threats

The D Brief: Evolving boat-strike defense; Signalgate report, published; The $148B failure; New poll on natsec issues; And a bit more.

The White House’s boat-strike defense reportedly continues to evolve. Trump officials now say the second strike that killed two survivors of a Sept. 2 attack was intended to destroy the speedboat and not the crew, Hugo Lowell of the Guardian reported Wednesday, describing this as “the firmest legal ground” to base the attacks, which numerous lawmakers and critics have said appear to have been either murder or a war crime. (Former Justice Department attorney Joyce Vance wrote Tuesday, “If we were at war, it was a war crime. If we were not, it was murder.”)

This defense hinges on “a secret justice department office of legal counsel (OLC) memo blessing the strikes,” according to three lawyers familiar with the memo, Lowell reports. “And perhaps most crucially for the administration…the OLC memo says the fact that anyone on board would probably die from a strike does not make a boat an improper military target.”

On the other hand, “The OLC memo has been fiercely criticized by outside legal experts given the little public evidence to support the notion that the cartels are using drugs to finance armed violence, rather than the other way around,” Lowell writes in what could be a preview of classified testimony today before lawmakers from the commander at the time, Navy Adm. Frank Bradley. Continue reading, here. 

Bradley is expected to testify that he and local commanders concluded that the two survivors of a Sept. 2 attack were still trying to deliver drugs and therefore were lawful targets, two defense officials told the Wall Street Journal.

Related: Defense Secretary Pete “Hegseth Asked Top Admiral to Resign After Months of Discord,” the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, revising the Pentagon’s initial narrative that Southern Command’s Adm. Alvin Holsey’s early departure was voluntary. 

DODIG’s Signalgate report just came out; read it here. Several newsrooms have already reported on the investigation by the Defense Department’s inspector general on Hegseth’s use of a messaging app to share imminent war plans over the Signal messaging app with a journalist in March.

Topline: “Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information, which could have endangered American troops and mission objectives, when he used Signal in March of this year to share highly-sensitive attack plans targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen,” CNN reported Wednesday. However, it doesn’t appear as though Hegseth will face any consequences for his actions “since the IG concluded that the defense secretary has the authority to declassify information,” four sources familiar with the report said.  

“The information Hegseth shared included the precise times that fighter pilots would attack their targets, the sort of information ordinarily shared only on secure platforms,” five reporters for The Atlantic wrote Wednesday, noting, “If Houthi militants had learned those details in advance, they might have been able to shoot down American planes or better defend their positions.”

Hegseth’s Trump-esque reax: “No classified information. Total exoneration. Case closed. Houthis bombed into submission.” (“Houthis Resume Red Sea Ship Attacks” reported the Soufan Center in July, while the Stimson Center concluded that “U.S. airstrikes on Yemen fell short of degrading the Houthis’ military capabilities and strengthened their domestic and regional propaganda.”) 

SASC’s Wicker says Hegseth did nothing wrong sharing the strike plans over an open channel. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said in a statement Wednesday “the Secretary acted within his authority to communicate the information in question to other cabinet level officials.” 

“It is also clear to me that our senior leaders need more tools available to them to communicate classified information in real time and a variety of environments. I think we have some work to do in providing those tools to our national security leaders,” he said.

SASC’s Reed demurs: “The Inspector General’s findings confirm that Secretary Hegseth violated military regulations and continues to show reckless disregard for the safety of American servicemembers,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in his own statement. 

“Contrary to the Administration’s claims, this report is the opposite of ‘total exoneration’ for the Secretary. The IG concluded this information could have jeopardized the mission and endangered U.S. personnel.”

Coverage continues below…

Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Bradley Peniston with Ben Watson. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1992, President George H. W. Bush ordered 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 794. On Tuesday, President Trump said of Somali-Americans, “I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you, OK? Somebody would say, oh, that’s not politically correct. I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks and we don’t want them in our country.”

Fatal mishap in California. A Marine died from injuries in a tactical vehicle accident during training at Camp Pendleton Wednesday. 

It’s too soon to know much about the incident. But the mishap occurred at about 1:45 p.m. PST, and the service member was assigned to the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force. “The name of the deceased is being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification. The cause of the incident is currently under investigation,” base officials said in a statement late Wednesday.

The $148 billion failure: Watchdog’s final report excoriates America’s attempt to rebuild Afghanistan. For 17 years, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, tracked every dollar allocated to the country for security, development, and humanitarian aid. 

SIGAR’s final report, a 125-page “forensic audit,” limns its thousands of pages of analysis and documentation of a reconstruction effort that consumed more money than the Marshall Plan, yet was rife with waste and fraud. Per the 2025 defense authorization act, the office will close Jan. 31. “The mission promised to bring stability and democracy to Afghanistan, yet ultimately delivered neither,” the report said. “The outcome in Afghanistan should serve as a cautionary tale for policymakers contemplating similar reconstruction efforts in the future.” Defense One’s Thomas Novelly reports, here.

Developing: The New York Times just filed a lawsuit against the Defense Department “over the Pentagon’s new policy that requires media outlets to pledge not to gather information unless defense officials formally authorize its release,” NPR’s David Folkenflik reported Thursday. 

1A considerations: The new restrictions are “exactly the type of speech and press-restrictive scheme that the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit have recognized violates the First Amendment,” the suit says. “The Policy abandons scrutiny by independent news organizations for the public’s benefit.” 

Second opinion: “The Pentagon’s press access policy is unlawful because it gives government officials unchecked power over who gets a credential and who doesn’t, something the First Amendment prohibits,” Gabe Rottman, vice president of policy at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement Thursday. “The public needs independent journalism and the reporters who deliver it back in the Pentagon at a time of heightened scrutiny of the Department’s actions.” Read or listen to more from Folkenflik, here. 

Additional reading: 

Industry

Northrop Grumman to fly new, improved CCA offering next year. When Northrop Grumman lost its initial bid for the U.S. Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft, the company went back to the drawing board. Now, it wants to fly a new prototype, called Project Talon, in the next nine months, Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams reports from testing grounds at Mojave, Calif. 

Project Talon—previously referred to as Project Lotus internally—builds on the company’s initial offering for the first increment of the U.S. Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft program. But while CCA’s first increment is designed for air-to-air missions, Northrop developed Talon to handle a variety of missions, Tom Jones, corporate vice president and president for Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems, told reporters Wednesday in California. 

The prototype aircraft took about 15 months to build with Northrop’s subsidiary Scaled Composites, and goals of lowering costs while speeding up manufacturing to produce aircraft faster. Northrop was able to reduce Talon’s build time by almost a third, and cut the aircraft’s number of parts in half compared to previous designs. 

The new unveiling comes a few months after Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works announced its multipurpose CCA competitor drone, Vectis, and its plans to fly it in 2027. It also comes after the Navy awarded contracts earlier this year to Anduril, Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to develop the service’s CCA drones. Read more, here. 

Grumman was also recently awarded a $200 million contract to make counter-drone munitions using an air-burst round produced since at least 2022 based on sensing technology a company official said at the time “has been around for decades.” The round “only needs to get close enough to detect a target, at which point it detonates, sending fragmentation for defeat,” Grumman said in a press release Wednesday. 

Production will be spread across four locations: Plymouth and Elk River facilities in Minnesota, West Virginia’s Allegany Ballistics Laboratory, and Virginia’s Radford Ammunition Plant. 

Related reading: “To rebuild America’s defense industry, unleash private capital,” Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, argued in a commentary published Wednesday in Defense One.

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December 4, 2025
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The D Brief: Hegseth cites ‘fog of war’; USAF axes China-focused reforms; CENTCOM’s new attack-drone unit; Firms qualify for Golden Dome work; And a bit more.

Amid allegations of his involvement in possible war crimes, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth now cites the “fog of war” as a factor in the reported killing of survivors of a U.S. missile strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat off the coast of Latin America in September, and claims he “watched that first strike live” but “didn’t stick around” for subsequent strikes. 

Rewind: “I watched it live,” Hegseth told Fox on Sept. 3. “We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua, a narco-terrorist organization designated by the United States, trying to poison our country with illicit drugs,” he told his former employer. (For what it’s worth, to this day, no U.S. officials have provided evidence supporting these claims.)

Update: Hegseth said Tuesday that he only saw the first strike. “I watched that first strike live,” he said in the cabinet meeting. “I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours or whatever where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the—which he had the complete authority to do. And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat, sunk the boat and eliminated the threat and it was the right call. We have his back.”

About that “hour and two hours or whatever”: The Washington Post reported Friday it only took “minutes” before the survivors were seen in surveillance footage. As the Post’s Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima reported, “A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.”

New detail: “The U.S. military struck that boat on September 2 four times,” a U.S. official told Nick Schifrin of PBS News. “The official said that, after the first strike, there were people on board who were not killed. The second strike targeted them. The third and fourth strikes were designed to sink the boat.” 

Hegseth was later asked Tuesday at the White House, “So you didn’t see any survivors, to be clear, after that first strike, you personally?” The defense secretary replied, “I did not personally see survivors, but I stand—because the thing was on fire. That was exploded [sic], and fire or smoke—you can’t see anything. You got digital.” 

“This is called the fog of war,” Hegseth said. “This is what you and the press don’t understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill and you nitpick and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about ‘kill everybody’ phrases on anonymous sources, not based in anything, not based in any truth at all.”

Scheduled for tomorrow: Adm. Bradley is scheduled to deliver a classified briefing to Congress on Thursday, the Associated Press reported Monday. 

Worth noting: Archival tape from April 2016 reveals Hegseth telling an audience that the U.S. military should not follow “unlawful orders from their commander-in-chief.” CNN reported Tuesday on the re-surfaced video of his remarks, which you can view here. 

Why bring it up: Because Hegseth is attempting to prosecute a senator for saying the same thing last month. In mid-November, six Democratic lawmakers released a video reminding U.S. troops not to follow illegal orders. One of those lawmakers was the former astronaut and retired Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, a senator from Arizona. Both the president and Hegseth responded angrily to the video, with Trump alleging online that the lawmakers’ video amounted to “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Hegseth’s Defense Department on Nov. 24 then vowed on social media to recall Kelly back to active duty “for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.” 

Kelly responded Monday: “I will not be intimidated by this president. I am not going to be silenced by this president or the people around because I’ve given too much in service to this country to back down to this guy,” he said at a press conference in Washington.

Extra reading: 

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2015, Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened all military jobs to women.

Around the Defense Department

Air Force leaders axe China-focused reorganizational efforts. Early last year, then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall unveiled a slate of initiatives intended to get the service in better shape to fight “the pacing threat.” Suspending work on those was one of the first things Pete Hegseth did after taking office. Now Troy Meink, who stepped into Kendall’s job in May, is formally cancelling much of the effort.

In a Tuesday press release, Meink and Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said that the service will no longer:

  • Stand up Air Development Command, which aimed to subsume Air Education and Training Command and further combine the service’s force-development efforts.
  • Reorient Air Combat Command to “focus on generating and presenting ready forces.” 
  • Establish its Air Base Wing concept.
  • Create a new Program Assessment and Evaluation Office to handle resource analysis. And more. Read Thomas Novelly’s article, here.

New: Hundreds of companies were just picked for an up-to-$151 billion “Golden Dome” contract vehicle. In a sign of how quickly the Pentagon wants to move on Trump’s ambitious missile-defense effort, more than 1,000 companies were cleared to compete for slices of the gargantuan Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) contract vehicle, the acquisition backbone of the Golden Dome effort, Defense One’s Novelly reports. 

DOD announced the decision in a late-Tuesday blue-topper, and published the names of the qualifying companies on SAM.gov. Novelly has more, here.

Coming soon: The Pentagon inspector general’s investigation into SecDef Hegseth’s “Signalgate” controversy is complete. A copy of the final report was given to Hegseth Tuesday, NBC News reports. 

In case you need a refresher, Hegseth used the Signal messaging app to share details of a U.S. military attack in Yemen before it happened. The public discovered this because a journalist for The Atlantic was inadvertently added to the encrypted group chat. After the mission was complete and it was discovered that no U.S. troops were harmed, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic wrote about the possibly unprecedented incident. 

“The much-anticipated report is expected to become public as early as this week,” two people familiar with the investigation told NBC on Tuesday. Read more, here. 

NSA has 2,000 fewer people now, meeting Trump-admin goal. That’s what three people told Nextgov’s David DiMolfetta, asking for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak. An agency spokesman declined comment.

“The purge reflects months-long pressure by the second Trump administration to shrink the federal government and clean out alleged bloat and politicization in the intelligence community. Employees at the nation’s various spy agencies were initially extended deferred-resignation offers in February, and in May, news broke of the downsizing goals for the intel community and NSA specifically.” 

BTW: The federal government doesn’t say how many people work for NSA, but a fact sheet put out by the state of Maryland last year said it was around 39,000. Read on, here. 

Additional reading: “CISA tells staff to not speak with reporters, internal email shows,” Nextgov reported Tuesday. 

New: The U.S. military just launched its first-ever “one-way-attack drone squadron based in the Middle East,” according to officials at Central Command. 

It’s known as Task Force Scorpion Strike, and pictures of CENTCOM’s drones seem to strongly resemble the cheap yet effective Shahed drones manufactured by Iran for use in the Middle East and in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. CENTCOM refers to theirs as “Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System [or LUCAS] drones.” 

According to CENTCOM, the LUCAS drones “have an extensive range and are designed to operate autonomously. They can be launched with different mechanisms to include catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff, and mobile ground and vehicle systems.” 

How will they be used? It’s not yet clear, though U.S. troops are still engaged in a war against ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria. Read more from CENTCOM, here. 

Related commentary: “The U.S. proposal to establish a military presence at an airbase near Damascus is a welcome sign of deepening cooperation with Syria’s new government, but it may be insufficient to secure regional U.S. interests,” argues policy analyst Jonah Brody and retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas Bergeson, both of whom now work at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. 

“A Damascus presence should complement—not replace—the U.S. partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, which remains essential to preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State, or  ISIS, and constraining Iranian activity,” the two men advise, writing Tuesday in Defense One. 

Recommendation: “The United States should continue to build on the ‘by, with, and through’ partnership that has made the SDF the most effective counter-ISIS force in Syria,” Bergeson and Brody say. “Sustaining this relationship—through training, intelligence sharing, and support to detention operations—is the best way to prevent ISIS from reconstituting. It also signals to regional partners that the United States remains committed to a stable transition in Syria rather than stepping back prematurely.” Read the rest, here.

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December 3, 2025
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The D Brief: WH, DOD change their stories; Trump pardons drug trafficker; Today’s US-Russia talks; ‘Awful arithmetic’; And a bit more.

Three days after the Pentagon denied it killed two survivors after an attack on an alleged drug-trafficking boat in early September, the White House and the Pentagon on Monday confirmed the second strike did indeed take place, and that it was authorized by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

Rewind: “This entire narrative is completely false,” Hegseth’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, told the Washington Post, which reported the so-called “double-tap” strike ordered by the commander at the time, Navy Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley. That order came after Hegseth reportedly told Bradley to “kill everybody” on the boat. Hegseth himself responded on social media Friday, calling the Post’s reporting “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory.” 

But on Monday, the White House’s press secretary confirmed Hegseth’s role in the sequence of events, which—as we noted in Monday’s newsletter—several lawmakers and legal experts have said could be a war crime, murder, or both. “Does the administration deny that that second strike happened, or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order?” a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday. “The latter is true,” she replied.  

“Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” Leavitt said. “Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.” 

With the admiral’s role in the narrative confirmed, Hegseth on Monday evening called Bradley a “hero” for ordering the death of the two survivors, which would seem to contravene Section 5.4.7 of the Defense Department’s Law of War Manual. “Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support,” Hegseth wrote on his personal social media account Monday evening. “I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made—on the September 2 mission and all others since.” 

Critical reaction: “Hegseth is very transparently blaming a Navy admiral for his own decision. Let this be a lesson for every other military officer: The Trump administration will issue unlawful orders, then blame you for following them,” former U.S. Army soldier Brandon Friedman replied on social media. “I mean, you deserve blame for following unlawful orders, but you should still know this in advance. IN ADDITION, Hegseth failed to learn or adopt the number one precept of Army leadership [PDF], specifically aimed at officers: ‘I am responsible for everything my unit does or fails to do.’”

Fox’s Brit Hume was of a similar mind, writing that Hegseth’s Monday evening post seemed to convey “How to point the finger at someone while pretending to support him.” 

Coverage continues below…

Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1954, the U.S. signed a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, which would later expire in 1980. 

There’s been a notable increase in calls to a service offering free legal advice to U.S. troops, The Hill reported Monday evening. “The concerns, reflected in an uptick in calls to the Orders Project, which provides free legal advice to military personnel, come from the likes of staff officers involved in planning the strikes on supposed drug-carrying boats and those in charge of designating those on the vessels as a threat in order to carry out such attacks.” More, here. 

Commentary: The United States “cannot build a safer world for its own servicemembers by discarding basic laws of war,” argues former Naval Academy JAG professor Mark Nevitt, writing Monday for Just Security. “If the United States abandons these rules, it cannot expect its adversaries to follow them when Americans are the ones captured, isolated, shipwrecked, or shot down. And it’s not just reciprocity. Weakening the legitimacy of such fundamental rules also corrodes the underlying foundation of a system that serves U.S. servicemembers time and again.” 

“As the world’s most widely deployed maritime power, the United States relies on these protections more than any other nation,” Nevitt writes. “And what’s more, illegal orders create moral, reputational, and strategic harm long after the violations of law have ceased.” 

So what now? Let the promised congressional investigations proceed without obstruction, Nevitt says. “Both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have promised rigorous oversight of Pentagon operations in the Caribbean. At minimum, this must include full release of any relevant videotapes, especially of the Sept. 2 incident, and the accompanying Office of Legal Counsel opinion(s) purporting to justify the overall operations.” Read the rest, here. 

Developing: President Trump just pardoned drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras who was convicted last year and incarcerated in West Virginia for his involvement in the transit of cocaine into the U.S., the New York Times reported Tuesday morning. 

It’s a notable legal about-face given Trump has threatened war against Venezuela, centered on the allegation that dictator Nicholas Maduro leads a drug cartel that traffics in cocaine. On Sunday, Trump was asked about this apparent discrepancy, and the president replied, “If somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn’t mean you arrest the president.” Extra reading: 

Etc.

Commentary: The awful arithmetic of our wars. “If we don’t figure out a way to fight far more cheaply, we won’t be able to afford to win a single battle,” writes New America’s Peter W. Singer at Defense One. 

A sample of this daunting math: “Perhaps it was worth spending one-fifth of a billion dollars to damage Iranian nuclear facilities, but the numbers in Operation Rough Rider—the strikes against the Houthis last spring—illustrate the problem more starkly. The Pentagon spent roughly $5 billion on munitions and operating costs to stop attacks on Red Sea shipping, which simply started back up this month.” Read on, here.

Trendspotting: U.S. troops are deeply invested in, well, investments. “Servicemembers are making fortunes in tech stocks and bitcoin. They’re trading tips on obscure cryptocurrencies from the decks of aircraft carriers. Base parking lots are peppered with new Porsches and Humvees as the market hits new highs. And social-media influencers in fatigues tell followers how they, too, can become rich,” writes the Wall Street Journal.

Crypto is big. “Servicemembers helped fuel a surge in crypto prices that started in the fall of 2020 and peaked in 2021. In 2020, eight of the top 25 U.S. zip codes with the highest share of tax returns reporting receiving or disposing of crypto were around military bases,” WSJ reported off IRS data. read on, here.

Developing: Trump’s negotiator Steve Witkoff is slated to discuss Russia’s Ukraine invasion with Vladimir Putin in Moscow today. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is attending, too; he’s already been touring the city with his Russian hosts. Witkoff and Kushner’s visit comes after “revisions to the original peace proposal they drafted with Russian input,” the Wall Street Journal reports. 

“Experts set low expectations for the Witkoff-Kushner mission,” UPI reports, and notes “Russia’s maximalist demands require Ukraine to hand over territory in the Donbas that it still holds, the removal of any path to NATO membership and shrinking the size of its military, as well as succumbing permanently to Russia’s sphere of influence in disputed areas by adopting its language, culture and the Russian Orthodox Church.” More, here. 

Panning out: “Russian forces control more than 19% of Ukraine, or 115,600 square km (45,000 square miles), up one percentage point from two years ago, and have advanced in 2025 at the fastest pace since 2022, according to pro-Ukrainian maps,” Reuters reports. 

Related: Did someone edit an online Ukraine battlemap to juke betting markets? That appears to be the case, Matthew Gault of 404 Media reported Monday.

Which raises a question that we hadn’t quite considered yet: “Did you know you can bet on the outcomes of battles in ongoing war? You can!” Gault reports. More, here. 

Additional reading:

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December 2, 2025
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The D Brief: Congress investigates boat strikes; Promises of profit propelled peace proposal; Guardsman in critical condition; Germany’s war plan; And a bit more.

“Kill everybody.” Several key bipartisan U.S. lawmakers are warning the U.S. military may have committed war crimes when it launched its first attacks against alleged drug-trafficking boats around Latin America on Sept. 2, according to reporting Friday from Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post.  

Rewind: After the very first U.S. strike, at least two survivors were seen still alive and “clinging to the smoldering wreck” of their destroyed boat, according to the Post’s reporting, which cited seven people with knowledge of the event. Eleven people had been on the boat when the military first hit it with a missile. When a drone feed revealed the two survivors moments later, the Joint Special Operations commander overseeing the strikes at the time—Navy Adm. Frank Bradley—ordered a second strike to kill them, and the “two men were blown apart in the water,” according to the Post. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had delivered a spoken directive to “kill everybody” on the boat, a person with direct knowledge of the operation told the Post. It’s not clear that Hegseth was aware of the survivors; but his subordinates were reportedly keen on following orders since, as the Post reports, Bradley “ordered the second strike to fulfill Hegseth’s directive that everyone must be killed.” (Bradley has since been placed in command of U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees JSOC.) “If the video of the blast that killed the two survivors on Sept. 2 were made public, people would be horrified, said one person who watched the live feed,” the newspaper reports. 

If the reporting is true, it would appear the U.S. military violated Section 5.4.7 of the Defense Department’s Law of War Manual (PDF), which states “it is prohibited to order that legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that detainees, such as unprivileged belligerents, will be summarily executed.” The manual continues, “Moreover, it is also prohibited to conduct hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors, or to threaten the adversary with the denial of quarter. This rule is based on both humanitarian and military considerations. This rule also applies during non-international armed conflict.”

Notable: Hegseth did not dispute the account; but he did call the Post’s reporting “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory,” writing Friday on social media, and insisted “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law.” 

New: Both the House and Senate Armed Services Committee leaders announced investigations into the allegations. From the Senate side, “The Committee has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances,” Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a joint statement, The Hill reported Saturday morning. 

HASC leaders also vowed “bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question,” according to a joint statement from Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., Saturday afternoon. “This committee is committed to providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s military operations in the Caribbean. We take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region,” they said. (And for what it’s worth, “The two committees referred to the Department of Defense by that name, rather than by the ‘Department of War’ rebrand Hegseth and Trump have pushed,” historian Heather Cox Richardson noted Saturday evening.)

“This rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., speaking Sunday on “Face the Nation” from CBS News. 

“Obviously, if that occurred, that would be very serious and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” said Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, speaking Sunday on “Face the Nation” as well. Turner also said the reported events are “completely outside anything that has been discussed with Congress and there is an ongoing investigation.” 

“We should get to the truth,” said former Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Bacon, R-Neb., speaking Sunday on “This Week” from ABC News. “I don’t think he would be foolish enough to make this decision to say, kill everybody, kill the survivors because that’s a clear violation of the law of war,” Bacon said. 

Legal POV: “[T]here can be no conceivable legal justification” for what the Post’s reporting alleges, argues former Pentagon counsel Jack Goldsmith, writing Friday on Substack. 

President Trump’s reaction: “He said he did not say that. And I believe him 100%,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. He then added, “I wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike.” 

  • By the way: The 10th chapter in Hegseth’s book is titled, “More lethality, less lawyers,” Anna Bower of Lawfare noted on social media. “It’s almost as if the signs were there all along,” she added. 

Latest: Hegseth appeared to be trying to make light of the allegations, posting a meme about the alleged war crime to social media on Sunday evening using an AI-generated image based on the children’s book series, Franklin the turtle. At least two Franklin-based memes were shared by users in response, here and here, emphasizing the legal stakes of Hegseth’s war on drug boats. 

Additional reading: “Trump’s Focus on Drug War Means Big Business for Defense Startups” in the business of selling drones, sensors and AI-based surveillance platforms to the military, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. 

Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1969, the U.S. held its first military draft lottery since the Second World War. 

Ukraine

Peace-talks update: Ukraine won’t give up land, says the country’s chief negotiator. “As long as Zelensky is president, no one should count on us giving up territory. He will not sign away territory,” Andriy Yermak told The Atlantic’s Simon Shuster by telephone from Kyiv last week. “The constitution prohibits this.”

Ukraine “is prepared to discuss only where the line should be drawn to demarcate what the warring sides control,” Shuster wrote, quoting Yermak as saying, “All we can realistically talk about right now is really to define the line of contact…And that’s what we need to do.” Read on, here.

Russia launched Trump’s peace plan with promises of profits. The Wall Street Journal reports. “For the Kremlin, the Miami talks were the culmination of a strategy, hatched before Trump’s inauguration, to bypass the traditional U.S. national security apparatus and convince the administration to view Russia not as a military threat but as a land of bountiful opportunity, according to Western security officials. By dangling multibillion-dollar rare-earth and energy deals, Moscow could reshape the economic map of Europe—while driving a wedge between America and its traditional allies.”

Putin’s negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, told Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner that U.S. companies might “tap the roughly $300 billion of Russian central bank assets, frozen in Europe, for U.S.-Russian investment projects and a U.S.-led reconstruction of Ukraine. U.S. and Russian companies could join to exploit the vast mineral wealth in the Arctic.” Read the quintuple(!)-bylined WSJ article, here.

Rep. Don Bacon: “We saw that Wall Street Journal article yesterday that many people around the president are hoping to make billions of dollars—these are all billionaires in their own right—from…Russia, if they get a favorable agreement with Ukraine. That alarms me tremendously,” the former Air Force one-star told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. 

“Putin’s the invader, he’s the dictator, he’s murdered all his opponents. But I just don’t see that moral clarity coming from the White House,” he continued. “I don’t want to see a foreign policy based on greed. I want to see it based on doing the right thing.”

Historian reax: “The Trump administration is replacing American democracy with a kleptocracy, a system of corruption in which a network of ruling elites use the institutions of government to steal public assets for their own private gain,” warned Heather Richardson of Boston College, writing Sunday. “It permits virtually unlimited theft while the head of state provides cover for his cronies through pardons and the uneven application of the law. It is the system Russia’s president Vladimir Putin exploits in Russia, and President Donald J. Trump is working to establish it in the United States of America.”

Additional reading: 

Around the Defense Department

Space Force won’t say who got money to start developing orbital interceptors. The amounts are small—under $9.5 million apiece—which exempts them from disclosure requirements, but at least some of them are likely to lead to contracts worth billions of dollars. Several experts said the secrecy that surrounds the wildly ambitious Golden Dome project has several drawbacks. Defense One’s Thomas Novelly reports, here.

The Navy detected plutonium in the air at a shuttered San Francisco shipyard a year before it told anyone. Pu-239 was detected at an “Action Level” at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in November 2024, but only revealed in October. “On this issue we did not do a good job,” Michael Pound, the Navy’s environmental coordinator overseeing the site’s clean-up, said at a recent community meeting. The Guardian has more, here.

D.C. Guard shooting

A National Guardman is “fighting for his life” after the Wednesday shooting that left another dead in Washington, D.C. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe is hospitalized in critical condition, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Saturday on “Fox & Friends.” 

Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom died on Thanksgiving, one day after the attack. Arrested: Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national, has been charged with first-degree murder. USA Today has more, here.

Commentary: “A Terrible and Avoidable Tragedy in D.C.,” is how former Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem described the shooting, writing  the day after in The Atlantic.

Additional reading: 

Overseas

Germany is raising its defenses, following an 1,800-page playbook. WSJ: “The blueprint details how as many as 800,000 German, U.S. and other NATO troops would be ferried eastward toward the front line. It maps the ports, rivers, railways and roads they would travel, and how they would be supplied and protected on the way.”

The logistics plan is part of an “‘all-of-society’ approach to war,” that marks “a return to a Cold-War mindset, but updated to account for new threats and hurdles—from Germany’s decrepit infrastructure to inadequate legislation and a smaller military—that didn’t exist at the time.” Read on, here. 

Additional reading: “Taiwan puts $40 billion toward building a defense dome and buying US weapons,” the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

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December 1, 2025
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The D Brief: US envoy’s advice to Russia; Navy axes frigate program; USAF’s tanker-extending plan; False claims in Guard justification; And a bit more.

Trump’s top negotiator advised the Russians how to pitch Trump a plan to end Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. That took place during a roughly five-minute conversation on Oct. 14 between Steve Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign-policy advisor. Bloomberg News, which obtained a recording of the call, published a transcript on Tuesday.

Witkoff advised flattering the U.S. president and predicted, “I think from that it’s going to be a really good call.” The real-estate billionaire continued, “I’m even thinking that maybe we set out like a 20-point peace proposal, just like we did in Gaza. We put a 20-point Trump plan together that was 20 points for peace and I’m thinking maybe we do the same thing with you.”

“Here’s what I think would be amazing,” Witkoff said. “Maybe [Putin] says to President Trump: you know, Steve and Yuri discussed a very similar 20-point plan to peace and that could be something that we think might move the needle a little bit, we’re open to those sorts of things.” 

Regarding territorial concessions: “Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere,” said Witkoff, referring to maximalist demands that Ukrainian law forbids its government to consider.

The Witkoff-Ushakov plan, which consisted of 28 points and “became public last week, appeared heavily skewed toward Russian demands and included calls for Ukraine to cede the entire Donbas region to Russia and dramatically reduce the size of its military,” the Associated Press reports. “It also included an agreement from Europe that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the NATO military alliance.”

The plan “drew from a Russian-authored paper submitted to the Trump administration in October,” Reuters reported Wednesday, extending their reporting on the document from last month.

Potential conflicts of interest: “Witkoff maintains active business [partnerships] with Leonard Blavatnik, a billionaire sanctioned by Ukraine for his alleged links to Kremlin-aligned oligarchs,” three reporters reminded readers in Tim Mak’s Counteroffensive newsletter. 

On Tuesday, Trump reacted to Witkoff’s remarks. “He’s got to sell this to Ukraine. He’s got to sell Ukraine to Russia,” the president told reporters on Air Force One Tuesday evening. Earlier that day, Trump said his Ukraine plan still needs more work, writing on social media that he thinks “there are only a few remaining points of disagreement” between the U.S. and Ukrainian sides. 

In hopeful indications, “Ukrainian officials continue to express support for the latest 19-point peace plan and demonstrate Ukraine’s willingness to engage in further talks,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War wrote in their latest assessment Tuesday. 

What daylight remains between the White House and Kyiv? It’s not clear just yet, but it likely concerns invaded and occupied land Trump wants Ukraine to give to Russia to stop Putin’s war. And indeed after the steady trickle of updates Tuesday, ISW said Ukrainian President Zelensky “wants to negotiate territorial concessions with Trump directly” in the coming days.  

At least one Republican lawmaker was disturbed by Witkoff’s tactics. Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. and Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon wrote on social media Tuesday, “[I]t is clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians. He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired.”

Bacon called the 28-point plan “a recipe for Russian domination of Ukraine for decades to come,” and a document that “would have been an avenue for Russia to renew its invasion at any time,” he said in a call with reporters Wednesday morning. 

Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick struck a similar tone. “Why is Ukraine giving up territory to Russia, and Russia is not giving up territory to Ukraine? Why is Ukraine limiting and capping the size of their military when Russia is not doing the same?” Fitzpatrick said joining that call with Bacon on Wednesday. “How about Russia holds an election within 100 days too? That is monitored by international monitors, right? Why don’t we do both? Why? Why is everything a one way street?”

“I can promise you, the day we get back on Monday, you are going to see a large tranche of members in the House and the Senate—Democrat and Republican—that are waiting online to start to take action here,” Fitzpatrick said. “Because that plan, that 28-point plan was utterly ridiculous should be nowhere in the conversation. Nowhere. That’s the Munich Agreement all over again.” 

Next up: Witkoff is expected to meet with Putin during the first week of December to continue negotiations. 

EU’s POV: “If Russia could conquer Ukraine militarily, it would have already done so by now,” said Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, speaking Wednesday. “Putin cannot achieve his goals on the battlefield, so he will try to negotiate his way there. To secure the best outcome for Ukraine and Europe, we have to stay the course, but pick up the pace. This means more sanctions to deprive Russia of the means to fight, and more military and financial support to Ukraine.” 

At least one question still lingers, and both AP and Axios considered it on Wednesday: Why was U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll selected to present Ukrainian officials with Witkoff’s plan? Not only did the Army Department’s personnel-and-equipment leader pitch that plan to Zelenskyy in Kyiv, but he was also chosen to meet with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi on Monday and Tuesday. Axios reports Vice President JD Vance made the call since he and Driscoll were classmates at Yale. 

“It’s an unlikely assignment for the Army’s top civilian leader, who got the job in February at age 38,” AP reports, noting, “His Senate confirmation hearing focused on how the Army could modernize its systems, improve recruiting and beef up the military industrial base, not international diplomacy.” 

“Driscoll’s star is rising,” Axios writes, and cites his “willingness to engage media outside of the Pentagon’s preferred pool of conservative outlets” and “a marathon travel circuit that has brought him to dozens of military installations and countries.” 

Concurrent question: Why wasn’t Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth chosen instead of Driscoll? Former Naval War College professor Tom Nichols has an idea, writing Tuesday for The Atlantic. Hegseth “is unqualified to do anything but push-ups,” Nichols argued. “This realization is probably why Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, and not the actual head of the Pentagon, is the person meeting with the Russians in Geneva trying to stop the biggest war in Europe since 1945. Trump seems to like Hegseth, but the administration also seems to be taking care not to let Hegseth near anything breakable or dangerous.”

Additional reading: “NATO has built a cloud for Ukraine’s classified battle data,” Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams reported Tuesday. 

Welcome to this Thanksgiving Eve edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston with Meghann Myers. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1968, U.S. Air Force UH-1F transport helicopter pilot Capt. James Fleming rescued an Army Special Forces unit while under attack in Vietnam. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

Around the Defense Department

Update: Navy cancels Constellation-class frigate after just two ships. SecNav John Phelan made the announcement via tweet on Tuesday afternoon, and a senior defense official later told reporters that the decision is part of an effort to “grow the fleet faster” and “more rapidly construct new classes of ships and deliver capabilities our war fighters need in greater numbers and faster,” USNI News reported.

One year ago, a CRS report highlighted numerous concerns about the program, starting with the Navy’s decision to start construction before the design was finished. This approach—“concurrency” in acquisition argot—is perennially tempting and risky; it’s part of what got the F-35 program into trouble. Will Phelan and crew eschew it? 

USAF plan to fly C-5, C-17s even longer elicits concern. A Nov. 19 solicitation memo says the Galaxy will fly until 2045 and the Globemaster until 2075, longer than previously planned, to ensure that the Air Force has enough airlift capacity while it waits for the Next-Generation Airlift aircraft. NGAL is to reach production no earlier than 2038 and initial operating capacity three years after that. Defense One’s Thomas Novelly talked to a few former mobility leaders who expressed concerns about that, here.

GAO: Pentagon reporting on Pacific deterrence is inconsistent. “DOD spends billions of dollars each year to counter China’s growing military strength. Congress established [the Pacific Deterrence Initiative] to track how much DOD plans to spend for deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region. We found that the military services weren’t consistent in what they included in the annual PDI budget report. For example, the Marine Corps included most of its forces in the western Pacific, while the Navy included almost none. Thus, we found that the reports don’t give Congress a complete picture of the efforts/costs in the region.” The Government Accountability Office has more.

And ICYMI, from May: “The typically uncontroversial, under-the-radar agency is fighting to retain power against attempts by Republicans in the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill to undercut its legal conclusions and independence—an onslaught that has been fast and furious,” Politico reported.

 Additional reading: 

Trump 2.0

While the Trump administration implores SCOTUS to authorize National Guard troops in Chicago, the New York Times on Tuesday (gift link) found the White House “made erroneous claims to the Supreme Court, mischaracterizing the responsiveness of local police and the actions of protesters” in its emergency request that could be decided as soon as this week. 

In short, “A Times analysis of hours of police radio and hundreds of videos posted to social media refutes the federal government’s claims that the Chicago Police Department didn’t respond quickly to the scene, leaving federal agents to fend for themselves during what they called a riot.”

Why it matters: “That contention is central to the administration’s legal rationale for deploying the National Guard: that ‘violent protests’ are preventing agents from enforcing immigration law.” Worth the click, here.

Retribution forecast: The White House’s threats to call former astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly to active duty in order to prosecute him for a video he made last week “would face steep hurdles in a system designed to give troops strong rights to due process,” Reuters reports, citing seven military law experts.

For example, “Kelly could claim his speech was protected by the First Amendment since he wasn’t inciting military disobedience but making general statements of fact,” the wire service writes. “Members of Congress are protected from investigation and prosecution for official acts under the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, according to Georgetown University law professor Stephen Vladeck.” Much more, here. 

Background reading: “Trump and Hegseth’s Hysterical Reaction to an Ad,” via Jonathan Chait, writing Tuesday for The Atlantic.

Related reading: 

Admin note: We’re off the remainder of the week. Have a great Thanksgiving for our readers who celebrate, and we’ll see you again on Monday!

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November 26, 2025
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The D Brief: US, Ukraine in talks; Counter-drone war, at scale?; China’s anti-AI playbook; Spies see opportunity in feds’ fear; And a bit more.

Developing: United States and Ukrainian officials have made some progress in talks to wind down Russia’s Ukraine invasion, Kyiv’s national security advisor announced Tuesday morning. “Our delegations reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva,” said Rustem Umerov, writing on social media. “We now count on the support of our European partners” and “look forward to organizing a visit of Ukraine’s President to the US at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump,” he said. 

It’s unclear just yet what terms the U.S. and Ukrainians agreed to on Monday. (The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War rounded up various reports from European and U.S. press with a variety of possible suggestions at play, here.) President Trump’s negotiator Steve Witkoff reportedly drafted a 28-point framework document alongside his Russian counterpart last month. After removing elements unrelated to Ukraine, those 28 points were reduced to 19 on Monday, according to the Financial Times and Washington Post. 

The U.S. side included Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who met late Monday and into Tuesday with Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi, Reuters reports. 

Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy hasn’t yet confirmed his full support for a U.S.-brokered peace plan, writing on social media Tuesday four hours after Umerov’s message, “Communication with the American side continues, and I am grateful for all of America’s efforts and personally for President Trump’s efforts.”

Meanwhile, Russian attacks on Ukraine continue, with at least seven people killed in the capital city of Kyiv during overnight strikes involving 460 drones and at least 22 missiles, the Associated Press reports, citing Ukrainian officials. The attacks left more than 100,000 people without power across five regions of Ukraine. 

“Neighboring countries Romania and Moldova reported that a handful of drones violated their airspace, with one each landing on their territory,” AP writes. Reuters has a bit more on that. 

Zelenskyy: “If there are negotiations, if there is constructive engagement, if we are truly ending the war—then there must be no missiles, no massive strikes on Ukraine, on our people,” the Ukrainian president said Monday evening on social media. “This can indeed be ensured by those who are really strong in the world. And much depends on America. Russia started this war, and it is Russia that must end it,” he stressed. 

Counter-drone warfare at scale is getting a little closer, as shown by a recent demonstration in northern Germany last week. The U.S. Army’s Project Flytrap assembled 20 vendors of anti-drone sensors, systems, and weapons—and within days, had an on-site network up and running. 

Reporting from Truppenübungsplatz Putlos Training Ground: “In a grassy field near the Baltic Sea, U.S. soldiers used net-shooting hunter drones, specially outfitted 557 rifles, and .50-caliber machine guns to drop dozens of drones, large and small, into the cold mud. For the U.S. Army, the daylong event marked the beginning of the end of firing $4-million missiles at $20,000 drones; for its European counterparts, it showed off options to counter Russia’s accelerating threat,” writes Defense One’s Patrick Tucker, here.

Related reading: 

Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1864, eight arsonists aligned with the Confederacy tried but failed to burn down New York City. 

Around the Defense Department

Monitoring: The U.S. military’s Southern Command is allegedly “restricting [or] limiting leave over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, in preparation for possible land strikes in the next 10 days to two weeks,” Kellie Meyer of NewsNation reported on social media Monday. 

Meanwhile: Trump reportedly says he’s ready to speak with Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro, Marc Caputo of Axios reported Monday. “Word of Trump’s interest in talking coincides with the State Department’s decision Monday to label an alleged drug cartel in Venezuela as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization,’ which provides the U.S. more of a pretext to take military action in and around the South American nation.” 

It also follows a trip to Puerto Rico by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine on Monday, “Caine’s second visit to the region since the U.S. military started building up its presence, which now includes the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier,” AP reports. 

Trump’s Pentagon says it will investigate former astronaut and current Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., over his participation in a video last week urging troops to refuse “illegal orders.” The Defense Department announced on Twitter Monday that “military retirees remain subject to the UCMJ for applicable offenses, and federal laws such as 18 U.S.C. § 2387 prohibit actions intended to interfere with the loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces. Any violations will be addressed through appropriate legal channels.” 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chimed in, too, calling the lawmakers in last week’s video the “Seditious Six.” According to Hegseth, “Five of the six individuals in that video do not fall under [Defense Department] jurisdiction (one is CIA and four are former military but not ‘retired’…However, Mark Kelly (retired Navy Commander) is still subject to [Uniform Code of Military Justice]—and he knows that.” 

Legal expert reax: “Having a United States senator subject to discipline at the behest of the secretary of defense and the president—that violates a core principle of legislative independence,” Georgia State University constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis told AP. “Any way you cut it, the Constitution is fundamentally structurally designed to prevent this kind of abuse from happening.”

Historian reax: For the White House, “It’s a convoluted argument, one that administration officials are using to claim that the lawmakers’ reminder that troops must not obey an unlawful order is actually encouragement not to obey lawful orders,” Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College wrote Monday. But “Attacking Kelly appeals to Trump’s base” in part because “Turning to military tribunals harks back to QAnon, a conspiracy theory that took off in 2017. It maintained Trump was leading a fight against an international ring of pedophiles that he would bring to justice through military tribunals.”

Kelly’s response: “If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution,” he said in a statement Monday. 

Hegseth responded again on social media Tuesday morning, threatening the much-decorated Kelly with a uniform inspection. 

Foreign spies see opportunity in fed workers’ uncertainty, warns Army deputy chief for intelligence. In a Nov. 13 message to more than a million soldiers, civilian employees, and family members, Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Hale warned against foreign agents pretending to offer jobs or other deals.

Why now? “Especially in the context of the recent lapse in appropriations and government shutdown, our adversaries are looking online to identify individuals seeking new employment opportunities, expressing dissatisfaction or describing financial insecurity,” Hale said. Nextgov’s David Dimolfetta has more, here.

China

China is building a “counter-AI warfare” playbook. “The People’s Liberation Army is teaching troops to fight the model as much as the soldier. Forces are learning to alter how vehicles appear to cameras, radar, and heat sensors so the AI misidentifies them, to feed junk or poisoned data into an opponent’s pipeline, and to swamp battlefield computers with noise. Leaders are drilling their own teams to spot when their own machines are wrong. The goal is simple: make an enemy’s military AI chase phantoms and miss the real threat,” write BluePath Labs’ Tye Graham and New America’s Peter Singer in the latest edition of The China Intelligence column. 

Also: Trump said he spoke with Xi Monday, and that the two leaders will host reciprocal visits next year. 

Related reading:

Trump 2.0

Update: DOGE is no longer a “centralized entity” with “centralized leadership,” the head of the government’s personnel agency told Reuters. But the principles of the Department of Government Efficiency office “remain alive and well,” and the White House’s DOGE tech team continues to work on technology modernization projects throughout federal agencies. Nextgov’s Natalie Alms has more, here. 

And from the seemingly ever-expanding world of social media, “America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle,” 404 Media reported Monday after a Twitter update apparently revealed the locations of many top users and influencers—showing, e.g., that most do not seem to reside inside the U.S. at all. “A huge amount of the viral content about American politics and American news on social media is from sock puppet and bot accounts monetized by people in other countries,” Jason Koebler of 404 writes. 

What’s going on? “The rise of easy to use, free AI generative tools have supercharged this effort, and social media monetization programs have incentivized this effort and are almost entirely to blame.” The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel has more on the topic, here.

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November 25, 2025
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