Quotes of the Day:

"We will never have a true civilization until we have learned the rights to recognize the rights of others."

– Will Rogers

"Rebellion is born when rulers forget they are meant to serve."

– Confucius

"I would rather have questions that can't be answered, than answers that can't be questions."

– Richard Feynman

1. Military leaders voice concern over Hegseth’s new Pentagon strategy

2. US drone swarm plan spiraling into oblivion

3. Time to Abandon ‘Active Defense’ in Ukraine

4. Trump Gives Hamas Ultimatum to Release Hostages or Face Destruction by Israel

5. The U.N. Is Too Useful to Slide Into Irrelevance

6. SOCOM, DAWG, C-sUAS University, and Drones – Sep 30, 2025

7. Ukraine’s Ground-Drone Revolution: A Wake-Up Call for the U.S. Army

8. SOCOM to get robotic anti-drone turret for maritime platforms

9. Trump Flips the Global Script

10. Trump’s Plan for Gaza Hands Netanyahu a Political Lifeline

11. Pentagon readies contingency plans for government shutdown

12. Pentagon names US-Mexico border mission as top priority to continue under shutdown

13. Stephen Miller takes leading role in strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats\

14. Fortifying America: Is the Pentagon Ready?

15. Ukraine Turns Helicopters Into Drone Hunters With Surprising Success Rate

16. Trump Gives Hamas Ultimatum to Release Hostages or Face Destruction by Israel

17. The Fatal Flaw in the Transatlantic Alliance

18. Why Regime Change in Iran Cannot be Imposed

19. Can More British and French Nuclear Cooperation Help Deter Russia?

20. How Vance helped Trump get his TikTok deal, despite political risks

21. What to know about Hegseth's gathering of top U.S. military leaders at Quantico, Virginia:

1. Military leaders voice concern over Hegseth’s new Pentagon strategy

Looks like the CJCS is offering his best military advice.

Excerpts:

The critiques from multiple top officers, including Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, come as Hegseth reorders U.S. military priorities — centering the Pentagon on perceived threats to the homeland, narrowing U.S. competition with China, and downplaying America’s role in Europe and Africa.

...

The debate over the National Defense Strategy — the Pentagon’s primary guide for how it prioritizes resources and positions U.S. forces around the world — is the latest challenge for top military officials navigating the Trump administration’s unorthodox approach to the armed forces.

...

“He gave Hegseth very frank feedback,” one of the two people said, noting Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby was also included in the discussion. “I don’t know if Hegseth even understands the magnitude of the NDS, which is why I think Caine tried so hard.”

The second person said Caine has tried to get the NDS to remain focused on preparing the military to deter and, if necessary, defeat China in a conflict.

Hegseth and his policy officials have signaled the Pentagon will withdraw some forces from Europe and consolidate commands in a way that unnerves some American allies, particularly amid Russia’s war with Ukraine and its recent, repeated incursions into NATO airspace. For years, Pentagon strategy has been anchored in the idea that the nation’s best defense was in building and maintaining strong military alliances abroad.

...

Much of the internal criticism of the new strategy regards the document’s emphasis on threats to the U.S. homeland even as China continues a rapid military buildup that uniformed leaders have warned is narrowing the U.S.’s edge in the Pacific, according to several people familiar with the matter.

There are still substantial sections of the document that do focus on China, but these are largely focused on the threat of an attack on Taiwan, rather than global competition with the U.S.’s largest adversary, five people said. Colby has long warned that the U.S. military is unprepared for the risk of a Chinese invasion and called for Washington to shift attention and resources toward the problem.

“There’s a concern that it’s just not very well thought out,” one former official said of the strategy.

Military leaders voice concern over Hegseth’s new Pentagon strategy

The critiques from multiple top officers, including chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, come as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reorders U.S. military priorities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/09/29/hegseth-national-defense-strategy-trump-dissent/

September 29, 2025 at 6:58 p.m. E

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth participates in a meeting with Singapore's defense minister. (Shawn Thew/EPA/Shutterstock)

By Noah Robertson, Tara Copp, Alex Horton and Dan Lamothe

Military leaders have raised serious concerns with the Trump administration’s forthcoming defense strategy, exposing a divide between the Pentagon’s political and uniformed leadership as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summons top brass to a highly unusual summit in Virginia on Tuesday, according to eight current and former officials.

The critiques from multiple top officers, including Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, come as Hegseth reorders U.S. military priorities — centering the Pentagon on perceived threats to the homeland, narrowing U.S. competition with China, and downplaying America’s role in Europe and Africa.

President Donald Trump will attend the abrupt gathering of general and admirals at Marine Corps Base Quantico, where Hegseth is expected to deliver remarks on military standards and the “warrior ethos,” even as uniformed leaders fear mass firings or a drastic reorganization of the combatant command structure and the military hierarchy.

The debate over the National Defense Strategy — the Pentagon’s primary guide for how it prioritizes resources and positions U.S. forces around the world — is the latest challenge for top military officials navigating the Trump administration’s unorthodox approach to the armed forces.

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People familiar with the editing process, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations, described a growing sense of frustration with a plan they considered myopic and potentially irrelevant, given the president’s highly personal and sometimes contradictory approach to foreign policy.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell declined to comment on the substance of the classified document or whether concerns had been raised in the editing process.

“Secretary Hegseth has tasked the development of a National Defense Strategy that is laser focused on advancing President Trump’s commonsense America First, Peace Through Strength agenda,” Parnell said in a statement. “This process is still ongoing.”

Trump political appointees within the Pentagon’s policy office — including some officials who have previously criticized long-standing American commitments to Europe and the Middle East — drafted the strategy, now in its final edits.

The draft plan has been shared widely with military leaders from the global combatant commands to the Joint Chiefs of Staff — some of whom questioned what its priorities would mean for a force designed to respond to crises around the globe, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Dissent during the drafting process is normal, but the number of officials concerned about the document — and the depth of their criticism — is unusual, several people said.

Caine shared his concerns with top Pentagon leadership in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the matter.

“He gave Hegseth very frank feedback,” one of the two people said, noting Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby was also included in the discussion. “I don’t know if Hegseth even understands the magnitude of the NDS, which is why I think Caine tried so hard.”

The second person said Caine has tried to get the NDS to remain focused on preparing the military to deter and, if necessary, defeat China in a conflict.

Hegseth and his policy officials have signaled the Pentagon will withdraw some forces from Europe and consolidate commands in a way that unnerves some American allies, particularly amid Russia’s war with Ukraine and its recent, repeated incursions into NATO airspace. For years, Pentagon strategy has been anchored in the idea that the nation’s best defense was in building and maintaining strong military alliances abroad.

Critics of that approach within the administration have argued that it has mired the U.S. in expensive wars on foreign soil, instead of securing domestic U.S. interests. Trump’s approach so far has largely been to prod allies to spend more on their own defense, at times alienating Republican defense hawks in Congress who are also urging higher defense spending at home.

While Trump has undertaken bombing campaigns in Yemen and Iran, his main focus has been surging the military toward missions close to American soil.

Under his command this year, the Pentagon has struck alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea, deployed U.S. troops and weapons to the southern border, and sent the National Guard and Marines to U.S. cities, where they have aided deportation efforts and sought to curtail what he has called “out of control” urban crime. Some of those domestic deployments are being challenged in court.

Over the weekend, Trump on social media ordered troops to Portland, Oregon, saying he was allowing them to use “full force” to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that have drawn sporadic protests in the city. Hegseth said Sunday in a memo to the Oregon National Guard that the mission would include the federalizing of about 200 Guard members.

Much of the internal criticism of the new strategy regards the document’s emphasis on threats to the U.S. homeland even as China continues a rapid military buildup that uniformed leaders have warned is narrowing the U.S.’s edge in the Pacific, according to several people familiar with the matter.

There are still substantial sections of the document that do focus on China, but these are largely focused on the threat of an attack on Taiwan, rather than global competition with the U.S.’s largest adversary, five people said. Colby has long warned that the U.S. military is unprepared for the risk of a Chinese invasion and called for Washington to shift attention and resources toward the problem.

“There’s a concern that it’s just not very well thought out,” one former official said of the strategy.

The document’s tone is also far more partisan than past strategies, blaming the Biden administration for erosion to America’s military in rhetoric similar to Hegseth’s speeches, two person familiar with the plan said.

Hegseth, meanwhile, is leading an overhaul of the armed forces, promising to cut the roughly 800 generals and admirals overseeing the U.S. military by 20 percent and redraw the lines of the U.S.’s combatant commands. The secretary has already fired senior officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti. A disproportionate number of women have been relieved during the sackings.

The Pentagon’s interim defense strategy, which The Post first reported in detail in March, included a similar focus on Taiwan and homeland defense, going as far as to urge Pentagon leaders to “assume risk” in other parts of the globe to meet both priorities.

That interim document also hinted at the emerging strategy to use military personnel in a more assertive role at home and abroad. The Pentagon was directed by Hegseth to “prioritize efforts to seal our borders, repel forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities, and deport illegal aliens in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security,” according to the document.

2. US drone swarm plan spiraling into oblivion

Excerpts:

Ultimately, though, Replicator may be based on a flawed premise. Bill Murray argues in a May 2025 Small Wars Journal article that, despite the Russia-Ukraine war hyping up drones as the future of warfare, drones are not a substitute for conventional firepower, i.e., artillery.

Murray points out that drones do not have the sheer destructive power of massed artillery and that Ukraine’s extensive use of them comes from necessity, not superiority. He argues that the US risks strategic missteps by overemphasizing drones and neglecting the modernization of conventional artillery, which is essential for deterrence and dominance against near-peer adversaries.

Echoing Murray’s views, Sam Tangredi argues in a March 2024 Proceedings article that the Replicator program’s focus on mass-producing cheap autonomous drones is strategically flawed for countering China’s high-tech military.

Tangredi points out that small drones lack the range, payload and lethality required for Pacific warfare, and should thus function primarily as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) tools rather than decisive weapons.

Tangredi says their tactical utility in Ukraine does not translate to the vast Indo-Pacific theater. Instead, Tangredi argues the US must prioritize ordnance—long-range antiship missiles, advanced sea mines and torpedoes—that can inflict substantial damage and deter aggression.

He mentions that instead of a Replicator strategy, an “Ordnator” strategy would ensure scalable, survivable firepower capable of defeating People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces, rather than relying on attritable platforms that offer minimal strategic impact.

US drone swarm plan spiraling into oblivion - Asia Times

Replicator drone project missed August delivery target, raising hard questions about America’s readiness to fight China

asiatimes.com · Gabriel Honrada · September 29, 2025

The US’s Replicator project, billed as a way to swarm China with “small, smart, cheap” drones, has been grounded by delays, spiraling costs and software chaos, raising questions about the Pacific balance of power in a fast-moving new era of drone warfare.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) ambitious Replicator program, launched in 2023 to rapidly field thousands of autonomous drones across air, land and sea domains, missed its August 2025 delivery target, forcing a restructuring under a new unit known as the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG).

Conceived by then–Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks with US$1 billion in initial funding, the Replicator was intended to provide “small, smart, cheap” drone systems to counter China’s growing military power and prepare for a potential conflict over Taiwan as early as 2027.

However, unreliable hardware, slow or costly production and software failures in coordinating drones from different manufacturers have plagued the effort. Tests revealed problems ranging from rudder failures on unmanned boats to misidentification of objects and communication vulnerabilities in Switchblade 600 drones, which also faced criticism for high costs and poor battlefield performance in Ukraine.

With Lieutenant General Frank Donovan of Special Operations Command now overseeing DAWG, the US DoD has less than two years to field effective systems, underscoring the urgency of dispersing cheap, expendable drones to offset Chinese military advances and ensure US readiness in the Pacific.

US drone performance in the Russia-Ukraine war may have been less than stellar – possibly failing to justify their cost. Newsweek reported in April 2024 that Ukraine’s drone strategy has pivoted away from US drones due to prohibitive costs and poor battlefield performance against Russian electronic warfare.

A US Switchblade 300 anti-tank loitering munition costs $90,000 per unit, in contrast to some commercial models repurposed by Ukraine that cost just $700. Furthermore, Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds mention in a May 2023 Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) report that Ukraine is losing 10,000 drones a month, mainly to Russian jamming.

According to Newsweek, US drones are glitch-prone and challenging to repair, and have proven less effective than cheaper Chinese models, which Ukraine now sources in the tens of thousands per month. Despite initial US support, Ukraine is increasingly relying on domestic drones, which prioritize affordability and operational simplicity, the report said.

While acknowledging these challenges, the US DoD continues to refine its drone capabilities. However, the Newsweek report cites experts stating that while US drones remain technologically superior, they are ill-suited to Ukraine’s fast-paced combat needs.

The situation at sea may be no better. Reuters reported in August 2025 that the US Navy’s ambitious push to field autonomous maritime drones faces mounting setbacks, including software failures, test crashes and leadership turmoil.

According to Reuters, recent incidents such as a drone boat collision and a capsized support vessel underscore technical flaws in systems developed by Saronic and BlackSea Technologies. Furthermore, the report mentions the US DoD has paused a $20 million contract with L3Harris amid concerns over autonomy software.

The Trump administration’s skepticism over the US Navy’s approach and the firing of Rear Admiral Kevin Smith have further destabilized the Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants, Reuters said. It points out that, despite a $5 billion funding boost under US President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” experts warn that the US Navy must recalibrate its tactics to meet operational realities.

Things may be better for the US Air Force, as its YF-42A fighter drone prototype completed its test flight in August 2025, with plans to purchase 1,000 units or more. However, Jay Stout warns in a July 2025 Proceedings article that these robotic systems require comparable size, payload, stealth and AI sophistication to manned jets, driving costs near parity and thus breaking the “affordable mass” premise of the Replicator program.

These challenges may have been foreseen. At a US Congressional Hearing in October 2023, experts highlighted multiple challenges with the Replicator program.

Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute (HI) warned that Replicator risks aiming at the wrong problem, noting that trying to match China’s mass with mass is flawed. Instead, he argues the program should prioritize enabling operational innovation backed by robust analytic processes and cross-domain integration of unmanned systems – areas where the US DoD has historically struggled.

William Greenwalt of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) wrote that Replicator faces significant cultural and bureaucratic obstacles, as the US DoD remains entrenched in a “1960s paradigm” of slow, sequential acquisition.

Greenwalt cautioned that unless the Replicator program operates outside normal acquisition and budgeting rules, it will fail, as the US DoD’s current system cannot deliver on the program’s ambitious 18– to 24–month timeline.

Paul Scharre of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) argues that the program’s biggest hurdles are speed and scale. While Scharre says Replicator aims to break the cycle of rising costs and shrinking numbers, the US DoD’s bureaucracy is likely to resist both low-cost attritable systems and autonomy, meaning success will require senior-level intervention and sustained congressional support.

Ultimately, though, Replicator may be based on a flawed premise. Bill Murray argues in a May 2025 Small Wars Journal article that, despite the Russia-Ukraine war hyping up drones as the future of warfare, drones are not a substitute for conventional firepower, i.e., artillery.

Murray points out that drones do not have the sheer destructive power of massed artillery and that Ukraine’s extensive use of them comes from necessity, not superiority. He argues that the US risks strategic missteps by overemphasizing drones and neglecting the modernization of conventional artillery, which is essential for deterrence and dominance against near-peer adversaries.

Echoing Murray’s views, Sam Tangredi argues in a March 2024 Proceedings article that the Replicator program’s focus on mass-producing cheap autonomous drones is strategically flawed for countering China’s high-tech military.

Tangredi points out that small drones lack the range, payload and lethality required for Pacific warfare, and should thus function primarily as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) tools rather than decisive weapons.

Tangredi says their tactical utility in Ukraine does not translate to the vast Indo-Pacific theater. Instead, Tangredi argues the US must prioritize ordnance—long-range antiship missiles, advanced sea mines and torpedoes—that can inflict substantial damage and deter aggression.

He mentions that instead of a Replicator strategy, an “Ordnator” strategy would ensure scalable, survivable firepower capable of defeating People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces, rather than relying on attritable platforms that offer minimal strategic impact.

asiatimes.com · Gabriel Honrada · September 29, 2025

3. Time to Abandon ‘Active Defense’ in Ukraine

Who is today's General Starry and his acolytes?

Excerpts:

During the Cold War, the defense budget increases under Ronald Reagan supplied the funds necessary to turn around the military. A fundamental shift in battlefield tactics was still essential. Pouring money into a flawed strategy amplified the expense of failure.

A small group of visionaries led by Army Gen. Donn Starry embraced that challenge, discarded Active Defense, and developed a strategy of AirLand Battle. Fundamental to that strategy were the concepts of Deep Battle and Follow-On Forces Attacks.

Instead of relying on Active Defense to halt the Soviet advance, Deep Battle aimed to strike at the vulnerable follow-on echelons, targeting command posts, logistics and road combat units. The goal was to neutralize these reinforcements in the rear, leaving front-line Soviet forces isolated, weakened and exposed to counterattacks.

This wasn’t a chimerical map exercise but the basis for the weapons development and acquisition programs of the late 1980s and early 1990s. While many countries were increasing the range and lethality of their front-line weapons, drawing lessons from the 1973 Yom Kippur war, the U.S. spent billions on long-range reconnaissance, targeting and strike capabilities. Weapons such as ATACMS, Apache helicopters, A-10s, precision munitions and scatterable mines were quickly developed—precisely to turn the potential of Deep Battle into a reality.

These weapons, significantly modernized, are on the Ukrainian battlefield today, but political decisions restrict their full potential, which has forced President Volodymyr Zelensky into fighting an Active Defense. Billions of dollars have been wasted through suboptimal use of weapons provided to Ukraine. While drones and Javelins are strengthening the front lines, they haven’t stopped Mr. Putin from resupplying his army with millions of artillery rounds, thousands of troops, and the fuel, spare parts and meals that keep his front lines impenetrable and the Donbas and Crimea still in his grip.

Time to Abandon ‘Active Defense’ in Ukraine

The doctrine proved to be ineffective after Vietnam, but better ideas came with Reagan’s military buildup.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/time-to-abandon-active-defense-in-ukraine-dd3a4d59

By Mark T. Kimmitt

Sept. 29, 2025 5:14 pm ET

The flag of NATO and Vladimir Putin. Photo: Taidgh Barron/Zuma Press

Vladimir Putin has spent months probing the flanks of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with drone overflights, incursions by MiG-31 fighter jets, and various cyber operations—testing NATO’s defenses and its resolve. His strategy, coined by Lenin, is clear: “You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.”

On Sept. 23, NATO issued a warning that it will engage “all necessary military and nonmilitary tools to defend ourselves and deter all threats from all directions.” Yet while a solution to the recent probes is straightforward, President Trump grasps that Mr. Putin’s provocations against NATO must be viewed not in isolation but as part of an overall strategy against the West.

The president’s recent call to “WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form” acknowledges a connection between the Russian NATO incursions and an unsettled ground war in Ukraine. Without a significant change in how the war is fought, however, there is little chance of success.

NATO faced and overcame a similar challenge during the Cold War. After the Vietnam conflict, the U.S. Army almost reluctantly acknowledged that the Soviet Union remained an existential threat to the U.S. and Europe, and that the poorly trained, inadequately equipped and often drug-addled fighting force in Germany was no match for the hundreds of Soviet and Warsaw Pact divisions on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

NATO had neither the force levels nor the operational concepts to defeat the threat. Its war-fighting doctrine—Active Defense—envisioned fighting a defensive battle, trading space for time in Western Europe until American reinforcements arrived. But Europe had too little space to trade and not enough time. The only way to slow the Soviet juggernaut was the unthinkable use of tactical nuclear weapons. It wasn’t a strategy to win, merely to stall. Unfortunately, the strategy of Active Defense is embraced in Ukraine today, and the results are the same.

During the Cold War, the defense budget increases under Ronald Reagan supplied the funds necessary to turn around the military. A fundamental shift in battlefield tactics was still essential. Pouring money into a flawed strategy amplified the expense of failure.

A small group of visionaries led by Army Gen. Donn Starry embraced that challenge, discarded Active Defense, and developed a strategy of AirLand Battle. Fundamental to that strategy were the concepts of Deep Battle and Follow-On Forces Attacks.

Instead of relying on Active Defense to halt the Soviet advance, Deep Battle aimed to strike at the vulnerable follow-on echelons, targeting command posts, logistics and road combat units. The goal was to neutralize these reinforcements in the rear, leaving front-line Soviet forces isolated, weakened and exposed to counterattacks.

This wasn’t a chimerical map exercise but the basis for the weapons development and acquisition programs of the late 1980s and early 1990s. While many countries were increasing the range and lethality of their front-line weapons, drawing lessons from the 1973 Yom Kippur war, the U.S. spent billions on long-range reconnaissance, targeting and strike capabilities. Weapons such as ATACMS, Apache helicopters, A-10s, precision munitions and scatterable mines were quickly developed—precisely to turn the potential of Deep Battle into a reality.

These weapons, significantly modernized, are on the Ukrainian battlefield today, but political decisions restrict their full potential, which has forced President Volodymyr Zelensky into fighting an Active Defense. Billions of dollars have been wasted through suboptimal use of weapons provided to Ukraine. While drones and Javelins are strengthening the front lines, they haven’t stopped Mr. Putin from resupplying his army with millions of artillery rounds, thousands of troops, and the fuel, spare parts and meals that keep his front lines impenetrable and the Donbas and Crimea still in his grip.

The blame shouldn’t fall on the brave Ukrainian soldiers who withstand casualty rates and battlefield conditions unseen since the world wars, or on Ukrainian leaders such as Mr. Zelensky, who after three years of war can still rally his people to resist. The responsibility lies with Western leaders unwilling to permit Ukraine to employ the weapons to their full potential.

Restrictions on weapons employment, range and targets should be choices made by Mr. Zelensky and his military leaders, not risk-averse bureaucrats in Brussels or Washington. Boundaries should be irrelevant, and Russian territory shouldn’t be a sanctuary for critical targets. If the West is serious about winning, it must allow Ukraine to fight against the follow-on troops, isolate the Russian front-line forces, and set the conditions for offensive operations. This isn’t a new strategy, but one that has been called for since the first months of the war.

Mr. Trump has opened an opportunity for the West to break the stalemate of the war and send a clear message to Mr. Putin that repeated provocations against NATO will be met with a harsh response. Clear instructions to end the failed strategy of Active Defense and confronting the provocations on the flanks of NATO will be the message to Russia that their bayonets have hit steel.

Mr. Kimmitt, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general, served as assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, 2008-09.

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25:58

Donald Trump once said Volodymyr Zelensky had 'no cards' to win the war against Russia, but now the President says Ukraine can win its territory back from Vladimir Putin. What caused this pivot, and what will the U.S. do if Russian aircrafts breach NATO airspace?

Appeared in the September 30, 2025, print edition as 'Time to Abandon ‘Active Defense’ in Ukraine'.

4. Trump Gives Hamas Ultimatum to Release Hostages or Face Destruction by Israel

Trump Gives Hamas Ultimatum to Release Hostages or Face Destruction by Israel

Plan agreed with Israel leaves open possibility of Palestinian statehood, but Hamas has yet to agree

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trumps-gaza-cease-fire-plan-faces-obstacles-as-he-meets-with-netanyahu-4a4d9e9d

By Anat Peled

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Updated Sept. 29, 2025 7:10 pm ET

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Working with the new transitional authority in Gaza,

After President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at the White House, Trump said they were ‘very close’ to achieving a peace deal. Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/Press Pool

WASHINGTON—For months, President Trump warned Hamas that it had to release all remaining hostages or face Israel’s wrath. On Monday, he issued an ominous message: Agree to a 20-point peace plan for Gaza within 72 hours, or suffer complete annihilation.

In effect, Trump threatened the prospect of more war in order to end nearly two years of fighting.

If Hamas doesn’t accept, or the plan falls apart, “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas,” Trump said.

The move ranks among the riskiest diplomatic gambles for Trump, which he delivered alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House to show that at least one warring party agreed to his peace vision. If Hamas doesn’t support the proposal, then the U.S. would back Israel as it targeted the U.S.-designated terrorist group in its last remaining strongholds.

“Israel will finish the job by itself,” Netanyahu said during a joint statement following a meeting between both leaders. “This can be done the easy way, or it can be done the hard way, but it has to be done.”

Trump’s peace plan, if adopted, would see the president chair a “Board of Peace” to oversee the interim governance of Gaza. Aid would flow into the enclave and an Arab-led stabilization force would swiftly keep order. Israeli forces would, over time, withdraw from the battlefield while maintaining a security buffer zone around Gaza. And Hamas would lay down its arms while forever renouncing its leadership role.

In response to the Trump plan, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt said they supported the U.S. efforts and called for full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, as well as for the enclave’s reconstruction. They said they would work with the U.S. to end the war and called for the renewal of peace negotiations that would lead to a Palestinian state.

Israel helped shape the Trump plan, according to officials, and pushed for several amendments that appeared in the final draft. Most notably, the proposal leaves open the possibility of a sovereign Palestinian state but doesn’t include the phrase “two-state solution.” It instead noted the “aspiration of the Palestinian people” for self-determination.

Netanyahu and Trump at their news conference at the White House on Monday. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP

“To its credit, this plan tries to bridge some of the gaps that have plagued diplomacy to date,” said Michael Singh, who was a top Middle East official in George W. Bush’s White House and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The proposal further adds diplomatic pressure to the military pressure Hamas is already facing and brings non-Hamas Gazans into the discussion, he said, though “it may not end the fighting or gain immediate purchase.”

If Hamas doesn’t sign on to the conditions, then the U.S. and Israel plus Arab and international partners would realize Trump’s vision in areas of Gaza no longer controlled by the militants, U.S. officials insisted.

But the pitfalls are in plain sight, analysts and other officials said. For starters, Hamas hasn’t yet made clear whether it would sign on to the plan.

Arab countries are unlikely to send troops if Israel continues striking Hamas targets in Gaza. Israeli forces are unlikely to withdraw from the enclave until all hostages are released—up to 20 of the remaining 48 are thought to still be alive—but Israel and the U.S. have insisted that Hamas must release all hostages for the peace plan to be implemented.

The interim governing body that Trump has proposed, which also includes former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a board member, could struggle to gain any legitimacy within the enclave.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Egypt want to see a clear path to a two-state solution and for the Palestinian Authority to play a significant governance role in the enclave.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a defiant tone in his United Nations address, lashing out at the idea of a Palestinian state and vowing to keep fighting Hamas. Photo: Niyi Fote/Zuma Press

Netanyahu ruled out the possibility of PA involvement in a postwar Gaza, however. “Gaza will have a peaceful civilian administration that is run neither by Hamas nor by the Palestinian Authority,” he said in statements to the press alongside Trump at the White House. “It won’t come as a surprise to you that the vast majority of Israelis have no faith that the PA leopard will change its spots.”

Without a clear pathway to a two-state solution, Saudi Arabia is unlikely to fund the plan, Arab officials say. Officials from several Arab countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, took part in related meetings on the sidelines of the Trump-Netanyahu summit on Monday, according to Arab officials.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said that there will never be a Palestinian state, though the U.S. plan leaves open the possibility of a sovereign independent state, officials say. Trump has also said that he would prevent Israel from annexing the West Bank, a move that U.S. and some Israeli officials assert would harm any prospects of a two-state solution and complicate efforts to expand the Abraham Accords, which normalize relations between Israel and Arab countries.

Hamas has so far opposed disarming or destroying its weapons as laid out in the text. The group also says that it would be difficult to release all the hostages within 48 hours, as it has lost contact with some of the groups holding them for weeks, according to Arab officials.

And those are built-in complications that don’t factor in the possibility of some Israeli officials or Hamas operatives, among others, being skeptical that ending hostilities at this point is advantageous to their aims.

“There will be many spoilers working hard to make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Shalom Lipner, who served seven consecutive Israeli prime ministers in their offices over a quarter-century and is now at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.

In the days leading up to the summit with Netanyahu, Trump hyped the potential of a final deal. Even as Netanyahu pulled up to the White House, he said that all sides were close to an agreement.

Trump then appeared to pressure Netanyahu to accept the terms of his peace vision. In a stunning three-way call between Trump, Netanyahu, and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Israeli leader apologized for the deadly strike against Hamas negotiators in Doha, Qatar’s capital.

“I want to assure you that Israel was targeting Hamas, not Qataris. I also want to assure you that Israel has no plan to violate your sovereignty again in the future, and I have made that commitment to the president,” Netanyahu said, according to a readout from the prime minister’s office.

Write to Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com, Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com

Appeared in the September 30, 2025, print edition as 'Trump Outlines Plan to End Gaza War, Threatens Hamas'.

5. The U.N. Is Too Useful to Slide Into Irrelevance

The U.N. Is Too Useful to Slide Into Irrelevance

The institution is far from a panacea. But in the age of Trump, it’s become too much of a punching bag.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-u-n-is-too-useful-to-slide-into-irrelevance-trump-turtle-bay-b83f3b43

Sept. 29, 2025 4:22 pm ET

The United Nations General Assembly in New York, Sept. 26. Photo: kena betancur/epa/shutterstock/Shutterstock

It pains me as a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. to read your editorial “Trump Unplugged at Turtle Bay” (Review & Outlook, Sept. 24). Many readers in the MAGA mold doubtless think the body is useless. Only 34% of Republicans viewed it favorably in 2024, according to Pew Research.

Here are a few things to consider. If there is paralysis in one of the U.N.’s decision-making bodies, especially the Security Council, it is mainly a function of disagreements and polarization between member states, not the result of a structural imperfection. Today, as during the Cold War, certain issues reflect irreconcilable differences between members that prevent achievement of meaningful decisions. Yesterday it was Vietnam; today it is Ukraine. Should we thus write off the U.N. as an irrelevant debating society? No.

Working through the U.N. is an option in our diplomatic tool kit that we shouldn’t discard lightly. I can recall significant beneficial outcomes from Security Council decisions during my tenure at Turtle Bay. A few years before my arrival, Sierra Leone was a basket case, with government forces barely controlling a few square blocks in the country’s capital. Ruthless criminal elements occupied the rest. Yet over a period of many months, a U.N. peacekeeping effort helped extend government control throughout the country. Not long thereafter, another effort restored order and territorial integrity to Liberia. What isn’t there to like about another country’s troops manning such efforts, with minimal U.S. funding, as opposed to fielding a much more expensive American force and possibly having to foot the entire bill?

Then, as now, the body’s humanitarian agencies also perform honorably. I recall, for instance, the work the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees undertook in saving Vietnamese boat people and overland Cambodian refugees from the desperate conditions in their countries—work of historic proportions. Likewise, the World Food Program, led by Cindy McCain, feeds millions of refugees in Sudan and elsewhere in Africa every day. Whatever the larger institution’s flaws, these are projects we shouldn’t abandon.

The U.N. is far from a panacea. But in the age of Trump, it’s become too much of a punching bag. Conservatives would do well to remember the positive work it has done over the last 80 years—and, with our support, the good it can continue to accomplish today.

John Negroponte

Washington

Mr. Negroponte served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N, 2001-04.

Appeared in the September 30, 2025, print edition as 'The U.N. Is Too Useful to Slide Into Irrelevance'.

6. SOCOM, DAWG, C-sUAS University, and Drones – Sep 30, 2025

SOCOM, DAWG, C-sUAS University, and Drones – Sep 30, 2025

https://sof.news/drones/20250930/

September 30, 2025 SOF News Drones 0

Below the reader will find recent news about unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are used in conflicts (Ukraine, Africa, etc.), new developments in drone use, the DoD’s anti-drone school, and training by militaries for using drones during combat operations. Curated articles on the topics below are provided:

• Featured Topic – Joint C-sUAS University
• SOCOM, DAWG, and Drones
• Turkish Drones Built in U.S?
• America’s Drone Crisis Has No Easy Fix
• A-29 in a Counter Drone Role?
• Limitations of Drones
• Russia Testing NATO
• Drone Offense and Defense for Taiwan
• Malaysia – Turkey Drone Deal
• Turkey’s TALAY Ocean Skimmer
• Houthis: From Missiles to Drones
• NATO’s Drone Crisis

Featured Topic

This articles featured topic is about the Department of Defense’s Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft System University located at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Students at the school use two handheld systems that work in tandem as a layered defense against drones. One used electronic measures and the other is kinetic. These two systems are known as the Dronebuster (EW) and the Smart Shooter (kinetic). Students train on the Smart Shooter in a virtual reality lab before heading to the range. It is expensive to shoot down drones in practice at the range, so students use balloons suspended by a tether from drones that fly over the range.

The Joint C-sUAS University became operational in 2023. Fort Sill is the home to the Army Field Artillery School and Army Air Defense Artillery School. The school teaches solders, sailors, airmen, and Marines much more than the two handheld drone systems in the preceding paragraph. They also learn to use various fixed-site counter-small UAS systems as well as how to plan strategies, train others, and prepare their units and installation for future threats.

Read more about the C-sUAS University in “Drone Busting: Smart Devices Work Together to Knock Out UAS Threats”, by Katie Lange, Pentagon News, September 23, 2025. Top image: A sign identifies the range complex for the Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft System University at Fort Sill, Okla., Aug. 20, 2025. (credit: Air Force Staff Sgt. Madelyn Keech)

U.S. and Drones

SOCOM, DAWG, and Drones. The U.S. has an ambitious plan to field thousands of drones to prepare for a potential conflict with China. But the program has been off to a slow start. It appears that part of that program will shift to the U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida. Pentagon leadership has moved the “Replicator” work to the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group or DAWG that is part of SOCOM. “U.S. Military is Struggling to Deploy AI Weapons”, The Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2025.

Turkish Drones Built in U.S.? Recent social media accounts state that a drone factory to produce drones will likely be set up in the United States. Turkey is one of the leading exporters of drones and its UAVs of various sizes and types are used throughout the world.

America’s Drone Crisis. Russia is targeting Ukraine with hundreds of drones a night; sometimes as many as 800 in one night. It has a massive production capacity that is growing day by day. The U.S. is clearly way behind in the develop and manufacture of low-cost, expendable attack drones. There are simple drones that are already developed – the U.S. just has to ‘scale up’ and it is progressing at a snails pace in this effort. Stephen Silver explains in “The U.S. Military’s Great Drone Crisis Has No Easy Fix”, National Security Journal, September 27, 2025.

A-29 in a Counter Drone Role? The A-29 Super Tucano may soon flying the skies in a counter drone role. It is an ideal air frame for countering drones – and more cost effective than other more expensive aircraft like the F-35, F-16, or F-18. “Embraer, SNC pushing A-29 for counter-drone mission”, Breaking Defense, September 23, 2025.

Limitations of Drones. Crispen Burke takes a hard look at the ‘drone revolution’ and provides some recommendations on how the U.S. Army needs to proceed. “Small Drones, Big Limits: a Smarter Drone Strategy”, Small Wars Journal, September 22, 2025.

Drones Around the World

Russia Testing NATO. Several European countries are reporting suspicious drone activity. These countries include Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Lithuania, Finland, and others. These recent sighting, most likely Russian drones, follow incursions by Russian drones over Poland and Romania earlier this month.

Russia Targets Civilians. The United Nations Independent International Commission of Ukraine provided a report to the UN Human Rights Council on how Russian armed forces have been targeting Ukrainian civilians. “UN commission finds Russia targets Ukraine civilians using short-range drones”, Jurist News, September 22, 2025.

Drone Offense and Defense for Taiwan. A suite of weapons associated with AI and drone warfare is in the future for Taiwan courtesy of an American defense firm. “Anduril Lands in Taipei: Drones, Missiles, and a New Playbook for Taiwan’s Defense”, SOFREP, September 26, 2025.

Turkey’s TALAY Ocean Skimmer. This new drone could prove invaluable to nations that are confronting threats from more powerful rivals. One excellent example is the island nation of Taiwan that faces a possible future invasion from China. “How Turkey’s New Ocean-Skimming TALAY Drone Could Revolutionize Sea Warfare”, by Brandon J. Weichert, National Interest, August 15, 2025.

Malaysia – Turkey Drone Deal. The maritime surveillance capabilities in the South China Sea will soon be enhanced with the acquisition of Turkish-made acquisition of Anka-S uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV). Three of the drones will arrive in 2026. The Anka-S has a 30-hour endurance and satellite command-and-control capability and will be based at Labuan Air Base. China’s aggressive maritime posture is prompting other nations in the Pacific region to step up their monitoring of ocean regions adjacent to their shores. “Malaysia-Turkey drone deal advances maritime security, defense modernization”, by Sarah Chan, Indo-Pacific Defense Forum, September 25, 2025.

Houthis: From Missiles to Drones. The Houthis have shifted to using more drones than ballistic missiles in their latest attacks on Israel. The drones are more likely to penetrate Israel’s defense systems than cruise missiles. “Why the Houthi drone threat will continue”, The Jerusalem Post, September 25, 2025.

NATO’s Drone Crisis. Reuben Johnson cites the reports of unidentified drones flying all over NATO airspace. Some drone flights are certainly by the Russians but others by people wanting to show off their flight skills and get enjoyment on causing havoc. “NATO is Facing a Drone Crisis”, National Security Journal, September 24, 2025.

• Russia
• SOF
• Ukraine

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7. Ukraine’s Ground-Drone Revolution: A Wake-Up Call for the U.S. Army

Excerpts:

Merging them all together is another new effort dubbed “Fuze.” Trying and buying Army equipment, and pairing technology with units, is how leaders seek to “instill venture capitalist thinking” into the ancient Pentagon purchasing processes, according to Driscoll. Notably, the Army secretary highlights the unprecedented “risk tolerance” of this Pentagon civilian team.

The new Silicon Valley model “consolidates the Army’s innovation programs—xTech, Small Business Innovation Research and Technology Transfer, Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) and Technology Maturation Initiative—into one enterprise designed to help turn an initial concept into a scaled-up capability.”

With a budget of roughly $265 million for Fuze in fiscal year 2026, small and medium-sized businesses with innovative solutions will be paired with Army program offices to avoid the acquisition “valley of death” and provide resources to help companies scale quickly.

These efforts are essential to demonstrate repeatedly to Congress that flexible funding for drones, counter-drone, and electronic warfare works. Success will bring more flexibility, allowing for additional wins.

Given the pace of technological change on the battlefields of Ukraine, which unfolds in hours and days, not months or years, the US Army must move quickly, take calculated risks, and buy at scale. When failures occur, leaders must be candid with legislators and learn from those incidents. But slowing down is not an option since the ground drone revolution is here, and America is already behind.

Ukraine’s Ground-Drone Revolution: A Wake-Up Call for the U.S. Army

nationalsecurityjournal.org · Mackenzie Eaglen · September 29, 2025

Key Points and Summary – Ukraine’s war has shifted the drone revolution to the ground, where unmanned ground vehicles now deliver supplies, evacuate wounded, breach mines, conduct ISR, and lay suppressive fire.

-The U.S. Army is racing to adapt—overhauling organizations, consolidating HQs, and pivoting to portfolio-based budgeting to move money faster across counter-UAS, EW, and swarms.

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Colin Clark, a mortarman assigned to Bravo Company, Battalion Landing Team 1/5, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and a native of Texas, engages a target with a NightFighter S counter-unmanned aerial vehicle system during a demonstration for Philippine Marines assigned to Intelligence Company, 3rd Marine Brigade, as part of exercise KAMANDAG 8 at Tarumpitao Point, Palawan Province, Philippines, Oct. 17, 2024. KAMANDAG is an annual Philippine Marine Corps and U.S. Marine Corps-led exercise aimed at enhancing the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ defense and humanitarian capabilities by providing valuable training in combined operations with foreign militaries in the advancement of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. This year marks the eighth iteration of this exercise and includes participants from the French Armed Forces, Royal Thai Marine Corps, and Indonesian Marine Corps; including continued participation from the Australian Defense Force, British Armed Forces, Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, and Republic of Korea Marine Corps. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Amelia Kang)

-Elite units are live-testing expendable drones while new efforts—xTech, “Ready Now,” and the VC-style “Fuze” initiative—aim to scale innovations and avoid the acquisition valley of death.

-With Ukraine targeting production of 350,000 drones monthly, U.S. leaders argue speed, scale, and risk tolerance are essential to outpace Beijing and Moscow.

Rangers, Robots, and Reform: Lessons from Ukraine’s Frontlines

What started in the skies has moved to the ground. The next drone revolution is here and being led by Ukraine’s army.

The key question is not whether this battle-hardened military, the largest in Europe, can keep up with all the churn, but whether America can learn and adapt from a key partner’s frontlines.

A perfect storm of deregulation, acquisition reform, portfolio-based budgeting, and new leadership in Washington means the US Army could be poised to capitalize on the upheaval and stay ahead of Beijing thanks to Kyiv.

Iran’s drones fighting in Ukraine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Why This Moment Is Unique for the Armed Forces

The US Army of 2027 will bear little resemblance to the Army of today. Service leaders have been pushing transformation in contact for years, with a recent refresh through the Army Transformation Initiative.

To reorient American soldiers around homeland defense and deterring China, service leaders are shedding legacy equipment, consolidating headquarters, and streamlining headcount across Army components and civilian staff.

Changing how—and how fast—the Army buys kit is running concurrently with organizational change, in part to help offset the costs. So far, service leaders have claimed $48 billion in DOGE-like efficiencies over five years to help reinvest in more relevant equipment for soldiers.

Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll recently noted that Congress once gave the Army a dozen broad funding categories it could use to transfer money between, for example, vehicles in one category and drones in another.

“Today, he said, there are more than 1,400 narrowly drawn ‘buckets,’ some tied to specific makes and models, making it nearly impossible to pivot quickly.”

To support these shifts, given the fast-moving global events, technological changes, and cunning adversaries, Army budgeteers will consolidate various program line items into new, broad budget categories, such as counter-UAS, electronic warfare, and drone swarms.

Ukraine Drone. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Effects- or portfolio-based budgeting allows leaders to shift funds swiftly as technology changes while (eventually) constantly competing and re-competing equipment as it is developed, built, and sustained. Gone are the days of a winner-take-all contract where the same company maintains equipment for decades after it is delivered to soldiers.

The Latest Drone Revolution is On the Ground

All this new energy and speed in updating the Pentagon’s bureaucratic processes, which can be downright Kremlin-esque, can’t come soon enough.

Again, look no further than the battlefields of Ukraine for proof.

On the heels of aerial drones, “Ukraine is now leading a second revolution in the mass introduction and adaptation of unmanned ground vehicles for frontline operations,” according to Anatolii Mazarchuk of the Stevens Institute of Technology in National Defense magazine.

Ground robots are “not the future” but rather the “routine reality” of how Ukrainian forces wage war, according to Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces.

Nor are these ground drones intended for support roles only; instead, they’ve become “indispensable battlefield assets.”

Already, ground robots on the frontlines of Eastern Europe are:

-providing logistics, such as the last-mile delivery of supplies

-conducting casualty evacuation

-laying and destroying mines

-performing 24/7 ISR

-providing suppressive fires

The combination of air and ground drones in a constant state of transformation and innovation has meant the modern battlefield’s kill zone “has expanded far beyond the range of a rifle or a mortar. Soldiers on both sides are in constant danger when they are as far as six to nine miles from the [enemy] contact line.”

Given the staggering cycles of change occurring on a rapid basis, it is essential that the United States Army has eyes on the ground. Ukraine’s ground drones are providing a constant feedback loop, with US Army representatives taking note of what does and does not work. That effort includes determining the art of the doable as it relates to pairing up with older legacy systems.

Army Secretary Driscoll has noted that the increasing transparency of battlefields, including at night, has turned Army special operators into improvisers. Rangers and other elite commandos are experimenting with disposable drones, commercial quadcopters, and custom-built weapons to maintain their edge.

Exclusive units like the 75th Ranger Regiment are bypassing the Pentagon’s slow procurement system to try out new drones, sensors, and weapons in real time. Rangers quickly test to discern what is real from what is still science fiction, and then promptly share that info with Big Army. The 173rd Airborne Infantry Brigade, for example, has already used ground robots for resupply missions and will next pivot to employing expendable robots for breaching operations.

Key to Ukraine’s success isn’t just constant iteration and evolution—but scale. Ukraine’s military leaders aim for a minimum production rate of 350,000 drones per month. Based on Russia’s ability to recruit between 25 to 30 thousand new soldiers each month, Ukraine estimates its forces need “at least two drones per enemy soldier plus additional drones for enemy drone pilots, logistics, artillery, storage facilities, and so on.”

Shaking Up Bureaucracy with Venture Capitalist Approaches

Thankfully, Army leaders are now able to see the broken bureaucratic processes more clearly. One Army official noted how the service is seeking commonality and flexibility at the same time, which is contradictory.

Initiatives like “Ready Now,” Shark Tank-like xTechDisrupt, and even a private equity investor day with the Departments of Defense and Treasury teaming up to form public-private partnerships that help the Army solve immediate problems are examples of new approaches.

Merging them all together is another new effort dubbed “Fuze.” Trying and buying Army equipment, and pairing technology with units, is how leaders seek to “instill venture capitalist thinking” into the ancient Pentagon purchasing processes, according to Driscoll. Notably, the Army secretary highlights the unprecedented “risk tolerance” of this Pentagon civilian team.

The new Silicon Valley model “consolidates the Army’s innovation programs—xTech, Small Business Innovation Research and Technology Transfer, Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) and Technology Maturation Initiative—into one enterprise designed to help turn an initial concept into a scaled-up capability.”

With a budget of roughly $265 million for Fuze in fiscal year 2026, small and medium-sized businesses with innovative solutions will be paired with Army program offices to avoid the acquisition “valley of death” and provide resources to help companies scale quickly.

These efforts are essential to demonstrate repeatedly to Congress that flexible funding for drones, counter-drone, and electronic warfare works. Success will bring more flexibility, allowing for additional wins.

Given the pace of technological change on the battlefields of Ukraine, which unfolds in hours and days, not months or years, the US Army must move quickly, take calculated risks, and buy at scale. When failures occur, leaders must be candid with legislators and learn from those incidents. But slowing down is not an option since the ground drone revolution is here, and America is already behind.

About the Author: Mackenzie Eaglen

Mackenzie Eaglen, now a National Security Journal Contributing Editor, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness. She is also a regular guest lecturer at universities, a member of the board of advisers of the Alexander Hamilton Society, and a member of the steering committee of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security. Ms. Eaglen is also one of the 12-member US Army War College Board of Visitors, which offers advice about academic program objectives and effectiveness, and serves on the US Army Science Board, an advisory body that provides guidance on scientific and other matters to the Army’s senior leadership. In 2023, she became a member of the Commission on the Future of the Navy, established by Congress to study the strategy, budget, and policy concerning the future strength of the US Navy fleet.

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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Mackenzie Eaglen · September 29, 2025

8. SOCOM to get robotic anti-drone turret for maritime platforms

Excerpts:

Drones are an increasing threat on and off the battlefield, driving demand for solutions that can disable them and pushing military units to shift how they handle the threat, as well as the tech they buy. Just this week, drones closed Danish airports and disrupted military base operations for several hours.

Simoni said the tech also allows the military to take down drones at a lower cost by using common arms such as the M240.

“Any country or clandestine group can now wage an effective war. It used to be expensive for a country to wage war, but now, with the rise of the drone, it's just, it's very easy to be disruptive,” he said. “Ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 for these small [first-person view] drones, interceptor missiles just really don't make any sense. And right now, what we're doing, we're invested in a lot of electronic warfare, like I mentioned. And then the other thing we invest in as a military is interceptors. The US military—we have some of the best interceptors in the world—but they're more expensive than the drone, and so that's just not going to be long-term sustainable.”

SOCOM to get robotic anti-drone turret for maritime platforms

Defense tech startup Allen Control Systems landed a contract for Bullfrog, which can use a variety of common weapons.

By Lauren C. Williams

Senior Editor

September 26, 2025

defenseone.com · Lauren C. Williams

Some maritime special operators are getting a robotic turret that can turn machine guns into an autonomous drone-killer for boats and other vehicles.

U.S. Special Operations Command awarded defense tech startup Allen Control Systems a contract—value and quantity undisclosed—for its Bullfrog autonomous turret, the company announced Friday. The contract will be executed by ManTech, an established defense contractor.

Bullfrog is equipped with sensors and AI to spot and engage incoming drones in groups 1, 2, and 3, and can be armed with an M240, M2, M230, and M134 guns or non-kinetic weapons such as a laser dazzler.

Allen Control Systems president Steve Simoni, a former Navy nuclear engineer, said U.S. forces need more autonomous defenses against drones.

“We are a little behind. All of our weapons systems need to be enhanced with some form of additional autonomy,” Simoni said at Axios’ AI event last week. “In China, they are manufacturing drones at an unprecedented rate, and these things are incredibly lethal …and they fly very fast, and they can take out million-dollar pieces of artillery. They can crush tanks like never before, and it's a massive problem, and so we need an autonomy stack across different sorts of products to neutralize this threat. And I think right now, as you're seeing on the battlefield in Ukraine, there's really not a good solution for it yet.”

Special operators are often quick to try, buy, and integrate new technologies—an increasingly popular model for how the Pentagon handles acquisitions more broadly. And, much like the Marine Corps and Army, SOCOM is embracing drone tech and autonomous systems.

The goal is to “get to a point where we can basically have something on a vehicle, let’s say it’s counter-UAS, and we can just send it to a point and have it do its mission,” said Vincent Grizio, a program manager for vehicles for the Special Operations Forces Warrior program office, National Defense magazine reported in June.

Drones are an increasing threat on and off the battlefield, driving demand for solutions that can disable them and pushing military units to shift how they handle the threat, as well as the tech they buy. Just this week, drones closed Danish airports and disrupted military base operations for several hours.

Simoni said the tech also allows the military to take down drones at a lower cost by using common arms such as the M240.

“Any country or clandestine group can now wage an effective war. It used to be expensive for a country to wage war, but now, with the rise of the drone, it's just, it's very easy to be disruptive,” he said. “Ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 for these small [first-person view] drones, interceptor missiles just really don't make any sense. And right now, what we're doing, we're invested in a lot of electronic warfare, like I mentioned. And then the other thing we invest in as a military is interceptors. The US military—we have some of the best interceptors in the world—but they're more expensive than the drone, and so that's just not going to be long-term sustainable.”

defenseone.com · Lauren C. Williams 

9. Trump Flips the Global Script

In what ways can we use the other instruments of national power to effectively support POTUS' "unconventional diplomacy?"

(either a seminar question for a PME/grad school class [or maybe an entire course] or a thesis question for longer research).

Trump Flips the Global Script

His diplomatic moves on Ukraine and Gaza were both dazzling and unconventional.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-flips-the-global-script-3fc2f147

By Walter Russell Mead

Follow

Sept. 29, 2025 5:15 pm ET

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Sept. 29. Photo: jonathan ernst/Reuters

What a week: Suspected Russian drones disrupted air traffic across northern Europe while Moscow pounded Kyiv with record-breaking assaults. In the Middle East both fighting and diplomacy intensified. Throughout it all, the least conventional and most chaos-loving American president of all time still managed to dominate the world’s headlines.

On Gaza, President Trump pledged to Arab leaders on Sept. 23 that he wouldn’t allow Israel to annex any portion of the West Bank. That opened a new chapter in the difficult conversations over the end of the war and prepared the way for a major peace initiative.

On Ukraine, Mr. Trump sent a stream of signals about a toughening anti-Russia stance that encouraged Ukrainians and challenged Europe. By demanding that Europeans dial up sanctions against Russia and signaling potential willingness to send Ukraine powerful American weapons systems like the Tomahawk missiles while removing any limits on how deep into Russia Kyiv could attack, Mr. Trump has, rhetorically at least, seized the high ground on the Ukraine conflict. He has pivoted his administration away from its earlier efforts to cajole Vladimir Putin into a compromise peace.

Both moves were typical Trump. They seized the spotlight, keeping him at the center of world politics and drama. They changed the narrative, reframing discussions over both Gaza and Ukraine. They emphasized Mr. Trump’s commanding stature by contrasting the effect of his words with the sputtering fecklessness of other heads of state. And they didn’t commit him to anything unpleasant or cost him anything serious.

Mr. Trump demonstrated power and flexibility by combining deep support for Israel with demands that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abandon any plans to annex Palestinian territory and that he call the Qatari prime minister to apologize for violating Qatar’s sovereignty by bombing Hamas officials there. Mr. Trump also presented the latest version of his evolving peace plan. After stunning victories against Iran and its proxies, Israel is the strongest power in the Middle East, and Mr. Trump’s is the only voice Israel takes seriously.

The president’s assertion that his peace plan will resolve thousands of years of conflict in the Middle East may prove optimistic. But there is no denying that he has made more progress than any other head of state in working out a solution to the Gaza war. By embracing Israel while listening to Arab leaders, Mr. Trump has given diplomacy a much-needed boost. The Gulf Arabs want stability and economic development in the region. Israelis want peace. Mr. Trump is doing his best to provide a framework within which Arabs and Israelis alike can progress toward these goals.

Mr. Trump’s flip on Ukraine and Russia illustrates his Houdini-like ability to escape predicaments that would entrap conventional politicians. At one level, Team Trump’s Russia policy of reaching out to Mr. Putin has failed as decisively as Barack Obama’s “reset button” or Joe Biden’s effort to “park Russia.” In a rare acknowledgment of error, Mr. Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron that the relationship he thought he had with Mr. Putin “didn’t mean anything.”

As the Kremlin responded to Washington’s conciliatory efforts with scarcely concealed contempt, Mr. Trump needed a new approach. What he has done is flip the script by pivoting toward the Ukrainians.

But as Europeans like Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk soon noticed, Mr. Trump’s new approach puts the ball in Europe’s court. If European support fails to meet Mr. Trump’s high demands (like slapping massive tariffs on India and China to penalize their purchases of Russian oil and gas), the American president will be able to put the blame on weak Europeans—and to wash his hands and walk away.

None of this costs Mr. Trump anything. Neither in Gaza nor in Europe is Mr. Trump sending troops nor spending money. Nor has he tied his hands. Both in the Middle East and Europe, the American president can take whatever action he wants.

These diplomatic moves over both Gaza and Ukraine were, like so much of what this president does, both unconventional and dazzling. If diplomacy were ballet, Mr. Trump would be a Nijinsky. But not even the greatest dancers can repeal the law of gravity. The president’s ability to exploit the advantages of America’s hegemonic role in European and Middle East politics is unrivaled, but the final impact of his approach on the eroding foundations of American power remains to be seen.

His ambition to rank as a great statesman has become clearer in his second term. He is focusing more intensely on foreign affairs than many expected, and he is having a greater effect on the world than more-conventional political figures can.

To achieve his ambitions, however, Mr. Trump will have to do more than make headlines. He will have to make progress on the great challenges American power faces in a changing world.

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Donald Trump once said Volodymyr Zelensky had 'no cards' to win the war against Russia, but now the President says Ukraine can win its territory back from Vladimir Putin. What caused this pivot, and what will the U.S. do if Russian aircrafts breach NATO airspace?

Appeared in the September 30, 2025, print edition as 'Trump Flips the Global Script'.

10. Trump’s Plan for Gaza Hands Netanyahu a Political Lifeline

Trump’s Plan for Gaza Hands Netanyahu a Political Lifeline

With the prime minister agreeing on terms to end the war, the onus falls on Israel’s Arab neighbors to make it happen. Until then, it can keep on fighting.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trumps-plan-for-gaza-hands-netanyahu-a-political-lifeline-000322c7

By Shayndi Raice

Follow in Tel Aviv, Summer Said

Follow in Dubai and Jared Malsin

Follow in Istanbul

Sept. 30, 2025 5:41 am ET

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. Photo: Will oliver/epa/shutterstock

Quick Summary

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to a peace plan, shifting the burden of implementation to Arab neighbors and potentially bolstering his political standing.View more

After nearly two grueling years of war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally agreed to terms to end the conflict that are favorable to his political future.

In large part, that is because the hard work of getting Hamas to comply with President Trump’s 20-point plan to end the fighting in Gaza will fall onto Israel’s Arab neighbors. As long as they are unable to close the deal, Netanyahu is better placed to fend off further international condemnation if he continues to fight. Very little may change on the ground.

Trump went further when he laid out his plan, standing next to Netanyahu at the White House. If Hamas doesn’t accept, or if the plan falls apart, he said, “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas.”

Hard-liners in Netanyahu’s coalition will likely oppose elements of the plan and could even topple the coalition. But the broader Israeli public, including many Netanyahu voters, will view this as an achievement, enough for Netanyahu to ride a wave of approval to re-election, say political analysts. 

“Bibi played this brilliantly, there’s no question,” said Yaakov Katz, a fellow at the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Institute. Criticism from Western allies of Israel was largely around Netanyahu’s refusal to end the war. Domestically, polls show most Israelis believe Netanyahu was refusing to end the conflict due to his own political considerations. “It makes all the criticism of him no longer relevant because Israel is saying we’re willing to end the war, we’re aligned with America and every Arab country.”

Now, those Arab countries have to deliver. 

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After President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at the White House, Trump said they were “very close” to achieving a peace deal. The proposal hasn’t yet been accepted by Hamas. Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/Press Pool

Over the last few days, Qatar and Turkey have tried to pressure Hamas leaders, warning them that this is their last chance to end the war in Gaza, Arab officials say. They have told Hamas that if the group rejects the deal, they will no longer be able to continue providing them with political or diplomatic support, the officials said.

Hamas has called the plan a complete surrender that leaves Palestinians without a credible path to statehood or ironclad guarantees that the war will end, according to the officials. Still, the group said they would discuss the plan with other factions and try to respond positively, Arab officials said.

The Trump plan poses a dilemma for the Arab nations and other players, such as Turkey. It calls for the U.S. to work with Arab states and international partners to send a “stabilization force” to Gaza and names Jordan and Egypt specifically as places to train a Palestinian police force in Gaza. Sending Arab troops into Gaza will be politically risky, potentially making them appear as collaborators or occupiers. Egypt, for example, is refusing to send any troops into Gaza until there is a full Israeli military withdrawal.

“Domestically, the last thing that the Egyptians or Jordanians want to be seen as doing is functioning as a security apparatus on behalf of the Israeli military,” said Timothy Kaldas, the deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

Overall, the plan forces Arab states to take on almost all of the big challenges, while allowing the Israelis to say they have accepted the deal. 

“There’s so many opportunities for the Israelis to point at any given thing and say, Oh, you didn’t meet this criteria,” said Kaldas.

Netanyahu managed to squeeze out of the Arabs significant concessions, including the upfront release of all 48 hostages—both living and dead—being held by Hamas. Israel will maintain a buffer zone, including a key corridor that runs along the border between Gaza and Egypt. Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups will also have to agree to play no role in governing Gaza. Their fighters can receive amnesty if they give up their weapons.

Protesters holding photos of hostages held in Gaza at a rally in Tel Aviv. Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images

At the same time, the Trump plan addresses one important concern for Egypt and other neighboring countries, saying explicitly that “No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return.”

Since the early days of the war, Egypt has been concerned that the Israeli military operation would push Palestinians to leave Gaza en masse, heaping the Egyptian government with a massive refugee crisis and denying Palestinians the ability to return home in the long term.

Netanyahu had to make some concessions. The Trump plan carves out an eventual role for the Palestinian Authority—the Hamas rival that oversees parts of the West Bank—something Netanyahu swore he wouldn’t allow to happen. He also had to give up on the Jewish settlement of Gaza, which would expel Palestinians from the enclave, and acknowledged the right of Palestinians to sovereignty and statehood. Those are the kinds of things that could bring down his government in the short term, which makes it look like he is giving up political capital to end the war.

A woman attending a funeral in central Gaza. Photo: mahmoud issa/Reuters

Far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich called the plan a “resounding diplomatic failure” for turning Gaza over to an international force. He also acknowledged the challenges of putting it into action, noting “the enemy’s obstinacy will once again save us from ourselves.” 

In reality, though, political analysts say Netanyahu’s government was unlikely to survive much longer because of other disagreements within his coalition, most notably a fight over drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military. Many think the government would be unlikely to pass a budget in time for the spring deadline, which would automatically trigger new elections.

Yet if the hostages are released and the war ends around when voters potentially go to the polls, Netanyahu could ride a wave of approval that would see him re-elected.

“If he goes to an election on this,” said Katz, “I don’t know how anyone defeats him in this election.”

Others aren’t as sure. Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, a think tank, said even if the deal is perceived as a victory, it might not be enough for Netanyahu to win an election.

“This is a deal that gives Israel most of what it wanted out of the war, but Israel still has paid a significant cost in terms of international standing, social and public erosion,” he said.

Moreover, the difficulties Arab governments will face in fully getting Hamas on board mean it could still take weeks or even months for the hostages to be freed or for the fighting to end.

“We’re closer than ever to ending the war,” said Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the INSS think tank. “But, the devil’s in the details.”

Write to Shayndi Raice at Shayndi.Raice@wsj.com, Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com

11. Pentagon readies contingency plans for government shutdown

Pentagon readies contingency plans for government shutdown - Breaking Defense

The department’s 'highest priorities' will revolve around operations securing the US Southern border, operations in the Middle East, designing Golden Dome, depot maintenance, shipbuilding and critical munitions, according to the guidance.

breakingdefense.com · Ashley Roque · September 29, 2025

WASHINGTON — With less than two days left before the US government potentially shuts down, the Department of Defense has issued contingency guidance to the force outlining six priorities and contracting plans.

“Activities that are determined not to be excepted, and which cannot be performed by utilizing military personnel in place of furloughed civilian personnel, will be suspended when appropriated funds are no longer available,” the document said. The secretary of defense “may, at any time, determine that additional activities shall be treated as excepted,” it added.

Fiscal 2025 is sunsetting when the clock strikes midnight Wednesday. Congress has not yet approved FY26 spending bills, and Democrats and Republicans have not reached an agreement on a continuing resolution to keep the government open. If a stopgap measure is not approved by both chambers and signed by President Donald Trump, the federal government will shut down.

For DoD, that means that military personnel on active duty — including reserve component personnel on federal active duty — will continue reporting for duty and may be asked to carry out non-excepted activities normally done by civilian personnel that have been furloughed.

“Civilian personnel, including military technicians, who are not necessary to carry out or support excepted activities, are to be furloughed using lapse in appropriations (often referred to as ‘shutdown’) procedures and guidance provided by the Office of Personnel Management,” the Pentagon guidance said. “Only the minimum number of civilian employees necessary to carry out excepted activities will be excepted from furlough.”

The department’s “highest priorities,” according to the guidance, will revolve around operations securing the US Southern border, operations in the Middle East, designing Golden Dome, depot maintenance, shipbuilding and critical munitions.

“As in every case, efforts supporting these activities may occur during a lapse when resourced with funds that remain available,” the planning guidance said.

“Where costs for such efforts must be charged against a lapsed appropriation, Component and subordinate leaders will closely evaluate individual activities to determine whether they are ‘excepted’ consistent with this planning guidance and continue or initiate them, as appropriate, when supported by the facts,” the document later added.

When it comes to work on big-ticket weapons programs, contractors are able to continue working on previously awarded deals. However, the department is not allowed to execute new contracts.

“The expiration of an appropriation does not require the termination of contracts (or issuance of stop work orders) funded by that appropriation unless a new obligation of funds is required under the contract and the contract is not required to support an excepted activity,” the guidance continues.

breakingdefense.com · Ashley Roque · September 29, 2025

12. Pentagon names US-Mexico border mission as top priority to continue under shutdown

Pentagon names US-Mexico border mission as top priority to continue under shutdown

Stars and Stripes · Svetlana Shkolnikova · September 29, 2025

Republican and Democrats remained at an impasse Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, on extending funding to avoid a government shutdown. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department will prioritize missions to secure the U.S.-Mexico border as well as Middle East operations and Golden Dome missile defense programs if the federal government shuts down this week due to a funding lapse.

The department’s priorities were laid out in a planning document released over the weekend outlining what military work will take precedence if Congress fails to agree on a short-term spending measure to keep the government open beyond midnight Tuesday.

Without a deal, active-duty troops and reservists on active service will begin working without pay Wednesday, and nearly half of the Pentagon’s civilian workforce could be furloughed, according to the guidance.

The plan states that the Defense Department will continue missions deemed “necessary for the safety of human life and the protection of property” and considers efforts to support U.S. southern border and Middle East operations among its “highest priorities.”

Other priorities include the Golden Dome, depot maintenance, shipbuilding and critical munitions, according to the guidance.

The document also notes that the Pentagon has 741,477 civilian employees — nearly 63,000 fewer than cited in 2023 shutdown contingency plans — and 406,573 of them will be retained in the event of a shutdown. The remaining 334,904 workers face furloughs.

Military personnel will continue to report for duty and carry out assigned duties as usual. They will work without pay but not miss a paycheck unless the shutdown is not resolved by the Oct. 15 pay date.

House lawmakers introduced a bill this month to guarantee service members, including members of the Coast Guard, continue to get paid through a shutdown, but it has yet to receive a vote.

Republican and Democrats remained at an impasse Monday, with Democrats insisting that any short-term funding measure include an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies and a reversal of cuts that Republicans made to health programs.

President Trump met with the four top congressional leaders on Monday afternoon. On Sept. 19, he predicted a shutdown, saying it could last “for a period of time” but vowing to “take care of the military.”

“We’ll take care of the things we have to take care of,” he said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., lashed out Sunday at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., blaming Democrats for potentially putting service member pay in jeopardy.

“Think of it, troops won’t be paid because Chuck Schumer needs political cover,” Johnson said in a television interview. “I mean, it’s really that simple, and I think everybody is going to see that clearly.”

Democrats have laid blame for a looming shutdown on Republicans, who they said have refused to compromise on a continuing funding resolution. The Senate needs 60 votes to pass the legislation, meaning Republicans will need the support of seven Democrats.

“Their bill has not one iota of Democratic input, that is never how we’ve done this before,” Schumer said after meeting with Trump and Republican leadership Monday. “It’s up to the Republicans whether they want to shut down or not.”

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Svetlana Shkolnikova

Svetlana Shkolnikova

Svetlana Shkolnikova covers Congress for Stars and Stripes. She previously worked as a reporter for The Record newspaper in New Jersey and the USA Today Network. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland and has reported from Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.

Stars and Stripes · Svetlana Shkolnikova · September 29, 2025

13. Stephen Miller takes leading role in strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats

Here is a research question for grad students: How many military as well as covert operations have been conducted from the White House and how well did they turn out? 

Stephen Miller takes leading role in strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats

Exclusive: Miller’s homeland security council has played a key part in coordinating operations, sources say

The Guardian · Hugo Lowell · September 29, 2025

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has played a leading role in directing US strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug boats, according to three people familiar with the situation. At times, his role has superseded that of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser.

The strikes on the Venezuelan boats allegedly carrying narcotics, which the administration has claimed were necessary because interdiction did not work, have been orchestrated through the homeland security council (HSC), which Miller leads as the homeland security adviser.

Miller empowered the HSC earlier this year to become its own entity in Donald Trump’s second term, a notable departure from previous administrations where it was considered part of the national security council and ultimately reported to the national security adviser.

The rise of Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policy

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As a result, the HSC has taken the lead on engaging the Venezuelan boats, the people said, a situation evidenced by his top deputy, Tony Salisbury, and others being the gatekeepers to details about what boat to strike until they are about to occur.

That was the case for instance with the second Venezuelan boat hit with hellfire missiles on 15 September. While the White House was informed the Pentagon had identified the boat as a viable target more than four days before, many top White House officials only learned of the impending strike hours before it happened.

A White House spokesperson said in a statement the strikes were directed by Trump, saying he oversaw all elements of foreign policy. “The entire administration is working together to execute the president’s directive with clear success,” the statement said.

But the previously unreported role of Miller – and his massive influence with the president – also explains how striking Venezuelan boats became a major priority, and why Trump has been happy to deploy extraordinary military force to the region.

The US military presence presently involves the Iwo Jima amphibious ready group – including the USS San Antonio, USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale carrying 4,500 sailors – and the 22nd marine expeditionary unit, with 2,200 marines, the Guardian has previously reported.

Miller’s role also opens a window into the dubious legal justification that has been advanced for the strikes, which has been a matter of deep controversy amid allegations it amounted to extrajudicial murder in international waters.

This screen grab from a video posted by Donald Trump shows what he says is US military forces conducting a strike on a boat carrying alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea on 15 September. Photograph: US President Donald Trump’s TRUTH Social account/AFP/Getty Images

Since the start of the Venezuela campaign, White House officials have sought to justify the strikes internally and externally by claiming Trump was exercising his article II powers, which allows the president to use military force in self defense in limited engagements.

The self defense argument revolves around Trump’s designation of Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization, a claim advanced by Miller in order to defend the deportations of dozens of Venezuelans earlier this year under the Alien Enemies Act.

The administration claimed that Tren de Aragua had infiltrated the regime of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro – and so the presence of the cartel’s members in the US amounted to a “predatory incursion” by a foreign nation, allowing for the deportation of any Venezuelan national.

Colombia’s Petro urges ‘criminal trial’ against Trump for Venezuelan strikes

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“It is a drug cartel that is running Venezuela,” Miller told reporters at the White House earlier this month as he characterized Maduro as the head of the cartel. “It is not a government, it is a drug cartel, a narco-trafficking organization that is running Venezuela.”

But the administration has yet to provide concrete evidence that Tren de Aragua has become an instrument of the Venezuelan government, and legal experts contacted for this story said the White House could only justify the strikes if it could make that showing.

A divided three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit on 2 September ruled that deportations under the Alien Enemies Act were unlawful, because the administration had not met the high burden of showing Tren de Aragua was an arm of the Maduro regime.

It remains unclear who signed off on the legal justification for the strikes. Neither the HSC nor the national security council have dedicated legal advisers like in previous administrations, after the White House started restructuring the national security council in May.

But multiple people said it was approved by the Pentagon general counsel, Earl Matthews, who was until recently a Trump White House lawyer; the justice department; and the White House counsel’s office, which has a lawyer tasked with handling national security council matters.

The Guardian · Hugo Lowell · September 29, 2025

14. Fortifying America: Is the Pentagon Ready?

​Excerpts:

What passive and active defenses should our government build to protect these public facilities and systems? How much should private industry be required to provide? Should critical civilian subsystems be proliferated to make them more difficult to knock out? Should our electrical supply systems operate on smaller grids if larger ones black out? What of Golden Dome? Should it protect these systems against aerial assaults? To what extent?

Unfortunately, Congress and the Executive can’t answer these questions. The number of committees and executive offices covering homeland security, energy transport systems, telecommunications, airport security, medical facilities, cybersecurity, undersea cables, and space-based systems currently would populate a stadium-sized mosh pit. On these topics, our state isn’t deep, but way too wide and, sadly, shallow.

This isn’t the case overseas, where our allies are confronting these problems head-on. Besides defending our allies from overt attacks – which still must be a priority – the Pentagon should check out what it can learn from their homeland defense headaches. They’ve seen firsthand the future face of war. It’s time that the Pentagon prepare our government to face this future.

Fortifying America: Is the Pentagon Ready?

By Henry Sokolski

September 30, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/09/30/fortifying_america_is_the_pentagon_ready_1137907.html

Soon, the Pentagon will release its National Security Strategy. It’s rumored to rank homeland security as priority one. Enforcing immigration controls, defending America against missile attacks, and countering narco-terrorist operations are sure to get mission plus-ups.

None of this, though, will be enough: in addition, the Pentagon will have to double down on defending America’s critical civilian infrastructure. A quick scan of recent headlines overseas explains why and affords a solid peek of what we’re in for.

Last week, drones overflew major airports in Copenhagen and Oslo. A ransomware attack disrupted passenger security screening systems in Berlin, London, Brussels, and Dublin, shutting down operations throughout the weekend.

These assaults on Europe’s air transport system align with several years of suspicious train derailments and telecom and electrical supply system cable cuts in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Baltic Sea. Two major train derailments have occurred along the Malmbanan iron ore line which connects Norway, Sweden, and the Baltic Sea near Finland and Estonia – a prime target for Russian sabotage. 

Since 2022, ten subsea cables connecting Baltic Sea states, including several telecom cables and one power cable, have been cut, with seven cuts occurring between November 2024 and January 2025. China and Russia are the suspected perpetrators. Halfway around the world, Taiwan is suffering repeated telecom cable cuts as well. Beijing is suspect.

Well above sea level, Russia has been jamming satellite telecom links in Ukraine and GPS signals for civilian aircraft in Europe. Russian electronic warfare bases, particularly in Kaliningrad, have been directly linked to widespread GPS interference affecting Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the surrounding Baltic Sea.

Then, there are cyber attacks that have locked up medical facilities’ electronic systems throughout Europe and Asia, paralyzing the helping hand of healthcare. A 2025 survey found that three quarters of the hospitals in the EU have been attacked in the last twelve months. Hospitals in Asia have been hit even harder.

The United States is next. As far back as 2021, America’s largest gasoline transport system – the Colonial Pipeline – shut down after a cyber attack with Russian fingerprints. Last winter, drones overflew several major nuclear power plants in New Jersey and Louisiana, as well as military bases, electrical generating and switching stations, bridges, ports, and airports.

Recently, there’s been confirmation of a long-term Chinese cyber warfare campaign – Volt Typhoon – to attack America’s electrical supply system. Other Chinese cyber campaigns have been probing to find vulnerabilities in America’s telecommunications systems.

So far, our government’s response to these probes has been cloaked in secrecy. Both Presidents Biden and Trump did their level best to downplay last winter’s drone overflights. The head of NORTHCOM at the time, responsible for defending against such attacks, had a different take: On 60 Minutes, he said he had no idea what these things were or where they were coming from. He was concerned. Congress is too. The House recently proposed legislation to authorize the Energy Department to disable or destroy drones overflying its nuclear plants (but not the 92 U.S. private commercial reactors). How this will be done remains unclear.

Much of the security planning for America’s critical civilian infrastructure is kept from the public eye with special classifications – e.g., controlled unclassified information (CUI), critical energy/electric infrastructure information (CEII), and sensitive but unclassified (SBU). This keeps Americans in the dark about their public utility systems’ vulnerabilities, what to expect of their government, and how to prepare for the worst.

What passive and active defenses should our government build to protect these public facilities and systems? How much should private industry be required to provide? Should critical civilian subsystems be proliferated to make them more difficult to knock out? Should our electrical supply systems operate on smaller grids if larger ones black out? What of Golden Dome? Should it protect these systems against aerial assaults? To what extent?

Unfortunately, Congress and the Executive can’t answer these questions. The number of committees and executive offices covering homeland security, energy transport systems, telecommunications, airport security, medical facilities, cybersecurity, undersea cables, and space-based systems currently would populate a stadium-sized mosh pit. On these topics, our state isn’t deep, but way too wide and, sadly, shallow.

This isn’t the case overseas, where our allies are confronting these problems head-on. Besides defending our allies from overt attacks – which still must be a priority – the Pentagon should check out what it can learn from their homeland defense headaches. They’ve seen firsthand the future face of war. It’s time that the Pentagon prepare our government to face this future.

Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Arlington, Virginia, a nonprofit organization founded to promote a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policymakers, scholars, and the media.

15. Ukraine Turns Helicopters Into Drone Hunters With Surprising Success Rate

Ukraine Turns Helicopters Into Drone Hunters With Surprising Success Rate

https://united24media.com/latest-news/ukraine-turns-helicopters-into-drone-hunters-with-surprising-success-rate-12019

Sep 28, 2025 17:05

Updated Sep 29, 2025 14:11

 2 min read

Authors

Ivan Khomenko

News Writer

Ukrainian military helicopter flying over Donetsk Region after a combat mission, September 18, 2024. (Source: Getty Images)

Ukraine is increasing the deployment of helicopters in air defense missions after commanders reported their effectiveness in intercepting Russian long-range drones, according to Militarnyi on September 26.

Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said helicopter crews have become a critical part of the country’s layered air defense system.

“Depending on the weather, our helicopters sometimes shoot down up to 40% of drones in their sectors. That is why we are scaling up this direction as well,” Syrskyi explained during a briefing cited by Militarnyi.

Syrskyi emphasized that helicopters used for air defense will undergo modernization and be fitted with specialized systems enabling detection in multiple modes, including thermal and infrared. These upgrades are designed to ensure round-the-clock effectiveness in different weather conditions.

The tactic, first reported earlier this year, involves pairing two helicopters with complementary roles: one equipped with weapons to directly engage drones and the other fitted with advanced sensors.

The sensor-equipped aircraft, often carrying the Teledyne FLIR multi-sensor system, guides the armed helicopter to its target. This method has proven effective against drones carrying warheads of up to 90 kilograms.

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According to Militarnyi, Ukrainian defense planners are also considering the integration of light aircraft into interception operations.

Options under review include adapting sport and training planes with mounted machine guns, acquiring specialized light combat aircraft, and deploying modified platforms such as the Czech-made Z-137 AgroTurbo armed with short-range R-73 air-to-air missiles.

Earlier, Ukraine received its first SHARK light aircraft fitted with an anti-drone electronic warfare pod. The two-seat SHARK from SHARK.AERO carries a fuselage-mounted EW container that can jam GNSS and video/control links at ranges up to about 4.5 km when flown near 1,800 m, and Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said, “One of the promising directions in combating Shahed drones is the use of light aircraft.”

16. Trump Gives Hamas Ultimatum to Release Hostages or Face Destruction by Israel

Trump Gives Hamas Ultimatum to Release Hostages or Face Destruction by Israel

Plan agreed with Israel leaves open possibility of Palestinian statehood, but Hamas has yet to agree

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trumps-gaza-cease-fire-plan-faces-obstacles-as-he-meets-with-netanyahu-4a4d9e9d

By Anat Peled

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Updated Sept. 29, 2025 7:10 pm ET

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After President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at the White House, Trump said they were ‘very close’ to achieving a peace deal. Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/Press Pool

WASHINGTON—For months, President Trump warned Hamas that it had to release all remaining hostages or face Israel’s wrath. On Monday, he issued an ominous message: Agree to a 20-point peace plan for Gaza within 72 hours, or suffer complete annihilation.

In effect, Trump threatened the prospect of more war in order to end nearly two years of fighting.

If Hamas doesn’t accept, or the plan falls apart, “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas,” Trump said.

The move ranks among the riskiest diplomatic gambles for Trump, which he delivered alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House to show that at least one warring party agreed to his peace vision. If Hamas doesn’t support the proposal, then the U.S. would back Israel as it targeted the U.S.-designated terrorist group in its last remaining strongholds.

“Israel will finish the job by itself,” Netanyahu said during a joint statement following a meeting between both leaders. “This can be done the easy way, or it can be done the hard way, but it has to be done.”

Trump’s peace plan, if adopted, would see the president chair a “Board of Peace” to oversee the interim governance of Gaza. Aid would flow into the enclave and an Arab-led stabilization force would swiftly keep order. Israeli forces would, over time, withdraw from the battlefield while maintaining a security buffer zone around Gaza. And Hamas would lay down its arms while forever renouncing its leadership role.

In response to the Trump plan, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar and Egypt said they supported the U.S. efforts and called for full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, as well as for the enclave’s reconstruction. They said they would work with the U.S. to end the war and called for the renewal of peace negotiations that would lead to a Palestinian state.

Israel helped shape the Trump plan, according to officials, and pushed for several amendments that appeared in the final draft. Most notably, the proposal leaves open the possibility of a sovereign Palestinian state but doesn’t include the phrase “two-state solution.” It instead noted the “aspiration of the Palestinian people” for self-determination.

Netanyahu and Trump at their news conference at the White House on Monday. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP

“To its credit, this plan tries to bridge some of the gaps that have plagued diplomacy to date,” said Michael Singh, who was a top Middle East official in George W. Bush’s White House and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The proposal further adds diplomatic pressure to the military pressure Hamas is already facing and brings non-Hamas Gazans into the discussion, he said, though “it may not end the fighting or gain immediate purchase.”

If Hamas doesn’t sign on to the conditions, then the U.S. and Israel plus Arab and international partners would realize Trump’s vision in areas of Gaza no longer controlled by the militants, U.S. officials insisted.

But the pitfalls are in plain sight, analysts and other officials said. For starters, Hamas hasn’t yet made clear whether it would sign on to the plan.

Arab countries are unlikely to send troops if Israel continues striking Hamas targets in Gaza. Israeli forces are unlikely to withdraw from the enclave until all hostages are released—up to 20 of the remaining 48 are thought to still be alive—but Israel and the U.S. have insisted that Hamas must release all hostages for the peace plan to be implemented.

The interim governing body that Trump has proposed, which also includes former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a board member, could struggle to gain any legitimacy within the enclave.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Egypt want to see a clear path to a two-state solution and for the Palestinian Authority to play a significant governance role in the enclave.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a defiant tone in his United Nations address, lashing out at the idea of a Palestinian state and vowing to keep fighting Hamas. Photo: Niyi Fote/Zuma Press

Netanyahu ruled out the possibility of PA involvement in a postwar Gaza, however. “Gaza will have a peaceful civilian administration that is run neither by Hamas nor by the Palestinian Authority,” he said in statements to the press alongside Trump at the White House. “It won’t come as a surprise to you that the vast majority of Israelis have no faith that the PA leopard will change its spots.”

Without a clear pathway to a two-state solution, Saudi Arabia is unlikely to fund the plan, Arab officials say. Officials from several Arab countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, took part in related meetings on the sidelines of the Trump-Netanyahu summit on Monday, according to Arab officials.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said that there will never be a Palestinian state, though the U.S. plan leaves open the possibility of a sovereign independent state, officials say. Trump has also said that he would prevent Israel from annexing the West Bank, a move that U.S. and some Israeli officials assert would harm any prospects of a two-state solution and complicate efforts to expand the Abraham Accords, which normalize relations between Israel and Arab countries.

Hamas has so far opposed disarming or destroying its weapons as laid out in the text. The group also says that it would be difficult to release all the hostages within 48 hours, as it has lost contact with some of the groups holding them for weeks, according to Arab officials.

And those are built-in complications that don’t factor in the possibility of some Israeli officials or Hamas operatives, among others, being skeptical that ending hostilities at this point is advantageous to their aims.

“There will be many spoilers working hard to make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Shalom Lipner, who served seven consecutive Israeli prime ministers in their offices over a quarter-century and is now at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.

In the days leading up to the summit with Netanyahu, Trump hyped the potential of a final deal. Even as Netanyahu pulled up to the White House, he said that all sides were close to an agreement.

Trump then appeared to pressure Netanyahu to accept the terms of his peace vision. In a stunning three-way call between Trump, Netanyahu and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Israeli leader apologized for the deadly strike against Hamas negotiators in Doha, Qatar’s capital.

“I want to assure you that Israel was targeting Hamas, not Qataris. I also want to assure you that Israel has no plan to violate your sovereignty again in the future, and I have made that commitment to the president,” Netanyahu said, according to a readout from the prime minister’s office.

Write to Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com, Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com

17. The Fatal Flaw in the Transatlantic Alliance

​Excerpts:

The United States should instead pivot home. Trump should take the resources and strategic bandwidth freed by a smaller U.S. military role in Europe and refocus U.S. energy in the Western Hemisphere. Border and port security and air and missile defense of the homeland are areas where military power will be essential. But even after investment in these areas, the reduction in U.S. military commitments in Europe will allow the United States to get leaner, creating budget space for domestic priorities, including infrastructure, education, and paying down the national debt.

The Trump administration should work with regional partners to address the root causes of migration and allocate more resources to the law enforcement agencies best trained to deal with issues such as human and drug trafficking and transnational organized crime. Washington can also focus on increasing its investment across Latin America, both to take advantage of the region’s abundant natural resources and to build stronger ties with U.S. neighbors—including those with which the United States has a history of conflict. Washington could include Greenland, which is part of North America, in its new hemispheric policy, finding mutually beneficial areas for cooperation, from extracting critical minerals to setting up new military operating locations to reinforce security in the northern Atlantic.

Although this pivot home will not be complete in four years, the Trump administration has a unique opportunity to rebalance the transatlantic relationship and cure its pathologies. When this rebalancing is accomplished, it will be an enduring achievement that will position the United States for the challenges and opportunities of the next 75 years.

The Fatal Flaw in the Transatlantic Alliance

Foreign Affairs · More by Jennifer Kavanagh · September 30, 2025

Trump Must Do Much More to Rebalance America’s Relationship With Europe

Jennifer Kavanagh and Peter Slezkine

September 30, 2025

U.S. and NATO flags on display at a military ceremony in Pristina, Kosovo, December 2018 Laura Hasani / Reuters

JENNIFER KAVANAGH is a Senior Fellow and Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies.

PETER SLEZKINE is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Russia Program at the Stimson Center.

• More by Peter Slezkine

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When U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House, he had his sights set on rebalancing the transatlantic relationship. He would be right to do so. The United States’ burden in NATO is out of proportion with the interests at stake, and regulations set in Brussels have resulted in a lopsided U.S.-EU trade regime. Though it is one of 32 NATO members, the United States covers 16 percent of NATO’s annual budget and shoulders most of the operational and logistical burden for Europe’s security. Meanwhile, the EU has long used tariff and nontariff barriers to limit access for U.S. agricultural and industrial products and has obstructed the operation of American small business and Big Tech with rules and red tape.

Trump took aim at Europe as soon as he entered office. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump dispatched Vice President JD Vance and the freshly confirmed U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to warn Europeans that Washington’s “new sheriff” was intent on changing the terms of the relationship. In Paris, Vance called on Europe to lower regulation of artificial intelligence and energy. In Munich, he questioned Europe’s continued commitment to shared Western values. In Brussels, Hegseth announced that the United States could no longer focus primarily on Europe’s security and would be shifting to other priorities. Soon after, Trump levied punitive tariffs designed to pressure Europe to reduce trade barriers and regulations that limit the access of U.S. firms.

This multifront pressure campaign produced some initial results. At a NATO summit meeting in June, European allies promised to increase their defense spending to five percent of GDP by 2035. In July, Trump and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced a trade deal committing the EU to purchase $750 billion in American energy products and invest $600 billion in the U.S. market by 2028.

Yet these successes were at best partial, and perhaps illusory. The five percent pledge by European allies does almost nothing for the United States in the near term, and since today’s leaders cannot credibly bind the hands of future ones, it is an open question whether European countries will ever meet these spending targets. Moreover, the United States has retained control of key leadership positions in NATO, ensuring that Europe’s institutionalized military dependence will endure.

The trade deal with the EU, formalized as a framework agreement in August, could represent a more substantial adjustment. But for now, it remains an outline. Europe’s ability to meet its multiyear commitments is far from clear, and Brussels continues to resist revising regulations that inhibit the operation of American high-tech companies on the continent. The trade pact is also a one-off, unsupported by any institutional infrastructure. As a result, the impenetrability of EU bureaucracies will continue to limit the United States’ ability to restructure transatlantic economic relations.

If the Trump administration truly intends to rebalance the relationship with Europe—and to assign it a more proportionate place within American foreign policy—it cannot rely on narrow deals that merely tweak or seek to circumvent existing structures. Instead, it must tackle the basic premises of transatlanticism head on. To do so requires an understanding of the three fateful choices made at NATO’s founding: prioritizing Europe at the expense of the Americas, institutionalizing the military rather than the economic component of the transatlantic relationship, and embedding a regional alliance within a universalist ideological framework. Each decision came with immediately apparent downsides. All have resulted in mounting difficulties in recent years. Until the original premises of transatlantic policy are reconsidered, the relationship will continue to suffer from the same fundamental problems.

Fortunately, the Trump administration can take steps to address past mistakes and set the transatlantic relationship on a new course. First, Trump should follow through on his commitment to refocus U.S. foreign policy on America’s near abroad, pulling back from Europe and avoiding the hard “pivot to Asia” that previous administrations have pledged. Second, his national security team should insist that NATO confine its activities to the Euro-Atlantic region. Finally, the Trump administration should shift the transatlantic relationship from one based on military cooperation to one centered on economic engagement and technology. The continent would remain an important American partner, but it would no longer be a drain on American resources.

THE POSTWAR PIVOT

For the first century and a half of its history, the United States prioritized a hemispheric foreign policy. In his 1796 Farewell Address, George Washington warned Americans against entanglement with Europe. In his 1823 address to Congress, James Monroe warned Europeans against encroachment into the Western Hemisphere. U.S. efforts to institutionalize a pan-American policy reached their apogee in 1947 with the adoption of the Rio Pact—the first mutual security treaty to be joined by the United States—in which the region’s countries agreed to defend one another if attacked.

When the United States joined NATO in 1949, American policymakers pointed to the Rio Pact as a precedent and drew analogies between the alliance’s founding document, the North Atlantic Treaty, and the Monroe Doctrine. NATO had obvious appeal at the time. Europe, the world’s richest region, had been devastated by war and could be incorporated into the U.S. sphere comparatively cheaply. American officials were also concerned that if the United States did not gain a foothold in Europe, it would cede ground in the region to the Soviet Union, its strongest competitor.

But the postwar pivot to Europe proved to be a rejection, rather than an extension, of the United States’ traditional hemispheric policy and came at a clear cost to U.S. interests in the Americas. Over the course of the Cold War, Washington abandoned or ignored previous positive projects in Latin America in favor of a reactive (and ineffective) policy of anti-communist intervention. Rare attempts to revitalize U.S. efforts in the region, such as President John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress, an aid program in Latin America, ultimately failed to attract sufficient resources and devolved into further support for whatever local security forces claimed to be combating communism.

When American ambition (and NATO) expanded after the Cold War’s end, attention to the Western Hemisphere dwindled further. Security at the southern border of the United States became a major domestic concern as powerful cartels entrenched themselves in Mexico and Central America. The United States remained at odds with Cuba—a former ally of the now-defunct Soviet Union and the keystone of the Caribbean, only 100 miles off the Florida coast—and, after the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, lost constructive relations with Venezuela, which possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Meanwhile, investment opportunities throughout the region have increasingly gone to non-U.S. companies.

BOOTS ON THE GROUND

When the United States shifted its attention across the Atlantic in the early postwar period, its priority was economic engagement—both to create export markets for American companies and to inoculate the European continent against communism. The Marshall Plan, announced in 1947, translated this priority into policy: providing billions in aid to support economic rebuilding and stabilization across the continent, encouraging the adoption of American industrial standards, and reducing trade barriers. Yet the project was short-lived, and Washington soon passed the baton of economic integration to the Europeans themselves. When the Marshall Plan ended in 1951, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands created the European Coal and Steel Community, planting the seeds for the development of an economic union with the power to exclude America from the market it had helped to create.

Whereas European reconstruction and economic integration was an American initiative that the Europeans later pursued on their own, mutual security began as a European concern before becoming a permanent American burden. In 1947, the United Kingdom and France signed the Dunkirk Treaty, providing for their mutual defense. In 1948, they were joined by Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in signing the Brussels Treaty. In 1949, the United States signed the North Atlantic Treaty, accepting what became a long-term role in western European security.

Even then, many in the United States did not think it needed to indefinitely protect western Europe. George Kennan, the American diplomat and architect of containment, was initially skeptical of the need for a transatlantic alliance. He believed that the western Europeans’ focus on military security resulted from “their failure to understand correctly their own position” and from misjudging the primarily political nature of the communist threat. As far as Kennan was concerned, American accession to the North Atlantic Treaty was a psychological salve to “stiffen the self-confidence” of the western Europeans so that they could turn their attention to the real priorities of economic reconstruction and political stabilization.

The transatlantic relationship has endured as a purely military arrangement.

Four decades later, the Soviet bloc collapsed, and Russian soldiers retreated. Yet American forces remained, and NATO not only endured but also expanded—over the objections of Kennan and others. The persistence of this military alliance can best be explained by a lack of alternative Atlanticist structures. North America and Europe are bound by no institution aside from NATO. For former members of the Warsaw Pact and for the new post-Soviet states, NATO membership was the only ticket into the American club and the security and economic benefits it offered. For Washington, NATO’s continued existence was the simplest way to secure and expand the United States’ sphere of influence.

Yet, as many observers predicted, attempts to extend transatlantic cohesion through NATO expansion ultimately provoked a Russian reaction that a transatlantic relationship premised on economic cooperation might not have had. A 2008 NATO summit declaration in Budapest promising future membership for Georgia and Ukraine was followed by wars in both countries.

At the same time, the creation of the European Union in 1993 exacerbated the tensions within the transatlantic alliance. While the United States has paid the costs—and assumed the risks—of an ever-growing security sphere, it has had no formal say in the political, legal, and economic structures of Europe. This has benefited Brussels and Berlin at Washington’s expense. The transatlantic relationship, created to extend American economic leverage in Europe, has endured as a purely military arrangement.

NATO GOES GLOBAL

The U.S. postwar focus on Europe was initially driven by regional interests, but American foreign policy quickly took on a global orientation. Before the United States even joined NATO, U.S. decision-makers considered creating a worldwide anticommunist alliance. On March 23, 1948, officials from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada met secretly to explore the possibility of a worldwide “pact of the free nations” under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Although they decided against pursuing this option in the short term, they “agreed that any approach adopted should not prejudice an ultimate development in this direction.”

American policymakers continued to push for a globally interconnected security system even as they committed the United States to a regional transatlantic alliance. Senator Warren Magnuson, for example, a Democrat from Washington State, combined a vote for the North Atlantic Treaty with a call for “a similar pact for the Pacific.” “If we are going to assume the leadership of all the free peoples of the world, and of those who would be free,” he explained, “of course we cannot limit the work we are undertaking to do to one geographical area of the world.”

Kennan, by contrast, emphasized the steep costs of continuing to expand American security commitments: “Beyond the Atlantic area, which is a clean-cut concept, and which embraces a real community of defense interest firmly rooted in geography and tradition, there is no logical stopping point in the development of a system of anti-Russian alliances until that system has circled the globe,” he wrote in a memo that year. Such a policy, he continued, could “lead only to one of two results; either all these alliances become meaningless declarations . . . or this country becomes still further over-extended, politically and militarily.”

Despite Kennan’s advice, American commitments continued to proliferate. In 1950, NSC-68—a National Security Council report viewed as the seminal strategic document of the Cold War—defined the United States’ overarching aim as the buildup of “the political, economic, and military strength of the free world,” a concept American policymakers identified with the entire noncommunist world. In the first half of the 1950s, NATO membership was extended to include Greece, Turkey, and West Germany. Over that period, Washington rimmed the periphery of the “communist world” with three more “free world” alliances: ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, and the United States), SEATO (Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States), and CENTO (an alliance between Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, which the United States orchestrated without joining).

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Atlanticists assumed that liberal democracy would naturally extend to the ends of the earth. When this didn’t materialize, they blamed various bad actors, from terrorists to totalitarians. The Biden administration completed the reversion to a Cold War frame, declaring a global divide between democracies and autocracies, with China and Russia reprising their roles as principal foes. And once again, the transatlantic relationship was instrumentalized to serve the interests of the larger “liberal order”: NATO members were encouraged to increase their military cooperation with allies in East Asia, while Japan and South Korea attended NATO summits and were vocal in their support for Ukraine. Even after Trump’s reelection, European officials have continued to invoke linkages between China and Russia in an effort to maintain American military engagement on the continent.

RIGHTING THE WRONGS

The Trump administration’s approach to Europe so far has not been sufficient to dislodge the foundations of the transatlantic relationship as it has stood for 75 years. But the good news for Trump is that he still has over three years to push the United States toward a foreign policy that truly puts U.S. interests first.

To start, the Trump administration should regionalize the transatlantic relationship, turning its focus back to Europe and the North Atlantic, where it should have been along. Trump and his national security team have stopped talking about the “latticework” that ties Washington’s European and Asian allies together and no longer promote NATO as a core building block of any sort of liberal international order. They have also urged NATO members to focus on security issues in their own backyards over those in the Indo-Pacific. But Trump will need to do more to keep the U.S.-European relationship regionally contained, especially in the defense domain.

To ensure that the scope of the transatlantic commitment—and NATO’s remit—does not expand further, the United States should begin discussions to formally close the alliance’s open door, foreclosing the chance for future expansion. The United States should also make sure that the alliance’s activities remain squarely focused on Europe. Washington should insist that NATO planning documents focus only on Euro-Atlantic security challenges, including direct threats to NATO territory, maritime security in waters surrounding the continent, and cyberthreats from state and nonstate actors. The United States should also withhold support for any operations outside NATO’s current boundaries suggested by other members of the alliance, including naval transits of the Taiwan Strait and no-fly zones over Ukraine.

The United States should focus on technology and economic cooperation with Europe.

Second, Trump will need to force Europe to assume more responsibility for its own defense—and not just on paper. This might not require a U.S. withdrawal from NATO, but it will demand significant retrenchment of U.S. forces and a literal interpretation of the alliance’s cornerstone document, Article 5, to narrow the scope of the U.S. military commitment to Europe in a crisis. Though Article 5 is often described as requiring member states to deploy troops to provide direct support if any other member is a victim of aggression, the actual commitment is more limited. The treaty states only that in the event of an attack, members “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” The United States could meet this standard by offering military assistance or logistical support, for example, rather than putting U.S. soldiers on the frontline.

Especially important will be the withdrawal of ground combat and air forces based in Germany, Poland, and Romania, which represent the core of the U.S. military commitment in the region. Removing most of these forces will make it easier for Washington to keep any U.S. role in future European conflicts limited by reducing both the risk of entanglement and the temptation U.S. policymakers might feel to support direct involvement. Institutional changes will also be needed. The Trump administration should begin talks with NATO allies to ensure that Europeans rather than Americans can fill top civilian and military posts, including the position of the next supreme allied commander of NATO. And it should rewrite NATO plans to reduce the U.S. forward defense and frontline role and instead assign U.S. forces in Europe to support functions, including intelligence, logistics, and other strategic enablers.

After downsizing its military footprint in Europe, the United States should work to build a new bedrock for transatlantic ties focused on technology and economic cooperation. This project will require new institutions to formalize engagement and strengthen partnerships in areas including AI, pharmaceuticals, and critical minerals. U.S. leadership in the space and cybertechnology fields could also be reinforced through cooperation with Europe. The new trade deal that Trump recently closed with the EU could be the starting point for building new cooperative mechanisms and mutually beneficial ties. Progress on issues such as requirements for technology transfers and sharing and the harmonization of regulatory standards should be areas of particular focus.

Finally, the Trump administration should not repeat the mistakes of 1949 by using the retrenchment to do a hard pivot to Asia, complete with the construction of new collective security organizations, an expanded military footprint, and efforts to build a global coalition to contain a feared adversary (this time, China). Such a move is widely advocated by U.S. foreign policy experts and China hawks, but it would once again leave the United States overextended and risk drawing the country into conflict far from its own shores. In any case, the current U.S. military presence in Asia is more than sufficient to secure U.S. interests.

THE PIVOT HOME

The United States should instead pivot home. Trump should take the resources and strategic bandwidth freed by a smaller U.S. military role in Europe and refocus U.S. energy in the Western Hemisphere. Border and port security and air and missile defense of the homeland are areas where military power will be essential. But even after investment in these areas, the reduction in U.S. military commitments in Europe will allow the United States to get leaner, creating budget space for domestic priorities, including infrastructure, education, and paying down the national debt.

The Trump administration should work with regional partners to address the root causes of migration and allocate more resources to the law enforcement agencies best trained to deal with issues such as human and drug trafficking and transnational organized crime. Washington can also focus on increasing its investment across Latin America, both to take advantage of the region’s abundant natural resources and to build stronger ties with U.S. neighbors—including those with which the United States has a history of conflict. Washington could include Greenland, which is part of North America, in its new hemispheric policy, finding mutually beneficial areas for cooperation, from extracting critical minerals to setting up new military operating locations to reinforce security in the northern Atlantic.

Although this pivot home will not be complete in four years, the Trump administration has a unique opportunity to rebalance the transatlantic relationship and cure its pathologies. When this rebalancing is accomplished, it will be an enduring achievement that will position the United States for the challenges and opportunities of the next 75 years.

Foreign Affairs · More by Jennifer Kavanagh · September 30, 2025

18. Why Regime Change in Iran Cannot be Imposed

​Conclusion:

The history of the modern Middle East teaches that externally imposed regime change is neither effective, legitimate, nor sustainable. For decades, the U.S. and its allies have operated in the Middle East without sufficiently anticipating the second- and third-order consequences of their foreign policy. When tackling a regime such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is vital to factor in the context of Ayatollah Khamenei’s role as Supreme Leader and Guardian Jurist. The regime’s infrastructure, coupled with the weakness of the existing opposition and Khamenei’s appointment of successors, poises the current regime for resilience. Moreover, popular chaos throughout the Shi’i Crescent would also ensue from the ayatollah’s martyrdom. The U.S. and Israel should maintain a narrow strategic scope should the Israel-Iran War reignite. Like in round one, they ought to set back the nuclear and missile threats while crippling the regime to the extent possible short of eliminating Khamenei. Instead, he should be left in power with a gutted economy, a water and energy crisis, and a depleted inner circle following the decimation of the upper echelons. When paired with such a visible defeat, a loss of domestic standing should enable a viable opposition movement to organize itself organically over the coming months. Rather than in an Israeli or U.S. assassination, Khamenei’s true end lies in the hands of the Iranian public.

Why Regime Change in Iran Cannot be Imposed

irregularwarfare.org · Alexandra Veyne · September 30, 2025

“Our control of the skies guarantees us victory more than any other factor,” asserted David Ben Gurion in 1953, following a review of Israel’s armed forces. The June 2025 Israel-Iran War seems only to have reaffirmed Ben Gurion’s analysis. Less than 48 hours after the war’s outbreak, Israel achieved air superiority 1,500 kilometers away over the skies of Tehran. More than half of Iran’s missile launchers were allegedly destroyed, and over 20 senior officials eliminated, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, military chiefs of staff, and nuclear scientists. With these successes, inevitable discussions of regime change have returned.

As the conflict progressed, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu shifted from pushing for a deal to presenting a seemingly united front seeking a “total and complete victory” that discounted a ceasefire. Whether this rhetoric was psychological warfare designed to pressure Khamenei into surrendering, rather than mere strategic ambivalence, remains to be seen. The ambiguity even extended to the issue of leadership liquidation: Trump repeatedly hinted at Khamenei’s potential assassination. While Trump may have deemed the eradication of the nuclear threat an absolute win, the Netanyahu administration vacillated between strictly limiting its war aims to the incapacitation of the nuclear and ballistic-missile programs and encompassing full regime collapse within its definition of victory.

Ultimately, the war ended after 12 days with a precarious ceasefire. Both sides declared victory. Israel claimed it prevailed due to its significant degradation of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs following the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites in Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz. However, the ceasefire had become necessary: the Israeli economy could not afford to hemorrhage almost a billion dollars a day on war expenditures or sustain prolonged closed airspace. Advanced defensive interceptors were also running low. As for the Islamic Republic, it appears to have been disgraced by its lackluster defense—it needed to regain control of its skies and halt the pummeling of its strategic sites and military assets.

The aftermath of the conflict leaves a crucial strategic question in the balance: should the U.S. and Israel pursue regime change in Iran?The following analysis argues that effecting regime change would be a mistake. Not only does foreign-imposed regime change fail in the long term, but the act of leadership decapitation alone would breed chaos. In a televised speech on August 12, Netanyahu urged the Iranian people to “take to the streets;” however, the historical scars from the foreign-imposed regime change of 1953, the fragmented Iranian opposition landscape, and the nationalist Shi’i context all preclude successful regime change. The United States and Israel must balance military effectiveness with restraint to avoid repeating past mistakes.

The Symbolism of Ayatollah Khamenei’s Removal

As Prime Minister Ben Gurion was evaluating Israel’s security posture in 1953, Iran was grappling with the aftermath of a joint U.S.-U.K. coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh and restored the Pahlavi dynasty. The Shah, Mohammad Reza, was regarded by many Iranians as a foreign-imposed ruler. Coupled with his repressive reign, his illegitimacy contributed to his ouster with the advent of Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. More than 70 years later, the 1953 coup remains an indelible mark on modern Iran’s national consciousness. The United States and its allies’ present national-security challenges cannot be divorced from this initial strategic blunder that laid the foundation for the widespread anti-American sentiment pervading the regime’s base.

Beyond providing a symbolic win, the death of Ayatollah Khamenei would not ultimately alter the essence of the Iranian regime—Khamenei has already made a short list of potential successors to replace him as Guardian Jurist (vali-ye faqih) and to fill IRGC command roles. Worse, it could destabilize or incite the Shi’i world, both within and beyond Iran. If the Supreme Leader were to die as a result of Israeli or U.S. efforts, even segments of the ummah less sympathetic to the Shi’i regime may perceive this as an affront to the Muslim community as a whole.

Policymakers must account for current global dynamics. In light of the West’s legacy in the Middle East, and the backdrop of post-colonialism and anti-imperialism in social media, neither Israel nor the United States can afford to assassinate Khamenei. Considering the core Shi’i themes of martyrdom, oppression, and subjugation resonate with today’s younger generations, such a strike could incite popular resistance (al-muqawama). Regime-aligned entities could also opportunistically draw a comparison between Khamenei and Imam Hussein, equating the leader’s decapitation to a second Battle of Karbala—thereby galvanizing broad anti-Israeli and/or anti-U.S. sentiment that ends up bolstering the Islamic regime and backfiring in the long run.

To add insult to injury, many analysts have speculated that Khamenei has groomed his son Mojtaba to succeed him as Supreme Leader. Close to the IRGC and its Basij paramilitary force, he is regarded as a gatekeeper for those seeking access to his father. Even if reports that he was excluded from the short list of successors prove true, he could still inherit a great deal of political authority and prestige. By publicly exploiting his father’s martyrdom via expressions of grief and a desire for revenge, he could attempt to unite various sections of the population through Islamic and nationalist calls for resistance. If couched in the correct Shi’i vocabulary, it may even induce hesitant factions to double down in support of the regime.

Domestic Dynamics Not Conducive to Change

If enduring regime change is to occur in Iran, it must come from within. But have the Iranian people reached a breaking point? Recent reports do not instill confidence. While younger and secular demographics may have celebrated Israeli strikes on strategic sites throughout the country, this intellectual or emotional support does not immediately translate into revolutionary potential. True regime change requires a significant, organized opposition movement that has the capacity to take up arms and shed blood if necessary.

The opposition landscape remains fractured along ethnic and ideological lines. None of the leading alternatives have gained enough currency. The main opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), resides in exile in Paris. Maryam Rajavi, its President-elect, has never served in an official governmental capacity. Even if it were recognized by the international community at large, the NCRI would struggle to acquire legitimacy on Iranian soil among a heterogeneous population that has suffered forty years of repression. A second option that gained traction during round one of the Israel-Iran War was the reinstatement of the monarchy under Crown Prince Reza Shah, who has spent most of his life in exile. However, aversion to the Islamic Republic does not translate to desire for monarchy—many Iranians still oppose the revival of the despised Pahlavi dynasty.

U.S. and Israeli policymakers should heed a key lesson from modern Middle Eastern history: experienced regime insiders are critical to a successful transition. The painful legacy of de-Ba’athification in Iraq is a reminder that former IRGC officials will need to facilitate the changeover. In light of the IRGC’s deep entrenchment in the Islamic Republic’s political, economic, and security apparatus, the best chance at regime change will likely be an insider coup involving IRGC elements. Ultimately, the Iranian people are highly nationalistic—a lack of interference by foreign governments or exiles will be most conducive to a successful revolution.

Strategic Approaches Should “Round Two” Ignite

A second round of the Israel-Iran War is likely imminent if the Iranian regime opts for face-saving measures to reassert authority amid mounting pressure. Whereas some Israeli military analysts speculate that it could break out in 2–3 years, others believe it could erupt in a matter of months or even weeks. Notably, the decision to activate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) snapback mechanism on August 28 provides a 30-day window for Iran to comply with the nuclear deal or face the reimposition of United Nations sanctions. With key JCPOA provisions set to expire on October 18, round two of the war could occur as soon as this fall. Regardless of the actual time frame, it is crucial for the U.S. and Israel to determine their respective strategic goals—and limitations—prior to the renewal of conflict.

Although remarkable in its efficacy, the Israeli Air Force cannot achieve anything beyond severely degrading the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and missile projects. Even if its bombing campaign were to blanket Tehran, the state apparatus would fail to disintegrate. As Mearsheimer warns in his seminal book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, air power alone does not suffice. While a critical component, it cannot compensate for a lack of ground presence, especially when nations do not share borders. Despite geographical realities, air power may be sufficient if the Trump and Netanyahu administrations can claim military victory after the re-degradation of the nuclear facilities and missile-launcher arsenal.

Aligning air campaigns with strategic aims would require a fundamental shift. Regardless of the objectives, economic targets should be spared. The Islamic Republic’s modus operandi is to externalize any blame for its own governance failures—if gas and oil infrastructure were to be hit again, the regime could use the strikes as a rallying point against the U.S.-Israeli alliance. The Iranian population has been grappling with drastic energy shortages and a dire economic situation for years. Rather than directing public ire towards the regime, such strikes could be portrayed as attacks on already suffering civilians. Like economic warfare, financial warfare can be particularly effective when carried out with surgical precision. In the case of Iran, U.S. and Israeli analysts should sustain their gray-zone campaign against the para-governmental foundations (bonyads) and hawala informal financial networks that support the merchant class and IRGC.

Psychological operations (PSYOP) must underpin any renewed hostilities. Khamenei built the system on unquestioned loyalty to the Islamic Republic—the depth of Mossad penetration at the regime’s highest levels underscores how leadership decapitation threats can be leveraged by Israel and the U.S. to exacerbate the Guardian Jurist’s desperation and further cloud his strategic calculus. The lack of clarity vis-à-vis an assassination attempt on Khamenei or foreign-backed coup is also compounded by IDF posts insinuating treason. For example, during round one, the IDF’s Farsi-language X account posted that “members of the regime’s security institutions” had been contacting it; it denied being the “appropriate authority” and instead referred them to the Mossad’s website. This tongue-in-cheek approach helped plant additional seeds of doubt both within the population and the regime’s ranks at an inflection point in the campaign. As reports of a gathering opposition within Iran emerge, the U.S.-Israel alliance should give the Islamic Republic a taste of its own PSYOP medicine. Nevertheless, it is important not to overly humiliate the regime to avoid triggering nationalistic pride.

Besides leveraging psychological warfare, the U.S. and Israel should continue to inhibit the reconstitution of Iran’s proxy network. This will help minimize Israel’s attack surface by curtailing the number of active arenas during round two. Moreover, a defanged proxy network will thwart the Islamic Republic’s overall Unity of Fronts campaign and mitigate the long-term strategic threats to the Western alliance in the region.

The Islamic Republic is its own worst enemy. Both literally and proverbially, it consistently prioritizes war over water. Rather than addressing domestic issues, it has invested in its regional proxies and partners by banking on the strength of its security forces and the sanctity of its Islamic essence. For decades, it has neglected public infrastructure and segments outside of regime strongholds. If a drought could trigger the 2011 Syrian Civil War, a similar turn of events in an oppressive, drought-stricken Iran is not hard to envision.

Conclusion

The history of the modern Middle East teaches that externally imposed regime change is neither effective, legitimate, nor sustainable. For decades, the U.S. and its allies have operated in the Middle East without sufficiently anticipating the second- and third-order consequences of their foreign policy. When tackling a regime such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is vital to factor in the context of Ayatollah Khamenei’s role as Supreme Leader and Guardian Jurist. The regime’s infrastructure, coupled with the weakness of the existing opposition and Khamenei’s appointment of successors, poises the current regime for resilience. Moreover, popular chaos throughout the Shi’i Crescent would also ensue from the ayatollah’s martyrdom. The U.S. and Israel should maintain a narrow strategic scope should the Israel-Iran War reignite. Like in round one, they ought to set back the nuclear and missile threats while crippling the regime to the extent possible short of eliminating Khamenei. Instead, he should be left in power with a gutted economy, a water and energy crisis, and a depleted inner circle following the decimation of the upper echelons. When paired with such a visible defeat, a loss of domestic standing should enable a viable opposition movement to organize itself organically over the coming months. Rather than in an Israeli or U.S. assassination, Khamenei’s true end lies in the hands of the Iranian public.

Alexandra Veyne is the Chief Human Resources Officer of IWI. She holds an A.B. in Near Eastern Studies with High Honors from Princeton University, where she studied the languages and cultures of the Middle East with an eye toward policy. Her professional background includes working as a writer and editor for cybersecurity companies.

Main Image: The 1979 Islamic Revolution. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

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irregularwarfare.org · Alexandra Veyne · September 30, 2025

19. Can More British and French Nuclear Cooperation Help Deter Russia?

​Excerpts:

Europeans are beginning to adapt to the new geopolitical reality shaped by Russia’s aggression and uncertainty over Washington’s long-term commitment. How Russian military thinkers will ultimately interpret these shifts remains uncertain, though initial reactions suggest that these developments can indeed strengthen the European deterrent against Russia. What is clear is that enhanced Franco-British nuclear cooperation, coupled with the gradual development of long-range precision strike capabilities, will be central to both reinforcing Europe’s deterrent against Moscow and reassuring European allies. These efforts should be combined with new arms control measures that address Russia’s non-strategic nuclear weapons — though not politically feasible in the short term. European countries can build a strong deterrent to effectively deter Russia while using this leverage to pursue meaningful transparency-building and arms control measures with Russia and the United States to improve strategic stability over the long term. In turn, such measures will also limit the risk of nuclear proliferation within Europe.

Building European conventional and nuclear capabilities that can deter Russia will not be easy. Industrial bottlenecks, shortages of skilled defense talent, and the political complexity of sustaining long-term nuclear cooperation all pose significant challenges. Nonetheless, in the current strategic environment, there are few credible alternatives. Strengthening European nuclear and conventional capabilities, through more Franco-British cooperation among other things, is not simply a desirable option. It is becoming an unavoidable necessity.

Can More British and French Nuclear Cooperation Help Deter Russia?

Zsofia Wolford, James Black, and Paul van Hooft

September 30, 2025

warontherocks.com · September 30, 2025

As Europe continues to come to terms with both the Russian threat amid the war in Ukraine as well as the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. commitment to Europe, policymakers across the continent are urgently considering alternative deterrence arrangements. French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly spoken of the “European dimension” to the French nuclear deterrent and his country’s willingness to open a conversation about extending a French nuclear umbrella to Europe’s non-nuclear states. In July 2025, France and the United Kingdom, Europe’s two nuclear powers, announced stronger nuclear coordination in the Northwood Declaration, Lancaster House 2.0, and the U.K.-France Leaders Declaration. While Britain and France have a long history of such cooperation, these announcements undoubtedly take things to a new level.

Yet, assessments of European nuclear deterrence are often inward-looking, focusing on French and British arsenal sizes and escalation options, and on reassuring European allies of French and British credibility. What adversaries think about European deterrence efforts is, however, underappreciated. As defense spending surges, European policymakers should assess whether Russia takes the French and British nuclear deterrents seriously and what capability investments make sense to deter adversaries.

In a recent RAND Europe study, we looked at the Russian military-analytical community’s publications on the French and British deterrents between 2010 and 2024. We discuss the findings of that study here and lay out the options facing European states to further strengthen their conventional and nuclear deterrence against Russia. These options could give Europeans political leverage through potential future arms control efforts. While much work remains to be done in this field, we offer insights that can help identify and address the deterrence gaps of NATO Europe toward Russia.

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Russia Sees European Efforts Through a U.S.-Centric Lens But Its Views Are Changing

The key takeaway of our study is that Russia did not take European nuclear deterrents as seriously as the U.S. nuclear deterrent, nor did Russia include the United Kingdom and France in its nuclear planning to a significant degree. First, the research shows that Russian military thinkers have mostly focused on America’s nuclear deterrent when considering NATO’s deterrence posture in the past. Even though France and the United Kingdom have designed their nuclear force postures to cause “unacceptable damage” to Russia — see, for example, the British “Moscow Criterion” — the larger U.S. arsenal in both numbers and delivery systems was the central problem for Russian nuclear thinkers and planners. For instance, an affiliate at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations stated in a 2017 article that the British gaining nuclear weapons in 1952 “did not so much change the overall balance of power as simply increased their ‘credibility’ in the eyes of the [Western] Allies.”

Second, Russian military publications highlight that the British deterrent “guarantees unacceptable damage to any aggressor and there is no doubt that the UK has the requisite capabilities,” despite its low warhead stockpile and limited ability for managed escalation. This suggests that Russia likely considers the British deterrent credible. The United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent has also been committed to NATO for decades, unlike France’s deterrent which is not integrated into the NATO structure. On the other hand, however, some Russian authors also mention British reliance on American delivery systems — the Trident D5 submarine-launched missile — as a vulnerability. For instance, Oleg Prikhodko, an academic at the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote in 2021 that the United Kingdom’s “dependence on the supply of critical systems from the United States for nuclear deterrent forces firmly binds Britain to American strategic interests for many years to come.” While the industrial dependence on the United States creates objective difficulties for the long-term independence of the U.K. deterrent, Russian analysts do seem to conflate this with a perceived lack of British autonomy. Yet, the United Kingdom remains operationally independent.

Third, the French strategic deterrent hardly played a role in Russian thinking before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Though Russian sources noted that the French deterrent is characterized as politically and technologically highly independent, and that France does not “depend on anyone else to develop, produce, test and modernize [their] nuclear weapons,” they did not consider the French deterrent to be directed at Russia. There are probably two main reasons for this. For one, Russian scholars have historically tended to perceive France’s political leadership as not as ideologically antagonistic towards Russia as the Americans and the British seem to be, noting that the “host of the Elysee Palace [Macron] is probably the only major European politician who does not treat Russia as a pariah in public.” The other reason derives from an accurate reading of France’s traditional nuclear doctrine, which was an explicit rejection of the credibility of the U.S. extended nuclear deterrence guarantees. Unlike the United Kingdom, France is not a member of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, and, as some Russian authors put it, “refuses to align with [the] nuclear strategy of its allies.” While French nuclear capabilities were therefore considered a highly credible deterrent, they were not perceived as being threatening to Russia. However, the Russian view of the French nuclear deterrent seems to be shifting as of 2025. Russian observers were caught off-guard by Macron’s statements and outreach to other Europeans. As a result, they likely consider France to have become an important part of the nuclear calculation, with France’s vital national security interests now including the European dimension.

Preliminary Russian responses to the 2025 U.K.-French declarations show a further Russian reassessment of the French and British deterrents — and particularly of France. While further details of the Northwood Declaration have yet to emerge, Moscow is clearly paying attention. In July, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that Russia would factor Franco-British nuclear cooperation into its political and military planning, citing the “aggregate potential” of the two countries’ arsenals. Similarly, Alexandra Ermina, an adjunct professor at the Military University of the Russian Ministry of Defense, argued in a recent Red Star article (Krasnaya Zvezda, the official journal of the Russian Ministry of Defense) that France’s new willingness to extend its nuclear umbrella marks a departure from Charles de Gaulle’s tradition of strategic ambiguity.

Deterrence Beyond Nukes: Building Europe’s Conventional Long-Range Strike Capabilities

While Russia is grappling with the potential capabilities and intentions of the United Kingdom and France, Europeans states should move ahead with other conventional measures to shore up deterrence. Here, too, the strategic decisions should consider Russian assessments. Conventional long-range precision strike systems are central in Russian strategic thinking, particularly in escalation management. Moscow views such systems as strategic threats, a perception evident in key doctrinal texts from the 2015 National Security Strategy to the 2024 Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence. While these concerns are currently also primarily focused on U.S. capabilities, European options exist to strengthen long-range precision strike capabilities to increase their leverage against Russia. These capabilities can project force at great distances, deter aggression, and allow NATO to impose significant costs on high-value targets without crossing the nuclear threshold. By doing so, they reduce the risk of uncontrolled escalation and provide allies with greater flexibility in crisis management. Addressing Europe’s capability gap in advanced conventional weapons will be essential to strengthen its deterrence posture.

European militaries have begun to strengthen their advanced conventional weapons arsenals through development and acquisition, to complement the nuclear arsenals of the United Kingdom and France. Several major programs are already underway. In July 2024, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland launched the European Long-Range Strike Approach to develop cruise missiles with ranges of 1,000–2,000 kilometers. In May 2025, the United Kingdom announced a joint program with Germany to build a deep-strike capability of similar range, while the 2025 Strategic Defence Review pledged to produce 7,000 long-range weapons. These initiatives, if successfully delivered, will strengthen Europe’s deterrence and help reassure non-nuclear NATO allies, thereby limiting incentives for nuclear proliferation. Non-nuclear long-range strike capabilities also offer deployment flexibility, as they can be mounted on air, land, or maritime platforms. Nevertheless, the development of these capabilities will almost certainly take a long time. Europe has limited expertise and know-how in long-range missile development, except for France, Norway, and Turkey. Shortages of skilled defense talent and lengthy procurement processes will further delay progress. Unless these barriers are overcome, Europe’s deep-strike shortcomings will persist in the near term.

What More Can France and the United Kingdom Do?

France and the United Kingdom are also reinforcing their role in European deterrence in other ways. Alongside these conventional programs, Britain is pursuing measures to bolster its nuclear deterrent. In June 2025, the United Kingdom announced the purchase of 12 F-35As, with deliveries expected by 2030, and its participation in NATO nuclear sharing arrangements. These will allow for greater flexibility in escalation management, though it stops short of reacquiring the sovereign tactical nuclear weapon capability that was cut in the late 1990s. The reintroduction of the air leg of the British nuclear deterrent through the use of American B-61 gravity bombs, while not sovereign, sends a strong signal to NATO allies about the importance that the United Kingdom attaches to deterrence. It might suggest a willingness to use nuclear weapons at lower levels of conflict, even if the operational control remains in U.S. hands. Additionally, it also complicates the Russian calculus by dispersing European-based non-strategic nuclear forces. However, the new fighter jets are unlikely to drastically shift Russian perceptions of the British deterrent as they still indicate British reliance on the United States.

It is therefore particularly important to assert France’s role in NATO’s deterrence, considering the historic ambiguity France has had regarding nuclear use. Our study assessed that Russian military thinkers probably already considered the French deterrent a de facto extended deterrent. An author at the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences concluded that French vital interests can be “interpreted extremely broadly, up to the need to ensure the fulfilment of the country’s international obligations.”

The French and British announcements of deeper cooperation through the Northwood Declaration, Lancaster House 2.0, and the U.K.-France Leaders Declaration are therefore meaningful. While the two countries have a long history of nuclear cooperation, the Northwood Declaration in particular reinforces joint threat perceptions and shared interests. The declaration states that “there is no extreme threat to Europe that would not prompt a response by our two nations” in a notable shift from the 1995 Chequers Declaration, which merely recognized the commonalties between the United Kingdom’s and France’s vital interests — instead of all of Europe.

The U.K.-France Leaders Declaration is significant because it established the UK-France Nuclear Steering Group, which goes further than its predecessor, the Joint Nuclear Commission. It suggests unprecedented levels of alignment that could include not only strategic but operational and tactical level collaboration too. While specific details around the cooperation remain limited, it may entail the closer integration of the nuclear-industrial architecture of the two countries, closer technical coordination on warhead development, and the deeper integration of nuclear command-and-control structures.

Finally, the Lancaster House 2.0 declaration reinforces nuclear cooperation between the two countries and introduces even closer defense-industrial ties. This includes the joint Complex Weapons Portfolio Office to facilitate the delivery of joint projects, such as the development of a new deep strike capability, the STRATUS Future Cruise and Anti-Ship Weapon, among others.

What’s Next?

Europeans are beginning to adapt to the new geopolitical reality shaped by Russia’s aggression and uncertainty over Washington’s long-term commitment. How Russian military thinkers will ultimately interpret these shifts remains uncertain, though initial reactions suggest that these developments can indeed strengthen the European deterrent against Russia. What is clear is that enhanced Franco-British nuclear cooperation, coupled with the gradual development of long-range precision strike capabilities, will be central to both reinforcing Europe’s deterrent against Moscow and reassuring European allies. These efforts should be combined with new arms control measures that address Russia’s non-strategic nuclear weapons — though not politically feasible in the short term. European countries can build a strong deterrent to effectively deter Russia while using this leverage to pursue meaningful transparency-building and arms control measures with Russia and the United States to improve strategic stability over the long term. In turn, such measures will also limit the risk of nuclear proliferation within Europe.

Building European conventional and nuclear capabilities that can deter Russia will not be easy. Industrial bottlenecks, shortages of skilled defense talent, and the political complexity of sustaining long-term nuclear cooperation all pose significant challenges. Nonetheless, in the current strategic environment, there are few credible alternatives. Strengthening European nuclear and conventional capabilities, through more Franco-British cooperation among other things, is not simply a desirable option. It is becoming an unavoidable necessity.

BECOME A MEMBER

Zsofia Wolford is an analyst at RAND Europe.

James Black is deputy director at RAND Europe.

Paul van Hooft is research leader at RAND Europe.

Image: Airman 1st Class Albert Morel via Wikimedia Commons

warontherocks.com · September 30, 2025

20. How Vance helped Trump get his TikTok deal, despite political risks

How Vance helped Trump get his TikTok deal, despite political risks

The creation of a U.S. spin-off, which has raised questions about censorship and favor for allies, will almost certainly be touted by Vance as a top achievement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/28/vance-trump-tiktok-china/

September 28, 2025

12 min

Summary

70

Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

By Natalie Allison and Drew Harwell

The White House was nearing the finish line on a long-awaited deal to permit TikTok to continue operating in the United States. But in meetings with American trade negotiators in Madrid this month, Chinese officials suddenly began slow-walking the process.

So Vice President JD Vance stepped in to offer advice.

On a Sept. 14 conference call with Vance and President Donald Trump in Washington and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the line from Madrid, the vice president suggested taking a hard line with the Chinese: Tell them the United States would let TikTok go dark for 170 million American users if an agreement wasn’t reached that day.

The president agreed, according to two people with knowledge of the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

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The next day, Bessent and Greer left the meeting at the Foreign Ministry office in Madrid with a deal.

The episode marked a key moment in the sensitive negotiations, one of several highlighting how Vance, a former Silicon Valley venture capitalist, sought to guide the complicated, congressionally mandated sale of the hugely popular video app to American owners. Trump assigned the job to the vice president shortly after they took office — and on Thursday, Vance finally sealed the deal, an achievement he almost certainly will tout if he goes on to seek the presidency in 2028. Already, the White House is giving him credit — on TikTok.

But with bragging rights come uncertainties — and some political risk — as the deal unfolds. Key details about how the business will be structured remain unclear, and the arrangement has not entirely quelled concern among China hawks about the security of American data. Under the deal, ByteDance will hold a stake and retain ownership of its recommendation algorithm, despite the Chinese company’s control of the software being one of the central concerns that prompted the TikTok spin-off effort.

Meanwhile, the sale provides ownership stakes in the new TikTok entity for some investors who are politically aligned with Trump and Vance, drawing charges of crony capitalism from critics while raising broader concerns about the potential for censorship on an app that has emerged as an increasingly important political tool.

The Trump administration has brushed off those concerns. And Vance has thrown himself into taking a victory lap: His team plans to brief Republicans on Capitol Hill in the coming weeks on how the deal will work. On Thursday, as Vance stood at Trump’s side in the Oval Office for the signing of an executive order advancing the deal, Trump praised his vice president. He was “very much involved, in charge of it,” Trump declared.

Although the sale has been some six years in the making, Trump promised on the campaign trail last year that he would keep TikTok available for U.S. users while also addressing national security concerns. The vice president eagerly picked up the mantle, positioning himself to receive credit for closing a deal that Trump wanted, and forging bonds with investors and the TikTok-using public that could prove useful as he prepares for a possible presidential run.

VP worked the phones with CEOs

David Perdue, the U.S. ambassador to China, at the White House in March, the month before he was confirmed. (John McDonnell/For The Washington Post)

This article is based on interviews with nearly a dozen people involved in negotiations across the Trump administration and the private sector, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the process publicly.

In those conversations, stakeholders described Vance and his delegates as bent on finding a solution with investors, and ultimately the Chinese government, even as Trump’s aggressive tariff plan in April abruptly halted the deal as it was on the verge of completion.

For months, the U.S. and Chinese trade teams had held meetings without discussing the stalled TikTok deal. Vance wanted the matter to come up at the next round of negotiations between the two governments — a meeting with Bessent and Greer set for mid-September in Madrid.

The vice president turned to David Perdue, Trump’s ambassador to China, to persuade Chinese officials to allow TikTok on the agenda. Vance’s hope was to finalize the TikTok sale even if a broad trade deal remained out of reach.

Chinese officials agreed with the pitch, according to four people with knowledge of the deliberations.

TikTok and the federal government had negotiated unsuccessfully for years, including the duration of Joe Biden’s presidency, over national security concerns about potential Chinese manipulation of personal data and video feeds on the platform.

In the deal announced Thursday, an American version of TikTok will be spun off from parent company ByteDance with new leadership and ownership, including companies tied to some prominent Trump allies.

Vance began working on a deal as soon as the job landed in his lap, meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in the vice president’s West Wing office in February. And around the same time that Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Apple and Google seeking to restore TikTok to their app stores, Vance got on the phone with Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, urging the same. Despite initial concerns over whether they would be in compliance with the law, the companies ultimately restored the app, a critical step to allowing TikTok to continue its U.S. operations as negotiations went on.

From his West Wing office during the day, Vance fielded calls about the deal and took meetings with potential investors as well as leaders from Oracle, the tech giant that hosts U.S. TikTok data and reviews the app’s code for potential security flaws. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, is a longtime Trump supporter.

Vance primarily communicated with Chew from TikTok, while Sean Cooksey, the vice president’s counsel, worked directly with the general counsel for ByteDance, John Rogovin.

In the evenings, Vance and then-national security adviser Michael Waltz — who also had been tasked with solving the TikTok dilemma — convened in the vice president’s office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for after-hours brainstorming sessions with their staffs and senior members of the Treasury Department.

The unusual negotiations have drawn some criticism. They featured the U.S. government — and, more specifically, the vice president — playing the role of corporate dealmaker in the forced spin-off of a private company. Some critics argued that the process flew in the face of the free-market traditions American officials have long said give the U.S. advantage over countries like China, where government interference in private enterprise is commonplace.

Others questioned the administration’s involvement in negotiations over a global platform for free expression. While the federal government has long played a role in ensuring that corporate arrangements satisfy national security concerns — such as control of arms manufacturers — such involvement has not typically concerned such an “enormous speech engine,” said Anupam Chander, a Georgetown Law professor focused on the regulation of digital technology.

“Being able to select the buyers or approve the set of buyers gives the administration the power to select the companies who get the benefits of owning this prized asset,” Chander said.

On Thursday, Trump joked that if he could, he would make content on TikTok “100 percent MAGA-related,” before saying that would not happen and that “every group, every philosophy, every policy will be treated very fairly.”

Trump has touted the fact that the app will now be owned by “American investors,” but MGX, the United Arab Emirates’ state-backed investment firm with ties to the Trump family’s crypto ventures, will also have a stake. In addition, the new venture’s announced value of $14 billion is lower than analysts expected, raising questions about whether the White House allowed a sweetheart deal for Trump allies.

The White House did not respond to questions about the investors’ political ties to Trump, potential censorship on the app or the lower-than-expected valuation of the new TikTok.

Beijing could still find a reason to rescind its support for any deal during an upcoming regulatory review phase, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry has offered no specific comment on the agreement since Trump signed the order. It’s unclear to what level American negotiators made offers or compromises to win Chinese support for the deal.

The TikTok evolution of Trump and Vance

Trump speaks to reporters with, from left, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in the White House in January. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

In his first term, Trump unsuccessfully tried to force the Chinese company to sell TikTok.

And in 2024, the Biden White House helped push a bipartisan bill through Congress requiring ByteDance to sell off TikTok and prohibiting U.S. app stores from offering it for download. The bill set a deadline of Jan. 19, 2025, for the sale.

Throughout that year, however, Trump’s campaign mobilized an active presence on the platform, including hiring a Gen Z social media strategist to record content just for the app. By the end of his campaign, Trump had come to believe in the power of the video app to reach younger voters. He also began to campaign on saving it.

So when he took office on Jan. 20, the day after the deadline for TikTok to sell, Trump signed the first of several executive orders commanding his administration not to enforce it and allowing the app to stay online, at least until a new deadline of April 6.

The vice president seemed to Trump a logical pick to lead the TikTok portfolio. He had worked in venture capital for roughly five years, embedding himself within Silicon Valley and the small but influential group of conservatives there.

But Vance had not joined TikTok until August 2024, when he was featured in a campaign-style video alongside the Nelk Boys, a group of prank-bro influencers Trump had hosted in 2020 on Air Force One. At the time, Vance was mostly known on TikTok as the subject of viral jokes. Videos of people dancing to a remix of Vance calling himself a “Never Trump guy” years ago garnered millions of views, and Vance was not widely seen as a savvy user of the app.

Tariffs stall the deal

In late March, a week before the April 6 deadline, Vance met with Trump in the Oval Office to present multiple options for how to move forward with a deal. With Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick joining him, Vance — tasked with updating the president on the negotiations — now made the case for which deal structure the president should approve. Trump took the recommendation.

The arrangement that Trump approved and that the administration was close to finalizing then, in the spring, is largely the same as the current one, said an investor close to ByteDance, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Chinese officials were nearly on board, and the parties involved were confident they would be by the deadline. A TikTok announcement and executive order signing was planned for that Friday.

But on April 2, Trump held a news conference in the Rose Garden to announce sweeping new tariffs on Chinese imports. China quickly condemned the action, which Trump called “Liberation Day,” as “unilateral bullying” — and the TikTok negotiations came to a sudden halt.

ByteDance was “forced to back out days before the deal was to be signed,” said another person with knowledge of the events, “due to the increasingly hostile trade dynamic.” The investor close to ByteDance described being “deflated” as it fell through.

Spokespeople for ByteDance and TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

With two days before the next deadline, Vance’s counsel Cooksey and the White House’s policy team had to quickly secure another extension to keep TikTok from going dark. Some legal experts have argued that the White House did not have the authority to extend a deadline set in statute.

After months of stalled negotiations, talks picked up in August, when Vance and Perdue nudged Chinese officials to discuss TikTok at the next trade meeting, on Sept. 14 in Madrid.

By then, the TikTok deal was “at the 1-yard line,” according to an official with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Vance and his team had spent the prior six months working with ByteDance and potential investors to shore up the commercial side of the pact, but it still needed the critical final agreement between the two governments.

The locale was the 17th-century Santa Cruz Palace, a baroque former prison. On the second day of negotiations, after the call with Trump and Vance the night before, the Americans walked in with a determination to play hardball, according to three U.S. officials.

“We came in hot,” recalled one official who was in the room, explaining that the mood resulted in part from U.S. confidence following other recent trade talks.

Kush Desai, a White house spokesman, said that Vance and his staff “played an instrumental role” in achieving the TikTok deal. Trump tapped Vance as his running mate “for a reason, and the TikTok deal cements the foresight of that decision.”

What readers are saying

The comments express significant skepticism and criticism regarding Vice President JD Vance's role in the TikTok deal. Many commenters suggest that the deal primarily benefits Trump and his allies financially, while failing to address national security concerns, as China retains... Show more

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21. What to know about Hegseth's gathering of top U.S. military leaders at Quantico, Virginia:

​No transcript yet but these excerpts are a pretty good summary. POTUS is up next.

What to know about Hegseth's gathering of top U.S. military leaders at Quantico, Virginia:

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-hegseth-military-leaders-meeting/

• Hundreds of generals and admirals were summoned from around the world last week for today's unusual meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Virginia, without initially being told why. 
• Hegseth promoted the new name — the Department of War, although it has not officially been changed by Congress — and slammed "toxic leaders" who he accused of lowering standards to make the Defense Department the "woke department." 
• Hegseth told the military leaders he's rolling out 10 new directives involving physical fitness, new grooming requirements and a return to "the highest male standard" for combat positions. He slammed what he said were "fat troops" and added "it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the world. It's a bad look."
• President Trump is attending the meeting and is scheduled to address the military leaders at 9 a.m. ET, after Hegseth's remarks.

 1m ago

Hegseth says there are military leaders who say "never again to nation-building and nebulous end states"

Hegseth alleged that since the Defense Department name change in 1947, the U.S. has not won a "major theater war." He credited former President Ronald Reagan's military buildup for winning the 1991 Gulf War, which occurred under Reagan's successor, former President George H.W. Bush. He also credited having military leadership that had previous "formative battlefield experience" during the Vietnam War. 

"They said, never again to mission creep or nebulous end states," Hegseth said. "The same holds true today. Our civilian and military leadership is chock-full of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who say, never again to nation-building and nebulous end states."

He said "this clear-eyed view — all the way to the White House" and Mr. Trump's "military buildup" will posture the U.S. for future victories.

"We embrace the War Department and we must," Hegseth said. "We are preparing everyday to win, not just to defend. Defense is something you do all the time. It's inherently reactionary and can lead to overuse, overreach and mission creep." 

• By Caroline Linton
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 12m ago

Hegseth says "no more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement"

The Defense secretary suggested that he welcomes a loosening of the rules of engagement.

"We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement," he said. "We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country."

Hegseth added: "No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement."

The secretary likened the new standards for the military to President Trump's global tariffs announced in April, which the president called "Liberation Day," and said the directives Hegseth is rolling out marks the "liberation of America's warriors, in name, indeed, and in authorities."

"You kill people and break things for a living," Hegseth said.

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 23m ago

"Anonymous, online or keyboard complaining is not worthy of a warrior," Hegseth says

Hegseth said he wanted to recognize the "new proactive social media policies." 

"Anonymous, online or keyboard complaining is not worthy of a warrior," Hegseth said. "It's cowardice masquerading his conscience. Anonymous, unit level social media pages that trash commanders, demoralize troops and undermine unit cohesion must not be tolerated." 

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 25m ago

Hegseth addresses senior officers he fired

Hegseth defended his decision to fire senior military officers soon after he was confirmed to lead the Pentagon.

"It's nearly impossible to change a culture with the same people who helped create or even benefited from that culture," he said.

But Hegseth said those fired senior leaders were "following elected political leadership."

"An entire generation of generals and admirals were told that they must parrot the insane fallacy that 'our diversity is our strength,'" Hegseth said.

He said the "new compass heading is clear: Out with the Chiarellis, the McKenzies and the Millies."

Hegseth appears to be referencing former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, former U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie and retired Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who served as the Army vice chief of staff.

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 32m ago

Hegseth slams "toxic leaders," and says there will be a review of "bullying and hazing" to "empower leaders"

Hegseth slammed the "toxic leaders" who he said are "endangering subordinates" by "promoting people based on immutable characteristics or quotas instead of based on merit." 

"Real toxic leadership is promoting destructive ideologies that are an anathema to the Constitution and the laws of nature and nature's God, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence," Hegseth said. "The definition of toxic has been turned upside down, and we're correcting that." 

Hegseth said the Defense Department will be "undertaking a full review of the department's definition of so-called toxic leadership, bullying and hazing, to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second-guessing." 

He added that "we're talking about words like bullying and hazing and toxic," which he said have been "weaponized and bastardized inside our formations, undercutting commanders and NCOS." 

"If that makes me toxic, so be it," he said.

He said leadership will be "merit based." 

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 34m ago

Hegseth says he is overhauling the Pentagon's inspector general

Hegseth said that he is issuing new policies to overhaul the Defense Department's internal watchdog, its inspector general, as well as the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Military Equal Opportunity program.

He said he calls it the "no more walking on eggshells" policy. 

"We are liberating commanders and NCOs," Hegseth said. "We are liberating you."

Hegseth said senior military leaders need to end the "poisonous culture of risk aversion."

"You must trust that the warrior alongside you in battle is capable, truly, physically capable of doing what is necessary under fire," he said.

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 40m ago

"The era of unprofessional appearance is over," Hegseth says

In addition to the physical requirements, Hegseth also said the shaving standards would be restored. 

"No more beardos, the era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles are done," adding that if someone "cannot pass a PT test or don't want to shave and look professional, it's time for a new position or a new profession." 

"The era of unprofessional appearance is over," Hegseth said. 

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 40m ago

Hegseth slams "fat" troops and generals: "It's a bad look"

Hegseth said that he is rolling out 10 new Defense Department directives that involve physical fitness, new grooming requirements and a return to "the highest male standard" for combat positions.

"If you do not meet the male level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test or don't want to shave and look professional, it's time for a new position or a new profession," he said.

Hegseth said "it's tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the world. It's a bad look."

He said he doesn't want his son serving with out-of-shape troops or alongside females who cannot meet the same combat arms physical standards as men.

"We must restore a ruthless, dispassionate and commonsense application of standards," he said.

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 49m ago

Defense Department name can only be changed by Congress

Although President Trump earlier this year signed an executive order renaming the Defense Department as the Department of War and Hegseth as Secretary of War, the name can only officially be changed by Congress. 

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 52m ago

Hegseth says Defense Department "became the 'woke' department"

Hegseth went on to discuss the importance of a strong fighting force and said the Armed Forces need to be led by the most "capable and most qualified combat leaders."

"Our warfighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders," he said. "That is who we need you all to be."

Hegseth said the Pentagon under his leadership is "ending the war on warriors," and claimed that his predecessors have promoted leaders based on race, gender quotas and "historic so-called firsts."

"We lost our way and we became the 'woke' department, but not anymore," he said.

The secretary blamed "foolish and reckless politicians" for being focused on "the wrong things," and said he aims to fix "decades of decay."

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 53m ago

"If we are going to prevent and avoid war, we must prepare now," Hegseth says

After discussing the name change, Hegseth told the generals that "there is no time for games," and said if we're going to prevent and avoid war, we must prepare now." 

"The time is now and the cause is urgent," Hegseth said. 

Hegseth briefly outlined that the Defense Department will be restoring and refocusing the U.S.' defense industrial base, the ship building industry and onshoring all critical components. 

Hegseth said he will be giving a speech next month to "showcase the speed innovations and general acquisition reforms we are undertaking urgently." 

Tuesday's speech, he said, is about "people, and it's about culture." 

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 58m ago

Hegseth kicks off speech: "Welcome to the War Department"

Hegseth began his speech to senior military leaders by welcoming them to the War Department.

"The era of the Department of Defense is over," he said.

He said the mission of the Pentagon is "warfighting: preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit," Hegseth said.

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