Defense Policy - Atlantic Council

Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

In addition to strike and surveillance functions, Ukraine has also employed drones in logistical roles. The Ukrainian army uses both aerial and ground-based unmanned systems to deliver ammunition, food, medicine, and other supplies to troops operating in dangerous or inaccessible areas, thereby reducing the need to expose personnel to hostile environments. Drone-based solutions can also potentially facilitate the evacuation of the wounded when manned rescue is deemed to be too risky.

One of the most creative Ukrainian uses of drones on the battlefield has been to help take surrendering Russian soldiers prisoner. This method reduces the need for physical engagement with enemy troops and therefore limits the risks to the Ukrainian side. Drones are used to give instructions using printed messages or via loudspeakers to guide enemy soldiers and indicate safe directions that will allow them to surrender without coming under fire.

Ukrainian unmanned systems are also playing an important role in efforts to document Russian war crimes. Drones are able to record the time, location, and nature of potential crimes, along with the identity of the perpetrators in some cases. Over the past three years, Ukrainian drones have captured evidence of potential war crimes including the execution of unarmed POWs and attacks on civilians. This footage can be used in future prosecutions and increases the chances that those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine will be held accountable.

The growing role of drones in warfare creates a range of challenges in terms of the accepted norms governing military operations. With this in mind, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has drawn up and issued internal guidelines for drone operators and legal teams to ensure adherence to the laws of armed conflict. These guidelines incorporate real-world combat scenarios to help drone operators understand how to treat categories such as medical personnel, retreating enemy troops, and those engaged in the evacuation of the wounded. This initiative is a step toward establishing broader global standards for responsible drone warfare.

Ukraine’s unique experience of drone warfare offers valuable insights that will shape military doctrines for many years to come, while also helping to define international standards for the use of drones in a military context. It is already clear that drones are transforming the battlefield in ways the evoke the twentieth century rise of air power. As drone technologies continue to advance, Ukraine is likely to remain a key player in this new wave of military innovation.

Vitaliy Nabukhotny is a human rights lawyer and external legal advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence’s Legal Department.

While China’s 300 percent increase in pressure is alarming, this development unfortunately reflects a broader, consistent trend of escalating PLA activities, including persistent crossings of the Taiwan Strait’s median line. According to data from Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, PLA sorties across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, the Taiwanese-declared dividing line between Taiwan and China, have increased from 953 incidents in 2021 to 3,070 in 2024.

Taiwan, with a leaner force, must either dedicate an increasing number of resources toward incursion responses or cede the declared dividing line to the PLA, allowing PLA forces to move even closer to Taiwanese territory unchallenged, reducing warning time. The PLA’s efforts are also a deliberate attempt by Beijing to cognitively shift Taiwan’s perception of actions in the strait, creating “the new normal” of military activity in its immediate vicinity, which could reduce reaction time in a real invasion.

Paparo underscored the seriousness of this escalation in his recent testimony, stating: “These are not just exercises—they are dress rehearsals for forced unification.” Earlier this year, he went even further on the record, warning that the increased operational tempo has brought INDOPACOM “very close to that [point] where on a daily basis the fig leaf of an exercise could very well hide operational warning.”

Placing forward forces

The erosion of operational warning time means INDOPACOM and US decision makers could have less time—and less certainty—to respond if China initiates military action against Taiwan. As the PLA continues to degrade US and Taiwanese abilities to detect tactical and operational indicators of conflict, China’s geographic advantage across the Pacific becomes even more acute.

According to the US Seventh Fleet, forward-deployed forces cuts an average of seventeen days in transit time, compared with continentally-based forces. While exact times are dependent on individual capabilities and other conditions, most conventional options for sea-based transport are slower and vulnerable to China’s expanding anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) envelope. Airlift options to support Taiwan with asymmetric capabilities, such as Patriot batteries or Harpoon missiles to destroy high-value targets, are similarly constrained by the sheer scale of the Pacific and limited US airlift capacity.

Paparo’s April testimony highlighted these logistical realities. He revealed that it took seventy-three flights to rapidly move a single Patriot battalion from United States Forces Korea’s area of operations to US Central Command. Furthermore, TRANSCOM has revealed to the Congressional Armed Services Committees that the C-5M “Supergalaxy,” a critical aircraft for airlift operations, had a reduced mission-capable rate of 46 percent in 2024, a 6 percent decrease from 2023. Even assuming efficiency improvements, there remain significant geographic constraints on how quickly the United States can surge critical defensive systems across theaters with its current airlift capabilities.

Moreover, Paparo’s admission—coupled with his direct warning that “lift requirements must be paid attention to”—amounts to a direct appeal for Congress to shore up TRANSCOM’s resources. The current situation not only strains INDOPACOM’s ability to support Taiwan if US policymakers choose to intervene, but it also risks undermining the defense of US forces and territories in the region. Moving critical assets westward—from the continental United States to Hawaii, from Hawaii to Guam, and onward to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—will face time and lift constraints, as well as the active interference of PLA forces once conflict begins. The enemy gets a vote—and it is unlikely that the PLA would allow US or allied air and sea lift into the theater unopposed once hostilities are underway. This makes the window between when China has decided to initiate conflict and when conflict actually begins critical.

As operational warning time continues to erode—and with TRANSCOM investments years away from fully materializing—INDOPACOM must increasingly rely on forces already positioned west of the International Date Line (IDL) for both deterrence and, if necessary, combat operations against Chinese military aggression. TRANSCOM’s revelation that 85 percent of the United States’ combat power remains in the lower forty-eight states indicates that much more work needs to be done in placing forces forward.

Three next steps for the Trump administration

Given these growing challenges, US policymakers must urgently consider three steps to strengthen forward presence and responsiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

1. Increase US military presence in partner nations through SOFAs

Hegseth recently declared that improving the United States’ forward defense posture is the first action that the Trump administration will take in strengthening deterrence. In order to ensure this action, the Department of Defense and the Department of State should leverage the frameworks of existing Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) to expand the US military presence west of the IDL. While SOFAs primarily govern the legal status of US forces abroad, supplementary agreements, implementing arrangements, and diplomatic notes provide the flexibility to adjust troop levels and operational footprints.

Some groundwork for such expansions has already been laid. Under the Trump administration, the Department of Defense announced plans to add additional personnel to US Forces Japan (USFJ) to transition it from an administrative headquarters to a war-fighting command, although these initial moves appear focused only on the USFJ headquarters staff itself. Nevertheless, they suggest an emerging willingness by Tokyo to consider hosting additional operational forces.

Other allies, such as Australia, South Korea, and the Philippines, offer additional opportunities for expanded presence through rotational deployments, pre-positioning of equipment, and basing initiatives. Opportunities to flex the most capable and necessary US assets, like the recent inaugural deployment of NMESIS, the Marine Corps mobile anti-ship missile system, to the Luzon Strait during an exercise with the Philippines, is one such example. Deploying US F-35 aircraft to the Korea Peninsula, potentially permanently, is another. Building on these relationships will be crucial to ensuring sufficient warfighting capability in theater for deterrence and crisis response.

2. Increase the tempo of US campaigning in the Indo-Pacific

Campaigning, or the use of “normal and routine military activities in conditions short of conflict to achieve strategic objectives,” has long served as an effective way to temporarily increase US force presence in critical regions. As Paparo has emphasized, regular and visible military campaigning in the Indo-Pacific remains essential to maintain credible deterrence and operational readiness.

As China accelerates its operational tempo around the Taiwan Strait, the Trump administration should consider adopting a policy of proportional response, increasing US campaigning activities in line with PLA escalations. A proportional approach would degrade China’s understanding of US operational patterns—complicating Beijing’s planning—and ensure that combat-capable forces are present west of the IDL when and where they are needed most.

However, sustaining a higher operational tempo will require significant diplomatic engagement and substantial logistical and financial resources, in addition to wear on the warfighters themselves. Despite these factors, a nonlinear 300 percent increase in Chinese military pressure over the past year demands a bold response. US President Donald Trump’s proposed one-trillion-dollar defense budget should prioritize funding for increased campaigning in the Indo-Pacific, recognizing that higher operational tempo directly improves both US lethality and readiness—two core criteria for strengthening deterrence under this administration.

One example of how increased campaigning enhances lethality is through its training value for both US and partner-nation forces. Campaigning-based exercises allow US warfighters to refine tactics, integrate new systems, and adapt to austere or degraded operational environments. Simultaneously, joint training with allies and partners strengthens the integration of weapon systems and military forces, reinforces defense diplomacy, and enhances collective deterrence across the region.

3. Increase US military presence in COFA nations

The recently renegotiated 2024 Compacts of Free Association (COFA) with Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands reaffirm the United States’ responsibility to defend these nations and preserve exclusive access for US military forces. These agreements provide an opportunity to strengthen forward posture across the central and western Pacific.

Through the COFA structure, the Department of Defense should prioritize developing additional operational sites within the Freely Associated States (FAS). Pre-positioning forces, enhancing distributed basing, and expanding logistics hubs across the FAS would enable more flexible and resilient warfighting capabilities in proximity to the Taiwan Strait. The relatively permissive legal frameworks of the COFA agreements—coupled with the geographic advantage of the islands—make the FAS ideal locations for expanded US presence, including forces capable of dispersal and sustainment under contested conditions.

The so-called “Guam Cluster”—which includes the FAS—is the cornerstone of US defense architecture west of the IDL, and it is critical to sustainment in a future crisis. The United States should continue to invest political and military capital into reinforcing US access and capabilities in the FAS to deter Chinese aggression.

Dark clouds continue to gather on the Indo-Pacific horizon as the PLA modernizes and Xi continues to signal his ambition to unify the Taiwan Strait by any means necessary. In this environment, the credibility of US deterrence depends on the visible presence of capable military forces west of the IDL and their ability to respond with sufficient force. Lethality and visible presence matter.

As the Trump administration has acknowledged, credible deterrence—and, if necessary, victory—against China requires the active forward presence of combat-ready forces. Increasing US force posture in the Indo-Pacific through expanded presence agreements, intensified campaigning, and investment in the FAS will ensure the United States remains postured to respond swiftly and decisively to aggression.

Adam Kozloski is a nonresident senior fellow at the N7 Initiative in the Middle East Programs and at the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

The Tiger Project, an Atlantic Council effort, develops new insights and actionable recommendations for the United States, as well as its allies and partners, to deter and counter aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Explore our collection of work, including expert commentary, multimedia content, and in-depth analysis, on strategic defense and deterrence issues in the region.

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Ukraine’s drone strikes offer four big lessons for US nuclear strategists

Mark J. Massa — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 22:09:40 +0000

In the days since Ukraine’s brazen special forces attack inside Russia, analysts have breathlessly argued that the operation, captured in spectacular detail in videos, significantly changed the character of military conflict—or even “rewrote the rules of war.”

Maybe so. There were plenty of novel elements to Ukraine’s “Operation Spiderweb,” which destroyed a dozen or more large Russian military aircraft—including bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons—across the length and breadth of Russia, using drones launched from containers positioned near Russian airfields.

But in my field of nuclear deterrence, the attack was enlightening in another way: It reinforced principles that have been hiding in plain sight for years. For US nuclear strategists, the attack yielded at least four crucial lessons.

1. The risk of nuclear escalation over conventional attacks is exaggerated

Ukraine’s drone strikes were a blow to the widely held belief that nonnuclear military attacks on nuclear-relevant facilities or assets will lead automatically to uncontrollable nuclear escalation.

As I have argued previously, too many analysts of nuclear affairs appear to overweight the risk that if a nuclear-armed country is facing attacks on nuclear-relevant locations or assets by conventional weapon systems or dual-capable ones (systems relevant to both nuclear and conventional missions), then that country will feel overwhelming pressure to escalate to the use of nuclear weapons, perhaps even before assessing the extent of the attacks. This logic looks convincing. But it is empirically unsupported.

Russia may yet respond to the Ukrainian attack. But Russian nuclear retaliation in Ukraine seems unlikely, even after Russia lowered its stated threshold for nuclear use in September 2024. Ukrainian drone strikes on multiple Russian bomber bases would seem to be exactly the sort of attack that would trigger Russia’s lower threshold for resorting to nuclear weapons. Yet no such use has materialized.

To be clear, nuclear-armed states may well resort to nuclear use to coerce an end to military operations that could lead to unacceptable costs, such as the destruction of a large portion of that state’s nuclear arsenal. But last weekend’s operation is further evidence that attacks falling short of this threshold are not likely to trigger a major nuclear exchange.

2. Nuclear forces are only as dependable as their defenses

Ukraine’s attacks vividly illustrated the vulnerability of the US bomber fleet, which is often sitting on the tarmac. Drone threats are just one of a variety of air and missile threats to the US homeland, though certainly one that has received less attention in the strategic forces community. The 2023 Congressional Strategic Posture Commission Report and a recent Atlantic Council study on missile defense both concluded that the United States must enhance its air and missile defense. In particular, it must pay attention to countering coercive attacks on civilian and military infrastructure, as well as on US nuclear forces.

Reflecting on the Ukrainian attacks, General Thomas Bussiere, the commander of US Air Force Global Strike Command, said at an Atlantic Council event on June 5 that the Air Force already deploys counter-drone systems around strategic air bases. The strikes on Russia this past weekend underscore that these efforts should improve and expand, perhaps under the aegis of the Trump administration’s proposed “Golden Dome.” This active defense must be completed by improved sensing, better coordination among responsible agencies, and the advancement of passive measures, such as the use of hardened shelters in peacetime, as well as air alerts and backup airfields in conflict or crisis.

3. Drones should be factored into nuclear-capabilities planning

There’s another truism in nuclear affairs rendered all the truer by last weekend’s operation: Advanced and emerging technologies can powerfully complement nuclear weapons in holding an adversary’s strategic nuclear forces at risk.

This possibility is especially tantalizing as US nuclear strategists grapple with the fact that China’s nuclear-weapons arsenal is expected to reach near-parity with the US nuclear arsenal in the mid-2030s. Because holding at risk an adversary’s nuclear weapons is an important part of how the United States deters nuclear war, the growth in China’s nuclear arsenal puts pressure on the United States to increase the size of its own nuclear arsenal. Advanced conventional weapons might complement these forces or even reduce the extent to which the United States will need to expand its nuclear forces. Perhaps drones could play a part in that equation.

4. Special forces should be at the center of major power competition

As my Atlantic Council colleagues have argued in recent reports, US special operations forces, which have been occupied with counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in the Middle East for two decades, can play an important role in US competition with major powers such as Russia, marking a return to their Cold War-era roots. Ukraine’s attack on Russian bombers is best understood in the context of a long history of operations behind enemy lines to disrupt airfields.

Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb was certainly daring and will reduce the capacity of Russia’s long-range aviation for some time. More than marking a new chapter in the history of warfare, however, the strikes should spur the US government to address the vulnerabilities and opportunities that nuclear strategists have focused on for years.

Mark J. Massa is the deputy director for strategic forces policy in the Forward Defense program of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council.

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Dispatch from Kyiv: Ukraine is putting new pressure on Russia. Will Trump follow?

John E. Herbst — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 20:25:48 +0000

This is part of a series of regular assessments of the efforts, spearheaded by the Trump administration, to achieve a negotiated end to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Read last week’s edition here.

KYIV—I arrived in Ukraine’s capital on June 1, several hours after news broke of the country’s successful destruction of advanced Russian bombers—TU-22s and TU-95s—and Russia’s most advanced intelligence plane, the A-50. Over the next two days, I had numerous meetings with senior Ukrainian officials, politicians, and civil society activists. The strike was a major morale boost across the board, though some of the Ukrainians I spoke with still worry whether the Trump administration will continue to supply military intelligence and equipment to Ukraine; others are optimistic that Trump will not let Russian President Vladimir Putin bamboozle him.

In the near term, the spectacular Ukrainian operation will have a major impact on Russia’s ability to strike from the air at Ukrainian civilian and military targets. It has also bolstered the nuclear security of the United States and its allies by taking out as much as 34 percent of Moscow’s nuclear-capable bomber force. But perhaps the greatest impact of the strike extends to the diplomacy to end the war, and in particular to the calculations of the Trump administration. That is because the strike undermined the common perception, including in the White House, that time was on Putin’s side and Russia would ultimately overwhelm Ukraine.

How has that big idea played out this week? It is notable that the only immediate reaction to the strike from Trump world came from outside actors, many of whom have shown little understanding that the Kremlin considers the United States to be its principal adversary. Some in this cohort have even naively argued that the United States has no stakes in its aggression against Ukraine. Trump allies Steve Bannon and Mike Flynn, for example, claim that Kyiv’s strike undermines Trump’s diplomacy to end the war. It is therefore time, in Bannon’s phrase, for the United States to “pull all support” for Ukraine. It should be noted that this was not a reflection of Trump’s policy. It was an attempt by some in his circle to influence that policy.

But Trump has not moved in that direction. In fact, the White House reaction to the audacious operation has been notably nuanced. The first word from the White House—almost a day after Ukraine’s “special military operation”—was that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had not informed Trump of the impending action. There was no real comment on the action itself.

Reading between the lines with Putin and Merz

The next step was Trump’s June 4 phone call with Putin. In a Truth Social post afterward, Trump noted that it was a good call, but the Russian president was very angry about Ukraine’s attack and would have to retaliate. Trump critics understandably complained that there was no indication that the US president had tried to dissuade Putin from doing so—although the next day, the Washington Post reported that Trump claimed to have told Putin not to retaliate. In any case, Trump chose not to characterize the Ukrainian action.

That task was left to Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, who in a terse public statement on June 4 noted that the attack on Russia’s nuclear strike capacity could be considered escalatory. This was essentially a performative smack on the knuckles for Kyiv. More relevant indications of Trump’s reaction and inclinations were leaked to the press on background. While expressing to his staff his frustration with both Putin and Zelenskyy, Trump also recognized the audacity of the Ukrainian operation, calling it “badass,” according to Axios. Still, Trump reportedly lamented that it would slow down movement toward a cease-fire.

Further indications of Trump’s outlook came June 5, when he met with Friedrich Merz, the new German chancellor. Merz’s objective, of course, was to strengthen Trump’s resolve to maintain support for Ukraine (and to maintain the US commitment to NATO, including keeping US troops in Germany). In that meeting, Trump said it seems that Putin wants all of Ukraine, an important sign that he is finally understanding that the Russian leader himself is the obstacle to the administration’s efforts to end the war.

All of this is of far greater importance to the diplomacy surrounding the war than the second meeting of Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul on June 2. That meeting went as expected. On the plus side, there was another agreement on a limited prisoner exchange. On the question of a cease-fire, the Russian side finally presented its formal terms. Those terms are for a vindictive, victor’s peace. Ukraine would be required not just to declare neutrality and demilitarize; it would also have to hand over to Russia all the territory in the eastern Ukrainian oblasts—including areas currently controlled by Kyiv. Moscow’s terms were likely on Trump’s mind as he discussed Putin’s policy toward Ukraine with Merz.

Whither the sanctions bill?

Trump’s clearer understanding of the Putin problem and his new respect for Ukraine’s military capabilities—“badass” being a backhanded but clear compliment—is a plus. But it has yet to yield a stronger policy from the White House.

Restive Republicans in Congress have been chafing for months at Trump’s reluctance to do what he promised: to bring pressure on the side blocking peace. Taking a leading position on this, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) along with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) proposed a sanctions bill in early April with fifty cosponsors. That bill now has eighty-two cosponsors. Last week, Graham said that he thought the bill would move forward in the Senate this week. House Speaker Mike Johnson supports the effort for tough sanctions. Strong national security Republicans seem to believe that Ukraine’s successful June 1 strike is making it more likely that Congress will move on the sanctions bill and that the United States will help supply Ukraine with additional military equipment. Deft Ukrainian diplomacy on Capitol Hill this week—led by Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak—has further encouraged this sentiment.

Yet it is still not clear that the administration will move. The Wall Street Journal reported on June 6 that the White House asked for the sanctions bill to be watered down, and Trump indicated in his meeting with Merz that he is considering, for some unknown reason, sanctioning both sides. This means, at a minimum, some delay as Graham, Johnson, and other advocates try to work out their differences with the White House. It might also mean that Trump cannot bring himself to punish Putin.

That can only strengthen Putin’s conviction that Trump will eventually allow Russia to gobble up Ukraine. Reports that the Pentagon, with a leadership that is energetically trying to diminish ties with Ukraine, is transferring desperately needed anti-drone technology from Ukraine to US forces will also be read in the Kremlin as a sign of US weakness.

Ironically, Trump’s success at reaching a sustainable end to the war in Ukraine depends on the efforts of those advocates for pressure on Russia. Kellogg seemed to be making this point in a June 6 statement that the Ukrainian special operation could be a forcing function for peace. If, as Trump admitted, Putin’s goal is not a durable peace but to seize Ukraine, then the only real way to end the fighting is to make it very uncomfortable for Putin to continue fighting. Ukraine’s June 1 attack was a step in that direction. Strong US action in the form of sanctions and military supplies can drive that point home. Without that, the US president does not keep his long-stated promise to bring a stable peace to Europe.

John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

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Russian hybrid warfare: Ukraine’s success offers lessons for Europe

Maksym Beznosiuk — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 21:39:11 +0000

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues, the Kremlin is also rapidly escalating its hybrid war against Europe. Intelligence officials from a number of European countries are now raising the alarm and warning that Russian operations are growing in number and becoming bolder, with potential targets including transport hubs and critical infrastructure.

The Kremlin employs hybrid warfare tactics to remain below the threshold that would trigger a unified and potentially overwhelming European response. This has led to a surge in sabotage, cyberattacks, political interference, and disinformation campaigns across Europe, with a particular emphasis on countries closer to Russia.

Moscow’s hybrid war against Europe mirrors the tactics used by the Kremlin in Ukraine following the start of Russia’s invasion in 2014. Ukraine’s response to the often unprecedented challenges posed by Russian hybrid warfare offers important lessons for Kyiv’s European partners.

The Ukrainian experience highlights the gravity of the hybrid threat and the importance of an integrated response. The overall message to Western policymakers is clear: Moscow views hybrid warfare as an important Russian foreign policy tool and will continue expanding its campaign. Europe cannot afford to wait for Russian hybrid attacks to escalate further before building the advanced capabilities required to counter this threat.

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There have been growing reports of Russian hybrid war-style attacks across the EU since the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine eleven years ago. This trend gained significant additional momentum following the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Typical incidents include cyberattacks targeting infrastructure, sabotage including arson attacks, and attempts to disrupt military aid destined for Ukraine. Moscow is also accused of investing billions of dollars in sophisticated social media campaigns to influence the outcome of elections across Europe. The Kremlin’s hybrid operations are concentrated in central and eastern Europe, with Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states among the primary targets.

None of this is new to Ukraine. For more than a decade, Ukrainians have been learning to cope with the full range of Russia’s hybrid warfare toolbox. Russia’s attack on Ukraine began in February 2014 when Russian soldiers without insignias took control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in a lightning operation that was accompanied by a massive wave of targeted disinformation.

Russia’s subsequent efforts to destabilize and subjugate the rest of Ukraine have involved a combination of conventional military aggression, sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, and support for pro-Russian actors in Ukraine. Thanks to this prolonged exposure to Russian hybrid warfare, Ukraine has been able to develop countermeasures that have helped build resilience and reduce the impact of Russia’s hybrid operations.

Ukraine’s response has been a collaborative effort involving the Ukrainian government, civil society, and the private sector. In the cyber sphere, efforts to improve Ukraine’s digital security have played a key role, with the launch of the country’s popular Diia platform and the establishment of the Ministry of Digital Transformation helping to drive important digital governance reforms.

This has enhanced Ukraine’s ability to maintain public services amid acts of cyber aggression and has improved engagement with the population. Ukraine’s progress in the digital sphere has been recognized internationally, with the country climbing from the 102 spot to fifth position in the UN’s annual Online Services Index in the seven years between 2018 and 2025.

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Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

Ukraine’s coordination structures, such as the Center for Strategic Communications and the Ministry of Digital Transformation, enable swift and well-coordinated responses across government, media, and digital channels. This offers a number of advantages in a hybrid war setting. For example, it allows the Ukrainian government to synchronize positions with proactive narrative-setting when countering the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns.

Ukraine has also benefited from a decentralized approach involving digital volunteers, civil society, and public-private partnerships. A wide range of civic tech groups and open-source investigators are active in Ukraine detecting and countering Russian disinformation. These measures have made it possible to expose Russian narratives efficiently, coordinate messaging across government and civil society, and maintain coherence during military operations.

Since 2014, Ukraine has been able to reduce Russia’s overwhelming initial advantages on the information front of the hybrid war. While Russian disinformation tactics continue to evolve and remain a major aspect of the ongoing invasion, Ukraine has managed to increasingly leverage information to shape international opinion and influence diplomatic outcomes.

At present, the European response to Russia’s hybrid war lacks the institutional agility and coordination between public sector and civil society that is evident in Ukraine. Instead, the EU and NATO have developed a number of parallel structures such as NATO’s Joint Intelligence and Security Division and the EU’s East StratCom Task Force. While these agencies continue to make meaningful contributions to the fight back against Russian hybrid warfare, they have yet to demonstrate the kind of real-time operational coordination that has served Ukraine so well.

Ukraine’s model for combating Russian hybrid warfare can’t be replicated in full, but it could serve as a practical reference point for building more adaptive and integrated responses across the West. Given Ukraine’s unique experience, it might make sense to establish a trilateral consultative framework together with the EU and NATO to enable rapid hybrid threat evaluations and coordinate responses.

Ukraine’s long record of countering Russian hybrid warfare has also highlighted the role of civil society. Kyiv’s European partners should consider increasing support for initiatives such as investigative journalism, fact-checking platforms, and technical watchdogs that can serve as support elements in a broader European defense ecosystem. In an environment where information is increasingly weaponized, Ukraine’s experience has also underlined the need to embed media literacy into the education system to ensure European citizens are able to consume information critically and are less vulnerable to Russian propaganda.

Maksym Beznosiuk is a strategic policy specialist and director of UAinFocus, an independent platform connecting Ukrainian and international experts around key Ukrainian issues.

What explains the transatlantic rift? It’s all about threat perception.

Jason Davidson — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 15:24:49 +0000

NATO allies are preparing for their summit at The Hague this month amid a frenzy of promises about increased defense spending, following US President Donald Trump’s call for allies to spend an unprecedented 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. Since taking office in January, Trump has mused about pulling back US forces from Europe while signaling a willingness to improve relations with Russia and even seize Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark.

European policymakers have reacted to Trump’s moves with shock and doubt about the US commitment to NATO, and some have stepped up their defense pledges accordingly. “We still believe that the ‘N’ in NATO stands for North Atlantic and that our European allies should maximize their comparative advantage on the continent,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last week at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore. “And thanks to President Trump, they are stepping up. An alliance cannot be ironclad if in reality or perception it is seen as one-sided.”

For its part, the European Union (EU) has approved a €150 billion defense funding loan program and allowed its members to exceed normal debt limits for military expenditures. Even before the EU’s moves, allies such as Poland and the Baltic States—who Hegseth called “model allies” in Singapore—were ramping up spending and sounding the alarm over the threat they face from Russia. But too many European allies have not yet increased their defense spending sufficiently.

What explains this contrast? Leading NATO allies (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States) diverge from one another because they face different threats and levels of threat perception. These differences explain each ally’s major defense decisions (defense spending, military structure, and military posture) as well as the ally’s role in and relationship to NATO. I explore this issue more deeply in my forthcoming book on NATO, drawing from ninety-eight interviews with current and former policymakers.

NATO allies’ different threat perceptions can explain much of the current crisis within the Alliance, and they provide the backdrop for what could be a contentious summit.

The United States: China trumps Europe

The Trump administration sees China as the most significant state security threat to US interests. The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment says that “China stands out as the actor most capable of threatening US interests globally.” The administration’s Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance reportedly focuses on the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as one of two priorities for the Pentagon, along with combating drug cartels.

The Trump administration has cited the threat from China to explain its European security policy. Hegseth said in February that the United States could not remain the primary guarantor of European security, telling allied military leaders in Brussels: “The US is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific, recognizing the reality of scarcity, and making the resourcing tradeoffs to ensure deterrence does not fail.” The Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance reportedly concludes that because of the focus on China, European allies must do more for their own defense.

This view of China can also explain the Trump administration’s policy toward Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. Melting sea ice means that Greenland’s location will be critical for those seeking to control Artic sea lanes and it is home to large quantities of rare-earth minerals. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stressed that the United States would not use force to seize Greenland but only to protect it from encroachment by China.

This can also explain Trump’s significant, though inconsistent, turn toward Russia. Some have argued that the Trump administration is attempting a “reverse Kissinger,” aligning with Russia to weaken its ties to China. The Trump administration may even be turning toward Russia to pressure NATO allies into taking more responsibility for their own defense, as Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security advisor in Trump’s first term, has argued. Even though Trump has criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, it is reasonable for European leaders to fear that a grand bargain between Washington and Moscow remains a distinct possibility.

Europe: Divided by diverse levels of threat

Europe is unable to defend itself without the United States. Europe lacks integrated air and missile defense, long-range precision strike, transport aircraft, as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. European allies are struggling to recruit, train, and equip sufficient troops for NATO’s new force model—doing so in the next decade without the United States would most likely be a bridge too far.

But even faced with these challenges, not every European NATO ally has shown the same level of urgency when it comes to increasing defense spending. The reason is that leading European allies face different threats and levels of threat, limiting the incentives of some allies to act.

The overwhelming consensus among Italian officials, for example, is that instability in the wider Mediterranean is the most important security threat facing the country. Because addressing this threat does not primarily entail military means, Italy has not felt an urgent need to increase defense spending in response to Trump’s policies. While Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced in April that Italy would spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense this year (up from 1.5 percent in 2024), no new funding has been allocated for this yet. What’s more, reporting suggests that the government could reach the 2 percent benchmark largely through accounting changes, such as including its Coast Guard in defense spending.

Meanwhile, from strategy documents and official statements, it is clear that Poland, Germany, France, and Britain all view Russia as their greatest security threat. However, they each have different levels of threat perception, which informs the differing approaches they have taken toward military spending.

Poland provides the starkest contrast with Italy. Warsaw plans to spend 4.7 percent of GDP on defense this year, up from 4.1 percent last year. Poland’s level of defense spending makes sense given the intensity of the threat it faces from Moscow and its proximity to Russia. Poland’s view is that only a US-led NATO can provide collective defense against the threat from Russia, so it is focused on pushing allies to comply with US demands to keep Washington committed to European security.

Concern that the United States could shift away has also led Germany to spend more on defense. Following Germany’s February election, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz led a successful effort to revise Germany’s constitution to allow borrowing above 1 percent of GDP for defense spending. On April 9, Merz announced a coalition agreement with the Social Democrats, which included a pledge to ramp up defense spending “significantly” to fulfill Germany’s NATO commitments. Germany views any US moves to withdraw from Europe with alarm, and Merz continues to insist that Germany and Europe do more to keep the United States engaged in NATO. Last month, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Germany will “follow” Trump’s demand that allies spend at least 5 percent of GDP on defense.

France’s independent nuclear arsenal gives it an added degree of security against the threat from Russia. While France has used the Trump administration’s statements to push for European defense independence, Paris has not reacted with urgency in terms of its own defense spending. French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a new NATO spending target of 3 percent of GDP on defense but has not proposed a new figure for French defense spending (currently at 2.1 percent of GDP).

While Britain’s nuclear arsenal would normally provide it with an extra measure of security against Russia, the United Kingdom relies on the United States for its nuclear submarines. As such, the British government has doubled down on its relationship with the United States. British officials have embraced Trump’s criticism of allies who underspend on defense, and Foreign Secretary David Lammy has called for a NATO that is “stronger, fairer, and more lethal.” Just prior to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to the United States in February, the British government announced that Britain will spend 2.6 percent of GDP on defense by 2028, up from 2.3 percent this year.

Preserving a mutually beneficial relationship

The United States’ greater focus on China and push for Europeans to take more responsibility for their defense are likely irreversible trends. But the NATO Summit in The Hague later this month provides an opportunity for the United States and its European allies to reaffirm their commitments to the Alliance amid these shifting dynamics.

First, the Trump administration should use the summit to work with its European allies on a phased and structured exchange of responsibility for European security over the next decade. Under such a plan, the United States would work with European allies to develop defense capabilities they do not currently have while maintaining the commitment of the US nuclear deterrent.

Second, Trump should take the opportunity to reassure European allies. He should affirm that the United States would come to the aid of any NATO ally that is attacked. Trump should also state plainly that his administration will work with Denmark to bolster the defense of Greenland and that it does not intend to acquire the island by force.

Third, European countries should use the summit to announce further commitments on defense spending. Following through on such commitments will entail costly domestic tradeoffs. The present moment requires courage: European leaders must make the case that significantly more defense spending is necessary because of the threat Russia poses and the United States’ turn toward the Indo-Pacific. Italy’s government in particular will have a challenging task. Because Italians are focused on threats from the Mediterranean, officials in Rome will have to make the case that Russia’s threat to European security matters for Italy. European governments like Italy’s can also make a compelling case that spending more on defense may boost overall economic growth.

If NATO allies take these steps at this year’s summit, they can help build a future Europe more capable of defending itself and an Alliance that better serves both US and European interests.

Jason Davidson is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is also a professor of political science and international affairs and director of the Security and Conflict Studies Program at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

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Stephen Rodriguez Joins AI+Expo Panel on Government Procurement Reform

clee — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 16:23:08 +0000

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On June 3, Stephen Rodriguez, Senior Advisor at Forward Defense and Director of the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, joined a panel at the AI+Expo to discuss “Reindustrializing America via Government Procurement Reform.”

He was joined by Eric Lofgren, Staff Member, U.S. House Armed Services Committee; Scott Friedman, Vice President of Government Affairs at Altana Technologies; and Mike Manazir, Vice President, Federal at Hadrian.

Fellow

Stephen Rodriguez

Senior Advisor

Defense Policy Defense Technologies

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

The post Stephen Rodriguez Joins AI+Expo Panel on Government Procurement Reform appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The UK Strategic Defence Review lays out an ambitious roadmap for reform. Will the government deliver?

AM Sir Christopher Harper, KBE, RAF (Ret.) — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 15:06:10 +0000

By publishing its long-awaited Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday, the United Kingdom has taken a positive step toward the reinvigoration and reform of its defense posture. Recognizing the perilous nature of the geostrategic scene, drawing lessons from the war in Ukraine, and seeking to enhance its leading role in NATO, the review is rigorous, thoughtful, and compelling; it offers one of the more realistic assessments of the United Kingdom’s security posture in recent memory. Its success, however, will hinge on funding and follow-through.

The SDR was written independently by Lord George Robertson, a former UK defense secretary and NATO secretary general; General Sir Richard Barrons, a former commander of the UK Joint Forces Command; and Fiona Hill, a foreign policy expert and former senior director for Europe and Russia at the US National Security Council. It benefits from the authors’ deep expertise and freedom to speak frankly.

In my assessment as a former Royal Air Force senior officer and director general of the NATO headquarters International Military Staff, I find the review blunt and refreshingly free of political gloss while still being infused with strategic depth. It offers a sobering analysis of the threats Britain faces and a coherent and comprehensive plan to deal with them.

If the UK media coverage of the review is anything to go by, then it has already been successful in promoting a national debate on the severity of the strategic risks the United Kingdom and its allies face. One of the review’s core aims is to foster a “total defence” culture, an understanding that security is not the sole preserve of the armed forces but a collective national responsibility.

No more “hollowing out”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer echoed this whole-of-society message in a speech he delivered in Glasgow on Monday to launch the SDR. In the speech, he warned that the United Kingdom must prepare for a dangerous decade ahead. The United Kingdom would become, he said, “a battle-ready, armor-clad nation, with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities, equipped for the decades to come.” Indeed, the review is laced throughout with the concept of “NATO first” and the United Kingdom’s aspiration to play a leading role in the Alliance.

On capabilities, the review outlines a serious agenda for restoring UK military strength after years of “hollowing out.” Among the most significant commitments is the acceleration of the United Kingdom’s sovereign nuclear warhead program (at a cost of £15 billion) to ensure that the country maintains an independent and credible deterrent. This is paired with equally serious investment in conventional capabilities, including the commitments to produce seven thousand long-range and cruise missiles and to construct six new munitions factories.

The SDR further calls for the United Kingdom to become a leading technology-enabled defense power, with an integrated force that deters, fights, and wins through constant innovation at wartime pace. To achieve that, it proposes a “three Is” model: integrated (rather than joint) forces, which are innovation-led and backed by industry. It emphasizes that greater attention must be given to the space, cyber, and electromagnetic domains. It also proposes making the army ten times more lethal by 2035 by exploiting autonomous systems and a “digital targeting web,” all informed by lessons learned from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The government has also pledged £1.5 billion for the modernization and refurbishment of military living accommodations. This, together with a move to take a whole-force, skills-based approach to workforce planning, would constitute long-overdue investments that could begin to address the current crisis surrounding the recruitment and retention of personnel.

None of the review’s recommendations reflect a marginal upgrade. Striking the appropriate balance between mass, speed, and resilience has returned to relevance alongside the need to reinvigorate stockpiles, munitions manufacturing, autonomous systems, and the United Kingdom’s technological edge. As demonstrated by the war in Ukraine, all these factors will increasingly define combat effectiveness. The SDR further recognizes the need to radically transform defense procurement processes and practice. For Britain to remain a serious military power, addressing these issues is both overdue and essential.

Finding the funding

Crucially, all sixty-two of the SDR’s recommendations have been accepted by the UK government—an indication, at least on paper, of genuine resolve.

And yet, despite the soundness of the review and the seriousness of its ambitions, an inevitable question mark remains over how these recommendations will be funded.

The government’s pledge to raise defense spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027 is a step in the right direction. This review is unique in recent British history for being accompanied by increases rather than cuts in the budget. But this is still only a step. The longer-term ambition to reach 3 percent of GDP is not backed by binding Treasury policy or formal financial commitment. Moreover, it seems to hinge on a “defence dividend” of economic growth from a revitalized defense industrial base. Such an aspiration is not enough. In the face of a deteriorating strategic environment, Alliance members are likely to demand a minimum of 3.5 percent of GDP expenditure on defense at the upcoming NATO Summit in The Hague, which could lead to the United Kingdom falling behind the level of spending expected of a leading NATO power. Effective deterrence depends on credibility—and credibility hinges not on promises but on funded and delivered capabilities.

This financial dimension is especially critical in light of shifting US priorities. While the United States is unlikely to totally withdraw from NATO, there is a looming sense that Washington’s focus is inexorably moving away from Europe and toward the Indo-Pacific. Successive US administrations—regardless of party—have made clear that they expect European allies to carry more of the burden for their own defense. This has been brought into stark relief by the current US administration. A more self-reliant and militarily capable Europe is, therefore, no longer a theoretical objective—it is a strategic necessity.

For Britain, this means more than incremental increases in spending. It means making hard political choices and long-term industrial commitments now. The SDR lays out what needs to be done. The government has signaled its agreement. The next step—the most important one—will be putting money behind this critical endeavor.

Air Marshal Sir Christopher Harper is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He previously served in the Royal Air Force, including as the UK military representative to NATO and the EU in Brussels and as director general of the NATO headquarters International Military Staff.

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For NATO in 2027, European leadership will be key to deterrence against Russia

Scott Lee, Andrew Michta, Peter Jones, and Lisa Bembenick — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 17:00:00 +0000

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Key takeaways

If Russia were to move rapidly against the Baltic states, NATO could not defend its territory effectively without the United States.
European allies need to rearm quickly, but a push for full “strategic autonomy” from the United States risks destabilizing the continent and the Alliance.
The United States and NATO need to make smarter, faster decisions about who buys what and how the hardware, software, and data operate together. A Force Mix Analysis can point out the choices needed so that by 2027 European NATO states can independently defend their northeastern border.

NATO faces a growing threat from a resurgent Russia capable of hybrid and kinetic aggression across the Northeast Corridor—from Finland, the Baltic region, and Poland to the Black Sea. Currently, NATO’s defense posture relies heavily on US military support for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), strategic lift, command and control (C2), and the extended deterrence provided by the US nuclear umbrella. With the United States increasingly focused on the Indo-Pacific region and committed to burden sharing, and with growing calls for European strategic autonomy, NATO must be able to deter and respond to threats as a unified entity—one not effectively dependent on US warfighting capability and capacity. Regardless of spending levels, NATO must shift from a national-centric approach to an Alliance-wide mindset. This requires a shared engineering and analytics methodology to optimize defense resource allocations with a focus on speed, precision, and collaboration.

To assess the transatlantic geostrategic environment and explore strategic options available to NATO, MITRE and the Atlantic Council partnered to conduct a NATO Force Mix Analysis (NFMA). The findings of this analysis call for accelerated capability development, institutional reform, and operational integration under a forward-leaning, data-driven, mission-engineering framework. This framework would enable NATO to make data-informed decisions to:

Adaptively evolve concepts, operational decision making, and assignment of authorities toward more effective strategic outcomes.
Optimize funding investments and deliver unified capabilities that produce the best mission effects required for operational success.
Effectively leverage technology to achieve mass.

By 2027, NATO must strengthen the Baltic Defense Line. Timely action is essential to ensure credible deterrence, reassure frontline allies, and deny Russia any opportunity to test NATO’s resolve or readiness in a high-threat environment. To achieve this, the following actions are essential:

Prepare a warfighting burden-sharing roadmap.
Establish a unified NATO multidomain warfare doctrine.
Invest in multidomain C2 and ISR infrastructure.
Establish a NATO multidomain open system architecture.
Accelerate forward posture of heavy forces and integrated air and missile defense.
Enhance military mobility and industrial coordination.
Establish additional joint ISR fusion centers.
Develop a pan-European logistics control network.
Form multidomain operations (MDO) and cyber/influence task forces.

Together, these initiatives offer a blueprint for a more self-reliant, capable, and unified NATO in 2027—ready to meet emerging threats head-on.

Introduction

NATO’s deterrence posture in the Baltic states is undermined by an overreliance on US military capabilities. In a crisis where the United States were focused elsewhere, European NATO nations may therefore be unable to mobilize a timely, effective response. This overreliance creates both strategic and operational vulnerabilities that can be exploited by Russia to challenge the Alliance’s credibility and threaten national sovereignty.

NATO’s ability to deter or respond rapidly to Russian aggression is limited by:

A lack of massed, ready combat forces in the theater.
Insufficient integrated air and missile defense.
Slow logistics and reinforcement timelines.
A lack of organic strategic mobility with a reliance on US air and sealift.
A reliance on US enablers for theater integrated C2, ISR, and mission networks.

Without the United States, NATO remains superior in numbers and technology on paper but lacks the operational integration, logistics, and joint force capabilities to rapidly match Russian mass and tempo near its borders. NATO must develop a force structure and a mix of capabilities that allow for the execution of regional defense plans with an emphasis on burden sharing. This modernization strategy must be objective, threat-based, and resource-informed.

The strategic context: A geopolitical landscape shaped by the orders forming around the US and China

The next few years will be pivotal for Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community, as shifting US geostrategic priorities toward the Indo-Pacific, persistent Russian threats, the rise of authoritarian powers, and a rapidly changing global order redefine the political landscape.

Alongside changing US and European Union (EU) defense priorities, the outcome of the war in Ukraine will be a critical factor in shaping NATO’s strategies. As the devolution of the post–Cold War liberal international order accelerates, with increasingly fluid relations between states, a new geopolitical landscape looms over the horizon, shaped by the bounded orders that the principal great powers, the United States and China, are forming around them. To address the challenges facing the United States in key theaters, adaptability and robust multidomain capabilities will be paramount in ensuring both regional stability and the protection of democratic values. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the Euro-Atlantic theater, as resource requirements in the Indo-Pacific region will continue to divert US resources there, making technology a key multiplier for the US European Command (EUCOM) and NATO.

Russia’s aggressive regional actions show no sign of slowing, with Moscow targeting Europe through both direct and indirect methods. As General Christopher Cavoli, EUCOM commander and the supreme allied commander Europe, recently testified before the US Senate, Russia has been and will likely remain a chronic threat to NATO. From military threats to hybrid warfare tactics—such as cyber-attacks, information campaigns, and economic pressure—Russia is further consolidating its influence in countries like Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, and Kazakhstan. As it rebuilds its military capabilities and doubles down on nuclear reliance, Russia is strengthening its ties with authoritarian regimes, creating an emerging “axis of dictatorships” alongside China, Iran, and North Korea.

The growing Russia–China partnership poses a unique challenge to NATO, particularly as China expands its influence globally and engages in economic warfare. That country also benefits from its de facto alliance with Russia by gaining access to some of Russia’s modernized military technology, while China, in turn, provides a vital economic lifeline to Russia and a “moral legitimacy” for Russia’s actions in Europe, which align with China’s designs on Taiwan. This fusion of economic and military power, coupled with assertive moves in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, is reshaping global dynamics and testing NATO’s reach and resilience. The West faces a rapidly evolving challenge, requiring swift, strategic responses to counter the growing authoritarian alliance that threatens global stability.

As Europe confronts an increasingly precarious security environment and potential friction in relations with the United States, the European Union appears to be doubling down on its efforts to achieve strategic autonomy. In March 2025, the EU unveiled a bold white paper outlining plans to significantly boost defense spending, foster collaborative defense projects, and shift toward purchasing European-made arms. This move is designed to close critical capability gaps in missile defense, drones, and cyber warfare, while also pooling resources to create a more unified defense infrastructure. The proposal even includes borrowing up to €150 billion for defense loans, aiming to reduce fragmentation in Europe’s defense industry and enhance the continent’s self-reliance. At the same time, recent elections in Germany have introduced new dynamics into that country’s defense policy. The newly elected leadership is reevaluating its defense priorities, a shift that could have significant implications for Germany’s role within NATO and its contributions to collective defense. Friedrich Merz, the incoming chancellor, has successfully lobbied the Bundestag to lift the legal deficit spending restrictions on defense, while repeatedly underscoring that Europe must chart an independent course. How Germany navigates this shift will be crucial in shaping Europe’s defense future and the tenor of transatlantic relations.

NATO, meanwhile, remains focused on deterrence and collective regional defense. With an emphasis on burden sharing and joint procurement of critical systems, the Alliance is rapidly expanding its combat-ready, forward-deployed forces in Poland and the Baltics, underpinned by a robust training and sustainment hub in Germany. The outcome of an ongoing US defense-posture review may drive additional modernization and deployment efforts, but this “fight tonight” readiness reflects NATO’s shared vow to defend European borders and ensure security. As NATO defense ministers have pointed out, these efforts demonstrate Europe’s increasing commitment to sharing the transatlantic defense load.

However, to truly succeed in its mission, NATO’s efforts must be underpinned by a data-driven approach. Modernization planning for its MDO strategy must integrate cutting-edge data analytics to ensure that defense initiatives are not only effective but responsive to the emerging threats of today and tomorrow. This strategy must be backed by a comprehensive Alliance-wide effort and a coordinated whole-of-government response to address NATO’s most pressing security challenges with agility and precision.

Europe stands at a critical juncture. There is potential tension inherent in Europe’s evolving commitment to strategic autonomy and strengthening NATO’s collective defense, as both ultimately rest on the ability to generate relevant, usable integrated capabilities. This demands a warfighting mindset, and an understanding of the acquisition, integration, and training required to be successful.

As Europe grapples with the challenges of an increasingly unpredictable world, the key question for NATO and collective defense will be what capabilities Europe can contribute to offer credible options to NATO. Success will hinge on how swiftly and effectively these efforts are coordinated and implemented, as they will significantly shape political decisions in the years ahead.

The war in Ukraine

Russia’s war on Ukraine has redrawn the European security map. It is a system-transforming conflict with asymmetric technology offsets, notably the emergence of drones and drone warfare. Regardless of the outcome, preexisting assumptions about transatlantic security and power distribution in Europe no longer hold. It is a litmus test for both NATO’s unity and the EU’s ability to sustain its support for Ukraine—especially as US military priorities shift toward Asia.

The coming months will be pivotal in determining how both institutions adapt to these pressures. NATO must reconcile the diverging priorities among its members, while the EU needs to strengthen its defense industrial base (DIB) to supply Ukraine, advance its own rearmament, and contribute to regional stability. As the crisis unfolds, the world will be watching how NATO and the EU respond—and whether they can navigate their internal divisions to confront the broader challenges ahead. Most of all, as the Trump administration endeavors to broker a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine, the outcome of that process will likely be a defining factor in how the conflict unfolds in the coming months.

NATO’s cohesion is being put to the test, as the Trump administration’s pressure on allies to rearm generates a positive but uneven response. While some member states have stepped up defense spending, others remain hesitant, citing economic pressures and varying threat perceptions. The countries in the Baltic area and the Northeast Corridor have significantly increased their defense spending, while countries farther away from NATO’s eastern frontier have been less forthcoming. This divergence risks weakening unity and effectiveness. NATO must address internal tensions to remain a credible force.

The EU’s push to rearm is also being challenged. Economic strains, particularly in major European economies, threaten the EU’s ability to sustain a unified defense approach. The EU’s ambition to reduce dependency on the United States and bolster its defense capabilities is at risk unless it can harmonize the defense priorities of its member states. It also fails to address the most fundamental question of which country—absent a US nuclear umbrella—would provide a nuclear deterrent and in what fashion. This highlights the critical need for the EU to present a cohesive yet realistic program to address a dynamic regional and global security environment. While NATO remains the cornerstone of collective defense and deterrence in Europe, the EU can and must play a complementary role by strengthening defense industrial capacity, improving military mobility, and reinforcing political cohesion across the continent. The EU must use the financial and regulatory levers at its disposal to enable member states to meet their key capability requirements, as defined by NATO planning.

With the Ukraine conflict exposing vulnerabilities, NATO’s reinforced presence in the Baltic area and Poland has never been more essential. These regions are key to deterring further aggression and ensuring that European borders remain secure. At the same time, the war’s impact on energy security and global supply chains has pushed Europe to rethink its transition to green energy. No longer willing to rely on Russian energy, European nations are diversifying their sources and debating the future of clean energy initiatives. Some EU members have mooted the idea of reopening the Nord Stream pipelines and at least partially normalizing economic relations with Russia once a ceasefire in Ukraine has been put in place. But Europe’s challenges go beyond energy: NATO and the EU face the rise of hybrid warfare, autonomous systems and drone warfare, cyber threats, and false information campaigns—all of which undermine stability and test the Alliance’s adaptability.

Defense spending dilemmas, shrinking and fragmented defense industries

As global security challenges intensify, both US and European DIBs are grappling with serious capacity and scalability issues. The US DIB, now only 30 percent of its Cold War size, is strained by contractor consolidation and growing supply-chain vulnerabilities. Europe’s defense sector remains fragmented, hampered by disconnected industrial policies that stifle cross-border collaboration and scalability, with lead times from orders to delivery still unacceptably long.

To maintain strategic readiness and counter growing threats, both the United States and Europe must urgently come up with bold solutions:

Modular, scalable production facilities and additive manufacturing must be prioritized to rapidly adapt to shifting demands.
A significant boost in munition manufacturing capacity is needed to sustain large-scale conflict operations.
Cybersecurity enhancements across industrial and critical infrastructure networks are paramount to safeguard against emerging digital threats.
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and autonomous systems will empower defense forces to deliver rapid effects with minimal manpower.
Improved NATO coordination and interoperability are essential to ensure defense production is optimized, maximizing collective industrial capacity.

In President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States faces a critical defense spending dilemma exacerbated by fiscal constraints, military recruitment challenges, and the demands of potential simultaneous conflicts in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. These factors present significant risks to NATO, transatlantic relations, and global security. To address these challenges, NATO must move from the perennial talk about burden sharing to burden shifting and focus on transferring conventional combat capabilities from the United States to Europe. This shift will require deeper military integration and force modernization to maintain NATO’s effectiveness against growing threats from Russia and China. The United States must capitalize on its technological advantages while strengthening cooperation with European and Indo-Pacific allies. This approach will ensure the United States can balance its global commitments and continue to take the lead in maintaining international security. As a result, NATO’s collective defense efforts will remain robust amid evolving geopolitical pressures. In a nutshell, technology must be a critical force multiplier for the Alliance, helping to offset at least some of Russia’s advantage in mass.

Since its founding, NATO has depended on US leadership and military power. With the United States less able to provide the same level of conventional forces and infrastructure in Europe as it did during the Cold War and the 2000s, key NATO members—particularly Germany, France, and the United Kingdom—will have to significantly ramp up defense spending and military readiness. The key challenge will be to ensure that the EU doesn’t veer into a full-blown “strategic autonomy” project, as that would inevitably drain real resources from NATO. Instead, efforts at deeper European defense industrial integration should allow Europe to take greater responsibility for its security by resourcing core conventional deterrence capabilities within NATO, while still benefiting from US strategic support. In this new landscape, NATO’s collective defense would benefit, as regional defense plans would be backed by real, exercised capabilities—ensuring NATO is once again up to the task. Should the opposite happen—i.e., if Germany decides to push the EU to chart an independent course from the United States—the ensuing stresses in transatlantic relations would further fracture European politics and likely make the continent more vulnerable to Russian blackmail or all-out aggression down the line.

European NATO nations have pledged to increase defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product, and many exceed that benchmark. Yet current European force posture in the Baltic states and elsewhere in the Northeast Corridor is insufficient to deter or respond to a rapid Russian incursion without significant external reinforcement. NATO needs to:

Approach European rearmament in a way that builds credible, multidomain, combat-ready formations while keeping the United States engaged.
Conduct a comprehensive review of capabilities and gaps (where the United States is engaged) to inform future force design and new operational concepts and doctrine to underpin collective defense.
Develop a capability roadmap that enables burden sharing across the Alliance.

The view within NATO: What the Alliance needs by 2027

In response to Russia’s expanding capabilities, NATO has embraced a deterrence-by-denial posture, focusing on MDO to counteract aggression. This includes deploying forward forces, pre-positioning critical equipment, and developing operational concepts that prioritize holding the line and achieving rapid victory. Success will depend on massed effects and orchestrated battlefield efforts, with the unique strengths of each NATO member synchronized to support one another.

To counter emerging threats, NATO must urgently strengthen its logistical networks and mobility, ensuring rapid reinforcement of its eastern borders. Investment in key north-south road and rail corridors to enhance mobility along the eastern flank—from Scandinavia to the Baltic and Black seas—is essential for seamless troop and resource movement. Equally critical are interoperable C2 systems, designed with a data-centric, on-demand capability approach. These systems must integrate multidomain forces across nations, services, and echelons to maintain cohesion and operational effectiveness. To meet these challenges, NATO must modernize its infrastructure and adopt a wartime mindset, focusing on resilience, readiness, and strategic investments in critical capabilities. The Alliance must establish the necessary authorities to institutionally act with specific member states working in tandem with the EU to invest in critical infrastructure upgrades that support NATO operational requirements.

Russia’s military modernization efforts include enhancing unmanned systems for ISR and attack operations, networked fires, advanced weapons like hypersonic missiles, and robust cyber capabilities. Coupled with hybrid tactics such as false information campaigns, cyber-attacks, and sabotage, Russia poses an increasingly complex threat—especially with its use of “gray zone” strategies designed to blur the lines between conventional and irregular warfare. To counter these threats, NATO must be able to rapidly mobilize and deploy forces, emphasizing massed effects and MDO to blunt Russia’s initial momentum. The first seventy-two hours are critical, as Russia would aim to quickly seize territory and key infrastructure. Denying Russia these early operational gains could provide a critical off-ramp to avoid a protracted conflict. The following operational needs are key to NATO’s success:

Track and target key Russian units by using advanced C2 and ISR capabilities, holding them at risk before conflict escalates.
Surge reinforcements to hot spots through enhanced rapid deployment mechanisms as tensions rise.
Deploy highly lethal forces, supported by unmanned systems, to halt Russian advances at the point of contact, using well-coordinated defensive positions and preplaced forces.
Counterattack through multidomain orchestration and converged effects, targeting Russian C2 and employing anti-armor and long-range precision fires systems to disrupt rapid advances.
Build integrated, trained formations capable of maneuvering and attacking Russian forces, logistics, and C2 systems to reclaim territory and reestablish international boundaries.

NATO must continue to strengthen its forward combat-ready presence with balanced rotational and permanently stationed forces, while investing in fires and defensive capabilities that provide a reinforcement window from the United States and other NATO nations. Critical to ensuring deterrence by denial is the top-down commitment from member states to operationalize multidomain C2, NATO’s unified networking and digital infrastructure.

Building an effective NATO force design

The Alliance must ensure that procured systems are the right systems based on regional plans, capability targets, and desired mission effects and work together seamlessly to create an integrated and interoperable multidomain force. To that end, NATO must:

Deploy multinational MDO groups with shared ISR, C2, and kinetic/nonkinetic fires to overwhelm Russian forces and halt their advance.
Expand integrated air and missile defense systems to counter advanced threats, including drones.
Enhance rapid deployment and mobility through improved multimodal transport corridors and strategic airlift capabilities.
Implement layered force protection and counter-mobility measures along NATO’s borders, buying time for multidomain forces to strike Russian formations deep inside their territory.
Pre-position critical supplies (ammunition, fuel, heavy equipment) along the eastern flank.
Invest in pooled and shared resources across member states, particularly in high-tech areas like satellite communications, drones, AI, and surveillance platforms.
Invest in integrated training and experimentation to create strategic deterrence.

Establishing a NATO multidomain operations strategy

NATO’s ability to conduct effective MDO has never been more crucial. To counter Russia’s expanding military capabilities, NATO must integrate and leverage all domains—land, air, sea, cyber, and space—into a unified, cohesive strategy. MDO allow NATO to rapidly respond, disrupt enemy operations, and maintain strategic advantage. By improving interoperability, developing common standards, and building a seamless digital ecosystem, NATO can enhance its operational effectiveness and ensure rapid, coordinated action across all member nations. To counter Russia’s aggression and to reinforce its role as the cornerstone of global security, NATO must put forward an MDO strategy focused on a range of critical capabilities:

A next-generation multidomain C2 system: This system must integrate all operational domains—land, sea, air, space, and cyber—into a single, unified interface for commanders. It should be fully interoperable across NATO member states and their national C2 architectures, enabling seamless cross-domain integration and battlefield orchestration, regardless of time, geography, or mission requirements.
Integrated multidomain C2 operations centers: Within NATO’s multinational divisions, corps, and joint force commands, these centers can help to integrate situational awareness of national forces. Progress must continue to enable them to be networked to orchestrate operations across all domains, ensuring quick, coordinated action.
Integrated ISR fusion centers: These centers must break down information-sharing barriers and integrate intelligence from multiple domains to provide real-time, actionable insights that are essential for swift decision making that enables expanded maneuver and cross-domain fires.
AI (algorithmic warfare): AI will be pivotal in predictive analytics, persistent targeting, effects planning, and operational decision support. These algorithms can enhance decision making by providing commanders with insights on potential outcomes and courses of action.
Cyber-resilient digital architectures: The zero-trust model secures critical systems and data by minimizing attack surfaces, enforcing least-privilege access, and enabling resilient, segmented networks. NATO’s digital infrastructure must employ this cybersecurity model to be protected from adversarial attacks that could disrupt or manipulate critical data, AI algorithms, and operational capabilities, ensuring system integrity and operational continuity.
Autonomous systems: Leveraging low cost, expendable systems for reconnaissance, targeting, maneuver, lethal and nonlethal fires, and logistical support will significantly increase operational efficiency and reduce risks to personnel in contested environments.
Unified networking and digital infrastructure: A data-centric approach will enable plug-and-play software development tailored to mission needs, ensuring NATO’s digital systems remain agile and responsive to emerging threats.

NATO must prioritize systems thinking, integration, and data interoperability within a unified, multidomain digital architecture. This approach is vital to ensuring that collective defense and deterrence capabilities are effective and adaptable to the complexities of modern warfare. These measures can significantly enhance NATO’s deterrence posture by leveraging technology to achieve mass and counter emerging threats. Success hinges on developing common standards, fostering interoperability across national systems, and creating a robust digital ecosystem that facilitates seamless data flow and decision making.

Envisioning NATO’s future through mission engineering

The United States and NATO must make smarter, faster decisions about what capabilities to acquire and how to integrate them within an multidomain force design. Every acquisition and force-development decision should be driven by a clear understanding of why it’s needed, when it’s needed, where it will be deployed, and what mission outcomes are expected. Only by focusing on these key factors can NATO build the warfighting capability and capacity needed for future success within the urgent timelines required.

NATO force modernization is not just about increasing defense spending—it is about spending smarter and optimizing the resources in hand more effectively. Regardless of spending levels, NATO must shift from a national-centric approach to an Alliance-wide mindset. This requires a shared engineering and analytics methodology to optimize defense resource allocations with a focus on speed, precision, and collaboration.

By investing in forward-deployed forces, integrated air and missile defense, multidomain warfare enabled by integrated C2 and ISR, autonomous systems, and resilient logistics, European NATO nations can strengthen deterrence and response capabilities—without relying on immediate US military intervention.

NATO, especially NATO European nations, must rapidly transform warfighting concepts and capabilities to counter a resurgent Russian threat by 2027. This demands agile decision making and investment in technological innovation, seamless integration, and interoperability—all essential to generate combat mass and achieve dominance in multidomain warfare.

MITRE’s data-driven, systems-thinking approach coupled with the Atlantic Council’s Euro-Atlantic strategic knowledge revolutionizes multidomain force design by combining scenario-based mission engineering and operational analysis. Known as the NATO Force Mix Analysis, this powerful methodology assesses and optimizes military force structures, C2, ISR, and fires architectures, all aligned with strategic capability options in a threat-driven context to help inform coordinated, future-ready investment strategies across the Alliance.

If broadly adopted, the NFMA can help NATO—especially European members—accelerate capability development, respond more effectively to current and emerging threats, and validate new technologies through continuous, real-world analysis and experimentation. This, in turn, would enable faster deployment of critical systems and smarter operational decisions. Specifically, the NFMA could support NATO in the following ways:

Inform early deployment of experimental platforms and operational concepts. Prototypes will be evaluated in both live exercises and fielded operational environments to test performance, uncover capability gaps, and refine tactics. This would enable NATO to assess the real-world effectiveness of emerging technologies and operational concepts before full-scale integration.
Provide the foundation for continuous testing and evaluation of tactics, techniques, and procedures in varied operational scenarios. Through persistent experimentation, NATO will remain adaptable, learning and evolving in response to new threats and opportunities for innovation.
Enable rapid development and procurement of new capabilities to ensure NATO can meet evolving defense needs. Employing open architectures and agile acquisition for fielding critical capabilities will reduce time to implementation and enhance operational flexibility.
Help NATO collectively identify and field the right combination of force structures, technologies, and operational strategies to strengthen its deterrence posture while maintaining agility and readiness. Through mission engineering, operational prototyping, persistent experimentation, and agile acquisition, NATO can test new capabilities and refine operational strategies to ensure sustained deterrence and rapid response in the Baltic region.

The Alliance must assess and adapt its force mix to operate in a contested, multidomain environment. The following analytic questions are critical to guiding NATO’s posture, readiness, and resilience amid evolving threats and uncertain US. force commitments.

How can NATO combat readiness and forward presence be improved?
How can NATO establish a resilient, multidomain C2 and ISR architecture and how does NATO best offset a reduction in US commitment of its capability and capacity?
- How resilient is European C3 and ISR under cyber and kinetic attack?
- What data integration and decision processes enable NATO unity and speed?
How can NATO improve persistent targeting and lethality?
- How can NATO establish a joint fires network?
- What is the role of AI and autonomous systems in targeting and lethality?
What is required for integrated air and missile defense (including counter-unmanned aircraft systems) to hold the line?
What is required for NATO to successfully execute contested logistics forward in the battlespace? Can NATO sustain thirty-plus days of combat operations without US strategic lift, theater lift, and logistics assets and expertise?

The NATO 2027 use case: Insights and priorities

Initial insights from the NFMA underscore several operational priorities critical to NATO Europe’s ability to independently deter or defeat a Russian offensive in the Baltic region by 2027, particularly in scenarios with limited or delayed US engagement. These insights highlight the importance of integrating advanced fires, mobility, survivability, and C2 capabilities into a cohesive, MDO concept.

Key findings and operational priorities include:

Countering Russian mass and tempo with integrated fires: NATO must pair long-range precision fires with close-combat drone swarms to disrupt and degrade Russian force concentration and tempo. This layered approach enhances survivability while enabling rapid effects across the depth of the battlespace.
Persistent targeting via multidomain fires and C2 networks: Success in a high-threat environment requires a persistent, integrated “kill chain” linking ISR, C2, and fires across all domains. NATO must be capable of delivering operational-level fires from standoff range to neutralize Russian anti-access/area-denial systems, command nodes, and massed maneuver forces within key mobility corridors.
Overmatch in mobility, countermobility, and survivability: NATO forces must dominate the terrain through superior mobility and countermobility operations, creating choke points and engagement zones that slow Russian advances and funnel them into preplanned kill boxes. Critical targeting priorities include Russian combat engineering units that enable cross-country movement and breaching operations, in addition to traditional C2 and logistics nodes.
Integrated, layered force protection and terrain shaping: A combination of physical border fortifications, camouflaged forward positions, and active defense systems is required to delay Russian momentum and generate tactical opportunities—creating conditions for NATO forces to strike with precision anti-armor fires, loitering munitions, and coordinated drone swarms, especially at choke points and terrain seams.

These insights reinforce the need for NATO to invest in operational prototyping, joint experimentation, and rapid fielding of advanced fires and survivability capabilities. Implementing these priorities through a data-driven, mission-engineering approach will ensure NATO Europe is postured for success in a contested, near-peer conflict environment.

Recommendations

Building on the operational insights from the NFMA, the following recommendations are aimed at enabling NATO Europe to independently deter, respond to, and potentially defeat Russian aggression in the Baltic states by 2027. These measures are designed to accelerate capability development, institutional reforms, and operational integration in line with a forward-leaning, data-informed, mission-engineering framework.

Prepare a warfighting burden-sharing roadmap: NATO must develop a capability roadmap that enables burden sharing and, where appropriate, burden transfer from the United States to Europe for critical warfighting capabilities while addressing gaps to achieve threat overmatch.
Establish a unified NATO multidomain warfare doctrine: Develop and implement a multidomain operational concept, aligning land, air, maritime, cyber, and space operations across regional defense plans and force structures.
Invest in multidomain C2 and ISR infrastructure: Build a resilient, interoperable digital architecture to support real-time C2, dynamic targeting, and cross-domain ISR sharing among allies.
Establish a NATO multidomain open system architecture: Create an open system test and experimentation architecture to drive C2 interoperability and rapid deployment based on mission and user need.
Accelerate forward posture of heavy forces and IAMD: Pre-position armored units and layered air and missile defenses in key forward areas to enable rapid combat mass and early crisis response.
Enhance military mobility and industrial coordination: Improve cross-border military transit and align defense industrial base efforts for surge production of critical systems and munitions.
Establish additional joint ISR fusion centers: Set up additional ISR hubs in Germany, Poland, and Finland that build on existing Baltic centers to provide persistent battlespace awareness and theater-level targeting.
Develop a pan-European logistics control network: Create a secure, integrated logistics system to sustain operations under contested conditions, incorporating civilian and military infrastructure.
Form MDO and cyber/influence task forces: Deploy specialized units to coordinate cross-domain fires and information operations, supported by integration cells at corps and division levels.
Conduct no-notice Article 5 rehearsal war games (without US surge forces): Routinely execute unscripted, short-notice multinational exercises to test NATO’s ability to respond to aggression under Article 5. Use outcomes to inform force posture and capability investments.
Build a NATO integrated training and validation program: The joint training architecture, in coordination with Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, will validate unit readiness and interoperability in line with the 2027 vision. This program should emphasize realistic, threat-informed scenarios and integration of new technologies and concepts.

Conclusion

To maintain NATO’s deterrence credibility and defend national sovereignty in the face of a reconstituted Russian threat, Europe must assume greater responsibility and operational capability. Achieving this NATO Europe 2027 vision requires more than policy alignment—it demands a mission-driven, technically grounded approach to force design, readiness, and modernization. In support of operationalizing this vision, the MITRE–Atlantic Council collaboration on the NATO Force Mix Analysis offers a reusable, scalable technical framework to guide strategic defense decisions through 2027 and beyond.

This framework integrates advanced digital engineering tools, mission-level modeling, and decision analytics to continuously evaluate NATO’s defense needs, mission requirements, and acquisition priorities in a dynamic threat environment. It provides a rigorous, evidence-based foundation for aligning strategy with capability development—supporting faster, smarter, and more resilient force planning across European allies.

Key enablers of the NATO 2027 vision include:

Mission-driven analysis: NFMA supports an ongoing assessment of force mix options aligned with strategic objectives, enabling nations to prioritize investments that close capability gaps and build operational mass.
Digital engineering and modeling: High-fidelity simulation and modeling environments allow planners to visualize and evaluate operational concepts, logistics, and reinforcement timelines under contested conditions—before investments are made.
Operational prototyping and experimentation: The NFMA approach enables early testing of new operational concepts and technologies through simulation, live exercises, and real-world experimentation—de-risking decisions and informing doctrine.
Agile acquisition support: Insights from the NFMA can guide iterative acquisition decisions, accelerating the deployment of high-impact capabilities such as ISR, integrated air defense, mobility assets, and interoperable C2 systems.

About the authors

Scott Lee is the chief engineer for multidomain operations and C2 at MITRE. In this role, he leads MITRE’s efforts to develop solutions that address the defense challenges and operational requirements of next-generation command and control and enabling systems in support of US and allied and partner warfighting concepts. He previously led MITRE’s Joint All-Domain C2 (JADC2) Cross-Cutting Priority.

Andrew Michta is a senior fellow in the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the former dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. He holds a PhD in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. His areas of expertise include international security, NATO, and European politics and security, with a special focus on Central Europe and the Baltic states.

Peter Jones retired from the Army as a brigadier general and is a contract engineer at MITRE, providing broad support to the Army portfolio especially in the area of future concept development and experimentation in support of Training & Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and now predominately Army Future Command’s Future Concept Center. Prior to his retirement, Jones served for two years as the U.S. Army Infantry School Commandant and 56th Chief of Infantry.

Lisa Bembenick is the executive director of international security affairs for MITRE. She is responsible for MITRE’s international strategy and senior level relationships on defense issues related to the United States, Europe, and NATO, and positions MITRE to bring its technical capabilities to bear on critical security outcomes faced by NATO countries. She was previously director of strategy for MITRE’s National Security Engineering Center.

Acknowledgements

As part of their strategic partnership, the Atlantic Council and MITRE have conducted a NATO Force Mix Analysis, examining ways to harden the Alliance’s eastern flank, measure the value of multidomain operations, and deter Russian aggression. This paper is jointly produced by the Atlantic Council and MITRE.

MITRE and the Atlantic Council gratefully acknowledge Meg Adams, Greg Crawford, LeAnne Howard, Jackson Ludwig, and Matt McKaig for their valuable contributions to the publication of this paper.

The authors would also like to thank Paul O’Donnell, Lori Fermano, Phillippe Dickinson, Sheila Gagen, Bailey Galicia, and Sydney Sherry for their editorial assistance.

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The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

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Transatlantic relations and a region in flux

Atlantic Council Turkey Program — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Foreword

Dramatic events altered the geopolitical landscape, affecting Turkey, the United States, and NATO in late 2024 and early 2025. The election of Donald Trump as the forty seventh president of America, a ceasefire in Gaza after months of showdown between Israel and Iran’s Axis of Resistance, and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria have challenged many assumptions and regional political-military considerations. The fifth issue of the Defense Journal assesses key dynamics as we enter a new era. The Defense Journal team examines the rise of the hyperwar concept via military applications of artificial intelligence and the frontier of development for robotic systems. We also look at trends in key US policy concerns in the region to the south of Turkey, including Israel and Syria. If the first months of the second Trump administration are any indication, rapid change and a high tempo in US foreign policy decisions affecting Washington, Ankara, and their shared interests across several regions is the new normal. The Editorial Team hopes you find these contributions interesting and useful.

Rich Outzen and Can Kasapoglu, Defense Journal by Atlantic Council IN TURKEY Co-managing editors

Articles

2024 in the rear view

By Rich Outzen

Hyperwar, artificial intelligence, and Homo sapien

By Can Kasapoğlu

Turkish-American defense and energy partnerships suit the new transatlantic landscape

By Greg Bloom

Q&A with Dov Zakheim

By Atlantic Council Turkey Program

In Syria’s fragile transition there’s a glimmer of a more stable Middle East

By Charles Lister

Q&A with Haluk Bayraktar

By Atlantic Council Turkey Program

Why the Middle Corridor matters amid a geopolitical resorting

By Karel Valansi

Honorary advisory board

The Defense Journal by Atlantic Council IN TURKEY‘s honorary advisory board provides vision and direction for the journal. We are honored to have Atlantic Council board directors Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former commander of US European Command; Amb. Paula J. Dobriansky, former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs; Gen. James L. Jones, former national security advisor to the President of the United States; Franklin D. Kramer, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, former US Ambassador to NATO; and Dov S. Zakheim, former Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense.

Gen. Wesley K. Clark

Chairman and CEO of Wesley K. Clark & Associates & Board Director, Atlantic Council; former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO

Amb. Paula J. Dobriansky, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow at Harvard University JFK Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs; Board Director, Atlantic Council; former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs (2001-2009)

Gen. James L. Jones

President, Jones Group International and Executive Chairman Emeritus, Atlantic Council; former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States

Franklin D. Kramer

Distinguished Fellow & Board Director, Atlantic Council; former US Assistant Secretary of Defense

Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute

CEO, Cambridge Global Advisors & Board Director, Atlantic Council; former US Permanent Representative to NATO

Dov S. Zakheim

Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Senior Fellow, CNA Corporation; Board Director, Atlantic Council; former US Under Secretary of Defense

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The Atlantic Council in Turkey aims to promote and strengthen transatlantic engagement with the region by providing a high-level forum and pursuing programming to address the most important issues on energy, economics, security, and defense.

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Murray in Sky News on UK’s Strategic Defence Review

Atlantic Council — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

On June 2, Rob Murray, non-resident senior fellow at Forward Defense and the Transatlantic Security Initiative, appeared on Sky News to offer his insights on the UK’s Strategic Defence Review. Murray emphasized the importance of re-drawing financial architectures and increasing credit flow into supply chains to effectively finance the Review’s ambitious armament procurement goals.

Fellow

Rob Murray

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

The Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, shapes and influences the debate on the greatest security challenges facing the North Atlantic Alliance and its key partners.

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How NATO’s eastern flank is setting the standard for collective defense

Justina Budginaite-Froehly — Fri, 30 May 2025 16:04:21 +0000

“I am glad to be in Vilnius today,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on May 22. “Because it is right here, in Lithuania, where we are taking the defense of NATO’s eastern flank into our own hands.”

Merz was in Vilnius to formally inaugurate the 45^th Armored Brigade in Lithuania, which will embed German combat power at the heart of Baltic defense. Germany will implement a phased deployment—it sent advanced elements in early 2024 and formally activated the brigade on April 1. The brigade is expected to reach full combat readiness by 2027. Once complete, this will offer Lithuania and its neighbors a sustained, high-end deterrent anchored in the NATO framework.

But it’s not just Germany that is helping bolster the defenses of NATO’s strategically exposed eastern flank. The eastern flank countries themselves are implementing concrete measures to overcome Europe’s entrenched defense fragmentation. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—all located along the eastern border of both NATO and the European Union (EU) with mainland Russia, its Kaliningrad exclave, and Belarus—are emerging as leaders in bolstering regional defense integration, the benefits of which could extend throughout Europe. This shift is especially significant amid growing transatlantic tensions and renewed calls from the United States for Europe to assume greater responsibility for its own security and conventional defense.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, these countries have aligned their border protection efforts by integrating their counter-mobility measures. They have initiated the process of cooperatively developing deep-strike capabilities. They have also started the procurement process for German weapon systems, introduced the German defense industry to the region, and will soon host the first-ever permanently deployed German brigade. All these initiatives show that Europe’s defense efforts are well-positioned to grow together and consolidate from the epicenter in the northeast of the continent. By anchoring their defense planning in regional realities, the eastern flank countries are demonstrating that regional coordination, backed by political determination, can transform exposed vulnerabilities into strategic assets that enhance deterrence and operational readiness.

Integrating counter-mobility systems

Faced with growing geostrategic pressure along their borders with Russia and Belarus, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have taken decisive, coordinated steps to reinforce border protection and defense. Increasingly aligned in their strategic approach, these countries are developing integrated fortification systems that form a continuous defensive line along the eastern border of NATO and the EU.

Two major initiatives launched in 2024—the Baltic Defense Line covering Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and Poland’s East Shield—share the common goal of strengthening deterrence and denying adversaries access to NATO and EU territory. These efforts include expanding existing forested areas, deepening drainage ditches, building engineering depots to store physical barriers such as “dragons’ teeth,” “hedgehogs,” “Spanish horse,” and solid concrete road barriers, as well as installing anti-tank landmines and mine-laying equipment. There are also plans for developing reinforcements with drone and anti-drone technologies. The overall goal is to ensure the two defense initiatives’ integrity, especially as they converge at the Suwałki Gap, a security chokepoint and the primary axis for NATO’s land reinforcement to the Baltic states.

Finland’s accession to NATO added 1,340 kilometers to the Alliance’s border with Russia. Unlike the more exposed terrain of the Baltic states and Poland, Finland’s border region is naturally defensive, dominated by forests, lakes, and wetlands, which would complicate a large-scale Russian ground incursion. Accordingly, Finland has chosen not to build physical fortifications along the border.

However, to reinforce deterrence and secure vulnerable segments, Finland aligned itself with the regional consensus by withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention banning the use of anti-personnel landmines. This means the eastern flank countries can jointly deploy and stockpile anti-personnel landmines as a shared border defense tool against Russia. Both Russia and Ukraine have used anti-personnel landmines in Ukraine.

The regional integration of border defense has triggered broader EU interest. Following Baltic and Polish calls for a collective response, the European Council’s conclusions on European defense, released on March 6, recognized the importance of EU border defense. The EU’s White Paper on Defense, published in late March, endorsed the idea of creating an “Eastern Border Shield” and in April, the European Parliament passed a resolution recognizing the East Shield and the Baltic Defense Line as flagship projects for common security. This momentum must now translate into concrete EU support—and funding—for transforming the eastern flank countries’ national efforts into a unified, layered European border defense architecture.

Coordinated development of deep strike capabilities

The Baltic states, Poland, and Finland are also integrating their long-range firepower into a regional deep-strike architecture, which significantly raises the threshold for aggression along the eastern flank of NATO and the EU.

Since Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have each contracted High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers and committed to trilateral cooperation with the United States on HIMARS integration, personnel training, system maintenance, and service. Embedding HIMARS into a joint operational concept will allow the Baltic states to conduct combined live-fire exercises and harmonize sustainment through shared maintenance, training, and logistics chains. Estonia’s six launchers, delivered in April, now reach well beyond four hundred kilometers. Lithuania’s eight launchers, due to arrive by 2026, will achieve a similar reach. Latvia is set to receive six launchers in 2027, which will complete the Baltic deep-strike firewall.

This Baltic cluster is dovetailing with Poland’s even larger “Homar-A” deep-strike program, under which some 486 additional HIMARS variants will be mounted on Polish Jelcz trucks and integrated into Poland’s Topaz command system. Together, Poland and the Baltic states are planning a joint logistics hub to manage munitions stockpiles, spare parts, and forward displacement. They are also planning to exercise joint targeting and coordinate fire support across borders.

Finland has opted to upgrade its M270 multiple-launch rocket systems rather than buy HIMARS. The upgrade, approved in 2023, allows Finnish M270s to fire the same munitions as their Baltic neighbors. This technical alignment transforms Finland’s forces into a seamless fourth pillar of the regional deep-strike ensemble, enabling integrated planning, data‐sharing, and cross-border reinforcement exercises.

By integrating US-provided launchers, coordinated doctrine, shared logistics, and interoperable fire-control standards, the five eastern flank nations are establishing a continuous, multi-tiered long-range fire network that spans from Finland to Poland. This network helps project deterrence and complicate adversary planning, solidifying a new level of collective defense integration on the eastern flank.

Regional consolidation with German weapon systems

The eastern flank countries have also deepened their partnerships with German weapon manufacturers. Lithuania is aligning its force modernization with the German brigade’s forward posture in the Baltics. In December, Lithuania’s defense ministry signed a €950 million contract with for forty-four Leopard 2 A8 main battle tanks—its first indigenous tank battalion—which will arrive through 2030, alongside an expanded fleet of twenty-seven additional Boxer “Vilkas” infantry fighting vehicles, which will arrive by 2029. Finland and Poland likewise use Leopard 2 variants, creating a shared main battle tank backbone across the eastern flank.

In the air defense domain, Estonia and Latvia will each field three IRIS-T surface-launched missile batteries this year, while Lithuania has bolstered its two national advanced surface-to-air missile systems (NASAMS) batteries (initially deployed in 2020) with additional systems due to arrive in 2026. To underpin sustained operations, German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall’s new NATO-standard 155 mm ammunition plant in Lithuania, scheduled to be online by mid-2026, will produce tens of thousands of shells annually, significantly enhancing regional munitions resilience.

In the defense innovation field, Lithuanian laser technology firm Aktyvus Photonics has partnered with German drone manufacturer Quantum Systems, having signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic collaboration in unmanned systems this month. Together, they will codevelop and field-test unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with laser capabilities, aiming to expedite deployment timelines and establish a standard for next-generation, networked unmanned systems in NATO’s eastern defenses.

Beyond procurement, production, and innovation, Lithuania has also positioned itself as a regional arms maintenance hub: Through the establishment of Lithuania Defense Services—a joint venture between Rheinmetall Landsysteme and French-German defense manufacturer KNDS—it provides repair, overhaul, and upgrade services for German vehicle platforms, including Boxer Vilkas IFVs, PzH 2000 howitzers, the Leopard main battle tank family, and tactical logistics vehicles.

Collectively, these deployments, procurements, and industrial partnerships do more than fill capability gaps: They forge a contiguous eastern flank defense ecosystem. By standardizing on German platforms, harmonizing training and logistics, co-locating production and repair facilities, and co-training under unified command structures, Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland, together with Germany, can achieve unprecedented interoperability and strategic depth. These initiatives are transforming NATO’s eastern flank into a seamless, multi-domain bulwark.

Strategic depth through regional alignment

The eastern flank’s transformation from a collection of fragmented national postures into a cohesive, multi-domain defense network exemplifies how sustained regional integration can overcome long-standing capability gaps. By aligning border defense, harmonizing long-range fires, and embedding German heavy armor and sustainment infrastructure, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland are creating a continuous belt of deterrence that leverages shared doctrine, logistics, and industry. This holistic approach raises the cost of aggression and sets a new standard for European collective defense: one where interoperability and joint capacity-building replace duplication and dependency, anchoring strategic depth at NATO’s most exposed frontier.

Justina Budginaite-Froehly, PhD, is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

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The frontier is the front line: On climate resilience for infrastructure and supplies in Canada’s Arctic

Jeffrey Reynolds, Kristen Taylor — Fri, 30 May 2025 14:49:31 +0000

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s victory in the May 2025 elections provides a clearer picture of Canada’s political future and strategic priorities. During the election campaign, Carney emphasized bolstering defense spending and increasing Canada’s presence, awareness, and infrastructure footprint in the Arctic. As Carney seeks to achieve these stated ends, he will contend with a strategic environment that looks more dangerous for Ottawa than at any time since the end of the Cold War. And he will likely struggle to reconcile the strategic importance of the Arctic with the cost of developing the infrastructure required to secure it. But as the ice retreats, so too do the barriers that once insulated Canada’s Arctic.

The frontier has become the front line.

Canada’s choice is binary: secure its portion of the Arctic or suffer the consequences of foreign powers acting with impunity in and around Canada’s Arctic. Ottawa’s central challenge, therefore, is to harden its Arctic presence with dual-use infrastructure and supply chain resilience while hostile powers increase their influence around the pole.

This task gets more difficult the longer Ottawa dithers because change manifests across many vectors concurrently. The infrastructure and supply chains critical to the region are underdeveloped and ill-suited for the future—and they do not improve with age. Climate change continues to alter the contours of the region, often to Canada’s strategic disadvantage. An ascendant generation of US strategists proclaim that the Canadian Arctic is the “new soft underbelly” of North America. And it is no longer fantasy to suggest that the Arctic is ground zero for the new ‘Great Game’ between the United States, Russia, and China.

The region has been one of strategic contest since 1921, when Joseph Stalin claimed the North Pole for the Soviet Union, a claim re-animated by Moscow in 2015. It may lack the trenches and dragon’s teeth in Europe, or the clashes between fishing vessels and coast guard ships in southeast Asia. But the Arctic is no longer a low-threat, low-force posture environment that can be defended by a couple Coast Guard icebreakers and some Canadian Rangers on snowmobiles.

It is a region of strategic consequence and likely to be more so in the coming decades, which begs the question—why does Canada lag allies and adversaries alike in both the defense and development of its Arctic territory?

The simplistic answer is that Ottawa is torn among competing interests and an inability, or an unwillingness, to marshal the domestic resources necessary to protect its Arctic from a growing cast of players keen to exploit perceived vulnerabilities in pursuit of their interests.

The Atlantic Council delved deeper into Canada’s challenge to bolster infrastructure and supply chain resilience in the region. Research included literature reviews, interviews, and off-the-record conversations with a broad range of government and private-sector stakeholders. Interviews yielded constructive, if passionate, views from respondents who expressed repeatedly how much they want Canada to secure its part of the Arctic and enable its full development.

Analysis revealed that Ottawa knows the region well; the Canadian government has few peers in understanding the Arctic and what is required to right supply chains there. Geological surveys and development plans are completed to a gold standard. Stakeholders know the problem and solution space—and have for decades. But domestic policy, not climate change or geopolitical calculus, is the primary factor influencing strategic decisions for Canada’s north.

Key players (and honorable mentions)

Climate change has made the Arctic accessible. Glacier melting has created new sea routes, extended shipping seasons, and unveiled vast natural resources. But it has also created an opening in the region for strategic contest. Three threat vectors shape the region’s security dynamics for Canada.

Russia

More than half of the Arctic Circle’s population and half its economy are Russian. Russia sits at the end of one of the Arctic’s most accessible regions. Russia is opening old bases and building new infrastructure throughout the region. It holds more than 50 percent of Arctic investment (made between 2017 and 2022), and its military doctrine treats the north as central to economic and national defense. Since 2014, the Kremlin has launched Cold War-style investments in Arctic airfields, radar systems, submarine networks, and year-round basing. Russian military planners are considering anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) domes extending over the Northern Sea Route.

Moscow likely observes that Canadian defense planning remains rooted in an outdated peace dividend mindset—one that grossly underestimates the threat of state-on-state conflict in the Arctic. Canada’s lack of comprehensive undersea surveillance renders its Arctic maritime approaches effectively blind, and its military presence in the region—symbolized by a modest footprint of Canadian Rangers—leaves much to be desired in terms of deterrence or rapid response. Equipment remains outdated, modernization plans languish in bureaucratic limbo, and logistics chains are stretched perilously thin. These gaps create space for Russian forces to maneuver below the threshold of war, exploiting ambiguity and Canada’s limited detection capabilities to assert influence or project force unchallenged.

The Kremlin likes to see how Canada’s strategic dependence on the United States substitutes alliance commitments for genuine sovereign deterrence. Ottawa’s whole-of-government approach—while inclusive in theory—has fragmented decision-making in practice, rendering Canada slow and reactive at a time when speed and coherence are strategic advantages. Indigenous consultation, while legally and morally necessary, remains procedurally rigid and politicized, often becoming a brake on critical national security decisions rather than a channel for partnership and empowerment.

While Russia invests heavily in its Arctic capabilities, Canada’s Arctic capability is stuck in the twentieth century. Surveillance assets are aging, space-based platforms are insufficient, and investment in modern ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) technology remains anemic. Communications remain unreliable across vast regions, exposing both civilian and military systems to disruption. Cyber defenses—especially around critical infrastructure—are poorly funded and unevenly deployed, inviting adversaries to strike via code rather than missile.

China

China considers itself a “near-Arctic power” and its Polar Silk Road links Arctic shipping to its global Belt and Road ambitions. China’s white papers frame the region as a commons to be commercially and scientifically accessed. Icebreaker construction in Chinese shipyards matches the tempo of a nation preparing for permanent presence.

Beijing understands that Canada’s economic infrastructure in the Arctic is brittle. Melting permafrost, seasonal reliance on ice roads, and a near-total absence of deepwater ports make northern logistics vulnerable to both climate and conflict. These choke points offer asymmetric opportunities to disrupt supply chains or sabotage dual-use facilities. China could exploit these vulnerabilities by embedding itself through ostensibly civilian investments in Arctic mining, telecommunications, or transportation infrastructure—investments that are strategic positioning by other means. In such a fragile environment, any hybrid attack or technological failure could sever vital arteries with catastrophic effects.

From China’s vantage point, Canada’s Arctic declarations are noble but hollow—bold in language but weak in execution. For Beijing, which has increased defense spending every year for three decades, Canada’s plan to reach two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense spending by 2030 is symbolic. Procurement remains tangled in inefficiency and overregulation, hampering modernization and undermining operational readiness. Economic pressures, shifting political winds, and lukewarm support for military spending are likely to derail Canada’s commitments before they mature. Moreover, China likely sees Canada’s overreliance on its NATO allies as a strategic liability. The Arctic can be probed or pressured just below NATO’s collective defense thresholds—ensuring ambiguity, diffusing Western resolve, and highlighting Canada’s limited unilateral options.

Manpower shortages, insufficient Arctic basing, and the long-delayed Nanisivik port all point to structural underinvestment in hard infrastructure. These gaps offer Beijing a rich menu of asymmetric opportunities to: subvert Arctic economies through proxy investments; cultivate cultural ties through scholarships, research partnerships, and diplomatic outreach; sabotage digital and physical infrastructure through cyberattacks or dependency entrapments; and sow political dissent by financing Indigenous, environmental, or anti-militarization movements within Canada’s own democratic fabric.

The United States (and others)

For Washington, Canada’s failure to defend its Arctic territory is not merely a function of limited resources, but of deliberate strategic neglect. The refusal to acquire nuclear-powered submarines—essential for year-round under-ice patrols and true sovereignty enforcement—reveals a deeper aversion to the burdens of great power responsibility. While adversaries invest in undersea dominance and dual-use Arctic infrastructure, Ottawa opts for half-measures: diesel patrol submarines that can’t operate under the polar ice, minimal surveillance capabilities, and no permanent military basing north of 60.

The US view is shifting from a posture of “monitor and respond” to one of “prepare and deter.” Pentagon reports no longer downplay the Arctic as a region of strategic importance. Even smaller powers have taken notice. India published its Arctic strategy in 2021, emphasizing scientific diplomacy. Turkey signed the Svalbard Treaty to gain access rights to the Arctic in 2023. France and Germany are also exploring greater footprints in the region.

While the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE) Pact with Canada and Finland represents a trilateral effort to rebuild icebreaker capacity and harden the Arctic industrial base, it is not enough. Canada remains trapped in a peacetime posture and mentality—symbolic patrols and seasonal exercises—while the region becomes increasingly contested by powers that are, at best, are neutral to Canada’s concerns and, at worst, openly hostile to them.

This inertia is rooted in a political culture that prioritizes accommodation over assertiveness. Successive governments have deferred to progressive special interest groups whose influence blunts hard security policies. Environmentalist and Indigenous consultations, while important, are often weaponized procedurally to paralyze decisive action. The result is a government debilitated by process, one that speaks of sovereignty but shrinks from the instruments necessary to enforce it. Even modest defense initiatives face resistance if they challenge entrenched activist orthodoxies or require confronting Canada’s internal contradictions. This includes the legal quagmire of provincial and territorial jurisdiction in the North, which Ottawa remains unwilling to override or reform.

Perhaps most damning for Washington is Canada’s lack of strategic coherence. Ottawa provides a strategic framework for the Arctic but fails to dedicate the resources to achieve the objectives contained therein. Policy and strategy without resource commitments are unseriousness ideas. Moreover, Canada’s policies do not form a doctrine of Arctic deterrence, convey no idea on how to mobilize federal will, and fail to weave a unifying narrative that connects Arctic defense to the survival of Canada as a sovereign nation in an increasingly anarchic world.

America cannot—and will not—permit a soft underbelly to fester in a domain as critical as the Arctic. It is not inconceivable for US forces unilaterally securing parts of the Canadian Arctic in the event of a crisis. Such actions, while diplomatically uncomfortable, would be strategically necessary if Canadian gaps remain unaddressed. To be blunt: if pressed and in a fight with Russia or China in the Arctic, the US will almost certainly be “Elbows Up” in defense of North America, even if it offends Canadian sensitivities.

Five “cold kills”

Our research unearthed five factors that contribute to Canada’s Arctic inertia. Each of these “cold kills” continues to impede progress on increasing supply chain and defense resilience.

1. Lacking multipartisan consensus on the region as “ground zero” for a new “Great Game.”

Canada cannot do much in the Arctic if it lacks enduring political will to support and fund dual-use infrastructure over decades. The growing importance of the Arctic for great-power competition underscores the need for politicians, defense planners, local communities, industry partners, and other relevant stakeholders to walk in the same general direction, if not in lockstep. Despite the urgency of this task, no sustained, cross-partisan strategy for Arctic defense exists. Without it, investments, infrastructure development, and operational planning will almost certainly come up short. In 2025, Natural Resources Canada is projected to invest $12.1 million toward climate adaptation projects in the North—which is necessary, but insufficient when compared to similar efforts by other Arctic powers.

Yet, allies offer a contrast. Norway’s Arktis 2030 fund and its defense pledge of 3 percent of GDP underscore a whole-of-society approach. Finland’s NATO entry boosted its participation in Arctic exercises. Sweden utilizes Arctic data to create a stronger and better informed national defense policy. Denmark leverages Greenland’s geostrategic importance in its Arctic defense. While Canada’s Arctic is inaccessible by comparison, it can look at what NATO allies do right in the region and their whole-of-society approaches.

2. Placing too much of the strategic burden on local communities.

The Canadian government continues to place disproportionate responsibility for Arctic security on local communities, revealing a dangerous strategic asymmetry between rhetoric and capability. The Canadian Rangers, though a symbol of national resolve and cultural integration, are not a substitute for a modern, standing military presence. They are lightly armed, part-time volunteers—valuable in their knowledge of the land but structurally unfit to deter or respond to the increasing threats posed by adversarial state actors operating just beyond the line of sight. This over-reliance has created a strategic mirage: Ottawa appears engaged in Arctic defence, but the burden is unfairly borne by those with the fewest resources and the highest exposure.

In effect, Canada’s Arctic is not treated as an equal part of Confederation, but as a frontier outpost whose primary function is surveillance and symbolic sovereignty. The political imagination to raise Arctic communities to the standard of living of rural southern Canada is absent. There is no serious nation-building project underway—no long-term vision to tie infrastructure, broadband, energy, healthcare, and education in the North to the national grid of opportunity.

The region is home to significant deposits of iron ore, gold, diamonds, and rare earth elements. The Mary River Mine on Baffin Island is one of the world’s richest reserves of high-grade iron ore, producing millions of tons annually. Similarly, the Hope Bay and Meliadine gold mines contribute substantially to Canada’s mineral output. These resources are critical for economic development and for national security, given their importance in defense manufacturing and technology. Yet, the extraction and transportation of these resources are hampered by limited infrastructure that eludes further development due to lack of coordination and investment at all levels of government. While the Yukon Security Advisory Council can be a model for shared governance federal, territorial, and Indigenous jurisdictions overlap without coherent authority. The result is a bureaucratic bottleneck that limits response agility and accountability, especially in scenarios involving mass casualty events or foreign incursions below the threshold of war.

3. Misunderstanding the Arctic as a land- or maritime-centric domain, instead of a multidomain one.

Canada’s Arctic strategy remains anchored in a legacy mindset—fixated on land and maritime domains—while the battlespace has already expanded far beyond the ice and tundra. The Canadian Arctic is a multi-domain operating environment in the most rigorous sense: a crucible where air, sea, land, space, and cyberspace domains converge. Focusing primarily on ground mobility or maritime choke points is antiquated.

In an era defined by precision-guided conflict, gray zone incursions, and orbital competition, the North requires integrated deterrence across all domains. The space domain is already decisive; Russia and China have launched dual-use satellites optimized for polar reconnaissance, while Canada’s surveillance constellation remains limited and aging. Cyberspace, too, is an active front. Persistent foreign probing of Canada’s critical Arctic infrastructure—from power grids to fiber lines—underscores the need for zero-trust architectures and sovereign cyber capacity hardened against both disinformation and sabotage. The air domain, often overshadowed, remains underutilized despite offering cost-effective ISR opportunities via high-altitude, long-endurance drones and balloon-based sensors that can supplement space assets in degraded environments.

Canada must approach the Arctic as a multi-domain region. Infrastructure nodes at Iqaluit, Yellowknife, and Inuvik must be conceived not as mere logistics hubs, but as permanent and staffed bases in a broader multi-domain lattice of deterrence. Airfields should be hardened, satellites shielded, networks encrypted, and data fused in real time. The resilience and infrastructure footprint must be multi-domain: ISR in orbit, radar on ice, seaborne logistics hubs, and hardened cyber networks. It might even be cheaper to establish and easier to maintain air-based sensors to augment space-based sensors, such as high-altitude, long-endurance drones and high-altitude balloons.

4. Missing the point that infrastructure spending enables both military and local resilience.

Canada’s policy frameworks fail to grasp a foundational truth: infrastructure is not ancillary to defence; it is defence. Roads, railways, hospitals, and power stations in the Arctic are bulwarks of resilience and lifelines to national unity. The harsh environment demands more than token outposts; it demands permanence that begins with infrastructure designed for both civilian and military pursuits.

Canada’s persistent underinvestment in Arctic infrastructure can be attributed largely to sticker shock. Building in the north is expensive at the outset, but those initial costs conceal long-term value. Roads, railways, and ports that facilitate the movement of Canadian forces and provide necessary infrastructure for local communities also enhance NATO mobility and resilience.

The Grays Bay Road and Port Project is unlikely to open before 2035. Until then, the Port of Churchill remains Canada’s only Arctic deepwater port for more than 106,000 miles of coastline—and even it is more than 800 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle. The overland situation is equally stark. The long-considered Mackenzie Valley Highway remains unbuilt. Meant to replace unreliable winter roads and connect remote Arctic communities, the highway should be considered as a defense artery.

Moreover, the North needs cyber towers as much as radar domes; fibre optic cables as much as sonar arrays. Schools and post-secondary institutions—anchored by Arctic research centres—should be erected alongside hardened military installations to attract families, not just forces. In Alaska, the dual-use success of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport provides a model: educational and aerospace ecosystems aligned with the broader security posture of the United States.

Still, there are signs of acceleration. The Department of National Defence has committed $230 million to extend the main runway at Inuvik Airport. The upgrades include modern lighting and arrestor systems—investments tailored for sustained military operations and a rare example of a concrete commitment in a domain often shaped by abstraction. Canada should build Arctic spaceports and drone launch facilities for persistent surveillance and communications dominance—assets that would likely qualify as defence expenditures under a broadened NATO definition. And that definition is evolving. With calls to raise the alliance-wide benchmark to five percent of GDP, the line between civil and military investment will blur. Forward-thinking allies are already redefining defence to include national resilience, critical infrastructure, and technological redundancy.

5. Failing to call out the need to achieve A2/AD capability.

Canada’s current Arctic strategy is more performative than purposeful. It remains anchored in rituals of presence rather than a doctrine of deterrence. The reasons are structural and cultural: A2/AD sounds too aggressive for a nation wedded to peacekeeping identity and constrained by intergovernmental jurisdictional frictions. But if Canada is to hold the Arctic, it must defend it—not merely inhabit it. That demands something Canada has never attempted: a comprehensive anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy adapted for the circumpolar battlespace.

A2/AD refers to the deployment of integrated capabilities that prevent an adversary from operating freely within a region. This includes long-range fires, persistent surveillance, advanced radar, cyber denial tools, hardened command-and-control infrastructure, and air and maritime denial platforms. Canada does not mention A2/AD in its Arctic lexicon because it fears what it implies: that the North is no longer a sanctuary but a frontier. Building an Arctic A2/AD network would require political will, sustained investment, and a strategic mindset that accepts confrontation as a precondition for sovereignty. It would also provoke diplomatic risk—Russia would label such a move provocative, and China would test the perimeter with gray-zone maneuvers masked as scientific exploration or commercial navigation. Yet the absence of such a posture risks far greater cost: a hollow sovereignty, subject to erosion by increments.

Investments in some areas do not amount to A2/AD. True, Canada’s $38.6-billion commitment over twenty years to modernize NORAD is substantial. If fully implemented, this would be the largest reinvestment in continental defense since the early Cold War. Arctic over-the-horizon radar systems will track threats from the US-Canada border to the Arctic Circle. A more powerful polar variant will extend coverage into the Arctic archipelago and beyond. Crossbow—a classified network of advanced sensors—will supplement these systems with real-time precision. And the Defence Enhanced Surveillance for Space (DESSP) project will allow space-based tracking of adversary launch and maneuver capabilities. Canada has partnered with Australia on a next-generation Arctic early-warning detection system. But even these investments are insufficient; they do not achieve A2/AD in the Arctic. Canada has ISR blind spots, insufficient logistical depth, and infrastructure degraded by thawing permafrost. RADARSAT’s capabilities are aging; the Northwest Passage is functionally unmonitored. There is no cruise missile defense layer.

A Canadian A2/AD architecture would extend ISR reach from geostationary orbit to the ocean floor. At its core: Over-the-Horizon Radar (AOTHR), high-altitude drones, and advanced satellite constellations fused via a hardened C4ISR backbone. Any credible A2/AD structure must project deterrence not only northward but outward via NORAD, integrating seamlessly with allied efforts across the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap and the European High North.

Challenge and opportunity

We recommend the following six steps to shape decision-making vis-à-vis Canada’s Arctic. Addressing each of them is necessary for more resilient supply chains and robust infrastructure for defense of the Canadian Arctic.

1. Achieve enduring domestic political consensus.

Without sustained, bipartisan consensus on the strategic value of the Arctic, Canada’s northern policy will remain fragmented, underfunded, and vulnerable to reversal.

Canada should establish a nonpartisan Arctic Strategy Council, drawing on members from federal, provincial, territorial, and Indigenous governments, as well as the private sector. This council could be modeled loosely on the United Kingdom’s National Security Council, with a standing mandate to oversee and report on Arctic development milestones.

To correct course, Parliament should adopt a minimum percentage of GDP for Arctic infrastructure and defense investments—similar to how NATO’s 2-percent defense spending benchmark frames national priorities. A 0.5-percent GDP floor specifically earmarked for Arctic readiness would send a powerful signal to allies, adversaries, and Canadians alike.

2. Build permanent bases and infrastructure.

Sovereignty requires presence. Canada cannot assert command over its northern territory while maintaining a transient, seasonal military posture.

Canada must develop at least two permanent Arctic bases by 2035 and reinforce the air infrastructures in Yellowknife. These installations should support multi-domain enablers: ground forces, drone squadrons, ISR satellites, and cyber defense detachments. One proposed location is Resolute Bay in Nunavut—a strategic logistics point halfway through the Northwest Passage. Another is Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories, where the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway provides ground access to the Beaufort Sea.

Canada need not sacrifice environmental stewardship to bolster its dual-use infrastructure in the region. On the contrary, the development of small modular reactors (SMRs) offers a way to meet energy needs in a sustainable and flexible manner. These compact, deployable energy systems would enable off-grid installations to power radar stations, bases, and airstrips—allowing the Canadian Armed Forces to operate autonomously across a vast and power-starved frontier.

Canada can and should discover best practices in other nations and adopt to the fullest extent possible. The Arctic Remote Energy Networks Academy is training a new generation in clean energy implementation, building the intellectual and technical foundation for sustainable Arctic energy systems. It is one example of innovation that can help make strides in the Arctic.

3. Reorient superclusters toward strategic innovation.

Canada’s innovation ecosystem is misaligned with its strategic realities.

To adapt, Canada must integrate Arctic operational challenges into supercluster mandates. The focus of these superclusters has strayed too far from core security imperatives, and redirecting their mandate toward the defense and security sector could allow Canada to reanimate its atrophied defense industrial base, stimulate Indigenous research and development, and provide a platform for strategic innovation drawn from academic and private-sector talent.

The Global Innovation Cluster for Advanced Manufacturing could sponsor development of modular Arctic housing for deployed forces. The Digital Technology Cluster could support remote communications networks hardened against magnetic interference. And the Protein Industries Cluster could help devise shelf-stable, high-calorie rations adapted to extreme environments.

Canada should establish a national challenge prize—modeled on the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge—to spur innovation in climate-resilient infrastructure, Arctic mobility, and remote power generation. Such efforts should be coordinated by a Defence Innovation Agency akin to the United Kingdom’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA), ensuring alignment between technological output and operational need.

4. Integrate civil-military infrastructure.

Canada must adopt a whole-of-society approach to Arctic logistics—one that erases the line between civilian and military use.

Every kilometer of highway, every meter of runway, and every watt of power grid must serve dual purposes. Similarly, the Grays Bay Road and Port Project, which aims to connect the rich mineral fields of western Nunavut with the Northwest Passage, must be prioritized for its economic benefits and geopolitical value. Its completion would give Canada a second deepwater Arctic port—an essential node for resupply, power projection, and emergency response.

Meanwhile, the feasibility of Arctic spaceports must be considered thoughtfully. With global competition accelerating in polar orbit surveillance, Canada’s geography is a latent advantage. Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are prime candidates for launching satellites into sun-synchronous and polar orbits, a domain critical for ISR.

5. Accelerate NORAD modernization and ISR integration.

Canada must modernize its Arctic surveillance and early-warning capabilities through the renewal of NORAD and deep integration of orbital, aerial, and terrestrial ISR platforms.

Canada must move decisively to modernize its contributions to NORAD and integrate a layered, multi-domain ISR architecture that meets the threats of the 21st century. The existing North Warning System (NWS)—a relic of the Cold War—is functionally obsolete. It is increasingly vulnerable to kinetic destruction, electronic warfare, and deception by adversaries leveraging hypersonic, low-flying, and space-enabled strike platforms. While Canada has acknowledged this through its stated commitment to over-the-horizon radar (OTHR) and new space-based capabilities, progress has been halting, piecemeal, and under-resourced.

Canada should fast-track its involvement in key pillars of NORAD modernization alongside the United States by:

Over-the-Horizon Radar (OTHR): Advance procurement and installation of Arctic-facing OTHR systems based in Labrador and Nunavut to create a persistent early-warning envelope stretching across the polar approaches. These systems must be hardened against electromagnetic disruption and integrated into NORAD’s command-and-control nodes in real time.
Ballistic Missile Defence and the Golden Dome: Canada must shed outdated policy inhibitions and join the continental Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) architecture. A Canadian contribution to a “Golden Dome” over North America—built on Aegis Ashore components, ship-based interceptors, and ground-based midcourse defence systems—would reinforce deterrence and mitigate the strategic vacuum currently inviting adversary escalation. Participation in the US Missile Defense Review and integration into layered BMD command structures should begin immediately.
Space and High-Altitude ISR: The integration of RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) assets with Gray Jay microsatellites must be complemented by investment in high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAVs, stratospheric balloons, and commercial space partnerships. Persistent polar orbit surveillance is not a luxury—it is the sinew of a sovereign Canadian deterrent.

A modern NORAD without a full Canadian partner is a NORAD weakened in scope, credibility, and political cohesion. In an age of hypersonics, space militarization, and AI-driven surveillance, Canada’s northern shield must be not just symbolic but steel-wrought—an active, intelligent barrier underpinned by the best minds and machines the alliance can field. The window to shape this future is closing fast. Canada must step forward now, not as a follower, but as a co-architect of North America’s defence.

6. Integrate the Arctic with broader national and allied defense postures.

Canada’s Arctic strategy must not be treated in isolation.

Canada must integrate its Arctic strategy into a broader, assertive national defence posture—one that acknowledges the indivisibility of Canadian sovereignty and its responsibilities as a G7 power. The Arctic is not a separate theatre, but the forward glacis of the North American fortress. What begins as radar coverage over Baffin Bay ends in deterrence posture from Vilnius to the Taiwan Strait. Canadian defence policy must therefore harmonize Arctic readiness with strategic power projection abroad, ensuring the nation can respond decisively to threats—whether they emerge from the Beaufort Sea, the Black Sea, or the South China Sea.

The Arctic remains critical—but it is not Canada’s only defence priority. A myopic focus on the North risks undermining broader global responsibilities. Canada must project credible force across multiple domains and theatres. That means integrating Arctic surveillance—through over-the-horizon radar, low Earth orbit satellite constellations, and AI-driven ISR—directly into NORAD’s early warning lattice. These capabilities must be interoperable with US Northern Command, NATO’s Arctic flank, and allied sensors in the Indo-Pacific. Surveillance is not enough; it must be paired with striking power and forward basing.

Strategic mobility and offensive reach are essential. Arctic airbases must be upgraded to sustain F-35 squadrons year-round, with rapid deployment capabilities for long-range precision fires and mobile expeditionary forces. Arctic-class naval platforms should anchor presence and power projection into contested waters, with the logistical depth to pivot between the Arctic archipelago and Pacific choke points. Canadian-built UAVs and high-altitude drones should patrol both the Northwest Passage and Western Pacific, forming a twin-hemisphere presence. Above all, Canada must act as a sovereign Arctic nation capable of defending its territory, while remaining a credible contributor to the rules-based international order. The Arctic is the crucible, but Canada’s responsibilities—and its enemies—do not stop at the pole.

Canada’s Arctic infrastructure and supply chain resilience are foundational components to its basic expression of sovereignty. But the future of the Arctic belongs to those who show up first and endure longest. The question is not whether Canada can afford Arctic sovereignty, but whether it can afford its absence.

About the authors

Jeff Reynolds is a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Kristen Taylor is an assistant director with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by the generous support of the Canada Mobilizing Insights in Defense and Security (MINDS) program.

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Hammes speaks about China’s maritime expansion on Midrats podcast

kwinzerwilks — Wed, 28 May 2025 15:13:53 +0000

On May 5, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow T.X. Hammes was a guest on the Midrats podcast. The episode, titled “China’s Overseas Bases & the Transition to War,” discusses how China continues to expand its ownership, access, and control of ports globally while simultaneously building the world’s largest navy and diverse set of military capabilities to defeat the US military in the Indo-Pacific.

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Hammes quoted in The Economist article on US shipment of ship-killer missiles to the Philippines

kwinzerwilks — Wed, 28 May 2025 14:52:38 +0000

On May 22, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow T.X. Hammes was quoted in The Economist in an article titled “America’s new ship-killer missiles come to the Philippines.” Hammes believes that the deployment of the short-range missile system will create uncertainty for China’s military leaders, enhancing US deterrence efforts in the region.

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Soofer’s report, “Strengthening Deterrence with SLCM-N,” quoted in Asia Times article

Atlantic Council — Tue, 27 May 2025 20:08:02 +0000

On May 13, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer was quoted in an Asia Times article titled, “US Navy wants sea-launched nuke missiles to hold China at bay.” The article cites his Atlantic Council issue brief, co-authored with John Harvey, “Strengthening Deterrence with SLCM-N.” The article references their argument that SLCM-N capabilities address “a US capability gap in response to the threat of limited nuclear employment.”

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British ambassador to the US: The UK must ‘become less dependent on America, while remaining inseparably linked’

Peter Mandelson — Tue, 27 May 2025 19:40:18 +0000

On May 27, Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the United States, spoke at this year’s edition of the Atlantic Council’s Christopher J. Makins Lecture, a series exploring the state of the Atlantic partnership and its future direction. The below is adapted from his opening speech, entitled “Renewing the Transatlantic Alliance: Peace Through Strength in a New Age of Great Power Rivalry.”

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The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson on Britain in an enduring transatlantic relationship

British Ambassador to the United States The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson speaks at the 2025 Christopher J. Makins lecture to discuss the significance of the transatlantic relationship during this unprecedented geopolitical period.

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Eighty years ago this month, the streets of Britain, America, and allied nations erupted in celebration at the fall of fascism in Europe.

For me personally, it’s a source of enormous pride that my grandfather, Herbert Morrison, served as home secretary in Winston Churchill’s wartime coalition.

He also served as deputy prime minister in Clement Attlee’s transformative postwar government in Britain. That government didn’t just support the formation of NATO to counter Soviet expansionism—they were the co-architects of it.

Amidst Cold War tensions and economic upheaval, Britain and America advanced from allies to integrated strategic partners at the dawn of the nuclear age, our scientists having joined forces in the Manhattan Project to create the advantage we had at the beginning of this age.

It was Western unity which ultimately ended the Cold War peacefully and demonstrated resilience to new threats, including the 9/11 attacks, where NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time.

Over eight decades, the foundations of collective defense have remained steadfast whilst the transatlantic relationship has continuously evolved and adapted to counter new challenges.

Today, I want to talk about the profound challenge we face in a new age of great power rivalry, a period characterized by political volatility, by economic mercantilism, and geopolitical competition.

We are witnessing the end of an era of hyper-globalization where we assumed that economic integration had made wars almost obsolete.

The logic seemed compelling: Mutual interests, integrated global supply chains, and shared economic stakes created too much to lose from warfare. History seemed to point only in one direction.

And those comfortable assumptions have been shattered.

We now see the rise of modern mercantilism, where nations prefer to prioritize national economic strength and autonomy in many respects.

States are intervening and playing a more protectionist role in managing trade and directing industrial policy to become ever more self-sufficient and localized.

I’m not declaring globalization dead, but it is being radically reconfigured around us.

China’s export-driven growth strategy flooded the global market with state-subsidized products, undercut Western manufacturing, and hollowed out industry.

The social disruption of rapid technological change, where, if you take media as an example, we have moved suddenly from decades of information flowing to people through established news organizations to a future where you only see “news” online that is curated to what you want to know, or what the algorithm—and those behind it—decides you want to know. And then there’s the backlash against globalization’s uneven distribution of benefits.

You can produce many different numbers to show the widening wealth disparities in the West over the past thirty years, but I would choose a simple one: GDP per capita in the United States has grown about 60 percent to 70 percent in real terms, but real median household income growth has been about 20 percent to 25 percent. The typical American household has not done as well as the booming US economy would suggest. A similar story holds true across all our countries in the West.

This has posed profound challenges to culture, place, and society—which too many of us over the past decades, frankly, have ignored. From the American Midwest to the coastal towns of England, a hands-off approach left many places adrift from the success stories of global cities such as London and New York.

And in a world which has often felt dominated by the exponential rise of social media, a sense of grievance—and of difference between us and them—has been amplified.

So yes, I credit President Trump’s acute political instincts in identifying the anxieties gripping not only millions of Americans, but also far more pervasive global trends: Economic stagnation, a sense of irreversible decline, the lost promise of meaningful work for so many people. These are the giants now that we must confront head-on.

So, where do we go next?

It is in no one’s interest—certainly not those of close allies—that each country pursues a wholly individualized path, which leads to accelerated economic fragmentation.

But if we are serious about rebuilding confidence in the international system, if we wish to maintain a set of common rules and standards—a shared economic and security commons in between us—we need to devote an enormous amount of energy and goodwill to preserve, sustain, and deepen the alliances which exist between like-minded countries.

For the UK and the rest of Europe, we must reboot the transatlantic alliance—indeed, a boot up the proverbial backside is needed now—to deliver peace through strength across three interconnected domains: military, economic, and technological.

For my generation, the twentieth-century gains in peace and prosperity were thought of as a European peace dividend.

I now recognize it as an urgent bill, that peace dividend: An urgent bill for decades of defense underinvestment—a payment that is long overdue.

We have lived in a fantasy created by the US security guarantee, complacent that a friendly heavyweight across the water would be always there when the going gets tough.

We meet in the shadow of Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, now in its fourth year.

The UK strongly supports President Trump’s initiative to bring this terrible war to an end. And we are working together with partners to secure a just and lasting peace.

The Ukraine conflict has served as a brutal wake-up call. State-on-state war has returned to Europe. Adversaries are using nuclear rhetoric to influence decision-making, and we are seeing regular attacks on European infrastructure beneath the threshold of warfare.

It is crystal clear that European defense must step up and rebalance for our collective security. Actually, I think President Trump is doing Europe a favor by confronting us with this reality.

The United States is the UK’s closest defense and security ally. We must become less dependent on America, while remaining inseparably linked to America—a distinction that I underline of critical importance. Yes, less dependent, but still inseparably linked.

Ukraine is just one flashpoint of many amid growing global instability. Even the US does not have limitless resources.

This is precisely why Britain must step up in providing for European security and why we have committed to the biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the Cold War.

We will become NATO’s fastest-innovating nation, ensuring our military forces have the technological and military capabilities to secure long-term strategic advantage, not just spending more, but spending better.

Of course, this all needs to be grounded in intelligent and effective strategic choices, not merely increased expenditure. Efficiency and innovation to renew our defense manufacturing bases must drive every pound, every dollar, and every euro that we invest.

And we will double down on our alliances. In defense, we will always be NATO first but not NATO only—and this is particularly true of the UK’s focus on the Indo-Pacific, as well as our new security partnership with Europe.

One good example is AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership with Australia and America, which will deliver advanced nuclear-powered submarines and catalyze technology sharing on other advanced capabilities.

Turning to the theme of economic strength, Britain now enjoys something that has eluded us for far too long: a government with both unity of purpose and longevity.

This government’s mandate and President Trump’s will both last for the next four years—providing huge opportunities for collaboration between us.

We are both pro-business and pro-trade in Britain, and committed to innovation, not as empty slogans but as practical imperatives.

This UK government is committed to creating the best investment environment with a regulatory reset that makes us the most competitive in Europe—that’s our aim.

One of the reasons we were able to close the first trade deal of the Trump administration is that our strong economic relationship between our countries is fair, balanced, and reciprocal. But also because, frankly, we are a businesslike nation with pragmatic instincts.

One of the great backhanded insults in British history was when Napoleon Bonaparte dismissed us as a mere “nation of shopkeepers.” He was right: Commerce is the lifeblood which flows through our veins, and that is one reason why we British and American cousins remain so close.

And that is also one reason why I see the current deal as the beginning of a new chapter as well as an end, in a sense, in itself. There is scope for an even more transformative stage in our long partnership. And I believe that centers on technology.

So let me address technological strength as the third. We face a clear, shared threat. There is nothing in this world I fear more than China winning the race for technological dominance in the coming decades.

China represents a far more dynamic and formidable strategic rival than the Soviet Union ever was: economically sophisticated, highly innovative, and strategically patient.

The United Kingdom and United States are the only two Western nations with trillion-dollar technology ecosystems combined with unparalleled talent and research capabilities in our universities and corporations.

We must combine forces, in my view, to drive the scientific breakthroughs that will define this century, and AI should be the spearpoint of that collaboration.

Artificial intelligence stands as the next great foundational technology. Through its power, we can rapidly make progress across so many frontiers of science: quantum, synthetic biology, medicine, nuclear fusion.

Rather than stifling these transformative technologies through excessive regulation, our two governments must unleash their immense potential for human benefit and Western advantage.

Let me say this in conclusion. In his immortal Iron Curtain speech, delivered in Missouri, Churchill spoke eloquently about the primacy of American power and its awesome responsibility to future generations.

Today, we face our own historical inflection point.

No one should doubt that we face accelerating global competition in which it is strongly in our interests to expand the perimeter of our alliances while deepening the transatlantic partnership at its core.

So our diplomacy must be more urgent, more agile, and more creative. We must deepen the political and military alliances which defined our past successes but also create new partnerships—borne in and of technology—which will redefine our future. The stakes could not be higher. The opportunities, actually, could not be greater. And I am confident that our two countries will indeed rise together to meet those challenges.

Peter Mandelson is the British ambassador to the United States.

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Eftimiades interviewed by NTD on Chinese espionage

Atlantic Council — Tue, 27 May 2025 15:06:19 +0000

On May 20, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Nicholas Eftimiades was interviewed by NTS News, in a segment entitled, “Former Intelligence Officer: China Leverages Entire Society for Intel.” With Tiffany Meier, Eftimiades discusses the Chinese Communist Party’s espionage strategy, pulling insights from his book, Chinese Intelligence Operations and Tactics.

Fellow

Nicholas Eftimiades

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Intelligence

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Murray in Politico Europe on Defense Finance in Europe

Atlantic Council — Mon, 26 May 2025 20:00:00 +0000

ORIGINAL sOURCE

On May 26, Rob Murray, non-resident senior fellow at Forward Defense and the Transatlantic Security Initiative, published a piece in Politico Europe on the proposed multilateral Defense, Security, and Resilience (DSR) Bank and the importance of defense financing mechanisms to boost European defense spending. Murray discussed the importance of the new Safety Action for Europe (SAFE) program and its potential benefits and argued for the creation of the DSR bank to help Europe achieve its security goals.

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Rob Murray

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

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Cole speaks about the role of fiction and narrative in current affairs on the Marine Corps Association Scuttlebutt podcast

kwinzerwilks — Tue, 20 May 2025 14:30:00 +0000

On May 15, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow August Cole was a featured guest on the Marine Corps Association podcast Scuttlebutt. In this episode, titled “Useful Fiction With August Cole From Modern Day Marine,” Cole discusses how asymmetric forces like fiction and narrative have an outsized impact on today’s battlefield.

Fellow

August Cole

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

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Amid India-Pakistan tensions, the US must rebalance its security priorities in South Asia

Srujan Palkar and Mrittika Guha Sarkar — Mon, 19 May 2025 17:46:36 +0000

This month’s escalation between India and Pakistan—the most severe since 1971—was more than a bilateral flashpoint. It revealed how international policy frameworks meant to deter crisis now primarily serve to defer it. India’s Operation Sindoor, launched in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, and Pakistan’s retaliatory Operation Bunyan Marsoos escalated into four days of missile and drone strikes, targeting airbases and civilian zones across both sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir. The conflict’s resolution was driven by a mix of battlefield calculations, intelligence warnings, and external diplomatic mediation—including renewed US attention.

Yet even as the United States expands strategic cooperation with India—publicly endorsing its counterterrorism priorities—it continues to extend Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA) status to Pakistan. This gives Pakistan a privileged military cooperation position under US law and eligibility for loans, agreements, and priority weapons delivery, along with closer ties to NATO countries’ military establishments—all without any preconditions or accountability on counterterrorism. This dual-track posture risks US credibility and incentivizes ambiguity over accountability. It sustains a structural pattern: provocation by militant actors, calibrated retaliation, and rapid external intervention—without a chance for any party to go to the root of the problems.

As such, the United States should pursue a conditional revocation of Pakistan’s MNNA status—suspending it while outlining concrete benchmarks for its restoration. Revoking Pakistan’s MNNA status would reinforce an ongoing recalibration in US regional policy—aligning security privileges with counterterrorism performance, encouraging institutional accountability within Pakistan, and acknowledging the growing weight of US-India strategic cooperation without foreclosing future engagement with Islamabad.

The US counterterrorism role in South Asia

For over two decades, US counterterrorism policy in South Asia has combined growing alignment with India and strategic privileges for Pakistan. This contradiction has normalized a repetitive cycle of terror attacks on India, targeted retaliation, and a US desire to be part of the solution but no institutional changes that could meaningfully shift the landscape.

To his credit, US President Donald Trump has worked toward effecting change—which was visible after India’s 2019 revocation of Article 370, which removed the Jammu and Kashmir region’s special constitutional status. The Trump administration refrained from public criticism of this move, framing it as a bilateral matter. Similarly, after the 2019 Pulwama attack, the United States condemned the terrorist act and urged Pakistan to dismantle terror infrastructure on its soil. The first Trump administration also played a pivotal role in maintaining Pakistan on the Financial Action Task Force grey list, pressuring Islamabad to act against terrorist financing networks.

The Trump administration’s endorsement of India’s strategic autonomy, especially in counterterrorism operations, marked a shift toward recognizing India’s capability to address its security challenges independently. India’s less formal and less codified designation as a Major Defense Partner (but not a MNNA) further underscored this approach. It resonates with Trump’s broader foreign policy doctrine, which favors burden-sharing and encourages allies to take greater responsibility for their defense. Ensuring a strategically autonomous India is not just a US interest, but a potential milestone achievement for Trump.

However, the most immediate obstacle is a US security policy that continues to privilege Pakistan’s military establishment. The Pahalgam attack occurred in close proximity to Vice President JD Vance’s visit to India, drawing historical parallels to the 2000 Chittisinghpura massacre, which took place hours before President Bill Clinton’s arrival. While causality is debatable, the recurrence of such timing highlights how extremist violence in the region can intersect with high-visibility diplomatic moments, complicating crisis management and signaling.

While confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan—such as the 1991 Agreement on Advance Notice of Military Exercises and the 2005 nuclear confidence-building measure framework—remain in place, they have proven insufficient during episodes of heightened tension. In recent crises, including in 2019 and 2025, India has kept key partners, including the United States, informed ahead of taking action to manage signaling risks and minimize escalation. Pakistan has also engaged international stakeholders, though typically only in the context of post-escalation outreach. These differing approaches to crisis communication carry implications for how third-party actors interpret intent and calibrate their response.

The contrasting diplomatic practices of India and Pakistan directly influence how external actors, particularly the United States, interpret each country’s intent and determine their diplomatic responses during crises. Given these differences in crisis management behavior, Washington’s continued extension of MNNA status to Pakistan without clear criteria related to counterterrorism or escalation management creates ambiguity. But US strategic designations like MNNA should periodically be reassessed and clearly linked to behaviors—such as transparency, proactive communication, and restraint—that concretely support regional stability.

Besides, Pakistan’s designation as an MNNA in 2004 was intended to anchor counterterrorism logistics during the US war in Afghanistan. With the war over and US dependence on Pakistani transit routes effectively ended, the core justification for Islamabad’s MNNA status has eroded. At the same time, China now accounts for over 70 percent of Pakistan’s arms imports, while US lawmakers—citing both strategic drift and insufficient counterterrorism compliance—have repeatedly questioned the designation’s utility. Rebalancing US priorities does not require substituting Pakistan with India but rather ensuring that strategic privileges reflect Washington’s current alignment—not legacy entitlements.

How the US can use its economic leverage

As a frequently used quip goes, “Most states have armies. In Pakistan, the army has a state.” That inversion isn’t rhetorical—it defines a structural barrier to Pakistan’s economic recovery. Through business entities such as the Fauji Foundation, Bahria Foundation, and Army Welfare Trust, the military retains a significant commercial presence across the banking, real estate, fertilizer, and logistics industries. While not unique among developing states, the scale and opacity of this role pose obstacles to reform. Repeated International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs have flagged structural issues—such as privatization bottlenecks, tax distortions, and subsidy burdens—as impediments to stabilization.

In fiscal year 2023, Pakistan’s debt servicing obligations absorbed over 80 percent of federal revenue, foreign exchange reserves fell below four billion dollars, and inflation peaked near 30 percent, though it has now eased to around 5 percent. These economic pressures sharply limit the policy options available to civilian leaders. The United States could more effectively support structural economic reforms in Pakistan by explicitly linking privileges—such as MNNA status—to concrete progress on economic governance and institutional accountability.

In this context, revoking MNNA would not rupture relations but reframe them around contemporary realities. The United States remains a key voice in international financial institutions and investment forums that shape Pakistan’s recovery path. From IMF conditionality to multilateral development flows, economic leverage is now the primary channel of influence. Rather than permanently revoking MNNA, Washington should set clear, achievable economic and governance benchmarks, creating a credible pathway for Islamabad to regain or enhance strategic privileges upon meeting certain standards.

Stability through strategic restraint and recalibration

The May 10 pause in fighting reflected a recalibration in South Asia’s strategic balance. Pakistan entered negotiations under mounting pressure: its military had sustained visible losses and continued escalation—while a one-billion-dollar tranche of IMF funding remained pending—threatened deeper fiscal and political instability.

India, in contrast, had secured a clear tactical upper hand through Operation Sindoor. Yet its swift endorsement of the cease-fire reflected strategic restraint. The decision allowed India to reinforce deterrence, bring the Indus Water Treaty to the renegotiation table, and redraw red lines. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statements that India “will not tolerate any nuclear blackmail” and “will not differentiate between the government sponsoring terrorism and the masterminds of terrorism” signals a new red line—in the instance of a repeat attack, India could target the Pakistani military in addition to terrorist camps.

To prevent similar escalations with these new red lines having been drawn, Washington must reassess the strategic benefits it extends in the region. Conditionally revoking Pakistan’s MNNA status would clarify that US defense privileges are tied to demonstrated counterterrorism cooperation and economic reform, rather than past strategic alignment. While some warn that this move could drive Pakistan closer to China, retaining MNNA status without accountability has already reduced US leverage. If the goal is influence, the United States should anchor its partnerships with conditionality—not ambiguity.

Srujan Palkar is the global India fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Mrittika Guha Sarkar is the India policy consultant at Horizon Engage.

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Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukrainian civilians must not go unpunished

Anastasiya Donets, Susan H. Farbstein — Thu, 15 May 2025 21:41:38 +0000

Editor’s note: This article was updated on May 16, 2025, to include additional context about different types of crimes against humanity.

While international attention focuses on the US-led effort to initiate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, Moscow is dramatically escalating its aerial attacks on Ukrainian civilians. During the first twenty-four days of April, for example, UN officials verified 848 civilian casualties due to Russian bombardments, representing a forty-six percent increase over the same period in 2024.

Russia’s aerial offensive is a daily feature of the war that aims to terrorize the civilian population and render large parts of Ukraine unlivable. By bombing cities and energy infrastructure, the Kremlin hopes to force millions of Ukrainians to flee the country and break the will of the remaining residents to resist. Any future peace deal that sidelines this reality and fails to hold Russia to account would erode international law and set a disastrous precedent for future armed conflicts.

For the past one and a half years, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School and the International Partnership for Human Rights have documented and analyzed Russia’s aerial attacks in Ukraine. This research is based on extensive fieldwork, witness interviews, open-source intelligence, and forensic analysis.

After reviewing hundreds of Russian drone and missile strikes, researchers narrowed the focus down to twenty-two key attacks and identified two patterns that illuminate their impact: Attacks on energy infrastructure and on densely populated areas. The legal memorandum resulting from this work concludes that Russia’s bombing campaign amounts to the crimes against humanity of extermination and persecution.

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For three consecutive winters, Russia has bombed Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in a bid to deprive the civilian population of access to heating and electricity at a time when the days are short and temperatures are typically well below freezing. These attacks have had a devastating impact on the Ukrainian power grid, with around half of Ukraine’s entire prewar energy-generating capacity destroyed by summer 2024.

As well as targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure, Russia has also launched waves of drones and missiles at Ukrainian towns and cities throughout the invasion, causing widespread destruction and loss of life. There have been a number of particularly deadly attacks in recent weeks, including a ballistic missile strike on a playground in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, Kryvyi Rih, that killed eighteen people including nine children. On Palm Sunday one week before Easter, Russia launched a targeted strike on Sumy city center as civilians made their way to church, leaving thirty-five dead.

In addition to killing and injuring civilians, Russian aerial attacks also create untenable living conditions for the wider civilian population. They leave people traumatized and fuel intense feelings of insecurity, while disrupting access to heating, power, water, healthcare, and other essential resources.

While estimating the true toll of these attacks is challenging, the number of displaced Ukrainians indicates the sheer scale of the humanitarian crisis. According to UN data from February 2025, Russian’s invasion has forced 10.6 million people to relocate, with 6.9 million recorded as refugees living outside Ukraine. Meanwhile, around 12.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, including nearly two million children.

Russia systematically and deliberately deprives civilians of objects essential to their survival and inflicts conditions of life calculated to bring about their destruction, which constitutes the crime against humanity of extermination. Statements by Russian officials, such as calls for Ukrainians to be left to “freeze and rot,” corroborate this conclusion.

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Russia’s aerial terror campaign, as well as the Kremlin’s actions in the occupied regions of Ukraine, have intentionally deprived Ukrainians of their fundamental rights to life, health, education, and culture, thus constituting the crime against humanity of persecution. The crime of persecution requires special discriminatory intent to target Ukrainians as a distinct group. This intent can be seen in Moscow’s branding of Ukrainians as “Nazis” who must be “destroyed.” such language underscores that Russia is attacking the very existence of Ukrainians. Targeted Russian attacks on educational and cultural facilities across Ukraine are further evidence of this intent.

Additionally, throughout the regions of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control, the Russian occupation authorities are reportedly enforcing russification policies that aim to extinguish any trace of Ukrainian national identity or statehood. Thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia and subjected to anti-Ukrainian indoctrination. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in relation to the large-scale deportation of Ukrainian children.

Holding Russia accountable for the ongoing air offensive against Ukraine is particularly important as this form of prohibited total war, where everything and anything including vital infrastructure and civilian populations are targeted to achieve victory, looks set to return. Technological advances are transforming the modern battlefield to essentially include entire countries and their civilian populations. Against this backdrop, Russia’s use of long-range drones and missiles to terrorize Ukrainian civilians is likely a taste of things to come.

To date, no international tribunal has held individual perpetrators responsible for international crimes resulting from unlawful aerial attacks. The International Criminal Court has taken an important initial step by issuing arrest warrants against four senior Russian officials for their roles in attacking Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure, but further measures are needed.

Failure to hold Russia accountable today will fuel tomorrow’s wars and embolden Putin’s fellow autocrats to embrace similar tactics against civilian populations. It is vital to make sure long-term security is not sacrificed in order to reach some kind of compromise with the Kremlin to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. By focusing on accountability for Russia’s aerial attacks, the international community can set a meaningful precedent that could help protect civilians around the world for years to come.

Anastasiya Donets leads the Ukraine Legal Team at the International Partnership for Human Rights, an independent non-governmental organization. She was previously an assistant professor in the International Law Department at Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University in Kharkiv. Susan H. Farbstein is a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School, where she directs the International Human Rights Clinic.

The stakes could not be higher. For Latvia and its Baltic neighbors, Russian aggression represents an existential threat. At the same time, a Russian attack on NATO’s eastern flank would quickly reverberate across the entire Alliance.

In response to these threats and changing security dynamics, Latvia should pursue three fundamental and interconnected strategic goals:

First, demonstrate political will: Latvia must demonstrate to allies in Washington and across Europe that it is maximizing its own defense capabilities and resilience, shouldering its share of the burden, and signaling unwavering commitment. It must then use that demonstration to harness the power of the Alliance for its national defense. Latvia’s defense budget hovered around 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014 when Russia first invaded Crimea. Its defense budget this year is set at about 3.65 percent, with announced plans to push it to 5 percent of GDP soon. Latvia needs to make up for lost time.
Second, generate sufficient capabilities: Riga needs to generate sufficient domestic defensive capabilities, integrated with NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroup, to realistically hold a defensive line against aggression long enough for decisive allied reinforcements to arrive. It needs to achieve a degree of deterrence by denial. This will require a significant Latvian military buildup.
Third, enhance societal resilience: Latvia must also project an undeniable national will, making it clear to Moscow that any aggression would face fierce, protracted, whole-of-society, and costly resistance. There can be no perception of Latvia as an easy target.

Achieving these goals demands immediate, focused action in Latvia, as well as a rallying of Riga’s NATO allies.

National defense priorities

Latvia should begin by making its comprehensive defense concept a nationwide reality. The 2018 adoption of this framework, which called for integrating civilian elements into national security, is its vital strength. Through this whole-of-society approach, Latvia has demonstrated ingenuity and cooperation. For example, Latvia’s municipalities and state companies collaborate to support armed forces mobility and counter-mobility efforts. Another example is the involvement of hunters in the national defense system—as a patriotic and armed part of society that can be integrated with the National Guard and tasked with support assignments. While these efforts are commendable, more must be done to ensure that civilian agencies, businesses, and citizens are actively integrated into national resilience and defense planning through practical taskings and drills. As comprehensive defense evolves into the reality of society, it demonstrates credible national will, complicates adversary planning, and builds the societal backbone needed to withstand pressure and deter aggression, including hybrid attacks from Russia.

Latvia must also maintain momentum and keep military modernization on track. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Latvia has significantly increased investment in conventional war-fighting capabilities. Riga’s commitment to acquiring advanced systems such as HIMARS rocket launchers, IRIS-T air-to-air missiles, and coastal defense missiles sends a vital message: the country is serious about bolstering deterrence by denial. However, acquiring advanced hardware is only part of the equation; Latvia must also ensure that these systems can be effectively commanded, supplied, and maintained during high-intensity conflict. This necessitates trained personnel and critical support elements, including robust command-and-control, resilient logistics, sufficient ammunition stockpiles, and effective maintenance infrastructure. Not all equipment needs to be expensive or high-tech. Land mines along the border that would channel an attack and swarms of low-cost drones can have dramatic results on the battlefield. Perhaps most important, Latvia must ensure that it can sustain combat operations beyond the initial phase, proving it possesses the national endurance required to hold the line until allied reinforcements arrive.

National resilience also requires forging a cohesive fighting force from diverse sources of manpower. In 2023, Latvia introduced a mandatory conscription policy called State Defense Service (SDS) to bolster recruitment. This policy of mandatory eleven-month service has shown early signs of success. Latvia is planning to enlist four thousand new recruits annually by 2028, and 40 percent of the 2024 intake opted for professional careers after their mandatory service. However, given Latvia’s demographics, active service alone cannot generate sufficient manpower; it must be complemented by a ready and responsive reserve system—one that currently requires significant overhaul. With SDS providing a new input stream, the reserve system must be adapted to effectively integrate these personnel and grow combat power over the long term. Latvia could add significantly to its manpower mobilization by combining professionals, the Home Guard, and SDS graduates, as well as by implementing dedicated reservist training and early military education. Current military plans envision 31,000 troops by 2029, plus an equally large reserve contingent thereafter. While this objective is sound, the current timeline appears misaligned with the potential speed of Russian force reconstitution. Latvia must confront substantial constraints, including the need for adequate infrastructure, qualified instructors, and innovative policies to drive recruitment and conduct training at the required scale and speed.

Furthermore, physical defenses require turning the Baltic Defense Line from a concept to a concrete plan. A fortified line across the Baltics, leveraging naturally difficult terrain, is a clear-headed and necessary response to the Russian threat. Correctly executed, it could effectively impede a potential incursion, buying time for national counteractions and allied mobilization. Fast-tracking construction, funding, and policy decisions will be crucial for realizing this critical barrier. Critically, forces must train to fight effectively from these prepared positions, integrating them fully into national and regional operational plans.

Finally, Latvia must ensure that it has the infrastructure to support military mobility and to provide host nation support. Latvia’s defense fundamentally relies on NATO allies arriving quickly and in force, requiring substantial investment in mobility infrastructure and support elements. Latvia must therefore proactively invest in and expand the critical infrastructure needed to receive, stage, and sustain large-scale allied forces. Short-term priorities include accelerating projects like the Liepāja military port and enhancing airfield capacity at Lielvārde airbase and Riga International Airport. Accelerating Rail Baltica’s military utility is also crucial, as it could fundamentally alter the capacity and speed of NATO reinforcements into the region.

Rallying allied support

While Latvia shoulders these critical domestic responsibilities, its security ultimately rests on robust collective defense and the tangible commitment of its allies. Latvia must advocate for specific actions from its NATO partners, recognizing that the window before Russia potentially reconstitutes its offensive capabilities is short. This diplomatic push requires urgency and clarity.

The place to begin is in Washington. All three Baltic states and Poland have essentially accepted US President Donald Trump’s challenge for allies to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense. This should be presented in a high-profile fashion to Trump during the NATO Summit in June. As part of this presentation, Latvia should urge Trump to continue hosting US forces in the Baltic region on a rotational basis and to augment those rotations with high-impact capabilities such as air and missile defense assets.

To deter Russia, NATO must strengthen its forward defense posture on the ground. Latvia should continue advocating for transforming the Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroup on its territory into a combat-credible forward defense force that expands on the full-time brigade and integrates it with national defense structures that match adversary military capabilities. Enhancing this forward defense by securing broader participation, particularly from a nuclear-armed European ally, would send a strong deterrent signal to Moscow.

This enhanced forward presence must be embedded within deeper, more integrated regional defense planning. Latvia, working closely with its neighbors, should champion the development of genuinely interlocking, all-domain defense plans within an enhanced Nordic-Baltic-Poland framework. This necessitates moving beyond interoperability exercises toward shared operational concepts and assigned responsibilities. This will help forge a more cohesive and resilient defense architecture in NATO’s northeast as part of the Alliance’s broader reinforcement strategy. Consequently, Latvia must be a vocal proponent of the regular, rigorous exercising and continuous streamlining of the supreme allied commander Europe’s reinforcement plans for the Baltic region. Identifying and resolving friction points, especially cross-border military mobility bottlenecks and logistical hurdles, requires sustained, collaborative effort with those allies designated to reinforce the region in a crisis.

Minimizing the time required for those reinforcements to arrive necessitates a concerted push to maximize the pre-positioning of allied military equipment and essential stocks within Latvia and the region. Reducing the lift requirement during a crisis by having equipment already in theater dramatically shortens response timelines, directly bolstering deterrence by showcasing NATO’s capacity for rapid, large-scale reaction.

Lastly, building on a deep-seated relationship, the Baltic states must treat strengthening security cooperation with Ukraine as a long-term strategic imperative. Currently, Kyiv’s resolute defense delivers immediate dividends by tying down significant Russian forces and offering invaluable, hard-earned combat lessons. For the Baltic states, a battle-hardened ally such as Ukraine can be a substantial security and defense contributor to the region. If Russia were to test NATO’s defense capabilities on its eastern flank, the prospect of Ukraine joining the fight would dramatically expand Moscow’s theater of operations.

Latvia has a brief respite as Russian troops are worn down in Ukraine, but it will take little time for Russia to reconstitute its conventional forces. Latvia must use this window to create a more favorable defense environment. At home, it must rapidly build up its defense capacity and resilience. Abroad, it needs to assure a continued US commitment to its defense, generate a greater NATO forward presence on its soil, and deepen regional integration. It also needs to refine reinforcement mechanisms and maximize pre-positioning. Convincing allies to commit the necessary political will and resources before Russia regains its strength is the most critical security task facing Riga and its regional partners.

Armands Astukevičs is a researcher at the Centre for East European Policy Studies. His primary research focuses on the Baltic states’ defense and security, as well as the foreign and security policies of Russia and Belarus. Previously, he worked on policy analysis and planning at the Latvian Ministry of Defence, focusing on crisis management and comprehensive national defence issues.

Hans Binnendijk is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He previously served in several senior US government positions, including special assistant to the president for defense policy, principal deputy director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, and director of the Institute for National Security Studies.

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Drone superpower: Ukrainian wartime innovation offers lessons for NATO

David Kirichenko — Tue, 13 May 2025 21:10:46 +0000

Ever since the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine eleven years ago, military training has been a core element of Western support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. As Moscow’s invasion has escalated into the largest European war since World War II, the relationship between Ukraine and the country’s partners has become much more of a two-way street. While Ukrainian troops continue to train with Western instructors, it is now increasingly apparent that NATO also has a lot to learn from Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military has evolved dramatically during the past three years of full-scale war against Russia to become the largest and most effective fighting force in Europe. Innovation has played a key role in this process, with Ukraine relying on the country’s vibrant tech sector and traditionally strong defense industry to counter Russia’s overwhelming advantages in terms of both manpower and firepower. This has resulted in an army capable of developing and implementing the latest military technologies at speeds that are unmatched by any Western countries with their far more bureaucratic procurement cycles.

Ukraine’s innovative approach to defense is most immediately obvious in the country’s ability to produce and deploy a wide variety of drones. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the experience of the Ukrainian army has underlined the growing dominance of drones on the modern battlefield, and has redefined our understanding of drone warfare in ways that will shape military doctrines around the world for many years to come.

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The most important tools in Ukraine’s unmanned arsenal are the country’s growing fleet of First Person View (FPV) drones. These drones in many ways function as the infantry of drone warfare. They have become a central pillar of Ukraine’s war effort, inflicting up to 80 percent of Russian battlefield casualties and making it possible to hold the line even when Ukrainian troops have found themselves starved of artillery shells.

Ukrainian production of FPV drones has mushroomed in recent years, with domestic companies also gradually moving away from an initial reliance on imported components. By early 2025, Ukraine was reportedly producing 200,000 FPV drones per month. Cheap to manufacture, they are capable of destroying tanks and other military equipment worth millions of dollars.

Russia is also relentlessly adapting to technological changes on the battlefield, creating a daily race to innovate that runs in parallel to the actual fighting on the front lines of the war. The dominance of FPV drones has led to a variety of countermeasures, ranging from the widespread use of netting and so-called “cope cages,” to increasingly sophisticated electronic blocking and the jamming of signals. In response, both Russia and Ukraine are turning to fiber optic drones that are not susceptible to jamming technologies.

As the full-scale war approaches a fourth summer, the evolution of drone tactics continues. Over the past year, Ukraine has sought to establish a 15-kilometer kill zone patrolled by drones along the front lines of the conflict, making it extremely challenging to concentrate troops for major offensive operations. The strength of Ukraine’s so-called “drone wall” defenses will be severely tested in the coming few months by Russia’s ongoing offensive. Building on Ukraine’s experience, NATO is reportedly exploring the idea of creating a “drone wall” of its own on the alliance’s eastern flank.

Beyond the front lines, Ukraine has developed an expanding fleet of long-range drones capable of striking targets deep inside Russia. This has made it possible to carry out a wide range of attacks on Russian military bases, ammunition storage facilities, air defenses, and Putin’s economically vital but vulnerable oil and gas industry. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called the country’s growing long range capabilities “a clear and effective guarantee of Ukraine’s security.”

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Ukrainian drone innovations are also transforming naval warfare. During the first two years of the war, Ukraine used marine drones to target Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, sinking or damaging multiple warships and forcing the remainder to retreat from Russian-occupied Crimea. This remarkable success made it possible to lift the naval blockade on Ukrainian ports and reopen commercial maritime routes, providing Kyiv with a vital economic lifeline.

More recently, Ukraine has begun using naval drones as launch platforms for missiles and smaller unmanned systems. The results have been spectacular. In January 2025, missile-armed Ukrainian naval drones reportedly destroyed several Russian helicopters over the Black Sea. In another world first, Ukrainian officials announced in early May that they had shot down two Russian fighter jets using marine drones equipped with anti-aircraft missile systems.

Ukrainian military planners are now working on a range of unmanned ground systems as they look to take drone warfare to the next level. With support from the country’s government-backed defense tech cluster Brave1, work is underway to develop dozens of robotic models capable of performing a variety of combat and logistical tasks. In December 2024, Ukrainian forces claimed to have made history by conducting the world’s first fully unmanned assault on Russian positions using ground-based robotic systems and FPV drones.

Speaking in April 2025, Ukraine’s former commander in chief Valeriy Zaluzhniy underlined how his country’s use of new technologies was transforming the battlefield. “The Russian-Ukrainian War has completely changed the nature of warfare,” he commented. Zaluzhniy predicted that the wars of the future would be won by countries that focus their resources on the development of drones, electronic warfare, and artificial intelligence. “It is obvious that victory on the battlefield now depends entirely on the ability to outpace the enemy in technological development,” he noted.

Western leaders and military commanders are clearly taking note of the remarkable progress made by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2022. Many are now incorporating Ukraine’s unique battlefield experience into their own programs, while NATO members including Britain and Denmark are reportedly already receiving training in drone warfare from Ukrainian military instructors. This is likely to be just the beginning, as more countries seek to benefit from Ukrainian expertise.

For many years, it has been customary to view Ukraine as being almost entirely dependent on Western aid and know-how for its survival. This was always an oversimplification; it is now hopelessly outdated. In reality, today’s Ukraine is a drone superpower with an innovative domestic defense industry that can provide its NATO allies with important lessons in the realities of twenty-first century warfare.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

August Cole

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

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Starling-Daniels and Luetkefend quoted in WMAL article titled “In Great Power Competition, Special Ops to Play Key Role”

kwinzerwilks — Tue, 13 May 2025 19:04:43 +0000

Director, Forward Defense

On May 3, Forward Defense director Clementine Starling-Daniels and assistant director Theresa Luetkefend were quoted in a WMAL article titled “In Great Power Competition, Special Ops to Play Key Role.” The article highlights their argument that, after two decades primarily focused on counterterrorism and direct-action missions during the Global War on Terror, today’s peer and near-peer competition demands a broader application of US special operations forces’ core activities.

Staff

Clementine G. Starling-Daniels

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Security & Defense NATO

Staff

Theresa Luetkefend

Assistant Director

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy German

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The 2025 Distinguished Leadership Awards: Honoring leaders who demonstrate ‘the true meaning of bravery and service’

Atlantic Council — Fri, 09 May 2025 03:12:51 +0000

“Tonight, we are gathered not only to celebrate global leadership, but to honor extraordinary courage,” said Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe at the Distinguished Leadership Awards in Washington, DC, on Thursday. “The kind that changes the course of history and reminds us all of the true meaning of bravery and service.”

Before a crowd of high-level attendees from government, business, the military, civil society, and the media, the Atlantic Council honored six leaders who have shown such courage through their service, leadership, and activism.

Stephen Hadley, a former US national security advisor and an executive vice chair of the Atlantic Council’s Board of Directors, was honored for his decades of public service across three US administrations. 

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković was recognized for his efforts to advance Croatia’s economic development and his role in advancing the country’s accession to the European Union.

General (ret.) John W. “Jay” Raymond was honored for his pioneering role as the first chief of space operations for the US Space Force.

Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist who founded EastOne, YES, and the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, was awarded for his support for Ukrainian soldiers and civil society since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Judy Collins, a Grammy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated singer and songwriter, was honored for her work promoting mental health awareness, civil rights, and environmental conservation. 

The final honorees of the evening were Ukrainian war heroes and veterans who have risked their lives to defend their country’s sovereignty and freedom from Russian aggression.

“Seldom has so much been at stake for the liberties and the collective interests of people and cultures and countries everywhere,” said Atlantic Council Chairman John F.W. Rogers. “Against this backdrop, the Atlantic Council continues its commitment to meet these challenges of the moment and to help chart a path forward.”

Below are more highlights from the ceremony. 

Judy Collins: “Music is, I think, the heart of most things in life”

Introducing Collins, Atlantic Council Executive Vice Chair Adrienne Arsht said that in addition to her decades-spanning career as a singer and songwriter, “her artistry extends far beyond the stage and the recording studio,” citing her mental health awareness and environmental advocacy.

Arsht said that Collins was “an outstanding humanitarian” defined not only by her “unmistakable voice,” but also her “unwavering compassion.”

“In this room,” Collins said, “there is so much energy, and so much intelligence, and so much vision. And I’m sure we can solve these things that are going on in the world.”

“Music, is, I think the heart of most things in life,” said Collins. “We have work to do, we have celebrations to make, and music helps us to do it.”

After accepting the Distinguished Artistic Leadership Award, she performed the Stephen Sondheim song “Send in the Clowns,” which was a Billboard-charting hit for Collins in 1975.

Stephen J. Hadley: “Don’t turn your back on those principles that gave us eighty years of peace and prosperity.”

“When the United States does not lead, either nothing happens or bad things happen,” said Hadley in a discussion with Rogers on the United States’ role in the world after accepting the Distinguished Service Award. “And I think this is a lesson that’s been lost on the American people.”

“If you want to really advance the peace, prosperity, safety, and security of the American people,” said Hadley, “you need a strategy. You need to define what you want, how you’re going to get there. Otherwise, you’re going to flounder.”

Noting that there are many US government agencies and departments that work on foreign policy, Hadley emphasized the importance of getting them to coordinate and cooperate toward the same objectives. “Good process does not dictate good policy,” he said, “but good policy is harder to achieve without good process.”

“You need to take the time to build a bipartisan support for foreign policy initiatives,” Hadley said, to ensure that they “last across administrations and so they can stay in place long enough to produce the results that they’re intended to produce.”

Hadley called the debate over whether the United States should pursue its values or its interests abroad “a false choice.” Advancing US values, he said “makes a world that is more congenial to American interests and is more congenial to the prosperity, security, and safety of the American people.”

Addressing policymakers who take a more transactional and less values-based view of US foreign policy interests, Hadley said: “Don’t turn your back on those principles that gave us eighty years of peace and prosperity. There’s a lot still relevant here today.”

In a pre-recorded video message, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who served with Hadley during the George W. Bush administration, praised Hadley for serving with a “steady hand” and a “complete commitment” to the United States’ role abroad, as well as for carrying out US policies with “principle and with values at the center of them.”

Andrej Plenković: “We remain committed to preserving the transatlantic bond”

Plenković, receiving the Distinguished International Leadership Award, said his nine years in office have been “shaped by a growing number of global crises,” as “governing today is no longer a matter of routine decision-making—it is an ongoing exercise in resilience and crisis management.”

Plenković described his government’s “vision” as making Croatia stand among the “most advanced, stable, and prosperous nations,” but noted that the country’s path to this goal “has not been easy.”

Croatia began this journey “from the ashes of war and destruction” in the early 1990s, he said, but the country’s “determination was forged” in this difficult past.

“Croatia, as a committed transatlantic ally, will continue to stand with America,” Plenković said. He told of influential Croats who made their mark in the United States, including Medal of Honor recipient Peter Tomich, winemaker Mike Grgich, oil explorer Anthony Lucas, sculptor Ivan Meštrović, and inventor Nikola Tesla.

Together, he said, the United States and Croatia are “committed to preserving the transatlantic bond as the cornerstone of a free and democratic world.”

“Anything less,” said Plenković, would “weaken both Europe and the United States and only embolden those who challenge our shared values. This truth holds in Ukraine today, as it did in Croatia in the ‘90s, and wherever freedom is under threat.”

In his introductory remarks, former Colombian President Andrés Pastrana Arango praised Plenković for bringing “continuity, stability, and a clear strategic vision” to Croatia, citing the country’s recent accession to the Schengen Area and strong economic growth.

John W. Raymond: “To effectively operate in the space domain we must have global partners”

In accepting the Distinguished Military Leadership Award, Raymond said that it was in recognition of “the nearly sixteen thousand civilian and military guardians” who volunteered to join the US Space Force after it was established in 2019, adding that because of their service “our nation and our allies are better postured to meet the incredibly complex strategic environment that we face.”

“To effectively operate in the space domain, we must have global partners,” said Raymond, noting that the Space Force expanded Combined Space Operations to include Five Eyes members as well as other allies and partners and has strengthened its ties with NATO.

The force has also partnered with the US commercial space industry, which Raymond said “provides us and our allies and partners great advantage.”

Noting that US war plans “are all sized assuming we have access to space,” Raymond warned that given the threats being developed by US adversaries, “this is a flawed assumption. We no longer have the luxury of taking space for granted.”

Amid these growing threats, Raymond said that space capabilities can enhance overall deterrence and that “if we can successfully deter conflict from beginning or extending into space, then we have a chance of deterring conflict from spilling over into other domains.” The space domain, he said, “represents our best hope.”

Raymond was introduced by former House Armed Services Committee Chairman William “Mac” Thornberry, a major advocate for the Space Force’s establishment. Thornberry said Raymond’s early precedent-setting moves for the Space Force “set the new service on a path that grows more crucial and also more contested every moment.”

Victor Pinchuk: “Security guarantees are vital”

Pinchuk said that on first learning he would be honored with the Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership Award, he thought to himself that “this is the wrong time for a Ukrainian businessman to get an award” given the continued suffering of the Ukrainian people during wartime.

However, he concluded that “if I go to Washington, I can be useful,” as this would allow him to speak to a US audience about “Ukrainian heroes” fighting against Russia, “express our deep gratitude to the United States” for military assistance, and emphasize the importance of a security guarantee for a lasting peace in Ukraine.

Pinchuk highlighted the bravery of two Ukrainian veterans in the audience. Dmytro Finashyn, he noted, lost his arm in combat but returned to service first as an intelligence officer and then as an adviser to the interior minister on veterans’ affairs. Liudmyla Meniuk, Pinchuk told the audience, joined the army at age fifty-two after her son was killed in the war, later becoming the first Ukrainian woman to lead an armored unit.

Pinchuk said he was grateful to the United States for its support for Kyiv and thanked US President Donald Trump for recently authorizing a weapons sale to Ukraine. He called the US-Ukraine minerals deal “momentous,” adding that he called it the “Minerals for Peace Accord.”

“Ukrainians understand, an end to the war now is possible only in a not perfect way,” he said, adding that no one would be completely satisfied with the peace settlement and that “some goals maybe will take many years to achieve.”

However, Pinchuk emphasized that when Russian leaders speak of addressing the “root cause” of the war in negotiations, what they mean is “the existence of Ukraine” as a free and democratic country with the rule of law. “It is the ‘mistake’ of the existence of Ukraine that our enemy wants to ‘address,’ which means—remove, delete, annihilate.”

“This is why security guarantees are vital,” said Pinchuk. “And nobody in the world can imagine such guarantees” without the participation of the United States, he said.

“Victor is truly Ukraine’s renaissance man,” said David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, while introducing Pinchuk. Rubenstein commended him for his philanthropic work helping Ukraine, which since Russia’s full-scale invasion has included the creation of programs that operate rehabilitation centers for wounded Ukrainian veterans and provide mental health services to returning soldiers.

Ukrainian war heroes and veterans

Speaking on behalf of the delegation of nine Ukrainian soldiers and veterans being honored for their service, Daniel Salem thanked the United States for its “crucial support” for his country’s war effort.
“The cancer—the second name for war—spreads beyond the Russian-Ukraine war,” Salem said. “It spreads all over the world.”
“The people that you see in front of you are representative of a strong nation, like yours,” Salem told the audience. “An honorable nation, like yours. People with dreams, as you do have dreams. And we all know that in the way of achieving your dreams you must apply discipline, commitment, consistency. Because without commitment, you don’t know how to start, and without consistency we won’t know how to finish.”
Ukraine, Salem said, had already proven “that we are the home of the brave.” With US help, he added, Ukraine will be able to say it is “the land of the free.”

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Is Merz’s double-take chancellor vote a sign of things to come in Germany?

Jörn Fleck and Jurek Wille — Tue, 06 May 2025 19:59:39 +0000

After an Odyssean, two-decade journey, Friedrich Merz has arrived as Germany’s tenth chancellor. But instead of the expected Krönung, a coronation, members of the Bundestag gave him a shot across the bow on Tuesday. For the first time in modern German history, it took two rounds of voting to elect a chancellor. This, of course, is not fatal for Merz, but this short-lived saga shows that political instability in Europe’s largest economy and reluctant hegemon may not be over, despite Merz’s promises to the contrary. The next government is taking office weakened at a time when Germany and Europe can least afford it.

In the first vote, Merz missed the required support of 316 members of the Bundestag by just six votes, although the coalition of Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) theoretically holds a slim majority of 328 in parliament. In the second round, Merz received 325 votes. Dissent is not unusual among coalition parties, of course. Dozens of members of the Bundestag refused to vote for Chancellor Angela Merkel in years past, too. The current coalition, however, promised to restore Germany’s predictability and credibility in Europe, a promise that has taken some damage now.

It may be impossible to figure out why Merz lost those votes in the first round. Members of the Bundestag elect the chancellor in a secret ballot. The fact that he is a polarizing figure, however, was well known beforehand. Shortly after winning the snap elections in February, some in the SPD and even the CDU/CSU began to question whether Merz had what it takes to be chancellor. On the SPD’s side, many were annoyed by the personal attacks against outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the CDU’s anti-migration campaign. In particular, young, left-leaning members of the SPD’s Bundestag group may have felt sidelined by Lars Klingbeil, the SPD’s co-chairman and Merz’s designated vice chancellor, and some of them may have withheld their support for Merz in the first round.

This will not go unnoticed in Moscow, Beijing, or Washington.

The euphoria surrounding Merz was also muted in his own party. Some conservatives criticized Merz for doing an about face on central campaign promises, including his push for a massive special fund for infrastructure and debt brake reforms even before he entered office. Some moderate party members were apparently displeased by Merz’s populist style and fierce criticism of Merkel. Many felt he gave up too much ground on critical CDU issues in the coalition negotiations. The question is whether those members of parliament who voted against Merz in the first round simply meant to send a warning shot or whether the resistance is more deep-seated. If it is the latter, then it could destabilize the government every time controversial issues and complex compromise deals are up for a vote.

Germany’s incoming foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, described the day’s voting as “an obstacle, but not a catastrophe.” That is true, but the unexpected first-round defeat will affect how many Germans and foreign capitals view Merz and his coalition.

Merz promised to govern with professionalism and strength, to reassure markets, and assume the international leadership necessary for navigating current crises. On Monday, upon presenting the signed coalition agreement, Merz tried to project that strength, saying “this government is determined to move Germany forward through reforms and investments.” He added that Germany’s voice would be “heard in Europe and the world.” Instead, Tuesday’s vote and the dissension against Merz from his own ranks suggests Germany’s next leadership will continue to struggle with fragility, division, and indecisiveness. This will not go unnoticed in Moscow, Beijing, or Washington. Markets took note as well; the DAX 40 fell on news of the first vote, only to claw back most of its losses following the second vote.

The concern is that Tuesday’s votes may be a sign of things to come for the coalition’s ability to drive difficult reforms. More to the point, it raises questions of trust between the chancellor and his vice chancellor. Merz and Klingbeil displayed a united front in recent weeks, but they have shown that they are not in full control of their parliamentary groups. Both parties have already blamed each other publicly, and the coalition peace has become passé on day one, pointing to rocky years ahead.

At best, this is a blip, soon to be forgotten as Merz takes over the chancellorship. He will certainly try to frame it as such when he visits his counterparts in France and Poland on Wednesday. But at worst, an uncertain majority in parliament means Merz and the government risk becoming a lame duck immediately. This is bad news for Europe, which needs unity and strength to avoid paralysis on critical issues, including a potential transatlantic trade war and a much-needed European response to the war in Ukraine. Much will depend on Germany’s defense spending, its leadership in Europe, and its relationship with China.

One risk is clear: the next government will have the weakest mandate in modern history at a moment when strength is needed the most, and the instability of previous years could continue, to the detriment of Germany and Europe.

Merz should quickly move beyond Tuesday’s embarrassing start and keep his focus on what comes next. “The most important thing for me is that ten years from now, we are still a country that enjoys freedom and peace,” Merz said in his first interview as chancellor. “But freedom and peace are in danger,” he warned. His first priority, he added, would be to restore both. Merz also said that his government will move swiftly to address deep structural changes the economy is undergoing and restore its industrial power. But after Tuesday’s events, Merz must provide more concrete, ambitious measures to reassure markets and allies that he can govern with a more stable hand than his predecessor. Merz can reassert himself on foreign and security policy, on which the coalition agreement remained unexpectedly thin, with a joint Franco-German-Polish initiative in support of Ukraine, for example. A quick-action agenda for the first hundred days, driving forward the coalition’s, Leuchtturmprojekte, or key “lighthouse” initiatives, can restore confidence that German leadership is back under Merz. This way, it is not the start of the new government that is remembered but its subsequent successes.

Jörn Fleck is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Jurek Wille is a student of international relations at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Before joining SAIS, he worked for the German government.

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Final Report of the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare featured in Air & Space Forces Magazine

Atlantic Council — Mon, 05 May 2025 19:00:00 +0000

On May 5, Shaun Waterman of Air & Space Forces Magazine published an article highlighting Forward Defense‘s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare final report. The article focused on the impacts of Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s March 6 memo on software-defined warfare and software acquisition pathways. This piece quoted Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow and Commission on Software-Defined Warfare co-author Tate Nurkin‘s remarks made at the Commission’s final report launch event on personnel training at the Pentagon.

Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare aims to digitally transform the armed forces for success in future battlefields. Comprised of a distinguished group of subject-matter and industry commissioners, the Commission has developed a framework to enhance US and allied forces through emergent digital capabilities.

Learn More

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Hinote and Parker in Breaking Defense on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare

Atlantic Council — Fri, 02 May 2025 16:00:00 +0000

On May 2, Breaking Defense published an article by retired Lt Gen Clinton Hinote and Nathan Parker, Commissioners on Forward Defense‘s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, emphasizing the urgent need for the Department of Defense to prioritize agile, testable software development practices. Drawing on findings from the Commission’s final report, the authors argue that software is now a decisive element in military advantage and call for immediate cultural and institutional shifts within the Pentagon to meet this strategic imperative.

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Putin confirms North Korean troops are fighting for Russia against Ukraine

Olivia Yanchik — Thu, 01 May 2025 20:43:55 +0000

More than six months after the story was first reported, Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially confirmed the presence of North Korean troops in Russia’s war against Ukraine. “We will always honor the Korean heroes who gave their lives for Russia, for our common freedom, on an equal basis with their Russian brothers in arms,” he commented on April 27.

Putin’s announcement was mirrored by similar official confirmation from the North Korean side. Pyongyang praised the “heroic feats” of North Korean troops fighting alongside the Russian army in a front page article published by the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper last weekend.

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Claims of North Korean troops participating in Russia’s war against Ukraine first began to circulate in October 2024. However, the Kremlin initially denied the North Korean presence, with Russian officials remaining tight-lipped on the subject until late April.

Moscow and Pyongyang appear to have coordinated their recent statements, indicating that both partners felt the time was now right to confirm the involvement of North Korean forces in Russia’s war. Official confirmation came as Putin proclaimed the defeat of Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region, where the bulk of North Korean soldiers are believed to have been deployed.

Moscow’s decision to confirm the presence of North Korean soldiers after months of denials could prove damaging to the Kremlin’s credibility at a time when questions are already being asked over Russia’s commitment to US-led peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. In recent days, US President Donald Trump has signaled his mounting frustration with Putin’s apparent stalling tactics, and has suggested that the Russian leader may be “tapping” him along.

The appearance of North Korean troops alongside their Russian counterparts on the front lines of the war against Ukraine represents the latest stage in a deepening military alliance between the two countries. North Korea has been supplying Russia with significant quantities of military aid since the early stages of the war in 2022. Deliveries have included millions of artillery shells as well as ballistic missiles, which have been used to devastating effect against Ukrainian cities.

Eurasia Center events

Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

North Korea’s direct participation in the war against Ukraine is a watershed moment in modern European history. It is also widely seen an indication of the Russian army’s mounting recruitment issues.

While the Kremlin still has vast untapped reserves of available manpower to call upon, Putin is thought to be deeply reluctant to conduct a new mobilization due to fears of a possible domestic backlash inside Russia. This is making it increasingly challenging to replenish the depleted ranks of his invading army amid continued heavy losses.

For much of the war, Putin has relied on a combination of recruits drawn from Russia’s prison population and volunteer soldiers attracted by generous financial incentives that are typically many times higher than average Russian salaries. However, with the Russian army now reportedly averaging over a thousand casualties per day, it is becoming more difficult to find sufficient manpower to maintain the momentum of offensive operations in Ukraine.

So far, the North Korean contingent has seen action inside the Russian Federation itself amid fierce battles to push Ukrainian forces out of Russia’s Kursk region. However, with their participation now publicly confirmed by both Moscow and Pyongyang, officials in Kyiv are voicing concerns that North Korean troops could soon be redeployed to Ukrainian territory. This would represent a dangerous international escalation with unpredictable consequences for the wider region.

North Korea has now firmly established itself as one of the Kremlin’s most important allies in the invasion of Ukraine. Pyongyang’s involvement began with the supply of artillery shells and has expanded to include ballistic missiles and large numbers of combat troops. This comprehensive military support is enabling Russia to sustain the current war effort.

Ukraine’s allies are still searching for a suitable reaction to the expanding North Korean military presence on Europe’s eastern frontier. Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called for the strengthening of sanctions against Russia and North Korea, while also warning that the Koreans are gaining valuable experience of modern warfare in Ukraine that could have grave implications for international security. In the absence of an overwhelming Western response, it seems safe to assume that North Korea’s involvement in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue to deepen.

Olivia Yanchik is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Talk big, fund small

The biggest casualty of flat budgets is modernization. Of the $6.1 billion increase under the FY 2025 continuing resolution, more than $5.6 billion is consumed by rising personnel costs—including a 4.5 percent military pay raise and a 10 percent bump for junior enlisted. While these expenses are core to sustaining force readiness and quality of life for junior enlisted military personnel, they leave scant room for investment in next-generation weapon systems, shipbuilding, and advanced technology—all of which are needed to counter and deter future global threats.

Moreover, modernization and procurement budgets took hits in the latest continuing resolution—down $7.1 billion and $4.6 billion, respectively, compared to FY 2024. This isn’t a future-proofing strategy. It’s triage. And it reinforces a hard truth: the Pentagon is being forced to choose between readiness now and capabilities tomorrow.

As a result of this approach by Congress, a chasm has emerged between what the Pentagon says it needs and what Congress has been able to fund. Even with increased flexibilities granted under this continuing resolution, including fewer restrictions on program-level spending, the Pentagon cannot modernize on cruise control without deliberate and sustained investment. Without real growth in the defense topline, any flexibility becomes a license to reshuffle limited dollars, not expand capabilities.

Strategic signals, budget headwinds

Additionally, the Trump administration’s early moves—deployments to the southern border and near the Panama Canal, counter-narcotics operations, and a reorientation of posture toward homeland defense and regional security initiatives—highlight a shift in defense priorities. But these actions are being underwritten by a budget that isn’t built for strategic transformation.

This spring, the Trump administration’s FY 2026 request is expected to better reflect the new administration’s priorities, since the current budget was mostly shaped by the previous administration and major changes take time to fully appear. One key area to watch is its proposed $50 billion reallocation plan, redirecting funds from “noncritical” areas toward defense programs such as nuclear modernization, missile defense, drone technology, autonomous weapons, and cybersecurity. The Trump administration likely considers these activities necessary to bolster border security and strengthen US military capabilities in response to perceived threats to the homeland.

Regardless of the merits of using defense dollars and personnel for homeland security efforts, without a significant increase in overall funding, the administration will face tough choices between delivering on these priorities and meeting modernization and readiness goals.

The path forward: Congress holds the key

None of this is sustainable without a timely and predictable appropriations process. Even after making tough trade-offs, the Department of Defense cannot sustain modernization, support military pay raises, and reinvigorate domestic policy initiatives without meaningful real-term growth in its overall budget topline.

While continuing resolutions offer short-term stability, they erode long-term planning and procurement. They lock in outdated funding priorities, stall new projects and procurement efforts before they begin, and limit the Defense Department’s capacity to invest in multi-year efforts that benefit from future financial predictability. When the Department of Defense has to begin the fiscal year without an annual appropriations bill in place, it can lead to training disruptions due to uncertainty over available resources, as well as deferred equipment and facility maintenance, which can cause backlogs and increase long-term costs. It can also cause delays in awarding new contracts, affecting industrial base stability and workforce planning. Continuing resolutions also lead to cost inefficiencies from operating under constrained funding and require higher costs to “catch up” later. These stopgap measures also risk a gradual degradation of military readiness from the inability to execute planned operations, training, and maintenance. Even omnibus bills, often seen as a compromise, fall short of the predictability and purchasing power that full-year appropriations—enacted before the start of a fiscal year—offer. Relying on omnibus bills creates uncertainty for long-term modernization efforts and reduces the Defense Department’s ability to plan, start contracts, and invest early in the fiscal year.

The Pentagon needs more than authority and increased flexibility—it needs actual dollars. Timely appropriations passed by Congress are essential to making that possible. Yet persistent delays have become the norm rather than the exception. Without consistent, meaningful, and sustained funding, modernization will remain an ambition rather than a battlefield reality. The one-trillion-dollar vision for the defense budget may serve short-term political goals, but absent decisive and urgent action by Congress, the numbers won’t add up.

One important step Congress can take each year is to pass the annual defense appropriations bill on time, fulfilling its constitutional duty to fund essential government programs and defense functions that serve the national interest. A timely and focused appropriations bill would restore predictability to the budget process and enhance the capacity of the defense industrial base. It would also give military leaders the certainty they need to plan, build, and make more effective long-term investments across administrations.

Congress holds the keys. The question is whether it has the political will to turn them.

Jongsun A. Kim is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a former deputy comptroller for budget and appropriations affairs at the Department of Defense.

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Soofer and Massa discuss homeland missile defense on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory speaker series

Atlantic Council — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 19:20:09 +0000

On March 6, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global
Security Research featured Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer and Forward Defense deputy director Mark Massa in their ongoing speaker series. In the dialogue, they discuss the future of homeland missile defense, specifically in reference to their co-authored report, “‘First, we will defend the homeland’: The case for homeland missile defense.”

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Arms Control Defense Policy

Staff

Mark J. Massa

Deputy Director

Defense Policy National Security

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Dispatch from Vilnius: A NATO ally in Russia’s shadow won’t let history repeat itself

James Hursch — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 15:54:38 +0000

VILNIUS—“Never again!” We heard these words often from Lithuanians of all ages on a recent one-week Atlantic Council study trip to Lithuania. We heard them from people early in their careers, military officers, and the most senior officials in the government, all of whom recounted stories of what living in the Soviet Union had been like for their parents or grandparents from the annexation of Lithuania at the end of World War II until independence was regained in the early 1990s. They were stories of imprisonment, torture, and exile to Siberia.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Lithuania, a small NATO ally of about three million people, has taken seriously the threat of a more aggressive and revanchist Moscow led by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader has called the dissolution of the Soviet Union one of the greatest tragedies of history and has dedicated his regime to reasserting Russia’s dominance in the former Soviet space.

Amid US calls for Europe to take more responsibility for its own defense, Lithuania has been investing in its military.

We visited the borders with both Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. At the former, Lithuanian border guards told us of many cases of so-called “hybrid warfare” by the oppressive Belarusian regime, including pushing South and Central Asian migrants across the border and using drones and balloons to smuggle cheap Belarusian cigarettes into Lithuania. In Kaliningrad, Russia has built a heavily militarized province. Looking across the border bridge, which is now only open to pedestrian traffic, we saw a dark and foreboding city very different from the modern and free Lithuanian side.

Amid US calls for Europe to take more responsibility for its own defense, Lithuania has been investing in its military. Vilnius will increase its defense spending to 5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2026, competing with Poland for the highest percentage of GDP spent on defense by a NATO country and far above the current level of US defense spending as a proportion of GDP.

In the past few years, Lithuania has spent billions of dollars on new weapons systems, including from the United States. It has also built modern infrastructure for its own forces, for a German brigade expected to deploy in the next few years, and for a relatively small US rotational force in the country. It has taken the lead in constructing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at the port city of Klaipėda that has allowed the Baltic states and new NATO ally Finland to end their dependence on Russian natural gas and import LNG from elsewhere. Last year, half of the gas imported at this terminal came from the United States. Lithuania has also provided more assistance for Ukraine’s fight for freedom than one might expect. On our trip to the far corners of the country, we saw many signs that Lithuanians support Ukraine’s own “never again” fight.

But Lithuania is a small country with a relatively flat landscape, which does not lend itself to fighting a potentially reconstituted Russian military in a few years. Lithuanians need a strong NATO to deter the threat and make it clear to Putin that the country is not low-hanging fruit, ripe for the Kremlin to pick off. Lithuanians welcome the Germans and others who are eager to help with deterrence, but they know that only the United States and a physical US presence in the country can truly deter Russia. The Lithuanians are trying to show they deserve that support.

When then NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke to a joint session of Congress in 2019, he said that the point of NATO is that “it’s good to have friends.” It’s good for the United States as it faces the challenges of the twenty-first century, he explained, and it’s good for US allies. “We are stronger and safer when we stand together,” he said. Stoltenberg received a bipartisan standing ovation.

Six years later, the stakes are considerably higher, as Russia’s aggression has only become bolder. The United States is urging its friends to do more for themselves and strengthen their defenses. Lithuania, in its resolve to “never again” be dominated by Moscow, is seeking to do just that.

James A. Hursch is a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He previously served as the director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and as deputy defense advisor at the US Mission to NATO.

Note: The Atlantic Council delegation’s visit to Lithuania was sponsored by the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense.

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Axios on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare final report

Atlantic Council — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 16:00:00 +0000

On April 23, Colin Demarest of Axios published an article mentioning Forward Defense‘s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare report, highlighting how the report reflects growing pressure, both within and outside the Pentagon, to smartly adopt software. The piece suggests that Domino Data Lab’s recent $16.5 million dollar AI contract may be evidence that this pressure is beginning to yield results.

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National Defense reports on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare final report

Atlantic Council — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 20:00:00 +0000

On April 22, Joanna Ye of National Defense published an article highlighting the key recommendations from Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare report. Entitled “Reforming Pentagon Software Practices Key to Countering Threats, Report Finds,” the article emphasizes the Commission’s hope that, by adopting its recommendations, the Department of Defense can enhance its capabilities and preserve the United States’ strategic advantage.

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Clementine Starling-Daniels and Theresa Luetkefend co-author DefenseNews op-ed titled “Questions Congress should ask about DOD ‘peace through strength’ plan”

kwinzerwilks — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 19:45:04 +0000

Director, Forward Defense

On April 16, Forward Defense director Clementine Starling-Daniels and assistant director Theresa Luetkefend published an op-ed in DefenseNews. The article, titled “Questions Congress should ask about DOD ‘peace through strength’ plan,” analyzes the Department of Defense’s Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance memo and the Trump administration’s defense priorities.

Staff

Clementine G. Starling-Daniels

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Security & Defense NATO

Staff

Theresa Luetkefend

Assistant Director

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy German

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The US must sustain counterterrorism operations in Somalia—the costs of retreat are too high

Danielle Cosgrove and Doug Livermore — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 19:04:16 +0000

Amid a deepening security crisis, the Trump administration is reportedly considering whether to reduce the US footprint in Somalia, for example by closing the US embassy in Mogadishu. This potential reversal comes even as the United States continues to carry out airstrikes against Somali militants.

Islamist insurgents, including al-Shabaab and the Somali affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS-S), are making territorial gains. These two groups represent distinct but overlapping threats—each transnational, each integrated into broader jihadist ecosystems, and each capable of destabilizing regional and global security if left unchecked. They are also quickly evolving, including by increasing connections with other groups and malign state actors such as the Islamic Republic of Iran—creating larger geostrategic implications.

To address this evolution, the United States must remain engaged in Somalia; but that does not necessarily require escalation. Strategic engagement through a forward embassy, regional partnerships, and calibrated intelligence operations can disrupt the evolution of the terrorist threat in Somalia—and it costs far less than what it would take to contain fully metastasized, adaptive adversaries down the road.

Increasingly adaptive

For too long, ISIS-S has been treated as an afterthought in Somalia’s counterterrorism landscape, but the group can no longer be ignored: Since 2019, it has evolved significantly, becoming the Islamic State’s most agile, digitally integrated, and externally operational franchise. This has aligned with the Islamic State’s global shift toward a decentralized, node-based network managed by the General Directorate of Provinces. Formerly a localized insurgency attempting to replicate elements of the core caliphate in miniature, ISIS-S is now modular, externally focused, and nonterritorial, with unique technical capabilities that elevate its threat beyond that of traditional insurgent groups.

It does not seek to hold Mogadishu; rather, ISIS-S bypasses the Somalian capital to exploit ungoverned spaces through coordinated disruption. Its efforts destabilize governance; it coordinates its operations via encrypted messaging apps, blockchain-based payment systems, commercial off-the-shelf obfuscation tools, and artificial intelligence-generated multilingual propaganda that enables large-scale recruitment.

The ISIS-S threat is transnational and no longer confined to Somalia; that is apparent with the group’s implication in terror plots overseas, including in Sweden. Perhaps most critically for the United States, the ISIS-S al-Karrar office is understood to serve as a funding node for ISIS-Khorasan, which has proven capable of devastating terror plots, including the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan that killed thirteen US service members.

Al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s East African affiliate, has also proven to be far more than a local insurgency—it is a deeply entrenched and militarily assertive force in Somalia, capable of executing complex operations, controlling territory, and challenging both national and international security efforts. This transnational terrorist organization has already exerted influence beyond Somalia, having executed mass-casualty attacks in Kenya and Uganda. In 2020, its operatives struck US and Kenyan forces in Manda Bay, killing three Americans. The group explicitly targets US and Western interests throughout East Africa. Withdrawing now, as al-Shabaab regains momentum, risks allowing it to strengthen its position and expand its influence.

Metastizing menace

Of parallel concern is the mounting evidence of cooperation between al-Shabaab and the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. This partnership represents a dangerous escalation. The Houthis have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to strike maritime targets in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden using anti-ship missiles, drones, and explosive-laden boats. These asymmetric maritime attacks have disrupted vital shipping lanes, endangered commercial vessels, and necessitated multinational naval responses. They also offer a template for al-Shabaab’s future posture.

Growing evidence exists that Houthi weaponry, supplied by Iran, has been transferred into Somalia and reached both al-Shabaab and ISIS-S. These transfers suggest an intensifying convergence of interests but not ideologies. While al-Shabaab, ISIS-S, and the Houthis remain doctrinally divergent, they share three critical traits: a reliance on illicit maritime logistics, the use of asymmetric tactics, and a willingness to cooperate when it serves operational goals. This alignment adds complexity to counterterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa, blurring the lines between ideological enemies and functional partners.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, just north of Somalia, is a critical chokepoint for global trade, funneling approximately 12 percent of seaborne oil trade flows. Increased attacks or insecurity in these waters would drive up insurance costs, increase shipping expenses, and worsen instability across East Africa and the Middle East. Should al-Shabaab or ISIS-S, either independently or in partnership with the Houthis, begin to harass this artery, it would have immediate implications for the global economy.

But in addition to the potential economic impact, there is also a clear strategic threat from this cooperation. Hostility to the West and asymmetrical warfare exercised by these groups and the militias included in Iran’s Axis of Resistance could pose an enduring threat to US allies and partners in the region. For example, the US Navy could see its operational freedom eroded, and militant activity in the sea lanes around the Horn of Africa—which connect the Mediterranean to the Indo-Pacific—could complicate the United States’ ability to surge naval forces in response to crises involving China in the Taiwan Strait or Russia in the eastern Mediterranean.

Continuity as containment

The 2021 US withdrawal from Somalia offered a preview of what disengagement would yield. Following the withdrawal, al-Shabaab and ISIS-S regrouped, expanded their respective operations, and forged deeper regional ties that present the greater challenges that the United States faces today. Although US forces returned in 2022, the withdrawal had already proved costly.

Today, ISIS-S internally exploits the geography of Somalia, clan connections, and instability to thrive. Al-Shabaab forces inch ever forward in their ongoing campaign to isolate and potentially capture the capital of Mogadishu. Each debate over whether to stay or go provides strategic space that the groups use to adapt.

The post-9/11 experience has demonstrated that power vacuums can be quickly filled by hostile actors. The 2011 withdrawal from Iraq enabled ISIS’s rapid rise. Strategic ambiguity in Libya yielded terrain for jihadist experimentation. Afghanistan’s rapid collapse under the Taliban offered ISIS-Khorasan and al-Qaeda a second wind. Somalia is not an exception: It would be the next domino.

But it’s not just a matter of being present. For example, the 2012 Benghazi attack was not a failure of presence; it was a failure of planning, coordination, and establishing an adequate security posture. Similarly, abandoning Somalia without a coherent containment strategy creates the risk of empowering a transnational terrorist organization with international ambitions while simultaneously allowing Iran to extend its strategic reach.

To maintain its foothold at the most critical junction of East Africa’s security architecture, the United States must prioritize continuity. This includes keeping the US embassy in Mogadishu open, as it provides a platform for intelligence coordination, interagency operations, and diplomatic leverage. Without it, the United States cannot assess—let alone contain—a threat that is actively recombining in real time and posing risks to maritime security, the regional balance of deterrence, and potentially the US homeland.

The terrorist groups based in Somalia are adapting faster, making broader connections, and integrating deeper than Washington’s withdrawal advocates seem to realize. To misread that evolution as localized or static is strategic negligence. A decision to withdraw at this moment will not be remembered as a tactical recalibration but as an unforced error. To leave is to license the evolution of these terrorist groups; to stay is to disrupt it.

Danielle Cosgrove is a senior advisor to the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Group. She is a distinguished guest lecturer at Stanford University, a Stanford Medicine X scholar, and the founder of an acquired threat mapping startup.

Doug Livermore is a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Group, the national vice president for the Special Operations Association of America, and the deputy commander for Special Operations Detachment–Joint Special Operations Command in the North Carolina Army National Guard.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are the authors’ and do not represent official US government positions.

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Soofer quoted in Politico article entitled, “Trump May Be Triggering the Fastest Nuclear Weapons Race Since the Cold War”

Atlantic Council — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 13:15:38 +0000

On April 11, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer was quoted in a Politico article entitled, “Trump May Be Triggering the Fastest Nuclear Weapons Race Since the Cold War.” In discussing US extended deterrence, Soofer is quoted saying, “What makes the South Koreans nervous is the fear that we wouldn’t risk San Francisco to save Seoul.”

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

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There are signs that Turkey is growing closer to Indonesia—and to ASEAN

Adinda Khaerani Epstein — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 17:28:34 +0000

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visited Turkey last week, on April 9, not long after he welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Jakarta this February as part of Erdoğan’s tour of Asia. The exchange of visits is only one sign that relations between the two countries are strong—and growing.

But there’s a bigger picture to the exchange as well: Ankara’s approach to its relationship with Jakarta is demonstrative of its overall strategy toward the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Such a strategy is portrayed in Ankara’s Asia Anew Initiative, launched in 2019, which prioritizes economic engagement with Asian countries.

The last time Prabowo visited Turkey—in July 2024, then the president-elect and minister of defense—he underscored Turkey’s significance as a strategic partner for Indonesia. There, Prabowo and Erdoğan also reportedly discussed the possibility of expanding the Indonesia-Turkey partnership, including in the defense sector.

The countries have a history of defense collaboration: For example, they signed an industry cooperation agreement in 2010. Indonesian state-owned firm PT Pindad and Turkish armored-vehicle manufacturer FNSS worked together in the 2010s to produce a medium-weight tank, the Kaplan MT. The two countries have also intensified their collaborative efforts in intelligence and combating terrorism. In 2023, Indonesia bought twelve reconnaissance drones, worth $300 million, from Turkey.

Considering Turkey’s military might—it has the second largest military force in NATO—it makes sense that Prabowo (a former defense minister and a retired army general) and a number of Indonesian stakeholders are continuing to prioritize defense cooperation with Turkey. This is demonstrated by a drone agreement that the countries signed this February, which will see Turkish company Baykar export sixty Bayraktar TB3 and nine Bayraktar Akıncı drones to Indonesia. Baykar also agreed to a joint venture with Republikorp, an Indonesian defense company, to construct a drone factory in Indonesia.

The countries have collaborated in other ways. In 2021, Dirgantara Indonesia (a company that makes military and civilian aircraft) signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkish Aerospace to cooperate on the production of the N219 aircraft and the modernization of the Turkish CN235 aircraft fleet.

Trade between the two nations in 2024 amounted to $2.4 billion, representing an increase of over 12 percent from the previous year. In addition, Indonesia and Turkey have been working since 2017 on the Indonesian-Turkish Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. At Erdoğan’s meeting with Prabowo this February, the two leaders reportedly agreed to work on finalizing the agreement and thus widen the market for products produced in each country. They also signed thirteen agreements in the fields of energy, health, agriculture, defense, communication, and education.

In addition, as Indonesia prepares to move its capital city from Jakarta to Nusantara—located in East Kalimantan—Erdoğan said during his February trip that he would like Turkish construction companies to take part in building the new capital. Erdoğan and Prabowo also emphasized, during the visit, that the two-state solution is the most viable approach to achieving peace in Gaza, and Erdoğan said he intends to work with Indonesia on the reconstruction of Gaza.

In the education sector, the Turkish government has offered a scholarship program for Indonesian students to study in Turkey; the number of students enrolled has increased from 2,500 in 2019 to 4,662 as of 2023. These students are offered a one-year Turkish language course in preparation, which represents one facet of Ankara’s soft power.

All of this highlights how the Indonesia-Turkey bilateral relationship has developed over time and across multiple sectors and issues. These two countries’ collaboration is in alignment with Turkey’s Asia Anew Initiative and also with Indonesia’s goals to engage in free and active foreign policy—and to avoid excessive dependence on any major powers.

In addition, Turkey has pursued a more active relationship with ASEAN members as Asia has accounted for more and more of the global economy and as the region has become the epicenter of global trade. ASEAN countries produced 7.2 percent of the global gross domestic product in 2024, and they boast a combined population of 692 million.

In order to revitalize Turkey’s economy by diversifying its trade, it is foreseeable that Ankara will seek to strengthen its economic relationship with ASEAN members, including Indonesia. Ankara has signed free trade agreements with ASEAN members Malaysia (in 2015) and Singapore (in 2017), and it is currently in negotiations with Indonesia and Thailand as part of its broader strategy to enhance cooperation with countries in the region. Additionally, it is likely that Turkish companies will increase their investments and involvement in infrastructure initiatives throughout the ASEAN region in light of ongoing infrastructure needs across Southeast Asia.

The Turkey-ASEAN relationship also stretches across sectors and issues, touching everything from the economy to education. For example, in 2023, Turkey and ASEAN offered a joint scholarship to students in ASEAN countries enabling them to attend master’s-degree and Turkish-language programs.

As for what lies ahead: Turkey and ASEAN countries will likely continue to strengthen their people-to-people connections as a result of Turkey’s Asia Anew Initiative. As ASEAN member states look to avoid becoming overly dependent on any major powers, they are likely to expand cooperation with middle-power countries, such as Turkey.

But don’t expect this to result in Turkey turning entirely eastward, abandoning the West. In a 2024 speech, Erdoğan contended that Turkey’s various geographical, human, economic, and historical connections globally render it incapable of being contained within a bloc. In addition, countries on the outskirts of the Turkey-ASEAN relationship—including the United States and China—will play a role in shaping the future of these ties, as such larger powers impact how Turkey and ASEAN members manage their economic interests and navigate the geopolitical landscape.

Nevertheless, Turkey and ASEAN countries can deepen their mutually beneficial partnership in a way that assists the former in overcoming its economic challenges and unlocks new markets and opportunities for ASEAN members.

Adinda Khaerani Epstein is a former political communication researcher at the Istanbul-based research institute Turkish-Asian Center for Strategic Studies. She is also a specialist on Southeast Asia and US-Turkey relations at Geopolitical Intelligence Services and an adjunct fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy.

The views expressed in TURKEYSource are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The Iran nuclear talks are Trump’s decisive moment on military strikes

Daniel B. Shapiro — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 19:36:45 +0000

US President Donald Trump has worked quickly to overcome Iranian resistance to nuclear talks, now set to launch in Oman on April 12. Trump has been clear in his desire to resolve the issue diplomatically and avoid war in the Middle East. But he and his team surely know that within a relatively short time, he is likely to face the decision point on whether or not to pursue a military strike.

The timing, need, and opportunity may never be more compelling. And, arguably, a military option is more feasible now than at any time in recent decades.

Trump has set a sixty-day target to reach a deal. The Iranians will be adept at extending that timeline. But if negotiations peter out and the looming reimposition of sanctions—the snapback—occurs, with an Iranian response, Washington will reach a crisis. For Trump, that will be the point of decision over escalation.

Stubborn gaps

If and when talks get serious, the two sides will face major gaps. Trump is seeking a tougher deal than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

His aims include fully dismantling Tehran’s nuclear program. Such a dismantling would require the removal and destruction of its enrichment capability, including recently installed advanced centrifuges; the export of all but a token amount of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile; and intrusive international inspections of all declared nuclear sites and undeclared sites in perpetuity with no sunsets.

Based on all Iranian behavior in previous rounds of negotiations, there is no reason to believe Tehran would agree to these terms. Iran has for decades worked to assemble an industrial nuclear program, which the regime believes to be key to its survival. The notion that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at age eighty-five and nearing the end of his rule, would agree to give it all up is implausible.

If, somehow, Iran did show openness to a full dismantlement, it would surely insist on major sanctions relief in exchange. Iranian leaders could only justify accepting what they would see as humiliating terms on the nuclear program if it would bring dramatic economic relief to their people.

But US sanctions against Iran encompass a wide range of goals beyond its nuclear program. Designations include constraints on Iran’s ballistic missile program, its proliferation or acquisition of advanced military equipment, Tehran’s vast terrorist proxy network (including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen), and its human rights abuses. Some of these sanctions, such as those contained in the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, could only be removed through legislation. There is scant appetite in the US Congress for this level of sanctions relief against a long-time adversary.

Meanwhile, a deadline looms in October for the snapback of sanctions against Iran that were suspended when it signed the JCPOA. After Trump withdrew from the deal during his first term in 2018, Iran began to violate the agreement’s terms, installing centrifuges and enriching uranium beyond the prescribed amounts.

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The remaining members of the deal, which include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China, may initiate the snapback of pre-JCPOA sanctions, which no member of the United Nations Security Council can veto.

Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM), aimed at imposing “maximum pressure” on Iran, calls for working with the United States’ European partners to implement the snapback, and the initial diplomatic moves to trigger this process must take place by late summer.

Potential outcomes

Given these challenges, three options are likely to emerge from the negotiations: One, a limited deal that does not fundamentally dismantle Iran’s program, but buys some time; two, no deal, the deadline approaching, and the imposition of snapback sanctions, leading to a crisis; and three, a military strike against the nuclear program.

There is precedent for the limited deal option. In 2013, Iran agreed to the Joint Plan of Action, which provided limited sanctions relief in exchange for Iran freezing certain aspects of its nuclear program and modestly (and reversibly) downgrading others. A “less-for-less” deal of this type could conceivably kick the can down the road, relieving Trump or Khamenei from having to make a fateful decision. It could include a new United Nations Security Council Resolution extending the snapback timeline.

But now, Iran’s program is at such an advanced stage that a freeze would still leave it capable of breaking out at a time of its choosing. By all estimations, Iran sits on the threshold of nuclear breakout—the ability to produce a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium to assemble a nuclear device. In February, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had tripled its stockpile of sixty percent enriched uranium in just three months and now possessed enough—if enriched to ninety percent—to manufacture several weapons. Meanwhile, reports persist that Iranian scientists, without a clear direction from the supreme leader, are conducting research that would shorten the path to building a nuclear weapon, if they are ever ordered to do so. In the face of these realities, a limited deal would be at odds with the urgency Trump has repeatedly conveyed to address Iran’s nuclear program in a definitive way.

Passing the deadline with no resolution would allow a very precarious situation to persist. If there is no progress in negotiations, the United States and its European partners are unlikely to let the snapback deadline pass without restoring sanctions. But Iran has countered that if snapback occurs, it will retaliate, perhaps by withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (which would mean the end of IAEA inspections) or, conceivably, by taking steps toward a breakout it has until now foregone. The situation would linger on an even sharper knife’s edge than it does today.

That leaves a military strike, which could be executed by the United States, Israel, or the two in combination, perhaps even with the support of others. Whatever limited chance there is for success in negotiations, it will depend on Iran perceiving a credible military threat—and the willingness to use it.

Trump and his team have said clearly that dealing with the problem militarily is the only option if negotiations fail, but showing is more persuasive than telling. The deployment of B-2 stealth bombers to Diego Garcia in late March is a useful example. Those aircraft have reportedly been used in operations against the Houthis in Yemen, as they were on a previous round of strikes against the Houthis in October 2024. But US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suggested Iran must consider that this highly capable aircraft and the heavy payloads it can carry could also be employed against their nuclear sites.

The logic of a military strike

There are two key reasons why the military option may be more imminent now than in the last decades of the Tehan-Washington standoff.

The first is the result of Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Iran on October 26, 2024. Using capabilities Iran had not previously seen and had no means to detect or intercept, Israel did more than just strike its targets. It struck a psychological blow against Tehran, leaving Iran aware that it was highly vulnerable to additional strikes and had a significantly reduced ability to protect key locations, including nuclear sites.

Second, Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah in the fall of 2024 eliminates a major response option Iran had long counted on to deter an Israeli or US strike and to retaliate if it ever came. By all accounts—prior to the war in Gaza that began with the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023—Hezbollah possessed well over one hundred thousand rockets and missiles it could use to target Israel. The stockpile included several thousand with precision guidance that could target strategic sites and major population centers, numerically overwhelming Israel’s air defenses. Once Israel completed a significant weakening of Hamas in Gaza, it turned to the north. Using precise intelligence gathered over many years, Israel eliminated the vast majority of Hezbollah’s advanced weapons before they were even prepared for launch. The result is that, for the first time in years, Israel no longer needs to fear a massive Hezbollah missile barrage as a response to operations against Iran. That Iranian deterrent is gone.

The United States could choose to strike alone, intending to set back Tehran’s nuclear program for a meaningful period of time. As that decision point is still some time off, current deployments do not necessarily reflect the assets that would be employed in such a strike. But the news that a second carrier strike group is arriving in the region to supplement the one currently engaged in counter-Houthi strikes demonstrates the US military’s capability to flow a variety of assets to the region to prepare for a range of contingencies.

Alternatively, Trump could signal to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he does not object to an Israeli strike—a so-called green light. Israel would almost certainly need to operate in areas that are in proximity to US forces, so some degree of coordination or deconfliction would be necessary. As it demonstrated in its October 2024 strikes, Israel has significant capabilities—not identical to Washington’s, but meaningful and perhaps surprising. The United States and Israel would have to agree on the goal of such an operation and assess Israel’s ability to achieve it.

The most effective option may be a combined US-Israeli operation. Israel’s integration into US Central Command over the past four years has significantly upgraded the interoperability of US and Israeli forces. Following the strong defense support the United States provided to Israel since the October 7 attacks, military-to-military trust is at an all-time high. A combined strike that divides up key tasks, maximizing each country’s unique capabilities, might achieve the most significant setback of the Iranian nuclear program and, importantly, limit Iran’s ability and incentive to respond. Trump suggested he may see an Israeli-led attack, in which the United States participates, as the most likely scenario.

Any such military operation comes with risk and the need for Washington to protect its regional forces, allies, and partners—including Israel and the Gulf states. Already, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad Qalibaf threatened that Iran would attack US forces and their host nations in the Gulf in response to a US strike.

Iran possesses a large arsenal of ballistic missiles with the range to reach those locations. And Iran previously made the reckless decision—twice—to attack Israel directly from Iran. So a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities requires defensive preparations, including buttressed air defenses. Some of these preparations will be visible and may indeed have a deterrent effect on Iran, or, in the best case, help produce eleventh-hour concessions that might make it possible to avoid the strike entirely. But having made the decision to strike, leaders have to be prepared to follow through if necessary.

Deterrence strategies

There are additional ways to deter or limit Iranian retaliation. Trump might communicate in negotiations that the goal of the operation is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but that if Iran responds and there are significant US or allied casualties, additional strikes could target the stability of the regime or its energy infrastructure. Iran has long envisioned a nuclear option as a potential guarantor of regime stability. But with that option removed, Khamenei might opt for standing down in exchange for sparing his regime and its economic foundations.

Iran has the knowledge to reconstitute any nuclear assets that are damaged or destroyed. Estimations of how long it would take Iran to do so are generally based on the time needed to carry out physical reconstruction and do not fully take into account political, economic, or deterrence barriers to doing so.

A successful military operation might buy considerably more time than one thinks. Even so, the United States should only undertake such an operation if it is prepared to potentially repeat it. Planners must realistically scope the force posture required in the Middle East to keep that option available and consider how doing so affects US commitments in other theaters, particularly the Indo-Pacific.

Military action must always be undertaken with full awareness of the tactical and strategic risks involved. But to achieve the goal he has set with Iran, Trump may find that the moment has come.

Daniel B. Shapiro is a distinguished fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He has previously served as Washington’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and as US ambassador to Israel.

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Defense Acquisition University on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare final report

Atlantic Council — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 19:00:00 +0000

On April 11, Defense Acquisition University (DAU) published an article entitled “Finding the Way on Software-Defined Warfare,” highlighting the enterprise-level challenges identified in Forward Defense‘s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare report, along with the report’s nine key recommendations. The article also explores how DAU supports the Commission’s proposals, particularly by providing training programs to cultivate software talent and by providing entry points for the acquisition workforce to stay informed on emerging developments.

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The imperative of augmenting US theater nuclear forces

Greg Weaver — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 17:00:00 +0000

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The problem

The United States and its allies and partners face an impending change in the threats posed by nuclear-armed adversaries: a strategic environment marked by two nuclear peer major powers. Russia, long a nuclear peer of the United States, will likely emerge from the war in Ukraine—regardless of how it ends—even more reliant on its nuclear forces, which are already the largest in the world. Meanwhile, China is undertaking the largest nuclear force buildup since the Cold War. That buildup will increase the size of Beijing’s nuclear forces by roughly seven and a half times since 2018, positioning China as a nuclear peer of the United States by 2035.¹

Meanwhile, North Korea continues to expand and diversify its nuclear arsenal. Although the North Korean threat has been somewhat constrained by the quality of its ballistic missile systems—particularly its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)—technical assistance from Russia, in exchange for Kim Jong Un’s material support for the war in Ukraine, could rapidly enhance North Korean capabilities. Finally, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East could prompt Iran to choose to acquire its own nuclear arsenal, presenting a wholly new challenge.

A pair of recent analyses of the strategic impact of this two-nuclear-peer environment have sounded an alarm, making clear that this environment poses a qualitatively and quantitatively new threat of adversary aggression and the potential for nuclear war.² Conducted by bipartisan teams of former senior US officials and other nuclear experts, both analyses concluded—in the words of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (hereafter referred to as the Strategic Posture Commission)—that the planned US nuclear force “is absolutely essential, although not sufficient [emphasis added] to meet the new threats posed by Russia and China.”³ Both reports emphasized the urgent need to enhance US theater nuclear forces to address the most likely path to large-scale nuclear war: the failure to deter or counter limited adversary nuclear use in an ongoing conventional conflict. Finally, both reports laid out a set of attributes that US theater nuclear force enhancements must possess to effectively address the threat of limited nuclear escalation. However, these reports did not examine in depth the deterrence and warfighting implications of alternative new US theater nuclear systems.

This paper examines why the two-nuclear-peer threat makes the enhancement of US theater nuclear forces an urgent imperative. It explains why the planned US strategic and theater nuclear forces are insufficient to address this threat. The paper then presents a more detailed set of political-military and operational attributes that enhanced US theater nuclear forces must possess to effectively counter the threat. Using these attributes, it evaluates the relative deterrence and warfighting value of various potential alternative theater-range nuclear weapon systems. The paper concludes with a recommended future US theater nuclear force structure and posture, specifically, that the United States should field a theater nuclear force that combines an effectively dispersible dual-capable fighter aircraft (DCA) force in Europe with nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-Ns) deployed day-to-day on attack submarines (SSNs) in Europe and Asia and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCM-Ns) and/or ground-launched ballistic missiles (GLBM-Ns) continuously deployed in Europe and/or Asia.

Implications of the two-nuclear-peer threat for theater conflict

The emerging two-nuclear-peer threat environment poses a difficult challenge to the United States and its allies and partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific: deterring or defeating simultaneous or sequential two-theater aggression by Russia and China. This two-theater war threat could manifest as a collaborative effort (i.e., Russia and China launch attacks in concert) or as an opportunistic sequence (i.e., one major-power adversary attacks first, and the other exploits the situation by launching aggression only after the United States is fully committed to the initial conflict).

Regarding the potential role of US theater nuclear forces in US, allied, and partner strategy, these scenarios pose two dire threats to the ability of the United States and its allies and partners to deter or defeat such aggression. The first is the threat of adversary limited nuclear escalation, which could either lead to war termination on the adversary’s terms or escalate into a large-scale nuclear war with existential consequences if not addressed effectively. The second is the risk of US, allied, and partner conventional defeat in one or both theaters due to an inability to fight and win two major-power conventional wars simultaneously.

Adversary limited nuclear escalation

Why might an adversary resort to the limited first use of nuclear weapons in a theater conflict with the United States and its allies and partners?

Russian strategy and doctrine are rooted in the belief that limited nuclear use in a theater conflict is unlikely to result in uncontrolled escalation to a large-scale homeland-to-homeland nuclear exchange. While the extent of Russian leaders’ confidence in this belief remains unclear, their strategy and doctrine explicitly call for limited nuclear escalation, if necessary, to achieve two potential objectives:

Coerce war termination on terms acceptable to Russia if it is losing a conventional war or
Defeat superior adversary conventional forces if coercion fails.

The latter objective drives Russia’s perceived force requirement for a very large theater nuclear force embedded throughout Moscow’s conventional forces.

Chinese strategy and doctrine regarding the role of limited nuclear escalation remain profoundly uncertain. China has not been transparent about either the need for or the purpose of its large-scale nuclear buildup. However, the nature and scale of this buildup likely indicates an ongoing change in Chinese nuclear strategy, as US nuclear force modernization plans have not significantly increased the threat to China or its existing nuclear deterrent in any significant way. It is possible that China plans to abandon its declared “no first use” policy (likely covertly) and adopt a strategy similar to Russia’s, envisioning both coercive use and limited warfighting to avoid defeat or secure victory.

The nature of North Korean—and possibly Iranian—nuclear strategy remains similarly unclear. However, either could see the potential for limited nuclear first use as a means of staving off existential threats from the United States and its allies and partners during an escalating conventional war. While North Korea has issued a series of nuclear declaratory policy statements, any North Korean threat to use nuclear weapons to win a protracted conventional conflict would fly in the face of US declaratory policy, which states that the North Korean regime would not survive the US response to any level of North Korean nuclear use.

Given the potential for adversary limited nuclear use in the future, what will it take for the United States and its allies and partners to deter such escalation if possible and to defeat it if necessary? The core requirement for deterring adversary limited nuclear escalation in a two-peer environment is a credible Flexible Response strategy. Such a strategy must convince adversary leadership that limited nuclear escalation does not provide effective insurance against misjudging US, allied, and partner resolve and cohesion. It must also demonstrate that limited nuclear use will not result in war termination on the adversary’s terms and that it entails a significant risk of uncontrolled escalation. This risk arises because the United States and its allies and partners are visibly prepared for what Thomas C. Schelling described as a “competition in risk-taking” to defend their vital interests.⁴

Such a strategy must be enabled by US, allied, and partner nuclear and conventional forces that can accomplish three key objectives:

Provide a robust range of response options to restore deterrence by convincing adversary leadership that it has miscalculated in a dire way, that further nuclear weapon use will not achieve its objectives, and that it will incur costs that far exceed any potential benefits.
Counter the military impact of adversary limited nuclear use.
Continue to operate effectively to achieve US, allied, and partner objectives in a limited nuclear use environment.

In sum, US, allied, and partner strategy and capabilities must convince potential adversaries that nuclear escalation is always their worst option.

Deterring and countering adversary limited nuclear use must be a critical linchpin of US nuclear strategy in the impending two-peer environment. Deterring limited nuclear use contributes to deterring conventional aggression and prevents escalation to limited and unlimited nuclear war. Countering limited use has the potential to restore deterrence (thus preventing further escalation) and ensures that the United States and its allies and partners can achieve their defensive war aims despite adversary escalation.

As argued in more detail below, deterring and countering adversary limited nuclear escalation requires theater nuclear forces with a clear set of specific attributes in both theaters. However, current US theater nuclear forces do not have this set of attributes and are deployed only in Europe. There is an urgent imperative to rectify this shortcoming.

Compensating for conventional inferiority

The second key threat posed by the two-peer threat environment is the possibility that US, allied, and partner conventional forces may be unable to fight and win two major-power conflicts simultaneously. The Strategic Posture Commission noted that the current US defense strategy “reflects a ‘one major war’ sizing construct” that is “sufficient to deter opportunistic or collaborative two-theater aggression today, but will fall short in the 2027-2035 timeframe.”⁵ In perhaps one of its least noticed recommendations, the commission found that:

“The objectives of U.S. strategy must include effective deterrence and defeat of simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and Asia using conventional forces. If the United States and its allies and partners do not field sufficient conventional forces to achieve this objective, U.S. strategy would need to be altered to increase reliance on nuclear weapons to deter or counter opportunistic or collaborative aggression in the other theater.”⁶

Maintaining conventional superiority over both major-power adversaries simultaneously would obviously be preferable to increasing reliance on nuclear weapons. However, achieving this is likely to be very expensive, requiring the United States, its allies, and partners to significantly increase and optimize their defense spending. It is far from certain that such a decision will be made and implemented.

If the United States decides instead to increase reliance on nuclear weapons to compensate for potential conventional inferiority in a second major theater war, the resulting nuclear mission would be far more demanding than merely deterring or countering adversary limited nuclear escalation—already a formidable challenge. The United States would need to make it clear that it was willing to initiate nuclear weapons use to defeat adversary conventional aggression and would have to field the theater nuclear forces necessary to make such a threat credible. Such a force would require significantly more theater weapons and additional delivery options to hold at risk the full range of adversary conventional forces needed to ensure their defeat with confidence. This shift would represent a dramatic change, as compensating for US, allied, and partner conventional inferiority ceased to be an element of US nuclear strategy at the end of the Cold War. At that time, the United States unilaterally eliminated almost all of its theater nuclear forces.

The challenge of compensating for conventional inferiority is more difficult in Europe than in Asia, largely due to Russia’s large existing advantage in theater nuclear forces. It might be possible to ensure conventional superiority in Europe if it is the second theater of war while relying on nuclear weapons to counter Chinese conventional superiority in a second theater conflict in Asia. Achieving this, however, will require a politically sensitive conversation within NATO about how to optimize the Alliance’s conventional warfighting capability if the United States is initially engaged in a major conflict in Asia.

Why current US theater and strategic nuclear forces are insufficient

Theater forces

The current US theater-range nuclear force consists solely of DCA equipped with B61-12 gravity bombs, which are deployed in Europe but not in Asia. This US theater force is augmented by DCA flown by other NATO allies, which are also capable of delivering US B61-12 bombs under a “nuclear sharing” arrangement within the Alliance.

While nuclear-armed DCA are useful for deterring and countering Russian limited nuclear use in Europe, they lack key attributes necessary for US theater nuclear forces to perform these missions effectively in the emerging two-peer threat environment.

Survivability

US DCA currently operate from a relatively small number of fixed, known locations, making them highly vulnerable to a Russian preemptive strike. However, if NATO were to adopt and exercise an effective DCA dispersal concept, this lack of survivability could be mitigated, provided the DCA are dispersed early in a crisis or conflict.

Penetration of adversary defenses

The B61-12 is a gravity bomb that must be released in close proximity to its target. This lack of significant stand-off delivery capability reduces the survivability of the aircraft during a strike. However, the introduction of the nuclear-capable F-35 and the B61-12 represents an improvement over previous aircraft-weapon combinations in this regard.⁷ Ensuring the penetration of even an F-35 DCA strike would likely require large packages of supporting aircraft, potentially limiting the scale of the theater response and affecting ongoing conventional operations.

Target coverage

DCA have a limited range compared to some other possible theater nuclear delivery options (e.g., intermediate-range cruise missiles and ballistic missiles), which restricts their target coverage and may render them incapable of holding at risk targets essential to deterrence or warfighting. This limitation would be particularly problematic if current DCA forces were deployed to Asia, as there are few bases within useful range of relevant targets, and those bases would be highly vulnerable to preemptive Chinese attacks. While the range of DCA can be extended through aerial refueling, such refueling must occur outside the range of enemy air defenses. Additionally, the limited range of DCA can further reduce their penetrability by restricting their ability to avoid defenses through creative route planning.

Presence in theater

The US DCA deployed forward in Europe maintain a continuous presence in that theater of operations. That presence, along with the presence of European NATO DCA, reassures allies and enhances deterrence by clearly demonstrating to NATO allies and Russia alike that the US extended nuclear deterrence commitment is physically manifest in Europe. However, there are no US DCA forces deployed in the Indo-Pacific theater, meaning there are no US theater nuclear forces present there. While the last several US Nuclear Posture Reviews have stated that the United States has the ability to deploy its Europe-based DCA and their B61-12s to the Indo-Pacific, no exercises have demonstrated this capability. Transferring US DCA and their weapons from Europe to Asia during a crisis or conflict with China or North Korea would reduce their presence in Europe, potentially undermining deterrence of Russian opportunistic aggression.

A US F-35 fighter jet dropping an inert B61-12 gravity bomb, December 2021. Credit: Los Alamos National Lab

Current US theater nuclear forces are also insufficient for the mission of compensating for conventional inferiority, should the United States determine that this mission is necessary in the emerging two-peer threat environment. Compensating for conventional inferiority almost certainly requires more weapons than are currently deployed forward in support of US and NATO DCA units, as well as a wider variety of delivery systems to ensure the capability to strike a broader range of conventional force targets promptly during a rapidly evolving theater conflict. This mission also likely requires some degree of delegation of nuclear use authority from the US president to military commanders in the theater and a nuclear command, control, and communications system capable of enabling such a command concept.

Strategic forces

Opponents of augmenting US theater nuclear forces to address the two-peer threat often argue that the existing capabilities of the strategic nuclear triad—comprising ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and bomber aircraft—provide the president with sufficient nuclear response options to deter and respond to adversary limited nuclear use in theater.⁸ However, due to significant limitations in the flexibility and timeliness of US strategic nuclear forces, they are insufficient to convincingly demonstrate to a major-power adversary that the United States is fully prepared to counter limited nuclear first use with militarily effective nuclear responses.

The ICBM leg

The US ICBM force has four limiting factors that make it an undesirable candidate for a limited response to an adversary’s limited first use in a theater conflict. First, ICBM warheads do not provide a low-yield option. All four hundred warheads currently deployed on the ICBM force are reported to be in the multi-hundred-kiloton range.⁹ This lack of a low-yield option severely limits the utility of the ICBM force in this role.

Second, the launch of an ICBM provides adversaries that have infrared launch-detection systems in space (i.e., Russia and China) with immediate warning that the United States has launched an intercontinental-range, high-yield ballistic missile. Such a strategic ballistic missile launch signature carries some risk of being misinterpreted as the beginning of a large-scale US attack on an adversary’s own strategic nuclear forces, forces which are or will soon be postured for launch under attack. While it is unlikely that an adversary would mistake a single launch for a large-scale attack, this remains a less-than-desirable attribute for limited responses.

Third, ICBMs launched at China, North Korea, or Iran would all have to overfly Russian territory to reach their targets, increasing the potential for Russia to misinterpret those ICBMs as an attack on its own forces. Although this scenario is unlikely, the overflight issue remains another undesirable attribute for limited responses.

Fourth, the use of ICBMs in limited responses reduces the number of ICBM weapons available for large-scale use if the conflict escalates. This reduction could impact the effectiveness of US large-scale strike options.

Screenshot of a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) video showing the casing of an older W76-1 warhead. The first W76-2 warheads were introduced in 2019. Credit: NNSA

The submarine leg

The submarine leg of the strategic triad also suffers from three limiting factors that constrain its ability to render theater nuclear force augmentation unnecessary.

First, unlike the ICBM force, the SLBM force does provide a limited number of low-yield strike options due to the deployment of the W76-2 low-yield SLBM warhead. The W76-2 was deployed to provide a near-term solution to the lack of diverse theater nuclear options identified in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.¹⁰ However, it was primarily seen as a bridge to an augmented theater nuclear force that would include a nuclear-armed SLCM-N based on US attack submarines. The relatively small number of W76-2 warheads produced limits this option’s utility.

Second, SLBMs produce a strategic ballistic missile launch signature, just like ICBMs.

Third, as with ICBMs, the use of SLBM weapons in limited responses would reduce the number of SLBM weapons available for large-scale use if the conflict escalates, potentially impacting the effectiveness of those large-scale options.

The bomber leg

The most frequently cited strategic nuclear force response option by opponents of theater nuclear force augmentation is the use of strategic bombers delivering low-yield weapons, either stand-off nuclear-armed cruise missiles or the B61-12 gravity bomb. However, the bomber leg has four limiting factors of concern.

First, the generation of elements of the bomber force is likely observable and takes significant time. Of course, these factors are not a concern if force generation is intended as a deterrent signal and if the bomber force is generated well in advance of when it might be needed. A greater operational concern, if the bomber force is based in the continental United States, is the lengthy flight times required to strike targets in Europe or Asia. These flight times might preclude responses from being conducted on operationally relevant timelines, potentially resulting in mission failure.

The bomber leg’s flight time issue can be addressed by forward deploying nuclear-armed bombers into a theater during a crisis or conflict. However, forward-deployed bombers are far less survivable than bombers based in the continental United States, making them a potentially less effective deterrent. Finally, the theater employment of strategic bomber weapons reduces the number of weapons available for strategic missions. However, the fact that surviving bombers can be rapidly reloaded mitigates this limiting factor, provided there are sufficient bomber-delivered weapons in the deployed force.

Required attributes of future US theater nuclear forces

Given the limitations of current US theater and strategic nuclear forces, what are the optimal attributes of an augmented US theater nuclear force to address the problems posed by the two-peer threat? The two studies highlighted at the outset of this paper addressed this question.

The Strategic Posture Commission made the following recommendation:

“Develop and deploy theater nuclear delivery systems that have some or all of the following attributes:
- Forward-deployed or deployable in the European and Asia-Pacific theaters;
- Survivable against preemptive attack without force generation day-to-day;
- A range of explosive yield options, including low yield;
- Capable of penetrating advanced [Integrated Air and Missile Defenses] with high confidence; and
- Operationally relevant weapon delivery timelines (promptness)”¹¹

And the two-peer study by the Center for Global Security Research made this recommendation:

“From a military perspective, U.S. extended nuclear deterrence capabilities should: (1) be survivable even in an anti-access, area-denial environment; (2) provide an option for prompt response; (3) hold at risk different types of adversary’s targets to maximum operational effect in a wide range of contingencies; (4) not constrain or limit the U.S. strategic second-strike capability. From a political perspective, these capabilities should: (1) provide an option for persistent in-theater presence; (2) be visible to provide an option of demonstrating American robust resolve; (3) provide an option for allied burden sharing and signaling; and (4) be politically acceptable for allies (who will also worry about adversary reactions).”¹²

These recommendations are both sound and similar. However, for the purpose of examining a set of specific alternative theater nuclear systems to augment US theater nuclear capability, they lack sufficient operational detail. Accordingly, this paper builds on these recommendations by developing a more detailed set of attributes for the future US theater nuclear force, along with a brief explanation of the necessity of each attribute. Note that the attributes are not listed in priority order, as all are essential.

Survivable without lengthy force generation (hours, not days)

A theater nuclear force that is not survivable is not a credible deterrent to adversary limited nuclear escalation. As noted above, unless US and NATO DCA forces in Europe are able to disperse effectively, they risk inviting a preemptive attack. However, for future US theater nuclear forces to achieve survivability, they must be able to do so without lengthy force generation, as that too could invite a preemptive attack in a crisis or conflict. Continuous survivability, as provided by submerged submarines, is preferable to dependence on force generation in theater. Finally, rapid force-generation capability enables the president to calibrate force-generation signaling without incurring undue risk.

Forward deployed continuously in both Europe and Asia

Continuous theater nuclear force presence in both Europe and Asia provides several advantages over nuclear force options that deploy only during a crisis or conflict. First, continuous presence assures allies and partners in a way that deployable forces cannot. This can be seen in repeated South Korean calls for a return of US nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula, and widespread allied support of SLCM-Ns deployed on forward-deployed attack submarines. Second, it ensures immediate force availability without requiring a deployment decision or potentially undesirable signaling. Immediate availability is particularly important if the United States compensates for conventional inferiority with theater nuclear forces, as those forces must be readily available to deter or defeat adversary aggression. Third, a force designed to maintain continuous theater nuclear presence in both theaters will drive sufficient force sizing to address the two-peer threat.

Warheads with a range of explosive yields and multiple fusing options

Theater nuclear weapons with multiple explosive yield and fusing options expand the range of choices available to the president that are both militarily effective (e.g., striking large-area military targets or hard and deeply buried targets) and able to limit collateral damage. These options enable more effective strikes and improve the ability to limit collateral damage. Both effects enhance deterrence and ensure that US theater nuclear forces can achieve US objectives if deterrence fails.

Deliverable on operationally relevant timeline

The time it takes to deliver a US nuclear strike from the moment it is directed can determine whether that strike achieves its objective. An “operationally relevant delivery timeline” ensures that the strike occurs quickly enough to achieve the designated objective. What is “operationally relevant” depends on the nature of the objective itself. For example, if the objective of a US theater strike is to restore deterrence following an adversary’s limited first use by convincing them they have miscalculated, how long will the adversary wait before concluding their initial limited nuclear use was insufficient to coerce the United States, leading them to strike again? A few hours? Ten to twelve hours? Days? The answer is that Washington does not know. However, the more rapidly the US response is delivered, the less likely the adversary is to act again. Targeting adversary mobile or relocatable forces in a dynamic theater conflict also requires more prompt delivery timelines to be operationally relevant. Additionally, more rapid response timelines provide the president with more decision time.

Highly likely to penetrate adversary defenses even in very limited strikes

Deterrent and warfighting effectiveness requires weapon systems capable of penetrating adversary air and missile defenses with high confidence. Limited strikes—the most likely option for US theater nuclear forces—set a higher bar for high-confidence penetration for two reasons. First, one means of defeating defenses is to overwhelm them with large salvos of incoming weapons. Second, limited theater nuclear responses must be highly effective to achieve their objectives, as failing to strike one or more targets in a limited response is far more consequential than in large-scale strikes.

Many factors contribute to the penetrability of nuclear strike options, but an often-overlooked attribute is the range of maneuverable delivery systems, like aircraft and cruise missiles, which can leverage long-range capability to evade adversary defenses.

Effective against the full range of likely targets necessary to enable US strategy

Deterrence requires the ability to hold at risk those things the adversary values highly and those things that will deny the adversary its objectives. Countering limited adversary nuclear use requires the capability to destroy military targets that could have a decisive impact on the outcome of an ongoing theater conflict. Thus, there is a clear overlap—a Venn diagram of what is necessary to deter and what is necessary to counter limited adversary use in theater.

The capability to hold this overlapping set of targets at risk depends on multiple factors, some of which are addressed by other attributes on this list (i.e., explosive yield and fusing, delivery on operationally relevant timelines, penetrability). US theater nuclear forces must have sufficient range to cover these targets. Additionally, these forces must create weapons effects capable of achieving US objectives, such as lethality against hard and deeply buried targets.

If the United States opts to compensate for conventional inferiority with nuclear weapons in a second theater, additional capabilities might be required—such as the ability to strike moving targets, including underway naval vessels. This mission might also necessitate some delegation of nuclear-use authority to commanders at the operational level to enable operationally relevant delivery timelines.

Ability to enhance the nation’s technical hedge capability and contribute to meeting increased strategic nuclear targeting requirements

In the two-nuclear-peer threat environment, the United States will likely need to expand the size of its strategic nuclear forces to deter or achieve presidential objectives against Russia and China simultaneously. This expansion is expected to be achieved, at least in part, by uploading the ICBM and SLBM forces. However, such uploading will reduce the ability to hedge against a technical failure in a strategic warhead design or delivery system by deploying weapons initially intended as a hedge against technical failure.

Theater nuclear forces could help mitigate this problem by covering a portion of the strategic target sets with theater forces. However, a theater system can only hedge effectively against a technical problem in the strategic force if it provides an effective second-strike capability against a significant portion of strategic targets and can be readily commanded and controlled in concert with strategic nuclear strikes.

Theater nuclear forces can also help address the challenges posed by the two-nuclear-peer threat to the US strategic nuclear force. Some theater system options offer a less expensive means of increasing the number of deployed weapons needed to hold strategic targets at risk against two peer adversaries simultaneously. Consequently, a sufficiently sized US theater nuclear force can mitigate key elements of the impact on strategic nuclear force requirements driven by the need to counter two peer adversaries at once.

Examining alternative theater nuclear system options

Having identified seven key attributes needed in the future US theater nuclear force, an examination of how well alternative theater nuclear system options provide those attributes is now possible. What follows is an assessment of the following six alternative theater system options:¹³

DCA with the B61-12 gravity bomb
DCA with a nuclear-armed standoff missile
SLCM-Ns deployed on SSNs
SLCM-Ns deployed on surface ships
GLCM-Ns on road-mobile launchers
GLBM-Ns with alternative reentry vehicles

DCA with the B61-12 gravity bomb

Survivable (pre-launch)

If operated from current fixed, known locations in NATO Europe, the DCA force is vulnerable to preemptive attack and, therefore, insufficiently survivable. If and when the United States and NATO DCA nations implement an effective dispersal concept of operations, this force would become significantly more survivable. Dispersal for survivability also provides an additional deterrent signaling option. However, the requirement to disperse DCA to enhance their survivability could send a potentially undesirable signal during a crisis or conflict.

Continuous forward deployment in Europe and Asia

The current US DCA force is continuously deployed forward in Europe but not in Asia. Deploying that force from Europe to Asia during a crisis or conflict would weaken deterrence against opportunistic aggression in Europe. Thus, the current force structure and posture are inadequate to meet the requirements of a two-peer threat environment. If the United States were to field additional nuclear-armed DCA units and deploy them forward to Asia, this option would provide this attribute.

Range of explosive yields and fusing options

The B61-12 effectively provides this attribute.

Deliverable on operationally relevant timelines

The DCA force is capable of delivering on operationally relevant timelines to any target it can reach, assuming the force has achieved sufficient readiness before the order to strike is given.

Highly likely to penetrate adversary defenses

DCA armed with gravity bombs do not optimally provide this attribute. Gravity bomb delivery requires flying in close proximity to the target, reducing the probability that this system will penetrate with high confidence under all conditions. That probability depends on a wide range of factors, including how deep the target is in enemy-occupied territory, the operating condition of adversary air defenses at the time of the strike, the availability and effectiveness of air defense suppression assets accompanying the strike aircraft, and the radar cross-section of the delivering aircraft.

Effective against full range of likely targets

The limited range of DCA aircraft creates a target coverage issue that prevents this option from holding the full range of likely targets at risk in both theaters. However, DCA range limitations are more detrimental in Asia than in Europe due to a lack of survivable basing options close to the Chinese mainland. This is not an issue with providing target coverage of North Korea.

Ability to enhance technical hedge and contribute to strategic targeting requirements

Target coverage shortfalls, due to limited range and current force size, render this option ineffective as a hedge against a technical failure in the US strategic force or as an augmentation of strategic force capacity to address the two-peer threat.

Bottom line

DCA armed with the B61-12 do not fully provide five of the seven key attributes needed for the US theater nuclear force in the two-peer threat environment. Implementing an effective dispersal concept of operations and increasing the readiness of NATO DCA forces would mitigate two of the five shortfalls.

DCA with a nuclear-armed standoff missile

Survivable (pre-launch)

This option has the same pre-launch survivability as DCA with the B61-12.

Continuous forward deployment in Europe and Asia

This option has the same deployment limitations as DCA with the B61-12.

Range of explosive yields and fusing options

Same as DCA with the B61-12.

Deliverable on operationally relevant timelines

Same as DCA with the B61-12.

Highly likely to penetrate adversary defenses

The addition of some form of standoff missile to the DCA force would significantly enhance its ability to penetrate adversary defenses with high confidence. The extent of this improvement depends on several factors, including the range and speed of the standoff missile (the longer and faster, the better), the radar cross-section of the standoff missile (the lower, the better), and whether the missile can be carried internally by F-35 aircraft (thus reducing the radar cross-section of the F-35 itself, enabling it to fly closer, or farther into, adversary defenses before launch). Air-launched ballistic or hypersonic missiles would offer even better penetrability than air-launched cruise missiles, which are already highly effective.

Effective against full range of likely targets

DCA with standoff missiles will face the same range limitations as DCA with the B61-12 unless the missile’s range significantly augments the aircraft’s range. While this option can provide some improvement, shortfalls in target coverage are likely to persist.

Ability to enhance technical hedge and contribute to strategic targeting requirements

This limitation is the same as DCA with the B61-12 unless the standoff missile’s range is sufficient to significantly improve target coverage of the Russian or Chinese homelands.

Bottom line

The existing US DCA force could be improved by adding a standoff missile capability and implementing an effective dispersal concept of operations. However, range limitations are still likely to prevent this option from fulfilling two of the seven attributes.

An AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface nuclear capable standoff missile in flight, December 2010. Credit: US Air Force.

SLCM-Ns deployed on SSNs

Survivable (pre-launch)

If routinely deployed onboard SSNs at sea, this option would provide a theater nuclear capability that is survivable day-to-day without force generation.

Continuous forward deployment in Europe and Asia

If routinely deployed onboard SSNs at sea, this option would provide a theater nuclear capability that is continuously forward deployed in both theaters without force generation.

Range of explosive yields and fusing options

With the proper warhead selection, SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute.

Deliverable on operationally relevant timelines

Deliverable on operationally relevant timelines SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute if forward deployed at sea

Highly likely to penetrate adversary defenses

SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute, in part due to their ability to be launched from inside the outer edges of an adversary’s air defenses.

Effective against full range of likely targets

SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute.

Ability to enhance technical hedge and contribute to strategic targeting requirements

SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute if acquired in sufficient quantity.

Bottom line

SLCM-Ns deployed on SSNs provide all seven attributes needed for US theater nuclear forces in the two-peer threat environment, provided they are routinely deployed aboard SSNs at sea in both theaters in significant numbers.

SLCM-Ns deployed on surface ships

Survivable (pre-launch)

This deployment mode would be less survivable than the SLCM-N on SSN option due to the higher detectability of surface ships. However, the larger number of potential launch platforms could help mitigate this to some extent.

Continuous forward deployment in Europe and Asia

SLCM-Ns on surface ships would effectively provide this attribute.

Range of explosive yields and fusing options

With the proper warhead selection, SLCM-Ns on surface ships would effectively provide this attribute.

Deliverable on operationally relevant timelines

SLCM-Ns on surface ships would effectively provide this attribute if forward deployed at sea.

Highly likely to penetrate adversary defenses

Under certain circumstances, SLCM-Ns on surface ships could be less effective at penetrating adversary air defenses due to survivability concerns if the missile attempts to launch from inside the outer layers of adversary defenses.

Effective against full range of likely targets

SLCM-Ns on surface ships would provide less target coverage than SLCM-Ns on SSNs if unable to launch from locations close to the adversary’s shoreline due to survivability concerns.

Ability to enhance technical hedge and contribute to strategic targeting requirements

This deployment option would have less capability than SLCM-Ns on SSNs in providing a technical hedge and contributing to strategic targeting requirements, primarily due to lower survivability and likely reduced strategic target coverage caused by range limitations stemming from survivability concerns.

Bottom line

The surface ship SLCM-N option would provide all seven attributes but less effectively than SLCM-Ns on SSNs for three of the seven.

Survivable (pre-launch)

If routinely deployed onboard SSNs at sea, this option would provide a theater nuclear capability that is survivable day-to-day without force generation.

Continuous forward deployment in Europe and Asia

If routinely deployed onboard SSNs at sea, this option provides a theater nuclear capability that is continuously forward deployed in both theaters without force generation.

Range of explosive yields and fusing options

With the proper warhead selection, SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute.

Deliverable on operationally relevant timelines

Deliverable on operationally relevant timelines SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute if forward deployed at sea

Highly likely to penetrate adversary defenses

SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute, in part due to their ability to be launched from inside the outer edges of an adversary’s air defenses.

Effective against full range of likely targets

SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute.

Ability to enhance technical hedge and contribute to strategic targeting requirements

SLCM-Ns on SSNs effectively provide this attribute if acquired in sufficient quantity.

Bottom line

A Tomahawk cruise missile launches from the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Shoup (DDG 86) during the field training exercise Valiant Shield 2018 in the Philippine Sea. Credit: William Collins III, US Navy.

GLCM-Ns road-mobile launchers

Survivable (pre-launch)

Road-mobile GLCM-Ns would be highly survivable once effectively dispersed and concealed. Like DCA, dispersal provides an additional deterrent signaling option; however, the fact that these systems must be dispersed to enhance their survivability requires a potentially undesirable signal in a crisis or conflict. If the United States were to deploy a GLCM-N based on the conventional GLCM currently being acquired by the Army and Marine Corps, its survivability could be enhanced by embedding it within a significantly larger force.

Continuous forward deployment in Europe and Asia

Assuming US allies accept continuous deployment of GLCM-Ns on their territory, this option effectively provides this attribute. GLCM-Ns could provide a new allied nuclear sharing option.

Range of explosive yields and fusing options

With the proper warhead selection, GLCM-Ns would effectively provide this attribute.

Deliverable on operationally relevant timelines

As long as they are deployed forward continuously, GLCM-Ns would effectively provide this attribute.

Highly likely to penetrate adversary defenses

This quality is comparable to that of the SLCM-N, given the systems’ ability to disperse far forward.

Effective against full range of likely targets

GLCM-Ns likely provide better target coverage in Europe than in Asia due to the relative lack of potential basing options close to the Chinese mainland.

Ability to enhance technical hedge and contribute to strategic targeting requirements

GLCM-Ns would be somewhat less effective than SLCM-Ns on SSNs in providing this attribute due to the impact on its range caused by the lack of potential basing options close to the Chinese mainland.

Bottom line

GLCM-Ns would provide all seven attributes in Europe and five of seven in Asia.

A Department of Defense (DoD) flight test of a conventionally configured ground-launched cruise missile at San Nicolas Island, CA, August 2019. Credit: Scott Howe, US Department of Defense.

GLBM-Ns with alternative reentry vehicles

Survivable (pre-launch)

A GLBM-N system would have the same positive survivability characteristics as a GLCM-N.

Continuous forward deployment in Europe and Asia

A GLBM-N system would have the same positive forward deployment characteristics as a GLCM-N.

Range of explosive yields and fusing options

A GLBM-N system would have the same positive yield characteristics as a GLCM-N.

Deliverable on operationally relevant timelines

Enhanced promptness of delivery over air-breathing systems (e.g., DCA and cruise missiles) expands the scope of adversary targets that a GLBM-N could strike on operationally relevant timelines. The range and firing locations of a GLBM-N will, of course, affect this.

Highly likely to penetrate adversary defenses

A GLBM-N, especially if equipped with maneuvering or hypersonic reentry vehicles, would provide the highest penetrability of any theater nuclear system assessed.

Effective against full range of likely targets

A GLBM-N with alternative reentry vehicles would enhance effectiveness against some targets due to promptness. A GLBM-N could suffer from the same impact on target coverage as a GLCM-N in Asia. However, the potential to develop and field a truly intermediate-range GLBM-N could mitigate this limitation to a degree.

Ability to enhance technical hedge and contribute to strategic targeting requirements

A GLBM-N system would have the same hedging and strategic targeting characteristics as a GLCM-N, with the caveat regarding improved target coverage in Asia of an intermediate-range GLBM-N noted above.

Bottom line

A GLBM-N would provide all seven attributes. The unique delivery attributes of a GLBM-N with alternative reentry vehicles make it a potentially interesting complement to SLCM-Ns on SSNs.

A graphic summary of how well alternative theater nuclear system options provide the seven attributes required for the two-peer threat environment follows:

Table 1. Assessment of theater nuclear system attributes

A graphic summary of how well-planned US strategic forces can provide those seven attributes if used in a theater role is depicted here:

Table 2. Assessment of strategic system attributes for theater missions

Conclusion

Based on an examination of how well alternative theater nuclear system options provide the seven attributes necessary to enable an effective Flexible Response strategy in the impending two-nuclear-peer threat environment, the author recommends the following future US theater nuclear force structure and posture.

The United States should field a theater nuclear force that combines an effectively dispersible DCA force in Europe with SLCM-Ns deployed day-to-day on SSNs in both theaters and GLCM-Ns and/or GLBM-Ns continuously deployed in Europe and/or Asia.

Such a force is necessary because the current US theater nuclear posture is inadequate in both theaters. DCA in Europe would provide a real operational military capability if they are made survivable through effective dispersal and concealment. SLCM-Ns on SSNs fill much of the gap in the current US posture in both theaters, providing all of the attributes needed to enhance deterrence of limited nuclear use, to counter such use if deterrence fails, and augment the technical hedge and strategic nuclear force. GLCM-Ns and/or GLBM-Ns would further complicate Russian and Chinese escalation calculations and military planning while demonstrating the resolve of the United States and its allies to take potentially politically costly action in response to the increased threats they face. However, the United States must carefully evaluate whether pursuing GLCM-N or GLBM-N deployment would ultimately enhance or undermine alliance unity in Europe or Asia.

Fielding these additional forces would likely hasten the enhanced integration of conventional and nuclear theater operations, as the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, US European Command, US Indo-Pacific Command, and US Forces Korea would operate and plan improved theater nuclear forces of their own.

Finally, if the United States and its allies and partners choose not to maintain conventional superiority in both theaters simultaneously, additional theater nuclear capabilities are likely to be required to enable a strategy of compensating for conventional inferiority in a second theater with nuclear weapons. The importance of that choice cannot be overstated. As the Strategic Posture Commission noted:

“[D]ismissing the possibility of opportunistic or simultaneous two-peer aggression because it may seem improbable, and not addressing it in U.S. strategy and strategic posture, could have the perverse effect of making such aggression more likely.”¹⁴

That set of potential theater nuclear force requirements and the options to meet them is the subject for further analysis.

About the author

Greg Weaver is the principal of Strategy to Plans LLC. Previously, he served as deputy director for strategic stability in the Joint Chiefs of Staff Directorate for Strategic Plans and Policy (J5), where he was the principal policy and strategy adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on nuclear, space, cyber, missile defense, and arms control issues. Prior to joining the Joint Staff, Weaver was principal director for nuclear and missile defense policy in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and the deputy director for policy and plans at US Strategic Command. (Strategy to Plans LLC has a contractual relationship with Lawernce Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, which design and manufacture nuclear warheads.)

Acknowledgements

The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s work on nuclear and strategic forces has been made possible by support from our partners, including Los Alamos National Laboratory, Northrop Grumman Corporation (a subcontractor for the F-35 program), the Norwegian Ministry of Defense, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the United States Department of Defense, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Department of State, as well as general support to the Scowcroft Center. The partners are not responsible for the content of this report, and the Scowcroft Center maintains a strict intellectual independence policy.

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Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

1 US Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2022, Annual Report to Congress, 94–98, https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/2022-China-Military-Power-Report/; Defense Intelligence Agency, Nuclear Challenges: The Growing Capabilities of Strategic Competitors and Regional Rivals, 2024, IX, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Images/News/Military_Powers_Publications/Nuclear-Challenges-2024.pdf.

2 Madelyn R. Creedon et al., America’s Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, October 2023, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/americas_strategic_posture_the_final_report_of_the_congressional_commission_on_the_strategic_posture_of_the_united_states.pdf; Brad Roberts et al., China’s Emergence as a Second Nuclear Peer: Implications for US Nuclear Deterrence Strategy, Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Spring 2023, https://cgsr.llnl.gov/content/assets/docs/CGSR_Two_Peer_230314.pdf.

3 Creedon et al., America’s Strategic Posture, VI.

4 Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 94.

5 Creedon et al., America’s Strategic Posture, 28.

6 Creedon et al., America’s Strategic Posture, viii.

7 See acknowledgements section.

8 Daryl G. Kimball, “Does the United States Need More Nuclear Weapons?” Arms Control Association, July/August 2024, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-07/features/does-united-states-need-more-nuclear-weapons; Caroline Russell, “NTI’s Lynn Rusten on the Costly and Potentially Destabilizing Recommendations in the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission Report,” Nuclear Threat Initiative,November 20, 2023, https://www.nti.org/atomic-pulse/ntis-lynn-rusten-on-the-costly-and-potentially-destabilizing-recommendations-in-the-2023-strategic-posture-commission-report/.

9 Hans M. Kristensen et al., “United States Nuclear Weapons, 2024,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 7, 2024, https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-05/united-states-nuclear-weapons-2024/.

10 John Rood, “Statement on the Fielding of the W76-2 Low-Yield Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Warhead,” US Department of Defense, February 4, 2020, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2073532/statement-on-the-fielding-of-the-w76-2-low-yield-submarine-launched-ballistic-m/.

11 Creedon et al., America’s Strategic Posture, 49.

12 Roberts et al., China’s Emergence as a Second Nuclear Peer, 48.

13 There are other theater nuclear systems the United States deployed during the Cold War that one could consider (e.g., nuclear artillery, torpedoes, antisubmarine rockets, etc.), but in my view, they lack too many of the attributes I’ve identified to merit a more detailed examination.

14 Creedon et al., America’s Strategic Posture, 29.

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Industrial integration for global defense resilience: Pathways for action

Abigail Rudolph, Steven Grundman — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 15:00:00 +0000

TO: The president of the United States and US policymakers

FROM: Abigail Rudolph and Steven Grundman

DATE: April 2025

SUBJECT: Industrial integration for global defense resilience: Pathways for action

In October 2024, the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program, in partnership with Beretta USA, convened defense industry representatives, government leaders, and subject-matter experts for a not-for-attribution workshop on implementing section 2.1.2.6 of the US National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), “Engage Allies and Partners to Expand Global Defense Production and Increase Supply Chain Resilience.” The participants focused on the biggest barriers to achieving a more integrated defense-industrial ecosystem and wrestled with how the next administration in Washington could take fast action to overcome these obstacles. Informed by the deliberations of the workshop, this Atlantic Council Strategic Insights Memorandum identifies six priority actions the current administration can undertake to fulfill the ambitions of the NDIS in respect to section 2.1.2.6.

Introduction

The ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have exposed significant vulnerabilities in the industrial capacity and capabilities of the United States and its allies. A lack of speed, scale, and resilience in industrial production hampers the ability to sustain operations in these campaigns. Addressing these challenges is integral to achieving deterrence in today’s volatile security environment. The NDIS aims to correct these shortcomings by fostering a more resilient and agile defense-industrial ecosystem. Central to that strategy is the imperative of better integrating the defense industries of the United States and its allies and partners. This memorandum captures deliberations on the workshop’s four objectives, including

identify the key features of industrial readiness and capability;
explore the promise of better integrating the industries of the United States with those of its allies and partners;
characterize the most pressing challenges to integrating these nations’ defense-industrial resources; and
specify a small number of actions the next administration in Washington can quickly undertake to gain leverage on these challenges.

Strategic context

The NDIS “calls for sustained collaboration and cooperation between the entire U.S. government, private industry, and our Allies and partners abroad . . . [I]nternational allies and partners, each with their own robust defense industries, will continue to be a cornerstone of the DoD’s concept of Integrated Deterrence.”¹ A modern defense industrial base (DIB) that can keep pace with today’s volatile security environment is essential for the United States to deter and, if necessary, prevail in great-power conflict. However, the defense-industrial resources of the United States and its allies are significantly smaller than they were at the end of the Cold War, which provided the impetus for a great reduction of industrial capacity and a consolidation of companies. As a result, today’s defense industry has adopted a peacetime operating tempo that is ill-equipped to support more dynamic and competitive international-security and military-operating environments.

The preponderance of the US defense industry is optimized to address its customers’ acquisition practices, which have prioritized the development and production of small numbers of exquisite systems rather than weapons delivered at the scale and pace that current conflicts compel governments to require. The transition from an industrial structure optimized for post-Cold War buying preferences to the new imperatives of the age of digital technologies and great-power competition will involve substantial and wide-ranging changes, both to how governments acquire weapons and how industry is organized to deliver them. To accomplish this goal, the NDIS prioritized enhanced international cooperation among the United States, its allies and partners, and their respective defense-industrial resources.

The success of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) in harnessing the weapons stockpiles and industrial arsenals of Kyiv’s partners suggests the great promise of integrating allies’ industrial capabilities. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States spearheaded the formation of the UDCG to manifest “the arsenal of Ukrainian democracy.”² Working together, the armaments directors of more than forty countries cooperating to support Ukraine have expanded global production of critical munitions; developed a common sustainment framework to enhance Ukraine’s capabilities in spares, maintenance, training, and industrial support; and facilitated partnerships with Ukrainian industry for co-production and co-sustainment activities. Although further efforts to strengthen and integrate the international defense-industrial base are needed, the UDCG offers valuable insights into what a major conflict requires from an industrial readiness standpoint.

Challenges

The work of better integrating US and allied defense-industrial capabilities faces a wide range of significant challenges, which the workshop bucketed into three categories.

Because defense-industrial resources are, sensibly enough, primarily organized by national priorities and prerogatives, they do not lend themselves easily to cross-border opportunities.
The business and regulatory systems for managing cross-border defense trade are inapt and inefficient.
Substantial deficits of talent and knowledge management impair the integration of different nations’ industrial resources.

The long tradition of governments organizing their defense-industrial resources with respect to the sovereign obligation of national security continues. While most Western companies, which occupy the advanced industries of the twenty-first century, operate by the global imperatives of commerce, defense companies do not. Instead, they operate primarily in response to the program plans and buying practices of their home markets, and export sales are regulated for compliance with foreign policy, national security, and national economic considerations. These considerations notwithstanding, billions of dollars of arms exports proceed. However, these same considerations confound integration upstream from the points of sale, largely foregoing the industrial efficiencies that would be afforded by co-development, co-production, and co-sustainment of systems between and among companies from more than one nation. This tradition operates at odds with national strategies, which, at their core, rely on coordination of defense policies and militaries among allies and partners.

Therefore, to fulfill these strategies, the business and regulatory systems that effect cross-border defense trade need to be optimized for integration. In practice, however, they are optimized to minimize risk in respect to the foreign policy, security, and political prerogatives of each national government. Most notably, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which regulates the export of defense goods and services from the United States, is unsuited to the aims of the NDIS with respect to integrating allies’ industrial capabilities. The export of arms needs to remain a discretionary instrument of US foreign and defense policy, but the administration of these controls too often fails to facilitate licenses that will better integrate industrial capabilities to effectively meet the needs of the warfighter and improve industrial integration efforts. For example, “buy America” preferences, which are expressed in law and regulation—and, more importantly, the culture of the Pentagon’s acquisition workforce—continue to impair integration.

Moreover, defense ministries and industries face vast knowledge and talent-management deficits, which impair cross-border industrial integration. In the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields most relevant to the defense industry, there is a significant gap between workforce needs and the availability of qualified professionals. This gap is compounded by high attrition rates in management, resulting in a breakdown of knowledge transfer from industry veterans to new arrivals.³The deficits within the US government are at least as great. Defense civil servants require better education in both market research and procurement strategies to effectively evaluate when allied or partner capabilities might offer advantages or simple complementarity compared with domestic performers.⁴ Until these gaps are filled, the transmission belt from policy prescriptions encouraging cross-border integration to practical action enacting these reforms will continue to fail.

These three challenges—the lack of a common economic market among allies and partners, the inapt regulation of cross-border trade, and the weak preparedness of those involved in procurement processes—framed the workshop’s discussions and provided impetus for the priorities this memorandum identifies. By tackling these key challenges, the United States and its allies and partners can enhance their collective defense efforts, align more effectively with strategic objectives, and ensure a more robust and integrated deterrence posture in an increasingly complex security environment.

Recommendations

Achieving the speed, scale, and resilience that the NDIS calls for will require a concerted effort of initiatives in Washington and coordination with the governments of its allies and partners. For a fast start toward achieving this ambition, the new administration should undertake the following actions.

Designate a focal point at the White House. The initiatives this office should lead include
1. reform of the Foreign Military Sales processes;
2. reauthorization of the Defense Production Act (see b) below); and
3. establishment of consultative bodies to formalize government-to-government coordination of industrial capabilities (see c) below).
Leverage the reauthorization of the Defense Production Act. Most provisions of the Defense Production Act (DPA) will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The need to reauthorize the DPA in 2025 presents a significant opportunity to leverage and expand its authorities to enhance international industrial cooperation. Congress and the new administration should consider provisions including
1. expanding the recipients of Title III financial assistance to companies in allied nations beyond the National Technology Industrial Base (e.g., the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia);
2. expanding the purposes of Title III financial assistance beyond end items to encompass critical infrastructure, industrial capacity, and training and education; and
3. giving standing and utility in Title I to the security of supply agreements between the United States and the more than two dozen governments that have committed to mutually assured security of supply for defense needs.⁵
Establish formal institutions to facilitate international industrial cooperation. Operationalize consultative bodies with European and Asian partners to facilitate the coordination of industrial capabilities among the United States and its allies.
1. In Europe, NATO presents itself as the obvious platform on which to build a consultative forum for coordination with that region’s allies and partners.
2. In Asia, the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR) is the platform through which to coordinate with Asian partners.
Identify specific defense system needs to comprise an initial agenda of industrial capacity and capabilities that would benefit from international coordination and industrial integration. To focus attention while, at the same time, indicating the broad scope and application of such initiatives, we recommend choosing just three systems on which to focus this year—one system in development, another in production, and a sustainment program.
Establish career paths and educational curriculums for acquisition managers who focus on international cooperation and industrial integration.

Conclusion

Implementation of the NDIS is well under way, including with respect to Section 2.1.2.6. However, a clear sense remains of the high leverage provided to the overall strategy by integrating allies’ industrial capabilities, together with a focused agenda of executive office actions required to achieve that ambition. The purpose of this memorandum is to give a tailwind to the new administration’s attention to these opportunities.

About the authors

Staff

Abigail Rudolph

Program Assistant

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Fellow

Steven Grundman

Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the government officials, industry representatives, and think tank experts who lent their time and expertise to the workshop in support of this strategic insights memorandum. The Atlantic Council would like to thank its partner, Beretta USA, for supporting its work on this publication.

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2 Lloyd J. Austin III, “’The Commons Defence’: Remarks by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III at the Reagan National Defense Forum,” US Department of Defense, December 7, 2024, https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/3989588/the-common-defence-remarks-by-secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-at-the-re/.

1 “National Defense Industrial Strategy,” US Department of Defense, November 16, 2023, i, 24, https://www.dau.edu/sites/default/files/2024-02/2023%20NDIS_FINAL%20FOR%20PUBLICATION%201_0.pdf.

3 Brooke Weddle, et al., “The Talent Gap: The Value at Stake for Global Aerospace and Defense,” McKinsey & Company, July 17, 2024, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/aerospace-and-defense/our-insights/the-talent-gap-the-value-at-stake-for-global-aerospace-and-defense.

4 James Hasik, “Friend-Sourcing Military Procurement: Technology Acquisition as Security Cooperation,” Atlantic Council, June 11, 2024, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/friend-sourcing-military-procurement/.

5 James Hasik, “The Security of Defense Trade with Allies: Enhancing Contact, Contracts, and Control in Supply Chains,” Atlantic Council, July 28, 2021, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/the-security-of-defense-trade-with-allies/.

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Daryl Press interviewed for ABC News article on B-2 nuclear-capable bombers

Atlantic Council — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 18:06:36 +0000

On April 3, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Daryl G. Press was interviewed for an ABC News article entitled, “Satellite images show multiple US B-2 nuclear-capable bombers deployed to Indian Ocean.” In the article, Press was quoted as saying, “The movement of the aircraft to Diego Garcia definitely sends a signal to Iran about the extent to which they are in jeopardy, and the extent of seriousness the Trump administration feels with regard to its various demands.”

Fellow

Daryl G. Press

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Arms Control Defense Policy

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General Kevin P. Chilton in Air & Space Forces Magazine

Atlantic Council — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 18:04:34 +0000

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On April 4, Forward Defense distinguished fellow Kevin P. Chilton was featured in an Air & Space Forces article by Greg Hadley entitled, “Space Superiority Takes Center Stage.” Gen. Chilton is cited arguing for more “openness, saying there cannot be deterrent value in having offensive capabilities in space if the Space Force isn’t allowed to talk about the topic.”

Fellow

Kevin P. Chilton

Distinguished Fellow

Cybersecurity Defense Industry

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No, Iran didn’t abandon the Houthis. It just wants Trump to think so.

Fatima Abo Alasrar — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 12:46:52 +0000

If you were confused by the Telegraph article on Iran “abandoning” the Houthis, you’re not alone. That narrative is precisely the kind of strategic ambiguity Iran has long relied on, inviting speculation while concealing intent. But this moment isn’t just about misinformation. It’s about signaling. The anonymous official leaking the headline appears to be offering the perception of restraint, not to change facts on the ground, but to buy time, test reactions, and shape how those facts are read in Washington, Riyadh, and beyond.

While Iran may have repositioned some personnel as the Telegraph claims, there is no credible evidence of pulling back support from the Houthis or a wholesale “abandonment.” Tehran still has its ambassador in Sanaa who advises the Houthis and maintains a significant covert operational presence in Yemen through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), specifically its Quds Force. Moreover, General Abdul Reza Shahlai, a senior Quds Force commander who has been active in Yemen since at least 2011–2012, serves on the Houthis’ Jihadis council. The IRGC’s presence in Yemen is linked to its so-called “6000 branch,” which oversees operations across the Arabian Peninsula.

The “abandonment” narrative is not an isolated distortion. In Iraq, the recent Reuters reporting suggests militias might disarm, but mentions they’re considering “turning the groups into political parties and integrating them into the Iraqi armed forces”—effectively institutionalizing rather than diminishing their influence. It’s part of a broader choreography of plausible deniability that Iran has perfected across the region. In Syria, its presence was labeled “advisory” as it built entrenched military outposts. In Iraq, it blurred the line between state and militia. In Yemen, the illusion has matured: Iran no longer needs to defend its role. Others do it for them.

Tehran’s alleged storyline by this anonymous source is likely a leak to test reactions, meant to simultaneously accomplish three key goals: it gives the US administration a symbolic win, creates space for Iran to maneuver for sanctions relief and its nuclear ambitions without concessions, and sends a message to international observers that it is capable of restraint. It’s not nearly anywhere near surrender and acknowledgment of Iran’s limits with its proxies; it’s simply diplomacy by the headline.

The Houthi-Iran dynamic

When confronted with the Telegraph article, a senior Houthi official mocked the idea that Iran had ever deployed personnel to Yemen. Houthi foreign minister Jamal Amer explicitly stated to Reuters that “Iran is not interfering in our decision, but what is happening is that it mediates sometimes.” There was no mention of Iranian withdrawal of support, only continued alignment within Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” network. For the Houthis, who boast of their role in that axis, admitting dependence would signal weakness. Denying the premise reinforces a fiction that serves both sides.

Ironically, Tehran has long claimed it plays no direct role in Yemen, a position that strains credulity given the Houthis’ advanced weaponry, military training, and tightly aligned messaging. Just this March, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei asserted the Houthis act independently while simultaneously embracing them as core members of the “Axis of Resistance.” With Iran deliberately obscuring its operational control and coordination, the Houthis’ proxy status has become a geopolitical Rorschach test, revealing more about observers’ biases than the facts on the ground. This calculated ambiguity is not a bug but a feature of Iran’s regional strategy.

For close observers of Yemen-Iran dynamics, one of the most persistent fictions has been the idea that Tehran attempts to restrain the Houthis. This narrative, repeated by Western officials and analysts alike, casts the Houthis as impulsive or unruly, as if they were acting against Iran’s advice rather than as part of its regional architecture. It’s an unsubstantiated claim, but a deeply useful one. It builds the myth of Houthi autonomy while shielding Iran from the consequences of its alignment.

A “victory” for Trump? The danger of misreading strategic signals

Trump’s approach seems to have generated new calculations in Tehran. After the president ordered “decisive and powerful military action” against Houthi targets in Yemen in March 2025, warning that “Hell will rain down” if attacks continued, Iranian officials responded with their characteristic mix of defiance and caution. This escalatory rhetoric, coupled with the Trump administration’s “more aggressive approach” that targets a broader range of Houthi assets and personnel, has created strategic pressure that Iran struggles to counter. While Tehran publicly maintains a posture of defiance, any attempt to withdraw IRGC personnel from Yemen simply suggests a reluctance to expose high-value assets to US firepower.

Iranian state media portrays Trump as an impulsive, unstrategic figure whose actions are driven by ego and spectacle rather than coherent policy. He is depicted as lacking both military and political understanding, engaging in reckless interventions not out of strength, but out of bluster and desperation. As such, the “abandonment” narrative hands him a neatly packaged win, potentially reducing pressure on Tehran and its proxies. But the notion that Iran abandoned the Houthis without restraining them exposes the dishonesty of Tehran’s position. Trump has said he will hold Iran responsible for “every shot fired by the Houthis,” making a simple withdrawal meaningless. A real disengagement would require Iran to stop Houthi attacks. Instead, Tehran seeks credit for restraint while allowing its proxy to continue. It cannot have things both ways.

Despite this logical contradiction, the misinformation campaign has gained traction in media circles, with many uncritically repeating the abandonment narrative while Iran maintains operational support for Houthi forces.

The new proxy consortium: Russia, China, and Iran.

While much has been made of Tehran’s supposed withdrawal, equally important is understanding what’s filling the perceived vacuum. Growing Russian and Chinese influence offers the Houthis alternative channels of support that complement, rather than replace, Iran’s backing. Reports indicate increasing cooperation with Moscow, including Russian military experts in Sanaa advising on weapons and targeting.

China, with economic stakes in the Red Sea through its Belt and Road Initiative, maintains a diplomatic balance, calling for de-escalation while positioning as a mediator. Rather than a pivot away from Iran, these ties reflect a Houthi diversification strategy, creating a more complex web of support that’s harder for the United States to disrupt.

Instead of seeing this as a zero-sum game between Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing, one might consider how these powers complement each other: Iran offers ideological cohesion, media support, and a commanding role; Russia, military expertise and diplomatic cover; China, economic depth and global legitimacy.

This complementary support structure is evident in the material flows to Houthi territory. In March 2025, Yemeni authorities intercepted eight hundred Chinese drone propellers en route to the Houthis through the Sarfayt border crossing with Oman in a route long exploited by the IRGC throughout the Yemeni conflict. Earlier, in August 2024, officials also seized Chinese-manufactured hydrogen fuel cells, a technology that enables drones to fly higher, longer, and with greater precision. Analysts suggest these enhanced drones could identify targets over one hundred miles away, dramatically increasing the Houthis’ strike range.

Meanwhile, China and Russia have quietly secured safe passage through the Red Sea, a privilege not extended to most other countries, whose vessels remain subject to Houthi attacks.

Perhaps more revealing, on March 22, 2025, Moscow-based influencers and pro-government Chinese personalities were spotted in Sanaa, attending a solidarity conference with Palestine at the Houthis’ invitation. Their presence was not incidental, it was a signal of a growing diplomatic alignment between these powers, and a carefully staged one at that.

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What we’re witnessing in Yemen’s north is an expansion and sophistication of the Houthi support network. The emerging trilateral cooperation between Iran, Russia, and China, in this nearly overt fashion, is a strategic investment in the Middle East that these countries are making for the long-term future and stability of their authoritarian power.

All this gives the Houthis an advantage as they manage a complex web of like-minded alliances, each bringing complementary resources: Iranian ideological alignment and strong geopolitical backing, Russian military expertise, and Chinese economic and technological capabilities. This model of distributed sponsorship may well represent the future of proxy warfare in the region, creating redundancy, resilience, and expanded capability while diffusing attribution and accountability.

What next?

Meanwhile, Iran’s strategic ambiguity conceals mounting anxiety over Trump’s unpredictability and stated hostility toward the regime. When US forces struck Houthi positions in March, IRGC Commander Salami issued contradictory statements, threatening “decisive and destructive” responses while disclaiming control over his Yemeni proxies. As usual, this reveals how Iran projects strength rhetorically while carefully avoiding any direct confrontation that might imperil regime survival.

This delicate balancing act has become increasingly difficult as Iran’s gray zone strategy has collapsed under the weight of its own economic dysfunction and political disarray. Facing economic pressure at home and the decimation of regional allies like Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran cannot afford direct confrontation with the United States, yet cannot abandon its proxy strategy without losing face. The “abandonment” narrative gives Iran a face-saving offramp, appearing to respond to US pressure while preserving its most critical strategic assets and influence.

For Washington, it’s not just easy to stop Iran without disassociating from the risks that could befall the entire region. The former president Ronald Reagan’s doctrine of countering adversarial influence with sustained presence and alliance-building has long since eroded. Despite the Trump administration’s firm stance on Iran through the 2015 nuclear deal withdrawal and maximum pressure campaign, Tehran has managed to leverage the subsequent policy shifts between administrations to expand its regional influence through proxies like the Houthis, who now effectively control critical maritime chokepoints and threaten global shipping lanes with minimal consequences.

Rather than interpreting Iran’s narrative shift as a break, we might see it as a manufactured contradiction, a disfigured present that invites misreading while preserving power. What looks like restraint is often just a symbolic resolution in place of strategic change. This is not disengagement. It’s tactical storytelling.

And the story’s working.

Fatima Abo Alasrar is a Senior Analyst with the Washington Center for Yemeni Studies and a Board Member of Peace Track Initiative. She can be found on X at @YemeniFatima.

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Lt Col Edward Brady, USAF, commentary published by War on the Rocks

Atlantic Council — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 19:02:57 +0000

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On April 4, Forward Defense Senior Air Force Fellow Lieutenant Colonel Edward Brady published a commentary on War on the Rocks, entitled, “Greenland’s Military Possibilities for the United States.” The article argues that Greenland is a critical strategic asset for US Arctic defense and global power projection and recommends cost-effective investments in surveillance, infrastructure, and force deployment to counter growing threats from Russia and China.

Fellow

Edward Brady

Senior Air Force Fellow

Defense Industry Middle East

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Europeans are responding to Trump by rallying around the EU flag

Anna Wieslander and Louise Blomqvist — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 13:48:30 +0000

A subtle but powerful shift is taking place across Europe. Support for the European Union (EU) is surging, with the latest Eurobarometer survey, published on March 25, showing that 74 percent of citizens of EU member states believe their country has benefited from EU membership. This is the highest level of support for that belief since the question was first asked in 1983.

The “rally ‘round the flag” effect—a surge in public support for a government in times of international crisis—is a well-documented phenomenon in politics. In an increasingly unpredictable world, Europeans are now rallying around the EU flag in Brussels. This growing confidence in the EU as a political and economic actor matters—not just for Europeans, but also for Americans, who should recognize that Europeans have started to prepare for a world in which the United States is no longer a central part of the continent’s security.

The message from Europeans is clear: They still want allies. But at the same time, they are getting ready to stand on their own feet in an uncertain world.

Sweden offers a striking example. Historically, Sweden is a transatlantic-leaning country with deep cultural and political ties to the United States. And it has often maintained a cautious stance toward EU integration. Yet in this latest poll, 79 percent of Swedes say that EU membership has been good for the country. At the same time, a separate survey conducted the same month by Sweden’s largest newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, shows a dramatic shift in Swedish public opinion toward the United States. Only 10 percent of Swedes hold a positive view of the United States, down from 23 percent just two years ago. The shift correlates with US President Donald Trump’s return to office in January. A full 86 percent of Swedes express a negative opinion of him. This dislike is not just personal; Trump is seen as a symbol of a declining US commitment to democratic norms and multilateralism, which many Swedes value highly. A striking two-thirds of Swedes surveyed in the Dagens Nyheter poll say that the United States has lost its role as leader of the free world. This sentiment had already taken root before Trump’s April 2 announcement of major global tariffs, which included a 20 percent tariff on the EU.

Across Europe, 66 percent of respondents in the Eurobarometer poll say that the EU should play a stronger role in protecting citizens from global crises and security threats. Three out of four respondents want the EU to be equipped with more tools, financial or institutional, to tackle these challenges. That said, this surge in pro-EU sentiment is not uniform. In countries led by more Trump-friendly or Euroskeptic governments, such as Hungary and Slovakia, support for deeper EU integration remains more tempered. Yet even in these contexts, the broader shift is visible. In Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long been critical of Brussels, an April 2024 Eurobarometer survey found that more than two thirds of Hungarians view EU membership as beneficial, marking an increase from previous years. In Slovakia, public frustration with Prime Minister Robert Fico’s pro-Russian stance has sparked mass demonstrations in the past few months, with tens of thousands protesting under the slogan “Slovakia is Europe” expressing their support for democratic values and closer ties to the EU and NATO. These developments suggest that even where political leadership leans Euroskeptic, citizens are increasingly looking to the EU to safeguard their security and sovereignty.

Europeans have started to prepare for a world in which the United States is no longer a central part of the continent’s security.

The EU has responded in unprecedented ways to the call from its citizens to step up on defense and security. In January, European Commissioner for Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius called for a “Big Bang” in European defense spending and policy changes to face the Russian threat. This was an uphill task, with frugal nations such as Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands opposing initiatives to take out loans and raise debt ceilings, while other nations refused to make commitments to increase defense spending.

But with the push provided by the Trump administration’s clear signaling in recent weeks that Europe will become less of a US security priority, Kubilius got his wish. The ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030 program, presented by the European Commission on March 18, outlines a new era in European security. It should not be understood merely as a short-term reaction to the Trump administration, but a necessary response to a changing global order—one in which the United States pivots to the Indo-Pacific while Europeans can no longer fully rely on US protection to counter the existential threat posed by Russia. As Kubilius put it in a speech on March 20: “450 million Europeans should not ask 340 million Americans to defend us from 140 million Russians who can’t even defeat 38 million Ukrainians.”

The ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030 program marks a historic shift in EU defense policy, mobilizing up to €800 billion through a mix of new and adapted financial instruments. What sets this initiative apart is not just its ambition but how the funding is being unlocked. For the first time, the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact has been loosened to allow member states to undertake defense-related borrowing beyond national debt limits via the escape clause. The initiative also launched a new €150 billion joint-borrowing mechanism, comparable in scale to the EU’s COVID-19 pandemic recovery fund, to support collective procurement and help ramp up the defense industry, including cooperation with Ukraine.

In another radical departure from past practice, the European Investment Bank, which was previously prohibited from military financing, can now fund defense industries. These steps would have been politically impossible just a short while ago. Even Sweden, which has long been resistant to debt-financed EU initiatives, and other traditionally frugal countries are now prepared to take on loans to fund defense modernization. For example, Germany’s recent €100 billion national rearmament plan reflects a sea change in Berlin’s approach to military spending. These developments underscore that Europe is not merely responding to US disengagement but is building real capacity to act.

The tendency for the EU to integrate during crises is not new. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the pan-European procurement of vaccines and the first issuance of an EU eurobond. Still, it is remarkable that no EU government outright blocked the path toward greater defense integration, as far-right parties that are sympathetic to Trump hold power in Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, and the Netherlands. To be sure, European unity on defense is neither unanimous nor uncontested. Some governments remain wary of surrendering sovereignty over defense policy, and debates over funding mechanisms and the scope of joint procurement highlight enduring divisions among member states. These reservations underscore that while the trend is significant, it remains fragile and a range of questions on the implementation of further defense integration remain unsolved. Even so, this is a moment the United States should watch closely. The renewed push for a European Defense Union is a strategic counterweight to the uncertainty coming from Washington. Rather than retreating into nationalism or disengagement, Europeans are choosing to strengthen the EU as a geopolitical actor.

Anna Wieslander, PhD, is director for Northern Europe and head of the Atlantic Council Northern Europe Office in Stockholm.

Louise Blomqvist is a project assistant at the Northern Europe Office.

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Can Donald Trump “completely annihilate” the Houthis in Yemen?

Emily Milliken — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 13:12:56 +0000

US President Donald Trump says his administration will ensure that Yemen’s Houthi rebels are “completely annihilated”—and he is ramping up Washington’s military might to prove it. Trump has spent the early months of his second term in office escalating US military strikes against the rebel force over their attacks against international shipping in the Red Sea. The renewed US military campaign has so far inflicted significant damage, with at least 57 individuals killed, including Houthi militants and Yemeni civilians. The campaign has also targeted weapons stockpiles, drones, and missile storage facilities in an attempt to degrade the Houthis’ ability to strike Red Sea trade routes.

Paired with recent successive losses of other Iran proxies’ leadership, it may seem that the Houthis’ demise is a foregone conclusion. However, such an assumption underestimates the Houthis’ resilience, strategic adaptability, and deep-rooted influence within Yemen.

The challenges of targeting the rebels require recognition from the Trump administration that a purely military approach will not achieve Washington’s goal of “complete annihilation.”

Washington last week took a rather significant step to expand its anti-Houthi crackdowns beyond military force, announcing sanctions targeting two Russia-based Afghan brothers who assisted Sa’id al-Jamal in orchestrating shipments of stolen Ukrainian grain from Crimea to Yemen. However, the Trump administration’s Houthi strategy will require a more nuanced approach that deepens these non-military components.

The Trump administration should employ a multi-pronged strategy, combining increased intelligence operations on the ground, intensified naval interdictions, and robust regional diplomacy to pressure external actors, particularly Russia and China, from bolstering the group’s capabilities through economic incentives like sanctions relief or threats of increased tariffs.

Houthi resilience

Despite a forceful military intervention from the Saudi-led international coalition against the group since their 2014 takeover of the capital in Sanaa, the Houthis have maintained, and expanded, their control in Yemen. The once small rebel group has evolved into a formidable military force, with emerging international support helping to enable their expanding maritime threats.

One of the greatest challenges in eliminating the Houthis lies in neutralizing their leadership, particularly their charismatic leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi, who has played a vital role in the organization since ascending as their leader in 2004.

Unlike other Iran-backed organizations, the Houthis have a dynastic structure and are highly centralized around al-Houthi and his family. The loss of al-Houthi would be a major blow to the organization, especially given that the lack of a clear successor would likely mean the group would need to focus on quelling internal rivalries instead of operations. But taking al-Houthi out will be a tall order.

Gaps in US strategy: hard and soft power tactics

The United States’ ability to track al-Houthi is likely hindered by limited intelligence on the ground in Yemen. This reality was echoed early last year when the US had difficulty assessing the success of its operations and the group’s full arsenal due to a lack of intelligence. Without a reliable presence or informant network, targeting such a well-hidden leader will prove challenging.

Combatting Houthi messaging around the military campaign requires a nuanced approach, too: the rebels have leveraged the damage to vital infrastructure and civilian casualties from the airstrikes for their own propaganda.

Finally, to keep the Houthis from popping up again, the United States would have to sever the group’s means of resupplying, especially from its international partners. Efforts to cut off weapons deliveries from the Houthis’ primary backers, Tehran, have been inconsistent. Due to factors like shifting regional priorities and a desire to avoid escalation with Iran, US naval efforts to seize Iranian weapons shipments to the group have ebbed and flowed in recent years.

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At the same time, Iranian efforts to evade detection through tactics like using decoy boats, transferring arms while at sea, and disguising shipments as fishing boats or hiding them on civilian cargo ships also make interception more difficult. In fact, only an estimated 20 Iranian smuggling vessels were intercepted between 2015 and 2024.

During that time, the Houthis announced several concerning new technologies that appeared to be at least partially of Iranian origin, including a missile they claim can reach hypersonic speeds and a number of attack drones.

In order to sustainably cut off Iranian shipments, the United States will need to increase its naval patrols in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden while also working to collaborate with Gulf allies to choke off smuggling routes and equip the Yemeni Coast Guard with advanced radar technologies and patrol boats that would allow them to be more effective in the long term.

Evolving landscape

Even if the US were able to cut off Iran’s shipments to the rebel group, the Houthis are seeking to diversify their partners beyond Iran and its network of degraded allies and proxies in the region.

For instance, reports from August indicate that Russian military intelligence officers are now operating in Houthi-controlled areas, providing the group with important technical assistance. There are also allegations of a ten-million-dollar Russian small arms sale to the Houthis, and credible claims that Moscow provided the group with targeting data for their maritime operations and is considering selling the group advanced anti-ship missiles.

Expanding ties between the Houthis and Beijing could also allow them to reconstitute. For instance, US intelligence sources claim that China is providing the rebels with advanced components and guidance equipment for their weapons in exchange for immunity for Chinese-flagged ships operating in the Red Sea.

Given the Houthis’ demonstrable resilience, this requires expanding intelligence-sharing agreements with regional allies, deploying advanced surveillance technologies to track illicit arms shipments, and working closely with Gulf partners to enhance maritime security.

Washington must also prioritize strengthening the internationally recognized Yemeni government, also known as the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), both militarily and through projects that would improve its governance and economic stability. These efforts could include securing partnerships to revitalize Yemen’s oil and gas production and distribution, as well as technical expertise to improve the PLC’s fiscal management and public sector accountability. This, coupled with security training for PLC-affiliated forces like the Yemeni coast guard, would help the PLC establish a credible alternative to Houthi rule while also fostering local governance structures and tribal alliances that can erode the Houthis’ support base from within.

While military action can weaken the Yemeni rebels in the short term, effectively degrading and eventually eliminating the group will require the PLC to govern effectively, regain legitimacy, and offer a viable alternative for Yemenis currently under Houthi control. The Trump administration must keep these ends in mind as it formulates its Houthi strategy.

Emily Milliken is the Associate Director at the Atlantic Council’s N7 Initiative.

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Lithuanians pay tribute to US soldiers who died in training exercise tragedy

Agnia Grigas — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:24:44 +0000

Thousands of Lithuanians paid tribute this week to four United States soldiers who died during a training exercise while serving in the Baltic nation. Crowds lined the streets of Vilnius as hearses carrying the bodies of the deceased soldiers made their way to the Lithuanian capital city’s main cathedral for a memorial service before being flown to the United States.

The US servicemen had gone missing a week earlier during training exercises at a Lithuanian military facility close to the border with Belarus. This led to the largest search operation in modern Lithuanian history through the surrounding area of forests and swamps, with military and civilian teams being joined by colleagues from Poland, Germany, and Estonia. Tragically, the four missing United States soldiers were eventually found submerged in a peat bog together with their vehicle.

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Around one thousand US soldiers have been based at Camp Herkus in Lithuania since 2021. Their presence is part of NATO’s Operation Atlantic Resolve, which involves rotational deployments of troops from member states as part of the alliance’s deterrence strategy on its eastern flank.

The recent deaths of four US soldiers have shocked and saddened the Lithuanian public, underlining the bonds between the country and the United States. For days, the search operation for the missing soldiers gripped the nation of almost three million. “For us, it is more than a duty, it is an emotion. We have experienced trials in our history and therefore we understand well what loss is, what death is, what honorable duty is,” commented Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda during events in Vilnius honoring the deceased servicemen.

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The tragedy has served to highlight the importance of the NATO troop presence in Lithuania at a time when Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has heightened alarm in the region over the threat posed by a resurgent Russia. With the Trump administration now discussing plans to reduce the US commitment to European security and focus more of Asia, there are concerns in Lithuania and other front line NATO member states that Russia may seek to take advance of any weakening of resolve within the alliance.

In March, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys traveled to Washington DC with his Estonian and Latvian colleagues to meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and seek assurances regarding the continued United States commitment to the security of the Baltic region. “The Baltic states are quite skeptical about Russia’s intentions. Our intel assessments clearly show that Russia and their instruments of power are all aligned toward war, not toward peace,” commented Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze while in the US.

Lithuania is currently preparing for a dramatic increase in military spending as the country responds to Russia’s expansionist agenda and Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin’s apparent imperial ambitions. Lithuanian officials unveiled plans in January 2025 to boost the defense budget from just over three percent to between five and six percent starting next year. This increase comes as the Trump White House calls on NATO members to move beyond current guidelines stipulating two percent of GDP and spend significantly more on national security.

Amid heightened geopolitical uncertainty, the recent tragic events involving US troops stationed in Lithuania have helped unite the two countries. “We cannot thank our allies and fellow service members enough, especially the Lithuanians, who spared no resource in support of this mission,” commented Major General Curtis Taylor, the commanding general of the United States 1st Armored Division, in the wake of the tragedy. “Together, we delivered on our promise to never leave a fallen comrade.”

Agnia Grigas is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and the author of Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire and other books.

Kevin P. Chilton

Distinguished Fellow

Cybersecurity Defense Industry

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The Department of Defense has a user experience problem

Hannah Hunt — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 21:09:26 +0000

Each year, tech companies spend millions of dollars and hundreds of hours enhancing their user experience (UX), making sure that apps, websites, and other products fit the needs and wants of their customers. In the private sector, a product that brings value to a user base can make the difference between a company succeeding or failing. For the Department of Defense, UX is also a concern, but in military matters the consequences of a product falling short can be even steeper. Poor UX can directly impact mission readiness and, ultimately, the lethality of the force. While private sector consumers can pivot to other products that fit their needs better, warfighters are often mandated to use specific technologies from Program Executive Offices, even if the capabilities don’t meet their operational needs.

At present, the Department of Defense is facing a significant user delivery problem. In recent years, there have been notable failures in critical programs, such as the Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System program prior to its transition to Anduril, the Air Force’s Enterprise Resource Planning system, and ongoing software issues with the F-35. While each of these cases is unique, at the most basic level they all highlight a failure of the new capability to meet the needs of those who are meant to use them. These problems are not just technical—they are rooted in a failure to align the development of software systems with the actual needs of warfighters.

One of the primary reasons for this disconnect is the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) requirements process. This framework aims to ensure the Department of Defense meets mission needs with the right systems. However, the process is often lengthy, ill-informed, and dominated by high-level decision makers, such as three- and four-star generals. These decision makers may not fully understand or appreciate the experiences and challenges faced by the junior enlisted personnel or officers who will ultimately be using the systems. Input from end users, when it is included, can often be an afterthought, filtered through multiple layers of bureaucracy. As a result, the software solutions that are built too often don’t fully meet the operational requirements of those on the frontlines.

Adding to the problem is the slow feedback loop. It can take as long as 180 days to request and receive user feedback through formal exercises, or “touch points”—an eternity when it comes to the fast-paced, ever-changing landscape of military operations. Even after receiving feedback, the Project Management Offices often don’t prioritize updates or changes. They often seem to focus more on meeting cost and schedule metrics than on ensuring the system works well for its intended users. This leads to a software-development cycle in which changes and adjustments are often delayed, resulting in systems that miss the mark.

In response to these issues, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth further codified the value of the Software Acquisition Pathway (SWP) as the gold standard for software-intensive system procurement. While this may sound like a new initiative, organizations such as the Air Force’s Kessel Run have been championing this approach for more than three years. The SWP introduces a shift toward more agile and user-centered development practices. The pathway mandates regular engagement with the end-user community, emphasizes the integration of user metrics to gauge the system’s value, and ensures that the system aligns with mission needs.

However, despite its potential, the implementation of the SWP is still mired in bureaucracy, often stalling progress before it reaches the users who need it most, with only eighty-two out of more than two thousand programs currently leveraging the pathway.

To truly address the user experience challenge, Department of Defense programs should ingrain user-centered design practices into the culture of software acquisition and bring it into the development process from the very beginning. This requires a shift in how the Department of Defense develops software: Instead of making assumptions about what users need—or leveraging “user representatives,” who may not have the latest operational context—development processes should incorporate regular user interviews, ad hoc reviews, and feedback loops. Weekly user interviews and the ability to present mockups and prototypes allow developers to adjust features based on real-time feedback. It does not require a full two-week User Acceptance Testing or a full-scale exercise; rather, it takes a couple hours a week of a warfighter’s time to provide input to critical software. This is ultimately a more cost-effective and streamlined investment of time to make sure the “right” thing is built. This data-driven approach helps to ensure that the system evolves according to the needs of the end-users, rather than being locked into rigid design specifications that may no longer be relevant by the time the system is fielded.

One critical aspect of improving the software development process is the creation of balanced product teams and acquisition teams. When teams are aligned in their objectives and share a focus on the user, the development process becomes more streamlined, efficient, and effective. This alignment reduces the need for rework, saving time and resources, while also creating happier, more satisfied users, and ultimately increasing readiness and lethality. By ensuring that acquisition professionals understand the importance of delivering a product that works well for the end-user, the Pentagon can create systems that not only meet cost and schedule metrics but also provide real value to those who need them the most.

Iteration is key in any software development process, and the Department of Defense must embrace this reality. Agile practices—such as continuous testing, rapid prototyping, and user feedback—should be integrated at scale into the development lifecycle as often as possible. Instead, developers too often fall into what is called an “agile-scrum-fall” approach, in which the process may appear to be agile and may even have agile-like instances but is in fact largely sequential, rigid, and linear.

The more frequently software is updated and improved based on real-user input, the more likely it is to meet the mission requirements and provide the right tools for success. This process ensures that software is not a one-and-done development effort but an ongoing evolution that aligns with the dynamic nature of military operations.

Ultimately, the Department of Defense must make user experience a priority in its software-development efforts. Only by focusing on the real needs of the people who will use these systems every day can the US military build software that enhances mission readiness and improves the overall lethality of US forces.

As it moves forward, the Department of Defense should follow four principles to bring warfighter user experience to the forefront of its development efforts.

Implement continuous user engagement: Introduce regular, structured user interviews, prototype testing, and feedback loops throughout the development process. Investing in enterprise design software, such as Figma, enables the ability to quickly generate mock-ups and gain feedback without investing engineering hours in coding a solution. This ensures that user needs are consistently addressed and prioritized at every stage of development.

Reduce the bureaucratic bottleneck: Streamline the JCIDS requirements process to ensure that feedback from junior enlisted servicemembers and officers is taken into account early in the planning stages. This will help align system development with real-world operational needs.

Adopt agile and iterative development practices: Embrace continuous iteration, rapid prototyping, and real-time user feedback to ensure that software evolves to meet user needs and mission requirements over time. This will reduce the need for costly rework and improve the overall user experience.

Align product and acquisition teams: Ensure that product teams and acquisition teams are closely aligned, with a shared focus on delivering software that meets both mission requirements and user needs. This alignment will drive efficiency, reduce rework, and lead to happier, more satisfied end users.

Some may be tempted to view a focus on UX as a luxury at odds with the tough, make-do image the US military is famous for. But on the twenty-first-century battlefield, where tech is woven into all parts of fighting, nothing could be further from the truth. It can be the difference between life and death.

Hannah Hunt is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a distinguished technical fellow at MetroStar Systems. She was previously the chief of product at the Army Software Factory under Army Futures Command and chief of staff at the US Air Force’s Kessel Run.

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Israel is making a miscalculation in southern Syria. Here is why.

Ömer Özkizilcik — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:47:11 +0000

Since the December ousting of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led opposition fighters, Israel has responded to the prospect of Syrian unification under the new government in Damascus as a threat. Viewing the new Syrian government as “Turkish-backed Islamists,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly called for the demilitarization of southern Syria, insisting that Syrian government forces should not be allowed south of Damascus. He has also framed Israel as a protector of the Druze community, declaring that Israel would take necessary measures to protect them from threats.

But this is a miscalculation that disregards the region’s demographics and political realities. Israel selectively engages with certain Druze factions in Suwayda while sidelining the predominantly Sunni Arab populations of Daraa and Quneitra. The Israeli aim is to keep Syria as a weak state, divided into autonomous zones drawn along ethnic lines, and to prevent the new Syrian government from uniting Syria.

Within this approach, the Druze and Syria’s south could be Syria’s canary in a coal mine. If the minority group ends up with an autonomous zone, this would set a precedent for other Syrian communities. Other minorities, including the Alawites on Syria’s coast, the Kurds on the Turkish-Syrian border, the Turkmen living in northern Aleppo and Latakia, and the Ismailis in central Syria, might have similar demands. These demands initially appear to be in Israel’s interest as Israel sees a divided Syria as being in the interest of its regional ambitions.

These demands align with Israel’s strategic outlook, as Israel sees a divided Syria as advancing its regional ambitions. However, while Israel has historically pursued the “alliance of minorities“ doctrine—aligning with non-Sunni groups to counterbalance dominant Arab nationalist and Islamist forces—sectarian fragmentation in Syria would invite external meddling and exacerbate internal conflicts, as seen in Iraq and Lebanon. A divided Syria could create long-term instability rather than peace. A weak Damascus would open the space for Iran to reassert its influence and for jihadist organizations to gain ground, potentially forcing Israel to confront a more chaotic and unpredictable security landscape.

Adding to these, Israel’s approach in southern Syria risks deepening sectarian divisions, eroding the Druze community’s standing within Syria, and fueling broader instability. By engaging with select Druze factions while ignoring the political realities of the region, Israel may inadvertently push the Druze closer to Damascus and weaken their negotiating position in Syria’s post-war settlement.

Syria’s South and the Druze

Southern Syria comprises three key regions: Suwayda, Daraa, and Quneitra. Suwayda is the only governorate where Druze form a majority, whereas Daraa and Quneitra remain overwhelmingly Sunni Arab. Any foreign involvement that overlooks these demographic distinctions risks fueling internal divisions. Within the Druze community itself, there is no unified political stance. The community is divided along religious, military, and tribal lines.

The religious leadership of the Syrian Druze is split between three figures who hold the title of Sheikh al-Aql. Sheikh Hikmat Hajeri is a reformist advocating for a secular and decentralized Syria. Sheikh Hannawi remains politically neutral but rejects any separate political governance system for the Druze and rejects becoming a ‘tool in foreign hands’. At the same time, Sheikh Jarbuwa has historically maintained loyalty to Bashar al-Assad, but insiders argue that his loyalty was to Damascus, not the regime. Given this dynamic, the new Syrian leadership may seek a similar arrangement with Sheikh Jarbuwa to counterbalance Sheikh Hajeri’s influence.

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The fragmentation of the Druze community extends to its military groups. The most powerful militia, Rijal al-Karama, has resisted both the Assad regime and foreign interference. Its spokesperson, Bassem Abu Fakhr, openly rejected Netanyahu’s offer of protection. Another militia, Liwa Jabal, operates less politically but has voiced strong opposition to Israeli meddling and emphasized Druze loyalty to Syria’s unity. Although a relatively small faction, Rijal al-Sheikh al-Karama, led by Layt al-Baloush—the son of Rijal al-Karama’s founding leader—carries significant political weight due to his religious status. Another key figure, Sulaiman Abdelbaki, leads Ahrar al-Jabal and holds a religious position as well.

The issue of integrating Druze militias into the Syrian army remains contentious. While Druze factions prefer to maintain nominal independence until elections are held, the Syrian government insists on disbanding all armed groups to consolidate state authority and prevent another cycle of civil conflict. As a compromise, the Minister of Defense has proposed granting Druze soldiers a special status, allowing them to serve in Druze-majority areas and exempting them from ideological training.

Israel positioning itself as protector of the Druze

Israel claims to shield the Druze from an imagined threat posed by the new Syrian government. The reality on the ground contradicts Israeli claims—Damascus has not engaged in hostile rhetoric. Except for an escalation of violence in Jaramana between government forces and Druze militias that was labelled by Druze leaders as “a personal dispute that developed unexpectedly“, there were no aggressive actions taken against the Druze. Druze representatives have repeatedly met with Ahmed al-Shara and participated in the National Dialogue Conference, demonstrating that they do not view the new government as a threat.

Despite this, Netanyahu has called for the demilitarization of Suwayda, Daraa, and Quneitra, reinforcing Israel’s opposition to any Syrian military presence in the region. Israel’s stance is further complicated by the presence of a Druze community within its own borders, many of whom serve in the Israeli military and maintain familial ties with Druze in Syria. These cross-border connections add a layer of complexity to Israel’s engagement with Syria’s Druze.

For a view from Israel, read more by Gallia Lindenstrauss

MENASource

Apr 1, 2025

The only viable solution: an independent Syria, not a Turkish protectorate

By Gallia Lindenstrauss

After a risky bet on the Syrian opposition, Turkey is weighing where to place its bets between dueling visions for the new Syria.

Middle East Security & Defense

Following the announcement, the Israeli air force bombed positions inside southern Syria, prompting a Druze religious delegation to visit al-Shara expressing solidarity against foreign interventions. A more senior visit by Sheikh Hannawi and Sheikh Jarbuwa was cancelled over objection by Sheikh Hajari.

In 2018, the Druze couldn’t count on Israeli military support when ISIS killed over 250 Druze civilians in a single attack in Suwayda.

Coinciding with Netanyahu’s announcement was the formation of the Suwayda Military Council, a militia that claims to protect Suwayda from threats and seeks recognition as part of a future Syrian military structure. The name and flag are clearly inspired by the Military Councils of US Central Command (CENTCOM’s) local partner against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Though currently very small in size, the Suwayda Military Council could grow if it secures funding to attract economically struggling Druze youth.

Beyond military and diplomatic engagement, Israel may also be leveraging economic incentives to gain influence over the Druze. A recent proposal suggests granting work permits to Syrian Druze to work in the Golan Heights with daily wage offers of seventy-five to one hundred dollars. This is a sizable amount considering that public sector workers in Syria earned around twenty-five dollars per month. While this initiative appears economically in nature, its potential consequences could be strategic. If implemented, it could deepen the divide between Druze and Sunni Arabs, subtly shift the demographics of the Golan Heights, and encourage Druze migration to Israeli-controlled areas.

Backlash against Israeli interference

Israel’s narrative of protecting the Druze has sparked resistance rather than support. Anti-Israel protests have erupted across southern Syria, including in Suwayda, where Sunni Arabs and Druze reject foreign interference in their affairs. In response, the Syrian government has reinforced ties with key Druze figures and military factions, countering Israel’s messaging. Sulaiman Abdelbaki publicly stated his rejection of any external intervention into internal Syrian affairs.

Beyond Syria, regional actors have also raised concerns. Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt—long-time critic of Israel—has criticized Netanyahu’s policies, warning that “the free Syrians must be cautious of the plots of Israel.“ His public statements reflect a broader skepticism among Druze leaders about Israel’s intentions.

Ahmed al-Shara’s victory against Netanyahu

Recent events in Jaramana, a Druze town just outside Damascus, illustrate the limits of Israel’s strategy. Following an incident in which Syrian General Security personnel were killed in Jaramana, minor clashes erupted between Syrian security forces and local Druze militias. Netanyahu seized on the situation, declaring Israel’s willingness to intervene in Jaramana to protect the Druze.

However, his rhetoric quickly lost credibility when Rijal al-Karama and Rijal al-Sheikh al-Karama deployed forces from Suwayda to Jaramana. Layt al-Baloush, playing a key mediating role, successfully brokered a resolution between the Druze community and the Syrian government. He later announced that the clashes stemmed from a personal dispute and reaffirmed that the Druze reject any Israeli guardianship. Also, the local Druze dignitaries in Jaramana echoed this sentiment, rejecting any Israeli intervention, further undercutting Netanyahu.

In a symbolic move, Syrian military convoys entering Jaramana waived the Druze flag, signaling respect for the community’s identity and further undermining Israeli narratives. Ahmed al-Shara emerged from the incident as a leader capable of resolving disputes with the Druze, bolstering his domestic legitimacy and discrediting Netanyahu’s portrayal of the Syrian government as a threat.

By working with Druze leaders who reject Israeli involvement, while benefiting from anti-Israel sentiment among the Sunni Arab populations of Daraa and Quneitra, al-Shara may gradually dismantle Israel’s vision of a divided Syria.

Consequently, al-Shara negotiated an agreement with the armed Druze factions and leading Druze figures, a mechanism to recruit Druze policemen from Suwayda to operate in Suwayda in the name of the Syrian state. Even though recruitment began, Sheikh Hajari opposed the agreement, which foresaw the full integration of Suwayda into Syria.

A defining moment

For Syrians in general, the Israeli ambitions are of serious concern. Exactly when most Syrians hoped that their 14-year struggle to topple the Assad regime ended and that they would be able to rebuild Syria, Israel positioned itself as a spoiler. The Israeli actions vis-à-vis the Druze and southern Syria may torpedo Syria’s security, which is essential for the return of Syrian refugees.

If Israel succeeds in persuading the Druze to oppose Damascus and disengage from the political transition, the consequences could reverberate for decades. Israel has allocated significant financial resources—up to one billion dollars—to strengthen its influence over the Druze community. If parts of the Druze leadership align with Israel against Syria’s territorial integrity, the community risks political and social isolation both within Syria and across the region. Such a move would not only weaken their position in Syria’s future but could also strain relations with their counterparts in Lebanon and the broader Arab world, where they may be perceived as complicit in foreign interference.

Conversely, the choices made by Druze leaders will determine whether they become a force for national cohesion or a source of further fragmentation. If the Druze prioritize integration within Syria and seek an arrangement through dialogue with Damascus rather than external actors, they could emerge as key stakeholders in the country’s unity and stability. Their engagement in the political process would not only reinforce Syria’s territorial integrity but also position them as champions of national reconciliation.

To either end, it appears that most Druze leaders are wary of the stakes.

Ömer Özkizilcik is a nonresident fellow for the Syria Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He is an Ankara-based Turkish foreign policy, counterterrorism, and military affairs analyst.

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The EU just released a roadmap to defend Europe. Will member states follow it?

Petr Tůma — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:23:34 +0000

The US-led talks aiming to end the war in Ukraine and efforts by France and Britain to stand up a “reassurance force” to provide a security guarantee to Kyiv have dominated headlines in the past few weeks. So it would have been easy to overlook the March 19 publication of the European Commission’s Joint White Paper for European Defence Readiness 2030. But this White Paper bears attention, as it marks a significant milestone in the European Union’s (EU’s) ongoing efforts to strengthen its security.

In December, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen assigned Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, and Andrius Kubilius, the first-ever commissioner for defense and space, to produce this document. The resulting text presents a roadmap for Europe to build up its defense capabilities in response to growing external security threats, including the possibility of Russian military aggression against EU territory. The White Paper also represents a direct reaction and message to the ongoing changes in Washington’s approach to European security under US President Donald Trump.

The White Paper adopts a five-year outlook, which is also the timeframe in which several European intelligence agencies have estimated Moscow would require to reconstitute its military capabilities such that it could conduct a large-scale attack on a NATO country. In the event of a cease-fire or peace agreement with Ukraine, Russia would almost certainly seek to accelerate its rearmament. Meanwhile, Europe faces uncertainty regarding the extent of continued US security assistance given Washington’s rapidly shifting foreign policy stances and priorities.

The White Paper calls for addressing critical capability gaps, fostering a competitive defense industry, strengthening military support for Ukraine, and securing relevant financial instruments and resources for defense. But whether the EU will be able to address these challenges in the five-year window the report outlines will depend on member states’ willingness to make the necessary financial commitments and their ability to navigate political divisions within the bloc.

Filling capability gaps

The document begins by diagnosing Europe’s severe defense shortcomings. It explicitly states that Europe is currently ill-equipped to respond adequately to contemporary security challenges.

Major capability gaps are identified in the following areas:

Air and missile defense
Artillery systems
Ammunition and missile production
Drones and counter-drone systems
Military mobility
Artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, cyber, and electronic warfare
Strategic enablers and critical infrastructure protection

It’s a big list, and to close these gaps the White Paper advocates for deeper collaboration among European nations on defense projects of common interest. It builds on EU reports from 2024 by former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö on civilian and military preparedness and by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi on competitiveness, both of which highlighted inefficiencies and excessive costs resulting from a lack of coordination within the European defense industry.

So, what does this mean in practice? The White Paper specifically recommends harnessing “European economies of scale” and collaborative procurement to reduce costs, shorten delivery times, make demand more predictable for producers, and enhance interoperability.

A major question going forward, however, is how the EU’s efforts fit in with NATO. Importantly, capability building is an area in which EU collaboration can benefit the Alliance. EU countries share a single set of capabilities. If these capabilities are primarily defined by NATO, then the twenty-three EU member states that are also part of the Alliance would contribute to fulfilling them, including through EU instruments. For example, one of the major capacity building areas is military mobility, which particularly important for the EU countries that provide NATO host-nation support.

Strengthening the defense industry

In addition to capability gaps, the White Paper addresses structural weaknesses within the European defense industry, pinpointing fragmentation and underinvestment as major obstacles to achieving credible deterrence. Three years into the war in Ukraine, Europe remains unable to produce sufficient weapons and ammunition quickly. To remedy this, the document proposes creating a common European defense market, aggregating demand to increase predictability.

Another main focus is ensuring supply-chain security and reducing external dependencies. The commitment to collaboration is further reinforced by plans to simplify regulations. The European Commission pledged to launch a strategic dialogue with the defense industry and introduce the Defence Omnibus Simplification Proposal by June 2025. This act is intended to simplify the legal and administrative framework for procurements and industry cooperation. Excessive regulation has been a long-standing obstacle in this field, and streamlining administrative processes is overdue.

Prioritizing Ukraine

The White Paper states that Ukraine remains on the front line of European security and enhancing the EU’s defense requires continued military support to Kyiv. The report outlines what it calls a “Porcupine Strategy,” which is aimed at deterring further Russian aggression by equipping Ukraine with the necessary capabilities. This is the strongest security guarantee that Europe can provide to Kyiv.

The document highlights the following defense priorities for enhancing Europe’s military support for Ukraine:

Provision of large-caliber artillery ammunition (with a target of two million rounds in 2025)
Deployment of air defense systems
Enhanced drone capabilities
Continued military training

Despite Kallas’s initial ambition for a twenty billion euro military support package in 2025, her initiative has reportedly faced resistance from several member states, resulting in a more limited focus on ammunition supplies. This highlights the potential limitations that will complicate efforts to implement the plans outlined in the White Paper.

The document also calls for supporting Ukraine’s defense industry through direct contracts and closer integration with the European defense sector, including joint ventures. This effort should be further outlined in the forthcoming European Defence Industry Plan, expected within the next few months. Close cooperation with Ukraine in this domain is in Europe’s interest, as the bloc will benefit from Kyiv’s wartime experience and innovations. Such defense industry collaboration could also indirectly strengthen Ukraine’s EU membership prospects.

Securing new financial sources

Perhaps the most transformative element of the White Paper concerns defense financing. It builds upon the ReArm Europe Plan, unveiled by von der Leyen in early March.

The financial framework includes:

Joint EU loans backed by the EU budget, branded as SAFE (Security and Action for Europe), with an initial ceiling of €150 billion
An “escape clause” from the Stability and Growth Pact, allowing member states to exclude up to 1.5 percent of defense spending from national debt assessments
Relaxation of existing EU funding rules, mobilization of private capital, and adjustments to European Investment Bank regulations

The overarching ambition is to generate up to €800 billion in defense funding.

Success will depend on how seriously member states approach the offer. Some may take advantage of the relaxation of the escape clause to finance projects that are only superficially linked to military objectives. There is also some uncertainty surrounding the SAFE instrument, which aims to increase member states’ investments in defense via loans. Some capitals may secure better interest rates in domestic markets than those offered by the EU. Others may prefer different cooperation frameworks. Fiscally cautious governments might even exclude loans as an option on principle. A true embarrassment for the EU would arise if a substantial number of capitals considering SAFE were to withdraw due to the instrument’s byzantine rules.

From paper to practice

Since the White Paper is a European Commission initiative, it does not require formal approval from member states. However, its implementation will hinge on their willingness to support concrete instruments that will be built on the White Paper’s findings.

The first high-level discussions will take place at the upcoming EU Defense Ministers’ meeting on April 2-3, followed by the Foreign Affairs Council meeting on April 14. The goal is to secure agreement on key measures—such as SAFE and the Defence Omnibus Simplification Proposal—by June’s EU leaders’ summit.

A white paper, not a silver bullet

EU financial tools and incentives—aiming to generate €800 billion—certainly have the potential to move things forward, but they are not a silver bullet. A comprehensive response to the defense and security challenges Europe faces requires a multipronged approach to funding, with a majority of resources coming from member states. This will require significant increases in member states’ defense spending, likely beyond the currently discussed figure of 3 percent of each country’s gross domestic product. The mobilization of private capital should also be considered as part of this mix.

The success of the White Paper’s recommendations will also depend on the unity of the EU. Hungary, which has repeatedly blocked proposals for further military support to Ukraine, will not be the only obstacle to consensus on these initiatives. Take, for example, the prolonged discussions surrounding the upcoming European Defence Industry Plan, with the question of non-EU country participation emerging as a significant stumbling block. If increasing obstacles put EU security at greater risk, then one could expect a growing willingness to move forward instead in a “coalition of the willing,” which would further diminish the Commission’s coordination and support work.

Five years—the period in which a potential Russian threat to the EU could materialize—is a brief timeframe for Europe’s rearmament. For the sake of the EU and, in the more immediate term, of Ukraine, Europeans need to move from identifying the problems to acting on them. The White Paper is a good beginning, indicating a positive change in the mindset of EU policymakers, but the bloc must now translate this spirit into swift implementation.

Petr Tůma is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. He is a Czech career diplomat with expertise on Europe, the Middle East, and transatlantic relations. His views are his own.

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Air & Space Forces Magazine on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare final report

Atlantic Council — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 03:30:00 +0000

On March 28, Air & Space Forces Magazine published an article by Shaun Waterman titled, “Experts: US Military Needs ‘Software Literate’ Workforce, Not Just Coders.” The piece highlights key recommendations from the final report of Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare and discussions from its public launch event on March 27.

The report emphasizes the need for a software-literate workforce—not coders, but individuals who can ask the right questions, understand software limitations, and interpret inputs and outputs. This workforce will be essential to truly adopting the Software Acquisition Pathway, which the report recommends modernizing and implementing to achieving both short-term and long-term success in the Pentagon.

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Chiang, Esper, and Fox published in DefenseNews and C4ISRNET on software-defined warfare

Atlantic Council — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:00:00 +0000

On March 28, Mung Chiang, Mark Esper, and Christine Fox published an op-ed highlighting key ideas from the final report of Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare. Entitled, “America’s arsenal of democracy needs a software renaissance,” the piece published in DefenseNews and C4ISRNET underscores the critical role of software in future conflicts, “the ability to collect, process and act on data faster than the adversary is critical in prevailing in future conflicts.”

The authors emphasize the Commission’s recommendations, including investing in artificial intelligence enablers, mandating the creation of enterprise data repositories, and shifting toward commercial software acquisition. They argue that by prioritizing data management and commercial software acquisition, the Department of Defense can achieve immediate improvements while laying the groundwork for long-term strategic success.

Learn More

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Kyle Atwell hosts discussion on Ukrainian resistance operations for Irregular Warfare Podcast

kwinzerwilks — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 15:07:00 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

On March 14, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Kyle Atwell hosted Dr. Alexandra Chinchilla and Lieutenant General (ret.) Mark Hertling for an episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast. This episode, titled “Ukraine’s Hidden Front: The Strategic Impact of Resistance Operations,” examines the military implications of Ukrainian resistance efforts, the role of technology in the war, cooperation between special operations and conventional forces, and what lessons can be applied to future conflict.

Fellow

Kyle Atwell

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Afghanistan Colombia

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ExecutiveGov reports on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare final report

Atlantic Council — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 15:00:00 +0000

On March 28, Jane Edwards of ExecutiveGov published an article highlighting the key recommendations from the final report of Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare. Entitled, “Atlantic Council Calls for DOD to Advance Software-Defined Warfare,” the piece discusses the Commission’s suggestions that advanced software capabilities could elevate the Pentagon’s efficiency, effectiveness, and capacity.

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Breaking Defense reports on the Commission of Software-Defined Warfare final report

Atlantic Council — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 16:00:00 +0000

On March 27, Carly Welch of Breaking Defense published an article titled, “Experts warn Pentagon to embrace software-defined warfare to counter China’s military advantage.” The piece features key recommendations made in the final report of Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, emphasizing the urgent need for the Department of Defense to modernize its approach to software and data management. Welch underscores the Commission’s concerns that without swift action, the US could risk losing its technological edge over China.

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Soofer featured in Brookings report titled, “An Iron Dome for America?”

Atlantic Council — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 14:29:27 +0000

On March 25, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer was quoted in a Brookings report entitled, “An Iron Dome for America?” The article features insights from Soofer’s recent report, “‘First, we will defend the homeland’: The case for homeland missile defense.” Brookings author Michael E. O’Hanlon argues that Soofer’s proposal offers a more realistic alternative to Trump’s ambitious “Golden Dome” vision, suggesting it “could protect against accidental, unauthorized, or ‘rogue state’ launches or limited strikes” while running “less risk of provoking an all-out arms race, given its limited capabilities.”

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

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Atlantic Council Commission on Software-Defined Warfare: Final report

Whitney M. McNamara, Peter Modigliani, Tate Nurkin — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 13:00:00 +0000

DOWNLOAD PDF

Executive summary
Foreword
Overview

Recommendations:

Mandate data and invest in AI enablers
Ensure software interoperability and integration
Modernize test and evaluation infrastructure
Enforce commercial as the default approach for software
Transform DoD software requirements
Remove all restrictions on software funding
Measure what matters for DoD software
Enable software talent across the enterprise
Fully establish a DoD software cadre

Conclusion
Biographies
Acknowledgements

Executive summary

A profoundly transformed global security environment presents the United States with its most significant geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges since the Cold War—and perhaps since World War II. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—together a new “axis of aggressors”—are increasingly collaborating to support their revisionist geopolitical goals and challenge global stability. Meanwhile, US domestic constraints—such as relative-to-inflation flat defense budgets, military recruitment and talent shortfalls, byzantine acquisition processes, and inadequate industrial capacity—severely limit the US ability to adequately deter and address these threats at speed and scale.

During World War II, US industrial strength and manufacturing capacity decisively factored into the Allies’ victory. Today, however, US defense production capacity falls short of potential wartime demands. In contrast, China’s industrial policies, manufacturing prowess, and strategic focus on software-defined technologies—including artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and development, security, and operations (DevSecOps)—have propelled Beijing to rapidly advance its defense capabilities.

Maintaining the Department of Defense (DoD) status quo—anchored to a defense acquisition system ill-suited to the rapid tempo of modern technological innovation—places the United States at significant risk. This approach undermines the nation’s ability to effectively deter near-peer adversaries in the short term and jeopardizes its capacity to prevail in a major conflict.

Addressing these systemic challenges demands a sustained, long-term effort. Meanwhile, there is an urgent need for near-term, high-impact initiatives to bridge existing capability gaps and reestablish an advantage. That is what this report’s concept of software-defined warfare presents.

Final Report

Report authors: Whitney M. McNamara, Peter Modigliani, and Tate Nurkin

Co-chairs: Mung Chiang, Mark T. Esper, and Christine H. Fox

Commission director: Stephen Rodriguez

Program director: Clementine G. Starling-Daniels

Commission staff: Mark J. Massa, Curtis Lee, Abigail Rudolph, Alexander S. Young

Commissioners

Mung Chiang, president, Purdue University; co-chair of the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, Atlantic Council 

Mark T. Esper, board director, Atlantic Council; 27th secretary of defense; co-chair of the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, Atlantic Council

Christine H. Fox, former acting deputy secretary of defense; senior fellow, John Hopkins University Applied Research Laboratory; co-chair of the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, Atlantic Council 

Steve Bowsher, president, chief executive officer, In-Q-Tel

General James E. Cartwright, USMC (ret.), board director, Atlantic Council; 8th vice chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., USMC (ret.), board director, Atlantic Council; 19th chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Frank A. Finelli, managing director, The Carlyle Group

James “Hondo” Geurts, distinguished fellow, Business Executives for National Security; former assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, US Department of Defense

Susan M. Gordon, former principal deputy director of national intelligence

Lieutenant General S. Clinton Hinote, USAF (ret.), former deputy chief of staff, Air Force Futures

Paul Kwan, managing director, Global Resilience Practice, General Catalyst

Ellen M. Lord, former under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, US Department of Defense

John Ridge, CBE, chief adoption officer, NATO Innovation Fund

Nadia Schadlow, senior fellow, Hudson Institute; former US deputy national security advisor for strategy

Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, USAF (ret.), former director, Joint Artificial Intelligence Center

Trae Stephens, general partner, Founders Fund

Admiral Scott H. Swift, USN (ret.), 35th Commander, US Pacific Fleet

Industry commissioners

Rob Bassett Cross MC, founder, chief executive officer, Adarga; nonresident senior fellow, Atlantic Council

Prashant Bhuyan, founder, chief executive officer, Accrete AI

Michael D. Brasseur, chief strategy officer, Saab, Inc.

Todd Bryer, vice president for strategic growth, CAE

Jordan Coleman, chief legal and policy officer, Kodiak Robotics

Scott Cooper, vice president, Government Relations, Peraton

Steven Escaravage, president, Defense Technology Group, Booz Allen Hamilton

Jon Gruen, chief executive officer, Fortem Technologies

Adam Hammer, co-founder, chief executive officer, Roadrunner Venture Studios

Jags Kandasamy, co-founder, chief executive officer, Latent AI

Rob Lehman, co-founder, chief commercial officer, Saronic Technologies

Joel Meyer, president of public sector, Domino

Sean Moriarty, chief executive officer, Primer AI

Nathan Parker, chief executive officer, Edge Case Research

Gundbert Scherf, co-founder & co-chief executive officer, Helsing

Zachary Staples, founder & chief executive officer, Fathom5

Tyler Sweatt, chief executive officer, Second Front Systems

Dan Tadross, head of federal delivery, Scale AI

Jim Taiclet, chairman, president & chief executive officer, Lockheed Martin

Chris Taylor, founder, chief executive officer, Aalyria Technologies

Mark Valentine, president, Global Government, Skydio

Advisors

Lieutenant General Michael S. Groen, USMC (ret.), former director, Joint Artificial Intelligence Center

Rob Murray, nonresident senior fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Major General Arnold L. Punaro, USMC (ret.), advisory council member, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Stu Shea, managing partner and strategic advisor, Shea Strategies, LLC

Foreword

The United States stands at the threshold of a new era in defense and national security. Dramatic changes in the global security environment are upending the established world order, presenting new and unexpected challenges. The war in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East, and rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific underscore shifting power dynamics. At the same time, we are in an age marked by an escalating pace of technological change. Innovations such as the fusion of AI, autonomy, and robotic systems are poised to profoundly influence national security and economic power. This moment demands decisive action to prepare the US military to adapt swiftly to evolving conditions and reclaim its tactical, operational, and strategic advantages.

An impartial assessment of global geopolitics and geoeconomics reveals significant and widening gaps in US capabilities. These gaps not only undermine deterrence but also place the ability of US military forces to prevail in future conflicts at risk. The shifting geopolitical landscape exposes vulnerabilities in the nation’s approach to capability design, development, fielding, and sustainment. Addressing these gaps is imperative to prepare for emerging threats, yet immediate solutions are also needed to confront present dangers. While the principle of “speaking softly and carrying a big stick” has long guided US foreign policy, it is now imperative that US military power and economic strength are capable of deterring potential adversaries and, if deterrence fails, prevailing in conflict. Software-defined warfare presents a vital opportunity to bridge these challenges, providing a pathway to both near-term readiness and long-term competitive advantage.

A software-defined mindset and capabilities are essential to modern military readiness. From enterprise solutions to autonomous systems to personnel, software underpins the effectiveness of defense operations. However, Industrial Age, hardware-centric acquisition processes are unsuitable for software systems that need to be updated with the rapid cycle of technological advancement. To preserve its competitive advantages, the DoD must embrace a more agile and integrated approach to software—one that fosters continuous modernization, capitalizes on cutting-edge commercial innovations, and deepens collaboration with allies and partners.

The Atlantic Council’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare was convened to address these challenges and identify solutions. Comprising leaders from government, industry, and academia, the commission identified clear, actionable, and meaningful recommendations that will position the DoD for enduring success. This report’s roadmap is organized around three core pillars: technology, process, and people. The recommendations outlined herein propose actionable steps to shape software investments, build a cohesive digital ecosystem, modernize software development practices, and cultivate a skilled and sustainable workforce. Together, these recommendations provide a clear pathway to establishing a software-defined DoD capable of responding rapidly and effectively to emerging threats in an increasingly dynamic security environment.

As we present these recommendations, we acknowledge the support and insights of the many contributors who have helped shape this vision. We believe this work will provide leaders with the tools and direction needed to build a DoD that is resilient, innovative, and more fully prepared for the future. Now is the time to build a modern, software-defined defense infrastructure to ensure the safety and security of the United States.

Mung Chiang

President, Purdue University

Mark T. Esper

27th United States secretary of defense

Christine H. Fox

Former acting deputy secretary of defense

Overview

Enterprise challenges

The commission started with a vision for what the future of software-defined modernization and warfare could look like if optimized. Striving to go beyond diagnosing the challenges facing the DoD enterprise, this commission outlined desired outcomes to help the DoD overcome such challenges.

There is an absence of DoD enterprise processes and enablers that rapidly update software with novel capabilities that keep pace with threats.
The DoD has limited processes or proving grounds to allow end users to experiment with, and rapidly adopt and scale, novel software solutions, including AI and autonomy-enabled systems.
The DoD lacks established best practices for developing or buying software.
The industry faces challenges in providing and deploying its capabilities due to a lack of transparency and predictability, and other bureaucratic hurdles.
There is a major shortfall of software pipelines, talent, and resources to meet the demand for software-defined warfare within DoD organizations.
Systems, capabilities, and platforms are generated in silos. This hinders the integration of systems on the battlefield, creation of an interoperable force structure, and the DoD’s goal of a joint warfighting concept, as well as partner and allied collaboration.
The absence of a software-centric culture across the DoD impedes the employment of modern DevSecOps, which fosters rapid iterations

Top recommendations

To address these challenges, the Commission recommends that DoD leaders, congressional defense committees, and other executive branch agencies take the following ten high-priority actions to accelerate DoD innovation adoption:

Mandate enterprise data and invest in AI enablers
Ensure software interoperability and integration
Modernize test and evaluation infrastructure
Enforce commercial as the default approach for software
Transform DoD software requirements
Remove all restrictions on software funding
Measure what matters for DoD software
Enable software talent across the enterprise
Fully establish a DoD software cadre

Recommendation 1: Mandate enterprise data and invest in AI enablers

The deputy secretary of defense should direct the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) to track enterprise-wide progress and recommend actions to the deputy secretary and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to accelerate DoD-wide adoption of data best practices. The CDAO should ensure this process prioritizes collecting and categorizing data in a way that makes high-priority data sources readily usable for analysis and refinement for AI training, functional, and operational pipelines.
Resource the CDAO to acquire and sustain unified, shared platforms that support and accelerate the end-to-end development, deployment, and governance of AI solutions—including Machine Learning Operations capabilities, tools for developing, deploying, and reusing models, and reusable AI-ready datasets.
CDAO should consider the best strategy to make these tools accessible to the end-user community across innovation organizations, services, and combatant commands (CCMDs) to empower users to operationalize AI to solve mission-critical problems.
Services should designate a CDAO liaison that helps the services discover what is available to them at the CDAO repository and identify gaps in service-specific investments to ensure department-wide investments are not redundant and better streamline demand for new capabilities.
Service Chief Information Officers (CIOs), in collaboration with the CIO, should be resourced to invest in AI enablers that are domain- and service-specific, and in which the CDAO is unlikely to invest.
Both the CDAO and the services should maintain unclassified and classified datasets of highly relevant DoD use cases that are available for industry to use to demonstrate capability viability.

Success measure: DoD end users are empowered to leverage their domain expertise to experiment with and operationalize robust and governed AI pipelines with best-of-breed capabilities from the industry. AI adoption can be scaled faster and more efficiently because capabilities are built with scale and reproducibility in mind. The DoD saves money by not buying the same capabilities many times over. There is better coordination and transparency across the department on AI adoption and resourcing.

Notional example: The Army’s 101st Airborne Division realizes the potential of an AI use case for automatic target recognition. Instead of building something from scratch, leadership first engages the CDAO and Army CIO shop to determine what AI pillars are available to them. Using these foundational tools, operational experts spend their time addressing their specific operational problems and experimenting with integrating these new capabilities into their existing decision-making processes. Once it reaches a minimum viable product (MVP), senior leadership makes plans to integrate the capability to be part of Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2), or C2 Next.

Recommendation 2: Ensure software interoperability and integration

To ensure interoperability between new capabilities being adopted, service CIOs, in coordination with the DoD CIO, should mandate
- Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) frameworks applied to the maximum extent practical;
- defining modules and leveraging Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and modular system interfaces to enable data interchange between disparate platforms;
- industry and government co-collaborated reference architecture for multi-vendor environments as a best practice;
- industry, where possible, ensuring the capabilities it provides to different parts of the DoD can interoperate with one another; and
- when feasible, reference architectures are shared with allies and partners to streamline coalition interoperability.
To aid in interoperability with allies and partners, these best practices should be shared as early and often as possible with partners through existing allied technical exchanges.
Service chiefs should designate one Program Executive Office (PEO) to
- Consolidate the development, acquisition, management, and modernization of non-proprietary mission integration tools under a dedicated program office within the designated PEO shop to elevate the role of mission integration.
- The designated PEO should leverage simulation tools to imitate the feasibility of the technical integration to
  - ensure the successful integration of new and legacy systems, including the use of open-computer architecture to facilitate the deployment of capability on associated hardware;
  - create demand signals for software mission integration tools; and
  - identify new software-enabled capabilities that can enable SoS warfare.

Success measure: Services are incentivized to proactively establish open compute requirements and identify seams between capabilities that would prevent them from carrying out their highest-priority missions and creating acquisition pathways for mission integration tools.

Notional example: The Navy’s PEO for integrated warfare systems (IWS) is designated as the Navy’s “effects” organization. PEO for IWS identifies three relevant operational problems and begins simulating and combining existing force structures to address them. IWS 1.0 stands up with the authority to procure and sustain mission integration tools identified during simulation exercises, as well as to capture Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) in which end users creatively overcome inorganic integration.

Recommendation 3: Modernize test and evaluation infrastructure

In partnership with CDAO and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), charge the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC) and resource it effectively to provide the digital infrastructure to provide developmental and operational testing proving grounds for innovation organizations leading on commercial software adoption.
The TRMC should partner with industry to explore metrics for vendor self-certification for both test and evaluation (T&E) and verification and validation (V&V) for more mature vendors that have invested in their own state-of-the-art capabilities. This measure will both alleviate the department being a bottleneck to deployment and help to rapidly deploy capabilities that have met the required T&E thresholds co-developed by the TRMC.
The TRMC, in partnership with innovation organizations and Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) leaders, should establish joint operational testing and development testing teams that share data, analysis, and tooling across development and deployment stages. This approach should reduce barriers, streamline the test process, and provide continuous system performance improvement, while also incentivizing a DevSecOps pipeline for T&E that is informed by and applies industry best practices for enterprise scalability, advanced analysis, and data sharing.

Success measure: Simulating capability viability becomes a widely accessible and organic part of validating and testing digitally enabled technologies. In addition, metrics are established to drive progress toward the automation of qualification processes and alternative certification paths. This adoption helps create a pipeline that rapidly scales the deployment of robust and trusted software-defined capabilities.

Notional example: The TRMC invests in digital infrastructure focused on testing drones’ ability to swarm to overwhelm enemy defenses. The DIU uses this infrastructure to quickly validate compelling candidates for its Commercial Service Openings submissions rapidly and iteratively. The initial testing helps identify existing deficiencies—potentially including adversarial embedded code in a commercial component—as well as best practices for managing the data flows required to monitor the performance of these capabilities, and cross-functional teams organized to begin addressing the problem.

Recommendation 4: Enforce commercial as the default approach for software

Requirements, acquisition, and contracting executives install checkpoints in the early phases of software-intensive programs to enforce statutory preferences for commercial software. Require added justification and approvals to pursue a non-commercial software solution.
Service Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) and the DIU align DoD and industry groups to provide enterprise market intelligence and due diligence for in-depth insights into the commercial software market and include those of allies and partners. Service CIOs and the DIU should leverage or establish a platform to share these insights. These offices should publish and maintain a clearer software total addressable market (TAM) by technology segments. This roadmap should outline how they plan to leverage software as part of their annual budget documents to better incentivize and shape industry research and development. This TAM should map to commercial TAMs to identify dual-use or DoD-unique software.
Update Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 5000.87 on the software acquisition pathway and related acquisition policies and regulations to require program managers and contracting officers to capture in software acquisition and contracting strategies that they pursued commercial solutions to the maximum extent practicable. This should include
- engaging industry, industry-focused organizations, and consortia to communicate their needs and understand existing solutions;
- capturing holistic timelines and costs of buying commercial solutions compared to developing new software (contracting, acquisition, development, integration, test, and updates);
- ensuring contracting requirements are captured in a manner that would not preclude viable commercial solutions as partial or whole solutions to address the capability needs;
- ensuring contract strategies do not preclude commercial solutions and that they enable leading software vendors and nontraditional defense companies to compete;
- enabling DoD users and industry to rapidly demonstrate, prototype, and experiment with commercial solutions for defense applications;
- working with testers and certifiers to understand cybersecurity, integration, and other factors to assess the risks and processes of using the software in the defense domain;
- ensuring prime contractors and subcontractors default to commercial solutions;
- identifying how modular open systems, common interfaces, and standards are leveraged;
- publishing the non-commercial item determination in the solicitations for custom software development to allow vendors to appeal that decision, if justified;
- ensuring realistic intellectual-property (IP) strategies avoid unrealistic demands for source code while enabling the DoD to update or pivot if costs or performance are unsuitable;
- having acquisition sponsors provide supporting justification if commercial solutions are not viable and new development is warranted; and
- ensuring requirements and acquisition approving officials or boards must validate the commercial solution analysis early in the process.
The services, in collaboration with the defense acquisition executive, Defense Acquisition University, DIU, and the CDAO, should expand guidebooks and training for acquisition and requirements professionals on effectively leveraging commercial software. These protocols should be maintained online and regularly updated with insights and resources from across the DoD, government, and industry. They shall include the documentation and compliance tasks avoided by using commercial software. Program offices and portfolio executives should provide regular inputs to guide the community on best practices, lessons learned, and adoption metrics.
Service CTOs, in partnership with the DIU and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, should meet quarterly to review software research and development efforts by science and technology (S&T) organizations to minimize duplication with the commercial sector. They should also incentivize organizations charged with developing concepts of operations to do so collaboratively, based on consistent industry engagement, to understand the state of play in commercial technologies that can be leveraged for warfighting missions. CTOs and CIOs should have authority to work with the PEOs to co-direct software factory funding. This authorization will ensure the factories focus on the intended objectives and can achieve the performance metrics developed per the Software Modernization Implementation Plan. Based on a clear inventory of platforms, services, and personnel, the CTOs and CIOs, in partnership with the PEOs, should adjust investments that maximize efficiencies and effectiveness. These adjustments could include reducing personnel billets and increasing software licenses. These factories should enable increased speed and quality of deploying code to various environments while maximizing interoperability and cybersecurity. PEOs, CTOs, and CIOs should hold software factory leadership accountable to continuously improve performance metrics and enable software-intensive acquisition programs and operations on the tactical edge. Similarly, the CTOs and CIOs should be accountable to continuously improve enabling policies, resources, authorities to operate, and reciprocity across organizations and the services.

Success measure: The DoD identifies and tracks commercial software acquisition metrics and TAM. The DoD demonstrates a significant increase in commercial software usage, particularly for systems with well-bounded, government-defined modular system interfaces. This approach improves system cost, schedule, and performance.

Notional example: One of the Army’s autonomy programs deviates from its strategy of a lengthy government-developed autonomy stack and rapidly acquires commercial software from leading vendors. The program saves years in development and millions in costs, while delivering higher-quality software to operations faster.

Recommendation 5: Transform DoD software requirements

The DoD should exempt all software requirements below the Major Defense Acquisition Program thresholds from the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) approval processes. This exemption should include requirements for new software capabilities and software upgrades to legacy systems, regardless of the acquisition pathway used.
Service requirements organizations—in collaboration with Joint Staff J8 forces, acquisition executives, and software leaders—should establish separate, yet complementary, structures, processes, and training to manage software requirements in a streamlined, dynamic, and collaborative environment.
- While a high-level document might be used to capture initial operational capability needs, the bulk of software requirements will be managed via dynamic backlogs with active stakeholder engagements.
- Policies should delineate hardware and software requirements and enable each to operate on separate timelines and processes. When capabilities reach appropriate maturity levels during system development, use integrated hardware-software testing, digital engineering, modeling, and simulation to verify desired system performance.
- Requirements should enable operational agility measured in days and weeks, tailoring for both global and regional needs across the full range of military operations, and should enable operational commands to define and tailor capabilities based on edge-generated data, while providing insight to service software capabilities.
Service requirements organizations should update policies to require sponsors to provide written justification in an appendix to the requirements document or a companion document, demonstrating that they pursued commercial solutions to the maximum extent practicable. This includes identifying how the requirements community, through the acquisition community, actively engaged industry and the DoD S&T ecosystem to
- communicate operational needs, challenges, and environments;
- understand what commercial solutions exist, the existing applications of these solutions, and the emerging software capabilities that could have military applications;
- capture requirements in a manner that would not preclude viable commercial solutions as partial or whole solutions to address the capability needs; and
- foster discussions between the DoD and industry to reduce barriers to buying commercial solutions.

Success measure: Each of the military services update their software requirements processes to enable greater speed, agility, and quality. Updated training, guidance, and resources enable the requirements and acquisition communities to successfully adopt modern software practices.

Notional example: A major weapons system was unable to detect or react to adversary drones in theater. Through a dynamic software requirements process, this threat becomes the top priority for the next software release. The vendors work closely with operators and testers to rapidly iterate on software upgrades that drastically improve mission operations within weeks.

Recommendation 6: Remove all restrictions on software funding

The DoD should immediately discontinue the Budget Authority-8 pilots and implement the pilot intent.
The DoD comptroller, in collaboration with service comptrollers and congressional appropriations staff, should update the Financial Management Regulation (FMR) to enable the DoD to acquire, update, operate, and sustain software capabilities with available Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E), procurement, or Operation and Maintenance (O&M) funding appropriated for the capability. This echoes the congressionally directed Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform Commission’s recommendation 11A.
The DoD comptroller should issue a policy memo for immediate action and clarification while adding these changes to the ongoing comprehensive FMR updates per the PPBE Reform Commission.
DoD and service comptrollers should communicate guidance on implementing the changes across the workforce.
The language would enable any funding appropriated for a software capability to be used regardless of the software activities (e.g., new development versus maintenance) or how it is acquired (e.g., development, Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS), or as a service). This new language should enable
- rapid acquisition and delivery of leading software capabilities;
- improved responsiveness to changes in threats, operations, and technologies; and
- reduced operational, cybersecurity, and programmatic risks.

Success measure: The DoD comptroller issues a software funding directive removing appropriation restrictions and provides clear direction to the workforce on flexible software funding execution.

Notional example: To meet a critical operational requirement, a program explores a range of software acquisition and contracting strategies unburdened by the mix of funding appropriations.

Recommendation 7: Measure what matters for DoD software

The acquisition executives’ staff should collaboratively develop new software metrics for most acquisition programs. PEOs, services, agencies, and the OSD should compile and share quarterly or annual reports across the DoD workforce and leadership to provide visibility into trends, best practices, and enterprise issues to drive regular discussions and actions on how to accelerate delivery. These metrics often identify program trends and issues to drive corrective action and continuous improvement. The Navy’s PEO Digital established World-Class Alignment Metrics (WAMS), which are a model for others to follow. These reports should include the following metrics.
- Deployment frequency: The number of software updates deployed to the operational environment (production) in the last year (or time between deployments). Goal: more than once per week.
- Time to initial deployment: Time from the initiation of software development to the date the initial software capabilities are deployed to an operational environment.
- Automated testing use and timelines: Program and portfolio use of automated testing and testing timelines. Goal: daily automated testing, development and operational testing timelines declining.
- Mean times to restore (MTTR): The average amount of time it takes to address a critical vulnerability or issue, including testing, certifying, and authority to operate. Goal: less than one day.
- API use: Total API usage each week or month to enable interoperability and data sharing across applications. Goal: increasing usage each month.
- Production software defect density: Defect density of production software in operations each month. Goal: heavily domain dependent.
- Security vulnerabilities: Number of security vulnerabilities identified and remediated. Goal: heavily domain dependent.
- Change failure rate: Percentage of software changes that resulted in system disruptions, including downtime, errors, or negative impacts on users. Goal: less than 10 percent and heavily domain dependent.
- Customer satisfaction: Quantitative metrics or qualitative value assessments of customer satisfaction. Goal: greater than 80 percent of customers rate software high value.
- User engagement: Number of user engagements per month by software developers. Goal: end users engaged weekly.
- Software reuse: Number of acquisition programs able to reuse software capabilities and infrastructure. Goal: increasing reuse each month.
The focus of the metrics and subsequent actions at the program, portfolio, and enterprise levels is to continuously deliver impactful software to the user communities to improve mission impact. Each program and organization might have different objectives or challenges to address, such as release velocity, software quality, or user satisfaction. Some of these may have competing forces that must be managed (e.g., quality vs. speed). Defense of the Realm Act’s annual Accelerate State of DevOps report provides industry-leading metrics for software, including levels for elite, high, medium, and low performance. The DoD should strive toward these commercial goals as objectives and tailor performance levels to unique DoD environments.
Major programs and software-intensive portfolios should map out the processes to develop, test, certify, and deploy software, including actual timelines for each phase; key stakeholders involved (by name or organization); key bottlenecks; the opportunities to streamline software delivery timelines; and how stakeholders are accountable to accelerate software delivery speed, manage operational and development risks, and ensure high-quality and secure software. Furthermore, programs and portfolios should identify where additional resources (personnel, tools, and services) at a program, portfolio, or enterprise level would enable speed of delivery. These metrics are more for internal DoD operations, with a subset that might be shared with Congress or publicly.

Success measure: The military services and related organizations track, share, and use a core set of software metrics across the defense enterprise and leverage insights for key decisions, investments, and continuous improvement in speed, quality, reuse, and user satisfaction (mission impact).

Notional example: A PEO of a software-intensive portfolio has an online dashboard of software metrics that is integrated into program and portfolio operations. Program, portfolio, and policy decisions are made based on these metrics, with the workforce culture focused on leaning out processes and barriers to enable rapid, iterative, and quality software deliveries to operations. Acquisition professionals and vendors are incentivized to continuously improve.

Recommendation 8: Enable software talent across the enterprise

Develop an extensive, connected, layered, and modular software-centric training program that involves both digital and in-person learning and incorporates the specific requirements of different roles and missions across the force. The objective of this effort is to increase awareness of the importance of software to DoD operations, instill a basic to intermediate-level understanding of commercial software best practices and agile software development and their value, and build the skills required to more effectively integrate and operate software in specific roles.
Specifically, the DoD should do the following.
- Partner with leading academic institutions in software development to create a curriculum for an approximately week-long in-person or hybrid training course tailored to senior leaders in the DoD. This executive training curriculum should concentrate on commercial software development best practices and the importance of software to mission execution for senior leaders in the DoD. Training emerging and current senior leaders on these topics can help the DoD develop leaders more willing to create the conditions and culture that will facilitate accelerated adoption.
- Leverage and expand existing successful mechanisms and models for software training, such as the Army Software Factory, and access to digital training libraries at both non-DoD and DoD academic institutions.
- Defense education institutions across the DoD should enrich training to deepen understanding of the importance of software, commercial software best practices and development approaches, and integration of software into DoD activities. The course curriculum should engage and harness insights from leading software experts in industry, as well as in academia, to determine the skill sets and knowledge bases most relevant to the defense context.
In addition to enhancing software literacy through training, the DoD needs to scale formal software career fields and paths for military and civilian personnel to harness the software talent for new and expanded roles. For example, in February 2024, the Air Force reestablished warrant officers for information technology (IT) and cyber career fields to improve technical expertise in cyber and information technologies.
As part of this effort, the DoD should increase opportunities for identified DoD software-focused professionals to interact with both traditional defense industry companies and commercial companies involved in developing software for the DoD. This should include, but not be limited to, embedding DoD talent in these companies for several months to gain firsthand experience in software development cycles and challenges associated with software acquisition. The ability to engage more closely with commercial industry should also extend to the CCMDs, which should expand opportunities for operators to train and experiment directly with commercial industry through exercises such as the Army’s Scarlet Dragon, among others.

Success measure: The DoD increases software and technical literacy across the enterprise through scalable training tailored to different DoD levels and roles. The DoD creates opportunities for the identification, enhanced training, and deployment of software talent that can be deployed across the organization to drive software adoption and use.

Notional example: A Navy officer with demonstrated software competence is placed in a leading commercial software company that supports the DoD on a six-month rotation or internship. The officer learns from product developers and product managers to understand commercial development and improvement processes and brings this knowledge back to help operators in a CCMD more efficiently and effectively operate software-defined capabilities.

Recommendation 9: Fully establish a DoD software cadre

The DoD should recruit fifty to one hundred experienced software engineers in modern development environments and place them in key roles across the enterprise. These individuals’ expertise will be used to inform decision-makers on software pipelines, architectures, and leading commercial solutions. They can address key software issues and guide efforts to develop software requirements, acquisition strategies, integration, certification, and employment of software. They can be placed in prominent roles across the DoD, including program management offices and portfolios responsible for acquiring software capabilities; CIO, software factories, and AI and data organizations focused on enterprise services; in operational commands that need to rapidly iterate on tactics and software upgrades; and as executives who oversee major programs, shape budgets, and lead combat operations. Members of this cadre would operate as a network, potentially rotating and surging to meet prioritized problems related to software acquisition, integration, and employment, and sharing best practices and insights.
Candidates can be hired in a full-time role using existing hiring authorities such as Highly Qualified Experts. They can also be engaged on a temporary or episodic basis through commercial talent exchange programs such as CDAO’s AI and Data Acceleration program or through Search Generative Experiences to provide iterative specialized services for a restricted number of days throughout the year. The services should also implement direct commissioning of willing experienced software engineers in the reserves, up to and including the general officer level (as is done for specialized roles such as doctors and lawyers) and should also identify and engage leading software talent already serving in the reserves, similar to the Marine Innovation Unit approach. Programs like GigEagle help identify talent in the reserves for short-term problem sets. By leveraging reservists throughout the year, the DoD can capitalize on existing expertise while mitigating financial and professional risks for those working with the DoD.
Increasing reliance on short-term commercial or reservist software talent will necessitate a review and refinement of conflict-of-interest rules to balance the need to protect the DoD from the risk of providing companies unfair advantages and the need to make it easier for top-level talent to move between the DoD and the commercial sector.
In addition to meeting current demand, the DoD should partner with academic institutions to develop talent pipelines of individuals who are educated and certified in commercial software processes and engineering as well as in the DoD processes and requirements. The DoD should work with interested institutions to develop curriculum and certification criteria that will allow students to be fast-tracked into the DoD software cadre positions.

Success measure: The DoD successfully recruits an increased number of software experts and solutions architects over the next two years to advise on software development, acquisition, and adoption within program offices and CCMDs in particular, while also building a pipeline of software-focused talent.

Notional example: Cadre members placed in program offices use their expertise to understand the significance of decisions a vendor has made in its software development process and inform program managers and acquisition officers on the implications that development decisions hold for future integration and certification. This guidance allows acquisition professionals to make decisions better informed by downstream considerations, reducing costs and time associated with integration, certification, and upgrading of critical software systems.

Conclusion

The commission’s report presents clear, actionable recommendations and outlines the desired outcomes to address a critical aspect of modern defense and security. While the adoption of software-defined warfare currently poses a challenge, it is also an area of a defining opportunity. The rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape, marked by an axis of aggressors, demands immediate and decisive action to maintain US strategic advantage. If these recommendations are fully implemented, the United States will possess a modern, agile, and resilient defense infrastructure that is capable of fostering a robust software foundation that will bolster the capabilities of US hardware, while streamlining interoperability across services, allies, and partners. However, failure to act will leave the nation vulnerable and unable to adequately adapt to rapidly evolving threats. The time to act is now—while the United States prepares for the challenges of tomorrow, software-defined warfare provides a timely and practical solution to strengthen US defense capabilities today. Leaders in the DoD, Congress, and the private sector should work to implement these recommendations with a sense of urgency—the members of this commission stand by to help them do so. At stake is nothing less than the stability of the US-led, rules-based international order and the decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity it has undergirded.

About the authors

Mung Chiang

Board director and co-chair of the commission, Atlantic Council; president, Purdue University

Mung Chiang is the president of Purdue University and the Roscoe H. George distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering. Prior to being elected university president in 2022, he was the John A. Edwardson dean of the college of engineering and executive vice president for strategic initiatives at Purdue University.

Chiang received his BS (1999), MS (2000) and his PhD (2003) from Stanford University and an honorary doctorate (2024) from Dartmouth College. Before 2017, Chiang was the Arthur LeGrand Doty professor of electrical engineering and an affiliated faculty in computer science and in applied mathematics at Princeton University.

He founded the Princeton EDGE Lab in 2009 and co-founded several startup companies and industry consortia since the early years of edge computing. Most of his twenty-six US patents are licensed for network deployment. He co-authored two textbooks based on massive open online courses: Networked Life (2012) and Power of Networks (2016). For his research in communication networks, wireless technology, and network optimization, he received the NSF Alan T. Waterman Award (2013), as well as the IEEE Founders Medal (2025), the IEEE INFOCOM Achievement Award (2022), the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award (2012), and the Guggenheim Fellowship (2014). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Class of Mathematical and Physical Sciences 2024), the National Academy of Inventors (2020) and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (2020).

In 2020, as the Science and Technology adviser to the US secretary of state, Chiang initiated tech diplomacy programs in the US government. In 2024, he started serving on the inaugural board of the US Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation, and was elected to the Board of Directors of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee as an independent director.

Mark T. Esper

Board director and co-chair of the commission, Atlantic Council; 27th US secretary of defense

Mark T. Esper served as secretary of defense from 2019-2020, and as secretary of the army from 2017-2019. A distinguished graduate of West Point, he spent twenty-one years in uniform, including a combat tour in the Gulf War. Esper earned a PhD from George Washington University while working on Capitol Hill, at the Pentagon as a political appointee, and as a commissioner on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He was also a senior executive at a prestigious think tank, two business associations, and a Fortune 100 technology company. Esper is the recipient of multiple civilian and military awards. He currently sits on several public policy and business boards.

Christine H. Fox

Board director and co-chair of the commission, Atlantic Council; former acting deputy secretary of defense

Christine Fox is a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL). Previously, she was the assistant director for policy and analysis at JHU/APL, a position she held from 2014 to early 2022. Before joining APL, she served as acting deputy secretary of defense from 2013 to 2014 and as director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) from 2009 to 2013. As director of CAPE, Fox served as chief analyst to the secretary of defense. Prior to her DoD positions, she served as president of the Center for Naval Analyses from 2005 to 2009, after working there as a research analyst and manager since 1981. Currently, she also serves on many governance and advisory boards including the Strategic Competitive Studies Project, Palantir Technologies, Muon Space, DEFCON AI, and Brown Advisory. Fox holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in applied mathematics from George Mason University. She is a three-time recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal and of the Army’s Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service.

Whitney M. McNamara

Senior vice president, Beacon Global Strategies; nonresident senior fellow, author, Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, Atlantic Council

Whitney McNamara is a senior vice president at Beacon Global Strategies where she works with disruptive technology companies. She is also a co-author of both the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption and Commission on Software-Defined Warfare reports. Previously, McNamara worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, where she led the S&T portfolio of the Defense Innovation Board and as a technology policy subject matter expert at the DoD Chief Information Office. Prior, she was a senior analyst at the national security think tank Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, where she worked at the intersection of future operation concepts and emerging technology adoption and advised the Department of Defense on technology acquisition strategies.

Peter Modigliani

Senior advisor, Govini; author, Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, Atlantic Council

Peter Modigliani is a senior advisor at Govini, advising USD(A&S) and ASD(A) on strategic acquisition initiatives. Prior to that, he was a vice president at Beacon Global Strategies. Modigliani subsequently served as a defense acquisition leader within the MITRE Corporation, enabling the DoD and intelligence community to deliver innovative solutions with greater speed and agility. He works with acquisition and CIO executives, program managers, the Section 809 Panel, congressional staffs, industry, and academia to shape acquisition reforms, strategic initiatives, and major program strategies. Prior to MITRE, he was an assistant vice president with Alion Science and Technology. Modigliani began his career as an Air Force program manager for C4ISR programs.

Tate Nurkin

Founder, OTH Intelligence Group; author, Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, Atlantic Council

Tate Nurkin is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense and Indo-Pacific Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is also the founder of OTH Intelligence Group.

Before establishing OTH Intelligence Group in March 2018, Nurkin spent twelve years at Jane’s by IHS Markit where he served in a variety of roles, including managing Jane’s Defense, Risk, and Security Consulting practice. From 2013 until his departure, he served as the founding executive director of the Strategic Assessments and Futures Studies (SAFS) Center, which provided thought leadership and customized analysis on global competition in geopolitics, future military capabilities, and the global defence industry.

Substantively, Nurkin’s research and analysis has a particularly strong focus on US-China competition, defense technology, the future of military capabilities, and the global defense industry and its market issues. He also specializes in the design and delivery of alternative futures analysis exercises such as scenario planning, red teaming, and wargaming.

Nurkin is a frequent author and speaker on these overlapping research priorities. For example, he was the lead author of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s report entitled China’s Advanced Weapons Systems, which was published in May 2018, and has provided testimony to the Commission on two occasions. In March 2019, he was featured on a Center for Strategic and International Studies China Power podcast on China’s unmanned systems. He was the lead author of the Atlantic Council’s 2019 strategy white paper on artificial intelligence.

He previously worked for Joint Management Services, the Strategic Assessment Center of SAIC, and the Modeling, Simulation, Wargaming, and Analysis team of Booz Allen Hamilton. From 2014 to 2018 he served consecutive two-year terms on the World Economic Forum’s Nuclear Security Global Agenda Council and its Future Council on International Security, which was established to diagnose and assess the security and defense implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Nurkin holds a MS in international affairs from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech and a BA in history and political science from Duke University. He lives in Charlotte, NC.

Stephen Rodriguez

Managing partner, One Defense; senior advisor and study director of the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Stephen Rodriguez is a senior advisor with the Forward Defense program at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the managing partner of One Defense, a strategic advisory firm that leverages machine learning to identify advanced software and hardware commercial capabilities and accelerate their transition into the defense industrial base. He is also an investor at Refinery Ventures, an early-scale fund investing in dual-use technologies across the country.

Rodriguez began his career at Booz Allen Hamilton shortly before 9/11 supporting its national security practice. In his capacity as an expert on game theoretic applications, he supported the United States Intelligence Community, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security as a lead architect for the Thor’s Hammer, Schriever II/III and Cyber Storm wargames. He subsequently was a vice president at an artificial intelligence company (Sentia Group) and served as chief marketing officer for an international defense corporation (NCL Holdings). Rodriguez serves as a board director or board advisor of ten venture-backed companies (Applied Intuition, Duco, Edgybees, Firestorm, Titaniam, Ursa Major Technologies, Vantage Robotics, WarOnTheRocks, ZeroMark, and Zignal Labs). He is a special advisor at America’s Frontier Fund, a commission director at the Atlantic Council and a life member at the Council on Foreign Relations. Rodriguez received his BBA degree from Texas A&M University and an MA degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is published in Foreign Policy, WarOnTheRocks, National Review, and RealClearDefense.

Clementine G. Starling-Daniels

Program director, senior resident fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Clementine G. Starling-Daniels is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program and a resident fellow within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. In her role, she shapes the Center’s US defense research agenda, leads Forward Defense’s team of nine staff and forty fellows, and produces thought leadership on US security strategies and the evolving character of warfare. Her research focuses on long-term US thinking on issues like China’s and Russia’s defense strategies, space security, defense industry, and emerging technology. Prior to launching Forward Defense, Starling served as deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security team, specializing in European security policy and NATO.

From 2016, she supported NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division at two NATO summits (Brussels and London) and organized and managed three senior Atlantic Council task forces on US force posture in Europe, military mobility, and US defense innovation adoption. During her time at the Atlantic Council, Starling has written numerous reports and commentary on US space strategy, deterrence, operational concepts, coalition warfare, and US-Europe relations. She regularly serves as a panelist and moderator at public conferences. Among the outlets that have featured her analysis and commentary are Defense One, Defense News, RealClearDefense, the National Interest, SpaceNews, NATO’s Joint Air and Space Power Conference, the BBC, National Public Radio, ABC News, and Government Matters, among others. Starling was named the 2022 Herbert Roback scholar by the US National Academy of Public Administration. She also served as the 2020 security and defense fellow at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy. Originally from the United Kingdom, Starling previously worked in the UK Parliament focusing on technology, defense, Middle East security, and Ukraine. She also supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, championing for the United Kingdom to remain within the European Union. She graduated with honors from the London School of Economics with a BS in international relations and history and is an MA candidate in security studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Mark J. Massa is a deputy director in the Forward Defense practice of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. A founding member of Forward Defense, Massa supports the director in the management of the program’s strategy, budget, personnel, and impact.

Massa leads Forward Defense’s portfolio of work on strategic forces issues, including nuclear strategy, space security, missile defense, and long-range conventional strike. His writing and commentary have appeared in the Hill, Defense News, RealClearDefense, Forbes, Air and Space Forces Magazine, the National Interest, CNBC, Sky News, and CTV News.

Massa earned his MA from Georgetown University’s security studies program. He received a BS in foreign service magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a degree in science, technology, and international affairs. He was awarded honors in his major for a senior thesis on a theory of nuclear ballistic missile submarine strategy.

Abigail Rudolph is a program assistant in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She contributes to the program’s defense industry and innovation portfolio.

Previously, Rudolph interned with the Cleveland Council on World Affairs where she contributed to its foreign policy forums and committees on foreign relations. As an undergraduate, she co-authored an op-ed detailing net-zero carbon emissions pathways for Ohioans; conducted an independent study evaluating the environmental impacts of war; cofounded the Women in National Security Initiative at her university; and completed her senior thesis which focused on an assessment of, and recommendations for bolstering NATO’s China policy.

She graduated with honors from Baldwin Wallace University, earning a BA in national security with a minor in sustainability.

Curtis Lee is a program assistant in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Lee is a recent graduate from Carnegie Mellon University, where he received a MS in public policy and management, a BS in policy and management, and a BA in Chinese studies. He has experience working on numerous topics in defense and foreign policy with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region and China. Lee completed his senior thesis on analyzing the supply chain vulnerabilities of US future technologies as a result of US-China decoupling policies.

In addition to his role at the Atlantic Council, Lee is currently a military intelligence officer in the US Army Reserves.

Alexander S. Young is a project assistant in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where he supports the program’s defense industry, innovation, and technology work.

Young is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he earned a MA with merit in global politics. He previously graduated with high honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, completing a double major in political science and global studies with emphases in international relations and the Middle East and the North Africa region. Having studied and worked in both Europe and the Middle East, Young wrote his master’s dissertation about the impacts of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on the geopolitics of the eastern Mediterranean and its natural gas projects.

Previously, Young also worked as an English teacher in underserved communities in Israel, having taught at An-Najah Comprehensive Junior High School in Rahat and Dizengoff Elementary School in Tel Aviv.

Young’s interests include geopolitics, ethnic and religious conflict, natural resources, defense industry issues, conflict resolution, and conflict stabilization.

Acknowledgements

This report was written and prepared with the support and input of its authors, commissioners on the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, and the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

This effort was conducted under the supervision of commission director Stephen Rodriguez, Forward Defense director Clementine Starling-Daniels, and Forward Defense deputy director Mark J. Massa. Special thanks to Atlantic Council CEO Fred Kempe and Matthew Kroenig for their support of this effort.

This effort has been made possible through the generous support of Booz Allen Hamilton, CAE, Helsing, Lockheed Martin, and Second Front Systems as the foundational sponsors, as well as sponsorship from Aalyria, Accrete AI, Adarga, Domino Data Lab, Edge Case Research, Fathom 5, Fortem Technologies, Kodiak Robotics, Latent AI, Peraton, Primer AI, SAAB, Saronic, Scale AI, and Skydio.

Foundational sponsors

Sponsors

To produce this report, the authors conducted more than fifty interviews and consultations with current and former officials in the US Department of Defense, congressional staff members, allied embassies in Washington, DC, and other academic and think tank organizations. However, the analysis and recommendations presented in this report are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of individuals consulted, commissioners, commission sponsors, the Atlantic Council, or any US government organization. Moreover, the authors, commissioners, and consulted experts participated in a personal, not institutional, capacity.

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A US-Saudi deal without Israel? Here’s what the US should ask for.

Kirsten Fontenrose — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000

For years, the outlines of a potentially groundbreaking deal involving the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have been well known. US President Donald Trump deputized a team to pursue this deal even before his inauguration, signaling the Abraham Accords’ top-tier position among his administration’s priorities. But the dramatically and continually shifting political winds in Israel, the kingdom, and among Palestinians may mean Saudi Arabia continues to press for a different kind of compact between just Riyadh and Washington.

The agreement that was under discussion with the Biden administration would have guaranteed that the United States would open the valve on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and maintain a troop and equipment presence to deter Iran-backed action against the kingdom. It would also have started a US-Saudi partnership to develop Saudi Arabia’s civil nuclear energy program (enrichment was still a point of debate) and to cooperate on artificial intelligence and emerging technology.

These discussions seemed oddly devoid of benefits to the United States. One benefit touted was locking Saudi Arabia into a commitment to buy weapons platforms from the United States instead of from China. However, achieving this does not require a commitment of US troops in the region nor a joint nuclear program. It only requires that the United States approve its own arms sales and speed up its own epically slow foreign military sales process.

The reason for this lopsidedness was that the United States saw the biggest prize as Saudi normalization with Israel, which would unlock economic and social integration projects across the Middle East, South Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia and Africa. However, Israel’s opposition to a path toward a Palestinian state is as intransigent now as Saudi Arabia’s insistence on it as part of any normalization.

With Trump now in office, charging aggressively into foreign policy dealmaking on a number of fronts, the narrative has shifted on whether a Trump presidency could deliver a stronger security agreement with Saudi Arabia that includes the hefty asks from the kingdom but does not include normalization with Israel. Yes, it is possible that Trump can secure such a deal. But should he?

A stronger US-Saudi relationship would be beneficial for both countries across a host of issues and sectors, but alliances imply mutual responsibility. Saudi Arabia is not asking for the equivalent of a NATO Article 5 security guarantee, because the responsibility to defend the United States would then apply to Riyadh. Saudi Arabia would ideally like the United States to guarantee its security but does not want to commit to supporting US security or to making hard choices about China. The latter would have to change.

Without normalization with Israel, the previously proposed agreement with Saudi Arabia requires too much and offers too little. The deal will need to be sweetened. Here are some ways to do so.

Gain greater Saudi support for US policy on Iran

Short of normalization, Saudi Arabia should be asked to stop using rhetoric about Iran or Israel that creates any confusion about the kingdom’s allegiances. For instance, at a November Arab League summit, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke about the need for international actors (read: Israel and the United States) to respect Iran’s territorial integrity. Such statements are a message to Washington that the lack of an upgraded US-Saudi defense agreement is pushing Riyadh further toward Tehran as a hedge. A US security guarantee should require unequivocally picking a side.

Saudi Arabia’s détente with Iran should be encouraged in the interest of regional stability, but the relationship should not deepen in any way that puts the US military or economy at risk. A cold peace is fine unless and until the Trump administration signs a deal with Iran. Any suggestion that Saudi Arabia’s détente with Iran creates the opportunity for the kingdom to serve as a mediator in potential US-Iran talks is a fallacy; Iran will not trust Saudi Arabia to play this role.

Because the future of US-Iran relations is unknown, the ask of Saudi Arabia on its Iran policy should be twofold: First, in the event that US military action against Iran is necessary, a US-Saudi agreement should stipulate that the kingdom will permit the use of its airspace, bases, ports, and other logistics mechanisms for US military operations.

To discourage Saudi leadership from engaging in risky behavior vis-à-vis Iran, a US security guarantee for Saudi Arabia should also require a degree of Saudi skin in the military game. The agreement should stipulate that the kingdom will support any US military operations in the defense of Saudi Arabia with some level of troops, equipment, and funding.

Second, if Trump secures a new deal with Iran, the United States should request that Saudi Arabia pledge to support the US plan to roll back Iran’s nuclear program and its network of proxies. Such a deal might ask Saudi Arabia to invest in Iran, which would likely be welcomed in Riyadh. Iran presents a large potential market for products including aluminum, phosphate-based fertilizers, refined petrochemical derivatives that Iran does not have the technology to produce, and even high-end dates.

If the Trump administration strikes a deal with Iran, the possibility of bringing Iran’s oil onto the legitimate market would drop the per-barrel price, barring other global disturbances in the supply chain. While this would go against Saudi Arabia’s economic goals, this could be offset by the prospect of Saudi-Iran joint ventures to upgrade Iran’s extraction and refining industries for a number of products.

Help stabilize the Middle East

Saudi Arabia has worked with the United States on stabilizing the Middle East throughout the years on a host of issues involving Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinians, Iraq, Iran, and Sudan. Saudi Arabia has been at the political table in good faith in Yemen for over two years now, per the United States’ request. One notable divergence from this record was Riyadh’s rift with Qatar, which benefited Iran, as the first Trump administration repeatedly reminded Saudi Arabia. As part of a US-Saudi agreement, the kingdom could be asked to commit to participation in future regional stabilization efforts and, as importantly, to refrain from those that contradict US objectives.

Strengthen the US-Saudi diplomatic partnership

The United States and Saudi Arabia have successfully cooperated in pursuing mutual foreign policy goals for years. This diplomatic cooperation could be enshrined as part of a new US-Saudi agreement.

The first US-Saudi joint global diplomacy was to rally international support for kicking the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the early 1980s. This joint work was expanded to counter Soviet influence in Africa. In recent years, the United States and Saudi Arabia have divided and conquered, engaging the countries with which they hold sway, to build coalitions like the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and the Saudi-led Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition. For a while, Saudi Arabia helped the United States keep Bashar al-Assad’s Syria out of the Arab League. Saudi Arabia has to tried to convince Russia not to sell weapons to Iran and tried to get a cease-fire in Sudan when the United States effectively lacked a Sudan policy. For several years now, the United States and Saudi Arabia have worked together to try to convince Israel to agree to a plan for a Palestinian state.

In other instances, like the 1973 oil crisis and on topics like military intervention in Iraq, backing of parties in the Syrian Civil War, Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and Saudi military acquisition projects with Russia and China, Saudi Arabia has pursued foreign policy goals that counter US interests. A US security guarantee for Saudi Arabia should come with a Saudi guarantee that Riyadh will not contradict US efforts on the ground in places where the United States has stated and clear foreign policy goals. This acknowledges the valid Saudi complaint that US policy has lacked clarity in recent years on files including Syria and East Africa. This lack of clarity is for the United States to fix.

Encourage Saudi Arabia to expand defense cooperation with the US—not China or Russia

While the predominant obstacle to US arms sales to Saudi Arabia has been executive and congressional holds and the cumbersome US foreign military sales process, there are important asks the Trump administration can make of the kingdom in this arena.

First and foremost, Saudi Arabia’s cooperation with China in the defense space should be curtailed. China and Saudi Arabia have joint manufacturing facilities for drone and missile component production and collaborate on counter-drone technology and cybersecurity. If the United States is to provide a security guarantee of any sort to Saudi Arabia, there can be no space for China in these sensitive areas. The premise, oft-cited by Saudi interlocutors, is that the United States is the kingdom’s security partner while China is the economic partner. This feeds the faulty assumption among isolationists in Washington that Riyadh’s economic partnership with China does not bleed into the defense space. This hasn’t been the case for years now, and Saudi-Chinese cooperation in the defense sector should not be allowed to continue as part of any US-Saudi security partnership.

Likewise, any potential deal for Riyadh to collaborate with Russia to domestically produce advanced air or land defense systems in Saudi Arabia should be prohibited. In the past, Saudi Arabia flirted with purchasing the S-400 air-defense system from Russia and used this possibility as a lever in conversations with Washington about other policy issues. The potential for such purchases should be prevented as part of a US-Saudi agreement.

The United States competes for arms sales in the Gulf even with longtime allies, and this sector dominance is important because this purchased military equipment serves as plug-and-play capability augmentation for the US military in the region when necessary. The United States should certainly not cede this market to Russia, even as its relations with Moscow shift. The good news is that Saudi Arabia does not want to go the Russia route. But the United States has stood in its own way. I’m told that the National Security Council Policy Coordinating Committee has recently started conversations about reforming the US foreign military sales process. That will hopefully make it easier for US Central Command to increase interoperability with partners that have been asking for this, including Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia seeks to develop a domestic defense industry. This goal should complement but not compete with US arms sales to the kingdom. US companies are active in joint ventures with Saudi Arabia’s state-owned defense contractor SAMI to build and maintain aircraft, drones, and missiles, as well as to integrate systems, in line with Riyadh’s National Industrialization and Military Logistics Program. Yet, Saudi Arabia has made offset requirements more difficult for US companies to meet, demanding technology transfer in areas where US companies have invested heavily in research and development. The United States should ask that these offset requirements for US firms be relaxed.

To ensure that Saudi Arabia’s development of its own defense industry does not run afoul of US interests, the United States could request as part of a security agreement deal that Riyadh vet future defense partnership and purchase arrangements with third countries through a joint US-Saudi steering committee.

Make Integrated Air and Missile Defense a reality

Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) is a specific long-time objective of the United States that should be cemented in any US security guarantee granted to Saudi Arabia. The goal of creating a common operating picture for missile defense capabilities across the Gulf, and creating a central command-and-control mechanism for responding to threatening missile arsenals in the region, first emerged in the early 2000s and was codified in the 2019 National Defense Strategy. The kingdom is not alone in dragging its feet on this project; mistrust among Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states has made them all wary of exposing vulnerabilities in their air defenses and sharing intelligence with their neighbors. Saudi Arabia has had additional concerns about being expected to foot the majority of the bill for establishing this defense umbrella across the Gulf. But as the largest landmass of the GCC, this is inevitable; Saudi Arabia has more airspace that needs protecting.

Saudi Arabia previously invested in Chinese and Russian radar and counter-drone systems such as the Silent Hunter and Pantsir that cannot be integrated into a US-led IAMD network. Saudi Arabia can be asked not only to participate fully in IAMD advancement but to act alongside the United States in encouraging progress on it. In December 2024, the Department of Defense awarded the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab a contract for research and engineering support to the IAMD project, showing that the Pentagon is putting its own money where its mouth has long been. Saudi Arabia could be asked to do the same, particularly since the overarching objective is making the Gulf, not the United States, safer. Without IAMD, the job of providing security to Saudi Arabia is a much larger lift. More robust participation in IAMD implementation should be a requirement in any upgraded US security assurances for the kingdom.

Beyond IAMD, the Gulf states (except for Bahrain) have also dragged their feet on participation in maritime joint task forces to protect the waters of the Middle East. A US-Saudi security agreement should mandate full Saudi participation in existing and future US-led joint task forces and mechanisms like, for example, the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement, focused on securing the land, air, seas and networks of the region.

US firms should be the first choice in all contracts let in Saudi Arabia’s defense sector if Washington grants the kingdom a security guarantee. As part of the agreement, the two partners should agree on the conditions in which a non-US partner would be selected.

Cooperate on counterterrorism

It is unfortunate that indicators point toward an uptick in terrorist recruitment and planning in 2025. The United States will likely soon seek to reinvigorate coalitions to counter a resurgent terrorist threat.

As part of a US-Saudi agreement, the United States could ask for a commitment from the kingdom to continue or upgrade intelligence sharing, financial cooperation, collaboration between law enforcement agencies, and joint counterterrorism task forces to conduct operations against terrorist organizations. In May 2023, the United States signed the latest iteration of the 2008 Agreement for Technical Cooperation to help the kingdom build skills to protect its critical infrastructure from terrorists. This could be reviewed for any desired edits or additions.

The United States should also ask Saudi Arabia to commit to a serious effort, both diplomatic and incentive-based, to bring other countries on board with future coalitions and task force efforts as necessary.

Collaborate on a civilian nuclear program

Saudi action toward a civilian nuclear program has ebbed and flowed in the past decade, as has US openness to supporting it. A US refusal to work with Riyadh on its post-oil plans for nuclear energy production will not result in Saudi Arabia abandoning these plans. It will simply choose another partner, and several countries have offered to help, including China, South Korea, and France. It is in the United States’ interest to have a hand on the controls of a Saudi nuclear program rather than zero visibility into it. US involvement in building a Saudi civilian nuclear program would allow the United States to build in safeguards to the program that would not be possible if Saudi Arabia partners elsewhere. Chief among the benefits for the United States would be oversight of Saudi Arabia’s safety, security, and nonproliferation standards, as well as gatekeeping access to this program.

If the Trump administration agrees to the kingdom’s request to pursue a civilian nuclear energy partnership as part of a larger deal involving a security pact, the United States should have extensive oversight of the program.

The Saudi Aramco model, in which US technology and expertise (and US control over both) formed the basis of a company gradually turned over to Saudi management, can be a theoretical blueprint for maintaining US oversight of the program for a period and eventually handing the program over to host country control as US and Saudi comfort dictates.

A “123 agreement,” named after Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954, should be a requirement. A 123 agreement requires congressional approval as well as the partner country’s commitment to nonproliferation, adherence to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, and limits on enrichment before the United States can sell nuclear energy technologies to another country. The reason Saudi Arabia gave the United States for not agreeing to the additional “gold standard” protocol foregoing enrichment is that the limitations in the Iran nuclear deal were fewer than this protocol, and it made no sense for the United States to impose more restrictions on a partner than it imposed on Iran. This is fair. But the answer is not to downgrade the ask of Saudi Arabia but to aim in any negotiations with Iran for Tehran’s compliance with the same level of terms and commitments outlined in section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Morocco, both members of the Abraham Accords, are US partners in 123 agreements. And the UAE and Taiwan, both with strong security agreements with the United States, are signatories to the US gold standard.

As a US security guarantee for Saudi Arabia would also be expected to protect civilian nuclear facilities that would present an enticing target for enemies, the United States should ask for a deciding vote on the activities that are conducted at the facility. A facility that does not conduct enrichment is a less attractive target for Iranian aggression than one that does. Saudi Arabia could perhaps become the breaker of ground and a model for small modular reactors, in partnership with the United States.

Lower energy prices

In Riyadh, a senior official with an energy portfolio told me, referring to oil prices, “Get ready. One hundred [dollars] is the new forty,” indicating that the kingdom would not make moves to lower oil prices for the foreseeable future. Trump has already challenged that stance.

Washington and Riyadh should start a renewed conversation about stabilizing oil markets, a goal Saudi Arabia says is its priority as the leader of the OPEC cartel. Saudi Arabia’s domestic development budget is tied to a price per barrel. Similarly, the Trump administration’s goals for boosting the US economy will require cheap oil to drive growth. As part of the security agreement, a sweet spot on oil prices should be agreed upon.

It is important to note here that if a US ask for increased Saudi oil production is tied to plans to remove Iranian oil from the market, Saudi Arabia will expect a US guarantee of the kingdom’s security to be in place before it boosts output. In October, Iran reiterated threats to retaliate for Israeli or US strikes on its homeland by striking Saudi Arabia, a threat the Saudis take seriously. If they are asked along with other Gulf neighbors to dip into spare capacity to replace Iran’s supply, they may only agree if the United States has signed on to robust levels of defense support to the expansive nation that exceed any previously provided. In this scenario, however, the United States would have less ability to make additional asks to Saudi Arabia, such as those outlined above and below.

Increase Saudi foreign direct investment

Saudi foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in the United States decreased by roughly five billion dollars between 2019 and 2023. Then in 2024, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund lowered its US stock holdings by approximately fifteen billion dollars, a 41 percent reduction in its US stock portfolio, according to the Wall Street Journal. Saudi Arabia has been offloading US debt and looking to Africa and Latin America for investment opportunities. If the United States provides a security guarantee to the kingdom, Riyadh should be asked to reverse this trend. In January, Saudi Arabia announced plans to invest $600 billion into the United States. Saudi Arabia projects a nearly thirty billion dollar fiscal deficit in 2025 and has a shrinking balance of trade surplus. This, combined with pressure to keep oil prices low, may mean the $600 billion figure will be difficult to meet. But the United States can ask the kingdom for significantly increased FDI commitments in specific sectors and industries identified as key to US economic, national security, and supply chain resilience goals. Currently, the United States has a trade deficit with Saudi Arabia. The United States should ask the kingdom to purchase domestically manufactured US goods, which will bolster the US manufacturing base, a core aspect of Trump’s agenda.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir are seen as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a working breakfast meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during the G20 leaders summit in 2019. Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS

Negotiations on an upgraded US-Saudi bilateral security agreement should stay within the parameters of actions that each side can realize on their own. A US-Saudi deal should not be contingent on the approval of plans for a Palestinian state or a regional security framework for the Middle East. This approach would toss the negotiations into a bureaucratic purgatory, where they will likely languish and die. Worse, it would make the achievement of US objectives subject to the whims of other nations and organizations. The United States should not put itself in that position.

A new bilateral strategic alliance with the United States without having to normalize with Israel would be a big win for Saudi Arabia. And it could be for the United States, as well. But a bilateral deal raises one final question for US policymakers: If the United States grants all the kingdom’s asks that were originally intended to incentivize normalization with Israel, what will Washington have left to offer at the normalization table going forward?

Kirsten Fontenrose is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. Previously, she was the senior director for the Gulf at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, leading the development of US policy toward nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Yemen, Egypt, and Jordan.

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Inside Defense reports on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare final report

Atlantic Council — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 20:30:00 +0000

On March 26, Theresa Maher of Inside Defense published an article highlighting the key recommendations from the final report of Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare. Entitled “Think tankers urge DOD to keep software procurement simple,” the article underscores the Commission’s call for a commercial-first mindset, improved data collection and sharing, and stronger collaboration between the Department of Defense (DoD) and congressional appropriation staffers.

With China outproducing the United States in military hardware, software has become essential to maintaining a competitive edge. Maher highlights the “Davidson Window,” the prediction that China may take military action against Taiwan by 2027, underscoring the urgency behind the Commission’s near-term recommendations. The report outlines how the Pentagon can leverage software practices to enhance and strengthen US defense strategies.

LEARN MORE

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Cartwright and Kandasamy in COTS Journal on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare

Atlantic Council — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 20:00:00 +0000

On March 26, COTS Journal published an article by Gen James “Hoss” Cartwright, USMC (ret.) and Jags Kandasamy, Commissioners on Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, highlighting key recommendations from the Commission’s final report. The piece explores enterprise software and operational software, outlining a strategic approach to their procurement and use. The authors urge the Department of Defense to adopt both software systems to enhance warfighter protection, ensure effective equipping, and improve battlefield safety.

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DefenseNews reports on Commission on Software-Defined Warfare final report

Atlantic Council — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 20:00:00 +0000

On March 26, Courtney Albon of DefenseNews published an article analyzing the defense industry’s response to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent directive on software acquisition, highlighting Forward Defense‘s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare report as a key framework for understanding the broader reforms required. The piece, “In the wake of Hegseth’s software memo, experts eye further change,” details how military officials and industry executives have expressed “a mix of optimism and angst” about the mandate while calling for more comprehensive reforms.

The article underscores how the commission’s report identified workforce expertise as a critical need for the Pentagon and details its recommendation that Department of Defense (DoD) develop an “extensive, connected, layered and modular software-centric training program” to establish a foundational understanding of commercial best practices. The DefenseNews piece directly quotes from the commission’s findings, noting “While the DoD has taken steps to upskill its existing workforce for the digital age, a widely acknowledged software proficiency shortfall remains.”

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TX Hammes publishes issue brief on Chinese port and base investments overseas

Thomas X. Hammes — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 15:49:45 +0000

On March 21, TX Hammes, nonresident senior fellow at Forward Defense, published an issue brief through the Atlantic Council, entitled ‘Chinese exploitation of overseas ports and bases’ in which he detailed the threat posed by aggressive Chinese investment strategies globally to US national security. Further, Hammes argues the inability to react to recent Chinese actions will strengthen China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ability to challenge US naval supremacy, which will increase their chances of victory in a future armed conflict.

Fellow

Thomas X. Hammes

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Conflict Defense Industry

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Exclusive on Atlantic Council Commission on Software-Defined Warfare final report published in Axios

Atlantic Council — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 14:00:00 +0000

On March 26, Colin Demarest, future of defense reporter at Axios, published an exclusive article on the Pentagon’s software-hardware balance and featured Forward Defense‘s Commision on Software-Defined Warfare report. The article, “Exclusive: The Pentagon’s software-hardware tug of war,” highlights the commission’s conclusions on the era of “software-defined warfare” and the urgent need for the US military to enhance its software capabilities to compete with China.

The piece examines key findings from the Atlantic Council report, which was the product of eighteen months of work and over seventy interviews. According to the article, the commission concluded that the US military is still anchored to an acquisition system “ill-suited to the rapid tempo of modern technological innovation,” putting the country “at significant risk.” The report emphasizes the Department of Defense’s lack of “sufficient software expertise” and recommends establishing a software cadre by recruiting dozens of specialists to be deployed across various defense departments.

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Peace requires more than a handshake: Misreading Russia’s war aims will prolong Putin’s aggression

Zak Schneider — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 13:58:35 +0000

US President Donald Trump’s March 18 phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the start of a new phase in the efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. For his part, Trump appears intent on reaching a deal through compromise and expediency that establishes a cessation to the fighting. By all outward appearances, however, his counterpart in the Kremlin does not.

Misreading Putin’s aims at this pivotal moment carries risks that could cost the United States in the long term and create a new security crisis in Europe. For the United States, one risk is that the Russian president may, after wringing steep concessions from negotiations, agree to a deal that he has no intention of upholding. Time and again, history has warned against equating concession to Russian demands with a step toward lasting peace. Peace with Russia will require more than just a handshake.

Perhaps the most important starting point for Trump’s negotiations is recognizing this: Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine has never been simply about where to draw borders. Moscow’s aggression is motivated more by ideology and regime security than a desire to acquire a bit more land. Going forward, US negotiations must understand this larger picture of what motivates Russia, as it is critical for constructing a durable and lasting peace.

Putin’s ‘Russian world’

For years, the Kremlin has promoted the idea of a “Russian World,” whose “borders do not end anywhere.” It is this ideology that informs Russia’s desire to swallow Ukraine whole and menace Europe. The idea of Ukraine joining the prosperous, democratic club of nations threatens the grip of the Russian government’s imperial, kleptocratic despotism. Today, Russia is a mafia-like state in large part held together by cruelty and fueled by a reservoir of lies and corruption. In many disturbing ways, Russia’s conduct in its war against Ukraine emulates the way its leaders have behaved within their own territory. Russia has abducted thousands of Ukrainian children, killed scores of noncombatants, and adopted military tactics that show little regard for the lives of its own soldiers.

Russia has justified its aggression by touting the supposed “historical unity” of Slavic nations. Putin’s motivation for rule-breaking seems to stem from a desire to return to a more brutish past, when violent spheres of influence, rather than international norms and laws, dictated the terms of occupation for millions of people in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, and the Baltic states.

In Russia, foreign policy is often a “tool” of domestic policy, as these civilizational claims better justify Putin’s internal repression at home. For the Russian president, his country’s capacity to menace Europe assists his goal of shaping the Russian populace. Conformity, repression, and nationalism for Russia at home is just as critical to cementing Putin’s power as events unfolding outside Russia’s borders. Putin must continually demonstrate to his own population that Ukraine’s democratic aspirations are hopeless. Otherwise, he seems to fear uprisings of a similar caliber to those in Georgia in 2024, Belarus in 2020, or Ukraine in 2014, which could threaten his kleptocratic grip on power.

Lessons from the Minsk agreements

Throughout the negotiation process, Russia’s war aims are unlikely to change. Putin wants to ensure Ukraine is ungovernable and weak, preventing it from fully integrating with the West and becoming a symbol of self-determination on Russia’s doorstep. Neither latent Russian imperialism nor the Kremlin’s fear of “color revolutions” will go away if the United States chooses to appease Russia.

Stark warnings from top US diplomats and former Russian officials alike emphasize that dealmaking with Putin will be extraordinarily challenging and fraught with the risk of deception. In 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected largely on the issue of ending the war with Russia in the Donbas and resisting the slide back into the vortex of Moscow’s dystopian melodrama. The region was still simmering from Russia’s unprovoked attacks in the Donbas and Crimea in 2014, after the Ukrainian people ousted its Russia-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovych, and attempted to look toward Europe.

The 2019 agreements between Russia and Ukraine, which Zelenskyy pursued, failed because they tried to paper over an irreconcilable clash of interests. Russia is on a quest for permanent imperial control of Ukraine, and Ukraine wants to be a democratic sovereign state. As a result, Russia repeatedly broke cease-fire agreements it had signed, and there is no indication, short of credible deterrence, that Russia will honor future agreements.

As Russia’s political levers of control over Ukraine diminished in the years following Yanukovych’s ouster, the Kremlin was emboldened to use larger-scale violence to subdue its neighbor in 2022. Putin’s aims were still to ensure that the secure, sovereign, peaceful, rules-based, democratic, European way of life couldn’t infect his “Russian World.”

In both the Minsk agreements and the lead-up to the full-scale February 2022 invasion, Russian officials never discussed the parameters of arms control or the security of Russia’s pre-existing borders, according to reports. This suggests that they were never really interested in nonviolent remediation measures for their so-called “security concerns.”

Ukraine cannot end Russian aggression by signing a treaty that creates a new border demarcation line. Instead, Ukraine and its partners must reestablish credible deterrence through security guarantees that prevent destabilizing Russian aggression. In preparing for a cessation of hostilities, the United States, as Ukraine’s military partner, should prioritize engaging Ukraine and Europe, rather than focusing on appeasing a lawless, reckless Russian Federation.

Ukrainians, alongside their Eastern European neighbors, warn that Russia’s motives for launching its invasion indicate wider imperial ambitions beyond Ukraine. Ignoring this perspective risks European security, US interests, and global stability. Only security guarantees—or as Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė recently put it, only negotiations with a “gun on the table”—will give Russia pause.

Zak Schneider is a young global professional with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

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How Germany’s incoming government will work with Turkey

Hürcan Aslı Aksoy — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 13:23:19 +0000

Ahead of Germany’s parliamentary elections in February, Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), emphasized Turkey’s strategic importance. In doing so, he called upon European countries to strengthen their foreign-policy cooperation with Turkey in response to mounting security challenges and potential shifts in US foreign policy. In addition, he committed to strengthening Turkey’s ties with the European Union, specifically on migration and Syrian security—while implicitly arguing that Turkey should have a “privileged” or “strategic” partnership with the EU, rather than full membership.

Now, with CDU/CSU having won the February parliamentary election, Merz is likely to become Germany’s next chancellor. Here is what to expect from a Merz-led Germany’s approach to ties with Turkey.

A more transactional approach

Expectations for the incoming German government, as the powerhouse of the EU, are considerable. These include sustaining military and financial support for Ukraine, addressing a shrinking German economy, and navigating the challenges of declining transatlantic reliability.

During his election campaign, Merz outlined a three-step plan for reshaping German foreign policy. First, he intends to restore Germany’s capacity to engage effectively in foreign, security, and European policy. Second, he aims to “win back” the trust of international partners and allies. Third, he seeks to establish clear strategic priorities. He has also appeared keen to reassert Germany’s influence within the EU. Many of these efforts will see the CDU/CSU leader forging partnerships not only with European allies but also with key regional players such as Turkey.

With Turkey’s significant role in NATO and its strategic location, Germany-Turkey relations under the likely German government are expected to remain pragmatic yet cooperative. Given prevailing geopolitical challenges and a clear shift toward realpolitik, Berlin is likely to maintain its transactional approach, prioritizing short-term strategic interests over long-term, value-based engagement. With this transactional approach, both Germany and Turkey may sideline normative concerns such as democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in favor of more immediate objectives related to three areas: security and defense, economic relations, and migration.

Yet on the other hand, Germany plays a pivotal role in shaping EU policy towards Turkey, so the new German government will face the challenge of balancing European Turkey policy with a future German approach to Turkey, whose foreign policy and domestic politics are increasingly diverging from European norms and values.

The highest priorities

One of the most pressing challenges for the next German government will be supporting Ukraine and strengthening Europe’s defense capabilities, particularly in light of growing concerns over US reliability. The controversial meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US President Donald Trump on February 28—followed by the subsequent withdrawal (and, later, reinstatement) of military support to Ukraine—has reinforced doubts about Washington’s commitment to European security. In response, Merz and his likely coalition partners proposed easing Germany’s infamous debt brake to allow for increased defense and infrastructure spending, and a plan which was approved by parliament last week. However, securing Europe’s long-term security will require more than just financial adjustments—it will necessitate strengthening strategic partnerships with both European and non-European allies.

Security cooperation between Germany and Turkey has long served as a stabilizing factor in the bilateral relationship, despite numerous tensions. During his electoral campaign, Merz emphasized his intention to reduce Europe’s reliance on external powers. This position could pave the way for deeper cooperation with Turkey in the defense and security sectors, given Turkey’s role within NATO and its broader regional security influence. As discussion on the future of NATO unfolds across European capitals, Turkey’s role in European security architecture has gained prominence. With its geostrategic position, military capabilities, and expanding defense industry, Turkey is increasingly seen as a significant actor in the reshaping European security framework.

In addition to its potential role in shaping the future of European security, Turkey is also viewed as a pivotal partner in ensuring regional security. Following the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, Turkey has taken on a central role in the country, while Russia and Iran’s influence has waned. In December 2024, Merz stated that Turkey will play a more prominent role in the Middle East and emphasized that Germany and the EU must engage closely with Turkey to support Syria’s economic recovery and promote regional stability.

Migration remains a crucial area of cooperation between Germany and Turkey. The issue became a contentious topic during the German elections, with Merz placing it at the top of his agenda following a series of deadly attacks allegedly involving immigrants. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), fueled by anger over immigration and refugees, secured second place in the election, while mainstream parties also adopted a more hardline stance on the issue. In an interview, Merz praised Turkey’s efforts in hosting millions of Syrian refugees as part of the 2016 EU-Turkey deal on irregular migration. This agreement included giving six billion euros to Turkey to help support the externalization of migration management, which is in line with EU and German interests.

Another cornerstone of German-Turkish relations is economic cooperation. Germany is one of Turkey’s most important trading partners and foreign investors, with investments reaching nearly $2.5 billion in 2022. In 2023, bilateral trade reached a record high of 55 billion euros. Beyond conventional sectors, Turkey and Germany have in recent years increased trade in new commercial areas, many linked to the energy transition. Eying green transformation and supply chains, Turkey aims to boost the bilateral trade up to $60 billion. German companies are increasingly involved in projects related to wind, solar, and hydroelectric power. Platforms such as the Joint Economic and Trade Commission and the Turkish-German Energy Partnership facilitate dialogue between the political and business actors in both countries. Given the search for more cooperation with Turkey on security-related issues, the defense industry can become an important sector in bilateral economic relations.

A stronger German focus on national interests, security, and leading the EU may reshape Germany-Turkey relations to be more transactional in the years ahead. But such an approach may not yield long-term success. The new German leadership should clarify its priorities and strike more of a balance—both pursuing shared interests and addressing diverging norms—in working with Turkey.

Hürcan Aslı Aksoy is head of the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.

The views expressed in TURKEYSource are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Rodriguez, Shanahan, and Sweatt cut into the stakes and opportunities of software-defined warfare on All Quiet on the Second Front podcast

Atlantic Council — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 18:00:00 +0000

On March 24, Stephen Rodriguez, senior advisor at Forward Defense and director of FD’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, was a featured guest alongside Lt Gen Jack Shanahan, a commissioner on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, on the podcast All Quiet on the Second Front, hosted by Tyler Sweatt, a commissioner on the Commission on Software-Defined Warfare. This episode, entitled “Software Defined Warfare with Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan and Stephen Rodriguez,” shed light on the urgency of developing innovative strategies that will best prepare the DoD to navigate an increasingly software-driven defense landscape.

Learn More

The post Rodriguez, Shanahan, and Sweatt cut into the stakes and opportunities of software-defined warfare on All Quiet on the Second Front podcast appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Clarity is power: The Trump administration needs a new US Navy Navigation Plan

Bruce Stubbs — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 19:39:12 +0000

We are operationalizing our
“Get Real, Get Better” mindset.

—Vice Admiral Brendan McLane, US Navy, as quoted in Seapower Magazine, January 16, 2025

During his Naval Postgraduate School speech in May 2022, Admiral William K. Lescher, vice chief of naval operations, explained the Navy’s new “Get Real, Get Better” initiative, which had been announced in the July 2022 Navigation Plan (NAVPLAN). He stated: “We have to self-assess and be our own toughest critics. We need to be honest about our abilities and be fully transparent about our performance. Once we ‘embrace the red,’ we will be able to identify solutions and more realistically predict our mission readiness.”¹

The “Get Real, Get Better” mandate must apply to all levels of the Navy including at the strategic level. This Atlantic Council Issue Brief does exactly what Lescher called the Navy to do by critically assessing the Navy’s 2024 overarching strategic planning document: the 2024 Navigation Plan.² This evaluation embraces the red by identifying course corrections and the need for greater clarity, specificity, and transparency in its guidance.

The short life of the Navy’s 2024 NAVPLAN

Tactical mistakes may kill you today, while operational error may prove fatal in days or perhaps weeks. A[n] error in … strategy may take years to reveal itself in its full horror.

—Colin S. Gray, “Why Is Strategy Different,” Infinity Journal

Admiral Lisa M. Franchetti, the thirty-third chief of naval operations (CNO), published the Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy 2024 (NAVPLAN) on September 18, 2024.³ This NAVPLAN is already outdated, no longer applicable, and requires replacement.

The inauguration of President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, voided the 2024 NAVPLAN. Trump wants a bigger Navy by building more ships and has congressional majorities to back-up his policies, while the Navy in its NAVPLAN ranks a bigger Navy—what the Navy calls capacity—as its lowest priority. Indeed, the 2024 NAVPLAN clearly states the Navy “will continue to prioritize readiness, capability, and capacity in that order.”⁴ The twenty-eight-page NAVPLAN devotes a few sentences to express the need for a larger Navy, indicating, however, that it will not happen for over a generation because of insufficient funding and an inadequate industrial base.

During an interview on the January 6, 2025, “Hugh Hewitt Show,” Trump announced his policy to build more ships for the US Navy. He noted that the United States is “sitting back watching” as China rapidly expands its navy, opining that the United States has “suffered tremendously.”⁵ (Figure 1 displays the trend lines for the size of these two navies.) He said his administration will announce “some things that are going to be very good having to do with the Navy. We need ships. We have to get ships.”⁶ At his January 14, 2025, Senate confirmation hearing, Peter Hegseth, now secretary of defense, echoed that guidance: “President Trump has said definitively to me and publicly that shipbuilding will be one of his absolute top priorities of this administration. We need to reinvigorate our defense industrial base in this country to include our shipbuilding capacity.⁷ In addition, Hegseth (in a response to a policy question in this confirmation process) penned that, “Shipbuilding is an urgent national security priority. If confirmed, I will immediately direct the Secretary of the Navy and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment to create a shipbuilding roadmap to increase our capacity.”⁸

In his March 4^th joint address to Congress, Trump followed through on his January comments made on the “Hugh Hewitt Show.” He announced his plan to revive US naval and commercial shipbuilding by establishing a White House Office of Shipbuilding. With the exception of its purpose—“To boost our defense industrial base” in order to “make [ships] very fast, very soon”—details on how this office would function remain scarce. Regardless, Trump signaled that shipbuilding is a key theme of his administration and a component of his plan to build “the most powerful military of the future.”⁹

Figure 1: US and Chinese naval force levels: Actual and projected (2000 to 2030)

Source: China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities, Congressional Research Service, Updated August 16, 2024.

Overview of the Navy’s NAVPLAN

Politicians bear the heaviest blame for a fleet that is 50 ships too small, but the CNO should be explaining the strategic risks and lighting a fire for the funding to arrest the trend.

—Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2025.¹⁰

NAVPLANs are a series of planning documents that convey the Navy’s most important policies for implementation above all other Navy guidance documents, including the tri-service, unclassified strategies, such as the 2007 A Cooperative Strategy for 21^st Century Seapower,¹¹ the 2015 revision of A Cooperative Strategy for 21^st Century Seapower,¹² and the 2020 Advantage at Sea.¹³ Each CNO personally authors an unclassified strategic plan—a NAVPLAN—to outline a path for the Navy’s forward progress during their four-year tenure. Modern NAVPLANs have four purposes: explain how the Navy, as part of the Joint Force, intends to deter and defeat threats to US national security; guide prioritizing and rationalizing Navy plans and programs; provide a persuasive framework for Navy funding requests; and source strategic communications to deter threats and reassure allies and partners.¹⁴

Crafted ostensibly for an internal Navy audience, these NAVPLANs identify the “biggest challenges to [the Navy’s] forward progress” and provide a “coherent approach to overcoming them.”¹⁵ NAVPLANs also have three other audiences: allies and partners, as well as potential adversaries; key decision-makers in the executive and legislative branches of the US government; and national security thought leaders in the public domain (e.g., think tanks, academia, news media, and industry). As discussed below, the latter two audiences are critically important to the Navy. The American public, however, is not a primary audience because its interests typically lag behind emerging security issues.

The 2024 NAVPLAN: Recognize the good

The 2024 NAVPLAN is a remarkable document with three instances of notable clarity. First, the NAVPLAN unequivocally declares a strategic end to achieve “readiness for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027.”¹⁶ By specifying China as a primary threat and with a select year for potential conflict, the NAVPLAN provides focus and clarity of purpose. The NAVPLAN zeroes in on China and describes seven priority areas to improve Navy readiness. This is a positive, clear expression of the ranking that past documents lacked. Second, the 2024 NAVPLAN cites and supports former CNO Michael Gilday’s 2022 guidance by calling for 3 percent to 5 percent “sustained budget growth above actual inflation [to] simultaneously modernize and grow the capacity of our Fleet.”¹⁷ The NAVPLAN warns, “Without substantial growth in Navy resourcing now, we will eventually face deep strategic constraints on our ability to simultaneously address day-to-day crises while also modernizing the Fleet to enhance readiness for war both today and in the future.”¹⁸ Last, this document devotes an entire page correctly highlighting how unmanned ships and aircraft technologies are the “changing character of war,”¹⁹ by “pushing asymmetric capability, at lower cost, to state and non-state actors alike.”²⁰ In response, the NAVPLAN focuses the Navy to operationalize “robotic and autonomous systems,” ²¹commonly known as drones. ²² This clarity of expression is admirable.

The 2024 NAVPLAN: Embrace the red

In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.

—Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

As mentioned, this issue brief is a critical assessment in the spirit of “Get Real, Get Better.” The 2024 NAVPLAN has major deficiencies that require correction in the next NAVPLAN. Overall, the current NAVPLAN projects an aspirational tone, with its lack of explicit strategic assumptions, risk assessments, and descriptions of the “why” and “how” of achieving its objectives. Specifically, it lacks:

Focus on the Navy’s two most important audiences
Clarity and specificity
Guidance on consequential issues
Frankness
A serious format for a serious document

1. Lack of focus on the Navy’s two most important audiences

The NAVPLAN’s two most critically important audiences have a learned membership, making them substantially different from the American public. They are the key decision-makers in the executive and legislative branches of the US government, and national security thought leaders in the public domain (e.g., think tanks, academia, news media, and industry). The NAVPLAN is the Navy’s only unclassified document to inform these two influential audiences, whose decisions and activities control in large part the funding for the Navy’s force structure, capabilities, and personnel requirements. Indeed, this is why Navy senior leaders make the rounds to Washington think tanks, security forums, and the war colleges and interact with news media to explain the NAVPLAN’s guidance. For this reason—garnering support and advocacy for the Navy’s budget—the information requirements of these two principal audiences eclipse the needs of the other audiences.

In contrast, the American public is a secondary audience because it is a reactive rather than a proactive audience. Most Americans are not reading and reflecting on the nation’s current global security challenges and the need to rearm. Instead, the American public responds to events usually after seeing graphic, tangible evidence. For example, viewing disturbing images of dead American military personnel and destroyed US aircraft during the April 1980 Operation Eagle Claw, a flawed mission that helped to elect Ronald Reagan and generated enormous public support for his defense buildup.

2. Lack of clarity and specificity

We must communicate with precision and consistency, based on a common focus and a unified message.

—General David H. Berger, US Marine Corps, Commandant’s Planning Guidance

The 2024 NAVPLAN has numerous instances of inadequate clarity and specificity. For example, the NAVPLAN directs the Navy to increase its readiness for a possible conflict with China by 2027. The Navy, however, must convey more than readiness for a global war with China. It must also unequivocally transmit that the Navy will deny China their preferred kind of war, destroy²³ the Chinese navy, and terminate the war on terms favorable to the United States.²⁴Beijing must feel the force of President Reagan’s famous words: “You lose; we win.”²⁵ The US Navy needs to signal the unquestionable destruction and defeat of Chinese maritime forces. This unabashed expression of lethality was a great strength of the 1980s Maritime Strategy. Moreover, the Navy’s allies and partners must comprehend that the Navy is fully committed and prepared for a potential war with China.

The NAVPLAN omits explanations about why and how the Navy achieves its objectives. Without this explanation and context, the NAVPLAN’s statements are no more than assertions. For example, the document states, “We establish deterrence and prevail in war when we work as part of a Joint and Combined force.”²⁶ There are no further particulars about how the Navy intends to deter and win in a war. This guidance—or rather this assertion—implies that the Navy uses the same approach regardless of who is the enemy. Obviously, the differences between a war with China or Russia are profound, and the Navy’s approaches to deter and win are different. For starters, each adversary has entirely different strategic objectives. Moreover, a war with China occurs in a predominantly maritime theater with few US allies, whereas as a war with Russia occurs in a predominantly continental theater with an effective NATO security alliance. The differences continue, demanding greater specificity than the NAVPLAN’s abstract and broad statements that provide little useful guidance, especially given the ominous, if not dire, warnings by the Commission on the National Defense Strategy.²⁷ This lack of specificity becomes more disturbing in light of the NAVPLAN’s clarion call to prepare for a possible conflict with China in 2027. It is a confounding disconnect.

To paraphrase Dr. Samuel P. Huntington, the eminent American political scientist and author of The Soldier and the State and Clash of Civilizations,²⁸ the Navy’s two principal audiences cannot support the Navy’s requests for funding without pertinent information. As Huntington expounded, they need to know how, when, and where the Navy expects to protect the nation against military threats, such as those now posed by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Furthermore, the 2024 NAVPLAN misses another opportunity to communicate the Navy’s relevance to a war with China by not expounding on the implications of a war in a predominantly maritime theater with few US allies. George Friedman, an internationally recognized geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs, recently commented on the Navy’s vital role in this theater. He explained that the “balance of power in the Pacific between U.S. and Chinese naval forces remains key to American hegemony and the alliance that upholds it. In the event of war, more extreme and technological threats remain secondary to the conventional naval threat the U.S. poses to China and China poses to the U.S.”²⁹ The thinking behind his observation is a significant strategic factor that the Navy should have recognized independently and included in its NAVPLAN.

A time-tested military maxim says to tell your boss what you need to get the job done; second, tell your boss the consequences of not receiving what’s needed; and finally, make the best of what you have to accomplish the mission. The NAVPLAN studiously avoids specifying the consequences and the risks. For instance, it states, “Without substantial growth in Navy resourcing now, we will eventually face deep strategic constraints on our ability to simultaneously address day-to-day crises while also modernizing the fleet to enhance readiness for war both today and in the future.”³⁰

What are these “deep strategic constraints” and what are the consequences and the risks caused by these constraints? The NAVPLAN provides no answers. These are critically important omissions and striking deficiencies. The NAVPLAN also states that the Navy is “continuing to advocate for the resources needed to expand all aspects of the Navy’s force structure necessary to preserve the peace, respond in crisis, and win decisively in war.”³¹ This is a confusing and alarming statement. It appears to indicate that the Navy currently does not have a force structure that can “win decisively in war.”³² If this is what the Navy is communicating, it is not done with transparency.

The 2024 NAVPLAN does explain the effects of an important planning factor that limits the Navy’s options for developing its readiness efforts for a possible war with China in 2027. The Navy has only one more budget cycle—the development of the fiscal year (FY) 2027 budget—to make any meaningful changes to its capabilities in preparation for a 2027 potential conflict. Consequently, the Navy’s existing fleet of ships, in terms of mix and numbers in 2024, is largely the fleet the Navy will have in 2027. This is a significant planning factor as the Navy addresses its readiness for 2027. As Donald Rumsfeld, a former secretary of defense, once famously stated, “As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”³³

The 2024 NAVPLAN has a confusing relationship with a separate, but embedded, Navy initiative called Project 33. The NAVPLAN described this project as an effort to “get more ready players on the field by 2027,”³⁴ and identified seven high-priority mitigations that the Navy needs to accelerate.³⁵ By default, these seven actions became the NAVPLAN’s primary objectives, yet the Navy referred to these objectives as Project 33 and not NAVPLAN objectives, thereby muddying the waters about whether the NAVPLAN or Project 33 is the Navy’s overarching strategic guidance. In fact, Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, penned a January 2025 essay titled “Project 33 Is Enabling Joint All-Domain Operations in the Indo-Pacific”—and not “NAVPLAN Is Enabling Joint All-Domain Operations in the Indo-Pacific.” He wrote numerous sentences beginning with Project 33 such as “Project 33’s vision to provide more munitions will. . . ”³⁶ The lack of clarity between these documents only confuses the Navy’s two principal audiences.

The harmful effects of the NAVLAN’s lack of clarity and specificity are compounded by a similar set of deficiencies in higher-order national guidance. The Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform reported in March 2024 that the National Defense Strategy (NDS) was “not designed to be sufficiently specific enough to guide the programming phase of PPBE.” The commission’s report also stated that the Defense Planning Guidance was a “consensus-driven document that does not make hard choices, is overly broad, and lacks explicit linkages to prioritized goals, timeframes, risk assessments, and resource allocations.” The PPBE Reform report further stated these deficiencies did not provide “top-down guidance needed during the programming phase of PPBE.”³⁷ Inadequate and incomplete guidance, by the Defense Department and the Navy, undermines effective strategic and force-planning decision-making.

3. Lack of guidance on consequential issues

The 2024 NAVPLAN falls short of addressing critical high-level issues, leaving its two principal external audiences with an insufficient understanding of the Navy’s resource requirements. Given that the NAVPLAN is a prime tool for strategic communications and is the sole document to express the Navy’s way ahead to its external audiences, the scant commentary on key issues represents a missed opportunity for the Navy.

Key issue: A larger navy

While the 2024 NAVPLAN acknowledges the need for an on-the-record requirement for 381 crewed ships,³⁸ it did not explain why or when the Navy needs these ships. In 2025, the Navy has 297 battle force ships,³⁹ with a shortfall of eighty-four ships. The document makes no attempt to communicate the strategic risk to the nation from the lack of warships, and it offers no plan B to offset the gap in assets. Furthermore, the Navy’s thirty-year shipbuilding plan for FY 2025⁴⁰ indicated that the Navy will “reach a low of 280 ships in fiscal year 2027,”⁴¹ the very year that the NAVPLAN directed the Navy to be ready for a possible war with China.

The lack of discussion on this significant matter is inexplicable. The unease is further increased with the realization that a global war with China in 2027 or even in 2030 will place impossible demands on the Navy to address multiple critical missions far exceeding its capacity. The Navy, as part of the joint force, will need to conduct, at a minimum, this sample of unprioritized missions:⁴²

Destroy Chinese naval and air forces invading Taiwan.
Defend Japan, South Korea, and Australia from naval and air attacks.
Isolate China from war-making resources—conduct economic warfare with blockade.
Conduct horizontal escalation, i.e., destroy Chinese forces at Djibouti.
Protect small amphibious ships inserting and extracting US Marine Corps stand-in forces inside Chinese weapons envelope.
Protect sustainment of US Marine Corps stand-in forces inside Chinese weapons envelope.
Protect US Marine Corps forces embarked in Navy large amphibious ships.
Protect in transit Navy combat logistics forces sustaining Navy forces conducting distributed operations.
Protect in transit Military Sealift Command forces sustaining Joint Force.
Conduct homeland defense—continental United States, i.e., integrated air missile defense of critical seaports and Navy bases.
Deter Russia as opportunistic adversary.
Deter Iran as opportunistic adversary.
Maintain surveillance of Chinese ballistic missile submarines.
Maintain surveillance of Russian ballistic missile submarines.
Maintain Navy strategic reserve to ensure combat credibility throughout war’s duration.

The Navy will be in a protracted war in a global conflict with China. While conducting those fifteen missions and the myriad other things required of the Navy, ships will incur far greater sustainment, maintenance, and repair requirements—further reducing the available numbers. In short, the Navy is likely to face a strategy-force mismatch. Ship numbers matter, and the US Navy does not have enough ships. As former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) once quipped, “At some point, numbers do count. At some point, technology fails to offset mass. At some point, Kipling’s ‘thin red line of heroes’ gives way.”⁴³

Admiral Chas Richard, then-commander of the US Strategic Command, in a November 2022 speech made it very clear that the Navy lacked sufficient ships. He warned, “As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking . . . it isn’t going to matter how good our [operating plan] is or how good our commanders are, or how good our forces are—we’re not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem.”⁴⁴ Over the last two decades, however, no Congress and no administration, regardless of party, has attempted to fund a larger Navy. The nation cannot afford the number of ships the Navy says it needs to deter and defeat America’s potential enemies. The election of President Trump appears to have changed this calculus.

Key issue: Domain transparency

Another significant issue the 2024 NAVPLAN fails to address is the impact of surveillance technology on the changing character of war. This technology has increasingly made it easier to detect and target combatants on the oceans’ surface and aircraft in air space above it, calling into question the continued viability of manned ships and aircraft operating in such an environment. In a December 2022 essay, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work and former Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt noted:

One key change is that militaries will have great difficulty hiding from or surprising one another. Sensors will be ubiquitous, and once-impenetrable intelligence will be vulnerable to quantum advances in decryption. Highly adaptable and mobile weapons systems, including drones, loitering munitions, and hypersonic missiles will largely inhibit militaries from amassing forces to invade.⁴⁵

In the 1930s, the US Navy experienced a similar change in the character of warfare as technological improvements increased the operational performance of aircraft carriers and the lethality of aircraft the carriers launched in terms of reliability, operating distance, and weight of bomb load. Eventually, this increased lethality (or relative combat effectiveness) surpassed the battleship’s lethality, and the Navy experienced a fundamental inflection point in its warfighting capabilities. The Navy observed this evolution of the aircraft’s increasing lethality but did not fully comprehend that the aircraft carrier and its aircraft’s steady progress would replace the battleship as the Navy’s capital weapon system. Not until actual combat—such as the Royal Navy’s November 1940 attack on the Italian Navy at its Taranto base,⁴⁶ and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s December 1941 attack on the US Navy in Pearl Harbor—did complete comprehension “sink in” about the carrier and its aircraft’s more lethal effectiveness.

Similarly, given the comments by Work, Grady, and others in this decade, the Navy faces another seminal inflection point if Chinese surveillance capabilities advance to make the oceans’ surface and the air space above it transparent. The implications for the continued viability of surface ships in such an environment are staggering. The Navy, however, appears to have bet its surface ships will still be viable in this enhanced surveillance environment and remains committed to its planned acquisition of replacement surface ships to include the Constellation-class frigates, Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, Ford-class aircraft carriers, and the continuation of building Burke-class destroyers along with its acquisition plans to buy large numbers of unmanned surface platforms.

4. Lack of frankness

And so, today we find ourselves in an environment increasingly reminiscent of the late 1930s, where the overarching balance of power is becoming ever-less stable, and where the difference between peace and a multi-theater system-transforming war will likely hinge on whether the United States and its allies can sustain the ever-more tenuous regional balances.

—Andrew A. Michta, “The United States Must Revisit the Basics of Geostrategy,” 19FortyFive.

Today is like 1938. Indeed, Franchetti has said so, but omitted her prescient comments from the 2024 NAVPLAN. As the vice CNO, she commented that the 1930s was a decisive decade that “rhymes in some key ways” with today’s security environment: She noted that both eras reflect periods of constrained defense spending, reduced construction of Navy ships, and a growing disparity in the capability and capacity between the US Navy and its principal adversaries—Imperial Japan in the 1930s and the authoritarian People’s Republic of China in the 2020s—resulting in a US fleet that was “too small and insufficiently resourced for total war,”⁴⁷ and ineffective for deterrence. She is in excellent company. Kaja Kallas, then-prime minister of Estonia and now the European foreign policy chief, has reasoned that the current global security environment reflects 1938, “when a wider war was imminent, but the West had not yet joined the dots.”⁴⁸ Dr. Hal Brands, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,⁴⁹ has also commented on the striking parallels between today’s geostrategic events and those of the 1930s. Ominously, the Commission on the National Defense Strategy concluded in July 2024 that the “US military lacks both the capabilities, and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.⁵⁰The Wall Street Journal wrote a sober editorial saying, “The world today is more like the late 1930s, as dictators build their militaries and form a new axis of animosity, while the American political class sleeps.”⁵¹

This security environment demands frankness of expression about the threats, risks, and defense requirements by US senior military leaders. There isn’t much public evidence of US senior military leaders providing candid expression. In May 2024, US Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) cautioned in a New York Times commentary, titled “America’s Military Is Not Prepared for War or Peace,” that:

When America’s senior military leaders testify before my colleagues and me on the US Senate Armed Services Committee behind closed doors, they have said that we face some of the most dangerous global threat environments since World War II. Then, they darken that already unsettling picture by explaining that our armed forces are at risk of being underequipped and outgunned.⁵²

The notable exception is General D. W. Allvin, US Air Force and the current chief of staff, who stated in January 2025 that, “As the arc of the threat increases daily, it is my assessment this risk is unacceptable and will continue to rise without substantially increased investment.”⁵³ Perhaps all current service chiefs share the same opinion about their individual service, but if they do, they are not speaking up and out.

Lack of frankness is a Navy practice

In its public congressional testimony, the Navy’s posture statements submitted in April and May 2024 to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and to the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Defense do not reflect any discussion of “at risk of being underequipped and outgunned.” In the two instances that the word “risk” is used in these statements, it is associated with “sealift investments” and “installation investments.”⁵⁴

Indeed, the Navy’s 2024 posture statements to Congress are very upbeat documents with statements such as: “In every ocean, we uphold and protect the post-World War II rules-based international order that we fought to establish and have continued to defend for nearly three-quarters of a century.” This is clearly not true for the Red Sea. Well before the publication of the posture statements, the Houthis waged an effective sea denial campaign that the US Navy was unable to prevent. These posture statements do add that the Houthis have disrupted “the free flow of maritime commerce in the Red Sea.” As reported by General Christopher Mahoney, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, “The Houthi’s sea-denial campaign has altered global trade routes, imposed global economic costs, enhanced its international profile, and perhaps most importantly tied up a significant portion of American naval power at a time when demand for our naval ships outstrips supply.”⁵⁵ There is, however, no discussion in the Navy’s 2024 posture statements of the implications of this Houthi warfare campaign on the Navy’s force structure, weapons, operational concepts, readiness, etc. Nor is there a mention of the high cost of fighting the Houthis and defending Israel.⁵⁶ Likewise, there is no treatment of the implications of naval warfare by the Ukrainian Navy’s use of unmanned surface vessels (i.e., drones) to its highly effective sea denial campaign against the Russian Navy in the Black Sea.

Despite affirming that the Navy needs more ships to meet its mission in this decade, the Navy’s posture statements profess that the president’s FY 2025 budget submission for the Navy “funds a strong, global Navy that is postured and ready to deter potential adversaries . . . [and] win decisively in war.”⁵⁷ The documents conclude that the Navy “continues to meet its Title 10 mission to be organized, trained, and equipped . . . for prompt and sustained combat incident to operations at sea.”⁵⁸

These statements are disconcerting. If the Navy is funded and postured to deter and win per the April and May 2024 posture statements, it is ambiguous if these statements contradict or support the Navy’s formal requirements for 381 crewed ships. Furthermore, it is worrisome that the Navy plainly states that it can deter and win, while the July 2024 report by the Commission on the National Defense Strategy states: “The Joint Force is at the breaking point of maintaining readiness today. Adding more burden without adding resources to rebuild readiness will cause it to break.”⁵⁹ Moreover, the report adds, “The nation was last prepared for such a [global] fight during the Cold War, which ended 35 years ago. It is not prepared today.”⁶⁰

Communicating frankness with integrity and without offense

Two 1970s exemplars are instructive. In their back-to-back tenures as the Navy’s service chiefs, CNO Elmo Zumwalt and CNO James L. Holloway III confronted declining budgets, shrinking numbers of ships, plummeting readiness levels, and growing Soviet military capabilities. Moreover, things went from bad to worse during President Jimmy Carter’s administration. While President Gerald Ford proposed to Congress in 1977 the construction of 157 new ships, his successor, Jimmy Carter, in 1978 proposed only 70.“⁶¹ The collective time Zumwalt and Holloway held office has “become known to American history as the post-Vietnam ‘hollow force.‘”⁶² The two CNOs knew what had to be done. They had to lead and communicate frankly the issues confronting the Navy—issues no different from those challenging the Navy in 2025.

Zumwalt, in 1971, calculated the Navy had a 45 percent chance of defeating the Soviet Navy in a conventional war at sea. One year later, as he drafted the Navy’s FY 1973 budget, he reevaluated the chances at 35 percent.⁶³, Holloway, and the Soviet Navy Threat Zumwalt stated in a 1971 US News & World Report interview, “If the US continues to reduce and the Soviet Union continues to increase, it’s got to be inevitable that the day will come when the result will go against the US.”⁶⁴ In June 1975, Holloway on the pages of the US Naval Institute Proceedings wrote:

We have been decommissioning ships faster than we have been building new ones. And although today we can accomplish the naval tasks of our national strategy, in some areas it is only with the barest margin of success. As Soviet maritime capabilities continue to increase, it is clear to me, as it must be apparent to you, that it is essential to reverse the declining trend of our naval force levels.⁶⁵

These two CNOs, “did not shy away from noticeably outlining the threats, challenges, and shortcomings of the fleet;” they unhesitatingly alerted the nation to the “security and technological dangers of a seemingly new age.”⁶⁶ In short, Zumwalt and Holloway provided leadership underwritten with intellectual and moral courage to sound a clarion call about the Navy’s declining readiness posture. For their integrity and forthrightness, their civilian bosses did not censure them.

The American public saw similar CNO leadership in January 2015 when Jonathan Greenert testified before Congress about the effects of sequestration on the Navy’s readiness to execute the Defense Strategic Guidance. He concluded that the Navy could not “confidently execute the current defense strategy within dictated budget constraints.”⁶⁷ Greenert accompanied his testimony with a table displaying the ten missions the Defense Strategic Guidance required and the associated risk for each mission caused by sequestration. See figure 2, which depicts the key portion of Greenert’s table. His table showed two missions in red highlighting that the Navy could not execute and five missions in yellow highlighting that were “high risk” for the Navy.⁶⁸ Greenert declared that naval forces “will not be able to carry out the Nation’s defense strategy as written.” His assessment finished with a dire warning that when facing major contingencies, the Navy’s “ability to fight and win will neither be quick nor decisive.”⁶⁹

Figure 2: Excerpt of CNO Greenert’s assessment of 2015 mission impacts to a sequestered US Navy

Quadrennial defense review objectives	Defense strategic guidance missions	Navy ability to execute
Project power and win decisively	Project power against a technologically capable adversary	Major challenges to achieve warfighting objectives in denied areas: • Inadequate power projection capacity • Too few strike fighter, command/control, electronic warfare assets • Limited advanced radar and missile capacity • Insufficient munitions
	Execute large-scale ops in one region, deter another adversary’s aggression elsewhere	Limited ready capacity to execute two simultaneous large-scale ops: • 2/3 of required contingency response force (2 of 3 Carrier Strike Groups and 2 of 3 Amphibious Readiness Groups) not ready to deploy within 30 days
	Conduct limited counterinsurgency and other stability operations	Increased risk due to: • Reduced funding to Navy Expeditionary Combat Command • Reduced ISR capacity (especially tactical rotary wing drones)
	Operate effectively in space and cyberspace	This mission is fully executable in a sequestered environment: • Navy continues to prioritize cyber capabilities

Source: Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plan (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2016).

5. Lack of a serious format for a serious document

With no maps of maritime terrain or tables of hard net assessment data and the inclusion of too many “eye candy” glossy images of kit, the 2024 NAVPLAN has the look and feel of a coffee table publication, meant for casual and light reading with limited analysis and a superficial approach to naval strategic planning. Serious people produce serious documents. The NAVPLAN’s format signals an indifferent document, unlike the formats used for the National Security Strategy. The lack of hard data on net assessment is a significant weakness, especially the lack of maps, which help make the relationship between sea power and physical space evident. Indeed, understanding maritime geography “facilitates communication and strategic thinking and can help construct a compelling public narrative in support of [Navy] policy.”⁷⁰ The below figures illustrate the type of maps to include in a serious strategic planning document. Figure 3 depicts the “tyranny of distance”⁷¹ in the Indo-Pacific theater, and figure 4 shows the strategic importance of the “first island chain” in effectively “containing” China.

Figure 3: Western Pacific maritime geography: Tyranny of distance, lack of US strategic depth

Source: Guam: Defense Infrastructure and Readiness (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2023).

Figure 4: The first island chain’s strategic importance in preventing the Chinese navy from entering the Pacific and Indian oceans

Source: Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2012).

Conclusion: Course corrections for a 2025 NAVPLAN

The biggest things that happen in the Navy are winning the battles in the [Joint Chiefs of Staff], the Secretary of Defense’s office, the White House, and Congress. We have to convince all these people; otherwise, we lose. What we need is a lawyer [as CNO], preferably a New York lawyer . . . He doesn’t have to know a lot about the Navy; he has to know how to win arguments.

Admiral William J. Crowe Jr., quoted in History of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, 1915-2015 by Thomas C. Hone and Curtis, A. Utz.

As the Navy’s senior strategic leader,⁷² the CNO must: “(1) get the big ideas right; (2) communicate those ideas effectively; (3) oversee the implementation of the ideas, and (4) determine how to refine the big ideas and then repeat the cycle.”⁷³ The Navy’s “big ideas” address its national defense role and the requisite force structure to support that role.

When first published in September 2024, the NAVPLAN correctly got the Navy’s big ideas right. The arrival of a new commander in chief in January 2025 changed the nation’s defense priorities, and now the Navy must replace its NAVPLAN with a version aligned with President Trump’s priority to build ships for the Navy. The president superseded the Navy’s priorities in the order of readiness, capability, and capacity. Far from being an onerous burden for the Navy to craft a new 2025 NAVPLAN, the nation’s other armed services should be so fortunate.

In addition to embracing the president’s direction, the new 2025 NAVPLAN should address the deficiencies outlined in this paper. While retaining its commendable attributes, especially its strategic objective to concentrate on “readiness for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027,” the 2025 NAVPLAN should incorporate the following course corrections:

Increase its focus on the Navy’s two most important and influential audiences by addressing their information needs. They require a description of a possible war with China and Russia and how the Navy, as part of the Joint Force, would prevail. Such a sobering, informative description is not a multivolume addition but an executive summary with sufficient detail for these audiences to grasp the broad outlines and scope of a conflict and the implications for the Navy. The description must contain Chinese and Russian capabilities and numbers, logistic challenges, key military problems to overcome, and the role of allies and partners illustrated with maps and net assessment tables.
Improve clarity and specificity by providing the context of “why” and “how” the Navy intends to achieve its strategic objectives. Such context provides substance to the NAVPLAN and eliminates the use of assertions, which are a form of self-serving rhetoric, often informally called “happy talk.” In addition, the NAVPLAN must list the strategic assumptions the Navy used to craft the documents and address the implications of risk.
Address the Navy’s approach to resolving its other consequential issues—besides the need for a larger Navy and domain transparency—such as the ongoing depletion of ordnance war stocks for kinetic operations in the Middle East,⁷⁴ the slow and painful development of directed energy weapons,⁷⁵ and the yearslong debate over the acquisition of the medium landing ship.⁷⁶ The 2025 NAVPLAN must forthrightly treat these issues head-on, lucidly conveying the implications, risk, assumptions, and mitigations.
Advance frankness by fully reflecting the Navy’s leadership philosophy of “Get Real, Get Better,” which requires Navy leaders to “be honest about our abilities and be fully transparent about our performance.”⁷⁷ The Navy must speak frankly about how US adversaries, especially China, are harming US national interests and set forth a well-crafted message to explain how the Navy—properly resourced to be lethal and ready—will preserve the nation’s security in an increasingly dangerous world. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board maintains that the United States “is slouching ahead in blind complacency until China invades Taiwan or takes some other action that damages US interests or allies because Beijing thinks the United States can do nothing about it.”⁷⁸ The Navy should not partake in “blind complacency.” The threats to the United States are all too real.
Turn the NAVPLAN into a serious strategic planning document, produced by serious people, shedding the look of a coffee-table book or public-affairs handout. Eliminate all “glossy” images of ships and airplanes in the document and replace them with graphics that are relevant to and useful for the Navy’s two principal audiences as well as force planners and strategists of all ilk: maps depicting maritime terrain and net assessment tables regarding China and Russia in particular.

Collectively these Navy course corrections to the NAVPLAN will enable all Navy audiences to better grasp the severity of the security threats confronting America and comprehend the Navy’s funding requirements. With greater candor, explicitness, and detail—and amply illustrated with maps and tables depicting hard-threat data—the 2025 NAVPLAN can, indeed, demonstrate that clarity is power.

About the author

Bruce Stubbs

Bruce Stubbs had assignments on the staffs of the secretary of the Navy and the chief of naval operations from 2009 to 2022 as a member of the US senior executive service. He was a former director of Strategy and Strategic Concepts in the N3N5 and N7 directorates. As a career US Coast Guard officer, he had a posting as the Assistant Commandant for Capability in Headquarters, served on the staff of the National Security Council, taught at the Naval War College, commanded a major cutter, and served a combat tour with the US Navy in Vietnam during the 1972 Easter Offensive. The author drew upon his forthcoming publication, Cold Iron: The Demise of Navy Strategy Development and Force Planning, to compose portions of this commentary.

The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent those of any organization or affiliation.

Explore the program

1 “Vice Chief of Naval Operations Talks ‘Get Real, Get Better’ During Latest SGL at NPS,” News Stories, US Navy Press Office, May 24, 2022, https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3041666/vice-chief-of-naval-operations-talks-get-real-get-better-during-latest-sgl-at-n/.

2 Lisa Marie Franchetti, Admiral, US Navy, Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy 2024, US Navy, September 2024; Admiral Franchetti was chief of naval operations until February 21, 2025.

3 “Chief of Naval Operations Releases Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy,” Public Affairs, US Navy, September 18, 2024.

4 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, 12.

5 Hugh Hewitt, “President-elect Donald Trump on ‘One, Big, Beautiful Bill,’ ” Transcript, The Hugh Hewitt Show, January 6, 2025.

6 Hewitt, “President-elect Donald Trump on ‘One, Big, Beautiful Bill.’ ”

7 To Conduct a Confirmation Hearing on the Expected Nomination of Mr. Peter B. Hegseth to Be Secretary of Defense.” Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 118th Congress, January 14, 2025. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/to-conduct-a-confirmation-hearing-on-the-expected-nomination-of-mr-peter-b-hegseth-to-be-secretary-of-defense.

8 Senate Armed Services Committee, “Advance Policy Questions for Peter “Pete” B. Hegseth Nominee to Serve as Secretary of Defense,” January 6, 2025; see also Ashley Roque and Valerie Insinna, “What Pete Hegseth’s Hearing Tells Us About Trump’s Plans for the Pentagon,” Breaking Defense, January 14, 2025.

9 Valerie Insinna, “Trump Announces New White House Shipbuilding Office,” Breaking Defense, March 04, 2025.

10 Editorial Board, “Trump Sweeps Out Biden’s Officers,” Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2025

11 James T. Conway, Gary Roughead, and Thad W. Allen, “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” Naval War College Review, October 2007.

12 Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., Jonathan W. Greenert, and Paul F. Zukunft, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready, March 2015, https://news.usni.org/2015/03/13/document-u-s-cooperative-strategy-for-21st-century-seapower-2015-revision.

13 David H. Berger, Michael M. Gilday, and Karl L. Schultz, “Advantage at Sea Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power, December 2020.

14 Derived from Ronald O’Rourke, “The Maritime Strategy and the Next Decade,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 114/4/1,022 (April 1988).

15 Richard P. Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters (New York: Crown Publishing Group, Random House, 2011), 2.

16 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, III.

17 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, 12.

18 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, 12.

19 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, eds. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 85. According to Clausewitz, the character of war refers to “the means by which war has to be fought.” These means are constantly changing as technology has a significant influence, as do doctrine and military organization. Changes in the character of warfare may occur slowly over generations—evolutionary—or quite rapidly—revolutionary. These changes affect the tactics of employing capabilities and influence the development of strategy.

20 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, 9.

21 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, 12.

22 The 2024 NAVPLAN has seven high-priority “targets” or subobjectives, personally approved by the CNO. The second target listed on page III is to “scale robotic and autonomous systems to integrate more platforms at speed.”

23 The NAVPLAN should follow the example of General Colin Powell, US Army, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with unambiguous clarity. He famously stated at a Pentagon press briefing on January 23, 1991, announcing the US Gulf War plan against Saddam Hussein’s army, saying: “Our strategy in going after this army is very simple. First, we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it.” See Eliot Brenner, “Powell: ‘We’re Going to Cut It Off . . . Kill It,’ ” UPI, January 23, 1991.

24 The author based these three objectives on the Navy’s famous 1980s Maritime Strategy. James D. Watkins, “The Maritime Strategy,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 112/1/995 Supplement, The Maritime Strategy, January 1986.

25 Henry R. Nau, “We Win, They Lose—Ronald Reagan Armed with the Intent to Negotiate,” Claremont Review of Books, Book Reviews, Winter 2022/23.

26 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, 13.

27 Rep. Jane Harman and Amb Eric Edelman, Chair and Vice Chair, Commission on the National Defense Strategy Report, July 2024, v. The commission report said: “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war. The United States last fought a global conflict during World War II, which ended nearly 80 years ago.”

28 Samuel P. Huntington, “National Policy and the Transoceanic Navy,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 80, no. 5, May 1954.

29 George Friedman, “American Naval Policy and China,” Geopolitico Futures, January 22, 2025.

30 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, 12.

31 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, 12.

32 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, 12.

33 Spencer Ackerman, “Donald Rumsfeld Wants to Give You the Most Ironic Life Lessons Ever,” Danger Room blog, Wired, May 14, 2013; and Ray Suarez, “Troops Question Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about Armor,” PBS, December 9, 2004.

34 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, III.

35 Franchetti, CNO Navigation Plan, II.

36 Admiral Sam Paparo, “Project 33 Is Enabling Joint All-Domain Operations in the Indo-Pacific,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 151/1/1,463 (January 2025).

37 Robert Hale and Ellen Lord, Chair and Vice Chair, “Defense Resourcing for the Future, Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform,” Final Report, March 2024, 26.

38 Sam LaGrone, “Navy Raises Battle Force Goal to 381 Ships in Classified Report to Congress,” US Naval Institute, July 18, 2023. This classified report was titled Battle Force Ship Assessment and Requirement.

39 Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress,” Report 32665, Congressional Research Service, September 24, 2024, 2, 56 (see Table G-1).

40 This is the document’s informal but widely used title. Its formal title is Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2025. The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfighting Requirements and Capabilities (OPNAV N9) prepared this document, and the Office of the Secretary of the Navy approved its release in March 2024.

41 Michael Marrow, “Navy’s New 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan Sketches 2 Paths for Future Manned Ship Fleet,” Breaking Defense, March 19, 2024.

42 This list builds on and updates the author’s “Ten Challenges to Implementing Force Design 2030,” which the Atlantic Council published in November 2023.

43 Charles L. Fox and Dino A. Lorenzini, “How Much Is Not Enough? The Non-Nuclear Air Battle in NATO’s Central Region,” Naval War College Review 33, no. 2 (1980).

44 Caleb Larson, “‘Sinking Slowly’: Admiral Warns Deterrence Weakening against China,” National Interest, November 7, 2022. Note: Admiral Richard has since retired; he is the James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

45 Eric Schmidt and Robert O. Work, “How to Stop the Next World War: A Strategy to Restore America’s Military Deterrence,” Atlantic, December 5, 2022. Note: Schmidt served as Google’s chief executive officer from 2001 to 2011.

46 The Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm’s 1940 attack on the Italian Navy in its Taranto Harbor was the first completely all-aircraft naval attack in history. Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham, RN, the commander in chief, Mediterranean Fleet, stated: “Taranto should be remembered forever as having shown once and for all that in the Fleet Air Arm the Navy has its most devastating weapon.”

47 Lisa Franchetti, Remarks of the then-Vice Chief of Naval Operations, SENEDIA’s Defense Innovation Days, Newport, Rhode Island, August 29, 2023.

48 Patrick Wintour, “‘We’re in 1938 Now’: Putin’s War in Ukraine and Lessons from History,” June 8, 2024.

49 Dr. Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Dr. Brands has previously worked as special assistant to the secretary of defense for strategic planning and lead writer for the National Defense Strategy Commission.

50 Harman and Edelman, Commission on the National Defense Strategy Report, VII.

51 Editorial Board, “A Clarion Call for Rearmament,” Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2024.

52 Roger Wicker, “America’s Military Is Not Prepared for War—or Peace,” New York Times, May 29, 2024.

53 David W. Allvin, “Allvin: It’s Make or Break Time. America Needs More Air Force,” Breaking Defense, January 17, 2025.

54 Lisa Marie Franchetti, “Statement on the Posture of the United States Navy,” Senate Committee on Appropriations, April 16, 2024; and Lisa Marie Franchetti, “Statement on the Posture of the United States Navy in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2025 and the Future Years Defense Program,” Senate Armed Services Committee, May 16, 2024. On page six of both statements, under Sealift Investments, is the following: “The Buy-Used program provides a stable acquisition profile with forecasted maintenance and repair costs to meet strategic mobility requirements at a moderate level of risk.” On page twelve of both statements, under Installation Investments, is the following: “We are investing in our critical utility systems, upgrading water, wastewater, and electrical generation, distribution, and treatment capabilities to improve resiliency, quality, and reliability and minimize risk to mission.”

55 Christopher Mahoney, “Four Lessons on Sea Denial from the Black and Red Seas,” Defense News, June 18, 2024.

56 In October 2024, Jake Epstein reported, “Navy warships and aircraft on station in and around the Middle East expended $1.85 billion in munitions on fights in the region between October 7, 2023, to October 1, 2024, a Navy spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider on Thursday. The $1.85 billion accounts for hundreds of munitions launched from US warships and aircraft attached to them, including surface-to-air interceptor missiles, land-attack missiles, air-to-air missiles, and air-to-surface bombs. Some of these weapons cost several million dollars apiece. The substantial figure covers the Navy’s campaign against the Houthis in the Red Sea, which is ongoing, and its efforts to defend Israel from attacks by Iran and its proxies.” See Jake Epstein, “The US Navy Fired Nearly $2 Billion in Weapons Over a Year of Fighting in the Middle East,” Business Insider, October 31, 2024.

57 Franchetti, “Statement on the Posture of the United States Navy,” and “Statement on the Posture of the United States Navy in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2025 and the Future Years Defense Program,” 4: “The Navy’s budget request for FY25 funds a strong, global Navy that is postured and ready to deter potential adversaries, protect our homeland, respond in crisis, and, if called, win decisively in war.”

58 Franchetti, “Statement on the Posture of the United States Navy,” and “Statement on the Posture of the United States Navy in Review of the Defense Authorization Request,” 14: “The Navy continues to meet its Title 10 mission to be organized, trained, and equipped for the peacetime promotion of the national security interests and prosperity of the United States and for prompt and sustained combat incident to operations at sea.”

59 Harman and Edelman, Commission on the National Defense Strategy Report, 64.

60 Harman and Edelman, Commission on the National Defense Strategy Report, V

61 Francis J. West, Jr., “Planning for the Navy’s Future,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 105/10/920 (October 1979). From 1981 to 1983, West was assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, US Department of Defense.

62 John T. Kuehn, PhD, “Zumwalt, Holloway, and the Soviet Navy Threat: Leadership in a Time of Strategic, Social, and Cultural Change,” Marine Corps University Press, Journal of Advanced Military Studies 13, no. 2 (Fall 2022).

63 John T. Kuehn, Zumwalt

64 Elmo Zumwalt, “Where the Russian Threat Keeps Growing,” Interview, US News & World Report, September 13, 1971, 72.

65 James L. Holloway III, “The President’s Page,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 101, no. 6 (June 1975): 3.

66 Holloway III, “The President’s Page.”

67 Hearing on National Defense Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 114th Cong. (2015) (statement of Jonathan Greenert, Admiral, US Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, 4-5). The full quote is: “There are many ways to balance between force structure, readiness, capability, and manpower, but none that [the] Navy has calculated that enable us to confidently execute the current defense strategy within dictated budget constraints.”

68 Hearing (Greenert, 4, 5, and 9).

69 Hearing (Greenert, 4, 5, and 9).

70 Andrew J. Rhodes, “The Geographic President: How Franklin D. Roosevelt Used Maps to Make and Communicate Strategy,” Washington Map Society’s Portolan, Spring 2020. This essay won the 2019 Ristow Prize for Academic Achievement in the History of Cartography. Rhodes is a career civil servant who has served as an expert in Asia-Pacific affairs in a variety of analytic, advisory, and staff positions in the US government. He is an affiliated scholar of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College. Rhodes also commented that geography provides “leaders with a broader set of tools for analyzing complex problems, developing options within a team, and presenting a public vision for a decision.”

71 Rhodes, “The Geographic President”: “In 1942, FDR ordered Secretary of War Henry Stimson to come to the Map Room on a Sunday afternoon for what FDR called a ‘geography lesson.’ FDR asked him to move his wheelchair to the map of the Pacific where he criticized a recent memorandum from Stimson that failed to consider the tyranny of distance in the Pacific.”

72 Peter M. Swartz and Michael C. Markowitz defined CNO responsibilities as follows: “Prepare the way for developing a Program Objective Memorandum for the Future Year Defense Program; develop and submit an annual Program Objective Memorandum and budget to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Congress; man, train, equip and support the existing fleet and shore establishment, and maintain its readiness; conduct long-range planning beyond the Future Year Defense Program; provide national security policy, strategy and operational advice to the President and Defense Secretary, and Chairman JCS; articulate the Navy story; organize (and re-organize) the fleet and shore establishment; represent the Navy in joint, bilateral, and multilateral fora; and take good care of Navy men and women.” See Peter M. Swartz and Michael C. Markowitz, Organizing OPNAV (1970 – 2009), Strategic Studies Division, Prepared by CNA for the US Navy Naval History and Heritage Command, CAB D0020997.A5/2Rev, January 2010, Slide no. 11.

73 Bill Snyder, “Gen. David Petraeus: Four Tasks of a Strategic Leader,” Insights, Stanford Graduate School of Business, May 14, 2018.

74 Justin Katz, “INDOPACOM’s Paparo Acknowledges Stockpile Shortages May Impact His Readiness,” Breaking Defense, November 20, 2024; see also Epstein, “The U.S. Navy Fired Nearly $2 Billion in Weapons.”

75 Cal Biesecker, “Still Unhappy with Progress on Directed Energy Weapons, SWO Boss Wants More Land Based Testing to Speed Use on Ships,” Defense Daily, January 14, 2025.

76 Geoff Ziezulewicz, “Navy Now Seeking Commercial Ship Design to Propel Its Long-Delayed Medium Landing Ship Program Forward,” War Zone, January 15, 2025. Note: The medium landing ship (designated as the LSM) is a new class of Navy amphibious ships to support the Marine Corps conducting its operational concept to set up ad hoc bases on islands, fire anti-ship missiles in a potential conflict, and quickly move to new locations. The Navy envisions a ship length of 200 to 400 feet; a draft of 12 feet; a crew of about seventy sailors; and a capacity for carrying fifty Marines and 648 short tons of equipment. This ship would have a transit speed of 14 knots and a cruising range of 3,500 nautical miles, as well as a roll-on/roll-off beaching capability and a helicopter landing pad.

77 As mentioned in the introduction, Admiral Lescher, then-vice chief of naval operations, explained the crux of the Navy’s new “Get Real, Get Better” initiative during a May 2022 speech, saying: “We have to self-assess and be our own toughest critics. We need to be honest about our abilities and be fully transparent about our performance. Once we ‘embrace the red,’ we will be able to identify solutions and more realistically predict our mission readiness.” See “Vice Chief of Naval Operations Talks,” US Navy Press Office.

78 Editorial Board, “‘The Big One Is Coming’ and the US Military Isn’t Ready,” Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2022.

The post Clarity is power: The Trump administration needs a new US Navy Navigation Plan appeared first on Atlantic Council.

China’s exploitation of overseas ports and bases

Thomas X. Hammes — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 18:47:12 +0000

Introduction

This paper examines the potential for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to exploit its growing network of overseas ports and bases to challenge control of the seas in a conventional war with the United States. Security concerns with Chinese ownership of overseas ports fall into three main categories. First, China collects vast amounts of intelligence via its port network. Second, it could use that intelligence and its control of key ports and piers to disrupt US shipments during wartime. Finally, China could leverage these ports to pre-position weapons, ammunition, and equipment to resupply its warships and armed merchants or rapidly establish anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) nodes near major maritime choke points. In short, China could exploit this network to challenge the sea control essential to US success in an armed conflict.

This paper does not speculate on why the United States and China might enter a global conflict. In fact, current Chinese writings indicate China does not seek a global confrontation. Rather, Chinese strategic literature reflects a preference for winning without fighting and, if forced to fight, fighting one local enemy at a time after politically isolating that enemy.

As with all future papers, this one starts with assumptions. It then examines China’s current network of overseas ports and its expansion of that network. The rationale behind China’s pursuit of overseas ports is explored through an analysis of Chinese strategic vulnerabilities. This paper considers three potential applications for these bases, including an improbable worst-case scenario, to assess how China may exploit this advantage.

After evaluating China’s potential actions, the paper examines possible US responses and concludes with recommendations for the capabilities, training, organization, and equipment necessary to execute those missions effectively.

Assumptions

Assumptions are critical to planning. They provide guidance concerning essential but inherently unknowable factors required to initiate planning.¹ The following assumptions are key to assessing China’s potential use of overseas bases and ports in a conflict with the United States.

Assumption 1: The war will be long.

By the time the modern state and its military institutions fully emerged at the end of the seventeenth century, wars were won or lost on the ability of financial and economic systems to sustain and support armies in the field and navies at sea.²

Since 1750, conflicts between healthy, major powers lasted years to decades, even though national leaders often assumed they would be short. The Seven Years’ War, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the US Civil War, the First and Second World Wars, and the Russo-Ukrainian War lasted between three to twenty-three years.

War games have repeatedly shown that the United States would run out of critical munitions just eight days into a high-intensity conflict with China over Taiwan.”³ However, this does not mean a war with China would be short. In both the US Civil War and the First World War, ammunition shortages reduced the intensity of fighting for up to a year. Yet, both sides mobilized their industries and replenished ammunition stocks even as they raised massive armies. These wars continued for years after the combatants overcame their initial shortages. The current Russo-Ukrainian War follows this pattern.

These long wars have ended in one of two ways: a negotiated treaty or the destruction of the enemy’s forces and subsequent occupation of its homeland. Economic exhaustion of one or both parties was a key factor in these conflicts.

However, nuclear weapons introduced a new factor that makes occupying a nuclear-armed power a highly dangerous proposition. Andrew Krepinevich, Jr., president and chief operating officer of Solarium LLC, a defense consulting firm, notes:

[W]ith the advent of nuclear weapons, wars between great powers can be protracted only if political constraints are imposed on vertical escalation.⁴

The presence of nuclear weapons appears to rule out a strategy of annihilation or large-scale attacks on either combatant’s homeland. Instead of seeking a decisive victory, the United States and China would likely pursue a strategy of exhaustion, pitting their economic and fiscal systems against each other. In this conflict, sea control would be critical.

Assumption 2: China is establishing a mix of overseas military bases, ownership of overseas commercial ports, and access to other nations’ commercial ports.

Chinese entanglement in foreign bases and ports is not an assumption but a reality. The only uncertainty is which facilities China could access in a conflict. In 2018, Ely Ratner, at the time the Maurice R. Greenberg senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted, “China’s government is actively searching for overseas bases.”⁵ Since then, China has continued to invest heavily in overseas facilities.⁶

Assumption 3: China is developing fully autonomous uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), and uncrewed underwater vessels (UUVs).

Currently, several nations deploy weapons capable of autonomously hunting targets post-launch.⁷ China, already a leader in drones and autonomy technologies, will undoubtedly operate post-launch autonomous drones across air, land, and sea domains within a few years. As the Houthis have demonstrated, even a small number of inexpensive drones can challenge current US Navy capabilities. China has the potential to produce these in the millions.⁸

Assumption 4: China could execute a plan using its Chinese-owned overseas ports and bases with its current capabilities.

The PLA already possesses the capabilities required to exploit Chinese bases and Chinese-owned overseas ports. The key will be China’s willingness to think differently and commit forces to missions with a slight chance of those forces returning.

Assumption 5: The United States cannot predict which nations will allow US forces to operate from their territories during a war. Therefore, the United States must plan for various permissions and structure future forces accordingly.

International relations in the Indo-Pacific are in flux. While many analysts believe Australia and Japan will allow US forces to use their territory in a conflict with China, there is much less confidence regarding the positions other nations in the region will take. In the last few years, China has pulled back from its “wolf-warrior” approach to diplomacy and refocused its Belt and Road Initiative. This may lead Pacific nations toward neutrality or even alignment with China.

Chinese overseas port posture

Numerous studies have examined China’s rapid and ongoing expansion of ownership or management of ports globally. Most provide detailed analyses of why China is seeking a global footprint, and several papers also analyze China’s reasoning for selecting specific ports.⁹

However, there is no consensus on precisely which facilities China will own or have access to. All studies note China’s naval base in Djibouti. More recently, Newsweek reported that China continues to expand naval facilities in Ream, Cambodia.¹⁰ The Washington Post reported China continued its efforts to establish “military facilities at the United Arab Emirates port of Kalifa.”¹¹ RAND rated four countries—Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Pakistan—as highly desirable and feasible candidates for subsequent naval bases.¹²

Isaac B. Kardon and Wendy Leutert note that “the [People’s Liberation Army Navy] enjoys privileged access to dual-use facilities that Chinese firms own and operate.”¹³ This means Chinese personnel could oversee the day-to-day operations at these terminals. Chinese firms “hold an equity stake in the lease or concession on at least one terminal in ninety-six foreign ports.”¹⁴ Forty-five of the ninety-six ports lie along significant sea lines of communications (SLOCs) critical to Chinese imports and exports. Fifty-five percent of the ports are within 480 nautical miles (one steaming day) of critical choke points on these SLOCs. While China may focus on protecting its SLOCs, these routes are essential to the global economy. Chinese ownership or management of these ports allows China to build military capabilities at overseas bases covertly.

Chinese strategic vulnerabilities

China has key strategic vulnerabilities that can be exploited in a long war. Chinese leaders have identified two vulnerabilities of great strategic concern: the “Malacca Dilemma” and internal instability that could threaten the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) rule.¹⁵ While Chinese officials no longer use the phrase “Malacca Dilemma,” it still captures China’s fundamental vulnerability to a blockade. If exploited, this vulnerability would contribute significantly to China’s economic exhaustion.

Malacca dilemma

China’s greatest geostrategic vulnerability is its isolation from the Pacific and Indian Oceans by the First Island Chain. This makes Chinese seaborne trade highly vulnerable to interdiction. Further, since most of the major exits to the South China and East China Seas are at significant distances from the Chinese mainland, China would have to project its military forces over longer ranges to disrupt any US or allied blockade operations. Even if China can penetrate a blockade of the First Island Chain, it faces additional maritime choke points en route to European and Middle Eastern markets. Most notable are the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The Chinese leadership’s concern over the Malacca Dilemma is based on genuine economic vulnerabilities. China’s energy, food, and productive capacity heavily rely on seaborne trade. To reduce its vulnerability to interruption of its seaborne commerce, China has invested significant resources in pipelines and overland rail routes.

China has made serious investments to reduce its vulnerability to blockade operations. It is essential to examine those steps and the reasons they remain vulnerable.

Rail–an effort to overcome the Malacca Dilemma?

China has invested heavily in improving its ability to ship to Europe by rail. According to the China State Railway Group Company, it moved 1,460,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by rail in 2021.¹⁶ This peak throughput occurred prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, which has restricted rail traffic. For comparison, China’s ports handled 262 million TEUs in 2021.¹⁷ Thus, rail routes accounted for only 0.6 percent of its global seaborne trade.

Expanding capacity to handle more than a minor fraction of seaborne trade will be extremely difficult. Russian Railways projects that it will be able to transit 4 million containers by 2027. However, its spokesman admits that shortages of container platforms, skilled workers, throughput capacity, and marshaling yards restrict its current operations.¹⁸ Kazakh railways, the only other route, do not offer prospects for increased trade. The Kazakh-China border crossings are regularly overwhelmed by traffic. At the beginning of September 2024, fifty-five trains were backed up at the border. To reduce the congestion, Kazakhstan banned further containers until it could clear the backlog.¹⁹ Further complicating any efforts to increase overland transportation throughput is the fact both rail and road connections pass through thousands of miles of the most hostile terrain in the world—mountains, jungles, and deserts. These conditions magnify both the expense of transport and the cost of maintaining rail and road networks. Additionally, most of the rail infrastructure is not operated or maintained by China, but instead by Russia and Kazakhstan. Finally, the very nature of rail lines makes them subject to wartime interdiction.

China has also proposed rail projects to Thailand, Myanmar, and Pakistan, but these projects continue to face delays.²⁰ The cargo that will eventually feed these rail connections must come primarily from maritime shipping. Thus, these proposed rail lines will not dramatically reduce China’s dependence on the sea but will only allow it to avoid key choke points created by the First Island Chain. However, even if these lines triple rail throughput, they will still provide less than 2 percent of China’s current seaborne trade. The fact remains that rail simply cannot provide China with a significant substitute for seaborne trade.

This calls into question whether China designed these rail lines not as alternate trade routes but as inland routes to support distant overseas ports and bases. China and Pakistan are planning a rail line to link Kashgar, China, to Gwadar, a Pakistani port city on the Arabian Sea.²¹ In late 2023, China and Myanmar announced the resumption of work on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, which will link Kunming, China, to Kyaukpyu and Yangon, Myanmar—both located on the Bay of Bengal.²²

Energy

Not surprisingly, China uses a full range of energy sources. At 55.6 percent of the total, coal is by far China’s largest energy source. The next largest source is oil, at 17.7 percent. Then, in descending order, are natural gas (8.4 percent), renewables (8.4 percent), hydro (7.7 percent), and nuclear power (2.3 percent).²³

China has massive coal production capacity and reserves. Yet, in 2022, it imported 375 million metric tons of coal, or 8 percent of its coal needs.²⁴ The imports, primarily from Indonesia and Australia, consisted of higher-quality coal unavailable in China but needed for certain industrial processes.

Analysis often cites the fact that China imports 72 percent of the oil it consumes as a primary strategic vulnerability.²⁵ But too often, analysts do not note that oil represented less than 18 percent of China’s primary energy consumption in 2022. Recognizing a potential vulnerability, China began building a strategic petroleum oil reserve in 2007. Today,

China’s inventory [is] near 1.3bn barrels, enough to cover 115 days of imports (America holds 800m barrels). On top of this, China has told oil firms to add 60m to stockpiles by the end of March [2025]. Rapidan [Energy] thinks reserves will grow even faster, with China adding as many as 700m barrels by the end of 2025.²⁶

In the past, China has also delivered oil by rail. With full mobilization, China might be able to import five hundred thousand barrels per day from Russia and Kazakhstan.²⁷ However, this would displace other potential traffic. That said, most of China’s liquid energy imports are used in the transportation and petrochemical industries.

Natural gas does not represent a significant vulnerability either. As of spring 2024, China had only about twenty-three days’ natural gas supply in storage. However, in 2022, natural gas imported by sea represented only 2 percent of China’s total energy.²⁸ The reductions in liquid energy consumption seen during the COVID-19 pandemic indicate the impact that wartime restrictions on civilian movement could have on China’s energy demands.²⁹

Any major conflict between the United States and China would cause significant economic disruption globally, thus strongly reducing the demand for Chinese products. This would further reduce China’s liquid energy requirements and extend the life of its energy reserves. In sum, interruptions of imported liquid energy would strain China’s economy but would not be decisive.

Food

China faces insoluble food security issues. With only 10 percent of the world’s arable land, it must feed 20 percent of the world’s population.³⁰ In 2014, China’s government reported that 20 percent of its arable land suffered from heavy metal pollution. Compounding these problems is the carbon content of Chinese soil, which is 30 percent lower than the world average. To compensate, Chinese farmers use 33 percent of all fertilizer produced worldwide. This overuse of fertilizer causes acidification and hardens the soil.³¹ In addition, over 40 percent of China’s land area is affected by erosion—perhaps the most severe damage in the world.³²

The net result is that China:

[I]mports more of these [food] products—including soybeans, corn, wheat, rice, and dairy products—than any other country. Between 2000 and 2020, the country’s food self-sufficiency ratio decreased from 93.6 percent to 65.8 percent. Changing diet patterns have also driven up China’s imports of edible oils, sugar, meat, and processed foods. In 2021, the country’s edible oil import-dependency ratio reached nearly 70 percent…³³

Chinese leaders are acutely aware that food shortages have historically led to instability and have, therefore, stockpiled a year’s worth of wheat and maize.³⁴ The chart below demonstrates the massive increase in grain purchases since 2010. This trend partly reflects China’s growing wealth and the need to feed more livestock as the Chinese diet increasingly includes meat.³⁵

China also faces severe water shortages, particularly in the north, where much of its agricultural production is concentrated. That region holds just 4 percent of the country’s water. As a result, Chinese agriculture relies heavily on groundwater, but half of its aquifers are too polluted for irrigation. Nationwide, up to 25 percent of river water is also unsuitable for agricultural use.³⁶ To address its water distribution problem, China is building massive water transportation systems, but it is unlikely to significantly increase grain production in a crisis.

Productive capacity

In 2022, China imported more than $325 million in non-food raw materials per month.³⁷ This included 70 percent of total global seaborne iron ore imports—about 1.2 billion tons per year.³⁸ Chinese domestic production that year was 380 million tons, covering only 24 percent of its annual needs.³⁹ While China is the world’s fourth-largest producer of copper,⁴⁰ it is also the world’s largest importer, accounting for 58 percent of global copper ore imports.⁴¹

Although China has the world’s largest shipbuilding industry, accounting for 48.4 percent of the global shipbuilding tonnage, the industry is heavily dependent on imports.⁴² If US allies can maintain sea control in a prolonged conflict, China will struggle to obtain the raw materials needed to sustain its economy and war production. Nations that have been blockaded in the past have made significant cuts to civilian production to support their war efforts. Doing so allowed the Confederacy, Germany, and Japan to extend their military efforts for years; however, in the end, blockades caused substantial reductions in their industrial outputs.

Trade

China has made significant efforts to shift from an export-based economy to a domestic demand-driven one. It has reduced its dependence on trade from over 60 percent of its GDP in 2006 to 38 percent in 2022.⁴³ However, 90 percent of this trade remains seaborne.⁴⁴ To illustrate the potential impact of interruptions to seaborne trade, the Great Depression reduced the US GDP by 29 percent from 1929 to 1933.⁴⁵ A RAND study noted that China’s economy may contract by 25 to 35 percent in a prolonged war.⁴⁶ A contraction of this magnitude would not only severely hinder China’s military-industrial production but could also contribute to internal instability—Chinese President Xi Jinping’s primary concern.

Internal instability

The CCP’s leadership views internal instability as the primary threat to its continued rule. Since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, China has dramatically increased its focus on internal security. It reorganized the People’s Armed Police, and by 2017, its internal security budget was 118 percent of its national defense budget.

China no longer publishes its internal security budget. However, its massive efforts to suppress Uighurs in Xinjiang, its coordinated nationwide surveillance of nearly every aspect of its citizens’ lives, and its extensive control over information all underscore the CCP leadership’s belief that internal instability is a major strategic threat.

Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs within the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, noted:

The ultimate irony of the regime presiding over the ‘people’s republic’ is that its greatest fear is that one day, it will have to confront the wrath of the Chinese people directly. Worrying about internal challenges is ‘what keeps Chinese leaders awake at night.’⁴⁷

The People’s Liberation Army

The Office of the US Secretary of Defense provides an unclassified Annual Report to Congress, and the Congressional Research Service regularly produces reports on the PLA. This article does not attempt to duplicate these efforts. Instead, it focuses on how China can use existing and projected PLA capabilities to disrupt international shipping during a conflict with the United States.

Chinese potential use of overseas ports and bases

Security concerns regarding Chinese ownership of overseas ports fall into three general categories. First is the massive amount of intelligence China collects. Second is the potential to use this intelligence and control of key ports and piers to disrupt US shipments in times of war. Finally, there is the possibility that China could leverage its control of these ports to pre-position weapons, ammunition, and equipment—either to replenish its warships and armed merchants or to rapidly establish A2/AD nodes near major maritime choke points. In short, it can disrupt global maritime trade.

Simply by running international ports, China acquires and collects enormous amounts of information on maritime trade flows. It also developed its National Transportation and Logistics Public Information Platform, known as LOGINK, a software system designed to manage global shipping. As John Konrad writes:

Initially marketed outside of China in 2010, LOGINK has since expanded its footprint, securing cooperation agreements with at least 24 global ports. Its capacity to amass sensitive business and foreign government data, such as corporate registries, vessel details, and cargo data, has raised significant security concerns.

Quoting a U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission report,⁴⁸ Konrad adds:

COSCO [China COSCO Shipping Corporation] currently operates terminals at Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Seattle, potentially granting LOGINK a window into vessel, container, and other data at those ports.⁴⁹

This information could provide China with global intelligence on the movement of US forces, materiel, and equipment during a crisis. China could use this intelligence to disrupt the movement of US and allied materiel in the event of conflict. It did so in 2016 when it seized eight Singaporean Terrex infantry carriers as they transited the port of Hong Kong while returning from exercises in Taiwan.⁵⁰

Due to the United States’ heavy reliance on commercial shipping, some of this maritime traffic will pass through Chinese-controlled ports. Much more will be visible in LOGINK. Both possibilities create opportunities to corrupt logistics databases and even reroute critical items. There is a also concern that the widespread use of Chinese-produced cranes could allow China to disrupt trade in ports it neither owns nor operates.⁵¹

The third threat is the potential to use these ports—or even individual piers—to pre-position equipment that could transform each into an intelligence collection node, a rearming point to replenish containerized missiles on Chinese warships or merchant ships, an A2/AD node to disrupt international shipping, or any combination of the three.

In the least aggressive approach, China could employ these ports for intelligence gathering and soft-kill operations. PLA personnel could use pre-positioned electronic warfare (EW) and cyber equipment for offensive operations or as a basis for intelligence collection beyond what is obtained through LOGINK. The PLA could also deploy long-endurance drones or balloons as platforms for multi-spectral, synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), radar, and EW sensors. While permitting the use of these ports in a conflict could legally render the host nation a belligerent, it is not difficult to envision host nations turning a blind eye to drones collecting “weather” or “environmental” information. Nor would it be surprising if the host nations simply pretended not to know about any Chinese intelligence personnel conducting cyber or EW operations from their soil. Every port could become an intelligence collection node along key maritime routes.

The next step would be to use these ports to replenish containerized weapons deployed on Chinese-owned commercial ships. Since these vessels would routinely load and unload containers at the piers, the activity would not appear unusual and would be subtle enough for the host nation to ignore. The PLA has displayed these systems at trade shows since 2022.⁵² Its systems appear very similar to the Club-K family of containerized missiles that Russia has offered for sale since 2010.⁵³ In recent years, Israel, Iran, the United States, and the Netherlands have also tested containerized missiles. These ports could also be used to rearm People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships.

The final—and least likely, but most aggressive—course of action would be to use these ports to establish effective counter-intervention nodes. These nodes would require effective command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as anti-ship defenses, anti-air defenses, and EW units. Depending on the location and the potential for US or allied response, they may also require limited ground defenses to protect against attempts to destroy the Chinese weapons systems stationed there.

Prior to a conflict, China could pre-position weapons, ammunition, and equipment without the host nations’ knowledge. The PLA could build significant stockpiles of command and control (C2), EW, cyber, anti-air, anti-ship, and anti-armor equipment and munitions by transporting them in commercial containers via Chinese shipping companies. Upon arrival, they could be unloaded and stored in warehouses or container lots controlled by Chinese companies. Similar to US pre-positioning programs, China would only need to fly in personnel and limited equipment to rapidly establish fully equipped intelligence centers or combat formations. If flights were impossible, smugglers have demonstrated that large numbers of people can be moved in containers on merchant ships.

Weapons and vehicles too large to be containerized could be shipped aboard one of China’s numerous commercial vessels, which could be specifically modified to carry military equipment. Personnel could be flown in or travel with their equipment on these ships.

Given that Chinese forces would likely be focused on air and sea interdiction, these forces would not require large, personnel-intensive infantry, logistics, and aircraft maintenance units. Thus, deployment and employment could be executed rapidly in peacetime. These factors could provide China with robust forces capable of shutting down shipping at maritime choke points across the South China Sea, Indian Ocean, Middle East, and potentially parts of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.

If these ports are configured to be effective A2/AD nodes, they could be used in two ways. First, China could assert that these forces would not be used unless the United States or its allies attempted to cut off maritime trade to China. Alternatively, China could threaten the maritime trade of individual nations that choose to support the United States. If these threats fail and the United States imposed a distant naval blockade, China could use these nodes to cause massive disruption to global trade.

Meia Nouwens of the International Institute for Strategic Studies says that Chinese leaders understand that an Indo-Pacific war will not be “a short, quick, swift victory after a surprise attack, but [acknowledge] that potential conflict might be protracted, and a war of attrition.”⁵⁴ China is aware that a prolonged war will be won or lost on economic and industrial resilience. Cutting global trade would significantly and negatively impact US economic and industrial capacity. Chinese leaders are likely aware this step would alienate the international community and perhaps convince some nations to align with the United States. While this is a significant risk, the CCP would have already taken an existential risk (for the party, not the country) by choosing conventional warfare with the United States.

By the same standards, US efforts to disrupt these sites risk alienating host nations. This will be particularly true if the Chinese are merely conducting intelligence-gathering operations without kinetic actions or interference with the host nation’s trade.

US intelligence has tracked China’s development of mainland counter-intervention (A2/AD) capabilities for over a decade. China has spent decades developing the systems and weapons necessary to create overlapping, integrated observation and fire zones at ever-greater distances from its mainland. Today, China is emphasizing the integration of air, land, sea, space, cyber, EW, and information capabilities to maximize the effectiveness of its counter-intervention capability. It is also increasing its inventory of mobile systems and showcasing containerized systems at international trade shows.⁵⁵

Combined with its ownership and control of overseas ports, this capability gives China the potential to create “pop-up” counter-intervention nodes near critical maritime choke points. The capabilities discussed below can all be deployed to overseas ports using standard shipping containers or roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) shipping. With the C2 systems, weapons, and munitions pre-positioned in these ports, personnel can be flown in and establish effective units in a matter of days.

Systems China could covertly deploy to overseas ports/bases

Command-and-control systems

The critical asset that will enable China to integrate its wide-ranging locations and coordinate the employment of the systems is an effective global C2 system. The theater commands the PLA established in 2016 are still working toward achieving full joint capability, and none have been designated to conduct the type of operations described in this paper. Therefore, how China would command such an operation remains an open question. To date, the naval headquarters has commanded the PLAN deployments to the Middle East. However, given the PLA’s determined efforts to master joint operations, China is likely developing some form of joint command for overseas deployments.⁵⁶

The PLA will require a robust C2 with integrated global communications; long-range intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); EW; and cyber defense. The technical components necessary for such a command structure either already exist or are currently under development.

China is a near-peer or peer in military remote sensing, creating new and enhanced dilemmas for US and allied military planners: The United States will face a PLA with improved intelligence, tracking, and targeting capabilities, complicating efforts to deter or carry out military operations within the second island chain in the Indo-Pacific.⁵⁷

China has plans to launch twenty-six thousand communication satellites into low-earth orbit (LEO) to provide Starlink-like global broadband capabilities.⁵⁸ To augment its existing BeiDou Global Navigation Satellite System and ChinaSat communications satellites, China launched Weixing Hulianwan Gaogui-01, its first “high orbit internet satellite.”⁵⁹ BeiDou, ChinaSat, and Gaogui-01 operate in geosynchronous orbit (GEO).

In December 2023, China launched Yaogan-41, a remote-sensing satellite, into GEO. It added to China’s constellation of 144 Yaogan satellites, providing “an unprecedented ability to identify and track car-sized objects throughout the entire Indo-Pacific.”⁶⁰ As a GEO orbiting satellite, it provides a constant observation of the same region, unlike LEO satellites, which make intermittent passes. China also operates three Gaofen electro-optical equipped satellites in GEO, with resolutions as precise as 15 meters. In 2023, China launched the world’s only SAR satellite in GEO orbit, enabling the satellite to see through clouds and in darkness.⁶¹

These systems will provide a local commander access to Chinese satellite intelligence and can be augmented by long-range drones and balloons. China could deploy its vertically launched Sunflower drones, which have a 1,200-mile range and an 88-pound payload, allowing them to carry various sensors and communications systems. China has already demonstrated its ability to use high-altitude balloons as collection platforms.

The Russo-Ukrainian War has highlighted the importance of effective EW and electronic intelligence systems. It has also demonstrated the growing effectiveness of relatively small EW systems that could easily fit in a TEU. Even before the war in Ukraine, China took steps to strengthen its EW capabilities. In 2015, China established the Strategic Support Force (SSF) to develop and coordinate space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare capabilities. In April 2024, China announced that it had split the SSF into three branches: the Information Support Force, Network Space Force, and Military Aerospace Support Force.⁶² While analysts still do not fully understand how responsibilities will be divided among these new forces, it is clear that China remains committed to enhancing its capabilities in these domains.

A key advantage of these C2 capabilities is that the equipment—and even personnel—can be covertly transported and deployed.

Anti-ship systems

Anti-ship systems, ranging from low-cost weapons to high-end cruise missiles, will be central to any Chinese attempt to use overseas bases and ports to disrupt trade.

Sea mines

Sea mines are among the cheapest and most effective anti-ship systems. Given the widely recognized deficiencies in the US Navy’s modern counter-mine warfare, China is well aware of their effectiveness.⁶³ In 2023, the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College’s Center for Naval Warfare Studies noted:

China has begun to prioritize mine warfare and the PLAN has a comprehensive, sophisticated sea mine program …. [A] large, diverse inventory of sea mines including advanced variants and trains extensively in minelaying.⁶⁴

While many studies have focused on China’s use of mines to isolate Taiwan, sea mines are easy to transport and can be covertly deployed by almost any ship. China has designated mine-laying a mission for commercial vessels in its naval reserve. Given the challenges of mine sweeping and the limited capabilities among Western nations, even a small number of mines in maritime choke points could cause long-term trade disruptions. Following the Gulf War, it took Australians almost five months to search “two square kilometres and [deal] with [just] 60 mines.”⁶⁵ Those mines employed decades-old technology. The modern mines in China’s arsenal will be exponentially more difficult to neutralize. Even if an area can be cleared, it can easily be reseeded by false-flagged commercial or fishing vessels during routine passages through maritime choke points.

Uncrewed aerial vehicles

In Ukraine, UAVs have destroyed targets ranging from individual soldiers to armored vehicles to major industrial facilities and even warships—at distances of up to 1,800 kilometers.⁶⁶

China is well known for manufacturing most of the world’s quadcopters, but it also produces a family of military drones. China’s FH-901, for example, bears a remarkable resemblance to the US Switchblade.⁶⁷ These munitions have limited range but carry more powerful warheads than the hobby quadcopters widely used in Ukraine. They would be particularly effective in very restricted waterways such as the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

China’s Sunflower 200 represents a significant leap in capability. Online videos show China developing a launching system similar to Iran’s commercial truck-mounted launcher.⁶⁸ These relatively inexpensive, mass-produced drones pose a clear threat to merchant shipping as well as commercial and military base facilities.

China is also developing high-performance, long-range drones. The Feihong FH-97A is “capable of ‘all-day, all-weather’ operations in support of reconnaissance and attack missions.”⁶⁹ The FH-97A bears a striking resemblance to the US XQ-58A Valkyrie, which has a range of 3,500 miles, can carry up to 1,000 pounds, and cruises at Mach 0.7.⁷⁰ If the FH-97A’s capabilities match those of the Valkyrie, it could provide a globally deployable long-range strike. Given China’s investment in artificial intelligence, it is likely that these aircraft will soon be autonomous—if they are not already.

If concealed in standard shipping containers, these weapons could be quickly shipped into any port controlled by a Chinese company. The FH-97’s estimated 3,000-mile range means it could strike shipping throughout the Indian Ocean, most of the Atlantic, and much of the Pacific from a Chinese-controlled port. Even more concerning, these systems could target fixed air bases or ports supporting US operations.

Uncrewed surface vessels/uncrewed underwater vessels

Over the last two years, Ukraine’s USVs have sunk or damaged Russian naval vessels both in the open sea and in port.⁷¹ The China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College’s Center for Naval Warfare Studies recently reported:

“The PLAN either has or is poised to integrate USVs and UUVs into its operational force. It seeks to build larger USVs and UUVs to carry more capable payloads and perform a broader range of operations. Combat USVs are currently undergoing sea trials and AI integration.”⁷²

Potential employment of uncrewed systems

Since most of these systems are small enough to fit in a standard TEU, they are an obvious choice for supporting sea denial operations from overseas ports. Of particular concern is the potential for these drones to hunt autonomously. The map below illustrates the vast areas these drones could cover when launched from Chinese-owned ports. Of course, range rings do not prevent opposing forces from maneuvering within them, but the imminent threat of damage may lead commercial shipping to avoid the area. Illustrative of this point, major shipping firms have largely abandoned the use of the Suez Canal due to the threat of drones and missiles from the Houthis in Yemen.

Multiple rocket launchers

China fields battalions of PCH191 multiple rocket launchers equipped with satellite or inertial navigation systems, capable of firing the TL-7B missile. This missile can conduct sea-skimming flights to deliver a 700-pound warhead at a range of 120 miles.⁷³ While most multiple rocket launchers are too large to fit in a shipping container, the rocket pods themselves fit easily in standard forty-foot-equivalent-unit containers. Over time, China could discreetly transport and stockpile rocket ammunition in Chinese-owned containers within the port. The launchers could then be loaded onto various Chinese-owned RO/RO ships and offloaded just before a campaign begins. The primary disadvantage is that their function would be difficult to conceal if the launchers were observed during loading or unloading.

Cruise missiles

Cruise missiles are proven ship-killers, and several of these systems have capabilities that would enable Chinese-held ports to provide mutual support. China currently fields six major anti-ship cruise missile systems (ASCMs): YJ-12, YJ-18, YJ-21, YJ-62, YJ-83, and CJ-100. These systems carry ship-killing warheads with ranges ranging from 130 to 1,000 miles. All can be embarked on modified RO/RO vessels, while the YJ-18 and YJ-83 can be containerized.

Maximum range of Chinese missiles

Source: Office of the Secretary of Defense 2023. “Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China in 2023.” Washington, DC: Department of Defense.

Anti-ship ballistic missiles

The DF-21D is a road-mobile ballistic missile system with a range of 1,500 kilometers. From mainland China, it can reach most of the South China Sea and significant parts of the Bay of Bengal. The longer-range DF-26 (4,000 kilometers) can cover the entire South China Sea, much of the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the eastern one-third of the Mediterranean Sea.⁷⁴ The DF-27 has a range between 5,000 and 8,000 kilometers, it is also road-mobile, carries a hypersonic glide vehicle, and, like the DF-26, comes in land-attack and anti-ship variants.⁷⁵ It can target the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and most of the Mediterranean Sea. In short, the PLA can leverage its China-based ballistic missiles to reinforce sea denial operations across most of Asia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean Sea.

Ground-based anti-air systems

This past year, the challenge of locating and destroying mobile missile systems from the air has been widely demonstrated in both Ukraine and Yemen. This suggests that an effective counter-intervention system composed of mobile missile systems can operate without air defense.⁷⁶ However, the inclusion of mobile air defense systems would significantly complicate US or allied efforts to regain control of the ports. Unfortunately, China has developed a family of air defense systems that can be easily transported via RO/RO ships or shipped in containers.

In 2022, PLA air defense units focused on enhancing their tactical air defense against low- and slow-moving threats like UAS and loitering munitions to meet evolving air defense requirements.⁷⁷ Although these systems are primarily designed to counter UAVs, Ukrainian forces have achieved remarkable success using them to destroy Russian helicopters and jets. Larger Ukrainian air defense systems have forced Russian aviation to operate at lower altitudes, bringing with them the engagement range of these lighter systems.

While the anti-UAS systems will be easiest to place in overseas ports, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force also operates a large force of medium and advanced long-range SAM systems. These include Russian-sourced SA-20 (S-300) and SA-21 (S-400) batteries.⁷⁸ It also fields the domestically produced HQ-9 and HQ-22. The HQ-9 has a range of 120 miles and a maximum altitude of 30,000 meters. Designed to target aircraft, it is typically deployed as a battalion, though even a single battery includes eight transporter erector launchers.⁷⁹ The HQ-22 has a range of 110 miles and a maximum altitude of 27,000 meters. Often compared to the US Patriot system, it can engage cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, aircraft, and drones.⁸⁰

These larger systems would require a RO/RO or ferry for deployment. Once operational, they would create an obvious signature but would significantly expand the air defense envelope for hastily established anti-access sites in Chinese-controlled ports. In short, China could rapidly establish an integrated air defense system by unloading large vehicles from Chinese-owned RO/ROs or ferries and integrating them with smaller vehicles and missile stores that had been pre-positioned in the designated port.

Surface warships

China, which already operates the world’s largest navy, plans to continue expanding both the size and capabilities of its surface fleet. By 2035, China will likely be more confident in deploying naval task forces much farther afield. Given its rapid progress in carrier aviation, China will likely possess the capability to launch limited carrier-based aviation in support of surface forces.

The United States must also consider the impact of China placing containerized FH-97A high-performance UAVs—or their successors—on a wide variety of warships and even merchant ships. These UAVs could provide limited air support that outranges projected US naval aircraft. Of particular concern is the potential to arm massive numbers of ships. China currently possesses 3,600 long-range fishing ships and 5,500 large merchant vessels.⁸¹ With the addition of containerized weapons, C2 suites, and ISR systems, these ships have the potential to sink most merchant vessels and engage many warships. Furthermore, surface ships could both be reinforced and reinforced by any counter-intervention umbrellas provided by Chinese overseas ports and bases.

Transportation

Chinese firms control either entire ports or individual piers in dozens of locations globally.⁸² These ports handle tens of thousands of containers daily. Even if the host nation attempted to monitor the contents, it would be virtually impossible—especially since many ports rely on Chinese information systems to track cargo. Thus, China could covertly deliver and store large numbers of containerized C2 systems, weapons, munitions, and supplies without the knowledge of the United States, its allies, or the host nation.

In 2022, China employed thirty RO/ROs in large-scale sealift exercises and further increased production rates, ordering an additional seventy-six for Chinese companies.⁸³ These ships are primarily used to export Chinese cars globally, making their presence a routine part of international shipping.

While a large RO/RO ferry or vehicle carrier could transport more vehicles or troops, a single armored unit—consisting of approximately one hundred and fifty vehicles and one thousand personnel—is a reasonable estimate of what these civilian ships would likely carry in practice.⁸⁴ If a host nation is friendly to China, the PLA could also use its growing inventory of amphibious shipping, long-range military aircraft, and commercial planes to rapidly position its forces.

Potential force for the overseas mission

The PLA possesses all the necessary equipment to exploit its overseas bases and ports. But which Chinese unit could execute such a mission? In October 2021, the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College reported:

Since 2017, the PLAN Marine Corps increased from two to eight brigades – six Marine Brigades, one Maritime Aviation Brigade, and one Special Operations Brigade. The Special Operations Brigade are fashioning themselves after US Navy SEALs.⁸⁵

In a January 2024 article, Task & Purpose paraphrased Timothy Heath, a senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, as saying:

Chinese leaders have said they plan to [further] expand the size of the People’s Liberation Army Navy Marine Corps because they anticipate facing a higher demand for ground forces that can carry out a wide range of missions abroad.⁸⁶

Since the People’s Liberation Army Navy Marine Corps already maintains a battalion-sized force in Djibouti, it is well-positioned to adapt to the fundamentally new mission of establishing covert forces at overseas stations.

Missions of US forces

The potential for China to employ its overseas ports and facilities in a significant conflict presents a serious challenge for US forces. Yet, the challenge lies well within the US Navy’s traditional missions. The 2020 Naval Doctrine Publication 1: Naval Warfare features this quote from Admiral Raymond A. Spruance as a clear statement that the most critical wartime mission for the navy/Marine Corps team is sea control:

I can see plenty of changes in weapons, methods, and procedures in naval warfare brought about by technical developments, but I can see no change in the future role of our Navy from what it has been for ages past for the Navy of a dominant sea power to gain and exercise the control of the sea… ⁸⁷

In a long war with China, a foundational mission of US naval forces will be to reestablish and maintain sea control to sustain allied wartime production while severely restricting China’s access to the raw materials essential to its wartime economy.

The emergence of persistent surveillance technologies, along with long-range, mobile, land-based anti-ship missiles, rockets, and drones means that land-based systems can, at times, deny China access to key maritime choke points.

Unfortunately, the PLA arrived at this conclusion much earlier than the United States and has systematically developed a land-based A2/AD capability with deep magazines and redundant coverage extending to increasing ranges from the shore. The Chinese have worked hard to ensure these systems are mobile and, therefore, much more difficult to defeat. While China’s focus to date has been on protecting the Chinese mainland and its near seas, the growing global trend of containerizing effective anti-air, anti-ship, and long-range strike weapons creates new options for the global deployment and employment of these systems.

Pre-conflict, the Joint Force cannot prevent China from leveraging its overseas ports and control of shipping data to disrupt the movement of allied material or to conceal its own material shipments.

Upon the commencement of hostilities, the Joint Force will require an operational approach suited to a war of exhaustion. National command authority will need to establish priorities among competing global demands. While it is impossible to predict how senior officials will prioritize, the Joint Force must be prepared to execute the following tasks in support of sea control:

Locate and neutralize Chinese efforts to interrupt global trade.
Establish effective blockades to severely degrade Chinese international trade.

Fortunately, these two missions will draw on different elements of the Joint Force. Unfortunately, the current US Navy thirty-year shipbuilding plan suggests the fleet will be too small to execute a worldwide campaign against Chinese forces and facilities. The US Navy’s combat forces will be insufficient to confront the world’s largest navy and maintain global sea control. To succeed, they will require support from elements of the Joint Force that are not fully engaged. Most analysts predict that the opening campaigns of a US-China conflict will be primarily air and sea battles. If this holds true, the US Army and US Marine Corps will likely not be fully committed.

Potential roles for land-based forces in establishing global sea control

Locate and neutralize Chinese efforts to disrupt military logistics and global trade.

Given the enormous distances involved and the reliance of the United States and its allies on maritime logistics, the first mission must neutralize Chinese efforts to disrupt military logistics. As part of this effort, major fleet and air combat elements must focus on preventing the PLAN from breaking out of the First Island Chain. If granted permission to operate ashore, the Marine Littoral Regiments and Army Multi-Domain Task Forces can provide direct support to this mission. If not, these units have the potential to operate from amphibious or merchant ships. Both services have demonstrated the ability to launch anti-ship cruise missiles from containers, and both could provide helicopter-borne boarding teams to seize ships at sea.

While containing the PLAN is the priority mission, neutralizing Chinese efforts to disrupt trade will also require removing Chinese forces from ports and bases overseas. If equipped as described above, these ports and bases would be capable of interdicting shipping at key maritime choke points. Eliminating this threat will require significant, capable combat forces. However, until these Chinese forces can be reduced, the United States and its allies could establish alternative routes that bypass the South and East China Seas, allowing shipping to reach key allied states such as Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. These alternative routes would enable US and allied forces to focus first on clearing the key choke points in the Middle East.

A primary challenge to US and allied forces will be determining the strength and disposition of PLA forces in targeted locations. Each plan of action will require a unique approach based on the PLA forces in place, their activities, the host nation’s stance toward both Chinese and US actions, and the availability of joint or combined forces. The same tactics currently planned for degrading China’s mainland A2/AD network will apply to mini A2/AD locations but will require modification based on these conditions.

Given the extended range of Chinese aerial drones, basing aircraft such as the F-35 within range of the weapons systems deployed to Chinese ports would pose a major risk of destruction on the ground or aboard a ship. This risk is particularly high if the base or port has stockpiles of Sunflower drones. The additional presence of FH-97A drones would dramatically extend the range of the threat and pose a significant danger to any aerial tankers used to extend the range of US aircraft.

While US long-range bombers are an obvious first choice to destroy identified targets in these ports, there is a high probability these assets will be tasked with other missions. In any case, the missile batteries assigned to US ground units could provide the initial firepower needed to degrade the port or base’s defenses. As US and allied ground forces continue to field batteries capable of firing Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, SM-6s, and Precision Strike Missiles, they will be able to match the range of potential Chinese A2/AD systems forward-deployed to ports and bases. Both services need to train to operate these batteries from both naval and commercial ships.

A second, significantly cheaper option would be for naval forces to develop long-range, containerized loitering munitions similar to the Sunflower and deploy them from the proposed Marine Landing Ships Medium (LSM) or small merchant ships. The predicted collapse of global trade at the onset of a US-China war suggests that many merchant ships will be available.⁸⁸ The United States should be able to rapidly produce a drone with Sunflower-level capabilities. These systems’ smaller payloads would minimize collateral damage in key international ports. If the Marine Corps continues developing the XQ-58A Valkyrie, the Fleet Marine Force could employ its derivatives from distances exceeding the range of Chinese weapons likely to be at contested ports.

Another option to overcome the tyranny of distance is pre-positioned warehouses that could supply fly-in forces ashore to counter the Chinese pop-up bases. However, this would require permission from both the host nation and major investments in pre-positioning facilities and equipment. Chinese intelligence will likely know where the pre-positioned equipment is located, enabling Chinese missile and drone forces to attack the warehouses or the unloading Maritime Prepositioning Ships as part of the opening volleys of the war.

If host nations will not permit pre-positioning of US forces in the region, or the United States chooses not to, missile batteries could be deployed on the proposed LSMs or merchant ships as afloat pre-positioned batteries. Marines and soldiers could be flown in to meet these ships and then operate from them. This would eliminate the requirement for host nation permission and reduce the vulnerability inherent in unloading.

The Marine Corps should also adopt the US Air Force’s Rapid Dragon concept to use C-130s and MV-22s to provide a longer-range strike capability than available from the F-35.⁸⁹ The Rapid Dragon program loads cruise missiles onto pallets. These pallets are then air-dropped from the aft bay of a cargo aircraft. The missiles fall free, ignite, and proceed to their targets as normal. These platforms could deliver cruise missiles for a fraction of the cost of F-35s. The use of Rapid Dragon technology would also free up F-35s for other essential operations against the PLA. To further reduce costs, the United States should pursue the air force’s Grey Wolf/Golden Horde low-cost cruise missile program, which is a fraction of the cost of more advanced cruise missiles operated by the Joint Force.⁹⁰

As Chinese long-range systems are eliminated, US and allied forces could close the range to conduct a suppression of enemy air defenses campaign against remaining Chinese air defenses. However, as the Ukrainians have demonstrated, mobile anti-air systems are exceptionally difficult to destroy. Allied forces will need to develop tactics, techniques, procedures, and equipment that will allow them to successfully engage mobile air defense systems. Once the long-range and anti-air capabilities have been stripped away, US or allied ground forces, in cooperation with host nation forces (if available), can clear the ports and bases of Chinese weapons.

The final, and perhaps most time-consuming, action will be mine clearance operations. Even with allied assistance, clearing mines—particularly modern smart mines—will be a major challenge. Further, China may elect to re-seed minefields using merchant and fishing vessels flying false flags. The US Navy currently severely underinvests in mine clearance capabilities, and this underinvestment seems unlikely to change by 2035.

Establish effective blockades to severely degrade Chinese international trade.

To reduce the strain on US naval and air power, the second mission—establishing an effective blockade—can be built around air-capable amphibious ships, container ships converted to operate light helicopters, operational light helicopter squadrons, Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) with ASCMs (or containerized ASCMs aboard the amphibious ships), ISR assets, and Marine or army infantry units. In short, new units or equipment would not be required, but existing forces would need to be trained in planning and executing blockade operations.

The limited number of exits from the South and East China Seas significantly reduces blockade requirements. Additionally, crippling China’s economy does not require stopping all shipping—only large container ships, tankers, and bulk carriers, which are easier to track. With accurate intelligence on the movement of large Chinese commercial ships, US and allied blockade forces would be able to operate near the restricted passages south of the Bashi Channel.

Small task forces composed of helicopter-capable ships, infantry boarding parties trained to fast-rope, light helicopters, LCSs, or container ships armed with ASCMs and drones could be stationed to cover each of the major exits from the South China Sea. The United States must establish procedures and units for taking command of seized ships, moving them to a quarantine area, and passing control to a prize court to adjudicate their disposition.

If granted host nation permission, the Joint Force can establish support facilities near major choke points. These facilities would provide basing for persistent ISR of the choke points. They can also be used to resupply and maintain blockade ships and aircraft. If host nations along the First Island Chain refuse, maintaining the blockade will be more difficult but could still be supported from Guam and, if permitted, northern Australian ports. This approach would require the commitment of most of the US Navy’s large amphibious ships, which could be augmented by allied amphibious ships. While sufficient amphibious ships may be unavailable, container ships can be quickly modified to house light helicopters and boarding parties. The navy and Marine Corps developed this capability in the 1990s, designating the ships as T-AVBs. ⁹¹

Should maintaining a blockade at the First Island Chain become untenable, the blockade can shift back to the Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok Straits, as well as the passages north and south of Australia. These straits are very narrow: the Malacca Strait is only 1.8 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point, the Sunda Strait is 2.4 nautical miles wide, and the Lombok Strait is 5.4 nautical miles wide.⁹²

A final blockade line could be established at the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and Cape of Good Hope. Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are particularly narrow. Even from the Cape of Good Hope, the blockade force could interrupt trade between China and Europe or the Middle East. While the passages around Australia and the Cape of Good Hope extend for hundreds of miles, long-endurance drones and satellites can track large vessels and provide intercept paths for blockade forces.

The blockading force will challenge designated ships and direct them to prepare to receive a boarding party. Most commercial ships will comply to avoid the damage associated with being stopped by force. Many crews will likely agree to stay on board, particularly if they are paid at union rates and guaranteed a flight home upon arrival in port. If necessary, the blockading force could employ light attack helicopters to engage ships that refuse orders. When a target ship complies, Marines or soldiers could fast-rope onto the vessel as necessary to seize control and then direct it to a designated anchorage. Upon arrival, the ship could be turned over to contractors for anchor watch until it can be adjudicated by a prize court.

Of course, if the PLA makes a significant effort to penetrate the blockade, major US Pacific Fleet combat elements will be required to intercept and engage the PLA force. Such a mission would align with the primary objective of containing the PLAN inside the First Island Chain.

New capabilities required for this mission

Neutralizing Chinese overseas A2/AD bastions and supporting blockade operations are appropriate roles for ground forces as part of a joint campaign. In addition to already programmed units and equipment, the forces will require:

Persistent satellite ISR coverage of maritime choke points and Chinese overseas bases/ports. This will require access to national and commercial space assets.
Long-range, but more affordable, ISR drones like the Flexrotor commercial drone.
Ground-based, persistent, all-weather ISR that can be inserted from range and operate undetected near a Chinese facility.
Large numbers of autonomous, GPS-independent drones as substitutes for current aviation capabilities.
A Rapid Dragon-like capability to enable long-range strikes.
A Starlink-like communications network to provide high-speed communications for widely dispersed units.
Access to naval and commercial shipping to deploy and operate in target areas.
Missile/rocket batteries trained to operate from commercial or amphibious ships.
Task forces consisting of infantry and light helicopters trained to seize commercial ships while operating from non-doctrinal platforms.
Task forces trained to fight in complex urban and port environments to execute the final stage of clearing Chinese overseas bases and ports.
Offensive mine warfare capabilities to close certain passages and compensate for shortages in other capabilities.
Major investments in mine-clearing capabilities.

Conclusion

This paper aimed to examine low-probability but potentially high-impact ways China could exploit its growing global network of ports. Defeating these Chinese operations would strain the capacity of US joint forces but would not require expensive new capabilities. As noted, by focusing on relatively inexpensive drones, commercial shipping, and containerized weapons, US forces can position themselves to neutralize Chinese actions at overseas ports. While drones represent a minor part of the United States’ current force structure, the Russo-Ukrainian War has dramatically illustrated their increasing value to the Joint Force. Even at its usual slow pace, the Department of Defense should be able to rapidly field large numbers of autonomous drones and loitering munitions.

Finally, preparing to counter these Chinese actions will require planning with allies, training for blockade and port seizure operations, and integrating the new capabilities into operational forces. These are not expensive options, but they are necessary if the Joint Force is to be ready at the onset of war.

About the author

Fellow

Thomas X. Hammes

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Conflict Defense Industry

T. X. Hammes is a distinguished research fellow at the Center for Strategic Research, National Defense University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the National Defense University.

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53 Michael Stott, “Deadly new Russian weapon hides in shipping container,” Reuters, April 26, 2010, https://www.reuters.com/article/world/deadly-new-russian-weapon-hides-in-shipping-container-idUSTRE63P2XB/#:~:text=%22Nobody’s%20ever%20done%20that%20before,wrong%20hands%2C%22%20he%20said.

54 Rhyannon Bartlett-Imadegawa, “China preparing for ‘protracted’ war, says think tank,” Nikkei Asia, February 14, 2024, https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Defense/China-preparing-for-protracted-war-says-think-tank.

55 “#36 – China’s Container-launched.”

56 Phillip C. Saunders, Beyond Borders: PLA Command and Control of Overseas Operations, Strategic Forum no. 306 (July 2020), Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, https://inss.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratforum/SF-306.pdf.

57 Tate Nurkin, et.al., China’s Remote Sensing, OTH Intelligence Group LLC, December 2024, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/Chinas_Remote_Sensing.pdf.

58 Shunsuke Tabeta, “China to launch 26,000 satellites, vying with U.S. for space power,” Nikkei Asia, January 10, 2024, https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Aerospace-Defense-Industries/China-to-launch-26-000-satellites-vying-with-U.S.-for-space-power.

59 Andrew Jones, “China launches first high orbit internet satellite,” Space News, February 29, 2024, https://spacenews.com/china-launches-first-high-orbit-internet-satellite/.

60 Clayton Swope, “No Place to Hide: A Look into China’s Geosynchronous Surveillance Capabilities,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 19, 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/no-place-hide-look-chinas-geosynchronous-surveillance-capabilities.

61 Swope, “No Place to Hide.”

62 Dean Cheng, “Why Xi created a new Information Support Force, and why now,” Breaking Defense, April 29, 2024, https://breakingdefense.com/2024/04/why-xi-created-a-new-information-support-force-and-why-now/.

63 Jan Tegler, “Navy Mine Warfare Teeters Between Present, Future,” National Defense, January 17, 2023, https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2023/1/17/navy-mine-warfare-teeters-between-present-future.

64 Quick Look Report: Chinese Undersea Warfare: Development, Capabilities, Trends, China Maritime Studies Institute, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, US Naval War College, May 2023, https://www.andrewerickson.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Naval-War-College_China-Maritime-Studies-Institute_CHINESE-UNDERSEA-WARFARE_CONFERENCE-SUMMARY_20230505.pdf.

65 Elizabeth White, “Sea mines are cheap and low-tech, but they could stop world trade in its tracks,” Strategist, March 6, 2020, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/sea-mines-are-cheap-and-low-tech-but-they-could-stop-world-trade-in-its-tracks/.

66 Leo Chiu, “Ukraine’s Drone Strike Radius Now 1,800 km – What’s on Kyiv’s Target List?” Kyiv Post, September 9, 2024, https://www.kyivpost.com/post/38716.

67 “Airshow China 2022: CASC unveils FH-97A loyal wingman autonomous drone,” Global Defense News, November 9, 2022, https://armyrecognition.com/news/aerospace-news/2022/airshow-china-2022-casc-unveils-fh-97a-loyal-wingman-autonomous-drone.

68 Daria Dmytriieva, “China unveiled a new kamikaze drone: Improved copy of Iranian Shahed,” RBC-Ukraine, August 17, 2023, https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/china-unveiled-a-new-kamikaze-drone-improved-1692269951.html.

69 Ritu Sharma, “‘Catching-Up’ With China, US Pushes Its 6th-Gen Combat Drone Program; Set To Award Contract For 1st Batch Of CCA,” Eurasian Times, February 14, 2024, https://www.eurasiantimes.com/us-accelerates-combat-drone-program-to-catch/.

70 Colin Demarest, “AI-enabled Valkyrie drone teases future of US Air Force fleet,” Defense News, January 18, 2024, https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/uas/2024/01/18/ai-enabled-valkyrie-drone-teases-future-of-us-air-force-fleet/.

71 Claudia Chiappa, “Russia to build naval base in breakaway Georgia region,” Politico, October 5, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-russia-black-sea-abkhazia-plans-to-build-naval-base-in-georgias-breakaway-region-as-it-pulls-vessels-from-sevastopol-base/.

72 Quick Look Report.

73 Joshua Arostegui, China Maritime Report No. 32: The PCH191 Modular Long-Range Rocket Launcher: Reshaping the PLA Army’s Role in a Cross-Strait Campaign, China Maritime Studies Institute, US Naval War College, November 3, 2023, https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=cmsi-maritime-reports.

74 “Missiles of China,” Missile Threat, CSIS Missile Defense Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies, updated April 12, 2021, https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/china/.

75 Zuzanna Gwadera, “Intelligence leak reveals China’s successful test of a new hypersonic missile,” International Institute of Strategic Studies, May 18, 2023, https://www.iiss.org/en/online-analysis/online-analysis/2023/05/intelligence-leak-reveals-chinas-successful-test-of-a-new-hypersonic-missile/.

76 Maximillian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco, “Air denial: The dangerous illusion of decisive air superiority,” Atlantic Council, August 30, 2022, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/airpower-after-ukraine/air-denial-the-dangerous-illusion-of-decisive-air-superiority/.

77 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2023, Annual Report to Congress, US Department of Defense, October 19, 2023, https://media.defense.gov/2023/Oct/19/2003323409/-1/-1/1/2023-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF.

78 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments, 64.

79 US Army, “HQ-9 (Hong Qi 9) Chinese 8×8 Long-Range Air Defense Missile System,” Operational Data Integration Network (ODIN), accessed October 30, 2024, https://odin.tradoc.army.mil/WEG/Asset/HQ-9.

80 “HQ-22 / FK-3 – Surface-to-Air Missile,” Global Security, accessed X, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/hq-22.htm.

81 “China’s deep-water fishing fleet is the world’s most rapacious,” Economist, December 8, 2022, https://www.economist.com/international/2022/12/08/chinas-deep-water-fishing-fleet-is-the-worlds-most-rapacious; Xioashan Xue, “As China Expands Its Fleets, US Analysts Call for Catch-up Efforts,” Voice of America, September 13, 2022, https://www.voanews.com/a/as-china-expands-its-fleets-us-analysts-call-for-catch-up-efforts-/6746352.html.

82 Kardon and Leutert, “Pier Competitor.”

83 Matthew P. Funaiole et al., “China Accelerates Construction of ‘Ro-Ro’ Vessels, with Potential Military Implications,” China Power, Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 11, 2023, https://chinapower.csis.org/analysis/china-construct-ro-ro-vessels-military-implications/.

84 J. Michael Dahm, China Maritime Report No. 25: More Chinese Ferry Tales: China’s Use of Civilian Shipping in Military Activities, 2021-2022, China Maritime Studies Institute, US Naval War College, January 2023, https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=cmsi-maritime-reports.

85 John Chen and Joel Wuthnow, China Maritime Report No. 18:Chinese Special Operations in a Large-Scale Island Landing, China Maritime Studies Institute, US Naval War College, January 2022, https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=cmsi-maritime-reports.

86 Jeff Schogol, “China is expanding its marine corps, but how capable is it?” Task & Purpose, January 25, 2024, https://taskandpurpose.com/news/china-marine-corps/.

87 Naval Doctrine Publication 1: Naval Warfare (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, April 2020), https://cimsec.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/NDP1_April2020.pdf.

88 Captain R. Robinson Harris et al., “Converting Merchant Ships to Missile Ships for the Win,” Proceedings 145/1/1,391 (January 2019), US Naval Institute, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019/january/converting-merchant-ships-missile-ships-win.

89 Max Hauptman, “Air Force shows off its Rapid Dragon cruise missile system on China’s doorstep,” Task and Purpose, July 26, 2023, https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-rapid-dragon-mobility-guardian-2023/.

90 “Rapid Dragon,” Air Force Research Laboratory, accessed X, https://afresearchlab.com/technology/rapid-dragon.

91 Mark L. Evans, “Wright III (T-AVB-3),” Naval History and Heritage Command, updated October 4, 2024, https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/w/wright-iii–t-avb-3-.html.

92 Fiona S. Cunningham, “The Maritime Rung on the Escalation Ladder: Naval Blockades in a US-China Conflict,” Security Studies 29, no. 4 (2020): 730–768 https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2020.1811462.

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Soofer featured at NSSA’s SpaceTime event on “Golden Dome for America”

Atlantic Council — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 14:43:50 +0000

On March 20, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer joined Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering, USAF (Ret.), and Chris Williams for NSSA’s SpaceTime event, “Golden Dome for America.” The discussion explored the policy, budgetary, and programmatic implications of President Trump’s recent executive order establishing a homeland air and missile defense system.

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

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As the US steps back in Europe, Central Europe must step up

Sona Muzikarova — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 22:18:35 +0000

Europe faces a geopolitical predicament, as the European Union’s (EU’s) summits in Brussels on March 6 and on Thursday laid bare. European capitals are preparing for US security disengagement, but each still needs to figure out what it must to do fill the expected void. This issue is especially acute for Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, which are nearest to Russian aggression and in many ways most reliant on US support at present.

There has been recent action at the EU level. The European Commission’s ambitious €800 billion defense mobilization plan, which was unveiled this month, coupled with its proposal for €150 billion in EU-backed loans, represents the most significant shift in European security posture since the Cold War. The bloc’s commitments came at the eleventh hour, after EU leaders rallied behind Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following the Oval Office blowup on March 2. Yet even with the apparent US-Ukraine reconciliation in Jeddah on March 11, broader transatlantic fissures remain that should spur CCE countries to action.

Watching Kyiv and Washington

Washington’s pursuit of peace talks with Moscow, potentially without much regard for the fairness or longevity of the peace deal, compounds this pressure. The United States’ disengagement and US President Donald Trump’s overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin, including a call on Tuesday, resurrect old ghosts for CEE countries, reviving existential anxieties about Western abandonment. Trump’s entertaining of the Russian leader’s demands for territorial concessions eerily echoes the 1938 Munich Agreement, when the United Kingdom readily abandoned Czechoslovakia to appease a revisionist power.

This US foreign policy pivot carries destabilizing consequences for Europe, Ukraine, and the broader post-Soviet region. That shift makes it imperative for European nations to rethink defense—it can no longer be viewed as a budgetary afterthought but must be treated as an industrial priority. CEE countries are well positioned to contribute significantly to this transformation despite their varying strategic alignments. But to do so, they must finally break their dependence on Russian energy and harness their manufacturing capabilities to strengthen Europe’s collective defense industrial base.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, CEE has flourished under the US security umbrella. NATO membership shielded these nations from their twentieth century fate, allowing democratic institutions to take root and market economies to modernize. But this era of stability is at severe risk.

If Ukraine is forced into an unfavorable settlement that surrenders territory to Moscow, neighboring countries will justifiably fear that they could be next as Washington reevaluates its commitments. Russia has insisted that NATO forces roll back from Eastern Europe for years, and Moscow reiterated this demand during US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia in February. This raises concerns over what kind of concessions Trump might entertain to strike a quick deal with Russia. Once again, CEE finds itself wedged between an aggressive Russia and Western allies struggling to build credible defense capacity.

The danger of further fragmentation

The commitments EU leaders made this month in Brussels will mean little without concerted action to transform the bloc’s political ambitions into genuine military capabilities. Despite NATO membership, military vulnerability persists across CEE, with defense capacities currently insufficient without US backing.

For the CEE countries, the combination of a disengaging United States and an emboldened Russia presents three critical challenges: the growing divides in its strategic orientation, its continued dependence on Russian energy commodities, and the need to modernize its defenses.

The region remains politically fragmented. The Baltic states and Poland have led a robust response to Ukraine’s plight since 2022, while the governments of Hungary and Slovakia exhibit marked pro-Russian attitudes. At the EU summit this month, Hungary stood alone in opposing the security deal, while Slovakia attempted to leverage it to restart Russian gas flows. CEE’s incomplete energy transition and Slovakia and Hungary’s foot-dragging to break free from Moscow’s gas leverage continue to complicate security calculations for the continent.

These divisions reflect a deepening rift in the region’s strategic orientation—a division between the pro-European path championed by Warsaw and the Baltics, with their clear-eyed view of Russian revanchism, and members of the pro-Moscow camp led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose authoritarian tendencies and energy dependencies make them convenient bedfellows with the Kremlin. This courtship of Moscow comes with a price tag: democratic backsliding at home and diminished credibility in Brussels.

How CEE can seize the moment

There is another way. CEE nations’ necessary efforts to bolster their security can also help the region build up its industrial capabilities and boost its economic competitiveness. For example, several CEE countries have in recent decades developed robust industrial supply chains with Germany, in particular with the German automotive industry. This German-CEE industrial cluster can play an outsized role in addressing security challenges, and it also provides a chance to boost the economies of all the nations involved.

In some ways, this has already started. Poland’s state-owned PGZ, for example, has partnered with Germany’s Rheinmetall to produce Leopard tanks in Poznań, Poland. The Czechoslovak Group has become a crucial supplier of artillery shells to Ukraine, increasing production fivefold since 2022, while Estonia’s Milrem Robotics is developing autonomous border surveillance systems as a part of the Baltic Defense Line.

At a time when German automakers and their CEE subsidiaries are cutting jobs to an extent not seen in a long time, the legacy automotive industry could be partly repurposed into state-of-the-art factories for unmanned aerial vehicles and conventional artillery. In some cases, this may require expanding existing industries or adapting existing production lines. In other cases, the scale of the challenge will be even greater, as it will involve sophisticated capabilities that must be rapidly developed.

Moreover, despite its strategic importance and clear industrial potential, the CEE defense revival faces additional hurdles, including fiscal management, skilled labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, political fragmentation, and policy uncertainty. The success of this continental rearmament will ultimately depend on sustained political will across multiple electoral cycles and supportive economic conditions.

The prospect of US security disengagement from Europe demands more than half-measures and hopeful rhetoric. The United States pulling back from Europe’s defense would leave a void that only European countries themselves can fill. CEE nations must also navigate their fragmented political posture against Moscow and transform defense from a budget line to an industrial priority. Europe’s eastern flank is even more exposed as the West’s security architecture is being redrawn. The question is whether it will be drawn by Europe or for it.

Soňa Muzikárová is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

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Trump’s military cudgel in Yemen will not achieve US regional objectives

Jacob Ware and Amir Asmar — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 13:05:51 +0000

On 15 March, US President Donald Trump announced a series of strikes on targets associated with the Yemeni Islamist group Ansar Allah—led by the Houthi family—in the most significant military operation of his second term so far. The strikes may be only the start of a campaign against the Houthis. They follow one of the less publicized moves from Trump’s first week back in office, when he re-designated Yemen’s Ansar Allah as a “foreign terrorist organization”(FTO) over its Gaza war-related attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea. “The Houthis’ activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade,” the White House order said.

But the Trump administration risks falling into a US pattern dating back to the post-9/11 Global War on Terrorism, opting for short-sighted military action at the expense of constructing a sustainable plan for Yemen. Multiple US administrations have neglected the conflict’s complexities, leading to failure in executing an enduring strategy that protects Washington’s interests in Yemen and the wider region. Yemen’s many overlapping conflicts and dire humanitarian conditions will not be resolved by US military action, which will likely further institutionalize war, weapons flows, foreign interference, fragmentation, weak governance, and humanitarian catastrophe.

Origins of Yemen’s conflict

The Republic of Yemen—created in 1990 via the merging of the tribal northern Yemen Arab Republic and the Marxist southern People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen—has never been a unitary country, society, or people. Despite its long history, predating the 7th-century revelation of Islam by some two millennia, Yemen has rarely been governed by a single political authority. Even before civil war broke out between the internationally recognized—and Saudi-backed—Yemeni government and Ansar Allah (Partisans of God) in 2014, Yemen was plagued by chronic violence, insecurity, and poverty. The Iran-supported Houthis are only one of many challenges to regional security that emerge from Yemen to defy the US vision of a peaceful, productive, and integrated Middle East. Other challenges include franchises of the two most violent Sunni extremist groups, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as a variety of other armed groups fighting within Yemen in an effort to shape its uncertain future. The Republic of Yemen government in Sana’a had only tenuous control over many parts of the country that are under the sway of tribal groups or other armed elements, including secessionists, terrorists, and religious extremists.

Nonetheless, Ansar Allah, which emerged in the 1990s, remains the most persistent threat in the region. It was a thorn in the side of the Sana’a government, fighting no less than six wars against the regime of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. When Saleh stepped down after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Yemen, Ansar Allah’s Houthi leaders made their bid for political power. In 2015, they forced Saleh’s successor, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, first out of Sana’a and later into exile in Saudi Arabia. The current Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council—Hadi’s ostensible successor—still operates out of Riyadh. The Houthis continue to play a central role in Yemen’s ongoing conflicts and have expanded their attacks beyond Yemen, as Trump noted. The 2023 edition of the US State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism reported that the Yemeni government “controlled about two-thirds of Yemen’s territory, but between 60 percent and 70 percent of the country’s population lived in Houthi-controlled areas.”

Regional consequences

Yemen—forming one side of the Bab el-Mandeb strait—is a highly strategic ground overlooking the entry/exit point of the Red Sea, which facilitates the Houthi attacks against global shipping routes. Further, the multitude of conflicts and armed actors are threatening neighbors, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), contributing to the Houthis’ gaining Iranian support in 2012. As Asher Orkaby noted, “Yemen’s instability is simultaneously a threat to Saudi Arabia and a source of potential strategic benefit to Iran.” Ansar Allaheven collaborated closely with Lebanese Hezbollah to refine its military and governance structures. Consequently, with US assistance, the Arabian Peninsula powers intervened to shape the Yemeni battlefield in their favor. Further, its attacks against Israel, in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, have elicited Israeli retaliation, as its attacks on Red Sea shipping have elicited US retaliation. US competitors, Russia and China, have also begun taking advantage of the openings the various Yemeni conflicts present.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia launched an aerial assault on northern Yemen with as much as $200 million per day in weapons expenditure. The UAE also intervened in Yemen, seeking to overturn Houthi rule by sponsoring anti-Houthi militias. Consequently, Yemeni civilians—victimized by the overlapping conflicts—are paying a staggering humanitarian price. Seeking to end the war’s negative consequences in 2021, then-President Joe Biden announced an end to US support for Saudi Arabia’s air campaign, declaring that “this war has to end.”

The negative impact of international military intervention in Yemen is exemplified by the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist movement backed by the UAE. Although the group has often clashed with other Yemeni militias, in 2023, it joined other southern factions in calling for the restoration of South Yemen with its pre-1990 borders, a clear sign that actors like the UAE will pursue their own interests at the expense of a unified Yemeni state. The UAE also supports a western Yemeni group known as the Joint Forces, led by a nephew of former President Saleh, which also skirmishes with the Houthis.

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By November 2024, the Houthis were also receiving extensive support from Russia, “which apparently sees the Yemeni group as an instrument through which to retaliate for and deter Western support for Ukraine.” A Wall Street Journal report in October revealed that the Kremlin provided the Houthis with targeting data for its strikes against commercial shipping in the Red Sea—perhaps in exchange for free passage for Russian vessels, as well as Yemeni youth, to serve as cannon fodder in Russia’s war in Ukraine. China has also provided the Houthis with missiles in exchange for leaving its ships alone. The Houthis have also sought to establish warmer relations with Sunni jihadist groups, including their Yemeni rival al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Shabaab in Somalia, alliances that help the Houthis tighten their stranglehold on the Bab al-Mandeb.

The toxic mix of factional violence, weak governance, and external powers interfering to protect their geopolitical interests has led to overwhelming humanitarian costs in Yemen. Indeed, upwards of 60% of the more than 377,000 people who have perished in the conflict died from non-military causes, according to the United Nations. An additional four and a half million are internally displaced, and 18.2 million depend on humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Refugee Agency, aid which has been scaled back in the past couple of years. Moreover, the designation of Ansar Allah as an FTO requires a review of US assistance programs in Yemen and directs the termination of projects, grants, and contracts with entities found to have made payments to Houthi entities or to have insufficiently documented Houthi abuses.

Inadequate US strategy

The US military approach in Yemen is essentially a two-pronged strategy: seeking to degrade terrorist external operations while strengthening local capacity to tackle destabilizing insurgencies.

First, the US has relied heavily on its drone program for tactical counterterrorism missions in Yemen, launching over three hundred drone strikes in an effort to keep al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) at bay. These strikes have killed up to 150 civilians and over one thousand confirmed militants, according to one monitor. The drone strike program has proven effective at countering international terrorism but less effective at resolving insurgencies in target countries. Alternatives to the drone program pose different risks; in the January 2017 Yakla raid, for example, when a joint US-UAE special operations raid attempted to capture AQAP leader Qasim al-Raymi, between ten and thirty civilians were killed in the raid, including an American citizen, as well as several AQAP fighters and Navy SEAL William Owens. Al-Raymi was not found but would later be killed in a US airstrike.

The second prong of this strategy has involved support to local actors, primarily the Yemeni government, to strengthen their capacity to conduct counterterrorism. According to the Security Assistance Monitor, this support for Yemen topped $850 million. While preventing the US military from being forced to deploy to Yemen, the approach made support contingent on counterterrorism successes, not much-needed reforms. “This approach tends to undermine the political and social alternatives that foster better governance and political participation,” former Yemeni diplomat Mustafa Naji wrote, criticizing the strategy. “In Yemen specifically, the American approach prioritized combating terrorism and piracy in the Gulf of Aden… but…overlooked the priorities of the people on the ground.” Ultimately, it proved relatively ineffective. The State Department’s most recent Country Report on Terrorism notes that the Yemeni government “cooperated with the US government on counterterrorism efforts but could not fully enforce [counter-terrorism] measures or consistently lead multilateral efforts because of instability, violence, and degraded capabilities.”

The attacks against the Houthis and their designation as an FTO may damage the group but will not help Yemen’s political leaders build consensus. As Peter Salisbury and Michael Wahid Hanna wrote in Foreign Policy “designations deepen political polarization, foster incentives for non-designated groups to pursue maximalist demands, and make third-party mediation, vital to resolving conflicts through political settlements, harder at times by criminalizing even limited contact with designated groups.”

Yemen is now effectively a failed state where the causes and potential solutions of conflict are immensely complex, and those complexities have frustrated US policymakers and sent the country to the bottom rung of America’s foreign policy priorities. The civil war provides the backdrop for Yemen’s many plagues—seemingly irreconcilable opponents, weak governance, terrorism, external interference, and a humanitarian crisis—each of which poses major threats to its stability and ensures it will likely remain a significant challenge for Western and regional policymakers.

Indeed, the conflict in Yemen has thrived in large part because of US and other Western ignorance and missteps. As Allison Minor wrote for the Brookings Institution last year, the failure to prevent war was in large part due to “Insufficient high-level attention and bandwidth dedicated to Yemen even during periods of crisis… undermining decisive US policy action.” For Trump, his transactional approach to solving problems may be frustrated by actors who are benefitting from the status quo, many of which are beyond US influence.

Although the front lines of Yemen’s conflict are “frozen,” according to several monitors, the deadlock is leading to an awkward, if informal, partition—a north governed by the Houthis and a south governed by secessionist elements who oppose them. However, as Gregory Johnsen notes, partition wouldn’t “be the end of the war in the South. Instead, in all likelihood, it will spawn a new round of fighting.” Hans Grundberg, the UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, said in July that “The only way to move forward in Yemen is to find mutually acceptable solutions through dialogue and negotiation.” While that prospect is easier said than done, the United States is not even engaged in such an effort. In fact, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has made clear that his concerns about the Yemeni conflict only extend to countering threats to Washington’s interests in the region. As he put it in last weekend’s appearance on Fox News, “we don’t care what happens in the Yemeni civil war.”

Jacob Ware is a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and DeSales University, and the co-author of God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America.

Amir Asmar is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council and an adjunct professor of Middle East geopolitical issues at the National Intelligence University. He was previously a senior executive and Middle East and terrorism analyst in the US Department of Defense.

The views expressed are the authors’ and do not imply endorsement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence or any other US Government agency.

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Soofer interviewed on War on the Rocks podcast about Trump’s ‘Iron Dome’

Atlantic Council — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 19:32:28 +0000

On March 12, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer was interviewed by Ankit Panda, host of the “Thinking the Unthinkable” podcast on War on the Rocks. The episode discussed the Trump administration’s plan for an American “Iron Dome” and the questions it raises for US missile defense and the strategic vulnerability in the United States today.

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

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NATO’s capability development: A call for urgent reform

David Julazadeh — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 17:52:48 +0000

In today’s fast-evolving security environment, NATO finds itself at a critical crossroads. Rapid technological advances and shifting geopolitics mean that while adversaries swiftly deploy disruptive technologies, test NATO’s deterrence, and reshape the global landscape, the Alliance remains hampered by slow, cumbersome processes for developing and delivering vital capabilities. NATO cannot afford to be reactive. The choice is stark: Will NATO develop, acquire, and deliver common-funded capabilities at the speed of operational need? Or will it remain mired in bureaucracy while adversaries surge ahead?

As NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Admiral Pierre Vandier warned in an interview with Politico in November, NATO must “take more risks, spend more, be faster, and cut bureaucracy.” Important equipment ranging from frigates and armored personnel carriers to ammunition are often delayed or stuck in bureaucratic limbo.

Making these changes will not be easy. Despite past reform efforts, NATO’s common-funded capability development and delivery remains slow, fragmented, and risk-averse. Procedural compliance is often prioritized over effectiveness, and consensus-driven decision-making delays urgent operational needs.

But without urgent reform, NATO risks eroding its credibility and failing to provide warfighters with the tools they need, when they need them. NATO must increase efficiency, maintain its technological edge, improve interoperability, and ensure its forces can fight as a cohesive Alliance.

The case for urgent reform

NATO’s capability development process is structurally misaligned with its operational needs. Here are four ways to reform the capability development and delivery process.

1. Prioritize speed and outcomes over process

NATO’s risk-averse, process-driven culture leads to excessive delays. Capabilities stall not due to technical challenges but because of bureaucratic approvals, redundant reviews, and slow decision-making. Even urgent capability needs must clear multiple layers of approval, leading to delays measured in years instead of months.

These delays hinder NATO’s ability to field critical technologies, such as artificial intelligence-enabled decision support, cyber defense tools, and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance—capabilities that adversaries are deploying at speed. By the time NATO makes a decision, the operational environment has often already shifted, making some investments obsolete before they are even employed.

NATO must replace its risk-averse, process-driven culture with one that rewards speed, effectiveness, and operational impact. Governance should focus on timely decision-making, with clear, enforceable timelines for capability approvals. NATO should also streamline redundant reviews and adopt commercial-sector best practices, such as rapid prototyping and iterative fielding.

2. Establish a single accountable authority

NATO’s Common-Funded Capability Development (CFCD) process is fragmented across multiple organizations. Therefore, no single entity is accountable for delivering capabilities from concept to fielding. This diffusion of responsibility creates inefficiencies and capability gaps that weaken NATO’s deterrence.

Although Allied Command Transformation’s deputy chief of staff for capability development (DCOS CD) informally coordinates efforts across NATO Headquarters and procurement agencies, the absence of authority to set deadlines, assign priorities, or enforce accountability hampers progress.

Recognizing this challenge, the DCOS CD has begun to strengthen the Capability Management Authority and refine the Strategic Portfolio Review to improve prioritization and coordination. These are positive steps, but they remain dependent on consensus-based decision-making and lack the enforcement mechanisms to accelerate delivery.

One solution is to establish a senior leader—such as an assistant secretary general for acquisition and capability delivery (ASG ACD)—to oversee CFCD execution. Supported by a directorate drawn from existing expertise, this leader would have the power to set priorities, enforce timelines, resolve disputes, and ensure capability gaps are closed on time. Such a role would institutionalize ongoing efforts, ensuring prioritization, sequencing, and execution occur under the necessary accountable and empowered authority to drive results.

3. Align capability development with national force planning

NATO’s CFCD process and the NATO Defense Planning Process (NDPP) operate separately despite being inextricably linked. CFCD funds shared capabilities, while the NDPP ensures nations develop forces that meet collective requirements. When these processes are not aligned, capability gaps and interoperability challenges emerge.

The modernization of NATO’s Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) highlights this misalignment. For nearly a decade, NATO debated whether to sustain, replace, or transition away from AWACS. The Alliance Future Surveillance and Control initiative, launched in 2017, remained a study rather than a structured procurement effort. Meanwhile, CFCD decision-making lacked urgency, leaving allies uncertain about their role in NATO’s future surveillance and control capability. If CFCD investments do not align with NDPP-generated national capabilities, NATO risks funding systems that are incomplete or unable to integrate into broader force structures. The result? Delays, misaligned capabilities, and an Alliance less prepared to fight as a unified force.

To address this, NATO should institutionalize a formal mechanism to synchronize CFCD and NDPP decision-making. The Alliance has recently taken promising steps, such as reestablishing linkages through the introduction of ‘collective targets’ in the next version of NATO’s political guidance document, which is currently in development and slated for approval in 2027. However, deeper and more sustained alignment is necessary to prevent delays and ensure NATO’s investments integrate seamlessly with national force development.

4. Reform industry engagement and procurement agility

NATO’s rigid procurement processes prevent it from rapidly integrating cutting-edge technologies in artificial intelligence, cyber, and space. While adversaries exploit emerging capabilities, NATO remains bound by slow, inflexible acquisition rules.

To overcome these barriers, NATO must overhaul its approach to industry engagement and procurement. The pending Industry Engagement Strategy for Space is a step in the right direction, potentially bringing commercial space capabilities and technology to the Alliance, but further action is required. NATO should establish fast-track acquisition pathways, modeled on successful national defense programs, to accelerate the procurement of emerging technologies. Additionally, NATO Security Investment Program funding mechanisms must become more flexible, allowing for adaptive, needs-driven investments that keep pace with evolving threats.

NATO must act now

The urgency of reform cannot be overstated. NATO’s capability development system is not keeping pace with modern warfare. If the Alliance does not act decisively, its deterrence credibility and warfighting effectiveness will erode while adversaries accelerate their technological and military capabilities.

Reforming decision-making, empowering dedicated leadership, aligning CFCD with NDPP, and modernizing procurement are strategic imperatives. NATO’s ability to deter, respond, and prevail depends on fielding capabilities at the speed of operational need.

NATO must act now to remain ready, relevant, and dominant in the battlespace of tomorrow. Incremental change is no longer an option.

Lieutenant General (Ret.) David J. Julazadeh is a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He most recently served at NATO’s Allied Command Transformation as the deputy chief of staff, capability development.

The post NATO’s capability development: A call for urgent reform appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Why now is the right time for ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran’s oil exports

Scott Modell — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 17:39:15 +0000

US President Donald Trump, now back in the Oval Office, has reinstated “maximum pressure” on Iran, and the economic campaign is inching toward the top of his foreign-policy agenda. Already, the administration has taken a slate of initial actions, which included new sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, seeing as Iran uses oil revenues to fund terrorist proxies abroad, repression at home, and a nuclear weapons program that could upend the region’s delicate balance of power.

The return of “maximum pressure” is coming at the right time. Iran’s economy is extremely vulnerable. The global oil market’s fundamentals are relatively soft, as strong global supply growth keeps pace with moderating oil demand growth, driving Brent crude futures below seventy dollars per barrel for the first time since September 2024. Furthermore, nearly all of Iran’s 1.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) of crude oil and condensate exports go to a single buyer, China. This means the conditions are ripe for dealing Tehran a crippling blow.

Removing most of those volumes from the market would come at a time of relatively high spare production capacity in Saudi Arabia and other members of the oil-producing group OPEC+. The estimated 5–6 mb/d of spare capacity (production held off the market due to output cuts) in these countries is more than enough to offset the loss of Iranian barrels. Moreover, the loss of billions of dollars in oil revenues, in addition to the Israeli military’s deterrence, would make it nearly impossible for Tehran to rebuild its smoldering Axis of Resistance and leaves the regime more vulnerable to internal dissent and international pressure.

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Current global oil market conditions provide a unique opportunity to escalate pressure on Iran without causing undue harm to consumers or US allies. First, strong production growth from the United States, Canada, Brazil, and other non-OPEC+ countries and tepid demand growth have loosened global oil markets, meaning that there are reduced risks for both US consumers and the administration. Expectations from forecasters such as the International Energy Agency continue to see the market in surplus this year. Saudi-led OPEC+ has been forced to cut supply multiple times since the beginning of 2023 to stabilize prices, and while the group announced it will proceed with its plan to return barrels to the market beginning in April, it reiterated that the “gradual increase may be paused or reversed subject to market conditions.”

As a result of the conservative production approach since 2023, OPEC+ has built up enough spare capacity to offset a sharp reduction in Iranian exports. While Washington may need to work with Riyadh to convince it to ramp up production more quickly than currently planned, the buffer can insulate consumers from potential price spikes, reducing political risks for the administration.

Second, removing Iranian barrels from the equation may help the United States avoid a harmful price collapse. Oversupply is not just a problem for Iran and other oil-producing countries—it also threatens US oil producers, which require moderately higher prices to sustain production growth and generate returns. A collapse in oil prices—as seen in 2014 and 2020—would disproportionately hurt US energy interests. By removing Iranian barrels from the market, the United States could help stabilize prices, protect its domestic oil industry, and weaken Iran all at once.

Third, Iran’s oil sector is dilapidated. Prior to the reimposition of oil sanctions in 2018, Iran’s crude oil production capacity was around 3.8 mb/d for decades. Over time, that number has fallen due to sanctions and underinvestment. In December 2024, Iran’s Ministry of Oil released a report on the status of the country’s oil sector, noting it would require three billion dollars of investment to recover the 0.4 mb/d of capacity it has lost since 2018. The ministry also admitted that if trends persist, production could decrease to 2.75 mb/d by 2028. At current rates, Iran may have to choose between meeting domestic demand and sustaining exports (and thus maintaining export revenues) as early as 2026.

Finally, disrupting Iran’s energy sector is not just about economics—it’s also about leveraging an effective tool to achieve broader strategic goals. An energy-focused maximum pressure campaign could heighten economic challenges for Iran, potentially amplifying domestic dissent. Tehran will have to divert resources from its destabilizing activities, such as its nuclear program and support for regional proxies, and make real concessions or risk further escalation.

Trump’s return to the presidency presents a historic opportunity to reset the United States’ approach to Iran. Oil markets are soft, and Iran is more vulnerable than it has been in decades. By turning off the taps, the United States can deliver a decisive blow to Iran’s ambitions and set the stage for a more stable and secure future.

Scott Modell is the chief executive officer of Rapidan Energy Group.

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The hypersonic imperative

Michael E. White — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 18:27:12 +0000

Download PDF

Capabilities that are lethal, survivable, and responsive from long range, will be essential for the United States to achieve battlefield dominance in the highly contested battle space anticipated in any future conflict with major power adversaries. This is why the Department of Defense and Congress must prioritize the accelerated fielding of these capabilities.

Key points

China and Russia have seized an advantage in hypersonic capabilities, challenging the security of the US homeland and its forward bases, ultimately undermining deterrence of great-power war and eroding US assurance of its allies and partners.
Hypersonic vehicles fly and maneuver at greater than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) and often much faster. Long-range hypersonic weapons offer the potential to strike fleeting targets deep within an adversary nation and avoid ever-more-sophisticated air and missile defenses.
The US Department of Defense and Congress must make the acceleration of current-generation hypersonic weapon and counter-hypersonic defense programs a national priority while investing in the next generation of affordable capabilities, including the underlying workforce, T&E, S&T, the supply chain, and the broader industrial base.

What are hypersonic capabilities?

As a general rule, hypersonic vehicles fly a significant portion of their trajectory at speeds in excess of five times the speed of sound (Mach 5, or about 3400 miles per hour at altitude). Note that many hypersonic vehicles fly at speeds well above Mach 5. The manned X-15 experimental hypersonic aircraft flew at just below Mach 7. Ballistic missiles reenter Earth’s atmosphere between Mach 10 and Mach 20, depending on their range. The space shuttles reentered from Earth orbit around Mach 25.

Urgent investment needed to address unacceptable asymmetry

There has been a recent focus on the development of long-range, hypersonic weapons that maneuver high within the atmosphere leveraging speed, a survivable altitude corridor, and lethality to change the dynamic on the battlefield. Unfortunately, potential US adversaries have seized the initiative to develop, field, and use this new class of weapons to help create an asymmetry that challenges US and allied battlefield dominance. The United States must not let that asymmetry persist.

<10 MINUTES	Time-to-target of a hypersonic missile at five-hundred-miles range
MACH 10+	Glide speed of most hypersonic glide vehicles
2021	The year China tested a global range hypersonic glide vehicle, alarming US observers
2018	Russia starts production of Avangard intercontinental range hypersonic nuclear armed glide vehicle
2023	USAF AARW development successfully completed without transitioning to production

Why are hypersonic capabilities important on the battlefield?

Hypersonic weapons can defeat heavily defended, high-value targets from long range within minutes. To deliver effects on a target at five hundred miles, a traditional subsonic cruise missile, such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) or Tomahawk, would take approximately one hour of flight time. Hypersonic cruise missiles can make that trip in less than ten minutes. A hypersonic glide vehicle can make the trip between Guam and the Taiwan straights in under 30 minutes. Additionally, these missiles cruise or glide above most air-defense systems and below most ballistic-missile-defense systems and are highly maneuverable. Hypersonic weapons, therefore, dramatically compress the timescale of relevance on the battlefield, are highly survivable, and have long range to ensure survivability of their launch platform.

The US ability to dominate the current and near-future battlefield has been significantly degraded by the current, and projected, asymmetry in hypersonic weapons

—Michael E. White, former principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, Research and Engineering

What is the current posture in hypersonics?

Russia and China have aggressively pursued the development of long-range hypersonic weapons and have developed and fielded several types of hypersonic strike weapons that hold US theater land and sea bases at great risk. Furthermore, potential adversaries such as North Korea and Iran have reportedly developed and deployed hypersonic weapons. Russia has developed and deployed a nuclear-armed hypersonic weapon that holds the US mainland at risk from a highly survivable nuclear first strike. While the United States has made great progress developing a first generation of air-, land-, and sea-launched hypersonic strike weapons over the past five years, Washington has not yet fielded its first weapon. Most notably, the US Air Force decided not to field the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), a boost-glide hypersonic weapon, when it was ready at the end of 2023. Additionally, while there have now been two very successful flight tests, delays in fielding the Army Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) and Navy Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapons, originally scheduled to field in 2023 and 2025, respectively. As a result, the US ability to dominate the current and near-future battlefield has been significantly degraded by the current, and projected, asymmetry in hypersonic weapons.

The hypersonic imperative

To address the battlefield asymmetry that Washington currently faces in hypersonics, it is imperative that the United States

accelerate the fielding of recently matured air-, land-, and sea-launched weapons in numbers;
establish block upgrade programs that insert advanced capabilities in a timely manner;
prioritize cost-reduction initiatives to ensure the United States can affordably field the necessary capacity;
accelerate fielding of capability to defend against adversary hypersonic systems;
develop and mature next-generation weapon systems, including reusable hypersonic aircraft;
enhance hypersonic ground and flight test capability, modeling and
simulation (M&S), science and technology (S&T), and workforce initiatives;
energize the broad industrial base to instill affordability and innovation across the portfolio; and
work with allies to capture innovation and enable accelerated fielding of affordable capacity

Should the United States fail to improve its offensive hypersonic capabilities, Washington’s ability to penetrate adversary A2/AD nodes and manage escalation could degrade, making it more difficult to deter great-power war and manage intrawar deterrence. Failing to protect the United States from hypersonic weapons could allow adversaries to more effectively coerce the United States by threatening limited warning conventional strike against key civilian and military infrastructure, as well as attacking US forces deployed abroad.

Why now?

The United States must field and evolve hypersonic capabilities now as part of a comprehensive warfighting strategy to maintain its ability to dominate the battlefield against an increasingly capable set of adversaries. These adversaries have developed integrated capabilities to create a highly contested environment to defeat US and allied forces across all domains: air, land, sea, and space. This multi-domain threat must be addressed with a comprehensive and layered defeat strategy that leverages new offensive and defensive capabilities across kinetic and non-kinetic domains to attack and disable adversaries’ high-end systems before and after launch. Hypersonic strike weapons, launched from stand-off ranges that protect launch platforms, will be essential to allowing US and allied forces to defeat these systems with lethal, survivable effects in a timescale of relevance on a modern battlefield. This offensive capability must be coupled with effective, layered, kinetic, and non-kinetic defenses against adversary hypersonic and ballistic missile capabilities.

The Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force

To address these issues, the Atlantic Council has assembled a Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force to

benchmark US efforts in offensive and defensive hypersonic capabilities;
identify gaps in technology, policy, and procurement; and
recommend actionable solutions to ensure the United States remains at the forefront of hypersonic innovation.

The task force is co-chaired

Deborah Lee James, former secretary of the US Air Force; and
Ryan McCarthy, former secretary of the US Army

This task force is directed by

Stephen Rodriguez, senior advisor, Forward Defense, Atlantic Council

The task force author is

Michael White, former principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, Research and Engineering

Task force members include

Jim Cooper, former congressman; former Chair of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee
Madelyn Creedon, former senior Defense Department and Energy Department leader;
Doug Lamborn, former congressman; former Chair of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee
GEN James McConville, USA (ret), former Army Chief of Staff; and
Whitney McNamara, Atlantic Council nonresident senior fellow.

Industry task force members include

Felipe Gomez del Campo, chief executive officer, Specter Aerospace;
Hank Holland, chairman and chief executive officer of Amaero International Ltd.;
Katrina Hornstein, hypersonic portfolio director at Ursa Major;
Michael Johns, senior vice president, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions;
Cameron McCord, co founder and chief executive officer of Nominal;
Chris Power, founder and chief executive officer of Hadrian;
Mark Rettig, vice president at GE Aerospace;
Ralph Sandfry, director for hypersonics and directed energy at Lockheed Martin;
Zach Shore, chief revenue officer at Hermeus; and
Brian Zimmerman, senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Task force staff include

Mark J. Massa, deputy director, Forward Defense, Atlantic Council
Jonathan Rosenstein, program assistant, Forward Defense, Atlantic Council

Explore the program

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Now more than ever, the United States needs a Black Sea strategy

Arnold C. Dupuy — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 17:43:31 +0000

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine would continue to work with the United States on a peace deal following a tense meeting with US President Donald Trump last month. But even if the new US president achieves a deal between Russia and Ukraine, the peace that Trump has committed to achieve isn’t guaranteed. For that, the United States needs a wider Black Sea strategy.

To bring about a cease-fire in the war in Ukraine, the Trump administration has signaled a willingness to normalize relations with Russia via enhanced economic relations with a heavily sanctioned Moscow.

This course of action presents a dramatic turn from the prior US policy of unflinching support to Ukraine and opposition to Russian aggression. The Trump administration’s goals are ambitious and multifaceted: secure a rapid end to the war in Ukraine, coerce Europeans to contribute more to their security, and entice Russia into more deeply embracing the United States (instead of China) using economic incentives. Complementing the tentative rapprochement between Washington and Moscow is a minerals deal between the United States and Ukraine that would see the two countries jointly develop Ukraine’s mineral resources. If it goes through, the deal would provide Kyiv with a coveted link to Washington, though no clearly defined security guaranties have been identified in the draft agreement.

The Trump administration’s pursuit of these goals is not without risk. Russian President Vladimir Putin could view Trump’s overtures as signs of weakness, which might lead him to double down on aggressive actions or drag out negotiations to achieve a better bargaining position. Russia has a less-than-stellar record of honoring its agreements with Ukraine, so there is a bad precedent. Russia’s complex, centuries-long security obsessions vis-à-vis the West will not be assuaged by promises of economic collaboration with the United States. And even with a cessation of hostilities, convincing foreign investors to return to Russia may not be easy. Additionally, it is unclear whether better relations and economic concessions from the United States, in some Nixonian grand-strategy coup, will manage to drive Russia to weaken its links with China.

Even if a peace deal is struck, the wider Black Sea region will remain a militarized, unstable, and contested space. The end of hostilities in Ukraine does not necessarily mean the end of conflict; it is possible that Russia will gladly accept Western attention while using the lull to rest and rebuild its armed forces for a rematch with Ukraine. Russia regularly launches hybrid warfare attacks on its neighbors, and the peace deal will likely not bar the Kremlin from continuing to meddle elsewhere. Vulnerable non-NATO states Moldova and Georgia are already under extreme pressure from Moscow. Longtime regional competitors Russia and Turkey, despite their uneasy rapprochement in recent years, could see renewed friction along one of many traditional fault lines. Finally, more than just traditional littoral states are now deeply involved in the Black Sea region’s security, as shown by the introduction of North Korean forces into the war.

Trump has repeatedly stated his desire to quickly resolve the war in Ukraine. But the United States can’t stop there. Since the region is in proximity to major trade routes—such as the Suez Canal, the Middle Corridor, and routes that transport Middle Eastern energy—the United States may not have the luxury of walking away from the Black Sea without consequences for US trade and commerce that would require Washington’s attention later.

This creates even more reason for the Trump administration to develop a Black Sea security and development strategy, the pillars for which are enshrined in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. Those pillars are designed to increase coordination with NATO and the European Union, deepen economic ties (particularly in energy), and bolster democratic principles and good governance. While those pillars lack detail, they provide a solid framework that emphasizes economic development, energy security, and infrastructure support that provides investment opportunities for US firms. That all aligns with the administration’s priorities.

The president’s desire to fashion his own policy initiatives and to distance himself from his predecessor could drive him to revise the existing strategy framework to emphasize economic development or produce clear security guarantees. Such a Black Sea strategy, if fully developed, could act as a hedge should Russia continue its regional adventurism.

Assuming a Trump-negotiated cease-fire takes hold, the United States has allies in the region, notably Turkey and Romania, which are natural staging areas for Ukraine’s reconstruction and other efforts that would be part of a comprehensive Black Sea strategy. Turkey, which is home to the Incirlik Air Base and provides access to the Black Sea via the straits, is positioning itself as a regional military, economic, and political power. Romania has a growing strategic footprint, centered on the Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base and the Port of Constanța on the Black Sea. Furthermore, Romania is rapidly improving its defense capabilities, particularly through the acquisition of US weapons systems. Bucharest has consistently met the requirement to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense and could reach 3 percent by 2027.

The wider Black Sea region will continue to be a fragile geopolitical environment and the threats to US interests there will not subside with the cessation of hostilities in Ukraine. Trump understands the region’s importance and its value for US commercial and strategic interests. In July 2017, early in his first administration, Trump expressed support for the Three Seas Initiative (a forum of countries located along the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas), noting that it “will not only empower your people to prosper, but it will ensure that your nations remain sovereign, secure, and free from foreign coercion.” That vision for peace and prosperity in the region will require more than a cease-fire in Ukraine; it will require a new Black Sea security and development strategy that unleashes economic development and greater private-sector activity under US leadership.

Arnold C. Dupuy is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council IN TURKEY and chair of the NATO Science and Technology Organization’s SAS-183, “Energy Security Capabilities, Resilience and Interoperability.” Follow him on LinkedIn.

The views expressed in TURKEYSource are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Soofer quoted at National Institute for Public Policy symposium on nuclear and missile defense policy

Atlantic Council — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 14:11:04 +0000

On November 20, 2024, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer gave remarks at a symposium on “Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy in the Second Trump Administration: What to Expect and What Should be Done” hosted by the National Institute for Public Policy. In the published notes from the symposium, Soofer was quoted on the unique challenges and opportunities the Trump administration faces, with respect to nuclear and missile defense policy.

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

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Chilton interviewed about the “Golden Dome” on Aerospace Advantage Podcast

Atlantic Council — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 14:09:14 +0000

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On March 8, Forward Defense distinguished fellow Kevin P. Chilton was interviewed on The Aerospace Advantage podcast by The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. In the episode, Chilton spoke on the realities of the “Golden Dome,” saying, “I’m 100 percent for it for the United States of America but I would say first things first. It would be nice if we could defend an area as long as Israel as effectively as they just defended against Iran and I’m not convinced we can today.”

Fellow

Kevin P. Chilton

Distinguished Fellow

Cybersecurity Defense Industry

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Leaders of Hypersonics Capabilities Task Force author SpaceNews op-ed

Atlantic Council — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 15:20:26 +0000

On March 6, Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force co-chairs Deborah Lee James, Ryan McCarthy, and lead author, Michael E. White, published an op-ed in SpaceNews entitled, “How the nation can make fielding hypersonic capabilities a national priority.” The article argues that the U.S. must urgently prioritize the development and deployment of hypersonic capabilities to counter growing threats from adversaries such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

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How Europe wants to rearm itself

Piotr Arak — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 14:44:00 +0000

On Thursday, European Union (EU) leaders will convene in Brussels for an extraordinary summit focused on defense and Ukraine, amid growing concerns over Europe’s security architecture and its financial underpinnings. The summit takes place in the wake of Washington’s abrupt suspension of military aid to Ukraine, placing increased pressure on the bloc to enhance its own defense commitments.

Ahead of the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined a new proposal for EU defense financing, unveiling the ReArm Europe Plan on Monday. If enacted, this plan could see member states mobilize up to 800 billion euros in increased defense spending.

Financing a European defense renaissance

Von der Leyen’s proposal revolves around five measures, chief among them a “new instrument” that would provide 150 billion euros in loans to finance joint European defense investments. These funds would be directed toward critical capabilities, including missile defense, drones, artillery systems, and ammunition.

The plan’s funding mechanism is still a contentious issue. EU member states remain divided on the prospect of issuing euro bonds to cover defense expenditures, and so-called “frugal” states have historically opposed common debt issuance. This stance is unlikely to shift without significant political maneuvering. Moreover, von der Leyen did not provide specifics on whether, for example, unused post-COVID-19 pandemic recovery funds would contribute to the new package.

Importantly, von der Leyen did say that the proposed mechanism would be created under Article 122 of the EU Treaty. This provision enables the bloc to provide financial support to member states experiencing “severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond their control,” bypassing the need for European Parliament approval. This was used, for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic to establish the 100-billion-euro Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) program.

Additional proposals in the ReArm Europe Plan include expanding the European Investment Bank’s role in defense financing, leveraging cohesion policy funds for military expenditure, and accelerating the Savings and Investment Union to encourage private-sector capital inflows into the defense industry.

**Germany’s Sondervermögen as a blueprint?**

Even as the EU debates new financial instruments, Germany’s ongoing experiment with Sondervermögen, or special funds, has emerged as a potential template. The concept was introduced in 2022 to bypass Germany’s constitutional debt limits to increase military investment, and it is now being revisited by Berlin’s political establishment. So far, Germany has allocated 100 billion euros for defense investment that was excluded from the country’s constitutional debt brake accounting.

On Tuesday, Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) announced a plan that would introduce new exemptions from the debt brake. Under the plan, any defense expenditure exceeding 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) would be exempt. For example, if NATO were to raise its target to 3 percent of GDP, then 2 percent (88 billion euros of German defense spending) would be exempt, while 1 percent (44 billion euros) would still count toward the debt brake.

The CDU and SPD also announced a plan for a special fund for infrastructure, totaling 500 billion euros, that would also be exempt from the debt brake. This fund would be put toward modernizing education, transport, healthcare, and energy infrastructure over the next decade. At the state level, Germany’s sixteen federal states—responsible for much of the country’s infrastructure—will receive an additional exemption of 0.35 percent of GDP (which amounts to 15.4 billion euros based on Germany’s current GDP).

The Bundestag could approve the initiative before the end of the month, which would underscore the urgency of both national and EU-wide defense and investment efforts.

During this year’s Munich Security Conference, von der Leyen proposed that a national escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact on defense could be activated. This would enable member states to exclude defense spending from their national expenditures. States that increased their defense spending would thus not run the risk of falling afoul of the bloc’s fiscal policy, which mandates that government deficit and debt must remain under 3 percent and 60 percent of GDP, respectively.

According to von der Leyen, if fiscal rules are adjusted, EU countries could free up around 1.5 percent of GDP, amounting to 650 billion euros over the next four years.

A summit fraught with divisions

The Brussels summit arrives at a moment of heightened geopolitical uncertainty. EU leaders must grapple not only with financing defense but also with internal divisions over Ukraine. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico have signaled their intent to veto any increase in military assistance to Kyiv, potentially derailing a unified European response.

Compounding the uncertainty is the evolving dynamic with Washington. The summit was originally scheduled in response to US President Donald Trump’s negotiations with Russia, but tensions escalated further this past week after a disastrous meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Trump. The fallout continued with the US administration announcing that it was suspending military aid to Ukraine on Monday, further underscoring Europe’s need to assume greater strategic responsibility.

Media reports on the draft conclusions from the summit on Thursday indicate that immediate decisions on defense financing are unlikely. Instead, leaders are expected to defer substantial commitments until a follow-up meeting after the presentation of a white paper on the future of European defense by the bloc’s new defense commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, which is due this month.

The strategic crossroads

The fundamental question remains: Will Europe act with the urgency and seriousness that the situation demands? Von der Leyen’s ReArm Europe Plan, coupled with Germany’s evolving Sondervermögen framework, provides a roadmap for more money for defense. However, the political and financial obstacles are formidable.

In an era when security threats are multiplying and transatlantic reliability is being tested, the EU cannot afford complacency. Whether through national initiatives or collective action—and ideally through both—Europe must confront the reality that its security now rests firmly in its own hands.

Piotr Arak is an assistant professor of economic sciences at the University of Warsaw and chief economist at VeloBank Poland.

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Europe has the resources to defend itself and back Ukraine against Russia

Agnia Grigas — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 21:32:50 +0000

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled an unprecedented $840 billion plan to increase EU defense spending on March 4 as the continent continues to grapple with the dramatic changes taking place in the international security landscape amid US President Donald Trump’s new foreign policy agenda. “Europe is ready to massively boost its defense spending,” she stated in Brussels, noting that this was necessary to back Ukraine against ongoing Russian aggression and also “to address the long-term need to take on much more responsibility for our own European security.”

EU leaders are expected to discuss the proposed package at an emergency meeting later this week, marking the latest in a flurry of recent summits held to bolster European security and expand support for Ukraine. This sense of urgency reflects mounting alarm in European capitals as the Trump administration signals its intention to reduce the United States commitment to Europe and announces a pause in military assistance to Ukraine. With faith in transatlantic unity now rapidly evaporating, Europe is waking up to a new geopolitical reality and recognizing that it must now be prepared to defend itself.

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Throughout Europe, there is an acute awareness that the continent is not yet fully prepared to meet the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s revanchist Russia. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the largest war in Europe since World War II, is currently in its fourth year. Meanwhile, the Kremlin continues to escalate its broader hybrid war against the West. There are now growing concerns that unless Russia can be stopped in Ukraine, Moscow will seek to exploit uncertainly over the US position in order to expand its campaign against a vulnerable Europe.

In this fast-evolving geopolitical environment, European leaders must find the political resolve to translate recent statements of intent into the kind of bold policies necessary to safeguard the continent’s security. This will also require considerable powers of persuasion in order to convince complacent European audiences that security is now a priority. The good news is that on paper at least, Europe possesses the resources to assert its strength and stand alone against Russia.

The economic disparity between the European Union and Russia is particularly striking. In 2024, the combined GDP of EU member states reached $19 trillion, dwarfing Russia’s approximately $2 trillion economy. According to IMF data from February 2025, Russia does not even rank among the world’s top ten economies, trailing behind the United States, China, Germany, Japan, India, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, and Brazil. Although the Russian economy has withstood sanctions imposed in response to the invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing war has left it overextended.

In terms of population, the EU’s 449 million citizens significantly outnumber Russia’s 145 million. Moreover, Russia’s longstanding demographic crisis has worsened in recent years. Up to one million Russians are believed to have emigrated since 2022, representing the largest exodus since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Estimated Russian battlefield losses in Ukraine numbering hundreds of thousands are further undermining the country’s already deteriorating demographic outlook.

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Europe holds a significant edge over Russia in military spending. In 2024, EU nations collectively spent $457 billion on defense compared to Russia’s $146 billion defense budget. While Russia has moved its economy to a wartime footing and is set to continue increasing military spending, many European countries have recently committed to boosting their own defense budgets. There has long been reluctance among some NATO members to meet the alliance’s two percent target, but French President Emmanuel Macron and others are now calling on Europeans to dramatically increase annual defense spending to over three percent of GDP.

While Russia retains a strategic advantage in nuclear capabilities, the UK and France possess nuclear arsenals that can provide Europe with a credible deterrent. Europe has been steadily boosting military output since 2022, with share prices in European weapons producers surging to new highs in recent days in expectation of further investment in the continent’s defense industries. In terms of conventional military strength, the balance of power is more nuanced. Europe, including the UK, fields around 1.47 million active duty military personnel, according to Bruegel and SIPRI data from 2024. In comparison, Russia is reportedly working to expand its active duty force to 1.5 million troops.

In the realm of economic warfare, Russia faces significant constraints. Russian energy exports to Europe were once a key Kremlin tool but this leverage has significantly diminished since the onset of the Ukraine invasion. Instead, the United States has emerged as a key exporter of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), enabling European countries to diversify away from Russia. While Russian energy exports to Europe continue, the continent increasingly relies on US, Norwegian, and Algerian gas.

Given the overall balance of power between Europe and Russia, European leaders have ample reason to adopt a more resolute stance. By leveraging its economic strength, demographic advantage, and military potential, Europe can confidently counter Putin’s imperial ambitions and provide Ukraine with the support it needs to resist Russia’s invasion. The onus now is on European leaders to transform these strategic advantages into effective policies and actions. With sufficient political will, Europe can defend itself and back Ukraine against Russia.

Agnia Grigas is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and the author of The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas, Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire and other books.

Enter the Indo-Pacific Strategic Partnership for Accelerated Research and Knowledge in Defense (SPARK). Inspired by and drawing from the best practices of ongoing NATO innovation efforts—which Rob Murray, one of this article’s authors, created and oversaw for a time—SPARK is our proposed Indo-Pacific initiative to actualize AUKUS Pillar II with dedicated capital and procurement vehicles. If properly constructed, SPARK will rapidly cultivate government relationships, institutional knowledge, and public-private investment pathfinders—critical lifelines for a small business or start-up seeking to navigate the capital-intensive defense innovation landscape.

For SPARK to achieve its potential, it will require strong backing from a wide array of public and private actors to meet the unique demands of its strategic environment. Despite its current limitations, AUKUS Pillar II already carries the broad political and institutional support necessary to grow a new regional effort, making it an ideal initial tether for SPARK and a launchpad for expanded Pillar II engagement with Japan, South Korea, and other key security partners. This new construct will enable Pillar II to establish new structures and incentives for innovators across the Indo-Pacific and facilitate the vast technology talent and capital flows already present in the region.

Growing priority, piecemeal approach

Defense technology has become a central regional priority amid China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear forces, naval fleet, and munitions stockpiles, as well as its continued provocations in the South China Sea. In 2023, the Department of Defense spent over $1.2 billion on partner capacity-building efforts in the Indo-Pacific, nearly a third of its entire international security cooperation budget. That same year, the Pentagon’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative was funded at a record $9.1 billion—$3 billion more than the original request to Congress. Buttressed by record-high foreign military sales driven by the war in Ukraine, US armaments cooperation in the Indo-Pacific has expanded accordingly.

Yet, despite these efforts, the lack of a unified Indo-Pacific defense innovation framework has become increasingly apparent. While various US-led efforts—such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, Minerals Security Partnership, and informal Chips 4 Alliance—are slowly addressing this gap, no comprehensive approach exists to rapidly enhance strategic technology acquisition and investment in the Indo-Pacific. The Pentagon’s defense innovation partnerships with Japan, Singapore, and India are all important stepping stones toward greater cooperation, but these bilateral “defense tech bridges” remain fragmented and limited in scope. AUKUS Pillar II, despite its potential for expansion, still limits the involvement of key regional leaders, further restricting its impact. Currently, Washington’s new Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR) seeks to unite the region’s national armaments directors, adopting a similar approach to the Ramstein Group established within NATO after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

While encouraging, PIPIR’s efforts may dissipate unless a means exists to channel this momentum into concrete investments in immediately fieldable capabilities, alongside the longer-term AUKUS submarine effort (Pillar I). At present, US efforts to invest in Pillar II—though regarded as Washington’s flagship defense industrial cooperation effort in the Indo-Pacific—may not be up to the task of scaling development and production. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act allocated $25 million for “AUKUS innovation initiatives,” while the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024 provided an additional $12.5 million for these initiatives, alongside $14.7 million for “AUKUS and coalition warfare” prize challenges. The President’s Budget Request for 2025 identified a further $79.8 million in research, development, test, and evaluation funds for AUKUS Pillar II—three times the 2024 budget. While these funds add some heft to the Pillar II project, the scale of investment needed to fully realize the transformative potential of these emerging technologies is vast, far exceeding current appropriations. To put these numbers in context, just in the first quarter of 2024, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia collectively spent $30 billion on research and development. Since 2021, the US defense technology sector has absorbed $130 billion in private venture capital. As it stands, AUKUS Pillar II lacks the sustained, comprehensive investment needed to fulfill its ambitious goals, risking significant delays in a climate where speed and scale increasingly determine success or failure. If the Indo-Pacific’s purse strings tighten permanently—after expanded military budgets are wasted on outdated or untested capabilities with few relevant uses—the United States may miss a critical opportunity for meaningful change. Failure to mobilize public and private networks around Pillar II now may risk a return to a more anemic, capital-scarce Indo-Pacific defense technology ecosystem—an outcome that SPARK could help arrest or entirely avoid.

Key priorities

To maximize its effectiveness, SPARK should serve as a catalyst for AUKUS Pillar II industry engagement, drawing on lessons from other alliance consortia—especially those with a proven record of fostering innovation. For instance, NATO’s Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and its sister initiative, NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), launched in 2022 and 2023, respectively, offer a promising model for this new Indo-Pacific framework. DIANA, which became operational in June 2023, seeks to accelerate technology adoption through a network of accelerators and test sites, as well as mentorship and grant opportunities. Meanwhile, NIF was established to provide long-term investment in deep-technology start-ups. With its comprehensive approach toward innovation, the DIANA-NIF model—adapted to the unique requirements of the Indo-Pacific—could galvanize public-private collaboration and innovation across a range of allies and partners. In particular, SPARK should emulate a few key aspects of the DIANA-NIF efforts:

First, SPARK should establish overlapping networks of accelerators and test sites aimed at both low- and high-technology and information-readiness-level partners. As with DIANA, this network should not be overly restrictive, stretching across the AUKUS nations and extending to other important industrial partners in the Indo-Pacific—especially Japan, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, the Philippines, and India.

Second, SPARK should adopt a set of enhanced mechanisms for continuous engagement between the private sector and potential military end users. Like DIANA, SPARK should host regular prize challenges in critical technology areas. Successful applicants to these SPARK challenges would receive access to initial grant seed funding, mentorship, and complimentary facilities before undergoing a second round of reviews to secure additional funding for transition assistance across the acquisition valley of death. Moreover, SPARK should assign a military expert to all successful applicants to ensure frequent and formal end-user engagement as their capabilities progress from prototype to production (idea to impact). While DIANA has begun to bridge this servicemember-technologist gap in NATO, its companies still have infrequent exposure to live end-user feedback. SPARK can avoid this shortcoming by establishing a formalized network of postings for military test and evaluation personnel.

Third, SPARK should strengthen this support by establishing its own rapid acquisition vehicle, designed to provide companies in priority areas with targeted assistance to scale production. Through targeted transition assistance in the form of matching government funding and commercial investment, this vehicle would emulate recent enhancements to the Pentagon’s commercial and dual-use technology procurement efforts, led by organizations such as the Defense Innovation Unit, Strategic Capabilities Office, and Office of Strategic Capital. Along with service-level innovation units like the US Air Force’s AFWERX and US Navy’s Disruptive Capabilities Office, these improved acquisition pathfinders have proven effective in unlocking new technologies for the US military. By implementing a similar combination of activities in the AUKUS+ context, SPARK would help introduce the Indo-Pacific defense industrial base to new contracting models with built-in flexibilities to accommodate today’s rapid innovation cycles and the private sector’s focus on commercialization.

Fourth, SPARK should create an Indo-Pacific Trusted Capital Marketplace where vetted investors can engage defense and dual-use technology start-ups aligned with regional security priorities. The SPARK investment arm should consider a two-track financing approach, building on US efforts to invest in strategic technologies while combating adversarial capital. Track one, inspired by NIF but focused on debt rather than equity, should provide capital-intensive loans and loan-based guarantees (as opposed to equity financing) with long maturity timelines and highly favorable lending terms necessary for deep technology research and maturation. Given the paucity of deep-tech loan financing for national security, a more attractive set of investment mechanisms, backed by the capital and credit of the United States and key regional allies, would fill a crucial gap and complement wider venture capital efforts. Track two, similar to DIANA’s Allied Capital Community, is a new effort intended to fulfill short-term investments for late-stage prototype development. It would cater to “impatient capital” and quickly move projects to operational status.

Finally, SPARK should establish a Joint Interoperability Center of Excellence. Without an alliance architecture resembling NATO, Indo-Pacific countries struggle to achieve and maintain interoperability with the US military, much less with one another. A center of excellence focused on this exact issue would help define the functional and performance requirements of systems operating within an Indo-Pacific coalition across a variety of specific contingencies. By enabling industry to better understand and meet the demands that will be placed on dual-use systems, this center would ensure that companies with little experience working alongside the military can develop into effective partners quickly.

Road map for adoption

The war in Ukraine has underscored the critical importance of rapid technological adaptation and the swift deployment of advanced capabilities, particularly in electronic warfare. Ukraine’s efforts to counter sophisticated Russian electronic warfare tactics with innovative, quickly developed solutions demonstrate the need for a defense framework that can respond rapidly to immediate threats and foster long-term technological advancement. Drawing on these lessons, SPARK should prioritize the development and deployment of electronic warfare systems, unmanned platforms, and cyber defense tools to ensure that Indo-Pacific forces can swiftly adapt to an evolving security environment.

To achieve this parity, SPARK must balance the rapid deployment and production of existing technologies with the development of new innovations. Initial priorities should focus on immediately impactful technologies such as unmanned systems, cyber defense, and secure communications. Longer-term projects should cover game-changing technologies, such as responsible artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and advanced materials. SPARK should operate on three strategic tracks:

Rapid deployment track: Focus on quickly deploying mature technologies that are near operational readiness, ensuring they can be delivered to operators in the field as soon as possible.
Innovation track: Concentrate on developing early-stage technologies that require more time to mature but hold significant future potential. This track will drive sustained innovation and technological superiority.
Production track: Address the critical challenge of scaling production to meet urgent demands. This track will support and accelerate manufacturing capabilities, ensuring that new technologies can be produced at speed and scale.

Attracting private venture capital to SPARK will be crucial, particularly in aligning investment with mission-driven objectives rather than purely profit-maximizing strategies. The incentives for private capital should focus on profit optimization rather than profit maximization—emphasizing stable, long-term returns over short-term gains. Investors will be drawn to the opportunity to participate in projects with significant strategic importance, backed by government and military support, and the potential for steady, reliable returns over time.

To maximize effectiveness, SPARK should be structured as a cohesive entity that integrates research, development, testing, production, and investment under a unified governance framework. Unlike NATO’s DIANA-NIF model, where components function independently, SPARK’s unified structure will ensure seamless coordination across these tracks. It should be established as a regional consortium, open to Indo-Pacific nations beyond AUKUS, with a central management office overseeing operations. This office, potentially based in a neutral regional location, would enable rapid decision-making and coordination, supported by a rotating leadership structure and an advisory board comprising representatives from government, military, and industry sectors.

An Indo-Pacific SPARK would fulfill the glaring need for a unified innovation and technology acquisition framework in Washington’s most consequential arena of superpower industrial competition. A phased approach will be essential. In its first two years, through 2027, SPARK should focus on deploying mature technologies, enhancing production capabilities to meet immediate needs, and augmenting existing efforts such as the Replicator Initiative. Establishing accelerated production lines and leveraging private sector capacity will be critical in this phase. The subsequent phase will expand research and prototype development, guided by continuous feedback from end users. This integrated, multitrack strategy would ensure that SPARK can deliver immediate operational results while also securing long-term technological superiority, making it a cornerstone of regional security and technological collaboration tailored to the Indo-Pacific’s unique environment.

About the authors

Elliot Silverberg is the Director of Research at the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) in the US Department of Defense.

Jacob Sharpe is a Project Lead at the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) in the US Department of Defense.

Rob Murray is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense program and the Transatlantic Security Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

The views expressed are the authors’ and do not represent those of any organization or affiliation.

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To tackle China-enabled drug cartels in Mexico, Trump will need military authorization

Doug Livermore — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 19:00:36 +0000

In an early move echoing post-9/11 counterterrorism strategies, the Trump administration has designated eight major drug cartels, including Tren de Aragua and La Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, as foreign terrorist organizations. This sets the administration up to potentially seek wide-ranging congressional authorization for military force against these criminal organizations, similar to that which was introduced in the House in 2023 by then Congressman Mike Waltz, before he became US President Donald Trump’s national security advisor. Passing legislation to authorize the use of military force against these drug cartels would be an appropriate and wise response to the threat they pose to Americans. In 2019, the United States experienced more opioid deaths than the rest of the world combined, and these cartels are funneling many of these drugs into the country.

Congressional approval should resemble the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) enacted after the September 11 attacks, enabling the deployment of military assets against cartel infrastructure both within and beyond US borders. Congressman Dan Crenshaw, who co-sponsored the previous AUMF legislation targeting the cartels, has called for the formation of a “Select Committee to Defeat the Mexican Drug Cartels” that could eventually recommend such an AUMF. An AUMF against the Mexican drug cartels would unite various government agencies in a coordinated effort to combat what administration officials correctly regard as an existential threat to US security. An AUMF would also ensure that the United States could continue combating these terrorist groups when they inevitably fracture, change their names, or otherwise morph into groups that are different from those eight cartels originally designated.

These cartels have extended their networks into the United States, infiltrating major US cities and establishing themselves in furtherance of their criminal empires. The time has come for a whole-of-government response.

Mexican cooperation and challenges

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration has demonstrated unprecedented willingness to collaborate with US counternarcotics efforts. In the past month, he Mexican government has taken significant steps, including announcing that it would deploy ten thousand troops to the US-Mexico border specifically tasked with combating fentanyl trafficking. The Mexican Senate has also approved measures allowing US Special Forces to resume training with Mexican Marines, while enhanced bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics operations continues to develop. However, the path forward is complicated by years of cartel influence through their “plata o plomo” (silver or lead) intimidation tactics, which have entrenched corruption within Mexican institutions. This presents significant challenges for intelligence sharing and operational coordination between Mexico City and Washington, requiring careful consideration on how sensitive information and joint operations are managed.

The China connection

Perhaps most alarming is the emerging evidence of Chinese involvement in the narcotics trade. Intelligence reports indicate that Chinese companies, often operating with apparent impunity, supply Mexican cartels with fentanyl and precursor chemicals, while providing critical financial infrastructure for money laundering operations.

The Chinese doctrinal concept of “unrestricted warfare” proposes multiple indirect approaches for undermining strategic competitors, particularly the United States. Within this broader construct, the US House Oversight Committee identified “drug warfare” as one means by which China deviously attacks the very fabric of US society. This strategic dimension transforms what might otherwise be viewed as a law enforcement issue into a matter of national security. According to a September 2024 report by the Heritage Foundation, China’s facilitation of the fentanyl trade into the United States causes approximately two hundred deaths per day and cost the US economy upward of $1.5 trillion in 2020 alone.

A new strategic approach

Drawing lessons from successful counterterrorism campaigns, the administration should pursue a multi-faceted strategy that would fundamentally reshape the approach to combating cartels. As with the first Trump administration’s successful campaign to dismantle the caliphate of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the strategy should include both taking military action against criminal organizations’ infrastructure and strengthening diplomatic partnerships with regional allies. Equal emphasis must also be applied to targeting the financial networks that facilitate drug trafficking, as well as addressing the corruption and institutional weaknesses that enable cartel operations to flourish.

This threat must be understood within the broader context of strategic competition with China, as these cartels are effectively serving as proxy forces in a nefarious indirect attack on the United States.

Looking forward

Success will require sustained commitment from both the Mexican and US governments, along with unprecedented levels of international cooperation. Any proposed AUMF would provide a legal framework for military operations, but that force must be combined with other elements of national power to achieve lasting success.

Such an initiative is ultimately about creating alternatives for the Mexican people while eliminating the cartels’ ability to serve as proxies in China’s unrestricted warfare against the United States. This approach addresses both the United States’ and Mexico’s shared security interests and creates opportunities for mutual economic benefit.

As the administration moves forward with these proposals, influential members of Congress are already signaling support for expanded authorities to combat cartel influence. With bipartisan concern over fentanyl deaths and growing awareness of Chinese strategic involvement, the stage appears set for a significant shift in how the United States confronts this evolving threat to national security.

Doug Livermore is a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Program, the director of engagements for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, the national vice president for the Special Operations Association of America, national director for external communications at the Special Forces Association, and the deputy commander for Special Operations Detachment–Joint Special Operations Command in the North Carolina Army National Guard. He also previously served in the Department of Defense as a senior government civilian, intelligence officer, and contractor.

The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent official US government, US Department of Defense, or US Department of the Army positions.

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Soofer interviewed on NucleCast podcast about homeland missile defense

Atlantic Council — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 20:03:43 +0000

On February 25 Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer was interviewed by Dr. Adam Lowther, Strategic Advisor to the ANWA Deterrence Center, on the NucleCast podcast. In the episode, they discussed the evolving threats from countries like North Korea, Russia, and China, and the need for a robust missile defense strategy that reassures allies and deters adversaries.

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

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To rejoin the G7, Russia should meet several important conditions

Robert D. Hormats — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 12:55:23 +0000

On February 13, US President Donald Trump said that Russia should be invited to rejoin the Group of Seven (G7) summits of Western leaders. “I’d love to have them back,” he said. “I think it was a mistake to throw them out.”

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov downplayed the invitation, saying that the G7 “has lost much of its relevance.” But Russian President Vladimir Putin did not say no. Peskov’s statement aside, Putin may view eventually returning to the G7 as a desirable goal, more than a decade after Russia was tossed out of the group for its seizure of Ukrainian territory in 2014. Putin may see this prospect as a major victory that would reduce his isolation, enhance his global stature, and give him another venue for sowing disunity among Western nations.

But inviting Russia to rejoin the G7 before Kyiv, Washington, and the wider West achieve a favorable settlement on Ukraine and related security issues would pose serious problems for Ukraine and the West and provide significant advantages for Putin.

As a former White House and State Department official for five presidents of both parties, I can recognize the potential benefits from a US dialogue with Russia, and even a Trump-Putin summit. And if that were to succeed in meeting the requirements of Ukraine and the West, it could set the stage for reconsidering Moscow’s G7 membership. But given Putin’s statement on Thursday insisting that Russia must keep the Ukrainian territory it has seized and claims to have annexed as part of any peace agreement, reaching a successful deal will be extremely difficult. It can only happen if Putin, recognizing that his economy and domestic morale are deteriorating, is willing to make significant concessions that produce a positive, just, and durable outcome for Ukraine, Europe, and the broader West. And he hardly seems in the mood for that—yet.

During the Cold War, US-USSR dialogues and presidential summits took place from time to time. Not all were successful, but some did succeed in reducing tensions or producing constructive compromises. And generally, the best of these were quite well prepared.

But these are not ordinary times, and a satisfactory outcome now will be very difficult to achieve. I would encourage such meetings now only if the White House is assured of good preparation and sees a reasonable chance of significant progress toward a favorable outcome.

In that same vein, I would also encourage Trump to reconsider any possibility of Russia rejoining the G7 until Washington and Moscow constructively resolve a number of critical military and security issues—starting with Russia accepting significant concessions for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. If Russia doesn’t, Trump should instead use the G7 to achieve the purposes for which it was originally intended—to strengthen Western unity and cooperation.

Why Russia was kicked out of the G7

Before considering any further action on Russia’s G7 membership, it is important to recall why Russia was ousted in the first place and why it should have to comply with tough conditions if it wants to be reinstated. I was a White House planner and presidential advisor (colloquially referred to as a sherpa) for the very first G7 Summit, in 1975 in Rambouillet, France, and for roughly a dozen more afterwards. During much of this period I also served as a senior advisor to the National Security Council.

The G7 was originally established as a summit to bring together leaders of the largest Western democracies to discuss common economic challenges. It evolved over time to become a forum for discussing political issues, as well. Attending these summit meetings as a US sherpa, I was impressed with how well they functioned and the numerous common economic and political strategies that emerged.

The group became the G8 in 1997, after G7 leaders agreed to invite Russia to join. At the time, this was controversial. But there were faint signs that Russia under its democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin, whose governing team included some reformers, was moving to implement market-oriented economic and even democratic policies. Moreover, there were signals that Yeltsin was willing to strengthen cooperation with Western nations. So the decision was made to go ahead and invite Russia.

Then US President Bill Clinton and his colleagues felt that bringing Moscow into the group might further encourage cooperation with the West and give additional support to democratic practices in Russia—for which Yeltsin’s election was seen by some as an early positive sign.

For a while, other Western sherpas and I worked relatively well with Russian sherpas as we coordinated these summits. Russia sent some of its very best and most effective diplomats to represent the country. And at G8 summits, US and Western leaders worked constructively on several issues with Russian leaders. There were numerous and often productive dialogues. Many, of course, were quite candid. They were normally useful in clarifying and narrowing differences. We were hopeful that, over time, Russia and the original G7 would find more common interests and objectives, and enhance their cooperation.

At the end of 1999, Yeltsin resigned, and later on Vladimir Putin became president of the Russian Federation. He worked well and constructively with his Western G8 colleagues for several years, including hosting a G8 meeting in St. Petersburg in 2006. Hopes were growing that the decision to add Russia was beginning to bear fruit. Even during the war between Russia and Georgia in 2008, a period of heavy bilateral tensions, conversations in the G8 proved to be tense but in most areas continued on a relatively even keel. And in 2009, after Barack Obama became president, the United States attempted a “reset,” and there was little if any pressure to oust Russia from the G8.

All this came to an end in 2014. Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Obama and his Western G8 colleagues concluded that Putin’s action was deeply contrary to the spirit of cooperation that underlay the original G7 and that continued Russian membership would be a sign that the West was indifferent to Moscow’s belligerent actions.

Membership dues

Reinviting Moscow under current conditions, without firm and enforceable commitments to resolve outstanding issues to the satisfaction of Ukraine, Europe, and the West, would be seen as condoning Russia’s actions against Ukraine. But if Trump does choose to go forward, he should set terms that would benefit Ukraine and the West in ways that are consistent with the principles and spirit of the original G7. It is also worth noting that there are six other members of the G7, including four in Western Europe, and they would have to agree to Russia’s reinstatement, too.

Preconditions, as part of a larger peace agreement, that Russia end the war in Ukraine on terms satisfactory to Kyiv and agree to strong Western security arrangements for Ukraine and the rest of Europe should be part of any deal on G7 membership. This arrangement is logical given the reason for Moscow’s ouster from the group. Russia was originally expelled from the G7 in 2014 precisely because of its belligerent actions in Ukraine, so its readmission to the group should be linked with terms preserving Ukraine’s unity and security. If Trump wants Russia back in the G7, he has the opportunity to use his frequently cited negotiating skills and close relations with Putin to obtain such terms from Russia and to sell the rest of the G7 members on the idea.

If, however, no such deal is doable, Trump also has a golden opportunity to use the present G7, as originally intended, to engage in a positive dialogue with US allies on economic and political cooperation. It should aim for sustained unity on support for Ukraine, as well as common objectives on countering threats and internal interference from Russia and other countries adversarial toward the West.

Divisions in the West are growing. Adding to the G7 a country that has taken actions strongly hostile to Western interests and aims to divide it further is hardly the answer to this problem. Trying to reach a favorable deal for Ukraine, the United States, and the West as a precondition for Russian membership is a better course and is a crucially important test of broader Russian intentions—which so far seem to be moving in the wrong direction. I wish Trump success in negotiating such a deal. While the Obama administration could not accomplish its desired reset, Trump has the opportunity to produce one. But he can do so only if the Kremlin is willing to meet the several necessary and credible conditions and commitments noted above. And if Russia fails this test—which, given Putin’s recent statements, it appears that it will—it is even more important for Trump to forge common ground in the G7 on these and other issues.

Effective economic and political cooperation were fundamental tenets of the G7 from the beginning—and even in some periods in the G8 when Russia was a member. They were very much to the United States’ advantage and helped support global stability, as well. If Trump uses the G7 in the right way, he can strengthen his hand in further negotiations with Putin and strengthen US leadership overall in enhancing the security and prosperity of the West in both Europe and the Pacific. But readmitting Russia to the G7 prematurely without extremely strong conditions agreed to and implemented by Moscow would do neither.

A summit or another kind of dialogue with Moscow, which now seems to be in the planning process, might be useful, as such communications sometimes were during the Cold War. But I would strongly suggest holding off on any suggestion of an invitation to Putin to join the G7 until the results of these dialogues or summits are made clear, and only if Western leaders decide that the commitments Putin makes are satisfactory to Kyiv, the rest of Europe, and all members of the G7—along with firm arrangements to make sure Russia honors such commitments.

Robert D. Hormats is a former undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment at the US Department of State, a former senior staff member on the US National Security Council, a visiting lecturer at Yale University, and a member of the Atlantic Council’s Board of Directors.

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How the Houthis’ strikes on US MQ-9 Reaper drones serve a wider regional agenda

Leonardo Jacopo Maria Mazzucco — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 21:05:54 +0000

On December 28, 2024, Yahya Sare’e, the spokesperson for the Houthis, announced that a Houthi surface-to-air missile shot down a US MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) overflying the Al Bayda governorate in Yemen. Four days later, the Houthis boasted the downing of a second US-made drone in the Marib governorate, marking the first Houthi strike of an MQ-9 Reaper in 2025.

These attacks represent the latest in a long string of successful Houthi strikes against US UAVs since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, showcasing the Houthis’ growing offensive capabilities.

For the Yemeni militant group, imposing a heavy toll on the US drone fleet serves tactical, strategic, and symbolic goals at the domestic and regional levels. The strikes against MQ-9 Reaper drones impair US intelligence and targeting systems and help the Houthis shore up domestic and regional support. And, with the Houthis’ ties to China, Russia, and Iran, downed MQ-9 Reaper drones could end up in the hands of US adversaries.

Given the benefits the Houthis continue to enjoy from shooting down these drones, the United States needs to adjust its drone deployment strategy to ensure that MQ-9 Reapers are less vulnerable to the militant group’s attacks.

The offensive

The surge of attacks on US UAVs and the anti-shipping campaign are major pieces of the Houthi’s latest offensive. Since mid-November 2023, the Houthis have held Red Sea freedom of navigation and seaborne commerce hostage, launching hundreds of attacks on merchant vessels. Framing its anti-shipping campaign as an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, the Houthis have delivered a severe blow to maritime traffic in the commercial artery connecting the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

Quickly after the Houthis’ campaign against Red Sea shipping began, the Yemeni armed group significantly broadened its targets to any ship owned or operated by international shipping lines whose vessels service Israel’s ports. Yet, the group’s limited identification and tracking capabilities led to attacks on ships with no official links to Israel, including occasional strikes on Chinese– and Russian-linked vessels (which have since been largely spared from Houthi attacks following Iran-facilitated deals to ensure their safe transit).

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As the Red Sea basin’s maritime security deteriorated in 2023, the United States and the European Union sought to deter the Houthis by setting up multinational naval coalitions: Operation Prosperity Guardian and Operation Aspides. Though successful in countering dozens of Houthi attacks on commercial vessels, Western maritime security missions only partially restored the safety of shipping lanes. In 2024, the United States and the United Kingdom launched Operation Poseidon Archer to conduct precise air strikes on military targets in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled territories. The Houthi naval offensive’s operational tempo appears to have reduced in recent months, with the most recent attack on merchant ships occurring in mid-November 2024.

Since 2002, the United States has regularly fielded UAVs such as the MQ-9 Reaper for surveillance and strike missions in Yemen, especially for gathering intelligence on and eliminating operatives affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Despite their protracted deployment, the number of US drones lost to hostile fire was minimal, with only three MQ-9 Reapers shot down by the Houthis between 2017 and 2019.

During the Houthis’ anti-shipping campaign, there has been a marked escalation in the group’s tactical proficiency against US drones. Since November 2023, the Houthis have claimed responsibility for downing fourteen MQ-9 Reaper drones, in a series of attacks that have targeted US assets primarily in Marib and Sa’ada governorates. The intensifying operational tempo and increasing success rate of Houthi attacks on US drones are unprecedented, showcasing the militia’s improved marksmanship and expanding offensive capabilities.

While it isn’t clear what exactly is in the Houthi missile force, and thus is bolstering this offensive capability, a rough sense can be gleaned from Houthi military parades and from seizures of military-grade materials from dhows smuggling Iran’s lethal aid. The Houthi arsenal of surface-to-air missiles includes Russian-made missiles originating from prewar Yemeni army stocks, such as the SA-6/Faster (Innovator) surface-to-air missile and the Thaqib (Piercer) missile family. In addition, the Houthis claim to produce indigenous missile designs. However, those designs are either variants of Iranian weapon systems or based on Iran’s technology, such as the Sayyad-2C (Hunter) missile, the Saqr series (Iran’s 358 missile), and the Barq missile family (Iran’s Taer series).

Inside the Houthis’ strategy

Tactically, the Houthi shootdowns of MQ-9 drones primarily aim to blind the US intelligence and targeting systems. Operation Poseidon Archer significantly relies on data gathered by UAVs to plan US-UK joint air strikes on hostile ground targets in Houthi-controlled territories. Although designed to be a top-notch “hunter-kill” drone, the MQ-9 Reaper also plays an important role in intelligence gathering, surveillance, and recognition thanks to its twenty-four-hour endurance and maximum operational altitude of fifty-thousand feet. The intensification of Poseidon Archer’s precision strikes on Houthi radar, storage, and launch sites compelled the group to rely more on underground facilities and hideouts in Yemen’s rugged interior. The Houthis’ efforts to conceal strategic sites have heightened the Western coalition’s dependence on UAVs to collect actionable intelligence on military installations.

For the Houthis, the shootdowns of US drones also hold symbolic value. Direct armed confrontation with the United States and Israel is part and parcel of its ideological foundation. Wanting to be seen as capable of standing up to the United States, the Houthis have heavily propagandized the downing of MQ-9 Reapers. For instance, as noted by Mohammed Al-Basha (founder of the consultancy Basha Report), the Houthis have turned the US UAV into the main character of a satirical song titled baw-wart (“useless” in local slang) that mocks the drone’s poor combat capabilities.

The Houthis have also sought to strengthen domestic political legitimacy and gain regional recognition by attacking US aerial assets. The shootdowns of US drones boost morale for Houthi supporters at a time of great hardship under Western and Israeli air strikes. From a regional standpoint, claiming the destruction of MQ-9s has allowed the Houthis to portray themselves as the most lethal member of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance and to win the sympathy of anti-US and pro-Palestinian voices in the Arab world.

However, the Houthis’ claims warrant skepticism. The insurgent group is well known for its propaganda operations, including wielding unverifiable declarations to inflate the perception of its military performance. Since the anti-shipping campaign’s onset, the Houthis have often vaunted successful strikes on US naval assets deployed in the Red Sea, although US Central Command has been swift to say such claims are false. Similarly, the downing of MQ-9 Reapers represents a powerful attention-grabber to trumpet the Houthis’ offensive air warfare capabilities. Factual or not, these claims serve to inflate the Houthis’ perceived combat strength and burnish their image as a militia capable of confronting US forces head-on.

The Houthis’ dangerous partners

Although the MQ-9 Reapers have been shot down over Yemen, the negative ramifications of these Houthi attacks on US military assets could spill over beyond the country’s borders. After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, there has been a marked acceleration in military cooperation, diplomatic coordination, and symbolic support between the Houthis and Iran (the group’s most crucial lifeline), Russia, China, and other regional armed groups in the Tehran-led Axis of Resistance.

Russia has significantly deepened political engagements with the Houthis, showcasing diplomatic solidarity with the group’s military actions and offering a counterweight to Washington’s hardline position against it at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). In addition, US intelligence revealed that Iran mediated talksbetween Russia and the Houthis that led to Moscow supplying Russian-made advanced anti-ship cruise missiles to the group. It also reported the forward basing of Russian military advisors in Yemen, which allegedly provided the Houthis with ship tracking data and targeting guidance to increase the precision of attacks on commercial shipping.

Similarly to Moscow, Beijing seems to have intensified engagement with the Houthis since mid-November 2023. Beijing reportedly struck a deal with the militia to ensure safe passage for Chinese-flagged commercial ships. The Houthis have allegedly benefitted from China’s neutral stance at the UNSC and the procurement of Chinese-made military and dual-use components to support its domestic military-industrial base.

While motivated by different strategic goals, each of these actors share similar deep-rooted anti-West sentiments, a common denominator that the Houthis have sought to leverage to their advantage. In this regard, the militant group could offer Yemen and the Red Sea as battlegrounds from which Washington’s adversaries can get their hands on US military hardware. Anti-Western forces could have their eye on accessing US-made technology components for multiple purposes: They could attempt to reverse engineer the components, design tailored countermeasures, and obtaining potentially sensitive information stored in the MQ-9 Reapers. For Iran, getting access to US military equipment has long been a coveted prize. For instance, in mid-2019, Iran rushed to retrieve a US Navy MQ-4C Triton that the IRGC shot down over the Strait of Hormuz. But getting access to US-made technology could prove useful for others as well, including China, which faces heightening competition in the Indo-Pacific.

Bolstering the MQ-9 Reaper’s defenses

The MQ-9 Reaper is the backbone of the United States’s UAV fleet, providing US military planners with tactical depth into Yemen’s rugged interior. However, despite its technical edge over the Houthis’ missile force, it has proved vulnerable to basic anti-air weapon systems. Undoubtedly, the deployment of drones remains a preferable alternative to manned aircraft when operating in a high-risk environment such as Yemen. Yet, the rate of MQ-9 drones lost in combat since mid-November 2023 warrants attention from US military strategists. MQ-9 Reapers are worth around thirty million dollars apiece, and losing them at this pace—nearly one a month over the fifteen-month anti-shipping campaign, according to Houthi claims—is not sustainable.

Although the Houthi missile arsenal remains a low-tier threat to US aerial assets, the group has proved capable of partially blunting the United States’ combat edge, denting US air superiority, and exposing significant vulnerabilities in the MQ-9 Reaper’s defense layers. Washington’s adversaries could seek to capitalize on these gaps to further their strategic interests. After the Israel-Hamas cease-fire was brokered in January, the Houthis vowed to scale down their naval offensive, but freedom of safe navigation is far from being restored in the Red Sea. Washington should take advantage of the current lull in Houthi attacks to adjust its drone deployment strategy and accelerate the integration of self-protection kits into the MQ-9 Reaper that bolster its survivability against hostile fire. For example, such kits could include active and passive countermeasure systems against cyber and radio frequency or infrared threats.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have successfully turned the shootdowns of MQ-9 drones into a propaganda boon to tout their military performance domestically and abroad. Should the group conclude that keeping up attacks on US aircraft pays dividends, the Houthis are likely to intensify strikes on US assets. The group’s strong determination to heighten military confrontation with Washington can be seen in attempted strikes on February 19, in which Houthi rebels reportedly fired surface-to-air missiles at a US F-16 fighter jet and MQ-9 Reaper drone (but the missiles did not strike their targets).

The United States needs to keep its guard up. As the security conditions remain volatile in the Red Sea, MQ-9 Reaper drones are poised to keep playing a paramount role in strengthening the United States’ threat awareness over the Houthi menace.

Leonardo Jacopo Maria Mazzucco is a researcher who focuses on the security affairs of the Gulf region. He is also an analyst at Gulf State Analytics, a Washington DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy. Follow him on X: @mazz_Leonardo.

The post How the Houthis’ strikes on US MQ-9 Reaper drones serve a wider regional agenda appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Eftimiades interviewed by NTD on Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence

Atlantic Council — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 20:02:41 +0000

On February 17, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Nicholas Eftimiades was interviewed on NTD Evening News on the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. In the interview, Eftimiades spoke to Gabbard’s national security priorities and understanding of strategic threats to the United States today.

Fellow

Nicholas Eftimiades

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Intelligence

The post Eftimiades interviewed by NTD on Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Bakir quoted in Breaking Defense on the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire

Atlantic Council — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:15:18 +0000

The post Bakir quoted in Breaking Defense on the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Citrinowicz quoted in The Wall Street Journal on Israeli’s aim to protect Golan Heights positions

Atlantic Council — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:15:00 +0000