Crooked Bough News Round-up

— The govt reopens — with $850 million bonus for military toys!

 

at 11/14/25 2:48pm

In reopening the government Wednesday, lawmakers put more than $850 million toward notoriously wasteful military spending projects — the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) nuclear weapons program and the prospective B-21 Raider, a bomber. As Defense One reported today, funds included in the legislation signed by the president will go towards myriad projects supporting these systems’ development and basing. This includes bomber shelters and hangars for the B-21, and a simulator. About $130 million will fund work on a utility corridor for Sentinel.But $850 million is a lot of money to put toward projects frequently challenged for their excessive price tags, and questionable pay-off.Defense manufacturer Northrop Grumman, which makes the B-21, has hyped the bomber as the “future of deterrence.” But slated to cost over $200 billion, that program continues to suffer from ballooning manufacturing costs — even as critics say it offers little more to the Air Force than its predecessor, the B-2 bomber currently in service. Here, the B-21’s purported stealth has been a key selling point, but that technology did not pan out for other endeavors, including the F-22 and F-35 programs, which also used stealth as a selling point.Even as it runs more than 80% over-budget, arms control experts increasingly say that the bloated Sentinel program, which would replace the Minuteman as the land-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, is no longer necessary for nuclear deterrence. They say it may actually harm national security, encouraging an adversarial attack, rather than deter it.Before the shutdown, lawmakers already padded House and Senate versions of the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with $400 million and $2 billion respectively. That bill is currently in conference.

[Category: Qiosk, Sentinel, B21, Washington politics, Congress, Military industrial complex]

— Diplomacy Watch: Ukraine faces failure — and fate — in Pokrovsk

 

at 11/13/25 10:05pm

Any day now, Russia is expected to complete its takeover of Pokrovsk, a city in Ukraine’s Donbas region that was once home to 60,000 people. The looming capture could have serious implications for the future of the war, depending on how, exactly, Ukraine chooses to take the loss.One option for Kyiv is to carry out a rapid retreat to stronger positions outside the city, which long ago lost its former importance as a transport hub. Some Ukrainian soldiers are already making this case publicly. “It seems to me that the fate of this city is already decided,” a Ukrainian drone battalion commander told the New York Times. “I see nothing wrong or shameful in pulling our positions back to more advantageous locations.”Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, said Thursday that he had authorized local commanders to retreat if necessary. But there is no evidence yet that Ukrainian forces are taking this escape route. Instead, Kyiv now appears ready to dig in its heels and fight until the last possible moment, as it did in Bakhmut in 2023. While such a move would show resolve on the part of Ukrainian leaders, it would also likely lead to massive losses of soldiers and equipment, according to Anatol Lieven, the director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute, which publishes RS.These losses could be “more significant than the fall of the town itself” on both a practical and psychological level, Lieven said. Three and a half years into its full-scale war with Russia, Ukraine is facing shortages in both military equipment and the manpower needed to keep it running. A bloody last stand at Pokrovsk would further sap these finite resources and could lead to “recriminations” in Ukraine, according to Lieven, who noted that many Ukrainian analysts chided Kyiv for having “thrown away a lot of Ukrainian lives unnecessarily” in Bakhmut.Such a disaster could represent a turning point in Russia’s campaign to take the Donbas — or at least a major shot in the arm to Russian forces there. “It'll certainly be a boost for Putin and the regime,” Lieven said. “It will restore Russian morale, which was beginning to falter a bit.” This shift would further reduce Russia’s incentive to come to the negotiating table in the near term. Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have decided that he “simply has to get a hold of the Donbas in order to declare victory,” Lieven argued, citing conversations with officials in Moscow and Washington. And he’d prefer to achieve that goal at the negotiating table, judging at least by his recent offer of a ceasefire in exchange for Ukraine ceding the 22% of the Donbas that it still holds.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected that proposal out of hand and made clear that he wouldn’t give up the Donbas without a fight. And he had strong incentives to do so. As Lieven explained, the army would likely “refuse to obey” an order to simply withdraw from the region. But Zelensky’s refusal, combined with a Ukrainian disaster in Pokrovsk, could well convince Putin that his only path to taking the entire Donbas is through military force — and that time is on his side.Put simply, Zelensky and his military commanders are now left with a difficult choice: either retreat and live to fight another day, or double down and risk handing Putin a significant victory. All available evidence suggests that they’ll take the latter.In other news related to the war in Ukraine:—Two ministers in Zelensky’s cabinet resigned Wednesday after an investigation revealed that Ukrainian officials had received nearly $100 million in kickbacks from energy companies seeking contracts with the government, AP News reported. The scandal has taken on particular salience in Ukraine due to the fragility of its energy sector, which has suffered throughout the war because of Russia’s repeated attacks on Ukrainian electricity infrastructure. Zelensky himself risks getting caught up in the controversy, which has already ensnared several of his closest allies and which comes only months after he sought to reduce the autonomy of Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs.—Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned Ukraine that “sooner or later it will have to negotiate” and that Kyiv’s position will “deteriorate day by day,” Reuters reported. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for further talks on ending the war in Ukraine, adding that he is “ready to hold face-to-face meetings” with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.—President Donald Trump agreed to grant Hungary a one-year exemption from U.S. sanctions on Russian oil companies following a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, according to the BBC. The decision removes significant pressure on Hungary, which still gets much of its oil and gas from Russia, but it could generate frustration among states that have not received exemptions, like India.U.S. State Department news:At a Wednesday press conference, Rubio confirmed that the U.S. and Russia are holding some discussions related to the expiration of the New START Treaty, which caps the size of each country’s deployed nuclear arsenals. But he declined to specify the nature of those talks, saying only that “we have communications with the Russians [...] every day.”

[Category: Qiosk, Diplomacy watch, Putin, Zelen, Trump, Ukraine war]

— Baltics' big bear hug of Israel is a strategic blunder

 

at 11/13/25 10:05pm

As the European Union struggles to agree on a coherent response to Israel’s war on Gaza, Estonia’s and Latvia’s foreign ministers recently warmly welcomed their Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa’ar. This diplomatic embrace, occurring as Israel stands accused before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) of crimes against humanity and plausible acts of genocide, reveals a profound and damaging hypocrisy. It is also a strategic blunder. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna this week welcomed Sa’ar to open the Israeli Embassy in Tallinn. During the ceremony, Tsahkna and his Latvian counterpart Baiba Braze reaffirmed Israel’s “right to self-defense” and condemned “Iran’s destabilizing role.” This is the second visit by Israel’s foreign minister to the region in the last few months: Sa'ar's first destination after the "12 day war with Iran was to the Baltic trio of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, where his narrative of the conflict received a sympathetic hearing.But the contradiction in these Baltic states’ posturing is staggering. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have built their entire post-Soviet foreign policy and identity on an uncompromising stance toward Russia. Their historical trauma from the Soviet occupation was only reinforced by the Russian invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine. Understandably, the Baltic states were at the vanguard of a resolute response to the 2022 Russian invasion — lobbying for international sanctions, shunning diplomacy with Moscow, and even advocating for measures implying a collective responsibility of Russian citizens for the crimes committed by the country’s leadership. For example, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas, the former prime minister of Estonia, pushed for blanket visa restrictions on all Russians. While Baltic state officials cite security concerns as their justification, Russian dissidents criticized the measure as counterproductive and playing right into the hands of the Kremlin.Yet, when it comes to Israel, these same principles evaporated. A diplomatic red carpet is rolled out for the top diplomat of a state whose military campaign has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, displaced vast numbers of the inhabitants, and brought famine to the beleaguered enclave. The ICJ has ordered Israel to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and allow humanitarian aid. The ICC has indicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes — alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin. Israel has also violated U.S. President Trump’s ceasefire by killing hundreds of Palestinians and conducting more 124 bombardments after it supposedly entered into force (as of Nov. 11).The rulings of the international courts and Israeli violations of the ceasefire should, at the very least, give any nation claiming to champion a “rules-based order” serious pause. Instead, the Baltics offer full normalization and support. This selective application of international norms does not go unnoticed. It is seen clearly in Madrid, Dublin, Ljubljana, Brussels, and even Paris, where leaders have publicly criticized Israel’s conduct. The governments of Spain and Ireland, in particular, have been vocal in demanding that the EU hold Israel accountable, framing it as a fundamental test of the bloc’s values. When Baltic diplomats then lecture these same partners on the existential need for unwavering solidarity with Ukraine, their words increasingly ring hollow. How can they demand absolute, value-driven support for one victim of aggression while actively legitimizing a government accused of gross violations in another?This hypocrisy is not just a moral failure; it is also a profound strategic miscalculation. While it’s true that some EU countries, like Hungary, the Czech Republic and Austria, are even more explicitly pro-Israel, none of them is as vulnerable as the Baltics. As small countries at Russia’s doorstep, Baltic security depends almost entirely on EU-NATO cohesion. With doubts growing about Washington’s long-term commitment to European security, the reliance on European solidarity is more vital than ever. Alienating key EU member states by dismissing their views on Gaza is therefore strategically myopic. It provides ammunition to those in Western Europe who are growing increasingly frustrated by what they see as unhelpful sanctimony expressed by figures like Kallas and other Baltic leaders. The Baltics should actively avoid creating an impression that they champion a “rules-based order” only when it suits their immediate geopolitical interests — and yet they appear to be doing exactly the opposite.This strategic error is compounded by a fatal misreading of Israel’s own calculus. The Baltics are courting a country whose interests are vested infinitely more in its relationship with Russia than in them. Indeed, Israel’s primary concern is not to help Ukraine, but to deter Iran. That includes preventing Tehran from rearming and, notably, rebuilding its air defenses after the June war with Israel. Russia has capabilities it can offer to Iran to bolster its defenses. In fact, its deputy foreign minister, Sergey Ryabkov, said that since Moscow does not recognize the snapback of the U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran, triggered by the European powers, it is looking forward to expanding its military-technical cooperation with Tehran.While the true extent of such cooperation remains to be seen, the mere possibility is a source of deep anxiety to Israel. Therefore, Jerusalem has consistently — and remarkably successfully — sought pragmatic, cordial relations with Moscow in order to minimize the latter’s support for Tehran. The dynamic is extensively described in former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen’s memoir, in which he glowingly describes Putin as a strategic mastermind open to understanding Israel’s concerns.For Israel, limiting Russia’s support for Iran will always be immensely more consequential than whatever marginal gains it could accrue from cultivating the Baltic states. It is a failure of Baltic diplomacy not to recognize this obvious hierarchy of interests. Tallinn and Riga are investing diplomatic capital in an actor whose own strategic necessities align it with their primary adversary — all while risking alienating partners in the EU and NATO and undermining their own moral high ground.To be a credible champion for Ukraine, one must be a consistent champion for international law. There is no other way. If the Baltics continue down this path of selective morality and legality, they risk fracturing the very unity that constitutes their first and most important line of defense. The embrace of Israel today could pave the way for a much colder reception in the councils of Europe tomorrow — precisely when they can least afford it. This won’t happen overnight, as credibility can erode over time, especially when it is being needlessly undermined. International law is not a menu; you cannot stand for the main course in Ukraine while treating Gaza as a dispensable side dish. And much less so when the strategic benefits of doing so are highly dubious.

[Category: Latvia, Estonia, Baltics, European union, Ukraine war, Gaza war, Israel-palestine, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, Israel]

— Hegseth has a need for speed, but where is he taking us exactly?

 

at 11/12/25 10:05pm

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.Pentagon poohbah proposes procurement 'provementsIt’s oh-so-fitting that during the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, Defense Secretary Pete “Hands-Off” Hegseth took to the podium November 7 at the National War College to demand his contractors shape up. The Pentagon, he warned an audience salted with defense suppliers, “will only do business with industry partners that share our priority of speed and volume above all else, and who are willing to surge American manufacturing at the speed of ingenuity to deliver rapidly and reliably for our war fighters.”The “speed of ingenuity.”Cute.He mentioned the word “speed” more than 25 times, and it’s likely he wasn’t talking about amphetamines. (Tracking such word usage by this Pentagon has become vexing because it refuses to transcribe and post many of its leaders’ speeches, as has been Defense Department tradition since the dawn of the Internet. It is simply another slap in the faces of the taxpayers paying their salaries. Speaking of the speed of ingenuity, it simply posts Hegseth’s entire 75-minute speech online and calls it a day.)Hegseth pledged to scuttle the current process for finalizing weapons blueprints to hasten arms deliveries. He urged the defense industry to invest more of its own money to develop new weapons, instead of relying on taxpayers. He promised “bigger, longer contracts” in exchange. Such shakeups could energize defense startups and give them an edge over the Pentagon’s Big 5, which collected a whopping $771 billion in Pentagon contracts between 2020 and 2024. Predictably, defense contractors hailed Hegseth’s scolding like they were innocent bystanders.Go get ’em Pete!The Bunker has witnessed dozens of these exercises over nearly half-a-century. He’s the first to wish Hegseth well, but isn’t holding his breath. After all, books (PDF) have been written about the Defense Department’s doomed procurement reform efforts since there was a Department of Defense. “Since the end of World War II, every Administration and virtually every Secretary of Defense has embarked on an acquisition reform effort,” the Congressional Research Service noted in 2014, estimating there had been more than 150 such attempts by then. “Yet despite these efforts, cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance shortfalls in acquisition programs persist.”Veteran Pentagon weapons tester Tom Christie rattled off the Greatest Misses in 2006: “The 1970 Fitzhugh, or Blue Ribbon, Commission, was followed by the 1977 Steadman Review, the 1981 Carlucci Acquisition Initiatives, the 1986 Packard Commission and Goldwater/Nichols Act, the 1989 Defense Management Review, the 1990 Defense Science Board (DSB) Streamlining Study, another DSB Acquisition Streamlining Task Force in 1993-94, the Total System Performance Responsibility initiative of the late 1990s, and the early 2000s focus on Spiral Development and Capabilities-Based Acquisition.”The Bunker recalls sitting down one-on-one with former deputy defense secretary David Packard in the West Wing of the White House in 1986 to hear him detail his wholesale remaking (PDF) of Pentagon procurement. But it, like all the others before and since, flopped. “The problem is that the Packard Commission decapitated the department’s innovation ecosystem,” John Hamre, another deputy defense secretary, wrote in 2016. “We desperately need to restore the innovation ecosystem that propelled the Defense Department through the Cold War.”Plainly, nothing has changed in the decade since. And that highlights one of the most charming characteristics of the American character: its unbridled optimism about righting the future despite the wronging of history. The forlorn fact is that the Pentagon buys weapons the same way it wages wars. Remember the “shock and awe” campaign that was going to make Iraq a cakewalk? Or rid Vietnam of communism, or Afghanistan of terror-backing tribal warlords? Both kinds of endeavors too often begin with a bang and end with a whimper.That doesn’t mean Hegseth shouldn’t try. It simply means that the rest of us should keep our expectations in check.World's biggest air force must get bigger, Air Force saysWhenever Congress asks the military what it needs, it’s a safe bet the right answer is “more.” No one inside the Pentagon gets their hands on the levers of power if they say “less.” Absent a compelling reason, like a $38 trillion national debt (oops!) or key weapons that don’t perform as advertised (double oops!), lawmakers like to ladle, not lessen, the Pentagon’s loot. Why that happens has a lot to do with the symbiotic relationship between members of Congress and the military plants and bases back home, and a lot less to do with national security.So when Congress asked the Air Force last December how many fighters it needs, the service recently responded that its current fleet of 1,271 combat-ready fighters has to grow to 1,558 over the next decade. That’s a 23% increase. The fighter fleet must “grow to minimize risk,” the service said, brandishing a conveniently elastic yardstick that could be used to justify pretty much any Pentagon purchase.“The Department of the Air Force (DAF) is focused on modernizing current fifth-generation and legacy-capability fighter aircraft fleets, expanding exquisite warfighting capabilities, and acquiring new advanced fighter capability,” the report said.“Exquisite”?This has got to be a parody of Pentagon profligacy.Raise your hand if you remember when buying “exquisite” weapons was decidedly uncool. “An End to Exquisite Weapons” retired Marine colonel T.X. Hammes wrote presciently back in 2020. That was two years before Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering Kyiv’s non-exquisite defense that has scrambled everyone’s future war plans. “As we saw in Ukraine, battlefield innovation can make stockpiles of exquisite weapons irrelevant in an instant,” a pair of ex-Pentagon techno-nerds wrote last December.So let’s buy more of them!“The trend to produce ever more sophisticated weapons and munitions, with exquisite capabilities our adversaries would not be able to match, has led to the current situation where the Pentagon can afford to buy only limited numbers of those systems,” Andrew A. Michta of the Atlantic Council said last fall.Bingo!And that, of course, is the stealthy bottom line hiding in plane sight in all such reports. “While the document does not explicitly ask Congress for additional funds, its outlining of how more dollars could be used to boost fighter production, combined with its unclassified nature, are likely intended to encourage lawmakers to consider providing greater resources to the service,” Breaking Defense reports.At the Pentagon, enough is never enough. After all, the U.S. Air Force is first in the world when it comes to military airpower. That’s according to the independent World Directory of Modern Military Aircraft, which counts warplanes — as well as their capabilities — to rank the world’s most powerful air forces. The Russian air force comes in at #3, the Indian air force at #6, and the Chinese air force at #7. Rounding out the Top 10 are Japan (8th), Israel (9th), and France (10th).Not so fast, the always-astute readers of The Bunker aver. What about the rest of the Top 5?Glad you asked. They include the U.S. Navy (#2), the U.S. Army (#4), and the U.S. Marine Corps (#5).The Senate stiff-arms the publicWhen it comes to debating war and peace, the U.S. Senate seems to want to make the commander-in-chief the dictator-in-chief. That’s the only conclusion one can draw following its 51-49 vote November 6 to not even vote on a bipartisan measure that sought to block President Trump from launching a unilateral attack on Venezuela.That’s particularly striking in light of a survey released the same day showing that nearly three-quarters of Americans oppose presidential use of military force abroad without congressional approval. “Nearly all Democrats oppose this type of unilateral action (94%), as do most independents (79%),” said the survey, conducted by the nonprofit Institute for Global Affairs. “Republicans are evenly divided (50%).”That split between the Senate vote and the public’s wishes suggests how warped U.S. foreign policy has become. After all, 44% of U.S. adults describe themselves as independents, 27% say they’re Democrats, and 28% labeled themselves as Republicans.Trump has been banging the war drums against corrupt Venezuelan despot Nicolás Maduro for months, and ordered a series of attacks on Venezuelan-linked boats alleged to be smuggling drugs that have killed at least 76. Such a prolonged campaign means Congress has had plenty of time to debate the wisdom of a military campaign against Venezuela. But it has chosen, yet again, to duck responsibility.The poll’s polarized political support for unilateral presidential action is a fragile foundation upon which to build a war. That’s reflected in recent reporting that suggests Trump is shying away from attacking Venezuela.At least for today.Here's what caught The Bunker's eye→ F-35 pressure pointActivists have formed a cabal to derail production of the F-35 fighter by pinching its global supply chain, Stu Smith wrote October 21 in City Journal.→ Jam their satellites!The U.S. military will soon field two new weapons designed to temporarily disable Chinese and Russian intel, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellites, Tony Capaccio reported November 4 at Bloomberg News.→ Armor our satellites!Nations like China and Russia are threatening U.S. satellites with cyber attacks, which is why our satellites need to be armored against such intrusions, Rebecca Grant warned November 5 at RealClear Defense.Thanks for drifting into The Bunker’s orbit this week. Please forward on to friends so they can subscribe here.

[Category: Air force, The bunker, Hegseth, War powers, Venezuela, Weapons industry]

— DOJ asked to reveal names of Israeli influencers in US

 

at 11/12/25 10:05pm

In late September, RS reported that Israel is paying a cohort of 14-18 social media influencers an estimated $7,000 per post through a firm called Bridges Partners. The filing, disclosed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, indicated that Israel began paying these influencers in June as part of a campaign called the “Esther Project.” Yet, despite this cohort posting on social media for the past five months, not a single influencer working for Israel appears to have publicly acknowledged their work for Israel. Today, the Quincy Institute (the parent organization of RS) and Public Citizen sent a joint letter to the Department of Justice in an effort to change that. The letter asks the Department of Justice to compel Bridges Partners to “publicly disclose the names, addresses, and contracts of the influencers paid to perform services on behalf of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs” as all registered foreign agents are required to do by law. “Despite their legal obligation to register as agents of a foreign principal, none of these Influencers have filed the required registration statements with the Department of Justice,” reads the letter. To date, the only registered foreign agent on the Bridges Partners contract is Uri Steinberg, an Israeli citizen and Tel Aviv-based consultant with experience in the Israeli Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Tourism. Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist for Public Citizen, explained in an email to RS that by concealing the identities of the influencers, Americans are left in the dark. “Americans deserve to know who is paying for the messages being transmitted through social media influencers,” said Holman.Ben Freeman, Director of QI’s Democratizing Foreign Policy program, told RS last month that the influencers themselves need to register as foreign agents. “If these influencers are knowingly accepting money from the Israeli government to produce content for the Israeli government that's being viewed by thousands or millions of their followers in the U.S., it's not at all clear why they would not be required to register under FARA,” said Freeman.While the letter focuses on Bridges Partners, there may be other influencers on separate contracts being paid by Israel. A firm called Genesis 21 Consulting was hired by the Israeli government in August for “Strategic communications support, content creation, and influencer outreach aimed at improving Israel's public image.”A filing disclosed by another firm working for Israel called Show Faith by Works indicated the firm would “identify Social Media influencers to hire in exchange for favorable coverage” as part of a $3.2 million contract to influence evangelical Christians.The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs later told Haaretz that, "Claims regarding an agreement between the State of Israel and the company Show Faith concerning geofencing and payments to influencers are false.”

[Category: Enewsletter, Israel, Foreign influence, Fara, Influencers, Foreign lobbying, Qiosk]

— The top US military contractors cashing in on Caribbean operations

 

at 11/11/25 10:05pm

As fears mount that U.S. strikes against so-called “narco-terrorists” in the Caribbean could escalate into full-scale war with Venezuela, weapons makers are well positioned to benefit from the unprecedented U.S. military build-up in the region, not seen on such a scale in decades, and continues unabated.Currently, key naval vessels such as guided-missile destroyers equipped with the Aegis combat weapons command and control system — including the USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and the USS Stockdale — the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, and the littoral combat ship USS Wichita, are deployed around the Caribbean. The USS Newport News (SSN-750), a nuclear-powered attack submarine which can launch Tomahawk missiles, is also present. Moreover, Tuesday’s arrival of the Gerald S. Ford carrier strike group, the Navy’s newest, most technologically advanced aircraft carrier with escorts (USS Bainbridge, USS Mahan, and USS Winston Churchill), brings another 4,000 military personnel into the theater, on top of the estimated 10,000 already there. Washington is also examining sites where it can send additional military assets to, and is building out new construction at its former naval base in Puerto Rico — suggesting what experts fear might be a larger, longer operation in the region. If anyone benefits from all this, it is the weapons industry.Indeed, many of the weapons systems and vessels involved in the buildup come with steep price tags. Arleigh-Burke class destroyers cost about $2.5 billion each just to procure. The AC-130J Ghostrider aerial gunship costs a staggering $165 million per unit; the P-8 Poseidon about $83 million per unit, and the Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) hovercraft, which some of the warships are equipped with, cost about $90 million each.While relevant procurement contracts for those deployed systems are already secured, contractors stand to gain from their maintenance costs and follow-up services while at sea, as sustainment costs account for about 70% of their lifetime cost.To this end, contractor General Atomics quickly benefitted, receiving a $14.1 billion contract to support the procurement and sustainment of its MQ-9 Reaper Systems in mid-September — soon after the U.S. campaign against alleged drug traffickers in the region began early that month. Remotely-piloted drones known for their striking and reconnaissance capacities, MQ-9 Reaper Systems have been spotted around the Caribbean, carrying out most of the strikes against the boats.Stephen Semler, journalist and co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, told RS that the five established defense “primes,” including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and RTX (formerly Raytheon), stand to benefit the most. Although this elite group has been challenged more recently by Silicon Valley defense-tech startups, the primes already receive about one-third of all military weapons contracts in existence.Lockheed Martin products are especially well-represented in the ongoing military build-up. It’s the prime contractor for the F-35 fighter aircraft, a familiar sight in the region, as well as the AC-130J Ghostrider, which is also operating there. Lockheed Martin also produces the warships' Aegis combat systems, for which the company received a $3.1 billion contract to support this summer. It is also a primary manufacturer of the hellfire missiles likely used in ongoing strikes.At the end of October, Lockheed also announced a $50 million investment in Saildrone, which has been operating unmanned surface vehicles in the Caribbean for the purposes of counter-narcotics surveillance since February.Munitions-wise, many of the vessels present in the Caribbean — namely, the Arleigh-Burke class ships, the USS Lake Erie, and USS Newport News — can launch Tomahawk missiles, and are estimated to carry 115 of them. The destroyers escorting the Gerald Ford carrier group bring an estimated 70 more. The missiles, which the Pentagon purchased at an average of $1.3 million, could become an easy money maker for its producer — RTX — if and when the military needs to replenish. The Navy already wants more, authorizing a purchase of 837 RTX-made Maritime Strike Tomahawks, which are upgraded with additional sensing and processing capacities, early last month.“Beyond the immediate beneficiaries, the entire arms industry is set to profit from the buildup and prospect of war,” Semler told RS. “Lobbying efforts will be built around the prospect of war with Venezuela, having the combined effect of driving up the Pentagon budget, thereby rewarding all military contractors.”

[Category: Narco-terrorism, Drug war, Trump, Maduro, Lockheed martin, Rtx, Raytheon, F-35, Gerald ford carrier group, Drones, Defense contractors, Arms industry, Us military, Enewsletter, Venezuela]

— US to build major new base near Gaza: Israeli media

 

at 11/11/25 8:23am

The U.S. is planning to build a large new military base near Gaza for future use by an international peacekeeping force, according to Israeli news outlet Shomrim, which cited Israeli security sources.The proposed base, which would reportedly cost $500 million and be capable of housing thousands of U.S. troops, would dramatically expand the American military’s presence in Israel. The plan also bolsters speculation that the Trump administration hopes to play a hands-on role in the stabilization and reconstruction of Gaza following reports about Washington’s growing contributions to aid provision and even housing development in the war-torn region.The possibility of a major increase in America’s military presence near Gaza stands in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail, according to Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute, which publishes RS. “Trump ran successfully on ending the forever wars in the Middle East,” Sheline said. “Building a U.S. military base in historic Palestine is antithetical to the America First foreign policy he was elected to implement,” she added, noting that such a presence would endanger U.S. troops and increase “the possibility that the U.S. will take over Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine, potentially bogging us down in the region indefinitely.”A Pentagon official described Shomrim's reporting as "inaccurate" in a statement to RS. "U.S. military personnel are currently working with international military partners to develop potential options for basing international troops that are part of a future International Stabilization Force," the official said. "To be clear, no U.S. troops will be deployed into Gaza. Any reporting to the contrary is false."The exact timeline for construction is unclear, but American officials have already started scouting potential locations, according to Shomrim.Sources in the Israeli military told the Jerusalem Post that they were unaware of or knew few details about the plan. The outlet speculated that the base could serve as a way for the U.S. to more effectively control events in Gaza and deal with various parties, including Hamas and Egypt, without having to coordinate with Israel.The base would add to an already growing U.S. role in the reconstruction of Gaza. As Israeli forces have divided the region in two, American officials are now hoping to build housing for thousands of Palestinians on the Israeli side of the “yellow line” demarcating the two halves of the region, according to the Atlantic. These “Alternative Safe Communities,” as U.S. officials reportedly call them, would only be accessible to Gazans approved by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. The goal is for each settlement to include schools and a medical center in addition to housing for roughly 25,000 people. The State Department has already started awarding contracts to facilitate construction, including one to a U.S.-based company that will prepare the ground for the first town, the Atlantic reported.American soldiers have also begun to increase their presence at a “coordination center” for aid based just outside of Gaza, according to the Washington Post.Reports about the new U.S. base describe it as an effort to support a potential international coalition of peacekeepers in Gaza. But this wouldn’t necessarily be a United Nations-led force, as one would expect in most conflicts. While the Trump administration is seeking approval from the U.N. Security Council for a peacekeeping force, America’s proposal would place those troops under the authority of a Trump-led “Board of Peace,” according to Jewish Insider.

[Category: Qiosk, Israel-gaza, Israel, Trump, Forever war, Gaza]

— Nothing says 'Veterans Day' than military families in a food line

 

at 11/11/25 4:41am

According to reports at Military.com, which as a staple covers the daily lives and military families living on and off bases across the United States, thousands of military families are seeking food assistance due to the government shutdown, which is the longest in American history.The shutdown reached a breakthrough on Monday night, as the Senate voted on a compromise bill to reopen the government. The measure must go now to the Republican controlled House and faces an uncertain future there.In the meantime, it's Veterans Day, which is typically marked by parades and school-based tributes throughout the country, but on military bases, apparently, it is passing amid consternation and stress, as servicemembers and their families face a month without pay.The impact of the longest government shutdown in history, which as of Monday surpassed 40 days but potentially could reopen this week due to Senate Democrats reaching across the aisle, is hitting military families in every branch, state and pay grade.Families that live paycheck to paycheck are asking for food, gas and diapers. National Guard and Reserve troops are struggling because canceled drills mean no pay. Nonprofits are shipping emergency groceries to keep cupboards from going empty. A previous Military.com report warned that troops may soon miss paychecks if the shutdown is not resolved.Put the absurdity of the shutdown aside — as always the elite pay games, regular Americans suffer — but we must ask ourselves the perennial question: why does the wealthiest nation on earth have an all-volunteer military which is living on a razor's edge, unable to live safely and healthy in affordable housing or to feed their families adequately — and that's under normal circumstances. Shut down the government, and suddenly they are the working poor, standing in food lines? Begging for diapers for the baby?Yet we know the military spends billions and billions on weapons that take years if not a generation to work, like the F-35 fighter. The Navy has built, then decommissioned, $500 million ships within a decade because they are obsolete. We send billions of dollars to other countries to fight their wars and keep their own lights on. Worse the forces build systems that the defense industry wanted but put the troops at risk time and again, like the Osprey and the Stryker "death trap."Shannon Razsadin, who heads the Military Family Advisory Network, told Military.com that there were a surge of assistance requests in every branch and in every state. “Military families are strong, but strength does not fill a pantry. Even when the government reopens, the ripple effects will be felt for months.”Why is this? The Pentagon of course is blaming Congress for the shutdown. Yet the Pentagon knows there has been a problem for years with their servicemembers not being able to afford the basics, living in base housing full of mold, contaminated water, or, if there is not enough housing, commuting far from the base because they cannot afford anything nearby. That's when having a full tank of gas is not just a luxury but an absolute necessity.These troops will be veterans one day, whether they went to war or not, they will be thanked for their service as they should be. The government should be thanking them now by giving them a proper living wage. If we cannot, let's start rethinking our priorities. Better to have a smaller force and less bells and whistles than American families standing in a line begging for food and diapers.

[Category: Veterans day, Military families, Military spending, Pentagon, Government shutdown, Qiosk, Us military]

— US strikes are blowing up more than just boats in LatAm

 

at 11/10/25 10:05pm

Latin American and European leaders convened in the coastal Caribbean city of Santa Marta, Colombia this weekend to discuss trade, energy and security, yet regional polarization over the Trump administration’s lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean overshadowed the regional agenda and significantly depressed turnout.Last week, Bloomberg reported that EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and other European and Latin American leaders were skipping the IV EU-CELAC Summit, a biannual gathering of heads of state that represents nearly a third of the world’s countries and a quarter of global GDP, over tensions between Washington and the host government of Gustavo Petro.Officially, the leaders cited the “current European political agenda and the low participation of other heads of state and government.” Petro — who the Trump administration has placed on the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals list after calling him an “illegal drug leader” without providing any evidence — said last month that Washington was exerting pressure on countries, particularly in the Caribbean, to skip the event, in what he called a “diplomatic boycott.” EU Council President Antonio Costa and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas attended the summit in place of von der Leyen — who had previously confirmed her attendance in a meeting with Petro in Brussels last month — while the president of Spain and the prime ministers of Portugal and the Netherlands were among the 9 total heads of state and government present.Despite a well-attended EU-CELAC Summit in Brussels in 2023 — in which von der Leyen said that the EU aspired to be “the partner of choice” for Latin America and the Caribbean — EU leaders’ more recent concerns about antagonizing the U.S. administration have seemingly outweighed their quest for strategic autonomy at a time when the bloc is seeking to deepen its relations beyond the U.S.At the last summit, the EU, which trades over $400 billion annually with the region and is by far its largest investor, relaunched a strategic partnership with 33 countries of CELAC, or the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, in part by announcing $45 billion in fresh financing through the Global Gateway Initiative.More broadly, the EU has presented itself as a like-minded, reliable partner for Latin America and the Caribbean amid shifting geopolitics and great power competition in the hemisphere, and sees the region as a potential market for its industrial products and a stable supplier of renewable energy and critical minerals. The region possesses 60% of the world’s lithium and 40% of its copper, holds 60% of global renewable energy potential, and represents 14% of global food production and 45% of the global agri-food trade. Seeing immense potential for growth, the EU is currently finalizing two major trade agreements with Mexico and MERCOSUR (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia), a key litmus test for further biregional integration. Yet Washington’s increasingly aggressive stance toward the Americas, including military threats against Venezuela and nearly two dozen airstrikes against alleged drug boats that Petro considers extrajudicial killings, has shifted the Europeans’ calculus, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. In the leadup to this weekend’s summit, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, who attended alongside heads of state from Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, and St. Kitts and Nevis, said the meeting “would only make sense, at this moment, if it were to discuss the issue of U.S. warships in Latin American waters.” To discuss that issue, Lula went so far as to temporarily leave his own summit, the COP30 U.N. climate conference in Belém, Brazil, which both von der Leyen and Macron attended last week. Despite skipping out on Santa Marta, Macron — who apparently had few qualms appearing alongside Petro — traveled from Brazil to Mexico City this weekend to meet with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who also did not attend the EU-CELAC Summit despite expressing criticism of the U.S. boat strikes.Colombian Vice Foreign Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir said last week that upcoming presidential elections in Chile and Honduras also made it difficult for those countries’ center-left presidents Gabriel Boric and Xiomara Castro, who have attended past CELAC summits, to join their peers in Santa Marta. Bolivia, which for 20 years under the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party was heavily involved in regional fora, inaugurated a new, center-right president Saturday, Rodrigo Paz, who also did not attend. Founded in 2011 in Caracas as a counterweight to the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS), CELAC includes every country in the Western Hemisphere except the United States and Canada. The bloc has served as a vehicle to boost Latin American and Caribbean ties beyond the U.S., not only with the EU, but also with India, the African Union, the Arab world and China.In May, shortly after taking over from Honduran President Xiomara Castro as the body’s president pro tempore, Petro traveled to Beijing with Brazil’s Lula, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, and dozens of foreign ministers to preside over the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the China-CELAC Forum alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping.Yet CELAC has been hobbled by the lack of a permanent secretariat, annual changes in the group’s leadership, piecemeal financing, non-binding decisions, and persistent internal divisions.At the CELAC heads of state summit in Honduras last March, which featured a rare appearance by Mexico’s Sheinbaum, internal tensions over how to respond to the Trump administration’s migration, trade and security agenda led Argentina, Paraguay and Nicaragua to object to the body’s final declaration. The downgraded EU-CELAC summit in Santa Marta this weekend came just a week after the Dominican Republic announced that next month's X Summit of the Americas, an arguably more significant regional meeting organized in close coordination with the U.S. State Department and the OAS, would be postponed due to the "unforeseeable, profound differences that make productive dialogues in the Americas difficult." After the Dominican Republic decided last month that Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua would not be invited to attend the Summit — just as President Biden did for the 2022 summit in Los Angeles — Petro and Sheinbaum said they would not attend in opposition to the exclusion of any country.U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a number of Cuban-American Republican lawmakers immediately backed Santo Domingo’s announcement, which also cited the devastating impact of Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean among its reasons for postponement.The two diplomatic let-downs mark one of the lowest moments for regional relations in decades. Yet as the Trump administration makes its distaste for multilateralism abundantly clear, some countries in the region are taking the cue by prioritizing their bilateral ties to the U.S. over deeper integration with their neighbors. Last week, Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa received Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to explore potential U.S. bases in the country. Argentine President Javier Milei made his fourteenth trip to the U.S. in under two years to speak alongside President Trump at a Miami business summit. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele allowed a U.S. attack aircraft to operate out of his capital’s international airport. And Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar let a U.S. warship dock at the country’s main port just seven miles off the Venezuelan coast. Needless to say, none of these presidents bothered to travel to Santa Marta, and their representatives abstained from many clauses in the final declaration.

— Trump doesn't need to buy Saudi loyalty with a security pact

 

at 11/10/25 10:05pm

The prospect of a U.S.-Saudi security pact is back in the news. The United States and Saudi Arabia are reportedly in talks over a pledge “similar to [the] recent security agreement the United States made with Qatar,” with a “Qatar-plus” security commitment expected to be announced during a visit to the White House by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) on November 18. Together, these developments suggest a troubling belief that handing out security guarantees is a quick, cost-free way to reassure anxious partners and ensure their alignment with U.S. priorities. That belief is mistaken. A U.S.–Saudi defense pact would be unnecessary, risky, and unlikely to achieve its unclear aims. Rather than revive the misguided Biden administration initiative, the Trump administration should shelve the idea once and for all. The Qatar security guarantee, issued via executive order on September 29, marked arguably the most explicit U.S. commitment to an Arab state, with the United States vowing to “regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.” According to former State Department lawyer for treaty affairs Michael Mattler, the pledge to Qatar is on “par with the mutual defense commitments the United States provides its closest allies.” (Though, of course, the Qatar agreement is not a mutual defense pact, but a unilateral one, and is not a Senate-ratified treaty like NATO; as with any executive agreement, it can easily be undone.)The security deal with the Qataris was framed as necessary to finalize a Gaza ceasefire, as Qatar had threatened to end its mediation following Israel’s brazen attack on Hamas negotiators in Doha. But critics warned that it would create a slippery slope, prompting other Gulf states to demand the same. The critics appear to have been right. Saudi Arabia has long sought a formal U.S. security commitment, and nearly received one during the Biden administration. Having watched Doha secure one so easily from Trump, Riyadh is pressing its case again.What’s in it for the United States?Proponents of a Saudi security guarantee offer several supposed benefits. First, they have long claimed the United States must double down on support for Saudi Arabia to quell concerns about U.S. reliability. Saudi doubts, while not new, were hardened by Washington’s lack of response to the 2019 attack on its Abqaiq-Khurais oil facilities and, more recently, Israel's strike on Qatar, which Washington initially seemed unwilling or unable to prevent.Meanwhile, U.S. officials are increasingly anxious about Gulf states’ growing ties with China. Trump has complained that the Saudis are “with China" now due to insufficient U.S. support, promising to "win them back" and "always protect them." A formal defense arrangement, the logic goes, is necessary to pull Riyadh back into Washington’s orbit.Lastly, the Trump administration, like the Biden team before it, seems to believe that promises of protection can coax Saudi Arabia into normalization with Israel and advance a broader grand bargain to transform the region. Given how the Qatar pledge emerged, the administration may believe a similar deal with Riyadh can secure buy-in for other U.S. priorities, such as involvement in Gaza’s post-war stabilization.The case for a formal pledge to Saudi Arabia doesn’t add up. Defense commitments can be valuable when they serve a specific purpose and deter a defined threat, as NATO did vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in the early Cold War. However, the threat that any Saudi agreement is expected to deter is indeterminate, at best, and problematic, at worst.For instance, a Qatar-like pact might create expectations that the United States would retaliate against a country, perhaps even a U.S. ally, if it were to carry out an airstrike on suspected terrorists in Saudi Arabia. But who would attempt such a thing? The Saudis and the Iranians reached a reconciliation agreement in 2023, further calling into question the need for a US security guarantee. And what of internal security threats to the regime? In the midst of the Arab Spring uprisings in March 2011, Riyadh sent troops into neighboring Bahrain to snuff out anti-government demonstrations.Wider concerns about the supposedly existential importance of Saudi oil to the U.S. economy have long been disproved — largely because oil markets have become much more resilient to supply shocks — even before the United States became a net oil exporter in 2018. If supply shocks occur, Americans will feel the effects at the gas pump, but those effects are short-lived, and certainly not worth fighting a war to prevent. We’ve come a long way since President Jimmy Carter declared the entire Persian Gulf to be a vital U.S. interest. In short, there is no direct threat to the United States that warrants a security pledge to Saudi Arabia. The supposed benefits are neither material to core U.S. interests nor likely to be achieved by such a commitment.Longstanding doubts about U.S. commitment to the region cannot be papered over; they reflect a stark reality: precisely because the security of the kingdom is not a vital U.S. national interest, pledges to defend it lack credibility. An agreement between Trump and MBS can’t change that.Fortunately, the United States doesn't need to “reassure” Saudi Arabia to win its cooperation, as core U.S. and Saudi interests are broadly aligned. In the near term, both desire a lasting end to the Gaza war and a dialing down of regional tensions. Likewise, Saudi Arabia shares the United States’ goals of energy security, counterterrorism, and preventing the rise of a regional hegemon. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s recent deal with Pakistan is cause for optimism, if Washington plays its cards right, as our Stimson colleague Asfandyar Mir notes.China’s inroads in the Persian Gulf pose little threat to the United States. Beijing's engagement in the Middle East is driven primarily by economic interests, not a desire to dominate the region, which it has neither the intent nor the capability to do. At the same time, promises of U.S. protection will not pull Riyadh away from Beijing, which is seen as a critical partner in Saudi efforts to diversify its economy, deepen partnerships, and bolster its international standing. Trying to out-bid China through security concessions would be both costly and futile. Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reports that MBS has admitted to "playing major powers against each other" to secure U.S. concessions, which should give Washington pause rather than encourage more generosity.And while Israeli-Saudi normalization would be welcome, it would be a mostly symbolic achievement; the countries already discreetly cooperate on the issues that matter. Normalization certainly isn't worth the cost of a U.S. pledge to defend Riyadh, which amounts to rewarding both parties for doing what is already in their mutual interest, especially when Saudi officials have ruled out normalization absent significant steps toward a Palestinian state, which are unlikely in the near term. Risks of a Saudi PactA security pact with Saudi Arabia might not bring many benefits, but it would come with significant downsides. It would create moral hazard, risking U.S. entrapment through what MIT’s Barry Posen calls “reckless driving.” Consider Riyadh’s actions in Yemen. Extensive U.S. support emboldened Saudi Arabia to wage a disastrous, failed intervention there that dragged on for seven years, fueling a war that claimed close to 400,000 lives, including nearly 20,000 civilians killed by airstrikes. But when the United States’ failure to respond forcefully to the Abqaiq-Khurais attack showed Riyadh it could not count on unconditional U.S. backing, it had no choice but to seek an exit from Yemen. Even if Saudi Arabia does not behave recklessly, a pledge to defend the kingdom would limit U.S. flexibility and increase pressure to intervene if Saudi Arabia comes under attack again.Even a watered-down or largely symbolic commitment would carry risks. Regardless of the specifics of the security agreement, if Saudi Arabia were attacked, a written commitment would provide ammunition to those pressing for U.S. intervention, even though U.S. core interests do not justify it. The language of the Qatar security guarantee has been widely accepted as “akin to NATO’s Article 5,” setting unrealistic expectations. Any formal arrangement would also send the message to Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that they can still rely on the United States, rather than encouraging them to take their security into their own hands. American protection, it seems — and potentially the lives of American servicepeople — is up for negotiation. It shouldn’t be.Above all, additional commitments would delay a long-overdue U.S. recalibration away from the Middle East. The United States can secure its modest interests in the region without maintaining a major military presence, and certainly without pledging to fight on behalf of Riyadh. It would be foolish for an overstretched America to take on further burdens in a region of declining strategic importance.

[Category: Israel, Gaza war, Palestine, Israel-palestine, Mohammed bin salman, Yemen, Saudi arabia, Enewsletter]

— Trump brings out the big guns for Syrian leader's historic visit

 

at 11/10/25 1:45pm

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with President Donald Trump for nearly two hours in the Oval Office Monday, marking the first ever White House visit by a Syrian leader.The only concrete change expected to emerge from the meeting will be Syria’s joining the Western coalition to fight ISIS. In a statement, Sharaa’s office said simply that he and Trump discussed ways to bolster U.S.-Syria relations and deal with regional and international problems. Trump, for his part, told reporters later in the day that the U.S. will “do everything we can to make Syria successful,” noting that he gets along well with Sharaa. “I have confidence that he’ll be able to do the job,” Trump added.But perhaps more important than the details of the meeting was the fact that it happened at all — and that Trump was joined by nearly all of his top foreign policy aides, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine. Last week, Sharaa was still a designated terrorist in the eyes of the U.S. government. Now, Trump is hosting him in the White House as a legitimate national leader and a legitimate partner in the fight against terrorism. — (@) For many analysts in Washington, this progress has been somewhat head-spinning. “This is the fastest normalization process that I’ve ever seen,” said Adam Weinstein, the deputy director of the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute, which publishes RS. “The embrace of Sharaa by the U.S. and the Europeans is sort of unprecedented, especially given his personal history.”Last week, Trump officially removed Sharaa from a list of designated terrorists, and the U.S. led an effort at the United Nations Security Council to lift U.N. sanctions on Sharaa, making him a legally legitimate actor in the eyes of the West. But, even amid all of this progress, serious challenges still stand in the way of Sharaa’s efforts to reorient Syrian foreign policy and rebuild his shattered country.The largest remaining obstacle in U.S.-Syria relations are the Caesar sanctions, a brutal set of economic restrictions that has stayed in place despite the fall of the Assad regime. Trump suspended these sanctions in May and reupped that suspension for an additional 180 days on Monday. But the Caesar Act remains on the books, meaning that a future president could theoretically reimpose the sanctions at a moment’s notice. This looming threat has left many companies unwilling to invest in Syria, handicapping the country’s reconstruction during a fragile moment of transition, as RS detailed last month following a trip to the country. “If you really want to give the new government the best chance of success, remove all the sanctions,” Weinstein said.Trump will have to prove that he and his envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, can persuade a Republican-led Congress to give Sharaa a chance despite lawmakers’ concerns about the former al-Qaeda fighter. The Senate relented last month, passing a bill that would largely repeal the Caesar Act. But the House continues to hold out. — (@) In this sense, Trump’s decision to host Sharaa has already started to pay off. Late Sunday night, the Syrian president met with Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a vocal proponent of keeping sanctions in place. One analyst with direct knowledge of the conversation described it as “positive and constructive.” Mast has yet to indicate a change in his view on sanctions, but he did signal a less combative view of Syria’s president. In a statement after the meeting, the lawmaker said he told Sharaa that they were “two former soldiers and two former enemies” and asked why he should reconcile with the new Syrian leader. According to Mast, Sharaa responded that he hopes to “liberate from the past and have a noble pursuit for his people and his country and to be a great ally to the United States of America.”Perhaps helping Mast along is the fact that, under Sharaa, Syria’s interests have begun to overlap more closely with those of the U.S. Damascus is determined to defeat ISIS, which has attempted to assassinate Sharaa at least twice in recent months, Syrian officials told Reuters last week. To facilitate the anti-ISIS fight, the new Syrian leader is apparently willing to accept a continued U.S. military presence in the country, possibly including a new deployment of American forces to an airbase in Damascus.Sharaa also aligns closely with the Trump administration on Iran, once a key supporter of the now-defunct Assad regime. In fact, Syria even shares this interest with Israel, which is determined to prevent Syria from returning to its previous role as a key meeting point and transport corridor between Iran and Hezbollah. “We have, as I mentioned, converging interests, as relates to Iran and the Iranian axis, and that provides a good platform for cooperation,” said Michael Herzog, who served as Israeli ambassador to the U.S. until earlier this year.Unfortunately for Sharaa, the list of shared interests between Syria and Israel doesn’t extend far beyond the issue of Iran. Since the fall of Assad, Israeli forces have occupied parts of southern Syria and carried out a bombing campaign against military sites throughout the country. The new Syrian leader has made clear that he has no intention of attacking Israel, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains unconvinced. Still, Israeli officials have held direct talks with Sharaa’s government, and some pro-Israel analysts see a possibility of a U.S.-brokered security deal between the neighboring countries. “The U.S. is a key actor here, and it could bridge the gaps between the parties and basically provide the guarantees,” Herzog said during a panel discussion hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.Herzog, who remains close to the Israeli security establishment, hopes that such a deal would mirror last year’s ceasefire with Lebanon, under which Israel formally agreed to end the war but informally agreed with the U.S. to retain “freedom of action” to carry out airstrikes against emerging threats. (One analyst called this approach a “lessfire.”) Such an agreement would likely draw scrutiny within Syria, where many people remain skeptical of any dealings with Israel. But it could still prove attractive to Sharaa, who has no shortage of problems to solve as he attempts to hold his country together after 14 years of brutal war. Simply put, the Syrian leader has a strong incentive to continue building trust with the Trump administration, which can play a crucial role in fixing many of these problems. Take, for example, Damascus' relationship with the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, which continue to hold much of Syria’s northeast despite the end of the civil war. The SDF has long held significant sway in the U.S., due in no small part to its strong relationships with members of Congress. And it remains skeptical of Sharaa’s government, particularly following massacres of minorities in coastal regions and the south. Some reports indicate that SDF leaders are simply hoping to wait for the government in Damascus to fall apart before reaching any final agreement with it.But Barrack’s strong relationship with Sharaa’s government has limited the SDF’s influence over U.S. policy, and the Syrian government has every reason to ensure that these ties continue to blossom. And the SDF’s power could wane further if the U.S. moves some of its troops from northeast Syria to Damascus, a plan that may already be in motion, according to Reuters.“The history of the U.S.-Kurdish partnership is leaving the Kurds out to dry periodically,” said Weinstein, adding that the SDF doesn’t appear to have “that much cache with Barrack.”In this sense, Sharaa scored a major victory by simply meeting with Trump. The American leader is known to put a premium on personal relationships in his conduct of foreign policy. Sharaa and his team “know the importance of him coming to the U.S. and showing up at Trump’s door,” Weinstein said. “It has a lot of power.”

[Category: Trump, Israel, Brian mast, Jd vance, Syria, Enewsletter]

— America First? For DC swamp, it's always 'War First'

 

at 11/10/25 4:48am

The Washington establishment’s long war against reality has led our country into one disastrous foreign intervention after another. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya to Syria, and now potentially Venezuela, the formula is always the same. They tell us that a country is a threat to America, or more broadly, a threat to American democratic principles. Thus, they say the mission to topple a foreign government is a noble quest to protect security at home while spreading freedom and prosperity to foreign lands. The warmongers will even insist it’s not a choice, but that it’s imperative to wage war.These “War First” ideologues across Washington have recycled their experiments in regime change for decades, with only instability, chaos, suffering, and resentment to show for it. But no matter their recent failures, they promise that the next regime change will work, that the next country in the crosshairs will soon be a beacon of human freedom and aspiration. If anyone questions this narrative, they are warned of some hypothetical alternative that is always worse, but never real. It’s a geopolitical game of: Heads, they win. Tails, we lose.We are assured that only drug smugglers are the target of U.S. operations in the Caribbean, but these assurances don’t reflect the growing reality in the region — that is, unless the U.S. plans to attack small drug boats with the overwhelming power of an aircraft carrier, which is perhaps akin to killing a housefly with a steamroller. But with over 10,000 U.S. troops, eight warships, a Virginia-class submarine, and a dozen F-35s already in the Caribbean, and now the USS Gerald Ford Strike Group surging toward the region, the stage is clearly being set for something larger. It is the height of arrogance to think we can forcibly remove the dictatorship in Venezuela and expect anything different than history has already shown. Liberty cannot be imposed at the point of a foreign bayonet. Overthrowing Maduro risks creating more instability, not less. The breakdown of state authority may create a power vacuum that even the drug cartels themselves may fill. A generation of purges within the ranks of the Venezuelan military makes them a wild card in the event of an actual war, and we cannot assume they will fold and happily serve a new government preferred by the United States. Think of the anarchy that followed our wars in the Middle East. Do we really want to risk creating similar conditions in our own backyard?There are assumptions made that, if the U.S. does pursue regime change, it would be an overwhelming victory. But what if an airstrikes-only strategy doesn’t push Maduro out? What if the country is split or spirals into civil war? Will we have to escalate further and further until Maduro is toppled?Most consequentially, any military operation comes with the knowledge that American servicemembers will be put into harm’s way, at risk of injury or death. We owe it to our servicemembers to send them into harm’s way only when vital American interests and security are at stake. Striking down the government of Venezuela, ostensibly for its leader’s ties to drug dealers, does not meet these most important conditions.In addition to the dangers of a regime change war in Venezuela, there is also the inconvenient fact that no president has the authority to unilaterally launch wars as he sees fit. Our founders had the foresight to recognize that the executive is the branch most prone to seek war. They therefore made clear in the Constitution that Congress maintains the exclusive power to declare war. The War First swamp will try to muddy the waters as to whether they have authority to act against Venezuela, but to be clear: “limited airstrikes” against targets in Venezuela are still an act of war, and a closed-door briefing with Congress will not satisfy the Constitution’s requirement for congressional approval.Part of President Trump’s broad appeal was his strong contempt for the neocons on the right and the liberal internationalists on the left who are always looking for the next war for someone else’s children to fight. He rightfully criticized those in Washington who supported nation building fantasies throughout the Middle East. His criticism of our failed occupations was correct, his peace agenda was affirmed by the American people, and he should not let his pursuit of peace be derailed by the Washington swamp’s War First agenda. It is time for the first branch of government to put America First. Congress should, and must, have final say whether to pursue a war of choice against Venezuela. The president has been applying pressure, but the decision to wage war absolutely belongs to Congress. For its part, Congress should stand by the principles of restraint, as embodied by President Trump’s peace agenda and his promises to the American people. Congress must stand firm in protecting the American people from another of Washington’s dangerous and unpredictable regime change wars. War is a last resort, not a first move in some global chess game. The world has a tricky way of working differently than imagined in a conference room deep in the Washington swamp. People die in wars. Civilians are displaced or killed. Any number of unforeseen scenarios could play out. We should not pursue these policies casually, and Congress must fulfill its role in preventing a rush to war.

[Category: Us military, Trump, Newsletter, Arlington cemetery, Maduro, Narco-terrorism, Drug war, War powers, Congress, Rand paul, Venezuela]

— Invading Panama and deposing Noriega in 1989 was easy, right?

 

at 11/9/25 10:05pm

On Dec. 20, 1989, the U.S. military launched “Operation Just Cause” in Panama. The target: dictator, drug trafficker, and former CIA informant Manuel Noriega.Citing the protection of U.S. citizens living in Panama, the lack of democracy, and illegal drug flows, the George H.W. Bush administration said Noriega must go. Within days of the invasion, he was captured, bound up and sent back to the United States to face racketeering and drug trafficking charges. U.S. forces fought on in Panama for several weeks before mopping up the operation and handing the keys back to a new president, Noriega opposition leader Guillermo Endar, who international observers said had won the 1989 election that Noriega later annulled. He was sworn in with the help of U.S. forces hours after the invasion. As they say in school, “easy-peasy.” Could an operation to take out a modern narco kingpin and dictator in Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, be much different? “What I would say to you is that a Venezuela invasion does not look like Panama, it looks more like Iraq (in 2003). Venezuela is a larger, and more complicated operation than Panama,” said one retired military officer who spoke to Responsible Statecraft. He served in both the 1989 invasion and in the war in Iraq 15 years later, before spending the rest of his career in government.“There are a lot of very specific circumstances that were in place in Panama, that we don't have in most other places,” he noted, starting with the fact that there was a U.S. embassy, garrisoned troops as part of the U.S. Southern Command (upwards of 14,000 stationed there before Operation Just Cause; 26,000 total for the invasion) and a rich intelligence network built up over the decades when Americans were running the Panama Canal zone. Most importantly, Noriega, he said, was unpopular inside and outside of the country and much more vulnerable. “The Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) was already fragmented and divided before the invasion. I mean, people forget that there had been a coup attempt against Noriega in October, just two months before Operation Just Cause,” points out Orlando Perez, professor of political science at the University of North Texas at Dallas and author of “Political Culture in Panama: Democracy after Invasion.”“Also, the PDF, their deployment was centralized. It was all headquartered in Panama City, that's where most of the forces were. And so once you captured the comandancia, the headquarters, which was in Panama City, the whole thing collapsed.” A U.S. Army M113 armored personnel carrier guards a street near the destroyed Panamanian Defense Force headquarters building during the second day of Operation Just Cause, Dec. 20 ,1989. (Dod photo)There is no U.S. embassy in Venezuela; relations have been cut off since 2019. Moreover, said the retired military officer, after a high-profile coup attempt against then-President Hugo Chavez in 2002, Maduro’s government is more coup-proof than ever, and looks more like Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party in Iraq, which means it is integrated into the society in ways that ensures a lot more loyalty than Noriega, who as a military chief did not rule directly but rather through puppet presidents, from 1983 until his capture.“This (Maduro) regime has had a long time to embed itself, and it's built sort of this political and party apparatus extending across every element of society, in every school, in every company, every office. And Noriega didn't have that. He had a much more sclerotic kind of political structure around him, mainly because he's more of a gangster,” he said.“Look, Noriega decapitated a lot of his own leadership with purges to try and make sure that they were as loyal to him. Now they weren't going to fight for him. I mean, you know, we hit him hard, and they kind of melted away. They did fight. I mean, in all honesty, they did…but once they saw the writing on the wall they made different choices.” General Manuel Noriega is escorted onto American military aircraft by DEA agents shortly after his surrender and arrest in Panama, Jan, 3, 1989. (Public domain/Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files)The United States military has been building up hard naval and air assets and amassing troops on its nearby military installation in Puerto Rico and off the coast of Venezuela for the last month. According to reports, it could have some 16,000 personnel in the region with the arrival of the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group. That is hardly enough for a “Just Cause” invasion of Venezuela, note the experts who spoke with Responsible Statecraft.“The analogy, it breaks down in many different ways. Venezuela is about 12 times larger than Panama. Panama had perhaps 2.4 million people (in 1989). That's about the population of Caracas alone. The Venezuela urban landscape is much denser and more complex than Panama City,” said Perez. Moreover, despite very real suspected vulnerabilities on the part of Maduro, that his support is soft, that he has built it through a regime of political favors and corruption, Perez said that he thinks “there is enough of an organized resistance that (U.S.) military planners need to think about, at least consider and not dismiss.” “So the argument is, it's brittle there, you know, they've been bought off, and they will collapse immediately. That when the Marines show up on shore, these people will collapse and there will not be a resistance. Well, you know, we don't know that. Their livelihoods, their lives, will be at stake, many of them, you know, might end up in jail or executed,” so there are plenty of incentives for them to resist, he added.Aside from the geographic differences between the two countries (experts said it would take at least 100,000 U.S. forces or more to properly invade the country, depose Maduro, and then try to restore order), there is the matter of intelligence. The U.S. had a large military footprint in Panama since the opening of the canal in 1914 and 1999, when a treaty brokered by President Jimmy Carter to hand the canal back to the Panamanians, took effect. Through paid operatives like Noriega, the CIA had used the country as a base for Cold War-era covert ops throughout Latin America. Beyond that, the American military itself had been living, working, and laying down a semblance of roots in Panama that allowed for a level of operational awareness that just cannot be replicated in Maduro’s Venezuela.“We had thousands of troops down there who were married to Panamanian women. They had their in-laws spread across the country. All of them hated Noriega. We had people coming in to work in the base who hated Noriega and would tell us all kinds of things,” said the retired officer. “They’d grab me because I was a Spanish-speaking officer, and they're like, let me tell you this, this, this, and this. I got guys who would tell me where the checkpoints were every day as they were coming in.”“Here's a great story,” he added. “We got a report of Noriega militias massing in a neighborhood in Panama City, and my roommate called his girlfriend who lived there and she said it wasn't true, that's what we could do.”The experts cautioned that the most important take-away from Panama is not that the invasion and capture of Noriega was “easy” but that, despite establishing a working democracy, it did not necessarily make life in Panama any easier. It did not stop the crime and illicit drug flows into the U.S. and, if anything, it gave Washington a false sense of how it could pursue intervention and regime change in the future. The prime example is the much larger First Gulf War of 1991, just two years later. H.W. Bush declined to depose Iraq’s Saddam Hussein at the time, but his son was convinced to follow through in 2003, resulting in one of the biggest U.S. foreign policy debacles in modern history.“It taught us the wrong lessons, yes,” the retired U.S. military officer said. “There is this idea that this works here, therefore it’ll work there. But I think that what the policy community does is it incorporates a Cliff Notes version of history, it takes a complex situation, settles on a narrative, and then incorporates this very Cliff Notes half-assed version of what happened, and that becomes the lesson learned.”

[Category: Panama, Panama invasion, Enewsletter, Noriega, Maduro, Regime change, Hw bush, Trump, Us military, Venezuela]

— Dick Cheney's ghost has a playbook for war in Venezuela

 

at 11/9/25 10:05pm

Former Vice President Richard Cheney, who died a few days ago at the age of 84, gave a speech to a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August 2002 in which the most noteworthy line was, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” The speech was essentially the kickoff of the intense campaign by the George W. Bush administration to sell a war in Iraq, which it would launch the following March. The campaign had to be intense, because it was selling a war of aggression — the first major offensive war that the United States would initiate in over a century. That war will forever be a major part of Cheney’s legacy.The Donald Trump administration’s escalation of confrontation with Venezuela displays disturbing parallels with the run-up to the Iraq War. In some respects where the stories appear to differ, the circumstances involving Trump and Venezuela are even more alarming than was the case with Iraq.One similarity involves corruption of the relationship between intelligence and policy. Instead of policymakers using intelligence as an input to their decisions, they have tried to use scraps of intelligence publicly to make a case for a predetermined policy. This part of the story of the Iraq War I have recounted in detail elsewhere.Cheney’s speech to the VFW preceded and in effect pre-empted work by the intelligence community on a classified estimate, which would become notorious in its own right, about Iraqi weapons programs. When Bob Graham, who died last year and in 2002 was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, became one of the few members of Congress to bother to read that estimate, he was so taken aback by how far short the intelligence community’s judgments were from what the administration was saying publicly that he voted against the resolution authorizing the war.The Trump administration is using the same tactic of preemptive messaging from the top, regardless of what the intelligence agencies may be saying about Venezuela, that the Bush administration used regarding Iraq. Trump’s declarations about the regime of Nicolás Maduro have a definitive tone similar to Cheney’s “no doubt” formulation about Iraqi weapons programs.Besides weapons of mass destruction, the other big issue that the Bush administration attempted to pin on Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime — capitalizing on the American public’s furor over terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — was a supposed “alliance” between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda. No such alliance existed, and the administration’s assertions on that subject were contrary to the intelligence community’s judgments.The parallel with the current situation regarding Venezuela is especially clear, given the Trump administration’s assertions about the relationship between Maduro’s regime and certain gangs or drug cartels, which the administration equates with terrorist groups. Trump has declared that the gang most often mentioned, Tren de Aragua, is “operating under the control of” Maduro. This assertion is contradicted by the intelligence community’s judgments, as incorporated in a memorandum that is now available in redacted form.The Bush administration not only disregarded intelligence judgments that did not support its case for war but also actively tried to discredit those judgments, and Cheney’s office was a part of this. For example, the policymakers tried to make life difficult for a former ambassador, Joseph Wilson, who, as a result of field research he performed for the intelligence community, was able to refute an administration assertion about Iraq buying uranium in Africa. The difficulties imposed on Wilson involved the career-ending outing of his wife, who was an intelligence officer under cover. Cheney aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted and sentenced to prison for obstructing justice and lying under oath in connection with that affair.Cheney unsuccessfully lobbied President Bush to pardon Libby. But in a further connection to the present, Trump pardoned Libby in 2018.The Trump administration is more ruthless than Bush’s ever was in making life difficult for anyone who dares to question its assertions or otherwise gets in the administration’s way. Following production of the intelligence memorandum that contradicted the assertions about the connection between the Maduro regime and Tren de Aragua, the head and deputy head of the component that produced the memo — which had been coordinated throughout the intelligence community — were both fired.One of the most remarkable things about Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq was that there was no policy process preceding the decision. There was no options paper or meeting of administration principals that ever addressed the question of whether launching a war in Iraq was a good idea.The parallel situation in the Trump administration involves the disorder produced by widespread political purges and Trump’s own impulsive style of operating. Especially relevant has been the disembowelment of the National Security Council, which is where an orderly policy process would be managed. The disorder there has been appropriately blamed for recent policy failures on other issues, such as security-related concessions to China.Regime change in Iraq was a long-held dream of American neoconservatives. The militant post-9/11 mood of the American public and the appointment of prominent neoconservatives to senior positions in Bush’s administration finally brought that dream within reach.The ouster of leftist regimes in Latin America has been a similarly longstanding objective of a strain of opinion whose foothold in the Trump administration is represented especially by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The Maduro regime in Venezuela is the immediate target, but this strain of opinion is driven at least as much by fervid opposition to the regime in Cuba, which is an ally of Venezuela. As acting head of the NSC as well as secretary of state, Rubio is well-positioned to preclude anything looking like a policy process that would stop the drive toward regime change.After lacking a clear sense of direction during the first several months of his presidency, Bush found purpose as a “war president.” Even after getting a big boost in the polls after 9/11, leading the nation in a real shooting war rather than just a metaphorical “war on terror” seemed most likely to sustain the purpose and the popularity. Thus, Bush was susceptible to being led into the Iraq imbroglio by the neocons in his administration and assertive nationalists like Cheney and then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.Donald Trump, being deeply under water in the polls, is even more in need of a boost and a distraction from an economic situation that underlies his bad poll numbers. And Trump clearly favors the tactic of doing things that distract. He also is vulnerable to being swayed less by any policy process than by the last person in the room, at least certain types of person, as illustrated by the remarkable influence in his administration of the right-wing activist Laura Loomer.We should never lose sight of how colossal a blunder the Iraq War was. American casualties included more than 4,400 dead and nearly 32,000 wounded. Monetary costs, both direct and indirect, run upwards of $3 trillion. The war left an Iraq wracked by insurgency, leading to creation of the terrorist group that would become known as ISIS and take over much of Iraq and Syria, as well as to boosting Iranian influence. The negative vibrations are still felt today, as reflected in the statement the other day by the Iraqi prime minister that no disarmament of Iranian-influenced militias will take place until the United States withdraws completely from Iraq.Many Americans, on both the right and the left, have looked with hope to Trump when he has spoken of wanting no more foreign wars. But the current trajectory is not reassuring, and one should not place much reliance on his recent comment in an interview downplaying the possibility of an American war in Venezuela.

[Category: Dick cheney, Iraq war, Regime change, South america, Drug war, Narco-terrorism, Venezuela]

— Biden greenlit Israel’s strikes in Lebanon, says former Israeli diplomat

 

at 11/7/25 11:37am

The Biden administration reached “side understandings” to allow Israel to continue bombing targets in Lebanon despite a ceasefire reached late last year, according to Michael Herzog, who was then serving as Israel’s ambassador to the U.S.Herzog revealed the handshake deal, which had not previously been confirmed, during a Friday panel at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. One key result of the agreement, which Herzog helped negotiate, was maintaining Israel’s “freedom of action against threats” when other parties are “unwilling or incapable” of containing them, he said. “That was achieved through side understandings with the government of the United States,” Herzog said. “And it’s been implemented in Lebanon.”The revelation helps explain why the U.S. has stayed relatively quiet over the last year about alleged Israeli ceasefire violations, including near daily airstrikes and commando raids against what Israel claims are Hezbollah-related sites in southern Lebanon. These attacks, which have killed at least 100 Lebanese civilians, seem to represent a far cry from the “permanent cessation of hostilities” that President Joe Biden claimed would follow the ceasefire. Rumors of such a deal have circulated over the past year following Israeli media reports about the existence of a “side letter” allowing Israel to “defend itself” against threats in Lebanon provided that Israeli forces notify the U.S. in advance. But Herzog’s comments appear to represent the first official confirmation of the secret agreement — and the clearest indication yet that Israel views the side deal as giving it carte blanche to continue its unilateral air campaign against Hezbollah.Herzog did not explicitly say whether these “side understandings” remain in place under the Trump administration, which, like the Biden administration, has largely ignored alleged Israeli violations of the ceasefire.Herzog’s comments also provide fresh insights ahead of the visit of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to Washington next week, when he will meet with President Donald Trump and discuss, among other things, the possibility of a Syria-Israel security agreement. Israel would “like to apply” a similar side agreement to any deal with Syria, according to the former Israeli ambassador. “It’s important for Israelis to know that they can maintain freedom of action,” Herzog said.

[Category: Qiosk, Ceasefire, Israel, Biden, Lebanon]

— Central Asia doesn't need another great game

 

at 11/7/25 8:13am

The November 6 summit between President Donald Trump and the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in Washington, D.C. represents a significant moment in U.S.-Central Asia relations (C5+1). It was the first time a U.S. president hosted the C5+1 group in the White House, marking a turning point for U.S. relations with Central Asia.The summit signaled a clear shift toward economic engagement. Uzbekistan pledged $35 billion in U.S. investments over three years (potentially $100 billion over a decade) and Kazakhstan signed $17 billion in bilateral agreements and agreed to cooperate with the U.S. on critical minerals. Most controversially, Kazakhstan became the first country in Trump's second term to join the Abraham Accords.However, behind the big numbers and fanfare of handshakes lies a critical question: is this a real partnership, or just another round of great power competition dressed up in new clothes?The critical minerals trapCritical minerals were at the center of the summit. Trump called Central Asia “an extremely wealthy region” and made it clear that “one of the key items on our agenda is critical minerals.”Before the main meeting with Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Central Asian foreign ministers in Washington, “You are looking to take the resources... that God has blessed your nations with, and turn them into responsible development that allow you to diversify your economies.”There’s nothing wrong with building economic partnerships around natural resources. Done right, cooperation can be mutually beneficial. Central Asia holds at least 25 of the 54 minerals identified by the U.S. government as “critical.” The Trump administration wants access to those minerals to diversify supply chains and reduce reliance on China.But when U.S. media frames U.S. engagement with Central Asia as a way to “counter China and Russia” or win a “resources race,” it sends the wrong message. This framing contradicts Central Asian preferences and reinforces zero-sum thinking, turning countries into prizes, not partners. It keeps old habits alive, treating relationships as transactional, not as something lasting or meaningful.Respecting strategic autonomyCentral Asian leaders have made it clear they don’t want to get dragged into another “great game.” They’re finding their own ways to solve problems. Take for example the recent Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border conflict. The two countries resolved the century-long dispute on their own. In March 2025, the respective presidents signed a historic treaty to end the violence, which had killed dozens and displaced thousands.The 2022 Treaty on Allied Relations between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is another good sign. The region is moving past old border disputes and focusing on cooperation, trade, and new regional projects. These developments demonstrate the region’s growing autonomy and that Central Asia isn’t just waiting around for the next big power to swoop in.As political analyst Alexandra Sitenko wrote in RS earlier this year, the Trump administration “would be well advised to take advantage of the increased interaction among Central Asian states, as well as within their widespread network of strategic partnerships and alliances, that includes Russia, China, Turkey and the Arab world.”This fits well with Trump’s 2019-2025 U.S. Strategy for Central Asia that sets the goal of “building a more stable and prosperous Central Asia that is free to pursue political, economic, and security interests with a variety of partners on its own terms.”It’s important not to slip back into a military-first approach. For years, U.S. involvement in the region was dominated by military basing tied to the Afghanistan War. Now that the war is over, the U.S. doesn’t need bases there, and the current approach stands in sharp contrast to the 2001-2021 period, when the U.S. ran operations in Afghanistan out of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.Still, the U.S. conducts military exercises with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As QI’s George Beebe and Alex Little wrote in Responsible Statecraft, “These military activities in a region with a robust Russian security presence are dangerous and unnecessary.” The U.S. should steer clear of new bases and rethink security assistance that could create dependencies.President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021, while controversial, was a sound decision that freed the U.S. from costly entanglements and let countries handle their own security challenges. Since then, the Central Asian states have started dealing directly with the Taliban on border issues, economic relations, and humanitarian needs.The Abraham Accords diversionKazakhstan’s announcement that it would join the Abraham Accords introduces a problematic element into an otherwise productive summit. Kazakhstan called the decision “a natural and logical continuation of Kazakhstan's foreign policy course – grounded in dialogue, mutual respect, and regional stability.” The move is largely seen as symbolic. Kazakhstan and Israel have already had diplomatic ties since 1992. So, the announcement looks less about real progress and more about handing Trump a foreign policy headline. Israel cheered Kazakhstan’s announcement. Palestinian officials, not surprisingly, slammed it. The Abraham Accords have been criticized for bypassing rather than advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace in that Israel gets recognition, but there’s no pressure to change its approach to occupation, settlements, or Palestinian rights. Moreover, the Abraham Accords serve to deepen U.S. entanglement in Middle Eastern conflicts rather than support the kind of prudent disengagement that some experts recommend. Now, with Kazakhstan on board, the Trump administration is tying economic partnerships in Central Asia to U.S. policy in the Middle East. This risks pulling these countries into tensions that serve neither their interests nor broader regional stability.A new US approachThe C5+1 framework has the potential to genuinely advance U.S. and Central Asian interests. For Washington, engagement with Central Asia should recognize that the region is not a core U.S. security interest. There’s no reason to pour in huge military or economic resources. This does not mean disengagement, but rather proportionate engagement through diplomacy and economic partnerships (the kind we saw this week in Washington), and, most of all, respect for the independence and choices of Central Asian countries. Right now, there’s a risk of getting carried away just to counter China or Russia. That kind of enthusiasm leads to overreach. Broader U.S.-Central Asia engagement should respect multi-alignment. This means acknowledging that Central Asia’s relationships with Russia, China, and other powers serve national interests and do not require U.S. countermeasures. A pragmatic foreign policy approach would recognize that Central Asia’s economic engagement with China through the Belt and Road Initiative, or continued energy and labor migration ties with Russia, do not inherently threaten U.S. interests. Central Asia's emergence as a more cohesive, autonomous region represents a success story. These countries have peacefully resolved long-standing border disputes, increased regional cooperation, and demonstrated pragmatic diplomacy in managing relationships with multiple great powers. All this gives the U.S. a chance to engage on a healthier footing, through diplomacy and real partnerships. Washington can advance its interests without the overextension, militarization, and zero-sum thinking that have caused problems in the past.

[Category: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Central asia]

— What Trump should know before going 'guns-a-blazing' into Nigeria

 

at 11/6/25 10:05pm

In one weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump not only damaged previously cordial relations with an important African ally, he also pledged U.S. military action in one of the world’s most complex conflict landscapes.On October 31, Trump designated Nigeria, Africa’s largest country by population and one of its economic powerhouses, a “Country of Particular Concern” for the ”existential threat” purportedly faced by Christians in the West African country who he alleged are undergoing “mass slaughter” at the hands of “Radical Islamists.”The following day, he warned that should the Nigerian government continue to allow the killings of Christians, the U.S would immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and “may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing.’” Although this is not the first time Trump has picked on the oil-rich country of some 230 million people, nevertheless the threat of military action is new and stands as an unprecedented escalation. Washington considers Nigeria one of its most important partners in Africa. Until February, when Trump froze foreign aid, Nigeria was ranked third among recipients of U.S humanitarian aid in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite this, significant cooperation has continued between both countries especially in the arena of counter-terrorism. Since 2017, Nigeria has received U.S security assistance estimated, as of January, at approximately $650 million, including $500 million in Foreign Military Sales. In August, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency approved a $346 million arms sale to aid Nigeria’s fight against Islamist terrorists and trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea.Rattled by Trump’s threats, Nigeria’s president Bola Ahmed Tinubu disputed Trump’s characterization of the situation in his country while assuring Washington of his commitment to protecting the lives of all Nigerians regardless of faith. Yet for many Nigerians who have watched for years the Nigerian state’s helplessness as insecurity escalates, many are welcoming Trump’s threat to intervene militarily if it can succeed where the government has failed in ending the violence. In reality, Trump’s criticism of Nigeria did not arise in a vacuum. It is the direct result of years of the failure of successive Nigerian governments to protect citizens in the face of endless mass killings of both Christians and Muslims. Of course, when killings persist for years — with little or no consequence for perpetrators, the difference between doing nothing and quiet approval soon blurs.Yet Trump’s suggestion of a religious-driven conflict is a one-dimensional view of the catastrophic situation on the ground. While religion is always in the background of Nigeria’s multiple conflict theaters, it is not always the driving force. On several occasions, religion is only a cover for other primarily economic, environmental, and political factors. According to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a U.S.-based think tank, the nearly 53,000 civilians killed in Nigeria since 2009 as a result of political violence are people of all faiths. While Nigeria recorded about 389 cases of violence targeting Christians between 2020 and 2025 resulting in at least 318 deaths, there were 197 attacks targeting Muslims within the same period leading to at least 418 deaths. The conflict landscape is complex, cutting across vast geopolitical expanses and overlapping causes. The country itself is almost evenly divided between a Christian-dominated south and a Muslim-dominated north while at its center lies the Middle Belt, home to over 200 ethnic groups where adherents of both religions, and mostly Muslim pastoralists and mostly sedentary Christian farmers, have long lived side by side. In the northeastern part of the country where Boko Haram and the regional Islamic State affiliate (ISWAP) have been waging a bloody insurgency to establish an Islamic caliphate, Muslims are the primary victims of violence. Since 2009, the violence has led to more than 40,000 civilian deaths while forcing more than two million to flee their homes. Boko Haram considers anyone, whether Christians or Muslims, who does not accept their version of Islam as infidels. Meanwhile, the most iconic violent incidents that made Nigeria’s jihadists shoot into global headlines more than a decade ago have predominantly been Christian victims. This includes Boko Haram’s kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok village in 2014 and, four years later, 110 schoolgirls taken by ISWAP in Dapchi Yobe state. While 104 of the girls were soon released after negotiation (5 were killed during the kidnapping), Leah Sharibu, a young Christian girl, is still being held years after for refusing to convert to Islam. Focus on these stories can create a misleading impression that Christians are the main victims of violence in Nigeria. Indeed, Trump’s own Senior Advisor for Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos, observed just last month that Boko Haram and ISWAP "are killing more Muslims than Christians."This is not just an argument over numbers. When the raison d'etre for a military action is based on inaccurate assumptions, not only are the chances of success limited, it also raises the risk of the U.S. getting bogged down in another “forever war.” When Trump was asked this week if he was considering a ground invasion of Nigeria or air strikes, he said: “Could be, I mean, a lot of things – I envisage a lot of things.” The U.S. could target Islamist jihadists in the northeast. But any military action outside of Nigeria’s Middle Belt would not protect Nigerian Christians — at least not in the way Trump is promoting it. The Middle Belt is where the Nigerian Christian population has suffered disproportionately in a manner that suggests a systematic targeting. Here for over two decades, sedentary farmers and Fulani pastoralists have been locked in an internecine conflict. Other perpetrators of violence include armed bandit gangs who raid villages, rustle cattle and kidnap victims for ransom. According to new findings by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, out of the approximately 36,056 civilians killed across Nigeria between 2019 and 2024, the Fulani militias, considered the world’s deadliest terrorist group, and who operate within the Middle Belt and southern parts of the country “were responsible for a staggering 47% of all civilian killings —more than five times the combined death toll of Boko Haram and ISWAP.” The breakdown of the data shows an alarming disproportionality. Nearly 3 “Christians were killed for every Muslim during this period, with proportional losses to Christian communities reaching exceptional levels. In states where attacks occur, Christians were murdered at a rate 5.2 times higher than Muslims relative to their population size,” the report said. Yet religion is not the main driving force for this horrific violence. Rather, it is the acute competition for diminishing land and water resources alongside other factors, although the fact that pastoralists are often Muslim Fulanis and sedentary farmers are often Christians sometimes causes observers to consider religion the primary motive. Whether by air strikes or ground forces, American military intervention in Nigeria’s complex terrain carries many risks, particularly extensive civilian harm, the consequence of which is that the situation gets worse than it already is.

[Category: Enewsletter, Trump, Boko haram, Christians, Muslims, Sub-saharan africa, Nigeria]

— Golden Dome, mission impossible

 

at 11/6/25 10:05pm

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.Trump says it’s time to resume nuclear testsThe happiest day The Bunker ever spent inside the Pentagon was September 27, 1991. That’s the Friday the first President Bush unilaterally declared, with help (PDF) from his just-departed defense secretary, Dick Cheney, that he would eliminate most short-range nuclear weapons. They also took Air Force atomic bombers off their 24-hour runway alerts. The dying Soviet Union would do the same shortly thereafter. The Bunker will never forget walking on air down those Pentagon corridors nearly 35 years ago, elated that the superpowers were finally backing away from the nuclear abyss.The saddest day, assuming he were still on the beat, would have to have been October 29. That’s when President Trump declared that “because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.” The U.S. hasn’t tested a nuclear weapon since September 23, 1992. Of course, if The Bunker were still on the beat, he couldn’t be walking down Pentagon corridors — on air, or anywhere else. That’s because he would have refused to sign the diktat (PDF) imposed by Defense Secretary Pete “Hands-Off” Hegseth. The current defense chief disdains any reporting on the U.S. military that he doesn’t dictate and has barred reporters who disagree from the Pentagon.Of course, taking Trump’s Truth Social post at face value is always a risky proposition, especially when it’s filled with errors (no possessive apostrophe after “countries,” for example, for the punctuationistas among us). Not only is there no Department of War — no matter how many times he refers to the Department of Defense that way — the Pentagon doesn’t test nuclear weapons. That job belongs to the Department of Energy, which recently furloughed 1,400 of the 1,800 workers responsible for that mission due to the government shutdown. And there are no “countries” testing atomic warheads these days except for North Korea. Trump repeated his insistence that U.S. nuclear-weapons testing will resume in a November 2 interview on “60 Minutes.” For good measure, he added that both China and Pakistan are secretly conducting such tests, claims that Beijing and Islamabad quickly denied. Incredibly, he’s clashing with Chris Wright, his energy secretary, over the issue.Such messy nuclear messaging is an unforced error in an increasingly edgy world. Global nuclear arsenals and atomic-weapons tests are polarizing issues, for obvious reasons. Supporters embrace testing because it proves the continuing potency of such weapons, and the deterrence they supposedly provide. Those opposed to it believe it simply is another step closer to nuclear war. Given that split, it’s fitting that the final nuclear-weapons test carried out by the U.S. 33 years ago was code-named “Divider.”The “fog of war” is a metaphor that stands for the sheer confusion that envelopes combatants on an ever-changing battlefield. It’s not supposed to be coming from the commander-in-chief, who has plenty of time to double-check what he’s saying. Nuclear weapons remain a threat to civilization. Whenever a U.S. president talks about them, he or she should do so with calmness, clarity, and coherence.These days, anyone can say anythingIf you live in the nation’s capital, you might awaken each morning to WTOP, Washington’s all-news radio station. Beyond traffic and weather, its airwaves are filled with ads for government contractors eager to peddle their wares to the Defense Department and other federal agencies. Recently, there’s been a series of spots from Lockheed, the Pentagon’s biggest contractor, ending with the line: “Ahead of ready.”Ahead of ready?This is the company building the F-35 fighter for the Air Force, the Marines, and the Navy. Here’s what objective observers have been saying about the readiness of Lockheed’s pre-eminent program:“The Lockheed Martin-made F-35A — the cornerstone of the service’s fighter fleet and one of the most expensive military programs in history — has been plagued with reliability and availability issues. In 2021, the fighter was available nearly 69% of the time, according to the Air Force. But the F-35A’s mission capable rates have since plunged, and the jet was ready 51.5% of the time in 2024. The Joint Strike Fighter’s lagging availability has become such a problem that its program executive officer, Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, in 2023 announced a ‘war on readiness’ that seeks to improve how often the F-35 can fly,” Defense News reported in March. “The F-35 program has failed to meet a key readiness metric for six straight years, despite a steady increase in spending to operate and maintain the aircraft, according to a new report from a government watchdog agency,” Defense One reported in 2024.“The F-35 fleet mission capable rate — the percentage of time the aircraft can perform one of its tasked missions — was about 55% in March 2023, far below program goals,” the Government Accountability Office reported in 2023.Where’s the Federal Trade Commission when you need it, at least when it comes to the F-35? The agency’s truth-in-advertising mission is “to stop scams; prevent fraudsters from perpetrating scams in the future; freeze their assets; and get compensation for victims.”Sounds about right.Mission Impossible (cont.)Well, it’s been nearly six months since President Trump announced his plan to build a “Golden Dome” shield to protect the nation from all incoming aerial threats — and to do it for $175 billion before his term ends in 2029. Well, the clock’s a-tickin’, and the folks charged with building the thing still don’t know what it is they’re supposed to be making.“Golden Dome hype meets information vacuum as industry awaits Pentagon direction,” read the October 30 headline over Sandra Erwin’s story in Space News. “The holistic architecture” — its basic blueprint — hasn’t been shared with anyone in industry at this point,” Tom Barton, co-founder of Antaris, a Pentagon missile-defense contractor, told an industry confab. Rob Mitrevski, president of defense contractor L3Harris’ Golden Dome Strategy and Integration (yep, that’s his title) added that “the question still remains, what is Golden Dome?” Well, it’s basically a pie-in-the-sky fantasy designed to make defense hawks feel warm and comfy while impoverishing taxpayers with a false sense of security.“A House of Dynamite,” a new Netflix thriller, focuses on the shortcomings of the current U.S. national missile shield. The flick, according to Bloomberg News’ Tony Capaccio, is giving the Pentagon the vapors. But disinterested experts think it’s pretty accurate.The biggest challenge when it comes to outfitting the nation’s armed forces is to get the biggest bang for the buck. A national missile-defense system won’t make sense until it’s good enough to work and cheap enough to buy. Right now, neither of those is true. And, based on all available evidence, it’s going to stay that way for light-years into the future.So that’s the paradox this week in Pentagon procurement. With or without testing, you know nuclear weapons are going to work, most of the time. And you know that Trump’s shield of dreams won’t. Both are pitiful wastes of money from a world apparently unable to grapple with the challenge of life on this planet.Here’s what has caught The Bunker’s eye recently→ Seeing the light…The value of lasers on the battlefield has been hyped for decades, and they are not the “strategic game-changers” their boosters claim, Jules J. S. Gaspard argues in the fall issue of Military Strategy Magazine.→ Disinformation delugeThe West “is losing the information war” to China, Iran, and Russia, and their “global web of news sites, podcasters, media platforms, and influencers,” Artur Kalandarov wrote October 31 on West Point’s Modern War Institute’s website.→ OuthousedSenior civilian members of the Trump administration have been moving into housing on military bases traditionally occupied by the nation’s top military officers, Michael Scherer, Missy Ryan, and Ashley Parker reported in The Atlantic October 30.Thanks for moving into The Bunker for a couple of minutes this week. Kindly invite friends to subscribe here.

[Category: The bunker, F-35, Lockheed martin, Pentagon budget, Golden dome, Nuclear weapons]

— Why Texas should invite Xi Jinping to a rodeo

 

at 11/6/25 10:05pm

Last year, Texas banned professional contact by state employees (including university professors) with mainland China, to “harden” itself against the influence of the Communist Party of China – an entity that has governed the country since 1949, and whose then-leader, Deng Xiaoping, attended a Texas rodeo in 1979.Defending the policy, the new provost of the University of Texas, my colleague Will Inboden, writes in National Affairs that “the US government estimates that the CPC has purloined up to $600 billion worth of American technology each year – some of it from American companies but much of it from American universities.” US GDP is currently around $30 trillion, so $600 billion would represent 2% of that sum, or roughly 70% of the US defense budget ($880 billion). It also amounts to about one-third of all spending ($1.8 trillion) by all US colleges and universities, on all subjects and activities, every year. Make that 30 cents of every tuition dollar and a third of every federal research grant.Moreover, it seems the Chinese made better use of the purloined knowledge than we would have. Compare their growth rate to America’s, or look at Chinese cities, their high-speed railroads, and advanced industries. Then there’s the elimination of mass poverty and the 3.5 million engineers and scientists the country mints every year. Such theft must be akin to stealing emeralds from the Louvre – a zero-sum game. Not only did the Chinese get the good stuff, but they somehow prevented America from using it. How very diabolical.Of course, the figure that Inboden cites is absurd, though I don’t doubt that the US government said it somewhere. Such claims about China (and not only China) have become routine in recent years. The tactic is straightforward. By saturating the information space with far-fetched assertions too numerous and too pervasive to rebut, disagreement, let alone dissent, becomes tantamount to disloyalty, even treason.Yet universities obviously cannot be the secret laboratories of a national-security state. We are, by our nature, open. To the extent that we produce useful knowledge or new technologies, these naturally become the common property of the whole world. That is what “publication” is about. As for American companies, they went to China to make money. Many succeeded. That China got something out of it – at the expense of American workers, we can admit – was part of the deal. It’s called capitalism.We’ve been here before. In the 1950s, “Who lost China?” became a national war cry as ambitious witch-hunters in Congress and elsewhere destroyed the careers and lives of US officials who knew the country firsthand. When my father was serving as ambassador to India in 1961, he cabled the State Department to argue for recognition of the People’s Republic, only to receive this epic reply: “Your views, to the extent that they have any merit, have already been considered and rejected.”And yet, at a conference in 2003, Chester Cooper, a national-security veteran of that era, told me that even then Secretary of State Dean Rusk had privately agreed, saying, “I’m not the village idiot.” The US would have recognized the People’s Republic of China after the 1964 election had John F. Kennedy lived and been re-elected; instead, it was Richard Nixon who opened the door in 1971, and Jimmy Carter who stepped through it in 1977. I was present in the small crowd that greeted the great-but-tiny Deng as he entered the Rayburn House Office Building in 1979.Meanwhile, the sands are shifting once again. RAND, an eminent redoubt of American national-security thought, has published a landmark paper calling for coexistence with China, and for accepting the CPC’s legitimacy. Imagine that. The authors cite similar views held by other top China hands, notably Rush Doshi, formerly of the National Security Council and now with the Council on Foreign Relations, and they carefully correct US mistranslations that made Chinese official documents and statements appear more aggressive than they were. Suddenly, highly placed voices are hinting at what many of us who watch China without the benefit of inside sources have long suspected: that the government of China is mainly concerned with governing China.But what lies behind this apparent thaw? Recent developments in the trade war provide a clue. Recall that China recently announced export restrictions on rare earths and especially on gallium, a by-product of aluminum (and zinc) production that is essential for advanced electronics. China controls over 98% of the global supply of gallium, thanks to its aluminum capacity, which is 59% of the world total and 60 times that of the US. After a half-century of deindustrialization, the US cannot close this gap – and there are no good substitutes for gallium (nor for several other materials that China controls). China has therefore effectively lowered the boom on the prospect of US military confrontation with China.Meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Malaysia this week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent secured a one-year delay on China’s rare-earth export restrictions. With Chinese President Xi Jinping in Busan on October 29, Trump confirmed that deal. The postponement is, in effect, probation: China will assess, for a year, whether a new spirit of non-aggression, cooperation, de-escalatory rhetoric, and open trade can take hold. If not, the situation will not be better for the US a year from now, and both sides know it.The long-term history of China’s rise and America’s decline dates back at least to the 1970s: the end of the Mao era in China, and the rise of free-market economics in the US, the high-dollar policy of Paul Volcker, and the arrival of Ronald Reagan. It is not a simple story of America being ripped off, as our president, my governor, and the alarmists in our security agencies, think tanks, and media like to claim. But we are where we are. Even our most obtuse leaders have begun to realize that the US is no longer fully in control.Here in Texas, it would be nice if a few of us who have tracked the situation accurately for decades could reclaim our right to travel and engage professionally with China. We might then begin to reacquaint our local leaders with the real world. And – who knows? – maybe when Xi visits the US next year, we could host him at a rodeo. It wouldn’t be the first time.This article was originally published at Project Syndicate.

[Category: Texas, Threat inflation, China]

— Senate vote fails to block Trump attacks on Venezuela

 

at 11/6/25 4:18pm

This evening, the Senate narrowly voted down a War Powers Resolution that would have blocked the U.S. from attacking Venezuela without congressional approval amid fears the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign against so-called “narco-terrorists” might escalate into a greater conflict with the South American country.Senators largely voted along party lines to block the resolution, led by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and co-sponsored by 15 other senators, including one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.), which ultimately failed in a 49-51 vote. Paul and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R.-Ala.) were the lone Republicans to vote for the resolution, just as they were the only Republicans to support a previous War Powers Resolution barring unauthorized strikes on boats purportedly carrying illegal drugs in the Caribbean, which also failed.All Democratic senators voted for the measure, including Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the only Democrat to vote against the failed resolution that aimed to block the boat strikes last month.In the days leading up to the vote, Republican senators, including Todd Young (R-Ind.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Mike Rounds (R.-S.D.) had said they were still reviewing the Trump administration’s legal rationale for its attacks — signaling concerns about the administration’s approach. Despite previously wavering, these Senators held the party line.The Trump administration asserts its ongoing strikes are legal because the boats it is targeting are smuggling illegal drugs into the U.S., and that the people operating them are terrorists. But the White House does not currently believe it has the legal authority to conduct strikes within Venezuela, according to a new report from CNN.Lawmakers from both parties contend the Trump administration has not given them enough information about its attacks and their legality. On the Senate floor leading up to the vote, resolution supporters stressed that any future hostilities in the region — against these boats or Venezuela itself — must first receive explicit congressional approval."There is no more important thing for this Congress to do, than to reassert its responsibility — to accept our responsibility for the powers that were delegated to the United States Congress — particularly about whether we do or don't go to war," Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said this afternoon. Many warned that the ongoing boat strikes could easily escalate into a full-blown war."These operations risk destabilizing the region and provoking direct confrontation with Venezuela. We could be stumbling into another open ended conflict without purpose or plan if the administration intends to escalate towards conflict with Venezuela,” Sen. Jack Reed (D- R.I). stressed. “Congress has a constitutional duty to declare and authorize such action.”“We cannot sleepwalk into another war through incremental escalation while being kept in the dark,” he said. And resolution co-sponsor Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) stressed service members’ lives were at risk, for a possible conflict he deemed “unnecessary.” "We owe it to our service members to only send them into harm's way when vital American interests are at stake. Who is in charge of Venezuela does not constitute such an interest,” Sen. Paul said. "President Trump, do not allow the warmongers in Washington to drag you into an unnecessary war of choice."Although they did not rule out possible future actions, Trump officials told lawmakers Wednesday it does not plan to strike Venezuela currently, and that it does not have a legal justification for attacks against land targets there. Trump has also reportedly expressed concerns about whether striking Venezuela will compel its leader, Nicolas Maduro, to step down. Connor Echols contributed additional reporting.

[Category: Qiosk, Venezuela, Aumf, Narco-terrorism, Caribbean, War powers]

— A sneak peek at how Americans view Trump foreign policy so far

 

at 11/6/25 2:20pm

Like domestic politics, American public opinion on foreign policy is extremely polarized and that is not likely to change soon as new polling from my team at the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group shows striking partisan splits on the top Trump issues of the day.Among the most partisan findings: 44% of Americans support attacks on drug cartels in Latin America, even if they are unauthorized by Congress, while 42% opposed. Breaking down on party lines, 79% of GOP respondents support such strikes, while 73% of Democrats are against them. Americans hold a mixed assessment of how President Donald Trump has implemented his “America First” policies in the first nine months of his second term. Overall, half of Americans think he is performing poorly and more than a third rate his performance as good or excellent. Broken down by party, the contrast is striking: 89% of Democrats say poor, while 53% of Republicans say excellent and 29% say good.We asked about specific policies in the Middle East and Asia, but some of our most interesting findings pertained to how Americans think the president should conduct foreign affairs writ large. A plurality of Republicans (46%) think the most important obligation of the United States government is to protect America from foreign threats (only 13% of Democrats agree). Meanwhile, 40% of Democrats said promoting democracy, human rights, and the rule of law around the world is the most important (only 8% of Republicans agreed).Most Democrats view a rise in authoritarianism that imperils democracy as the greatest threat to the United States. For a plurality of Republicans, the greatest threat is the country losing its national identity due to immigration and free trade. Most Democrats think the best way to achieve peace is through democracy promotion, diplomacy, and international cooperation. Republicans are split between primarily focusing on domestic issues and maintaining overwhelming military strength to defend the United States when necessary.Trump has emphasized his acumen for dealmaking, and he made the case last month that he was deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. As our survey was fielded in October, his administration brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. However, 63% of Americans still do not think he deserves the coveted prize. Nearly all Democrats we surveyed (95%) say he shouldn’t get it, while a slight majority of Republicans (56%) say he should (about one in five Republicans were unsure).There is evidence that when choosing a commander-in-chief, policy specifics may matter less than perceptions of strength. We tried to get a sense of how Americans view Trump’s leadership by presenting a series of descriptors and asking them to select up to two. About half of Democrats think he is reckless and destructive. About half of Republicans think he is tough and intelligent, and about a third consider him a peacemaker. This split reflects the paradox that Trump embodies, somehow reconciling a commitment to peace with aggressive international posturing.Aside from partisan differences on Trump’s military action against alleged narco boats, which so far have killed 67 people, Americans are split along party lines on other specific conflict areas and how Trump is handling them.More than a third of Democrats think the United States should stop supporting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza (the survey was conducted before and after the current ceasefire was agreed to on Oct. 10), while about a third of Republicans think the United States should support Israel unconditionally. When asked about their impression of Israel’s operations, half of Democrats say it can be described as genocide but only 8% of Republicans agree. Republicans are most likely to describe it as the destruction of a terrorist organization (51%), followed by a hostage rescue (40%).Meanwhile, after the United States imposed massive trade tariffs on China in April, the Trump administration also announced plans to restrict visas for Chinese students. We found Democrats are overwhelmingly supportive of allowing Chinese students to study at U.S. universities (81%), while a plurality of Republicans are opposed (47%). On Ukraine War policy, 19% overall said Trump was making things worse. On that question, only 40% of Republicans said Trump was making things better, while 72% of Democrats said the opposite.A rare point of agreement emerged on Iran. Should Iran resume work on its civilian nuclear program, which appears highly likely, a plurality of Americans think the United States should impose harsher sanctions, including 50% of Republicans and 43% of Democrats. However, 39% of Republicans also support a return to military action compared with only 10% of Democrats. Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to support U.S. negotiations with Iran (43% vs. 24%).Trump bombed Iranian nuclear sites and targeted alleged drug boats without congressional authorization, yet most Americans think the president should be required to seek approval from Congress before ordering military action overseas. There is some consensus among Americans overall, but the partisan split has grown drastically since we asked the same question a year ago. In 2024, 70% of Democrats and 77% of Republicans agreed that the president should not act without congressional approval. In 2025, 94% of Democrats and 50% of Republicans think the same.A similar split exists on military spending. More than half of Democrats (58%) think the United States should decrease military spending compared with 18% of Republicans, most of whom favor maintaining current spending levels (66%).Another era of common ground is military aid. Amid lively debates over the last several years about U.S. aid to Ukraine and Israel, a plurality of Americans, including 58% of Democrats and 41% of Republicans, think the United States has provided too much aid to other countries. When asked about U.S. military presence in four regions (Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Western Hemisphere), more Americans are in favor of decreasing or withdrawing troops than increasing. After lengthy and costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many Americans may be ready to reconsider their country’s military commitments abroad. That said, pluralities are still in favor of maintaining the status quo.Trump's “America First” pitch clearly appealed to the American people – he had an edge over the Biden-Harris campaigns on foreign policy. His pledge to end wars and focus on the needs of average Americans clearly resonated, although views of his implementation are deeply polarizing. As the United States wages war on drug cartels and possibly gears up to topple Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, perhaps the greatest test of “America First” and public opinion of Trump is yet to come.

[Category: Us foreign policy, Trump, America first, Gaza, Venezuela, China, Iran, Drug war, Enewsletter, Public opinion]

As of 11/15/25 3:03am. Last new 11/14/25 3:29pm.