as the world’s peacemaker, and the defeat of his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize. If Nobel awarded a Neville Chamberlain prize for appeasement, Trump would be the leading candidate for his performance on Ukraine. As for a place of honor on Mount Rushmore alongside Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and T. Roosevelt, Trump would have to settle for his image on a Russian mountain with the likes of imperialists Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Putin.

Trump could surprise everyone by executing one of those sudden changes of mind and policy reversals for which he is famous and make the morally correct and strategically sound decision on Ukraine. Instead of a having a pro-Putin ceasefire and final settlement, Trump could commit the United States to provide the weapons and intelligence support that will enable Ukraine not only to survive a war of attrition, which was the Biden policy, but actually to prevail in its valiant resistance to Russia’s aggression. That 180 degree turnaround would be a shock to both Putin and China’s Xi and set back their expansionist plans, potentially to the point of inducing regime change in Moscow and Beijing. That would be a Nobel-worthy achievement for Trump.

When Rubio reinforced Trump’s frustration with ceasefire negotiations, he took pains to remind everyone that “this is not our war, we didn’t start it.” That was inconsistent with his message as a U.S. Senator that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine poses not only a danger to the peace of Europe but is an affront to the entire system of international law that has kept global peace for 80 years after World War II. Trump can either preserve that system or join the Putins and Xis of the world in destroying it.

Joseph Bosco served in the office of the secretary of defense, 2002-2010 and participated in the discussion of the U.S. response to Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008.

22. The Pentagon Can’t Be Run Like a Business

I concur with this conclusion:

Excerpt:

Those who serve in the military take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Without an understanding of the special role played by the U.S. military, outsiders attempting to make it run like a business will fail. And their failures will represent more than a missed opportunity; they will weaken the United States, benefit its adversaries, and poison the well for more thoughtful plans for change in the future.

The Pentagon Can’t Be Run Like a Business

Foreign Affairs · by More by Mara Karlin · April 24, 2025

America’s Military Needs Reform, but Not the Kind That Musk and DOGE Have in Mind

Mara Karlin

April 24, 2025

The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, March 2022 Joshua Roberts / Reuters

MARA KARLIN is Professor of Practice at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 2021 to 2023, she served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities.

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Over the last decade, calls to reform the Department of Defense have grown ever louder. Everyone, from Congress, which convened a special commission on the urgent need for change, Pentagon officials, who have drafted countless internal reports examining how to improve many aspects of the department's ability to function, and pleading defense industry leaders, seems to agree that things need to be done differently. And no wonder: accelerating technological change is reshaping conflict around the world. China is making historic progress upgrading its military, and Russia has redoubled its military modernization despite massive losses of personnel and equipment in its war on Ukraine. The increasingly turbulent security environment offers regular reminders that taking a business-as-usual approach to investing in the U.S. military is shortsighted.

The latest group to call for a shakeup at the Pentagon is the Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is turning its attention toward the Defense Department as its next target for reform. “We welcome DOGE to the Pentagon,” declared U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in February. The group, he said, would bring “actual businesslike efficiency to government.”

But the Pentagon is not a business. Inefficient and rigid though it may be, the military represents a fundamentally different challenge for would-be reformers. Not only does it have a mission—protecting U.S. national security—that is shared by no private corporation, but it also has a workforce unlike any in the private sector. Its governance is different, too: it lacks control over its own budget, organizational structure, and some of its most important strategic decisions. Those differences mean that attempts to make the Pentagon run more like a corporation will backfire. If Hegseth and DOGE continue as they have begun, they will fail to achieve their goals—and harm the U.S. military in the process.

WE DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY HERE

To see why the Defense Department can’t be run like a business, just look at its structure. Like all departments and agencies in the executive branch of the U.S. government, it has a large, unwieldy, and often divided board of directors: the U.S. Congress. All 535 members of the House and Senate have, to varying degrees, the authority to shape the direction of the U.S. military. In contrast, Walmart, the largest company in the United States, has 12 directors on its board. And even though the president of the United States is the commander in chief of the armed forces, the most important decision the U.S. military faces—whether to declare war—ultimately lies outside the chain of command, in the hands of Congress. Nowhere in the private sector would a business lack control over its most meaningful decisions.

The same is true of the Pentagon’s budget. Not only is it larger than that of any business in the United States; the organization also has little control over it. Each year, the Defense Department conducts a robust, lengthy, and often cumbersome process to determine how it would like to spend its money, ideally in line with the administration’s National Defense Strategy. But ultimate control over funding decisions lies in the hands of Congress, whose committees and members rip apart department proposals and reshuffle them according to a wide array of considerations. Sometimes Congress emphasizes a different approach to meeting national security priorities; sometimes its choices are driven more by constituent job concerns. No private business could thrive with such a constrained ability to decide what it wants to purchase when and how.

Worse still, for most of the last decade and a half, Congress has failed to approve these funds promptly. The result has been a series of continuing resolutions and stopgap funding bills that largely renew the previous year’s budget but generally prevent the military from making new purchases or shifting investments in line with new strategies. This challenge became even more acute in recent weeks because, for the first time, Congress’s inability to agree on the size of the defense budget will force the Pentagon to go an entire fiscal year without a full congressional appropriation. That means that today’s military budget is almost exactly the same as last year’s—Congress increased it by less than one percent in a feeble attempt to alleviate the impact of this historic spending problem. It is hard to imagine a private sector company declaring a fundamental mismatch between its strategy and budget, and then, after months of deliberations by its board of directors, ultimately failing to meaningfully change its budget. Short-term efforts to move resources around have also been stymied by Congressional restrictions. The Pentagon cannot reprogram more than $15 million without Congressional approval, which prevents it from shifting funds to purchase newly released platforms or to test and evaluate promising systems.

Attempts to make the Pentagon run more like a corporation will backfire.

The department’s workforce also sets it apart from the business world. Its 3.5 million military and civilian employees make up an institution that is 40 percent larger by headcount than the next largest American employer. Those in uniform have, since 1973, volunteered to serve their country anywhere in the world at any time—and to risk their lives doing so. Approximately half the civilian workforce served in uniform before continuing as public servants. Many have undergone intense, years-long vetting to ensure they can be trusted with valuable classified information to protect U.S. security. And about one in eight of these civilians perform specialized military duties. No private sector workforce anywhere in the country is expected to make these sacrifices. Partly as a result, department hiring is notoriously slow. Given the glacial pace of that process, and in light of the specialized capabilities required of staff, especially the need for high-level security clearances, decisions to fire employees must be made carefully. So far, however, DOGE has been anything but careful. It has focused on firing probationary employees simply because it is easier to fire people based on their status than to assess their work and and push out poor performers. Every organization fires and reassigns personnel, but doing so based on time served rather than performance is shortsighted, particularly if workers later identified as essential cannot be quickly hired back.

Above all, the Defense Department differs from a business in the unique product it provides: security for the American public. The need to wholly focus on national security gives the military a special relationship to risk, one that is incomparable to that of a business. If a company fails, as the overwhelming majority of startups do, investors lose money and people lose their jobs. If the U.S. military fails, people die. The military’s singular role in society, to keep Americans safe and to maintain a monopoly of violence on behalf of the state, makes the stakes for risk taking in defense uniquely high. The department’s monopoly status also means that effectively executing its vision is invariably more complex than in it would be for a private company. The military cannot avoid risks, but the decision to run them must always be considered far more soberly and carefully than in the corporate world.

Of course, these differences do not mean that the Pentagon should be immune to reform. There is no shortage of serious ideas on how reform can be accomplished. Some of these involve studying and replicating existing successes. For instance, the U.S. Marine Corps has managed for the second straight year to be the only military service to repeatedly pass financial audits while undergoing a massive transformation in line with the changing security environment and the National Defense Strategy. Another positive example comes from U.S. Special Operations Command, which benefits from special acquisition authorities that allow it to get tools in the hands of warfighters more quickly than other combatant commands can.

Effective reform will require appreciating the uniqueness of the Pentagon.

On the other end of the spectrum, would-be Pentagon reformers should also learn from the military’s many other recent failed efforts. Realizing that the Defense Acquisition Guidebook, which ran to nearly 2,000 pages of rules, was cumbersome and unwieldy, Defense Department leaders launched a massive effort to update it. The result, in 2022: the department published 12 new acquisition guidebooks totaling a similar number of pages. The acquisition process remains clunky, and diligent efforts to streamline regulations appear to have achieved little. A real challenge for defense reforms is that the insistent desire for change over the past decade has resulted in a discordant cycle in which new reform initiatives pile up before earlier reforms can be implemented or their impact assessed. The Pentagon’s board of directors—Congress—can take some meaningful steps toward reform, as well. Recognizing the harm that endless continuing resolutions do to the military and returning to the regular appropriations process would be a good start. But given that Congress has been unable to break the continuing-resolution cycle, it should consider simply tweaking its most damaging elements by enabling the Defense Department to consistently start new programs and buy new capabilities even without fresh appropriations. (The additional spending flexibility Congress embedded in the latest continuing resolution represents a first step along these lines.)

The Pentagon needs change, but effective reform will require appreciating the uniqueness of the organization. So far, the signs are not encouraging. As Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, put it in March, DOGE’s approach has resembled “a kid in a nuclear power plant running around hitting buttons.” At a minimum, DOGE’s tactics will fail to achieve much-needed reform in the Defense Department. But at a maximum, these steps could backfire in terrifying ways, as they did at the Department of Energy, where DOGE forced out many employees who handled nuclear materials, before the Trump administration realized just how critical these positions are and rescinded most of the firings.

Those who serve in the military take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Without an understanding of the special role played by the U.S. military, outsiders attempting to make it run like a business will fail. And their failures will represent more than a missed opportunity; they will weaken the United States, benefit its adversaries, and poison the well for more thoughtful plans for change in the future.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Mara Karlin · April 24, 2025

23. Polygraph Threats, Leaks and Infighting: Pentagon Chaos Rattles Hegseth

Oh no.

Let's take a step back and take deep breath.

We need to remember leadership 101. The leader is responsible for all that their organization does or fails to do.

I fear this could do more damage than any of the previous misguided DEI policies ever did.

Polygraph Threats, Leaks and Infighting: Pentagon Chaos Rattles Hegseth

Defense secretary has chastised top military officers and staffers as he seeks to quiet a storm he helped create

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pete-hegseth-pentagon-fired-aides-cfa9e0d5?mod=hp_lead_pos7

By Nancy A. Youssef

, Alexander Ward

and Vera Bergengruen

April 24, 2025 5:26 pm ET

Gift unlocked article

Amid infighting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has narrowed his inner circle at the Pentagon. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was rattled.

Word had leaked that he was planning a classified briefing for Elon Musk on China, a revelation that infuriated President Trump and raised alarms inside the Pentagon given Musk’s business ties to Beijing.

“I’ll hook you up to a f——-g polygraph!” Hegseth shouted at Adm. Christopher Grady, the then-acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to two people familiar with the exchange. Hegseth demanded proof that Grady hadn’t leaked news of the March 21 briefing.

Grady was never subjected to a polygraph, and Hegseth would go on to accuse a number of other people for the leak, including Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, the Joint Staff director, who Hegseth also threatened with a polygraph test.

But for Hegseth, the episode marked a turning point in an already rocky tenure. Coming just days after revelations that the former Fox News host had shared sensitive military information in unsecured group chats, the leaks deepened his frustrations and eroded his trust in his close circle of advisers, the officials say.

Problems only snowballed from there. At least five political appointees have been fired or resigned, and Hegseth has said he is referring some of the aides for criminal investigation. Meanwhile, he is under investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general for the alleged mishandling of classified information.

The Joint Staff declined to comment about the exchange, and the Pentagon didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Statement by Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell on the Conclusion of Service of DOD Advisory Committee Members

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4165731/statement-by-chief-pentagon-spokesman-sean-parnell-on-the-conclusion-of-service/

April 24, 2025 |

Yesterday, informed by the recently concluded 45-day review of DOD advisory committees, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directed the conclusion of service of all members of each DOD advisory committee that had been subject to the review, consistent with applicable law.

Secretary Hegseth appreciates the members' efforts on behalf of the department and the United States of America, but changes are needed to support the new strategic direction and policy priorities of the department and to ensure departmental resources are used efficiently.

24. The fight to restore VOA continues. China hopes the agency loses.

If anything we should all want VOA because China fears (or hates) it. It is a testament to its effectiveness.

The subtitle below says it all.

The fight to restore VOA continues. China hopes the agency loses.

A less-informed global public is good for autocrats, who want people uninformed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/24/voice-of-america-trump-china/?utm_source=pocket_saves

April 24, 2025 at 7:45 a.m. EDTToday at 7:45 a.m. EDT

5 min

Voice of America’s headquarters in the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building in D.C. on Jan. 15. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

By Charles Hutzler

Charles Hutzler, a journalist and editor, spent 25 years covering China for the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal.

Chinese journalist Gao Yu has been a thorn in the side of China’s authorities for decades. Jailed three times for her work — I covered one of those jailings, in the 1990s, as a foreign correspondent in China — Gao is now 81 and subjected to a different punishment. She is banned from Chinese social media. Her Beijing apartment is periodically under surveillance, its internet and phone service cut off.

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To her, that made it all the more necessary to file a declaration this month supporting lawsuits in U.S. federal court to prevent the Trump administration from shutting down Voice of America. On Tuesday, one of those suits won a preliminary injunction allowing VOA employees to return to work. More than 1,000 journalists and others had been placed on administrative leave last month as President Donald Trump moved to demolish the government-funded news service and its affiliates. While the news was encouraging, the fight to preserve VOA is far from over.

In her declaration to the court, Gao wrote that VOA’s coverage of her plight has encouraged her and others fighting for freedom of speech and “helped the world understand the severe and often unimaginable human rights abuses in China.” As Gao knows, a less-informed global public is good for autocrats, who want people uninformed. Russia, Iran and above all China cheered on the Trump administration’s move against VOA last month.

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Having spent 25 years as a journalist in China for the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, I see the shuttering of VOA and the cutoff in funding for its affiliated broadcasters as especially damaging to the United States in its competition with China’s communist government.

Follow Trump’s first 100 Days

For years, Beijing has worked hard to expand its sway worldwide, translating that influence into contracts for Chinese businesses, votes at the United Nations and basing rights for the Chinese military. The government counts on well-funded state media to amplify its voice. During the Cold War, VOA bolstered positive perceptions of the United States overseas and exposing autocratic oppression. It has served a similarly vital role on the front line in what Chinese leader Xi Jinping describes as a struggle with the democratic West to shape global narratives.

During my time in China, Communist Party leaders faced the rise of a powerful challenge to their rule: the freer access to news and other information that the internet and cellphones brought the Chinese people. Unemployed workers, civil rights activists, underground Christians and others found the means to communicate and organize.

Threatened at home, Beijing constructed an extensive filtering system to block unwanted information from reaching Chinese citizens. It also looked outward, spending billions of dollars to extend the overseas reach of its biggest media organizations to build what it calls “discourse power.”

By contrast, VOA and Radio Free Asia, a government-supported platform the Trump administration also throttled, operate on modest budgets — $320 million combined for the past fiscal year. China Global Television Network, meanwhile, has continued reporting from Washington even as VOA was closed.

Whether spreading propaganda overseas or censoring news to Chinese readers, Beijing’s aim is the same: project China as a benevolent power, deflect attention from wrongdoing by Chinese officials and companies, and lessen government accountability.

Chinese media, for example, have whitewashed the mass detention and forced assimilation of Muslim Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region. The State Department considers those actions genocide.

Uyghur reporters at Radio Free Asia have done breakthrough reporting on China’s suppression campaign. VOA has documented China’s efforts to carry that suppression abroad, including by targeting the family members of one of its U.S.-based reporters.

VOA long held a special association for many Chinese, who decades ago flocked to shortwave broadcasts to learn English. Chinese also saw in VOA the American values of freedom of the press and rule of law and how those served as checks on government power.

Early in my career, I worked for VOA in Beijing (I also recently consulted with the agency on its China strategy). In 1988, at a pro-democracy rally at Peking University, students cheered and gave way so that “the VOA reporter” could get closer to record protest leaders rallying the crowds.

Despite China’s formidable fire wall, in recent years, VOA still reached tens of millions of Chinese, with many using circumvention technology to access blocked content. VOA’s association with free speech still holds.

Robert Daly, head of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson Center (also hit with a Trump shutdown order), was mobbed by university students in Beijing and Shanghai last fall. Daly had recently appeared on a popular VOA Mandarin talk show, discussing U.S. politics with Miles Yu, director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute, a D.C. think tank.

Their discussion had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. What captivated the students, Daly said, was the open, rancor-free debate.

The Trump camp has criticized VOA for what it perceives as left-leaning bias; the White House called the broadcaster the “Voice of Radical America.” Where VOA actually needs reform is in updating its programming and making better use of its resources. Cutting some of the 49 languages in which VOA provides programming would free up resources to focus on countries of strategic importance to the U.S. without compromising the broadcaster’s mission to explain America and government policy to the world.

Any reprieve brought by this week’s injunction ordering the administration to switch VOA back on and restore funding to Radio Free Asia is likely to be short-lived. The administration is expected to appeal. If it doesn’t, funding runs out in September. Ultimately, Congress will have to decide whether to allocate money for next year. Failure to do so will be to the United States’ disadvantage when China is intent on influencing global public opinion.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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